Debbie McNulty

***Trigger Warning*** Child Sexual Abuse. This part is heavy and I would not recommend reading it if discussion of child abuse upsets you. I have chosen to be rather graphic because I feel we often want to look away from these things instead of really seeing them. Looking away is how these monsters thrive and get away with so much for so long. I am not seeking to be salacious but I am trying to show the step by step process of grooming.

Everything changed between the ages of 10 and 11. We moved, my parents divorced, I started a new school twice, and my mother started dating a new guy. The end of elementary school seemed to mark anything resembling childhood drifting away. For so long it had been my mother and I against the world and then everything changed. She became someone I did not know and suddenly there was a gulf between us. 

I believed my body was the worst part of me. It bloomed and bloomed out of my control. It was curvy and full in a way that seemed unseemly for a 10-year-old. Men started to notice me before I even made it out of elementary school. As soon as I required a bra, around age 8, my babysitter’s husband started to touch me. I would often sit on his lap and watch movies while we shared a snack. He was way past retirement age and so he acted as a grandparent figure in my life. I remember the day I told my mother, who to her credit tried to do the right thing. It was a gray day in the early spring when my mother and I went to see Delma. Delma was a very large woman, warm and always ready to provide a listening ear for my mother. This wasn’t long after my mother was in the hospital. Delma had helped her through that time and I was aware of how high the stakes were on that day. We sat at the Formica table in Delma’s kitchen and my mother explained what I had told her. Again I felt that tightness in my chest and time seemed to stand still. My mother asked me to explain what happened in my own words and I did but I wanted to melt into the floor. I left the room and sat quietly listening to the two women talk in the kitchen. Delma did not believe my story and my mother became very heated. Delma insisted that if Archie had done those things it was an accident. He was an alcoholic and so he probably just did not realize what he was doing. It wasn’t long before my mom pulled me out the door and down the steps and back into the car. That was it for her and Delma’s friendship. My heart sank for my mother. I knew what a lifeline Delma had been for her. I knew free babysitters were not easy to find and I felt guilty. By this age, I already knew that women’s bodies were a trap that men could fall into. Men fell into sin, women just sinned. Later when I asked my father why he did not confront Archie as he told me he would do if anyone ever hurt me, he said he did not want to ruin an old man’s life. To this day those are some of the worst words I’ve ever heard. They have stayed with me like a scar that never really heals. Over and over again my father, who I loved greatly, would throw the punches whose impact would never end. 

Looking back I have to ask, why did my parents leave me with these two? They both knew that Archie was a drinker and would at times say inappropriate things when joking around. Who knows, they were trying to make their marriage work and needed those date nights. 

Things continued to happen which caused me to distrust my own body. When I was spending time with my father he would often take me to Aladdin’s Castle. It was an arcade and I loved it! The only real light inside came from all of the machines. The church would not have approved even though there was no hard and fast rule against it. They might have suggested that the money I was spending should have gone to God, or that they played ungodly music, or that the people inside were drug dealers. I knew they would disapprove but this was one of those things I just could not resist. My eyes lit up whenever I walked in! All of those pinball machines with their bells and flippers. To this day a good pinball machine can make me happy for hours and take me back to a time in my life that is so specific and pure. My dad would load me up with a stack of quarters and I would play until I ran out of money. Usually, this could take a while because I was pretty skilled at the games. I would walk the long narrow aisle until I found the perfect machine. After slipping my quarter in I would get lost in the fun of it all. I loved the way the buttons felt when I kept the ball in motion. I could really let go of all my worries when playing pinball. My parents and all of their problems along with all of my other concerns seemed so far away. The bright lights and colors were a pleasant distraction from all of the seriousness of life. 

My father almost never joined me inside. He would sit just outside and chat with other adults. My father was a very social creature and could make friends with any stranger who happened by. That particular day I was playing this game with cowboys who shot each other and ducked behind cactuses to hide. It was one of my favorites and one of the few games I played that was not a pinball machine. Lost in my happy moment I was not aware that a man had crept up behind me. All of a sudden his hands were on my chest and once again my body had caused me a problem. I felt sick to my stomach and I abandoned my game, jerking myself away from the stranger. Running out as fast as my legs could carry me. I searched the adults for my father. Out of breath, I told him about what happened. He said, “That just happened in there?” pointing to the arcade. Together we went back inside and looked for the man. The problem is I did not get a good look at him because he was behind me. My father talked things over with the manager and that was it. My father did try to comfort me but in the end, I did not see any justice. 

