The Write Place  The Therapy Room   The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter Support Search RSS runboard.com       Sign up (learn about it) | Sign in (lost password?) maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter The summer I was 8 was nearing and all I could feel was despair and hopeless resignation. A resignation of whatever horror was going to lay ahead. I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me eager and evil. My parents had been planning this trip for ages, they would be gone for 2 months. The chauffeur’s wife would be doing some cooking for us, but my older half brother, Allen, would be in charge. Free reign, wonderful, give the sadistic torturer the run of the rest of us. But no, Rosanna got to go to Cathy’s for the summer, and Jessica wouldn’t have to really answer to him either, just me and Paul, but mostly me. It would be me, that would have to answer and obey him..... I would lay there night after night waiting for it to begin, wondering how I could free myself. Wondering if I should chance it and tell Mom. Told him I was going to tell her, he laughed and said “ She will always believe me, I’ll prove it to you.” And he did quite successfully. Mom made apple turnovers for her office, and just enough for one each for us kids to have for breakfast the next morning. In the middle of the night Allen got up and ate one. When Mom was screaming angry the next morning fists flying to strike for answers of who ate one, Allen told her he had seen me get up in the night and come downstairs. I, of course protested vehemently that I hadn’t, that in fact it had been Allen. But he had been right Mom believed him. And if she wouldn’t believe me about something as stupid as an apple turnover, she would never believe me when it came to him hurting me. So he got 2 turnovers, and I got beaten..... After this little test I stopped thinking that I could tell and it would stop. No, now I knew that if I told, I wouldn’t be believed and get beaten by her on top of it all. Every night I would lay there in my bed, awake and alone, waiting, waiting for him and waiting for summer to come. Some nights I would stand at the huge windows and look out over the Caspian sea and watch the dawn come. Other nights I would lay and listen to the cars pass and watch the stars and wish for answers until the sky turned pink and I knew he wasn’t coming, then I would sleep for an hour or two and get up and go to school. For years I had lain awake waiting, except for the brief blissful 7 months he had been at private school in Tehran, when we had first moved to Iran.  I laid there as it got warm enough to open the windows at night and let in the smell and sounds of the sea. Laid there in dread of the nights he would come, the nights he would use me. Those nights were always the same. A silent struggle, punching and slapping, but he always dragged me to his room. Always threw me into it, and always punished for struggling. Then he would lay naked on his back on his bed, and beckon me from where I always ended up crouched and beaten on the floor. Beckon me to him like a dog, with a snap of fingers or a wave of his hand. Then fist his hand in my hair and push my mouth down onto him, using my hair to push my head up and down until he would come, forcing me to gag it down. Then throw me from him and tell me to go back to bed. I would get up to go and he would warn me again, as he had for 4 years, not to tell, and I better not puke it up or he would make me sorry. And I would go, as quietly as I was taken, laying back down or staring out the window across the sea. I would stare dry eyed at the ceiling or the sea and feel even more lonely than the time before and full of the hopelessness of life and my place in it. Wondering again how I could free myself from him for the summer. But the months passed, the nights the same, endless waiting for dawn, or silent struggles and waiting for dawn. Summer came, with no answers and no freedom for me, except for the 2 weeks at the beginning of the summer I had begged to stay with my friend Lynnie. Those 2 weeks, full of fearful freedom, fear of what was waiting for me when I got back home tainting the nights. The days were glorious full of sunny days and body surfing in the sea. Lynnie asked me why I never slept and I always said I just couldn’t in a different bed. You would think that not being home I would sleep peaceful and serene knowing there would be no silent struggle coming, except there were more than my brother waiting in the shadows to hurt me and I had stopped thinking I was safe anywhere. Those 2 weeks flew by so much faster than I wanted, and then it was time to go back to my prison and to my jailer, and take the punishment waiting there for me. He would be very angry having lost me for 2 weeks of his summer of hell and torture. And he was, very angry, and as I watched Lynnie’s mother drive away and turned around he was waiting. There was no one around except Paul, who was playing with the gardener’s daughter, so no one to see him grab me and drag me to the house, swishing the branch through the air making it whine and crack. Dragged me over the ground, rocks and twigs tearing at my legs and back, and telling me all the things he was finally going to get to do. All the things he had been waiting to do, how he was going to make me bleed and beg, how I was going to be tortured and how he was going to play. I struggled and struggled but I was 8 and small, he was 15 and built like an ox with huge hands. Struggled and tried to stop his progress as he dragged me up the steps, my back smashing against each one. I tried to get to my feet but he kept his hand low dragging me on purpose making sure I felt his fury. Up the house steps, across the veranda and then upstairs where I grabbed stair rails desperately but he just pulled me ruthlessly along upwards ever upwards. Until at the landing I managed to get my arms wrapped around one more firmly and held on for all I was worth, which wasn’t much when he took his boot shod foot and smashed it down onto my arms, tearing my flesh with the treads and numbing them til they loosened their hold and fell free. He had hardly broken stride to do this and once again I was smashing against the stairs on the final rise to his room. He pushed the door open so hard it bounced against the wall, pulled me in and slammed it shut and locked it. Now he was silent looking down at me as I continued to struggle. He just let me struggle silently until I finally