I had felt dirty, disgusted in the way my body had been used. I had scrubbed vigorously at my skin, trying my damnedest to wash away the scent and feel of him upon me. I couldn’t endure even the slight chance a molecule of his being on my flesh.
I begged the floor to open up and swallow me whole; there was no way I could go through that again without wanting to be non-existent in this world. I wanted to take my mother’s way out. The cowards way, because I wasn’t prepared to live a life of this kind of abuse.
Let’s move on shall we; age fourteen, my father was away at ‘work’ for the evening, so I had my best friend stay over. Sorry correction, my ONLY friend. For some reason no-one had ever questioned why I was constantly at home alone, why nobody ever picked me up from school or attended my parent-teacher meetings, why I did everything without parental supervision, but I was glad he wasn’t there; we were safer alone, I would be safer.
How wrong could I have actually been?
Lying in bed sleeping with Melissa, Top and Tailing in the bed like all girls did at sleepovers, I heard the door creak open. I had come accustomed to the sound on weekly, sometimes nightly bases, my father entering my room, the bright light from hallway filtering in, casting a shadow of the beast.
My bed dipped and my covers were pulled off. His hand clamped down hard onto my tiny mouth, my nightdress and knickers ripped from my still body. I learnt not to struggle, it only made it worse. I learnt to lie there and just take what he would give, because then he would leave. Before I could even count to five, his adult body had pushed me into the mattress as he had forced himself into me. I winced at the excruciating pain, the searing hot agonising pinch causing me to jolt.
Melissa was sound asleep next to me, not one movement from her. She had her feet by my head.
I stayed calm and quiet the entire time, hoping he would leave before she woke up. I prayed to God that this would be quick for me and that Melissa didn’t open her eyes.
Once again I couldn’t have been more wrong. If there was a God out there why was he letting this happen, why had he let it happen so many times?
Before he finished in me, Melissa had woken up, the repeated movements on the bed obviously disturbing her. She had sat her even tinier frame up and glanced towards the full grown man a top me, thrusting inside me. I wouldn’t let her see the silent tears as they left my aching eyes, to see me pleading for help.
“Abbi, what’s going on? Why is your dad in bed?” her innocent little voice sounded in my room above the grunts and groans of my dad. His head quickly snapped her way, a cruel smile lacing his lips.
Fuck! Surly he wouldn’t.
“It’s okay Melissa, just go back to sleep. He’s just saying goodnight.” I lied to her, trying to reassure her and get her settled again, I couldn’t let her be destroyed by him as well.
She clearly wasn’t as stupid and naive as she had been making out, because she jumped from the bed and began trying to pull my father from my numb and still body.
“GET OFF OF HER. YOU’RE HURTING HER YOU HORRIBLE MAN!” she screamed at my dad, clearly panicking. Her voice saying exactly what her brain was thinking.
My father had climbed off of me, tossing me from the bed to the floor in a crumpled pile, agonising pain rippling my back and arm.
‘Stupid fucking bitch. This is your fault Abbi. She can blame you for this.’ I heard him say through my foggy senses.
Through my blurry vision I saw him stride towards a shaking Melissa, grabbing her around her throat and pushing her onto the bed.
Oh Jesus no, please God do something. I tried to get myself up to help her. I needed to stop him, she didn’t deserve this. I did, I deserved everything I got, for the love of God I did, I killed my mother, but Melissa, she was innocent in all of this.
My arms wouldn’t allow me to move the pain to bad; my body was in shock, unable to prevent this awful thing from happening before my eyes. She was innocent and he was going to destroy that entirely, this was my fault, I brought her here, I brought her somewhere I knew my dad could come back to.
He ripped at her knickers, her tiny body kicking and punching out “Stop moving you little bitch or it will hurt more. Now open those legs and let me in.” the sick son of a bitch rammed into her virgin Vagina full pelt, a scream so loud and piercing I still remember hearing it now. When I close my eyes I see her eyes pleading me to help, I hear her cries and torturous screams, and I see the tears streaming her face. Then I remember her eyes rolling back and her body becoming limp, her unconscious frame lying still on the sheets as my father continued to molest her.
