The first time it happened, I was about to start sixth grade. I spent the night at a friends house and there were people going door-to-door selling magazines. I wanted to get Cat Fancy, because - cats! I scraped together all the money I could find and after I signed up for the magazine delivery, the guy told me I was so pretty and that he liked cats too.
He invited me to walk along with him. We were talking about cats. He said he had something he wanted to show me. He said he had seen some kittens in the woods. Unfortunately, people dumped their animals there all the time, so I believed him. We walked into the woods, where he kissed me and dropped his pants. His penis was a huge ugly thing, and I had never seen anything like it before, and I was suddenly terrified. I screamed and ran off. My friend was looking for me and I told her what happened. We didn't tell our Moms because I knew better than to go off with strangers, and I would've gotten in trouble. She was afraid my mom wouldn't let me spend the night with her again.
The second time it happened, I was 14 and he was 26. He told me what he was going to do to me ahead of time. I kept telling him no I didn't want to, but he said he would make sure I liked it. I didn't. He had sex with me and made me do things to him that I didn't even know about at the time. I just wanted to go home. Afterwards, I was numb. Numb until he asked me, again, "how old did you say you were?" "Fourteen," I managed to stammer. He actually said, "Wow. I never did anything like this when I was your age."
And just like that, he had placed all of the blame on me. The weight of the guilt was crushing me and I started crying hysterically. He called a cab and sent me home.
I didn't tell my Mom because I knew she would blame herself, for letting me be alone with him. I felt ashamed that I had let those things happen to me. I had a boyfriend, but he had always stopped when I told him to, and respected me when I said no. Up until then, I always thought I was in control. I only told one person, my best friend. She told my boyfriend I had cheated on him. It didn't end well.
In my last year of high school, a boy I knew, a brother of a friend, grabbed my hand in class and put it in his lap under the table. At first I was excited, because I thought he liked me, and wanted to hold my hand, but he started rubbing it on his dick. I could feel that he was hard, even through his pants. I was disgusted and tried to pull my hand away, but he wouldn't let go. It was a round table, and a couple of other girls sat at it with us. I knew one of them by name. I tried to get her attention, and I was so relieved when she finally noticed. She looked under the table and could see what was happening to me. He didn't stop. The teacher was talking and class is going on around us like nothing was happening, and every time I tried to pull my hand away, he would squeeze it tighter. I was scared and embarrassed and I wanted this girl to help me. My eyes were pleading with her, but she just looked disgusted, like she thought I wanted this, and she whispered stuff to her friend. I guess they thought I wanted to jerk off some guy that I wasn't even dating in the middle of class.
I raised my other hand to get the teacher's attention, and the boy squeezed my hand so hard that tears came into my eyes - I could feel the bones grinding together. Later, there were bruises.
The boy spoke up and told the teacher that we couldn't hear back there. My teacher must've bought that, because he never asked what I wanted. The boy did not let go of my hand until he had cum. He had the nerve to ask me to go get him a tissue. I just sat there. Even after the bell had rung and the girl that I thought would help me, told me I was gross, and went off to tell more of her friends; I just sat there. I couldn't believe what had happened.
The next day at school, people were pointing and whispering about me. The boy came up to me in the hall. He said a bunch of people told him they saw me crying and he asked if there was somewhere we could go and talk. He said he didn't want us to get in trouble at school. I thought he was going to apologize. Once we were alone, he tried to get me to give him a blow job. I left the room as quick as I could. I didn't know this boy, other than the fact that he was in my class. I was friendly with his older brother, but only at school. I had never flirted with him or even interacted with him outside of our class. To this day, I have no idea why he did this, or why I didn't just get up and run out of class. It's almost like I was paralyzed.
A few weeks later, I was informed that I was being kicked out of school. They said it was for poor attendance, but I had gone to all my classes. I had left my first high school after my sophomore year, because I was ostracized there and everybody (even the staff) talked about me. There, they thought I was a devil worshipping witch. At this school, the consensus was that I was now a whore. At least, that's what I heard from people that I had once called friends. Somehow, the school convinced my Mom that I had been skipping classes. I couldn't bring myself to tell her what had happened in my lit class, or that I thought that's really why they wanted me to leave. (Looking back, maybe I was wrong about that, because they didn't kick the boy out . He got to finish school.)
I didn't want to tell anybody; I didn't want to talk about it then. I felt dirty and I blamed myself, so I let them talk about it behind my back, and I went and got my GED.
My SAT scores were only 10 points shy of perfect, and I did well on my GED. So much so, that I was offered several scholarships. I went to a few of my college classes, but I couldn't do school, or people, after that.
I found out most of my friends, that I had growing up, were either abused or assaulted at some point during their childhood. I became a nanny up until my mother died, when I was 25. I wanted to protect children from abuse and assault, and I had no idea how to do that, all I could think of was ... that those kids, the ones I took care of, would at least be safe while they were with me.
Anonymous (Richmond, Virginia)