A boy I once liked in high school told me how he lost his virginity. It was a cold winter night and he was in a line waiting on a girl he claimed was providing the service in the back seat of a car. He described how long and cold the wait was, how many were in line, and how “messy” it was when he finally got his turn.
At the time I thought this girl must have been a local slut or prostitute, but there was no money involved. Thinking about it now, I wonder if she was just so drunk she didn’t know what was happening.
When I was 12 or 13, somehow I found myself talking to a strange man on the phone. I don’t remember anymore how it started, or how many times he called. Maybe it was just once. I don’t remember anymore what we talked about, but whatever it was, it was so intriguing to me, I agreed to meet him. I had no clue from his voice about his age or his race, but he must have been extremely charming and persuasive on the phone. He must have been very flattering. I must have desperately wanted a Prince Charming to just magically appear, and here he was!
I rode my bike two miles to the fountain at the center of the East Carolina College (now University) campus where we agreed to meet at the appointed time, and I spotted him as soon as I got there. I just knew. Everyone else milling around the fountain was obviously a college student at a predominantly white school. They were going to class, or talking to friends, or reading. But this one man was obviously older than a college student. He was a very dark-skinned black, and oddly overdressed, in a fancy suit with a vest and a fedora hat. He wasn’t just passing through, or talking to anyone, or reading. He was scanning the crowd, looking at everyone. He was looking for me.
He didn’t see me. Maybe he wasn’t expecting a 13-year-old girl on a bicycle. Or maybe he just hadn’t seen me yet, but I immediately took off back for home. What in the world was I thinking? What did I think I was going to find? What were his plans if I had foolishly walked up to him and said, “it’s me.” Then what? How did this even happen? But it did. I had willingly gone to meet a stranger without knowing why. I can only suppose I was hoping to find some kind of magical connection with another person because things had gone so well on the phone. The calls didn't resume after that.
Then there was this time at the local teen dance club when I, age 14, and two other girls accepted a ride to the local hang-out, a Hardee’s, from three popular upperclassmen boys. This was back when you ate in the car, so kids just congregated in the parking lot. We piled into the backseat, thinking being seen with these guys would elevate our own popularity. But instead of Hardee’s, the car headed out to the edge of town.
I am not a party girl. I don’t drink because I have never wanted to be out of control. I am a control freak girl, so I figured out pretty quickly we were not going to Hardee’s. At the last stoplight at the edge of town — before miles of nothing ahead but dark country road and corn fields, I whispered to the other girls, “Get out,” opened the door and ran into the night. (This was years before child locks. Now it's easy to trap someone in your car with the push of a button.) Thankfully, the two other girls followed my lead. We made it to the safety of a small country store and gas station across from the stoplight. The boys circled around, of course, and urged us to get back in the car. Seriously, they’d take us to Hardee’s this time. Really. Just get back in.
I wasn’t having it. I was stone cold sober, so I knew something was wrong. There was no boy in that car I really particularly liked. I wasn’t taking the risk. The other girls declined as well, and the boys drove off in disgust. After a quick debate, we decided Dottie’s mother would be the most understanding, called her on a pay phone (remember those?), and she came and got us.
But how close did I come to being raped or worse? What if I had been drunk? What if I had liked one of those boys and had been more trusting, more willing?
In time, I was. It wasn’t long before I finally was raped, age 15, but I thought I was on a date; I thought I had a potential boyfriend; I thought this is just how it happens. And after you lose one struggle, how do you say no the next time? So at that too young age, I stayed committed to someone who turned out to be a very very bad boyfriend and passed up on so many opportunities to meet and date nicer boys and have a normal teenage life. I was damaged goods, trying to salvage a bad situation.
And to this day, in the corner of my head, I always hear a warning now, “men are bad,” which is not a great thing to have in your head because sometimes you have to work with them as co-workers and bosses, or friends, or maybe even marry one. But sometimes that warning keeps you safe. It gets you out of the car.
The recent debate about the University of Virginia story in Rolling Stone and the murders of coeds in Charlottesville, brought all these suppressed memories back at how close I came to similar disasters. I believe all women have these stories hidden in their lives. It is not the unusual; it is the usual.
