New York City. I had wanted to live there as far back as I could remember. On a sunny day in July of 1987, just following my high school graduation, my dad pulled up in front of the China Club on Broadway and dropped my mom and me off so that I could check into my student apartment at the Beacon Hotel. It was a one-bedroom apartment that I would share with two other female students for the remainder of the year, until I convinced my parents to allow me to live “off campus” in a loft apartment on 83rd between West End and Riverside. Student housing, however, would be convenient to start off in. The Beacon was across the street from the historic Ansonia building, where my musical theatre school was located.
Within weeks, my schedule began to consist of daily classes in acting, voice and speech, dance, and musical theatre. My evenings consisted of roof top parties, dance clubs, and early morning breakfast excursions. I quickly made friends with what seemed to be like-minded kids looking to explore their newly found independence and all the city had to offer 24/7. It was the life I had always wanted. It was exhilarating! And soon enough, it became hard to believe that life had ever been anything other than what it had become.
During the summer before my senior year in high school, I attended a commercial and television acting camp in NYC and lived with my parents’ best friends, Tina and Frank Lamari in New Jersey. I kept in touch via postcards with one of the boys I met at camp, Mark, while I finished up my senior year. Mark was raised in NYC and was six years older than me. He had light brown hair that was longer on top and tight around his ears and neck. He came from money and dressed like a prep school kid when I initially met him. He lived in a brownstone in the west village that his father owned. I was glad to know at least one other person in the city and quickly connected with him once I was settled in. A few weeks into classes, I met up with Mark for coffee and brought along one of my roommates, Ella, along with a classmate of ours, Leo.
Mark had aged in the ten months since I had seen him at Christmas and quickly began to talk about his new cocaine connections. He told the three of us how he had started to deal earlier that summer and was looking for others who might be interested in going into business with him. At the end of our conversation, Ella, Leo and I walked out and headed back uptown to our neighborhood.
“Are you really gonna work with him?” I asked Ella, surprised that she was even considering it.
“I don’t know. I have to think about it. My brother used to deal in high school and made pretty good money doing it. I don’t know though. I wouldn’t mind having access to some coke, but I don’t really know this guy. How the hell do you even know him, Dottie?”
I had decided to reinvent myself the moment I stepped foot in NYC. No more “innocent little ethnic girl.” My body had finally started to mature and with my new body came my new name. I was a grown-up, I was American, I had no parental supervision, and my name was Dottie. I never let on to the fact that I was still a virgin to anyone. I held my cards close and did my best to fit in with my peers who all seemed thousands of light years ahead of me in life experience.
“Yeah, Dottie. Where do you even know this guy from?” asked Leo.
“We met in acting camp before I moved here. I wouldn’t really say I know him. He sent me a few postcards while I was still living in Potsdam. I saw him over Christmas break during my senior year when my family drove down here for vacation. My parents actually let me go on a date with him. He took me to dinner. They met him and gave me the okay. But I don’t think he was dealing coke back then.”
“No, he said he just started dealing this summer,” Leo clarified. “I don’t know, Dottie. I didn’t like him. I’d stay away if I were you. That guy is bad news,” he continued, looking skeptical.
“Yeah, I have no intentions of seeing him again,” I replied, deciding I would not return his call if he tried to reach me.
The following morning, Ella, Leo and I met up at our usual coffee spot and then headed to class together. Ella ran ahead of us to catch up with other classmates while Leo and I straggled behind taking in the warm autumn day. We had been in classes together for a few months now and were becoming close friends. Leo had a serious girlfriend whom he lived with so that made it easy. There was no pressure to flirt, just an easy friendship to enjoy. Leo was really attractive, Italian, with jet-black hair and a chiseled face. He looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch model (although the store didn’t exist yet…he was a man ahead of his time). Leo had already graduated from college, so he was four years older than the majority of us attending classes. Like many of the kids at my school, he came from a wealthy family, although at the time I had no idea just how wealthy he was.
As Leo and I walked down Broadway to the Ansonia, a homeless woman jumped in front of me out of nowhere and started to scream, “Virgin, she’s still a virgin!” while pointing at me and trying to grab my hair. I froze, shocked and embarrassed. I tried to walk around her, but she kept jumping in front of me and screaming about my virginity to the world. Leo had walked ahead and turned around yelling, “just outrun her!” with a big smile on his face. I ran to catch up with him and the two of us ran for the next two blocks until she disappeared from view. I wasn’t sure if Leo heard what the woman had been yelling, but I was completely horrified, nonetheless. Was it really that obvious? Could everyone in the world tell I was just a big fake adult and not the experienced woman I was trying to pretend to be? How awful! Just as I had suspected this would turn out! Damn Sean Calvert! I had just turned 18 and still hadn’t figured out the “goddamn tampon thing” as I was now referring to it. I was a complete failure. The time had clearly come. I was beginning to feel desperate. I needed some assistance, so I set up an appointment with an OBGYN at a clinic in midtown the following week. I skipped classes that day. I walked into the sterile waiting room shaking like a leaf as I headed to the front counter.
“Hi. I have an appointment at 10am. My name is Dottie?” I said it as if I was unsure of my own name.
“Yes, here you are. I have you meeting with Dr. Rowan for a check-up, correct?” the receptionist asked.
“Um, is Dr. Rowan a woman by any chance?”
“No, Dr. Rowan is not a woman, did you need to see a woman?” the receptionist asked, her eyes softening a bit.
“Yes, I requested to see a woman when I called to make the appointment,” I replied, as I dug my thumb nail into the tip of my middle finger, trying hard not to run out of the clinic.
“Well, if you don’t mind waiting a bit. Actually, you might have to wait for about an hour or so. But I could have you meet with Dr. James. She’s very nice and she’ll take good care of you,” the receptionist said as she smiled reassuringly.
“Okay, I’ll wait. Thank you,” I replied. I sat in the freezing cold waiting room just wishing it were all over until I finally heard my name.
“Dottie Bassim?”
I looked up. A lovely, young African American woman stood at the doorway waiting for me. I walked towards her, wondering if I would pass out before I got to the infamous table I had heard so much about.
“Hello, I’m Dr. James.” The doctor led me down a long hallway and into a private room. “Let’s have you set your bag down on this chair and then I’m going to leave the room while you undress and put on this paper gown. You can leave it open in the front. I’ll knock before I come back in, all right?” she added.
“Okay, thanks,” I replied. By this point my entire body was completely shaking. I could barely undo my jeans as my fingers slipped across the metal button. I undressed and put on the paper gown. Then I sat on the edge of the table and waited, the paper gown wrapped tightly around me beneath my folded arms. I straightened my back and crossed my right foot over my left ankle and began to move my feet nervously back and forth as they hung intertwined and clammy above the floor. Dr. James walked back in and sat down on a short stool with wheels on it and smiled.
“So, what brings you in today, Dottie?”
Everything I said came out sounding like a question even when it wasn’t. My voice kept inflecting upwards at the end of each sentence and I quickly realized how idiotic I must have sounded, but I couldn’t seem to stop doing it.
“Well, I’m 18? I just turned 18? And….ummm….so I got my first period about, I don’t know, six months ago maybe? And…I…” I began to feel lightheaded. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt my head begin to fall back slightly, but I caught myself and quickly found a focal point on the wall across from me to help me not pass out.
“All right, Dottie. I’m actually going to have you come sit in the chair while we talk and then maybe you’ll get back on the table in a few minutes. But we certainly don’t want you falling from that high up, do we.” She reached out her hand and led me to the chair positioned against the wall.
“So tell me Dottie, are your periods regular? Are you getting it every month?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Wonderful! So that’s a really good sign. It means your body is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.” She smiled warmly at me. “So, what is it that I can answer for you today? You can ask me anything you’d like! There’s no need to feel nervous. Believe me, I’ve seen and heard it all!” She gave out a little laugh and quickly put me at ease.
