Pit of Fear

I was a full time student at a business college where I was taking up dental assisting, proud to be living on my own for the first time since my fairly recent divorce from a seven year marriage. I was only twenty-five and still rather naïve to the world.

I didn’t have much time for dating, but when I met this dark-haired, handsome man on a motorcycle, I agreed to go out with him. He said he was a cop for a living which I felt automatically made him a trustworthy individual. He said he had a friend he worked with and he’d like to bring him along. In a flirting voice, I told him sure. It could be fun. That was my first mistake, but I never thought it would lead to the horrors of that night.

He picked me up in his car and sure enough, he had brought his friend—an angelic looking guy with blond hair and an attractive, muscular built. I sat between the two in the front seat, feeling a little awkward about this date situation.

We drove into the country and I asked where we were going. "You’ll see. It’s this really cool place. Kind of like a gravel pit," was my date’s response.

I should have known right then and there what I was getting into. A part of me knew, yet remained silent, unbelieving.

We arrived indeed at a gravel pit surrounded by woods and fields. It was a very remote place and I had no idea where I was. He parked the car and cracked open the first of many beers he had stashed in the back seat. Not caring for the taste, I wasn’t really a beer drinker, so I didn’t have any. Then it went into make-out mode. When his friend joined in, I began to panic I recall. Many of the details have been blocked from my mind, but I do remember being passed back and forth between them like popcorn at a theater, with no regard for my feelings. I remember being taken on the stony ground and the rocks digging into my back. At one point I was leaned against the car and it occurred to me to ask for their police badge numbers. Somewhere I had heard a police must legally always give their badge numbers. While this man pounded his weight into me holding a beer in one hand, he repeated a number over and over again.

My therapist now tells me that our mind, as a way of coping, remembers only primal things of traumatic events—things like sights, sounds, smells, and touch. I can’t even remember their names.

Several hours and many beers later, my dark haired date decided to give me a tour of his trunk. I had not fought the rapes, feeling it could bring more harm to me than I could ward off. I just numbly accepted the sexual abuse that was reaped on me. But when this guy opened his trunk and I saw an arsenal of hunting weapons stashed there, it was hard not to show my fear. Shotguns, rifles and cross-bows filled the trunk. I think my date was disappointed when he didn’t at first get a screaming reaction from me. Keeping my wits about me then may have saved my life. He closed the trunk. His friend decided to leave and left by way of walking down the dirt road we drove in on.

I was instructed to move to the back seat of the car. I was sure if he was going to take me again, but I didn’t want to show resistance after the weapon display. As it turned out, he passed out lying on top of me. I waited until early dawn and wiggled my way out from underneath him. The only clothes I had was a red and white tube top I could grab from the floor.

Then I ran! I ran toward the fields where I hoped he couldn’t find me. I ran barefoot through bramble bushes that cut and scratched my skin. After about a quarter of a mile I had to pause to catch my breath. That is when I heard the three shots fired into the air. He was coming to find me; hunt me down.

I took off my tube top so he couldn’t spot the red in the material, heading toward some power lines I could make out in the distance—hopefully houses. I could hear him crashing through the brush, getting closer. He was gaining on me. I decided to curl up on the ground in a little ball in the weeds, hoping he wouldn’t spot me. He was close enough that I could hear his heavy breathing. Then just a few feet away from me I could see his bare legs sticking up out of his black leather motorcycle boots. Dangling from his right hand was a chrome car towing chain. He planned to kill me. All I could do was pray and I did.

I never knew if he spotted me and turned of his own accord, or didn’t see me. But he left. I survived.

This was a situation I tried to report to the police, but I was so traumatized my bi-polar flared and I ended up in a mental hospital for a while. When I did tell a detective he took me for a drive to the site and he flirted with me also, although that was as far as it went. So I went for years dealing with post traumatic stress disorder, trying my best to suppress it all and carry on with my life. Now years later, the memories keep resurfacing and I’m finally seeking help from a therapist. My advice to anyone who goes through any type of sexual abuse, is seek out the help now readily available to women in these kind of situations. You don’t have to feel alone. And, it is not your fault.
Piper

Comment: I am sorry you went through that, but glad that that you were able to get away. I can relate to getting yourself into a predicament that you know has the potential to go very wrong, but doing nothing to stop it. I think it is because there is only the potential and/or the appearance that something is not right and for us to speak up might be falsely accusing someone and "rude", also, we like to think that nothing is going to happen to us, naive thinking, but we do it every day. We drive a little faster than we know is right because we are late, we know there's potential danger there but we don't expect anything to happen to us, etc. And lastly, it made you feel good that this guy was interested in you and you liked being liked, I can very much relate to that. Insecurity is a big issue that young women and old women alike need to address. I don't know if it is born in us, or learned or a combination, but I know I continue to struggle with it well into my forties. Thanks for sharing your story, I hope that it will help other women to realize how important it is to think smart, feel worthy of being treated only the way you would treat others and if you recognize a bad situaion unfolding, get out of there right away.
Genny

http://www.womensselfesteem.com

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