In the 1970s, I worked as a tour guide on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. A tourist attraction is a great place to work when you’re young. We did lots of hanging out, attended lots of parties. This was the most social job I have ever had. I had been painfully shy in high school, but here there was pot smoking in the parking lot after work, a beer bar that didn’t card everyone, and always people who were up for getting together after work.

 I was between the ages of 18 and 21, and found myself, most nights, joining a group of friends to smoke and drink to excess. The wall flower became a wild flower. And, as often goes along with alcohol, I was promiscuous. I was cut loose from my strict upbringing and spun, without restraint, from one situation to another. I wanted to experience everything.

One night at a small gathering, I accepted a ride home from a guy who was a close friend’s boyfriend. It never occurred to me to question whether it was safe to get in his truck. He was one of us, my friend had been dating him for several months. And I didn’t have any kind of a filter at that time. I had no sense of not being safe.

He didn’t take me home. Instead, he drove to a deserted beach, got me out on the sand, slapped me until my nose was bloody, then held me down by the neck and raped me. He told me that I was such a slut and deserved being raped. That I disgusted him.

My thoughts were spinning, I tried to cajole him, flung insults at him, fought, screamed. He said that, if I fought or screamed, he would leave me there. Eventually, I went deep into myself and found an inner place to hide and wait for it to end.

I don’t know how long he kept me there. It seemed like hours. Then, with my hair matted with sand and a bloody face, I watched him get into his truck and drive away. As his truck exited the parking lot, he threw my purse out the window onto PCH.

I barely remember how I got home. After retrieving my purse, I found a gas station bathroom and tried to clean up my face and hair. Mostly, I sat in there for a very long time. I sat on the toilet, rocking myself back and forth, going over it in my head, trying to figure out how I had brought this on. I was certain that it was my fault. That I had given the wrong signals. That he was right…I was a slut and that this is the way sluts deserve to be treated.

When I exited the bathroom, the sky was lightening with morning. The pace of living had picked up, and people were on their way to work. I didn’t know the buses in the area, but got on one pointed in the direction of home. I remember sitting on that bus, feeling filthy amongst all the clean nice people on their way to work.

 I never told anyone. I never told my friend, but when she decided to break up with him, I told her that I was glad and didn’t much like him. I still saw him all the time and we both acted like nothing had happened.

Twenty years later, I told my friend about it. She didn’t believe me.