Returning Injury (7 page)

Roy didn’t look like the smoking type, yet he seemed very comfortable with the cigarette between his fingers. “I don’t smoke much. I bummed it from the guy at the door. And the matches.”

Rebecca grabbed his arm and stopped him in the middle of the parking lot. “I can French inhale.”

“No, you can’t. You don’t smoke.”

“I know. But I can French inhale.”

“Let’s see.” He handed her the lit cigarette.

As she took a puff, he stood in front of her, facing her. She figured it was to get a good look, but just as she started to push the smoke from her mouth and breathe it into her nose, Roy bent to kiss her. Rebecca started coughing like she always did while attempting her smoking stunt, so the kiss barely happened. She was glad she coughed. On the drive home, she wondered how she could avoid the good-night kiss or even his attempts to come inside.

On the other hand, she thought about how nice it would be to get a little loving. She had a slight buzz and Roy smelled good and looked even better. It had been a while, and he was attractive, took care of himself, and had a touch of bad boy in him. She was sure the sex would be good. But her boss would know all about her sexually; it seemed Roy kept telling him stories about her. She couldn’t imagine anything long term with Roy. Too messy, she decided.

Men seemed to think women were so lucky when it came to sex and men. It wasn’t that simple, even though Rebecca wished it were. When she was younger, she sometimes wanted a one-night stand, but she always had to weigh the situation. Too many times she thought she was having a fling only later to discover she had unknowingly entered into a relationship. She had also had experiences where once a man had sex with her, he suddenly felt he owned her. Rebecca feared Roy would feel like that because they had already spent a fair amount of time together.

They sat in the car and talked briefly. Rebecca said she was tired and had to get up early. She also decided to flatter him so he wouldn’t feel the need to walk her to the door. “Will you do me a
big favor? Will you stay here and watch me until I get inside my apartment? It’s late and dark.”

“Let me walk you in.”

“No, its fine, but please stay until I get in. You’ll see my light.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Handshake? No. Kiss on the check? No. Hug? No. So she did nothing but thanked him and got out of the car. She turned back, smiled and waved.

She was glad that they’d taken turns paying on their dates. Her dates with Roy had been strange—one date, she liked him; the next date, she didn’t. It felt like she was dating twins: one nice and one evil. She would call him in a couple days and tell him it wasn’t going to work out, but she would like to stay friends. She hated that she was afraid to tell him that she was not interested. She hated that she felt weak and strangely scared to tell him the truth.

About a week and a half after she told him that they were better off as friends, he moved into the apartment next to hers.

Rebecca started attending a women’s group to help empower women and teach basic skills that women had forgotten or never learned, like boundaries, communication, definitions of abuse and how to set and achieve goals. The other women who attended the group had boyfriends or husbands who hated that they attended such a course. She figured the guys were fearful of losing the women they had trained so well, and she learned from these women that they wanted out but were afraid and didn’t know how to get out.

One woman, Mary, said that her plan was to tell her boyfriend that she needed a break to re-evaluate the relationship and she needed him to stop coming over. She wasn’t breaking things off
entirely; maybe they could date and see how it went. Of course, this was not something she learned in the group—this was passive—but she felt it was the safest and easiest way to get the ball rolling. Mary didn’t know why she was afraid of him. He had never hit her or scared her in any way, but she was still afraid.

After Mary told him she needed a break, she spent three days in the hospital.

When Mary, still bruised, came back to the group meeting and shared her story, Rebecca made the decision to start seeing a counselor. Her counselor was one of the women who taught the course.

What bothered Rebecca most was that Mary feared this man, but there was nothing that could be done. There was no evidence or proof that he would hurt her. He had never hurt her in the past, so she would not have been able to get a restraining order for protection. A judge wouldn’t have signed it. This was a scary thought. She wondered why a person couldn’t just say I’m scared and I want protection, period. If he was normal and didn’t do anything, fine, but if he did try to hurt her, she would have better protection or maybe it would deter him from doing something to her in the first place.

Rebecca kept trying to deny the reasons why Roy moved in next to her. She didn’t want to believe he was crazy or a borderline stalker, but she could tell he kept an eye on her. He always seemed to be in the hall when she was coming or going. He would show up in the laundry room with laundry while she was doing her laundry. Her counselor became afraid for her and told her to start documenting everything that didn’t feel right. So Rebecca bought a
journal and started doing just that. She wrote in her journal every night, not only about Roy, but about what she was learning about herself. Between counseling, the women’s group and journaling, she was starting to get a better understanding about the person she was and the person she wanted to be.

Her choice of men was not healthy; therefore, Rebecca was not healthy. Her job was not her dream, and she hadn’t tried to do anything about it; therefore, she was discouraged. She also recognized that she had spent money foolishly while Roy was in her life. She had started shopping more and buying things she didn’t need. Although she and Roy took turns paying for the dates, she usually spent more than she should have. She could no longer pay the entire balance on her credit cards at the end of the month. She was beginning to understand that her spending was directly related to being frustrated about her life and about dating Roy.

Work was also becoming more stressful. Ed was suddenly under the impression that Rebecca was a nymphomaniac, and he began making passes at her. She knew she had Roy to thank for that.

Rebecca also started having panic attacks. She didn’t know if it was because she was afraid of Roy or because she was finally facing herself and all the mistakes she had made.

One night she came home from work and her panic attack was so severe that she grabbed her cordless phone and laid it on her chest and waited. She didn’t know if she should call for an ambulance to come and get her. She knew it couldn’t be good for her heart to pound like that for a solid hour. She turned on the TV for a distraction. Ellen was doing standup on Lifetime and Rebecca found
herself laughing out loud. She wasn’t sure when her heart stopped racing, but Ellen was the perfect diversion.

