Cry Like This Author: Erin, alias Katra Winner

Category: Angst

Rating: R

Reason: This is a horribly dark story.  What’s worse is that it’s true.  Not for anybody who doesn’t want to think about sexual abuse, rape, etc. between two very young children – especially children who are cousins. 

Summary: Nearly five years ago, Erin’s parents forbade her cousin to see her, as a result of his continual sexual assaults on her.  Now Erin finds herself battling mental demons the abuse has spawned. 

            Erin followed Travis blindly.  He was the big boy, after all.  He was already five, which made him almost a whole year older than she was.  Outside, Auntie Margo and Uncle Gregg and Mommy and Daddy and little baby Kara (who wasn’t even three yet) were laughing and drinking and figuring out how to sneak the Easter eggs Erin and Travis had hunted only an hour ago back into the garage. 

            Erin adored Travis, she really did.  He was smart – he helped Daddy teach her how to read last year, when she was barely three, and he was four.  He loved to play jokes and pranks, and always knew the best places to hide whenever they played hide-and-seek.  He was also nice to baby Kara (‘cause that’s what big cousins are for, right?), but she knew that she was Travis’s favourite. 

            He had grabbed her hand and said, “I know a secret!  I can tell you, too, if you come with me.”  Erin loved secrets.  Gramma Joan said it was bad to keep secrets, she said it was deceitful (whatever that meant, Erin was smart but she didn’t know what that huge word meant yet) and wrong.  But Travis had assured her it was an okay-secret, one that Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t mind. 

            Well.  He was the big boy, after all. 

            “It’s really extra-super-secrety,” Travis informed her in an important tone of voice. “So we have to lock the door and hide in the closet to make sure our moms and dads don’t hear and come in.” Travis is so grown up, Erin thought.  He doesn’t say mommy and daddy; he says mom and dad like the big kids down the street. 

            Realization dawned on her pale young face. “But my door doesn’t have a lock,” she said, confused. “Daddy says it’s a fire haz-urd.  That means if the house got on fire, I couldn’t get out and I’d burn to death.”

            “I know that, stupid,” Travis muttered, rolling his eyes. “That’s why we take stuffed animals and we block up the door.  It’s easy, I do it all the time.” 

            “Ohh, okay,” Erin said happily.  She upended a wicker basket of cuddly stuffed animals.  Travis picked up Squirrel Nutkin and squished him against the door.  Erin copied him, apologizing under her breath to Purry, her most favourite stuffed animal ever.  He was a little tiger who purred when shaken. 

            After nearly fifteen minutes (which really was a long time, Erin’s mind reasoned), they finished the stuffed animal blockade.  Silently, Travis pulled bags of hand-me-downs waiting to fit his younger cousin out of the closet.  He pulled Erin in and shut the door, flicking a flashlight on to combat the sudden darkness.  “Take your dress off,” he instructed.  Erin was confused again.  Being such a little girl was hard, she decided.  It was hot in there, after all, the early March sun was glaring down through her window, and it didn’t help that the closed was so small and wasn’t made for two children to sit down in. 

            “But you said you were going to-“ At Travis’s angry glare, she nodded meekly and pulled her pretty pastel coloured Easter dress over her head.  Travis reached over and pulled her grass-stained white tights down, then her little-girl undies.  She whimpered softly, as much in fear as in discomfort. “Travis, what are you doing?  You’re scaring me...” 

            Travis ignored her, unzipping his own expensive Easter Sunday pants, and unbuttoning his shirt.  Erin pressed her small, scared naked body against the wall of the closet, sucking nervously on her thumb – it was a baby habit, but she was scared.  Scared enough to let him know she still sucked her thumb when frightened and at night. 

            She made soft pleading noises as Travis’s hands started in on her body.  He showed her his naked body, which she wasn’t supposed to see.  She was a little girl, and he was a little boy!  He shouldn’t be doing this...this wasn’t an okay-secret...

            Erin continued with her pitiful mewling sounds, begging him to stop.  Travis didn’t listen, and Erin simply shut her mind off.  Daddy had told her forever that how she zoned out like that was going to get her into trouble someday, but today it was what saved her. 