“Well, I haven’t been able to get a tampon in?” I swallowed hard. “So, I’m worried that there’s something wrong with me?” I cleared my throat. “Like with my anatomy? Maybe there’s like a blockage or something? Maybe my hymen is….I don’t know…in the way,” my voice now barely audible, “or it’s super strong or something?”
“Your hymen?” she asked.
I nodded my head yes, no longer making eye contact with her.
“Well, let’s take a look. I’m going to have you lie down on this table and you’re going to slide your body down to the very end of it. Let’s put your feet in these stirrups and I’m going to have you hold this mirror so that you can see everything that I’m doing, all right? I’ll point out what everything is for you and that way you can see it too, okay? Now slide down just a little bit more for me.”
“All right,” I said shaking my head up and down to assure myself, as I continued to slide my body down for what seemed to be an eternity to the end of the table. I took a deep breath and held the mirror in my sweaty hand. She moved the mirror down until I was able to see the entire area between my legs.
“Now, I’m going to open up your vagina using what’s called a speculum. It’s small and it shouldn’t hurt at all. I’m going to be very gentle.” Dr. James continued to reassure me as her voice began to echo as if she was talking to me from the other side of a long tunnel.
“Being a girl is complete bullshit,” I thought to myself as I felt the speculum enter and move up through my body.
“There, it’s in. Are you doing all right?”
“I nodded my head yes and watched in amazement as she pointed out my cervix.”
“So, that’s where the baby comes out?” I asked, not quite believing her, my entire body now sweating.
It was then that the door leading to our private room opened and a male doctor walked in.
“Do you know where Gene went? I can’t find him,” the male said completely oblivious to my exam, not even apologizing to us for the disturbance.
“I am in the middle of a procedure! Would you mind asking somebody else?” Dr. James yelled out, completely baffled. The man left and Dr. James began to apologize profusely. “I am so very sorry, Dottie!” she said, horrified. “They should put locks on these doors! There’s absolutely no respect for privacy around here.”
She seemed genuinely traumatized that I had been “walked in on.” I, on the other hand, was too dazed to care about the man who had stormed in. By now, I had entered a deep trance, my mouth ajar as I continued to grapple with the idea of a baby coming out of this small hole.
“It’s okay, I’ll never see him again,” I said in a monotone voice, my vagina now taking on a hypnotic bull’s-eye appearance as I continued to be mesmerized by it in the mirror.
“Well, this is interesting,” Dr. James said, her voice shifting. The shift snapped me out of my trance immediately.
“What?” I asked, convinced that my anatomy was faulty after all.
“Well, I’m not actually seeing any hymen whatsoever. There’s no need to worry. It’s quite natural. Many girls have accidents over the years. Horseback riding, playing sports. Do you recall any event that left you bleeding from your vagina prior to the onset of menstruation? It would have been just a little blood.”
My mind immediately raced back in time. I had been in the sixth grade and was riding my Huffy bicycle on the sidewalk down Cottage Street in Potsdam, New York. I was going up a hill when I lost control of the bike, falling directly onto its middle bar and straddling it with both legs. I screamed out in pain and hobbled back to my dad’s medical office down the street. I ran through the front door, completely bent over, into his reception area where my mother sat at the front desk and then past her into the bathroom. The screaming began once I saw the blood in my underwear.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” My mom whispered aggressively into the bathroom door while she tried to pry it open.
“I have to go to the emergency room! I’m bleeding! I fell on my bike and I’m bleeding!” I said as I cried.
“Where?”
I unlocked the bathroom door and let my mother in. She inspected my underwear. I could barely breathe.
“Oh Jesus, get over it! You’re fine!!” my mother said, rolling her eyes up into the back of her head.
“I’m bleeding out of my vagina!!!”
“Your gonna live. It’s nothing!”
“It hurts soooooo much!” I squealed back at her.
“Just sit in the back room. Your father still has another patient and then we’ll go home.”
Leave it to me to lose my virginity to a fucking Huffy bicycle. A zero fucking speed Huffy bicycle. It might as well have been a goddamn tricycle! With daisy stickers on it! Not that a 7-speed bike would have been any more impressive, but… you know… it kind of would’ve been a little more impressive. All this stress over my virginity for nothing! It seemed so anti-climactic…and so completely fucking lame.
“So, I’m not a virgin?” I asked Dr. James.
“Well, that depends on what your definition of virginity is,” she responded as she gently pulled the speculum back out.
Feeling completely comfortable now, I began to shoot out some more specific questions.
“How big is a penis in comparison to that thing you just stuck inside of me?”
“Well, this speculum is quite small. An erect penis is going to be wider than this but not a lot wider. Remember, you can fit a baby through there. Your body will naturally stretch to accommodate both a penis and then someday, perhaps, even a baby!”
She sounded so excited at the prospect. I was not excited at the prospect. But the sweet doctor had pretty much answered all of my questions, although I wasn’t exactly sure I completely believed her. Regardless, at least I now knew where to stick the goddamn tampon, so life was actually looking fairly awesome. Actually, I was feeling pretty great about myself as I left the clinic. I was feeling proud, really, of my incredible bravery, not to mention my now in-depth knowledge of the female anatomy. I decided to walk back uptown instead of taking the subway. I had all of this energy bubbling through me. There was a little hop in my walk all the way back home, kind of like Tom Hanks after he gets laid for the first time in the movie, “Big.” A ginormous weight had been lifted off me. I was normal. Finally, I was really, truly normal! And I probably wasn’t even a virgin! I mean I wasn’t exactly sure if I was still a virgin or what the official definition of a virgin even was, but I decided in that moment that regardless of what it was that I’d like to ask Leo if he’d be willing to have sex with me, just in case I still was. That way I could just get all of that virgin stuff out of the way once and for all and put the whole business behind me.
When I got back to my apartment Ella was smoking weed in the family room and watching TV.
“Hey Dottie, you got a package. And that Mark guy keeps calling. He left you three messages today. Maybe you should just call him back and tell him to leave you the fuck alone because he’s annoying the hell out of your roommates.”
I grabbed my keys from my pocket and opened the package from my parents.
“Awesome! Tap shoes,” I said lifting them out of the box. “And…more antibiotics. Hey, let me know if you ever get sick, Ella, ‘cause we’re all set! Seriously, you’ll never have to go to the doctor as long as we’re living together.”
“Cool. You wanna hit? This shit is good. I feel fucking awesome right now.”
“No, thanks. I’m gonna go throw a load of laundry in. You need anything washed?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
I walked into our kitchen where the phone was. I turned on the lights and a million cockroaches scurried into their hiding spots throughout the room. I reached for the phone and called my mom.
“Hello?” my mom answered.
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Well hello, stranger! How’s my little New Yorker doing?”
“I’m good. I got your package today. Where did you get the tap shoes from?”
“Oh good, you got it! Sean Calvert’s mom brought them into the office for you. Her daughter isn’t dancing anymore so she wanted you to have them.”
“Cool! I’m gonna try them out right now. I gotta go.”
“What? That’s it? We just got on the phone! Don’t you want to say hi to your father?”
“All right.” My mom put my dad on the phone.
“Hello!” my dad said. A big smile spread across my face. I barely ever heard my dad’s voice on the phone. His accent warmed my heart.
“Hi Dad.”
“How are you doing in the big city?” he asked.
“I’m doing fine,” I laughed. “How are you doing in the tiny town?” I said while imitating his accent.
“Ah, yes. We are doing vedy good here.” His voice became serious and quiet. “You received the antibiotics?”
“Yeah, dad. You know, I’m really all set with those. You don’t need to send me more, okay?”
“You can never have too many antibiotics!” my father replied as his voice rose. It made me laugh. “Wait,” my father continued. “Your mother wants to interrupt our conversation to talk to you again.”
“I love you, Dad!”
“I love you too. Vedy, vedy much.”
“Okay, honey. So everything is fine, really?” my mom asked.
“Yeah. It’s great.”
“Are you eating?”
