by Abby Gale
Mommy always says this, that she’s not my mommy, but I know she says that when she is angry with me. Tears fall down on my cheeks even though I’m not crying –boys don’t cry. But my cheeks are wet when I leave her room to go to the kitchen.
I stand on my toes to look inside the refrigerator. There is nothing in it. It’s always empty. My mommy doesn’t like to cook like I’ve seen in TV. But her friends bring some food when they come to see mommy. She has lots of friends, but I don’t like most of them –they are creepy guys and they smell bad. Mommy loves them, though. When they are around she doesn’t let me sleep in her bed. She lets them in her room and closes the door.
Sometimes she makes sounds like she is crying or she is hurt, but she never lets me in her room when a man is in the house.
Her friends didn’t come to visit her since days ago and now I have nothing to eat. I’m hungry. I ate a few bites of pizza when her last friend came four days ago. I love pizza, but not every guy brings it.
I grab a chair, pushing it to the cabinets to see if there is anything to eat there. I find two slices of bread in a paper bag.
I take a bite from the bread. It’s hard, but I am so hungry it tastes good enough for me. I fill my glass with water and pretend the bread is pizza. It tastes even better when I think like that. I eat as slowly as I can. When my first slice of bread is gone I stare at the second slice. I want to eat it, but I don’t want to be hungry tomorrow like I was today. Being hungry hurts my tummy, it makes strange noises when it’s empty. Now, those noises stopped and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
Grabbing the brown paper bag again, I wrap it around my last slice of bread. I will eat this when my tummy starts to hurt again. I put my glass in the sink and go to the couch to sleep. If I sleep I will not get hungry so soon.
January 20, 2014–Day 4
I wondered whether he would kill me.
Everything hurt me, especially when I was that weak. My face and my back were in pain because of his punishment. The hunger and thirst dig their nails on my body and my mind. But the real pain was in my soul. The thought of not seeing Dawn again crashed my heart.
I hoped he would kill me. But then the thought gave me shudders. No matter how much I hated my situation the instinct to stay alive was so strong. My heart hurt for Dawn. I wondered how she was doing for the hundredth time since I was here. I hoped she could find me, but mostly I hoped she wasn't devastated with my disappearance in case I died here.
I couldn’t help but feeling guilty for the situation I got myself into, for leaving Dawn alone, for disappointing my parents. I was adopted, I knew, but the people I grew up with were my family. The sorrow of their loss was on Dawn and me, and now she was experiencing another loss in her life, because of me.
I couldn’t breathe. I tried to pull my hands free again, but it only hurt me. Waiting on this bed, naked, filthy, humiliated, and totally at his mercy was messing with my head. I didn’t even know what was waiting for me.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” I chanted over and over again. Tears wetted my face. The skin on my wrists broke, blood started to drip over my forearms. My mantra turned into sobs, my body shook like I was having some kind of seizure.
When I could finally calm down, my body was beat. I didn’t know if I passed out or not, but when my senses came back to me I heard the door open.
“Look, what I brought for you,” Mike said, coming closer to the bed. He was holding a glass of water and I almost sobbed in happiness.
I was ready to do anything to get some water and this thought only disgusted me. I wished I was stronger to be able to hope for death instead of staying alive.
Last time the relief from pain cost me my pride –I had to say please to that monster. What would some water cost me? What about staying alive? What would I have to do for making out alive from all this?
And the worst, what was I willing to sacrifice to stay alive?
Closing my eyes I schooled my emotions and tried to keep them in check. Mike was watching me with a smile on his face, “How are you feeling, today?”
“I’m thirsty,” I whispered, didn’t want to anger him with lack of response.
“Oh, look at my little Angel, such a good girl,” he cooed, coming closer to me.
He caressed my hair, lovingly, “You must be hungry, too.”
I nodded.
“First, you need to get cleaned up, Cupcake. You stink,” he said, disgusted and amused at the same time. I felt like trash –filthy and useless, I wanted to feel like a human again.
