In a world of sports I couldn’t quite get the hang of, size twelves I just could not fit, and a constant string of average marks, it was a huge relief to find something I was really good at.
From a young age I was christened into the world of sex. My first experience was not a night of blood-stained horror, as many of my friends filled me in on. Instead, I was in love, the way only a fifteen-year-old woman could be. With energy and blind imagination I loved him. Fiddling around in his mother’s satin sheets was more comical than anything. We did it like the book, missionary position, condom and cuddles.
But he ran away when he thought I was pregnant. I was a day late. This flee of a rejection just left me craving more. I wanted to be good at this.
I could not say no. I was horrified at my first blowjob, the sight, smell and taste. My second I closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts, and by my third I was so distant I did a splendid job.
Distant. I went from boy to boy. I felt proud. I felt popular. Sex gave me love injections that were short, sharp and painful.
One night sticks out like a sore bleeding thumb. It was a party at the squash club. I was going out with Hayden Moore. He was the coolest most popular boy in the world, as far as I was concerned. I wanted to show him off to the world. But when he arrived he proceeded to ignore me wholeheartedly. I was humiliated. I knew all my friends would doubt as to whether I was lying about Hayden. Hayden was quite a catch after all.
I began plotting and planning all the ways I could snap Hayden back into wanting me. My obvious choice was to turn to the other thing I was extremely good at. I had started and learned about drugs early on. They didn’t mean much to me. I did not crave them, only used them as a tool to get exactly what I wanted.
I approached Hayden. I told him what I had. That got his attention. He had never done drugs before. I beamed. I rolled a joint and smoked it with Hayden. He wanted another and another. Then he kept drinking.
It had worked. He let me sit on his knee and kiss him in front of everyone. Proof. I felt good.
He suggested we go outside. I followed him behind the squash club, away from the party. It was a beautiful night. Behind the club long grass grew and fell down a tall bank into a small creek.
Hayden pushed me up against the building. He attacked me with kisses. He murmured strange drunken sounds. I felt him grow hard.
Suddenly he lost his balance and fell, taking me with him. He laughed and pushed us down the hill. It was dark at the bottom, strange bushes pushed at my skin. Hayden was working faster now; he was pulling up my shirt and pulling down my pants. I had my period. I had a tampon inside. I did not want sex.
I said I did not want sex. But when I looked up I saw it was not Hayden anymore. He had gone. His body, primal, drunk and mad was now thrusting and huffing above me. I was nameless.
Fear. A cold spanner smashing every inch of my skin.
Abandonment, weakness and fear.
I said no again, loudly this time, with all the drama and force I could muster. The body above me did not stop to hear anything.
I had just enough time to pull my tampon out before Hayden entered me.
I lay stunned and alone. I couldn’t find my shoe. My buttons had been ripped off. I crawled up the hill like a crippled dog. I sat at the edge of the squash club. I heard Hayden’s voice. My head peered around shaking but needing to see. He had Sarah pinned up against the wall now. Kissing wild wet kisses.
I came back into myself in the shower, the next day. My eyes noticed a red river of blood running off my skin into the plughole. I was not shaving and my period had now stopped. I turned my head as far as it would go to stare at my back. Scratches. Five long sheets of red. All with small criss-cross for design.
Detached. How did they get there? A flash of blackberry bush. Lying bare and exposed on the thorns. Skin slicing slowly; pain a distant hallowing sound.
I fainted.
It was Joanna Simons who found me. Sweet kind good Jo. She picked me up, wrapped me in towels and listened to my soiled song. It was Jo who came with me to the 24-hour doctors, a weightless arm around me.
The doctor was a man. Of course. This disturbed me more than I ever would have thought. He looked like every other man I had ever seen and yet was like no other. From an inhuman height he prodded and poked at me. Hard. With cold fingers. He created a silence for me, icebergs in my throat. Yet I let him. He told me I was silly. The chances of me being pregnant during my period were minimal. I was numb, frightened, confused, but silly? No.
I asked for a prescription of the pill. He looked at me then; Dracula, King Kong and Captain Von Trapp, all the men wrapped in one.
“Yes, you sure need one.”
Today those blackberry bushes and Hayden Moore hover in my vision, long thorny fingers. I still find it hard to say no. But I can.
I don’t do anything that I don’t want to. I always take control. I protect myself from getting hurt at all costs. This is not necessarily a good thing. I never fully open up to anyone. Anyone who touches me, in any form, I suspect.
Yet I do live in optimism. I am a well-educated, strong, beautiful and independent woman. I carry with me a warm space, in which I hope.
This work was originally published in the YWCA booklet, Ehara i a Koe Anake - You're Not Alone, and is subject to the copyright conditions of that publication.