|--Memory: ANGELIQUE--|
‘‘Aaah, Angelique’‘ he growled into my ears night after night.
‘You were so beautiful on the stage today.’‘
‘‘You were like a mermaid in the recital!’‘
‘‘You aced another test!’‘
‘‘Well, I must reward you my dearest, Angelique.’‘
Night after night. Every excuse was valid to ‘reward’ me as he said.
Ever since mom’s death, he had felt obliged to keep me closer to him than ever before. He claimed that the need for me to sleep in his bed at night was to keep me safe from the kidnappers. He claimed that kidnappers liked little girls who had no mother. I was seven when I started sleeping in the same bed as this man. My mother had always told me to sleep in my own bed, that it was my only possession. This man had married my mother when I was five and had cared for me like a father. When he started making me sleep in his bed, I trusted him. He was the man who had supported my mother and I through the debts of the medical bill for her cancer.
Things were fine for the first three months. I slept on my side of the bed and he slept on his side. I had my blanket and so did he. Til the day of the fire.
We were sleeping soundly when a blast woke us up. I ran to the window with him and looked outside. A group of men dressed in black were throwing hand-made fire bombs at the house. The bombs would break through windows and blow up once inside a room. From the sounds of it, EVERY room was being very well taken care of.
We were lucky to have neighbours to call the police and come to our help inside the house. The firefighters arrived quickly and we were sent to the hospital. By the time the fire had been contained the house was a total loss. Jerry may have had enough cash to support medical bills but he didn’t have enough to support those remaining bills along with a brand new house of that luxury.
He managed to get a small wooden cabin a little outside of town with the basic furnishings. That was when the blanket sharing started. When the nights started getting colder, the cuddling started. On my eighth birthday Jerry announced that he had been promoted that same day. That with his new salary he’d be able to buy us a new place to live. Finally out of the mourning of my mother and into the joy a promotion he went out and partied. That night he came back with some girl and sent me to sleep on the couch. I couldn’t sleep that night from the sounds from the bedroom even if I had plugged my ears with a music player.
However, this girl started coming on a regular basis and she even started to move in. I now had the couch as a bed. Two months later we moved into an appartment where I got my own room. Money was coming back slowly, Sophie was kind to me and didn’t mind my silence and preference to books than shopping.
One night after we had barely finished unpacking, Sophie announced to us that she was pregnant. That night, Jerry came to sleep with me in my bed. His man’s self in my small body forced us close. He placed himself comfortably and held my back against his chest with my head on his arm. Once asleep his fingers started twitching and it caused my shirt to lift enough for his finger tips to touch my skin. His fingers froze for a moment and I closed my eyes, forcing my breath slow: he was not going to start stroking my skin, please, god, no.
His fingers started to trail my side, gently, almost unconsciously lifting my shirt more but he fell asleep again quickly. I somehow managed to calm myself down enough to sleep the rest of the night.
Sophie was surprised to find him sleeping with me in his arms in the morning. She claimed that at my age it wasn’t right for a man who wasn’t even my father to be sleeping in my bed. I pointed out that he was my father since he had signed the adoption papers when he married my mother. She asked about my father and I shrugged– no one knew who he was.
Life went on from there. We moved again into a bigger appartment, Sophie gave birth to a little girl who looked perfectly like them and I kept my own bed.
‘‘Angelique!’‘ whined Tora’s annoying toddler voice.
‘‘Leave me alone!’‘ I screamed over my shoulder and raced quickly up the stairs where I knew she wouldn’t follow me.
‘‘Angelique! Be nice to your sister!’‘ Sophie yelled from the kitchen.
‘‘You’re not my mom!’‘ I yelled back at her and slammed the door to my room.
It was my twelfth birthday today and Jerry couldn’t be home to celebrate with me. We’d had our awkward moments but he was all I had. Sometimes I felt like Cinderella with the perfect step-mom when dad is home and the cruel witch she turns into as soon as dad is out the door. Tora was okay though– sometimes. Jerry had found a job that paid well but he had to be out of town. He figured that I was old enough to help around the house and with Tora. What he never expected and still didn’t know about was that every night he was gone, so was Sophie. She came home late in the middle of the night smelling like alcohol and pot and always waving someone away at the door while giggling and smiling in a creepy way.