“If you want water, you won’t cause me any trouble as I clean you up, okay?” he warned me. No matter how sweet his voice sounded it was wrapped around a steel and I didn’t dare to do anything. This was the most normal thing I could get during my captive.
He untied my legs first, in total silence. I was afraid of doing something wrong and he would take away my water. Depend on my fear about the possible cost of the water, not causing a trouble was the least I could do.
The human psyche was a strange thing. If we were asked, we could have listed a lot of things as necessary, like they were the things we couldn’t give up. But when it came to a situation like this we all turned animalistic –all we cared about were water and food in the end.
When he finally untied my hands, I was free, but even freedom didn’t mean anything to me at this point. All I wanted was to be a good girl for him so I could drink water and maybe, if I was lucky enough, eat something. If someone told me this just a week ago, I knew I would’ve fight against it with fire. Freedom was one of the most important things to me in life, but after four days in this room, I wasn’t so sure of it… being alive seemed more important.
He lifted me from the bed, causing me to groan with pain.
“Let’s put you on that chair, Cupcake. You seem like you’ll fell,” he said, guiding me to wooden chair.
I just nodded.
“You seem so eager, Cupcake,” he chuckled.
I didn’t make eye contact with him, but as I sat on the chair I winced because of pain. My back was hurting because of his assault.
“Let’s deal with your pain, first,” he said, bringing out a syringe from his back pocket. I should have been horrified that he would take away my consciousness, but I was only relieved that this pain, this guilt would leave me. It was sick, it was selfish, but I desired the high one shot could give me.
Waving the syringe in front of my face, he asked. “What do you say, Angel?”
I lifted my head to look at him in confusion. He stared back at me with patience, quirking his eyebrow. Finally, the words came to my tongue, leaving a bitter taste behind.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Good girl. It wasn’t so hard, was it?” he chuckled.
The idea of kicking him came to my mind, but what could I do after that? He was stronger than me. Before I could reach the door he would catch me like the first time I tried. Then what would happen to me? I didn’t want to lose the opportunity of some water and something to diminish my hunger.
So, I stayed put, moaned with the sweet sensation of the drug as he pushed the syringe through my vein. I had never tried drugs before, but I could see the fascination and the reason of addiction. It was making me feel like I was at the highest of the clouds. There was no pain, no stress, no tears, and no guilt when that liquid got into my system. Everything was brighter, more vivid, more colorful like the world was in high definition. My senses were alert, my body was at attention for every sensation.
I tried to focus back on him, the guy in front of me. He was coming toward me with a wet sponge in his hand. He was so handsome.
Who was this guy?
I couldn’t recognize him.
I was sure that I knew him, but my mind couldn’t focus on the details. I was just a gliding bubble over clouds.
He was handsome, damn! He was so sexy.
And he was touching me. An attractive smile was playing on his lips, like he was laughing at
a secret joke I didn’t know about.
His smile made me smile, too.
He started to clean me by my ankles, slowly going up without breaking eye-contact. His eyes were full of mischief. I gasped as he continued his path on my thigh. The soft caress of sponge turned into something ticklish, tingling, I felt it between my legs.
I sighed in relief and disappointment when the sponge left my body, but it only turned back to start from the beginning with my left leg. He cleaned my legs carefully. I felt his knuckle caressing my calves and my thighs, but he didn’t do more than that. I didn’t know I was holding my breath until the moment he put the sponge back into the washbowl.
He brought back the sponge after rinsing it, worked on my upper body this time. The brush of the soft material on my shoulders was like a massage, easing the tension on them. He leaned into me, his breath tickled my flesh. Goosebumps erupted on my skin as he came closer to my breasts. While he were cleaning my breasts he stayed away from my nipples, but they were pebbled already. I pressed my thighs together, trying to ease the throbbing in my pussy. The sensation was buzzing in my body.
