When I was sixteen years old I began dating a man ten years older than me. He was twenty-seven but I would be turning seventeen and headed into my senior year of high school once classes were back in session.
We met at a car wash I started working at in the summer of 2010. I got the job spontaneously when I went to visit a friend of mine from school who was also working there at the time. He introduced me to his boss and I jokingly said —
“You hiring?”
I didn’t expect him to size me up and say —
“If you can find a pair of jeans, you have a job.”
I was wearing a summer dress so I headed home, which was a few blocks away, and swapped clothes… before heading off to the first job I would ever go on to have. This is where I met Nick.
Nick was an older man on the lot who began showing me the ropes, as far as car washing and eventually detailing. Eventually, I was building a clientele of mostly men who took joy in “watching me work”.
I didn’t understand the predatory environment I was in at the time. I thought it was my work ethic that was getting me notoriety because I was a damn good car detailer. But I was also the only girl on the lot.
It all was made clear in hindsight.
I Was Raped Almost Immediately
Nick and I started talking and eventually became closer
He was my “big brother”, or so I thought. He started showing sexual interest in me that I had mistaken for romantic interest.
I actually wasn’t attracted to him in that way initially but he was persistent and I was naive. I only had one real relationship before then and I figured for him to pursue me as relentlessly as he did it had to mean he was the one.
The first time we had sex I was actually raped by him,
but I chose not to believe it.
We were on the staircase of my building making out when he started to initiate. I pulled back but he slowly started getting rougher with me, until he eventually shoved me down facedown on the steps,
And forced himself inside of me.
When he was finished I was crying and started profusely apologizing and holding me. I was confused because he seemed remorseful and like he didn’t mean it. So, I figured he didn’t. I never told anyone what happened.
The relationship resumed.
He Became Increasingly Insecure About My Age
But he was also using it to his advantage — and my disadvantage
As to be expected in this kind of dynamic, he became increasingly controlling and abusive. From the clothes I wore to the friends I had, he was very very controlling.
Once, I came home with my belly button pierced and he saw it and reacted disgustingly, telling me only whores get that done — for attention.
This was the first time I altered my appearance for him as I took it out that same night, crying, with him comforting me as a result.
But it didn’t end there.
He didn’t want to hold my hand in public and when he did he seemed antsy. I look eighteen or nineteen now, at twenty-eight. At sixteen I looked fourteen. This bothered him because he was concerned about public perception.
Admittedly, I was mistaken for his daughter on more than one occasion because even though he was twenty-seven, he looked older than that. He was very concerned with how much younger I was than him, yet he knew he was dating a high schooler.
Therefore, he also knew my age.
He Was Increasingly Resentful of My Growth
He seemed very bothered about my transition to college
When I graduated high school he attended my graduation ceremony and asked me not to get out of the cab in my cap and gown once we got back to our neighborhood.
That same night he picked a massive fight over the way I fixed his plate of food, food my mother bought for all of us as a celebration dinner. He took one of the most important days of my life and turned it into a really painful memory.
At this time, I had just started a summer remedial math course at the college I was attending, earlier that same day. He was so jealous of my academic success that when I failed the final exam and found out I’d have to retake the class he walked in, saw my face,
and burst out laughing.
Once my Fall 2011 semester officially started
He began picking fights with me constantly and in these fights. He would bring up the fact that I would change once I started my semester, and would begin cheating on him with younger guys.
He also began accusing me of preparing to outgrow him, especially due to our age gap. He had a real hangup about me reaching this level of academic success. I didn’t understand it and it made no sense to me — until I started my classes.
He was right, by the end of August I’d broken up with him when the verbal abuse and constant arguing became too much. College life was starting to feel like an open window in a stuffy room,
and I really needed to breathe.
But I was naive and loved him so when he came back around two months later, in October, pretending he wanted to make amends, I agreed to “hear him out”; completely unaware of what would happen to me next.
He Raped Me to Get Me Pregnant
He needed leverage to keep me stuck to him
Truthfully, I had never had an ex come back before and I thought that meant he was serious about making it work. I thought it meant he loved me.
But when we were face to face in my hallway he went from apologizing to asking me for sex. I honestly went into shock by this switch in his personality. I felt so disgusted that I told him I was going back inside and that it was over.
