The Wolf and the Whisper Network
By: Raegan Sealy
Tags: Metoo, Times Up Movement, Sexual Assault, Feminism

The Wolf and the Whisper Network

Trigger warning: this post contains explicit detail of sexual assault and rape.

In 2017, I was raped — by a progressive, liberal, acclaimed social justice advocate. Here is my story.

Part One

“Nervous?” he said.

It was nearly my turn to hit the stage. Someone with a headset had plonked me in a chair next to a strikingly good looking dude in a fitted “FEMINIST” t-shirt.

I nodded and laughed.

“Tell me about it.” He rolled his eyes, smiled at me, and winked.

This small acknowledgement of the insanity of the situation made me feel a bit better. Other speakers that day included Jennifer Garner, Cynthia Nixon and Chelsea Manning. I’d sat next to the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at breakfast.

My performance went well. Afterwards, I sat back next to “feminist” to get de-mic’d.

“You’re… incredible.” he said, authentically.

“Thanks!” I chirped. “Good luck!”

He slayed it. His talk was about the prosecutor’s role in criminal justice reform. He radiated charisma. I’d never heard of him, but a quick google told me he was Adam John Foss, an ex-prosecutor whose 2016 TED Talk had over 2 million views. He’d worked with John Legend. Cool, I thought.

That conference lasted four days, throughout which I spent quite a bit of time with Adam. He would catch my eye across the tent, and wink. Usually, I’d find this gross — but with him it didn’t come across like that. It was our little in-joke.

On Saturday night, I performed again, this time with the band. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and moshed right in front of me. Embarrassingly cute. At the afterparty, he lightly stroked my ankle all night. Usually, I would find that gross too.

A week later, we met up in NYC.

“I was invited to watch TED Fellows practice their talks tonight.” he said. “But I blew it off because I was like, ‘I just want to see Raegan.’”

“Wow, okay,” I thought. We chatted for hours. It came so easily. He told me he was adopted, that his Mom had died of cancer; showed me her tattoo on his arm. She had the same name as my Mum. I told him about my background; I’d been in foster care, and found writing and music as a way out of a dark place, and wanted to help others do the same. We found we had lots of unusual things in common.

I was running a project that taught poetry and rap to criminal justice involved communities. Adam was a major league criminal justice reform advocate. He was a role model. And he liked me.

At the end of the night, he kissed me, super gently. When he pulled away, he looked at the floor, bashful, and said, “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?” I said.

“No, no — never mind. If you don’t know, then I’ll ask you next time.” After I left, he texted me, simply: “Rae…”

A bit melodramatic — but I smiled all the way home.

We texted every day. Our messages quickly became sexual. We’d also call, at night — when he seemed sad, alone, and usually drunk and/or high. I asked him if he didn’t have hoes in different area codes. He laughed.

“I don’t have time for that.” he said.

“You don’t have a chick in each city?” I asked.

“I’m in a different city right now, aren’t I?” he said. “And I’m talking to you.”

He was 12 years older than me. He lived on the road, and had a crazy and fast-growing-crazier career. I was a recent grad and struggling artist still living in a dorm room in upper Manhattan. I didn’t expect anything of him, except friendship, and possibly sex. But it became super intense, super quickly. He made it that way.

He would pour out to me about his work, and changing the world, and how lonely he was. We connected over trauma, and abuse, and a drive to make the world better for it.

“Don’t make me fall in love with you.” he said.

He would message through the day; “thinking of you” or “wish you were here” or “perfect day for naked cuddles.”

The next time he was in NYC, he disappeared off text an hour or so before we were supposed to meet. I drew a sad face on a dick pic he’d sent me, and sent it back to him.

No answer.

It concerned me more than it annoyed me; to go from how full-on he’d been to basically standing me up seemed odd. When I asked him the next day what happened, he texted back one word:

“Depression.”

From then on, our late night calls became dark, melancholy ordeals about his mental health. He told me how he always ruined everything. How he’d been suicidal. How he didn’t think he would live this long.

“I’m a bad person, Raegan.”

But he kept texting and calling. Through the day, he would tell me how he’d spent his weekend partying with Jeff Bezos, or brunching with Oprah. And he always had time for a few dirty texts.

But every night was the same: new city, same drunk, sad, sleepless Adam.

Here was this insanely successful, good-looking, witty reform advocate, falling apart to me on the phone every night. The more he talked, the more I believed he’d be found dead in a hotel room one morning, and I’d have been his last conversation.

Even though I was younger, I’d faced the demons he was fighting. I could be a shoulder, a smile; a voice on the end of the phone, I thought.

He’d be the most depressed person I’d ever spoken to at midnight, then the horniest at 9am; sexting me from his conferences. I was “lover,” “sweet darling,” “baby,” “boo,” “babe,” and only later “Raegan” again.