noticed what was new to this room that I hated so much. The hook protruding from the ceiling, and I looked at this new thing and knew it was meant for me. I looked at him and he smiled that evil smile, the one that had given him his nickname in the family when he was a toddler ‘Happy’, god I hated that smile and name. He looked down at me and smiled and started wrapping my hands together with rope. When he was done he lifted me by my arms and hung me from that hook like a piece of butchered meat. I dangled there my toes just touching the floor, though not enough to let me stand and ease the pull on my shoulders. Then he took out one of his knives and cut my clothes from me till I was naked and now terrified. And he stood there and watched me dangle and ran his thumb over the blade of that knife, and got this look on his face and I stared blankly back at him. Then that look passed and he sheathed the knife again and reached past me to the bed and picked up the switch he had cut from one of the poplar trees lining the driveway. Picked it up and walked behind me and I hung there waiting for that first blow that first whicking sound of it flicking through the air before it struck me. Waited for hours before it came and then once it started it time stood still. Endless heat stinging and throbbing then numbness and nothing. I hung there and did what I always did when he hurt me. I ignored it, wasn’t thinking of anything wasn’t thinking of the 2 weeks I had just spent with my best friend wasn’t thinking of a beautiful meadow with cute little bunnies, wasn’t thinking of anything. Just blank as I stared at the floor and listened to the crack of that switch over and over against my back, legs and bottom. Just ignored it and refused to cry and refused to scream, just hung there silent and mute as I always was....hung there and ignored it...and waited.... Last edited by maraga, 11/19/2003, 6:03 pm 11/17/2003, 5:42 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle Each day started and ended with him, with what he wanted. Jess was busy and had ever lived in her own world and never knew what was happening in mine. Often I would beg her not to go out with her friends, or to let me go with her. But she was 14, and not interested in a little sister tagging along. Paul was always at the gardener’s house playing or spending the night. Which left me alone with Allen and his games. They changed from day to day always sick and always twisted. Now I never slept and there was no where to hide, though I tried, and was always punished for my efforts. One time I just kept going from upstairs to downstairs and around the house through the gardens and verandas trying to keep ahead of him. Managed it for several hours, delayed the inevitable but also enraged him. Once he finally captured me it was another dragging up to the room, but this time no whippings and no hook from the ceiling. This time he tied me to his door, naked as usual, and used me as a dart board. He liked darts, real ones and the ones he made out of pins and little feathers. I watched him lay them out on the bed. I was panting slightly from the exertions of hiding, running and struggling, and could see his excitement. With every dart he placed side by side he would smile and with every dart I grew more and more afraid of what was to come. This was not the same as being beaten I didn’t know if I would be able to not scream or not whimper and beg. It terrified me more that I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet that I wouldn’t be able to not show how frightened I was. If he knew he would know it was effective and would keep using it as a means of punishing me until I had mastered myself. Finally he was ready, and he stood facing me and picked up the first dart, a pin dart, then he used his lighter and put the dart in the flame rolling it between his thumb and finger. To clean it he said so I didn’t get infected, but I watched his eyes and wondered when that lighter would be used on me. He blinked and looked up, grinned and threw it. It made no noise and I couldn’t even see anything more than a coloured blur before it hit me, piercing my shoulder. I couldn’t tell if the burning was from the heat of the dart or the dart itself , I couldn’t help myself and gasped when it hit me. Saw the triumph in his eyes and squeezed my eyes shut. “Open them or I will tape them open” his voice was hard and implacable and since he had taped them open other times I knew he would do it. Knew that I would need to see what he was doing to prepare myself for each dart so complied. Watched the satisfaction flicker in his eyes at being obeyed. Saw him pick up and twirl the first real dart in his hand. Saw its red end twirling and saw the flame from the lighter reflected in the steel tip. Drew in my breath and held it waiting, wanting to be silent wanting to show nothing to him. Then he snapped the lighter closed and with the flick of his wrist the dart came. I could see it flashing towards me, waited for it to penetrate and heard it hit the door instead of me. I almost cried with relief and raised my eyes to look at him waiting for him to explode in anger at having missed. Raised my eyes to smirk at him for having missed and saw he was standing right in front of me waiting for me to look at him. “Scared yet?” My face went blank and my eyes went cold and empty again. He turned away laughing and picked up another pin dart and the ritual began as I waited again for the dart and waited for the first steel dart. I was had about 10 pin darts sticking from me, my shoulders legs stomach, chest and one buried in my cheek. When he picked up a steel dart again heated it and threw it this time it hit. It struck my left shoulder deep and painful and despite myself I cried out. There is nothing quite like looking down and seeing red feathers protruding from your flesh, the pin darts with their little feathers were bad enough but a real dart is huge in an 8 year old little girl. I looked down and saw it there and went blissfully numb for all the rest that followed. Until he was done and I looked down at myself and saw that I was covered in darts. There was a grouping of 30 or 50 just above my navel in some pattern and the other steel darts were sticking out from me here and there. I thought half hysterically to myself that I looked like some weird bird except the little trickles of blood. When I bleed I have always bled wholeheartedly copious amounts and this was no different. From each dart was a trickle like a