            When Travis finally prodded her – none too gently, either – she snapped out of her trance and, without a word, pulled her undies up and tights up (he had only pushed them down, she discovered, not removed them completely – which was good, because Erin still needed Mommy’s help in getting the confusing tights on.), then pulled her dress back on. 

            They pulled the stuffed animal blockade down, bit by bit.  Erin couldn’t remember what had happened.  Why I shouldn’t daydream, she mused, most of her fear forgotten.  Her mind was like a butterfly, flitting from thought to thought.  It really had been scary, though.  She didn’t have a clue about what had happened after she had begun to get truly scared. 

            But after that, she knew she’d never sleep as soundly with those demons left over from Travis’s assault pounding their way into her skull. 

            Innocence had been lost that day, on the most holy of all the Catholics’ holy days. 

            Fright.  She was so scared.  Again.  There was still nothing that scared her more than being naked, than having somebody stare at her so hungrily, like a madman.  Travis was doing it again...NONONONONONONO!  STOPITSTOPITSTOPITSTOPIT!!!!!!!! GET OFF ME!!  DON’T!!!

            She was nine years old.  Travis was ten.  He had locked the door, distracted Kara with TV in the living room, and had hidden her underneath his bunk bed, taking her shirt off.  Five years without him doing anything (except refusing to stop kissing her when they were alone and trying to stick his tongue into her mouth.  She remembered trying to kiss him goodbye, like she’d done to his mom and dad, which was only normal for such a close family, and he’d made a yucky-face.  The whole family had laughed, dismissing it as Travis catching the typical young male fear of female cooties. 

            It was strange, really.  For five years, he wouldn’t kiss her unless they were alone or their parents were watching.  He was good at lying.  For five years, he hadn’t tried anything, out of fear of getting caught, Erin supposed.  She had tried and tried to forget what had happened – out of what she’d remembered anyway. 

            Her mind would not let her. 

            For the first, and she hoped the last, she cursed her strong mind, the “steel trap” that simply refused to let her forget details and anything she wanted to erase from her brain, in an ultimately futile attempt to free herself of the nightmares that had plagued her since the tender young age of four.  Nobody knew why she never slept easily, not even Karen, her best friend since she’d moved from Ontario to the small town of Glendora. 

            He kept running his tongue and his lips and his hands over her mostly-naked body.  It made her scared again, she was too frightened to cry out.  Travis had warned her.  He said that if she made any noise at all, he would beat her almost to death.  Travis was whispering things again and again, telling her how pretty she was and how sexy she would be once she fully grew up and those small breasts that had barely begun to grow were oh sososo much fun to touch and play with. 

            “I’m having fun,” he whispered, tracing her collarbone, wet with his saliva. “Aren’t you?”

            “No, “ Erin managed to whimper out. “Please stop, Travis, this is really scary.”

            “Oh, come on...you can do whatever you want to me.  You can have fun.  I’ve already had fun, so it’s your turn.  I don’t mind, really.  You’ll like it, I promise.”

            “Travis...you’ve had your fun...please just let’s stop...I don’t want...” It seemed fear had obliterated her vocabulary, making it difficult to convey her thoughts to the puzzled boy straddling her hips. 

            “C’mon, let’s have sex,” he said plainly. “It’ll be fun.  I swear it’ll feel good.  Really, you gotta trust me – have I ever done anything bad to you?  Come on.  It’s okay, I know you’ll like it.”

            “No!” she hissed. “Travis, I am nine years old!  Get off me!”

            “One more kiss.  A real one.  Tongue and all that.  Then I swear I’ll get off you, kay?  And then we can go rollerblading, maybe leave Kara behind.”

            “Nonononono...” she almost sobbed. “Just leave me alone, please!”

            “One kiss,” he insisted, fisting some of her hair, tugging slightly – enough to make her wince, but not to provoke any more noise.  She nodded, upset. 

            Five years.  Amazing how little difference it made to the victim, as well as to the predator. 

The rest of the year continued much in the same manner. 

            Erin closed her eyes, rocking back and forth.  Another five years.  “I cannot afford to be weak,” she whispered quietly to herself, clutching the stuffed animal to her chest.  Purry obediently made the same exact purring noise it had made that one Easter Sunday, ten years ago as the wall that she herself had built.  Guess I brought this all on myself, she thought sadly.  She glared down at Purry.  If I had just stayed out with Mom and Dad.  If I hadn’t listened to him so many times.  If I hadn’t been weak and scared and stupid and tired and…stoppitstopit…don’t go down that line of thinking.  You know what waits for you down that path. 

