...Nine o'clock rolls around and we're picked up by a large black truck that was blasting Tom Petty...The driver was an obviously older man, but he seemed nice enough, so I got in the truck with Sarah and him. We drove around to pick up some alcohol, which was no big deal to me by then; I've been drinking for a long time now. I was having a great time so I forgot about the clock as most naive teens do, and we all headed back to his apartment, where we met up with another one of Sarah's older guy friends. The rest of the night was a blur.

I only had a couple of beers, but I managed to pass out.

I awake feeling numb yet cold at the same time, and I wonder where I am. I'm aware of foreign hands on my skin and I freeze in shock. I realize where I am and what's going on. I'm naked and there's a man touching me. I try to say "stop" but it comes out as a squeak. I try again and it comes out more like a "*Stop*" but he ignores me and continues in his exploration/violation. By that time, I have stories I've read in the newspaper and watched in the evening news over TV dinners running through my head of brutal rapes, how the girls struggle in vain and how they end up buried in a ditch. So I choose to lay there in hopes that I can pass this off later as miscommunication. That I won't have to deal with the reality that I'm being fucked by a 27 year old man with a blonde wife and a blonde child I met earlier that day. I try not to concentrate on how much he's hurting me and how weak I feel, though I'm desperately trying to do something to dissuade him. I try not to feel his arms pinning me down. I try not to feel tears come to my face and spill down my cheeks.

In the background of all this chaos I realize that I hear something. Sarah and the other man are watching and laughing....This is a game to them. A movie. A circus. Whatever. I feel him grunt and finish. I remember his friend asking "to have a go at me" as well, but thankfully I'm spared from further humiliation. I just turned off inside at that point.... I get up mechanically and ask in a voice that sounds detached from me if they can take me home now. Sarah pulls me off into the bathroom and proceeds to tell me a long winded sob story that she's getting paid for this and she really needs the money to bail her boyfriend out of jail and that I can't tell anyone about it because... blah blah blah...basically it all comes down to the old cliche...If you tell anyone, I have connections to fuck you harder than you already have been fucked, so don't even try it...Just accept that you have unwittingly become a whore. Slut. Slave.

Merchandise.

By that time it's two in the morning and they finally drop me off. Sarah has the nerve to yell cheerily, "Call me!" as I walk to my house (they dropped me off a block before my home). I come home to angry shouts and threats, but I don't hear anything even when Tio is up in my face calling me the usually barrage of insults. I am finally left alone with myself and the realization how disgusting I am and I begin to sob. My sister is sitting next to me and I manage to croak out, "I think I was raped." She urges me to tell my mother even if it's only to get a pregnancy test.

Six a.m....I'm finally out of the hospital after being poked, prodded and violated, but it's supposed to be different because these men are wearing rubber gloves and they have a college degree to go along with it. When the timid Asian doctor asked me why I was there, I retorted, "Because a man stuck his dick in me, and I didn't want him to"...I then proceeded to go into some weird sort of hysterics.

I get home and go into an awkward sleep, only to be woken up by my mother who wants to tell me that I'm grounded until my 14th birthday, which is about a month away. For what? For shaming her? For lying? For scaring her? For giving her a dose of reality? For letting her know that bad things happen to people that aren't just pixels on a screen or print in a newspaper? Didn't she know that what happened to me was enough to teach me a lesson?

What can I call this incident? It doesn't matter to me anymore. It happened and I try to count myself lucky that I wasn't stripped of my trust in people in an even worse fashion. I was naive to get myself in such a stupid situation, but I refuse to beat myself over the head with it. Life is full of ups and downs, but it all shapes who I am to this day. So why should I bother regretting anything?

--Lynda--