tear, like my body was weeping the only way it knew how. I stood there looking down at myself and felt a wave of such helpless despair and fear. Then a flood of loathing and hate and I lifted my head and let him see it in my face, and he slapped until there was nothing on my face again. Then walked from the room. After a couple of hours he came back pulled all the darts from me untied me from the door and tossed me out and told me not to run again. I walked to the bathroom and ran a bath and sat and wept and wondered if I could drown myself. Sat hunched small and defenseless, wept silent tears my arms wrapped around myself rocking trying to comfort myself. I sat until the water grew cold then washed the blood from me dried my tears and got dressed. Looked in the bathroom mirror and said to my reflection for the first time, “This will not be the thing that kills me.” 11/18/2003, 6:36 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle Everyday was the same, running and hiding with bouts of brutality. Could never get me to stop trying to hide, to not run and not struggle. I was always a silent child, or at least for the last 4 years I had become silent. Before he started I remember laughing and being as precocious as any normal 4 year old, but I hadn’t been that girl for 4 years. Now, I became even more withdrawn, every day was a battle and I became as grim faced as any soldier. Was focused on making it through the summer, alive and with as much sanity as I could. While I didn’t know that was what I wanted, those exact terms, I knew that I didn’t want to die and that I didn’t want to get lost. I would lay in bed with my hands behind my head and think about where to try and hide next and that maybe this time he wouldn’t find me. Would tell myself over and over that once Mom and Dad were back it would be better. I lied to myself every night, but soon I would have to stop lying. The sexual molesting hadn’t stopped, there were still the hands fisted in my hair. But he had become more adventuresome, now he wanted to touch me. And with nothing stopping him he did. Touched me with hands and fingers and his mouth, hurt me with his hands and fingers and mouth. Hurt me in every way a little girl can be hurt with hands and fingers and mouths. Even at 8 I had small breasts, and god how I hated them, wanted them gone, because he liked them so much. Wishing I was a boy, wishing I didn’t have girl parts and wishing he were dead. Now he was using me 2 or 3 times a day. Ejaculating in my mouth or on my chest then feeding it to me, holding my nose to make me open my mouth. Promises of making me eat my own vomit if I didn’t keep it down. Now he was sliding himself along me, between my legs, between the cheeks of my ass and against my vagina to make himself ejaculate. And I knew it was only a matter of time before he tried to put himself inside me. I knew if he did, some part of me understood that if he managed to do this thing to me that it would never end, that it would break something in me, that it would mean he had won. Taking something I would never be able to get back. And another fear was added to my little sack, and another lie was added to the others at night, that he wouldn’t be able to that I would be able to stop him. But soon the lies were going to end, end with a new fear and another promise made in a mirror. The day started before I had a chance to get up. I was laying thinking where to hide when he came in. “No running today, punishment first, then see if you wanna run after.” He walked in carrying a pan that smelt burnt and disgusting. I had pushed myself as far as I could against the wall at the head of my bed. I still only had underwear and an undershirt on, so I pulled my blanket up to my chin, trying to hide under it. He sat down on the side of the bed and held the pan out to me. “Eat it.” “What is it” I asked sniffing it in disgust. “Eat it, or I will make you. Its rootbeer pudding, and I came in it a couple times. Now eat it. And if you puke I will make you eat it.” I looked in horror at this pale brown sludgy lumpy smelling foulness, and shook my head. Then he smiled that smile and I felt a tremor of fear, and knew this was going to be bad. He stood up put the pan on the little table, put one knee on the bed, grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. And then there was a spoon of this sludge at my mouth, and my lips pressed tight he just kept ramming that spoon against my lips between them and my teeth until I could taste blood but he couldn’t get it past my teeth. He stood back panting, angry and excited. And slapped me hard across the face, and when I gasped there went the spoon. And I was eating it before I could catch my breath, he just kept shoveling it in, it was slopping out of my mouth. Tears were running down my face and I tried to stop it but was just couldn’t. I couldn’t breath and now had it up my nose and gaging and I couldn’t see from my tears. And when I had been force fed 2 cups or more the unthinkable happened. With it choking me and tears and him jamming that spoon so far down my throat, I vomited. All over my blanket just kept vomiting until there was a puddle between my legs. Tears streaming, nose dripping into this puddle of puke and looking down into it I went cold and still. With a feeling of such terror and dread I looked up at him. He had this look of exultation and triumphant expectation. And knew he had been waiting for just this thing. I looked at him and shook my head in denial of what was to come. He looked at me with such glee, and suddenly I was afraid in a way I hadn’t been before. “Lick it up, and if you puke again I’ll hang you over the balcony to do it.” I just kept shaking my head. He just kept staring impassively at me now, watching waiting to see what I would do. Then he grabbed my hair and my face was being pressed into my blanket into my puddle of puke. I couldn’t eat it I just couldn’t, so he brought my head up and grabbed a spoon and he forced it into my mouth, and we were back to my gagging and the spoon hitting my teeth and gums and lips and blood now mixing with the puke. He fed it all to me then pressed my face back to the blanket and started shouting to lick it, lick it, lick it! As I began licking my blanket I could feel it coming up, and started crying harder now, whimpering pitifully. Hating myself for every sound that came hating it but unable to prevent it. Then as I started to buck and heave I found myself looking down from the second story balcony. Found myself