The Men In My Life When I Was A Dancer

The men. 

Where to start, describing them, and their various effects on me, from during my dancer years.

When I was in the Air Force, I was really struggling, with how to exist, in a healthy, happy, way, in an environment where men far outnumbered me and the other females there. 99.99% of the time, I felt like I was a pursuit, to them, and not a person. That wasn't a good way to feel to me. To be truly known, and really loved, for who I am, which my heart had always yearned for, was something that the limitations of men's lust didn't allow for. As a dancer in the nightclubs, I was once again in an environment which was populated mostly by men, and, more understandably, at least, given the atmosphere, with that same mindset of men toward me. Although my having been a dancer, and eventually doing prostitution, during this time in my life, seems, at least, by stereotype, to contradict this statement---  I have never actually been into such strictly physical involvements. I have always been someone who does not want or welcome any type of casual sexual relationships; in my body, or my life. I have known plenty of people, that seem eager, to jump into that type of thing, with little if any thought. I find such behavior to be truly concerning. On the deepest, truest, levels, physically, mentally, emotionally, and, even spiritually, I can only connect my sexuality with something that I feel deeply, in my heart, for someone special. Even when I have tried to project the opposite of that outwardly, at times, for whatever reason, it has always only been an act. My 'Stevie' side, I developed for my dancing career, was, also, never turned on, by men asking me, if my pubic hair was shaved into a heart shape, or, if my nipples were large or small, and telling me they would be great in bed if I would just give in to that with them. Honestly, that kind of thing always just grossed me out, even when the guys were good-looking or had other positive attributes aside from these common come-ons that I had to listen to every single shift I worked, as a dancer. >sigh< It was an inevitable and unavoidable part of the job. Maybe, I was the only girl, there, that felt this way, about it. But, what I enjoyed, about this job, was the dancing. Expressing myself!  Albeit, even my sexuality, and passion, to some extent. In reality, I kept all of that locked away, inaccessible, to these men, beneath my normal reserve, and even aversion, to males making advances when they made it clear that love and a real relationship had nothing to do with their attention or intention, toward me. This crap was simply a nuisance to me that I had to put up with, as a trade-off for a real sense of satisfaction and enjoyment, I got, from performing, up on the stage, interpreting the music, with my dance.

Since the stereotype about dancers led me to believe that I would almost certainly not find real love, in any of the Go Go bars that I was working in, despite my constant interactions with men in them, it, therefore, also felt like a relief to me, to be going into such places, where I would no longer even expect that, to happen, in my life. I wouldn't have to feel that it was because I was unlovable, anymore. Now I could attribute not finding it, not having it, to my job, instead of who  I was as a person. Guys did not see dancers as real people. They saw dancers as sex objects and fodder for their fantasies. They pictured us as always wearing sequins, not sweatpants, in their mind. If they wanted to see or get to know 'real' girls, they wouldn't come in those places, to begin with. What these men wanted, when they came into the Go Go bars, was an escape! From reality. I was a very real woman though, with a heart made of flesh not stone, which had been ripped apart, by what too many men had already put me through in my life. I would get a PhD-level education about males, from my becoming a dancer, and logging so many hours of conversations, and interactions, with them, over many years, in those nightclubs. They did not come in there wanting to meet a real human being. I had to learn to play the part, and be their fantasy; but, that didn't just serve the purposes of these men. I created a persona (my dancer alter ego, Stevie), who was protectively positioned in front of the 'real' me, and stood strong. I was already completely brokenhearted, and, could, potentially, be hurt, even more. By any, of these men. Stevie did not let them in, behind the mask, to see Deborah there, vulnerable, and hurting. Curled up, in a fetal position, sobbing her heart out. I had to create, and then develop, Stevie, though. I was dancing as Debby, when I started, my first night at the Razzle Dazzle as a Go Go girl, and that was simply not going to work--- to put someone, still that naive, trusting, and good-hearted into this arena surrounded by people that were completely comfortable in a world that I did not yet understand, or know how to navigate, in a way that protected me, from further physical or emotional harm. I would most definitely have been destroyed in some form or fashion, if I had continued, to expose my 'Debby' side, to this job. As soon as I was able, to comprehend enough about being a dancer, to know, what I needed to do, to survive and even thrive doing it, I brought 'Stevie' to the forefront, of me, and I let, that side, take over, in my life.

I eventually evolved fully into my dancer alias 'Stevie'.  It finally became who I was without my thinking about or trying to become that persona anymore. It was quite a change in many ways from who, and what, 'Debby' had been. In some ways, that was a release, and a relief. Debby was drained by takers and users. Stevie recognized peoples' crap when she saw it and made sure they knew she wasn't having it from them or anyone, even with just one steely-eyed look at them and not a word said*. I had NO time or energy to suffer fools gladly. (I still don't to this day, after living my life that way then! That was just part of the legacy that Stevie left me when she became who I was; and who I still am, to a large extent. All my decisions and movements had a purpose in my life when living as Stevie, supporting my own goals and my own agenda. My sweet, sacrificial, warm-heartedness cooled, down to frost-bite-level, toward gameplayers, assholes, and idiots, which this world apparently has a surplus of, based on how many I have met, and had to deal with, in my own life. While there were always nuances and traces, of the other side of me, no matter which side I was leading with, in my life, at any given time, Stevie was alot more assertive, as far as interacting with other people, because she had to be, to be  a dancer. She, was my stage presence. I could not have done that job, as long, or as well, if I had not created and developed that persona. I am not, by nature, always all that comfortable, being around other people. Especially, in unfamiliar, or stressful, social settings; as 'Deborah'. 'Stevie' was my outgoing side. Going up to strangers or having them come up to me, at work, night after night, was one of the most difficult parts of the job for me. As I said, because I was required, to sit, and talk, with all types of men, who came into these clubs, as part of my job, I eventually obtained, the equivalent of, an unofficial PhD in Male Psychology. It came down to my knowing, almost word for word, what would come out of a guy's mouth before I ever even approached him, simply based on his body language, when he walked in the door of the club. It was foolproof so much of the time that it was almost like a science, it was so certain. It was, also, so disappointing, and discouraging, to me.  All these men, being this predictable in their carnality, and superficiality. Their horniness, and often, misogyny, was always at the forefront.

I admit, that, during my dancer years, especially because I was surrounded by so much of this type of mindset from the males that I had to interact with at work, six nights a week, there was also a certain level of prick-tease payback, I did, toward these men, for all the ways and times they had, and still, continued to, fail me, throughout my life. And, worse, done me actual harm. Some would say, that 'Stevie' was the dark side, of me, and in some ways, and at some times, I would agree, with that. But 'Stevie' also stood up for herself and didn't take crap off of people, and gave herself permission to dismiss someone from her presence with an emphatic, "FUCK OFF!" when she felt that to be necessary. 'Stevie' enjoyed a freedom from the constraints and shackles of others' opinions, and expectations, which, had held me hostage, for my whole life, before that, as Deborah; the good girl, who had no choice, because she had no voice. 'Stevie' was brought to the forefront, from the depths, of me, to run things, much more, on HER terms, for awhile. No, I am not describing a split personality. I simply, ascribed certain characteristics, and permissions, to my alter ego, socially, when I created that, 'Stevie' persona, to work in the nightclubs, in order to survive, this whole, new, world, which I had now become a part of, as a dancer in the Go Go bars of the Omaha area. For better, or for worse, as far as the effect of it on me, and on my life, 'Stevie', was the part of me, that could cope with, living that kind of life. As a case in point of my summoning 'Stevie' to carry that kind of confident vampiness off, one day, several years, after I, finally, had to retire, from dancing, I was walking down the sidewalk alongside one of Omaha's busiest streets (S.72nd Street) headed to a fast food restaurant for my lunch break, from the large book store that I now worked in, as a cashier. As I spotted The Twenties night club, not far down, from there, on a side street, those memories of my dancing there for years came back to me. I was having a crappy workday at the bookstore. I was paid minimum wage there working for people who didn't appear to ether recognize, or respect, my value. I was feeling pretty discouraged. So, when I saw, the nightclub, those memories raised up that feisty, take no crap, 'Stevie' side of me, and I burst into doing my Stevie walk--- a very sleek, and sexy, runway, kind of confident stride--- just to lift my spirits some. I wasn't thinking about anyone actually watching me, until I heard the SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH of a car, trying to brake very abruptly, and then the sound of the car hitting something in the street.  I turned to look behind me, to see where that startling noise was coming from, and saw a guy, still staring at ME, from the driver's seat, of that car, with a look of bewildered disbelief, on his face, as reality, had, literally, come crashing back, into his life, from whatever place of fantasy watching me walk that way had transported him. He had run into the median, in the center of the street, and hit the stop sign, that he didn't even see; until it was too late. Ah, the power, of  a certain type of a woman's walk on a man . . . . It's amazing to me. I hope he had insurance!

