It all happened four years a go

It all happened exactly four years a go today. I was only fifteen years old. A child, as some would call it. I lived in the city slums of Detroit, in a three floor flat or should I say dump. Because it wasn’t much more than that. All the bricks of the building were removable and the roof was always leaking. Sometimes I had the feeling the wind would blow the entire wobbly mess with it. Or maybe I just hoped that it would. We didn’t live there alone of course. There were fifteen other rooms, four on our floor, the first that is. I hardly knew anything about the other renters. We never spoke to each other. I saw them coming home sometimes and I could hear them scream and fight with each other through the thin walls. But we never spoke, never. You could drop down and have a heart attack on the stairs no-one would care. They’d probably just step over you and complain about you being in the way to the property-owner. That is if they would even notice. We had two neighbours at the time. On our right lived a tacky old lady. The old bat was always complaining, about the weather, about the other renters, about my mum, about the groceries and about the good old times. All you had to do is give her a subject and she would be nagging on and on about it all week. She spoke to no-one in particular. She just sat in this old wobbly chair (that fitted perfectly in our wreck-flat) and talked away, even if nobody was around. Now I think of it, she must have lived more in the hallway, or should I say in the way, than inside her own flat. On the other side lived a young couple. There were always strange noises coming from their apartment. ‘Luckily for me’, my bedroom was nicely located against theirs, so I could hear all their nightly activities. It drove me insane many times. It just went on and on all night, like the old bat at daytime. And if one of them was tired they just called a friend to join in. By the time he was tired, the other guy was recharged and they could all go together. I’m sure they had lots of fun, but I just wanted to sleep without the walls bouncing around. The people who live above us, was a family. We could hear them walk at night, well at least I could. Both the boys hanged around in some gang, like so many other boys in the slums. They wore baggy pants, lots of golden necklaces and a big sweater. They showed off constantly with their tough tattoos and hot connections. The mother was a nice woman, wiggling when she walked to the local grocery shop, watching her boys carefully as they hung around on the streets. They had no father-figure, just like I never had. My mum always told me that he had left when he heard she was pregnant of me. That was about all she told me about him. That and the fact that he was a bastard, about a million times. She didn’t know where he was, at least that was what she had told me all those years. She didn’t know his name and she couldn’t quite re-call the way he had looked. The pictures were long gone. Tossed between the garbage in about a hundred pieces. But so what? It’s not that I would have been able to recognize him after fifteen years anyway. Still I felt sad about not knowing him. I often dreamed about how he would be. A little bald man, with a Labrador and a station wagon living in a big all–American house with a little white fence around it. He would come out of the house, kiss his wife and then rush with his suitcase to the car, not to be late on his desk-job. All the other children smiling and playing on the lawn. And then I would wake up in the stinky small room I called my bedroom. And all there would be was my mum yelling at me that she had ran out of whisky. You see, my mum was an alcoholic, addicted to whisky, rum and whatever else she could lay hands on. She’d rather call herself a devotee though. Well devoted she was! To the bottle and the glass. She started at breakfast. At ten O’ Clock she was knocked out. And the rest of the day she spent hanging on bed, being miserable, drinking everything away. Her so-called sorrows but especially all our money. Whisky isn’t exactly the cheapest thing to drink, you know. We had a small amount of money, a very small amount, each month. I don’t know who it came from but my mum always knew to lay hands on it first. And when she had done her shopping’s at the district liquor store, I could have the rest. Which was zilch, zero, nothing. So at the beginning of each month she took the money, used it up and then we were broke. But we had to eat for the rest of the month and pay the rent and the bills. My mum wouldn’t work, she was to drunk for that. So I had to. How else was I going to get food? So, I dropped out of school and took myself a job. And another one. And another one. I worked three jobs a day. I started at the newspaper stand where I had to drag the newspapers inside and put them on the shelves. The money was okay, as far as you can expect to be for a teenager. At about two pm I was going to my second job of the day at the grocery store. I delivered groceries to the oldies around the neigh bourhood and beyond on my bike. They were usually okay people, a bit slow and deaf sometimes but they wouldn’t shoot my head off. It was probably one of the nicest jobs around, although it paid bloody bad. In the evening I worked in a bar. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s nothing like that. It was a coffee bar. I stood behind the bar and took orders. I cleaned the tables and got rid of the last customers. It was the best paid job of all three, but it was also the lousiest. The customers were hard to please. My coffee is cold miss, this was not what I ordered, can I have a clean fork here please, hello! I ordered yesterday and it’s still not here. There was always something to complaint by them and there was always someone who wouldn’t leave or something to be cleaned when all I wanted was to go home, not because I liked it so much but I just wanted to sleep and dream about the grey station wagon with the Labrador on the back seat. But when I came home I couldn’t sleep. Footsteps upstairs, the pounding on the walls and the screeching bed of my mother who was pretty active at night. She always would find some guy to take home. Sometimes I just wished that she would have asked money for it then we could have been rich by now. I hated her for making my life miserable, for taking my money away to buy whisky and for so easily forgetting my father, at least that’s what she made me think.

IN LOVE


I remember seeing him for the first time. I now know that he came every year to visit my mum. For some reason she always sent me away once a year, always on the same day. I never understood why but knowing her extreme lifestyle I wasn’t really anxious to find out. It was the 24th of november that day. It was freezing outside as well as inside (in our house). This was the month of the year that I could turn our fridge off and nothing would defrost, not that we ever had anything in the fridge but it’s the thought. Anyway, my mum would always sent me to my aunt in Houston. She lived there with her family, that’s husband and two kids of five and eight. She was my mum’s older sister and sometimes I had the strange feeling that they didn’t know each other at all. My aunt ignored my mum, she was terribly ashame of her way of living. And she would never show herself in the place we lived. It would hurt her good reputation. But I didn’t really mind. She was always friendly to me, feeling sorry for me for having to live with my mum. It was nice to be a weekend away from that poor place at home and to be in a warm home with lots of food and nothing to do. I could play with my cousins in the fresh air, that you could never find in Detroit and we would built a yeti out of the white snow. Then my mum would call, angry but also crying. I had to come back home, she couldn’t stand being alone and I had to get her some more whisky. I just hanged up the phone and my uncle drove me home. He joked to cheer me up, but it didn’t help. I was going back into hell, I didn’t see what was so funny. But on that particular day, the 24th of November, I was on my way to the subway when I realized I had forgotten my money. Hurriedly I ran back home, my bag over my shoulder, afraid that my mum had already used the valuable dollars for other purposes. When I got into the building and opened our door with my key, that was the only not-broke thing in our flat, I found my mum smiling on the couch. She had her face tarnished with layers of make-up and the house was all cleaned up. She was in a very unusual position. She was sitting up straight while a man was in the room! This man sat on the chair. Then he turned to me. It was the first time that I saw my father, although I didn’t know at the moment. He was a handsome man, mid-thirties but he didn’t look a day older than 28. He had worn a pair of jeans and a blue woollen sweater. He had short black hair, crew cut. His eyes were dark, but had a nice shimmer in them. He was tall, tanned and his muscles clearly showed through the fabric of his clothing. He seemed to me like a metal worker or an armed forces guy. He turned out to be the last, kind of. He looked very surprised when I walked in. And so was I. He was not the kind of man that I usually found with my mother. He was different, normal. And the house, it was all cleaned up. Later I had found my room cleaned up to. All my stuff was thrown in the closet to hide my existence. But he didn’t know at all who I was. I walked in and he looked at me, stunned. He asked what a beautiful young lady like me was doing here. I had no idea who he was talking to or who he was talking about. I looked behind me if someone maybe had followed me, a beautiful woman perhaps. But there was no-one and he was looking at me, expecting some kind of reply on his remark on the way I looked according to him. I didn’t know what to say and although he seemed like a nice guy I didn’t feel like getting involved in my mother’s sick business so I stammered that I had forgotten my money. The man asked my mum to introduce me to him. She swallowed and tossed down the last whisky from her glass, drinking herself the courage to tell. I guess she had planned it, as far as she could. She needed more money and wanted allowance from him. But it didn’t quite go her way.
She took a deep breath and than did the absurd announcement, I could tell she was already drunk. Brad this is Liz. Liz meet Brad…your dad. Brad froze on his seat. Finally he turned slowly to my mother, stupefied. My mum looked at him fiercely, wanting to go through to the next stage: allowance. ‘Don’t be too shocked Brad. What were you thinking? That you could fuck me endlessly without creating something? Well, guess not.’ were her exact words ‘well there she is, our child. Fifteen and a pain in the ass.’ Brad turned to me again, a confused look on his face. ‘I have to go to the liquor store now.’ She said blankly and she stood up. Her face showed no emotion at all. She left with a lousy ‘you guys just catch up.’
As if there was a way to catch up fifteen years, my entire life! I just stood at the door, looking at the floor. He was nothing like my dream. He wasn’t bald or little or fat. He was the opposite, but he appeared to be nice. It was unnaturally quiet. I could feel his eyes on me. Then he cleared his throat, someone needed to break the silence. ‘I..’ he started and he helplessly moved his hand over the chair. ‘i don’t know what to say..’
What a revelation… Well I must admit I didn’t either. I had had the conversation a hundred of times before in my head, in my dreams. I knew exactly what I would tell him on that moment, but back there in the silence of the living room, right in front of him I clammed up. It felt as if my throat was being squeezed tighter and tighter and I knew that whatever I would say, it would come out wrong. I felt tears welling up, but I didn’t want them to flow. He hadn’t been there, not one time he had been there for me in all those fifteen years. He didn’t know. But he wasn’t there. And then the pounding on the walls started again and the footsteps upstairs and the knocking on the door with the shrieking voice of the old lady. It was pressing on my ears and echoing in my head and it made my head feel like needing to explode. I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore and I burst out in an uncontrollable crying. I hammered on the wall, screaming for them to stop making all those awful noises. But they didn’t and the old lady just started a new whinge about my loudness today. And the pounding went on for ever and ever and nobody seemed to care until a hand touched my hand. It was his. He whispered if I had any stuff to take with me. I shook my head seeing everything in a blur of my tears.
He took me outside, taking the bag I had dropped inside with us. I could see my mother running towards us, screaming something, probably allowance. But Brad didn’t listen, he planted me carefully in his car and my mum. Well, she dropped her bottle of whisky and then she had to make a choice. She could either run for the car and try to stop us or she could go back for the bottle, that otherwise would be stolen by the boys that were always gazing for lost goods. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious what she did. She cursed and went back to pick up the bottle. Then as if she could make it back on time for me she started running towards us. She wanted the bottle and me. But to me she had already made her choice when she ran away for the whisky. And she didn’t have to expect me back anytime soon. Brad just shook his head in disapproval and started the engine. Then we drove off, in his car. It wasn’t a station wagon but it would get me out of there and that was all that mattered.


