And No One Stopped Them | Part 15
A Blowfish, Some Knuckle-Draggers, and a Girl Named Alice
Ugly truths, secret shame, and how child sexual abuse impacts puberty
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All the girls at school were talking about boys and wondering about that First Kiss. I was simply dreading it.
The idea of some drooling, zit-faced kid with a mini-hard-on and his knuckles dragging on the ground wanting to pucker up like a bloody blowfish and jam his mouth against mine (and oh, God, force his tongue down my throat??) was enough to make me want to throw up. I was too busy riding bikes and catching frogs with those zit-faced knuckle-draggers to be bothered with that stuff.
I just figured I was the world’s biggest tomboy.
But then something else happened. I’d taken Bobbie, a friend from school, across the street to the Martins’ house with me one night while I was babysitting. The two little boys had gone to bed when I heard Bobbie gasp from the dining room where she sat at the table. I looked over and saw her eyebrows just about hitting the ceiling.
“Oh, my gawd! Look at this!” she exclaimed, pointing at a magazine she’d pulled out of a huge stack of books and papers.
I sat down next to her and my mouth fell open in shock. I’d never seen naked adults before and especially not in such graphic — and pornographic — poses. I was astonished by how much I loved the women’s bodies and how I wanted to run my hands along those gorgeous curves and touch those exquisite breasts.
Almost instantly, I noticed a delightfully pleasant, warm, tingling feeling in…shall we say a particular part of my body. Remember, this might has well have happened during the Dark Ages. No one talked about that stuff. I didn’t understand what that feeling was but it was as wonderful as it was confusing — and it was also a little bit scary.
I knew only two things about it: If looking at women made me feel like that, I knew enough not to tell anyone. Not even Bobbie. I don’t know how I knew it because no one…
