SOMETIMES SEXUAL ASSAULT IS JUST PLAIN RAPE

Sooooo, here we are, fast approaching September 8th -- which is the 12th anniversary of my opening Q Nightclub on Seattle's Capitol Hill.  A milestone life event if ever there were one.

But there's also another milestone event that happened that very same weekend as Q's grand opening -- and that event was my kicking my husband of 12 years out of the house and ending our relationship forever.

I'm pretty sure I've never told this story in toto, as it were.  And probably danced around recounting the full events as they unfolded that weekend to one degree or another in order to spare the victim.  But I figure twelve years is long enough and I can use a pseudonym for the victim if need be so, let me set the scene:

It's Friday, September 7th and the day before the official grand opening to the public of the biggest nightclub in Seattle and I've just that night conducted the hugely successful invitation only {pic at left} soft opening for about 500 of my closest friends and family.  One of my ex boyfriends had flown in several days prior in order to attend the weekend's events and to show his support and he was staying with us in one of our guest bedrooms at our house in Bellevue.

At the end of the soft opening, and after conducting an after-action meeting with the staff, at around 3AM the soon to be ex-husband, Richard L. Schmitt, the visiting ex BF, and I headed back to my house in Bellevue to catch a few hours sleep prior to Saturday's BIG EVENT.  At my house, the ex and the soon to be ex and I knocked back an Ambien each and headed to bed.

Now I'm a light sleeper thanks to my years in the Marine Corps and at one point or another I woke up as Richard, the soon to be ex, got up and very very stealthily left the bedroom -- which I found odd.  There was no need for stealth for fear of waking our house guest since there was an ensuite bathroom in the master and also because being concerned for my sleep was never a thing he ever once displayed in the more than a decade we were together.  Anyways.....as soon as I heard him super quietly close the door, I vividly recall thinking, "He's gonna try to go fuck the ex."  Whereupon I started to fall back to sleep again....until, about five minutes after leaving the room, the soon to be ex stealthily (again with the stealth!) returned to bed.

By the next morning I had totally forgotten about the entire episode until I headed out to the patio to sit with the ex and enjoy the weather and some coffee while the soon to be ex was making breakfast for the three of us. Whereupon the ex asked me, "Did you come into the bedroom and try to fuck me last night?"

What the fucking fuck?!?!?  

And then I remembered Richard's stealthy "consideration" for not disturbing my sleep the night before and I was on my feet and ready to kill a motherfucker dead with my bare hands.  Which is when the ex showed why I never should have let him go.  He grabbed my arm and forced me to sit down and said, 

"DO NOT fucking do it, Scott! You've got a ton of shit to do today.  Your family is here from Kentucky.  And you've got over a thousand people coming to see what you've just spent three years and millions of dollars doing.  Be cool and we can figure out what to do after tonight is over.  Please! If not for you, do it for me until I can process what happened."

And totally out of character....I did what he wanted me to do.

And let me just say this about that:  Can you fathom what sort of willpower it takes to know that your husband has just committed the rape of an honored houseguest in your own home and you have to pretend like nothing happened and nothing is wrong while all the while trying to prepare for the grand opening of a multi-million dollar business that same day?  

Or, even more unfathomable -- for an entire 24 hours after being sexually assaulted you have to pretend like nothing is wrong when you're forced to deal with your assailant as a favor to your ex-boyfriend?!?!?!

Like I said; I never should have let him go.

Oh, and can you believe that while the ex and I were pretending that nothing was wrong {all the while I thought my head was gonna spin around like in the Exorcist} while Richard was in the shower I checked the guestroom and found a freshly discarded condom tossed under the bed.  FRESHLY discarded....in a room Richard and I never once had sex in.

At least he follows safe sex protocols when he rapes someone.

Long story short -- the ex and I got through the day and the grand opening that night -- even though both of us had to spend an inordinate amount of the grand opening trying to stay the fuck away from Richard so that I wouldn't massacre him on the spot. During the day, before the event that night, I quietly arranged a suite for the victim/ex at the Sorrento Hotel where I had a corporate account -- because I wasn't about to ask that he stay another night in a house he had been assaulted in. And while Richard was out with friends that afternoon I moved the ex out of my house and into the hotel.

And then, after the grand opening, and after the rapist Richard L. Schmitt and I got home, I snatched him up by the fucking throat and told him he was lucky I didn't kill him right then and there.  I gave him five minutes to collect up some shit and get out or I would kill him.  I told him I'd pack up the rest of his trash the next day and leave it on the lawn but that he was never setting foot in that house again.  And oh, by the way.....the ex and I were going to the police first thing the next morning.  And then I said to him, "And you know why. Because you're a filthy fucking rapist"

And he said yes and nodded his head in faux shame, acknowledging my accusation and what he had done and left the house in tears (crocodile tears -- because he's a fucking sociopath who finally got caught).  And that was the last time I ever saw him -- well, except for that one time about 6 months later when he tried to get into Q and I was out front on the sidewalk and I had him dragged away by my security detail kicking and screaming all the way down the Broadway sidewalk and around the corner to Pike Street -- where he was told in no uncertain terms by my Director of Security, David Price, that if he continued to act up he'd be put in cuffs and the police called.

That threat of arrest seemed to land with him and immediately cooled him off.  And well it should have because flashing back to the morning after I threw him out of the house -- the ex and I did go to the Bellevue Police Department together and filed a sexual assault/rape complaint against Richard L. Schmitt.  And two days after that Bellevue detectives and uniformed Seattle Police officers walked into Richard's place of work at the WPP Group in downtown Seattle and arrested his rapey ass in front of all his co-workers!

Richard took a plea deal almost a year later -- a reduced charge of sexual battery in the third degree or something after claiming that he had no memory of the event due to Ambien overdose! {a variation on the Twinkie Defense made famous by Dan White the assassin who murdered Harvey Milk} -- thus sparing me and the ex the trauma of returning to Washington in order to testify.  

And since it was Richard's second felony....yeah....SECOND felony! He had to do some time in the King County jail and then more time picking up trash on Interstate 5, as well as something like five years probation.  And since he already had two strikes and that Washington is a three-strikes state {and knowing as he surely did the high probability of his recidivism}, as soon as he got the chance he got a job not just outside of the State of Washington, but in Vietnam!

Apparently, he's back in the US of A......in Texas now and working for the University of Texas in some capacity and hopefully not raping anyone else.

And that's the rest of the story!