The girl cleared her throat. She looked sad as she sat there in the metal chair in the empty room. Every word she had spoken had echoed loudly to finally be recorded on the tape in the little tape recorder that lied on the table, not even an effort made to put it out of sight. It had clicked and the woman listening to her story had interrupted her to replace the full tape.
The woman had been keen to hear her story and she kept listening interested to every word she said. Sometimes she had stopped the girl to ask some more about a specific thing or just to know some more about the way she felt that moment. It didn’t seem like a police investigation to the girl and she wasn’t sure what would happen when she told the truth but she didn’t have much of a choice. ‘So what happened next?’ the woman asked in a pleading voice, while she pushed the record button and a little red light went on. The girl sighed and started talking.

He took me home, that’s in Pensacola. I had never been there before. Everything felt so new and refreshing. The first couple of days were really strange. He was very friendly and open to me. But most of all, he didn’t ignore me. It felt like he was constantly around, watching my every move. Not to spy on me, but to see if I was okay. I remember not being able to sleep that week. He had given me my own bedroom in his apartment. You see, that’s where he had taken me. To his home. Anyway, this apartment was pretty big and I guess I had gotten the guest room. He apologized sincerely for the bad bed in that room, but I didn’t see what was so bad about it. It was a thousand times better than my old bed, but I didn’t tell him that. But although this bed was so much better I still couldn’t sleep. It was incredibly quiet at night. I didn’t think I would ever say this but I really missed all those annoying sounds at home. For some reason I kept waiting until I would hear them, but of course they would never come. My dream of the little bald man with the Labrador didn’t come back anymore. Brad didn’t have a little white fence around his apartment. Instead I got this nightmare when I finally fell a sleep. A huge, horrible looking monster was after me. At first I was faster, but it didn’t take long or he gained on me. Then there always was a wall, a couple of meters in front of me. It was enormous. So high, that one could look up and see it vanish way up in the clouds. So high, that the shadow of it was so long that it caused me to run through darkness on broad daylight. But especially so high, that I would never get over it to escape from the monster. Then every night again I turned to find the monster missing. I backed up, crawling up against the wall, frantically trying to locate it in the darkness. But by the time my eyes focused on the moving thing, it had already seized me in his evil claws. Then I woke up. Every night on the same moment, screaming and covered in cold sweat. And every night I would hear Brad stumble out of bed and come to me. And he would say that it was okay and that is was just a nightmare. And he stayed by my bed until I felt a sleep or until he thought I had. I don’t know how he felt about suddenly having a daughter around. He didn’t give the impression to mind. I didn’t talk much the first days, he pretty much did all the talking, like he had to convince me of his good intentions. I didn’t really care about his good intentions, they couldn’t possibly be worse than my mother’s intentions. I was more interested in his share in my being here. I didn’t understand what happened before I was born. And I didn’t understand why he had taken me with him. He didn’t even know me. He admitted that it had been a bit of a impulsive decision but he didn’t regret it. He figured it obvious that I couldn’t live in an environment like back home. Then he found out from me that I didn’t go to school anymore. He was shocked. According to him it was the most important thing around. Surely I didn’t want to end up like my mum did, with a bottle of whisky and flat on her back every night. It turned out that that was also quite the way my mum and him had met. ‘I worked on an oil platform in that time. As a metal worker. It was on full sea and we only had five days off every three months. Then they took us to land and we could do what we liked. I was young, single. There were no women on the oil platform so the first thing I did when we got to land was find me one. There were plenty of nightclubs, bars and cafés to get yourself one. I found your mum in one of them. She was hanging around a bunch of sailors, but she tried to hit on me the minute I walked in. From the one came the other and she took me to her place and we did it. That was pretty much all we ever did when I got to land and visited her again. We weren’t really careful but she never told me anything about being pregnant.’ He told me. I didn’t understand. Surely he would have noticed when she was. ‘We broke up, short after a fight. I left, angry. After a couple of years my anger faded and I wondered what had become of her. I had made some friends in her neighbourhood and it was a good excuse to visit her. She was doing worse each year. From an excess of money she went to zero dollars and I had this vague feeling she had become an exotic dancer. I felt sorry for her, but giving her money wasn’t the solution cause she would only buy alcohol from it. She didn’t wanted to be helped and each year my visit became more of a obligation than a fun thing. But it must have been so much worse for you. You had to go through that hell every day. How could I leave you with her after I have left you there fifteen years.’ He continued patiently. I told him that he couldn’t help it, he didn’t know. But he insisted ‘I have a lot to make right. Starting by finding you a school.’ He didn’t just say something. The next week he had found me a school, but we needed to move closer to it, because Brad lived on the outside of Pensacola. Therefore, he took me with him on this house hunt. We must have seen at least twenty houses that weren’t right, but finally we found one that we both liked. We moved in as soon as possible, which meant after five weeks, and we put all the furniture into the new house. Then came the week of creating our own place. We had to paint the entire thing. Inside and outside. It was a lot of fun, though. We laughed a great deal, especially when Brad had accidentally bought purple paint. When he opened the can his shock about the crazy colour was so big that he unintentionally dropped it. We were on the roof on that moment and our neighbours were standing at the doorbell to meet us. The entire can of paint went over their heads and posh clothes and they were shrieking of surprise. They looked like two aliens from another, purple, world. They were so upset that they never spoke to us again, but we just couldn’t stop laughing about them. There was this constant teasing between us. One day, we were painting the living room. We had stuffed all the things from the living room into the kitchen, except for some old stuff. Like the couch. There had been plastic all over the floor to protect the carpet from our wild painting habits. We were almost done with one wall, it was like 9 pm, when Brad pronounced that his can was empty. I just hummed. Then he tried without being seen to get some of my paint. That wasn’t to hard, cause I was working really concentrated and didn’t notice his lack of paint. Then I felt a wet thing go over my cheek. I jumped with a little squeal and dropped the paint. My hand went to my cheek as I turned to Brad. He had a grin on his face. He had swept the brush over my face. A little laugh appeared on my face as he looked at me, challenging. I guess he had expected me to, but I was just to fast because before he knew he had the same ‘beautiful’ mark on his cheek. He laughed. It was the signal for a wild chase around the house, armed with our brushes. He was pretty fast but I had a nice lead. After we had a quick brush on each others faces now and then and a great laugh I bumped up against a wall, who was nicely located in my path and wasn’t about to move after all those years. It was quite a bang, the meeting that I and the wall had but I had a hard head and no harm was done. Brad helped me up concern in his voice when he asked ‘Are you okay?’ I nodded a bit dizzy. ‘You sure?’ I nodded again, almost falling. ‘That was a pretty hard hit.’ He brushed the hair out of my face and softly caressed my cheek. ‘You got paint all over you.’ He smiled. I didn’t quite know what to think of the situation but I didn’t think anything bad of it…yet. Then he bent over, his mouth coming closer and closer to mine. This must have been another impulse action, like he always had. I didn’t turn away, maybe if I had turned away, none of this would have happened. But I didn’t instead I let him as his lips tenderly touched mine. It was a subtle featherlike kiss. Our lips barely touched, but a shiver went through me when I felt it. No-one had ever kissed me before. Never had I let a boy get this close, let alone a grown man. But it happened now and I just froze. I couldn’t think at that moment and I just stood there, knocked for six. He must have felt my shiver because he stopped immediately. He saw my blue eyes, wide open with shock and confusion. His face was confused as well. He started stuttering apologizes and he wanted to take my hand but then changed his mind, not knowing where to keep them or what to say or do. He must have felt terrible, wanting to turn back time. But naturally that didn’t happen so he backed away from me, saying how sorry he was once more. I just stared at him, not knowing what to do, just like him. Finally, when the tension in the air was unbearable, I broke it…I moved. His eyes were on me, his brains were on full power trying to make a reasonable excuse for his behaviour but nothing boiled up. Helplessly he followed me as I ran upstairs to my room. He couldn’t come in as I had locked the door on my way in, but I don’t think he would have came in anyway. I sank down against the wall. I was breathing unsteady and had a sudden lack of clarity like I always have when I panic. I tried to pull myself together and get some order in the chaos in my head. A kiss may not seem like much to you and it wasn’t even a real kiss, but it was my first and honestly I didn’t know myself why I was so confused about it. He had said that he was sorry. I kept telling myself it was just a kiss, but I didn’t want to believe it, because silently I had liked the feel of it. But it was wrong. In the moral way it was really, really wrong. Kissing your father. That’s just ridiculous. But the thing was that I couldn’t see him as my father. He was not the fatherly type. He seemed mid-twenties instead of mid-thirties and he was strong build, muscles everywhere. He was more the type of guy you would see in a Marlboro commercial. The tough, robust man with a kind heart, someone you would feel attracted to. There it’s out. I felt attracted to him. It was quite a shock to myself too actually. I had only known him for two months and already I had a crush on him. I know it couldn’t be, he was my father. But again he didn’t feel like my father. It should have been the bald, fat, little dude. Instead he was a handsome man. All the while my thought raced through my head he was calling my name softly and knocking on the door. ‘Liz…are you okay? Please open the door…’ I had no intention whatsoever to open that door. What was I gonna say? Dad I’m in love with you?!? Oh, please. I was too ashamed to open that door and face him so I sat against the wall all night and finally fell a sleep. I’m sure Brad did the same thing. The next morning I stood at the door, my hand on the key. Unsure if I would turn it around and open the door. But I couldn’t possibly stay in my room forever right? I figured that maybe he had forgotten it or maybe I had dreamed the whole thing. I decided to open the door and risk myself downstairs where I found Brad sitting at the breakfast table. He looked up instantly when he heard me and the guilty look on his face said it all. His eyes were just begging for forgiveness as I sat down at the table. I didn’t blame him anything but he didn’t know that. I decided to pretend like nothing happened. It was unusually quiet and Brad could only look at his plate as he ate his breakfast. ‘I’m sorry…’ he finally pronounced, almost whispering. I decided to ignore this and the whole thing. ‘So, are we going to finish the other wall today, because then we’ll need more paint.’ I easily talked over it. Brad was all mixed-up by this time. The confusion dripped from his face. ‘Yeah, but you don’t have to…I mean…finishing the wall…you don’t have to if you don’t feel like it…’ he stammered and it came out all wrong. I didn’t say anything about it. I suppose I hoped that the feeling would just disappear. But it didn’t. In fact, it just got worse each day I spent with him. I started feeling uncomfortable living with him. Ever since I admitted to myself that I was in love with him, I couldn’t bare him even looking at me without turning red. It was awful. We would be eating and he just looked at me for no special reason and I just couldn’t help blushing again. But the showers were even worse. I tried to do them before Brad came home but usually I couldn’t find the time and I had to do it when he was home. It was not like he made me go shower or that he deliberately came to see me do it, but when you share a house you can’t avoid having to be in the bathroom together sometimes. One time, after I just had a shower, he knocked on my door and asked if he could come in. I told him to wait a second and for some reason I decided not to change but to keep my towel on. He came in. I could feel his eyes go over my body, approving or not I didn’t know. I was too busy asking myself why I hadn’t changed. He pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down in front of me. ‘I think we need to talk…’ he started. I had no idea what to expect now but I was soon to find out. ‘What about?’ I asked innocently. Brad took a deep breath. ‘About what happened a few weeks ago.’ He looked at me, trying to see if I understood what he was talking about. The kiss, of course. ‘It wrong of me and I hope I haven’t hurt you with it. I’m sorry.’ He was sorry?! ‘About what part?’ I asked in a tiny voice. ‘I’m sorry that you didn’t like it..’ he said after some consideration. ‘I never said that.’ I replied in an even smaller voice. I couldn’t look up, I was to embarrassed. But I could hear Brad hold his breath. Was this really a surprise to him? After a while he softly lifted up my head and looked deep into my eyes. ‘Did you like it, Liz?’ he asked, wanting to know if he heard right. I nodded. I felt he wanted to say something but he didn’t. He stood up, trying hard to control himself and walked to the door. “It was the first time…” I said, not knowing why. He turned around, smiling at my words. ‘It wasn’t a real kiss, Liz…’ he said it on an almost patronizing tone and then turned around and left. I heard him going of the stairs and even his footsteps sounded as if they were laughing about me. I felt a sudden irritation coming up and for some reason I jumped up and went after him, racing down the stairs. He held his pace in surprise as he saw me tearing down the stairs. I stopped in front of him, with my head held up high. His arrogance had tempted me. ‘You sure give yourself a lot of credit for one kiss that wasn’t even a kiss.’ Brad just looked at me, a little smile on his face. ‘Well eat this, you jerk. It wasn’t that good!’ I was pretty worked up by his overconfidence and I could have gotten very pissed and mean if he hadn’t stopped me right there. ‘You’re very beautiful when you’re angry.’ It stunned me. His voice was sincere and very soft. All my anger faded out. I couldn’t help looking into his beautiful brown eyes. Of course he kissed me. This time for real. I guess it pretty much sounds like one of those doctor novels, but this is the way it went. He kissed me deeply, probing my mouth. I could feel his tongue entering and twirling around my own. I was too surprised to do anything and I just let him take over. He was glad to and for the first time I knew for sure that he did wanted it, perhaps even me. From that moment on a lot changed. I got to experience a lot of new things. I felt like I was entering a new phase of my life. All the things that had been so far away, now where right in front of my nose, like sex, having a relationship, being in love and someone being in love with you. He made me feel like a woman, not a fifteen year old girl. After a couple of months I felt I was ready for a little more than just kissing. Brad had pretty much looked out for that moment and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. But as always he was the experienced one and very patient indeed. He didn’t push me into anything. Slowly we went a little further. We touched each other. His hands shamelessly moved under my sweater, caressing my belly and my breasts. All the time keeping his eyes locked on my face, to know for sure I felt right about it and seeing if he had touched the right places. Me, myself had a little more trouble with touching him. I did want to, but I didn’t know how. I was terrified of looking clumsy and stupid although he would never think that. He often took of his shirt and took my hands to move them over his chest, not for his own pleasure but for me to get to know his body. He always whispered to me not to be ashamed of anything, not of my body for it was the most beautiful he had ever seen and not towards him, I could touch him anywhere and however I wanted to. Of course I didn’t do that. I kept myself to the exposed skin, leaving the leading to him. After a while he tried to go further. I didn’t mind so we got into our next phase. It was perhaps the hardest one for me. He undressed me, leaving only my panties on. He could see me now, bare in the light of the lamp or even daylight. At first I was afraid he wouldn’t like what he saw but he turned out to be very pleased with the view as the bulge in his pants grew bigger. Still it felt very strange to have a man look at me, while I was naked. He touched me, everywhere but between my legs. His mouth and tongue explored my body over and over again as I laid on the couch or the bed. It felt good although it was still wrong. I didn’t feel aroused by his efforts but it made me feel wanted, needed and most of all pretty. After a short time he gave me an entire new experience. He had taken off my panties and opened my legs. He started touching me there, finding the spot that would cause the electricity to spark. For the first time in my life I felt a pang of arousal go through my body. I couldn’t help letting out a surprised moan. Brad had smiled. He had much more in mind then just this. He placed his head between my legs and run his tongue over me. God, the sensation. I had never felt anything like it. It didn’t take him much time before he brought me to my first orgasm. I could tell he was proud to be the first man to give me this pleasure. And my love for him increased the very day on that bed. Still he didn’t think of anything else but my pleasure. He didn’t urge me to go further. It was my own choice to.