Sometimes the club customers 'courted me' romantically, in ways that were somewhat bizarre. I had a regular customer, at the Backdoor Lounge, who was actually a fairly young, unmarried, minister, from Louisville, Nebraska, about a 30 minute drive, from Omaha. He felt fairly secure that none of his parishioners would find him, sitting in a Go Go bar, that distance away, and he was tired of being single, but, equally tired of well-meaning church women trying to set him up with what he saw as their dull and dowdy daughters. Even though he was a 'man of the cloth', he explained to me that he had the normal, male, desire for something that was more exciting in a woman; especially, one he would consider marrying. He was average looking, and a nice enough man, although, not particularly captivating company, for me. But, he made a pleasant and preferred regular, for me, in the nightclub, because I tended to keep the nicer guys as my regulars. I had no desire, to deal with the guys that were just jerks. In there, or anywhere else. Since I am a Christian, and actually fairly well versed in all things 'Christian'--- which, seemed to surprise many, since, I was a dancer, and therefore, bucking their stereotype, of me, in that way--- we had that foundational background in common. However, one night, he offered me a ride home, after work, after I'd known him for some time, and he pulled this hand puppet from the back seat of his car, put in on his hand, explained to me that it was the same one he used every Sunday, to give the Children's Sermon portion of the church service, and then used it to speak to me, for him, about the naughty little things it (he) fantasized about doing to my body!  I cooled, toward him, completely, after that, because, now, I pictured him, using that thing with the preschool age children, at his church, and wondered if he had such thoughts toward them when he had this same puppet on his hand. He AND the PUPPET were now CREEPY to me!

During my dancer years, all things with men and how they are or tend to be, taken as a whole, I became extremely glad that I was single and did not have a husband to wonder about, as far as his whereabouts, when he was not home, with me, or his faithfulness, to the vows, he took, which many men do not seem to be very concerned about staying true to after they say those. My extensive education that I got, about men, especially, during these years, of my life, taught me that, they are not worth it, and are also more trouble than they are worth. Especially, as far as what I gave, for what I got, with them. It was both, funny, and sad, to me, to be shopping in the women's department at a store in the mall, and see one of the club customers, standing 6' tall, or so, desperately trying to shrink themselves down, to try to hide, behind the 5'5" woman they were with, which was clearly their wife. The look on their face was one of silently begging me not to speak to them, or in any way indicate that I even knew them; especially not, where I knew them from! There was one, club customer, that I knew, from the very last nightclub that I worked in, who was a route salesman. He lived in Minnesota, but had to regularly drive down, to Omaha, as part of his travels for his job. He provided embalming supplies to funeral homes. I never did anything sexual with him. Not even a kiss, not an embrace, nothing. He seemed to be a really nice man, and he felt lonely on the road, with only his motel rooms, along his route, the funeral parlors he sold to, and eating alone at the end of each day. That is why he came in to the club, I worked in, both, to watch the exotic dancers, on stage, and because this bar also served food, not just drinks. Otherwise, he simply sat in his motel room, watching TV alone, at night. I don't recall him even drinking alcohol. I felt sorry for him, so I agreed to eat dinner with him out at a restaurant. After that, every time he regularly came to town, on his sales route, he called me and asked me to eat dinner with him. I did, but I am sure I shouldn't have as he was a married man. Eventually, after a few months of this, despite no romantic behaviors, between us, he called me and said that he should not be doing this, and he ended our dinners together. 

The next month, though, he called me up, and was extremely angry with me that I had heartily endorsed that decision of his, and had not made him feel more 'wanted' by begging him not to stop our dinners together! His ego was wounded, because it had not bothered me in the least, or phased me at all. He had apparently gotten emotionally invested in his relationship with me; not a good thing to do. His sales route was so mundane and drab, to him, that, by comparison, I had become the bright spot, in his trip. I had no real involvement with him, though, and, I had thought he had done the right thing, when he said a married man should not be having dinner, in restaurants, with another woman, especially not on a regular basis. Despite our never being romantically involved, with one another, I nevertheless felt very uncomfortable, when he would call his wife--- at their agreed upon time in the evening--- while I was sitting across from him at a restaurant table. It bothered me to hear him tell his wife that he was sitting in his motel room, ordering dinner in for himself or such, and it just wasn't true. I knew his wife likely believed her husband though; and I knew that, more than likely, my second husband had done me like that and more than once, in our relationship; a hunch I have just based on how emotionally distant we became, with one another, and how, he never talked, to me, about, where he went, or was, when he was out, which was fairly often. >sigh<  I knew these same men wouldn't like it, if this behavior was done in reverse, to them, either, which made me even madder, that they thought we deserved no better, than this, from them! Every time this club customer I was having dinner with hung up the phone, after telling his wife those lies, right in front of me, as a witness, to it, I could see that, for him, that was simply a 'courtesy call' he made to her, that he did not feel the least bit guilty about doing. I lost my temper, when this, married, club customer started actually telling me off, when he returned to town next, and tried to renew our get-togethers after he had stopped them, himself, which I had readily approved of and agreed to. It had become a bizarre 'jerking me around', now, due to his own conflicting emotions. I was not having it, and I told him to never contact me again, or I would tell his wife. He lived in a small town, and he had told me where. I actually would not have told her, and hurt her, but he did not know that; and I said that to break his attachment, to me, which needed to happen. We had only eaten dinners, together, in restaurants, but I knew that he had become too emotionally invested in me, for whatever his reasons, when he called me once from Minnesota, where he was home, with his wife and kids, for the weekend. He told me that he had deliberately got out of going to church, with his family, like he usually did, on Sunday mornings, so that, he could call me, 'just to hear my voice'. That made me feel sick, inside, and I regretted ever agreeing, to be his dinner companion, when he came to town on his sales route. He also created an email account just to contact me, he said. 

There was something else, about him, that angered me most of all. Not so much, directly, as it was not aimed at me. But, I was especially upset, with something that he did once, during one of our dinners, because of my own father, failing me, in the same way that this man was doing to his daughter. This man was tall, and thin, just like my father. He looked alot like him too. He actually could have even been my distant relative, I suppose, because, he even had the same last name! He was alot like my father, in many ways. Perhaps, my relationship with him was a way of my trying to vicariously have the attention and affirmation, from him, that my dad never gave me. On this one particular evening, as we were eating dinner at a restaurant, he dutifully made his obligatory phone call to his wife. They talked a bit, as I sat across the table from him feeling awkward about it all, even though we did not have a romantic, or a sexual, relationship with one another. When their conversation was finished, he looked annoyed, and, without any prompting, or prying, from me, about whatever was causing him to look so angry, he began to tell me, with disdain, dripping, from every word that he said, that his daughter, who was in her late teens, or early twenties, was in counseling, and had described, to the counselor, how this man, her father, had ruined her life due to emotionally crippling** her, because of his physical and emotional absence from her life. She felt an aloofness, indifference, and lack of nurturing from him, just as I had felt from my father, for my whole life. He looked across the table at me, with unbridled hostility, displayed in every feature of his face, and said, to me, "She just wants somebody to blame. I couldn't possibly have 'ruined' her life! I am almost never even around!" 

"It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard--- but, it is so like her," he continued, as I held my temper, outwardly, because we were sitting in a crowded family restaurant, in the mall; but internally, I was livid, listening to this, clueless, father simply shrug off his own daughter's pain, which was caused by his own ignorance of, and impatience with, her needs. My life, had been impacted in this same, very negative way, because of my father's refusing to be affirming, and affectionate, toward me. That, drove me into a marriage, and, out of school, as a freshman, at age 18, because, as soon, as I left home--- where my emotional needs were not being met, at all, I was extremely vulnerable, to any male attention, and nurturance, which I was starving for. That showed up in my life almost as soon as I went away to college in the form of my half-first cousin, who lived in that city, and took advantage of me sexually, causing me to feel that I was forced to marry him then.*** My own father wasn't communicative or loving, toward me. When he would interact with me it was always very short and to the point, in which he almost always communicated his disappointment in, or disdain toward, me, adding insult, to that injury, to my soul, with unhelpful hostility, whenever a situation arose for which I needed his understanding, and support. So, I eloped, rather than explain to him, that I was failing my classes, while away at college, now, and falling apart, emotionally, because my cousin gave me that attention, and affection, that I was starving for, from a male figure in  my life; and that I thought, when he got me drunk, one night, that he had raped me. I flashback to that, here, because my relationship with my dad was my first information and education about men, and affected my relationships, and their outcomes---  especially, those I had with men---  throughout my life. My father would rarely be supportive, helpful, or understanding, toward me, and, the little, that he was, was not enough, to make a positive impact on my life, by counteracting, or undoing, the majority of the times that he failed me, as a father. He would never see, realize, or admit, how much of who I was or what I did happened because he had never really been a dad to me. Just like this club customer, denigrating his daughter, my father, would have reacted this very same way. In that moment, as I was listening to this man, absolutely refuse, to take any blame, or responsibility, for how his daughter was damaged, by his own omissions, and commissions, in his (lack of a healthy, nurturing) relationship, with her, I hated them both. Him, and my father. I saw them as two very ignorant, unseeing, males. I wasn't sure, if they, truly, didn't comprehend their hugely damaging, negative impact, on their daughters, or whether they were so upset, to be accused of it, because they knew, it was true, deep down, that they had failed their daughters; but they really didn't care, or, just didn't know what to do, so, rather than try, to deal with it, they simply shut down, and ignored the issue. Regardless, every little girl, that grew up to be a dancer, or  a prostitute, used to be some man's daughter, who either did, or didn't, affirm her, nurture her, or demonstrate to her that she is worthy of respect, and loving care, and especially from men.

