How I Became A Slut…Beyond Bullying (mature content)

Okay, you can pick your chin up off the floor now.

I thought long and hard about this title, but there was no way to sugarcoat it, and I didn’t want to.  Sometimes the skeletons we keep in the darkest corners of our closet must be dragged out into the light. It’s only in the light that we can reveal their true ugliness, and watch them vanish into smoke. The story is true, the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

It was the summer of 1975, I was fourteen, and Mom and Dad had been divorced for 5 years. My first step-father (there would be four total), had committed suicide the previous August, and my mother was “there but not there” in my life. I will try to fill in the blanks in another post.

I had been “on my own” for some time. The years of abuse my mother had endured with my father, and the loss of my step-father left her somewhat lax in her parenting role. I went out when I wanted, came home when I wanted, and pushed all the boundaries my mother occasionally tried to put into place.

I had been best friends with “Bee” since we were in grade school. We did everything together, and I spent many weekends at her house. Her mother was very strict as opposed to my “invisible” one, and though we both complained about her mother’s rules, it made me feel safe. There was structure there.

The length of our rule breaking at her house consisted of sitting on the stairs with her brother “M”, waiting to raid the fridge for ice cream once her mother went to bed, and one time climbing out the second story window with that same brother  to go drink a beer in the neighbor’s basement.

These somewhat innocent teen antics led to the awful tale I am about to tell. The first “incident” happened when I was again spending the night with my best friend. We were sent to bed early as usual and Bee was sound asleep next to me. I heard the door to her room open and there was her brother. He asked if I wanted to go raid the fridge. I agreed. He said to let Bee sleep, and we went and sat on the stairs, waiting to hear the sound of their mother’s door close for the night. He finally suggested we wait in his room so we wouldn’t get caught. I can’t remember all the details, just fear, and him pushing my head down near his privates…he was naked. I ran out of the room and crawled back in bed with Bee, my whole body shaking.

I don’t understand to this day why what happened next happened. Maybe it was because I refused his advances, or maybe it was the schizophrenia that would later take over her brother’s mind, but he went and told his girlfriend that I had been the one to come into his room that night, and made advances toward him.

This is where the story starts to sound like fiction…I wish it was.

I was spending the night at Bee’s and we were invited out by “M” and his girlfriend. We went to the apartment they now shared. There was beer, music, and some pot.  Bee and I had never smoked weed before, but didn’t want to seem “lame”, so we toked and sipped slowly on a shared beer. There were two other guys there that night, we’ll call them “D” and “D”.  After we had been there a while, both Bee and I had a pretty good buzz, and it was suggested that we go for a ride with the two “D”s and get some “munchies”. We got in the station wagon, me in front and Bee in back. We drove to the store, got some snacks and headed back to the apartment.

When we pulled up in front of the building Bee got out of the back, and I was just sliding over to the door, when the other “D” got in front, putting me between the two guys. They took off, leaving Bee standing on the sidewalk looking stunned, and me not understanding what was going on. I was really messed up by this time, and don’t remember if I even asked where we were going. I was too intoxicated to be scared, until I saw them pull up the long, dark drive to the grade school.

I remember them fumbling with my clothes, and me trying to push them away. Comments being made about my body parts, hands and fingers…I kept crying and trying to think of a way to get out of the car. I remember thinking that my grandparent’s house was only a five-minute walk away, but what would I tell them? I already felt like it was my fault.

I finally managed a loud enough “No” as I scrambled into the backseat, sobbing and begging them to take me back to Bee’s house. They didn’t take me back to Bee’s, they dropped me off on the sidewalk in front of the apartment we had been in. I started to walk to Bee’s house when her brother came running up to me, asking me if I was “okay”. I don’t recall my response…I was numb. I finally got to Bee’s house. When I walked in I could hear loud voices coming from the kitchen. My mother was standing with Bee’s mom, both hysterical and asking Bee where I was. They both went silent when they saw me. My mother screamed at me, “Where have you been?” I couldn’t answer her, because I couldn’t speak…that is when she crossed the room and slapped me across the face.

I don’t remember any more about that night. I never told anyone except my therapist, until now.

The rumors started about a week later. Whispers, laughter, girls avoiding me in the hall, the word “SLUT” written on my locker and on the restroom walls every day. I had never had intercourse with anyone yet, but I was ruined in that little “Peyton Place” town. I was bullied constantly, on the way to school, on the way home, in school. The school’s response was to clean my locker, and the restroom walls.

I had always been a straight “A” student, now it seemed there was a scarlet “A” was emblazoned on my chest. My grades dropped, I bleached my hair, and I hung out with boys. I had no girl friends. Bee’s mom eventually forbade her to associate with me. I took to pot and alcohol more often, and by that Halloween I was lying on the floor of the bathroom at our apartment, my mother in the next room as a 17-year-old boy took my virginity. I just didn’t care anymore. I quit school the day after I turned 16, but I never got past that reputation. Damn, I’m pretty sure to this day they still talk about me there.

I got pregnant 6 months after I quit school. I went back to school for a month, my belly already showing…I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted to prove them all “right”, or maybe I just wanted to show them I didn’t give a shit anymore.

I just realized this goes well with the daily prompt, Outsiders. That’s an understated word.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/daily-prompt-outside-2/