swaying back and forth, and could feel hands gripping my ankles, swinging me. I looked down, and felt my stomach lurch as I saw the flower beds below, red begonias, saw those red flowers and felt my glasses drop from my face into them. And started to jerk and heave as I started to vomit again down into those red begonias over my glasses and the flowers. Knew I would always hate those flowers from then on. Felt him laughing and laughing above me as I jerked and bucked feeling the vomit coat my face and hair, and felt it burn my nose and eyes. And he kept me swinging for about 10 minutes before he dragged me back over tearing the front of my legs and my body on the edge of the concrete wall. Pulled me over looked in disgust at my face and hair and the blood now welling and pushed me towards the bathroom again. As I was walking away his voice became hard as he said, “don’t clean your blanket off, bad girls need to learn what happens when they don’t obey me. If you clean it, we’ll have pudding again and keep having it until you obey me.” Then he walked away back into the house. I stood there covered in puke pudding and blood and knew that this time I would obey him, just this once. And hated myself for my weakness, hated that I had done that hated that I couldn’t stop him, hated that he could make me do it again. Just hated, me for whatever it was about me that made him start this, him for all he did, Jess for always leaving me alone with him, Paul for being 2 and loved by everyone, Rosanna for getting to be away from this nightmare, Mom and Dad for never protecting me, and God for allowing this to happen to me in the first place. I stood there vibrating with rage and hurt and such hatred for anyone. But mostly for me, for being wrong because there must be something wrong with me. Hatred for the weakness shown that day, and hatred cause I knew that in this I would do as he said and sleep under my blanket covered in puke. I went to the bathroom and ran a shower and washed the filth from myself and hot angry tears fell and mingled with the water, water hot enough to burn my skin, but I didn't care. As I dried myself off I saw my face in the mirror, saw my eyes, grey and bleak, and saw them harden. And said to them “You lied to me, it isn’t going to get better, he will always find you, with all the lies there is about this don’t ever lie to me again.” I walked away still angry but calmer. With all the lies bound up in this secret I didn’t need more lies especially from myself. Lie to everyone else if you must but never lie to yourself. Since that day I have tried to never lie to myself. I took wash cloth and wiped what puke I could off from my blanket and hung it to dry over the balcony, there would always be a stain there, and can see it in my mind's eye, a faded blob surrounded by the tomato red of the rest of the blanket. And I did sleep under that blanket covered in puke until Jess discovered it and washed it for me. Last edited by maraga, 11/19/2003, 6:03 pm 11/19/2003, 5:42 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter I still managed to escape from time to time. Mom had left instructions that if I was invited to Lynnie’s I was to be allowed to go, and you didn’t disobey Mom, even if she was hundreds of miles away. They were such brief respites but treasured all the more for it. Sometimes just dinner at the US Navy's country club next door to our house, or kid movies brought in for the Naval personal’s children at the naval base, but the best was just going to her house overnight or for the weekend. It was a summer of sharp contrasts, time with Lynnie was full of sunshine and bright laughter, time at home was dark shadows filled with deafening silence. I adored Lynnie, because she never seemed to mind how quiet and awkward I was. Anything she wanted to do we did. Her parents were never home and it was always the two of us all day until about 6 and then her parents would come home, change and off to parties and it was us again. We ate spaghetti with our hands laughing and making the worst mess. Homemade donuts rolled out on a kitchen floor with a vat of oil big enough to fry a whole pig in. Body surfing in the Caspian sea, playing board games, watching Tom Sawyer in Farsi, Gilaki, Russian and Chinese, but never English. Going to the field across the street building a fort and smoking a carton of cigarettes each, walking over dunes and looking for tadpoles. Lynnie teaching me how to ride a bike, but forgetting to mention how to work the brakes. First time alone down a hill, panicking not knowing what to do I dragged my bare feet over the gravel road til I stopped. She laughed and rolled her eyes as she bandaged my bloody feet. Riding double to the only store, laughing so hard we had to stop every time we went, cause she wobbled when she laughed. Laying on her balcony at night watching the stars and playing hide and go seek in the twilight. I would lay there at night after she had finally gone to sleep and would try and fix everything in my memory. Every sound, every sight and smell. Fresh mowed grass, salty spray of the sea, hot burning sand, sunburned shoulders, orange tang and cold Pepsi. The sound of the waves, lawn mowers, giggling, the sound our thongs made walking to the beach, and the sound the bicycle made when we rode double. The look on her face when she thought I was being too silly and cautious, all her freckles, the way her hair tangled in the sea and salt, how she hated that and I would untangle it for her. How if she got me angry and we fought I would call her Winnifred and I would always give in with a small sigh. And when I was back in the darkness and lying in bed or standing watching the sea I would think back on those times and they would keep me smiling and keep me hoping. Hoping there would be another time, another adventure and another one after that. But then Lynnie decided she should spend the night at my home for once and everything changed. Last edited by maraga, 11/27/2003, 11:49 pm 11/20/2003, 6:38 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter Lynnie never spent the night at my house, I always went to her and I liked it that way. Her house was always so much more interesting, and safer, than mine. I had always discouraged her from coming over, too many things could go wrong, too many things to be embarrassed by. My Mother’s propensity for young Iranian males, or for screaming and hitting with rolling pins and electric frying pan cords. My siblings intense desire to just be annoying. Also we