Chapter 15
15
She asked for you.
That night, I cranked open my laptop as if I had some kind of spy technology that would help me track Catherine down. According to Google, the day’s events hadn’t hit the wider world. Wouldn’t her parents want the public to know? And why had her disappearance four years ago been kept a secret? I looked up “Jonah” and “PI” and “NYC”: no relevant hits. But who was to say his name was even Jonah?
I glanced at the spot where he’d sat just the night before, my chest filling with unease.
Ding. Another Facebook message from Melissa, my junior high Judas.
Omg, so good to hear from you! About Adam: I KNOW, isn’t it nuts?? But don’t worry, he’s totally different now. We became friends in HS and started dating in college. Are you coming to the reunion? We’d love to see you!
I jumped up and hurried into my bedroom, throwing open the closet door. I methodically pulled out shoes and plastic tubs until I reached the cardboard box. I opened it slowly, reverently.
There were more journals than I remembered. Some were completely covered in stickers; others had their covers untouched. At the bottom was the diary from eighth grade, with that bright patchwork pattern and grinning cat face. I opened to a random page.
OMG!!!!! Pastor John told me he liked Stargirl too!!!! :) :) :) He watched it after I told him about it. And… HE TOLD ME I LOOK LIKE THE GIRL IN IT!!!! I was somehow able not to blush!! Because… well, she’s naked in parts of it! Including a scene where she’s lying in bed with the pharaoh—which is very UN-Christian for a pastor to watch! He said I was less innocent than I looked if I was going around watching movies like that hahaha.
The memory of his office reared up in full color: the heavy wooden desk, the bookshelves full of dusty religious texts, the framed photo of his wife, toddler, and baby that I’d study when he left to get us sodas. He’d been in his mid- to late twenties, which seemed young now but had felt so old back then. It had all started when he’d asked me to stop by to talk about an essay I’d written for his religious studies class; he’d complimented it and acted like my thoughts about a particular Bible verse were incredibly interesting. No adult had ever given me this kind of attention before. Initially, the conversations had centered on Christianity but then shifted to personal: we spilled about our lives in a way that had felt decidedly equal. At some point, a subtle flirtiness had entered the room, proven by this entry, where he was teasing me about my innocence. I also remembered him grinning as he questioned why I didn’t have a boyfriend—and hinting that Adam must like me if he was messing with me.
Those many hours in his office had been a respite from the rest of school, from Adam’s taunts and Melissa’s growing absence. But now I could see them for what they were: an incredibly inappropriate relationship that he should never have started or cultivated. By the time he’d started complaining about his sex life with Jamie, it had felt natural, because he’d already stepped over the line.
I flipped through more pages, stopping on one with a list I vaguely remembered.
THINGS I’VE HEARD ADAM SAY TO GIRLS IN OUR GRADE (MOSTLY POPULAR ONES BUT NOT ALWAYS)
- Nice t*ts
- I’d like to f*ck you in the a$$
- You give great bl*wjobs don’t you?
THINGS I’VE SEEN ADAM DO
- stand behind Mrs. Iona and pretend to have s*x with her
- “accidentally” grab girls’ butts and boobs
- pretend he’s m*sturbating under his desk (with moans)
- pretend he’s unzipping his pants and is going to pull out his you-know-what
THINGS ADAM HAS SAID TO OR ABOUT ME
1. BEFORE PASTOR JOHN:
- The quiet ones are such freaks, right? (looking at me)
- Damn, Thea! You left claw marks on my back again
- Oh-oh-oh (pretending to be me having s*x)
2. AFTER PJ:
- He f*cks you over his desk in his office, doesn’t he?
- He f*cked you in the a$$ with a cross, didn’t he?
- He came (?) in your mouth and said it was the blood of Christ, didn’t he?
Okay. I softly closed the diary. So I hadn’t been overreacting: Adam really had sexually harassed me and others. I felt it now, a familiar swirl of shame in my chest, mixed with fear, mixed with—the most mortifying of all—an activation low in my belly.
I threw the diary in the box and went back to the living room, plopping on the couch and feeling restless. I again pictured Jonah next to me, his infuriatingly gorgeous face. How dare he try to slut-shame me? But my anger shifted into something else as I imagined leaning forward and kissing him. Getting on top of him. Him kissing me back, grabbing my hips, grinding against me.
I unzipped my pants and closed my eyes. I imagined us making out, unable to control ourselves. It didn’t matter that I was a “job”—he wanted me. Even if he hadn’t known he was attracted to me until that very moment. Or maybe he still wasn’t attracted to me—maybe I disgusted him. But he still wanted to fuck the shit out of me.
I went to my room and pulled a vibrator out of my bedside table. On top of my comforter, I kept envisioning us on the couch: Jonah pushing me off him so that I was facing away on all fours, pulling down my pants, touching me, his erection hard against me. He’d never felt this turned on before, even by his hot girlfriend—no, his wife—who was at that very moment at home, sleeping innocently in their shared bed. Their newborn in the next room.
He gripped my breast over my shirt, then pulled my hair, snapping my head back.
“You’re so fucking ugly,” he whispered.
Suddenly, I was on a blanket in a dark shed. Cold air rose through the slats, through the thin rough blanket he —no longer Jonah—had thrown down in a rare moment of thoughtfulness.
