BELIEVE LIKE A CHILD Read online

  Uncle Danny quickly stripped off her baby-doll pajamas and commanded her to turn over and lie flat on her belly. As she complied, he slipped into the bed behind her. Wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up so that her weight rested on her knees, he slowly began to push his penis into her rectum. Little by little, he inched himself inside her until his penis was fully engulfed by her young, tender tissue.

  This was the worst and most painful experience of all for Alessa. The other times had hurt too, especially in the beginning, but they were nothing compared to the pain she suffered at that moment. She felt mortified and humiliated. If she could have died there and then, she thought, it would have been a great release for her. She could smell her own feces and had to hold back the vomit that was threatening to gush forth from her mouth. The excruciating pain, as he ripped through her, was like fire scorching her insides. She was afraid he would tear her in half.

  Through his harsh breathing, she heard him repeat, “This is good and tight.” He kept telling her he loved her, until he came. Finally, he collapsed next to her on the tiny bed that barely had enough room for one person. She cried that night, until the tears wouldn’t come anymore. And even when she finally fell asleep, there was no shelter from her pain. She dreamed of faceless men touching her, pawing her all over with their filthy hands. She couldn’t escape the horrendous nightmare she was living through, not even in her sleep.

  That terrible night, it finally dawned on her that the monsters she had always feared lived under her bed had never existed. The only real monster had a name: Uncle Danny, the ogre who had stripped her of her innocence and left nothing, but an empty shell. Her childhood, her very life, had been stolen from her. She no longer knew who she was; nor did she dare to contemplate her future. She had learned that life was flawed and just making it through each day would take all her strength and challenge her powers of endurance. Her rough childhood, robbed of its innocence, would arm her with the resilience to hold onto her sanity later in life.

  Despite her moments of dark despair, Alessa had faith that she would eventually rise above the sordidness of her life and come through. Her belief in herself had been instilled early in life by her beloved grandmother who had chosen her name for her, imagining that she had seen something unique and exciting in the newborn. Alessa meant “defender of mankind”. That is how her grandmother had visualized her when she looked into the baby’s eyes and probed her soul. Despite Caterina’s attempts to undermine her youngest child at every opportunity, Alessa’s grandmother had been firm in her belief that one day, her favorite grandchild would be strong and resilient and the inspiration for many; but, most importantly, she would be a force to reckon with.

  Chapter One

  Caterina’s foul temperament probably had as much to do with nurture as nature. Alessa’s mother had stopped going to school after fourth grade so that she could work to help her parents pay their bills. Not only did the decision deprive her of an education, it also robbed her of all ambition and drive. Caterina had only one asset to fall back on: her good looks. And she was content to get by on them. Her body was lean, with curves that many women envied, and her legs were long and shapely. Her smile was inviting and she had jet-black hair, with a touch of curl, that fell in all the right places. Her deep olive complexion gave her an exotic look that men adored. There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman and since she was dirt poor and had nothing else to fall back on, she had no qualms about using that beauty to get everything she desired.

  Caterina’s lack of education had not stood in the way of mastering the art of manipulation. She could muster sympathy from a complete stranger in the street. She cried the blues about how poor they were and how her four kids needed to eat. Yet, no matter how much she complained, Caterina always looked great. She didn’t wear expensive clothes, but her outfits were always new, perfectly accessorized with matching jewelry, sunglasses, shoes and purses. And she never left the house without her make-up in place.

  As an adolescent, Alessa would always face the brunt of her mother’s criticism, directed primarily at her lack of looks. Caterina often nagged her daughter, insisting that she wouldn’t look quite so homely, if she just wore some make-up and fixed her hair. It never occurred to Alessa to retort that she and her siblings had always been less privileged than their mother, when it came to matching outfits, manicured nails and decent haircuts. The children rarely received new clothes and continued to use the same underwear, until the elastic on their panties and bras wore out. None of the children even owned their own toothbrush; they shared one between the four of them. But it hardly mattered, because Caterina didn’t provide them with toothpaste anyway. Only Caterina’s bathroom boasted of such luxury. Naturally, the children’s teeth were in poor condition. Alessa did the best she could with the little she had to work with, often sneaking up to her mother’s bathroom to steal a squirt of toothpaste or deodorant before school.

  Caterina disciplined her children by hitting them with a wooden spoon. She would bolt off in a huff to find it, so she could come back and beat the hell out of them for some misdemeanor or bad behavior. On one occasion, when she was beating her son, Anthony, the wooden spoon split into two. Unfazed, Caterina moved on to a metal spoon as the weapon of choice. As she struck one of her children with the spoon, she would scold him or her for whatever infraction the child had been guilty of and always ended her last three thrashings with, “I’ll show you!”

  Alessa’s life during these years was a hollow one. The advantages of beauty, dignity, self-confidence and an appealing personality eluded her. What she lacked in looks and charisma, she made up for in maturity and in the ability to withdraw into her own mind. She had a vivid imagination and lived through the stories she heard other children narrate at school that spoke of the abundance of love they enjoyed at home and the fun they had with their own families. Alessa’s classmates all had lives that were very different from hers. Through them and their description of their lives at home, she would build a beautiful imaginary world for herself.

