I tried not to be nervous, but it was useless. I was horrified. There was a table nearby where the other students had apparently placed their books. It wasn’t until I put mine there as well that I remembered I hadn’t been to my locker. I still had the books I had taken home the previous night. Where is my mind? I wondered.
“Well,” said the principal in a rather gruff voice. “Now that you’re here, Miss Stern, tell me what happened?”
I wanted to lie, but I never realized how much composure is required to tell a lie properly. I ended up stammering and couldn’t get the words out. Eventually I decided to tell the truth.
“He was coming up the stairs as I entered the stairwell.” I couldn’t stop the tears from falling or my voice from breaking up. “At first he apologized for something he said to my boyfriend. Then he -”
“What did he say to your boyfriend?” asked the principal.
I took a deep breath. “Well, yesterday we were waiting for the bus together. Roger came by on his way to the parking lot and said something like, ‘You didn’t give me a chance, but you’ll date this nerd? What does he have that I don’t have?’ I said I could name two things: a brain and a future.”
The girls let out a spiteful little giggle. “Good one,” I heard one of them whisper.
“He didn’t like my response, but we weren’t bothering him. My boyfriend stepped up to defend me. I tried to stop him because I didn’t want it to elevate any further. Roger said let him go so he can teach him a lesson.”
“Oh, yeah?” Roger said angrily. “Tell her what you said in the parking lot.” I ignored him. So did everyone else.
“Then I came in this morning and saw him in the stairwell.”
“So that’s what he was apologizing for. What happened then?” she asked. I could tell her anger was building.
“Right after apologizing he asked if I could give him a chance because he knew that ‘nerd’ wasn’t doing anything for me. He told me that he bet his… manhood… was bigger than my boyfriend’s.” I couldn’t help myself. I began to cry all over again. “He… told me it was big and hard for me. He pushed me up against the wall… and he… and he…” I tried as hard as I could, but I could not bring myself to say the words. When I opened my mouth nothing came out but sobs. Perhaps I was more traumatized than even I had realized.
The principal remained perfectly composed. “He pushed you against the wall and what?”
I honestly tried again, but the words just wouldn’t come out. Mike finally took pity on me and hugged me as I sobbed like a little girl. I actually felt a bit jealous of the principal and her ability to maintain composure. “Can you continue?” she asked. With my head against Mike’s chest and tears continuing to fall, I looked at her and shook my head.
“All right. Mr. Feinberg. What did you see?”
“As Mr. Brown and I were coming up the stairs we heard, and I quote: ‘I bet his dick ain’t big as mine.’ End quote. She eventually responded with, ‘No! I don’t want to feel it!’ We ascended the stairs and saw Roger had this young lady sandwiched between himself and the wall. His hand was holding hers to his groin.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Feinberg. I hate to interrupt, but I need absolute clarity. He was holding her hand to his groin? Please explain exactly what you saw.”
“His right hand was holding her left hand flatly against his groin. It was clear that he was forcing her to feel him. It was also abundantly clear that she had no desire to do so, and was deeply traumatized by the event. As we came up the stairs, Roger went through the double doors and apparently went to class. I wanted to bring her here immediately, but she refused to give her name. She said she was fine, which she clearly was not, and that she just wanted to go to class. She wiped away more tears as she walked up the stairs, at which point I asked Mr. Brown for her name.”
“Mr. Brown?”
Mike was clearly very angry. I could hear the anger in his chest as he spoke. “It was exactly the way Mr. Feinberg said. I couldn’t have said it better myself. The only thing I’d like to add is this.” With those words he gently grabbed my left wrist and showed it to the principal. There was a bruise there! I hadn’t even noticed! I also noticed my hand was trembling and I couldn’t make it stop.
“Roger Robertson, have you anything to say in your defense?”
“Yes. Axe her what she said in the parking lot.”
“What? WHAT?” The principal was very angry, but she managed to maintain that stony composure of hers. “Did she press you against a wall and say, ‘Feel my vagina. It’s tighter than your girlfriend’s?’ What words could this young lady possibly say that would justify sexual assault? That’s three strikes, Roger. You’re expelled.”
“EXPELLED?” Roger responded with a gasp.
“Yes, expelled! Removed, kicked out, suspended indefinitely!”
“But I’m supposed to go to college next year!”