‘What about him?’ the woman asked taking notes. ‘what about him?’ the girl echoed. ‘He must have gotten quite aroused being around you while you were exposed to him. Are you telling me he never, ever tried to go a little further?’ the woman explained. ‘That’s what I just said, a million times…’ the girl made clear. ‘I don’t believe you.’ the woman stated. ‘He didn’t stay with me at night. Our things lasted at most an hour and afterwards he would leave. He thought that I couldn’t hear, but it was pretty obvious that he was jerking himself off in the bathroom or in his bedroom.’ That’s more believable to the woman. ‘What about the bathroom? Did you two ever shower together? Did you see him undressed?’ she continued. The girl took her time to think. ‘No…we didn’t shower together. We never showered together…not yet that is.’ ‘Please do go on with your story.’ The woman said.

‘Well, for quite a while nothing really happened. I started going to school. I became friends with a girl called Melinda. She came to me the first day at school. She was part of this group of popular teens, like you have one on every school. She wasn’t really a good friend, but it was good company during the breaks on school. I had never really been a popular girl at school, because I was hardly ever there. But in Pensacola is appeared to go the right way. I was accepted by this group and they showed interest in me. From zero I went to admired and fashionable. As a result of getting affection from Brad I got a lot more self-confident. I guess it showed off, because in no time I had Mark, the hunk of the school who was a senior even (!), trying to hit on me. Of course I didn’t go out with him. I didn’t want to hurt Brad. Things were just getting better and better between us. He wasn’t acting in any way as my father anymore and was more my boyfriend. We cooked and did the dishes together and at night we went out or just hung on the couch watching a movie. It couldn’t have been more perfect. All the other kids I ever took home were always jealous on me and told me how lucky I was with a dad who was so easy on me. They didn’t know what was going on. I remember having taken Melinda home to have dinner with us. I hadn’t told Brad, it was a spontaneous action. Melinda and I got at my house and I let her in. There was something boiling on the stove and it smelled pretty good. I told Melinda to have a seat in the kitchen while I got her a plate. I was just reaching for it when Brad came sauntering in. He had heard me downstairs and had come to say hi. He was surprised to see Melinda. But Melinda was even more surprised to see him. She had never met him before, but she had heard around how hot he was. Her mouth hung open on her knees and she was practically drooling at the sight of Brad. He had just come from the shower and he was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His hair was still damping from the hot water. I’m pretty sure that Melinda had never seen this much muscles before or the sight of such a broad-shouldered real man in the first place. Brad didn’t take much notice of Melinda at first. He was polite to her, but only because she was a friend of mine not in any way because he liked her. He shook her hand and gave his permission for her to stay and have dinner with us. Then he came to me and while I was already back to reaching for the plate he put his hands on my waist and gave me a tender kiss on the cheek, whispering that he had missed me. I was shocked. Not because of what he did, because he did it every day when he came home, but because of Melinda. Almost traumatized I turned around with the plate, afraid to see the look on her face. And it was just as bad as I had thought. She was astonished. Gazing at me, trying to discover more about this thing she had just witnessed. I realized myself that it wasn’t the kind of kiss a dad gives his little girl and surely not so scarcely dressed. I could hear her brains rattling, trying to form a hot gossip out of this. Brad himself didn’t notice a thing. He didn’t give any importance to a girl seeing his affection for me. During dinner and the rest of the evening she watched us closely, trying to see some more. But I wisely stayed out of Brad’s hands although he did try to get me on the couch next to him. Naturally, the whole thing got blown out of proportions and behind my back there were stories going round about Brad and me, we were having a secret affair, I was pregnant, stuff like that. The result was a discussion about my virginity in the popular group I was ‘part’ of. A lot more boys got interested in me all of a sudden. They had heard that I wasn’t a virgin anymore and they liked the idea of dating a ‘ripe’ girl that they could end up in bed with. All the girls looked up to me and watched me in the showers at school. I was their example, I was mature and I could tell by there questions that they were curious to know what the first time was like. What they didn’t know is that I was too. Because although all this stories went round and round at school and just got wilder and wilder, most of them weren’t true. I was still a virgin. Brad en I hadn’t really made progress ever since I went to school and that was for about a year. It was summer when that changed. I remember it as yesterday. I was weekend, Saturday. Brad and I had been to a nightclub on Friday night and I was rather tired of it. We had had a great time, dancing and drinking all night. I was still in bed when Brad came in with a tray. Breakfast he had smiled. It had started out as it always did. He started to kiss me and took off my clothes. After that he had kissed me all over and finally ended up between my legs, licking me. Only this time he stopped right before I had my orgasm. I begged him to go on. And he did, but not on the way I had meant. I was very wet and he slowly slid a finger into me. When I didn’t say no, he slid a second one into me. The arousing feeling ebbed away and made place for a curiosity. I leaned on my arms, half up to see what he was doing. He slowly moved his fingers deeper inside me, all the while caressing my belly. A sudden sharp sting of pain, like a needle. I gasped. He saw it on my face and he must have felt it inside me…he had broken my hymen. When he withdraw his fingers there was blood on it. He cleaned me up with a tissue and then scooped me up in his arms and carried me to his bedroom. Why there, I don’t know. He carefully laid me down on the big bed and got on top of me. He gently kisses my mouth and my neck, moving his hands over my body but I was to excited about this new development to get aroused by it. He felt it and stopped. He knew I was ready for it now. He pulled his boxers off and his manhood jumped up. I was amazed and startled as well. It was so different from what I had in mind. Of course I had seen pictures of it but the real thing was still a shock. It was big and I could see the veins on it. He sat down on the bed and took my hand. He placed it on his manhood, keeping his eyes constantly on my face. It was warm and stiff and I could feel his heartbeat through it. It felt really different from what I had expected. On a good way, though. It looked wonderful but I couldn’t suppress a worried feeling. It was so big. How was it ever gonna fit in me? I knew it must fit, but with how much pain? Brad had gotten even more aroused by my hand on his cock. He wanted to go on and got back on top of me. I felt his cock sliding between my lips. I panicked inside. This was gonna be the moment I had fantasized of so many times before. I was expecting a great deal, although I was nervous like hell. Brad was pushing himself into my little opening. Well, he was trying. I did want it, but I was so nervous I was cramping up. He eased me, kissing me, not pushing any further. I relaxed a little. He immediately grabbed the chance and pushed further. An awful pain went through me and I screamed at his intrusion. It was so big and I felt like exploding with this thing stuffed in me. And he wasn’t even completely in yet! It hurt like hell. I tried to push him off me, to get him out of me but he pushed me harshly back down on the bed. He kissed me slowly and didn’t move his lower body for a while, to let me get used to the feeling. He whispered to me that I had to relax and let him in. Yeah, well easy for him to say. He wasn’t dying of pain. He leisurely pushed further, coming upon more and more resistance of my body. The muscles inside my vagina tightened to prevent this huge thing from entering me. But it didn’t work, he pushed through, causing even more pain. But finally he was all the way in. He paused to plant another kiss on my mouth and then slowly moved out a bit to thrust back in again. It still hurt, although it got less with every stroke. Brad was certainly enjoying himself or actually enjoying my body. His pace was slow at first but soon the tempo went up and his thrusts got shorter and harder, following each other up faster and faster. I was still in much pain as he forced himself in over and over. Brad’s breathing got heavier and he started to moan. He needed to come badly. His few last thrusts were hard and merciless and then he exploded inside me with a hard moan. I felt his warm juice spurt into me. It was a strange but nice feeling and for the first time in this misery I felt a slight good feeling. But it wasn’t enough to stop my tears from flowing. Brad was whispering sweet things in my ear and how much he loved me. I felt confused. Then why hadn’t he taken it easier on me? I was disappointed, having expected so much from it. But it wasn’t at all like what I had hoped for, it had hurt and it hadn’t at all aroused me. Brad caressed my face, wiping my tears gently away. He kept saying to me that it would be better next time. I didn’t want to think of it. If it was up to me, there wouldn’t be a next time. He softly withdraw himself, unintentionally making me suffer again. I felt something wet run down my leg. Brad must have felt it to and when he looked down his face showed disorder. It was blood. I didn’t need to look to know that. I was stinging and burning down there and I couldn’t think of anything else that could run down my leg right now. Clearly Brad hadn’t expected to cause so much blood, seeing his startled expression. I was exhausted, I didn’t really care anymore. Brad went to the bathroom and returned a minute later with two wet towels. He pressed one carefully against my vagina. I let out a sigh. The feeling of the cold water against my burning skin was absolutely relieving, the pain began to ebb away. He cleared my legs from the blood with the other towel and threw the towel on a chair. Then he carefully took the towel from me and looked. The bleeding had stopped and although my lips were still swollen it seemed to be better, because his face lost the tension it was carrying. He looked at me and I could see the guilt in his eyes. He realized he had been too rough on me and wanted to make it right. He softly kissed the insides of my thighs, coming closer and closer to my most sensitive place. He ran his tongue over my sore lips, soothing them and then tenderly pressed his finger on the place I needed to be touched. Although I was tired, I couldn’t help getting turned on by his efforts to please me. He could tell, as I started twisting and turning with my thighs as he went on licking me. I felt getting wet and he went faster and faster. I really wanted to come but I was on that little cliff, between falling back and falling over. I tensed up and tried to get over the top. I couldn’t get there until he brought me over the edge. An immense feeling came over me, flowing in waves through me. It was my strongest climax ever. He was deeply satisfied seeing me in so much pleasure and probed my mouth, kissing me passionately. I couldn’t have thought of a better place to be then there with him.’