lived in town, we didn’t live among the other foreigners, we lived amongst the Iranians, the good section of town granted, the Chief of Police lived next door, but in town all the same. Which as I look back must have seemed an exotic world to Lynnie. But at her house we had freedom, at mine we didn’t, and there was Allen. But nothing would persuade her to not come, and I couldn’t put her off any longer, so she came for the night. I thought it would be fine, he would never try anything with someone there, I would still be free of him for the time Lynnie was there. I was so very wrong. The day before Lynnie came to stay Allen sat me down on his bed after he’d stopped his torture for that day’s run and hide attempt. Sat me down and started talking about how things were going to go while Lynnie was there. I felt a wave of ice form in my belly and spread outward freezing everything in its path until I was still and frozen in place. I listened with horror and disbelief to his plan. I shook my head, no....no...no....NO! He grabbed my face in his hand and forced me to nod. Gripping my cheeks squeezing them until they were cut by my teeth and my mouth filled with blood and trickled out in a tiny stream. His face was close to mine as he gripped my face, repeating everything again in this harsh frightening voice. “You will get her in here ***** or you will not like what happens after she leaves. Now repeat it.” He released my face and I swallowed the blood in my mouth and wiped the blood from my chin. With the smallest thinnest dullest voice I repeated what he wanted me to do. “At around 2 tell her we should read some comics, but that he has the best comics. We can sneak in and get some cause he’d taken a sleeping pill and won’t even know we are there. Tell her it’ll be fun. Bring her into your room, where you will be pretending to be asleep on your bed, naked. I’m to make sure I lock the door behind me once we come in, so she can’t escape. I was to get her to touch him. Then I was to help him with her, help him hold her, help him hold her down.” My voice had trailed to a bare whisper by the end of my recitation. He grabbed my face again grinding my teeth deeper into my cheeks and brought my eyes level to his and in a cold hard voice said “ Do it or else.” Stared into my eyes for a second dug his fingers deeper then using my face threw me from him. “Don’t try and stop her from coming, you are now grounded from the phone. Get out.” I stood at the bathroom sink spitting blood and watching it dribble down the drain. Stared at that streak of blood, so red against the white of the sink, stared and knew there wasn’t anything I could do to save her, anymore than I could save myself. Part of me thought it would be nice to share this fear with someone, someone else that would understand waiting in the dark, about waiting for dawn. About bruises and blood hidden, about silent struggles and silent screaming. And I wouldn’t be alone any more. Thought all this watching the red against the white and then looked up. There I was staring at myself in the mirror. My face was white except for the smear of blood where I had wiped at it, and my eyes grey and shadowed, not a hint of blue showed. I looked into my eyes and saw the resignation and bleakness there. Saw the weakness there, the desire to not be alone anymore, to sacrifice her so I wouldn’t be alone. Saw it and hated it, hated myself for it. Felt the disgust at this new found weakness form in the pit of my stomach, writhing like a fistful of worms. Closed my eyes against it turned away from my reflection and stared at the wall. Steeled myself and looked back into the mirror, the weakness was still there and now so was the hate and disgust. Lowered my eyes and turned on the tap washed the blood from my mouth and the sink and without looking up again walked away. 11/24/2003, 7:31 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter I laid awake that night arms folded behind my head and looked at the ceiling for a while before I got up and walked to the windows, my brain completely blank for a change. I looked out and saw the lights from beach parties, heard the sound of music and laughter drifting on wisps of a breeze. Smelled the smoke of beach fires, salt from the waves and flowers from the garden. Took all this into my senses and still my mind was empty. Knew that this was a complete lack of hope and that there would be no run and hide attempt tomorrow. Decided it was time to force my brain to work, time to ramble, and time to pace. Walked to the door that lead to the balcony and went outside and started walking, bare feet noiseless on cold stone. At first I looked up as I walked, looked at the sea turned the corner looked over the wall to the US Navy’s country club, looked down at the pool full of men and women laughing and splashing, watched people walking smartly in white uniforms up the wide red carpet into the club. Turned the corner and looked into the backyard to the gardener’s house and to the stretch of desert behind the house walked almost the length of the house stopping short of Allen’s outside door, turned around and walked back. Walked this for hours watching with my brain doing nothing but absorbing every sight, every sound and every smell. The sea in the front the chlorine from the pool next door and garden smells in the back. Salt, bleach, flowers and dirt, dirt and flowers, bleach, salt, over and over and still nothing came. The sounds changed as the pool emptied and the night settled in more closely before I started not looking up but down at the stone floor and began to truly pace, brow furrowed and eyes looking past the floor into the deepest parts of my own mind. Found myself seeing my face in the bathroom mirror again, shied from it and focused instead on what was supposed to occur and the part I was to play. Thought out all of it to the point we got to his room and wouldn’t allow thoughts past that. What was I to say, how could I convince her to read comics? She wasn’t much for sitting around reading comics or books. Lynnie was very active always moving, how was I to get her to agree to sit? I stopped and looked up eyes widening with realization, I’d found the only excuse I could use to get her out of this nightmare waiting for her. What if I just couldn’t get her to do it? Wouldn’t be my fault then would it? I knew he would be listening to every word I said to make sure I followed his plan, if he heard how hard I was trying to get her to do it but she still wouldn’t then he