EMPTY CHAIRS
by STACEY DANSON
Chapter One…
The sexual abuse began I think around three years of age … maybe four.
It began at first with fondling. An adult, usually my mother, would take my hand and place it on the male’s cock.
Not one man—there were many men. It was a game at first. A game that caused my mother to smile and give me hugs of approval.
Whatever male it happened to be at the time sure seemed happy about that game, so did mommy.
I had no idea what it was, or why I was doing it.
At that age, making my mommy smile was all that mattered.
Mommy didn’t smile at me or hug me much up until then; she liked to hit me with a strap and yell a lot of the time. Making her happy was imperative. If it meant that I had to wrap my small hands around a mans cock, and squeeze it up and down, then that is exactly what I would do. I still retch at the smell of cum.
I don’t recall when it was that I started to hate the game.
I do know that the first time they put a man’s cock in my mouth it made me gag, and I started to cry.
I had to be punished for that. Mommy and the man took it in turns to hit me. I was screaming, and begging them to please stop.
They thought that was funny and started laughing and making funny sounds, like a pig does when it squeals.
They dragged me to a small room in the back of the house where boxes and old things were stored.
No light came in to that room. It was smelly and dark. I could hear things scuttling around, but that didn’t frighten me. I remember feeling a little better knowing that some other live thing was in there with me.
The darkness and the lack of air to breathe caused fear. My heart was already pounding from the terror of the beating, and now I gasped for air, not recognizing or understanding that this was the beginning of a lifetime of battling claustrophobia.
It seemed to me that this crying stuff was not such a good thing to do. I decided it would be better for me if I didn’t cry at all. Ever. I threw up all over myself. I remember that my back was sore and sticky; the singlet I had on was stuck to it.
I wasn’t wearing anything else.
I was unable to keep standing. My back hurt, and my small legs shook so badly I could no longer stay upright. I crawled across to the door and lay with my mouth as close to the crack of light at the base of the door as I could get. I drew in huge breaths of the air filtering in underneath.
I don’t know which of the adults present heard me gasping, but very quickly something was placed on the other side of the door to block out the light and the air.
I began to hum to myself so I wasn’t so alone. M.I.C.K.E.Y…M.O.U.S.E.
I find that I am writing this as if I were still four years old … forgive me, but I am writing what I remember and how I felt right at that moment. It is coming out this way. This is the way I will have to write it.
I have no idea how long I was kept in the dark place. It seemed to me that I slept and woke up a few times. I used a piece of paper to shit on. I was hungry and so thirsty. I started to feel sick again and vomited some more, but I had stopped wetting myself. I kept getting thirstier and my stomach began to cramp up. I just wanted to go to sleep and stay asleep.
Nothing could hurt me when I was sleeping.
When she came to get me out I was so–so grateful … she hugged me and told me that she would bathe me because I smelled bad.
If I was a good girl, I could have some lemonade and something to eat. I tried to drink all the lemonade at once and threw up again.
I waited for the slap.
She laughed instead, told me I was a silly-billy and to have small mouthfuls until my naughty tummy settled down.
She explained to me that I didn’t have to have that happen again as long as I did what the men wanted me to do. I recall saying that I would do anything I was told, “Please, mommy … can I not go back … in the dark place?” She smiled at me, and said, “Well—we shall just see how good you can be.”
Hey, I was bright. If she smiled and hugged me and called me silly-billy in her happy voice … well; sure I would do anything, anything at all.
She had to bathe me with my singlet on, as it had stuck fast to my back with dried blood. I wanted to cry when she finally peeled it off. I didn’t. There was no way I was going back in the dark place again.
I don’t want to remember a lot of what happened—but I do remember. I knew that writing it and taking myself back over the abuse would be difficult. I hadn’t counted on the panic or the flashbacks. I keep taking breaks outside, sitting in the cool night air and forcing myself to breathe deeply.
I must do this. I made a promise to someone that I would someday. Someday just got here a little later than I thought it would. I cannot distance my memories and reflect back unemotionally, because it was me … me feeling it; me living through and beyond it.
The area in which we lived was an inner suburb of Sydney, only five minutes by bus from the shining harbor. I never saw the harbor or the city until I was almost twelve years old. I never once spoke to the neighbours on either side of the house. They ignored the screams, nobody ever came to check on what was going on. They didn’t want to get involved. Nobody wanted to hear the sound of a small child begging for help.
I had never had a playmate or another child’s company.
When I wasn’t busy making mommy’s friends happy, I would sleep or watch the television. I had no idea how to read, or indeed what reading was. She had made no mention of me learning to write my name or write anything at all.
I was not permitted to go outside the house. If I did, it was to hurry to the corner shop and get mommy more cigarettes.
I was not permitted to speak to anyone; she always gave me a note and exact change.
I remember the fat little lady that worked in the shop would sometimes ask me how I was. I never answered; she believed that I was deaf or mute or both.
What I was … was afraid.
I was five when my mother decided I was old enough to have my virginity taken. I was told that I must not cry. I must not scream. I must not struggle.
She had only been waiting, saving my hymen to see just how high a price she could get for the privilege of breaking it. The privilege of raping a five year old.
I had by then found a safe place inside my mind, a box that only I had access too. Whenever I was inside it, I was safe … it was large and clean … with air that didn’t smell. It was here I retreated, when the need to cry overwhelmed me.
The loss of my virginity was painful; I felt as if my insides where being torn apart. My Mother held my arms above my head, and placed something that tasted vile inside my mouth. I went to my safe place … but I could still hear the man grunting, grunting like a fat old pig. The pain was worse than any beating I had had up to that point
My safe place was not enough that time. I heard myself screaming. Then I blacked out.