            Why her?  Why was it her who inwardly cringed at every time somebody, anybody came into contact with her?  Physical contact was mentally and emotionally agonizing for anybody other than her immediate family, Karen, and Sharon.  It hurt so much to think that she might never be “normal”...had been so long since those evil things had flitted across her closed eyes at night, when the world of dreams overtook her. 

            She knew that she had to conquer these mental monsters that kept her from being normal...from sleeping in her own bed without soothing music and a stuffed animal or somebody else next to her.  She had started out with Enya music, then when she had memorized those songs too much, moved to Michelle Branch.  She remembered the horrible sinking feeling in her stomach when her CD player had died. 

            There were times, however, when she earned a brief respite from the horrible nightmares.  Sometimes, she would dream of that awful reunion-to-be, and when he tried to hurt her, or force her, somebody came.   It was never the same person.  It had not once yet been she herself yet, though.  Always, he escaped death or imprisonment, and the thought of him running free to do that to somebody else made her physically sick to her stomach.  She never ate breakfast; it was too hard and seemingly pointless to force food down – and keep it down, so soon after freeing herself from those disgusting memories and nightmares of what could happen. 

            Something had to be done, she knew.  This was affecting every part of her life, from karate to sleeping to...everything imaginable.  She had begun thinking of Travis as Randall Flagg, the Devil’s Imp from Stephen King’s book/miniseries The Stand.  The evil, glowing eyes, and the cool confidence that what he was doing, he could get away with.  She thought of herself as Nadine Cross, fooled by her blind trust.  She was a damned woman, Nadine.  She had left Harold with several broken bones to bleed to death, and had fallen into Satan’s arms, then shrieked for God to save her when she’d realized what she’d done.  The similarities were mind-boggling...

            Only Nadine had redeemed herself in the end, taunting the Devil’s Imp, and ultimately winning the furious battle of wills.  Erin seriously doubted she would ever defeat Travis, whether it was in a fight of some sort, or the awful memories that refused to leave her, night after night.  Neither did she want to win in the way Nadine had, by tossing herself off a balcony, clutching her belly, trying to comfort the growing child within her. 

            Somehow, she found little comfort in her church’s promises that God would forgive anything.  When she knelt in the pure white of her altar girl robe, whether she rang the bells or simply prayed alongside the priests and parishioners, she knew not who she was praying for – herself, Travis, her family for disregarding her hurt and her pain, her aunt and uncle for refusing to see what their beloved son had become (had been), or...for the vague hope that someday, she could redeem herself, by becoming strong. 

            Yes, by being strong, she could hopefully leave the terror of those nights behind. 

            And in five years, it would be he who lay awake night after night, wondering what he had done to deserve what was happening to him. 

            This is a piece I needed to write.  Every word of this is true, as best as I can remember it.  I hope this will help me, because real-life-Erin is fighting the same battles that story-Erin is fighting. 

            Overly melodramatic, I know, but this is an angsty story.  I warned you, didn’t I?  Like I said, this is worse because it’s true.  True stories are the funniest, the happiest, the most unbelievable...and also the most horrible. 

            Originally, I changed the names from Erin, Travis, Margo, Joan, and Kara to Emily, Terry, Marge, Jane, and Kathy.  However, this is a true story, and I didn’t want to pollute it by lying about names or anything like that.  I guess this is all part of that “healing process” crap I was told about.  Hmph. 

            I don’t want pity, I don’t want a thousand long gushing emails and/or reviews, I just want a few things telling me what you think about this.  Most of all, this isn’t a fabrication of any sort.  This is real.  If you don’t believe me, that’s your fault.  I hope that a lot of people read this, and don’t make the same mistake I made and just let myself be used and abused like that. 

            -Erin, alias Katra Winner

            P.S. This is dedicated to everybody who lets me know I’m not alone – Karen, Sharon, Francis, Daniel, Kara (my sister), Meghan, Alissa, Nina, Tedd, and anybody else I’m stupidly forgetting.