Prostitute, Meet Undercover Cop

It was already dark out, and very late by the time Q's uncle picked up Unique, Q, and me to drive over to a more urbanized area of the city to find dates. We just needed the Uncle for his car, but it was a nice change from buses and cabs. Somehow though, sitting in that backseat in the dark, hip-hop music (which I had never really heard before) playing on the radio, and a very ominous energy in the air, I felt very frightened. I realized that I would 'really' be prostituting. No fun and games. No messing around.
Unique made taunted and teased me when I went to put my seatbelt on; I don't remember if I wore it or not , but it added to the strange feelings in my heart. Adrenaline pumping, and heart beating faster than was probably healthy, I struggled to maintain a calm and collected demeanor. I was determined to seem professional, as if I knew what I was doing, even though I was clueless and terrified because the unknown quantities were bearing down on me like an anvil.
I glanced at Unique repeatedly, trying to grasp at something that might calm my panicked mind. I breathed deeply, and began to realize that I was going to have to do this.
We were dropped off on a corner street outside of a short stay motel that had red neon lights flashing all over it, advertising itself as a prime spot for hour long hookups. And a great place to take johns.
I stood on one side of the corner, Unique on the other. We paced the sidewalks, and I was freezing cold, my arms prickling with cold, I was dreaming of a warm blanket, a jacket, a bed. I was tired, and I didn't want to be out there. I picked up a few guys, and I tried to get them to buy condoms at the motel. And yes...it was that kind of motel.
Quincy had given us a few rules that we were supposed to follow. He, even though he was black himself, didn't want us to pick up black guys. And also, avoid anyone who looked like a pimp. I swear, I didn't know what a pimp looked like. Also, we could charge nothing less than $80 per job, preferrably $100, (get as much as we could) and if the job was taking too long, we stop and ask for more money to continue. Get the money up front, and if they take too long and won't pay any extra, they were wasting our time when we could be out there getting more money. His idea of too long was something like fifteen to twenty minutes. Fast turn over.
This one guy that night was taking 'too long' and I tried to extort more cash out of him, and he cried bullshit. He wanted his money back. When I wouldn't give it to him and I left, he followed me, cursing at me, and trying to mess with me. Unique came over and gave him what for, and he got in his car and left, blaring his car horn and yelling out the window.
We kept working, but Unique got lazy and didn't want to stay. She said we could call Q and tell him to come pick us up, and we'd tell him that the asshole pulled a gun on us so we wouldn't get in trouble. I was fine with that idea.
Some of my memories blur together, but on one night I was on that same street, I was signaled by a big black SUV. I walked over, and started talking to the guy. We hadnt gotten very far when I heard a siren, and saw a flash of red and blue lights.
A police car pulled in and I froze. I was utterly terrified. The cop got out and told me to step away fom the vehicle.
I backed up, and backed up, and backed up. Very slowly.
The cop began to talk to the john, who may have been an undercover officer...but I don't really know for certain. He then came and talked to me. He asked e my name "Harper" I told him. And how old I was. "eighteen" I told him. I was shaking from head to toe, from the cold, and from fear and anxiety. I was petrified. The officer was young. A good looking young man, gentle voice, soft spoken, with calm mannerisms.
He didn't act like he was going to arrest me. All he did was tell me that I was too pretty of a girl, and too young, to be wasting my life away like this. I had too much to lose. Basically a pep talk. But a nice one. I heard his words, but kept thinking to myself, "BUT ARE YOU GOING TO ARREST ME?" he didn't, and I was so relieved, I almost danced over to Unique, but my legs were too weak and unsteady for me to walk straight; I was so shaken up, and Unique and I were terrified that they were patrolling the area, that we called Q and headed straight home.

No more cops for me. I was done with them. And now everone looked like a cop. My paranoia went through the roof. Because...you never know, really. Who is this guy? Is he an undercover cop? Is he going to arrest me? I was terrified. I was going to get more and more scared as time progressed, I just didn't know it. 

Snow in Miami

Unique wanted to go swimming; neither of us had bathing suits, so we wore shirts and underwear in the water instead. I wore a sheer purple top and blue starry panties, and Unique took her cheap ratty blond wig off. It was dark out, but the pool seemed like a fun idea. Q sat at a table nearby, smoking and drinking a beer.
We waved at a man walking past, on the second floor balcony, and called for him to come join us. He did, bringing vodka and sprite, as well as some Jewish food. We fooled around in the water, and it was so much fun for me. I got tossed through the air, landing back into the pool, all of this in the cool night air. Unique and I showed off the whole time, drank vodka, and smoked a cigarette...even though at the time it wasn't particularly enjoyable. Looking back I don't know how I could ever have not enjoyed a cigarette, but there it is. I didn't like it.
It was a great evening, and I wish it could have lasted longer, but soon we retired to our rooms, and Q was infuriated at us. Enraged that we had wasted so much time and effort doing...nothing. Flirting with someone and letting a man touch us who wouldn't even pay for a date.
The man came to our room and wanted to hang out with us some more. Unique let him in, and I got very nervous. But I acted friendly.
Quincy came in and was so outraged he began demanding to the man that he leave. He didn't want to leave. A massive argument ensued, and they began pushing and shoving each other, their voices extremely loud. They took it out into the hall, and Q shut him out, telling him not to come back.
Barging into the motel room, he began to berate us, and curse at us, most of it directed towards Unique. Unique was beginning to resent me; I could feel it.
He wanted us to make better money, and was going to call his uncle to come and drive us out to a better working street.
He had me iron his shirt, I remember distinctly. I recall that I was in my tiny onesie outfit, my crotch burning, and standing over the bed with a cranky old iron, pressing the creases out of his shirt, knowing that if I messed it up at all he was going to get very, very angry at me, and I didn't want that. 
We got ready to work, and Unique and Snow were ready to face the world. 
But I wasn't. 'Snow' aka 'Harper Bryson' may have been kind of ready...ish. But me...this person...would never be ready. 
But Snow.
Snow was ready for anything. She thought. 

Karma's Mind Games

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Sex: All A Girl is Good For

South Beach. Unique kept talking on and on about. How much money we were going to make. She and Q had given me my working name, Snow. Not at all racially directed. Not at all.
Unique said we were going to be able to get a car, and a little dog, and eat out at fancy places like Red Lobster. We were going to get bikinis and exercise on the beach, and make wads of cash.
It didn't work out that way though. Q wouldn't let us work for less than eighty dollars a trick. He didn't want us to be 'cheap hoes'. This made it extremely difficult to find obliging men willing to pay. More strenuous still to find these men who actually had money. Or enough of it. There were more than a few times I had to turn men down because they wouldn't pay up enough. However, this was when I began to perform various sexual acts inside of client's cars. It was weird at first - no, it was always weird. It never got normal. It never got better.
I came back to Q at the designated time, and at the meetup point (McDonalds) and he was pissed at me for not making enough money. However, he was much more angry at Unique. She had made him a net total of zero dollars. Nothing...she said it wasnt a good street to be working, and not a good time either. Q told me I did a good job, but blasted, in a low and frightening tone, at Unique that 'the new white girl' was showing her up. And she was getting lazy. I was doing a better job than she was, and I was fresh, and she was supposed to be his 'bottom girl'.
We got some food at McDonalds, after I turned my money over to Q, and he told me to make sure I ate enough, since I only got a parfait. He didn't want to see me lose 'that beautiful ass' I had. If only I'd stop getting these confusing signals from people! Was I too fat? Too thin? Too white? Too tall? Too short? I didn't know what anybody wanted of me or my body, except tht I was good for one thing.
I was good for having sex. Sex was what I was good for. Everything else was meaningless, and if I wasn't servicing with my body, I might as well give up because I was of no other use in society.
I didn't realize that it's mindset had formed in me, but it would stay with me for the rest of my teenage years.
For the rest of the day, after an insult to my fanny pack from Q, I continued seeking out men, finding them in the strangest of ways. Some of them frightened me. All of them disgusted me.
Later I would find that I couldn't stomach some of what this job called for. In the meantime, however, I harassed men, calling out to them, "Hey baby, wanna have a good time?" flashing one of the smiles no one could turn away from, and had to at least respond to...even if they couldn't oblige me with what I needed - their money.
Sometimes I think about those times, and wish that someone would have just seen my need and instead of having sex with me, would have paid me the full amount just to sit and talk. I could have used that.That's really all I wanted; someone to talk to. Someone who would listen to my pain.
But I had no one. I was missing.

Missing. That's a big word for one kid. I didn't even think about that...but I really missed home. And I was very, very scared. 

