Most stranger rapes are fast and brutal, an overwhelming battering force, with no time to think, only to act immediately. Violence, like love, always happens when you least expect it. But that was not an analogy I wanted to use in a self-defense class.
Therese stood, back against the wall.
Most rapists who preyed on a stranger literally couldn’t face their victim. But this wasn’t a real-life reenactment. This was a lesson.
“So, Jennifer, now what?”
Jennifer swallowed.
“To fuck her from there your dick would have to be about a yard long,” Pauletta said.
Jennifer looked involuntarily at her crotch and everyone grinned.
“Pauletta’s right. You’re going to have to get very close. Let’s… Therese, you step out. I’ll take over.” Therese, stiff-legged with tension, pushed herself away from the wall. “Jennifer, would you like someone else to take over for you?”
She shook her head.
“All right then,” I said to her. “You know I won’t let you hurt me. You know I won’t hurt you.”
She nodded.
“Where’s your knife?” She showed it to me uncertainly. She was going to need some direction. “Put it against my throat.” I turned to the rest of the class. “Now what would he do?”
“Whip out his whanger,” said Nina.
“Can you pretend to do that?” I said as gently as I could to Jennifer.
She looked down again at her crotch.
“At this point he’s distracted again. This would be a good time to take some action.”
“But what if he was strangling you, too?” Katherine said.
Pauletta hooted. “He can’t strangle her, hold a knife at her throat, and pull out his dick at same time. He’s a rapist, not a three-armed superschlong. ”
I could have kissed Pauletta but settled for smiling with everyone else. “That’s absolutely right. So this is an ideal moment to do something. What?” Blank. “Let’s try it. Everyone without a weapon, against the wall. Everyone with a weapon, put it against your partner’s cheek. Closer, Suze, you’re not even touching her face with that ice pick. So, now, those against the wall. He’s fumbling with his zipper—everyone, put your hands on your fly.” No one moved. Southern women. I sighed. “Okay, just hook your thumb into your waistband and let the hand dangle in roughly the right place. Good. Now, remember, a weapon has no power in and of itself. If you knock away the arm holding the weapon, you’ve knocked away the weapon. Give that a try.”
No one moved. “How would you do it?” Katherine said.
I gestured her away from the wall and took her place under Tonya’s bottle. “It’s always best to knock the weapon away from your body, not towards it or across it. So here I would knock her right arm away from me to my left, her right. If she had the bottle on my other cheek,” I tapped Tonya’s wrist and pointed; she shifted the bottle obligingly, “I’d want to knock it away and to my right, her left. Think about that for a minute.” I could see them mentally thinking right, then no, left, no, right. “A forearm block is best. If the bottle is here, on my right cheek, I would use a left forearm block.” I demonstrated in ultra slow motion as I talked. “See how that means I twist to my right, and that moves my right cheek back out of reach of the bottle and at the same time presents less of my body towards my attacker as a target.”
Lots of frowns. Clearly too much information at once.
“Just remember to knock away from your body.” I demonstrated again, very slowly. “Try it.” I gestured Katherine back into place and walked up and down the line of pairs. “Slowly, very slowly. Imagine it’s a game of slow motion. Pivot, bump your forearm into theirs. Yes, good.” It wasn’t, but it would get better. “No, Pauletta, see how that drags the razor right across your face if you knock it across your body and Sandra’s? You want to spin the other way, knock with your left arm, to your right.”
“But I’m right-handed.”
“All right. Sandra, for now, hold the razor against her other cheek.”
Sandra gave me an amused we-know-it-wouldn’t-be-this-convenient look, and swapped hands. She was beginning to annoy me.
“Now,” I said to Pauletta, “try again. Pivot, yes, cross slam, yes. Excellent. But try to use the outside of your forearm, like this.”
“Why?” said Pauletta, as though it were just another detail I was using deliberately to confuse her. Sandra maintained her veiled-secret expression; she already knew.
“Because there are fewer important nerves, blood vessels, and tendons to be damaged on the outside. Also, it will hurt less when you take the impact on muscles when you’re hitting as hard as you can. Also,” I said, raising my voice to the whole class, “when you move, yell. Not only will it remind you to breathe, it will be a further distraction to your attacker. You can never have too many distractions or too much noise.” I plowed ahead before they could get twisted up about that. “We’ll do it together. On the count of three. Okay. Knives on cheeks. One. Deep breath. Focus. Three. Yell! And pivot. Slam. Excellent. And again. Knives. Breathe. Yell and pivot. And again.”
“Ow!” said Jennifer.
“Slow motion, Therese, but very good.” Pauletta had hit Sandra twice as hard, but Sandra hadn’t made a murmur. “And again.”
“Ow,” Katherine said, too, as Tonya’s bottle ran across her throat for the second time.
“Try again,” I said.
She did. Same result. “I can’t do this,” Katherine said.
“Sure you can,” said Tonya.
“I can’t.”
“Not yet,” I said. “That’s why you have to practice.”
“If Tonya was a great big guy and that was a real bottle, do you think I’d really have a chance?”
“Yes.”
“It’s ridiculous. I can’t do this.”
“All right,” I said.
“All right? All right?!”
“I’m not going to force you.”
“I just, I want… I want you to teach us how to not get hurt.”
“Infallibly? I can’t. No one can. There is no perfect security. Yes, most men are taller and stronger than most women. That’s not the point. You can be seven feet tall, and in fighting trim, and there will always be someone out there who is bigger and stronger and faster. The point is to do the best you can, then stop worrying.”
“Stop worrying? I dream about this stuff every night now. I worry that someone is lurking under my car, that they’re assembling clues from my e-mail conversations, that they’ll watch my every movement and rape me on the subway platform.”
“The fact that you’re worrying about these things now makes it less likely for them to happen. You’ll never be carjacked by someone lying underneath your car because now you look.”
“Maybe you’ll die of worry,” Suze muttered.
“I heard that.”
“Hey, then at least you’re not deaf, just stupid.”
“All right,” I said. “Everyone, swap roles. Five minutes. Then we’re going to sit.”
When they were done, I carried around the bin so they could ceremonially throw away their polystyrene weapons.
“You did well. Yes, even you, Katherine. You’ve all learnt a lot in the last six weeks. You’re not perfect killing machines, no, but there again, that was never the goal.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” said Suze. Surprisingly, Therese nodded agreement.
“My goal is to make sure you’ve thought and planned and practiced so that you can relax in everyday life. Here’s something that might help.” I handed out the list I’d compiled after last week. “Read it carefully and we’ll talk about it next week.”
“Hell,” said Nina, flipping the page, “now we’re all going to die of worry.”
“Next week?” said Jennifer. “Next week’s a holiday. I’m going out of town.”