I took pictures while well hidden on top of the stairs and had sent them with a letter to Jerry about a month ago. Today, I had recieved a letter that only said ‘‘Sorry I can’t be with you for your birthday but happy birthday, my little dove. Love, Jerry.’‘ He hadn’t even mentioned the pictures or said why he couldn’t be here.
I was still twisting and turning in my bed when I heard a car out front. It couldn’t be Sophie, she had stayed home tonight since we had been expecting Jerry home for supper. I stepped out of bed and looked out the window. A smile broke out on my face as I saw that it was Jerry. He was looking up at my window so I opened it and pulled out my head and arm to wave at him. He laughed and waved back then pressed his finger to his lips motioning for me to be quiet and shoœd me back inside. I gently closed the window and went back to my bed, waiting anxiously.
The front door open and closed in silence, nothing that would wake Sophie or Tora. After a few moments of impatiently fidgeting with my blanket my door opened slowly and Jerry stepped inside, closing the door behind him. I bounced off the bed and ran straight into his arms. He smelled of cigar smoke and ocean salts. He slowly released me and tucked me into bed. I closed my eyes and listened to him unpacking his things to fall asleep.
I woke up and quickly got out of bed and made way for the bathroom. I barged inside, walking in on Jerry showering. I only saw his silhouette through the curtain, saw his hand wrapped around his member before I turned around and closed the door. I ran to my room and hid under my blankets.
We never spoke about the incident.
They did however speak about the ‘Sophie incident’. Very loudly at night, after they thought I was asleep. I counted twenty-three days before Sophie moved out with Tora. Another fourteen days later came the lawyer papers for Tora’s custody and Jerry’s rights and obligations. With Sophie gone, Jerry had to quit the high paying job for a lower paying job because I was still too young to be left alone. We had to move out due to cost. The bed sharing started again, along with the blanket sharing and cuddling. On my thirteenth birthday Jerry walked into the bathroom while I was in the bath to pee. The first time I screeched and hid under the bubbles in the tub. After a while I got used to the motion of it– I had already seen him.
When I turned fourteen he asked me to drop out of school and get a job so that we could live better and have more time to spend together. I found the logic right considering the messes we had been through and did as such. I got a part-time job at a resident’s fast food cabin. No employer had wanted to offer full time but this employer had agreed to the max hours he could give, the max salary he could and to fill out the hours in my day and get an extra income, I babysat his twins when he needed me.
‘‘Sophie is requiring you to pay THAT much because SHE ran off to the other end of the world with Tora?!’‘ I screeched and threw the letter on the table.
‘‘I’m going to go out for some air…’‘ Jerry moaned and left the appartment.
He came home late that night and drunk. When he saw me he immediately fell to his knees and claimed. ‘‘I swear, it didn’t cost me a thing. The guys decided it would be a good idea. But I didn’t spend our hard earned money, Angelique.’‘
I tucked him into bed and he pulled me against him and held me tightly.
Fingers stroking my stomach rose me gently from my sleep. His fingers would slide up and down my stomach and thigh. I kept my eyes close but stayed alert. He held me tightly against his chest and his free hand rested against my breast. When I tried pulling away, he held me closer. I could feel his member hard against my back.
He suddenly pulled back and turned me on my back. I was shocked into silence and paralysed with fear. Was he going to rape me? He held my arms above my head with one of his hands, his legs held mine tightly to the bed. He leaned down and bit my neck, growling into my ear. He pulled his boxers down and my pajamas and panties.
I knew this was rape, I knew I shouldn’t be enjoying it but a part of me did enjoy it. He wasn’t my father by blood, only a paper stated it. I had never called him daddy from the moment I had known he wasn’t my real father. He stopped as quickly as he had started and crawled down, releasing my hands.
At this point, I could have ran away but I didn’t. In the heat of the moment this was not my father, this was my lover. I, however, kept my virginity that day.
This happened more and more often until it wasn’t like rape anymore. I was a consenting teenage girl at the age of sixteen when made love to me for the first time. A first and last time that changed my life.
The day following the first time Jerry had made love to me was the day he died in a car accident. Three months later I was staring at a screen that showed a tiny baby boy growing inside of me. I smiled and remembered that Jerry had always wanted a son called Toby and I would give him that even if he was gone.