I took a sharp breath when his knuckle touched my nipple. His chuckle brought my attention to his face. He put the sponge back into the washbowl before bringing his hands back to my breasts. Holding my breath I waited what he would do to me. A part of me was confused, but another part of me was dying for him to touch me.
His nail grazed my areola, circling it. I groaned when he twirled my nipple between his fingers. Closing my eyes I thumped my head back to the chair with pleasure. His every move, every graze of his nail on my skin were creating throbbing between my legs. I felt slick inside my thighs.
I still didn’t know who this guy was, but he was like a virtuoso, playing my body like an instrument for pleasure, and I wanted more, so much more.
The sensation only increased as he cleaned my navel. When he took a break I thought he was done, but he continued to sit on the floor.
He grabbed my knees, putting some pressure on them, enough to make me spread them apart on the chair. I gasped when air touched my sensitive flesh, making me aware of how wet I was. His smile turned into a smirk.
Damn, he was so attractive!
He licked his lips as he looked at me unabashedly before lifting his eyes to meet mine. The sponge was in his hand again and my breaths became shallower, faster. The throbbing became more and more obvious. He wiped inside of my thigh, slowly, seductively. His knuckles were caressing my folds each time he came close to my pussy.
By the time he was done I was panting, a sheen of sweat was covering my skin. Only then, he let the sponge touch me. My legs tensed with the first flick of the soft material, I was already built up with sexual tension and a loud and long moan broke free from my throat.
He was closer to me, his heat was bringing my body closer to the edge as he continued to touch me with the sponge he was using. I couldn’t help but thrust my hips into his hand, rocking back and forth to get closer to him, creating more friction.
His breath came out faster, he was affected like I was. But I couldn’t focus on him more, all I could think of was the pleasure I was chasing. I was so close. Nirvana was so close to me.
Then, he stopped.
I groaned in protest, but he just smirked. Keeping me in his sight he turned the bed to other side so the clean side was ready for me to lay down, but I didn’t feel grateful. All I felt was the lust, scorching, consuming, throbbing in my veins.
My heart beat faster when he came toward me again. I was watching his every move like a shark or a woman on a diet looking at the best dessert in display. No matter what I looked like, I wanted a piece of him. The passion and hunger for pleasure in my body made me delirious.
He wrapped my arms around his neck before lifting me to his arms. I immediately wrapped my legs around his waist, unabashedly rubbing my pussy on his hardness, moaning loudly as I chased the pleasure. But he stopped me, blocked my orgasm once again.
I whimpered in protest, moaned, “More.”
He didn’t say anything or I didn’t hear through my panting, but his weight on me as he put me on the bed was euphoria. His warm, hard lines on my naked body were too good to be true.
“Aren’t you hungry and thirsty?” he whispered. Even these non-sexual question caused a shiver ran through my body.
“Yes,” I whispered, but I wasn’t willing to let him go. This guy above me felt like the only thing I needed.
He placed his face into the crook of my neck, pushed his weight more into me. Moaning, I wrapped myself tighter around him, like an ivy. A shudder rocked my body as throbbing between my legs intensified with the wet trail he put on my neck. My tight embrace loosened around him as my body became a rag doll because of the intense pleasure and he took advantage of my weakness. He slowly brought my arms above my head, putting his weight on his knees as he sat up above me.
I watched him like I watched the fire, hypnotized and with awe. He was too beautiful to look at, but also too beautiful to look away.
Shock and confusion washed over me when he tied my arms to the bed, but lust diminished any other feeling that tried to stand out. He lifted me upright like I was sitting and got out of the bed only to turn back with a glass of water and a slice of bread in his hand. My mouth watered with the sight of both, the lust had been forgotten or most likely pushed aside.
“Take a bite, my little Angel,” he whispered, sitting close to me on the bed.
The first bite of the bread was like the most delicious thing I tasted, I devoured the first thing I ate during my stay in this room. Chewing it slowly, I noticed the colorful cloud was disintegrating, my consciousness was coming back to me.
