Sneak Peek #7 "Dancing Into Deliverance" The Assault

(Explicit Language) This post probably isn't for everyone. Use discretion. And I hate putting this out there in public.

Stan hit on me every chance he had. I never took it seriously. It was just DJ talk. The DJs hit on the girls. All the girls. None of us were special in any way. It was just a numbers game guys play, I thought. Eventually, someone with low self-esteem will say, “Yes.”

Stan would work the DJ booth and also ran promotions, at times. On these promotions, two or three girls would be escorted around town by one or two of the guys, who worked at the club. We would be living advertisements for the club. More often than not, though, our promotions attire was pretty conservative and we looked like your average girl next door. However, on rare occasions, looking like classy hookers in stilettos and tight, rhinestone dotted, velvet dresses, with cleavage exploding violently in your face, we would travel via limo around Downtown Denver, handing out free entry and free drink tickets to the men we found wearing expensive shoes and expensive watches. Yes, we were taught to look for these two things in order to make the most money we could in a shift.

That was not my M.O., however. When I was working the club, I looked for the ugliest guys there, rather than the expensive watch or expensive shoe wearer. The ugly ones were the ones willing to pay for any amount of attention. These were the lonely ones. These were the ones less likely to have ever had anyone in the real world pay attention to them…so they would give up anything for a just glimmer of hope that someone might be attracted to them.

We sold a fantasy and I wasn’t looking for a date. I just wanted to pay my bills.

The expensive watch and shoe wearers were used to attention. In my opinion, they were just there because they wanted to see what they could see and experience what they could experience without any commitment.

What’s the old joke?

Q: What do you pay a hooker for?

A: To leave.

********

On October 25, 1995, I was asked to join Stan, Starr and Jim on one of these promotions passing out entry and drink tickets at a local country bar, called Stampede. Starr was another dancer and Jim was a DJ training under Stan to do promotions.

Stan was a short, pudgy, Latino guy with a lot of acne scars on his face. He was not attractive. Not one bit…but I think he thought he was. To be clear, I have dated several Latino guys. That trait did not make him unattractive. He was just ugly both inside and out and would consistently make comments to me at the club like, “Come on, you and me. One night. No one has to know.”

I blew off the comments as stupid DJ talk. Guys at the club hit on you. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that and I had become numb to it. It should have been a warning, though.

I agreed to go on the Stampede promotion and was whisked away with the others in a limo. I was dressed conservatively in jeans and a buttoned up black blazer. We were all dressed conservatively.

Not long after we got to Stampede, Stan informed us we would not be handing out any free entry or free drink tickets. It turns out he had talked to the manager and was told we were not welcome to do so. I don’t know why this wasn’t arranged prior to us going, or why we would stay after being told this, but we stayed.

Stan began buying drinks…lots of drinks and challenged us with, “No one will be able to walk out of here tonight.” Throughout the night, Stan had at least 3 drinks placed in front of me at all times. B52 shots and Rum and Cokes…why was I drinking rum and coke? I have never figured this out. I hate them. Maybe I only hated them after this night.

I don’t remember much from the night, but I do remember dancing with Jim, at one point. More than once, Jim asked me if I planned on going home with Stan. “What a stupid question!” I thought.

“No way in hell!” I responded.

“Okay, just checking.” Jim replied.

“Why are you even checking? Why would you ask that?”

“It just seemed like you might. I think he thinks you will. I just wanted to make sure.”

“No! There’s no way! I’m not even remotely attracted to him.”

As the drinks piled up, I kept telling Stan no more, but I stupidly kept drinking them. So stupidly! As I objected to yet another shot being placed in front of me alongside the other drinks I hadn’t touched, Stan would say, “Come on! We’re all doing shots. You have to keep up.”

How did I not see what was happening, as I complied? Ultimately, I drank 6 B52s and 5 Rum and Cokes in less than a 3 hour time span. Even with a high tolerance and an Irish heritage, that was too much. I remember the bar was already spinning by the time we left. I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember getting back in the limo. I don’t remember getting home.

The Day After

Jim called the next day and asked, “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Me: “Meh. Why?”

Jim: “I’m just checking on you to make sure you’re okay.”

Me: “I’m fine. Just a little hungover.”

It was weird for Jim to call and check on me. We weren’t really close so I began to wonder what was really going on and so I asked him.

Jim: “Oh, nothing. You kept asking me to promise I would remind you what happened last night.”

Me: “Why? What? What happened last night?”

Jim: “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Are you coming to the club to pick up your car?”

Me: “Yes, what are you talking about?”

Jim: “Nothing. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

Me: “Jim, tell me now. What are you talking about?”

Jim: “We can talk when you get here.”

I hung up the phone confused, nauseous, dizzy, and confused. What was he talking about? What could have….

“FUCK!!! FUUUUUUUUUCK!!!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!” I screamed as I suddenly realized why Jim had called.

