I live in Orchard Pond apartment homes. They are fairly new and my brother Mike and I think we are moving up in the world. Orchard Pond is in Gaithersburg Maryland.
I'm about 12 years old and I have my very first paper route. My first job didn't last to long for a couple of reasons. The first and foremost was the ungodly hour of the morning you had to get up and secondly with it being my first job I was so scared when he went over what and how I was supposed to run the route, that I only logged about 1/10th of the directions he gave me. I ended up getting major complaints and knew it was just a matter of time till I was toast.
I had finished my last day delivering papers on a Sunday which was yesterday and was up getting ready for school. I was happy. I was 12 so what else should I be.
School was wonderful and not for the reasons you may think. School was sanctuary for me. It was my haven, my safe place. My step mother was not a nice person to me. She enjoyed herself with me the most and my brother was usually left untouched. For some reason she preferred to torture me over my brother. My guess is she just didn't like me and my Mikey was just to little and the baby. School protected me from her for the better part of the day and I only had to remain small for the few hours needed to get me to the time my father came home from work.
Have you ever met a person who you could tell enjoyed the pain they caused to another. She was a vampire and fed off of fear and pain. I figured it out one day when by accident when I saw her smirk at one of my reactions to something she did to me. The realization that showed in my eyes of what she was she saw in my eyes as well. First the fact of being caught smirking flashed thru her face so fast you could have missed because she was a pro. The following flash showed fear of denouncement and the fact she was discovered was not so easy to hide. She was a true vampire in every sense of the word.
Her face told all once you figured her out. The sometimes subtle pleasure that would flame up in her eyes as she enforced her will upon you, to the shear anger and rage that went thru her face one morning in the Orchard Pond apartment homes.
I was happy like I was telling you and was ready for school. I brushed my teeth put on my Montgomery Wards sale rack shirt and pants. I was thinking about the second record I bought was the coolest in the world. The other day which was Sunday, I bought the record with my remaining paper route money. It was Herbie Hancock's 12 inch titled "Rocket".
Smiling as I exited my room which was right across the hallway from the guest bathroom, with my Dad's room that he shared with the vampress was just a little farther down and at the end of the hallway. I exited my room and made the right to head towards the dining room that was connected to the hallway and stopped to get my morning treat I would carry and eat as I walked and waited at the school bus stop.
Any candy was good to a kid and my father had a sweet tooth as well. As you entered the dining room on the right were a set of shelves that held a small bowl with a lid. it was filled with those little cinnamon heart candies. My father had said I could have 3 to 4 candies (they were very small but yummy) every morning before I went to school and like every good little child I was dead set on obeying and getting my morning ration of candy. I stopped at the shelves, hurriedly opened the bowl and was at the count of candy number 3, when I felt the Darkness open the door at the end of the hall.
When I turned she looked up and then down the hallway. She saw me and the realization of what I was doing emptied into her head all at once. She must not have woken up not in the greatest of moods that morning. This was not uncommon for her as well. As the realization filtered thru her, a beast arose up thru her skin and she gathered her robe around her and came careening down the hallway towards me.
I was the proverbial deer in the head lights. Nothing about me moved. My legs were frozen, my body was facing the shelves which held the candy, my arm raised with my frozen hand in the candy dish, and a twist in my neck which pointed my head and now rather large eyes down the hallway that contained the beast coming towards me. I was still frozen as she slapped me, and then slapped my hand which then shot the candy dish across the dining room. It rained little cinnamon heart candies as I was pushed to the ground and screamed at by the beast.
I was paralyzed and my mind couldn't figure out why she was beating on me. I had no idea what was coming next and is one of those painful memories you just can not seem to get rid of.
She didn't care as I tried to explain between small kicks and slaps at my butt. The anger she held had welled up and was fighting to escape her all at once. It blinded her to my words as she played out the last few drops of rage that were being bestowed upon me. I was so scared. I hated being this scared and thought a boy should not be this scared and I hated myself for showing it in front of her. I couldn't help showing it as she finally allowed me to get up but only to my knees. My hands trembled, and she noticed.