“Yup.”
“What are you eating?”
“Um, I don’t know. I’m eating fine though.”
“All right. Make sure to eat some healthy stuff once in a while. Just go out to dinner maybe a few nights a week. And you can always make yourself some pasta when you’re too tired to go out.”
“Yeah. I’ve been making pasta.”
“Okay. Well…I love you, honey. We miss you. We really miss you!”
“I love you too, Mom.”
“Make sure to call me at least a few times a week! Just so I know that you’re okay. Promise!”
“I promise.”
“All right. Bye Bye.”
“Bye.”
I quickly hung up the phone and threw my newly acquired tap shoes into the laundry basket. I grabbed my James Brown tape and slipped it into my Walkman and threw that into the basket as well. My Discman had broken just prior to moving to the city. I walked out and headed down to the basement level laundry room of the Beacon Hotel equipped for an evening of dancing in solitude. The floor was concrete and there was usually nobody down there, so it was the perfect place to tap dance. Two hours of alone time, banging out beats with my feet to “I Got Ants in My Pants” and “Sex Machine.” It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.
The next day was Friday. A group of us from school planned to meet up at the bar down the street after dinner. Leo, Ella, and a few others were all meeting there. It was a small, Irish style pub where nobody ever seemed to check IDs. I waited a while before showing up so that the others would be too drunk to notice that I wasn’t drinking alcohol with them. When I got there, I grabbed a ginger ale at the bar and sat with the rest of them while they all talked about sex. I had walked right into the middle of a conversation about everyone’s “first time.” My heart began to race, and I thought about walking out or just making up some stupid story. I was going to acting school, after all.
“All right Dottie, your turn. Lay it on us.”
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Leo sat at the corner of the table and moved in to hear what I was about to say. I couldn’t possibly tell them a story about my one night stand with Huffy the tricycle so out came the truth.
“I haven’t had sex yet.” I said it like it was no big deal as I brought my glass of ginger ale to my mouth.
“Get the fuck outta here!” Ella yelled. “So, you’ve never actually been in love with anyone either then. Wow!”
“That’s not true!” I replied. “I’ve been in love. There was a guy named Sean Calvert back home.”
“Was he your boyfriend?” Leo asked.
“No, not really. We were always together though. I was in love with him.” As the words escaped me, I realized that I had, in fact, really loved him and that a part of me probably always would. It made me feel sad and I started to really miss him for the first time since moving to the city.
“Yeah, I agree,” said Leo, coming to my defense. You don’t have to have sex with someone to fall in love.” Leo gave me a little wink as I looked down at my legs.
“Well I’ll tell you who does want to have sex with you is that fucking Mark guy who won’t stop leaving you messages on our voicemail! You should just give him a call. Actually, his last message sounded kinda desperate, so I wrote his phone number down for you. He said he wasn’t feeling well or something.”
Ella handed me the piece of paper with his number written on it. I sat there looking at the phone number and regretting that I had come out at all that evening. Now everyone was going to start treating me like a kid again and I was missing Sean and thinking about Potsdam. It seemed silly. Here I was in NYC living my dream. I should be enjoying myself. I decided to slip out while everyone was engrossed in their conversation about sex and love, and headed to the pay phone to give Mark a call.
“Hello?”
“Hey Mark? It’s Dottie. I heard you weren’t feeling well.”
“Why haven’t you returned any of my phone calls?”
“I’m sorry. I only got the one today.”
“I’ve been calling you every day for weeks. What, were you just never gonna talk to me again?”
“No, I’ve just been really busy. Classes started and I’m trying to get settled in.”
“Well, I’m really not feeling well. I don’t know if I should go to the emergency room or what.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Can you just come over?”
“It’s kind of late. I’m out with friends right now. Maybe Ella and I can stop by sometime this weekend.”
“Why the fuck would I want to see Ella? Why do you always need Ella to babysit you anyway? What are you, fucking twelve?”
“No! Jesus! Fine, I’ll come over. But I can’t stay long. I’m kinda tired and I’m having a shitty night.”
I flagged down a cab and never went back into the bar to tell anyone where I was going. It had started to rain, and I was feeling sleepy. I thought about asking the cab driver to turn around and just take me back home. But I didn’t. The cab pulled up in front of Mark’s brownstone. I walked up the stairs and rang his doorbell as the cab drove off into the night. Mark answered the door, wearing boxer shorts and an untied, hunter-green, paisley, satin robe. Something in his demeanor didn’t seem right. He didn’t look sick. He looked angry and for a moment I considered walking away. But it was late and there were no cabs around. I walked in and past him into the brownstone.
“You don’t look sick,” I said
Out of nowhere, I felt the back of his hand smack my cheekbone so hard that it nearly knocked me down. It left me in a state of complete shock. I was a deer in headlights and before I could react, I felt myself rise up into the air as he lifted me and proceeded to hurl my body across the room at the wall, which I crashed into, leaving me like a puddle on the ground.
As I tried to orient myself to what was occurring, I felt myself being lifted and thrown again and again. After several minutes, Mark threw me over his shoulder and began to carry me somewhere. I remember opening my eyes and seeing the stairs to his loft, one by one, disappearing beneath me.
Once upstairs, he threw me at another wall. It felt as if I were trapped inside a pinball machine. And it was this experience that provided the genesis for the recurring nightmares that would begin in due time. I would have thought gravity no longer existed had it not been for the falls that followed my crashes into physical obstacles. But this time, instead of falling to the floor, I crashed and landed on a bed. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me with a gun to my head. He grabbed my neck with his other hand and began to squeeze it and started to push my head into the bed. Then, grabbing my hair, he lifted my head and slammed it back into the bed. He did this a few times. Then he set the gun down next to him and pinned my arms above my head with one hand while I lay there terrified and frozen.
“You fucking bitch! You had no fucking intentions of ever calling me back! What, you think, I’m fucking stupid?” he screamed, then slapped me in the face. You’re a fucking whore!”
Then he grabbed my face and started kissing me. He shoved his tongue down my throat. He stuck his hand under my shirt and through my bra; grunting like a wild animal. Then he grabbed my crotch. As more of his weight began to bear down on me, I felt something shift inside my mind. Something inside my head literally snapped. It was as if a switch was flipped. Hatred. I felt pure and unadulterated hatred being released for the first time in my life. It began to seep out of my brain, like liquid, and permeate my entire body. It was as if all of the blood in my body had been moving towards my heart since birth up until that very moment. Then suddenly, at his mercy, the blood pumping through my veins had changed directions, leaving my heart frozen and dead. I felt iron chambers begin to close within me, blocking off every aspect of my being. Then I felt him beginning to try to undo my jeans. He was pulling and tugging, frustrated by the difficulty he was having. Every article I had ever read about rape was zipping through my mind and in that vast ocean of fear and trauma, I finally heard my father’s sweet voice and my panic subsided. “You must use your brain! You have more control over other peoples’ behavior than you think. But you must think in order to have that power.”
My father’s voice began to morph into my own and with that came clarity. I raised my hand to Mark’s face, looking deeply into his eyes and began to smile with delight. I began to kiss him like a mother would a child, all over his face. Everything stopped. Mark looked stunned and confused. He released his hold and I began to talk to him gently. I opened my eyes wide as I instructed my face to beam with joy.
“I can’t believe you’re attracted to me! I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment. Nobody in my hometown ever thought I was attractive and now here I am in NYC and the hottest guy in town wants to have sex with me! I can’t believe this is happening.”