“GET OFF HER!” I screamed at my father, smacking, punching and kicking him everywhere I can. “JUST TAKE ME, LEAVE HER ALONE!” I try to bargain with the crazy man, anything to stop him hurting Melissa, my fourteen year old body relentlessly attacking him. My arm and back ached from the impact of the floor but it didn’t stop me as I attacked him with everything I possessed.
“I want her, your cunt’s used. Now shut the fuck up while I fuck your friend here. Look she loves it. She’s passed out in ecstasy. Look in those eyes she wants Me.” he thrusts into her repeatedly.
I pick the first thing I can and smack him with it hard. Hoping my effort wouldn’t be lost and he would get off of her.
I hear a growl as my father turns his head to me, still pounding ruthlessly at Melissa’s still body. My innocent and only friend.
I see him tense and hear his grunts as he finishes with her. He climbs from her body and across the room to me. I was trembling and frightened beyond belief as his fist connected with my face. I had no time to acknowledge the blow coming towards me. “YOU STUPID FUCKING WHORE. THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” he bellowed at me and then I felt myself falling, the darkness surrounding me.
Waking up early the next morning, I turned to see my trembling friend, her body vigorously shaking as cries erupted from her mouth at her acknowledgment and memory of what she had endured at the hands of him.
I got up as quickly as my aching body would allow. A horrendous pain in my stomach; a clear indication my father had kicked me when he walked out.
I get to Melissa’s side and cradle her in my little arms, her naked body floppy and motionless, the only noise coming from her were her now faint sobs “I’m so sorry Mel, I’m so sorry.” All I could do at that point was cry, sob with her for her lost innocence, and cry at the brutality of what my father had done.
Enough was enough, I decided then and there. It was one thing to do it to me, but to my friend. I could understand his hatred of me after my mother’s suicide but Melissa had done nothing other than try and protect me.
Getting her phone from her night bag I called 999. My body shaking and trembling.
‘Emergency services, which service.’
Which service did I need? I didn’t know.
‘I…I…I don’t know. My dad, he, he hurt me and my friend. Were stuck in my room.’
‘Okay, I’m sending someone over, what’s your name?’
the older women’s voice cranks through the phone shaking vigorously in my hand.
‘I’m, I’m Abbi, and my friend is Melissa, please hurry I think she is hurt bad. She’s not talking, she just keeps crying.’
‘Ok, just stay calm sweetie, can you tell me what happened?’
‘He came in last night,’ I hear a bang bang bang of the stairs as my father heavy booted feet run the length of them. My door crashes into the wall as it is thrown open.
I drop the phone on the floor still on the line.
He stalks towards me fast. “No dad, please I’m sorry, please.” His hand wraps the girth of my fragile throat and squeezes, my airway now restricted.
“You stupid cunt. You tell anybody about what happened and I’ll kill you, and your fucking friend. You understand you little bitch?” he screams at me.
I faintly hear the lady on the phone asking if I’m okay, my father oblivious to her, of which I am thankful of; this moment could have been very bad if he had heard.
I can hear the front door bang open in the distance, my mind becoming foggy, the lack of oxygen making me dizzy. I glance to the bedroom door and see four men in black uniforms.
‘Hands on your head and on the floor now.’
The police instruct from the door.
My father tightens his grip before finally letting go and lying himself down.
I gasp for air and grab my throat, willing the oxygen to enter my blood stream quickly before I pass out.
I briefly see my father being carted out in cuffs; two women in green paramedic uniforms enter my room as the men leave our naked bodies with the ladies.
I break down screaming, tears streaming my face.
“It’s okay sweetheart, you’re safe now. You’re so brave for calling. Well done.” She huddled me into a blanket and wrapped me up tight before pulling me into her body and letting me weep on her.
My ears overhear the other paramedic talking
‘311, this is 214, requiring further assistance at the scene of incident, we have an adolescent female haemorrhaging,’
and then she stops talking. What is haemorrhaging? I ask myself.
*****
I arrived at hospital a short while after Melissa; police patrolled the corridors and the doors to Melissa’s and my room.
