The author (right) with her friend and running partner Holly Wheeler in January 2022. Photo courtesy of Casey Patrick
I called my boyfriend and told him what had happened. I didn’t tell him in person because we lived 1,000 miles apart and were rarely in the same room. At the event a man was riding a bicycle with his pants pulled down around his ***, laughing at me and saying, “You want this?” It was quite a feat of balance, I thought in the seconds of escape before I realized he was a threat, following me in the dark morning as I went for a run. I called the police, who took a report. My boyfriend apologized for this happening, and we both laughed at my description of the flasher’s pale butt shining under the streetlight.
By then we had been in a relationship for almost a year, which started shortly after I ended my 19-year marriage, when my post-divorce emotions were at their lowest ebb. When we met, I immediately opened up to him about who I was and what I wanted out of life and a relationship. I probably should have sworn off men for a while so I could think about why my marriage failed, but instead, I was moving forward.
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I refused to order the terrified stranger out of my house, so I kept running in the dark, but now it was different. Whenever I avoided tripping my gaze, my headlamp cast a hard shadow that looked like a man, ready to pounce. He was everywhere.
When my boyfriend came to visit the next weekend, we ran together, and I felt safe again. He was tall and fit and never worried about the chase. I hated that I felt safe with him because he was a man while the source of my fear was also a man, how people had power over my sense of security.
After my boyfriend returned home, Lata stood up again, this time in broad daylight as her bicycle passed by my house and then U-turned and stared straight into my kitchen window. I called the police, and they sent an officer to search the area.
That was the first time I got a good look at him: the droopy eyes, the black hair, the tight skin around his jaw. He looked worried, which was scary, like he wasn’t in control of his own actions. If you saw his mug shot, you could tell he looked like a serial killer.
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The detective assigned to the case told me the man’s name. He had a history of exposing himself to women and lived a few blocks away on my own street, but no one could arrest him. A woman a few blocks away nicknamed him the sex peddler.
“It’s terrible,” my boyfriend said later on the phone. “I wish I could be there for you.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” But I was kidding myself.
As the sun went down, I double-checked every window and door lock. Armed with pepper spray, I looked under the bed and inside the bathtub for the man’s frail, able-bodied body. I put a trash can in the kitchen door so I could hear when he essentially tried to rape and kill me. I put the number of the police department on speed dial and tried to sleep.
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Two days later, the flasher sneaked up on me while I was walking with a friend. I contacted the police as I was told.
Detective placed a motion-triggered deer cam that works in the dark on my front porch pillar. He said the police thought Lata might have a special interest in me, which sounds like a strange compliment.
My best friend suggested I borrow her dog for protection, but I declined. Another asked if I had a restraining order against the man, but that seemed extreme. My boyfriend suggested I get a peloton, the idea being that I could lock myself in my house and ride a fake bike going nowhere while Creeper rode his bike freely wherever he wanted. I refused.
The detective was right. The flasher became less active as the weather cooled. Photo courtesy of Casey Patrick
I told the detective I could run early in the morning so they could catch the person involved in the act, but the police didn’t want to put a citizen in harm’s way. They borrowed the idea and sent it to female officers as bait, but the men didn’t take it.
I always started running with my phone and pepper spray. I was quick that season. Getting out of fear is inspiring.
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Two days after he installed the camera, the detective stopped by. On the small screen, he showed me footage from the previous morning of a vague gray ghost on a bike darting in and out of frame. Two minutes later, there I was in my tank top, running in the same direction as the man. He was waiting for me, and I didn’t know he was there. Then the detective told me that, years earlier, the man had attacked a female jogger in our city park, dragging her and pinning her to the ground.
I called my boyfriend.
“It’s scary. Are you running tomorrow morning?” he asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
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“Good. But if you do, text me when you go and come back,” he said.
“Why?”
“So I know you’re safe.”
“What will you do if I don’t text?” I didn’t give him time to answer. “I appreciate it, but it’s not really helpful if I have to leave you and come back. It’s a problem in the middle.”
“I know. Feeling helpless here.” I succumbed to the notion that he was helpless, seeing the ways in which he wasn’t—one of them being a man in chief.
I was always proud of how fearless I was, but Lata broke me. I was angry at her and angry at the police and angry at how women are always expected to accommodate men in the world. I set up Peloton in my guest room.
In September 2025, the author ran a half marathon with her son and husband Chris. Casey Patrick donated
When the weather changed, police predicted that the creeper would literally shut his *** off to avoid the cold. The neighborhood lesson group reported fewer sightings. I still had a few run-ins. One afternoon he passed me while I was running, parked his bike on the street to watch me rake leaves, and then watched as my kids and I unloaded groceries from our car.
My boyfriend and I had been dating for about two years when the creeper stuff stopped for good, so I sold Peloton on Facebook.
“It was sudden,” my boyfriend said when I told him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“It makes me feel like you can wake up one morning and get rid of me,” he said.
“I would never do that. At least not on Facebook,” I said.
I thought he was overreacting, but his reaction convinced me that he was hopelessly in love with me and that I was in control of the fate of our relationship. He knew that I wanted to be someone who wanted to pull the strings of my life, to be able to move freely about the world without arming myself with pepper spray or thinking that someone else might hurt me. He knew these things because I told him. For the first time in my life, I felt emotionally safe with a partner.
Six months later, we made plans to live a few miles away from each other. I never have to feel insecure again. But as he was feeding me details about packing boxes and driving trucks, and I was making plans for him to stay with me for the holidays, I learned he was married. He lied to me and his wife for three years. Although she had a sense of both emotional and physical safety, it was a mirage.
A few weeks after I found out the truth about my boyfriend, I saw my flasher neighbor walking past my house hand in hand with a woman, their foreheads bent toward each other. The detective told me that the man stayed out of trouble when he had a girlfriend. He calmed her down just like my boyfriend made me feel safe.
I wish my boyfriend was like Lata in some ways. Maybe if he had acted like a horrible person, I could have protected myself, locking my heart so he couldn’t get in. But my boyfriend was a great liar.
He was worse than a flasher on a bike. At least the guy was honest about his creepiness. He did not present himself as harmless and mentally healthy. He was careless and often only partially clothed – a red flag! My boyfriend, on the other hand, was generous and kind. He respected me and always acted as if he had my best interests at heart.
Friends thought I would have trouble trusting other people after my ordeal, but it didn’t work out that way. My awesome boyfriend is the person who helped me realize how important emotional security is. He enabled me to share with another person.
Still, when I started falling for a new guy who seemed kind and single, I felt like I could open up to him about anything, but I knew better than to trust my own judgment. Before I let things go too far I asked her to produce a copy of her divorce decree. I married a guy, and sometimes we go for a run in the dark.
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