January 25th, 2015 - Yuting Zhao
J was the most charming music teacher in my high school. He sang beautiful Italian love songs. That day, he drove me to a small city near Shanghai to celebrate my belated birthday. I was sitting in his car after we had lunch together in a fancy restaurant.
“There’s nowhere around here we can go. I have to drive you to a hotel,” he said.
It was like a class assignment I couldn’t refuse. He looked down at me, and I was drawn into his half-teacher, half-puppy eyes. They were at once both demanding and pleading. I tightened my lips and said nothing. He took it as a “yes” and started the car.
My 17th birthday was four days ago, which meant from that day on, nothing could stop him from legally exploring my body, even though I was his student, and he was a married man twice my age. It was odd that my first introduction to sex education was with a music teacher, by means of penetrating my body with his brutality. It was incomprehensible that sex was not taught to a young generation with language, but instead with genitals.
At an express hotel on the outskirts of the city, he said, “Wait here.”
He gently looked into my eyes and exited the car, leaving me to wait alone, and for who knew how long. He entered the revolving door of the hotel and returned a few minutes later. I got out and walked with him, but cautiously kept my distance once inside. No one from the hotel staff asked for my ID card.
The bright white bedding glowed in the dark room that smelled like disinfectant, worse, the alkaline odor of semen. It reminded me of a clinic with people lying restlessly on examining tables for the doctors. J stripped me of my clothes, and pressed my shoulders until I was lying on the bed. I was going to be a woman, I thought.
“No, no...” I didn’t know why I said that, but my body was stiff and unmoving like a machine, and the words tumbled from my mouth almost automatically. I didn’t mean to behave like an inexperienced, ignorant child, which I was.
“But I truly love you.”
As he said this, he threw himself upon me. But I had already left my body, from the ceiling, seeing my face distorted in pain. I looked so small and ugly with my eyeglasses still on, hair still pulled back, unaware my awkward clumsiness only further aroused the man on top of my body, the only tool I knew to use to keep his love from slipping away from me. I was afraid to lose his love more than lose myself.
During the drive home, I sat upright in his car, my arms drooping listlessly at my sides. I could not let anyone know about this secret. I had willingly offered myself to him, and he was just giving me a birthday present. I fervently believed I was complicit.
Ten years later, my long absent father came back into my life and eventually discovered the existence of J. With father’s help, I came to finally understand that J—the man who I had naively devoted my young self to—had been a dishonest predator. As truths forced themselves onto me just as he had, I staggered along in baby steps to free myself from his grip. I made the agonizing decision to report him to the School Board. He was dismissed though he tried everything he could to prove himself innocent, and me guilty.
This morning, as I looked into the mirror, I saw the same face as ten years ago. It seems that I have stopped growing up since January 25th, 2015. To regain my lost self, I pick up my pen to write and draw.
It’s a new life. I look out the window and watch the winter sun shine on the oily green leaves of the camphor trees. I don’t remember camphor tree leaves being so green, the wind howling such a lively song without rhythm, and the trees dancing in such ecstasy. Finally, I’ll begin the 18th year of my life.
Yuting Zhao lives in China. She received her MA in Writing from the University of Warwick, UK, and is currently trying to start a career of bilingual writing. Her English work has been accepted to The Brussels Review, Aloka Magazine, Troublemaker Firestarter, and ICELJ Journal.
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