I had met this man I was having dinner with at the last club that I ever danced at, before I was finally forced to retire, from the business. I had put off that, dreaded, day, as long as I possibly could, because I enjoyed doing this job so much! (The dancing, not the dealing with the men.)  I had always looked younger than my age, up until my sixties which I am midway through now and is when the stresses of life have begun to really age me. Rapidly. I was still on stage until the year 2000 when I was 44 years old. People guessed my age at around mid-to-late thirties. The trouble was, by your late thirties--- whether that was a dancer's actual age or the age she appeared to be--- you were considered to be too old to be in the dancing business. Most men wanted to feast their eyes on, and get their hands on, the nubile younger women who weren't yet jaded or cynical toward them, or, they hoped, toward their, inevitable, sexual advances on them. I was in my late twenties, when I started working as a dancer, so I had a late start, at it, as it was. I had seen several other girls grow too old, or ugly, to be able to remain a dancer in any viable way, if only because the ability to get hired, and the income from tips from the club customers, dried up, right along with their estrogen. It left me feeling very uneasy that, for the ones that stayed too long, in the business, the blatant disrespect they started to receive, from bosses who fired them, sometimes actually physically throwing them out of their nightclub, by literally grabbing them off the stage, and from club customers, who wouldn't even set eyes on them when they danced or sit with them so they could sell their drink quota for the shift, could be something that could happen to me, too, someday. It was both sad and scary, to me. I told myself, I would not allow myself to stay until I, too, was asked, or even worse, told, to leave. I realized that day was finally almost upon me, at Lipstix in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which was the last club that I worked at. I quit soon after this happened to me: I got along well with the other dancers and not one of them made me feel like I didn't still belong. I had earned their respect, my years in the business. One night, when I was up on stage, a young man, probably half my age, then, so, in his early twenties, held out his dollar, folded in half, lengthwise, like tips were usually presented to us dancers; and when I knelt down to have him slip it into the side of my costume bottom, he said, to me, observationally, with no disrespect, in his voice, at all, "I give you props, for being up there. You look good, for your age!"  I forced a smile, which was hard, for me, in that moment, as I simultaneously felt a wince, trying to take hold, instead. I felt self-doubt set in, I started dreading my dances, and I knew, that the fun had ended, for me, in this career. The reality, had finally hit me; that I could no longer do this job. THAT day, had COME.

Just, to give you some examples, of why, the guy, at Lipstix, who simply said, sincerely, to me, "You look good, for your age!" was letting me off easy, compared to how the customers speak to, treat, and talk about, some of the dancers in these nightclubs, I just Googled Reviews for a couple of these bars that I actually used to dance in 'back in the day'; decades ago, now. Here is a ONE STAR Review, of Lipstix, that I Googled, just now, to show you what customers have to say, about how the dancers look, through their eyes. It's a tough business. Especially, if you happen to be an aging dancer:

Rick S. Omaha, NE 1/3/2018
Slow paced depressing atmosphere, bikini bar. Variety of girls ranging from the sublime (a couple) to the ridiculous(most). A couple of them were a little scarey to look at. Typical midwest bikini bar with just average girls at best.  

Here is another, One Star, online, Review. This one is about The Twenties nightclub in Omaha, where I also used to work, decades ago. It was the best Go Go bar, in the area, when I worked there:

Dave R. Sioux Falls, SD 8/30/2016
Can't rate lower than a 1. That's yelp's shortcomings. This place is a nightmare. Coming from an out of town guest. Apparently Nebraska has a no, nudity law?? You can't strip below a bra and panties. I can see that shit on Disney. Also, if a girl stands next to to you (hangs with you) you HAVE to buy them drink. IF you want to have a private dance, it's a mandatory drink buy for them..... And 25 per girl per song.. Unless you have two people, then two girls (at 25 per girl/per song).. Then it cost 100 bucks. Cuz they switch in the middle of one song, so one song, two ppl, two girls.. Means they danced 1/2 a song per person. Apparently means they're worth double. Asked their manager and he said the math gets "hard". Maybe for his ignorant ass. Math is pretty easy. When I told him that, he said the math is different in this industry. I know people in "this industry" and they don't need to run scams to make money. Girls take off their clothes (not at your bar) that should be enough. If you can't make money off that without screwing ignorant people. Then, good for you. God bless you and eat shit.

Alot of the guys that came in these bars were not jerks. But, some of them were real assholes. One night I was sitting in the club waiting for the start of the show, when another dancer came and sat by me just to chat. I was feeling really disgusted by men, right about then, because of some of the crap, that they had been doing, which was causing me to lose all my faith in them as decent human beings who could think with their actual head and not their little head in their pants. Because, we girls worked together, in the same room, every night, we knew, who knew which club customers, and which guys were newcomers to the bar, or strangers to us. (In fact, we would even, go back, to the dressing rooms, and let a girl know, when one of her 'regulars' came in the club, so she could get out there, and make her money.) So, this other dancer that was talking with me, then, tried to tell me that it was not as bad, as what I was making it out to be, about men. I looked her in the eyes, and said to her, "I'll bet you, it is! You pick ANY guy in this room, as long as you know it isn't someone that you or I know in here, and just go sit near enough, to them, to be able to hear my conversation with them. Once you get in position, I will come over and say something to the guy. ANY guy, YOU PICK! And I just want you to listen to what he says. She said okay and walked over to the large bar and sat down near a guy sitting on a bar stool there, not speaking with him, at all. Then I walked over to him, never having set eyes on him before, in my life, and tapped him on the shoulder, as she watched from close by. As soon as he swiveled around to face me I stepped in between his manspread**** legs while noticing his wedding ring, on the hand holding his drink, and I said, to him, "Hey, baby! Do you wanna have sex, with me, tonight?" He sat straight up in his chair and, with a voice, filled, with his excitement, and enthusiasm, he replied, right away, to me (nothing else, said, between us), "Heck yeah!" I didn't say another word, to him, at all, but I looked at her then, and said, "That's why." Then I walked off, and sat back down, across the room, where I was before. Point made. 

That predictably.

It was disgusting, to me!

These guys NEVER asked if we could get PREGNANT by them, and even if they didn't CARE about US, or THEIR BABY, they also did not contemplate that we could require paternity tests, and take them to court, for child support. (Guys seem to universally hate wearing condoms so  I sidestepped alot of sexual 'offers' from the men while I was a dancer by saying that I couldn't have sex with them because I wasn't on birth control. I wasn't. I had my tubes tied, when I was 28 years old, so I had been surgically sterilized. But, I wasn't telling them that, because I didn't want ANYTHING like what THEY WERE OFFERING. Or, should I say, TRYING TO GET, from me.) These guys did not ever ASK, whether we had some sexually transmitted disease--- and some of those diseases are not curable! In fact, when HIV Aids was first on the scene it was a DEATH SENTENCE and sleeping with someone even ONE time could INFECT YOU WITH IT if they had it. These men were often MARRIED men, that came in there, too. They could have gone home and given their wives herpes, for life, or spread a deadly disease, like AIDS, to the woman at home in their bed, trusting this husband that they loved, from the faith that they had shared marriage VOWS with one another making a MUTUAL COMMITMENT; even a spiritual COVENANT. It is considered, a SACRED union, in churches, and synagogues; not, just a civil ceremony. In fact these men ALSO usually didn't ask US if we were married, or if they did ask, THEY DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THAT. If they could get SEX, from you, that is ALL, they CARED about. That disgusts me, to the core of my being, about males. I see them as being weak and needy, selfish, unfaithful, untrustworthy, not worth, letting into your life. And, as someone, who clearly does not see women as real people with feelings, rather than simply as sex objects, or they would be much less likely, I would think, to do this crap to their wives or with the dancers. The fact that they see this behavior as harmless, to all parties involved, on any level, or if they don't, they still do it, anyway, leaves me feeling extremely grateful, that I do not have a man in my life, in my bed, or in my body, anymore. Nor do I want one of these low-life creatures. It's a hard thing when you were raised, from the time you were a little girl, to believe you would end up with a principled hero, and 99.99% of the men, you've encountered, are anything BUT that. 

