Sunburns & ski trips

Of the many losses I endured as a result of my childhood experiences, Jake’s has been the most profound.  Yet, despite both the persistence and intensity of the loss, it is beautifully uncomplicated, because ultimately, it comes down to this: I love him, nothing more, nothing less.  The simplicity and purity of love shelter me, creating a space filled with warmth and light, protecting me from the worst of the storms, even on the coldest and darkest days when I feel his absence most acutely.  

Other losses, even those that might be deemed less severe, came with layer upon layer of complexity and continue to exist within a state of ambiguity.  These types haunt me even now, their intricacies unresolved, because they are steeped in love tainted with hate, fear mixed with longing, pleasure intertwined with pain.  The depth and breadth of the wounds they left are so great that although I can hide them beneath dressings and apply balms and tinctures in an attempt to soothe them, they remain raw and unhealed decades later. 

An unexpected email this past summer ripped the bandage off one of these and one morning, a few weeks after the surprise in my inbox, I woke up unable to ignore the wreckage any longer.  I was in Cyprus, and perhaps it was the weather, unrelentingly warm, and a bit sticky, that took me back to the time the foundation for this one was created.  I leaned my head against the window of the bus, tuning out the noise and the people around me, so I could be alone with the memories.

The day we met was hot and the still, humid air made even me, a typically energetic seven-year-old less than enthusiastic about playing at the park.  Still, my father had given me explicit instructions regarding my behavior, and I knew there would be consequences if I did not do as told.   Eventually, a man I had never seen before walked over to me and we started talking. He asked about the blister on my palm that had started bleeding, wanted to know which subjects I liked best in school, and whether I wanted to get ice cream with him.  I said yes, knowing I was supposed to go with him—these kinds of things had happened before, and nothing seemed unusual.  What would end up being out of the ordinary though was the length of time his presence would linger in my life.  Out of them all, he was the one who stayed, at least for more than a year or so, as I got older.  Though I didn’t know it that day in the park as the sun beat down and the air was heavy and oppressive, we would be together for the next seven years, and eventually, the loss of this relationship would be one of the most devastating I experienced. 

During the first phase of our relationship, I saw him a few times a year.  Our interactions were so different from those I had with the rest of the men who spent time with, and money on, me that I had no idea he was simply investing both resources for a larger payout later. Instead of using my body for immediate gratification, he was far more interested in what he could do to my mind.  In the early years, his time with me was spent talking and listening as if he were genuinely interested in what I had to say.  He taught me some basic French and I learned to play a bit of violin because he asked me to.  Once a year he would cut a lock of my hair—there was a place near the nape of my neck he tended to favor because of the way it curled.  My skin also seemed to fascinate him, commenting on it often and taking the occasional trophy from it as well, often from a blister or callous.  He shortened my name, calling me Ellie, and helped me with homework sometimes.  I believed he cared about me and I loved him, much, I imagine, like the way a child loves a parent.

The year I turned eleven he switched from calling me Ellie to Elle. It was time for something more mature he said, because in two years, on my thirteenth birthday, we would spend the night together for the first time.  My blood ran cold as he described what would happen that night in detail, down to what I would be wearing, how my hair would be done, and what we would eat.  He had enough money to make sure all of that happened, so I knew what he said was true. When he left that day, I started shaking and nausea threatened to overwhelm me.  Thirty-two years later, the depth of the betrayal still takes my breath away if I let myself really feel it. 

I spent the next two years trying to convince myself that the events that would transpire that night would be consensual and that they would be done out of love.  As the night drew closer, I even started to let myself believe that he and I might have a future together.  I hoped that he would love me enough to stop letting other men buy time with me and that he would keep me for his own.  I learned to love him not the way a parent loved a child, but the way a girl loves a boy, or in this case, a girl loves a man. I told no one what was going to happen because there was no one to tell, and he knew that.  From the beginning, he was playing the long game with someone who had no choice but to participate. He always held all the cards and I had been too naïve to realize that. 

My birthday is in the middle of February, and during my childhood, it often fell during a week called Ski Week in at least a few Southern California school districts.  Legend has it that so many families were taking entire weeks off around President’s Day to go skiing and so many children (and teachers) were absent each year that the districts finally gave up trying to enforce attendance rules and just gave everyone an entire week off.  Another example of money making the rules and the rest of the world having to acquiesce.

