Editor’s Note: Tracey L. Stinson has taught English as a Second Language and has worked as a tutor at the Page One Writing and Learning Center since 2014. Earlier, she studied journalism at Sam Houston State University in Texas. While completing her journalism degree, she spent the summer of 1990 in New York City as […]

How a tutor met Donald Trump and other notorious people

“Got my own life

I wanna make my own decisions

When it has to do with my life, my life

I wanna be the one in control” 

~Janet Jackson  

 

After several shitty roommates, I ended up with Marcy.  The last shitty roommate used to be a high school friend.  She turned Single White Female after moving into my freshman dorm.  Next thing I know, I’m getting my ass kicked in our suite bathroom over my boyfriend.  Turned out she was obsessed with him (he did warn me) and now I’m sitting down hard in the tub after being pushed into the shower curtain (which also fell on me.)  Thump!  Not really a fair fight–she was twice my size.  Friendship over.  

 

So, I ended up with Marcy from Jasper, TX, one floor up from my old room.  My old room that I had painted Bearkat colors.  The room that I had reserved in my junior year of high school during the college tour.  I was sad that I had to move out.  The R-A said if I complained, I had to leave.  So SWF got my room that I had painted spirit orange and “Columbia” blue.  Not that that was the end of her.  SWF and her minions still harassed me upstairs, in Marcy’s room.  On the white board on our door, they wrote, “Jessie’s a bitch!”  and other assorted insults.  R-A did nothing about that.  So, I persevered and got the last laugh–I wouldn’t drop out of college, I would keep my boyfriend (that was what I told myself every day.)  Inhaling and exhaling…

Marcy had the double room all to herself.  As the only black girl in the dorm, no one wanted to room with her.  She eyed me with suspicion.  “What is this cracker-ass white girl gonna do to me?” her look said.  I just smiled and said, “Hi.”  I was too tired to start anything after my bruising from SWF and her trolls–not that I would.  I grew up in poor neighborhoods in Houston where I was the only white girl–I knew how Marcy felt, like an outsider.

“I have a boyfriend, too,” she told me.  “We’re gonna get married.”  Marcy never spent the night with him, though.  Her mama and daddy wouldn’t like that.  She spent every weekend sleeping in our room.  Our dorm was girls only, so I spent every weekend with my boyfriend, Sam, at his dorm.  It was a pigsty, an all boys dorm.

My mama and daddy didn’t care if I ran off with Sam.  Even better–I’d be someone else’s problem.  We were technically adults anyway:  he was 22 and I was 18.  Believe or not, we haven’t had sex yet.  We just met three months ago at an orientation week party.

I just arrived from Alief-Elsik High School:  Features Editor of my school paper; Alto in my Treble Choir (our senior production was the Music Man and I was Ethel, the Shipoopi Girl;) Academic Decathlon (average student, maybe I represented the creative type.  I really don’t know why they chose me to join them.)

Sam just arrived from Lone Star junior college, and he was an aspiring actor.  He grinned at my rendition of “Pick a Little, Talk a Little.”  It was a hot August night and I was wearing my graduation dress–a peach flower print, sweetheart neckline, full skirt.  I rested my hands in my pockets, holding my dorm I.D.  He looked down at me, all blonde waves, smiles and cleavage.  Then he looked down at my feet, covered in silver flats.  “Dorothy shoes!” he said as he pointed at them.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Dorothy wore ruby slippers, not silver.

Sam’s friend and roommate, Terry, was standing nearby with a tumbler of beer, watching us with interest.  Fran was also there–a cute little Italian dude and their dorm suite mate.  The campus police appeared with flashlights and Terry dropped the beer and ran.  He was underage–19.  The rest of us were old enough or drinking Coke, like me.  A campus cop pulled up his belt with one meaty hand and leaned into my face with a flashlight in the other hand.  I smiled, all blonde waves and cleavage, and showed him my tumbler of Coke.  He moved on.

It was getting late, so Sam offered to walk me home.  At the double doors with the curfew security guard, he waved “goodbye” to me, nonchalant, and turned to walk back to his dorm.  No.  Kiss.  No.  Phone.  Number.  I went back to my orange and blue room, dejected.

