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After the victim’s opening line, the victimizer usually says something so terrifying the victim wishes they’d never opened their mouth. This man, however, seemed to be capitalizing on the terror of uncertainty.
After all, if he spoke to me perhaps there was something human in there, something I could reason with, some tiny, frail hope I could bargain somehow. A large, cool hand rested softly against my cheek.
There was no violence or threat in the way he touched me. It was my cheek, so it certainly wasn’t an overly sexual touch. Still, it was a threat to me. It said,I have no problems breaching your personal bubble or touching you at any time.
His hand remained pressed solidly against the side of my face like that for a couple of minutes at least as my heart continued to hammer in my chest. That huge, strong hand. He could easily beat me to death with it, or he could be gentle. Although at this point, even gentle was an act of violence. I didn’t know which I preferred.
With violence I could have the appropriate socially-approved victim response. I knew from experience anything else could produce a very different physical reaction.
At seventeen I’dgotten involved with my first real boyfriend. He was cute and had that edge of danger that girls of that age are so fond of. He gave off an air of something wild and frightening, and I’d been along for the ride
We’d fooled around a lot. My strict religious upbringing didn’t allow for more without fear of God’s wrath coming down on me, and orgasms weren’t worth an eternity in hell. Though in hindsight, the idea that some deity could be bothered to punish any one individual for what they chose to do with their clothes off, seems stupid at best.
He’d pressed me down on the bed, my legs hanging over the edge. We were in his room; his parents were downstairs. The sounds of the nightly news drifted up to the bedroom. I was lying there, my pants forgotten on the floor, though I was still wearing a shirt.
He wanted to go down on me. It was more than I was ready for at the time, and I was paranoid about getting an STD,theSTD. Yes, this was how empty my education in sexually transmitted diseases had been in the abstinence climate. Still, I’d said no. I’d meant no.
He’d ignored me, spreading my legs wide for his perusal, gripping my wrists tightly against my thighs as he held me down. “You’ll like this, I promise,” he said.
I struggled, but he was too strong, and I didn’t have the proper leverage to shove him away. He buried his head between my legs, slowly laving the bundle of nerves there. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t face the shame of his parents running up there and finding me half naked on his bed.
Somehow it was worse knowing I could have stopped him. It was one violation or another. His tongue on my clit, or his parents knowing what we’d been up to, thinking I was a slut.
“Please, please don’t.” I’d begged him, and yet he hadn’t stopped.
It was incredible how little time it took for my resolve to melt, for “Please, no” to turn into “Oh God, don’t stop.”
When he was finished, I just laid there, my legs shaking from the force of my orgasm. They’d turned to jelly, and I felt weak, drugged in the post-orgasmic afterglow euphoria. The orgasm I couldn’t possibly go to hell for. He looked up into my eyes, a self-satisfied smirk on his face and said teasingly, “I told you you’d like it. Now, what do you say?”
“Thank you.” It was our little inside joke. It had never previously been applied to anything sexual. The words had slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, and on some level they were true.
He and I never talked about the incident after that, and he never directly forced me again. He never had to. I didn’t give him the opportunity because it was too confusing. In his mind, I’m sure he believed he hadn’t done anything wrong, since he’d successfully changed my mind by turning my body against me. In the end I’d liked it. The entire sordid event from start to finish.
The juxtaposition of fear and helplessness, set up next to complete pleasure and eventual surrender. I’d masturbated for months afterward to the memory of the event. It was several years before I mentioned it to a friend.
She’d insisted it was no different than rape. I suppose she was right, but I’d never seen it that way. I’d for some reason never had the normal emotional response. I’d gotten off on it. Something was different in the way I was wired and that, perhaps, was the only thing that had saved me. Over time I developed an intense shame about it, not because I’d been violated, but because I wasn’t properly traumatized by what had been done to me. Because I sometimes still touched myself thinking about it.
I thoughthe’d left me alone again, but then I heard another metal chair scrape against the floor. His heavy weight fell into it, and he placed something on a table. My breath hitched.
Moments later, a spoon was prodding at my lips. I opened my mouth, and warm chicken noodle soup slid down my throat. Comfort food. Oh, sweet irony. I wasn’t worried he’d drug me. Why would he?
Drugging had been a convenience of transport. He had me where he wanted me, no doubt in some eerie sound-proofed basement cell. I heard him crumble crackers into the soup before feeding me another bite. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Intense fear tends to shut down the hunger response.
After the second bite, his hand gently fondled one of my breasts through my clothing. I stiffened and flinched away. He didn’t yell or hit me. He simply placed the bowl back on the table and got up. Then his footsteps started to recede in the direction they’d come from.
So this was the game he was playing? Either I would accept his touch, or he’d starve me to death? I hear it’s a horrible way to die, second only to drowning or suffocation. Those things could still be on the menu. It was early yet.
“Please . . . wait.” I hated myself for saying it. Hated myself enough that had my hands been free and a razor been nearby, I might have pressed the blade into my skin and bled out right there in front of him.
I was already bargaining, doing theappease the captor and maybe he won’t hurt you too badthing. In turn, he would show a small kindness here or there to gain my total dependence on him And voila . . . instant Stockholm Syndrome.
His footsteps stopped, and I heard him turn, still as silent as ever. After a moment, he returned and sat back down in the chair.
I was trying not to hyperventilate. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to allow him to do to let me breathe into a paper bag. This was how our agreement began. He never said a word, never made any kind of verbal threat. He didn’t need to.
It was a tacit agreement. I would give him what he wanted, or else. Right now the bargaining chip on the table was food. I was still arguing with myself over that one, berating myself for not being stronger, not holding out longer. He hadn’t tried to fuck me yet. Having my breast fondled was a small price to pay to eat.
The spoon prodded at my mouth again and I opened up for the warm liquid. He’d gotten the good crackers. The oval-shaped Townhouse kind. The kind I liked. I had a moment of almost hysteria wondering how long he’d watched me, how much he knew about me. Did he know this particular food somehow idiotically made me feel safe?
