I nod my head so hard that my teeth clank together in pain.
The blade leaves, and his warm hands yank my underwear off as if this isn't the first time he has taken someone's underage daughter.Who was before me?Rough hands replace the knife under my nightshirt.Who was the first? How old was she?They roam over my skin, leaving a burning sensation in their wake. He claims everything and leaves nothing untouched. His weight smothers me. I'm drowning.
Pain lances through my body as my mind jumps forward through the worst memory of my life. This man stole my body, taking the last of me, leaching my soul with each taste and painful thrust. It doesn’t take him long to finish, and he leaves me with my bloody split lip and blood-soaked sheets when he does. The clock reads 2:22 am. It only took seven minutes to ruin my soul.
My mom is dead.
My mom is dead.
My mom is dead.
Every time my mind repeats that line, I’m closer to being back in that tiny dark room that smells of stale cigarettes, cheap booze, and cat piss with an undercurrent of mildew. Ironically we never owned any cats. The carpet is stiffened and sticks to my hands as I hide under a pile of dirty clothes in my closet, seemingly still safer than being outside the shitty apartment my mom rents with her new summer boyfriend.
This time, I’m seventeen. Old Greg has stuck around a little longer than usual. I guess he prefers younger meat to sink his teeth into weekly.
His footsteps come closer. He circles my bed like a vulture. My threadbare blanket allows my left eye access to see him pace my room. And I watch even though I wish I could close my eyes. My heart clobbers against my ribs haphazardly as blood pummels throughout my veins. I swear he can hear it. My sweaty hands grip the hem of my denim dress, threatening to rip the already thin material.
“Where are you, you little cunt? I know you’re here. I saw your backpack on the couch. You can’t hide,” he sneers at me.
His narrowed dark brown eyes scan the room, relentlessly seeking me. Dirty blonde hair hangs in greasy strands down to his ears. Old Greg must be off work because his bloody butcher uniform is nowhere in sight. Finally, he rips my thin blanket off my bed, throwing it to the floor. I inch my feet closer to my bottom and close the distance between my chest and knees, squeezing as hard as possible to keep my shaking to a minimum.
The new forty-something-year-old sleaze-ball that thinks it’s fun to make a seventeen-year-old girl call him daddy, as he steals more of her innocence, has come back for more.
He ducks down to look under my bed. The dirtiest part of my room is the closet. As if taking notice of this fact, his bloodshot bleary eyes shoot to my hiding position—the nostrils of his hooked nose flare.
He stumbles to his feet, roaring, “I found you, you little bitch. I’m going to make you pay for wasting my time.”
Mom is gone, working another shift at the gas station tonight. The men she dated were all the same. They all wanted the same things from me and took it the same way.
Frozen in place, I don’t move until his hand has my hair in a knot, dragging me towards the bed. Screaming and fighting, I don’t go down as quickly as I usually do.
He punches me in my face hard, almost knocking my teeth loose. Blood pools in my mouth and down my chin. Before I can catch my breath from the impact of the blow, he punches me again, this time in my stomach. I fall back onto the bed. Old Greg’s hands are taking off his belt, and fury burns through my body like an exploded nuclear warhead.
Never-ending nights of waking in terror dripped off me, leaving puddles in my wake for so long. Finally, my mind catapults, ricocheting inside my head, and the realization that I’ve been a victim far too long hits me. My soul is worn to nothing due to these culminating moments.
My stolen innocence counts for something. My body is my own, and I will use it to my power, not some man. Only existing to be a male’s pleasure is not living. I’m missing a key component, though. Because the real question is, why are men allowed to take such things in the first place? I will never again let a man control my body. I can’t keep being taken advantage of in every aspect of my life.
The scream that erupts from me cracks like lightning, never hitting the same place twice as it bounces around my cramped pain bound room.
“NOOOO!”
His eyes register shock for the first time. I grab the pink porcelain lamp next to my clock on my rickety cork table nightstand with the yellow table cloth, gripping it hard in my hands before crashing it down on his face.
Blood spurts from a large gash in my hand, matching the bloody gash on his forehead. He stumbles back, falling to the matted carpet near my bedroom door.
“You will never touch me again. You will leave and never come back here. I will KILL you, motherfucker!” I shout, my voice growing hoarse.
Old Greg doesn’t question me. Instead, blood trickles in a thick stream down his face and onto his shirt. He idly wipes it away before getting to his feet.
“If you don’t go, I will tell everyone what you’ve been doing to me for months. I will RUIN you.”
“This isn’t finished, girl.” He turns and exits my room, leaving bloody prints and smears in his wake.
The power that coursed through my veins filled me with a renewed purpose. I would take as I pleased. I would rid the world of men like Jerry and Old Greg. That night, with just some crushed sleeping pills and opium mixed into his alcohol, I made sure Old Greg would never touch me or any other girl again. After I finished him off at his place I packed my bags and left, never returning. If Mom was gone, then I was gone too.
I shake my head hard, trying to shake away the memories as tears continue to rage a war down my cheeks.
My mom is dead.