When I started walking away he dragged me into the staircase and forced me facedown into the steps. I started fighting and he seemed like he was starting to back off when he got off me and asked if I didn’t want to have sex.
I said “no” and he moved out of my way.
As I was going past him to grab for the staircase door he snatched me and threw me back onto the steps facefirst and proceeded to brutally raped me. Once he came inside of me he asked me —
“Where are you gonna go now?”
This was the last time I said “no” to a rapist.
It was also a moment of understanding because I knew exactly what he meant by that. He said this specifically because I had left him — because I was able to. There was nothing keeping us stuck together, like a child.
It was him revealing his intention behind raping me as being a way to forcefully get me pregnant. He must’ve known one day I would leave him, as I matured and since that day had come this rape was supposed to further prevent that.
I know this because he had been trying. Towards the end of the relationship, he kept talking about us having children and even hid my birth control before this breakup.
This rape was an investment he was trying to make inside of me before I got the chance to get away from him, for good. Rape was a tool he was using to throw himself a lifeline to my entire future.
I never got pregnant.
He Was Known for Raping Girls
He was a known sexual predator in his high school
I would find this information out from another older man he went to high school with back in 2020, who remembered seeing me with him.
This man admitted everyone knew he had a reputation for forcing himself on women. What bothered me was that this man watched me grow up. Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he warn me when he saw me with him?
I was also disturbed by this information because he had three daughters with the girl he was dating in high school, and I started realizing he might’ve gotten one (if not all) of his children by raping her.
I wonder if he also saw the beauty in her youth too? The bright future she had in front of her, without him, and trapped her successfully, the way he tried to trap me?
Did she also find it difficult to consider it rape?
She was only 17 and he was a known rapist back then. At that age, it’s harder to call the man you love a rapist, especially once a child is involved or the result. Did he do this to her on purpose?
I ask because most guys don’t want to be fathers at sixteen and seventeen but he urgently wanted his children. He wanted to keep them. Now I had to seriously question why.
Growing up I only heard about women trapping men
That or women were being blamed for trapping men by getting pregnant. Never the opposite. This is when it hit home that men trap women with kids much more than they are ever given credit for.
It was always them being the victims of unwanted fatherhood but personal experience has shown me that it’s quite the opposite, most of the time.
I’d go on to then learn that most of the men who live in my area knew this about him. Each of them saw me with this man, fully aware of how young and clueless I was. Each of these men had also watched me grow up.
None of them said a word.
But each of them waited for their turns.
Well, I would go on to be raped by him several times over my three years with him. I was even sodomized when I left him the final time, where he ripped me open.
These men knew he was a rapist. They knew what he was going to do to me and they all turned blind eyes, purposely. The way they’d pray no one else would do to their daughters.
Some of these men were men who watched me grow up. Men who saw me when I was just five years old, who waited years for me to blossom. Many of whom would go on to hit on me later,
Once I was old enough.
He Targetted Me Because I Was So Young
He wanted to trap me (and my future)
I would learn that he —
- barely graduated high school
- could hardly spell
- had a marijuana addiction
- couldn’t maintain a real job (he kept failing drug tests)
In time, I would also find out that the reason I met him at that car wash was that he couldn’t get, or keep a real job.
He could barely spell (one time he told his daughter that ‘sad’ was spelled ‘side’) and was into illegal activities (I watched him steal on the job).
He was easily accepted at that place of business because the boss, himself, was a felon who could not get a better job.
I would also learn the reason I was the only female on that lot was that any woman who worked there was sexually harassed by the boss, and therefore emotionally by his wife — because she knew what a piece of shit he was.
But she blamed the women.
I would meet two former female workers who would confirm this, as I was now going through it. She blamed me for him asking to see my breasts and offering to sleep with me.
The reason he switched up his act when she was around is that she owned that lot. Because of his record, the “boss” couldn’t own it — he was just the face of it. In so many ways, I realized I never stood a chance.
It was only in hindsight that I realized, I was never “mature for my age” I was young enough for his agenda. And that is why grown men, old enough to be my —
- uncle
- father
- grandfather
Were pursuing me when I was way too young, they knew I was naive and were banking on my lack of experience. They waited years for the perfect time, and when anyone beat them to the punch,
They were silent in solidarity.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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