stolen innocence

My mother worked a lot of hours, so we were home alone or with my stepfather a lot.

It was a typical afternoon for me to spend time in his bedroom. I think this is when I first noticed that he was also spending time with my sister. When I asked him about it he would say he was helping her with homework, that he didn’t love her at all like he did me and that she was not his type.

Yeah right. Any underage girl was of his liking.

I remember the summers there were so hot. We were all required to run around the block for exercise. We had chores to do and always something was not done right, we paid a heavy price.

We lived by a Seven Eleven and often it was our job to go get them Big Gulps. We would have to walk there and back in very hot temperatures. Sometimes not being allowed to have a drink of water until we returned with their drinks. And if we dared to have a sip of their drink there would be hell to pay for it.I remember one particularly hot day when my sister and I went for drinks. I passed out on the way home from the 7-11. My sister caught my fall, but they did not believe us when we told them. Only that it really wasn’t that hot. We did learn to outsmart them a little. We would drink from the rim before we put the lids on.

It felt really good to be bad once in a while.


By now I was getting exposed to alcohol.  He would give me alcohol so he could do things to me.  At first he would put it in drinks and I thought it had a funny taste.  I was just a kid - I didn't really get what or why he was doing these things.  He was the adult and I was suppose to trust adults.  Besides, if I questioned him there was heck to pay.  It was never good heck.

He would put stuff in my drinks and then make me give him oral sex. 

I remember all the double standards taught. Do what I say not as I do. Hypocritical bull crap.  I would have been beat if I had done any of these things outside of his abusing me.

He would buy candy and clothing and I could earn it if I did him really good. There was always something he could hold from me until he got what he wanted.

My moods changed constantly and then I would be in even more trouble with my mother.

I remember one time he paid me five dollars for something and then my mother said someone stole it. She made us all sit on the couch while they searched our rooms. When he found the money, she started to scream at me, pull my hair and dragged me down the street screaming to the neighbors that I was a thief and a liar.

I wasn’t the thief or the liar in our home. He was the only one who took things. The things he took from me I can never have back. What he stole daily was my innocence.

What he stole was my childhood. And my mom allowed it to happen to her children, her daughters, and then pretended, LIED, that we were this happy "normal" family.