“Why? So you can graduate to rape on a college campus? I don’t think so. Because of the nature of your crime, and yes I said ‘CRIME,’ the police have to be notified. Now get off school property. If I see you here again, I’ll have you arrested.”
“But Ms. Davis-”
“Expect the police to visit you at your home. GOOD DAY, SIR.” Mike and the two girls were clapping as he left. Mike clapped his hands behind my back.
She had used the term “sexual assault.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just thought Roger was an asshole. If that was sexual assault, then what had I done to Mike? What was I planning to do to Martin? For the first time I admitted to myself that the proper term was “rape.”
“Mr. Feinberg and Mr. Brown, I’ll need you to leave the room. Ladies, please remain.”
Mike helped me into a nearby chair, then he and Mr. Feinberg brought in chairs for the other two girls before they left. The three of us sat side by side in front of the principal’s desk. She looked solemnly at us and took a deep breath before she started.
“Far be it from me to blame the victim, but it seems you all need to learn a very valuable lesson. As far as I’m concerned each of you made the same mistake: You allowed a boy to do something to you with impunity. Do you know what that means?”
The other girls shook their heads, but I knew what it meant. “It basically means you let him get away with it. If you’d reported it right away, it might never have escalated to this point. If teachers witnessed the three events I’ve heard about today, how many do you think he did that no one witnessed? How many girls needlessly suffered through what you did? When you report a crime, you at least have a chance to prevent it from happening to someone else, or worse yet, to you again.
“Did you know that 75% of rapes go unreported? Victims want so desperately to go back to their lives and forget about what happened that they just don’t think. They don’t think about how they’d feel if it happened to their best friend, their sister, their cousin, their mother. By that logic, it’s probable that there are nine other girls whom we’ll never know about simply because they refused to come forward.
“Mr. Robertson has apparently had a very busy morning. The three of you are excused from school for the day. Take this time to rest and get your mind off school. When you return these incidents will be in the past, and you will find them easier to deal with. If you ever need someone to talk to, someone who will just listen, I hope you’ll come to me. If not, there are counselors, church groups, family and friends… There’s always someone you can talk to rather than keeping it bottled up inside. I’ll have the secretary give you a note for your parents. The three of you are dismissed.”
“Ma’am?” I chimed in as the other two got up and left. “I can’t go home today. You see, I have a Chemistry test tomorrow, and my boyfriend is my study buddy. We studied for this all weekend and I really want to ace that test and I -”
“Who is your Chemistry teacher?”
Fuck! I don’t want to go home! “Mr. Cocolla,” I answered with a sigh.
She picked up the phone and dialed four digits. “Mr. Cocolla? Hi. I need you to excuse a Rhonda Stern from her test tomorrow , as well as from class today. Tomorrow? I can’t say. I’ll need the same for a…” She looked at me.
“Martin Benson.”
“Martin Benson. I can’t say in his case, either. I really appreciate it. Thank you.” She hung up the phone. “I’ll excuse him too if his grades won’t suffer too terribly. If his grades are bad and he’s already behind, you’ll just have to study chemistry alone.”
Yes!
“Now go and get some rest.”
“Can I go to his classroom and get him?”
She took another deep breath. Then she silently pressed a button on her phone after picking it up. “Martin Benson to Principal Davis’ office, please. Martin Benson to the Principal’s office.” She hung it up lightly. “I’ll have him meet you in the main office.”
After that incident I went from seeing the principal as an absentee hardass to one of the most influential women in my life. Her lack of emotion and her perpetually stoic composure made me want to be exactly like her. I felt like she would have given Roger a run for his money if he’d tried that with her. She wouldn’t waste time on guilty feelings, either. I walked to the main office wondering what her sex life was like.
Going home would have been so boring that I would have preferred to go to school. Going home to be with Martin was a horse of another color. When I got to the main office one of the other two girls was using the phone, so I had to wait. I didn’t mind. It gave me time to fantasize about Martin.
Unfortunately, something in my mind had changed. I felt guilty. I wanted to enjoy a nice fantasy of holding him down and chewing on his skin while he cried and begged me to stop, but it felt wrong. I convinced myself that I was going to stop. I told myself that I wasn’t going to do to Martin what I did to Mike. He came into the main office and I smiled at him as he took a seat next to me.
“Come to my house, Martin. Tell your mother whatever you have to. I really don’t want to be alone right now.”
Leave a Reply