“Don’t you think you are?” Adam was behind me, thrusting furiously. He grasped a chunk of my hip. “Fat too. You’re fat and ugly. You liked being fucked by me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I gasped. Because it was true, I did like it, and something about being shamed at the same time was making the power build up in my groin.
“You’re such a slut. An ugly fucking slut. You think he would ever like you? Stupid slut.” The words came in short bursts. He slapped my ass, and the sound seemed to echo in the silent space. Crickets chirped outside, their calls mixing with the burps of frogs. The shed smelled of dank, rotting wood.
“You’re my bitch.” He leaned forward, his breath in my ear. “Say it. Say you’re my bitch.”
“I’m your bitch.”
“Touch yourself, bitch.”
I obediently brought my fingers between my legs, unsure what to do. He grabbed my hand, moving it in a circle.
“Slut,” he muttered. “I knew you wanted this. I knew the whole time.”
I wanted to flee my body, but I also wanted to stay here, riding this wave that was coming from far off, causing my abdominals to clench and quiver.
“Say his name,” he ordered in my ear.
“What?” I gasped. But I knew who Adam was talking about. He hadn’t known, though, what I’d just seen Pastor John do. What had shocked and horrified me. What would change things between us forever.
Adam didn’t relent: “Pretend I’m him. Say it. ”
So I did. And almost immediately, I came, crying out, shocked and scared by the waves crashing over me. It was my first orgasm.
Adam collapsed on me. His thin body felt so much heavier than I would’ve expected. He pulled out and I felt liquid wetting my thighs.
“Fuck.” He said it thoughtfully.
I sat on the blanket, raising my knees, clutching my legs, suddenly embarrassed by my nakedness. His eyes ran over me.
“You are a freak.” He said it neutrally.
Now, I lay back, heaving and spent. I tossed the vibrator away.
That was it: my first sexual experience. With a boy who’d called me names and invoked our pastor—a man who’d also used me. I’d heard from pastors and teachers for years just how sinful it was to be sexual—to even think about sex was a reason to beg God for forgiveness. And what had I done that night? Gone all the fucking way. True, I’d been wandering around in a state of shock, not even aware of my body, at least at first. Maybe—probably—Adam had sensed that. But hey, according to my community, boys would be boys. As a girl, you were the guardian of your own virtue. And at that age, it felt like I’d crumpled it up and thrown it in a gutter.
Adam and I had mostly avoided each other afterwards, though he’d stopped with the remarks about Pastor John. All he had to do was smirk at me, and my stomach would drop. He could tell anyone at any time what had happened between us. It was surprising he’d kept it a secret, but I think he liked holding that power over me.
I’d also held it in, but the shame had been unreal. Especially when, afterwards, I’d gotten a UTI that necessitated my mom taking me to her gynecologist. Another awful experience. My big sin continued to reside deep in my belly, causing frequent stomachaches that, when I complained, irritated my mom. Though I prayed frequently, I wasn’t sure that something so sinful could be forgiven.
It was only when I had Mr. Russo for ninth-grade social studies that the scales began to fall from my eyes. I couldn’t square that my favorite teacher, who was gay, was headed straight for hell. As soon as I had one doubt, others surfaced. By the time I went to college, I was still going to church with Mom and Dad but no longer believed in the God that had judged me all those years.
Unfortunately, I would still be forced to carry Adam and Pastor John around with me for the rest of my life. And this burden would cause the rare interested person like Ryan to gaze at me with horror when I shared the truth: In order to have an orgasm, I needed to imagine being back in that shed, losing my virginity to my bully, while he was bullying me. Using that cruel aggression that seemingly informed all of his lust. (The social worker part of me faintly wondered: What had happened to him to make him this way? while the rest of me didn’t give a shit.)
There was absolutely nothing wrong with kink; I knew a lot of people were into BDSM, being dominated, being called names. But this was not that. I hadn’t known what kinks even were back then. I hadn’t made an informed choice.
And I didn’t get pleasure or excitement from the memory now. It was pure utilization, a mental tool I had to grab to get over the finish line.
After Ryan ghosted, when the loss was still whole and torturous and tinged with faint hope, I came across a post on Instagram. One of the therapists I followed had posted about “rights” in sexuality. One of them was: You have the right to privacy . You’re allowed to fantasize when you’re having sex and you’re not required to tell anyone, including your partner.
The comments were brutal. Pretty much everyone agreed that if you were fantasizing while having sex with your partner, whether or not your partner was in that fantasy, you were cheating. Not just that, though, you were a malicious monster. You were, as Ryan had called it, using your partner as a sex doll without consent, an unforgiveable offense.
I was amazed I’d told Ryan in the first place. If only I’d seen this post just a week before, I never would’ve dared.
Twenty years later, I was still tied psychically to my eighth-grade bully. It felt like my sexuality was warped, like a small plant that contorted itself to reach sunlight. It meant that I would never be sexually “normal.” That I just had to live with this forever.
All while Melissa and Adam were clowning around and taking cute professional photos.
I went back to the living room and grabbed my computer, rage radiating in my solar plexus. This would be the end of it. All of it.
Here’s some fun dinnertime convo for you, I wrote back to Melissa. Maybe ask your amazing husband how he took advantage of me on our eighth-grade trip while calling me horrible things (fat, ugly, etc). Unless you knew already?
I pressed Send , then blocked her.