This is a story of a guy that followed me around the mall and kept trying to attack me one day. It involves a bit of sexual assault but not as bad as it could have been. Also I skipped out on a lot of the details, especially with the touchy parts, even though I remember all the details. If it doesn’t make sense I can describe a lot more detail in comments or PM, but I’m skipping a lot of details to keep it from being a novel (I tend to ramble if I get started). And I apologize for this being so long. I was typing it on a word document and then pasted it here and saw it was so insanely huge.
To be honest I’m not really traumatized by what happened, and the experience wasn’t remotely as bad as some of the people on here have gone through so I don’t demand sympathy. In fact I’m not even really bothered by it as much as I should be (Is that weird?). It’s something that only I (and I guess the guys involved) know about and I like to keep it that way, which is why I didn’t report it or anything. In writing the whole thing down it makes me realize that I was pretty stupid. After the first situation I really should have learned better than to let myself get into the others (you'll understand if you read it), but I guess I kept shrugging things off and assuming that I could get out of all the situations without making a scene and getting police involved, even though in reality I was just lucky every single time. It was really stupid of me to not scream and thrash as much as I could, I don't even know why I couldn't manage that. Still, luck saved me and for that I ended up better than a lot of other people, and so I'm thankful for that.
I guess I’m just writing it so that somebody random can read it, since I want to keep it secret from my real life. Again I don't know how much sense my writing makes, hopefully enough.
Anyway on to the story for those who care to read it:
It happened in spring of 2012. It was the day my older sister, Amy, was graduating high-school. Pretty much her grad events started at like 10 AM for group pictures in the sunlight and stuff, then they had a break for about 4 hours to do what they wanted before everyone had to meet up for the convocation part. My sister and her friends all wanted to spend the break at a nearby mall, since we needed lunch/shopping and had time to kill. My mom drove us all to the mall and dropped us off there, having to drive home to pick up my step-dad and younger brothers who didn’t want to come with us in the morning.
When we got there Amy’s friends decided it would be fun to go have lunch in the gas station in the same parking lot. It had a little A&W attached and they thought it would be hilarious to go to a fast food restaurant and eat gross food dressed up in all fancy dresses. We got our burgers and sat down at one of the tall round tables with the high up stools so that their dresses stayed mostly off the floor. I didn’t have that problem since it wasn't my grad, so I was wearing a moderately short minidress. It was black, stretchy, and had the zipper on the front. Big dresses aren’t comfortable, plus there wasn’t a chance of it being stepped on and ripped (which happened to one of them at the dinner).
We were eating our lunch in the corner of the gas station where there were like four tiny round tables. As we were eating two guys came in and got some food. One of them, a chubbier fellow with a thick beard and a hat, went and sat down at one of the other tables but the other one decided to stop and chat with us. I guess the outfits made it pretty obvious it was grad time, and Amy’s friend Christine was in a super friendly mood and more than willing to chat with him about how awesome of a day it would be, even though he was probably like 50 years old and looked like a cross between a trucker and a homeless guy.
That was all fine with me, I’m not a talk-to-strangers type of person but I just ate my food and didn't get involved, however I did listen in. It was mostly the greasy guy chatting about all his grad stories, girls’ dresses getting ripped, guys falling through tables, a couple fights etc. however there were a lot of mentions about how good looking the girls were back then, as well as a few random compliments about how good all of us looked. He didn't seem entirely creepy, just so friendly it was awkward.
Anyway after I finished my meal the guy got up and left the building (leaving his friend still at the table), and after drinking my whole drink I really had to go pee. The other girls were not finished eating (because they do more talking than eating) and so I told Amy I was going to the washroom really quick and she just said to hurry up because they wanted to go to the mall soon. So I found the bathrooms and went in. They were on the other side of the convenience store near the refrigerated drinks through a door and a little hallway.
I finished in the washroom and went back out, but jumped in surprise as I opened the door since the chatty old dude was standing right in the door frame, staring down at me. He was certainly not on his way to the guy’s room. He must have come back inside and noticed I had gone to the washroom and decided to come visit me. He was partly blocking my way out while I stood with the door open. I’m not stupid and could tell what he wanted me for, since he was very obviously undressing me with his eyes as they looked me up and down. His stare was so intensely penetrating that I felt like I was already naked. I felt tempted to just strip down right there to save his imagination the effort, and by the look on his face his imagination was already doing a good enough job that he might not even notice the difference.
