He starts doing things
I have
massage, it is lovely, a room lit by candles, they run the bath as I tie
my hair up with a ribbon, get undressed and lie down. It is my place, I like
coming here, they work around when I say I will be there. I am in a different
room this time, the pebbled path from the bed to the bath, the candles,
lighting, all a bit different.
I undress. I now know what they mean by
undress. It is down to the leopard print G-string which is fine.
The massage is great. At the end of the
hour they want to put me into the bath and wash the oils off. We are all women,
it is all candle lit, but I am the only one naked. I sit in the bath and they
scrub the oils that abate my skin. I come out and they wont give me back my
underwear until I am moisturized. I tell them that I am shy and they laugh,
kindly. They dress me, want to hook up my bra, zip up my dress, fumble around
straightening things. I feel like a little
princess. I thought I was cool with changing in public but lying in a spa and
being washed by women, dried and moisturized is different.
I leave and on the way home a man follows
me on his bicycle, says enough stuff, to
which I say ‘no ‘ He eventually stops and just starts just
touching himself.
“Hey everyone!!! Can you see this? Can you
see what this asshole is doing?”
There is very little ‘everyone’ around
though. He takes off. 10 meters down the road he is there again and we got
through it again. All of it. And another
10 meters. He has picked the places in between security guards and boys playing
soccer. The last time I yell, really yell, and people going past on their
bicycles stop and look.
He finally takes off, I get to the villa
and sit at the round about and cry for a minute. I realize I have no one to
tell, no place to go for sympathy. I am all alone. He didn’t do anything to me
so why am I being so precious?
It strikes me that I could have punched him
hard in the head. This had not occurred to me. People going by would not have
let a local man fight back and assault a foreign woman. I am angry and think that maybe I would have felt better if I
responded with violence. But does a person who responds with violence ever feel
good afterwards? I doubt it. Instead I feel little sad and small vulnerable. With the huge f*cking irony being that he didn't even do anything to me.
I think about how lucky I have bee over the
years. That night in Ottawa where I was trying to get home and a bunch of Arabs
circled me until some big black dude intervened and walked me home, shook my
hand.
And the night in Sri Lanka, the closest it ever came.
