i find that i've been assaulted by many more men since i met floyd and greg was actually heartbroken for me that night. i've just had no one to ask, just myself to trust when i see a man's eyes go black with "you bitch, you must suffer for not making use of the money i spent tonight! you will give me exactly what i demand you surrender!"
it's the most frightening thing in the world. but when greg saw that i was absolutely devastated, terrified, i went home only to fall prey for darryl. only, since someone really had worried that something terrible had befallen me the night i was threatened with murder and mocked for being ugly and thinking i was worth anything at all, that because i hadn't delivered my beautiful blonde bestie i was lucky i wasn't being murdered in an alley behind some bar (some bar? no, where dominic stands watch and where i'm safe--where the cook can talk dirty for hours and i won't just burst into tears and run home and cut my wrists when he gets huffy that i didn't open my legs...but dirty talk is dirty talk, and sexual touching is when you know the fuck is uuuurp)--that i was lucky he hadn't shown up, that he was just too pissed not to let some idiot like me--and i had only meant to meet him
to see
if the look in his eyes
was what my rapists and ty had in theirs.
then i'd know it's just conspiracy
that angers men, their own paranoia clacking insidious
into the gloom of a glomming
gloaming
for a woman to fall into the rage of sunset.
because greg just looked disdainful, full of nasty "ugly bitch, you ain't belong here!" but not malicious. it was scary; he loomed. he was bulky then (and the last two times i saw him i was literally giving him all kinds of intelligence, history, something oddly obscure, like the truth about pirates and language acquisition. or just really fucking funny. or...just insanely hot in bed and nice. which is a great brand of special. it's like goldschlager, right? been there, done that, but look at the gold! yes, please?
and i'd had some really nice guys in 2010, i was really careful about coming across as the cruelest cunt for ten minutes if anyone seemed a little too interested in sizing me up, and the three guys i was with were the hottest, hottest, hottest shit. and they were fucking nice. one of them was all paranoid about me wanting to be his girlfriend because i told him he was the only guy who'd never beaten me up or been mean, and that i had really worried that he would, but.
floyd and greg didn't. so i was kinda going on a hunch that some really hot guys actually look beyond hotness and come right back around. so he got really mean the second time and we just never could smooth things over. i like the guy, i really do, but he thinks i want him as a boyfriend and i keep saying that "you're really great to hang out with and i don't feel like i'm always waiting for the fist or the rape" is not the same as "i wanna date you."
he was just this side of a lunkhead. he's really intelligent in that he can sell advertising and loves, loves, loves teaching toddlers. yeah, man, we're not going to have this fast-ass discussion about shakespeare and learn seven new things from each other in thirty minutes. it's gonna take a few months, child.
right? so the next guy--he's a genius and the laziest shit this side of the atlantic. absolute genius. model. model, model, model. but wow, that shithole, and his dad--look, if he cleaned up and were employed, i'd have invited him in for a threesome, and the kid (same name, actually, those two) was all, "fuck, i keep telling him that!" and i was all, "i do not, do not, do not...want...a threesome. ever. that would have been my get-out-of-heaven-free card." so anyway, we were totally watching the olympics. i've been through so much i've tried to destroy myself since david hit me later that year, so i can't recall what it was i said...but. zingers. two hours of zingers. then figure skating comes on and i'm like, "no, now we really can't even get foreplay started," and he knew i was stalling. scared witless, but not why. i really didn't want to get beaten up for the experiment or mocked for my face.
so one guy, i think, actually broke his ankle, and the kid got up to take a piss during the commercial, and put away our ice cream bowls, and when he got back--oh, i wish i knew the zinger, because it was the winner, we'd been sharp as needles all night, laughing at each other's prowess, and i was intimidated by his vast store of knowledge...but
then a new skater came on right as he sat down, commercials just over, new track marks announcing the cumulative scores and his name, and i just blasted something about the broken ankle as he was settling in behind me, something to do with the commentary and the incident, and the way the guy was gliding--i can't for the life of me save myself here--
--and he grabbed me, the absolute shock rendered "i can't believe you came up with that on the spur of the moment, not missing a beat, something i never could have formulated for days, that is some powerful brain you have there, and you're deaf!" and it was on like dong, and i mean that gong was clanged. gongs cannot be moved.