Streetwalker

South Beach, bustling with traffic, was exciting to me as Q, Unique and I made our way down the streets trying to find a place to settle. Unique and I found a man on a motorcycle signaling us, and we both claimed on and rode to his apartment. Apparently he was not a 'serious' customer, and we didn't even get any money from him. We were lucky that he even gave us a ride back to where we were picked up. We kept walking, but without any luck. Q was not happy that things were going so poorly. We Got back on the bus, and rode to a motel where we began to settle in. We needed to make some money; Unique told me that I really needed to give Q my cash as a sign of trust in him. He wouldn't let me down. It would be worth it if I trusted him. So I gave him over two hundred and eighty dollars. Everything I had.

We pushed the beds together, forming one huge bed, removing the night stand. Q had us get undressed; he didn't want us wearing anything at all when we were in the room, particularly not in the  bed. 

It was painful sex. It was horrible sex. I was his property now. Unique was marked as his with a large 'Q' tattooed on her left thigh. They wanted me to get one. 

This was the first time I really engaged in sex with a woman; but neither man nor woman could take away the pain that was growing in my chest, in the pit of my stomach. 

Unique and I were sent out to the bus stop on the corner to try to turn some tricks. It was freezing; the pair didn't approve of my clothing, and so I borrowed one of Unique's one piece, sleeveless onesie shorts outfits. It was too small. It dug painfully into my crotch, rode up my backside, and was too little fabric for such a cold April night. 

Unique slacked off - all night. She sat on the bench. Smoking. Not even trying. I tried so hard. I just wanted to make it. I didn't want to make Q angry. 

But we did. Q was very angry. We were supposed to bring him at least three hundred dollars each, he said, make something, he said, not be so lazy, he said. 

We slept for a few hours, and went back out the next morning. I did, at least. Unique was too busy snorting coke and getting wasted. 

She said she was tired. I told Q I would make it up to him. He told me I had better prove my worth. 

I spent hours in the hot sun, walking the street, finding men...who never followed up. 

It felt like failure. My skin was red and burnt. It was too hot and the rays were too intense for me too be walking for hours upon hours in the sun with no sunscreen, no protection, no rest. No water. 

I finally gave up, and went back in to the room. I told Q I tried. 

He was upset, but he just said we'd try going closer to the beach. 

That's where we headed next. 

South Beach. 

My Pimp Emerges

Sitting in the corner room of the Camelot Inn with my two windows open, the sun shining through and a breeze gently blowing, I felt happy and hopeful. I was at peace. I was relaxing, hanging one leg out of the window, gazing up at the magestic tree that grew outside my window, and at the blue sky above. I had never had this kind of freedom before; it felt so daring. It felt so freeing to just be.
I had over two hundred dollars in my wallet, and I felt very secure in my ability to sustain myself and draw in an income, even if it did mean having to have sex with undesirable and unpleasant men. I was independent. That was a big deal. A huge deal. I was actually proud of myself for making it so far.
Lost in my thoughts, I just sat and watched passers by as I daydreamed about what I could do. Who I could be. What I could become. I spotted someone down below - a black girl with a blond wig...wait! It was Unique! I waved and called down to her; she was walking with a man. It was Q, I had kind of met him when she had taken me back to her motel room.
The two of them came up to my room, and told me they were going to South Beach. They were inviting me along! I was excited!
Q said we were going to have a great time. That we were going to make a lot of money. I realized he was a pimp...but all the warnings I had received fell through.
He had just gotten out of jail, but things were going to get better..he promised!
He tried to get me to give him my money, I told him I'd hold onto it for the time being. I knew I could control this situation.
Q left, and Unique wanted to see what I looked like naked. She had me undress, and she highly approved.
Caveman knocked on my door, but she wouldn't let me open the door, or even let him know I was inside. She didn't like him.
I left all of my belongings in my room, but my room key and wallet were in my fanny pack around my waist. Unique and I began walking down the street; I'll never forget that I split a pole, and that she made us back up, and walk past it again. She told me that we needed to maintain synchronization, in other words. So as to look sexy together.
She spotted a man driving that was a frequent client of hers. He pulled into a side street, and picked us up. We stopped at a motel and began to engage in a threesome. He was so nervous, at least that was what he chocked it up to, that he could not perform. Nervous because he'd never 'done it' with two girls before.
Honestly it was difficult for me to do, and Unique made me get in positions I had never done before, were uncomfortable doing,and were humiliating for me to do for someone that wasn't responding to anything.
Unique and I left, meeting Q at the bus station. The bus was headed towards South Beach, and Q insisted that he pay. Because that's what he did. He was there to take care of us, he said. He didn't want any more talk of me paying for things.

He said he was there to take care of me. To protect me. But who would protect me from Q? 

He Who Haunts My Mind

Things in Miami were already horrible; it seemed like my only friend was Caveman, the sixty-six year old homeless cuban man who helped out around the Camelot Inn. No one else really talked to me. Everyone else seemed...bad. Caveman didn't seem so bad. He seemed kind of nice. He was old, he was friendly. He'd even found me a 'client' and warned me about pimps. He told me that they'd take my money, and use me. He said I'd be better off working independently. He was pretty cool. He had a lot of tattoos, and had a warm way about him. I trusted him.
It was really late, and he and I were sitting on the never ending construction in the hallway outside my room. We chatted for a while. He asked when my birthday was; he said his was October first. I lied and said, "Oh, me too!" Mine is really on the seventh, but I didn't see the big deal about a few days. He said that that was why we had such a 'connection'. He began talking to me about sex...and said that he began having sex very young. And that once when he was a young man he had sex with a twelve year old boy. And it was the best thing he or the boy had ever experienced. He went into gory detail. But I try not to remember what he said about that. It scared me a little, but at the time I was very distant from myself. I was barely conscious of what was going on in my own body, and my emotions were flat. I didn't really care then if he had had sex with a kid. Sure, it unnerved me a tad, but I hardly paid attention to it. It was a fleeting feeling.
He began talking about how beautiful I was. And then it got weird, even for me, even for that mindset.
He asked if he could come to my room and see me naked. Not touch me. But masturbate while looking at me. I wavered. I didn't want to. He was disgusting. His hair and beard were unkempt. He smelled. He had obviously not bathed in a disturbingly long time; his skin was covered in a layer of filth. His nails were long and dirty. And I did NOT want to see him naked or have him see ME naked.
I gave in. I was too weak. And I let him into my room.
It did not go as he had said it would. First came the undressing, then the touching. I pulled away. I didn't want this. No!
I didn't want this man to touch me. I wanted him to go away.
But I had already let him in; and I was passive. I was limp. I became an emotionless unseeing unfeeling object. Detaching from the present and attaching to the nothingness that was the darkness of my mind, I moved as he wanted me to move, I did as he wanted me to do.
But I wasn't really gone. I was still seeing. I was still feeling. I was still doing. And everything I saw, felt, did...smelled...tasted...those things linger still. He haunts my mind.
Once he finished he wanted to lie next to me and talk...but he finally left.
The next day he took me for a walk, and he climbed a coconut tree by the water and retrieved us a coconut that we shared. We ran into Gotti, who had been stalking me. Caveman protected me from him and we returned to my room.
He had sex with me again. And afterwards he told me about some of his tattoos, which really were terrible. He'd done them himself. He said that he was going to put my name, "Harper" on him when he could. I thought he was stupid.
After that I didn't see him, really. Soon I would leave the Camelot Inn. His name would come up again. He would probably wind up, in a strange sort of way, saving my life.

But awake or asleep, Caveman haunts my mind to this day. He is someone my soul refuses to heal from.

Weed, Mountain Dew, and a Hooker

I hadn't had any experience with getting high in my entire life; Van's attempts had failed when he shared his pipe, and tried to shotgun with me because no one told me how to inhale. I had turned down crack cocaine and the weed was apparently useless, I thought. 

Then I met a girl living down the hall from where I was staying. She was apparently a prostitute, but we didn't share many personal aspects of our lives. I think we both were respecting one another's privacy for the sake of retaining our own. 

We hung out in the hallway, chatting, and she asked for me to take a few pictures of her in her sexy outfit with her cellphone. I obliged, and we ended up walking down to a tiny food mart together. She was talking, and laughing, and showing off her ass (and mine) like we were pieces of walking rental properties. 

We bought some Mountain Dew (this may be where my three year long obsession with the sugary caffeinated beverage originated) and some small cigars. She bought some cigarettes, too, and we walked back. We carried the large, condensating bottles of soda on our heads, and I used the moisture on the plastic to cool down my stomach, now revealed with my white cotton undershirt tied up. I was showing so much skin I may as well have been in a bikini. It probably would have covered more and shown less than that getup was flashing. 

We relaxed in her room for a while, Jerry Springer the television show of choice. She showed me how to pick seeds and stems from the weed, and she emptied the cigar, making us a blunt that she shared with me. 

Once she showed me how to inhale, I was higher than an eagle in a jet plane.

Leaning over and peering into her eyes I whispered, "Am I...HIGH?" she told me that oh, yeah, I was. I was coughing and sputtering so much I could barely stand it. I hated it. All I wanted was...that Mountain Dew over on the other side of the bed. A drink. I wanted a drink. 