I began to shake my head back and forth as if stunned by my luck to give myself a moment to think. Mark remained silent but seemed curious to hear more. It was then that my mind seemed to enter into an unfamiliar state of “speedy hyper awareness” for lack of a better term. In this state, I found myself able to quickly zip through different scenarios and see the outcome of each prior to saying anything. In some of the scenarios I saw myself ending up dead and in others, I saw myself winning this battle. I was able to highlight the winning scenarios in my mind as I continued to talk. I no longer remember everything I said during this time. I just remember how the power dynamics between the two us completely flipped around. I became maternal with him at points and as a result, his behavior became childlike. He had melted into a different, more innocent version of himself. He cried. He shared with me that he owed some people a lot of money for the coke he had been dealing and that he was afraid they were going to kill him. That was why he had purchased the gun. He was afraid to be alone. I told him that I was glad he had the gun to keep us safe and that I was so happy I had decided to come there that night to be with him. He allowed me to use the bathroom once before going to sleep. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the damage to the right side of my face. “Don’t die. Do not die!” I said back to my reflection. Then I walked back into Mark’s loft and crawled back into bed with him.
I learned a few important things about myself that night. Although I was young and naive, I learned that I was also strong and clever. I learned that I could melt monsters. But most importantly, I learned that I had the ability to remain calm and levelheaded during a crisis. Thank god I was sober. Had I been drunk, I am convinced that I would have ended up dead that night. I spent the next eight hours wide awake, lying with Mark’s right arm curled around me as he slept on his back with his gun in his left hand. That was the longest eight hours of my life. I had never been so happy to see the sun rise when it finally did the next morning. I spent all night preparing my escape and the moment had finally arrived.
The key, I decided during the night, was to not let on to the fact that I was trying to leave. I needed to seem reluctant to go if the moment presented itself. And if it didn’t present itself, I would need to make that happen in a way that seemed organic. When Mark woke up, we picked up our conversation where it had ended the night before. I reiterated how I wanted to be perfect for him the first time we had sex, which I assured him was something I still couldn’t believe he wanted to do with me. I confided how nervous I was because he was so experienced, and I was still a virgin.
I had somehow transformed from a “fucking whore” to Virgin Mary overnight in his mind. Now that he knew I was “pure,” I had become his property, his prized possession. And now that he was under the impression that he was going to be my “first,” he seemed to be in no particular rush. He stroked my hair as I played into his fantasy. Then he confided to me that his dad was going to have a heart attack when he told him his girlfriend was a “fucking towel head.” I had never heard the term, but quickly recognized that he was referring to my Middle Eastern heritage. I wasn’t exactly sure when I had become his girlfriend, apparently sometime between him hurling me at a wall and holding a gun to my head. Regardless, I continued to play a part in his sick game in order to stay alive and get the fuck out of there.
“Don’t tell him,” I calmly replied. “Just tell him I’m Italian. That’s what I tell most people anyway.”
He laughed. “That actually won’t be much better,” he said.
“Well, we’ll think of something. How about I make us some breakfast?” I said, trying to change the subject. “I realize that I’ll have to leave eventually. You know, to shower and get a change of clothes and all but,” I pulled him closer to me, “I’m not ready to leave yet. I’m starving, aren’t you?” I smiled and then I asked, “How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled,” he replied as he yawned and stretched his arms over his head.
I eased my way up from the bed as his gun rested on the other side of him, not wanting to make any sudden movements. Then I slowly descended the stairs from his loft to the first floor, where the kitchen was. On the way to the kitchen, I walked by the front door and, for a moment, considered escaping, but there was a hallway and staircase on the other side of the door. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to outrun him if he came after me. My heart sank as I continued walking past the door into the kitchen, wondering if I had just signed my death sentence with that move. I opened the fridge and grabbed the eggs and made him breakfast. As I cooked, I nonchalantly yelled up to him to call me a cab. Much to my surprise, he obliged. However, by the time he joined me downstairs, I noticed that his face had shifted into a more skeptical expression. “Don’t fucking blow it,” I said to myself. “Keep it calm. Bring it down a notch.”
“You’re coming back later, right? After you get more clothes?” Mark asked.
“Right, yeah. Tonight?” I asked.
“What do you mean tonight?” he replied.
“No, I just mean when can I come back? That’s what I’m asking,” I said as my heart sped up.
“Just come right back after you get your stuff. You can even shower here. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. You might as well just pack a suitcase. I mean,” he hesitated, “I know this is moving fast, but we might even want to think about moving in together, you know?”
“Really?” I asked as I forced myself to look slightly hopeful.
“Yeah,” Mark said looking hopeful back.
Then there was honking outside. My cab had arrived. Mark walked me to the front door and tried to walk out with me.
“You can’t come outside in your boxers!” I pretended to joke as I pushed him back into his apartment, wanting to keep him inside. Then he pulled me in for a kiss. He hadn’t kissed me since the night before when he had tried to rape me. I was afraid he wasn’t going to let me leave. But he did. I walked down the hallway.
“So you’re bringing your stuff back here, right?” he called out to clarify one last time.
I turned around and flashed him a look of excitement. “Yeah,” I responded. Then I descended down the staircase as the thrill on my face dropped off me like an iron weight.
“Bye!” I heard him yell out.
“Bye!” I yelled back.
I opened the front door and squinted in response to all the light outside. It took my eyes a moment to adjust. Then I saw the cabbie looking up at me. I was free. The panic set in immediately. My heart began pounding so hard that I thought it was going to beat right through my chest. I began to shake and breathe faster. There was no fucking way I was going to get into that cab and into another confined space with a man. I looked directly into the cabbie’s eyes as I quickly shook my head no at him, wishing he could read my mind. Then I walked past him and around the corner.
“Hey, kid!” I heard the cabbie yelling out the window. Then he began to honk his horn over and over again as he drove the car in my direction and pulled up to me.
“Kid, who called the cab? I’ve been out here for 15 minutes!”
“I don’t know,” I said raising my hands up in pretend confusion.
My legs turned to Jell-O. I began to run. The cabbie started honking again.
“No, no, no, no, no! Don’t honk your fucking horn, you fucking moron!” I heard myself say out loud. I was afraid that Mark would respond to the commotion and begin chasing me. I began to zigzag down different streets, now convinced that Mark was likely aware that I had not gotten into the cab and would find me if I stayed on the same street for too long. Terrified and paranoid I ran, in a very roundabout fashion, all the way from the West Village back to my apartment on 72nd and Broadway. I was convinced I was seeing him across the street, in a storefront, in a cab window, so through the city I ran, much like a mouse lost in a maze. I was like a caged animal, almost too frightened to free myself, desperately trying to get to the other side of the front desk in my apartment lobby back to safety. “The front desk. The front desk. The front desk.” I kept repeating it in my mind. I continued running, my heart pounding from the stress and exhaustion I had experienced over the last 15 hours. I ran, and ran, and ran. Part of me is still running through those streets, trying to escape. It’s the part of me that will never stop running and I’ve come to accept it.
Exhausted, I finally ran through the front door of the Beacon. I had to stop and bend over to catch my breath. Upon straightening back up, I looked out ahead of me and saw a handmade poster on the wall with my name on it asking for anyone with information to call this number immediately. Then I felt a hand suddenly grab my shoulder and heard my name being called by a male voice.
I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin as I spun around.
“Dottie!” Leo said, looking a bit disheveled. Then he saw my face.
“What happened to your face? Where the hell have you been?” He was grabbing my shoulders and shaking me with a look of terror on his face. But I was completely focused on the front desk. “What are you looking at?” Leo asked as he tried to figure out what was so important on the other side of the lobby. I still hadn’t spoken. But I needed to get to the other side of the front desk.
“I just want to stand over here,” I replied as I pulled Leo to the other side of the room. In my mind, I wasn’t safe until I got there, until I was on the other side of the desk and the building manager whose job, I had decided, was to protect me. Leo looked confused.
“Let’s just go up to your apartment! Ella’s up there. I have to let her know that I found you! And you need to call the school. Like ASAP! They’re filing a missing person report as we speak.”
“What?” I asked horrified.
“Dottie, you’ve been missing all night! It’s the middle of the fucking day now!” he continued to yell as we stepped onto the elevator. “One minute you’re in the bar with all of us and the next thing I know you’re gone without a word. I’ve been walking up and down these fucking streets looking for you for I don’t even know how many hours! I’ve been up all night looking for you!” Leo’s eyes were watering up. Then I looked him over and realized he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. He hadn’t been home yet to change.