‘You said you were in a lot of pain.’ the woman said ‘He knew that, right?’
The girl nodded. ‘Then why didn’t he stop if you were in so much pain?’ the woman went on. ‘I was supposed to be in pain. It was my first time.’ the girl answered. ‘A lot of teenage girls only have pain for a short time..’ the woman made clear. ‘A lot of teenage girls have boyfriends their own age, their own seize. I was with a man.’ the girl said without a blink of the eye. ‘That doesn’t explain why he didn’t stop…’ the woman continued, wanting to hear something from the girl. ‘It would have hurt with anyone. I was just a little scared and needed to be pulled through. He knew that.’
the girl replied wisely. ‘He pulled you through? So you are actually saying it is okay that he hurt you.’ the woman devised. The girl looked up, a bit confused. ‘I didn’t say that. You’re putting words in my mouth.’ She accused the woman. ‘Why the fierce reaction?’ the woman wondered.
The girl avoided the woman’s eyes. ‘I have talked to many teenage girls and none of them were in much pain, unless they were raped.’ The woman said, harshly throwing the truth in her face. The girl remained silent. ‘You can tell me everything, nobody will ever know if you don’t want to. If he gets punished than it will be his own fault. But don’t you protect him. Don’t let him get into your head. You have to choose for yourself…for yourself Liz.’ the woman said friendly. ‘Don’t call me Liz.’ The girl said angrily, infuriated by the woman’s patronizing attitude. She knew the woman was right, but she would never admit. She was afraid. Afraid that she would have to go on by herself, all alone. And she couldn’t. She needed someone to make the decisions for her.

‘The next week Brad tried many times enough to get me to sleep with him. But I hadn’t forgotten our first time and I was determined not to do it again. He would even torture himself with the little things, because he knew I wouldn’t go with him to the bedroom. I felt a strange pity for him when I had to disappoint him again. But he patiently waited for me to be ready, jerking himself off in the bathroom in the meantime. But after a couple of weeks the memory of the terrible pain began to fade. I wasn’t quite so sure anymore if it had really hurt that much or that I was just being a bitch about this whole thing. Brad noticed my hesitation when I denied him again and a little smile appeared on his face. That week he was happier than he had been the weeks before. One evening he came into my room to talk to me. It reminded me somewhat of our conversation about the kiss. He sat down in front of me on the bed. ‘Are you afraid that I’m gonna hurt you, Liz?’ he asked me, getting straight to the point. I was surprised by his straightforwardness and didn’t have an answer ready. ‘I would really like to have a second chance. I know you were in a lot of pain last time and you must think that I’m some kind of monster. I wasn’t thinking. But I promise you that next time, if you’ll give me a chance, it will be so much better. And I don’t just say that, Liz. It will only hurt a little.’ he tried to convince me. He lifted my head up to look into my eyes. ‘Wouldn’t you like to do it again, Liz. I know you need it.’ He bent forward and slowly kissed my neck and my shoulders. ‘Don’t you want me? ’ he whispered in my ear, his warm breath in my neck. I had to admit he was convincing and his words turned me on. I could do nothing but give up resistance as he started to take of my clothes to give me my heaven. It was so much better this time. He was so tender and sweet to me and treated me like I was made of precious porcelain. He had been right, it only hurt when he entered and then the pain faded, until it was totally gone. The combination of him touching me inside as well as outside pretty much did it and I came. I had been exhausted afterwards and I fell a sleep pretty soon. When I woke up the next morning I was laying with my head on his chest his arms wrapped around me. This was how I had pictured it. And I could only wish that time would freeze right there, right then to keep this moment forever. I didn’t know then, that the laughter would disappear gradually until their was nothing of me left but the vague hope to be able to go back home.’

No words could express the look on the girls face. It was heartbreaking. Her whole face showed sadness and she told her story with the tired voice of an old lady, who has seen it all. Dead beat she sat curled up against the back of her metal chair, her knees pulled up against her. The woman had seen many girls like Liz. Unwilling to tell her about their lives. All afraid for the person they lived with but even more afraid to live without that oh-so important person. She knew Liz was protecting the man she talked about, this Brad. She hardly said an angry word about him, without excusing him for it. He had trained her well.

‘The next months were amazing. I didn’t think of him as my father any longer. He was my significant other, my other half, my boyfriend. We did it all the time, all around. The pain had gone, not to come back and we both enjoyed every second spend together. We were close and all there was was each other…us. He whispered sweet things in my ear, made promises. It was always I love you and I’ve missed you and you’re so beautiful. He could make it sound so real and so sincere. And he would wait until I had said it to and he would kiss me saying that we would never part and that he would hold me until he died. It was the best time of my life. Sometimes I think that it was worth it. It was worth all the pain that came later on. Every now and then I visited him at his work. He worked as a metal worker or actually a welder in a weld company. Most of the time he worked on the docks in the shipyard, repairing ships. I came by sometimes, when I had an hour or two no school or after school. I always brought something to eat with me. There was always some supermarket or snack bar on my way there to stop by to get something tasty for him and his friends on the dock. They had a special section for welding and I could here the whispering go round when I went there. ‘food, food.’ And ‘looks like welding is getting fed again.’ were the main words around when I appeared. It didn’t take long before they all knew my name and the fact that I was Brad’s daughter and they always yelled a happy ‘hey, liz!’ or some other greeting. I greeted back of course but then continued my way to the welding section. There they were even more pleased to see me. The work at the dock was hard and they were happy to get some extra energy and a pretty face to look at. When I appeared it was always the signal to put down their work. And they did. They sat down in a corner, talking, laughing loud and eating the things I had brought them. Brad always pulled me on his lap or simply in his arms, overprotective. These people were his friends but he wouldn’t trust any one of them alone with me, his precious beautiful angel as he always said.
I don’t know why. They weren’t bad men. They were very nice to me. I knew they thought I was beautiful but they would never try anything with a 15-year old. But still, Brad only trusted me to two people on the dock when he had to go away for an hour or so to get some stuff. The one was his best friend, Ryan. He was a nice guy, single. He looked quite macho with his muscles and his big appearance and that was how he was. He always looked at me during my visits at the dock. And I mean all the time. When I sat in Brad’s arms he would watch me while Brad was brushing through my hair and drawing circles on my belly. Ryan came over to our house every once in a while to have dinner with us. Brad seemed to like having Ryan around. It was basically his only true friend. The other person was Walter, a man, mid-fifties. His hair was already white and his face showed a long life. He was one of the reasons I kept going back to the dock. It didn’t take long for me to get attached to him. He was old for this line of work and when I stayed with him during Brad’s absence he would show me everything and he told me all stories about his life and about his children. He always asked me how my day was and how school was going. No-one else ever did, not even Brad. Walter could see immediately if something was wrong and he would ask me if he could be of any help. Sometimes I told him my problem and he would always figure out a solution to help me out. But I never told him of Brad and me. Never.
Walter was the kind of man that should have been my father, although he wasn’t fat or bald or little, he was caring on a different way than Brad. A better way, a fatherly way. Brad didn’t like to invite Walter over for dinner. He hated the way Walter absorbed all my attention and he couldn’t stand my laughter and happiness when Walter was with us. So, he hardly ever invited Walter over to our house. He wanted me for himself, no other man could enjoy being with me. He saw every male figure as a thread and he kept me away from them as much as he could.