I knew I was in a dangerous spot, but I honestly couldn't think of a good way to get out of it. He was a very strong looking person and I was certainly not, so if I tried to push him out he would just push in harder. He hadn’t tried to grab me but I was easily within arm’s reach, and it looked like if I tried to scream he could quickly shut me up. He was standing in the door so I wouldn't be able to slam it shut, and I didn't want to step back into the washroom and let him in. All those options seemed they would end with a smile on his face, and definitely not a smile on mine.
The weird thing was this guy didn't seem at all like the person who had been talking to us before. It was him of course, but his entire attitude seemed to have flipped upside down. He no longer looked remotely friendly or full of energy like he was before. He must be really good at faking a friendly attitude, or else has multiple personalities or something. Now he just seemed terrifying and confident, to the point that I felt like there was no hope of me getting away, and that I the only thing I was supposed to do was lay down right there and let him do his thing. That feeling came in waves, sometimes so strong that several times I was very close to simply giving in and saving the effort of trying to avoid something that seemed guaranteed to happen.
Fortunately for me I always snapped out of that feeling quick enough. I knew I had to get out of there, but I didn’t want to try anything that could make him get violent, so I decided to try just assertively walking out the door. I was hoping that he was trying to seduce me in a non-violent way and that if I looked confident about leaving he would let me go. He was only blocking half the door, but unfortunately when I tried to walk by he casually leaned his arm across to get in my way. I pushed on it a little but he wouldn't move, and instead used his other hand to feel down my back, quickly coming to rest on my butt. I was getting a bit scared with him touching me but I still hoped I could get him to buzz off.
“Excuse me!” I said to him in that bitchy tone that always comes with those words. I pushed on his arm again, and he definitely knew I wanted to go but unfortunately was having none of it. He just leaned in and his other hand made its way around the bottom of my dress. It didn't take long for me to realize this was a failed attempt so I turned toward him and smacked his hand away. He responded by pushing me up against the door frame, pressing his body against me while his hands ran down my sides.
(Anyway I’m sure you all get the general idea of where this was going. In the interest of keeping it clean and short I’m going to skip all of this part and briefly summarize. Also because I tend to ramble, so I’ll just skip it entirely.)
Pretty much I tried to keep calm and wriggle away ineffectively for a while. I didn't want to make things get violent since if he started using his full strength I wouldn't have had any hope of getting away, but when I wiggled my way out he just shoved me against another wall. He ended up getting more aggressive and I just got scared to the point of being practically motionless for who knows how long. He kept whispering insults and gross comments about me and for some time I was convinced they were true.
Some sense kicked into me when he pinned me up against the door and I turned the handle, causing us both to tumble down onto the floor. This was followed by a few struggles that nearly ended with him on top of me, but ultimately had me kicking him right in the face with my pointy heel. It was such a good kick that it pretty much reduced him to a crying mess (which he deserved) and let me get out of there. The whole time I forgot to just scream for some reason, but it turned out fine since he was the one left crying on the bathroom floor.
(It probably doesn’t make sense when shortened that much so you can ask questions in PM or comments and I’ll elaborate. If it weren’t for character limits I would end up rambling on with paragraphs about every moment.)
We left the A&W and I didn’t tell anyone or call the police, simply because I had gotten away before anything terrible happened and I really didn’t want to ruin Amy’s grad day by having the police come. Also because if I told anyone then everybody would be sympathizing and checking if I was okay rather than celebrating Amy’s success, which was something she desperately needed since she was kind of depressed. You can call me an idiot for that if you like, but at the time I thought it was the best decision and I really didn’t want to deal with the police anyway. I wasn’t traumatized or anything and I know it could have been much worse. Most of the stories on here are WAY more horrifying than what happened to me. I guess it was made a bit better by the fact that I gave him what he deserved in the end.
As I left the washroom I noticed the other guy was still at his table, finished his food. He was staring at me, but pretending not to. Since the two knew each other I assumed he must have known what had went on in there. Maybe he was keeping watch to make sure greasy trucker guy had me all to himself, or the more likely situation that he was waiting for trucker guy to finish so he could have his turn with me, in which case he was probably very upset that I was out of the bathroom, or that I was still wearing a dress! Either way I’m glad he was out here instead of both of them meeting me in there. I barely had it in me to fight off one pervert; had both come then I don't think it would have taken much convincing for me to do what they wanted. Then again maybe he was totally innocent and I was just being really suspicious.
We had to go to the mall to get movies and snacks for the next day, since the girls were planning to celebrate graduating by doing absolutely nothing productive for as many days as they could manage. We spent a solid half hour or so looking through a tiny local movie trader in the mall and while we were there guess who showed up? Greasy trucker guy! Sadly his face was not as broken as I had hoped it was, although there was a clear cut on his cheekbone.