The next day, the girls from math class sat down at my lunch table and asked me about him.  “Can you believe it?  No kiss!  Didn’t ask me for my number!” I answered with a frown.  “Maybe he’s shy, Jessie,” said Cathy, her tan skin highlighted with her usual blue eyeshadow and bubble gum pink lipstick.  “Why don’t you ask him for his number?”  “How am I going to do that, Cathy?” I asked her, puzzled.  “Silly.  Go to his dorm room and leave a note with your number,” she rolled her eyes and sighed at me.  “No, I can’t do that–too forward,” I shook my head.  I had never done something like that before.  “Come on, I DARE you!,” Cathy squealed.  “I dare you to do it.  You won’t turn down a dare.”  She was right.  I can’t turn down a dare.  So there I was, at the lunch table, writing this note.  I addressed it to “S” and signed it “J.”  Then with some encouragement, I got up from the table and walked out with the note.

I left it, folded and wedged in his dorm door.  I walked back to my dorm to do homework.  Then the phone on the wall rang.  I jumped up and answered.  “I’m so glad that you left me this note!” Sam’s voice exclaimed in my ear.  “I’ve been thinking about you all day and feeling stupid that I didn’t ask you for your number!”  I leaned against the wall. wrapping the squiggly cord around my fingers, and smiled with delight.  Then I waited for him to speak again.  “What are you doing tonight?”  he finally asked.  “Nothing,” I said coyly.  “Ok, I’ll pick you up at your dorm and we’ll get some food.”

I put on another sundress, navy blue abstract print, and the “Dorothy” shoes.  He called up to my dorm window, throwing pebbles at it.  I came down, through the double doors to the outside, and when I reached him, he took my hand.  We started to walk down the ramp when I slipped.  My feet went out with such force that I saw them in front of me in mid-air.  I cried out, thinking I was going to land hard on my back.  But Sam’s hand in mine pulled me upright and set me down hard on my feet.  He squatted in front of me.  We were breathless for a moment and stared at each other.  Then we both burst into spontaneous laughter so hardy that we leaned on each other.  He recovered his composure, then with his hand still holding mine, he pulled me up to standing, and said, “Come on.”

We ended up at Wendy’s for burgers, fries and Cokes.  I watched him eat with relish.  One hand crammed the burger in his mouth; the other pivoting from the elbow, hovered in an half-closed position above the table.  I then noticed his outfit–bumble bee yellow-and-black stripes tucked into grey jeans and grey oxford shoes.  Bold choice.  I watched his face as he talked with a mouth full of burger.  His curly black hair hung over hazel eyes.  Unexceptional bone structure.  Not really handsome, but it was a face that could grow on me.  His personality was charming, engaging and humorous–that was his hook.

So, the next weekend, we pretty much repeated the same:  fast food dinners and lots of talking to get to know each other.  Well, mostly him talking and me listening.  And the weekend after that added on the invitation to spend the night at his dorm for the rest of the weekend.  I told Marcy where I was going as I packed a small overnight duffel.  The wall phone rang.  Sam said he was leaving his dorm and could I meet him on the Mall.  I walked out of my dorm and walked up the hill to the Mall.  I waited there until he appeared from around the corner.  Then he would take my hand and we would walk back to his dorm.

We were not having sex in the first couple of months.  We just spent the weekend, kinda like an established couple in college.  We would do homework, hang out talking, get dressed for dinner out somewhere cheap, watch the Astros or Oilers or the Rockets play on TV.  We would talk about his upcoming auditions and he would practice reading lines to me.  That was my favorite–I got so emotional, watching him work through his character.  Then we would go to sleep, spooning.  I had never spooned with anyone before Sam.  He showed me how–I was clueless.  “Come here,” he gestured with his hand.  “Lay down on your side.”  Then he slid into his twin bed, and molded himself behind me, draping his arm over me.  I felt at ease with him then.  I trusted him as I had never trusted anyone before.

 

 

 

 

 

“I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”

That was a lie.  It made me sound like I was experienced and sophisticated.  I wasn’t.  My only experience before Sam was non-consensual.

There was the time in high school.  He was an artistic type.  All the girls gushed and giggled around him.  He was a cross between Prince and Adam Ant, and he was the biggest slut in school.  It was a senior party–he offered to drive me home.  Instead, it was his home.  I remember being undressed.  I remember being laid down on his bed.  I remember Christmas lights strung in patterns on the ceiling over our heads.  I remember hot liquid pouring out of me afterwards.  Then I remember being given a glass of water, getting dressed and being escorted out of his house before his mother woke up.  It was a seduction, and I was left with chlamydia.