would know I had done my best but that it just wasn’t going to happen. Relief flooded through me, relief and something else I didn’t want to look at. Then there was a jerk on my arm and I looked up into his face, “what the **** are you doing?” I just looked at him stupidly thinking he had heard me thinking before realizing he meant outside in the middle of the night. “Bathroom” I finally stuttered out quietly. “ You’re going the wrong way stupid.” and he turned me and pushed me back past the bathroom’s outside door, his hand hard on the middle of my back. I stumbled and fell hard and laid there wondering if he had come looking for me and found my empty bed instead. But he just laughed and walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I scrambled to my feet and rushed away before he came out and decide he was interested in more than just going to the bathroom. Clambered into bed and laid there waiting, again. Finally when the pink was streaking across the sky outside my window I let my eyes close and fell asleep. Lynnie came first thing in the morning dropped off on her mother’s way to work. She would be picked up the next day on the way home from work. I was waiting for her at the end of the driveway at the gate, full of anxiety and dread and trying to not let it show. Determined to show her a good time until that afternoon when we would take a trip into hell. We played and played all morning, anything she wanted to do I did. Lunch came we ate, or rather she ate and I played with my sandwich. It was a beautiful day outside blue, cloudless and warm, a slight breeze taking the edge of the heat off. We’d been running around outside all day over lawns and through the gardens screaming and laughing. Then Allen came into the kitchen where we sat eating, “ No more ****ing screaming. I’ve got a ****ing headache now, I’m taking a sleeping pill and laying down so be ****ing quiet.” was all he said before he walked out. The day closed in on me everything narrowing down to that instant and I felt as though my lungs were being crushed and felt my heart jerk and palpitate. I pressed on my chest and tried to make it stop hurting closed my eyes bent my head and concentrated on being calm. While my head was bent hand to my heart, Lynnie asking if it was ok if she should go and get Allen, I realized I had sealed this afternoons trip to hell most effectively. With my heart acting up Lynnie would fall readily into my suggestion of reading comics. I squeezed my eyes tight trying not to cry, my only excuse for not falling into his plans had just gone. My one and only idea dying with one painful heartbeat. With that realization my heart went into full spasm and clenched in earnest and the feeling I had pushed aside while pacing faded. With horror tears came as I recognized that feeling, disappointment. The exaltation at finding a way out of the nightmare for Lynnie had been accompanied by the feeling of disappointment. I was disappointed she wouldn’t be with me in my nightmare. The disgust came with such intensity I retched a little. Which alarmed Lynnie to no end, she’d seen me have these heart things ever since she had met me, but she had never seen me retch with it before. I grabbed her arm and said it was alright that I was ok and not to worry, and with every ounce of adoration and love told her how sorry I was for ruining her day. She laughed and patted my arm and said not to worry I hadn’t. Then she said she shouldn’t have let me do so much running that morning. Though I never ran just sort of walked quickly or did this funny shuffling jog. Guilt poured into me, guilt and anger, at him, at me and at my body’s weakness. After a few minutes my heart palpitations passed and I was fine, tired and resigned but fine. I was right Lynnie agreed to reading right away and because she was always up for a little mischief went along with the sneaking into Allen’s room part as well. I didn’t even have to work at it, my little heart thing had done all the work for me. We started in the bathroom, Lynnie kept giggling and I tried to giggle too, it sounded so false and strange to me but Lynnie caught up in the moment never noticed. I eased the door open pretending to look to see if the coast was clear and beckoned her and we went out, crawling on the floor so as to keep below the balcony wall. She thought it was the greatest fun, and I felt like I would vomit at any time. We were right outside his door when I motioned her to stay down, and I rose and pretended to spy through his window, to see if he was asleep. I looked through that window and saw him laying naked on his bed with his erection and felt my stomach lurch and almost vomited, I closed my eyes and turned back to Lynnie. This was it, now I was to tell her he was asleep and bring her inside and lock the door. All his instructions came rushing into my head, rushed in and became disjointed, phrases would pop out and images of darts and poplar switches, of hands fisted in my hair and of his erection, and then my face in the mirror and the blood in the sink. All the images pressing in on me until everything was like a kaleidoscope and I felt even more nauseous and dizzy. I knelt back down beside Lynnie, turned and looked at her. Saw the first day I met her saw her befriend me, all the scrapes she got us into, teaching me to ride, doubling on her bike, finding tadpoles, laughing and playing, always holding back because of my heart, making sure I always got picked in games, saw every moment we had spent together reflected in her eyes and knew that I couldn’t do it, whatever the consequences. Looked into her shining face and loved her more than anyone else in the world and knew that whatever came I didn’t want her in my nightmare. Wanted her in sunshine and wanted to see her eyes glowing with light and love, not shadowed with hate and pain. Knew that to do this to her would take my soul and that this would be the thing that would kill me. Knew that allowing her into the nightmare would never make mine stop that I would always be in it. Knew that to do this would be smothering any light left in me would make me worse than him. Realization flooded through me and quieted any thoughts of being alone and the punishment for this disobedience. I looked into her face and very quietly said he was still awake and that it was a no go. Watched the disappointment come to her face and felt my insides fill with icy dread. We crawled back to the bathroom and she said well we’ll just find something else to do. The rest of the