FORCED MASTURBATION

I am reminded of a time in the garage when I was aged around 15. I was lying naked on the floor. My legs were tied together at the ankles. Sheila came and stood between my legs using her feet and toes she sexually stimulated me then ordered me to touch myself and masturbate. Alan + Stuart were there watching with their penises in their hands masturbating. They jacked off while Sheila mocked my attempt to masturbate. It was like she got off on it too. The mocking and jeering is still going through my system. My ears were filled with the sounds of them jacking off and laughing. And of course, they sprayed their semen all over me. Then I was left alone lying in that mess for ages feeling ashamed and shamed. I can still hear it now.

WHO'S HITTING YOU?

They [my parents] tied my hands behind my back to one of the dining room wooden chairs with ties or bits of rope so tight it cut my skin.

They blindfolded me too then hit me hard across the face saying "who's hitting you?"

When I got it wrong they'd do it again, hitting my in my chest too until I thought their fists would burst through to my heart.

They jeered and mocked at my confusion and wrong answers. Hitting me over and over across my face till the blood flowed from my lips and nose. I thought they'd break my nose and knock my teeth out but they always knew how far to push it without actually doing that.

They were MASTERS OF TORTURE!.

I can still feel the blows, taste the blood and hear their jeering.

MY BACK WAS WHIPPED

Lying naked on my front across the bed they [my parents] beat my bottom with pieces of wood from the garage. 

They used their shoes and slippers too till I thought I'd never be able to sit down again. 

Again they mocked my pain and distress. 

They whipped my back with belts too. Tea-towels made just as good a whipping tool too!!

THEY BEAT MY FEET

They [my parents] made me lie naked on my front across the bed with my feet hanging over the edge. 

They beat the soles of my feet with a wooden ruler or anything else they chose. 

It stung a bit then really hurt after a while. I couldn't believe how they laughed when they were doing it, while also telling me how bad I was and quoting the bible at me. 

It was agony walking afterwards and they just laughed at me.

AFTER GRAMP'S 'GAMES'

After I ran up to the attic and hid in the wardrobe I could hear my mother and grandmother searching for me. They were calling my name, saying “I wasn't in trouble” and to come out and show myself.

The wooden floors and empty doors throughout the house meant every sound carried. I sat hunched in the wardrobe shaking. There was no way I was coming out but I knew it would be only minutes before they found me and then I'd be for it.

My heart was beating out of my chest. My head hurt. My bottom hurt. Everything hurt. I was so sticky from semen and blood. I sat hunched there trying to control the terror I was feeling as their voices got closer and closer to me.

Eventually they came into the attic and straight across to the wardrobe I was hiding in. My mother reached in and yanked me out so hard that I was sent sprawling on the wooden floor. She hit me hard across the face. “How dare you run off like that!”

Granny reached between my legs and ripped my knickers off “little girls who go around with such filthy knickers don't deserve to wear them.” I felt like saying “it's not my fault they're in a mess” but knew it would only make things worse so kept quiet. She said “I deserved a whipping for wearing knickers in such a disgusting state” and “by golly was I in for it”. I tried to wriggle away on my back but my mother grabbed me and held me still.

I closed my eyes as I felt granny's fingers between my legs, I felt her fingers probing inside me. I felt her mouth on my mouth, her tongue down my throat made me gag. With my mother holding me down granny went on to rape me with her hands and with other items that were in the room.

All the time they were reminding me that it was punishment for the disgusting state of my knickers.

I remember the pain of the hairbrush, the scissors, the knitting needles, the ruler.

I remember the hard wooden floor in my shoulder blades.

I remember pain and shame.

Why did they always have to be punishing me for things that weren't my fault?

I didn't know why they couldn't leave me alone.

GRAMPS WANTED TO 'PLAY'

I remember chasing butterflies and hunting for ladybirds – my favourite activity in the garden, I am aged about 5 in this instance although this has happened many times before. I remember these events from the age of 3.

My enjoyment of chasing the butterflies was shattered in a moment by a voice which came from the house “Fiona, it's time to come in now, grandpa wants to play.”

I watch that animated face freeze and then a look of sheer terror and horror take over. I remember how I felt I wanted to ignore that call, pretend I hadn't heard it, run away as far away as I could so they could never find me and hurt me any more. But I knew I had to respond instantly. After a frozen split second I watch 5-year old me run helter skelter to the kitchen doorway and then stoop to pull up her white socks to her knees because socks around the ankles would not be acceptable. Another shout comes “what's taking you so long?”. I see more anxiety and terror cross her face as she runs through the kitchen and dining room and turns left into the hallway to go to the living room where gramps is. She is met in the corridor by her mother and grandmother, there is pushing and shoving and harsh words she didn't deserve and then she is pushed into the living room.

Arriving in the living room I remember freezing in terror again as I saw 2 paedophile friends of my grandparents sat in chairs near the door. I remember the rituals, I remember the terrible rapes. I remember the pain. I remember the shame and the degradation. I remember the terror. I think “oh no, not again!”.

Then I think “no, it's ok, I was called in because “gramps wanted to play”. “Play” was a pseudonym for sexual abuse at granny and gramp's house.

I was the only person who called my grandfather 'gramps'. I guess I could get my mouth around that easier than 'grandpa'.

