16
It was a quiet flight back home; we were able to do it in one plane, the six of us young’uns and the geezers with their graying hair, etc. OK, Byron was in his early 30’s, but he and Dad made a fine couple.
I need never allow my father to hear that said. Now, Dad is not homophobic, not in his profession, but he is definitely in love with my mother.
Still, the flight did not have the normal chatter.
I think we all were dealing with the realities of what was going to happen once we returned.
For Kelley and Sarah, it could be the loss of their assignment.
They allowed me, the client that they were protecting, to get into a situation where I was publicly sexually assaulted.
And we were praying that no one had photographed it because there are venues that would accept the cost of the inevitable lawsuit to run those photographs.
We hoped that I had not been identified in the club, but only in the club office.
There were the police records. Some can be scrubbed.
But not all, and not in Florida, and they are public record.
Shannon had been arrested and charged while cross dressed and presenting as female with duplicate and conflicting IDs.
Not a good thing. But then, I had done absolutely nothing wrong.
That is what burns me. I was with my fiancée, and a partially drunk college bro had approached me and harassed me.
I allowed him one fast dance to get him off my case, then, in a dance trap, I was grabbed, and when I resisted and screamed, I was sexually assaulted.
And my security detail responded with less than lethal force.
But I was the one arrested.
Me.
Me, the one just wanting to share a drink with her fiancée and her two sisters. Nothing more. And I only had about three sips of my drink. I was not high. I was not drunk. I was in extremely conservative high end casual clothing; we all were, so that we did not get that level of attention.
And I am going to have to pay the cost of my indiscretion.
As will Kelley and Sarah.
To that, I am saying not only no, but hell no, I want my two girls and no one else.
I trust them. Kelley did her job. I was never crotch grabbed, and that would have been the issue; a dancer’s belt would have hidden things, but they are extremely restrictive and uncomfortable after a long day.
I was in loose slacks, and I was unprotected in the crotch.
If he had grabbed my crotch, he would have encountered a...
well, you know what he would have encountered.
And then what? Would I have even survived if Kelley had not been there?
Would the bouncer have reacted to protect me? One of those people?
I had too many questions. And far too few answers.
And then we were home. This time, all of us, except for Byron, ended up in Grove City, and my mother picked us up in a suburban. I don't know whose suburban, as I did not know we had one at the far end.
But even that drive from the airport at Grove City to the farmhouse was very quiet.
It was definitely a case that everyone was terrified of the gorilla in the room, that meeting me, and what I had endured.
And yet, no one had any idea what to do about said gorilla, not in the least, myself.
I really feel that this is a choice time.
I have to make it clear to everyone, but especially myself, if I want to continue to lead this life I have fallen into.
And if I do decide that this is what I want, then what changes do I have to make, or more likely, endure, to allow that to happen?
Because what is clear is that what we are doing, based on the UAE and now especially in Florida, is not working as intended.
Yes, Dubai ended up perfect, and I made a lot of money. However, I had a protective force with me. And that is not always going to be the case. My father and Byron will not be traveling with me to every oddball photo shoot, wherever in the world they are scheduled.
And my security? Are they, however they are, going to replace the two I am comfortable with two men who see me exactly how?
I have the respect of Kelley and Sarah, and I trust them. From my personal point of view, I felt a bit upset, but Kelley removed the issue instantly. I will always have to assume some degree of risk. I do get that. I do not want to live in a bubble.
And that is the solution so many with fame accept: they turn their lives into the life of the bubble boy, the child condemned because of a defective immune system to live his entire life in a plastic balloon, a bubble.
Think about it. The majority of actors and actresses do exactly that.
And ball players when they are playing? The same.
And when you do that, you restrict who you see, and you tighten your world down to only a few who can or will interact with you. I do not want that life.
I honestly believe that if I stay as I am, it is that or accept that inevitably I will be attacked and that I will be found out, and that will most likely end my life.
Again, I am 5’10” tall, and I weigh what a female model of my height weighs, maybe two or three lbs more.
But that is not a pro football linebacker build.
Not even a female tennis star build or a cheerleader build.
I know cheer girls. I live with them in a sorority when I am home.