This part of my story is the hardest to tell and the one I have kept the closest to my chest. It makes sense given my propensity towards minimizing and excusing my parent’s abuse and bad decision making. As you already know I spent much of my childhood alone. Always checking to see if the deadbolt was locked and if the chain was in place. My mother had taken a job delivering pizzas at night just to make ends meet. This meant we often had pizza for dinner. It wasn’t healthy but it was better than being hungry. Sadly we did not get to choose our pizza, she brought home what was leftover or never picked up. In my part of Wisconsin, we have a pizza place called “Pizza Pit.” It’s a very iconic business in my area. The logo features the silhouette of a devil’s head that takes up most of the box. As silly as this might seem, many Christians in my area would not order from this pizza place because of the logo. And as you can imagine the image on the boxes coming into our home every night also frightened me. 

One night I was alone and already in bed when my dad showed up. My mother was working her second job at Pizza Pit. I often slept with my mother because I was so afraid she would be raptured and I would wake up in the house alone. On this particular night, I was asleep in her bed waiting for her to come home with our late dinner. The chain was not on the door because my mother needed to be able to get in when she returned from work. I awoke to my dad sliding into bed next to me. He smelled bad. It was booze but at that time I was unaware of his drinking. No one I knew drank and I couldn’t have told you what liquor smelled like. My mother later told me about his drinking and gambling, both things she disapproved of. My mother never drank, not even a drop, no one in her family did. Once next to me my father started talking to me and I was happy to see him. Looking over at the clock on the nightstand I knew my mother would be home soon. It was not uncommon for me to sleep next to my father so I was not initially alarmed. Not long after crawling into bed he grabbed my hand and placed it on his groin. He explained that he wanted to show me something and started to move his hand over mine. Again with the tightness in my chest I pulled myself away and rolled off the other side of the bed. He laughed at me and fell asleep. I sat in the darkness of the living room waiting for my mother to return. My heart was beating so loud it felt like it might burst through my chest. I did not know much about sex but I knew enough to know that you were not supposed to touch another person’s private parts, I knew in my gut it was wrong.  I did not have to wait long. She let herself in and I ran to her, I could hear the whoosh whoosh of my blood pumping. I gripped her so tight I nearly pulled her to the floor. Whenever she would recount this evening she would describe me as appearing white as a sheet. Breathlessly I informed her about everything that happened and she became enraged. She went with me into my bedroom and along with the dog, we barricaded ourselves in the room. She pushed my dresser in front of the door and we stayed there all night. I don’t know why she felt we needed to have the door blocked. It could have been because I told her that when my dad was laughing at me he looked just like the devil. It could have been because she wanted me to feel safe. It is hard for me to believe that she was afraid of him but at that moment maybe she was. The next day he had no memory of what had happened and my mother was angrier than I had ever seen her. I was afraid of them both. He said he thought it was her in bed with him, but that makes no sense given he seemed to know he needed to explain what he wanted. He told me he was sorry and would never hurt me, tears running down his face, he looked tired. I was angry and scared. Through my tears, I told him to stay away. This seemed to break him. Trembling, I stood there resisting the urge to comfort him. My mother stood behind me. After what seemed like forever he left. Things were never the same between him and I. He never tried anything like that again. I believe it is because he was afraid of my mother. My mother characterized my father like a dog, weak, and beholden to his masculine impulses. This and the other experiences and my parent’s reactions to them shaped my view that I held all the responsibility. Men were helpless to fight off their urges when it came to my unruly body. My sinful body was a walking honeypot waiting for the next old man, stranger, or even my father to fall into. 