I began to get out of bed and almost fell over. Using the bed as a leaning post, I slowly made my way to the opposite side of the bed...and sat down on a chair. 

I had completely forgotten about my drink. 

I sat there, grinning like an idiot, and held my arms in a strange position, exclaiming, "I'm a Marrionette!" and I laughed. 

Remembering my drink, I looked over at the soda bottle and cups. "I'm not gonna spill it." I told myself. Out loud. Over and over as my lack of coordination made it dreadfully difficult to control my hands and pour my own drink. "I'm not gonna SPILL IT." I exclaimed as both hands held the bottle and poured the bubbly drink into the disposable cup. 

I succeeded, and drank some, but soon got up and saw myself in the mirror. I began to tear up. 

I thought to myself that I was a bad, bad person, that my parents must hate me, and that I was the worst daughter to ever have lived. 

I laid down on the bed, and zoned. Finally, still unnervingly high but bored to death of Jerry Springer, I left and went to my room. I had changed rooms by now; they fixed me up in a corner room facing the street - with dry carpet. 

I curled up in a fetus position on my bed and slept. I woke up and threw up in the toilet.

Feeling extremely lonely in this state, I wandered down the stairs and asked the lady at the desk if I could sit in the back room. She just seemed annoyed by me, and I sat by the door when she wouldnt let me back. I finally crept upstairs to my room and slept the high off. But it was very strange. 

I'm lucky no one found me while I was both mentally unwell and high as I was. I would have been a prime target, and wouldn't have fought anything. 

It was a weird experience, but certainly not a bad one. I saw things more clearly when I was high, but things were also enlarged to grand proportions. Most of my cares, those that I had, dropped out of my mind, but I saw myself in both a funny, happy light, and a sad and depressed one. 

It was a good thing that this happened when it did. It would probably prove to be the only mental break I would get for a very long time. 

But yes, Internet. The first time I got high was with a hooker. And yes. We were watching Jerry Springer and drinking Mountain Dew. I am so cliche. 

I Didn't Smoke Crack

After an inexcusably short time after running to Miami and lodging at the shady Camelot Inn, I was found my own source of transportation by Van. He had barely looked at me after his embarrassment when he attempted to make sweet, sweet love to me failed in an under dramatic, underwhelming premature ejaculation that I actually had no clue had even happened.
This transportation was a bike. It was owned by a young black man, tall and lanky, in a room downstairs. I bought it off of him for twenty dollars, which was a waste of my money considering how little I was going to be using it.
This guy was a total druggie. Sometime in this mixed up world I was living in, I went into his room, just because, and he offered me a hit off of his crack pipe. I'm pleased to announce that this time, strangely enough, I just...didn't smoke it. I don't really know why. I thought I shouldn't, and it would be a bad idea, but why I don't have a clue. Everything else certainly wasn't bright of me. I wasn't showing off a high intelligence level by wandering around having sex without protection, and endangering myself like I was. But I would not smoke the crack. I had limits? Who would have guessed.
He smoked his ice, and promptly began the procedural undressing of himself, and wanted me to do the same. Harper Bryson, obliging as always, but nevertheless weary of the sexual desires of the human race, conceded and climbed into his bed. As I have before pointed out, it seems that a large portion of men believe that if the legs can bend behind the head like a human soft pretzel, than obviously that is precisely how things should proceed. What they don't realize, or don't care about, is that this position, for those of us with vaginas, can be excruciatingly painful especially if not done with care, gentleness, and lubricant...none of which were obviously used during any of the Miami exploits. Because let us face the reality of the situation; it was rape. All rape. I was only sixteen, therefore underage, as well as mentally ill, hence I could not have given consent at the time even if I had wanted too. Also, I said 'no' and 'stop' multiple times to most if not all of the men I have mentioned in this and previous posts, and they continued. That is rape even on someone of age and mental clarity.
My point here? People push boundaries that we set. We say no, they say we mean maybe. We say maybe, they say we mean yes. It's as though you have to tell them 'No, dammit! No means no, end of story!' as if they are a rebellious child.
It is inexcusable that we aren't listened to when we speak, but that just means that we have to speak more loudly. We have to make them listen when we speak.

Next time I won't be shut up, I won't be shut down. What about you? 

I Could Have Passed A Polygraph

Because of my speedy entrance into prostitution, and their assistance in findinding me clients, Mike and Van (who ran the front desk at The Camelot Inn) figured I must be loose and easy, and that if they played their cards right they could get a lot of bang for no bucks. They were basically correct in their misogynistic assumptions; I would have sex with them, but I was naive and impressionable, and was far too deluded by my perceptions of how human beings acted towards each other, that I actually thought that I should apologize to them if I couldn't give them exactly what they wanted.
Mike started it; I don't know when, but he did. The motel had a room behind the front desk, behind a smaller room that led to the alley and was used for holding 'fresh' blankets and a screen for the video surveillance system. When Mike was on duty one night, he called me into the back room, and before I knew what was happening...and that seems to be the summation of my existence...my orange shorts were off, and he was having sex with me. I think he had sex with me everywhere he possibly could in that room. And in more positions than I was remotely comfortable with. It was painful, but more of an exhausting kind of pain. I distinctly remember thinking to myself how tiring this all was, and how I just wished he would hurry up and finish already. And then, after a while, he told me that he had a 'medical condition' where he 'couldn't cum'. I didn't know at the time what any of this meant to me; he was even garbling about his wife, but it all went over my head. Now I realize that he was trying to manipulate me, and trying to make me think that I couldn't get pregnant with him.
Van was later, but not by much. I liked him...he was (I thought) a nice guy.
He had lent me his bike and told me where to ride so I could get to a park not far away. I rode there, and spent some time sitting under a tree, perfectly content with myself, smug with what I'd been 'up to'. I wrote in a tiny notebook about some of the men I'd slept with, how hot they were, and things like that. I was actually proud of myself, bragging to myself about what a good whore I was.
Van had taken a liking to me; but when he pulled me aside, he insisted that I tell him whether or not I really was eighteen years old. "And not like sixteen or something?" Actually, I was precisely that. Sixteen. But at that point...I kind of thought I was eighteen. Not completely, but enough to tell him honestly enough to pass a polygraph that I really was eighteen years old.
Back into the back room I went, this time with Van. I sat in a chair as he minded the front desk, and he came back and gave me hits off his pipe. I didn't get high; I didn't know how to inhale.
We ended up beginning to have sex in the tiny video surveillance room, which was just all weird. He seemed super paranoid, and he even had me stand in the alley for what seemed like a long time, waiting. He had me go up to his room, and wait for him there. It was a long wait, and a strange one. He had had friends come into town, and they had had a party where they had roasted a whole pig. They had promised him some...but left him only the head. And so, on a table in his room, there sat an entire pig's head, huge, with a serrated knife beside it. Under his television were a pile of porn magazines, all in Spanish. I browsed through them. It was the first time I'd ever held a porn magazine in my hands. It was kind of exhilarating, though in an underwhelming non sexual way. But they were great nonetheless, and I was thrilled. I deemed them brilliant, and promised myself that I would own one someday. Piles and piles of them...
Van opened the door and walked in. It was awkward, starting off from such a weird place to have been coming from to begin with. It was all very uncomfortable. He really seemed to want to get me high, and to want to incorporate his newly imported california cannabis, supposedly very high quality, into our sexual experience through shotgunning it. I was confused and didn't know why he was breathing smoke into my mouth, and got freaked out. Once he explained it to me, besides the fact that I didn't know at the time how to inhale, he was finished before I realized he had even began with me. He seemed embarrassed that he came so quickly. I didn't know why. He used the excuse that he hadn't been with a woman for a long time. I believed it at sixteen...now I realize it was probably embarrassment talking.

I guess in retrospect they may have gotten a lot of bang for no buck. But I think I really got the better end of the bargain. I may have had to take the indignity of it all, but at least I've learned from what I've experienced; I doubt the same is true for them.

