NOVEMBER 15, 2021

Dan Price raped ME at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, CaliforniA

artist and model kacie margis speaks of her terrifying experience

*This is me experiencing a moment of peace*

update august 21, 2022: Since Ms. margis has made her experience public through the new york times, we have now used her name which had been previously redacted.

THAT WAS THEN:

I sit inside a small hospital room beside two volunteers from a nonprofit. They assure me that there is still hope.

The room looks like the inside of a preschool from the nineties, with outdated furniture and toys in bins along the floor. The volunteers nervously begin to make small talk with me, waiting for the doctor to come in the room.

I feel like I am stuck inside of an elevator but the doors refuse to open. As they speak to me, I somehow feel nothing and everything at the same time.

The doctor comes in and begins to ask me questions, filling out a packet and nodding her head as she methodically flips through the pages. She tells me how the SART exam is going to go, describing the necessary and invasive steps that are needed.

Tears run down my cheek as I agree to go through with the exam and sign my name on the pages, confirming the truth: I was raped.

The doctor leaves to prep the exam room. One of the volunteers offers to bring me a stress ball for my anxiety; I nod my head yes. She returns with a handful of toys—a fidget spinner, silly putty, the stress ball, and several tumbled rocks with the words “courage,” “strong,” and “brave,” printed on them.

She suggests that I rub my fingers along the rocks to feel how smooth they are. Instead, I go for the silly putty. I stretch the coral-colored elastic between my hands. As I pull it from either side, I watch as the putty refuses to break. It stretches thin but remains intact.

I quickly roll it into a ball as the doctor comes back into the room. “The exam room is ready,” she says. The volunteers offer to come, but due to a lack of space, only one is permitted to accompany me.

I strip down and feel my nakedness in the cold room. I lie on the exam table and try to take deep breaths. I stare up at the ceiling, which is decorated with photos of various dogs in hats. I focus in on a fluffy looking mutt that reminds me of my childhood dog named Brutus. I think how the ball cap is fitting for him.

“I’m going to start now if you’re ready,” the doctor says. I feel my stomach tense. I think how I’m at my lowest and the two women bearing witness to this moment are perfect strangers. I feel ashamed and embarrassed for being assaulted.

I feel pain as the speculum enters me and think of how the last thing to enter me was a rapist.

I grit my teeth as the doctor scrapes under my nails, swabs my body and takes photos of my injuries. I think of how my mom has been waiting in the car for hours and I wonder if she must be hungry.

All of these thoughts flood my brain and I feel as though my soul is hovering above me, watching as an omniscient narrator to a story I didn’t want written.

THIS IS NOW:

I sit curled into a ball on the floor of my apartment. It’s been seven months and my patience is stretched thin.

The police haven’t done their job. My rape kit sat on a desk for months without being tested. Detectives have yet to interview the man who raped me. His name is Dan Price.

The insomnia is persistent and the suicidal thoughts spin in my head like a Ferris Wheel from hell. I rage inside as I see headlines with his name and video suggestions on YouTube of his face. My heart aches for the women Price abused and for the women he will abuse if he is not stopped.

I seethe as I think of how women are scrutinized for not reporting once they’ve been raped. I reported. I went to the hospital. I did everything “right.” I wish I could say that my experience is uncommon, but it’s not.

I pick myself up off the floor and continue to get ready for the day. I can’t allow myself to feel my emotions, because my bills still need to be paid. I couldn’t take a day off after being raped.

Unlike Price, I don’t have a yacht I can retreat to when life gets a little tough. I don’t earn up to $100k each time I give a speech. Instead, I speak under the agreement of anonymity out of fear for what a powerful man like Price would do to me.

As he waits for his next talk show appearance, I wait for the headline that will reveal what a monster he truly is. I keep my silly putty in my purse as a reminder that…

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

Dan Price raped ME at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, CaliforniA

artist and model kacie margis speaks of her terrifying experience

update august 21, 2022: Since Ms. margis has made her experience public through the new york times, we have now used her name which had been previously redacted.

THAT WAS THEN:

THIS IS NOW:

I am not broken.

RELATED STORIES:

A partial list of the news outlets with whom I either spoke or exchanged emails as far back as six years ago, all of whom declined to pick up my reporting, except one nod from Geekwire.

I made these videos IN RESPONSE TO MY RAPE

TITLE: SILENT SCREAMS

TITLE: I’M FINE