There was another time before that–two years earlier.  He was my boss at my first summer job.  He was an adult in college, and I admired him.  He offered to drive me home, and I trusted him.  I even liked it when he kissed me; I was a foolish young girl.  But then he forced himself on me while we were still in his truck, parked in front of my home.  This wasn’t a seduction–it was violent and terrifying.  He ignored my screams; he pinned me down.  Then he deposited me outside his truck in front of my apartment.  Mama was sleeping upstairs.  I ran inside, got in the shower, and couldn’t get clean.  Mama cried when I told her.  My doctor lectured me as I was given a pregnancy test–it was positive.  I endured the abortion counseling before the miscarriage relieved me of my burden.  I was raped, but no one believed me because I had a crush on him.  I quit my job out of shame; then, I climbed inside a shell until college.

There was another time before that–when I was 12.  Mama got into another drug-and-alcohol-fueled fight with her psychotic boyfriend.  She came to sleep it off in my room with me.  I woke up to him finger-fucking me.  He called me by her name, Mama’s name.  I grabbed his hand, trying to get it out of my panties.  I writhed and squirmed, trying to get away from him, but he was too big and strong for me to fight off.  He eventually gave up and passed out on the floor next to my bed.  Mama was also passed out, on the other side of me.  I climbed out of my bed, over the unconscious bodies of grown ups, and ran into another part of the house.  I hid behind some furniture and fell asleep.  Later, when I told her that I was molested by her boyfriend, she squeezed her eyes shut and screamed at me, “It never happened!”

There was another time before that–when I was three.  Mama and her sister left me alone with their boyfriends.  I have a recurring nightmare of one of them jerking off over me while the other one watched.  After years of having this dream and screaming until I wake up, I asked Mama if it was true.  “The doctors said you would never remember,” she sighed, half-asleep herself.  “You were treated for gonorrhea.  Don’t worry, I took care of them.”  She never really told me how.  But I still have that nightmare.

          ********

“I haven’t been with anyone in a while,” I said to Sam.  I knew what was about to happen–I was ready this time.  I was 18; I was a woman.  Even though I lied to him, I was ready.

 

 

My greatest fear came true three years ago:  when the world of men preferred a criminal thug over a capable, experienced woman beloved around the world.  I was cynical that humans had evolved enough to make room for someone that didn’t look, think or act just like them.  Sadly, I was proven right.

We are taught as women to care for men, to entertain men, to serve them.  Religion tells us that and as an extension, so does culture.  When women started working, men rebelled.  Women were only allowed to serve men in the workplace as secretaries, teachers, nurses.  And these women were the playthings of men.  Supposedly adult men would chase women around the office like a child chases a dog’s tail.  When the tail is captured, it gets pulled, the dog yelps or bites.  When the women gets captured, she has to either placate the man, or confront him which leads to being fired or forced to quit the workplace.

When women got tired of serving men, we started to work beside them.  Our hope was that we would be treated fairly and equally.  That never happened.  Men fool themselves into believing that women are treated the same, but any woman will tell you a different story.  Women, in their jobs, are told they are to love their job, that it is a calling.  This “woman’s work” is love, a calling–code for low pay or no pay.  The mother toils all day for no pay, not even gratitude.  So does the wife.  So does the secretary, teacher, nurse.  “It’s a calling, you love what you do,” we’re told by men.  But what they really mean is “you’re low paid or not paid because you’re not respected.”

In a man’s world, where we all live in reality, money equals respect.  When a woman works beside a man, she deserves respect.  That means the same pay.  But  it doesn’t happen.  Even in 2019.  Even with the two-time winners of the World’s Cup.  The U.S. women have won consecutive World Cups and four championships in total.  Their viewership is higher than the men’s World Cup which means the ad revenue is higher.  Women are winning more and bringing in more money.  Does that mean more respect?  No, it does not.

The U.S. women’s soccer gets paid 25% of what the U.S. men get paid.  The worldwide pay is even worse.  The World Cup pays the winning women’s team only 10% of what it pays the men’s winning team.

Think about that.  The U.S. women’s team has won four World Cups (two consecutive Cups,) and brings in better viewership and more ad revenue than the men.  But gets paid only 25% in U.S. games and only 10% in FIFA games of what the men get paid.

When the U.S. women won their second World Cup this week in France, the crowd chanted, “Equal pay!  Equal pay!”  The U.S. women are currently suing for equal pay.  FIFA is considering it, but the increase is pathetically low and nowhere near equal.