I recall clearly the first time it happened. I was coming out of school that day and he was waiting for me in his car in front of school. He did that more often, usually on Friday when he went home early. But it was Wednesday this particular day and I hadn’t expected him. I was walking down the steps with Ethan. Do you remember the group I was taken in by? Well Ethan was like the most important figure of the group and he was quite a well-known macho around the school as well. Of course he just happened to be Melinda’s boyfriend, although he had an eye on me as well as on every other pretty girl around. He was a senior and I had just heard the ‘merry’ news that I had to do my science project with him. I knew his way of work which was basically sit back and relax, so I immediately wanted to get straight that we would each do our share. He agreed, of course but I wasn’t interested in empty promises. Anyway we were walking down the steps. He was carrying my bag for me, for no special reason by the way, and we were chatting, exchanging ideas for our science project. He was making jokes all the time and I couldn’t stop laughing about his re-make of Mrs Buegle, our science teacher. Then out of the blue Brad appeared right in front of us. My smile vanished with the sun when I saw his face. He was furious. I started stammering excuses but Brad didn’t listen. He looked at Ethan with the meanest foul look he had, as if Ethan was the most stinking insignificant piece of garbage he had ever seen. Ethan didn’t know what to think of it, but as other kids were watching he had to give himself a tough attitude. ‘Have you got a problem with something, man?!’ he said challenging. I held my breath. Brad pushed his shoulder ‘You have a problem..’ he spoke threatening, hissing. Ethan laughed, it was the wrong laugh, full of disbelief and irony. ‘Come on, Liz. Let’s go.’ He made effort to take my hand but that hand never made it to me as Brad knocked him to the ground with a plain punch in Ethan’s stomach. Brad hadn’t even used his strength yet and Ethan was already wincing of pain on the grass. But Brad wasn’t done yet. He pulled the struggling Ethan back up to knock him right down again, in his stomach for the second time. I was screaming for Brad to stop and I jumped in between but Ethan could hardly move and couldn’t get away before Brad pushed me harshly out of the way. His strength swept me straight to the ground, but he didn’t see. He was still going at Ethan, who was frantically trying to get away. But Brad lifted him up with one arm and pushed him against the wall. I couldn’t hear what he was hissing to Ethan but it must have been a warning not to come near me again. Ethan was nodding madly. Then Brad knocked him out, his fist striking Ethan straight on the jaw. Ethan smashed against the wall, totally knock-out.
All the other people watching hadn’t made the slightest effort to help Ethan. They were afraid of the mad man who had attacked Ethan for apparently no reason. Some teachers were coming out of the school building towards the crowd around us, to see what was going on. But they would never see us because Brad, still fuming, pulled me to the car. I reached my hand for my bag but Brad screamed at me to get in the car. I quickly got in afraid to get my bag. Brad drove off in an excessive speed. His anger didn’t fade on the way home. He was still livid about seeing me with this boy. He screamed at me, wanting to know why and he screamed at me how bad I had been and how stupid I was taking his love for granted. I was terrified with his anger. I just sat on the couch, while he smashed things. Everything he did was loud, his footsteps were hard on the wooden floor, his screaming was deafening and the sound of breaking glass echoed trough the house. I had the feeling my ears would split in two. With every scream and every thing he broke I cringed further. He must have had the idea that I wasn’t listening, because he roughly pulled me up. ‘Are you hearing what I’m saying, huh, are you listening??’ he powerfully shook me up, until my head was spinning of it. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you!’ he screamed. Before I could do so, he shook me up again. ‘LOOK AT ME!’ he roared. I looked up to him, scared stiff and tried to say sorry. It was not much more than a whisper, my throat felt like being squeezed together, but Brad figured out what I said. He wasn’t to pleased with it. ‘Sorry?? Sorry?! What the hell were you thinking??’ he screamed, shaking me up again. I started crying and muttered a new line of sorry’s. ‘Stop crying!’ he roared. But I couldn’t, I was almost choking in my own tears when I tried to hold them back. Brad was on his top of anger now. ‘Stop it, you little bitch. STOP CRYING!’ Then he slapped me, a hard smack on my right cheek. I fell to the ground, my cheek was burning and aching incredibly. With eyes, big of fear, I looked at him. He was standing there, looking awfully big from the ground seen. He was breathing heavily. He made a step towards me, putting his hand out to me. Immediately I crawled back. His face showed confusion. Then he left. I heard him take his coat in the hallway and storm off. Then all there was, was silence. After all the noise he had made the silence was disturbing. Have you ever had the feeling that the silence was pressing against your ears. That it was a noise instead of just nothing. Well, I had that feeling right there. All the while my cheek was hurting and after an hour I finally got off the floor and stumbled to the bathroom on my shaky legs. My cheek was turning blue. It didn’t surprise me that his smash would leave a mark. I just couldn’t believe he hit me. With every step I made, my head pounded, as if a train was going through it. Finally I slid down the wall of the kitchen, dizzy and tired. It was about 2 ‘O Clock at night when he came home. I was still sitting against the wall in the kitchen, completely in the dark, ice-cold. I hadn’t thought about moving anywhere else. And I couldn’t, my legs wouldn’t work with me. I just sat there, my knees pulled up against me, listening to Brad’s steady footsteps. He immediately went upstairs. I could here some doors open. He came back downstairs, quicker almost running. I knew he was trying to find me, but my head was spinning and I couldn’t get up. It didn’t matter. His footsteps weren’t angry anymore. I heard him come closer and saw the light of the living room flash on. The dark no longer covered me and when his footsteps suddenly stopped I knew he must have discovered me. I was afraid to look up, trembling with fear and cold. The footsteps became faster until they weren’t footsteps anymore, they were Brad. He kneeled down at me. His hand came to me. Perhaps to comfort me, but I took it wrong. When the shadow came over me I flinched, pushing myself against the wall, my arms went up to protect myself all the while shivering. He softly pulled me to him, shocked by his own actions. I was crying uncontrollably as he softly rocked me, whispering how sorry he was. He carried me upstairs to bed. When I saw my bed, I panicked, thinking of what he would do. I moved back into a corner of the room, finding myself trapped. But he had nothing in mind for us. He helped me out of my clothes and into my nightdress while I was frozen to the floor, petrified. He rubbed my hands, legs and feet to get them warm and then helped me into bed. ‘I don’t what got into me, Liz. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ His words passed me utterly. I was so dizzy, that I couldn’t have told the difference between up and down as it was all spinning around me in circles. He was too close, yet his voice seemed to come from far, just like any other sound. It was almost as if I was in a glass bubble, that kept everything outside. But it also kept me inside. I saw Brad’s mouth move but there was nothing to hear. His hands touched me. He caressed my face but the warm feeling of his hand felt like a burn on my cold skin and as I moved back he did the same with a nervous look on his face. He didn’t know me as I sat there, being myself. I pulled the sheets over my head and when I finally dared to look again and to breath, he was gone. He had left me all alone…I had a panic attack, like I always had.’

‘This panic attacks. Did you have them a lot?’ the woman asked the girl. ‘Yes. But I thought they had gone away. And then this happened.’ the girl replied. ‘What happens?’ ‘It’s like the world is moving incredibly fast around me. I can’t see, I can’t hear. But I know that the thing that I’m scared off must still be out there. And I get so frightened that I just freeze.’ the girl answered with a tremble in her voice. ‘But it went by, right? Why didn’t you leave? Did you think you deserved it? Or did you think it would just stop?’

‘I didn’t think about it. I didn’t want to. He was always so caring and so sweet to me afterwards that I felt like it had been my fault. That morning I felt miserable. My cheek clearly showed a bruise, but to be honest I felt bruised all over because of sitting in the cold the entire evening. I had no choice but to go downstairs. I didn’t hear anything so I secretly hoped that Brad had already gone to work. But my hope flew fast when I came into the kitchen. Brad was baking eggs with his back to me. He turned around when he heard me. I could see his startle about the big bruise on my face although he tried to cover up immediately. He got me a plate and put the eggs on it. Then he just sat down and watched me eat. ‘Why don’t you stay home today?’ he softly said. His voice sounded hesitating through the silence. I stopped eating and looked up. I had to think that over although I knew it wasn’t really a question. He softly touched my blue cheek with his cool hand, I could see the regret in his eyes but also some fear. Because after all he did to me, now and all the years to come he needed me. And he was secretly afraid that they were gonna take me away from him. I decided to stay home. I couldn’t possibly turn up with this blue-purple cheek. They would ask questions, that I couldn’t answer. And it would be calm. A quietly okay was my answer. He smiled relieved. ‘I’ll give them a call…’ He stood up and called the school. ‘I called in sick as well.’ he said nervously smiling ‘So, what would you like to do?’ I looked at him, awkward and with disbelief. What did he mean? He stood there, nervously playing with his hands. ‘I could rent a movie or…eh…we could go see one. Or we could…go to the park or… shopping’ he looked at me trying to make me happy but his eyes showed desperation ‘Would you like to go shopping? You can have anything you’d like.’ Tears welled up in his eyes, but I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him, sad. I couldn’t believe the way he was trying to make right what he did wrong. ‘Please.’ his voice was small. I simply turned and went back to eating my eggs.
‘I know I can’t make it right. But it won’t happen again, Liz. Liz?’ I just ate. ‘Please, I need you. Don’t do this to me.’ So it was all my fault! He sure knew how to make me feel guilty. I let him take my hands and draw little kisses on it until I would smile at his played humbleness. ‘It won’t happen again…’ he repeated himself over and over again, while he tenderly kissed me. And then he made love to me on the table, sweeping my plate to the ground. And it was only for my pleasure and he kept telling me how much I meant to him and how sorry he was. And at the end I believed it, brainwashed by his tender touches and his sensitive words that rolled over my skin. I forgave him and we didn’t talk about it any more. He rented the movie he had talked about and we sat on the couch, holding each other tightly as we watched it. It was exactly like he wanted it and I gave in easily. I stayed at home the entire week. One evening, I believe it was Friday night the bell rang. I opened the door and found Ethan standing there with Melinda on his side. Melinda’s look said it all when she saw me and my bruise. Ethan had told her and it was pretty clear where I had got the bruise. Ethan looked quite hurt himself. His jaw had the same blue colour as my cheek. ‘Gee, Liz! Are you okay?’ Melinda asked worried, her eyes on my cheek. ‘I’m fine.’ I said, trying to look as happy as possible with it. ‘But that contusion…’ she brought in and suddenly backed off, grabbing Ethan’s arm. Ethan’s look had suddenly changed into hostile. Brad had appeared behind me. ‘Liz fell off the stairs yesterday.’ He said reserved. If looks could kill, people would have died there. It was obvious that Melinda and Ethan weren’t buying it, certainly not after Brad’s outburst of aggression. ‘But she’ll be okay, right Liz?’ he pulled my back, closer to him. ‘So, how can we help you?’ he asked the two teenagers. ‘Your bag…’ Ethan held my bag up. ‘You forgot it yesterday after your ‘father’ beat me up. I should have him arrested’ Brad snatched the bag out of Ethan’s hands with a big played smile. ‘Please do! You can use my phone. And what the hell! I’ll even drive you to the police station. And if I’m there anyway I might as well tell that nice police officer how you harassed my daughter.’ Melinda looked at Ethan, in shock. Ethan flashed from me back to Brad. ‘What.. I never..’ he stammered. ‘You don’t have to lie about it, ethan. Liz told me everything and you’re goddamn lucky that I didn’t know yesterday or you wouldn’t have been here.’ Brad spoke on firm tone. I looked at him with confusion. What was he talking about? ‘Now get lost before I change my mind, you piece of shit!’ Ethan was too surprised to say anything. The door slammed in front of his face.
Brad pulled me away from the door and sank back on the couch. I stood in the middle of the room, still wandering about what he had just said. Brad looked up from the screen to me. ‘We were watching a movie, remember. Are you coming or do I have to come to get you?’ he said, smiling. I ignored his joke and didn’t make any effort to come to him. ‘What did you mean when you said that I told you everything?’ I asked. Brad’s smile disappeared. He pulled me on the couch. ‘It’s just the shock, Liz. You’re in denial, but that’s okay.’ What was he talking about?? Brad took my hands and looked deep into my eyes. ‘He touched you, Liz. He touched you on places that you want only me to touch. Don’t you remember? You were crying.’ I shook my head. No, he was lying. ‘No, he didn’t.’ ‘Yes, he did Liz. He hurt you, that’s why I hit him. He was hurting you, Liz.’ Brad said, his eyes piercing into me ‘He hurt you. That’s how you got the bruise, Liz.’ He brushed over my cheek. I shook my head again. ‘No…’ I pushed his hand away. ‘No, you did this to me.’ Brad laughed. ‘I would never do something like that, Liz.’ His face turned darker. ‘Unless you deserved it. Did you Liz? Did you deserve it?’ I was like a statue, my eyes big, staring at him. He bend over ‘Maybe you deserved it, Liz. For touching him rather than touching me.’ he whispered in my ear. ‘You know what they call it Liz? Adultery, they call it adultery. Did you learn your lesson now? Or do I have to teach it to you again?’ I shivered. He was threatening me. After all his excuses and his promises he was saying that he would do it again. And the worst thing was that I felt like I ought to have this batter he was talking about. He had every right to hit me, I had cheated on him.’