A Good Ass For A White Girl

*Trigger Warning
After prostituting for the first time, my self preservation instincts failed me in most respects. I began having strange conversations with Van and Mike who worked the front desk at the Camelot Inn, and even with the homeless 'Caveman.
Gotti came back, after raping me and stealing my virginity away from me. It was nighttime, and very dark and quite cold, as it was only April.
He knocked on my door and I let him in. We sat for a while, and he let me play with his phone. I listened to Avril Lavigne's 'What The Hell', and just sort of zoned. He said he could hook me up with a phone, and I thought that was cool, but doubted his ability to do so. And I knew I couldn't afford one.
He began to come onto me, and I told him that when he slept with me it was my first time - I had tried to tell him before, but even now he really seemed doubtful, but also seemed to believe me because of how difficult is was for him to have sex with me. Looking back that could also be attributed to the lack of lube used, but apparently nobody in those areas uses lubrication during intercourse. Very sexually uneducated - especially when it comes to consent.
Gotti had me undress, and we had sex for a long time, and I think that a lot of men think that females are sex toys, and that if the legs can bend behind the head, than they should bend behind the head. This was painful in more than a few ways, and I kept fidgeting and twisting, trying to get out for under his grasp, but he was too strong, and too heavy, and I told him to stop. Many times. All he told me, every time, was that if I was going to do this to make money I had better learn to take it. And that's what he kept repeating; "just take it". And when I was moaning, from agony, and not the pleasure he must have perceived, he just told me to be quiet, whispering for me to hush up.
Finally, and finally seemed to take all night, he got up and left. I fell asleep and slept so deeply that I could've been happy in that place forever; curled in a fetus position, tear stained face, but a deep, dreamless slumber.
The conversations with the motel managers began to lead me towards new 'clients'. In one night they hooked me up with at least three different guys. One I got out of the way quickly, and don't remember much about. Then there was a guy who was different from the rest...he wasn't my client - I was a potential client of his. He worked in a porn company (supposedly) down the street, and wanted to check me out. Or try me out, moreover. It was humiliating, and demoralizing. He assessed me, and told me I had a 'good ass for a white girl'. And then asked me if I liked to exercise. It was the same hate I had heard my whole life. He told me I would have to lose weight, but keep 'that ass'. When he talked about exercising I just imagined beautiful images of running along the beach. Peace. Tranquility. But in that room was no peace or tranquility. He 'tried me out' and said that I would need to learn some things, but it might work. He left and I felt so unattractive. I felt like a whale.
I took the steps downstairs and Caveman said there was a client he knew of down the street in another motel. He took me there. It was an elderly black man, surrounded by tiny bags of cocaine. He was very thin, and I tried to do my job. I kept trying to get the money out of him - but it wasn't working. He was too high to even get an erection, and he blamed it on me, saying I wasn't doing my job right, I wasn't doing it right, I was too unnatractive, I wasn't a good whore. It was my fault. I thought it was my fault. This memory disgusts me more than a lot of them do; I got forty dollars out of him in the end, but it wasn't worth it. I missed the porno guy who came back for me, supposedly with at least a thousand dollars for me. That's probably bullshit, but in those moments, I felt as though I'd missed out on a huge opportunity because of a disgusting, high, old man who I couldn't turn on. If I had gone with Mr. Porno, I may never have mad was most likely one of those people who ironically saved my life just by existing. No one can ever know how they are going to figure into someone's story, or in what strange way they are going to help someone, even just by being there and being alive. In a lot of ways I wish I hadn't had that experience, but if I hadn't I may have been somewhere terrible by now, or dead.

You can't undo your past, and I wouldn't if I could. It has put me here, now, and has made me who I am today. Even the worst moments have formed the person that is me today. I wouldn't recognize myself if I hadn't been through the fire. None of us would. We would look into the mirror, and see a stranger reflected back at us, and see a life around us, unfamiliar and truly alien. 

The Irony of Forbidden Fruits

I couldn't find Unique, and I was very worried that if I didnt get birth control I was going to get pregnant. She and Q had left the motel, as far as I could tell, and I felt like my world was spinning. My virginity lost in the blink of an eye, my life was desecrated and seemed hollow and meaningless.
I was walking back to the Camelot Inn, unsuccessful and broken down, when while passing a gas station, a car pulled in, and a man signaled me over. In that moment I suddenly didn't think or care about anything that could happen to me from this point forward. I had been reckless until now, but in this moment, in the warm Miami sun, I didn't care anymore. In my reckoning, I had been raped, my had already had sex now. Now nothing mattered, and I was basically a whore, and worthless.
I strode up to the car, and conversed with the man about how I was struggling with paying for my motel room. He asked a lot of questions, and I felt more assertive than I had in a long time.
My motel room cost me $35 dollars I told him. He said he wouldn't do me like that, and asked if $80 was alright. I smiled and said, yeah! That sounded great!
He had me sit in the car while he filled up the gas tank. And he got in. And started driving. And I suddenly realized what I'd agreed to. I don't know why it took so long, but it did. I don't know how I was still so naive, but even into the future I would prove to be very naive.
We drove farther and farther until we reached a by the hour motel, where the room we were in had a mirror above the bed, a working flat screen television, and a jacuzzi bathtub.
I remember a lot of things from the time in that room that aren't exactly good memories; he wasn't able to penetrate me, I think mainly because I was still so traumatized from my rape from earlier that day. Also the fact that he was my first experience having oral sex, and that we did in the jacuzzi tub. This wasn't exactly genius on his part. My knees kept slipping everywhere, and I was not only concerned with not throwing up, but with not slipping and biting his dick off, or hitting my head on the side of the tub.
On a lighter note, he seemed to be a lay and cuddle type. We lay in bed and watched Terminator 2 for a long time. I had never seen it before, because my parents thought that those movies were inappropriate for children. Ironic, I now think to myself, that those movies I still wouldn't be allowed to see until I was seventeen or eighteen, but here I was, sixteen years old, lying in bed watching Terminator 2, that forbidden fruit, after selling my body for $80 so I would have a bed for a few nights.
We had not used protection. I didn't even think about it...but I would. Oddly enough, not using protection probably saved my life in ways that I could never have thought possible.
In the meantime, though, the manic frenzy I was filled with seemed to settle into a deep depression, riddled with psychosis. Thinking only of putting a roof over my head, I barely thought to feed myself.
The first man I sold my body to wanted to do it again, and planned to pick me up at Starbucks the next day; he never showed. I felt disgusted, and ugly. I perceived this as rejection, as a summation of everything I'd always been told. That I was fat and unnatractive. That no one wanted me. I felt like I hadn't given him his $80 worth. I thought that I was inexperienced, and therefore worthless.

Strangely enough, watching Terminator 2 felt like more of a forbidden fruit than anything else I was doing...more so than selling myself for sex. 

Stolen Kiss, Lost Virginity

After getting settled in my room at the Camelot Inn, things began to go downhill very quickly. I don't remember how fast it all happened, but it must have occurred at a rather rapid pace, even though time seemed to crawl by so slowly.
I was headed into my grody motel room, unlocking the door. As I did so, a tall, black, muscular man strode down the hall towards me, and started talking to me in a low tone. What he said is lost in my memories, except that he wanted to come in. I said no, I shouldn't, that I was busy. He came right up to me, towering over me (at the time I was 5'10" tall, and not short) and he leaned in, coercing me to let him in. He told me he just wanted to talk. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, but I most certainly was not prepared for how things did happen. I responded to his touches because I felt like I should, or as though someone else was moving my arms and hands for me. I felt disconnected from my body, and within a short time, I was left alone, knowing only that his name was Gotti, he would be back, and that I had just lost my first kiss, and my virginity to a total stranger. I fell on the wet carpet and the pain that he had caused my body felt small compared to the emotional pain I was feeling. I cried harder and harder, and stood in front of the mirror, mouthing silent screams at myself. "SO STUPID! YOU'RE SO FUCKING STUPID!" and I began to punch the now wet sheets, that were becoming wetter with my tears. I felt as though the pain I felt would never leave. And I thought that now I could never face my family. I had planned to save everything for marriage, including my first kiss. And now my parents would be so disappointed in me, I could never face them again. My life was over. I was broken. Dirty. Used. Common filth.
I cleaned myself up, my body aching, bleeding. I went for a walk, cars honking at me. I kept walking.
I had met a girl earlier, named Unique, who asked if I worked the streets too. I was confused, but figured it out. She was a prostitute, and she told me I could do it too.
She was a black girl, and wore a blond wig. With dimple piercings and a red dress to complete the ensemble, I felt both comforted by her presence somehow, but also threatened.
She had taken me back to her motel room down the road to meet her 'friend'. His name was Q. Or, he went by the name Q just like she went by the name Unique.
They seemed nice to me, so in my trouble, I went to go find them. They had left. I had wanted to ask her where I could find birth control. I didn't even think about condoms. Just...birth control.
But she was nowhere to be found. And I began to walk back to motel gross.
I felt like I had lost everything; at that point, I may very well have had nothing. However, there was so much more I was going to learn I could lose.
Meeting Unique and Q proved to be instrumental that week. In fact, I may not be who I am today if I hadn't met a certain girl with a bedraggled blond wig on a bench on Biscayne.
But losing my virginity, at that time, in that way, was a soul crusher for me. I must have been very naive to have thought that I could runaway and not lose my virginity, or in the least, lose it and not feel the way I did - demolished.

The time continued to crawl, but things happened so quickly and with such a vengeance that settling became a foreign concept, one that I would struggle with for years to come. 

Camelot, Caveman, and Crackpipes.