Trucker guy came in and saw us looking for movies, and once again inserted himself into our group and started talking enthusiastically with the chattier girls in the group. I had resolved beforehand to not make a big deal out of what happened and I still wasn’t going to, even though he had deliberately pushed in between me and Amy to use himself as a wall so nobody would see him put his hand on my butt. I tensed up a bit but didn’t make a scene about it, since I had decided to not let what happened interfere with grad day and to be honest this was nothing compared to what he wanted to do in the gas station. I pushed his hand away gently a few times but it always ended up back right away, a bit more firmly each time. Eventually I just decided to put up with it for the time being and pretended to read some DVD cases. For quite a while he managed to carry on a perfectly friendly and innocent chat with the girls about what movies are good, all while stealthily trying to claw my dress up.
It was actually impressive how he managed to be so friendly when his only real motive was to cop a feel of me. Clearly I hadn’t given him as many of those as I was supposed to back in the gas station. I had resolved before not to make a big deal out of any of this, and if I could let the other stuff slide then this certainly wasn’t a big deal in comparison. He was clever and persistent, and subtle at least, and it’s not like anyone was noticing. Plus I didn’t think he could really do much more than that without drawing attention to himself, but that didn’t stop him from trying. I think he knew that I was never going to report him so he wasn’t afraid of doing this in public, and it seemed like he was going to keep trying to go further. I guess he had no reason not to as long as I was just standing there letting him do whatever he wanted.
I figured the things he started doing were getting so obvious everyone should have noticed, but none of the girls did and they kept chatting. To be honest I still wasn’t too bothered, since I knew eventually we would leave and nobody but us two would have any idea, however what worried me is actually getting caught like that since I didn’t want anyone to know that I had let some old dude grope me in public. I couldn’t tell him off without everyone knowing that, but I realized it wasn’t like he was going to attack me for trying to move away. I pretty much spent the next however long shuffling about the movie store acting interested in random things. He’d follow me around casually to put his moves on me but I never gave him a long enough before I went elsewhere. Eventually he got tired of not getting anywhere and said his goodbyes to everyone and skittered off.
After getting our movies we had to go to the attached Wal-Mart for snacks and all the junk food and pop we could find. We still had time before my mom was supposed to come get us so we killed a bit of time there as well, since we bolted through all the food isles grabbing stuff and had enough junk food to feed a fat army. We spent about half an hour going through the electronics section. My family used to play a lot of Wii games (and some Xbox) so we were browsing the games aisle for a long time. One of the girls decided to buy a DS game and went looking for the attendant to get it out of the cabinet. While she was gone Chris looked in the cart and decided we still needed Munchies. Since they were still waiting for the game they asked me to run and get some while they waited here so I headed back to the food section, snagged a huge bag of the stuff, and started back.
Walking down a main aisle again I looked ahead and noticed old trucker dude yet again. I realized at this point that he was going to keep following us until we either vanished or he got what he wanted. He was between me and the electronics section and hadn’t noticed me yet so I ducked into a side aisle full of furniture and decided to go around a different way so I could not have to run into him. The electronics were a section in the middle and I figured I’d just go around and meet up with Amy before he saw me, however when I got to the main aisle on the other side I saw him again walking down an aisle toward where I was. He still hadn’t noticed me since I saw him through the shelves but I still didn’t want to run into him so I went down another isle. We played unintentional cat and mouse throughout a good chunk of the store.
I ended up in a section close to the gardening section at the back corner of the store with the tall shelving everywhere. I figured by now he knew I was in the store and was looking for me so as long as he didn’t see me I would be fine. I was at the end of an aisle at the back wall. Nobody was around were I was and there were only a couple people down near the main aisle on the other end. One of them was trucker guy, wandering down the main aisle glancing down either side. The aisle near me had a bunch of bins and storage stuff and it was possible for me to look over them through the shelves and watch him. By the looks of it he couldn’t see me. I watched him stealthily since if I tried to leave the end of the isle he would see me. He looked back and forth a few times down the last aisle.
When he finally turned away and started down the other direction I breathed a sigh of relief. However apparently I was watching so intently I didn’t notice footsteps behind me until it was too late, and I suddenly felt two arms around me from the back. One of the hands covered my mouth for a time, although I tend not to scream when I’m scared anyway. After a few moments I saw the trucker guy turn around and head back toward me. I knew the person behind me was the other one from the gas station because I could feel his rough beard on my neck, and I figured they must have been trying to herd me away from the busy part of the store so they could trap me, which I apparently fell for like an idiot.