The girl looked to the floor a shame of herself. ‘You cheated on him?’ the woman asked surprised.

‘Yeah, it was on a Thursday night. There was a party over at Ethan’s place. Ethan and me had just danced and he insisted on showing me his room. Melinda wasn’t there so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see his room. But we didn’t get any further than the hallway. He stopped me there and pulled me closer to him. He pressed his lips on mine and kissed me. He was drunk, but I wasn’t. I was perfectly aware of what I was doing. Brad must have seen me standing with Ethan that night, because it was already late and a couple of minutes after our kiss he walked in to take me home.’

It seemed a reasonable explanation. ‘But then why didn’t he beat Ethan up right there?’ the woman asked. ‘I pretended to be drunk, for my own conscience. I couldn’t bare to sleep with him after I had kissed with Ethan. He took the bait. He silently forgave me for what I did, using the alcohol as an excuse for me. We did it after all. Well, he did. I was basically just laying there, playing intoxicated. He must have gotten angry when he saw me and Ethan together again, for the science project.’ The girl answered.
‘And what about Ethan? Didn’t he want more after the kiss?’ the woman kept asking questions. ‘He was too drunk to remember our kiss. And I didn’t really have a choice on the science project thing.’ The girl explained patiently.

‘It only got worse. I went right home after school. I cleaned up the house and cooked dinner. Everything had to be perfect, when he got home. Sometimes I was so nervous that I had to throw up. I was terrified of doing something wrong when he was around. But because of my nerves I only dropped more things and said the wrong things, making him angry. I could see it coming. His face got blank and he would let me pay for breaking glass, hitting me, telling me how stupid I was. I should know how little I was able to do without him and how useless I was without him. He would hit me, just as long until I would have learned my lesson. But it wasn’t always as bad as I expected. He would patiently help me clean up the mess I had made. We would watch a movie, laying in each others arms or we would play a game, teasing each other, having a laugh. I cherished those moments. That was him, the man I had fallen in love with. Sweet and caring. But they became rarer and rarer. I often blamed myself for ruining his mood. I must do something wrong, I didn’t make his happy. He became quieter. He never told me anything. The bunch of unpaid bills got larger and he would often be up late, buried in papers his hands in his hair about how we would make it this month. Sometimes he would stand at the bedroom window, just looking at the sky. It looked sad and it reflected in his eyes. They got tired and sadder. He couldn’t pay for the house and his job was a pain. He was heavily stressed and took out his anger on me, taking every little thing I did wrong as a reason to beat me up. Afterwards he always had a deep regret and he was desperate to do anything to make up what he did. For a couple of days he would be caring and gentle and tender. We would do only things that I enjoyed to do and he tried to please me in any way possible. I felt important and wanted. Forgiveness came at the end of those days. I believed and hoped time on time again that he would really change this time. But he didn’t. But I couldn’t leave. I loved him with all my heart and I kept hoping that some day it would all stop. In meanwhile I just sucked up the nice moments we had until they were lived out.’

‘My grades went way down at school. I couldn’t concentrate when I was there and I hardly had time to do my homework. Brad absorbed all my time. I could make homework when he was home, but I knew that when I did he would be watching me the entire time. I couldn’t bare him staring at me. It would make me nervous and I couldn’t think of anything to write down. Brad asked me sometimes if I had finished my homework and I just said yes, although it was a lie. The teachers noticed of course that my grades were so much lower and they asked about it. I always had some vague story ready to tell. My dog died, I’m not feeling so well lately, I just have to spend more time on my homework, I’ll look after it. They never asked more and I wouldn’t tell more. There was only one teacher who really saw what was going on. My sport teacher. And that was the one class that we didn’t have homework for! Of course we had to gym in a short pants and a t-shirt so I couldn’t gym when I had been beaten up by Brad. Naturally I ran out of excuses to skip gymnastics and I had to go anyway. That first time Brad had just beaten me up. Luckily my face didn’t have any bruises but I had plenty on my arms, legs and back. But I didn’t have a choice, my gymnastics teacher was watching me and I couldn’t possibly run away right for sport. So I went with the other girls into the changing rooms and changed. Really quickly so that no-one would see my red marked back. I had a long t-shirt that covered three third of my arms. My shorts however didn’t cover up my bruises. But what choice did I have? There was no way I could leave now. So I went into the gym. My gym teacher was a young man, maybe 25 or so. He had wavy blond hair and was exactly what you would expect from a gym teacher. Muscular, tanned by the sun, big but friendly. The ski teacher kind of type. Needless to say all the girls fancied him. They were always walking around in their tightest outfits to impress him and when he would ask for a volunteer they would be jumping up and down and with a held back enthusiasm they would call ‘Me, me. I’ll do it!’ He always smiled about it, but never showed any interest in dating (or whatsoever) a highschool girl. He was one of the nicest teachers on school, everybody agreed. That was usually the thing with young teachers. They were more involved with students, they knew more about our generation and were more interested in it. Well, jolly! That was exactly what I didn’t need at the moment, someone who wanted to know more about me. He insisted we’d call him by his front name, Dave. I felt a bit awkward doing that and I often fell back into sir or mr. He always friendly laughed about it. I wasn’t very good at gym and I wasn’t much present but he seemed to like me. Perhaps he just saw me through and he knew that something was terribly wrong. But I just fell back into my old excuses when he asked why I hadn’t been there last time. He didn’t ask more and continued the lesson. But around that time I got the feeling he didn’t put up with my excuses anymore. The lesson I was just talking about was the beginning of it all. I had always knew to keep it a secret, by not showing up. But this time was an awful exception. And halfway the lesson I felt somebody watching me. When I turned to see who, I stumbled upon Dave’s gaze. He had noticed the marks on my legs. I pretended not to have seen his stare and went on playing basketball. After the lesson Dave asked me to stay, he wanted to have a little chat with me. I had no choice but to stay and hear him out. He started with some lame-ass talk about how happy he was that I was coming to gym again (I hadn’t been in four weeks). I didn’t quite knew what to say and I was tired of thinking up a new excuse so I remained quiet. ‘I just happened to catch a glimpse of the contusions on your legs.’ he continued his talk ‘They look pretty painful. Where did you get them?’
‘I was on my way home yesterday when a little bunny crossed the road. I had to swerve to the right or I would have hit him. Unfortunately I drove right against a tree.’ I rattled off my explanation without stuttering. I had done it a million times before. Every time Brad beat me up I had another excuse for my bruises. I was getting quite good at making them up. After repeating them a hundred times on my way to school I knew them by heart. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Where did it happen?’ he asked further. ‘Doroughton road.’ I answered easily. ‘You go through Doroughton road? Isn’t that a bit of your route?’ he asked. I stared at him. I hadn’t thought of that! But how could he say that? For all I knew, he was making it up. ‘No, not really.’ I tried to sound confident. ‘But you live in West end don’t you?’ he asked surprised, studying my face. What? How did he knew? Had he checked it? There was no denying about it anymore. ‘Yeah…I do.’ I said in a small voice. ‘I…eh…always take the long route home. I like going through the woods. It’s…eh…very peaceful.’ I said, almost as if it was a question. I anxiously waited for his reaction, to see if he had taken the story for true and got of my back. ‘Oh really?’ he sounded surprised. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to hear that! Not many people realize how beautiful the forest is. I always go through it myself as well. Wow, I hadn’t thought you much of a nature sporting type.’ My mouth fell open and I was about to say I wasn’t but he was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t get through. ‘I got a great idea. Why don’t I ride with you today?’ he continued happily ‘Then we both have company.’ He looked at me, praising himself for his idea. My eyes must have shown panic, for it was all I felt inside. This went really, really wrong. I couldn’t go through the woods! ‘I…eh…have class until four. You don’t have to wait that long.’ I tried hopelessly. ‘Don’t matter. I’ve gotta teach until four myself. I’ll see you at the gate, okay?’ it wasn’t a question and before I could come up with another reason not to go he pushed me softly towards the changing rooms and disappeared. I was frantic. But mostly incredibly angry at myself. How could I come up with such a stupid excuse. Now I would have to go all the way through the woods with a guy who probably wants to know everything about me. I would be home way to late! Apart from that I never rode that far and back again. I would be exhausted in no time and Dave would see my lies through. That afternoon he was waiting for me at the gate. I had done everything incredibly slow, hoping that he would go without me or find better company but he didn’t. He was still in all his glory, fit and happy. He was chatting about a lot of things that I don’t remember anymore. He told me about himself, in the expectation that I would do the same. But I didn’t. I told him things he could have gotten out of my schoolfile as well. Where I was born. What school I had been on before. But nothing about my mum or my dad. Nothing about how it used to be at home or how it was at the moment in my new home. I talked around it and I knew he was aware of that. But I was irritated by his sharp questions. And although he was just showing interest I had the feeling he was trying to make me tell him secrets. And it made me angry. He hadn’t told me anything I couldn’t have worked out myself. So why should I tell him my entire life? He found it difficult to make conversation, for I wasn’t showing any interest in talking about anything he started about. I answered with a simple yes or no or an I don’t know even. I didn’t know which way to go, I never went through the woods. It didn’t take him long to find that out as I almost cut him off at a crossway. But I got off pretty good. I had been nicely vague, as my plan had been. And he knew even less about me than before. He didn’t ask about the tree I bumped against anymore and he didn’t urge me to tell him things. We both went our own way finally. He lived eastwards so he went right at a turn where I had to go left. We said bye and both went home. But all he had waiting for him was a microwave meal and a sweet puppy. I would have given my right hand to be able to go with him that evening (it was 6 already and almost dark) because I had a lot more waiting for me. No delicious meal or hot bath. Not a soft puppy dog or a movie to laugh about. My movie was more a horror or a thriller. I had Brad waiting for me. I was two hours late and I knew I wouldn’t come off clean. My bruises of the other day weren’t healed yet and I had another set of blue and black marks to look forward to. Brad would never let me get away with coming home so late and apart from that he hadn’t had dinner waiting for him when he got home. He would think the most bad thing about me, that I had been with another man cheating on him. I as well thought of the worst case scenario. In the worst case I would die. But suddenly the thought of dying went through my head and I couldn’t ban out that that wasn’t really the worst case. Dying wouldn’t be that bad, just like going out of conscious. At least I wouldn’t feel any pain anymore. The long way home a lot of that thoughts went through my head and I saw opportunities in everything around me. the three, the lake, the sharp metal of my bike and the high lamp posts. Everything turned into a perfect instrument for a suicide attempt. But I was very much a coward. I couldn’t think of any other reasonable explanation because I really had nothing to live for. But the pain I would have killing myself couldn’t compete with the pain I had in sight. It seemed far away still and I had no choice but to go home and face it.

