No plugging the levee

This is explicit.  If you know me, know that I'm sharing my innermost self here; don't read unless you're willing to know these things about me. You won't be able to scrub your brain of it. I'm sorry.



I went to school on Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend, and tried to act as if everything was normal, though my life suddenly felt completely alien.  When I talked with my friends about the weekend, as I must have because I'm sure that I talked it up in excited anticipation beforehand, I certainly didn't tell anyone this shameful part of it. I'd keep total silence about it for nearly 9 years. When I finally did tell first one close friend and then a second, it was without understanding the effect that this part of my life had really had on me. I was trying to relate to similar pain they had each experienced, to give them room to accept that I could understand their hurt, but in truth I'd never really allowed myself to experience my own.  It wasn't until I had to enter therapy when I was 35 that I really began to understand the effects these experiences had on me.  And this past week has probably been the first time that I've examined them for their own sake, rather than as part of some other issue I was trying to get to the root of.

From that point forward, to suggest that the nature of my relationship with him changed would only be half true: from his perspective, I'm sure it was exactly the same as he imagined and envisioned it to be all along, but from my perspective things were now completely different.  The actions that I'd previously viewed as uncomfortably forward playfulness would henceforth strike my consciousness in the same context I'm convinced they'd always been in for him: foreplay. On occasions when we'd be working in his garage with no one else around, he would frequently, persistently pester me to have sexual interaction with him. And there was never again any such thing as just casually hanging out, a boy relishing time with a father figure who had taken him under his wing. I've since figured out that it never really was that way, from his point of view. About a month before the Philly and New York trip, I had started experimenting with marijuana; although he didn't like it himself, he'd always have some weed handy to help get me in a cooperative mood.

I did seek other employment, partly in an effort to reduce my dependence on him, but it didn't last very long. The money wasn't as good and the work itself of making pizzas wasn't as enjoyable, so I returned to working for him on weekends. I mean, it isn't as if he wasn't going to be in my life if I didn't; he was still dating my mom, and still would have made it a point to have time for me. And though I didn't fully realize it, I was still emotionally dependent on him. There is one line I'm glad I never stepped over: whenever I needed more money for some high school (or, later, college) crisis that had come up, well, he very explicitly made it known how I could earn more above and beyond my compensation for the garage work.  I wonder if I could possibly feel any worse about things if I had actually prostituted myself so directly.

I soon found out he maintained a seedy apartment in a run down part of Baltimore, which my mom knew about, actually. It was a getaway for him to retreat from the pressures of his day job and side work, but I'm sure she didn't fully know then what sort of getaway it really was.  I'm sure there was only one thing he ever used it for, because the times he took me there I was never able to escape without another fully consummated incident of sexual abuse. We'd stop by, usually after having visited a peep movie show in an adult book store, or a strip club, or someplace else where his - and my - appetite had been whetted. (Actually, his was probably stoked already.) Presumably the stop was either to clean up from riding the motorcycles all day or to rest up for an evening out. But he'd always make a pass, and he never, ever took no for an answer. It was always, "Oh, c'mon.  You know you want to.  You'll feel so much better afterward."  On the one or two early occasions when I tried to leave the apartment, he physically prevented me from doing so. Then, while he had me overpowered - usually from behind - he'd rub my crotch through my jeans until he began to get the desired physiological reaction, which then became confirmation to him that I was just playing hard-to-get all along. But get me he always did; I was never equipped to not ultimately yield to what he wanted.

This became my status quo, until he moved away and I subsequently got married. But I was so dependent on him that, between those two events, I went to his new town the summer after my freshman year to help him build his house. By then I guess he'd tired of my protestations, as his advances became more rare - though not non-existent.

But the absolute worst part to remember, the thing I still hate the most from back then (as opposed to the what I later became, which is still unspeakably worse to cope with), is that in the interim I did sometimes become a more willing participant. That first night, at the Y, of course, but there were occasions after that. This was what most made me feel like a piece of shit, believing in my heart that I was being unfaithful with him to my mother.  He didn't penetrate me until the first time I asked him to. And I know I asked to penetrate him, too, that one time.

I want to puke now. It isn't that I'm disgusted by the specific actions, though perhaps I would be if I hadn't become so jaded by now. My revulsion is more a reflection on the dynamic, and on the person with whom and circumstances under which I engaged in these acts. To this day I crave these activities, and never getting them feels like a gaping hole in my sexuality. The thing is, I've never been and am not now attracted to men.  When I see a handsome man, I don't want to be with him sexually, or imagine what he looks like naked, or fantasize about being with him. I can't imagine I'll ever want to be with just a man sexually. I don't know if it's because I'm straight, or because I'd be intimidated by it because of the only context in which I've ever experienced such contact.