My whole being, my mind, my heart, and my body were hopelessly sinful. The message was inescapable. When my mother would watch Jimmy Swaggert on television he would cry and wipe his brow as sweat poured off his face. He would talk about sin and about how even he was a terrible sinner. In my child’s mind, I wondered how I could ever be good enough. I did not cry and pray as Jimmy Swaggert did, I did not preach and win souls. The message of God’s grace missed me completely. God did not seem to care that we often had no food, electricity, or shoes without holes. My mother would lock herself in her room for hours after dinner praying and speaking in tongues, hoping for a miracle to save us from our poverty. She thought her depression was due to some sin in her life, a teaching of our church, and therefore if she could just get her life right with God the depression would go away. Her family also thought that she just needed to get her shit together. They would never say “shit” but you get what I mean. They saw her depression as a weakness. Even my father would tell me that my mother was weak. She was seeing a psychiatrist and she tried to explain to me what depression was. I tried to understand, on my own, how God could allow men to abuse me the way they had. Not to mention why would he not help me out with my depressed mother and wayward father? I internalized the message that it had to be me. My sinful body was somehow drawing these men in, I must have some unconfessed sin in my heart. I would pray sitting on the floor outside my mother’s bedroom while listening to her pray. Please God find the missing piece, the sin I cannot see, and wash it away so I can be a better person and save my family and myself. Finally, at age 50 I can say that I no longer believe any of it was my fault. Logically I have known that for decades but some parts of my traumatized mind still held onto the belief. 

I was eleven when I met a man at church. At this time I was attending Calvary Christian Academy, the Christian school our church had started in the basement. In the space of a few months my family moved to a new rental and I had switched schools twice. We moved away from the neighborhood and friends I had known for 11 years and now I felt even more alone. I was bullied at my new public school for being half-Mexican and ended up being beaten up pretty badly. Because of this, I begged my mother to move me from the public school to the new school that Calvary Gospel had started.  The church school was a huge adjustment. My parents had been divorced for about a year and my mother was seeing a new man. For the first time in my life, I felt her pull away from me as she became swept up in this new romance. It had been about a year since my salvation experience. This is when my life took a devastating turn for the worse. What happens next would change my life forever.

I did not know much about SD (this is how I’m going to refer to him for my own safety). I knew he was fairly new to the church and also newly married. I kind of knew he and his wife but only to say hi and nothing more. They were a part of a group of young couples who all hung out together. I often tagged along with these couples because they gave me rides to church and other activities. I looked up to these young adults who seemed to have things all figured out. SD and his wife DD mostly sat near the front of the church and they seemed to be a part of the “in” crowd. They were very involved in all aspects of ministry and I wanted to be like them. My mother was only coming to church sporadically at this point. She was caught up with her new man and some people in the church did not approve. Her divorce from my father was considered permissible by the pastor due to the fact that my father had committed adultery. Not everyone agreed with his reading of the scripture. Outward disapproval would not have been tolerated but that did not keep the whispers at bay. 

Pastor Grant did not want my mother to marry Jim, her new boyfriend, because he thought Jim had not been in the church long enough. Jim was a recovering alcoholic with no job or place of his own to live. He lived with a young couple who belonged to the church. To this day I have no idea what she saw in Jim. He was definitely a project and she did love projects! They could sense the church’s disapproval of their relationship and so they avoided the church for the most part only attending when the guilt became too much for my mother. I feel that Jim used my mother to get out from under the thumb of the people he was staying with. They were putting pressure on him to change and become more godly. My mother was his ticket out. My mother hated to be told what to do and it was natural for her to want to rebel. When it became clear that most people thought they had no business getting married it drove my mother towards Jim and they bonded over bucking the community’s wishes. They snuck off and got married without telling me about their plans. They just came home one day and announced they got married. I was hurt. Why wouldn’t my mother want me to be there when she got married? Maybe it was because she sensed that I could really see her. Maybe she thought I would disapprove. One night we talked about her getting remarried, just as a hypothetical, and I expressed to her that I only wished for her to be happy. I suspect that she wanted to break away from her old life and I was a big part of that. At this point, she changed. I felt abandoned. My father did not approve of my mother’s mean streak and so while they were together she had to keep that in check, Jim was meaner than my mother. Now the constraints were off and I became a target of ridicule or they ignored me. My mother only reverted back to her old self when she was fighting with Jim and needed me to listen to her misery. She would blame him for why she did not spend time with me. She would claim he was very jealous of her time as if she had no choice in the matter. She told me all about what was wrong with her relationship with Jim just like she had with my father. The difference being that when she was with my father I had the benefit of some of her time and love, now she only interacted with me to gain support. 

One Sunday after morning service I was standing amongst the group of young adults who often gave me rides. I asked them if someone would give me a ride home from Sunday morning church. SD was standing among this group of adults and he offered to give me a ride. He explained he did not live far from my house and since all of the adults I knew and trusted seemed to think it was a good idea I said ok. By this time I was very accustomed to riding in cars with men from the church. No one batted an eye at it. I believe my parents always assumed that if an adult was part of the congregation they were good and could be trusted. I certainly did not feel I was in any danger. 

