..you really were a virgin...

It really bothered her that she could not call the police and tell them what she had seen in the park, and how that scum bag had tried to trip her up, and get her off guard. But she was in a life then, where you could not call for help. Not for you, or anyone else. She watched the news everyday, hoping that something would tip off the cops. She was relieved when she heard the perp had been caught! It did not change her feelings though. She didn't much like law, but still, no woman deserves that. She remembered when she was 15 years old.

She was kind of chubby and had just gotten all of her curves the year before. She had filled out so fast that she had gotten stretch marks. She was a chesty blond, with a pixie face (except her pixie eyes were never smiling).

When she was in the 9th grade, they moved so much that she went to four schools during the nine months of school. So, she was pretty worn out when they finally settled in the brand spanking new house in Lafayette Park, in Montalvo. Far away from Los Angeles; well, too far for her to commune with her few friends down there. It was so far out of town back then, buses did not even run there. She told her friends she was moving to the country, because being raised in Los Angeles for 12 of her first 14 years, living in Montalvo, in the middle of an agricultural belt, was indeed "the country" in her mind.

The isolation was a key element to her really starting to write. She would write page after page of poetry. In fact she got a reputation for being a good writer at age 15. She had a complete book by the time she was 18, but that has been long lost and long gone. Just one more loss to add to the list of hurts.

Her big brother had stayed in Los Angeles County, refusing to move with their mother and her new new step father. But she wasn't given a choice, and they dragged her everywhere they went. And now she was in her fourth school. It was the second semester of 9th grade and she did not belong to any click in the school, and she sure as hell did not make friends very easily. And her folks did not let her go anywhere or do anything, because they never bothered to ask her how she got a sexually transmitted disease the year before. Shoot, she did not even know it was an STD. They just told her to take the prescription they gave her.

She did not realize until years and years later, when she got clean and started taking inventory of herself and her life, did she realize what probably happned and why her mother went through some major changes and started really cracking on her. When she was 14, and her mother had met her 3rd husband, she met her step-brother Robin, who was more than 10 years older than her. What a sicko he turned out to be. He molested her, when she was just 14 years old, and in doing so, gave her a case of trichamonaes. She had to beg her mother to take her to the Dr, who undoubtedly told her mother, that her 14 year old daughter had a sexually transmitted disease. But her mother had never asked her how it happened. Years later, she finally figured out, that was about the same time that her mother clipped her wings, cut back on her freedom and started saying stupid things, like if she ever got pregnant, she would be sent to a unwed mothers home and her child would be given up. Yep, that was the sum of her sex education from home. And in essence, she was being punished for being victimized. And how sick was Robin? He used to actually walk around saying "Vice is nice, but incest is best," and then giggle. She was the only one who knew he meant it.

Her mom and step-father were much older than most of her friend's parents and when they got home from work; it was dinner, clean up, TV and bed. They did not talk to her. They got her a TV and Stereo for her room - and she retired to her room at age 15, not knowing much, not understanding much and making paper and pen her most intimate friends. Pouring out the things that ran through her head, as prose. That's the year she got the album Rubber Soul and a Dillion album, which she wore out, listening, alone in her room. And she wrote. And she wrote. And she wrote. And she lived a fantasy life of her own. She was the poster child of lonely children. From the violence of before, to a new and overly strict step-father, and mother who did not understand and never bothered to ask, and being taken away from all of the people she knew in LA...

She went to her new school in Ventura, with her Indian moccasins, her little A-line skirts, and sweaters. Guys thought she was cute. They almost always did. And later, she found out at her 30-year reunion, lots of people had actually liked her. She did not know it then. That last semester of 9th grade, she met a girl, named Sandy, who was tough, smoked, used drugs, and was way too experienced for only being 15.

One day, Sandy convinced her to run away from home. She can't remember why, but apparently back then, she felt justified. So they cut her hair, dyed it strawberry blond and ran away to Santa Paula.

Sandy wanted to spend the night at some guys' house. So without telling her, Sandy told some older junkie named Ron, that she liked him and wanted to be with him. And after hanging out for a while, they ended up at some house that is on the road to Steckle Park. And they all went to bed. She was so naive, she did not even think about laying down with someone who might violate her. Her boundries had gotten so muddy by the time she was 15, and she was just an object, even in her own mind. She had disassociated from her self so many times before, that it was almost automatic now. She did not understand it. She did not even know it was happening, back then.

Ron was so sweet at first. She thought they would just fool around and fall asleep. But her took her, against her will. She told him "Noooo," over and over, until Sandy came in and said to quiet down, she was that loud telling him no... She told Ron, she wanted to wait till she was married. She had never.... And he ignored her. And when it was done...

When it was done, he stood there, a little shocked himself, and said, "Jeez, you really were a virgin."

She responded, "The keyword is "was" asshole." And that was kind of the beginning of a very long, and painful road for her. She felt she had nothing to lose after that. And she did not report it, because after all, she was a run-away. And somehow, she knew it would end up being her fault.

That was before she found out, not everything bad that happened to her was actually her fault. It was just that no one had ever taught her that she had any special value, even as a human being. No one told her she was worth fighting for. No one taught her to cry for help. She had been crying alone, in the dark for most of her life, so what could she do? She accepted it, and swallowed it, like so much other bitter pain in her life, before. No white wedding dress for her now.