Sexual Abuse of the Girl Child

PROLOGUE
Spring 1975

Death sends for the commander of his army.
"Do you see that one there?" Death asks.

This commander called Pain, just back from a cold, dark mortuary, emerges with a satisfied smile on his face, his mind still relishing the sight of the bullet hole in his last victim’s head.

Death’s voice deepens, "Pain, are you listening to me?"

Pain shakes himself back to the present and looks toward the little girl, draws up his lengthy, scaly arm, and points.

"Her?" he asks.

"Yes," Death says, as he nods his head, his thumb and forefinger stroking his small, black pointed scruff on his chin, his black, beady eyes lit with greed.

A little girl sits content in the soft, green grass of earth, and rocks her baby doll. Little active fingers brush the baby’s soft, blonde hair as she holds her up to the light of day, and whispers, in seeming tranquillity, a lullaby to her dolly, unaware of the rumble taking place overhead.

"Look at that kingdom around her," Death continues as he shakes his head in wonder.

It wasn’t the grass, or the little neighborhood in which she lived that his greedy heart desired. It was far beyond what mortal eyes could see.

"Absolutely extraordinary and I want it; I want those lands, and that castle…"

Pain looked at the little girl and saw what his master was talking about. He saw the potential, the call, the mighty destiny in this small person. And Pain knew his job. It was the same job he mastered many times over the years. He didn’t get them all, but he got some and he savored every one.

"Get her for me," Death’s voice trailed off with his footsteps.

Pain began his work immediately. He called in his troops with a roar, "Intimidation, Shame, Torment, Despair, we have work to perform."

Enemy soldiers filed into the room one by one and sat down at a massive, oak slab table. Each one slapped down a sheet of white paper in front of themselves and set about to work their separate evils.

They pondered the little girl in the grass and began to script her bondage,

A script these enemy soldiers would spend years teaching her to believe—

Evils, that when unified would orchestrate a living nightmare.

1. THE HUNT

I thought about bringing a gun over there. Not just some little pistol. I had a statement to make. And a statement like this required one of those big shotguns, one that would bring hell itself into the eyes of its beholder.

I would drive up that street. I can't believe he still lives there. It’s like triple torture knowing my stepbrother lives in the same house that holds the memories of what caused a lifetime of inner madness in me, torture knowing I could find him anytime my rage boiled beyond control, and torture knowing I could fulfill my dreams of revenge.

According to my fantasy, I pull up to that house, open the trunk, and remove "my statement." I walk slowly up the driveway.

I see a man slide out from under his car. I stop and take in his greasy hair, torn clothes, darkened teeth, and when I decide this is the grown version of my tormentor, I approach him and lift the long heavy barrel to his forehead, let him pause, then panic as his thoughts raced to who, why…?

Just then, like a sudden, unexpected wave, this dark scene I envision changes into another—a completely different scenario that plays out within my mind.

I see a little girl about five years old. She tosses a small rock into little chalked out squares on the sidewalk, and a little boy, maybe ten, as he plays catch with his dad. I see a beautiful woman, she stands in the doorway and wipes her hands on a dish towel, watches her family with a smile.

If I were to walk into this happy scenario, with despise in my eyes and a shotgun in my hands, I'd look like a crazed maniac. Part of me didn't care. But I let the gun slip from my hands and drop to the ground as I listened to the part of me that did.

Children?

The thought hadn't occurred to me before. Children being raised by a mad man?

I ask myself about the little girl in her pink dress and lacy socks with blonde curls bouncing up and down as she played hopscotch. Is she safe? Was he doing it to her?

I pondered the little girl and wondered how many adolescent sexual predators turned into adult predators and went on to abuse their own children. The thought made me shudder and want to shoot him all the more.

But I’m not the murdering type. I must have learned somewhere along the line we aren't to kill other people out of anger, revenge, or any such emotion. I couldn't hurt anybody, not like that.

I would be more likely to turn the gun onto myself and kill the pain, not the cause.

It wasn't until after years of attempting to kill the emotional pain, without success, that I began to focus my anger on the cause with such fantasies of revenge and murder like the one before.

In the beginning the cause of my emotional pain rarely even entered my mind—the brutality, the injustice. I only felt the pain, which was so strong it never let me get past it. The pain, the pain, the pain. Right there on top of the cause, hiding it, keeping it concealed like a huge, cement cover upon the soul. Heavy and overbearing, making itself so prominent, so strongly felt by the pain bearer, the cause goes unnoticed.

And if by chance the cause gets noticed, is recognized, or acknowledged, our beliefs about our situation or tormentor usually block any sort of process to healing. The hateful memories of the person or incident really only add bitterness to our soul, resentment to our core.

When we remember or fantasize about the tormentor or incident we relive the intimidation. We relive our powerlessness. We relive our helplessness. We relive our agony, and we stifle the very breath within our lives. We want to stay away from the memories and the hurt as long as possible, but by hiding, without searching, without rewriting, without changing our minds, we sit in anger and bitterness, we waddle in self loathing and self defeat, we forfeit happiness, we forfeit destiny, we forfeit life.

A beast devours.
An animal
Takes what is not his.
Walks away,
Leaving his kill,
Shattered,
Torn,
Lifeless.

Copyright 2004 Tiffany Twist, www.tiffanytwist.com