Some of the club customers would just be 'handsy', always trying to 'cop a feel' whenever and wherever they could on whichever dancer they happened to be in proximity to, which was bad enough. Occasionally some asshole would just flat out grab for our crotch. In my entire career, as a dancer, only one pulled that particular move on me, when I had walked up to his table, to introduce myself, since we had never met, and he quickly reached out, and grabbed me there, but on the outside of my costume bottom. I reactively slapped his face, for it, then immediately retreated to the dressing room, to scream, in my fury, and pound on the wall, in there, with my clenched fists, to try to get my rage out from his doing that to me, so I could go back out there and do my job, dancing on stage, and mingling, between sets, with club customers, so I could sell my drink quota for the shift. One trick that men sometimes used, with the dancers that sat with them, was to tell a dancer that their tip was down inside his pant's pocket and she had to reach in there to get it to see 'how big of a tip' it was. Many a dancer learned the hard way, no pun intended, not to fall for that trick, after discovering the guy had cut a hole in the bottom of his pants pocket, and he had no underwear on. He did this so that, when the dancer reached in, she got a handful of his hard-on. Even worse though, was something that happened to me on stage, one time. Two customers, came in, one night, and sat right up by the stage. I didn't know, what was coming, from them, at all, because, I had never seen, any guys, do this, to a dancer, before. One of them stood up, to tip me, during my dance, holding his dollar bill in his hand, and the other also stood, to tip me, simultaneously. As I knelt to allow them to place the two tips into the side of the waistband of my costume bottom, they both suddenly dived down, with their hands, into the interior of my costume. As I realized, with shock and horror, that they were ambushing me (also, no pun intended), I frantically tried to break free and stand back up but, these two men, BOTH had their hands DOWN INSIDE my pants! I felt the one, in front, of me, actually put his fingers on my vulva, and he was trying to shove it into my vaginal opening when I fell over onto the stage floor, while trying to pull myself free of them. Adding insult, they BOTH KEPT THEIR TIPS, which were apparently only offered to me as a ploy, to ambush me, so they could literally touch my, most private, body parts. They knew, I couldn't simultaneously fight off TWO MEN, trying to grab my genitals with their bare hands, at once, so at least one of them would get to sexually assault me, in that way; which these strangers did, to me, on stage.

By the way, AL, the bouncer, there, at the Backdoor Lounge, was a jerk, himself. So he wasn't alot of help. He had defected, from working for Mickey, to come to work for, his buddy, Dick, at the Backdoor. AL didn't even try, to hide his misogyny, toward the very dancers that customers came to see, which made him a nice living, as well. He was irritable and indifferent, and spent most of his time, just sitting on his ass, on a bar stool, by the door, so that he could at least ID people coming in, to be sure that they were of legal age, so the bar didn't get its liquor license pulled. Other than performing that duty, he mostly sat staring at the bar TV in the corner of the room almost all night, every night, rather than ensuring that the customers interacting with the dancers, continually, were not getting out of hand, which, was supposed to be the biggest part of, what he got paid, to do. He never showed any of the dancers any real courtesy. He had an attitude that suggested that he was really bitter toward women. So, when he got really old and had to retire, he had only one friend, in the entire bar. A dancer named Michelle, who took pity, and was kind to him, even after all his hatefulness to all of us, including her, through the years. (I was not so warm-hearted, to him, when he suddenly tried to be friendly, to me, at the end of his career. His negligence had resulted in horrible things, happening, to me, such as when the two strangers, literally, grabbed my female genitalia, unimpeded, sexually assaulting me, right up on the stage, because we did not have a BOUNCER that DID HIS JOB PROTECTING US! Having AL as a bouncer was like NOT HAVING a bouncer and the customers could easily see that, about him.) After AL retired, he got hit by a car crossing the street, as he was walking the few blocks, from his apartment in an old, run down, high-rise, to see Michelle--- his only friend in the world--- because he was so cold, and mean, to everyone else, all the long years that he had worked there, that nobody liked him. Except her. And, that was because of her, generous, heart, toward him. Not because he deserved such a caring friend, as she was, to him, the last year or so of his life. Despite her wild streak that often got her into trouble at work, in this way, at least, she was a better woman, than me, for how she dealt with AL; showing him grace and mercy. I could have, and, probably, should have. But, I didn't. He never really recovered, from that accident, and his health rapidly declined, after that. Ironically, he came to the club, to see her, because, after he retired and left the bar, he didn't want to sit home and watch TV all day. Ultimately, AL was found dead a few blocks down the street from the bar he had worked in for so many years, in the apartment he had lived alone in with his cat; curled up in a fetal position on the floor with rigor mortis already set in before anyone found him. He didn't really have any friends, except, to her credit, not his, big-hearted Michelle. He died all alone. She took his cat.

I did not include, in this post, the two men, whom I met as club customers in one of the Go Go bars that I worked in, that I married. They were both from the Backdoor Lounge. Apparently, it attracted abusers; as did I. Which, is one of the biggest reasons that I finally determined that I would stay single, for the rest of my life. And, I have, and quite happily so, for over 3 decades now. Life is not perfect or probably ever all we hoped it would be. But, I have a good life, now, and I have to say that, for me, the men, that I allowed, into my private life, to any extent, from simply friendship, to physical intimacy, to marital commitment, were such a disappointment to me, for a myriad of reasons, depending on the relationship that we had with each other, that I don't miss having that--- or, having to deal with that--- at all! It works better, FOR ME, if I keep men at arms length, from me. Physically AND emotionally. Men only seemed interested in me for whatever was in it FOR THEM. When it was over, I always felt like, they had, plugged into me, and then, simply sucked the life energy right out of me, for their own nurturance, and just stepped over my drained body and soul, to move on to their next ambition or their next victim as the case may be. I never got anything, in return for my trouble, after allowing them into my life, that was good or good FOR me. I GAVE OUT all I HAD, and BURNED OUT from DOING that. There is nothing else left in me, that I have, or want, to give, to them now, in those ways. The only relationships, that I welcome, or value, with men, now, are those rare ones, that are cherished friends, who are mutually supportive, and don't try to work their agenda on me like most men do constantly, if they are allowed anywhere near my life. Sex may be overrated by men, and underrated by women. But it definitely undercuts the chances of a real relationship developing between two people on the basis of a true friendship when it is always 'rearing its ugly head', and, crowding out, every other option, to interact, with one another, in a, mutually, beneficial way. Many men, do not seem interested, in developing a friendship, with a woman. We would all be better off if that were the very foundation of ANY type of relationship that we share together. Those close friends that I have, that are men, are almost always gay, though.

I also didn't include the men that I did prostitution with, in this post, although there were only a few of them, that I met in the Backdoor Lounge, while I was a dancer, in that club. There were specific, and somewhat odd, reasons, that this happened at all with me, so I need to devote a post entirely to that, independently of the type of description that I am providing now about the men that come into those places in general. How I got to that place, after dancing for so many years, in so many nightclubs, and, never doing that, despite the fact that, almost every man, I ever sat with, came on to me, and tried to get me to have sex with them, is a bit bizarre. A big part of why I finally decided to do that had alot to do with police pushing me in that direction. I know that's the opposite of how this usually goes with a woman who gets involved in that. But my life has NOT been very ordinary, in MANY ways! A friend of mine said to me, not long ago, that I have lived "a very interesting life". I chuckled at that, when she made the observation to me during a phone call, because that is all too true. Living through all these things that I have survived (so far, anyway!), has taken a real toll, on me, too. I, definitely, feel, 'a little the worse for wear', at this point, in my life. Some, of what has happened, certainly underscores the fact that, life can, truly, be stranger than fiction, at times. How I ended up being a prostitute, drives that point home, in a very definite way! How, could my knowing a police officer, ultimately lead to committing acts of prostitution (which, aside from one speeding ticket, I got, on the highway in Missouri, almost 40 years ago, is the only statutory crime that I have ever committed, in my life, unless jaywalking is included)? I was never arrested for or charged with prostitution, but, I came really close, to that happening, a couple of times. If someone had told me, when I was a child, some of these things, I would go through, during my life, I would not have believed them.

