I find myself sometimes, wondering whether anyone else knows.
Did he tell his wife? Did he really feel so bad? Does he brag about it in alleyways, or on the train? Do his friends think it was all my idea? Or that it was my hand which first grazed skin beneath the water? Are there people whose concept of me is flawed with the details of how I caressed his skin ever so slowly before grabbing hold?
I wonder, but I know the truth.
No one knows but me. I know the truth as I saw it. A sad and lonely older man longing for the gentle touch of his own wife, grown cold to him with illness and time, that he reached instead for the skin of another. I know he hasn't breathed the first word of it to a soul because this isn't a secret that could be held by another. He alone has the power to hold it in without bits of it seeping through their niceties. Sure, he hugs me too tightly at family gatherings. Sure, he makes sure we're never alone in a space too long. His telltale is that he never, ever makes real eye contact. He may accidentally happen upon my glance as we both scan a room in which neither of us belong, but he doesn't hold it. There is no meaningful stare, or attentive look. He looks past me only when forced to appear to be looking in my direction.
I would almost rather feel his eyes on me too much and all the time, as to never be glanced like he couldn't be bothered to see me.
Wasn't it me he was seeing while he was rubbing himself? Wasn't it my eyes he looked at as he pulled MY hand to his bulge? Wasn't it me?
Time does strange things to memory. So does stress, shock, and pain. I wish it hadn't been him. A figure I was just beginning to see as fatherly. Perhaps he wishes the same. If only it had been some other girl. Someone further from the family tree. Someone a little different. Someone willing. "You're right," he said. "Better stop before WE do something WE might regret." MY stomach turns as I type this. I. Can't. Unhear it.
There is no we. There was never a we here. There won't be.
18 Month Old Regret
The problem with this thing is that there will always be moments I have to interact with him and it is (infuriatingly) not even those moments when I feel the uncomfortable anger. It is long after I am home, or days later when the ick feeling sets in and reminds me that there was a reason I feel like that hug was too long. There was a reason I wasn't sure what to say about his long Facebook post I didn't read. I can't handle the idea of him not knowing how uncomfortable he makes me, but I also can't imagine he doesn't have some idea. Was I that terribly comforting after the incident? Did I make him feel loved after he made me just feel unsafe? Did I give him the exact thing he didn't know he was looking for?
Hot tubs are thoughtful places.
They are calm.
Peaceful.
Places to think and contemplate your own joy and the universe.
However,
I now suppose,
They are also places frequently featured on the channel Hustler.
It is not my fault he wanted me.
It is not my responsibility to make him apologize.
It is not my job to sit quietly and behave.
I did nothing wrong.
I didn't do anything wrong.
I didn't do anything.
I did nothing.
It wasn't my fault.