we had a few pretty fun conversations and he's the only guy i've ever really gotten kinky with. won't fucking trust no--
--and then i think of greg. and i think he's nice. i don;t know what scab finally soothed and smoothed into a new being, but i like that he changed. it's a real sign of true humanity, finding that which is spoilt within oneself and finding that which unspoils oneself.
the night i saw him last, it is really stupid, i don't know how to explain to my therapist yet, but we're getting there, she's understanding the core and why the core isn't necessarily what destroyed me, but my fear of the core when something i thought was actually one of the nicest things ever happened to me.
it's fucking stupid. oh, the third guy--holla! really cute, nice, really fucking smart and funny in unexpected ways, and so much fun to laugh with before and after. once i actually vaulted off and smashed my nose, and he was all, "oh, shiiiit," and i was all, "fuck, that is exactly the mood we need to keep going for, kid, okay?"
oh, yeah, they were all pretty young, about five years younger. fun guys. but i swear...27 is not the age most guys get into relationships that work, no, never. it's usually when they're looking for answers they want to resolve by 29, so you best bet 28 is a hell of a cesspool.
oh, right, i forgot the korean. whew, he was a fucking model, but 300 pounds was not what i was attracted to in the least, what a brad pitt face, what a hysterical line of bullshit he fed me for hours every time, being in the music-industry mafia and carrying guns, when his parents paid for his apartment and he was a college student! i hated the guy but he'd give me full access to his liquor cabinet and i laughed myself silly, and there was a huge, huge, huge thing there he didn't know existed until i pointed out that it was three times three inches. after a few weeks, he'd been losing weight so quickly because i told him he was a prize i was hanging onto until someone else robbed me, we just dissolved. i really hope the guy got the girl of his dreams and isn't dead of a gunshot wound. i never believed a second of his bullshit. you never know who's packin' in terms of sexual compatibility. i've had a few partners i really fucking resisted up until the sex, and then it was just--please, let me see you forever, or until this dies?
so i didn't want to be with anyone except david, no one, not after i met him. my skin crawled when i gagged at the sight of his face. i tried to leave but i was cornered, and after fifteen minutes of holding hands, i finally looked at his entire face and it wasn't so bad. two months later i let him kiss me and i wanted to marry him. he was just the perfect match already, and that--but--he started hitting me for not being as pretty as her, and for not deserving him because he just couldn't make me pretty. being white was probably a bigger problem than my face, and he wanted to feel comfortable with me, but i was the white devil to him; he started hitting me in the mouth all the time because i'd always have some new trinket or insist on taking him out to eat, or have my other bedroom ready for him with a key and "only fuck women outside the apartment." so he was crazy pissed, right?
and then i saw greg, and it just felt--like i'd been waiting to say hi, just get to know him. because he was glowing. just glowing, and i wanted to find out who he was. sure, rubbing out a few to some seriously bad things was on my agenda, but i mainly wanted to see what he was like.
and i told him about the book i wrote about him, for him. i'm going to do it, the screenprinting, since i'm back in school. he's my magic-8 ball, my cueball in the hulking tees who became an ally, who saved me and keeps me asking: "can i just find my way out of this rape or beating, or at least beyond it, and still do what i want with my life because i like me?"
