2008
Aged 26
I was making the short walk to my car after my night shift working behind a bar. There were very few people still around and it was a very cold winter night so I was wrapped up in my winter coat, scarf and woolly hat and walking very briskly towards where I was parked. An inebriated man around my age was walking on the opposite side of the road the same direction as me but, upon seeing me, began to divert and cross the road towards me engaging me in conversation. He first ‘politely’ asked if I knew where the nearest brothel was, to which I quickly and politely directed him down the street, he didn’t seem thrilled to have to walk any further in the cold and in total seriousness asked if he could just pay me for sex instead! I laughed this off (more out of genuine surprise at his audacity than anything else), said ‘Absolutely not!’ and told him he’d have more luck down the street as I had first indicated. By now, he was walking on the pavement alongside me but was thankfully slightly struggling to keep up with my pace. He ‘apologised if he’d offended me’ and tried to get me to slow down, which I didn’t, and then suggested that we just have sex anyway without him paying! I firmly said ‘No, I’m going now, bye!’ and purposefully crossed over the road, even though my car was on that side of road and literally just a few metres away! I just didn’t want to have to stop, slow down or be anywhere near him! I carried on to the next busy main road, checking he wasn’t still following, waited at a busy cab rank for a while and circled back to my car once the coast was clear. This happened years ago but I still remember how sick, uncomfortable and angry he made me feel.