I am sure, that my assessment, of males, was skewed, by my years of interacting with them in the Go Go bar nightclub environment that I worked in; because the really solid, stand-up, guys would more than likely not even want to ever come into a place like that. It does seem, though, that there are far too few, of them, in this world, than these other kinds that I usually encounter in my life. But, they are out there. I have been blessed to have known a few of them, in my life. Not in my own personal, romantic, relationships, unfortunately. But, as acquaintances, friends, and some relatives. On the other hand, I have known a discouraging number of, lesser, types, of males, including among acquaintances, (former) friends, and, sadly, some relatives of mine. That has definitely done some serious damage to my view of males. I don't think it could have gone any other way, based on, all the negative data, poisoning my thoughts, and affecting my emotions, where men are concerned. I have always felt, a huge letdown, deep inside me, that there have not been more 'heroes' who are disciplined, willing to stay the course to rise above what these 'lesser mortals' choose, to wallow in, while on this earth. When I was growing up, I was not at all, the type of young lady that would have ever become an exotic dancer. I went to Sunday School. I didn't swear. I had no idea what the punch lines even meant when someone told the occasional dirty joke, around me. I was innocent, naive, sweet, decent, and I believed in the Disney's Happy Ending, for me. Eventually, though, my heart got broken so many times by these guys that were jerks and not heroes, that something in me quit holding out any hope, or holding up my standards. Including, for myself. I had wanted, and waited for, someone that was virtuous; that I simply saw no evidence of even existing on this planet, for me. By age 18,  I was damaged, sexually, by my half-first cousin. I felt broken, used, disrespected, and tainted. That affects a girl. Her self-esteem is shattered, as well as her hope, or belief, that any decent man would, ever, have her now. Even if, he actually, finally, appeared. I sublimated alot of, not only my repressed, and unexpressed, sexuality, as a dancer, but my hurt, my brokenness, my disappointment, and my rage, that I was placed onto a planet, that was too Fallen, too tainted, to seem capable of offering me what I had imagined, as the life, that I would live, while here. It becomes easy, to compromise, even when you never thought you would, when, what you had expected or hoped that life would be like simply seems to be either nonexistent, or impossible. Reasons to hold out, vanish like vapor, when the desire of your heart becomes a dead dream.

* I was around 54 years old in the following photos, which was close to a decade after I finally felt forced to retire from dancing, due to signs of aging, setting in, on my facial features, more than anywhere else on my body. I have gone through alot in my lifetime and it was starting to show. There is a wear and tear, that happens, due to stress, and grief, which, our faces often reflect. I was a dark-haired brunette (my natural hair color) when I was a dancer, but I dyed it blonde, later on, for about 7 years, or so, just to see whether 'Blondes have more fun', as the saying goes (and they don't, in my experience). I can't find any photos of me from my dancer days. I never had very many of them from that period of my life, anyway. However, I included these photos, with this post, because, even though, a decade had passed, since I danced on stage as Stevie, they show something, that you can still see, from my years of becoming and being Stevie, my, dancer, alter ego. It is said, that, "A picture is worth a thousand words." The first 2 photos show me being my Deborah self: Friendly, sincere, sweet, gentle, caring, naive; and broken in ways, because of leading with the heart in a world which will often victimize us for doing that. The latter 2 photos, are of me, during the very same time frame that the first 2 photos were taken, but are summoning my Stevie side, to the forefront, of me, just to let that feisty side out to outwardly show her strength. After so many years of living my life as Stevie she became a big part of me instead of just being my alter ego during my dancer job. I didn't want to lose that part of me, that I developed and drew from, because I needed and admired so many aspects of my Stevie side. You can clearly see a real difference, between these two sides of me, in the photos. My Stevie side is sure of herself, sexy, street smart; with a strong, take no shit, and 'take no prisoners', mentality, accompanied by the 'Don't even THINK about messing with me', dismissive, look. My Deborah side has the heart of gold, that people break. 

These photos clearly reveal the gist of what I have been describing, in my posts, as being the differences, between, who I had always been, as Deborah, and, what I developed into, as my dancer alter ego, Stevie. People sometimes take Deborah's gentle, caring, way as weakness, never comprehending how much strength it truly takes, especially after I could have so easily grown cold and cruel to others, after all the awful ways that others have treated me, in my life, starting, with my own family, while I was growing up. If I allow it, my Stevie side is wonderfully quick to step in, even now, and tell people what they can do with their disrespect toward me! I am so glad that Stevie will always be a big part of me, now. God knows, Deborah has needed a strong, protective, advocate, to stand up for me, for my entire life. Except for Dick McGinnis, my boss at the Backdoor Lounge, I have never really had anyone do that for me very often, in my life. So, it means alot, to me, when they do. Except for those, rare, individuals, which have done that, on my behalf, my Stevie self became the one who always does it for me! There's a lesson, in that, for all of us, I think: We should cultivate that part of ourselves which will take a protective stand, speaking up for our own best interests and not allowing people to disrespect us, disregard us, or destroy us! [Note: I did not actually have dark facial hair, although it looks as though I did, in the 2 Stevie-side-of-me photos. I took all these pictures of myself, using an old flip phone style cell phone; all of them at about the same time in my life. But the darkness, of that one room, caused my face to appear like that, though you can see, from the Deborah-side-of-me photos (the first 2 photos of the 4) that I'm actually not a Bearded Lady! I think my makeup foundation color, and the dark shadows in that room, were causing that appearance.]

** emotional cripple - A person who has been rendered indecisive, alienated, uncaring, confused, or helpless in conjunction with experiencing debilitating emotions, such as worry, fear, panic, despair, etc. 

*** For more background on this, reference my previous blog posts: 

My Father: Almost Always In The Home But Almost Always Absent From My Life https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-father-almost-always-in-home-but.html, 

Nothing Happens In A Vacuum: Why I Dropped Out Of College And Got Married https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/05/nothing-happens-in-vacuum-why-i-dropped_29.html, 

My First Marriage: I Grew To Like Him As My Cousin But Not Really As My Husband https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-first-marriage-i-grew-to-like-him-as.html.] 

**** manspread - the act or practice, by a man, of sitting with their legs spread wide apart (as in a public seating area).

Nothing Happens In A Vacuum: Why I Dropped Out Of College And Got Married

In previous posts I described some of what I was feeling and going through as I went off to college. In my 4/24/19 post, titled "Why, For Me, My Mother Went From Dearest Mommy To 'Mommie Dearest'", I wrote "I tried hard to avoid being directly involved in the family dysfunction, as much as possible, keeping to myself all I could due to how unhealthy it always felt to me emotionally in that home. As soon as I reached an age to be able to escape it, I did, which was when I went away to college, attending both summer sessions right after my high school graduation. Once I was finally out of that house, I dreaded ever going back into all that misery there, again." In my post titled "More Of My Memories Of My Mother", dated 5/8/19, I wrote: "Of course, the issues I had with my mother weren't just limited to my not being properly protected from the illicit intentions of males, or her so openly playing favorites among her children, with me always being the Black Sheep. For example, before I went away to college, I shared my amazing news, with my mother, that I had received a Calling from God! Because of that, I told her, I was going to pursue some kind of Christian ministry position through my course of study. While she had always seemed quite impressed by pastors of the churches we had attended as a family, and was even very admiring of the female Director of Christian Education in our church, she simply looked at me with a very unhappy, unimpressed look, and said with some disgust in her voice, "Ministers don't make any money!" 

Once she dropped me off at college, my mother never called me, even just to see how I was adjusting to such a new lifestyle, or how I was doing, or what my classes were like. She didn't even approve of my career goal. I felt NO EMOTIONAL SUPPORT, actually, then or for the entire time that I was growing up. All these things were very daunting and confusing, for me, affecting everything in my life, large and small. It seemed that NOTHING I specifically did ever impressed her enough for her to be supportive toward me--- something every child greatly needs from their parents, as they are growing up and going out into this world, trying to find their place in it." Also, this post is fraught with examples of what I meant by what I said in my Blog post dated 4/3/19, titled "If You Love Someone, Set Them Free , , , ", which was that "We suffer from the pervasive consequences of Original Sin, the sins of others, and our own sin, and we must acknowledge all of that, at some point." This background information needs to be combined together, in this post, along with more about my family, but this time including more about my extended family, in order for me to describe the 'perfect storm' that would ultimately sink my college studies and launch me into being a bride at the age of 18.

