When I was little, I was granted television time, watching children’s programs only. I learned from these programs that I lived a vastly different life from what most children did. I hadn’t understood that my life excelled at being different until I started getting older.
I loved reading, and I had one toy, my small ragdoll, Jenny. She was dressed in her little white apron over her little black and white checkered dress, with her bright red shoes and a bright red bow in her dark, curly hair. I cuddled her at night. I never wanted my mistress or Master William to see me loving something. I did it in the safety of my room and under the covers.
I was told when it was my birthday. I was given necessities for my existence and growth during the year; a birthday meant turning a year older and nothing more. I didn’t know I should be praised for getting older, sung to and given gifts and a cake. We didn’t celebrate Christmas or any other holidays. My life was on repeat, every day of the year.
The woman who raised me from an infant to a teenager is now long gone. Master William slit her throat in front of me when I was just thirteen years old. I clearly remember the gurgling noise she made as she fought to keep breathing, her eyes widening in surprise and recognition as all that red drained out of her. It was so quick.
I was to be the last person she saw before she died. Her eyes had searched my horrified face out where I had been quietly reading on the couch. He let go of her body when she had taken her last breath, and she slumped to the floor in an undignified heap with a disgusting squelching sound.
I think it took a few moments for my mind to play catch up with what had happened in front of me. He had snuck up behind her and slid the sharp metal across her neck, making a clean gash, which opened up as she threw her neck back in surprise, red soaking into her crisp white blouse, a look of triumph on his evil face.
I think, to a certain extent, I checked out the day she bled out in front of me. Master William chained me up while he got rid of her body, then made me clean up what had been left behind. It was a thick and sticky mess that smelled of fear and metal.
Blood is not easy to clean up, and it had sprayed everywhere. You have to scrub and scrub to get every last spot clean. I wanted to vomit, but I knew I would be punished, so I had to go to another place inside my head to get through it.
I knew this was all a game to him. He wanted me to have a front row seat and be a witness to what he’d done. He didn’t have to do it in front of me, but that was all part of his twisted, evil mind. It was also a warning to me he highlighted in dramatic style.
My youth was starting to slip away and I was becoming a teenager. He took her life knowing I was old enough to take care of myself, to obey and fear him into total submission.
She was expendable.
She made the mistake of thinking she wasn’t. My mistress lived in a fantasy world filled with his evil, but thought she was his partner, his equal. Even at a young age, I could see the tight rope she walked so carelessly.
She had an expiration date.
He was so calm when he took her life, and that was when I knew I was on borrowed time, because any time he pleased, I knew my life would be taken in just as gruesome a manner. I did not doubt that for a minute.
Was she my friend?
Well, you learn to make do with what you have. She was all I knew in a female. She was very guarded with me, and she kept her walls up emotionally, but she didn’t physically hurt me. I didn’t fear her like I feared Master William. I didn’t even know her name. She was simply Mistress to me.
I wasn’t capable of mourning her death because my emotions were too broken, but I think in a twisted way I did miss her female presence in the house, although I couldn’t understand why she would want to live with a man like Master William voluntarily.
Every now and then, something will trigger a particularly bad memory and I have had to break off another piece of tape and tightly reseal the box. Mistress’ death is one of those memories.
It’s the way I survived in my world.
He was sick and twisted, prone to outbursts of great violence for no good reason. Sometimes I was on the receiving end, and other times I witnessed my mistress receiving punishment.
He had no soul, no conscience. He was Hell’s bastard. He was spontaneous with his actions, which made him dangerous and unpredictable.
I was beaten black and blue when I failed at any task set before me. To be the best would mean no time in the slave cabin behind the main house, chained to that filthy floor, where I would be beaten and kicked, only enough to break me a little more each time.
When my mistress was alive, she was good at fixing broken bones. I was very careful not to be given a broken bone when she was gone. It was enough to kill the last bit of my soul, which had been fighting back. I didn’t want to be in pain and mended, only to be in pain again.
So I gave myself over and became submissive to everything he asked of me. Sometimes I slipped up by not doing something right. I tried real hard to be flawless, but sometimes I was unable to be the kind of perfect he needed.
As I grew older, things changed. When I turned fourteen, I started to bleed. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was dying. It crossed my mind that I was excited my life was coming to an end. I feared it, but it also meant the end was near and on my terms.
Master William threw a book at me in disgust along with a bag of female hygiene products, while I lay on my bed after I’d told him I needed help.
I did as I was ordered. I read the book. I then understood I wasn’t dying. I felt disappointment at having to endure more time with this man.
From then on, I was given access to a computer, but only while he supervised me. I could never surf any sites unless he approved of them, unless he watched my every move with that mouse.
I began to understand there was a world outside my existence that I was missing out on.
A big world.
I was allowed to shop online and choose nice, pretty things. I could buy personal items for myself as a reward for turning old enough to bleed.
I was granted movie time. I loved superhero movies. What I would have given to have had some of their powers, been the one being saved. Although my life was not nurturing or loving, I was also allowed to watch chick flicks about finding that elusive love. I chose Pretty Woman because of the title, Sleepless in Seattle, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Holiday, The Notebook, The Lucky One, Valentine’s Day...I devoured them. I saw how people communicated and loved each other. I learned what heartache did to people. YouTube videos on how to style my hair were welcomed. I had no idea at the time it was all a pay-off for what was to come. You see, I was making myself prettier for him without even knowing it. I was making myself knowledgeable about men and women. I just needed to age, as I was not yet what he wanted. I was being groomed.
My life became like a piece of wood that somebody had taken a knife to and whittled into a shape, which could only be changed with more whittling.
It couldn’t be bent. It did what the whittler pleased.
The wood couldn’t stop what was being done to it, but nevertheless a shape was formed, which was pleasing to the whittler.
I was carved and shaped. I hurt and bled when beaten. I was bruised and felt pain for days. That’s where the piece of wood and I were different, because wood feels nothing.
Another thing I learned over the years was he liked to film me. Cameras were set up all around the plantation home. I would catch their winking red lights out of the corner of my eye when I’d worked out where they were all hidden. When I had free time, I would take a book into a room and sit and pretend I was reading as I looked through my thick curtain of hair for where the camera could be. It became a game. Mistress told me he filmed many rooms I frequented, for security reasons.