(I have gone back and forth for months on whether or not to post this particular essay. On the one hand it is not something I want to advertise and certainly not something that I want to profit from or "take advantage" of. There is another hand though where I feel like it is one of the more important essays that I have written and has an audience of young women that should read it. So... here's an essay that I wrote a few years ago that I think is important.)
*Warning, this essay deals with sexual assault. If you are easily triggered, please feel free to skip this one.
First base, that’s kissing. I know that much.
Home, that one is obvious too.
The other two bases? Those I have never been 100% sure on. I had to turn to the internet for those. Even so, when you pulled away from me, leaving behind a lingering kiss and asked, “how far have you gone with a guy,” I did not know how to answer you. Your hand rested on my thigh, just above my knee. I had chosen to let you kiss me, to let you touch your hand to the bare skin of my legs and arms, the first person I had chosen, but I did not know how to answer you. I did not know how to say that someone else’s hand had once been where yours waited, not gentle but harsh and possessive. The feeling of rough fingers etched into my skin. I did not know how to tell you when it was not how far I had gone with a guy, but how far he had gone with me. When the bases reached were stolen while the pitcher’s back was turned.
I was fifteen.
I had yet to even go out with a boy, though there was one I was considering. Tall, soft brown hair, he was a pole-vaulter. He never touched me. He never had the chance.
No “games” were scheduled yet. No one had the chance to get on base. I remember, I was sitting by myself in the basement, hiding from the midsummer heat and the crowd of my brother’s friends that I was expecting any minute. One had arrived early. I knew him, everyone did; senior, popular, a star athlete in a small town, a good Christian boy with a 4.0 average, so I let him in and went back downstairs. I guess he followed me into the basement. That was fine. I knew him, we went to the same youth group, plus my brother and the rest would get there any minute too.
It was hot out. I had spent most of the morning down at the rocky beach my family shared with several neighbors and was still wearing my royal blue swimsuit with a pair of clashing navy jogging shorts. My messy hair was tied into a low ponytail. Not exactly a sight to be seen. Just another girl going through those uncomfortable awkward phases they seem to grow out of a little after starting high school.
“What are you working on?” He circled around to the front of the couch.
I held up the tangled mess of yarn I had been trying to knit into a scarf. It was not working out. “Just practicing. I’m not very good yet.” I focused my gaze on the needles. It had been happening more and more as I got closer to the start of freshman year but I was still not used to receiving attention from guys. A senior boy? That was unreal.
He plopped down beside me. “Can you show me?”
I showed him the basic stitch I was practicing. In, around, pull. I did one stitch holding it out to him. He put his hands over mine working his way through a second stitch.
“That’s it really. I’m just not very good yet. I keep dropping stitches.” I set aside the jumbled mess feeling awkward now that we had exhausted every possible topic of conversation.
“Hmmm.” His hand had followed mine. His fingers wrapped around my wrist definitely too tight this time. He pulled my hand into his lap.
Fourteen years have passed. Every single cell in my body is new. The memory still burns my skin. In one quick moment, the span of a breath, he shoved my hand into his shorts pressing it into him. That’s second base… or third; even the internet cannot agree on what is what. All I knew was that it was not something that I wanted to be doing. My body tensed up. My voice disappearing deep inside of me. I felt paralyzed. He pushed me down on the couch pinning me beneath him. A calloused hand pressed into my thigh, then slid into my shorts.
This was not right. This did not feel good. It was nothing like movies and television had promised.
He moaned my name into my ear, the first time I had ever heard him say it instead of “Jamie’s little sister.”
An engine groaned coming into the driveway. As quick as he had pinned me the boy shoved himself off of me.
“Thanks Katie.” He adjusted his shorts and disappeared upstairs.
My body felt heavy, it took a moment to sit up, shaking and dizzy when I did. Ears ringing.
I had no words for what had just happened.
The front door opened somewhere above my head. A few more boys piled into the house laughing at some unknown joke. They sounded far away.
I stood and my knees shook, threatening to cave under the weight of my body. The weight he had left on me. I stumbled upstairs toward my room. My brother and his friends still crowded in the entryway blocking my path.
“Hey Katie!” A different boy, not quite as old as the others smiled at me. His voice breaking through the ringing in my ears. He placed a hand on my shoulder. Not even ten minutes earlier that simple touch would have thrilled me to no end. “You gonna play Risk with us? There’s room for one more.”
I shrugged his hand away. “No. I don’t feel like it.”
I locked myself in my bedroom. I remember sitting on the floor posters of Lord of the Rings and various Christian bands staring down at me. As tangled up as the yarn I had left on the couch. Had I done something wrong? It felt like I had, I could not say what. I was still a virgin. Physically there was nothing different about me at all. Something inside of me felt different. My skin ached, painted with a secret I did not know how to share.
If you type into your favorite colorful search engine “what are the bases,” Urban Dictionary will give you a long list of baseball terms each correlating to sex. Foul balls, strike outs, bases, everything. Scroll down and you will find the term stealing bases. According to Urban Dictionary what happened to me was someone stealing bases, skipping first and rounding third before the inning abruptly ended. Playing by none of the rules. Stealing bases, far too cute of a term. This boy was not playing a game. He did not steal a base in a game, he stole something else that I did not know how to name.
I first learned about the five love languages during my sophomore year of college. My friends and I were sitting around the lounge discussing some of the less important things we had been learning when Amanda turned in her chair.
“Hey, what are you guys’ love languages?”
It turns out that there are five; quality time, words of affirmation, giving and receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Ten minutes and one internet quiz later and it would seem that my primary love language was physical touch. It only means that I feel most loved and cared for when the people I care about take the time to touch me and make sure my body is just as okay as my mind and emotions, and that was how I also preferred to express my own love.
I did not touch often. It was something special, saved only for those I trusted. I cannot count the number of times I have hugged one friend before leaving a group and had to slide away before the acquaintances surrounding me reached for their hugs as well. Being touched? I allowed that even less. Whenever a man reached for me I would lean away. If we danced our hands barely touched. If we sat together on a couch, I placed myself on the far end so our skin would never meet.
When touch is your primary love language, it makes it feel more important. Suddenly it made sense why I often felt unloved even when surrounded by people I cared about. Touch was too important to be given lightly, so I never did. When someone steals your touch, it steals your trust and your ability to be touched by anyone else. I never trusted anyone else enough.
My skin turned to cold stone.
You did not know how much trust it took to even sit beside you.
Past and present colliding in my mind I realized what an idiot I was. Why had I agreed to stay the night in your spare bedroom when I thought I was too drunk to drive home? What did I think would happen? No older brother would walk into the house this time. My heart started to race. What would you do if I said no?
I wanted so badly to trust you.
Your touch did not hurt. You let your fingers trail to my knee, tracing a scar. Textured hands warming my icy skin. It did not take away the pain only filled in the etched on letters that wrote secret pains across my skin. Covering it with something new. You must have sensed my heart pounding sitting beside me on the couch, a situation so similar yet different in every way. Your fingers slipped away from me, leaving me cold. Retreating to the far side of the couch.
“Katie,” your eyes met mine, “you don’t have to worry about me bothering you in the night but, if it makes you feel better, the door to your room locks.”
I never fully knew what that first boy stole until you gave it back to me.
I put my hand in yours and laid my head against your chest. Breathing in and out as my heart rate slowed. Placing a single kiss on your cheek.
A kiss, that’s first base. You did not ask for it and it was not discussed beforehand but I gave it to you fully. Nothing more. Nothing stolen.
The first boy to touch me stole a piece of my trust away and the second stole a small piece of my heart when he gave it back to me.
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