Once we were in his car he asked if I needed to be home right away. At this point in time, both of my parents were pretty involved with their own issues and so there was no need for me to come right home. They were also accustomed to me going out after church with other adults to have lunch before returning home. SD asked if I wanted to go for a drive. I said that sounded nice and off we went. His car was clean and pretty new, not like my parents’ old beaters. The sun was out and the sky was blue. It was a fine day for a drive. I smiled a lot that day. We drove all around the city and he bought me some ice cream. He was funny and he made me laugh. He told me all about himself and asked me about my life. People did not talk to me like this. Even the adults I socialized with did not seem all that interested in my life, we mostly talked about church, witnessing, and things like that. We ended up in my old neighborhood. My elementary years were spent on the Northside of Madison and I missed being in that neighborhood. I showed him my old school and where we lived before. He made me feel important, special, and interesting. In other words, he started grooming me immediately. I was hungry for any kind of attention after being lonely for so long. I was innocent and trusting, I thought I had just struck friendship gold. Then things took a turn in a direction I would have never anticipated. While he drove he reached down and grabbed my hand. I stared straight ahead and did not make eye contact with him. He just went on chatting and acting as if this was the most natural thing in the world. I remember looking out at the blue sky and wondering how I should react. When my father came around he would hold my hand the same way and so I thought well maybe he is just trying to be a father-like figure to me. It never occurred to me that he would want anything else. He was around 29 and I was 11 years old. I had never held hands with a boy much less anything else, so the idea that he might want something more adult and sexual in nature seemed impossible. Afterall he was newly saved and had shared his salvation experience with me. He was newly married and seemed to be a pretty happy person. Why would he risk his walk with Christ to commit adultery with me? I came to the conclusion that it had to be innocent, he was just trying to be nice. I feel like I had to explain that this did not feel like the other experiences I had with men. I felt safe with SD. He did not appear to be a creep and so like a frog in boiling water I was unaware of the danger coming for me. 

It did not take long for things to escalate. SD’s job was selling church pictorial directories for Olan Mills and he was often on the road. I became friends with his wife and she and I hung out often. I liked his wife. DD ( Again not mentioning names for my protection) and I would go rafting on the lake every once in a while. She worked a lot and seemed much more aloof. Not long after that first day, SD asked my parents if he could take me along on his long day trips to keep him company and to get me out of the house. Sometimes he would take DD, his wife, and other times he would take her younger sisters, and then sometimes he would take me. We often did not have electricity during the warm months and so there wasn’t much for me to do around the house. None of the adults around me thought this arrangement was odd, or if they did they did not communicate it to me. My mother and I were growing apart and my dad was off doing his own thing. I believe it was easier for both my parents to not have to worry about me. They used the excuse that I was bright and never got into trouble to discharge them of their parental obligations.

Living without electricity was hard. We always had it in the winter. The electric company finally turned our electricity back on for good after my mother became pregnant and a social worker intervened. Before that, we used oil lamps and they gave me a bad headache. My mother and Jim would sit out on the porch at night and I would try to read in my room. Because there was no electricity there was no refrigerator or stove. My mother bought a big styrofoam cooler for us to keep some things in. We had a small container of milk and bologna in there. My mother and Jim would fish for food and cook it over a grill. I hated the fish but I had to eat it or be hungry. Sometimes we would have Kool-Aid. I tried to spend as much time out of the house as I could. I would ride my bike during the day and sometimes go to the library. Once my mother and Jim married their relationship did not take long to go sour. My mother would not tolerate laziness and Jim seemed unconcerned about finding work. Every job he found was too hard for him to maintain. He had hammertoes and being on his feet was not easy. My mother suggested he find a job where he could be seated but he did not seem to be able to find one. He had her right where he wanted her. She supported him and he watched television and smoked all day. My mother hated smokers but somehow before I knew it he was filling our home with smoke and my mother was crying or raging depending on the day. 