The next few days essentially consisted of me putting out fires. My parents had never been contacted so at least I didn’t have that to contend with. But the Housing Coordinator from school had asked to meet with me first thing on Monday morning. I had gone in prepared to fight with her in order to get out of my housing contract. I couldn’t stay at the Beacon. Mark would find me there. I needed to move quickly, but I didn’t want my parents to be too involved. I certainly couldn’t have them coming up that week while my face was healing. But my parents would need to sign my new lease wherever I moved. I was too young to sign it myself. It was complicated. I had to lie to them. Ella lied to her parents as well, to get them to let her move out of the Beacon with me.
When I met with the Housing Coordinator on Monday there were more missing person signs with my name on them. But these signs had been printed up by the school staff and looked more official than the one at the Beacon. The Housing Coordinator took one look at the bruise on my face and tore up my housing contract without asking any questions. She seemed to intuitively know that the less she knew, the more she would be able to help me. In fact, she made it a point to not ask for any details. It took me off guard as I had been prepared for an interrogation. In retrospect, I wonder if it would have been better for me emotionally if she or any adult would have asked to hear the details, so that I could have gotten the help I so desperately needed. But in the moment, the shock of the event was still fresh and the logistics of keeping me safe and alive took precedence over my emotional well-being. Little did I know at the time just how long that road to recovery was actually going to be.
The Housing Coordinator gave me three weeks to move out. And then she did an additional favor for me by tearing up Ella’s contract as well when I explained that my parents were not going to allow me to live alone. Although I felt grateful that the school was willing to drop my housing contract with no questions asked, I had mixed feelings about the move itself. I liked living in the Beacon. It was convenient and many of my classmates lived there.
I must have been looking sad one day soon after, when coming back from classes, because the bouncer at the China Club checked in with me to see how I was doing.
“Hey Dottie, you lookin’ a bit down today. What’s going on with you?”
“Hi, Sammy. I guess I’m just having kind of a bad day. I have to move in a few weeks.”
“What? You ain’t leavin’ New York, are you?”
“No. I’m just moving uptown. But I also got a letter in the mail today from the Beacon. Someone complained about my tap dancing in the laundry room so I’m not allowed to do that anymore.”
“What, they ain’t lettin’ you tap dance next door now?”
I shook my head no.
“Well, you go get those tap shoes of yours. You can tap in the club until we open up. DJ is already in there. We’ll play whatever you like.”
“Really?” I asked, hardly believing his kindness. My face beamed with delight.
“Hurry up though. Go get your shoes!”
I ran up to my apartment and put on my tap shoes and headed back down to the club. I hesitated for a moment and then I asked Sammy for another favor.
“What do you need, dear?” Sammy asked.
“If a guy named Mark comes ‘round looking for me, can you not let him into the club? Just don’t give him any information, okay?” I asked.
“Is Mark what happened to the side of your face there? I see it’s beginning to heal up nicely.”
I had forgotten about the bruise and was surprised that Sammy had even noticed it. I thought my makeup had covered it up fairly well. I nodded my head yes.
“Well, how about you just tell me where I can find this Mark guy so that I can beat his head to a fucking pulp?” Sammy replied.
Sammy was a large man. But I couldn’t imagine him actually beating anyone up. He was such a big teddy bear. Sammy just warmed my heart.
“It’s okay. I don’t want you to do that. I just don’t want Mark finding me is all.”
“Well, all right then. I’ll be standing at this door anytime you’re in here making sure that motherfucker doesn’t get in. Here, I’ll walk you inside and introduce you to the DJ.”
Sammy headed into the empty club with me and yelled over to the DJ.
“Hey, Chuck. Put on a little James Brown for this young lady, will you? What song is it that you like?” Sammy asked leaning down to hear me.
“Ants In My Pants,” I replied.
“Oooh, you got good taste. Ants In My Pants!” he yelled over to Chuck.
“Are you sure my taps won’t scratch up the floor?” I asked Sammy, feeling a little self- conscious?”
“Baby, this is a dance floor. It’s made for dancin’! It’ll be fine.”
So that was that. One of the nicest things anyone ever did for me the whole time I was living in NYC. I was safe. Sammy wasn’t going to let Mark into the club, even if he came looking for me. And I could close my eyes and tap out those beats to James Brown uninterrupted until the China Club opened up to the public a couple of hours later. The DJ kept the music low so that I could hear my taps. He layered other sounds and songs to the James Brown beats I loved so much. I felt myself coming back to life as the Broadway music that had been playing in my head from class slowly morphed into the deepest, most awesome sounding rhythms I had ever heard.
Ever since that night with Mark, I had been experiencing this strange, new sensation that I was not inside myself. When Mark was assaulting me earlier that month, I had managed to escape the situation by somehow removing myself from my body. I hadn’t done it on purpose. It just sort of happened. And ever since that incident, I was mostly unable to get back in. I continued existing outside myself in a type of daze. The only time I could re-enter myself and feel whole again, seemed to be when I was dancing.
The thing about improv dancing is that it forced all aspects of myself to coordinate. My mind had to communicate with my legs, which had to then communicate with my arms. And if I was really feeling the rhythm, my heart began to beat along, even for just a short while. Tapping had become a type of therapy and without it I was completely broken. Dead. In fact, as soon as I stopped dancing, I would immediately exit myself and begin watching my life play out like a movie. It was as if the real me was experiencing my life from a nearby vantage point outside of my physical body. This presence seemed to be my former inner self, removed from me physically, yet always watching my every move, always judging, always safe, while my body remained an empty shell devoid of any human emotions. And my recently chosen nickname, “Dottie,” began to represent this new hollow shell while my real name, “Darian,” seemed to represent my inner self that was now mostly hovering and trapped outside my body.
On my way out of the club, I looked over to the bartender to thank him and realized the whole time I had been in there, that David Bowie had been sitting at the bar talking to him and a friend. David Bowie flashed me a warm smile as I walked out. I smiled back but didn’t say anything. I thanked Sammy once I was outside. There was already a long line of people waiting to get in.
“Hey, thanks Sammy. That was real sweet of you.”
“Sure thing. Anytime. Hey, is David still in there?” Sammy asked.
“David?”
“Yeah, is he still in there? I didn’t see him leave.”
“David Bowie?” I asked, certain he must be talking about someone else.
“Yeah,” Sammy replied.
“Yeah, he’s at the bar.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“To David Bowie? No!” I responded.
“Oh, David is nice. He’s good people. He usually leaves once the crowd gets here though. Try talking to him next time.”
I laughed and gave Sammy a smile. What a sweet soul that man was.
“Hey listen,” Sammy continued, “make sure to come down on Friday night. I’ll let you and a couple of friends into the concert for free. The Bangles are playin’. You like the Bangles?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you before then though. ‘Night Sammy.”
“Goodnight, my dear. Now you take care of yourself.”
Sammy bounced for the Beacon Theatre as well, so he always let me into the shows for free. But I would be leaving that all behind in less than three weeks so that I could move into a loft with Ella on 83rd street. This move would also mean that Ella and I would now be farther away from our pot dealer, Coco, as she liked to be called. Coco worked in the park across from the Ansonia. No more rolling out of bed in the middle of the night for a dime bag. With the move, we’d now have to plan accordingly. Not that there wasn’t easy access to dealers uptown, but we trusted Coco and knew she wouldn’t sell us any shit.
Friday rolled around and Ella, Leo and I got completely baked and then headed over to the Beacon Theatre to watch the Bangles. Although I rarely drank alcohol, I had decided that I really liked smoking weed. It helped me relax, which I apparently needed to do. Classmates were beginning to notice that I jumped out of my skin whenever anyone touched me unexpectedly. Sometimes I would be sitting in class and, out of nowhere, I would experience being back in Mark’s apartment getting thrown across the room. My body would jerk. It was kind of weird. I was turning into a weirdo. These, of course, were all symptoms of PTSD, but I had never heard of such a thing and continued to struggle through each day without telling anyone what was happening to me. So, pot was helpful. And everyone around me was doing it anyway, so I figured why not?