While I was growing up, there were several family reunions that occurred, on my mother's side, which were attended by a fairly large number of relatives. (I even recall being led into a room to meet my great-grandmother, once, as she lay frail and old in her bed, at one of these gatherings.) These get-togethers were usually hosted at my grandmother's house, and always included an assortment of aunts and uncles with their children in tow. Almost all of us kids would gravitate toward one another and visit together, enjoying eating all the homemade goodies and playing games of tag between the two big trees in the front yard, despite the humidity and heat of the Carolina Summer. One family, though, always seemed to be, and to be treated like, the outcasts from the family tree. I was never completely clear as to why, but it seemed to me to be equally thrust upon and embraced by them. 

The mother, my aunt, was always smiling and very pleasant whenever I saw her, or briefly interacted with her at these family events. Unlike my mother, there didn't seem to be a mean bone in her body. Her boys seemed to be rascally mischief-makers, though, unlike the rest of the cousins who were all more social and civilized in their behavior. Her daughter was very pretty, quiet, and thoroughly antisocial, never having anything at all to do with anyone there, but keeping entirely to herself. I never really got to know this particular family very well, among all my relatives, as I grew up, as they were the only ones that my mother never had us visit, or vice versa. Except for the rest of us children running to the grown-ups, at times, at my grandmother's house, to urgently tell them things such as those boys were in the backyard shooting at things with their BB gun, and such, in order for there to be an adult intervention of what we saw as disturbingly violent acts on their part, none of us really had very much directly to do with them. I recall seeing the oldest of these boys wearing his white, U.S. Navy, sailor uniform, later on, one of the times that the extended family had assembled at grandmother's house as usual, but I never really paid much attention to these 'troublemaker' cousins. 

My mother never encouraged us to interact with any of them, either, which was a marked contrast to how she made sure that we knew all our other cousins very well. Over the years, as we would visit back and forth with all the aunts, and the associated cousins, except for this one (the mother of these rakish boys), I would ask my mother why this was the case. All she would say about it was that THIS aunt, one of her sisters, was a VERY DIRTY person, and that her house was never clean. (I always wondered how she knew that, since we literally NEVER visited there!) The only other thing mom ever said to me about her was that this aunt had gone on a train ride as a young woman, and had met a man there and gotten pregnant out of wedlock with her oldest son, Jim. Apparently she eventually met and married another man, who then became his stepfather, and she had her other children with him. I don't think that Jim's biological father was ever in the picture except for getting her pregnant on that train.

One year, when I was a sophomore in high school, one of the family reunions took place at a great-aunt's home, which was a long drive from the city we lived in. After we had all eaten and visited, my mother wanted to do some shopping while we were around a much larger city, before we headed back home, but was not familiar enough with it to be able to get around there on her own. As evening approached, she asked one of her nephews who lived in this larger city, who happened to be Jim, the oldest of my roguish cousins from this one family which she never seemed to approve of (or want us to get to know, or to be involved with in any real way), if he would lead her to the main shopping district in his car, with her following in hers. He helpfully obliged her, and then she told him that since he was doing her that favor, she didn't want him to be all by himself in his car, just leading us as we followed behind him. So, she offered ME up, to be his companion, alone in his car with him. I felt so strange and uneasy, as we drove along, while I did my best to make polite conversation.

I didn't really know him, or his own family, well at all, except for the bad impressions of them that my mother had taught me, from her own, and my observations of them being unnervingly unruly, as we grew up. He was 9 years older than I was, so I was 15 at the time and he was 24 years old. That was THE ONLY TIME that ANY member of my own family had EVER DIRECTLY VISITED with ANYONE in HIS family, the ENTIRE time I was growing up, except for whatever cursory chats took place very occasionally during the family reunions. Now, I was ALONE with him, in his car, driving through the dark streets of a large and unknown city, so that my mother could go shopping. After we got to the store that she wanted, my mother told Jim goodbye since she no longer needed him, then I rode home with my own family. Because of the mindset my mother had taught me about that family, as I grew up, and the fact that we NEVER even visited them AT ALL but DID with EVERYONE ELSE in our family tree, it was the furthest thing from my mind that I would ever in my lifetime have any other direct interactions with Jim besides that one very uncomfortable car ride which I endured because my mother gave me no choice.

A couple of years later, my high school graduation was taking place right on top of my starting college out of town. I had begun my freshman year in college before the typical starting point of the Fall semester. While most of my motivation was to finally be able to get out of that acutely uncomfortable home environment of my upbringing, some of it was due to that 'ALL IN' enthusiasm that young people have at that age as they go forth toward their goals and aspirations. Because of my recent Calling from God, I realized that I might have more years of study ahead of me than just the 4 years of college, to prepare for that. It must be said, though, that when God Called me, I had responded to Him with "What exactly does that MEAN, You are 'Calling' me?", and I wasn't at all sure what form that would actually take, for me, back then. Women weren't seen in pulpit ministries at that time, and with the various limitations on what women were allowed or enabled to do, I couldn't get any kind of a clear picture or sure direction as to where I was headed with this. I simply signed up for the classes which would or could be helpful toward this course of study, as foundational preparation, even though I was attending a state university and not a religiously-affiliated school. I took classes like New Testament Greek, Philosophy, and Public Speaking. 

Being Summer school, the campus was largely deserted, and very quiet. I went to classes, then back to my dorm room to study, and in between went to the dining hall for meals that turned out to be the same, unimpressive menu day in and day out, which could keep you alive but never satisfy you. It was very basic and fairly unpalatable grub. Besides being on a college student's budget, I couldn't go off campus to eat anything better due to freshmen not being allowed to keep a car on campus, and mine being parked so far away. The old car my dad gave me when I was 16 that I still drove now had to be parked in what was cynically referred to as 'the South Forty', which an online urban dictionary defines as "Way the hell out there; far away." To walk all the way there, including through isolated areas, to get to it, then walk back to campus from there, after parking it, was time-consuming and prohibitive, besides being discouraged simply by the Summer heat and humidity bearing down. The two Summer sessions I attended each covered a whole semester's course curriculum in a few weeks, rather than months, causing me to spend most of my time sitting at the desk in my dorm room, hunched over my books, studying. I had never had backaches before, but now I was almost constantly in real pain, in my neck and shoulders especially, as I sat there, once classes were over each day, reviewing my notes and reading.

The dorm provided a couple of phones at the end of each hall in a closet-like booth, for all the girls living on that floor, where you would go to receive incoming calls that were announced over the speaker system by a girl at the desk downstairs. Times were not like they are today, in many ways, including that there were only landlines then. There was no such thing as cell phones. I had stopped paying much attention to the speaker alerting various girls to their incoming phone calls, as I sat at my desk studying alone in my room, because none of them were ever for me, anyway. I had gotten used to the fact that no one in my family ever called me, and no one else knew I was there; or so I thought. One afternoon I vaguely heard the speaker announcing an incoming call for some girl. They kept announcing it rather persistently, so eventually it broke through my 'study fog' as I was sitting there in my room, and I suddenly realized that IT WAS FOR ME! I had to ask someone where to even go to answer it, because I had never had a call before this one for me to even know what to do! 

As I answered the call, some guy's voice that I didn't recognize kept telling me who he was, but even with that I still had NO IDEA AT ALL, almost finally hanging up on him in annoyance after I kept responding to him several times that "I think they paged the WRONG girl to the phone." I had interrupted my studying, for this 'wrong number' call, which now was also reinforcing my emotional let down that, sure enough, my own family STILL had never called me at all. I literally had the phone halfway down to being hung up, on this guy, finally, when I suddenly realized that this might actually be someone that DID know me! Putting the phone back to my ear, I told him that I had just now begun to even make the connection as to who this was. It was Jim. That cousin, that I really didn't know at all, whom I was forced to ride with in his car, by my mother, that one time years before this. The university that I was attending was in the same large city that he lived in. It would surely be due to my mother that he even knew that I was there. I wasn't sure why she would put me in this position, again, with him. SHE couldn't be bothered to call me even ONCE, or anything else, but she managed to interject this near-stranger-relative into my life, once again, at a time in my life when for so many reasons I was very vulnerable. WHY HIM?!? My mother created problems for me.

He invited me to go to a restaurant for dinner, and the food was way better than the campus chow, plus it was All You Can Eat of one of my favorite Southern meals: fish, fries, coleslaw, hush puppies, and sweet tea. The place was packed and lively, and the food was great! Because it was the Summer session at school, there wasn't a roommate in my dorm room with me, either, so I had essentially been alone for weeks at this point. It felt so good to be off campus for awhile, and to feel like I was 'out among the living' once again! I really perked up, having some of my various needs met, from the long list of those that had been ignored for too long. Jim treated me well, kind of like my Welcome Ambassador to the city, and we began to get to know one another finally. As time went on, I ate more meals off campus, in restaurants that he treated me to, and one weekend, we even ended up going to the beach for a few days, after I had expressed how much I missed having a Summer vacation that year, since my family usually went to the beach every Summer but I was in school now instead. 

