Before the escape

The escape took place on August 12th 1989, which happened to be a Saturday. The day before that I had returned from holidays. I had been to France with a friend of mine. Now that had been a first time for me. Up till then I had only spent the holidays with my parents, but that time around I had managed to have holidays just for me. This I had deserved.

In mid June of that same year my parents had forced me to go on holidays with them. I was not allowed to stay in their house (how can you call a place home if it isn't your house), didn't have another place to stay, I saw no other option to go along, but under protest. I managed to stay in a foul mood for three fucking long weeks.

It was so horrible, yet I had my vicious little revenge, so delicate, so rewarding I can still feel the sheer joy undermining their power over me. I had one great fortune.

I had someone to write to, a friend whom I had already disclosed quite a few things to. He actually was the first person I did disclose anything to. Until I spoke up to him, my address had been too private to share with anyone. So I had my wicked escape from the daily agony and I added to it big time. I was annoying, ill tempered like I hadn't been before. I was making sure they would have Holidays from Hell.

Every day I wrote this friend of mine a long letter, dripping from sarcasm and that was my reward, I felt I had someone to share the agony with and that made me feel strong.

After having returned from holidays this friend of mine and I decided it a good idea to go on holidays later that summer and so we did. We booked and I informed my parents we were going. I didn't ask, I didn't suggest I just told them I was going to do this. I hadn't before been so firm and it worked, they didn't object.

Now how did I get so bold?

Something had happened just a few months before that, something that had so much engrossed me I still have a hard time thinking back.

My mother had been a hypochondriac for years, ever since the age of twelve or so, ever since she stopped taking Librium I guess. Every fucking single day she metastasized her fear of cancer. Every single day coming home from school (I stopped telling them the exact roster when I was fourteen, I always had long days at school)

I figured what it would be this time. Usually it was cancer in the throat she was afraid of and she would be begging and begging to look at it and say it would be nothing. From the first time she ever asked this of me I had said no to it. It didn't feel appropriate, it felt downright incestuous.

She didn't take no for an answer, she never did and often I had enough strength to put my foot down till it was late enough for my father to return home and do his obligation as a husband, give in to the bitch and do as she pleased. Look her in the throat and say it was nothing.

I couldn't not just for the incestuous atmosphere surrounding it, I couldn't because it wasn't proper of me to say it was nothing. I am not a doctor, never was a doctor and I'll never be a doctor. I am not the one to say it is nothing.

Every now and then there just was no escaping. My mother would be in a state of total panic, screaming, shooting, crying and crawling over the floor like a beast in terror. And she would have that look in her eyes saying: you are betraying me. I tried not to give, my god have I tried not to give in, but sometimes I couldn't and I knew that would give her the fuel to come for  more next time and there always was next time.

I never told her it was nothing. I would always say: "I don't see anything special, but I am not a doctor. If you want to know for sure, go see a doctor". But I gave in to the looking part.

This went on for close to ten years. I was disgusted by my mother and I hated my father for catering to her every whim. He was sustaining the situation not putting his foot down. On top of that he would lash out on me when things got too much for him to handle. Hitting me, uncontrolled like a raving mad man.

It never hurt, the hitting, surprisingly it never hurt and fortunately it didn't happen so often, but even once was once too many.

I guess he needed to release, but didn't want to hurt me at the same time, I don't know.

That stopped when I was seventeen, I had grown into a boy way taller than the old man. The two of us were in the garage working on something stupid together. Now that is something we just should never have been doing in the first place. Working on something always turned into argument, 'cause I want to find out how to do things myself and he had firm rules about how things were supposed to be done. I'd be stubborn, he'd be annoyed...

That one time in the garage I can still see so vividly, I was lying on the hood of the car and his arms were flailing. I had my arms in front of my eyes, so he could not accidentally hit me there, but far enough from my eyes so I could look at him. I wanted to see him in all his raging anger. I looked at him, and kept thinking: "oh man, what do you think you're doing. What in fuck's name do you think you're doing".

I was completely calm. I knew I could easily hit him and I considered doing it. No... I thought it over, 'cause I knew I wasn't going to do that. I don't lower my standards for anyone and I don't hit, I refuse, but I realized I could just hit him, good and well. I was in the position to do so. I had the physical strength to easily do so.

That moment I felt him getting the message. He stopped and never hit me again. As a matter of fact no one has ever hit me again; no one dares anymore. I've got this twisted little mantra it goes something like: I'd break you every bone to prevent violence. I've used and even abused this power later on in life, but I digress.

Then one day I returned to the house, by then I was already 23 still living with them and my mother was in one of her worst phases of hypochondria. This time around it wasn't cancer to her throat though but cancer to the labia. I never thought you could get cancer there, but then again, my mother was very creative finding new places to attract cancer. I must grant her that talent.

So I refused even discussing the issue. She didn't take no for an answer. She started begging. I refused. She started sobbing. I refused. She started crying. I refused. She started screaming. I refused. I knew it was going to be a long session there, I got to the house early that day and that was never a good idea. So it lasted and lasted, she turned more and more in to a beast. She hunted me down the house and finally had me where she wanted me, in her bedroom.

She showed me her labia. I didn't want to look. I refused to look. She insisted. I refused. She kept insisting, begging, screaming, hissing, "you're engrossed by me, are you?" Yes I was, but I couldn't say it. And then I looked. But that wasn't enough. She wanted me to feel. It sickened me. I refused. She begged. I refused. She screamed. I refused. And then I touched her as short as possible, just to get it over with. Now that wasn't good enough I had to feel. So I touched once more again as short as possible. She could make me touch, but she couldn't make me feel  And then it stopped. My father got home and he took care of business.

Sometime later, I can't recall when. Not if I had already moved out or not  It must have been, given the bedroom. I'm just not sure. Anyway it happened once again, this time around not her labia, but her anus. I can't recall the build up. All I recall is her sitting on the bed as if she wanted me to fuck her doggy style. That's what I felt. That's all I remember of that occasion.

It was worse than the time before, because I had so much promised myself  never to give in anymore and I did. I've felt shame. I've felt hate to her, to me. I have not even told my therapist at the time about that occasion, I completely "forgot". It felt so much as if I had betrayed myself. I do remember I didn't touch, or did I? I don't know, I got it blocked out and it's not returning spontaneously. But at least she had me cornered once again. She had me look again.