Leo, Ella and I probably went to five or six concerts for free while living at the Beacon. It was a pretty awesome block to live on. And I felt especially lucky to have found a friend in Sammy. I had grown up listening to the Bangles and was filled with admiration as I watched Debbi Peterson banging on the drums in the same room as me. If I’d only known of her when I had begged my parents to let me play percussion years earlier. But I hadn’t.
That Sunday, Ella and I headed to the flea market a few blocks east from the Beacon. While Ella purchased a variety of homemade soaps and crafts, I decided to buy army boots and a gigantic green army jacket. The jacket was so large that I had to roll up the sleeves about five times. But I wanted it to be especially big so that it would hang below my knees and cover up as much of my body as possible. Then I bought a switchblade. Ella looked at my purchases in dismay.
“What the fuck, are you going to war or something?” Ella asked.
“No. I just haven’t been feeling very safe lately. Men look at me different now. Like they want to eat me for dinner or something. I’m fucking sick of it. I just want them to leave me the fuck alone,” I responded, feeling like I had taken an important step that day towards my own personal safety and sense of well-being.
The following week, my parents called to tell me that Frank Lamari wanted to put a modeling portfolio together for me so that I could start working in the industry. Uncle Frank asked me if I knew of any attractive guys at school who wouldn’t mind modeling with me for the shoot. Leo immediately came to mind, so I asked him, and he said yes. The following week Leo and I took the subway down to Frank Lamari’s studio in mid-town. We had fun getting prepped together for the shoot. Leo and I sat in the dressing room as the makeup artist painted both of our faces and styled our hair. Then we walked out for the shoot.
“What an attractive couple we have here,” Uncle Frank said to Leo and me as we walked past the lights and onto the set. It hadn’t occurred to me that Uncle Frank had asked me to bring Leo along to act as my “boyfriend” during the shoot until that very moment.
“C’mon Leo,” Uncle Frank said soon after we started the shoot. “You’re both actors. Don’t be shy. You’re standing very close to a beautiful woman right now. Let’s see a little desire in these photos, all right? You too, Darian. You both need to relax a little. Boy meets girl. Let’s make it happen here. You want Darian to get some modeling jobs, don’t you Leo?”
It took a while for Leo and me to cross over that boundary that had sat so firmly between us over the past several months with him having a serious live-in girlfriend. Leo looked into my eyes and I into his. There was undoubtedly something between us. But I couldn’t really pinpoint or acknowledge the connection at the time. The haze from the Mark incident wouldn’t even begin to lift for another few years so any passion I was displaying that day at the photo shoot was mostly just “acting along” on my part. But for Leo, it seemed to be real. And the photo shoot had opened that doorway even further for him.
Leo stuck around for my solo shoot afterwards and silently watched as I modeled an array of clothes and bikinis. Once Leo was no longer modeling with me, it became easier for me to flash some seductive looks into the camera.
“All right, Darian. Here we go. Think of something or someone,” Uncle Frank said as he flashed Leo a quick look, “you want more than anything. Loosen your mouth just a little bit. Not too much. There you go! Hold it. Wait, I’m going to move up a little higher than you and have you look right up into the camera. Same expression.” Uncle Frank adjusted himself and the camera while the hot lights continued to blind me. That’s the look! Hold it. Blink. Perfect! Got it!” he said.
“You’re a little too good at that expression, Dottie!” Leo yelled out from across the room. “I don’t even want to know what you were thinking about just then,” he continued as he laughed.
“Steak! I’m really hungry,” I joked back.
“Hungry models make good pictures!” Uncle Frank added. “No, I’m just kidding!” he added as he laughed. “Don’t become anorexic on me, okay? Your dad would kill me! You’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t gain weight no matter what you eat! I’m telling you, wait ‘til we get these pictures out there. You’ll have an agent in no time at all.
Once the pictures were developed, I began to send them out hoping to find representation. I quickly secured an agent, Alan Nusbaum, who specialized in modeling and television/film acting and he began to send out my photos soon after. Within a couple of weeks, Alan called to notify me that I had gotten my first gig. It was a catalog shoot in midtown.
I was told to show up with no makeup and clean, unstyled hair. I walked into the studio and was greeted by two very flamboyant men, Tony and Marco, who appeared to be a couple. Tony sounded like Joan Rivers when he spoke. He was full of arm gestures as he shot out in front of Marco to talk to me at the speed of light, barely taking in any breaths as he welcomed me.
“Well there’s our gorgeous model! Hello there, beautiful! May all of your modeling fantasies come true today,” Tony said with a short curtsy. “Wow, how old are you?” he asked. Please tell me you’re at least 18 years old.”
“Yeah, I just turned 18 a few months ago,” I said.
“Oh, thank God! I can breathe!!!” Tony said as he dramatically lifted his hand to his chest. “All right sweetheart, you are going to be modeling some ta…da…daaaaaaaa…Halloween costumes!!!!!!” Tony sang out. “So, there’s the dressing room,” he continued as he pointed to the back wall. “Makeup artist and hair stylist are back there to get you prepped. Here’s a list of the costumes in the order we want you to wear them. They’re already hanging up in that order on the rack. No offense, but we like to keep things as simple as possible for our models. So just go get done up and keep coming out in your costumes and Marco will shoot. Easy peasy? $800 for four hours, but we usually wrap up in under three. How awesome is this day for you?“
I nodded yes and looked through the costume list on my way to the back wall. Sexy nurse, sexy teacher, sexy dancer, sexy maid etc…the list went on and on. After 2 hours, I had gotten through all the costumes and wondered if I would still get the entire $800 and then Tony added that there was a costume that wasn’t on the list. He wasn’t sure if I’d be willing to model it, which was fine because they could get another model to do it if it made me uncomfortable. Then he whipped out gigantic, plastic boobs that were attached to a belt and threw them over his head.
“Ta daaaaaaaaaaaa!” Tony said, as he modeled the boob costume for me.
“Where have those been my entire life?” I asked in all seriousness.
Tony let out a loud, booming laugh and began slapping his knee. He couldn’t stop laughing. It seemed a bit overdone given the fact that I hadn’t really been joking.
“Oh, my God! Honey, you are hysterical! Marco? Where the hell are you? Please say that again for him but make the face. Don’t forget the face!”
“What?” Marco asked unenthusiastically, as he walked back into the room.
“So this is what she does when I show her the tit costume!” Tony said, still laughing. “Go ahead, Dottie, show him.”
“Where have those been my entire life?” I asked, trying to recreate the moment the best I could.
Marco laughed.
“Isn’t she a fucking riot?” Tony asked. “Do you have parents? We could adopt her!” he continued, looking up at Marco with puppy eyes. He dropped the face in a quick beat, turned to me and asked, “So what do you say, you wanna model the tits or what?”
“Lay ‘em on me!” I replied.
They both laughed and we spent the next 20 minutes taking pictures of me in the fake, ridiculously ginormous tits. On my way out, Tony assured me that I would be getting glowing reviews from him and Marco when they spoke with my agent later that day to tell him how the shoot went. When I showed my mom the catalog a few years later, she was horrified and threw it out. It had fallen a bit short of the glamorous modeling career she had dreamed of for me.
“What, did you really expect to see my face on the cover of Vogue?” I asked her.
“Why the hell not? You’re gorgeous!” my mom replied.
“Oh, give me a break, Mom!”
“Well, you didn’t have to agree to do something so vulgar!” she said.
