Chapter 6

I could see a light off in the darkness when my eyes opened. I must have fainted. The light seemed warm in the night sky, and it seemed to glow for quite a distance. There was nothing else at all that I could see in the pitch black but the light seemed welcoming.

We had been walking for quite a while, the man carrying me in his arms. He was a big man. His hands are huge, I thought. I could see him now as I looked up into his face. He was quite tall too. I was never this high up when daddy lifted me. He had short hair and it was very fair. His eyes looked black in the dark and his eyebrows were thick and bushy almost like my daddy’s, but daddy’s eyebrows met in the middle. His skin was rough, his hands scraping my leg. He put me down when he saw I was awake. He smelt of oil, I knew that smell because I had smelt it before when I went to work with daddy at the truck yard.

The grass was wet and I could feel the wetness seeping through my pumps. The sound of leaves crackling underfoot, twigs that were old and decaying were breaking into a thousand pieces. The rustling broke the silence that surrounded us walking through the woodland. The call of an owl pricked the night and gave life to it. I was still shaking, scared wasn’t the word for it. I was petrified!

Tears had dried on my face making it feel tight, and I had a funny taste in my mouth from the silly pill. We reached the bright light at last and the man told me “We’re here now.” He took my hand in his and guided me up some steps into the house. It looked derelict with no furniture only a fire lit in the middle of the room. The flames lit the room with flickering shadows. Strange drawings hung around the place with all different shapes painted, like stuff we had learnt at school when we were taught about the Egyptians. We walked down a narrow hallway, following the murmurs and sounds of voices. I could hear every footstep because there was no carpet on the floor. I couldn’t see anything, it was so dark.

A woman’s voice whispered, and for a moment I felt safe, until she said, “I have the camera. Get on with it, time is ticking, time is money, come on!”

Camera? I thought. I know what that means.

The man pushed me towards a different man, much older and grey haired into a room off the corridor. He then turned and walked away standing by the door. Almost straight away the old man threw me to the floor in front of him kicking me hard in my stomach. Why is he kicking me? I was confused and it felt like my insides were going to split. I screamed but nothing came out apart from a groan. I couldn’t breathe. Gasping for breath and clutching my stomach, I curled up my knees to try and ease the pain. There was no carpet, it was just wooden floorboards. They had been painted long ago as it was beginning to peel, leaving thick, rough edges to scratch my skin as I tried to crawl away.

“That’s a taster of what’s to come if you don’t do as you’re told,” he said.

I looked up and saw there were several people there, men and women. All stood around the outside of the room, saying nothing, just looking at me like I was a zebra in a zoo. Everyone was naked apart from the man who bought me there. I could hear footsteps and a woman walked in. She had three children with her, they looked about seven or eight years old, all girls.

Lots of candles lit the room and the smell of burning wax filled the air. Again I was stripped of clothes for the second time that night. The woman kept clicking photos while the man fiddled with my nipples and pulled my bits around, stretching and pulling, pushing his fingers inside me. I knew I was tearing. I still felt funny after that silly tablet. Every now and then I would feel sick, but I almost felt like it wasn’t my body. Sometimes I could feel things and other times I couldn’t. A wave of numbness came over me, I couldn’t move, my legs wouldn’t listen.

The flashing of cameras blinded me. I could see dots dancing in front of my eyes from the bright lights and the flashes stopped me from seeing the other people watching from behind the cameras. Who are they? I wondered. And why won’t they help me?

“Help me!” I screamed, but nobody moved.

A naked woman came over, put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a weird look. A man took pictures while the woman put her head between my legs and licked my bits. She squirted a tube on my bum then pushed a finger inside. Her fingernails were scratchy, but it was as if I had left my body and couldn’t feel pain anymore. Her fingers messed around with my privates, one finger in my bum and one finger in my bits, pushing back and forth. On her knees, with her other hand she started to play with her own private parts and moaned and groaned like she was dying. Whilst she did that, her breathing became heavy, and she kept repeating, “Oh my god! Oh my god!” like she was in pain. Her face twisted and creased up as she cried out, “I’m. . . I’m cumming!” Coming where? I thought.

She looked like a pretty lady with long black hair almost down to her waist. Her eyes were dark brown and she had really long eyelashes. She wore a long, jewelled necklace that almost reached her stomach. I think she was about mum’s age, maybe about thirty years old.

I had mentally gone to another place, a mixture of drugs and indignity. I could feel the fear disappearing. What am I to do, a nine-year-old girl against a room full of adults? I couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing really mattered anymore, not even when the woman took the camera and told the man, “Now get on with it, there isn’t much time left. She is very expensive.”

The pain was unbelievable when he rammed his fingers inside me, I could feel the tearing again and there was a warm feeling running down my bottom. I didn’t know at the time I was bleeding. He seemed to get really wild as his breathing was heavy and he was banging his knuckles on my bits with his fingers inside.

I couldn’t scream; no noise would come out and no one came to my screams anyway. I left this painful world again. I don’t know where I went, but I know I stopped feeling pain. It didn’t hurt at all when he rammed his willy into my bits. I remember him banging and pushing his body hard onto me, thrusting in and out. I couldn’t breathe, he was so heavy but it was like it wasn’t my body, I didn’t really care. I had given my body up almost like it wasn’t mine anymore.

I have no concept how long I was there in that spooky house. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I lost all track of time. The other kids were going through the same as me. In my fog I could hear screams and sobs every now and then, a girl’s voice begging, pleading not to hurt her anymore. She spoke with a southern accent too, Cockney I think? Her screams made me shiver so I went to my safe place and stayed there.

