I’m not sure if this will ever be published. If it does get published, I’m not sure how you’ll respond. My only certainty at all is that it is bottle-necking me and therefore – must be written. I’ve learned that resistance is futile, so I’m letting go and diving in. If it helps one other human being, it will have all been worth it. This isn’t about funny fart metaphors.
This is about her.
Her name was Amy. She was 14 and working tirelessly in her father’s bar. It was an adult’s world.
Her father was an unimpassioned man, but that’s for another story. He would belly up to a bar stool after the dinner rush and instruct the delivery boys to drive Amy home to her mother’s house after closing time. Most of these delivery boys were 16 or 17 and among them her first crushes for sure. Sometimes, the delivery boys weren’t 16 or 17. Sometimes they were delivery men.
His name was Dave. He was in his late 40s. He was fat and greasy. He flirted constantly with Amy. Dave would spend his shifts kissing her dad’s ass then pinching hers. Amy wasn’t necessarily alarmed by his behavior. It was a bar, slapping ass was par for the course.
Dave would request hugs each night as they were pulled over in front of her mother’s house. She would willfully oblige him his hug before stepping up out of his bucket seat, piece of shit Dodge.
One night, instead of taking the usual route home, he pulled over somewhere new and unfamiliar to her. Unaware of and oblivious to his intentions, Amy froze as he came in like a hawk – a fat, greasy hawk. His nicotine and mayonnaise stank saliva covered so much of her face. She didn’t say no. She didn’t push him off. She was too much in shock to move. Instead, she sank inside and waited for it to be over. As she fought for breath between tongue lashings he jammed his fingers into her and wrapped her trembling hand around his tiny, tiny penis.
I mean seriously, this had been the first dick she’d ever seen and even she knew it was embarrassingly small.
He pleasured himself while enveloping her hand within his own. He came all over his fat greasy gut and Amy watched as this monster transformed into a convulsing, grinning devil-pig. He cleaned himself off with his delivery-boy work shirt, the one with Amy’s family’s name on it, said something along the lines of, “man, I needed that,” and drove her home.
Amy didn’t tell anyone for a very long time. I mean, it was her fault, right? Her father trusted this pig so much that he repeatedly put her in situations where she was alone with him. She held her father in such naive high regard; he clearly knew best, no? Amy picked apart the memory of that night and buried it within herself. She spread it out. A little sprinkle in self-esteem, a handful or two in guilt and shame. She dumped a whole bunch in fear and anxiety. The rest she placed into alone. This would become her casus belli. It was her against the world.
Buckle up.
Teenagers make poor decisions. Period. Their sophomoric style is haphazard. They are immortal! And stupid. When you couple that with the trappings she carried, Amy took poor decision-making to an Olympic level. Her innocent 14-year-old brain painted this affair over every relationship she had for years and years. She assumed they were all monsters that she could turn into grinning devil-pigs. Sex was an invasion, a battle to win. She attracted situations that reinforced this. She grew lewd to protect herself. As long as she stayed the aggressor she wasn’t vulnerable. She would never show vulnerability again. You cannot rape the willing. Many years of blatant self-eroding conduct followed.
Where the hell were her parents?
Recently divorced, they were busy dealing with personal paraphernalia of their own. Despite her obvious cries for help, narcissists can’t move much beyond their own perspective. Her parents had little to no concern over the transformation that was taking place in her. Feeling undeserving of their concern, her demeanor worsened. It was a dark time for her.
It was not until Amy found meditation (and stopped drinking) that she was able to start working through parts of her past that had been hidden for decades. She has done much healing. Removing years of blame takes time. She is still learning. Today, Amy is no longer 14. She’s 36. She’s married, she’s a business owner and a homeschooling mom.
Her life rocks.
Aspirations of being a great mom are what drive her. Her oldest daughter is almost 13. Recently, Amy was privy to a grown ass man watching her baby like that familiar hawk from so long ago. It instantly and surprisingly became the most enraging emotion Amy had ever experienced in her life. She was immediately thrown back into that bucket seat. Memories that had been six-feet under began to flood her senses. Having spent the last 22 years running from that night, she now couldn’t seem to stop this horrific gif. from playing over and over and over again in her mind. She saw and felt it from such a different perspective as an adult, as a mother. Life is funny.
Here Amy sits. Paralyzed with who-knows-what? Questions she doesn’t know how to answer. How does she save her daughter from these devil-pigs? Why wasn’t someone there to save her? How can she warn her daughter without scaring the shit out of her? “Boys will be boys and men will be boys” just doesn’t fucking cut it. It’s not ok. It’s not one bit her daughter’s fault and it wasn’t one bit her’s.
Amy’s only conclusion is to be open with her daughter and fiercely love her. To show her daughter how much she loves herself. To teach her that saying NO is ALWAYS her right regardless of who is asking, and using that power will not yield less love from the universe. And lastly to feed and encourage her potentiality so she needn’t look elsewhere for validation of her worth.
Amy is up for the challenge.
So now here’s the sick part – I’ve been working on this for a week or so. I’ve debated with myself back and forth about whether or not it was something worth/appropriate for sharing. Through pure synchronicity I happened to have three conversations this week with three different women about rape. Each of them told me how talking about rape is in poor taste. How it was an airing of dirty laundry of some sort. How they had been told to not talk about it. Then each of them told me their story. Unprovoked, each of these women shared something with me that was deemed inappropriate for sharing. Then each of them told me they felt better after talking.
This won the debate for me.
I don’t know who wrote the book on rape but it’s time we write a new one.
I don’t have answers. I’ve stopped looking for them. I only have experiences and perspectives. Hopefully with more experiences and new perspectives I can share new insight and maybe even possibly someday wisdom. Until wisdom is bestowed upon my aged crippled shoulders, I shall hold them high, brush them off and talk about things someone told us we couldn’t talk about.
This ‘laundry’ as you put it definitely needs to be aired and more people should do the same to take the shame off the Amys on rightly onto the Daves. Thanks for sharing