by ib

Created on: November 15, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

Jess* was somewhat of a late-bloomer. We weren't close like today, as we moved in different social groups, but were acquainted. We lived in a small coastal town overrun by bronzed surfers and size-zero bikini classmates while Jess was festively plump. I never heard of her ever dating in school, and it was assumed, due to her attempts to keep attention away from herself, that she may even be gay. However, after school finished Jess lost weight and began to get noticed. She was looking at finding her own place and eventually she moved into town only a few blocks away. Her best friend bailed on her when they were meant to move in together, and she now lived in a seedy apartment with a middle-age African man and we became close friends. I asked her why she moved into such a pathetic place, and she said it was because she'd met a guy and didn't want to take him home to her mother's. It was a bad situation. Jess was incredibly innocent when it came to the realities of men and had entered into the post-high school sleaze fest. If I'd of known how bad the situation had really become, I'd have told her mother because Mr. X was like the Grinch: toxic.

Jess met him in a club at the beginning of November. He wined and dined her, whispered sweet garble and completely blew her off her feet. She thought she was in love and talked about him a mushy way: Mr X. Was taking her to the races, Mr. X was getting her jewelery for Christmas, Mr. X this and that. But it was all a farce. He said he was a manager from Melbourne; he wasn't, he was a surfer. What he did to Jess was horrible. He lied to get her virginity, pretended to be in a relationship, never made it clear whether they were a couple and led her on just so to have sex with her.

Jess began to drink herself into oblivious psychotic desperation, made worse due to the festive season. I tried to help her and so suggested we go to visit our friends in Brisbane - give her a few days to clear her head over the New Year, and get away from the rotten man she'd become obsessed with. It was incredibly depressing; we'd go out and she be swooned over by every male in the club. She'd give a demure smile, quickly raise her big blue eyes from under her chocolate brown hair then quickly look away again; confident and shy in the same second. I suppose this was the result of years of low self-esteem and male indifference now laced with physical beauty, but it made her a male magnet. Men adored her, but she wanted what she couldn't have,

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