The One (part 1)

Physical and sexual abuse stole my childhood and innocence, robbing me of something I desperately longed for—something that so many people treasure: an innocent first love.

By the time I turned seventeen, my understanding of relationships was a gut-wrenching, tangled mess. Sexual abuse at age ten had hopelessly distorted the usual awkwardness of teenage romance, first crushes, and clumsy attempts at dating. While my friends were discovering the natural rhythm of boy-girl relationships, I felt isolated behind a wall of confusion, struggling to make sense of feelings that had been scrambled too early by adult experiences I wasn’t prepared for, long before I could understand. My inner turmoil and trepidation manifested as shyness to the outside world. However, it stemmed from my inability to reconcile adolescence with adult experiences, which made it difficult for me to do simple things like approach a girl and ask her out. Yet paradoxically, girls and women were drawn to me, offering intimacy and sex without my initiation, as if my apparent reluctance was a magnet drawing them closer. When I claimed to be shy, they laughed in disbelief. They saw no awkwardness in me; instead, they sometimes noted an unsettling familiarity with physical intimacy that was inconsistent with my age.

Their assumptions led them to a simple conclusion—here was someone sexually experienced beyond his years and utterly uninterested in emotional attachment. Decades later, a few of the girls I “knew” in high school confessed that I was a jigsaw puzzle of countless pieces, complex yet marked by a blinking neon sign around my neck that read, “Broken little boy inside with a complexity of adult feelings and experiences.” One woman confided, almost 50 years later, that this was very attractive, perhaps perversely, to more mature girls and older women—a broken little boy that was, ‘my god,’ able to sexually please them like no one they’d ever been with.

Gradually, I began to accept their assessment; I even crafted an “I’m not looking for a relationship, can this just be about sex” speech that I’d recite robotically upon realizing that nearly every encounter was heading toward sex. At age 20, I even delivered that speech to the woman I’ve now been married to for 50 years—three times. Thank God she ignored my half-hearted attempt, by then, to keep yet another chance at love at arm’s length.

Maybe this was simply who I was and how I was wired. The warnings came frequently—"You should never marry; you’re not the relationship type," they'd say. One woman's words cut particularly deep when I finally thought I’d give a relationship a chance, as I increasingly let her peek behind the curtain. Despite her admitted feelings for me, despite her repeated assertions about how much she enjoyed being with me, how safe she felt with me, and even how amazing the sex was, she laughed in my face at the suggestion of a relationship. "I could never get serious with someone who's been with one woman after another after another," she said, echoing an experience I would sadly face several times.

Decades and the guidance of a skilled, patient therapist would be necessary to help me make sense of years of experiences and assign them names. At sixteen, I had yet to begin to discover who I was or to develop a distinct personality like my adolescent friends. My mind conjured fragments of disparate identities and personalities for survival—all pieces of a whole that had splintered and dissociated under the weight of physical and then sexual abuse, each carrying its hopes, fears, and ways of navigating the world. Yet none of them represented the entirety of me. Beneath the layers of confusion and pain, I longed for something pure—an emotional connection that touched the gentler parts of my soul. Although I couldn't articulate it at the time, my very being yearned to experience what others my age took for granted—the innocence of young love, the tender exploration of feelings untainted by sexuality. I wanted to feel what it was like to forge a bond that began in the heart rather than the body, with guiltless joy rather than prurient desire, discovering a connection nurtured by shared glances and soft words rather than by rituals of the flesh. But how could I reach for something so fragile when any authentic sense of intimacy had been shattered, stolen from me so early?

And then, one day, I saw her. The universe hit the pause button, and I froze in my tracks—I couldn't explain why, and I still can’t, even if my life depended on it. Just outside my second-period class, her voice floated across the hallway as she spoke to someone. The sound transfixed me. It was virtuous and uplifting, like sunlight breaking through after days of deluge. I stood like a statue, listening to what could only be the utterance of an angel, so achingly sweet and warm that it threatened to melt me where I stood. This moment was unlike anything I'd ever known—unspoiled by the burdens of past guilt-ridden experiences. For perhaps the first time, I felt something new stirring in my heart—untarnished wonder and joy.