day was spent outside down by the gate making flower necklaces and quietly talking. All afternoon I felt him watching, felt the rage coming in waves from him and felt my anxiety mount. The night passed with Lynnie sleeping peacefully and with me keeping watch over her. He came once in the night and just stood watching me as I sat there beside her. He looked at me and I saw the promise in his eyes. I stared back unblinking and still, until he turned and walked away. The next day passed with more laughing, running and playing. I knew that after this night everything would change, after Lynnie left punishment would be waiting impatiently for me. There was no taking it back, no fixing it, no begging, not that I ever did, and no recourse open to me to avoid it. Though that night when Jessica was getting ready to go out I begged like I had never begged before cried for her to stay cried to take me with her anything, just please don’t leave me. And like all the other nights my cries and pleadings fell on deaf self absorbed ears. I stood on the bottom step outside and watched her leave me, and hated her with a bitterness that filled every fibre in my being. Watched her leave and heard his footsteps behind me. It was time. 11/28/2003, 12:10 am Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter There was no time to run or hide he had my arm in his hand before I could even turn. No one was home it was just us, no one to say stop when he started dragging me by one arm up the front steps and into the house. I dug my feet in trying to halt the momentum but he was once again dragging me up the stairs, keeping me on the side of the wall this time not the rails, and swinging me against the wall as we went so my head would smack against it. I would try and tuck my head so as not to hit the wall but he would swing me against the wall so hard my head would snap into anyway. By the time we were at the top I was dizzy and a little nauseous and seeing lights and spots. A last crack of my head against the door frame and everything faded not into blackness but into a foggy sort of world, I couldn’t move my arms or legs and couldn’t speak, couldn’t fight, nothing. Everything became vague and hazy felt my clothes being pulled off and heard Allen muttering but couldn’t make out the words. My head felt soft inside and out as I tried to figure out what was happening. Tried to move my legs and kick out at him but couldn’t manage more than a twitch before he had them tied down. Tried hitting and struggling but my arms were above my head and bound tightly. Fear was mounting like never before, I didn’t know what was going to happen and my head wasn’t co-operating with me. I could hear whimpering and knew it was from me and felt shame sweep over me, that I was letting him hear me be afraid. I tried to control it but all the hits my head had taken coming up the stairs had made me too disorientated to hold on to anything but that I was terrified. The more I heard myself whimpering and moaning the more shame I felt and frustration at my inability to control myself for once. Then to my utter horror I felt the tears streaming from my eyes I squeezed them shut and tried to make them stop but they wouldn’t. Crying and whimpering and now completely out of control I heard him sit beside me on the bed. Felt his hands stroking softly over me. Stroking over my small breasts and playing with the nipples rubbing them gently and down my belly to slide fingers carefully over me and then heard him open the jar of Vaseline and felt cold slippery fingers slide back over me and then into me working his finger and the jelly into my vagina. He did that for several minutes, my eyes still closed I could hear him breathing heavily now and moaning. I was still crying and whimpering and it wasn’t getting any better cause now I had realized what was coming. He leaned down and kissed my breasts and then sucked, he always told me I’d be grateful when I was older and had big tits that he’d sucked them, he said sucking them made them bigger. Then I heard him getting undressed and started to sob in earnest now terrified, his finger hurt me how would that part of him I hated so much fit. I knew that when you were older it fit because babies were made that way, and then there was that would this make a baby and what then and oh god I was so scared and some one please please help me please save me please please I’ll do anything just help me. Over and over again in my head sobbing hard and choking on tears I could hardly breathe, just short harsh bursts, heart was slamming against my chest and I waited for it to clench and started wishing for it. Laid there cold and naked and wished for death, 8 years old and I wanted my heart to explode in my chest, wanted the only option left to me to escape what was coming, wanted death. But like the pleas for help the pleas for death went unanswered. Then he was between my little legs pushing them farther apart could feel his big ugly body against mine. Then he was trying to pry my vagina apart to fit his prick inside me. At this first sure indication of what was going to happen I finally went mercifully numb and silent. The tears still came but I wasn’t whimpering any more or sobbing. Felt calm detachment as I felt him poking at me and his grunts of frustration. Then there it was he’d finally managed to get himself part way inside, he kept pushing and pushing and swearing. Then I felt this burning pain and wetness as I tore open, he still couldn’t get in pass the head. Swore pulled back and saw the blood and then went into a rage. “Little *****! ****ing whore! Blood! Too god damn small you little ****!” And began to hit me, as I was still tied up couldn’t roll protectively into a ball arms covering my head when he went into a punching fit. Every blow was like a hammer though careful not to punch my face, side of the head yes face no. Finally he sat back and climbed to straddle my chest and stick his prick into my mouth and within seconds had ejaculated. Finished he untied me and told me to get cleaned up, as I was leaving he grabbed me by my throat slammed me against wall and said if I ever told anyone about this he would kill me....blah blah blah....same as he always said. Then threw me against the other wall, I slid down into a crumpled heap and just laid there panting trying to breath before staggering to my feet and gathering my clothes and walking to the bathroom. Ran yet another bath and while it was filling tried to assess the damage and knew that this