Again, the world of men, or patriarchy, is telling women we are not respected.  We love what we do, so we don’t deserve an equal and fair wage.  But wait a minute!  Don’t the men love what they do?  Instead of playing soccer, they could be working on Wall Street or digging ditches.  But they play soccer because they love what they do.  They do what they love for a living and they make obscene amounts of money doing it.  And they are shown respect by their pay and the attitude of their critics and fans.  The female coach, Jill Ellis, of the women’s U.S. team has gotten ridiculous criticism for the way she has shaken up the team which has lead to two consecutive World Cups.  But instead of praise, she is criticized for every little step and misstep she has taken to get them there.  Also, the women on the team have been called “arrogant” and “disrespectful” for being proud of their win.  This is another example of a double standard.  Men in sports can call out their opponents, challenge them, belittle them, grab their crotches, be all manner of crudeness–but that’s okay because they’re men.  The women make playful but harmless jokes and they are called out by the men, using coded words that mean they aren’t being “ladies.”  Stay in line, ladies, don’t forget to fold your hands in your lap when you sit–and sit with your legs together.  Don’t act confident and tough, that’s only for men.  Ladies, you have to be demure, meek and delicate–while you are playing sports!

This double standard, and the lack of equal pay are trying to keep women from joining the sport that men have dominated for centuries.  A sport that men have enjoyed while women watched from the sidelines.  A sport that women weren’t allowed to join until we sued and got the U.S. Supreme Court to enact Title IX which allowed girls to join sports programs in schools.  This happened in the 1970’s.  It’s only been 40-some years that girls and women have been allowed to join sporting programs by law.  Men have spent generations enjoying the freedom to play sports and do work that they love–and get paid well doing it!  They take for granted their freedom.  But they certainly show their disdain for sharing that freedom with women.  By making double standard comments and allowing double standard treatment of women.  By allowing women to be paid 1/10 of what men get paid even though women are doing a better job of it.  By ignoring the fact of women’s unpaid labor to continue every day around the world.

Men will not stop the slow march of change.  They may set it back a few years by putting a criminal and a bully in charge.  They may slow it down by delaying lawsuits to be settled.  But patriarchal men will not stop the twinkle in a little girl’s eye when she’s set a goal to be the next Rapinoe. Or Williams.  Or Clinton.

 

 

At my first job, I overheard my coworkers talking about a proposition from their boss:  sleep with me and I’ll give you a raise.  We were disgusted because he was old, ugly and married with kids.  We were children, too, and we didn’t yet understand how horrific it was that a grown-up could abuse his power like that.  But after that break room conversation, I didn’t get off so easy with just a proposition–I was assaulted twice by other supervisors at the same job.  I didn’t report it to the company.  I told my parents and a couple of close friends–I was shamed iinstead of supported.  So I moved on and tried to be “normal.”

Harrassment continued at many jobs, but took different forms.  I was talked down to, talked over.  My ideas were stolen and reproduced as theirs.  My every move was questioned–theirs wasn’t.  I was passed over for projects I asked for and they were given to “someone better.”  I was excluded from meetings and heard about them afterwards.  I was paid less money.  I was threatened with firing.  I was forced to quit because they didn’t like me–I didn’t fit in, I wasn’t one of them.  I left again and again in silence and didn’t complain.

I leave every shelter and walk into the night on guard.  I put my keys between my fingers, edges sticking out, Wolverine-style.  I walk quickly, looking over my shoulder and wary of anyone coming towards me.  I often cross the street with a purpose, so I don’t look weak.

Home isn’t safe either.  As a child, I’ve been abused by my parents, and their friends.  As an adult, I’ve been abused by my spouse.  No one protected me.  No one intervened.  No one seemed to care–they had their own problems; it wasn’t their business.  I considered suicide.  I considered several self-abuse options.  Now, I’m a broken thing, held together with tape and glue and spit.

Listen to me, don’t just wait to speak.  Look at me–my face, not my body parts.  See me and hear me and try to understand.  If you don’t understand, then just be kind and respectful like we were all taught in kindergarten.  Don’t ignore me or shove past me because I’m quiet, hesistant and thoughtful.  Don’t make me shout to be heard.  Don’t judge me because I’m not like you.  Every day, it’s a fight for me to get up and find a purpose.  Every day, I have to fight against the powers that keep me from being what I am meant to be.  For many of us, daily life is not a game, but a horror show.