He was always nice toward me, and rather protective it seemed, which was something I wasn't used to at all, since I had not had that type of treatment from my family. Eventually he invited me over to swim in the pool at the apartment complex where he lived with a friend of his named Harvey, in a 2 Bedroom unit they split the rent on. The pool was so refreshing and relaxing, and afterward Jim offered to give me a back massage after I mentioned to him how much constant back pain I had now, that seemed to come from my long hours of sitting at my desk studying. I had never had a massage in my life, and as I lay on my stomach on his living room floor, so he could rub the knots and the tension out of my sore back, I was lulled into a deep state of relaxation. It felt so good! When he finished, I rolled over onto my back and just sighed deeply and contentedly. That's when, suddenly, before I knew what was happening, he kissed me. Not like a cousin of mine. Like a guy kisses a girl--- that he really likes. Uh Oh! I realized he had crossed a line that we simply couldn't cross, and he suddenly didn't seem so much like the nice, fun, protective, 'big brotherly' cousin, to me.

I stopped being around him, doing anything with him. Yet I missed him, because I had grown attached to him by this time, and he had made my life feel so much better than it had before he came along. Still, I told him this was not happening, but he kept coming over to the lobby of my dorm, not taking 'NO!' for an answer. I kept telling the girl at the desk, who paged me about him showing up there, again and again and again, that I was not going to come down because I had already told him not to come around me anymore. She told me that he was sitting down there actually crying, refusing to leave the lobby, and that I would have to tell him, again, myself. He would not leave me alone! I didn't know what to do, and I didn't think I had anyone to turn to, about this. It was tainted, and embarrassing, because he was my cousin, and because I had thought of him that way; until this happened. I had long ago learned that my family was not there for me, so they were not an option. The Summer sessions ended, but then the Fall semester began. I had new problems to deal with then.

With all the students now back in school, I suddenly had a roommate, after getting very used to not sharing that small space with another person over the Summer. We were oil and water, from the start. She was really a jerk, this girl. I had gone shopping for things I needed for the semester, including some better food to keep handy in my dorm room, and had parked my car behind the dorm just long enough to go up and down all the stairs to unload this into my room. She was hanging out the window of our room, like a spotter, and she did let me know when Campus Security arrived back there to see my unauthorized freshman vehicle parked there on campus, briefly, but she didn't call down to tell them it would just be there long enough to unload, and she didn't call me over to the window so I could tell them myself. She waited until after they wrote me a ticket, and THEN she let me know they were there at my car, laughing about it as she told me. She insisted on continually playing the very same, distracting, music album over and over and over, which I hated, saying that she absolutely could not study without it on. Always. No compromise at all. I, however, was used to having total peace and quiet, which is how I needed it to be to really focus on what I was reading for my classes. So, I ended up walking clear across campus to the library to study, every single night, leaving her our dorm room as if she were living there without a roommate. >sigh!<  

I felt weary, frustrated, demoralized, and because I had not taken any real break between high school and this point, I felt pretty burned out by then. My studies started to suffer, my grades started to slump, and I felt myself slipping into despair. I didn't feel that anyone cared about me, or what my needs were, in my life. The way that Jim had been there for me started to look very appealing by contrast. As silly as it sounds, someone had also drawn a heart, in part of the concrete sidewalk when it was newly poured, with "Jim + Deb" written in the middle of it, which was right along my path as I walked between the dorm and my classes every day. There was no getting around it, and my seeing it became a constant reminder to me of how much better some things in my life had felt when Jim was around and I had someone there for me. I was sad and stressed out. His persistence, in trying to convince me not to shut him out of my life, on top of my not having any other real support system than him, eventually drove me back into being with him again. 

I still didn't want to be involved with him, or any guy, romantically at that point, though. I already had a lot in my life to deal with. And, he was my cousin. And, I was studying for the ministry. And, I was a virgin. I didn't really have any idea how to cope with all the things going on in my life, both my ongoing family problems and all the new experiences I was having now that I was away at school for the first time. I had one college friend confess she was gay, and come onto me in a very aggressive way, which was an entirely new thing for me to deal with, and shook me up, while another coed blithely told me that she had just gone to get an abortion, from her boyfriend getting her pregnant, which was a harsh reality, to me. She was upbeat, telling me about it just before she drove off in her green convertible with the top down, smiling as if the world was her oyster. This was the first time in my life that I had ever been exposed to either controversy, for me to try to deal directly with them. 

Because things weren't talked about or discussed, in my family, I remained an innocent in many ways. I still would often wonder what the pictures or words that I saw scrawled in bathroom stalls even meant! I had also been trained by my parents to feel that my own thoughts and emotions about things were not valid, were always to be subjugated to those of others in a deferential manner, and were not to be expressed by me openly, all causing me to feel that I had no right to be assertive at all, even and especially on my own behalf, such as with my selfish and inconsiderate roommate in the dorm. I. was. losing. it. now. I had nowhere to turn, and nobody to discuss these things with. Except for Jim, who was also one of my problems; and soon he would become an even bigger problem for me. One of the biggest of my life.

Jim had been a Machinist's Mate in the Navy, sailing around the world on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, going to exotic ports of call during the ship's cruises. I had gone from my parent's house into the girl's dorm at college, and never been too many places more than the beach for summer vacations with my family. Jim also had 9 more years (nearly a full decade) of life experience over me. When I went off to college, I was still a teenager. I had ended up allowing Jim to be back in my life, especially since he made it so clear that he really wanted to be, and really cared about me, when it seemed that nobody else did.

With my dorm room being so unpleasant for me, now, because of my obnoxious roommate, I avoided it all I could, and began staying over at Jim's apartment more often than not. However, I was still a virgin, and we were not 'going there'. I thought he didn't want to cross a sexual line with me, again, like he had when he kissed me that time, and risk never being allowed back around me, again, after that. He wanted to be in my life, in whatever way that I would let him be.

Sometimes Harvey had a girl staying over with him at their apartment, from what seemed to be an assortment of them that he knew. He and Jim were such a contrast! Harvey was every inch the hard-partying playboy, while Jim lived a quiet, conservative lifestyle. I even asked Jim once if he was still a virgin, and he told me he wasn't, but only because he went so late in life, compared to his guy friends, without knowing a woman sexually, largely due to his shyness, that his buddies took it upon themselves to send him a woman, one night, to 'teach him the ropes'. I can't recall whether they paid her to have sex with him or just got her to do it with him for some reason, but he said that was his only sexual experience so far. Some nights Harvey didn't come home at all, apparently staying with one of his ladies. He had a full bar set up in their apartment, though, and copies of Playboy and Hustler sitting around for his . . . reading material. Jim wasn't really a drinker or a partier. I had virtually no experience with alcohol, and had never partied except birthday and church versions, growing up. The mother of one of my friend's in high school once gave me a small paper cup with a couple of sips of Cold Duck in it, to celebrate my friend's horseback riding event which I had been invited to watch.

One of the times that Harvey stayed out all night somewhere else, Jim started showing me all the variety of liquors that Harvey had in his bar. He was explaining about them all having different flavors and things, which I knew nothing at all about, and he began to give me tastes of them as I became curious about what he was telling me. There were quite a few of them.  After that, I could only vaguely remember lying naked in the tub shivering from cold water splashing down on me from the shower head, at some point that night, and I thought I recalled both leaning over the toilet and lying on the cold bathroom floor. That was about it.

When I woke up the next morning, feeling sick, I was laying next to Jim in his water bed, and all I had on then was my panties. I went to the bathroom, feeling really nauseous and queasy, and noticed that there was red blood stains inside the crotch of my panties, but it wasn't my period! I went back into Jim's room, and asked him about it. He told me that he had gotten me drunk the night before and had taken my clothes off me, putting me in his bed. He said that he then started to penetrate me, while I was passed out, but he stopped himself, he said, and didn't go all the way in. He told me that he likely tore the hymen before he stopped, though, since there was blood, which is the membrane covering the opening of the vagina--- the main thing proving a female's virginity.