time the damage was worse. My ribs hurt and was hard to breath, my head was spinning and the room kept swimming in and out of focus. I hurt between my legs I didn’t know what had happened but him punching me there hadn’t helped, it burnt and blood was trickling down my legs. I was terrified about the blood what was I to do how do you stop blood from there? But before I could do anything I was hunched over the toilet again vomiting his sperm out of my body as fast as I could. Then I was curled on the bathroom floor arms and legs trembling and giant harsh sobs shaking my body. Stayed that way until the water over flowing the bathtub reached my hair. Sat up turned the taps off and used the water on the floor to wash the blood puddled in the shape of my fetal body. Let some of the water out and climbed in. Laid all the way down until my head was underwater all I could hear was my heart beating and wondered if I could drown myself. Laid there until the water was stone cold and then washed up. Wasn’t bleeding from between my legs any more than a dab on toilet paper and my underwear but it hurt a lot. Looked in the mirror and searched my face and eyes, trying to find something to make me care and couldn’t. Found a glimmer of resentment at Lynnie, this was all her fault. If she had just listened and not come over this would never have happened. And knew that everything had changed because she had come to stay. Tried to find something to say to myself but in the end couldn’t stand to look myself in the eye and shut the light off and went to bed curled on my side and numb with pain, anger, and hate. 12/1/2003, 7:45 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga maraga Registered user Global user Registered: 09-2003 Posts: 94 Karma: 1 (+1/-0) Reply | Quote Re: The Silent Struggle.......mature subject matter The summer continued as it had begun with running and hiding attempts every day and with catching and punishing following my attempts. Allen never tried again to rape me but everything else was now fair game, not that it hadn’t always been before, but now he never hesitated to try anything with me, and he did. He even tried to pay me to make me co-operate which I flushed down the toilet, I guess he was getting tired of the running and hiding I did. I was getting tired of it too and was counting the days until my parents return. Allen was being sent back to Tehran to boarding school again, which meant freedom for me, at least freedom from him. For once luck was on my side and my parents came home early and that was the end of my brother’s daily abuse of me, though he still came for me in the night again until he went to boarding school. And it was only a few months back in school when he ran into trouble with the law and was shipped back to Canada, and I was free from him until I was 12, when he decided he should pick up where he had left off. Mom and Dad divorced when I was 10, and Mom got custody of Paul and I, and we came back to Canada when I was 11. The summer following our return I went to spend with my Father and sisters in Chilliwack, and my 16 year old sister Rosanna introduced me to drugs and drinking and I took up smoking again. She ran with a wild bunch and I ran right along with her getting into the sort of trouble that could land a 12 year old in juvey if we were ever caught by the cops. One night while drinking and playing truth or dare I managed to accumulate a great many hickeys over my neck and chest. We slept on the back deck of someone’s house in sleeping bags and I shared one with the guy I had a huge crush on and we did a great deal of kissing. He had decided he was going to give me a kiss for every star in the sky, I was 12 and thought it very romantic, even when he kissed too hard and we both chipped a front tooth.   Well the next day at home and hung over I went upstairs to take a shower when Allen grabbed me and dragged me into Dad’s room. I hadn’t even known he was in town or even in the house. I was in shock, I had seen him briefly when we came back but not alone or even to talk to, which I was fine with. He slapped me and started calling me a slut and a whore, and I just stood there, stunned. He started talking about hickeys and my kissing some boy, shouting all this through clenched teeth and in between slapping me. Obviously he had been watching, spying, on me last night and was furious. He pushed me away finally and ordered me to show him my breasts to show him the hickeys. Many things had happened since that last summer, and one of them was that I had learned to obey. But I still hesitated and asked if that was all he wanted. He said yes and I lifted my shirt and was just showing him when I suddenly realized that this was the beginning. While a great many had come during and after him to molest and rape me, he would always be the one who had tortured me, always be the one who had taught me to be silent, the one who had proved again and again that no one would ever believe me, that I could fight all I wanted but in the end he always got what he wanted, he would always be the one who had made me someone predators recognized as prey, and he was the one I hated above all others. I looked at him looking at my breasts which had grown a great deal since he had last molested me and saw that he wouldn’t stop that it would go on forever that he would rape me and finish what he started that day of punishment all those years ago. I had been free of him for too many years to ever go back to waiting endless nights for dawn to come. Been free too long of the silent struggles to ever go back to that. So I did something I never did before I opened my mouth and screamed, it was a soft harsh sound barely even making any noise at all, but he looked startled and wary. So I did it again and started screaming for my sister Jessica, it still never got above a shout but it was loud enough. Allen ran down the stairs and out of the house. I found out later that Jessica wasn’t even home but it didn’t matter. My sister Rosanna took me to the police and we reported him, but nothing ever happened, and my family never talked about it, and I became the black sheep. He never tried anything again and all it had taken was one small soft scream to stop the silent struggles. 12/8/2003, 11:03 pm Send Email to maraga   Send PM to maraga Add a reply Powered by AkBBS 0.9.5b  -  Link to us   -  Blogs   -  Hall of Honour   -  Chat Click here to get your own free message board You are not logged in (login)      Board's time is: 11/25/2009, 12:49 pm