I traveled all around Wisconsin with SD. I enjoyed this very much. My family never took vacations and I had only really seen the area between Madison and Platteville. Sometimes he would ask me over to his house under the guise of helping him with some work project. The tasks never seemed hard or necessary. I would organize index cards and help him find things on the map. Even as a kid I understood that this was not about him needing help, it was about him not wanting to be alone. He loved to talk about himself and he talked a lot about his days playing trumpet in a band. He told me all about the music he played. He traveled as part of a swing band and was very proud of his time playing with them. He showed me photos of those days and seemed to long for them to return.  He also told me about how hard he partied and about all of the women he “dated.” SD was average looking, certainly not someone a young girl would swoon over. What he lacked in looks he made up for with charm. He was gregarious and charismatic. He had a big bright smile and a good sense of humor. He was very popular within the church and before long he was playing trumpet at every service. He was always around. When I went to Bible camp in the summer he would be there playing trumpet for the worship service and then again for the choir portion of the evening. All of the camp music directors treated him like he was some kind of a musical genius. They were mostly women and he knew how to wrap women around his finger. He and his wife DD socialized with all of the other young adults I hung out with. His wife often had to work in the evenings so many times SD would be on his own. 

At first, he told me all about his life and that was actually pretty interesting. I’d never encountered anyone who had the adventures that he had had. Although he did not talk down to me I could tell he was bemused by how innocent and ignorant I was regarding the world outside of the church. I was kind of embarrassed about how little I knew about the world. After the hand-holding incident, I saw him again, another ride home, and another step towards getting what he really wanted from me. When I look back on it now it seems weird that neither of us ever spoke about what happened on the day he first held my hand. He acted like nothing ever happened and so I shrugged it off. This time he bought me lunch, this happened often when we were together. At home, we were eating from a cooler for part of this time and so I believe providing me with the food was a part of grooming me. I was very thin except for my chest which made me look like a comic book character. You can tell from photos taken at that time that I was malnourished. Along with being skinny I always had dark circles under my eyes. We almost never went into a restaurant to eat unless we were out of town. This made it possible for him to have alone time with me without having to drive. We would sit in the car and eat, he would talk and I would mostly listen and try to understand the world he was describing to me. My big takeaways were that he was passionate about music and God.

He told me his salvation story over and over. Now I wonder if it was just a big con, his way of seducing me into trusting him. He often alluded to his conversations with Pastor Grant. He would tell me about how he asked the pastor about this or that, giving the impression that he was trying very hard to be holy. 

One day, he announced that he wanted to kiss me. It wasn’t like he was asking permission, it was more of a statement. I’m not sure why I said yes. Maybe it was because he was so nice to me, always telling me how pretty I was, which meant a lot to an eleven-year-old girl with acne. I never felt pretty. We were poor and so my clothing was not as nice as the other girls at church. Most of it was second hand and ill-fitting. My skin was brown. Being half-Mexican in Madison Wisconsin at that time was enough to make you very different. It made me different at church too and this added to me not feeling good about my body. There was a fair amount of giggling on my part. I had never been kissed before. He pulled me close and he kissed me gently on the lips. I could smell his cologne and breath mint. As a side note, offering me a mint was often a sign that he wanted other things. He was always making me laugh and I was not taking any of this seriously. When he released me I pulled away and laughed nervously looking down and away from him. I felt myself leave my body as I started to dissociate. I don’t know when I learned this coping mechanism but I knew how to mentally fly away when life became too hard or scary. Immediately he asked me to kiss him back. Part of me wanted to give him what he was asking for and part of me was afraid to get too close. I could feel his intensity but I had no language to understand it. Now I understand that it was sexual tension I was sensing. He was my friend and he held the key to my escape from my home and everything that was wrong there. I could feel my stomach knot up as I summoned all of my courage and kissed him on the nose. It was quick and I pulled back as if the feeling of kissing him had burned me. He laughed at me saying, “No, that is not the kind of kiss I want, let me show you.” He pulled me close and kissed me deeply on the lips. This went on for a while and I felt both confusion and comfort. Affection was not easy to come by at this point in my childhood and it felt good to have someone I trusted hold me close, I missed my father and worried about him all the time. When I was with SD I could forget about being hungry, not feeling accepted by the church school kids, my mother’s depression, and even God. I had no experience with boys. I had never kissed or held hands with a boy. I was only in the 6th grade, so just out of elementary school. SD seemed so kind to me and I believe a part of me was willing to do whatever weird thing he might ask me to do if it meant I could keep my new friend. At age 11 having someone put their tongue in your mouth seemed pretty weird to me. At this age, I did not have a vocabulary to explain what was happening between us. My parents warned me about strangers but SD wasn’t a stranger and he wasn’t hurting me, at least I did not believe he was. It would be a long time before I knew what he had really done and that it did hurt me just not in a physical way. When he finally dropped me off my cheeks were red from his stubble and I rushed to my room just wanting to hide from the world. I felt guilty but I wasn’t sure why. 

