Intrusion
Tonight I was watching episode 10 of the L Word season 2, the one where Jenny has just found out that Mark was secretly filming them in the house. And she says to him, "Do you have any sisters? I want you to ask them about the very first time they were intruded upon by some man or a boy."
And he says, "What makes you think that my sisters were intruded upon?"
And Jenny says, "Because there isn't a single girl or woman in this world that hasn't been intruded upon. And sometimes it's relatively benign and sometimes it's soooo fucking painful, but you. have no idea. what this feels like."
And I remembered something that I hadn't thought about in years. About when I was 10 years old, and I went to Virginia Beach for two weeks with my best friend, Lisa, who was an only child, and her mom & dad. They rented a beach house every summer, and other family friends would often come for a weekend. That summer a family with two boys came for a few days. They were the most horrible, obnoxious boys ever, just slightly younger than Lisa & I.
After one afternoon at the beach, we returned to the house to clean up and prepare for dinner - I think maybe we were steaming blue crabs that night. Lisa & I went into our bedroom to change clothes, and the boys were standing outside our door shouting about how they were going to peak through the keyhole.
Lisa ran over in front of the closet where she couldn't be seen from the bedroom door. She called my name in a stage whisper and motioned for me to come over there. But I was too...stubborn. And determined. To stand my ground. It was like the first feminine stand I ever took. And I stood right in front of the door and I changed clothes.
Then Lisa and I walked out of the room and the annoying boy was running around the living room screaming how he saw us naked and the parents were all laughing and Lisa looked at me and said, "He probably couldn't really see through the keyhole." So I walked over to the door, leaned over and peered through the keyhole myself. Through which I could very clearly see our bedroom.
And my heart sank. And my stomach felt sick. And my mind couldn't let go of how I'd let a BOY see me NAKED. And how disappointed my parents would be. And I felt so violated. So scared. Petrified even. And so ashamed.
But at least now, I can look back on it and know that it happened because I refused to hide. Still, I wish I'd popped that horrible boy in the mouth, the way Shane did Mark.