When I awoke, it was dark. I could move my arms as long as I did it slowly. Someone had placed a old piece of towel between my legs, to try and stem the bleeding.
I lay there for a long time, wishing and hoping that I could just go to sleep and stay asleep, and never ever wake up again.
Wishing doesn’t make it happen. I was learning and learning fast that hope was not an option.
She came in after a long while with some ice in a bag and placed it between my legs; she took the towel and looked at it to see how bad the bleeding was. The towel was replaced. She didn’t speak.
She returned with a tray of food and a pot of tea. She also had a small glass of something cold, which she told me I must drink, as it would make me sleep. It tasted dreadful, but if it was going to make me sleep, I drank it. I’m not certain, but I think it was a glass full of whisky. She soon got in the habit of giving me a glass or two whenever I had to service the men; it made me more amenable to whatever they wanted me to do.
Television was my only contact with the world beyond that place; I would watch it and take care to remember the way things happened. I watched shows like ‘Leave it to Beaver’, ‘Rin-Tin-Tin’, ‘Superman’, and my favorite ‘The Andy Griffith show’.
These television programs showed me a different world. I began to get the distinct impression that my life was not normal. It appeared to my five-year-old self that not every kid on the planet lived like I did.
She had no intention of me ever going to school. I had only heard about school from watching television, all those kids went to school.
All those kids laughed. All the kids came home and had cookies and milk. That seemed like a simple idea to me. I never saw Beaver Cleaver take a beating.
I asked her when I could go to this school place. I remember seeing something like panic on her face for the first time. She screamed at me and hit me hard in the face, “You stupid little bitch! Who have you been talking to?” She hit me again before I could answer and split my lip open. She was in one of her rages and wouldn’t stop. She kept at it until I fell and then took to me with the strap. I lost track of time. I have no idea how long I was unconscious. I think that perhaps several days passed. I have vague memories of opening my eyes and smelling the stench of my own shit.
When I came around, I began vomiting. She was sitting on a stool next to the bed. I was lying in her bed. There was a man sitting on the side of the bed; he took my temperature. He opened my eyes and flashed a little light in them. He looked familiar; I think he was one of the men who liked me to make them cum in my mouth.
He spoke to her as if he was angry “You got lucky this time. She will be okay, but don’t hit her around the head like that again. Do you understand me?” I had never ever heard anyone raise their voice like that to her. I lay there fascinated and waited for her to hit him.
She began to cry.
That was the moment that I began learning how to hate.
As with everything I had learned up to this point, I learned it well.
She sniveled and whined like a dog. The man looked at me and kind of smiled. I looked back at him, and did nothing.
I never called her mother again by choice. I began to call her the name some of the men called her, “Gwen.” The first time I spoke to her at all was a couple of days later. She was kind of edgy and not screaming as much as usual. I said, “Gwen, when can I go to school?”
“What did you call me?”
I said, “Gwen.” I couldn’t put a name to what I felt … not then. I now recognize it as the day I began to fight back.
Not much … but it was a beginning.
Gwen spoke to me rarely. When she did it was to issue instructions on what she expected of me, depending on the desires of the paying clients. If I failed to give satisfaction, I was beaten. No mention was ever made again of me being able to attend school.
The man who had been there when I was ill returned. This time he came as a paying client, I thought I had remembered his face. He was a family doctor. He was also a paedophile.
He spoke to me differently, as if he was not happy about what he was doing but had to do it anyhow. He asked if she had beaten me again. I refused to answer. It didn’t occur to me he may assume she had by my lack of response. He asked if I had good food to eat, all I could say was, “I’m not supposed to talk to you. Gwen said just to let you cum in my mouth, or fuck me … if you paid extra. No talking.”
He looked sad, and he said, “I’ll try and help you if I can.”
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Help me? What did he mean help me? Help me do what? After he returned to the bar area I heard Gwen’s voice, she was riled up and screeching. I was unable to understand what was being said.
My stomach lurched when the front door slammed–a clear sign she was not happy.
She came into the bathroom where I was cleaning the cum off myself. She grabbed my hair and dragged me out backwards, screaming as she slammed me up against the walls of the narrow corridor. “What did you say? What did you say, cunt? Tell me. Tell me now!”
I made myself go limp, saying nothing. I couldn’t have spoken anyway, my face hurt–it was bleeding badly. I could feel the damn tears … shit! No, I mustn’t cry. If I cried it meant the dark room … I mustn’t cry.
Too late, and the tears wouldn’t have changed a thing. The best I could do was stay limp, I knew to struggle would bring more rage. By going limp, I had learned that the beatings didn’t hurt so badly; plus it made it harder for her to drag me.
I was learning that if I slowed my breathing right down so that I was hardly breathing at all–the shaking would stop. I was busy scrambling in my brain, trying to find ways of stopping her. Trying to think of ways to make her happy again, so the beatings would slow down.
My almost six-year-old mind had not yet learned to understand, there was no way.
I had also begun to think that one day, someday, I would find somewhere to hide. Somewhere safe and not full of pain.
The bruising from this beating was still very visible, and painful enough that I couldn’t perform oral sex for over a week. Gwen was furious, constantly screaming at me that I was faking and costing her money. After one of these tirades the thought struck me, if I could handle the beatings, I didn’t have to perform. However, if I didn’t perform, I would be of no use to her at all.
I believed then and still believe that she would have found a way to dispose of me … if I stopped earning her big money.
Thank you Stacey – I stand behind you, I walk with you, I will not be silent!
1 comments:
Wow. I am speechless
No words
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