I started to notice that when I saw him at church he would mostly ignore me. He would not make eye contact or act like we were especially good friends. Then other times he would wink at me and try to charm me, usually this meant he wanted to spend time with me. Sometimes out of the blue he would ask me if I wanted to travel with him for the day or if he could drive me home. Sometimes if he saw that I was looking for a ride he would offer. This only added to the chaos of my life. I never knew how he was going to interact with me. When I did see him I would be willing to do just about anything because I missed him. He reeled me in like a fish on a hook. He used the neglect happening at home and my need for love against me. 

God would not stay out of mind for long. I knew what SD was doing to me was wrong especially after things started to escalate. Every time I would see him I would rush up to my bedroom and pray to ask God to forgive me and help me figure a way out of the situation. Getting out my King James Version Bible I would read Psalm 51 and sob. SD told me to read and pray these verses. He said that is what he prayed after he sinned with me. By this point, he was acknowledging that it was sinful. He saw it as adultery and started to swing wildly between pushing me farther and farther and then pushing me away. He never addressed the age difference. 

“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” Psalm 51:1

I was feeling massive amounts of confusion. I felt like I needed him. He was an island of happiness in a world where I felt rejected, ignored, and uncared for. As many survivors will tell you, I enjoyed some of what happened between us, mostly the affection part of it. The other parts were mystifying to me. Guilt hung over me like a dark cloud that would not go away. I felt responsible for all of it because of my ever-evolving uncontrollable body. He kept me unsure of myself. At times he would tell me how beautiful I was and at other times he would critique my body. He would tell me none of it was my fault and then other times he acted like I was the cause of his downfall like he just couldn’t stay away from me. 

“Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Psalm 51:2

He began to tell me how unhappy he was in his marriage. He was lonely and his wife never gave him sex. This was tough to talk with him about. DD, his wife, was my friend and he was driving a wedge between us. He told me about how she would fast for weeks at a time and during that time she told him sex was a no-no. I encouraged him to talk with the pastor and he did, or at least he told me he did. He said that the pastor just kind of shrugged it off. He complained about how she worked all the time and he never saw her, and that when she was home she was cold. I felt bad for him, much like I felt bad for my mother in her loneliness. I was ill-equipped to know how to help him but I could listen and be his friend even if that meant enduring all of the other stuff that came with that. I think that part of me was unsure how to be his friend. Did being his friend really mean doing all of the physical stuff he claimed that he needed? He described his physical need as something essential and painful to go without. Could we just hang out and laugh together? Would that be enough? 

“For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Psalm 51:3

One might ask why I was so affected by Psalm 51? It was a prayer that David prayed and David was a hero of mine at that time. He was a humble shepherd boy who was elevated by God because he loved God and God loved him. He was a flawed hero and God accepted him anyway. He was a musician and poet and I really wanted to be involved in the music ministry when I grew up. I believed that if God loved David that was proof that he might also someday love me. Guilt started to get to SD. I would watch from my pew as he went down to the altar and prayed and spoke in tongues. Sometimes he would kneel at his seat face buried in the pew, I could clearly see his struggle. At least I thought I could. Sometimes I wonder if it was all theater for an audience of one. There was so much I did not know at this point. I was so confused by what I was seeing compared to how he interacted with me. It took any joy out of church and Bible camp. I was filled with guilt and self-hatred. I watched him and he seemed so good and holy, but when he was with me he seemed so overcome with a drive I did not understand. This led me to think it was me. I was the cause of it all because just look at him there speaking in tongues. I would do my best to turn my eyes towards God and let it all go into His hands and then all of sudden SD would be there with an invitation. Once alone he would tell me how much he missed me and how he had just been so busy. 

