There were two Marks. Mark-with-the-brown-hair and Mark-with-the-black-hair. This story is about a particular afternoon in spring when Mark-with-the-black-hair had a direct impact on the course of my life and how he probably hasn’t given a second thought to me since that day when I was very young and very, very insecure.
There was something scary about him, a deviousness in his eyes. But there was something scary about everyone that year. I kept my distance. He was an upperclassman and I was a freshman. I masked my fears and insecurities the way many young girls do, by perfecting my hair, wearing make-up and clothes that made me look older, and by faking confidence. What I lacked in confidence I made up for by being funny. I was the Sidekick – pretty enough to tag along with popular girls who boys were genuinely interested in and always good for a laugh. So when Mark actually spoke to me in the hall that day I was shocked. Before then, he’d only ever stared in a way that made me wonder what I ever did to make him hate me so much. I was late (as usual) for Phys Ed. He was hanging around wasting time, cutting class maybe. I never asked. He needed only extend his hand with a few crumbs of his attention.
When I reached for my books he dangled them high above my head. I laughed. He laughed. I asked for them back. He refused and playfully walked away. I followed. Willingly. Eagerly even. Which is why I never told a soul. Past the girls locker room. Past the boys locker room. Away from class rooms. Around the corner. Up the stairs. To an isolated landing with a locked door presumably to the pool. He teased, “You want them, come get ‘em.” Dizzy from the attention, I sat next to him. My head spun girlie-thoughts, does he really like me, does he want to kiss me, does he want to go out with me, is this why he makes me so uncomfortable when I pass? My new pinstriped jean miniskirt was working. I’d been saving it for a special day – a day when I felt pretty. Indeed flirtations lead to a kiss. But the kiss wasn’t what I’d expected. It was rough, wet, purposeful. I backed off. He leaned forward. My head pushed against the vertical posts of the handrail. At once his hands were everywhere and more, over my shirt, under my shirt, quickly working their way into my skirt with my hands in desperate pursuit. He pushed, I pulled. It was all too fast. I said things like, “Wait, hold on, just a second, wait…” What I didn’t say was Stop. Which is why I never told a soul. I fell back under the weight of his body and suddenly found myself lying flat on the landing with him on top of me. My mind froze. I could feel his erection through our clothes, but I couldn’t think what to do. He broke into fevered thrusts and pants, saying things like, “Please just pull your underwear down, please, just for a second, please, please, come on, just do it.” He fished inside his pants. I was too afraid to look. I blocked him with my hands, my legs, anyway I could and these words I know I did say, “No, no, don’t, please don’t, please no.” When he didn’t respond I finally reached deep enough into myself to utter something definitive: “Stop or I’m going to scream.” In a flash his hand gripped my throat and his eyes bore into me. His jaw pulsed with tension. “If you scream I swear to God I’ll punch you in the fucking face. I swear to God. Go ahead, ” he dared. He was filled with rage and hatred. I held tight to my clothes.
Seconds later his grinding came to an abrupt halt. He stood up, tucked himself in, wiped the sweat from his horrible red face and headed down the stairs. Humiliated, I lowered my head and stared at the sticky substance on my skirt. Panic stole my breath and reason. “But wait,” I cried. “What do I do?” He ignored me. “Please don’t go,” I said. “Look at my skirt. I don’t know what to do.” He stopped and turned around. From the bottom of the stairs he said, “If you ever tell anyone about this I swear to God I’ll kill you.” I believed him. Which is why I never told a soul.
I sat there for a long time crying. I was afraid to touch it. I wanted to throw up. I didn’t have any tissues for my nose, eyes or my skirt. In the end I ripped a page out of a text book, a class I’d later fail because I couldn’t bare the association. I slipped into Phys Ed, the entire front of my skirt soaked and scrubbed. “What did you get your period?” Marianne laughed. It was the last time I went to Phys Ed that year. I failed and made it up in night school. A few months later I got stinking drunk at a cousin’s graduation party and blathered on incoherently about needing someone to beat-up Mark-with-the-black-hair. I puked all over my parents’ bathroom. My father wasn’t home to see it. Each time I saw Mark-with-the-black-hair at school my heart stopped and I broke out in hives. My boyfriend sophomore year noticed and asked about it, but I couldn’t answer no matter how hard I tried. Mark continued to glare at me, but we never spoke again. He forever damaged a piece of me that was at the time innocent and pure. He frightened me with his threats and hateful eyes, but worst of all, he told lies about me – at least I assume they were lies since I can’t imagine he’d brag about what actually took place. I only know that years later that same Marianne asked if what Mark said about him and me by the pool stairs was true. I couldn’t bare to ask what the hell he could have possibly said. All I could do was shout, “No!” and walk away.
Typical of sex crime victims, I slowly found power where power was once taken from me, through sex. I was never the type to sleep around, but I became sexually open, expressive, fearless with my partners until my sexuality was just as much as part of me as the limbs I was born with. I became acutely aware of my surroundings. I avoided walking alone and (save one crazy, death-wishing time) I avoided getting caught in dark, isolated places with strangers. For years I blamed myself (also typical victim behavior). The first time I ever admitted what happened was in a letter to a big-time playwright. Some friends and I were hoping to perform one of his plays in Los Angeles, but we first needed his written permission. He called me and not only granted his permission but urged me to play the lead and insisted I was an important writer who should start writing plays immediately. He stayed on as my mentor long enough to fan the fire in me. My first play got into a short-play festival in Hollywood, my second play was a finalist in the Nantucket One-Act Festival, I wrote a couple of shorts that were performed at Playhouse West, etc., etc. The second time I admitted what happened to me was on stage at Studio One during a fantasy exercise. I held an imaginary gun to the head of Mark-with-the-black-hair and demanded an apology. I imagined he looked as helpless as I’d felt, how he was a big fat nobody after all this time, how far I’d come from the girl he’d once terrorized. I imagined his apology and readied the trigger, but before I could fully draw back I paused, my finger lifted and I set the gun down. Fourteen years had passed, but I cried with the same force and sickness as I did that day on the stairs. Our director stopped the exercise, turned to the class and asked, “What’s good about this, People?”
