He Said
By Mary Hannington
He said, “I think we should have sex.”
I was there to get my hair done and sex wasn’t really on my mind.
His hands would explore and I’d flick them away.
He was working hard on the elaborate Flock of Seagulls slash my own wacky vision of a hairdo using razors and scissors. This was after running me through a perming process that had my hair all curling to the west (at least if I was facing north that is).
Hair was important to me then and to him too.
Maybe that is why he was aroused, I don’t know...
I had sworn off relationships at the time. I had fallen in love hard and he had set me free. I thought that maybe that was a decision we both should have made, but he made it clear I had little say.
Yes, it was a complicated relationship, but I wasn’t a quitter or someone that believed that age, race or economics should make a difference.
So, I was angry with men.
For years I refused committed relationships with them. In a convoluted way I became a woman, who bucked the trend or what Dr. Phil and so many others would later label us as... beings that needed to be emotionally attached to their lovers.
I wasn’t really.
Attracted, interested, but not needy…
I was sexually open to everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Been on the bottom been on the top with Carol and Ted and Alice. Had a hunky hockey player, who wanted an exclusive relationship and thwack he's iced. He needed me, but I didn’t need him.
It wasn’t all about sex.
I dated lots of men that I never slept with… friends really.
One a male model, who loved to make out with me and looked great on my arm. Only he had no interest in women whatsoever - other than apparently kissing me - and was an out gay man.
Another, like me, a fan of gore and bad porn movies… just someone to see “Brain Damaged” or “Debbie Does Dallas” with.
The men I REALLY loved all ended up wanting different things and it was years before I trusted them or ever thought I needed them at all.
The hair guy was different; we had been out together, but never in connection with the other. Never an attraction there or the blooming of a better friendship… just common friends and hair.
We were alone and he kept trying to seduce me, but with one glass of wine and the aforementioned lack of interest – nothing. Sitting there with conditioner soaking into my hair he nibbles my neck and I say, “Stop!”
Over and over and over… he’d come in for the kill and I’d shove him away. He was persistent and when my hair was dried and done he pressed into me again.
I got pissed “I don’t want to fuck you!” I screamed.
Now all woman, don’t lie you do, have some kind of rape fantasies. Being thrown up against an alley wall by a handsome stranger and being ravished in his strong arms, helpless to do anything about it but give in?
This was NOT that.
I layed down on a bench, flipped up my skirt, I was angry. “You want to screw a woman who doesn’t want to screw you?” I asked, “Go ahead!”
And he did.