(Here’s another part that I’ll be skipping a lot of details on.)
I was still holding the bag of munchies in one hand for some reason, but the other was free to try and push him away, although it didn’t work. By the time I realized I’d never push him off like that, trucker guy showed up around the corner and I was immediately stuck between them. I couldn’t push away, there was nobody else in sight, and Amy would never look for me in this corner of the store, so I quickly resigned myself to my current role as the tasty filling of their human sandwich. Thankfully neither of them got to enjoy their filling for very long since we eventually heard loud footsteps from a couple aisles over. To be honest I hoped for a moment whoever was there would go away, because I didn’t want anybody to see what I was doing. Luckily trucker dude let go of me, walked over to the other aisle and started talking cheerily to the person there, leaving me in the arms of the chubby (less strong) guy.
He seemed to be under the impression that at this point I wasn't going to resist anything, so he wasn’t really restraining me. I waited a little while until he was not paying attention and smashed my elbow into the side of his head, and I was able to get away without giving trucker dude time to get back and put me back in my place between them. I even made it out with my bag of munchies. I was really lucky that person showed up in the next aisle, even though he hopefully had no idea what was going on, since without him I was completely expecting to be there until they got bored of me.
Neither of them really chased me, which is good because with the heels I was wearing they could have crawled and caught me. I guess they knew they failed and didn’t want to make a scene, and trucker dude knew I wouldn't make a scene on my own if they left me alone. I was in the clear again and wasn’t worried about them trying something in any places with other people so I resolved to stick next to Amy for good.
When I got back to Amy and the others, they were leaving the electronics and I gave them their food. I got a “What took so long” response, but I didn’t tell them that less time was spent getting the food than was spent trying to escape from touchy perverts. We went to the checkout lines but they only had one open and we had to wait in line for a long time.
Unfortunately I hadn’t seen the last of my admirer, and while we were standing in line I noticed him on the other side of the registers standing by the bathrooms staring at me. I made eye contact by accident and he nodded his head toward the bathrooms with a sly grin, obviously wanting me to join him (and probably his friend) inside. He somehow must have thought I was just playing hard to get, and just teasing him by kicking him and trying to escape. I guess in his backward way of thinking, being felt up in the gas station, followed through the mall, and grabbed at in the back of a Wal-Mart would fill any girl’s stupid, horny brain with such overpowering desire that I couldn’t possibly resist jumping into the washroom to let him finally have his way with me.
As sarcastic as that was, it’s a little embarrassing to admit that I was actually, for some reason, tempted to go over there, and I have no idea why I would even think that while knowing what they would do with me. Unfortunately for him I decided that it would be a bad idea to go into the washroom with them (duh). We all left together and as we walked past the bathrooms he didn’t look as disappointed as I expected, considering I was being such a fun wrecker. Maybe he still held out hope that I was going to give in to my lust and crawl back to him, but more likely he had gotten enough satisfaction from everything else that day even if I left without giving him the entire experience, although I’m sure his imagination had no trouble filling all the holes.
We left the mall and were picked up by my mom in her van. I sat through the convocation while my sister got her awards and diploma. It was all pretty boring to be honest; especially compared to how unpleasantly exciting my day had been so far. The rest of the day went really well and was lots of fun, however the whole day I kept thinking I would run into those guys again, since they kept finding me in the mall. While we were taking pictures outside the church where the convocation was I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of trucker dude in the far side of the parking lot for just a moment, although I was almost certainly seeing things as there was no way he could have found out where we were. Still I didn’t want to go and investigate on the off chance it was actually him, since there would be the remote possibility of being dragged into some white van to be used and left in a back alley, which really didn’t appeal to me.
By the end of the day I was past it all though and I was able to totally enjoy the dinner and dance afterward and have lots of fun. It’s not like I forgot about it, obviously I haven’t, but it wasn’t hard to deal with in the end. I’m totally okay and always have been, and I’m still confident I made the right decision in not telling anyone about it, even if everyone here thinks it was a stupid idea. It wouldn’t have improved my life to get the police involved, but it certainly would have ruined Amy’s grad, and I would have been a terrible sister and friend to do that when she was already so upset about her own life.
Anyway that’s the story. Hopefully it’s still good for this board. Any comments, questions, etc. are welcome. I’m totally good with just talking or answering anything because, as I said, I’m not traumatized by it
