Chapter 6

The next day I went through the whole routine over and over again for the benefit of a cop and my parents. I just wanted to try and bury the whole thing deep into my brain, but the other people just wouldn't let me. The cop was patient and as understanding as possible, but he still displayed an attitude that isn't uncommon among many cops as I've now come to find out. There's that old male thing about girls being hot to trot all the time, and that a girl who gets raped is asking for it. Even though the cops had reports on this same guy, at least a guy matching my hazy description, he badgered me to go over the details again and again, asking me if I'd provoked the guy, until he was satisfied it was legit.

I finally lost patience with him when he asked why I hadn't noted the license plates.

"I told you, he said not to turn a round or he'd shoot!" I screamed.

He got very paternalistic with me then, patting me on the knee. He wrapped up the report and left, warning me not to hitchhike anymore. It was a rhetorical statement if I've ever heard one.

Then it was my mother badgering me. She didn't doubt my story ... she could tell it was real. But she was taking this really weird attitude, praying to God, then telling me that I shouldn't ride in cars, and why did I do it, until she made me crazy.

Of course, I let on like this was the first time I'd ever ridden with a stranger, and promised her about a hundred times that I'd never do it again. She was so shook that she wanted me to go to a priest and beg forgiveness. As if I'd done something wrong. She was worried that I wouldn't marry a virgin, that nice boys wouldn't want to go out with me. She made me promise never to tell anyone, worried about my reputation and all. I wanted to puke, but didn't hassle with her as I was still pretty fucked up about the whole thing myself. But a crisis like this only brought out the worst in my mother.

There was one good thing that came out of it and that was that Mom didn't threaten to take me to the doctor anymore. See she always had this thing about threatening to take me to the doctor for a physical to see if I'd ever balled. This started when I was going with Chris, and she'd throw it in every now and then after I'd been out with a boy. I'd assured the doctor and the cops that I was a virgin, and it was just the right treatment for Mom, who really got behind tragedies. The virgin bit compounded the tragedy, so it fit right in with her feelings. So she now knew I wasn't cherry and couldn't pull that checkup shit on me anymore.

Ironically, she began to act more like Dad as time went on. Oh, she'd still pitch a bitch. But Dad, after reacting to the degree he now permitted himself, went back to his silences. And so did Mom, on occasions. She seemed to view me as a full-grown woman at times, and left me alone increasingly. But as volatile as she was she'd still explode and talk to me as an irate mother every so often, really pulling out the stops. Though this was less frequent than before, affording me long intervals of relative peace in between, her blowups were so heavy when they did come, I couldn't figure out if I liked Mom better B. R. or A. R. (before and after Rape).

It took me some time to recover, let alone Mom. I quit work a week early just to try and get my nerves together in time for the opening of school. Gwen came over to visit me a couple of times and was very sympathetic about the whole thing, and we decided that we'd try and still see as much of each other as possible once school started.

I don't think I went out with a guy for over a month after that. In fact, I kept pretty much to myself during that period, trying to put as much distance between myself and the incident as I could. I even got into my classes for awhile there, spending most of my evenings at home studying.

I saw Linda some, and got together with Gwen a couple of times-she'd landed a new job, working as a secretary for some smalltime photographer in Hollywood, and was planning on moving down there to be closer to her work. She assured me that she'd still try and see me.

But, aside from a few contacts via the phone, I saw very little of her that fall and winter. I finally got up the nerve to start dating again, but I found myself becoming a bit puritanical, stopping guys whenever they'd had too much of a feel. I guess that thing with the rapist was going to be with me for a long time. It's really not that easy to disassociate a trauma like that from men in general, especially when it happens to a girl so young.

I finally met this guy that I dug enough that I let him ball me one night at this party. I mean, we didn't do it in front of everyone, we found an empty bedroom. But when he put the meat to me the old zing seemed to be missing. He wasn't all thumbs like a lot of guys my age either. In fact, he was very gentle and slow. But still, I found myself hanging after he made it. He even gave me head to start finishing me off after he came, but my mind was so screwed up I just couldn't get behind it.

We tried again the next week in his car, but it just didn't do the trick. Since I didn't hear much from Gwen those days, I confided in Linda, but while she was sympathetic, she didn't really understand my problem. She had a pretty good thing going with this new guy she was going with, and she just couldn't understand why I'd have difficulty with sex.

"I mean, I can't believe it," she told me. "You of all people. I remember being so freaked the first time I watched you and Chris get it on. Like you were always ahead of me when it came to shit like that."

"Until that," I put in. That was the rape.

"Yeah, I guess that would fuck up your head," she conceded "But since I've never had that happen, and I'm not taking anything away from you kid-you're my best friend and you know that. But I just can't really relate to the problems you've been having never having been raped. Maybe you should see a shrink or something."

"Now wait a minute ..."

"No, no. Don't get hostile," she said, throwing up her hands. "I don't mean that I think you're whacko or anything. But they have a lot of shrinks who can help with little problems, well, I don't mean to call them little problems, but people that are trained to get to a person's root feelings and dig them out. It might help."

"Thanks anyway," I said. "I'm not mad... I just don't know what I am these days. Didn't mean to snap at you. But a shrink would cost money, and anyway I'm not so sure that's what I'd need."

"Maybe your folks could boogie some money for that," she put in helpfully.

"That's a laugh. My Mom would send me to a priest before she'd let something like that happen. She cares more about what things look like than how I feel. How would it look, her daughter going to a shrink?"

"I guess you're right," Linda said with a shrug. "Well, I hope you can get through this okay."

And she left. My bestest friend from way back, and even she couldn't really help. I flopped down on the bed and stared long at the ceiling. It was getting to be my best and most constant friend these days.