despoliation

She is ill at ease...but she isn't sure why. On the surface, life is good....it is autumn, a few months before her fifth birthday, and she is eating her favorite breakfast of Rice Krispies with sugar and watching Captain Kangaroo, sitting Indian style on the chenille bedspread in her grandparent's spare bedroom. He suddenly appears in the doorway and then lumbers across the dusty wooden floor to sit next to her on the bed. He is drunk, but she doesn't know that...she only knows that something isn't right. She nervously picks at a thick scab on her knee and holds her breath, protecting it from the reek of geriatric musk emanating from his pores.


He slurs a greeting thickly;  a little too loud for the small space of the room.  She can’t understand him…or maybe she can’t hear him over her own frenetic heartbeat. “WHY is he in here and WHERE is Mammaw and WHEN is he gonna leave” keeps hammering through her immature brain in a trifecta of surging panic. He starts rubbing her shoulders….clumsily and a little too rough to have the desired effect, and then he carefully removes her red fuzzy nightgown until she is clad only in her Wonder Woman underoos (her favorite). His acrid breath whispers in her ear, telling her how pretty she is and how much he loves her and how he wants to make her feel good....ice cream and Captain Kangaroo and her Betsy Wetsy doll make her feel good....but this, this is something different...and wrong. He fumbles with his pants for what seems like an eternity and she holds her breath…and waits, terrified. His cold papery hands explore her small warm body for a moment before pulling down the little panties and slowly spreading her thin legs.

PAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAIN white hot it starts in her groin and then settles in her chest. She doesn’t understand what is happening, but she is no longer scared…the agony in her ravaged hollow is the only thing she knows and the only thing that matters. She can see his face distort into a bizzare, grotesque mask in the light form the TV as he pumps away. His breathing becomes more ragged-panting, like a sick dog, and he is now careless with his hulking frame as he suffocates her with his thick, fleshy body. She knows she will die…from pain or asphyxiation, when he slowly raises himself up and withdraws from her.  He looks at her for a long moment and then puts a porcine digit to her lips…"Shhhhh. This is our secret baby girl and they will take you away from your mommy if you ever tell. Shhhhhh..”

whywhywhywhywhywhywhy she has been a good girl...she ate
all her vegetables at dinner and she didn't even whine when she saw the Holly
Hobby doll she wanted in the store the day before...it all seems so far away
now...brussel sprouts and dolls and...innocence...was that even the same little girl? Blood, thick and crimson, mixes with the watery, long-defunct seed of her grandfather and seeps into the sheets and streams down her legs as she pulls up her panties....she feels like she is dying....she wants to die, whatever death means to a four year old.

The blood is explained away by a bike "accident" because she is such a clumsy, clumsy girl and they all believe the lies because the truth is too ugly and too implausible to face. She thinks it is over but it is never over.....it just gets easier...and it gets harder. "You make me do this" he pants in her ear and she braces herself for the pain that has turned numb over time and she feels sick…..she becomes sick...but she never tells and she never forgets.....she prays for his death and her escape and wants to dance on his grave....but even in death she is still a prisoner....still a pretty little girl with skinned knees who can never, never distinguish sex and love....the burning between her legs long gone but the burning in her heart can never be extinguished.