She was in her perverted happy place now. You could see the pleasure she was feeling running up and down her skin as if it was power. It was power she felt, power she was stealing from me to feed that black hole in her soul. As she enjoyed the rush of power I was then forced to walk around the dining room on my knees and pick up each and every little cinnamon heart candy. If you noticed I used the word candy in its singular form instead of candies. I was not allowed to gather them up in my hand, then make my way to the bowl dump and then go back to refill my hand. No she decided it would be much better for me to only pick up just one little candy at a time, and then make my way back to the bowl. If you can imagine this bowl was about 5 to 6 inches around and about 2.5 inches deep. The bowl wasn't slap full but there were several hundred candies in the bowl prior to them all being spewed through out the entire living room. So with the duty of picking them up one at a time on my knees took over an hour and my knees were so rug burned they started to bleed.
By now I had missed the school bus and she didn't drive. The thought that scared me more then anything was what was next because she now had the better part of the day to inflict pain upon me.
I got up from candy pickup chore and she called me into the kitchen. I was so scared of what was next and prayed she would just send me to my room and bed. I was immediately directed to sit at the eat in kitchen table and to wait without speaking. She then proceeded to totally ignore me as if I didn't exist while she made her coffee, ate her breakfast, and lastly got herself dressed for the day.
I was bored and extremely hopeful this was the extent of my punishment. WRONG!!!
She sauntered over to the table, sat herself down and looked at me for at least 20 to 30 seconds. I didn't know if I should hold eye contact or look away. I looked up at her and was thinking I was proud of myself for doing so, as she parted her thin lips and started to speak to me. First I needed to a further reminder of what a little shit I was and how only by her grace did I have a mother and my father a wife. She explained to me that in today's world men who had children from another marriage had very low odds of finding another woman who was willing to accept the responsibilities of another woman's children. I should count myself blessed she saw fit to let my fathers lack of appeal due to children and marry him.
With her lengthy lecture of my luck out of the way, she dropped the bomb on me. It was subtle and I only know now that it was a bomb because it was so stealth in making its execution. She simply asked me "Robbie what was that look on your face meant to mean when I was coming out of my room this morning and caught you"?
It can't be this easy I thought. I looked up at her and said "I was scared of you because you looked mad".
"No, I don't think it meant that" she said.
I was shocked and the only thing I could do is say "Yes, that's what the look meant.......I swear it does"
"No, I don't think it meant that and you will sit here till you tell me" she said.
I didn't know what to do. I told the truth and it didn't work. I was still knee deep in poo. One after another she shot my answers down. They ranged from the look meant I love you to I hate you. Nothing worked, nothing got me out of that chair.
It was well past lunch and had been denied lunch in my prison cell. I was hungry, tired, bored, confused, scared and about a dozen other things all at once. I sat in my prison cell looking at my feet and it seemed like days had passed. It was just hours, hours of pleasure for her. The delight she obtained from me when saw the confusion and fear she teased out till the last hour she could.
It's now about 4:30 in the evening and about 9.5 hours of torture suddenly came to an end when she asked me if the look really meant I hated her. I saw the bars to the prison window show a sign of weakness which meant possible escape. I took the chance and answered her question no matter what the words really meant.
"Hmm, I figured you hated me and for that you can explain to your father when he gets home that you told me that you hate me". She then directed me to my room without hopes of dinner because I was told to get ready for bed.
I did miss dinner. I did tell my father I hated her. I didn't lie this time. I did end up in bed for the rest of the night as well.
What do you do with memories and pain like this. Allow the pain to plague you and alter you for the rest of your life. No, you heal yourself, you become proud of who you are, you build on what you have become, and lastly you forgive yourself and even the one who fed upon you.
Love yourself, love yourself more then the pain.