It was early April in Miami; loading my meager luggage into the final taxi on my journey, I spoke to the driver, asking about living arrangements. I new nothing about the city, about how much a bed was going to cost, or how I was going to survive. Ignorance may have brought momentary bliss, but shadows lined my heart. However, I felt a sense of adventure. The South Florida sun was gleaming brightly, I had successfully escaped, and nothing could ever go wrong again. I thought nothing about my future, simply of the moment. Adrenaline was speeding through my system, soaking me through.
The driver informed me that everything by the beach would be out of my price range, so he drove me to Biscayne street where I would find motels that I could pay for by the night, and that I could actually afford. After driving me up and down the street (and letting me know that I could just pay him a flat fee for the ride), and checking a few motels where they asked for the identification that I was of course claiming not to have, I sent the cabbie off. I wandered up and down the street with my belongings, one man leaning out a window asking if I needed a room, and if I wanted to share his. Two young men asked me if I wanted to get a room to share with them. I fought back and forth with myself, and agreed, but then they said that I was going to have to pay for the room and that they had no money to split the cost of the room. I apologized for the 'inconvenience' I had caused them, and walked away, down the street to the Camelot Inn.
I spoke to the guy at the desk, a black man named Mike. An elderly homeless Cuban man nicknamed 'Caveman' stood by with a bag of donuts and some Sunny D. Mike checked me in, not asking for ID, and asking what kind of room I wanted. Carpet, $35 a night, tile $45. Caveman helped me with my luggage to my room, and telling me that the next time I saw my mother I should thank her because she had made such a beautiful daughter. He gave me some donuts and Sunny D and I closed my door and locked it. Falling onto my bed, I wept into the filthy bedspread. I believed that I would never see my family again, and it tore me apart. I picked myself up and realized I needed to get myself together. I didn't have enough money to stay at the motel for much longer, so I wrote a sign, and found out where the bus was. I got on it and rode it. I was planning to go to the beach to bum cash off people, but I rode it too far.
I remember looking at the clock and thinking that my family must know I'm gone by now. Thinking about it for a moment. Then my thoughts turned elsewhere.
The bus kept going, and turned around. The driver asked me where I was going. I was too proud to admit that I didn't know what I was doing, so I just told him that I was on the bus to see what was around here. Asking me if I was hungry, he offered to buy me something from Burger King since he was taking his lunch break.
He brought me back a meal, and we headed back to Biscayne and 71st Street. I couldn't finish my fries, and gave them to a homeless woman in the seat across from me.
Once I made it back to Camelot Inn, another guy was behind the desk, Van. We talked for a little while, and became friendly. I learned from him that Caveman was homeless, but worked around the motel to earn a bed sometimes, making himself a kind of fixture.
I climbed the stairs to my room, making my way through the construction work that had obviously been sitting there for years, barely being touched, a,ways under construction, never finished.
My room was a shithole. The carpet was soggy, but why I don't rightly know; it was all soggy, the whole of the carpeting, and wasn't just because the window in the bathroom was broken, or the window facing the alley didn't close all the way. The television was there. It was showing that there was effort put into the room...in the beginning. But not in it's upkeep. Not a single channel worked. All static. The bed linens felt like they had never been changed, and I side the closet was enough crackhead graffiti to irritate anyone with a sane mind; not that I was at all sane, mind you. Speaking  of crackheads, lodged on a ledge in the closet was a crack pipe. Not that I knew this at the time, but it was there nonetheless.

I was in Camelot. But there were no knights here, and I would not be treated like royalty either. 

Screaming At The Past

I was now Harper Bryson, dressed in bright orange shorts that rode up my butt, a white ribbed tank top that showed everything underneath, which was the fact that I was wearing no bra, and I had a bandanna over my short hair; it was covered in peace signs and smiley faces. My love beads - all umpteen of them - flowed over my chest. I looked like a young hippie headed for a music festival.
The taxi dropped me and my luggage (a suitcase, a black satchel, and my pillow) off at the Greyhound bus station. This time I wasn't going to hitchhike. This time I wasn't going to fail.
I bought my ticket to Miami for around sixty dollars, and took a seat to wait. The bus wasn't leaving for a few hours. I had time to kill, and nothing to kill it with. Striking up a conversation with a couple of friendly young men, I found out that they were self identified beach bums who slept on the beach, and bummed money off of people to buy food, cigarettes, booze, and drugs. We talked for quite a long time, which definitely kept the boredom at bay. An older gentleman sitting across from me seemed to think that since I was a hippie, and I won't deny that I looked like one, that shrooms must be my thing. He gave me a pewter shroom necklace that I promptly put on, and I began to write him a thank you note.
I felt very nervous, and very paranoid. I thought that everyone was watching me and that I was being followed. I kept my back to the security guards, and kept my face down. I put my cell phone on the floor beside me so that I could 'lose' it...but once I was in line to get on the bus, one of my new friends gave me my cell phone back. And so I promptly snuck over to the trash can and dropped it in.
After boarding the bus, I began walking to find a seat, and a man began to make lurid faces and gestures at me. I wanted him to sit next to me. I thought that he would make me feel good.
After a few years of experiencing myself in these states of mind, I find that the only times that I become a sexual being at all in regards to others is when I am mentally unstable or unwell. When this happens I am extremely manic, psychotic, and oversexualized. When I am healthy and mentally stable, I am calm, a non sexual being, and not at all the same person. You would hardly recognize me.
I took a window seat, and a gentleman sat next to me. I use the word gentleman very pointedly here. During the long, laborious ride in the dark, he did not attempt to touch me once. He shared his box of Captain Crunch Berries with me; and I was famished. We talked a reasonable amount, he was
possibly the only person I met on the misadventure that had no angle.
I slept a bit, and it was probably the only peaceful sleep I'd get for a long time, even if it was short.
This is all so hard for me to fathom; when I remember these memories, it is as though I am seeing them from the outside, as though I am a stranger to my own life. And yet I must accept that the bus has just reached Miami. I have only just gone to get my luggage. I've paid for another cab.
Oh god no...why...
Why did I do this? I look at myself and scream "Turn around now! Don't do this."

But I can't scream at the past. I can't stop it from happening. It's already been done. I got into that cab in Miami. And I rode it to Biscayne and 71st street. 

Harper Bryson. Destination: Miami

I have to admit that what I am about to begin divulging to you is a long and painful story, that few have heard, and fewer know the whole truth about. I actually have kept putting off writing about this because of the sheer fact that I don't want to remember all the truths about the events that transpired during the week of April 8th 2011. It is intensely traumatic for me to recall the sordid details, however, there is a chance that somewhere, someone out there will recognize themselves in this tale and realize that they are not alone.
I was sitting on the couch with my family watching the original Tron movie on my Dad's old big screen television. Our neighbor had just had bunion surgery and was on bed rest with pain medication, and needed someone to keep an eye on her in case something happened, or in case her dogs needed taking care of. I had taken care of her during the day, and I offered to spend the night with her so she wouldn't be alone. I knew when I did this that this might be my final and only opportunity to escape; I couldn't pass it up. Trembling, I raced around my room packing a black bag with white tank tops, a couple of soft bras, a pair of orange booty shorts, underwear, and a bunch of my papers, love beads, and my wallet. I snuck around downstairs taking all the money I could find, and then told my parents I was headed next door. My mother came to see me off. I debated whether I should wear my brown flip flops or my hiking shoes. Then I hugged her and and told her, "Don't worry Mummy, everything is going to be alright." I turned around and walked out of the garage.
After arriving at my neighbor's house, I helped her find something appetizing to eat; the marshmallows out of the lucky charm's box worked like magic. I began planning how I would get out, and I told her that I might go outside for some fresh air, or something stupid like that, if she heard the door. After a few hours, I got ancy. I looked around for money, but there was none. I looked for a phone to call a taxi on so there would be no trail on my cell, but her cell phone was with her. I looked in the spare room and found a black, Disney logo suitcase. I began packing my things into it, and found a boatload of toiletries to pack as well. Razors, pads, soap, shampoo, and I found a blanket and Disney fanny pack that I decided to take as well. I packed all my stuff, and made my way outside. I waited by a palm tree and called the taxi service. I gave the address, and picked a new name for myself.
Harper Bryson.
Even now, that name still means pain to me. It still means tears, and lies, and a shattered soul and a broken heart.
Harper Bryson got in that taxi, and told the driver to drive her to the Greyhound Bus Station. When asked about the end destination, she gave a false reply to throw off anyone who might ask questions. Tallahassee. But 'she' was really going to Miami.
This taxi ride felt less ominous; more like deja vu than anything else. But dressed in a jacket, braless white tank top and orange booty shorts, this strange me, venturing out into the unknown, didn't know what to expect from people, or from the world.
I had very little knowledge of how society, good or bad, actually worked. I was barely allowed to see PG-13 movies if they were too sexual, violent, or 'inappropriate'. Whatever that meant at the moment. And if movies don't even depict reality correctly, and I didn't experience reality, it is no wonder I was, and still can be at times, completely naíve.
I may have ranaway, but once I got into that taxi cab, I would fight against acknowledging myself, in favor of keeping 'Harper Bryson' alive. But with Harper alive, I was dead inside.

