As a very young woman I got my first job in corporate working as the assistant of the lowliest assistant down in the basement. I was told by the guy who delivered the mail that there was a small sandwich place a block over. I went there during my lunch break and the line was out the door. A man in a suit came up behind me and started talking, asking questions. As we moved forward he put his hands on my shoulders to guide me, which felt both weird and good at the same time. He kept his hands on my shoulders and I leaned back against him. By the time it was our time to order he offered to pay for me, and we found a table to sit and we talked about everything. He played with my ring finger, holding my finger, running his finger over it. He asked me why I had a naked finger and I said because I wasn't married. He told me that a girl should never be alone, that the wedding band reflected that we belonged to a man, and for other men to keep their distance.
During those thirty minutes he told me that as I didn't have an owner, he would own me, and I would belong to him. Outside before crossing the street he held my face in both hands and kissed me and reminded me that I belonged to him. We went back to the office building and he went up and I went down, but not before he gave me his personal phone number, and kissing me one more time. Remember who owns you.
The big city. I went to the big city to be an artist, but I had to pay the bills. A couple of nights later, I felt alone in my bed in that room I was sharing with a girl from college. I told her about 'the man' that had put a claim down on me. We had a long discussion, very awake, about that and she was horrified that a man would kiss me and lay claim to me like that. All it did was make me want to call him, and I did in the middle of the night. I agreed to meet him the next day at the same sandwich shop. He met up with me, held my face in both hands and kissed me, two vey long kisses on the mouth. We stood in line again, he held my shoulders, I leaned back against him, I sat with him and this time he took a gold band out of his pocket and told me it had belonged to his grandmother and he was putting it on my finger to remind me of who I belonged to. The kiss before we separated, I went down to the basement and he went up the elevator.
I saw him the next day walking away from the building with a couple of men in suits, and I ran up to him and put my arms around him lifting my face up to him for my kiss. He was surprised and for a second just looked at me before kissing me with a little kiss and asking me how his girl was doing. He introduced me to his friends, actually customers, and told them I was his little flower in his garden and he watered me, and when necessary pruned, and kept the weeds away from me. The second kiss was a real kiss, not like that peck on the lips he had given me. I apologized, I realized I had interrupted him, but his friends insisted that I come along to lunch with them.
One of the men noticed the gold band around my finger and asked me if I was married. I said, well sort of, I belonged to him. The men understood I was his flower in his garden, they also wanted a wild flower to water and prune when necessary. On the way back to the office, he had to walk me back because I had to get down to the basement, he told me that I was a little wild and he had to train me better. I did what every girl does at that moment, I threw my arms around his neck and told him to hold me.
I know now, I should have known then, that a little flower in a man's garden is a special place to be in. I know now, but should have known then, that what everyone sees is my daddy and they see me as his baby girl. I should have known, but I was so young then, that when I went with him to his apartment in the sky and he took full advantage of me and called me a woman, I was no longer single, not even a little bit single. I belonged to him, completely.
I met this lawyer woman who came to talk to me. She brought a 'contract' for me to sign. I refused without talking to him, I didn't know what that 'contract' was and I knew better than to sign something I didn't understand. She stood and told me she represented him, in everything, to sign the contract, which I didn't. She leaned into me, and told me, that she, not me, was his lady friend. I noticed that her finger was empty.
I never did sign that paper, and one day without warning, he called me to his office, the lawyer lady was there and his assistant, and man was standing and he showed a contract to me. Sign here, and here, and he signed, here and here, and he asked me to stand on his left side, and he read off the terms and conditions. I was offered this set of rings, but I told him I wanted the one he had given me, from his grandmother. After all the papers were signed and I was now officially, his wife, the lady lawyer came over to me and told me that I had stolen him from her.
She is his lawyer, she represents him in everything, she is his lady friend before me. She says she is 'the' woman, and I'm just a little girl. Maybe so. But after he has been with 'his' woman, he comes home to sleep with 'his' girl. And his girl wears his wedding band. And a girl can be a woman.