I was poked, prodded and questioned about what happened over and over again. I was then discharged into foster care. I was to live with a strange family. I didn’t get to see Melissa again, I wasn’t sure if she would want me to.
I found out shortly after leaving that Melissa had suffered severe tearing in her vagina, her cervix had been ripped and she had suffered internal bleeding in her uterus, she had to have an emergency hysterectomy at age fourteen. The guilt I still felt over that haunts me every day, and when I sit and think of what she would be like now I want nothing more than to rip my own womb out and give it to her. She would never be a mother.
So this moves us on to the next chapter in my life.
Age Seventeen, just before my eighteenth birthday I ran away from care. My life going from one extreme to the other. My foster parents and family were wonderful; they made my life bearable and worth living a little, they fed me, clothed me, and loved me, sometimes a little too much. They were over protective of me, I often wondered if they thought I’d break if they let me out of their sight.
Shortly after my seventeenth birthday they fostered a new kid. A sixteen year old boy named David. He was nice from the start, a little flirty and a whole lot gorgeous. He was a bad boy from the very wrong corners of town, he smoked weed, shagged far too much for his age and drunk a ‘little’ too much over the advised ADULT daily limit.
He turned seventeen shortly after joining the family home.
I still clearly remember the first day he came and what he had said to me, in all his cocky sixteen year old charm ‘Well hello there. Did it hurt when you fell because you look as though you’re from heaven baby?’ I had giggled like a schoolgirl and had clearly gone scarlet red in the face.
We had developed a close relationship from then on, eventually becoming boyfriend and girlfriend.
After three months of living with him we had sat outside on the porch one night watching the night sky, I told him what had happened to me and he told me about his life with his mother.
She used to beat him, let her friends have sex with him, force him to smoke weed and take cocaine. That was the first time I had sex with him.
He had kissed me slowly and deeply on the porch step, running his hands through my hair and holding the back of my head, his other hand roaming my body.
He then stood taking my hand and guiding me quietly through the house to his room, where he persisted to make my body come alive. Kissing every inch of my skin, making love to me so deeply and sensually I forgot the world. It was the first time I had been intimate with anyone. It had taken me too many years to get over what my father had done, I wasn’t sure I was even ok now, but David stirred things in me I didn’t know existed, he made my stomach flutter, my knickers dampen and my sex clench.
He was sexy as hell. Shaved head, deep blue eyes that held a lot of pain, tattooed arms and far too much stubble on his jaw for somebody his age. He was old before his time, the maturity, looks and body of someone in their twenties, not a seventeen year old boy. Since coming to the house he had spent the last three months busting his arse at the gym that the social services provided his membership with, he worked in the local garage helping the old guy fix cars up and when he wasn’t there he was playing footie with a few of his old buddies.
When he had held me in his strong arms and pulled me into him, his scent intoxicating me, I had stared into his blue lagoons and begged him “Kiss Me.” I needed to feel him on me, in me and around me.
I had begun to fall in love with David, we spent almost every waking second with each other, both of us healing one another and bringing the best of each other out. He was becoming my whole world pretty quickly. I lived and breathed David. I slept beside him at night, watching his beautiful face as he dreamed, watching his chest rise and fall. He was my soul and my every breath.
With that said, this brings us to me running away.
Early on a Friday morning in September David approached me; I was making breakfast for the family.
“Morning baby.” Kissing my hair he whispered in my ear.
“Morning yourself.” I kissed him back on his lips, wrapping my arms around his strong neck. I could still feel him on me from the previous night where he had once again owned me entirely as he had buried himself with me and made love so deeply and passionately I feared nobody would ever come close to him.
“I need to tell you something, but you have to promise me not to freak.” His eyes searching mine for any clue at how I was feeling.
“O-ka-ay.” I said slowly.
“I have to go and see my mum today, she isn’t doing so well.” Okay now I was pissed, his ‘mother’ had used and abused him from birth until he finally got brought here at sixteen. She had got him hooked on weed, beat the shit out of him every day, fucked with his mind so much that some nights I could feel him trembling and could hear him crying in his sleep. And to top it all off she lived in the roughest estate in east London, at least three lots of people were out to get David after he had to report them to the police for dealing heroine just so they’d back off from his mother.