An Otherworldly Escape

Writing about a different family in another galaxy made me feel less trapped. In designing bloodlines and inventing family trees, I could escape from my mind, and from what felt like an inescapable future. Images of lush forests of emerald leaves and vibrant flowers grew like wild vines through my now very unstable and unsettled head, wrapping their thorny tendrils around my thoughts, and mimicking reality.
The faces I drew with my imagination looked so beautiful and mystical in my mind's eye; the love I created began to feel warm and gentle to my caged heart.
I wanted to escape more desperately than ever, but I saw no way that I could accomplish this. I spent most of my hours stringing love beads, and tuning out the world.
My grandmother came to visit from the United Kingdom, and stayed for a week or two. I guess I enjoyed it. But most of the time I spent my hours focusing my energy on not running off. Not acting out. Not disappearing. Most likely I wasted that time with my grandmother because I was hyper focused on not doing what was inevitable.
Running away.
How much of my second runaway did I plan; how much was essentially spontaneous happen chance?
To be fair, I wanted to run, although I was not sure that I had the guts or the means to take off again. Taking a good look at April of 2011, I can be very certain that I had no real intent to run. It was, however, a self fulfilling prophecy. I dreamed it, I wanted it, I desired it so badly that I set in motion a devastating turn of events, worse still than the last.
Once again, I didn't think - I just 'did', not caring or even contemplating for a moment the consequences of any of my actions.
I didn't realize that soon I would have to find ways to make money; and those ways would haunt me in my dreams.
I didn't have a clue that riding in ambulances would become so common in my life that it would actually become tiring.
I had no way of knowing that losing my virginity would actually bother so much that I would cry about it. For years. And that I would within a year be covered in so many scars I could never count them all. And that mental hospitals aren't actually always safe places.
I knew nothing. And I thought I knew it all.
It would change in the blink of an eye, but that kind of innocence isn't just lost. That type of innocence is stolen. But really when it comes down to the nitty gritty, I don't know exactly who stole it, because it was stolen piece by piece, shard by shard by a whole flock.
Soon escaping into another world entirely would prove much too enticing a concept for my mind to pass up. Everything was getting fraught with danger and delusion, and there was, at this time, no getting away from it...not that I even wanted to.

Finding A Way

After I ranaway and my parents picked me up in the early hours of the morning from the seven-eleven in pine hills, the car ride home was mostly silent, but tense and fraught with bridled emotions. I kept repeating apologies, and rocking back and forth in my seat, distraught, and claiming no knowledge of how I wound up so far from home, or what had transpired in the hours I had been gone.
In retrospect, I'm not exactly certain of my motives for doing this. It was not my intention to be deceitful; in all honesty I can now say that I may have been trying to protect myself from my parent's wrath, although that feels quite unlikely given my circumstances, as I knew they wouldn't believe such nonsense anyways. More likely than not, I was slipping away little by little into my own mind, and losing bits of my sanity and albeit my integrity as time progressed. I said what I said, and it was done.
Once we made it home, my mother took it upon herself to check if I had been raped. Apparently she was a doctor. Hmm. Never new she had that training.
She had me undress and checked me all over for marks, and looked at my genitals, front and back, inspecting for anything unusual. I guess she'd be able to tell, right?
Then the hat came off.
Utter shock. "what did you do" and "why did you do this" and other such questions filled the air in a pressured, raised tone. I began to sob, and feigned no knowledge of  cutting my own hair, even blocking the night ours of my mind, attempting to make real the amnesia I claimed to have.
We were going to an ex-Wayer's home for fellowship (kind of like church, I suppose), in a few hours, so my parents sent me to bed to get some sleep; when I awoke, my mother had me come downstairs for a haircut.
She made my hair look "presentable", as though we meant for this to happen, and after a shower and a drive, we arrived at our friend's house. The whole time we were there, my parents said nothing to them about me. They asked for no prayers, asked for no advice, and breathed not one word. We were a happy family. No one should know anything different. I spoke in tongues in front of our families, partly to ask God for forgiveness and help, but also to show my parents that I wasn't a horrible person.
My parents changed the house alarm code so I didn't know it - I wouldn't know it again after that. My brother slowly became my babysitter, and life became even less (if possible) private for me. The lock on my door was gone by this time, and my journals, which had never been a safe place for me, became a dangerous weapon that could be used against me at any time.
Hating myself became the norm. Hating my life became the norm. I didn't realize that who and what I really despised was not me, not my life, but my parents and the life that I was being forced to live. Or, to be more blunt, the life I was being imposed upon not to live.
I couldn't, in my mind, live like this forever. I wanted to be free. There has to be more to life than this, I would think, and there has to be more to life than walls, locked doors, and indubitable compliance.

I wrote stories of alien worlds, of kings and queens, unabashed love, and magical lands. My mind dripped with fantasy until it was so steeped in it that I almost began to believe it as reality. At least...well...I wished it was true. If only it could somehow become reality. If only it could be real. If only I could find a way...

Meeting Fear

In a taxicab on way way into the unknown, the driver asked me where I was headed. He had to have known I was running away. He had to have known what was going on. But hey, a paycheck's a paycheck, and who's gonna question you at the end of the day?
He mentioned the Greyhound Bus, and I knew about it, but hadn't thought about that idea. I asked him to take me to the bus station, and after an eerie ride in the dark, I arrived, spending almost all my money on the cab.
I checked into the bus station, feeling about as strange as I had ever felt. Men were smoking outside giving me feaverish glances, even though I felt very androgynous with my short hair and black beanie. The security searched my backpack, and I went to the desk to ask about bus tickets. I had six dollars. Not enough to get anywhere.
So I started walking...and tried to hitchhike. I got picked up by an elderly African American man. He asked me how old I was. I told him I was eighteen. I told him I was headed towards New Orleans or California.
We weren't driving for long when we turned into an alleyway so he could urinate in a gutter. I guess he couldn't be bothered to find a toilet. Or a bush. That would have been enough for me. A gutter is stooping pretty low. But looking back on the situation, I'm somewhat certain that he was already drunk; if he wasn't, than his car smelled like booze and cigarettes, and he was searching out his first drink of the night. We stopped to buy it at a small, late night liquor store. He asked me to go in and buy it for him, then he remembered I was 'only eighteen'.
We raced through traffic after he had failed to find his drink of choice, and stopped at this tiny place that seemed to act for him as a drive through. Everything was closed between those hours of the night, and he seemed downright pissed about it.
He dropped me off at the Greyhound bus station, and I hung around feeling desperate. He had told me to go back to my parents. I knew I couldn't do that now; now I was committed.
So I walked. For miles through the dark, and the cold, I hummed songs to myself, I heard the radio playing when I passed car dealerships. I wanted to cry, but that would be giving up I wouldn't let my tears flow. Passing by groups of men huddled together drinking and tossing me glances, and those moments when a car would slow down next to me as I walked, and I would feel my heart race and adrenaline speed through my system as I could not see their face, new only that a man was offering me a ride, and that if I got into that car I might never see another human being again. I was afraid, and I believe somehow that despite this being less physically damaging, and although I have been through 'worse' than this since then, I have never forgotten the ever present fear of that night, even though nothing came of it at the time.
In the end, I gave up. Dawn was coming, my parents would be waking up soon, and my epic plan to escape was indeed an utter failure. I entered a seven-eleven and bought a drink, and paced the floor, attempting to make a decision.
I made one.
I called the police. Who came.
Convincing me to tell him what happened, I made the decision that became a turning point in my life.
He called my parents, and I told them the same story...I even began to believe my own lies. "I don't know what happened! I just woke up and found myself here! I thought I'd been kidnapped!"

That night I first experienced real fear. I didn't think that we would meet up again so quickly.