A few days later my agent called me with a more legit modeling gig. There was a buyers’ show at a hotel in midtown and French designer, Etienne Brunel had a model call in sick that day, so I needed to get right on the train to go down there. Debbie Townson was planning to visit me from Potsdam that day as well. I hadn’t seen her since moving to the city five months ago. I called her and told her I needed to push back our meeting a few hours. We planned to meet up at the Museum of Natural History for a cup of coffee after the gig.
I walked into the hotel suite and introduced myself. Two French women, the designer, Etienne, and her business partner, Mia, looked me over. Mia gave me a dirty look and rolled her eyes at me as I followed Etienne into the corner to get my makeup done.
“Oh, good, you’re lovely!” Etienne said. “Here, come, come, come! We are running late so I need you to hurry. Let’s get your makeup on and hair done as quickly as possible. Leslie, the model is here. We need to move!”
Once I was done up, Etienne’s assistant, Mia, began to pull the first dress over my head and drape it.
“Her tits are too small. I told you she wasn’t going to work,” Mia loudly complained to Etienne.
“They’re bigger than they were six months ago!” I replied while contorting my face into something much more comedic than model like.
“And she talks back,” Mia added, while continuing to talk about me in the third person.
I took that as a cue to stop talking. Apparently, models weren’t supposed to talk. Nobody had told me that. I also quickly learned that on legit gigs like this that I wasn’t allowed to put on any of the clothes by myself or make adjustments to the fabric. Only Mia could dress me.
“Nonsense. It drapes beautifully on her. See?” Etienne shifted some of the fabric around my neckline and made it fall more naturally. She was clearly the artist in the room. I wasn’t sure what value Mia added to the business. Perhaps she was the bank account. Regardless, she was evil and she seemed to despise me for no reason in particular.
“Well, don’t get used to modeling. You don’t have the right look at all. You probably can’t even walk,” Mia whispered loudly to me in her stupid, pretend French accent.
“Mia, hush! You are absolutely lovely, Dottie! Show Mia you can catwalk so she’ll shut her trap!” Etienne replied.
I didn’t move.
“Go ahead, walk!” Etienne said, continuing to encourage me.
I catwalked across the room like Uncle Frank’s assistant had taught me and spun around when I got to the edge of the room and walked back towards Mia and Etienne.
“There, I told you. She can even turn! Lovely! She is perfect.”
“No, she is too short for the runway! We can’t send her out there. Everything will look ridiculous on her!” Mia continued.
“You are naturally beautiful! You may want to also look into print work for magazines and catalogs,” Etienne said to me, ignoring Mia.
“No! Are you crazy? Don’t fill her head with complete shit! Her profile is too ethnic for print,” Mia added, rolling her eyes once more.
As Mia continued to change my clothes and send me into the suite to model for the buyers I tried to figure out what she had meant when she said that my profile was too ethnic. I had never heard that terminology before. I looked at my face in my mirror later that night wondering if had to do with how my eyes slanted but wasn’t sure.
Once the modeling gig was over, I jumped into a cab to meet up with Debbie. I was already over 45 minutes late and wasn’t even sure she’d still be there. I was wearing all black and still had my makeup on from modeling. I had my modeling portfolio with me because agents tell you to bring it to all your gigs so people can see how you shoot. I walked into the lobby of the museum and there was Debbie, sitting alone on a bench in the middle of the room. I was a little nervous, not sure of what we would still have in common to talk about. We embraced.
“What’s this?” Debbie asked, referring to the portfolio.
“It’s my modeling portfolio. I was at a job. That’s why I’m so late. I’m really sorry.”
“Can I see it?” Debbie asked.
“Sure,” I said. Then I handed the portfolio over to her.
Debbie flipped through the pictures of me in bikinis, me looking into the camera like I wanted to fuck it, me with Leo. I watched her face as she blankly flipped through the pages. She stopped at a more natural looking picture of me smiling. It was a headshot.
“There you are!” Debbie said. “I like this one the best. I can still see you in it.”
It felt good to relax and completely be myself with a friend who had known me prior to moving to the city. We sat there together for a couple of hours and then she had to leave. After she left, I walked through the museum by myself and decided it was my very favorite place in NYC. I promised myself to come back there again when I had more time and to try to make the visits a regular thing.
The following spring was busier in terms of schoolwork than my first semester had been. Ella and I had now been living in the loft together for a few months. In this new neighborhood, we found ourselves surrounded by lots of young, yuppie families with toddlers. Still, we stayed connected to our classmates and went out together just about every weekend with them. I was working part-time behind the counter at Cafe Lalo around the corner and on most shifts, didn’t get home until 2am.
Ella walked in one evening while I was working to tell me that Leo had gotten opening night VIP passes to a hot, new dance club in the West Village and he planned to meet us at our place around 10pm. Ella begged me to ask my boss if he would let me out early that night, which he did.
Ella, Leo and I took a cab downtown later that evening. Neither Ella nor I looked particularly fancy. No high heels, no jewelry. Both of us wore jeans and a t-shirt. I finished off the look with black, high top Chucks and a black fedora hat. Leo always dressed in expensive, black clothes that left him looking chic on top of beautiful. We walked into the club around 11pm and it was already pumping. The music was good and there were two gold cages at the back of the club. There was a male dancer in one cage and the other cage sat empty. After we were dancing for about 20 minutes or so, the club owner waved me over to him to ask if I’d be interested in dancing in the second cage for $100. He would pay me $50 now and $50 after a half hour. I politely declined, telling him that I was not a fan of confined spaces.
When I walked away from the owner, Leo wanted to know what the guy had said to me.
“What did he want?” Leo asked.
“He asked me to dance in the cage,” I responded.
“Oh my God, are you serious? Why aren’t you doing it?”
“I don’t want to dance in a fucking cage!”
“Why the fuck not? Was he willing to pay you?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“$100 bucks for an hour.”
“Are you fucking insane? I’ll do it!” Leo yelled back.
“I’m totally doing it!” Ella added.
Leo flagged down the owner and motioned him to come back.
“Can I dance in the cage?” Leo asked him
“No, I want the girl with the hat. She can move.”
“Dottie, get the fuck up there!” Leo yelled as he started pushing me towards the cage.
The owner got $50 out of his pocket and stuck it in my hand as he led me into the cage. Before I knew it, there I was in a fucking cage with hundreds of kids my age watching me to see what was happening.
“How do I get out? Like if there’s a fire or something?” I yelled out to the owner.
“You just push the lever,” he said while pointing to it. “There isn’t gonna be a fire,” he said as he laughed in disbelief at my anxiety. Then I tried the lever a couple of times to make sure I could get out.
I nodded my head yes as I stood there for a moment trying to take it all in. Leo and Ella came up to the cage and started screaming. Then Leo started throwing dollar bills into the cage as he jumped up and down beside it. I still hadn’t started dancing. Then I threw Leo’s dollar bills back out at him.
“I’m not a fucking stripper! Hold on to your money, big spender!” I yelled out. I rolled my eyes as I wondered how I had even gotten myself into this predicament. Then I looked over at the guy dancing in the cage opposite me. He winked at me and began to dance in my direction to help get me engaged. I started dancing with him, he in his cage, me in mine. We coordinated our dances for a while. And before I knew it, I was back in my element, forgetting there were even other people in the room. I began to use the cage as a prop, pretending I was trying to get out. I started fake kicking it as part of the dance moves. It became fun. Leo gave me a thumbs up and he began trying to impersonate my moves. Leo was not a dancer, so it left me laughing. By the time the first half hour was up, I felt like I owned the entire club, the entire city even. Manhattan was mine. I could rule it if I wanted to.
On our way back uptown, we stopped by the Beacon for a roof top party our classmates were having. Sammy was outside as usual, checking IDs for the China Club.
“There she is! Dottie’s back at the Beacon! Where have you been hiding, kids?” he asked.
“Hey Sammy!” Ella and Leo added in unison.
“We just got back from that club that opened up tonight in the west village,” Leo said. “And guess who got paid to dance in a cage?” Leo added, putting his left arm around me while pointing to me with his right hand.
