To keep it real, I didn’t like Tina the first time I saw her. She wasn’t attractive. She was loud and she always smelled like smoke and beer. I thought my father was crazy to even bring her around and I remember being shocked that he could have ever been so desperate and lonely as to fall for someone like her. I could go on and on about the ways that her coming into our home ruined my life. How she turned my father from a weekend drinker to a drunk. How she introduced him to drugs and eventually got him hooked. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was the people she began to bring around as my father lost control of himself and our home.

As far as apartments in New York City went, we had a nice one until the changes Tina brought with her. We lived uptown in a rent-controlled building equipped with a security door and a real lobby. From day one I could tell Tina was scheming on how she was going to move in. My father did nothing to stop her. Before long it seemed as though it was Tina’s name on the lease. Her friends began to come and go but her sister, Tenille, hung around so much that it felt like she lived there too. Tenille was younger than Tina; I imagined her to be about thirty. She was so reckless when it came to my well-being that she would smoke marijuana right in front of me. It didn’t matter if I was trying to finish my homework or watching television, she just didn’t care.

Coming in the house one night from visiting my birth grandmother on my mom’s side, in my limited wisdom I decided it was time to talk to my father about how I felt about how our lives had changed.

As we walked up 124th Street I asked, “Dad, do you think Frannie will come back?”

He looked down at me. “What made you ask about her? Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“Well, why you ask me about her? I told you when she left that she didn’t give a damn about us. She haven’t been around to check on you just like I told you she wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well I sure miss her, especially because I don’t like Tina that much.”

All of a sudden he paused in his tracks. “What did you say?”

Knowing I’d put my foot in my mouth I wanted to retract. “Nothing. I ain’t say nothing.”

I thought he was about to hit me. Instead he grabbed my shoulders and said, “Listen up. When you get older you’ll understand, but right now you don’t. Women, you can’t depend on them. They use you up, they emotional and unstable. Look at your mother.” His voice was cracking as he preached to me. “I told her that we didn’t need to have a kid, but she insisted that she was going to do it, with or without me. Then what did she do? I’ll tell you what, she got hooked on crack and left you with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love you son. I know I don’t say it, but I do. But sometimes I got to live for me.”

He started walking again and I trailed him. He looked back to make sure I was close enough to hear him. “Tina makes me happy. That’s all you need to know. You don’t gotta understand and you ain’t got to like it, but that’s how it is.”

I was silent for the rest of our walk home. When we got to the front door he said, “Khalil, let me hold that money your grandmother gave you. I’ll give it back to you this weekend.” I realized just that quickly why he’d taken me over there for a visit in the first place. It wasn’t about me. It never was.

I handed the twenty to him knowing I’d never see it again. It was ten o’clock when we walked into the house. I headed straight to my room and closed the door. I buried my face in my pillow and started to cry. Even though my father told me to hate women because they’d never be there for you when it counted, the reality was that I hated him.

An hour later I was awakened by the sound of music blasting in the living room. Staring up at the ceiling I tried to drift back to sleep but my full bladder wouldn’t let me, so I got up and headed for the bathroom. On my way back I stepped out into the living room to see who was having the party, and was hit right in the face by the smell of marijuana. This didn’t shock me at all when I saw who was sitting there. What shocked me though was when I realized what Tenille was doing, or rather, had done. I recognized the other woman from up the hall. I’d heard my father call her Jasmine before when he spoke to her in passing. I always thought Jasmine was a pretty woman, tall and thin. She lived with another woman, who wasn’t as pretty and who never spoke.

Tenille was sitting on the couch with nothing but her bra on, which was hanging halfway off of her shoulders. All the while Jasmine was on her knees in front of Tenille and at first I thought she was kissing only her thighs. Tenille’s screams were so loud though that curiosity caused me to take a closer look to figure out what had caused her to react in such a dramatic way.

I was mesmerized as Jasmine kept her head buried between Tenille’s thighs. I’d heard of women being gay and I’d even seen magazines before, with two women doing things to each other, but seeing it in person was blowing my thirteen-year-old mind. My closer inspection revealed that Jasmine was kissing and licking Tenille between her legs like it was nobody’s business.

