I walked into the office of Marc, the whole staff was there, and he was scribbling things. I had just started working in this resort/ health facility, as a means to pay for my stay. My mother insisted on it. This was the new fad she was following, raw eating, and she had just spent herself 3 weeks there.
I accepted to go, because for the past 2 years she did not stop body shaming me, how " I have gotten fat" and " what a beautiful body , I used to have", even in front of my boyfriend. Yes I had a boyfriend at 13, let's not dwell on that, it was romantic an pure, on my end.
What I did not know then, and I know now, although it was plain to see, is that my mother weighed 36 kilos. That she never cooked, but always grazed something, and was running on 5 espressos a day. That she would throw up any bought meal at a restaurant or when invited at a friend's house. She was gluttonous but purged herself on a regular basis and not always on one end.
But at 15, your mother, no matter how hard she is, or yelling or controlling, is still an authority and normalcy is what you know, until you discover the world outside is different.
However this world she had landed me on, was far from normal.
Anosopsology or instinctotherapy was the finding of a mathematician, musician and hippie who stumbled upon a remarkable finding. If we feed correctly, our sense of smell is as powerful and guiding as animals. We have it dormant. When eating raw, a leak could smell like candy one day, and a fish like strawberry if your body needs it, just like grass smells to a constipated cat. It is not a thoughtful process but an instinctual and I can vouch that during my stay there, I tasted and smelled things like never before and never since.
The problem with this theory and practice, was that the founder, although a genius, extended it far and beyond the nutrition and was eventually jailed for it, as it attracted too many depraved and hedonistic people to work for him.
But back to me. I am 15 and I'm feeling criticized, rejected, out of place as any teenager would, but more so because of specific circumstances. I have a bad relationship with my dad whom I fear and despise for his violence and humiliating remarks, and I' suffocating under my mother's need to talk and lecture about nutrition and health alternative lifestyle and conspiracy theories all the time, She needs to always be right and her meddling with my friends, boyfriends is rendering me non important, unless it involves her. We moved 3 times in 2 years and I fail school, I have no support or friends, so accepting these 3 weeks in the "cure fat farm" as I called it, was bliss. Even if I had to wash stairs and sweep floors for half the price.
Marc was my boss. He was around 35, good looking, and women around him changed demeanor when they saw him. Marc was there with his ex wife and his two sons, one older than me around 18 and the other younger.
So I walked in and he glanced at me over his papers.
I approached the desk to give him my report and he looked at me and asked me what my perfume was. I was surprised and said I was not wearing any.
"That is your natural scent?" he asked, "I don't believe you".
I had no idea if it was my scent, but I didn't have time to dwell on it, his response was overly aggressive and I wondered why he would respond to a kid like that. I got my answer from him a few days later as I laid in his arms.
" I was attracted to you, and that annoyed me" he told me. That did not make much sense either but I accepted it as he was introducing to me the Beatles and a whole new world.
I was flattered. He was a very good looking man, and I felt lucky. Not to mention I stopped working- even if I was accused of doing so because now he was my "boyfriend" from the other workers. At 15 who expected me to clean when the most exciting thing was happening to me?
So I moved in his room, and it was not a scandal since the person in charge preached that instinct goes as far as showing our young how to love. ( and was eventually his downfall). However, no matter how flattered I was, I was 15 and a virgin so I was not willing to give that away. Not with someone I did not love.
We spent the rest of the summer in bed, naked, and he would caress me, kiss me, and it was in a way the greatest awakening any woman could ask, as I had no idea what an orgasm was or that such thing existed before. For my part I never even touched him. I was too shy, inexperienced and had absolutely no desire to go down that path.
And he was so patient, so understanding, never insisting or asking for anything, and I think this is what made this experience a positive one for that teen I was. It was all about me, my pleasure, never about him. Someone was not only paying attention to me and appreciating something in me, but was not demanding or expecting anything in return. It gave me the space to be myself, not in relation to someone else per se, but to be as selfish and careless I could be, something that was not possible at home, where I had too many responsibilities and constant criticism and stress.
His ex wife grabbed me in the toilets, one afternoon, and I calmly explained to her I was not going to accuse him or put him in trouble. That I was not sleeping with him.
Now that I am older I wonder of course why she felt the need to come to me and put the responsibility on my shoulders, but it was clear she was still in love with him and frustrated. I can understand that.
The 3 weeks passed and I returned to the couch in the kitchen of my grandmother's that was "my room". I was changed.
I told my mother whose response was inappropriate, with a hint of jealousy and she wondered why he chose me. Out of all the women.
I brushed it off, and went on with my life. A year later I would leave her and my dad and move out of the country, to escape the insanity, but for the moment, I was still under the influence of having had a taste what it is like to make your own decisions, and give no explanations to anybody.
This is what freedom must taste like.
Epilogue: This story has so many layers of wrong, it would be very hard to analyze them all. For me, it was a good experience as I felt I was in power and appreciated. When I reached his age, however, I was hit by the fact he had a relationship with a 15 year old. I could not understand what was the attraction. And it hit me how wrong this was.
I tried to find him through social media. I needed to see with adult eyes, who he was, and not that romanticized image I had of him. I needed to ask him "what were you thinking?"
I finally tracked him down, years later. He was happy to talk to me. He told me he was with a woman who knew about what he had done in his life, and she was jealous so he called me in secret.
I asked him how many there were. He said it was only me. It was the culture of the place and the vitality and sensuality that emanated from me. So there, I had my answer, but it was not a satisfying one.
I did not respond, as I felt the compliment was not one. I was not angry at that man. I had men do worse to me, after, and he was so gentle, loving, and he gave me a good first sexual experience that was very positive. I can't deny that. For me, it was a good experience, compared to the awful ones that followed with boys my age, and maybe because I called the shots and never went beyond my curiosity or comfort zone. Maybe also because there were no feelings of love and it was like a summer thing.
I can't change the way I see and feel about this experience, coupled with the wonderful discovery of the instinctual intake of food.
However, the adult in me, felt sorry for him, for giving in to temptation, for his wants, and his needs. For not being a man, ultimately. I saw him, shrink even more.
Marc was not my first encounter with pedophilia, but he was gentle. He was kind. A person has many facets. One can be hedonistic but generous, one can be inappropriate, but kind.
The adult in me does not condone what he did and I am judging him. Specially after becoming a mother myself and almost ripping off the arms of a stranger that gave my kid his phone number when she was 16. Maybe because I know, how what he did, could have been devastating if it was another girl, more in love, less willful. But then again would he have been attracted to that?
No, I m not going to fall with the " he did it because it was ME, for me, I'm special". This is a trap most women fall in, and stay in bad relationships or excuse bad behavior.
The teenager in me, thanks him.
The mother in me, not so much.
From that resort, stemmed raw eating, without the philosophy of the instinct guiding our choices. Raw food should not be processed, or mixed, and the goal is to eat as long as what smells good, tastes good. Despite Marc, and all the other couplings I saw happening in that place, some incestuous, the food experience was mind opening and mind blowing and I file it under things that set me appart. Unfortunately to be part of communities, you need to have common grounds, common history, common ways of operating and thinking.
When you have a patchwork of experiences as extreme as these, it is hard to blend, it is hard to be understood. But it helps you understand others, so much better. Because you have seen, too much.
So there it is, I was briefly part of a cult.
Which was not the craziest thing my mother enticed, provoked or did.
But more about my childhood, another time.