I was hungover. I was devastated. I was ruined, to my way of thinking, because these were still times in America when things were MUCH more black and white! For example, almost no one was divorced, back then, and if they were, they were whispered about, but NO ONE EVER said the word "divorced" out LOUD. Back then, a girl had every right to expect love and marriage, and a future in that way, as long as she was a 'good girl'; a virgin. If she wasn't a virgin, her value was greatly diminished, and her chances of ever having wholesome happiness in a marital union was almost nil. She wouldn't be able to hide the fact that her hymen wasn't intact, to be broken on her wedding night by the groom, either. So, she would have to tell him up front, beforehand, to be fair, knowing that it would raise questions with him about what kind of a girl she was, and would put her at risk of being rejected by him altogether. Because my cousin had done this to me, whom I did not love in that way, I was left feeling that NO man would ever want me, NOW. I was damaged goods. Always. Jim was the ONLY man that would EVER know that I WAS in fact undisputedly a virgin, when HE first had me; or took me. No other man would be able to know that, now.

By this time it was late in the Fall semester. My grades had been decent in both Summer sessions, but now they were seriously dropping. I felt like my life was in free fall. I called home and told mom that I needed to come there NOW, to talk to her about something VERY IMPORTANT, which couldn't wait until Christmas break! Then, I drove hours to get there, and could barely get through dinner before seeking her out to try to have this very difficult conversation. She had gone into the den and was reading the newspaper, as I found her there and said again to her, "Mom, I NEED to TALK to you!" She held her paper up higher, then, fully opened, between us, totally blocking out any sight of me. I pleaded, "Mom! PLEASE TALK TO ME! I NEED to tell you something IMPORTANT!" She simply replied, from behind her paper, "I am reading the paper now." I reminded her that I had called ahead to tell her I would be driving home tonight because I had something urgent to discuss with her, but she just kept holding her newspaper high, shutting me out.

My frustration, rejection, and sadness finally exploded in me, then, and I slapped the paper right out of her hands with a sharp, sweeping gesture of my arm, saying to her, "I'm just going to go back to Greensboro tonight, then; but YOU WILL REGRET that you NEVER LISTENED TO ME, some day." I drove back, on the dark highway, tears running down my face. I just wasn't important to my mom. [A good reference resource link for this is here:  counselingoneanother.com/2011/07/21/25-ways-to-provoke-your-child-to-anger/  which you can copy and paste into your browser. The article is titled "25 Ways To Provoke Our Children To Anger", where Dr. Paul Tautges, a pastor, author, speaker, and blogger himself, cites this list as being from one of his Top 10 Recommended Counseling Resources and parenting book The Heart Of Anger, by biblical counselor, author, and speaker Lou Priolo. As a child, I experienced 20 of the 25 things on this list, from my parents, provoking me to anger.]

The next day, I told Jim that I needed to talk to him, and asked him to meet me at my dorm. When he arrived, I said to him, "You have always shown me that you care about me. I won't be able to have any other man have what you had with me, since I am no longer a virgin now. If you want to marry me, then, I will do that." He did want to, but as we began to talk to a minister, at a church in town, about marrying us, and prepared to get our Marriage License, we realized that in some states it was not even legal for us to marry at all, because of the close tie between us in our bloodline, as relatives of one another. It was LEGALLY considered to be INCEST, between us, in many states. We did end up discovering that there in North Carolina, we were JUST BARELY able to wed one another, because of us only being HALF first cousins, rather than FULL first cousins. It was this way because my/our grandmother had been married 3 times. Her first husband fathered Jim's mother, and her second husband fathered my mother, making our mother's half-sisters.

It was just Jim and I and the minister, at our simple wedding. Then, I left college, two weeks before the end of the semester, just before Christmas break, having to go to each one of my professors as a part of that process to explain that I was dropping out, and get their signature on a Withdrawal form. By the time I got the last signature from my last professor, after they all had something to say about it to me, I met up with Jim to tell him that it was done, and broke down and cried.

Then we left North Carolina, driving across the country to Fresno, California, where Jim's best friend from the Navy lived, whom he had called before we went out there. We drove as far as we could go from all that we were leaving behind us. We heard, from Jim's mom (my aunt), when he called her, en route, that my dad had come looking for us, to try to stop us, but it was too late; in more ways than one. I felt I had NOTHING to go back TO, as far as those people were concerned. They couldn't be bothered with me before now! I thought at the time, rather cynically, as I heard about it, that my dad had NEVER LEFT HIS TV shows for ANYTHING to do with ME before, going all the way back to when I was born, since he had bought the family's first TV while mom was in the hospital from having me. It had always clearly been placed above me, in my father's affections.

He would snap at me, if I were talking in the room when the TV was on (it was ALWAYS on!), as if my very existence was doing nothing but interrupting and interfering with what he truly wanted to spend his time on and be involved with--- his TV. He had never really gone out of his way to talk with me, or to get to know me, or affirm me, as I was growing up under his roof, causing it to feel really bizarre to me the FIRST AND ONLY TIME he had EVER come to my room, as I packed to leave that house for college, to actually say something to me, before mom drove me there and dropped me off. I don't even recall what he said to me then, because it wasn't anything particularly memorable, word wise, and by then it was really just 'crumbs' from him, anyway, to me. Too little, too late. I just remember looking at him standing in my room, strangely, and wondering who this man even was. I knew he was my father, but we had never really gotten to know one another, because he normally just didn't want to even be bothered with or about me.

During our drive across the country, Jim and I stopped to see some tourist attractions, and generally enjoyed the trip. One night, when we had stopped to sleep at a motel, I was lying in bed while Jim was taking his turn in the shower. I had my eyes shut, praying, and when I opened them, I saw above where I lay, but also kind of coming through the wall behind the bed itself, bending over toward me, a very tall angel in a blue velvet robe! He appeared to be at least 9 feet tall. It REALLY SCARED ME, causing me to quickly pull the covers over my head, saying "Lord! PLEASE don't SCARE me like that!" I have been able to see my Guardian Angel at other times in my life as well, and even interact with him sometimes. Eventually, after learning his name, I nicknamed him "Heebie", as in 'Heebie-Jeebies', because it reflected his actual name, Hebrium (not sure of that spelling), but also because he had scared me so, when he had materialized above me like he did that night in the motel. After I recovered from the fright, because it was unexpected, I realized that God was making sure that I knew I had my Guardian Angel diligently on duty with me, keeping me in his care, on my Father God's behalf. That angel and I have gone through a lot together, over the course of my lifetime!

The trip across the country was long and tiring, for Jim and I. Once we finally got to Fresno, and got an apartment and unpacked, we began our marriage together there. We put up a Christmas tree in our living room, and I cooked us a Holiday dinner. Now being settled in to a place of our own, alone at last, and no longer on the road driving long hours, we were finally having our first intimate night since we had gotten married and eloped. As Jim penetrated me, it hurt so badly that I thought I might pass out for a moment, literally seeing stars, from the vaginal blows I was feeling from his thrusts, but not in a good way. Suddenly, I felt something give way, and momentarily he was finished. I realized, all at once, that I had married a man, my cousin, that I didn't love, because I had felt that I had no choice. He had taken my virginity from me, it seemed to both of us, back in Greensboro, but apparently my hymen had NOT been FULLY torn by him then, meaning at THAT time I was still a virgin! Only now, he really HAD just taken my virginity. Hurting in my torn vagina, and in my broken heart, I turned my face away from him, to the wall, and wept. We were off to a bad start. It wouldn't get better for us, either.

There is too much to cover in this post, as it is, to also go into the details of what our actual marriage was like, so that will have to be another story for another time here. I felt cheated by him, though, and he grew bitter toward me, because the woman, the 18-year-old teenage girl, that he had so loved and wanted for himself, resented him, and could not love him in return. We remained civil to one another, for the most part, largely because we were, after all, still related to one another as cousins, sharing our complete family tree with one another, as well, which involved some other people that we each loved dearly and that cared about both of us. With OUR marriage, we never had to meet any in-laws, because ALL of our relatives were ALREADY each other's relatives!

Jim and I came to loathe one another, by the time our marriage ended, because neither one of us would ever be able to fulfill the other's needs in that marriage. For me, from the night in Fresno when I realized that I had married a man whom I didn't love that I hadn't actually had to marry, as it turns out, I was left with a marriage that I never would have chosen for myself, otherwise. For Jim, he got what he had wanted from me all along, except that my heart wasn't in it, with him, and would never be, therefore keeping it from ever really being what he had so dreamed about having with me. I was an 18-year-old girl married to a 27-year-old man that I didn't respect and didn't want. Even with all that, he STILL seemed to me to be a BETTER ALTERNATIVE than my family had ever been. He was, for me, the lesser of two evils; sad to say. And, at the time, I didn't feel that I had any better choices, or even any other choices, in my life. I wasn't happy with him, but I still wasn't as miserable, with him, as I had been with my family, either. That's how badly it felt, for me, to be with them.