by Mary Rives
Imagine the triumph of a 15-year-old girl in the mid-1970’s fending off three attempted rapists. That girl was me.
My military family lived in La Mesa Village of Monterey, California, where my dad was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey. The surfer boy who lived in La Mesa Village had the requisite long, curly blond hair and stark blue eyes. He believed he was the coolest, sexiest dude on earth. He took me to a popular teen partying spot and pushed me down into the grass. I was quietly disgusted as he started making out with me against my will, started pawing me all over, and tried to take off my clothes. I clenched my jaw shut, wriggled out from under his body, fought off his advances with a strength I didn’t even know I had, and ran back home.
Another surfer who believed he was God’s greatest gift to girls made his advances after driving me up to a high cliff on the coast of Big Sur. It was a stormy day, and the waves were peaking. He parked his baby blue Volkswagen, jumped out, and left me in his car to watch him master the waves. I was supposed to be so impressed that I would make out with him and give him whatever sexual favors he wanted. I managed to skillfully dodge each of his passes until the dude finally got the message and drove me home in silence and disbelief. Word soon got around that I was “frigid” and “cold as stone.” After that, the guys mostly left me alone.
My family’s next stop was in Guatemala. One day, I was at a bullfight, learning to imbibe my first tequila shots. After my friends all left, I caught a ride home from an American stranger. I fell asleep in his car, though, and woke up in a bed in a dark room, not knowing where I was. Suddenly, the man burst in and leaped on top of me, groping and fondling my body and drooling on my face like a wild animal. My head spun, but my bad-ass teen self-fought him off anyway. As I lay in a strange bed in a foreign country, an indigenous woman with long black braids and dressed in traditional attire opened the door, letting in the light of day. She must have heard my cries for help, but the man had fled by then. She turned on the lights and with utmost kindness and compassion, served me a bowl of Kellogg’s Cornflakes with local bananas and milk.
No words were spoken between us, nor was there a need for any. In the silence of that room, our woman’s code spoke loud and clear: We sisters look out for one another.
Mary Rives loves living in sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she frolics in nature, cuddles with George the Cat, reads good books, and writes and shares many stories.