"I'm Glad You're Not A Fat Butch Lesbian"

"Coming out of the closet" seemed too be too treacherous a road. With my privacy abolished, my contact with the outside world diminished, and my independence dwindling to such a minute amount of freedom I was worse off than a young child, I crept back behind those dark, shadowy closet doors determined to cleanse myself of every impure thought or action ever to cross through the boundary of my mind. My mind became darker than ever, but I force fed it what I believed to be light. As did my parents. My father had me take one of my multitudes of composition notebooks, and research biblical passages regarding homosexuality and write them down, as well as verses on purity of thought and body. I had to write in in it also every day reasons why homosexuality was a sin, and reasons why god desired me to remain holy. Then every day I was supposed to read what i had written and found out to my father. There is a lot I don't remember about this book; probably a lot I don't want to remember. I have blocked it for so long that the memories are faded, but the feelings are powerful. During this time, I began attempting in my own time to transcribe the entire bible by hand. I began to plan to become a nun. I grew attached to catholic thoughts and ideas, and grew very zealous in my faith. I wore the most modest of clothing I could find in my closet; long shirts, skirts, tights, modest shoes. My mother would make comments to me such as, "I'm so glad that you're not going to become a fat butch lesbian", and smile. She thought she was complimenting me. I felt betrayed.
Christmas came, and went. New years passed and it was 2011 now. I didn't think much of it. I was writing stories, and retreating farther and farther into the deepest recesses of my imagination.
I didn't want to be with my parents anymore. I was sixteen; I'd heard from one of my friends about emancipation...but I knew that to do that you needed a job and a place to live. I knew my parents would never let me get a job. Not until I graduated high school. Maybe not until I was done with college even. I might be trapped forever! I grew frantic, and was terrified that I would never get away from them. Their degrading talk, their prying eyes and ears and fingers.
When my shirts showed too much cleavage, my mother would stick her bony finger down my breasts and wiggle it and tell me to pull my shirt up.
When my journal entries were too depressing, my parents would read them to me, and tell me to 'stop being so negative' and ask why I don't ever write about the fun things we do as a family.
I could never tell anyone anything personal on the phone - it was always possible my mother might be listening in.
To me, being sixteen, I thought that running away would solve this. Well to be perfectly frank, I did not really 'think'. I just 'did'.
It was March, and I was in my bedroom. I can't really determine what went through my mind. I am not quite sure what did go through it that night. It was late. Very late. I had a phone book by my side as I dialed a taxi cab from my flip phone. I had packed my big black backpack with everything I 'thought' I'd need. I had also gone to the bathroom and taken a pair of stainless steel sewing scissors to my hair and hacked it all off as a poor attempt at a disguise, or possibly because I wanted it that short and my mother kept leaving it longer than I wanted it.
I put on a beanie, but in the rush to get outside to wait on the curb for the taxi, I forgot my hoodie. It was cold outside, even if it is Florida.

I didn't know where I was going. I had very little money. But nonetheless, this would start something that was bigger than 'gay', bigger than 'being sixteen'. Bigger than

Preparing For A Gay Apocalypse

Coming out to my friend as being bisexual was not exactly the most rewarding experience of my life. I had thought he would be more accepting, especially considering how unsure I felt inside of myself. I knew I wasn't straight. That was a given. However, all he had to say to me was that most girls who come out as bisexual usually end up becoming lesbians anyway. I was quite confused, and slightly insulted. On the other hand, though, I actually believed his faulty notion that one day I would become a 'full grown lesbian'. 

At fifteen years old, I was in the throes of my online sexual presence; it was tiring, pointless, and when it didn't disgust me, it just bored me. Some nights I would spend the entirety of the hours between 10:30 pm and 5:00 am online...the hours my parents were in bed. During the day, as a homeschooler, I would be falling asleep so much my parents actually thought that I had narcolepsy. 

That October, right before my sixteenth birthday, I planned to come out to my parents as being gay. I was so terrified of what the repercussions would be that I stocked my closet as if I were preparing for the Apocolypse. Canned goods, gallons of water, blankets, a lighter, batteries, a bucket for excrement, toilet paper. Paper towels. In my mind, I honestly believed that I would either have to lock myself in my room for an unknown amount of time until it was safe to come out, or I would have to leave. 

The night before I came out I went to youth group with my brother. I bought us pizza and ice cream, and myself a t-shirt and a spooky music CD. I took video on my camera of my family telling me that they loved me, as I thought I might never hear it again. 

Then I stayed up all night scared stiff. 

Making sure that I caught my parents before my dad left for work that morning was a chore. He leaves for work really early, and I didn't want to have this conversation twice. 

I sat them down, and stumbled over a few words. Then blurted out that I was gay. All my mother did was get out of her seat and sputter something along the lines of, "I knew it. I knew you were going to do this to us" in a grossly unhappy, disgusted tone.  Everything else became a blur. Suddenly my parents were asking for my computer. Of course I didn't want to give it to them. I had even locked it to my desk. Somehow that morning, my dad and I got into a physical confrontation trying to go upstairs, and I locked myself in my bedroom, blocking the door with a sixty year old, extremely cumbersome desk. 

Needless to say, my dad got the computer, and I went out with my mom and brother. When I returned home, my bedroom door was gone, and a pink plastic tablecloth was in its place, blowing in the air-conditioned prison I called home. 

Every electronic I owned was taken away. Any schoolwork was to be done out where my mother could watch me; and oh, was she watching me.

Now was it because of my Internet activities, or because I said I was gay? I don't think anyone will ever know for sure. But in any case, they felt they could not trust me. Maybe they couldn't. How could they when I couldn't even trust myself? Whatever they did, they did the wrong thing. They never tried to talk to me. They never even attempted to understand. I think that that is all that any human being really wants in life; someone to sit down and listen, and try to understand. Even if they never will. If no one does that, than anyone is bound to go crazy. 

I know it didn't take me long to find the rabbit hole. 

Blatantly Ignored

An eating disorder indulged in, and self harm blatantly ignored, it is no wonder that my depression was scorned as me being an overdramatic hormonal teenager. My journals pawed through when I was out babysitting, and my secrets never written down in real fear that they would be discovered, I withdrew, hiding my feelings from everyone. Writing my thoughts on my leg and washing it off became a normal occurrence. Penning my feelings on toilet paper and flushing them so they would never be read became a daily habit. As did hiding my blades and band-aids. The outdoors became my refuge, away from the oppression of my parents.
At thirteen I began doing sex chats online, which led to webcamming. I've never been able to figure out exactly why I did this, as it never once 'turned me on'. Perhaps I did it because I was isolated and lonely; maybe I did it to rebel against my parents. However, in those early days, I can only pin down one thing that feels the most probable. Coercion. I didn't really want to do it; in fact, I didn't even know what I was in for.
If you have never been in this particular situation before, I'll lay it out for you.
Imagine that you are a sheltered, isolated thirteen year old, with almost no knowledge of the Internet or of sex. You go online. You want to make some new friends because...well, you don't have any. And friends are the most important thing in the world to you right now (or the fact that you feel like a freak because you DON'T have friends). You google 'teen chat rooms', or some variation on that.
You click.
It asks for a username. You're at THAT age, so something cutsie goes in the box. You want people to like you, of course!
You enter the chat room.
Identifying yourself as a thirteen year old female, you suddenly get flooded with dozens and dozens of incoming messages. Perhaps a fifty. Maybe a hundred.
You feel popular.
People ask you for your 'ASL', and you figure out that that means your age, sex, and location. And you feel like you have learned the whole Internet.
Suddenly you realize that out of all these messages, almost all of them are asking for sexual favors.
And almost all of them are thirty years old or older.
Wait!
The chat room said no one older than eighteen!
And then you realize too late that you have been in a sexual discourse, making 'friends' with sexual predators.
Why did I continue? Did I become addicted to the attention I got? Or was it something bigger than that?
I had hope in the back of my mind that one day, out of all these predators I ran into, that one of them would rescue me from my parents. I would let someone just take me away? In a heartbeat.
All the times that my mother saw my cuts, that my doctors told her what I was doing, she covered her eyes, believed my shaky lies, and may as well have put the blade in my hand herself.
Someday I would be saved. But not before I tried to save myself. And failed so horribly that never again would I be written off as overdramatic or hormonal. Unfortunatenately, my parents would see first hand that I was not faking to get attention; they had waited too long to get help.

Smoke And Mirrors

There are some things I struggled with that are very familiar to some, yet very foreign others. As a young teen I began to become obsessed about my weight. This started as a combination of influences from my mother, and a strong desire to retain my body from childhood.
My mother, often making comments about how fat people were disgusting, and glorifying her youth when she was a runway model in the United Kingdom, would also make comments to me about how I could 'do to lose ten or fifteen pounds'. This went on from the time I was thirteen until the time I was seventeen or eighteen. She would see my thighs touching when I mentioned going on a diet, and always rejoiced at the idea. Once she even condoned me and my father going on the South Beach Diet together. At thirteen I was weighing myself several times a day and counting calories. By the time I was fifteen I had a full blown eating disorder. According to my mother, my butt was too big. According to my mother, my stomach should be flat. According to my mother...according to my mother...according to my mother...I wasn't attractive enough. I wasn't good enough to be her child. I wasn't 'beautiful' enough to be hers. Improve. Improve. Improve.
Fourteen years old, questioning everything, hating my body, and convinced if I starved myself enough my breasts would disappear, I met a kid at church. He was about my age. And he was gay.  I instantly felt a connection with him, and we started to hang out. My mother didn't know he was gay - god forbid she discover that. However, the young guy did unleash a proverbial liberal hellfire on her. She grew distrustful of him. He was my best friend, though. My only friend, and she didn't want to break it off over silly politics. P-shawwww....
 I already knew a little about self harm and cutting, but my new found friend seemed very keen on it. In a short few weeks, I came out to him as bisexual, and began experimenting with self harm. 
After a time, my friend loaned me a book, Neil Gaiman's Smoke And Mirrors. I kept it hidden in a big yellow bag of mine, knowing my mother was not generally a fan of books coming into the house without being censored first. Before I had an opportunity to do more than flip through the book in a few moments of my spare time, my mother found the book in the hiding spot. 
She was horrified at its 'pornographic' content and demanded to know where I got it from. In the pit of my stomach I felt so ill I thought I might throw up my lunch. I didn't want to throw my new best friend to the wolves, aka my mother's wrath...but he needed his book back. It was a loaner. With an internal groan of impending doom, I gave up my friend, and my mother returned the book on Sunday. After talking to his mother, who didn't care of course because it was a BOOK (Literature, a good read, short stories, and not blatant erotica... ) my mother confronted my friend. She had written in his book, highlighting the 'disturbing' bits. Let's just end this story by saying that there was a lot of yelling, and I wasn't allowed to see him again. 
He had helped me to realize that sexual identity was something I needed to explore. This I will always be grateful for.
Damage had been done though.  
I was now addicted to cutting.