 

I was in bed.  The rain was pattering lightly on the window.  One eye, opening to a tiny slit, looked up at a gray day outside.  The rain and the gray day was fine with me–the tiny slit closed.  I was in bed with him.  We had fallen asleep and his shifting had woken me up.  His head was now on the space below my belly button.  He lifted his head to brush his face lightly against it.  “Do you know how soft this is?”  he murmured against me.  “Here, give me your hand.”  He took my hand from my side and placed it there.  “Feel that.”  It was soft–I was faintly surprised.  I had never felt it before in this way.  It felt soft, like a baby’s cheek, like a hide of rabbit skin.

His hand traced from my belly button to my mound.  He buried his face and breathed in.  I could feel his smile against my skin.  My own eyes were too lazy to open; they stayed closed against the rain, against his smile.  But I returned his smile with my own–it slowly curled up on my close-eyed laziness.

Morrissey’s “Suedehead” played on the stereo this lazy Sunday:  “Why do you come here, when you know it makes things hard for me when you know?  Oh, why do you come?”

We had fallen asleep after coupling.  When I woke, I was surprised that he had fallen asleep–inside me.  He was next to me, sleeping face facing mine, breathing deeply in dreamland, his hand cupping my breast.  Then he had shifted and had fallen out.  What an odd sensation–that feeling, like a limp glove, or maybe a sock puppet, slipping out of me and flopping onto the bed.  Thump.

Then in his drowsiness, he had rolled away from me and became aware of me.  His matted head lifted, checked his surroundings, rolled back towards me and ended up where he was at the moment–face planted against my treasure trail.  He was trying to get a response from me, but it was no good.  It was lazy Sunday and I wasn’t budging.  It was getting darker in his bedroom and I was in no mood to be disturbed.

“Do you know I could pick you out of a line-up?  You know, like the police line-up?”  No response.  Lazy Sunday.  He pushed apart my thighs and nipped at my lips with his own.  “This.”  Nip.  “I know this by heart, by memory.”  Nip, tug.  “I know you so well, I could pick you out of a police line-up.”  This got my attention.  One sleepy eye opened and looked down at him.  He was like a little boy in a candy shop, matted head smiling up at me from the hooha counter.  A hand came up from its resting place on my hip and pointed at his selection.  “This–” he parted me slightly, “you have a split lip here.  The inner lips split into another set.”

I’ve never had anyone be so intimate with me.  I’ve never had anyone say something like that.  Boys before him had gotten in and out like they were on a commando raid.  Not this guy–he set up camp and was happy to get to know the terrain.

Both of my lazy eyes shot open, I rose up on my elbows and looked down at him, fully.  “What?” was all I could muster.  The pointing finger traced me lightly, tracing what he had just described.  “This.  This is different.”  From my treasure trail to the soft skin above the mound, then fingers gently parting me and tracing the inner lips, one split into an extra fold.  “This is you.  Nothing else like it.  No one else like you.  Different.”  He breathed me in fully.  “You smell…tangy.  You smell like…T-mint.”

Oh geez, a nickname.  We’ve reached the point in our relationship where we were intimate enough for body part nicknames.  That got an eye roll from me, but also a full body stretch and a full, lazy smile.  My arms stretched above my head and then propped it up so I could look down at him properly.  I didn’t want to interrupt this “different” attention with some clumsy comeback.  I just let him appreciate me on full display without my usual self-consciousness.  The bedspread fell away from my breasts when I stretched and it was pushed fully to one side of us.  I noticed my black lace panties and bra–the set I had ordered from that fancy VS catalog to impress him.  He never noticed them.  They were taken off me quickly during our coupling and forgotten in the bedclothes.  My skin, naked and exposed to the darkening room, tingled with the sound of the rain and his touch.  He was playfully fluffing me like a pillow and had laid his head down on my softness saying, “I could stay here all day.  Let’s order takeout.”

As I contemplated that, I came to an agreement:  it sounded good to me.  Lazy Sunday.  Morrissey.  Bed.  Chinese takeout.  Rain.  Darkness.  Sleep.

I lay on the floor spread-eagle.  I was naked and blindfolded.  I wasn’t afraid–I was exhilarated.  I asked him to do it.  He reluctantly complied.  It was both our first times.

My ankles were fastened to legs on the bed and table opposite it by his neckties.  They were my favorite ties that he wore when he took me out for fancy dinners.  I think he meant to do that–remind that I was his prize, his gift.

My wrists were also tied together with a tie above my head.  He asked me tentatively, “Are you ready?”  I breathed, “Yes,” wiggling in my restraints in anticipation.  My heart was pounding in my ears–I couldn’t hear anything else but myself, my heart, my blood coursing through my veins.

