Ever since I turned recognizeably female, somewhere in junior high, I have glommed older men like a piece of gum in a sandbox. As an introduction to the world of being picked up, there was the sci fi convention guy, who upon learning my age (14) mumbled that he must be drunker than he’d thought and walked away, to his credit.
M was 19 when I was 15, he wanted to take me to Chicago for a night of fun in the bars and come back in the morning–from St. Louis.
R was 22 when I was 16, he made me mix tapes and didn’t try to get in my pants. I appreciated it.
It was downhill from there.
RM was 28 to my 17, he showed me his apartment and told me that he and his roommate only ever fucked occasionally when they were lonely. His thesis was about the reoccurring “magical girl” character in Japanese animation. He wanted a magical girl to suck him off. He moved to California.
B, another sci fi convention catch, was 32 to my 18, he just wanted to make out a little “yeah I’m cool with whatever you want” in his hotel room at the convention while we were supposedly watching City of Angels, or was it The Saint. He sent me a high school graduation present. He wanted me to fly to Arizona in his private jet. I didn’t go.
S was 22 to my 18. The age difference wasn’t a big deal, but his burning desire to teach me the ways of womanhood made me sick. He expounded on his theories of how much he just needed to have a lot of sex until I started feeling like I owed him something. I stopped replying to his emails.
V-san from Japanese class was 39 to my 20. He launched a bombardment campaign on the theory that if he didn’t give up for long enough, I would finally hand over the secret crystal butterfly of my virginity like the scared little Asian porn actresses he liked. He stopped calling when I told him I’d had sex.
It took a couple of assholes on my 21st birthday to finally push me over the edge. They teased me about being a virgin until I told them to fuck off and never address me again, and to leave the bar where we were playing pool. They went. It was a revelationary moment for me.
Since then I haven’t had any trouble, at least until last week.
There is this bus driver who drives my route. For two years he has said hello when he sees me, followed by a short conversation in Japanese about the weather. A nice old man, 60ish, could be your grandfather, proud to show off his few words of English.
A month ago I told him I would be leaving in July. Suddenly his demeanor changed. Every time I said goodbye he clung a little bit, he hesitated, gave me puppydog eyes like he was holding something back. I ignored it.
Last week he asked me to have dinner with him. I had been hoping it wouldn’t come to that. And the bitch of it was, this time I was caught. My students were starting to get on the bus, hearing every word we said. I tried to pretend not to understand, so he repeated himself. I tried the Japanese hesitation-implying-no, hoping he’d get the message. He asked me if I understood. I was desperate for him to just shut the fuck up and stop embarrassing me.
He launched into it again and asked for my number and I couldnt bring myself to humiliate him, I was like–YES! okay fine, please don’t say any more. I gave him the number. I am an idiot, okay? We’re not disputing this fact. And polite and respectful of my elders as I am, when he called I couldnt find the heart (or the vocabulary) to turn him down.
We had dinner last night. Sushi at a real sushi shop, it was good and a new experience, I figured I had done my duty both as a foreign representative employed by the taxpayers of Japan, and as an evening of company for an older man without much family. Fine.
We got back to the parking lot where we had met, and I said, well take care A-san…and he started the eyes again. He wanted to know if we could meet before I left again. How about once a week, he suggested? I told him I was busy. How about he take a day off and we could go visit the castle in the next town? Impossible, I said. Can we at least meet again once more? I declined to commit.
His clinging needy manipulations reminded me nightmarishly of another whiney bitch who tears ever deeper with his crying, poisonous, clawed tentacles. It made me near panicky, it made me so angry, I wanted to burn everything I was wearing.
I got home, locked my door with both locks, called the boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. He was drunk and helpfully gave me the diatribe for being a pushover. I guess he only quoted what I was thinking. I went to bed late, exhausted.
June 30th, 2006
Categories: feminist, happenings . Author: ximena . Comments: 1 Comment