When I woke I was being carried into another room. There was a little girl tied down with her legs open. She looked asleep. A man was painting on her with red paint. Another girl was sat on a naked woman’s tummy while the woman lay on the floor. The woman was told to suck the girl’s boobs. A man licked the woman’s private parts and another man squirted his willy all over her. I could see tears running down the girl’s face, and when she looked at me and a hand smacked her around the head.

“Concentrate!” she was commanded.

“Smile for the camera,” another man said.

For a split second I made eye contact with another girl. She had short, dark hair and bright blue, sad eyes. A tiny scar was on her chin right by her mouth. She was sitting on a pillow posing like a model with a fake smile.

Then I was taken out of the house and carried back to the car. My legs still wouldn’t move, they were like jelly. I couldn’t walk so I was yanked along half running, half being dragged. I must have fallen asleep again because when I woke up, I was pulled out of the car and carried back into Uncle Joe’s house. Uncle Joe gave me a bath and put me to bed, telling me how good I’d been and how it would be easy now. “The first time is always the worst,” he said.

When I got out of the bath, he forced me to drink some foul tasting drink, Brandy he called it. He said I would feel better and it would make me sleep. I did sleep, so heavily that when I awoke it was late the next day. My whole body ached. I wanted to cry it hurt so much to move or walk. I found my way to the bathroom and cried quietly while I peed, the burning and stinging sensation on my bits was unbearable.

“You have a day off today,” said Uncle Joe with a smile. Not a lot of words passed between us. He offered me different meals of nice food but I wasn’t hungry. I watched TV until after the news and was told to get back to bed. “You need your rest,” he said.

* * *

I was pleased and surprised when Molly knocked at the door the next day. I wanted to tell her what happened, but I had been warned to tell no one. Molly had not been to see Uncle Joe for ages and was really excited because he said she was special. A different friend of Uncle Joe’s arrived shortly after, and I knew when I saw the camera it would be more of the same stuff. I felt sick. Poor Molly, I thought, if she only knew.

Molly refused to take her clothes off, then Uncle Joe changed. He wasn’t the nice Uncle Joe anymore. Molly was still crying when he came into the room with a belt. He hit Molly over and over again. She was no stranger to beatings, but Uncle Joe had always been so nice before. He told her there was more of that if she didn’t behave herself. He made her take one of the silly pills and then made me take one too. I hated those pills; they made me feel so sick and tasted disgusting. Molly took her clothes off like he said.

For what seemed like hours we were there while the man and Uncle Joe took pictures of us, pictures of me and Molly together, doing poses like the models in the magazines. He told us we had to lick each other’s bodies. They took pictures of us licking each other’s privates and kissing boobies. Uncle Joe would bend us around until had the pose he wanted. I was sure Molly was just as embarrassed as me, but we had no choice.

Another man came into the house and was watching and playing with his willy while Molly and me did as we were told. We performed for them all. After a while the man handed Uncle Joe a pile of money and took Molly into another room. I could hear her scream for a while then it went quiet. Molly was sent home with an envelope and told she was a very special girl. I had to stay with Uncle Joe for another five days.

I met a lot of his friends. One man came with a big camera and filmed me, like a real life movie star doing grownup games, with different men and ladies. They even brought other kids to be filmed with me, older boys would be told to do different things to me, like push a coke bottle inside me and put a willy in my bum at the same time. I never realised that grownup games hurt so much. Maybe that’s why when daddy was home I heard mum groaning and crying out a lot. I started to like the silly pills and ask for them because they took most of the pain away.

I don’t think I said much all week. I was like a zombie. I had lost my mind on the pills. It had gone out away from Uncle Joe’s house, somewhere it didn’t hurt. I pictured myself riding that horse through the fields. It was the only good time that came to mind.

On return to school I was still pretty much in my safe place, in and out of daydreams. I don’t remember much of what happened in my class until I had forgotten to give my teacher a letter excusing me from swimming. Mum giving me a letter but I wanted to swim so I forgot on purpose. I couldn’t find my own costume so I had no choice but to put on a spare swimsuit.

I don’t know why my teacher looked so shocked when I came out of the changing room. There were a few gasps from children in my class, but when I followed their eyes and looked down, there was a trickle of blood running down my legs to the tiles around the pool. Mixed in with water it flew around the outside of the pool filling the grouting between the tiles. My thighs were black and blue with bruises. The teacher ran up, picked me up and wrapped a towel around me. She whisked me up into her arms running to the school office shouting at one of the kids to get another teacher to watch the swimming class.

My class teacher came out of the canteen at the right time to see the swimming teacher carrying me and shouting, “Get help!”

The school nurse asked, “How did you get all those bruises? They’re all over your body.” “I don’t know,” I whispered, blushing and feeling myself disappearing into my safe place. No way could I talk about it. Remembering things hurt too much. If mum knew I had told she would give me another beating, and I couldn’t take any more. I kept my mouth shut and looked away. Part of all the fuss felt good though. It was great to have some ‘nice’ attention for a change. It felt good to be made a fuss of at school that day. Does someone really care about me? I wondered.

After lying down in the nurse’s room, I don’t know how long I was there. I think I went to sleep, I felt so weak.

My teacher said, “I am so sorry. I’m so sorry sweetheart, I have let you down.” Looking around at the clean, white walls which were decorated by pictures of kids at the school, I thought, They must’ve drawn them for the nurse. The glass cupboard had bandages and sticking plasters in one tray, a thermometer sat beside it in another tray and there was a kidney dish beside the bed.

“Just in case you need to be sick,” The nurse said, gently rubbing my arm.

Inside the nurse’s room, I could hear the head teacher on the telephone. Her office must have been next door to the room I was in. I guessed she was talking to mum, telling whoever, “We are very concerned about Abbie’s health. Something must be done and soon, or we will intervene.”

I shivered at the thought of what mum would do when I got home.