I went out yesterday afternoon for a stroll to clear my head, which has been full of all manner of thoughts as of late. I had a charming walk, and twilight was just beginning to set in as I showed myself home. I was, as I so often am, without an escort.

You must understand that my neighborhood is a dead end. Once you enter it, there is no place you can be going that is less than half a mile away. I took a brisk pace to keep from being chilled. I dressed like a cistemporal for convenience’s sake…I hate drawing attention to myself.

As I was heading home, I passed an unfamiliar woman, hunched over, half-frozen, and loaded down with bags. She was walking out of the neighborhood, and hoped that she didn’t have far to go like that. A moment later, a truck going in the same direction as she was drove by and honked, not at her but at me.

I couldn’t see the driver through the dim of twilight, but thinking it must have been some friend or familiar neighbor, I lifted my hand in quick greeting and continued walking.

Seconds later, I saw the truck again. The driver had turned around, and now come back. He stopped in the road beside me and waited for me to acknowledge him. He was twice my age if he was a day, and he leaned his head out the window to ask, “You want a ride?”

When I curtly told him no, he got turned around again and continued on his way. He was most certainly not one of my neighbors, and I only regret that I did not have a pen with which to take down his license plate number.

I like to assume the best in people, and generally trust the goodness of humanity, but there is no doubt in my mind that he had the most wretched motives in offering me a ride. That poor woman, much older, loaded down, and with farther to go…a good Samaritan would have offered her a ride seeing as though he was going in her direction anyways, but instead we had a skin-crawling disturbing interaction with someone who was willing to totally change course in order to get a young woman into his truck.

I shudder to think what would have befallen me if I had gotten in that truck, and I can’t help but wonder why I am such a magnet for the most unsavory characters. I would blame lookism, but I don’t want to flatter myself simply because my body conforms to some aspects of our arbitrary beauty standard.

Being a woman is certainly interesting…in any time period.

Victoriously,

Regina