Diary of a Runaway Prostitute

My very first foray into the world of sex began on the bathroom floor. I was 12 and newly acquainted with blossoming breasts and full sensual hips. I was so naïve then, still roughhousing with the boys even though their sideways glances to my maturing thighs and breasts had began. I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was a muggy humid July 4th. Thousands of people were preparing for the Independence Day festivities and there was a big commotion about the parade. I remember the parade and its hordes of people and participants striding in their bright red, white, and blue costumes eager with their enthusiasm to display their patriotism. Down Central Street they all went, as I ate my sweet grilled corn on the cob that I had purchased from the street vendor. It really was a lovely day for a parade not a cloud in the sky. I had never been to a parade before and was so enthused that I tailed the marching band as they were passing by. I ran from the crowd into the street as happy as could be, dancing and singing not realizing I was getting further and further from my family. I turned around to see a sea of faces, but none I recognized. I thought nothing of it really. I could not have gone far. So I went to the community center bathroom because I was not about to use a port a potty. Not knowing someone had been watching me, I entered the bathroom. It was a standard bathroom like the ones you’d find in a school. There in a row were four toilet stalls with white speckled black walls and doors. There was no one in there when I entered, but someone followed. I really paid no attention. I did the usual that goes with going into the bathroom and as I was washing my hands someone grabbed me from behind. In an instant, I was pinned to the floor with my mouth covered. The force of the throw down to the floor took the wind out of my lungs and nearly rendered me unconscious as my head smacked on the linoleum. The man hovered over me, breathing his retched breath in my ear as he whispered, "Scream and I’ll kill you." I can still feel the tingle of his breath as it grazed the hair on my neck. I remember the rise of goose bumps on my skin and the fear, the paralyzing fear that this man had instilled in me. I could not move frozen as if I had laid eyes with Medusa herself and now had turned to stone. With his calloused right hand he lifted the hem of my skirt and tore the day of the week underwear I was wearing. He forced his way into my unwilling body, tearing flesh. I wept. There was nothing else I could do, but to try to escape into my mind. It did no good. All I could feel was him and his labored breath in my ear. All I could smell was the pine sol from the floor. The smell invaded my nose as he invaded my body. Once he had finished he left. I lay on the floor in a ball helpless, stunned and bleeding. My tears had run dry and there was nothing left, but a shell.
I remained on the floor unable to move even as I willed myself to get up. I was discovered on the floor of the bathroom about an hour and a half later by a woman with her young son. There was blood everywhere and she screamed. Her scream of genuine shock and fear awakened me from my stupor. Get up. Get up. I tried and failed until someone helped me from the floor. The police had been called and my family located. The police badgered me for my statement, but all I could remember was calloused hands, retched breath and pine sol. My memory was rendered useless. To find that the details of such a traumatic event can completely escape me was a horrifying disappointment, but the look of disgust and disappointment on my father’s face was the most awful and worse than the rape itself. He never looked at me the same after that. He never hugged me or kissed me again. It was as if his love for me had died that moment and I had become a complete stranger to him. The police blamed my family for not watching me more closely and my father blamed me. As if it was entirely my fault. I guess in his mind this was god’s punishment for me begin born a girl instead of a boy, the disgrace of a fallen girl through the follies of man. My father couldn’t stand the ridicule and the whispers from the neighbors. It was all too much for him to take and it drove a chasm between us. I ran away from home about four months later. They never found the man and how could they with my pitiful statement.