December 20, 2011

Untitled

I remember running from the room, the curled up way I went around afterward. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I was ashamed. 

Earlier, I’d picked him up from the place where he worked. A mechanic, his arms and chest were taut. He had scrubbed the tips of his fingers, and they smelled like Orange Crush. I shifted into gear, smooth. “I’m impressed,” he said, reaching over to palm the nape of my neck. 

He lived on the first floor of a four-story walk-up. I had never been so far into the valley before, and I remember thinking how green it was back there. There was a railing we walked around to get to his front door, and the brown paint was chipping, exposing a sharp shimmer. I looked back to the jagged road that went up the mountain, and saw the tail end of a white car disappearing behind the weeds. 

He drew the curtains. I sat on the futon, watched him go to the fridge for strawberries, whipped cream, and a bowl of brown sugar. The container snapped open. He fed me. I closed my eyes and trusted him. 

Soon, his lips were on me, tracing my neck. Then they were skirting my clavicle, his citrus hand squeezing my breast. I don’t remember how all my clothes came off, but they did, and I was on my back with my feet in the air. 

When he shoved his dick inside my anus, I screamed. I yelled at him to get off. But he wouldn’t stop. The pain was terrible. Acute. Unbearable. He was stronger than me. I pushed with my knees, shimmied my feet against him, and got free. I was crying, in shock, reclothing with shaking hands. 

I tried not to look at him, slumped, head hanging, staring at his belly. 

He didn’t stop me, and for this I am still grateful. 

I was nineteen when I escaped.

Today is a morning almost twenty years later. In the dark upon waking, my lover fiddled with my breasts and stomach. He has been wanting to try anal since I met him, even though I told him that story. And this morning I dared him. 

Curling my legs up against my body, he positioned his penis, fumbled a few times, then found the hole. Pain seared through me, and he immediately dismounted. He walked to the bathroom and I heard the water run. Limp, I laid with my eyes closed. I wanted him to hold me but I couldn’t say the words. He splashed water with his two hands onto my body and threw the covers over me. 

He couldn’t have known that I was breaking. And he got it soon after--wanted me to look him in the eyes, wanted to say ‘sorry,’ wanted to take it back. But he couldn’t. 

I am writing this because I want it to go away. I want everything to be fine, to go back to the way it was and how I felt so safe, so loved. I want to write it away, for it to be outside of me, so I can say I’m over it. I want to forgive him because I know it’s not his fault. 

But I am curling in against my will.  The folds of my heart are closing in, atrophying, and there is a lump where there wasn’t before, even if I try to ignore it. It goes deep, even though it’s new. 

So I decide to have a talk with that 19 year-old. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you.” I say. “I’m sorry you were hurt. I acknowledge you, and I love you. Your pain was real. But you don’t exist any more, and I am not going to allow you to overpower my intellect.” 

And I let the words seep in and root. I feel the pain falter, fade to a dull ache. And for the first moment all day, the present me regains power, opens up again, freer than before and stronger, too.