I have placed this piece originally from the body isues section separatly, as I do not want a search engine to place it in a directory.
Tuesday, May 23 2000, at a time that I should be in bed
I was in a show (a low key type of Godspell/JCS) and a man who joined the cast, as
Judas, fairly late in the day was nothing more than a bit of a prat at first. My first
impression was "Oh God, he's a stuntie..", my opion of stunties was a lot lower then than
now. Perhaps in 1995 they were a rougher bunch, they were certainly foulmouthed and egotistical.
But then he started to grow on me, he had similar interests. He had a bike, and was a stuntie
(I may not have liked them, but I wanted to be one, sword fighting was a passion,
which I haven't indulged in lately), he seemed to be friendly. Then he turned around and said something very cold and
harsh.
I was making a joke about my role as a prostitute in the show, something about getting quality
(I'm a virgin, so I had a deeper meaning), he seemed to take it in a different vein and cut me dead,
as if I wasn't allowed to flirt. He could, but I was too ridiculous.
I got angry, and thought. OK, I can be pretty. Maybe not as stunning as the women you work with everyday
(stuntie on Xena you see) but I'm not to be treated like that.
So I started to wear make up, and wear the nicer parts of my wardrobe. He and I were involved in a scene which involved
dancing together.. there were two singers (including myself) and two dancers to fill in the dance sequence we all performed.
It worked, he noticed, he flttered me by saying I was a good singer, and dancer.
But my heart was not involved. I can honestly say that. I've not given my heart to anyone.
But then the game grew to a point where he asked me out. Well trail biking. I had a genuine
interest in riding a bike.
The day was spent with him zipping around then getting me to try and kickstart the bike,
which I couldn't. Never got the angle right.
But I did in the end (about a hour or so later) get to weave around the parking lot (well
sand pit really with cars in it), after a lot of stalling and falling over.
Then I stall on a curve, when it's started and I release the clutch, I revved to hard, the
handlebars straightened and I ploughed right into a fence.
At the time, all I could do was laugh. I had had a semi bad accident yet all I got was a deep
scratch on my thigh.
I was quite chuffed that the first thing he asked when everything came to a standstill and
I was hanging unside down in a wire fence overlooking the path that oher trail bikers would use, was
are you alright?.
We got the bike rightened, he went away, promptly got himself lost in the trails (do I believe
him? I'm not sure) and I was left for 45 minutes wondering whether to get a search party going.
When he came back, I was too sore and shaking to get back on the bike. I had actually got
whiplash in my lower spine, but it didn't show up till two days later.
So then he asks if I want to come to a pot luck dinner that night with his flatmates?
Yes, I would. In the end a dinner out with everyone was what happened.
One of his flatmates was expounding on his virtues as a good bloke despite his flaws. The dinner
ended, we went to play pool. I got two fluke shots, one was a double as well.
Then everyone got bored so we went back to the flat and danced then some of us played word games
on the fridge with Shakespearian insult magnets. He was not involved, but came through and pulled me into a dance.
Seeing as I was attracted to him physically, though wary of anything he said just as a self defense mechanism, I felt
incredibly flattered. Yet I kept saying to myself, it's not true, it's a set up, so I never tested to edges of the game.
I let him do the leading. I wasn't going to risk anything that might set me up for a fall.
Well the next day the show had an informal party. He kept his distance, normally before or after a rehersal he would hug me,
or give me a kiss on the cheek. What he normally does for female friends. I figured he's got his pride, doesn't want anything
public to be made of the special treatment shown to me. It hurt a little, but it was understandable.
The next week was the penultamate rehersal week, we would be going into production week in two more weekends. I was more
worried that my back would heal in time to be able to dance, as I had to sit everything out
He was very distant and cold towards me.
At the time, I was having serious problems at work, and desperatly wanted work as an actress to
get out of it, so I asked him if he knew of an agent. Yes he did, and if I called him he would
find their phone number.
People who knew the story kept pushing me to ring him, be the one to ask him out. I didn't.
For one thing I don't do the whole going out thing much anyway. And I still was a little wary.
Finally the Saturday prior to the photos I ring, and he abruptly tells me he doesn't have the number handy and he's about to go out.
Hurt that he fobbed me off so readily, yet feeling that he didn't have to ask me to go along. Whatever he was about, it wasn't
after some sort of relationship.
The next rehersal I step into the parking lot and hear all about a party that happened the previous night.
Having not been invited, and not even hearing about it during all those rehersals I started to feel dread.
I simply asked a cast member I though I trusted what party it was for. She replied the engagement party of two people in the cast.
One of them was the dancer I had several duets with.
She never told me about it, it was kept secret from me, and he was there.
He knew I wasn't invited, perhaps was someone who didn't want me invited.
To keep it hiddden from me when I rang him hurt me so deeply.
He could have said he was going, and that it was close friends and family only, and I would have been fine.
Only it wasn't. The rest of the cast was invited.
People who didn't know it was kept secret from me thought I didn't want to go.
I was in the middle of my worst nightmare, and there was more to come.
Needless to say the photo shoot was not a whole lot of fun. I avoided a few photos because I was crying so much my makeup was ruined.
I then had to ask him the question for which I knew I knew, but hoped was not the answer.
I asked him after the rehersal if during this whole thing he was ever even the tiniest
bit interested in me.
His answer?
No. No apology, not even to tell me what he was doing. Just no.. Oh but he then said "It was brave of you to ask."
The words I used then were along the lines of, what a fuckinf arrogant bastard.
But I still went home and cried myself to sleep.
I missed my Monday singing lesson, and 1 1/2 days of work because I was so depressed.
I physically could not get out of bed.
Why? Because he had told me what i so needed to hear. That I was pretty, that I sang beautifully, that I could dance..
The three areas I so need confidence in. Yet it was all a lie.
Something in my hearts of hearts I prayed was not true. That I really was as stupid and ugly as i
thought I was.
It broke me. I wonder if he's pleased that he got what he wanted. To mind fuck me.
Well I was an easy target I suppose. He thought I was 19 (what does that say about his intentions
in the first place?) and therefore naive and gullible.
So, that was the start of the starvation diet.
Never before had I stopped eating in order to punish myself. Mind you, this time I also wanted to
prove him and myself wrong. That I could be beautiful.
What a way to go about it.
He was the first man to show an interest in me that wasn't obsessive (two cases now, maybe three...) wasn't
from an older man in a midlife crises, and it wasn't to tell me how fat I was.
More fool me. I should have known there was no such thing.
I'm not pretty or slim so I have no chance. And I'm not willing to put out for anyone either, hence my celibacy.
I also feel my heart harden everytime I think about this.
I have no interest physically in men anymore. Other factors, other betrayals have made me not trust men anymore.
Yet I feel I've also suppressed so much of what I do want that I will one day want a relationship.
I just don't know when.
Perhaps I'll write about the other betrayals later. But right now, this one is enough to remember and capture outside of my own head.