He just touched me first. It was light enough to be an accident, his control of movement tenuous most days, his apology immediate. My crippled neighbour, ruined by a long dive on a short beach. My mother told me to help out, to be a “good Christian girl” and help him out.
That summer he jammed his tongue past my lips, swirling into my mouth, carrying a ripe cherry. He had an entire drawer full, knowing I loved them. The kissing would turn to touching. I thought I was helping, sorta, but had to force myself to return each day. My mother wouldn’t let me stay home. One day a friend of his was there with a camera. They told me where to take the straps off, how to stand. A little while later, the pictures were in that house. How they came to be developed in a small town I’ll never know. I thought someone would stop it then. But no.
He’d bribe me with things. I don’t remember being warned explicitly not to tell, but the threat was there. That sense of “who would believe you?” He was right. Who would believe that the town cripple, a near paraplegic, was molesting a 7 year old girl?
I have half memories I don’t think of much. Condoms. My nipples in his mouth, my small body on top of him. I don’t care to ever know exactly what happened. I’d prefer not to. I know it was nothing good that summer.
I never told. My mother was sick, on her way to dying, my father busy. Besides, she had spent her time warning me about strangers, not neighbours, not friends. Not the people who smiled at us, spoke warmly about the weather. Not the people our parent’s make us write stories about, telling other’s how we care for them. Stories we win prizes with as our stomachs churn.
Through sheer force of will I refused to go near him ever again. Years later, he approached me, and I flamed and flailed but found myself mute. So angry, but unwilling to say the words. To say to him what I had thought for years after. “I couldn’t say no. And you said yes for me.”
I know mothers-a great many mothers, who tell me this world is too scary for them, that they must keep their kids close lest the big bad scary pedophile grabs their kid from the backyard, or someone kidnaps and murders their child. So 10 year olds are driven everywhere. No one allowed to play in their fenced in backyard.
But, they’re forced to be nice to everyone-hugging people when they don’t want to, talking to any and all strangers when their parents tell them to. I find it odd that the one place kids have the same freedoms many of us grew up in are the poorer neighbourhood. That’s where I find children running and screaming and smiling and playing as they should. Everywhere else people have too much money to let children be.
I understand the drive to protect your children-my mother had it too. She gave me books and talks about not talking to strangers, and where my private places were. She kept me locked in to the house and backyard most days. She was paranoid about other people’s parents. But she refused to see, or was unable to see, that the bad thing was right next to us.
I teach my daughters they do not have to hug or kiss or touch people if they don’t want to. Including close family. Does my sister in law find this rude? Yup. Do I care? No.
My daughters are learning the one thing my mother was unable to teach me. Autonomy over their bodies. They are learning how to say no now. They aren’t learning that adults rule over them. They can say “No, I don’t want to touch you.” And no one gets angry. They are learning that bad people can be anywhere. They are learning that the moment someone says “You can’t/shouldn’t tell Mommy or Daddy”, they should come straight to us. They are learning to trust that we will believe them.
I don’t blame my parents. But I wish I could have been given the tools to trust myself, and the ability to go home, and say “Something is wrong”. So for now, we talk about it, we practice, and we hope.
And I count my blessings that we aren’t close to any of our neighbours.
–Submitted by Thoradora of Spin Me I Pulsate
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