The year I turned thirteen, my birthday fell on a Saturday and there was a school ski trip planned for that weekend. I wanted to go, but my grandparents were taking me to Mexico for a week and a half.  I’m still not sure if them taking me was part of the cover story or if it was a wrench in his plans that he had to work around.  Whichever it was, he was there, and I was taken to him that night, just like he told me I would be. 

I stood at his door for a moment, waiting before I knocked, trying to steady myself.  Goosebumps ran down the back of my legs and my stomach churned with nerves which was unexpected.  The things that were going to happen had been done before, hundreds of times by that point, and usually I could stay numb enough that even when I knew they were coming (which was almost always) I could stay calm.  This time felt completely different though and it took me a moment to gather myself.  When I had gotten things under control, I knocked, a bit timidly, and waited. 

He opened the door and paused for a moment to look me over, the hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth.  When he was done with his observation, he directed me to the bathroom, speaking in French, telling me to change into the dress that was waiting for me.  I did as instructed, as always, and when I was done he came in to do my hair and makeup.  He cut a lock as usual, and since I had outgrown callouses on my hands from playing on the bars at recess, he carefully cut a bit of skin from my toe.  He wanted a piece to remember the night but didn’t want anywhere obvious to be bleeding or bandaged later in the evening.   

Once my clothes, hair, and makeup were to his liking we sat at the dinner table.  There were presents at my place.  I opened them when he told me to. The first were brightly colored stickers—a brand that was popular at the time and that he knew I would like—and glittery jelly bracelets.  Gifts for a child.   The second box contained what I would be wearing later that night.  A gift not for a child. 

We ate, exactly what he said we would the day two years before when he had first described this night to me, and when we were done, he told me to change and come out.  Again, I did as instructed, knowing there weren’t any other options.  His demeanor had shifted considerably over the last two years and the love I felt for him was tinged with fear, leaving me with both the urge to get away and the longing that the old him would come back if I just did what he asked. 

He took my hand and led me to the bedroom where we spent the next several hours.  To his credit, he again, did exactly what he had described two years earlier.  If nothing else I guess he gets points for accuracy?  Eventually it ended, and he changed me back into the clothes I had come to him in, took off my makeup, and brushed my hair.  He told me it was time to leave and that he would see me in about six weeks.

I went back to the suite I was sharing with my grandparents, slipping quietly into the bathroom to shower, letting the water run as I cried and threw up.  This was the first of many showers I would take in my life with the goal of masking the sound of tears.  It has taken me decades to describe what he did as rape, but it was, and although it was far from the first time it had happened, it was the first time it had been done by someone I loved.

The next day I went to the beach and spent four hours straight in the water. The waves washed over me, their predictability a source of comfort, the salt of my tears mixing with the salt of the ocean. My grandmother eventually came looking for me and forced me out of the water.  My skin was badly burned by that point and over the next day or so, it turned purple and blistered the same way it had when I was very young, and my mom was either too tired or too focused on something else to pay attention to how long I had been out without any kind of sun protection. When that happened and I was too badly burned to wear clothes for a while, she would strip me down, pour antiseptic over me, and lock me in my room so she could leave while I screamed from both pain and anger.  I wished I was still young enough to be locked in a room and left alone because at least then I would be safe, and I wished I could scream from pain and anger because this time, maybe someone would hear me.

To this day, I am still not sure if I acted intentionally, out of spite, exercising what little control I had over my body in an act of revenge knowing the damage to my skin would at the very least irritate him.  Or if I let it burn as a way of trying to show the world how much pain I was in because I didn’t yet have the words to tell anyone.  Or maybe I was just lost in thought and didn’t notice how much time had passed.  

I went back to school the next week and heard about the ski trip from those who went, other trips from those who didn’t, and about the monotony of a week off school without anything to do from those who stayed home.   Some of the ones telling their stories had sunburns too, and I wondered if any had a similar experience to mine over the last week.  I knew I would never know because if they did, they too had been taught to be silent.

I saw him again several times over the next year.   Each time we spent almost the entire night together and each time I left hoping I would see him again but also wishing all of it would end. Shortly after I turned fourteen, I would get a version of the latter. It would devastate me and the damage it caused reverberates through my life even now.