Slave Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

nor that he or she enjoys it; just because being complicit, learning how to please the abuser, ensures that the whole horrific, painful experience finishes quickly.
    The home was also a school. The kids in it were deemed to be such a security risk that there was no way we could be allowed to go to a normal school outside the heavily guarded grounds. Instead, teachers came in to give us lessons in the basics of education – reading, writing, maths – with whatever other stuff they reckoned they could ram into our skulls. It was a thankless task, of course: we were all too sullen and resentful to learn anything much. The only thing that kept us in check was the fear of punishment – act up too much and we knew we would be in for a good hiding, or worse.
    And so we sat there in those grim and unforgiving classes. And if we didn’t throw too many wobblies, we didn’t exactly get much of an education either. To this day I can’t spell properly and as for arithmetic (much less anything more advanced) – well, let’s just say I’m not what you might call university material. I did learn something there though: I learned about psychology – one dirty little corner of psychology, anyway.
    The sexual side of the abuse we endured was one thing, but I began to see that behind it was a sort of separate psychological motive. As an adult and a survivor I know now that child sexual abuse is often not about the sex itself but about control or dominance, or some other sick mind game. Back then, I couldn’t have expressed it like this – but I did start to understand that it wasn’t enough just for my abusers to get their sexual gratification: they had to hurt me mentally and physically as well.
    The mental bit seemed to revolve around a game they made us play in the evenings: they called it ‘The Yellow Brick Road’. One of the men would produce a bit of paper with a road drawn on it. From this main road smaller paths branched off. He would explain that the game started on the main road, which was safe, but that after we set off we would have to choose which of the little paths to go down. Some of these paths led to good things; others to bad ones. But we weren’t allowed to know which was which. We just had to choose blindly and hope.
    To this day I can’t quite work out how it was supposed to work or what possible gratification it could give anyone. All I know is that more often than not I seemed to choose the bad path and I’d be dragged off and locked in a room upstairs. Before too long one of the men would unlock the door, come in and pin me – often by my throat – against the wall. I can see their faces now – the men who took it in turns to come into that locked and lonely room. I can feel the coarseness of their clothes pressing up against me, the weight of their hands on top of my head, pushing me down and into the required pose to bring them satisfaction. And I can hear them, too, screaming at me, calling me ‘a little shit’, and trying to make me cry. Did they succeed? I like to tell myself that they never did, that I never gave in and cried, but I know I must have sometimes.
    This so-called ‘care’ home might have been in the middle of nowhere but that didn’t stop me from trying to run away. More than once I climbed out of my first-floor bedroom window and jumped – how far down it seemed! – to the ground below. Then I would run as fast as my legs would carry me across the fields in the direction of the little village, hoping I’d make it and hoping I’d find someone who would help me get back to Gateshead. Once I badly sprained my ankle in the jump from the window. I knew as soon as I landed on the ground that I wouldn’t get far that night but I tried nonetheless.
    They always caught me, of course. I was only 13 and hadn’t a clue where I was. They were big and strong, and knew the grounds like the back of their hands. And they had those dogs. I can’t describe how those dogs made me feel.