I had a magical experience the night I lost my virginity. It was perfect. I felt I had been waiting a lifetime for just this experience. When we were done I said, “That was great. Let’s drink a coke and do it again.”
And we did.
Things could have been very different and this is the story of why.
On a glorious spring day in 1970 when I was sixteen years old, a friend and I went to a house where our crowd would often gather. On this particular day, there were just a few of us.
Well, let me continue the story as I wrote about it in a one-woman show.
It was performed in Los Angeles and New York and was about my sex life in the 1970s:
We might have lived in Beverly Hills, but we were not rich. My mother sewed a lot of my clothes and I wore a lot of hand-me-downs. I wore the same leotard year after year from when I was 10 years old -- a fading, once pink leotard, size 6x.
There was this new boy in high school named Greg. He had sexy Mick Jagger lips and an English accent, which was so cool. I would flirt with him.
I remember his last name. For years I Googled it and asked random Gregs if they were THIS guy.
I wasn't interested in him really . . . but flirt away I did because, well, he was cute and I liked boys and flirting is in my DNA. This was reciprocal flirting, I should add. One day when we were at the house where all the kids hung out (probably ditching) he looked down at me. I'm VERY short. And he says something about how I shouldn't act like this and he's going to teach me a lesson. I don’t get what's going on. Not sure if he's kidding, or just saying I shouldn't flirt in that sexy way with him, or what it's about.
There is a little guesthouse right behind us, and he picks me up and carries me toward it. And it's a little fun and sexy for one minute. But then I notice his face and he's very serious and it starts to get scary. Like he’s going to rape me. And this is NOT the way I envisioned losing my virginity. Not at all. I want it under MY control, not with some random angry dude....
Somehow, he manages to get all my clothes off -- not hard because I'm so little and a weakling -- all except the size 6x leotard. It's practically glued on my body. We didn't have that much money and I could still sort of pull myself into it. It would kind of cut into my shoulders and I had to maneuver myself into it everyday, but I would. It was a tight fit.
So now he can't take the leotard off of me. And, by the way, he's already pulled his own pants half off and he's got a huge erection. He's planning on this “date” rape. I'm calling for my one friend to save me, “HELP, you need to help me!!” and she's laughing at me from an adjacent room and I'm locked in and it’s maddening because you could tell by my voice that it’s getting serious.
He’s not hitting me or doing anything “violent.” But if he succeeds against my will, it is violent -- and scarring for any young girl. Now, in frustration, he goes for my crotch area and tries with all his might to pull the leotard aside. But, sorry, this one’s too tight and small for him to make any headway. Instead, he jams his erect penis right into it which was never going to work. Finally, exhausted, he gives up. My leotard saved me. Being poor saved me.
I stopped hanging out with this crowd soon after the near rape. In 1972, I met and fell in love with the person I lost my virginity to. But I never forgot Greg and knew that if ever I saw him, I would let him have it.
A few weeks ago, after hearing that the Cosby trial ended in a hung jury – I decided that night, a Saturday night, to Google Greg again. This time I found a match. I mean right away. I saw and recognized his face looking back at me in a photo. The adrenaline was pumping.
I wrote a simple note to his business e-mail. “I’m Fredde Duke. Do you remember me? From high school?” He wrote back immediately. He remembered me vividly! Yes, with an explanation mark. And then there was this cryptic, but very telling line: “That night when I threw you into some vegetation and then tested your patience and the sincerity of your seductive nature, backing off like a gentleman I hope.”
I wrote back and set him straight. This was not the blast-from-the-past he might have wanted. You were no gentleman at all, I said. And there was no vegetation. You threw and locked me in a garage.
I was thinking that my three long paragraphs describing the event in detail would make him flee. He lives in England and my British girlfriends told me the climate is very loaded there; cases of rape from the 1970s are being dredged up and tried. I realize this was only an attempted rape – but still.
For a long time I had assumed he was dead and that I would never come to this closure. I imagined he had spent time in jail. I made him out, in my head, to be a career criminal – probably shot or murdered or dying in prison.
Turns out, he’s had a successful career in -- get this – pain management.
I expected no more e-mails. Instead, I received a heartfelt apology. So sincere that I could never have dreamed how this would go down. In his words, he did some deep soul searching, begged my forgiveness and admitted his own father had been a brute.
Done. Forgiven. This time he was a gentleman.
Perhaps I was being too easy on him. But I think I was glad to finally let this go.
It’s surreal in a way to put something to rest. For too long, I suspect, I liked having him around as my lifelong villain.
Now I’m grateful to have vanquished him.
And, I am especially grateful to my size 6X chastity belt.