When I got home, I found what I expected. I had only put my key in the lock or the door swayed open. Brad was standing in front of me, furious. I could see him look out over the street to see if he could detect any male species anywhere near our house, that I might have been with. When he didn’t he dragged me inside. I kept my mouth shut, having learned that months that it was the best way (just to wait until I was asked something). I sat down on the couch and waited for the outburst of violence to come. I hated these moments. The silence before the storm. Brad was trying to pull himself together, but I saw he had the greatest trouble not to come and slap me in the face right away. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, the restrained anger was all mixed up in his voice. I knew it wouldn’t matter what I said. I could lie and he wouldn’t believe me or I could tell the truth, but I rather didn’t because the truth kind of involved a man. I weighed up my chances. ‘In detention…’ I finally said. Wrong answer! ‘Don’t you lie to me goddammit!’ he roared and swept a vase of the table. I seemed to shrink as he got bigger. He marched to me like a bulldozer to a building that needed to be destroyed, the steam practically coming from his ears. I reacted to the impulse that had become so natural for me: I got up and backed away from him. But the hope that I would ever get away in time had flown with the same time and my movement weren’t even tries anymore. Then his fist got awfully close to me and he smashed me right on my face. Down to the ground I went. I fell on my knees. My nose was bleeding on the carpet. Not one cry I had given…yet. My breathing was unsteady from fright. I knew there would be more. And I wasn’t wrong. I felt his hand in my hair, first caressing it. ‘What’s wrong sweetie? Aren’t you having fun?’ he asked me in a childish voice. Then his fingers tightened and he pulled my head back with a tug, all with my hair. I couldn’t suppress a cry. ‘Where have you been?’ Brad roared again, wanting to hear the truth or his truth. I was in an uncomfortable position, forced to lean backwards because he had pulled me down by my hair. When I didn’t answer fast enough he pulled me even further backwards. ‘ANSWER ME!’ It felt like my hair was being removed from my head, taking the skin with it. By this time I was ready to cry. ‘Please…I was in detention, I swear…Please don’t hurt me…’ Brad didn’t buy it and pulled me up straight by my hair. I was up, but not for long. He knocked me against the wall. There he pulled me up with one arm and pushed me against the bricks. My head was spinning and my nose was bleeding. One of my eyes gave a blurry vision, but I could still see Brad clearly and I knew what was up next. ‘WHERE WERE YOU?!’ he roared every word extraordinarily slow as if I was to dumb to understand the question. With every time I gave an answer that he didn’t want to hear he slapped me hard in my face. My cheeks were burning and I was crying, not having a clue what the hell I was saying anymore. I knew what he wanted to hear and I knew what I would do. He just kept on screaming at me. How stupid I was and how he would never stop until I said what I had done. Just as long until I couldn’t bare it any longer. ‘I was with Dave…’ I cried, wanting him to stop. ‘WHAT?! YOU LITTLE BITCH!’ he slapped me even harder, but he let go for a second and I immediately fell to the ground. Everything was turning around me in perfect circles with a velocity of what seemed 500 miles an hour. I could see nothing but blurry colours. My legs seemed like metal, unbelievable heavy. I heard a beat, going faster and faster. My heartbeat or perhaps my brain, bouncing around in my skull. Then his hands on me, pulling me up and his voice ‘LIZ! STAY WITH ME!’ a slap in my face ‘LIZ! WE’RE NOT DONE!’. No pain, I was burned up, the glazy look of a dead person in my eyes. ‘LIZ?’ the voice got more desperate, but I still felt like floating on the thin air, strangely serene, the silence pressing on my ears, on my bubble. He couldn’t hurt me in my bubble. No-one could. Then everything became blank. No sounds, no sight, not the smell of fear or the taste of blood. It was hollow, empty. This is what I wanted when I would die. A space with nothing. Non-existence. Just gone. But I wasn’t gone. When I woke up I found myself laying on Brad’s bed, the owner of it on top of me, slamming himself into me. I had been out of conscience and he was fucking me. With all his anger he forced himself into me over and over again. I wasn’t crying. It was almost as if it was happening to someone else. I saw myself, a young girl her hands tied to the bed. A man thrusting himself into her, but she didn’t resist. She just lay there and turned her head away, waiting for him to come, waiting for it to be over. I hated her. I hated the way she passively lay there, letting this man violate her body. I hated her for not resisting. I felt like she deserved it. But it was me that was laying there. It was me. And I didn’t do anything. He had every right to do what he was doing. I never said no. I never said anything. In the simple way of thinking that this hell would soon be over. And it was. It got faster and faster and harder and harder, but I didn’t feel the pain. The pain of the body was so relative compared to the pain in my head. Then he came with a loud moan. He sank down on me, tired. His lust was gone. His anger had faded. He looked at me and caressed my face, red and burning of his beating. I just stared, at the wall or at the chair. But like most people when they stare, I didn’t see anything. But I felt his caressing, I felt his hands softly brush over my body. The same hands that had broken me earlier. Tears came out of my eyes when he pressed his lips gently against the aching skin of my face. The tears just flowed. No sounds, no throbbing, just salt water. I hadn’t deserved the way he treated me and I didn’t want him to try to make up afterwards. I was broken, every little piece of me (wherever they were) was hurting. My eyes were pressed into my head, by my skin that was going to swell up. The fresh cold water couldn’t make it right, neither could the tender kisses. It was solemnly a stab in the back. His sorry-whispers reached me and suddenly I felt the belt weighing heavy around my wrists. I needed to get away from him. The impulse came late. The panic came after all. Desperately I pulled at the belt, until it made my skin bleed. Brad, all the while, tried to calm me down, but when it didn’t work out and I started to hurt myself with the belt he untied it, heavily struggling with me, because I wouldn’t let him get near me. When the belt was undone, I crawled away from him, faster than I thought I still could. He let me leave, although he followed me afraid I would fall from the stairs. I was swaying from the one side to the other, not knowing where I was going because my head was bouncing and I felt the urge to fall down and make the spinning stop. But somehow I reached the bathroom and locked myself in.’

The woman was shocked. It was no surprise what the man had done to the girl but she described it in such horror. Sexual abuse. Another crime to add to the list.