I felt something brush lightly over my breasts.  A feather?  Yes, that’s what it was.  Then the smooth back of something that I didn’t recognize as a brush until its bristles were gently stroking my thighs.  He was silent.  I didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling at that moment.  I writhed with tingles all through my body with the sensation of strokes from the brush bristles.

I saw a shadow passing across my blindfold.  He was standing over me in the light above me, his eyes lingering over his favorite parts of my nakedness.  He spoke:  “You’re beautiful.”  He was breathless too.  His voice thrilled me to my core.

A confident hand, a piano player’s hand with delicate, languid fingers cupped my breast with authority.  Then he squeezed and I felt both of my breasts in his hands.  One hand left me.  I thought I heard the tinkling of ice in a glass being shaken close to my head.  He was enjoying this now.  He was no longer tentative.  His hand returned to my breast but was replaced by the shock of cold, wet and smooth–an ice cube.  The ice cube circled my nipple and rivulets of water dripped down my ribs.  Then the cube went to my mouth.  I sucked on it and then on his fingers.  I heard him moan and felt him tense in my mouth.

His hands–one cold and wet, one warm and sweaty–stroked the insides of my thighs.  The separate sensations caused me to strain against my restraints.  As I strained, the rug underneath my back abraded me–I didn’t care.  I wanted badly to free myself from the ties and push my body into his hands.  I heard the a/c kick on.  The cold didn’t affect me–my skin was on fire.  I guessed he was kneeling between my thighs now.  I wiggled from side to side, so my thighs met his hands and rubbed against him.  It thrilled us both–I knew it.  I felt so comfortable with him, I trusted him even though I was trussed up, spread-eagle.  I didn’t think at all that I was completely naked on the floor and tied up.  I was consumed with desire and not being able to move or see intensified that feeling.

His hands flattened against my belly and they moved together, rising up and down with my ragged breathing.  “What do you want me to do to you, Jess?”  Through measured breathing, my voice husky with emotion, I answered, “I want you…inside me.  NOW.”

I heard his clothes come off quickly and drop to the floor.  Then I felt his warm weight on top of me.  He kissed me hard on the mouth.  He grabbed my hips with both hands and plunged into me.  I gasped out with relief.  He started rhythmically, then picked up his pace.  He was breathing hard into my ear.  I turned my head to kiss his neck.  He began to ride me hard, my restraints chafing my wrists and ankles, the rug chafing my backside.

I loved every painful sensation–every moment of it was exquisite.  I tried to move with him despite the restraining ties.  I cried out with laughter at the thrill of it.  He didn’t respond in kind.  He was gone from me–deep in the moment, grunting with every thrust like an animal, lifting my hips off the floor with every deep thrust.

We quickly got slick with sweat as our passions rose and met.  I could feel him getting close and my body responded.  I met him and we came together, grunting and crying out in unison with the thrusts.  My mind and body exploded and my heart burst.

My orgasm was so intense, I thought my body would shatter into a million pieces.  I tilted my head back and shook the rafters of his bedroom with my cries.  He had called me “Lassie” before to tease me about my good lungs, but I didn’t care anymore.  His fingers dug in deeper into my flesh as he cried out too and collapsed on me.  I couldn’t see him, but I knew the look on his face during his orgasm.  His eyes would roll back in his head and then his head would collapse on my chest like someone knocked him unconscious.  I giggled at the vision.  He was breathing heavily by my ear, “What?”

He pulled back my blindfold and loosened my restraints the best he could while still inside me.  I pantomimed him during his orgasm.

“Oh yeah?” he smirked.  “Well, this is you.”  He rolled on his back next to me.  I rubbed my wrists as he demonstrated.  He rolled his head from side to side, calling out, “Ooo!  Ooo!  Ooo!” in a high-pitched voice that was supposed to sound like me.  I stopped rubbing my wrists so I could slap him on his chest.  “Ooof!” he gasped and then grinned at me.  “You know it’s true, love.”

Then he sat up, untied my ankles, neglecting my wrists and rolled me on top of him, burying his face in my curtains of hair and planting kisses all over my face as I giggled.

“Wanna take a shower?” he asked.  I nodded.  He had to help me up off the floor–I was stiff and slow to move.  We climbed into the shower and soaped each other.  On Earth Day, we had pledged to save water after all.  He kissed me under the warm stream, rinsed me off and then gave me the look.  He was ready to go again.  So we sank to the bottom of the tub…and I was punished by the porcelain under me and the warm, slick body above me.