RESOUNDING
YES
and i threw away the book in the end, i couldn't see anymore, i just started trying to be nothing. it wasn't david.
i say it was david
so nobody hits me
or tries to kill me
because he smiled at me when he gave me his e-mail address, maybe his number...smiled like a thousand suns
and i was happier
than i ever knew i could be
everything was working out, i was putting together three books, buying fabric and a sewing machine and pattern paper for the sketches i had, i was making jewelry like mad, i was accepted to FIT--
--and the kid, the kid, who said i was ugly and creepy all night after begging me to let him couch surf after i said no, i am tired of rape, i cannot afford rape, and you say you would never rape me, you're a kid, go be with kids, don't do this, oh, fuck, you really can't find a place to sleep? come on by, but here are the rules--
and all night, "ew, you're old, you want me!" "look, these girls are hot. they're my age." "gross, you're smiling at me. you're old. you can't get me drunk!" "i want to kiss that girl!" and we were talking about linguistics, neuroscience, cochlear implants, vanderbilt university, the language of music and how it affects his interest in neuroscience, and the plethora of career options. how does he get i'm creepy and want to fuck his brains out from all that? i kept saying, "my brothers are older than you. you're not attractive to me; you're a kid!" sure, i was screwing 22-year-olds, but the kid was a dork, he was a terrified creature, he was clearly jittery from something, and i realized i might be triggering something just by being alone with him and older. he was a total, total, total dork, and he mentioned a girl he really liked hurting him when he was even younger.
so we got to blind tiger and he was like, "YAY, GIRLS I WANNA FUCK ALL OVER THE PLACE!" but then he was getting into me because we had agreed that he's so fucking BRILLIANT that i could teach him to communicate with me in pure ASL at a noisy bar, which became true. we were having lightning-fast conversation and he was becoming besotted. step one: find beth hot via fun discourse
i kept reminding him he wanted to find a girl to go home with and come get his bag the next day. that was the new plan. no, no, following me around, and greg was amused but intrigued, like, what, are they actually...together?!?
so we got back to my place, right by the trees, and the halo behind the kid was so sweet he demanded i take a photo, and greg's e-mail address flew out of my pocket. i asked the kid to grab it, he's so tall and willowy, and he got twisted, his anger was distorted, i remember that face, and i remember dropping. my heart, my stomach, my entire future, my life, dropping, and i ran for it anyway, in the bitter january wind, clumps of snow and the skirling paper up and up in the wind.
he did, then, grab it, crumple it, shove it into his pocket. "why don't you like me?" "what!?" "why do you want him, not me?" "i like him. i know him, and i want to give him something. give it back." and we got back, and we were squiffy--he specified only light beers, and we agreed that one 7% and two lower, one per hour, was fine. we got home maybe two and a half hours after we left the bar, we were so intent on chatting up a storm and taking in the sights. we got home around 4, 4:30, then we agreed to sleep in the same bed fully clothed because we wanted to chat until we just fell asleep. we'd never meet again. that was our entire relationship. one night, one morning. and he was gonna ditch his friends for brunch for me.
but then
he grabbed and we had agreed to sleep in the same bed because he didn't feel like i was a creepy old woman who wanted to have sex with a 13-year-old in a 24-year-old's body
and i elbowed him
thrice
then
i pushed him
then i froze
i hate the flashbacks i get when it pokes me in the ass, the small of my back
and then as i was fighting him off
i realized, "he's only 24..."
as if that makes him innocent; he'd been telling me tales of sexual games he loved
and in the morning he said
"you raped me"
and all i had wanted, all i had wanted
was to ask
"when i give you the book, could we have a drink?"
(this is how i gave up on life. over a bartender, not over a bartender, over a prospect, not over a prospect--
--but over what i thought
was possibly the nicest smile i'd ever seen)
to look for him again, to ask after greg, to seem like a creep, a weirdo who loses an e-mail address that was clearly precious to me--to worry that if he ever wanted to see me underneath my clothes i'd have to tell him "i think about this kid raping me when think about you"--
--then i tried to find david to ask what to do, and instead--i got hit by that car, i was so shattered i couldn't think--
--and no one knows how badly i want to die all these years, three years going on four--
--because i can't just ask someone for his e-mail address
--and if he ever wants to see my glorious tittage
--say, " oh, about that...funny story--"
and watch him hate me the way floyd does. not again, not ever, not twice, no, never.
he's my hero, and i don't want him to tell me i deserved
all that rape
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