‘The next morning I woke up in the bathtub. I was sitting in the water, I apparently had put in. It had gotten cold and so had I. My arm was hurting like hell. Later it turned out to be broken. Brad took me to the doctor. He didn’t like it but there wasn’t a choice. The doctor knew what had happened but didn’t do anything. He couldn’t, I wouldn’t accuse Brad. I was hurt, I wanted to forget and enjoy my happy days with Brad. I couldn’t go to school, I couldn’t get up without falling down again. Brad made me breakfast, lunch and dinner and tried to make me laugh. He was tender and funny and willing to do anything to please me. He even let Walter see me when he came by. He obviously wasn’t thinking because Walter immediately saw my black and blue face. It was pretty clear what had happened. Walter was shocked. But he didn’t say anything about my bruises until Brad had left me alone with him. I was laying in Brad’s enormous bed and I must have looked very small in the sea of blankets. ‘What happened to you, sugar?’ he asked with worried eyes. He brushed over my cheek. I should have said something like: I fell of the stairs or the I bumped against a tree story. Something in that style. But for some reason I didn’t. My throat was sore and dry and I couldn’t have gotten one single lie out of it. So, instead of lying I started crying. I was so tired of making up fairy-tales about what happened and Walter was being so nice. Walter reacted very kind. He hugged me and patted my back, letting me cry as much as I wanted to. ‘Oh, sugar. What are all those tears for?’ he kept saying. I just wrapped my arms around his neck and held tight, disappearing into this big man. He was like what normal kids would call grandpa, I guess. I loved his sympathy and his interest, his not wanting anything from me. He wouldn’t think of beating me up or having to sleep with me. By that time I was almost choking him, so tight I held him. He struggled to get loose and lifted up my chin to face him when I was loose. ‘Has Brad done this to you?’ he asked patiently. It was the first time someone asked me straightforward if I was being mistreated by Brad. There wasn’t much denying left. It wasn’t really a question, either. So, I nodded almost invisible. But Walter got it. I could see his eyes get angry, although he was trying to hide it. ‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked. I remained silent and looked away. ‘Ever since you’ve been here!?’ Walter asked shocked, knowing he had guessed right by my reaction. ‘That bastard. I’ll do him right…’ he got up fiercely and I’m sure he would have gone downstairs to beat Brad up if I hadn’t stopped him. I grabbed his hand. ‘No, please…don’t do it.’ I begged and must have sounded desperately. Walter looked at me, puzzled. ‘Please, it won’t do anyone any good!’ I tried to make him stay ‘Please, don’t go…he’s way to strong for the both of us.’ Walter eased down and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It can’t go on like this, sugar.’ He said carefully. I knew that, but I wasn’t planning to do anything about it. It must have been clearly because Walter went on. ‘Look at you! You’re more dead than alive. He won’t just stop, honey! He just won’t!’ I smiled. ‘I know. But I’ll be okay.’ Walter didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Really! I’ll be fine!’ I tried to convince him and myself as well. Footsteps on the stairs. I quickly began talking about something else, my science project. My eyes were begging Walter not to start about this whole thing and he got the point. He joined in the silly conversation while we waited for Brad to come in. That didn’t take long. Within ten seconds a knock on the door and his head appeared around the corner. He was carrying a tray with ice-cream. ‘Hey angel…how are you feeling?’ he said softly and sat down on my other side. ‘You didn’t have to bring all that!’ I smiled innocently. Brad smiled back, happy when I was. ‘Ice is good for you. You need a lot of cold stuff for your throat.’ He said cheerful. ‘You want some to, Walter?’ he asked. Walter hostilely shook his head, he didn’t feel like talking to the man who had just abused his friend. Brad didn’t notice his unfriendliness and Walter gave me a friendly pat on my head and left. Brad opened the plastic package of ice. He fed me like a little child. I bravely opened my mouth and painfully swallowed everything he put in my mouth. After a couple of minutes I didn’t anymore, I was full. He had been giving me snacks all day. Brad was okay with it and finished up the rest. ‘Is there anything you want me to do?’ he asked friendly ‘Like maybe pick something up from school or call someone for your homework? Or maybe you would like to watch a movie?’ I thought it over and then carefully said ‘Well, maybe I should call Melinda. She could bring by my French assignment if she has time.’ Brad agreed again. ‘I could call her. You don’t need to come out of bed…’ he started. ‘I’ll be fine.’ I said a bit irritated by this fake worrying of him. I heroically started to free myself from all the blankets and climbed out of bed. Immediately the dizziness grabbed me. It seemed like gravity had disappeared all of a sudden. Then I felt Brad’s arms around my waist, lifting me up in his arms and the world stopped floating all around me. My vision got less blurry until it was totally back again. Brad carried me to the phone in the hall and put me to the ground. His arms ready to catch me again and he expected it any time soon. I felt feeble and my legs seemed to be made of rubber. I was just standing on unsteady my legs, wobbling forwards and backwards, ever time almost falling. I picked up the phone and reached for the buttons. They appeared to be moving around. Every time I wanted to push one it was already somewhere else. My vision was all scrambled up and I was actually just pushing on the table instead of on the buttons. Brad was standing close against me, holding me so that I wouldn’t fall down. He took my hands away from the buttons. ‘What’s the number, baby?’ he whispered in my ear. I knew it by heart and Brad patiently waited. He pushed the numbers one by one as I said them very slowly to myself, trying to remember it the right way. When he was done he cleared the table and sat me down on it. Melinda picked up the phone. ‘Melinda speaking.’ It sounded happy on the other side of the cable. I was very slow in responding so another ‘Hello??’ was audible. ‘Hi, it’s me.’ I said vaguely. ‘Liz?’ she sounded surprised. ‘yeah, liz.’ I replied positive. ‘Are you sick? I haven’t seen you in like three days. You have missed like the most exciting thing ever. Leroy asked Melany! Can you believe that? I just told Kathy that Leroy must have really gone crazy now! Can you imagine. A girl like Kathy in our group. AS IF!’ she laughed and rattled on about really unimportant things. My head was spinning and I wasn’t really comprehending what she was talking about. ‘Ehm…Mel?’ I said in a little voice. She didn’t hear and chatted happily on, about the latest gossips I just had to hear. ‘MEL??’ I said louder. Melinda stopped abruptly. ‘Yeah?’
‘I just wanted to ask if you could deliver the French assignment to my house.’ I said. ‘Oh’ She was puzzled ‘Why? You can do it tomorrow in class you know.’ ‘I don’t think I’m gonna be in class tomorrow.’ I suddenly had Brad’s full attention. I knew he was afraid I’d tell her the real reason. ‘I’m not feeling so well.’ He let out a relieved sigh. ‘Oh, well. Sure I’ll bring it by. I guess I could come by tonight after dance. Speaking about dance. Do you know what Irene told me the other day…she was going home when…’ Melinda started chatting again. ‘I’ll see you tonight..’ I interrupted and hung up the phone. I felt like fainting and I was shivering. I felt cold but yet I was glowing like a madman. I must have gotten sick in the cold bathtub. Brad, carefully picked me up from the table and got me back to bed. He wrapped me up in dozens of blankets saying that I had fever and I shouldn’t be out of bed. That evening Liz came by. I haven’t seen her. Brad opened the door and took my homework from Melinda. Melinda was too surprised to ask anything. I couldn’t even get out of bed anymore. I was feeling worse every hour. After two days of constantly throwing up I simply had nothing to throw up anymore. I just kept gagging but nothing came out. Maybe you know the feeling, it feels like choking and although your mouth is wide open, your air supply seems to be cut off. Apart from that I was shivering all the time. It was incredibly hot in the room and under the blankets as well. But two third of me felt like freezing. I was wet of the sweat that came out of nowhere and my throat was so dry that every time I swallowed it hurt like hell. It didn’t matter, I couldn’t drink anything without throwing it right out again anyway. But the worst thing was the hammering in my head. It just wouldn’t stop, not even while I was drugged with aspirins and painkillers. I just wanted to see a doctor, but Brad kept saying that he would make me better. He was just terrified that they would take me away from him. But it basically just got worse every day. Two weeks later I was still sick. And it hadn’t got better since. I wasn’t going to school and my homework, well that was a long time back also. I couldn’t sit up straight or hold a pencil so I couldn’t do that either. Brad was home as much as he could. But he couldn’t stay home three full weeks and more to come. He had to pay the rent or we would end up homeless. He took time off when he could and checked on me every hour when he went to work. When he couldn’t he sent Ryan over. Ryan had the key of our house and worked less than Brad did. One evening he got home at around eight. He had worked the entire day on sea and I could here him stumble upstairs straight away when he got home. The door opened and his worried face appeared around the corner. He came in. ‘Liz?’ he whispered. I looked at him, glazed, feverish. He cautiously sat down on the bed and caressed my face with his fingers, very carefully. ‘How are you feeling, baby?’ he whispered, afraid that I would break at the slightest sound. I just shivered. ‘Did you have to throw up today?’ he asked silently. I nodded, my teeth chattering. ‘Don’t worry. Everything is gonna be okay. ’ He smiled comforting but his eyes showed differently, they showed worry and distress. Downstairs something dropped. I looked up, bewildered. ‘It’s okay. It’s just Ryan.’ Brad eased me. ‘How about I get you a warm cup of soup?’ he suggested. I didn’t feel much for it. I probably couldn’t keep it in any way. But he insisted I’d eat something. ‘You can’t not eat. You’ll starve the death this way…’ and he gave me a little kiss on my cheek, careful and went downstairs to fix me some soup.
After fifteen minutes he was back upstairs, with Ryan. Brad was uncomplainingly feeding me the soup. With the greatest trouble I swallowed four spoons of thin soup. Than I felt the urge come up. The need to throw up. I pushed the soup away from me and almost fell out of bed. I staggered to the bathroom, Brad lifted me up halfway and with his large paces we arrived in a couple of seconds. I fell on my knees, throwing the soup out. Again I couldn’t stop gagging, although there was nothing to vomit. I was almost choking in it and Brad stood there helplessly with his hand on my back, trying to comfort me in some strange way. When I couldn’t even gag anymore, I felt the sharp cold bite in me and my trembling got worse. I just sat on the floor on my knees, covering my face with my hands. My shoulders were shaking of my crying. God, I felt miserable. Ryan stood at the doorstep while Brad was brushing silently though my hair. ‘You gotta take her to a doctor.’ Was Ryan’s sharp comment.

And he did. The next day. We were sitting in the waiting room, waiting amongst other people to be called in by the doctor. It took about half an hour but then we could finally see him. I looked feverish and I was, but people always told me I looked even more pretty when I was sick. Like an angel, with a glow around me. Anyway, we could finally see the doctor. He was an old man, somewhere in the sixties and with the glasses he had one he looked like a very wise man. ‘Liziaene Johnson?’ he asked to be sure. I nodded. He motioned us to sit down. ‘And you are?’ he asked and looked up from his papers to Brad. ‘I’m her father.’ Brad answered meekly. The doctor frowned. It surprised him, Brad seemed young. ‘What are the complaints?’ he asked, leaving the subject aside. ‘Fever, headache, sore throat…she’s sick.’ Brad answered for me. ‘Let’s leave the diagnose to me, shall we?’ the doctor said denigrating. ‘How long have you been like this?’ he asked me. I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Three weeks’ I finally brought out in a tiny voice. ‘Three weeks??’ the doctor looked at Brad with disapproval ‘And now you decide to go see me?!’. Brad didn’t say a word, but his face said it all. ‘Well, let’s see what we can do for you. If you will be so kind to take off your clothes Ms Johnson.’ I did what he said and took off everything but my panties. The doctor told me to sit down on the stretcher and I did. He checked my throat and my airways and listened to my heart. After he measured my temperature he came to the conclusion that I was sick and he didn’t look to happy with it. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked me needless. I nodded, shivering. ‘You can put your clothes back on.’ He said. Sitting at his table later he explained ‘You have some kind of infection, Liziaene. I don’t know what kind of, but it doesn’t look good.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Brad asked anxiously ‘Something from bad food? A food poisoning?’ ‘No, I was more thinking of the arm. It’s broken isn’t it?’ the doctor asked me. I nodded again. ‘Did you go back to the hospital with it?’ I shook my head. ‘Then that must be it. If it’s infected you can get pretty ill of it. Here’s what you’re going to do. I’m gonna give you a note and you’re going to go to the hospital right away. They’re gonna clean your arm up. And while you’re there, ask for dr. Gonzalez. I want her to take a look at those cuts on your back.’ Brad looked up, alarmed. ‘They’re not cuts.’ He said quickly. ‘I know what I saw, Mr Johnson. And if I have to treat her again on this kind of wounds, I’m gonna have to write a rapport about it. Do we understand each other?’ the doctor said harsh. Brad stood up and pulled me up by my arm. He said nothing and took me outside, without saying one more word to the doctor.

We went to the hospital the same day. They treated my arm and gave me medication to make me feel better. The infection was gone within the week. But I never saw Dr. Gonzalez. Brad knew what kind of doctor she was and he knew Dr. Gonzalez would convince me of his wrong. So, he took me straight home.

Part 2: see my portfolio

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