  But in reality, Alessa could never be carefree like the other kids her age. She had forgotten what it was to be a child. She had stopped believing in Santa Claus. Her reality was harsh and dark. From a very early age, she knew how different she was from the others and could never feel comfortable in her own skin.

  The years of rape and abuse at the hands of her Uncle Danny had inadvertently taught her how to be a survivor. Deep in her soul, she knew that she would, one day, escape the nightmare she was living through, before it consumed her. She was determined that some day, she would have all the things she dreamed of, including real love and a family.

  Shortly after her uncle sodomized her the first time, Alessa set herself the goal of escaping from his clutches. She summoned up the nerve to confide in her mother and tell her what had been happening. Terrified of Caterina’s reaction, however, she practiced the conversation in her head for weeks before she actually gathered the courage to speak to her. Then, when she felt the moment was just right, she approached her mother who was in the kitchen, cooking dinner for the family. Waves of nausea rose from Alessa’s stomach into the back of her throat. She could feel her heart pounding inside her chest as she approached her mother slowly.

  Caterina saw her daughter standing idly in the kitchen and snapped, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Mom,” Alessa blurted out, “Uncle Danny has been doing things to me.”

  “What are you talking about? What kinds of things?” her mother asked angrily.

  “He has been coming into my bedroom at night and doing things to me.”

  “What the fuck are you trying to say, girl?” Caterina’s voice rose in indignation. “Everyone knows that Uncle Danny loves you. You don’t complain when he brings you candy and things that you want, do you? Now, all of a sudden, he’s doing things to you, is he? Don’t you have the sense to realize that he is just being affectionate, because he loves you so much? Even your brother
and sisters are jealous of how much attention he pays you.”

  Caterina was screaming now and Alessa could feel herself begin to shut down. She was terrified that her mother would report everything back to Uncle Danny. She began to back out of the kitchen, sorry that she had made the mistake of confiding in her mother. Caterina hadn’t even both-ered to sit her down and question her in depth on this matter. Clearly, she did not care to understand or even acknowledge what her youngest child had just told her.

  Instead, she went on, “Your Uncle Danny adores you. So when you hurl such accusations at him, you sound like a dirty little pig with a filthy little mind! You’re rotten to the core! Go to your room right now before I get the spoon out and give you a good beating! That would straighten you out. And don’t you go repeating this shit to people or they’ll think something is wrong with you. You sound like a stupid little idiot by spewing out that stuff about Uncle Danny. He is good to us and helps out around here. We would never have been able to keep this house, if it weren’t for him. Do you want to live on the streets? That’s what we’d be doing, if he weren’t here, helping us! That’s what family is for. Now get out of my sight before I get really mad!”

  It suited Caterina to live in denial. Accustomed to manipulating every situation in her life to get what she wanted, she preferred to ignore reality, even if it were staring her in the face, so long as it did not fit into her scheme of things. Certainly, she wouldn’t allow herself to recognize the implications of what her daughter was telling her about her own brother, because that would mean having to do something about it, namely, ordering him out of the home. That would mean 750 dollars less every month. There was no way Caterina was going to give up easy income. The alternative would be to go out and get an actual job to support her family. She much preferred to pretend that Alessa was fabricating malicious tales and continue to collect her rent check.

  Alessa turned and went back to her room, where she threw herself on the bed and cried. She was shocked and hurt that her mother not only refused to believe her, but seemed not to care about the situation at all. Instead, she had done her best to demoralize her daughter and threatened her with a beating. Alone in her misery, Alessa couldn’t think of a single soul who might help her. She had no one to lean on, no one to talk to; she only had herself. She was determined to get away from this nightmare, get away from her uncle, away from all the pain and anguish he was causing her. She wanted to have nothing to do with the mother who had rejected her with such scorn. As soon as she was old enough, she would leave this house and never look back. She was desperate to believe she could escape this darkness and that there would be more to her life than this rotten place she called home.

  Chapter Two

  For a while, even school didn’t offer Alessa a break from her misery. In junior high school, she had few friends. In fact, she had no real friends at all. Given her situation at home, she had always felt too much of an outcast to even try and make friends.

  Alessa made her first friend when she was least expecting it. One afternoon, right before Easter break, she was in the school bathroom, washing her hands before going outside to where her creepy Uncle Danny was waiting to pick her up. Rhonda, one of the girls she knew from gym class, started talking to her. “Hey Alessa, how are you?” she asked. “Listen, there’s this party tonight at the valley woods. They’re getting a keg of beer and I wanted to know if you’d go with me. I live near your house. So I can come over and we can walk there together.”

  Stunned that someone was actually asking her to go somewhere, Alessa tried to remain calm as she replied, “Yeah, sure. Give me your phone number. I’ll ask my mom and call you.”

  She was thrilled to be invited to a party. Even at the age of fourteen, she had never been to a party with teenagers and beer.

  The moment she got home, she asked her mother about it.