“Now, take a sip,” he brought the glass to my lips, “Good girl.”
This continued till the slice of bread was gone and the glass was empty.
Now that I was fuller than I had been a few minutes ago, guilt darkened my mind. I bent my knees to my chest, trying to become as small as possible on the bed. My arms were wide open and tied so I couldn’t wrap them around my knees like I wanted to do.
I hated the drug he gave me. It was messing with my head, making me desire him, doing stupid things even though I wanted nothing to do with him.
I hated my weakness.
I flinched when he stretched his hand to touch me, but it didn’t stop him. He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me down with a smirk on his face. Grabbing my ankles he tied them on the bed too without losing eye-contact with me.
“Why are you doing this?” I choked. The tears caused by guilt and shame pooled my eyes.
“Because I want you,” he said and turned to leave, but stopped just before closing the door behind him, “And this is the only way I know.”
MIKE –Age 8
I wake up to mom’s scream. She is with that man again, Theo. She is always with that guy and I don’t like him. I know that he isn’t my mom’s friend, he’s hurting her. He comes, makes mom moan, groan, scream, and cry. My mom always cries when he comes. When he leaves I help her to clean the wounds he made, but she always says that he loves her, he is the best guy she can find and that she loves him.
Is this what love is?
Does love hurt people?
“Take that, bitch! Choke on it!” he shouted. He always calls my mom those names –bitch, whore, slut… I don’t want him to call her those names. My mom is beautiful, especially when she smiles, but she doesn’t smile lately. She is always in her bed, always tired. Sometimes she doesn’t even open her eyes to look at me. She says she is exhausted.
I see she takes her medicine, she injects something into her arm, but that medicine doesn’t work well, doesn’t make her better. It makes her happy for awhile, though. She smiles with her eyes closed after she pushes that needle into her arm. Sometimes she uses it before Theo comes. Then, she doesn’t cry after he leaves. She enjoys her time with him if she gets her shot before his arrival.
I want my mom to be happy.
“Yes! Harder!” Mom screams and then laughs. I think she took her medicine earlier this time.
“Ahh, yes, Theo. Yes. More,” she shouted. Then, I hear a weird noise like two things slapping together.
“Ride it, slut. Ride it faster,” he groaned.
They both sound like they are doing something good, having fun. Even though sometimes I worry if they are hurting, mostly my mom. I don’t care about Theo much. But my mom loves him.
“This feels so good,” my mom screams, her voice turns into sobs in the end like the one time I laughed so hard at school I ended up making weird noises.
“My good slut. Ride it harder, make me come, whore!” he grunts.
I don’t exactly know why, but I feel my breathing become faster with each passing second I hear their voices. There is a tingling sensation in my belly that tickles me. I try to ignore it because it makes me feel weird.
So, I force myself to sleep with the decreasing voices from her room.
January 24, 2014–Day 8
I woke up to the familiar sound of the lock. It was time for my daily dose of drug, cleaning, and breakfast which was a slice of bread and a glass of water.
For four days it was the same routine and I hated myself more and more each day after my reaction to the drug. Today wasn’t any different. As Mike left the room I was still under the bittersweet spell of it.
Things changed after day eight. Instead of lying on the bed miserably I started hearing voices coming from outside. It started soft and I couldn’t understand what it was, then the sounds loomed over my room like it was coming through speakers; I didn’t know, maybe it was.
It was the unmistakable voice of sex. There were female moans mixed with a man’s grunts. I could hear the slaps of skin and there was background music.
He was playing me porn.
I tried not to hear, not to focus on it, but it was close to impossible. My body was still alert after the cleaning session and the effect of the drug. No matter how much I wanted to ignore this sound, no matter how much I hated the game he was playing with me I wanted to bring my hand between my legs and touch myself. But that was impossible, too; my hands were still tightly tied to the bed. I tried to press my thighs together, but the cable ties on my ankles didn’t allow me to close my legs.
