As I read her book, memories enter my mind
The similarity of my life to Virginia Giuffre's is child sex assault and the effect it has on a person for the rest of their life; how even though she and I came from completely different times and places, the pattern of re-traumatization is the same. The blog post copied below is from 2007 January, one of the first I ever put up. Reprint 1 in this series Is about the time I got kidnapped by two guys in Paris who were going to sell me to Arabs and how I escaped and it is a true story from Summer 1966 my life.
At age 17 I was wandering around unsupervised and alone in Paris France and ended up almost getting sold to the Arabs, a memory I have as I read about Virginia at age 14 joining the Brunel modeling agency using the name Baby. Virginia's book opens with her in Paris to testify
*****
A Miracle I made it through my teens - literally
Now remember it was 1966 and in California if someone had long hair and jeans you automatically identified them as a fellow traveler in the counter culture. I was 17 and thought things would be the same in Paris so I may even have been the one who struck up a conversation with them. I know I asked if they knew where to score some LSD and they pretended to know what that was but didn't know where to get some, but we could get some lalalalala, don’t remember the name of it, a drug they said was like LSD and I said, great let’s go.
Somehow in my high school French and their enthusiasm as they explained their house was out in the suburbs I agreed to go to the hotel and get my stuff and take it with us. We rode the train out of Paris to their house, this big empty house in a town up the train line. We walked about a block from the train to this huge brick house surrounded by a 10 foot brick fence. Inside the gate were trees and gardens before you got to the front door.
I was a 17 year old girl hooked up and ready to party. I was no virgin. I was a 17 year old Southern California natural blond tanned girl with a dancer’s anorexic body but Polish curves -- I was hot and probably some kind of fantasy come true for these French guys, who already thought all American women were whores but a girl from Southern California! But I was unaware of that. I was just natural in a sundress and sandals and little else sitting in this kitchen outside Paris drinking wine and eating something home cooked with these two French guys and then taking this drug. . .
It was not anything at all like LSD. In fact I just fell asleep. When I woke up I was locked in a bedroom upstairs, groggy, they came in and fucked me over and over and then gave me more of the drug and that went on for a few days, I really don’t know how long. They came after me in the bathtub, they made me take the drug when I didn’t want it. The sex the first night may have been consensual but after a few days of being locked in the upstairs bedroom except when I was let out to take a bath and then they’d be in there with me -- it was beginning to be a bad experience. I don't think I even thought of the word rape. I was groggy.
I just wished they’d quit fucking me, as it was hurting.
Finally one day strangely my door wasn’t locked so I was able to come to the tof the stairs, then tiptoe down a few steps, and listen to the two French guys having this animated conversation with two men with what seemed to be Arab accents. I peaked and the two new men were dark, wearing Arab robes. The French guys were doing their Parisian French which was really hard for me to follow but I got it that they were describing me, how it felt to touch my skin, the Skin! They kept repeating it, “le peau le teint.” And they talked about money. I shivered there on the stairs hoping they didn’t hear me, realizing “They’re going to sell me to the Arabs.”
So I freaked. Got to get outta here. I listened longer, understood little more but enough to know the deal was done and I was going to Saudi Arabia in a few hours. Then they all left, without even checking on me, which was weird. Thinking back now I realize maybe they’d been up in the bedroom earlier while I was drugged and knocked out looking at me and didn't realize they hadn’t locked the door when they left, then didn't want to make the Arab guys wait, so the French guys left without checking. Anyway, my door was unlocked, and I had to get out of that house now.
I still had my big white suitcase and I still had to take all of my stuff with me. I lugged the suitcase down the stairs. Every window on the ground floor was nailed shut. I ran to the kitchen and all the doors of course were locked, except one, the door that led to the basement. So I dragged the huge white suitcase behind me down the narrow basement staircase in that old French country house.
In the basement there was one small window just at ground level near the high ceiling. Beneath the window were these huge laundry basins like for washing sheets by hand a century ago. I could climb up these sinks and then crawl through the window. It was a tiny opening. I pulled myself through and then went to pull the suitcase through and get us to freedom. But the suitcase was too large. Remember I was a 17 year old girl from L.A. and I wasn’t going to leave behind all my clothes for these French freaks to keep so I pulled and pulled and pulled and the suitcase was just plain larger than the window.
Then there was a BLLLLLLNNNNNNGGGG sound. It came with the wind through the trees. There are even angelic voices in the moment as I remember it today. Whatever happened the suitcase came through the window. The solid 1960s pre-plastic quality suitcase came through the old window which was surrounded by brick wall surrounded, and I was able to get out of there. I had to climb a tree and throw the suitcase over the fence then jump down myself. I scrambled in the direction I remembered the train station to be and got out of there before the French guys came back with the Arabs and probably would have sold me into some kind of white slavery and I wouldn't have lived a lot more years.
Later in life I wondered if because I’d been raped by a priest at age five and had thus gone out into the world with a shitload of confusion and sexual compulsions, always thinking I was doing some holy thing when I was having sex so in no way sinning, just being this fantasy female for men like I was supposed to be.
God, or whatever is in charge of this planet, looked down at me at age five being raped by that priest in the rectory of a Catholic Church and realized, this girl is going to have a lot of trouble in life. So he dispatched a couple of extra angels, or whatever you call them, down to watch over me my whole life. And that's how I got out of that situation, how the suitcase came through the brick-surrounded window so I could get away, and also so many other situations later in life, but this story, the “time I almost got sold to the Arabs as a sex slave at age 17” story, is the main reason I say it’s a miracle I made it to age 19.
There was a man at the train station that day when I escaped. I must have looked pretty disheveled, drugged, scared, shaking, but trying to act cool. The older guy sat next to me and I didn’t tell him at all what happened. He asked if I needed help and I asked something like how can I find a hotel. He was amazed I had money on me, and stopped reaching for his wallet. He said, well then go to the Hilton, hmm, the Paris Hilton, and I thought yeah good idea.
I went downtown Paris checked into the Hilton paid with a couple of my checks, my parents had sent me with a wad of American Express checks, which for some reason the Parisian men had not taken, the checks were still there in the suitcase. I was raised in benevolent neglect. It felt so good to feel the American-ness of the Paris Hilton, and as I walked through the lobby I stopped to get a magazine. About all there was in English was an edition of Playboy. I went to my room and was finally safe and free, took a private bath and luxuriated in the bed with room service for a couple of nights, recovering from the “trauma” as we’d call it today, alone at age 17, achy from several days of involuntary sex.
I found nurturing and comfort in the pages of Playboy Magazine that night....
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This Story starts about 2/3 of the way down in this blog post from 2007 January one of the first blog posts I ever put up.
https://cityofangels1.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-was-teenage-slut.html
SERIES SO FAR