I began pacing around my apartment yelling that word over and over again, psychotically running my hand from my cheeks and back through my hair as I started to remember.

Why did the blackout have to end? I don’t want to remember this!!! I never wanted to experience this! Put it back! Hide it again! Why won’t it go back? Why won’t it hide?

Way too much came back to mind all at once and I was not prepared for it. What happened that night is something I NEVER would have been game for. I held no attraction for anyone I was with that night. As for Stan, he had zero chance with me, which is exactly why he fed my 100lb self 11 drinks in 3 hours. I later found it was premeditated.

What a man! What skill!

[I just realized that, as I sit here trying to figure out how to write what’s next, my palms are sweaty and pressed against my cheeks, pulling them back in an effort to hide from what comes next. As I take breaks between typing these few sentences, my hands return to cover my face and eyes in shame. I don’t want to write it. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to expose it. So this will be as brief as possible.]

This comes from what I vaguely remember and from what came out in depositions:

In the limo, after we left Stampede, Stan told me to dance for him. I don’t want to remember this.

Stan took my clothes off. I don’t want to remember this.

Stan instructed Starr to perform oral sex on me. I vaguely remember this.

Then Stan performed oral sex on me. I hate that I remember this.

Stan asked who was better. I was too numb from the alcohol to have felt anything, but said, “Starr” in an effort to humiliate Stan. I very much remember this!

Then I threw up. Apparently, the limo had to pull over. I don’t remember this.

I remember not being able to move. I remember feeling numb with the world spinning around me. I remember just…not…being…able…to…move…I don’t remember anything else that happened that night. I guess the limo went back to the club and Jim and Starr took me home in Jim’s truck, then the two of them went out afterwards.

Shitfaced!!! I’m trying to stop using words like that, but nothing else adequately describes just how obliterated I was. It was done on purpose.

********

I returned to the club that afternoon to pick up my car and confront Jim. I don’t even remember how I got to the club. Cab maybe? Friend maybe? I have no idea.

I remember walking in and seeing Jim in the DJ booth. I walked directly up to him and asked him what he was going to tell me. It was a Saturday, early afternoon, so the club was pretty bare. It was a good day for a crappy conversation, as very few people were around to witness. However, Jim’s response was pretty cowardly, I felt. Jim played it off like nothing had happened and I was just really drunk and wanted him to remind me the next day of what fun we had had the night before. As Jim squirmed, I called bullshit!

“I remember, Jim.”

He turned white.

“I know what happened.”

Jim began to apologize with things like:

“I’m so sorry.”

“I should have stopped it.”

“I didn’t know what to do.”

In that moment, Jim looked so weak to me.

I found out from Jim that, even before we headed out for Stampede, Stan had told him, “I’m going to get Andi f***** up and ‘see what happens.’”

He knew. He had an idea of what would happen beforehand. It’s why he asked me if I was going home with Stan, while we were dancing. That should have been a warning. He watched it happen. In a later conversation about it with one of the valet guys, he said, “I was there, dude. It was bad.”

It was bad…yet he did nothing to stop it.

But what about me? What did I do to keep it from happening? Why had I been so stupid? Why didn’t I realize WHY there were always at least 3 drinks in front of me at a time that night? Why didn’t I question why we were still at Stampede when we had been restrained from doing the very thing I thought we went there to do? Why didn’t I realize how serious Stan was all those times he had said, “You and me. Just once. No one has to know.” Why did I let myself get so intoxicated? Why did I think I was safe in the company of others?

Once again, as I’m writing this, I realized I stopped and found my face in the palms of my hands again, with my fingers viciously rubbing my forehead.

How could I have been so stupid??

I didn’t want anyone else to know what an idiot I had been. I tried to make it go away. I tried to pretend it didn’t happen. I had gotten pretty good at pushing the things that had happened to me as a kid out of my memory. I could delete this, too, right?

*****************

I didn’t tell anyone else at the club. I just wanted it to go away. I just wanted to delete it.

But, strangely enough, I was forced to face it as other dancers approached me with words of compassion like, “I heard what Stan did to you. I am so sorry! Let me tell you what he did to me…” or “Let me tell you what he did to so and so.”

I was even approached by the Mother/Daughter team and asked if I would be willing to testify against Stan and tell my story in court in a harassment case the daughter planned on filing against him. I cringed when asked but reluctantly agreed. It wouldn’t be right not to, right? The daughter never followed through with her case, though.

As more and more girls told me more and more stories, I realized that maybe this had happened to me for a reason. Maybe the reason was so that someone (me) would eventually say, “Enough!” and fight back. Maybe it was time for Stan to learn a lesson.

If I kept quiet and did nothing, how many others would he damage? How many women would have me to blame for his assault if I said and did nothing…

If you would like to help publish my book, “Dancing into Deliverance; From Slut Bucks to Slaying Demons,” you can do that: