Recompense
Before I knew what was happening, my mind worked like a movie running in reverse: Wadean grabbed me up from the bed and began walking backwards towards the spot on the porch where we had just been talking. Next, he made his way from the porch and crossed the street, headed in reverse back to the corner from where he had come. Then, the red Buick sped back by my house, only this time, in reverse, its tires seeming to inhale the dust from the street as if they were connected to a vacuum cleaner.
I imagine that he acted out his sick sadistic fantasies of luring a child. And little did I know that those fantasies would not stop with me. They would indeed continue to grow and fester, eager to claim the next victim.
I suppose, now that I look back on the attack, the fact that it keeps playing in reverse was my mind’s feeble attempt to erase it from my memory, as if it had never taken place. My body and my mind seemed to be attempting to protect me, but only in vain.
Every time the hellacious episode reached the point where he got up off of the bed after having his way with me, the whole thing would just play in reverse once again. This same scene replays in my mind till this day. When I least expect it, it causes me to relive the attack. It doesn’t haunt me quite as often now, but I do wonder if I will ever be able to press the stop button for good.
I cried endlessly as I fell back onto my parents’ bed. After I managed to make it to the bathroom to refresh myself, I looked in the mirror and saw a victim staring back at me. My hair was a mess; my eyes were swollen and bloodshot from my tears; and my face was beet-red. I remember that my mouth hurt because I had never kissed a boy before. I was sure that making love wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. I had never heard my mother say that she was scared and hurt after being with my dad. I saw it with my own eyes that he loved and protected her.
All I could think of, at this point, was to get myself cleaned up, as well as my parents’ bed, which was now a bloody mess. Had they come home and found their bed in the shape that it was in, I was convinced that I would have gotten a whooping for sure.
To have gone through something as traumatic and mentally taxing as rape, I thought I had managed pretty well. Although I wasn’t quite able to understand how something this horrible could have possibly happened to me, eventually I was able to wrap my mind around how I felt and what I needed to do next. Still in shock, I felt so violated. I also felt angry and ashamed.
I actually felt, at times, that it was my fault. I felt as if I had allowed this awful thing to happen to me. Of course, that wasn’t the case; but the devil, which is an enemy of the mind, tried hard to convince me that it happened because of something I did.
All of my dreams, my plans, my visions, had been crushed in one fell swoop. Prior to that, I had ideas about what I wanted to be when I grew up. At one point, I thought that I wanted to be an actress, but the early black actors and actresses, in their limited roles, with wide buck eyes, had pretty much turned me off of that idea. I also wanted to be a singer. I had a beautiful voice, so I had been told. But that dream died after I was attacked.
I immediately began to think that this was the worst time of my life. In my mind, I had been soiled, robbed of my innocence by a man I did not know. On top of that, I had never even thought of being with a man in that way. I had no intentions whatsoever of doing that until my wedding night.
I automatically thought I was pregnant, and I didn’t know how I would explain this to my parents. I was terrified to even utter one word about what had happened to me, so I didn’t tell a soul. Besides the mental anguish I was forced to deal with, the physical pain that I endured was tremendous directly after the attack. But as the days went on, it got a little better. I couldn’t believe that any person was capable of such a thing.
I somehow got in touch with Wadean through my neighbor across the street, Ammie Smith. It just so happened that Ammie also knew Wadean through her boyfriend Al, who was a good friend of his. We were both talking about getting married: Ammie to Al, and me to Wadean.
I was so naïve back then, I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t know that it was extremely unlikely that I would have gotten pregnant during the rape, because Wadean had worn a condom. At that time, I had no idea what a condom was.
Had I known that I wasn’t pregnant, I would have never even considered it—not for one moment—running off and marrying this man.
I never shared with Ammie what Wadean had done to me; all she knew is that I wanted to get married. Somehow, Ammie and Al had convinced Wadean to marry me. About a week later, we all ended up at the doorsteps of the Justice of the Peace for two ceremonies.
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