“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest.” Psalm 51:4

We would drive out to the airport to “watch the planes land” and he slowly took what was left of my childhood away. Each trip brought him closer to the “big sin” and once I was on that runaway train I had no idea how to find the brakes. I could tell he was starting to come unhinged. At the beginning of our “friendship”, he seemed very much in control and loving his role as an older guy with so much life experience. He seemed happy, but now he seemed manic. He never asked permission. He just took what he wanted. Even when I would tell him that I had my period it did not matter. I did not know how to react when he opened his pants and put my hand inside. I was shocked when he finished himself off into a tissue. Soon this became regular, he would always unbuckle his pants and I knew what he expected. He put his hands under my bra often pulling both of the straps down. None of that was as scary as when he started placing his hand inside my underwear. At times it was painful and at this point I could tell how serious and forceful he really felt about what he was doing. When he had bucket seats he would put his seat back and crawl on top of me. He started to call me baby and would encourage me to respond to him. I just remember burying my head in his neck, like maybe if I wasn’t looking at it it wouldn’t be happening. I feel it is important to remind you, dear reader, that at this point I am 11/12 years old. 

“Behold, I was shapened in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5

Things started to get ugly between us. One day as soon as I got into the car he said to me, “Today things are going to be different. We (as if I was the driver here) are not going to be physical in any way.” He went on to explain that what we were doing was a sin and he was not going to continue to sin in God’s eyes anymore. That declaration did not last the whole day, and after he was done succumbing to his desires he started to beat the drum again. He wasn’t going to spend time with me anymore. I never fought with him about any of this. I was passive and really felt I had no control over the situation. Towards the end, I do remember us arguing some but I couldn’t tell you what it was about. I just remember riding beside him in silence staring out the window. 

“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” Psalm 51:6

He made me feel like it was my fault by acting as if he was powerless. He never said those words but what he did say led me to that conclusion. He did spend time with me again, and again, and again. He gave me the same speech over and over again without the promise of not seeing me again. Now it felt like he wanted to keep spending time with me and somehow overcome his desire to sin. Like he really needed this personal victory. He made me feel like I was some kind of Delilah that he was helpless to keep his hands off of. When I look back at pictures from this time it makes me very sad. I was so little and innocent, so not yet a woman or even a teenager, still singing with a hairbrush in front of the mirror. I had no power in this situation and yet he was placing all the blame on me and my overdeveloped body. I never knew when I would see him or how long it would be between encounters. At times he would give me lots of rides home and approach me after service to see if I needed a ride. Then it might be a long time before I would be alone with him again. Suddenly one day he would call me on the phone to see if I wanted to go on one of his day trips with him. I did not try to avoid him. I wanted his friendship and hoped things could be different between us.

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7

He preached to me about the sin we were committing and then took me slightly farther sexually each time I saw him. I already had so much fear of hell, God, and missing the rapture. Now I had to contend with him and his ravings along with his urging me to go deeper and deeper into his blackness. He robbed so much from me. My first kiss, my first everything. I knew it was getting very dangerous and I started to get scared when he took me to his house. I never thought he would physically force me to do anything but I did feel unsure of what he might try next. This was all new to me and his moods seemed to be becoming more and more chaotic. One night I was helping him with his work and we were sitting on opposite sides of the room. There was no hint of what was about to happen and I was surprised to be brought to his house without anyone else being there. He asked me to come over and sit on his lap. It seemed odd considering things seemed to be going so well, meaning he was keeping his hands off of me. I went over to him and sat on his lap. At first, he just joked around with me, and then he started to touch me all over in earnest. After a short time, he jumped up and grabbed my hand leading me to another room. He seemed to have tunnel vision, he did not really speak to me or even make eye contact, it was like he was in another world. This was a room of the house I had never seen before. It was their spare bedroom. It was dark in the room and I could not really make out any of the furnishings or decor. He laid on the bed and patted the spot next to him. This is the first time I can remember being really frightened. I think up until this time everything that was happening with him seemed a little unreal, but this moment felt very real! This was a real bed, and a real man, with his pants open and it was really dark in there. He removed his clothing and beckoned me to lay down next to him. He started touching me and trying to remove my clothing. I didn’t make a sound, I can still feel how stiff my body went at that moment. I was not playing along at this point I was disassociating, my brain checked out. SD became more and more manic in his touching and started to grind against me and urgently whispered into my ear, “Come on baby, come on.” At the time I had no idea what he wanted me to do. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood those words to be words of encouragement. He wanted an adult response but I wasn’t an adult. He wanted me to react like a lover, but I wasn’t his lover, I was his victim. 

