Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [79]
And with that thought, I took off my socks, shoes, and dress, but that was as far as I would go. I put my nightgown over my tights, my special church undergarments, slip, and even my bra and panties. On top of all this, I wrapped the new pink satin robe tightly around me. I wasn’t thinking that Allen would try to touch me, I just felt safer with all the layers. Even with all my clothes on I still couldn’t imagine being in a room by myself with a man.
It wasn’t just that I was afraid of Allen, I was overwhelmed at the idea of being in bed with him. As a naïve fourteen-year-old girl, I had no idea that people did more than sleep in bed. The truth was that I knew nothing about sex. Absolutely nothing. I didn’t even know that sex existed. It was a word not used in the FLDS culture, and what it described was never discussed before marriage. I didn’t know husbands and wives did it. Growing up in the FLDS, I had no concept of where babies really came from. No one had ever taught me about boys except that they were “poisonous snakes.” I had no idea what Allen expected of me now that I was his wife. All I knew was that I didn’t want him to touch me, period.
Allen was sitting on the bed when I returned from the bathroom. I watched as he rose to go to the bathroom himself, and when I heard the shower running I felt relieved. “I just want to go to sleep before he gets out of the shower,” I thought.
Closing my eyes, I heard him coming back into the room, and I lay perfectly still trying to pretend that I was fast asleep. All of a sudden, I felt him hovering over me, and then his hand on my shoulder shaking me. I clenched my eyes shut, and eventually he gave up, crawled in next to me, hugged me, and then rolled over and went to sleep. It was one of the longest nights of my life. I was drained but too scared to sleep, not knowing what might happen. I tried to fight it, but there were moments throughout the night when I drifted off from sheer exhaustion.
By dawn, I was back in my clothes and out on the terrace to watch the sun rise. Unsure of how to act when Allen woke up, I took off on foot down the road. I walked for hours, up into the dusty heights of the mountains, contemplating my situation. I had taken this rugged path many times before, and there was comfort in the familiarity of the well-worn trail. I hoped to find a resolution, but when I returned to Uncle Fred’s house late that morning, none had appeared. Mom and Allen were wondering what had happened to me. Mom took more pictures that morning. She wanted me to have photos for scrapbooking, and though she had the best of intentions, it was hard for me to pose next to Allen.
That afternoon Fred gathered the three newly married couples in his office to tell us that he was sending us all on a honeymoon and gave each man an envelope of money for the trip. The next morning, we would be joining him on his usual trip to Phoenix to shop for the community storehouse. The thought of going to Phoenix again left me momentarily excited. I’d been there before and enjoyed it. I assumed that this trip would actually result in me spending less time with Allen.
Though this gift was for everyone, it seemed clear that Uncle Fred hoped my spending some time away from the house with Allen would bring me closer to him. For much of the day, Allen tried to be cute and kind, but whenever he tried to hold my hand, I would pull away. When he moved over next to me in bed that night, I rolled to the edge, almost falling off.
I was too overwhelmed and too busy evading Allen’s touch to check in and see how the other newlyweds were doing, but we all came together again for our departure. Everyone could tell that our relationship was not going as well as the others. This was on full display during the ride down to Phoenix, when both Nancy and Lily sat close to their new husbands in Uncle Fred’s Suburban, while I made sure there was an empty seat in the second row between Allen and me.
When we arrived in Phoenix, Fred informed us that