At the other end of the room I see gramps sat in his big wooden chair. He is grinning at me. He has his trousers open and I see his penis and I want to run but know I can't.

As I look towards gramps he opens his arms to me and says “does little Fiona love her grandpa as much as grandpa loves her?”.

I want to say “yes and no, yes I love you but no, not like that, I hate it when you sit there with your trousers open and don't like it, I don't want to sit on your knee when you have your trousers open, yes I love you but I don't love you when you hurt me like you do and make me feel real bad.”

But I know what a 'good little girl' should do and so I smile and say “of course I love you gramps” and run over to him and let him lift me up on to his knee. He has so much facial hair it's really hard to find a space on his face to plant the kiss I knew I had to give him.

And then I wriggle out of his tight embrace and sit on the edge of his knees looking around the room. I couldn't have made a louder statement if I'd spoken. The glances I caught as I looked around the room weren't encouraging and I knew I was in trouble when my eyes met with those of my mother and grandmother who'd sat down on the sofa to the right of gramp's chair.

My mother said “do you want a slap because you are headed in the right direction if you do.”

Grandma said “why can't you just be a good little girl and do everything grandpa wants?”

That really confused my 5-year mind. I'd been told so often that the really bad horrible things happened because I was a bad girl, but now I was being told to be good, but if I was good those bad horrible things would happen anyway. It was horribly confusing and I quickly gave up trying to make sense of that confusion and scrambled up into gramp's embrace and said “sorry, of course I want to play his games.”

Gramp's games were tickling games. To start off with it was funny as he tickled me but it wasn't long before I found myself upside down in his lap and my face in his groin and in his pubic hair. Soon his penis was shoved in my mouth and I found myself gagging at the force of it. Soon I was grabbed and made to sit on his penis which tore my insides apart. I remember pulling a face as I tried not to cry out with the pain. My mother told me to “stop pulling silly faces.”

I could see their paedophile friends masturbating and gramps ejaculated into my pants. I remember jumping off his knee and running from the room as fast as I could. I ran and ran and ran. I ran to the top of the house, to the attic and hid in a wardrobe on the far side of the room.

I crouched there with the horrible stickiness from blood and semen in my pants wondering how I'd gotten from chasing butterflies and hunting ladybirds to the stickiness and pain and lonely darkness of that wardrobe.

MY GRANDMOTHER'S RAPE

In this memory I am five years old. Although this is my first memory of this it is clear this wasn't a one off event and had been going on for a considerable amount of time because it was just part of life by the time I was aged five.

We lived only 10 or 15 minutes drive away from my grandparents so I don't understand why we often stayed over at their house, except that we did. My brother and I would often be dropped off at their house by our parents and left there. When we stayed there I had to sleep with my grandmother in her bed and my brother had to see with my grandfather in his bed. Yes, my grandparents had separate bedrooms!

This particular night the memory begins with me lying in bed next to my grandmother. I am lying there stiff as a board, with my legs straight and my arms right by my side. I am feeling shit-scared and I am lying very still, trying not to breathe, trying to be invisible. I always slept on the right side of the bed and something made me turn my head to the left. I instantly wished I hadn't and tried to look away but I couldn't. I found myself staring right into my grandmother's face. It was not a loving stare. She was lying propped on her right elbow staring at me with a cold, hard stare, her eyes were like steel and held me in a hypnotic stare. I instantly felt bad for turning and glancing at her. I knew I'd done wrong just by the look in her eyes. I wished I'd resisted the urge to turn and glance at her. I wished I could look away but I couldn't. I didn't know why she was staring at me like that. Not a word was spoken but the atmosphere was laced with fear and intent.

As I stared at her I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before her lips were on my lips, her tongue in my mouth, her hands on my body and her knee in my groin pushing my legs apart and then her hand would replace her knee.

I hated her hand, I hated what her hand could do and I hated what her hand made me feel. When I think of my grandmother's rape of me I don't think of pain but I do think of pleasurable feelings. With my grandmother I experienced arousal which massively confused me. I was hating every moment of it, I didn't want to be there and just wanted it to be over and yet my body appeared to enjoy what she was doing to it. My grandmother said "I knew you'd like it". I wanted to say "no I don't like it, I hate it, I wish you wouldn't do this to me, just stop it and go away, I hate it and I hate you." But of course, I couldn't. Instead I just said "yes, grandma".

I must have fallen asleep at some point because my next memory is waking up in the pitch black. There was a weight on top of me, which was my grandmother. I couldn't move and I couldn't breathe because she had a pillow over my face and was pressing down hard with it. I was absolutely terrified. When I first woke I had the startle fight response. But the pressure on the pillow increased. So I decided to play dead and go floppy. It wasn't long till she stopped and rolled off me and took the pillow with her. I will never know if my grandmother was deliberately trying to kill me. It sure felt like it! I continued to lie floppy, I didn't move and I didn't dare to open my eyes. And then I heard her snore. I took a huge sigh of relief, opened my eyes and turned on my right side. I stared at the wall and the window. 

I imagined the window open with the curtains blowing in the wind. I imagined me flying out the window, free! But in reality the window was shut and I was trapped in that room, in that bed beside my grandmother. But that picture kept me going through the long night as I prayed for morning to come. I watched the black become grey, the grey become light and then the nightmare was over, for this time at least.