I am a proud feminist raised by another proud feminist.  That doesn’t mean I hate men–I love men.  They are my brothers, my lovers, my colleagues and my friends.  I think they’re funny, smart, confounding and fascinating.  But they also do a lot of stupid shit like using women for their own selfish reasons.  Still, I don’t think every man should burn on a pyre for making a sexist joke or slapping a woman on the ass at work.

Let’s be straight here– I don’t use the phrase “witch hunt” lightly.  Knowing my feminist history, researchers have estimated that millions of women have been burned, drowned or otherwise tortured and murdered over the centuries under the accusation of witchcraft.  Most of these women wouldn’t know a witch if it hit them in the head with a  broomstick.  These women were accused because they didn’t follow societal norms of the day.  They spoke out at injustice, they questioned authority, they practiced medicine.  They didn’t stay in their place–they didn’t conform to the idea that a woman’s only purpose was to get married, have babies and keep their mouths shut.   Up until recently (our mothers’ generation,) women weren’t allowed to own property, have their own money or control their bodies.  And there are plenty of places around the world where they still can’t.

Women are angry now and have every right to be.  We continue to be underrepresented in government, business and media.  We represent over 50% of the U.S. population, but only have 20% of the power in these power structures.  We do not have an equal voice at the table with men.  We are pathetically falling behind the rest of the world (which we often think we’re superior to) in our representation and our so-called progressivism.  This is where our outrage has failed us and has led to an unfair witch hunt.

Harvey Weinstein has been one of the biggest players in Hollywood for over 20 years.  He ruled over the careers of many young women (and men) during that time.  He has been accused by dozens of women of threats and predatory behavior.  He is married to one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, Georgina Chapman, who is also an intelligent, powerful and talented fashion designer.  But that wasn’t not enough to satisfy him and keep his bathrobe shut–or maybe his lovely wife was his cover to lull his victims into a false sense of security so he could continue his crimes.  Weinstein was a well-known “secret” in Hollywood.  Jokes were made about his sexual harassment on TV awards shows.  His power and his success–and white male entitlement–made him immune to accusations and prosecution.  One of his victims even wore a wire, went back into the lion’s den and got him to admit to his guilt on tape for police.  Weinstein was still not prosecuted.

On inauguration day, we woke up to a country that had turned back the clock to 1950.  We channeled our outrage and marched in record numbers against the country’s biggest predator, Donald Trump.  He has bragged over and over about going after underage girls and women weaker than him.  He has been accused by over 20 women of rape, including his ex-wife, the mother of three of his children.  He has been sued three times by the same victim who accuses him of rape when she was 13 years old.  She has dropped the lawsuit because of death threats.

We cannot go after the biggest predator in the U.S., so we are going after the low-level offenders.  It has been speculated that Weinstein’s head is now in a noose because he isn’t as powerful as he once was.  Caught up in the hysteria of sexual titillation, we have lost nuance and perspective.  We want them all to burn–but not everyone should.  Shades of gray are being overlooked.  There is a big difference between a powerful predator threatening a weaker woman’s life, career or reputation and a stupid man making an inappropriate joke or grope of a coworker.

Senator Al Franken should not have to resign for being photographed while pointing at a woman’s breasts.  Actor Kevin Spacey shouldn’t be recast in a film or lose his TV show because he made unwanted advances towards another man at a party.  Comedian Louis C.K. definitely needs psychiatric help for exposing himself to female colleagues at work meetings, but I don’t believe it’s at the same level as what Weinstein did over his decades in power.  Comedians Aziz Ansari, Garrison Keillor and many other men in the media are being raked over the coals for inappropriate behavior.  We may not like them or we may think they deserve it, but as a feminist, a progressive, and a victim of this behavior, I think we have gone too far in our witch hunt.

We are not serving the movement properly by throwing our own on the pyre.  The Democrats in Congress have made an astonishing misstep in thinking that if they sacrifice their best, the Republicans will do the same.  It will never happen.  They are dancing in the streets that Franken, who is a powerful voice for the underdog, has given up quietly.  These unrecognizable Republicans, who sold out their morality, ethics and patriotism by getting into bed with Putin to win an election, couldn’t care less about sexual harassment.  It’s not a cause that will line their pockets, so why bother?  The only ones who suffer are the underdogs who will lose a champion like Franken.

