Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [82]
“Don’t touch me,” I cried. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
Suddenly, he pulled off his underwear and exposed himself to me again. Closing my eyes, I begged him, “Please don’t do this. I don’t want anything to do with this.”
“This is what we’re supposed to be doing,” Allen announced. “This is what married people do.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re doing, so please don’t.”
Allen hesitated, “Don’t you ever want to have a baby?” he asked.
“Not with you,” I told him in a trembling voice.
“You know, I’m not going to hurt you,” he explained as his hands worked the back of my dress. “This is what the prophet told me to do to you.”
As the word prophet escaped his lips, I felt suddenly alarmed that I was not following what the priesthood had intended. Somehow it had never crossed my mind that the church wanted us to do whatever it was that Allen was doing. I tried to trust in what Allen was telling me, but the way he touched me was too unsettling and I hated how it made me feel. Panicked and unwilling to continue, I leaned close and whispered, “Please, just go to bed. Please, just get dressed.” But the words had little effect on him. As he pulled off my dress, I began to cry.
“Stop it,” Allen instructed. “Don’t act like a baby. Do you know what I’m doing?”
“No,” I said, recoiling. I watched as he circled behind me, and I felt his firm hand unfastening my bra. After he had removed my church undergarments, I grabbed the blanket from the bed and held it in front of me as a final layer of protection. He ripped the blanket from my grasp, exposing me completely. I stood trembling, feeling horribly ashamed.
He took a step back and his gaze crawled over my entire body. “I’ve always wanted to see a woman naked,” he proclaimed.
I’d never felt as vulnerable as I did during those moments when he scrutinized every inch of me for the first time. I hadn’t been naked in front of anyone since I was a little girl. Everything about me had been laid bare. Standing in front of Allen, I could feel his eyes taking in my body with a look that I did not trust, but I was too frightened to try and put my clothes back on. I was crying as he brought me over to the bed.
“Now do you know what I’m going to do to you?” he said in a weird way.
“No,” I responded with a whimper. He began to tell me what he was planning to do, and it only made me confused. When he started to describe it, he got excited in a way I had never seen before, and the look on his face was almost animal. A sick feeling rose inside me, a scream bubbled up, and I was on my feet. Grabbing the blanket, I ran for the door, desperate for the protection of my mother’s room. When I saw that Mom wasn’t there, I flopped down on her bed and began to sob into her pillow.
My cries eventually woke my sister Ally, who crawled over and without saying a word put her arms around me.
“I’m sorry for waking you. Go back to sleep. It’s a school night,” I said.
“I’m just helping you cry.”
Her response made me cry all the more, but that night, with my little sister curled up beside me, I slept peacefully in Mom’s bed.
“All better?” Ally asked me when we woke up the next morning.
“Yes,” I said with a smile, and she smiled back. Even though she was young, she knew I was not okay, but my answer was sufficient for her and she started to prepare for school.
I too had to get ready for school. I wanted to finish the ninth grade, because school was very important to me. As much as I disliked Uncle Fred’s school, it was better than being home and having to face Allen. I was glad to be on my way that morning, but I hated how everyone treated me differently because I was married. It was like they refused to let me be a fourteen-year-old girl anymore. Marriage, it seemed, was more important