“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.

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“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.