Monsters

For a lot of children, the monster under the bed or in the closet was the scariest thing they could imagine. For me, I didn't need to imagine a terrifying monster. Instead, I knew without a doubt he lived right down the hall.

He didn't come to my room every night. He didn't even come to my room every week, or month. As far as I could tell there was no rhyme or rhythm to his visits. The only commonality was that he would be high on something.

Sometimes he would roll me over and part my legs and attempt to pet me as if I was some animal. Other times he would push my underwear to the side and try to touch me in a more invasive manner. More often than either of those would be the nights he just stood in the shadows and stared at me while touching himself.

I learned early on that touching me didn't give him the satisfaction he seemed to crave if he couldn't get me to let him do it. In his sick mind he must have thought that having me agree under duress made what he was doing consensual. Even at eight years old I understood enough to know that I couldn't give in.

I don't know whether that made it better or worse. I considered giving in multiple times over the six or so years he molested me. It would have ended the relentless fear of when he would stop trying to persuade and would just take what he wanted. Would this be the night he turned on the light and made me watch as he got himself off standing at my bedside?

What I remember most now is not the times he succeeded in touching me or the early times I gave in to him before I knew that my agreement was something he seemed to feel he needed to actually touch me, but the terror of his presence in the darkness. Even with my eyes tightly closed, trying to pretend he wasn't there, I could feel him there. I could hear the sound of him touching himself and the way his breathing sped up as he neared orgasm. The smell of his cum lingered in the air long after he went back to the room he shared with my mother.

Although I knew then as I know now that I was not to blame for what he did to me, I didn't feel that way. Every day I asked myself what I had done to make him think that what he was doing was okay? Was there something I could do to make him stop? The feeling of being perpetually filthy stayed on me for years.

It took more years than I could count and telling my story to anybody that would listen for me to actually believe what I already knew to be true. I was not at fault, I did nothing wrong, I did not deserve what he did to me and there was nothing I could have done to stop him.