» Food sabotage

Innocent victim of squaddie humour?
1985. Step-sister, marrying a Para. A very decent couple. Just trying to do the best. Lovely wedding and reception at the officers mess. Me, naive 16 year old. Perfectly happy to be escorted to said do in a minibus with my new family. Sounds nice and respectable. Happy to quaff champagne. Admiring the white camouflage adorning the reception. Slightly inexperienced in handling the drink, but I was coping. Sat next to older, more experienced, friends and relatives. Toasting. Listening to speeches. Feeling slightly uncomfortable in my corduroy suit from Woolworths (poor me!).Laughing along like I knew what it meant. Enjoying the inevitable courses of food.
Then came the pudding. Strawberry cheesecake. Only mine contained an added extra. A black, thick, curly, pubic hair. Sat amongst the cheesecakedness of it all. Poking out and waving at me. I ate around it. I didn¡¦t complain. I was too young to. I would like to say that I coped with it but I spent the rest of the evening by throwing up on myself, other people, the bride, the floor, the toilets, and the minibus on the way home and slept until 1 o¡¦clock the next day, when everyone greeted me with disgust.
I still wish I had had the courage to say something about the disgusting pube. I wish i had not tried to drink my way out of the situation. And also, I wish I had had have the bravery to tell them about the 35 year old that was at the wedding too, who had been taking advantage of me sexually, for months.
Actually, the advances of a man that should have known better, I got over, but I never understood the presence of an unwanted hair in my cheesecake!
I know better now.
(Sat 20th Sep 2008, 20:58, More)