I hear the lock rattle and know he is coming to feed me.
I am very hungry
today. I can’t remember the last time
I ate.
I ’m not sure how long I
have been in this room. I tell
myself I
should start counting days because when I am rescued I
will
need to be able to know how long I have been in this room. I
have no way of
keeping track of the days. The handcuffs
are making my
wrists raw and
make it hard
to use my
hands. I have nothing
to write on or with. He always brings
me a soda, so I think
maybe if I can save the paper on the
straw, then I can
count the days by how many straw papers I
have, but he always
takes the trash
from me and puts on
the cuffs and there is no time for paper straw saving.
I try to
keep track of the days by how many times the sun sets, but
I fall asleep so
easily and sometimes when I wake it is
dark
already. I can see a
little light coming through
the window
but not much. I t
is either very
early or the
sun is setting.
When the sun is up and the wind blows, the shadow on the
towel that is hanging over the window
looks like a person
hanging from it.
I have nicknamed
this tree “hangman’s
tree.” One time curiosity got the better of me and I struggled
to get up
with the handcuffs
and finally got to
my feet.
I
wanted to see
what was hanging
outside the window.
I
grabbed a corner of
towel with my teeth and wiggled
and
maneuvered until
I could see out of
the window as best I
could. There was nothing but a medium-sized tree outside
the window, nothing
hanging from it
but its large
gangly
branches and thick, full-size leaves. I am relieved to see just
the tree; I don’t
know if I can stand any more
strangeness.
It’s a very strange feeling to not go to school every day. I
sometimes miss the routine I
used to have, and sometimes
it’s nice to not have to get up and go to school, too. But
I am
so bored. There is
nothing to do in
this place. I make up
stories in my head
a lot.
I have made up one about a boy
that has come from the stars. He flies around the world and
when he hears
a child crying
he always come
to
investigate. I
imagine that one day this Star Boy hears me
crying because I cry every single day. He thinks my cries
are especially heart wrenching, and so he combs the earth
in search of me. When he finds me he is able to open the
window of my prison and I
take his hand and he flies me all
around the world. But in the end he always returns me to my
prison. I wonder why
this is so.
I can hear my
captor’s hollow footsteps coming from the
room beyond. He enters
the door and has a milkshake in
his hand. At
first I smile at him and want him to
think I am
doing well. For some reason I think it is important for me to
be happy around him. He comes in and crouches down and
he says today will be a little different. He says I can have the
milkshake and something
to eat after we are done. Done
with what? All of a sudden I
am not hungry anymore. I have
this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I want him to go
away. I want to go
away. I tell him I am not hungry. I just want
to go home. He puts
the milkshake on a shelf and bends
down. He says to
take off my towel
and lay back
on the
pallet. He takes off the cuffs and relocks them in front of
me
instead of behind my back. He then sits down next to me
and explains what he
is going to do. He stands back up
and takes off all his clothes. I do not want him to do that. I
start to cry. He takes my handcuffed hands and holds them
over my head. I feel
so helpless and vulnerable. I
feel so
alone. He lies
on top of me. He is so
heavy. I can’t
stop
crying. He said he’d
be quick and it
would be
better if I
didn’t struggle because
then he wouldn’t
have to get
aggressive. I don’t
understand any of
this. He forces my
legs open and
inserts the hard
thing between his
legs in
me. I t feels
like I am being
stretched apart. I feel
like it’s
going to come out of
my belly. I am so small and he is so
big. Why is he
doing this? Is
this normal? I
try to scoot
away. I try
to close my legs. He just
takes hold of my legs
and shoves them further apart. He is too heavy and strong
for me. He keeps my hands above my head. I try to think of
anything but what
is happening to
me. Look anywhere
except his face. I
can feel the
tears on my cheeks. He is
making strange noises and grunting and sweating all over
me. I can’t
breathe he is
so heavy. All of
a sudden he
makes a giant grunt and puts even more of his weight on
me as he collapses.
I cannot do anything. I
cannot move.
He finally moves and asks if I ’m okay. He says it would be
easier on me if I didn’t
resist or struggle so much next time.
He says it wouldn’t
hurt as much. I
think to myself, I f
you
didn’t do it in the first place then it wouldn’t hurt at
all. But I
am too frightened by his act to say a
thing in objection to
him. In my mind I am
screaming NO I AM NOT OKAY …
GET OFF OF ME! Why are you doing this? What does it
mean? He said it was all over now and he gets up and says
he’s going to
go get something
to clean me
up. I am
bleeding “down there.”
I am so
scared. Am I dying? Why
am I bleeding?
He says it’s
okay—he just “popped
my
cherry.” I don’t know
what he meant. He leaves and comes
back with a
bucket of warm
water and a
washcloth. He
takes the cuffs off
and says he will go into the next
room
and give me some
privacy to bathe. I wash
up and wrap
myself in the
clean towel and
then sit back
down on the
pallet on the floor. Milkshake all but forgotten.
Reflection
I had to stay in the
same place I ’d just been raped in. I
didn’t know at the time that is what it was called; the word
“rape” was not in my vocabulary. Today that makes me feel
terrible for that little naïve girl. She is still a part of
me and at
times she comes
out and makes
me feel small and
helpless once again. At times I feel like I ’m still eleven years
old. But something inside that frightened little girl made
her
a survivor and she has made me the person
I am today.
That rape turned
out to be
the first of
many frequent
encounters. I don’t
remember if he
came in every
day to
have sex with me; all I
know is it happened more times than
I can count. Each
time it happened I learned to “go away”
in
my mind until he was
finished. I would make up stories in
my head to pass the time. I t was easy for me in those early
days to escape into my dream world because I had always
been a dreamer and had my head in the clouds a lot. I used
to lose all track of time and it helped to keep me from
going
crazy.
Knowing my kidnapper’s
name was not
something I
wanted to know.
I remember thinking
that I did
not want
know his name because
I had heard that once
you know
their name, they can never let you go. During the first week
or so I did learn
that my kidnapper’s first name was Phillip. I
don’t remember how
I knew; it wasn’t
like he introduced
himself. He revealed it subtly without me realizing it.
I can’t believe
how much I
came to rely
on him for
everything. I
remember the heat was getting really bad and I
was so thankful
to him when
he finally installed
an air-
conditioning
unit. I t seemed
he had an
answer for
everything. Phillip
seemed like a nice guy when he wasn’t
using me for sex. I
even started enjoying his company. I
was
naïve and desperately lonely. I was locked in a room all by
myself for days on end, and he was my only contact with the
outside world. All I
could do was survive and endure …
Hours later as
I lay staring
at the ceiling,
I notice the
forgotten milkshake has enticed the ants
to come. I regret
not drinking it because now I am so hungry my stomach is
growling at me. There is a long trail of ants that leads
from
the window to the milkshake. Some have ventured further
and now I
think they are
starting to explore me. Maybe I
smell so bad it is attracting them. I don’t know how long it’s
been since I had a
shower. I haven’t had one since that
first
day when he had me get in the shower with him. Since then,
the only cleanup I’ve had is with a bucket of water. The
ants
make my skin
itch even worse
than my unclean
body
already does and
sometimes they get in
my mouth and
leave a spicy
flavor behind. The
cuffs make it
near
impossible to scratch and flick them away. I wish I
could get
in a nice hot bath and just soak all the grime away.
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