Neither of them noticed me as I stood back quietly amazed at the spectacle. I was in a trance as I watched for twenty minutes while they took turns kissing each other until Jasmine noticed me. “Hey, we got company,” she said, pulling away from Tenille.

Tenille looked up and yelled, “Get your ass back in that room.” Her tone scared me and I took off and headed for my room, closing the door.

I pulled my covers up over my head, confused, scared, and even angry that my father had allowed our home to become a place where strangers did drugs and had gay sex in the living room.

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling as I clutched my pillow tight and tried to forget what I’d just seen. The images kept flashing through my mind as I fought myself to relax. As I lay there I kept thinking of Jasmine’s naked body, which made me feel nervous inside. The apartment eventually went silent and I drifted off to sleep.

It must have been four in the morning when I felt someone touching me. Immediately I remembered how Frannie would come in my room and sit on my bed and read to me until I fell asleep. I called her name out in my state of half-sleep. “Frannie?”

“Shhhhhh,” she said. I opened my eyes and realized that it was Tenille sitting there. My heart began to beat like a kick drum when I realized she was rubbing on my chest.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered. Then as my eyes adjusted to the small amount of light that crept into the room I noticed that she was naked.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Khalil. Just relax and let me take care of you.”

Take care of me? “I’m okay,” I said, voice cracking.

“Shhhhhhh,” she said again. “Don’t be scared,” she said as she stuck her hand down into my underwear. She kept repeating herself over and over again while she rubbed me.

My breathing was heavy at first out of fear but as she continued to rub me something began to happen to my young body. Without warning she began to yank on my underwear. I tried to grab them but felt her strength as she gripped my wrist and squeezed so hard that it hurt. At this point she pulled them off.

“Khalil, this is going to feel good. I promise.”

I don’t want to do this. Please stop. I wanted to scream out, but a part of me was actually starting to enjoy the sensations. I looked into Tenille’s face. She was nowhere near as bad as Tina in the looks department but she looked nothing like the women who I’d had crushes on either.

I tried to block out what was happening but when she climbed on top of me there was no way to ignore her actions. Out of nowhere I felt my penis enveloped in warmth and wetness. Tenille moaned out the same way she had earlier with Jasmine. I was having sex. Although I knew that one day I would, I always imagined it would be with a girl my age that I liked. My friends and I talked about it sometimes but none of them had ever been able to describe what I was feeling.

At that moment I hated Tenille. Even with the sensations that she was sending through my body, I hated her so much that I escaped her and what we were doing. I thought back to Frannie and how she cared about me. I began to imagine that it was her here doing this to me instead. Just like that, a calm came over me.

My breathing was getting heavier and Tenille was rising and landing on me at a more rapid pace. When she began to speak to me, “Fuck me. C’mon you lil’ bastard,” something inside of me broke.

I felt so good but so dirty at the same time. I closed my eyes as I broke from the inside out. I grunted and my belly began to sting and tingle at the same time. It was like nothing I ever imagined as it felt like my entire insides were on fire. Tenille began to cry out and I opened my eyes as I watched her cringe and gyrate until she collapsed on top of me.

As I tried to comprehend what had just happened she started trying to lick my ears and face. When she reached my mouth and stuck her tongue into what felt like my throat my stomach churned; I jerked away from her as I leaned over the bed and threw up.

Tenille got up off the bed, carefully avoiding the mess, and headed for my door. “You’d better clean that up,” she said as she reached for a pile of her clothing at my door.

I looked up at her and gave her a nasty look that I’m sure she missed. She dressed quickly and left without a care as if she’d come in my room and done nothing more than say good night. I felt violated and though I had never looked at Tenille as someone who was supposed to care for me, she was an adult. By virtue of that fact alone I expected more. Adults were supposed to look out for children, not rape them or use them as Tenille had done me.

I wiped my mouth on my pillow and cried like a baby, upset at what my life had become. I had no idea at that moment what she’d actually done to me, because if I did, surely I would have cried harder.