“Oh, hell no! Dottie, you dancin’ in cages now? Shit, I missed it! Now wait a minute, girl. You better not forget about us over here at the Beacon when you get all big and famous now, ya hear?”
“I’m no more famous than I was this morning, Sammy. Trust me,” I retorted.
“Oh, we’ll see about that. Just don’t you forget who your real friends are!” Sammy said as he shook a finger at me then added, “you all going to the roof top party tonight?”
“Yeah,” the three of us said, nodding our heads
.
“All right then. Just be careful now. Don’t want any-a-you kids fallin’ down from that high up, you hear?” Sammy said.
I was feeling kind of wiped out from all the dancing. Ella and I ended up leaving Leo at the party an hour later and took the subway back up to our loft. It was probably 3:30 in the morning by the time we got back home. Ella flipped on the TV while I washed my face in the bathroom. By the time I came back out Ella was sitting staring at the TV, her mouthy slightly ajar.
“What happened?” I asked.
“No fucking way! There’s free porn on TV right now. This is fucking awesome!”
I walked up next to her and there it was, naked people fucking on cable television for free.
“I need to roll a joint for this. You in?” Ella asked.
“Sure.”
We smoked and watched porn rather quietly together for the next 15 minutes or so. Although, who the fuck can tell how much time goes by when you’re baked and watching porn, so it could have been an hour for all I know.
“That guy’s cock is so fucking righteous, isn’t it?” Ella asked.
My face contorted into a look of disgust and my body momentarily swayed in Ella’s direction as I tried not to vomit on her.
“What the hell is your problem? Don’t vomit on me, Dottie!” Ella said as she pushed me away.
“I’m not gonna vomit. I just think it’s a little gross.”
“What, his cock?” she asked, stunned.
“His whole body!”
“What are you a dyke or something?”
“No! I’m just tired. I need to go to sleep. It’s like 4:00 in the fucking morning. I was dancing in a cage five hours ago. I’m finished.”
“Well I’m totally gonna go jerk off in the loft right now. Do you mind sleeping downstairs on the futon tonight?” Ella asked.
“Sure. I’m already half asleep,” I replied
Ella climbed the ladder up to our queen size loft that we typically shared and masturbated while I lay there quietly on the ground floor in horror over the fact that I had found the man’s naked body completely repulsive. Even more horrifying was the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the naked woman’s body. I rolled over to my stomach and bounced my head softly against my pillow a few times hoping to shake the thoughts out of me, and quickly fell asleep.
A month or so later, another close friend from high school, Seth McNealy, came to visit NYC. Seth and Sean Calvert had been best friends for as long as I could remember. Seth was playing in a band with his older brother, Patrick. The band was made up of a few guys from Potsdam that had moved to Boston to make a go of things. By this point, they were playing the circuit and had come to NYC to play a show. Seth asked if he could crash with me while they were in town.
Seth and I had always had a nice, easy rapport. We had performed in a couple of musicals together in high school, although we were never paired up as a couple in those shows. And given the fact that he and Sean were so close, our friendship always had a bit of a sibling feel to it. Subsequently, I had always looked up to Seth’s older brother, Patrick, and thought of him as a cool, older brother type.
I decided to take Seth to the China Club to introduce him to Sammy and show him the place where I hung out the most. In addition to Seth’s singing and guitar playing skills he could also hold his own on the dance floor, so taking him dancing had definitely been on the list for the evening. As we danced, I felt more like myself than I had since moving to the city. It was a wonderful treat to have him there. Once the dancing stopped though, I stepped outside of myself again as I led Seth out of the club. On our way out, I was surprised to see David Bowie was still there at such a late hour. I thought about approaching him with Seth, like Sammy had told me to, but David seemed deep in conversation, so I just walked past him.
As Seth and I walked down Broadway for a few blocks, we enjoyed the late-night air as we talked about old times. It was a typical New York night, the dark sky lit up by the city. Then, out of nowhere, there was a loud, screeching sound followed by a crash. We turned around to find that a car had driven onto the sidewalk about a half a block behind us and crashed into a glass storefront. I barely flinched, then turned back around and continued to walk. As I talked, I eventually noticed that Seth was no longer walking next to me, so I turned around and found him standing in horror with his hand covering his mouth, unable to take his eyes off the accident.
“Holy shit! Is that guy dead?” he called out to me.
“I don’t know, here come the police. They’ll figure it out,” I said, much like a drone, as I tried to talk him out of his shock and get him to move on with me.
Seth looked at me. As he walked towards me, his look continued to remain perplexed, like he didn’t recognize me. I felt like I had to explain myself. But what was I going to say? How was it that someone could come up to me from behind and scare the shit out of me but a car could crash less than a block away from me and not have any impact? I could barely recognize the person I was morphing into. How could I explain all of this to someone who had known me back when I had still been normal?
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve already seen a few people die before,” I told him. “You kinda get used to it living here. I saw a yuppie riding his bicycle to work get run over by a car my first month in the city. Then I saw this old woman get run over by an 18 wheeler a few months ago.” I offered this excuse hoping it would be enough, but he still looked unconvinced. “A lot has happened to me, Seth. I’ve changed. I’m different here. Haven’t you changed?” I asked, hoping he’d understand.
“I don’t know. I mean, a little. But I still get freaked out when I see a car crash into a building less than a block away from me.”
The conversation dampened the evening and we decided to head back uptown to the loft. When we got there, I realized I didn’t have any food to offer Seth, so I left him with a bag of chips and ran to the grocery store down the street to pick up some stuff to cook. When I got back, Seth was vacuuming. He had spilled the chips onto the floor and had found the vacuum. Walking into my loft and seeing Seth vacuuming made me laugh. I stood in the doorway watching him for a minute. Seth turned off the vacuum once he noticed me.
“Honey, I’m home!” I yelled out jokingly.
“How was work, dear?” Seth replied, playing along.
I fixed something for us to eat and then we sat at my small bistro table and had dinner.
“Guess who’s having a baby?” Seth asked.
“Who?”
“Becca Turner.”
“Get the fuck outta here! Holy shit,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. People we graduated from high school with are already making families.”
“That’s totally weird, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Those two have been dating forever though. And that’s it. They’re just gonna stay in Potsdam now and have a family and never leave,” I pondered aloud.
I let my mind drift off as I tried to comprehend what that would even be like.
“Do you think you’ll ever have a family?” Seth asked. “Like get married and have kids and all that?”
I had kind of zoned out for a moment as I tried to imagine if I could ever be someone’s mother.
“Hello? Darian?” Seth asked, snapping me out of my thought.
“Oh, sorry. I don’t know. I never really fantasized about that stuff growing up like other girls did.” I hesitated then added, “But now, I don’t think I could do it even if I wanted to.”
“What do you mean?” Seth asked.
My eyes watered up. I hadn’t really opened up to anyone about Mark and how that experience had impacted me. Although I had told a few people bits and pieces of the story, I always ended the conversation by saying “but it’s not like he raped me or anything. I’m really lucky.” But with Seth, I somehow felt more comfortable allowing my vulnerability to show. And although I didn’t share the details of what Mark had done to me, I did admit for the first time that the event had really fucked me up. I made an attempt at putting words to the disjointed, disassociated existence I was now experiencing. I explained that there was something wrong with me as a direct result of what had happened with Mark and that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to fix it.
Seth didn’t quite know how to respond, but I could tell that he felt badly and wanted to help. He listened to my story. We continued to sit, the two of us, at that small table for a long time that evening, caught between our shared childhood and the adult world we had started to experience for better or for worse that year. We found ourselves comparing our lives to our peers and, in doing so, realized just how very different the paths we had chosen really turned out to be from others who had no intention of ever leaving home. The reality that the world may not have been spinning as quickly for those still living there as it had been for me left me feeling as if I was existing in an alternate reality. But Seth was an empathic listener and for one night his company would remind me that somewhere deep inside, I still longed to be reunited with my former self.