I  don’t dismiss or ignore the suffering of the women under these men.  Like them, I am a victim of sexual predation because I am a woman who works and lives around men.  I am a part of #Me Too and #Times Up–most women I know are.  I have been in the workforce for 30 years, which means I have been sexually harassed, propositioned and inappropriately groped at just about every job I’ve had.  Still, there is a difference between being offered a raise if I sleep with the boss or threatened with firing if I don’t (sexual harassment) and propositioned by a coworker or slapped on the ass and told I look cute in a skirt (inappropriate, but not on the same level!)  We need to take a step back and realize the difference before we ruin more men’s lives.  This is not justice, this is more like revenge.  We cannot go after them they same way they go after us.  We have to be bigger than that.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean being a Feminazi or a Maneater.  We’re supposed to be grownups here, so let’s not name call.  Being called a feminist should not be the same as being called a dirty word.  Being a feminist just means that I want the same opportunities that men have been entitled to and have taken for granted for centuries.  Maybe men are afraid of the competition of women or maybe they are afraid that we will become the aggressor like they have been.  Let’s make this clear:  we don’t want to emulate men by becoming the aggressor once we are finally given a right to the power that men have enjoyed.  I don’t believe the oppressed has to become the oppressor.  As a woman still fighting for a place at the table of men, I don’t want to barbecue them for dinner.  I want to share the bounty with them.

 

 

 

 

 

The grief is palpable.

It smells like chocolate.  It tastes like cigarettes.  It looks like a wedding ring.

It threatens to overwhelm me, consume me.  I can’t breathe.

It is love, hate, lust.  An orgasm…shuttering through me.  I can’t breathe.

It is a smile with languid eyes–when you used to smile.

It is an angry voice shouting at me and then a shattered voice apologizing.

The grief is an “I love you” that is heartfelt and deep with desire.  It is the feeling of you inside me, on me, all around me.

It is your rough hands stroking my skin, your husky voice telling me how soft I feel to you.

It is your rough hands shaking me until I bruise under them.  Your enraged voice hurtling insults at me.

Grief is me pulling away from you.  It is my tears and your tears.  It is my fear and your bitterness.  It is utter devastation that never, ever goes away.

It is loss.

 

Why do I feel like I have survivor’s guilt? It’s not like you’re dead—as far as I know—but you are dead to me.

I had to get out. I didn’t have the resources to help you and you wouldn’t help yourself. Everything is my fault…my fault…my fault. Always my fault, never yours.

I did my share of sabotage—but only at the end. I knew it was the end. There was just tears—and fear. I was afraid of you. I’ve known you most of my life (30 years.)  I was your best friend, but at the end, you told your parents that you didn’t like me as a person. I was afraid of you. I couldn’t sleep in peace. There was no peace at breakfast. No peace in taking a shower. No peace ever, around you.

I was too fat. Too ugly. Too stupid. A Bitch. A Whore. A Cunt. I couldn’t get through a week where I didn’t hear those insults. I know. I counted the days—I never got to seven.

You sucked the joy out of every room you entered. And then you started sucking my energy. You became my incubus—sucking the life out of me until I was mostly a crinkled, collapsed shell.

You pleaded with me not to leave you, but you gave me no reason to stay. Your pleas felt like a downward spiral that was slowly killing me, like suction in a drain, circling a dark, dank black hole towards my doom. Sucked into the drain, I had no legs left–I was crippled; I couldn’t support my own weight until I had to become a separate person from you.  You told me that what I did made you not want to go on. But I will go on, I have no choice. You turned your family against me–you left me a long time ago with your betrayal. So, why do I have guilt? But I do. I do. I do.

I had to get out. I couldn’t help you. I knew you were sick, but it became about survival. It was you or me. I have survivor’s guilt.  “You did everything you could.  There is nothing for you to feel guilty about.  You stayed a lot longer than you should’ve.”  That was supposed to make me feel better–but it didn’t.

*****************************************************************************************************   

I have survivor’s guilt. I couldn’t save you. You were so sick, you were wasting away in front of me. I didn’t have the resources to help you. Nothing was working. I have survivor’s guilt because I couldn’t afford to save you.

I know you loved me. I hope you know I loved you. I cared for you for 12 years. I saved you in the beginning and gave you a happy home, but it still crushed me to have to kill you. I have so much guilt about having to end your life.

“It was for the best. You can’t save him. You put him out of his suffering.” That was supposed to comfort me, to relieve my suffering. But I still have survivor’s guilt. It was you or me. You or me. You or me. I have to survive with my guilt.