What My Mother Never Knew #15: Part Two - Not Alone in the Dark

Reaching that point of "can't really get any higher", I found myself reeling. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I turned away the reefer before we'd finished it (you have to remember, this was more than two decades ago when weed wasn't as crammed with THC as I hear it is now). But who knows? It could even have been laced with something given how I felt afterward.

I swooned a bit and then stumbled out of the van to offer whatever was fermenting in my stomach to the ditch Gods. Too sick to enjoy the fresh ocean air, I got back into the van and was quickly ushered into the back - 'buddy' was sure that I would feel better if I could lie down for a few minutes.

Within two minutes of getting back in the van, he had my pants down around my knees and curled up in the fetal position. I said no multiple times and tried to move away but it all happened so fast. Suddenly he was inside me, and I tuned out, wondering if I had any hope at all of getting him to at least put a condom on. I mumbled something about it and he said he didn't have one. I spent the next few minutes wondering if there was any cellophane in the van and how it might be used in the place of a condom. This mental gyration kept me in a safe place in some way. Actually, it was like I watched the whole thing from above - the silent spectator. Even now when I tell this story, it's like it was someone else. It wasn't really me was it? Why didn't I cry? I cry now in the telling though - I cry the buried tears of shame and humiliation. But I know its OK. That was a long time ago.

I got my pants back on afterward and moved quietly to the front of the van. I asked him to take me to the bunker, my friends' party basement, where I could stay without too many questions. I was in shock - too fucked up to feel much of anything. But I was lucid enough to think about the possibility of pregnancy and asked him if he could give me a bit of money so that I could get the morning-after pill. I guess he did have a bit of a conscience as he obliged me with a $20 bill before driving off - maybe home to the wife and kids he mentioned. I really meant to use the money for a prescription but somehow, the next day, I bumped into someone with some very sappy smelling bud and I opted to risk pregnancy in favour of comfort.

Somehow pregnancy eluded me and I shoved the whole incident aside. The next day, my friend yelled at me for losing all but one of the beers and I knew for sure, I was hopeless as a human being. I did tell Leah about the creep in the van and she stopped yelling at me about the lost beers.

I know there are lots of assholes out there who pull shit like that. Actually, a few years back one of my mom's ex-boyfriends I bumped into told me he enjoyed trying to find teens who are plastered to have sex with. It's funny that I didn't really think of the incident as rape at the time, even though I repeatedly said no. In my mind, it was more like an accident I got involved in. I mean I was drunk, in the middle of nowhere and got into a vehicle with a stranger. I guess I figured it was my fault. These days I know better. But I don't get into cars with strangers anymore either....