I had truly stumbled upon an angel—or at least that's what my wounded heart told me she was. Looking back, the cruel irony cuts deep—she was too unblemished for what I had become. I couldn't approach her; for once, I couldn't hide behind the guise of shyness. I wanted to know her, to be near her, with an intensity that burned brighter than anything I had ever known in my young life. But the innocence that attracted me—that promise of genuine emotional connection I desperately craved—was precisely why I had to stay away. In my mind, she was a virginal goddess, and I had placed her on the highest of pedestals, entirely out of my reach. I was often a sometimes violent or wild creature, my gentler, kinder self barely recognized. Unable to resist the advances of women who fed my darker appetites, I refused to taint someone so decent, so untouched, in my mind, by the ugliness of the world, with the stains of who I often thought I had become. Sexual abuse had robbed me of so much, but I couldn't let go of who and what she represented to me. So I became her stalker and self-appointed bodyguard, whom she didn’t know existed. Probably never in her entire life was she, unbeknownst to her, so safe and protected. She was innocently pretty, with a beautiful smile and sparkling eyes that stole my heart with a simple glance. Partly because of her beauty, I was perplexed when I discovered she didn’t date, which only added to the mystery that was part of the spell. Nor did she run with the popular kids, most of whom I knew, so we had no mutual friends.

But she was on the swim team, and the natatorium became my sanctuary where I could sit alone and unnoticed in the upper bleacher seats, simply watching. Her class schedule was easy to obtain—one night, I let myself into the school office and stole her complete file, including her academic records, everything. Between classes, I positioned myself where I could see her move through the halls, so graceful, so unaware of my presence. The details of her life became my obsession—her address, how she got to school, her friends. I was particularly interested to learn that she was the scorer for the baseball team, my favorite sport, though I sadly realized that I’d likely never get to talk baseball with her. It was pathetic; these scraps I collected and held close were all I had that were innocent and untainted. She had this inexplicable spiritual hold over me; this person I imagined was much better than I could ever be. Deep inside, I knew I had to stop this obsession. I knew I would likely never even speak to her. Was this some self-inflicted penance? Why was I torturing myself with this impossible dream?

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Fall 1971

"Hey, look, turn around, here comes your girlfriend!" George gripped my shoulder, laughing, and pulled me from my locker, spinning me around toward the hall.

"Girlfriend? Jesus, she’s NOT my girlfriend. Give it a rest, I’m sick of your stupid joke every fucking day. If I wanted a girlfriend, I’d have one. Major pain in the ass." I had never shared the darker details of my childhood with George or any other friend, nor was anyone aware of my many evenings spent in bars, often going home with women much older than me.

"Well, what do you call her? Every day, second period, you stand right here and wait for her to walk by. And you don’t take your eyes off of her until she’s 50 feet down the hall. Who the hell is she? I asked Joan the other day if she knew her, and she didn’t have a clue. One of your pet geeks you’re always feeling sorry for?"

My hand lunged at George's throat, gripping it tightly, slamming him back against the closed locker. Through clenched teeth, I spit out, "Don’t you EVER call her a geek again or I’ll...I’ll slam your head against this locker so fucking hard you’ll be dumber than you already are." I released his throat, and George backed off, rubbing at the unmistakable red handprint on his neck. He knew better than to piss me off; he’d seen me practically rip the limbs off guys almost twice my size.

"Okay, relax, she’s not a geek, what’s your problem? But who is she? You sure spend a lot of time watching her. Are you ever going to talk to her? Do you even know if she puts out?"

George should have stuck with geek. In one rapid motion, I turned and drove my fist hard into George’s gut, doubling him over instantly. Unfortunately for George, his nose and my knee were about to demonstrate that two entities can’t (can? quantum entanglement wasn’t on my radar yet) occupy the same space at the same time.

The wet crackle of cartilage, accompanied by the spurting of bright red blood, sickens most people. Judging by the gagging and screaming in the hall, only a select group of one found it amusing. I paused, a smug look on my face, and said to no one in particular, "Damn, George, you bled all over my pants." My words hung in the air, heavy with a casual cruelty that was a bit extreme, even for me. At that moment, I knew my response to George’s words was twisted and disproportionate to the crime. But he’d sullied my only decent relationship, albeit one that was pathetically all in my head.

Now, my feet carried me toward the classroom where she lurked—my thirty-four-year-old married teacher, my newest lover, who cast subtle, predatory glances my way as I entered her classroom. Just like that, the brief moment of innocent wonder evaporated. I was back in my prison, trapped in an emotionally barren cage constructed piece by piece by those who had so callously stolen my childhood. The air felt heavier with each step to my desk, burdened by the invisible chains of abuse that still bound me, still defined me, still kept me captive in a world no seventeen-year-old should ever know.

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