Not a funny piece today. 

I wrote this for the website Lifarre. If you’d like to read more, click here for the full Elements of Fear series (under the Broken Pieces tab). Thanks for your time. 

MISTAKE NUMBER FOUR

College, 1983

I’m a sophomore, nineteen years old.

A nice enough guy from one of my journalism classes invites me to a frat party, I say yes. (Mistake #1: his turf).

I go with a girlfriend – she drives. (Mistake #2: always have your own transportation). I didn’t know him very well and it wasn’t an official date or anything. If you’ve been to college, you know how guys ask you out without actually asking you out? They invite you to a frat party. (Yea, it’s like a punchline.)

Girlfriend is a sorority sister, so she floats in on her pink fluff of air-kisses and vapor. With my writer’s eye, I observe the mating rituals and try to figure out how many beers it’s gonna take me to either fit in with this Ralph Lauren crowd or scope out who’s got the weed.

As I’m deciding that two beers is a good number (hey, I’m not driving), Bill shows up. I know this by the he-man grip he places on my arm. (Mistake #3: underestimating a dude based on size – no we’re not talking sex here, ya guttersnipes). He’s not a big guy, but he is lean and wiry. He wrestles for the school and has been asking me to watch his matches. I cheered in high school – I don’t do wrestling (have you ever smelled those places)? A dedicated girlfriend kinda has to watch her wrestler boyfriend’s matches. I wasn’t that, so I’d politely declined.

Bill was rather charming and a smooth talker. We chatted for an hour or two. He was friendly, he held my hand; all was fine, sweet. When I needed to use the bathroom, he escorted me through the crowd and told me, “Hey, use this one back here. No one knows about it. I used to live here so I know this house backwards and forwards.” Because I really, really had to pee, I let him lead me by the hand into a room where I thought the other bathroom was.

I had no reason NOT to believe him, right?

MISTAKE NUMBER FOUR

He locked the door so fast, I hardly saw it. As I was putting together in my mind that something wasn’t right, he threw me down on the bed and pinned me with one knee. His face turned into something unrecognizable, like a monster you’d see in a movie… teeth baring, inhuman.

I wasn’t wearing sexy clothes that night. I didn’t do anything besides spend time with a guy who seemed, outwardly, like a decent guy from one of my classes. We hadn’t even kissed.

Yet here he was. Tearing at my clothes, hitting me, unzipping his pants. My heart was beating so loud, I could hear it in my mouth.

It didn’t happen, though. There’s a “happy” ending. Why? Because I fought. I kicked, I bit, I scratched, I screamed. Did I think it would make a difference? I don’t know, because I didn’t think. Not until later.

Not until after.

They say that once your heart rate goes above 200, your problem-solving abilities go out the window. You’re acting purely on instinct. Fight or flight kicks in.

I guess it was a combination of factors that ended his attempt: my reaction, people finally for god’s sake knocking on the door, and the fact that I drew blood when I scratched his face. It’s almost like that sobered him up, snapped him out of it. Made him human again.

He told me he would deny everything, of course.

Facing him in class that Monday was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. And yes, he told me I’d been “asking for it.”

Back in the early-80s, the term “date-rape” didn’t exist. I didn’t know that’s what had happened to me. Conventional wisdom was that I had nothing to report but fighting off some jerk. A ripped top, a few bruises. 

Attitudes toward rape and attempted rape have come a long way, baby. But we still have far to go.

I didn’t realize ’till later, when I became a mother myself, the impact of my experience…