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” Psalm 51:8

The tenderness and slow seduction were long gone and all that was left was a man who wanted what he wanted and he was done waiting for me to want it too. After this when he would rave at me about sin and adultery I would grow silent and sink into the seat of the car. Sometimes I would lash out at him with anger and this would make him even more heated. When I think back to that time, what I see in my mind’s eye is a girl with second-hand clothes, frizzy uncut hair, acne, and low self-esteem. I don’t see an evil temptress or seductive woman. I cannot say how I hoped this situation would end. I know I was living in fear of someone finding out. SD said it would ruin our lives if they did. I did not see myself as the other woman or as committing adultery, I do not think my mind was that sophisticated yet. I had to compartmentalize to survive.

My worst day with SD happened again at his house. His sister-in-law was there and even that wasn’t enough to stop him. He made me wait in the car while he went inside to talk to her, then he led me in through a side door off of the driveway. We never entered through that door, it led right down into the basement. I had never been down in the basement. It was not a big room but it was big enough to have a sofa. He sat me down on the sofa and started to assault me, again I went stiff as he maneuvered my clothing off and to the side. He said very little and the affection of previous encounters was completely gone. He had a goal and he was driven to hit it. At that time I was very naive. No one talked to me about sex except to say it was a sin worthy of hell. In 5th grade, we had the “My changing body” day at school where the boys and girls went into separate areas to have the “talk.” I had no idea how the mechanics of sex worked. Even with everything SD had already done to me I wasn’t mature enough to put it all together. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that some of what happened between us started to make sense. I believe I often checked out when he started to touch me. It was a price to be paid for his friendship and up until now, I had been able to handle it. 

“Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.” Psalm 51:9

He tried to have intercourse with me that day. I was stiff and bewildered as he stabbed at me but was unable to actually penetrate. I don’t believe he used a condom so I am very grateful that I did not get pregnant. My body was not providing any lubrication. I was too frightened. He seemed to be somewhere else leaving me alone at this moment, staring at the ceiling and waiting for what would happen next. I was pretty dissociated but I do remember wondering if it was going to hurt. He had pulled my pantyhose and underwear down around my ankles and just hiked my skirt up around my waist. It was a pretty uncomfortable position.  Eventually, he asked me if he could finish and I nodded my head as if I knew what he meant. He barely said two words to me until he dropped me off at home. I felt like I had disappointed him. This was one of my last encounters with SD. Soon after he would be whisked out of my life and I would be left trying to figure out what had just happened to me. I’m not sure how I survived that encounter. I don’t remember leaving the house or what I did after I got home. I think I was in shock. It felt the same way the experience with my dad felt. Scary, with my heart in my chest. 

I have to wonder why he would take that risk? Why would bring me to his home when someone else was there? Why would he risk impregnating me? He must have been pretty sure I would not make too much noise or start crying. When I was with him I did my crying on the inside. 

I believed for a very long time that SD did not see me as a child. Maybe in his haze, he lost sight of how young I really was. But then I look at my school photo for that year and looking back at me is a little girl. I know now that I was just trying to give him cover. I did not want to admit to myself what he had actually done to me. He did not just fall into sin he chose me, groomed me, and abused me in a very strategic way. At times he would treat me like a peer as if I had any idea of what he was asking of me or encouraging me to do and feel. He wanted a responsive lover and at times seemed unaware that an eleven-year-old could not give him that. He would laugh at my inexperience and how naive I was, another slash in the “Of course he was fully aware you were a child column.” He seemed in awe of how mature my body was and would say things like, “How can such a young girl have such a large chest?” My 50-year-old self knows that he was a child molester. I know that none of what happened to me was my fault, I was his victim. Along with that, I know that even in the telling of this dark tale I am softening what he did to me. I’m telling you he was nice to me, but it wasn’t real right? How could it be real niceness when what was really happening was he was grooming me? He was preying on my loneliness, hunger, lack of experience, and lack of adult protection. At one point he traded in his beloved Honda Accord and bought a bigger car without bucket seats. I remember listening to him tell other adults how he enjoyed the luxury of the new car. He told me he bought it so I could sit next to him without the middle divider of bucket seats. Now we could hold hands and cuddle so much easier! Everything was a setup and I fell into his trap. Sadly I spent most of my childhood believing I was the trap when really I was the prey.