Those girls, even the ones who are 5’1” tall, can easily beat the bloody crap out of me.
My strength is my ability to walk a runway in 5” heels and a very short and tight skirt. Not to fight anyone to protect myself.
And if I was to start doing martial arts, that change in body profile would negatively affect my modeling career.
Athletic bodies and the runway do not coincide.
That is a fact of life.
So how do I protect myself?
I don’t know, I honestly do not know.
And when we got home, things got bad, for me anyway.
Mom wanted a blow by blow of what happened.
I am afraid that with Dad and Byron there, we had left Mom in the dark.
But she started by being a mom, you know, the role every mother has ever lived has assumed, and second, questioning everything everyone said and did, and having an opinion that formed from a few days of being virtually kept in the dark.
And the result was a full court press on Shannon. Not boy Shannon or girl Shannon, but just Shannon.
And once started? My mother is a professor of literature and creative writing, which means that my mother has a very alive imagination.
And sometimes it gets the better of her.
After about an hour, I had had enough. I was in a bad place when I got home, but now?
And I went to bed.
Alone. Carmine joined me later, and I have no clue how much later.
In the morning, I woke at first light. Growing up on a farm as we do, that was in many ways normal. We did have a few hundred acres, and we did raise grain, corn, and hay for the horses. And with the horses we had then, I had chores. So that was somewhat normal for me.
But this morning I had a feeling that I had to leave and leave now. I dressed, didn’t take the time to shower, nor did I get any breakfast.
I wanted out of that place, away from people who knew or thought that they knew what I wanted and needed.
I grabbed a couple of changes of clothing.
I had learned to keep a few bags packed for times when I needed to travel fast.
Modeling can be planned a year in advance, or it can be a message at 3 a.m. that you are needed for an emergency shoot in New York because someone was not available.
Usually means drug or stoned and not capable of working.
But I had three to four bags with different levels of go now.
I grabbed one with three to four days of casual, and I went.
I was in the 911 and out of the farm in minutes.
Where Carmine and I were now living, in the part of the house my mother had remodeled for us, it is easy to get into the garage where I keep my Porsche.
And again, in minutes I was gone. With my cell turned off.
I headed north towards Erie. It is very easy to get on the north south interstate from the farm. And next turned east on I 90 to Buffalo, and using my British passport, went into Canada and headed north of Toronto.
This part of Ontario is beautiful, but empty. And no one pays any attention to a Porsche here. Eventually, I ended up in Tobermory, where there is a national park, and found a place for a few days.
I had one of my cameras, so I took advantage of my time and just did some work.
But the true reason I was here was to decide what I wanted for myself. And not what others thought I wanted for me.
The problem with advice is that it is always tainted by the individual giving the advice and reflects what they want for you.
That is just the way things are. People tell you what they believe is best based on their lives and their experiences.
No one, no matter how close that person is to you, does not do this.
No one sees life through your eyes and can assess what anything means to you personally.
Only what it means to themselves.
I had some hard decisions to make. I knew that. I am far from stupid.
And to be honest, these decisions had not cropped up on me. I knew that I had to figure this all out.
I just felt that I had some time to figure this all out.
And now. Well, now, I do not.
After a couple of days, I turned my phone on and made a call to Carmine.
I got her voicemail and left a message that I was OK and in Canada getting my head together and to tell everyone I would be home in a few days.
And then I told her that everyone needed to understand one thing.
And that was that they all, everyone in my life, were in reality telling me what they would do if they were me. But that they are not me.
I explained that I had to make up my own mind about who and what I was. That if I wanted advice, I would ask for it.
And that, unfortunately, we had reached a place where I had lost the sense that I was making my decisions based on my own desires.
I told her how much I loved her, but that this had to stop. Because I had seriously reached the place where I needed help, not help in dealing with my decisions, but help in peeling everything else out of them.
And I finally reminded her to tell everyone concerned about me that I was twenty one, that I owned my own car.
To remind them that I had sufficient money in my bank to disappear for the rest of my life.
And that love can be as oppressive as hatred, and that I was unable to take any more of right now.
And I told her not to tell them that I would be home in a few days.