I celebrate the power and courage of women everywhere who are willing to step out, share and relive what has happened to them. In doing so, they have created an opportunity to disrupt how our society views women. But clearly they have not changed nearly enough. Peris narrates the terrible night after.

Every day now we hear more accusations of sexual harassment, assault and rape against powerful and influential men. It’s a sad thing. But what’s worse is that these types of behaviours have not only been tolerated in every area of our world, but in many cases they have been encouraged. Most of the men around me have not been surprised to learn the extent of these behaviours, and understand the conditions that have allowed them to happen. But they also believe that many more revelations of such deplorable behaviour will continue to come out. I woke up feeling very hangover. Probably because of the parting shots as we staggered outside. It was another regrettably familiar wake-up for me, this time in Kilimani. Much of my memory from the previous night was blank. I vividly remember staggering from the lift and then having some gin shots but then after that a shadow drops over my memories.

Endless questions

How did I get here? What time did we get the pizza? I just kind of laughed it off as I reached for my phone that was charging on the bed side.  Not that this seemed normal to me but It wasn’t a bizarre. Martin was still snoring dead asleep. It must have been a good night. There was still some gin on the bottle so I served myself some shots to kick start the day. Despite all the efforts to call my Hanna, her phone was still off. This was now very weird, it was unlike her. She always scrammed her way to ensure that she is reachable especially by this time of the day. I was getting stressed so I decided to sleep it off before going home.

I was woken up a pop sound from my phone. It was Hanna, her phone was finally on. I hurriedly called her back but unfortunately she didn’t pick up. I rang her three more times. Finally, she picked. Her voice sounded weak and terrified. She sounded as though she had a gun pointed to her if not more of someone in hiding. I could barely hear her but she breathe pulse was low. “Where are you Hanna? Please tell me you are okey,” I stammered with tears balancing my eyes.

Also read Sip With Me- Chapter III

All my fears were being reaffirmed at this point and my gut feeling was even stronger. Jeff wasn’t as clean as he pretended. I could tell she was drugged so I hurriedly dressed up and ordered an Uber to Jeffs place. Luckily, it wasn’t that far from Marto’s place. Enroute to where she was my mind was buzzing with thoughts with questions lingering of how Hanna was. I tried to keep calm as we parked outside the apartment gate. I walked straight up to the elevators and went up to the top floor where his crib was nested.

“Hanna! Open the door,” I roared as I banged the door. I was growing impatient with every bang getting louder. After what seemed eternity, Jeff opened and I stormed in assuring him that he’d rather pray my siz is okey.

I broke down at the first site. There she was. Lying like a dead log with empty bottles, syringe needles flanking her. She was experiencing drug-fuelled blackouts – a colloquial term with potentially serious consequences. “Jefffff!” I scream

TBC