And that is not something that just stops.

Something Was Wrong

Eleven years old, and moving to Orlando from Virginia was probably too much for me to handle. Leaving behind a huge backyard, a lush forest, and of course those D.C. Museums, I felt extremely lost in Florida. Once my family relocated to the 'Sunshine State', the minuscule amount of friends I did have began to dwindle; after a while, we would speak so infrequently that we could almost be considered strangers to each other.
Florida was exciting - at first. It grew old quickly when all the neighborhood kids were going to school and my brother and I weren't. They made their 'best friends'; I had 'play dates' with obnoxious homeschool girls that rifled through my belongings, wanted to play games that I had played when I was six, and were so clingy you would think they were cat hair.
My dreaded period came, I was twelve, and my mother was so excited she took the whole family out for dinner, to celebrate my entry into 'womanhood'. Soon after, when I couldn't for the life of me get the horrid tampon in (yes, it was a petite one), my mother had me lie on my bed, spread my legs, and hold that position as she attempted to insert the tampon. This situation occurred multiple times over the course of a few months to maybe a year. I try not to think about it.
Nothing prepared me however for the socialization drought I wound up going through over the next few years.
I grew very focused on my high school correspondence program; well, as focused as I could be with my mother handing me answers on a silver platter and breathing down my neck.
I babysat for a family with three young children, but when I wanted to become a vegetarian my mother threatened me with not being allowed to babysit for that family anymore because they were 'influencing' me. I made the decision to keep babysitting. That family, those kids...they were my only friends, besides a few older adults at a church food pantry I volunteered at, but I didn't like it there. It scared me.
I was thirteen or fourteen, and the men there were always hitting on me. I felt very uncomfortable. On occasion I liked it, but in general it made me very nervous. One young guy talked about very sexual things, and I didn't know what to do but just stand there and listen. Another older man kissed me. I never felt safe, but I never felt like I could talk to my parents about it.
I was just their over dramatic child. Their wild child. If something happened, I wanted it to happen.
And if they wouldn't believe me about this, how would they believe me if I told them how I felt about myself? Honestly?

I didn't even know what to think about myself. I just knew something was wrong. But who was there to listen to me?

Oral Sex?

Oral sex. I don't know much about how other people learn about this topic; in my case, I was homeschooled, sheltered, and coddled to an unhealthy extent. However, I was a very imaginative child, and loved to write stories. Having a diary felt like the best thing in the world. In fact, I grew a kind of notebook addiction and kept buying notebooks for years, never settling on a particular one.
When I was about nine years old, immediately before that damn puberty hit, my mother did a course with me called 'Secret Keeper Girl by Dannah Gresh' all about 'true beauty and modesty. I guess none of this ever hit home for me, for obvious reasons. I really demonstrated to my parents my lack of sexual indiscretion when at ten years old they found my diary with pages full of detailed fictional letters between girls talking about oral sex. I had come up with these ideas on my own, but my parents felt the need to have a sitdown discussion with me about this. Before they even read to me the 'perverted sexual material', they read a diary entry about a crush I had on a fifteen year old Greek boy down the street, making me feel as if that was something to be ashamed of. Henceforth I never spoke to my parents about my crushes again.
My parents of course would not dare to believe that I would think up something so reprehensible in nature, no matter how much I insisted that nothing had influenced me into creating these entries. As a child, I felt as though I had to give them an answer that they could feel satisfied with, therefore I turned on one of my friends, not really knowing what I was doing at the time. I can honestly tell you that we never spoke again.
However, I am still unsure as to how I came to my sexual conclusions. Perhaps it's because until puberty, I saw my parents naked, showered with them, and spent a good portion of my childhood nude in swimming pools, backyards, my home, and with my brother.
Perhaps it's because I was born sexually focused, always attempting to engage in sex play with girls and my brother, in a game he and I called 'Eskimo Eskimo'.
Perhaps none of my thoughts or actions were terribly uncommon for a child, particularly one who was repressed and stifled. So repressed, in fact, that life was only beginning to explode so loudly, and so violently that if you were close, you were undoubtedly going to get singed.

Naked Barbie On The Beach

I had always been sexually inquisitive. As a young child, I experimented with other children. These memories, although somewhat faded, are jolted into rememberence when I recall the time I got caught. A friend and her mother were visiting, and the daughter and I were in the basement. We had played like this before, so I was terrified and shocked when she ran upstairs and told on me. My mother apologized profusely, and I assume they left before my mum layed me across her lap and gave me the worst spanking I ever would get from her. This was ironic, considering she always talks about how 'gentle' her spankings were for me and my brother.
Nothing could really stop me, though, and I found immense interest in reading Life books and collections of nude art. After sharing an painting of a nude girl eating pizza on the beach with some kids who came over for a haircut (my mother cut fellow homeschoolers' hair for extra money), the children's mom called up. Her daughter had told her that I had showed them a "picture of naked Barbie on the beach". My mum asked me about it.
I lied. Of course. I was only about six years old, had very little social tact, and only new my books...my pre-approved books, my pre-approved videos. My pre-approved activities. When my mother came close to the art book I showed the kids, I half-fessed up, with a non committal "ohhhh, I miggghhht have showed them some art..."
I learned a little bit about puberty before I learned about sex. My pediatrician gave my mother and me a paper on puberty for girls on an annual checkup. My mother tried to hide it from me; I guess she wanted to surprise me with boobs for my birthday or something. However, I'm a snoop, and if something pertains to me, I'm going to find it out one way or another. I believe that particular time it was whining, coercion, with a little diplomacy. My mother told me a little bit about what was on the paper; breast development, body hair, pubic hair. I caught a glimpse of the word menstruation, but she wouldn't talk about it. I couldn't even pronounce it.
I can't really tell you what I felt about the thought of puberty. I checked for changes a lot. I was jealous that my friend was developing faster than I was. But I just kind of ignored it. I don't remember when 'this' grew or 'that' grew. Until I realized what had happened to me. That there was

no going back; that scared me like nothing else did, but I didn't know why.

The Beginning of The Beginning

Growing up was a whirlwind of strangeness for me. Feeling what I perceived to be love, I assumed that my parents loved me. Perhaps in their own warped way they did. However, it seemed that the older I got, the more estranged from them I felt. My brother never seemed to have this difficulty. He probably did though, but to a lesser extent.
Being raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, unschooled until the age of eight, and homeschooled my whole life, I felt exceptionally isolated from children my own age. My parents had been involved in a group called The Way International, now deemed by many as a cult, and I had been raised under a majority of its precepts. Besides many of its non-traditional views on Christianity, which led to an unstable religious upbringing for me and my brother, it also has a harsh, unforgiving view on homosexuality. This I had to learn the hard way.
I had already heard my parents brag to me about their time as Way missionaries in New Orleans, "re-training" people who were gay to become straight "again". Teaching gay men how to walk like "real men" and talk like "real men".
I didn't know what to make of any of this at the time. In fact, I had so little exposure to anything LGBTQ that I really didnt know anything about it at all. Just what my parents told me. That gay was bad, and we loved the sinner and hated the sin. These words were spoken to me on a rather frequent basis.
My only sex education came from my mother. It was brief, somewhat down to business, and was all within the context of man and woman, husband and wife, after marriage. That's how babies are born kids! I actually thought people had sex standing up. It was pretty confusing for me. My brother didn't want to hear a word of it; he got immensely grossed out and wouldn't believe what she was talking about, and went into a state of denial about the situation of how he came into the world.

The whirlwind had not even really begun yet, but it would soon. And I would begin to doubt everything I had ever known.