Rebecca continued with the group, and with her counseling, journaling and her own self-help ritual of reading self-help books from the library. After learning better communication skills from the group, Rebecca decided to confront her boss.

“I know our relationship has changed because I dated one of your best friends. I’m sorry, and I take responsibility for that mistake. But because of that, lines have been crossed and we’ve become more like friends than like a relationship between a boss and his assistant. I’d like to continue working with you, Ed, but I will no longer tolerate your inappropriate remarks and gestures. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with your friend, but I don’t want that to affect our work relationship. I’m under the impression that Roy has said things to you that makes you feel you can mistreat me. If these comments continue, I will report you to your boss. Can I continue working as your assistant and receive the respect you used to give me?”

Rebecca’s boss agreed that they could continue working together and the comments would stop. And that was all that was said. Her work life improved, but her home life got worse.

One morning around three, Rebecca woke to a scraping sound coming from her kitchen. She turned on her light and the sound stopped. She knew that her kitchen wall was also Roy’s kitchen wall. She turned the light off and loudly went back to her bedroom and closed the door. Rebecca stood in the hall for a minute before tiptoeing back into the kitchen. She sat on the floor and waited. After about five minutes the scraping sound started back up. She
listened closely trying to figure out exactly where it was coming from.

What had led her to this point in her life, sitting on the cold linoleum floor in her kitchen wearing a t-shirt and panties, listening to see if some freaky guy was trying to come though the wall?

She quietly slid her body closer to the pantry and tried to peek under the door. She thought she could see movement. “Shit! Maybe I have a mouse,” she whispered to herself. She flung open the door with every intention of looking at the floor for a mouse, but there was light coming from the wall and Rebecca made eye contact with Roy.

“I’m calling the cops!” Rebecca yelled and slammed the pantry door closed. She dialed 9-1-1.

When the police arrived, Roy was gone and there was nothing in the apartment other than a mattress on the floor. Rebecca wondered if he merely rented the place so he could spy on her. Rebecca’s counselor helped her fill out the forms for a restraining order against Roy. But, the judge denied the order.

Rebecca was disappointed, but she was okay. The landlord didn’t want to get involved and didn’t press charges against Roy for damaging the wall, which added to her disappointment and feelings of being all alone. Rebecca felt certain that she would never see Roy again, which helped her move on with her life.

Several weeks passed, and Ed continued to treat Rebecca with respect. She wondered if her assertiveness had changed him, if Ed and Roy had had a falling out or if they had conspired to keep Rebecca working there so Ed could keep Roy informed about her. Rebecca wanted to keep her job because she wanted to deal with her
other issues first. Later she would decide what to do about her career.

Rebecca stood up and headed to her office. When she found the card, she looked at the ‘R’ on the front of the little envelope again. She tore the card in half and then in fourths and tossed it into her wastebasket.

She went back into the living room and continued going through Angie’s work. Rebecca learned about how slick the pimps and traffickers were when targeting girls and young women. They were going into neighborhoods and malls in the Midwest and Every Town, USA, to groom girls and young women unknowingly into prostitution.

Rebecca was thankful that she was young in a different time. Although during her high school years, she remembered being approached by a creepy man at the mall. “Could you try this shirt on for me? You are my wife’s size and I’d like to see how it looks.” One of the women who worked in the store overheard him and called the police. Rebecca was naive and didn’t know what was going on until her sister explained it to her. She also remembered a friend being offered fifty dollars for a blowjob outside of a restaurant. She wondered how everything got so out of control.

Rebecca read about the rapes, addictions, suicides and murders of prostitutes. She learned about the devastating emotional damage and the degradation the women felt. She read about the education levels of men who use prostitutes, their marital status and the types of prostitution they use.

She also learned that most men knew it was wrong to be with a prostitute, wouldn’t marry a prostitute, knew prostitutes were victims and knew prostitutes didn’t make a lot of money. And most men said it wasn’t okay for their daughters to be prostitutes or for their sons to use prostitutes. Most men knew that it wasn’t the prostitute’s choice to be a prostitute, but… most men wanted prostitution decriminalized.

Rebecca wrote, “There is a definite disconnection in society about prostitution. Should men be convicted of violence against women, and women be given mandatory help? Clearly, these women are hurting and need help. Better education? Separate education for boys and girls about these issues? Whose fault is it when we are bombarded with sex every day? We have allowed the sex industry and violence against women to become acceptable, mainstream.”

Rebecca tried to imagine herself using a male escort for sex. She pictured herself picking up the phone and ordering in a man to have sex with no strings attached. She fantasized there wouldn’t be strings attached, knowing there were always strings attached when it came to sex—justifying the morality of your own behavior, contracting a disease, breaking the law, hurting people, possibly being abused. Even if it were possible to have that type of exchange, Rebecca knew it was something she would never do. She would not feel good to use somebody that way, and she felt something was wrong with people who did whatever they wanted, just because they could. She felt it showed a lack of character.

The wind continued to pummel the house, causing Lily to bark, so Rebecca decided it was a good time to pop in a DVD she found in Angie’s packet,
Prostitution: Beyond the Myths.
Rebecca had heard
about Bill Nelson, the director of this documentary, but she didn’t realize that he was Angie’s friend. He was from the Minneapolis area, and he worked to help women get out of prostitution. He always said that prostitution was not the oldest profession, but the oldest way to degrade and abuse women. He demonstrated that perfectly in his documentary.