  “Who is this Rhonda girl?” Caterina asked at once. “How come I’ve never heard of her before?”

  Alessa explained that she knew Rhonda from gym class. Just then, Anthony walked in on the conversation.

  “Just let her go, Mom,” he said. “She’s like a little mutant. She doesn’t have any friends and maybe, if she goes to the party, she will get some eventually.”

  Caterina agreed and told Alessa to be home by ten o’clock or she’d give her a beating.

  Alessa ran to her bedroom to find something to wear. Of course, her selection was limited. She picked out her best jeans, a pair of hand-me-downs from her sister, Rosabella. The back pockets were slightly torn, but they would pass. Besides, she thought they fit her perfectly. Over them, she wore a plain black tee shirt, faded beyond its life, since it too, was a hand-me-down and had been washed so many times it had lost its shape. At least she wouldn’t stand out in her outfit. Hopefully, if there was a God, she would just blend in with the rest of the crowd. Her hair wasn’t much better than it used to be when she was younger. Although she had never actually had it cut and styled by a professional, it barely reached her shoulders. It was naturally curly and could have looked stylish with a professional cut and a little hair product to boost its shape and sheen.

  When Rhonda arrived at Alessa’s house, Caterina was surprisingly pleasant and warm. It was in her nature to go to great lengths to make people love and admire her, even if it happened to be her daughter’s fourteen-year-old girlfriend. Rhonda was wearing a pair of brand new Jordache jeans and a new tube top with a rainbow on the front. Her long shiny brown hair was pulled back from her face in a perfect braid running down the center of her back. She wore a silver necklace, with a round turquoise pendant, the size of a quarter, dangling from it. Rhonda looked beautiful and Alessa immediately noticed the look of disapproval directed at her as her new friend silently assessed her appearance.

  As the girls were preparing to leave, Uncle Danny entered the room walking towards them. Alessa wanted to scream, she could feel the evil lurking inside of him. This was the only friend who had ever come to her house and she started to sweat as he inched up and stood just a little too close to her. He turned and looked Rhonda over as if he knew a secret, shaking his head with his lips curled in a cruel smile. He turned to Caterina and opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, but instead dropped his head in disgust and walked over to his chair and sat down.

  As they opened the door to leave, Caterina reminded her, “Alessa, don’t forgot your curfew.”

  Walking out the door, Alessa looked over at her Uncle Danny sitting in his chair in front of the television. As she closed the door behind her, she did not miss the scowl on his face. It not only signaled his obvious displeasure that he was being deprived of his pound of flesh, but hinted at the tortures that awaited her in her bedroom later.

  Chapter Three

  Once they were some distance from the house, Rhonda turned to Alessa and said, “Okay, let’s spruce you up a bit. Turn around.”

  Alessa eagerly complied. Her new friend tugged hard on the back of the shapeless black tee shirt, twisting the fabric into a knot. Alessa was amazed at how snugly the shirt now fit and at the way she had gathered it at the back so that it was short enough in the front to expose the top of her navel. Then Rhonda turned Alessa around to face her and reached into her purse. She applied a dab of blue eyeshadow on her eyelids and defined her top and lower eyelids with black eyeliner. She took out two bobby pins from her purse and pinned Alessa’s hair back on the sides. As a final touch, she rolled on bubble-gum lip gloss. Then she looked critically at Alessa and said, “There, now we can go.”

  They were headed for a keg party at the Rope, which was located in a small wooded area in Plymouth Meeting, the small town in Pennsylvania where the girls lived. As they walked the mile or so to the place, Alessa asked her new friend, “Why do they call it ‘the rope’?”

  “Because there’s a creek that runs through the woods in the place where we hang out and someone tied a thick rope on a big branch overhanging the creek. When people are fucked up, they
jump on the rope and swing. Problem is, you have to make sure you get off before it stops swinging, because the creek is a ten-foot drop. It’s so fucking cool! Wait until you see it.”

  When they arrived, a crowd of twenty other teenagers had already gathered. They were all standing in a loose circle around a keg of beer that stood in the center of the dirt floor. Alessa was terrified that the crowd of teenagers would either reject her because she didn’t fit in or find out what she was doing with her Uncle Danny. Instead, they seemed not to notice her at all. Rhonda greeted several of the boys who immediately closed in and circled around her. Alessa noticed how the girls stared at her friend and whispered to each other, giggling and poking one another. Clearly, they had an issue with Rhonda. Must be jealousy, Alessa concluded.

  Then Rhonda came over, grabbed her by the hand and led her to the keg. The girls filled up two plastic cups with beer and Rhonda offered up a toast: “To new friends!” she said. “We are going to have so much fun together.” Alessa sipped at the beer while her friend chugged it down and filled another glass for herself. As the night wore on, Alessa watched as Rhonda worked the boys in the wooded area. They were all clearly enamored by her. And she sure was a beauty! Alessa sat on a log and took it all in.

  Finally, one of the other girls came over and sat on the log with her. “You know that Rhonda is a slut, right?” she remarked.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Alessa responded.

  “Well, if you hang with her, everyone is going to think you’re a slut too.”