As I got older around 18, or so, I was allowed permission to drive the family car,  keeping it on dates with my friends, and was given money to shop for clothes on my own. Of course they didn''t have a clue to my ''other'' life. On my 19th birthday John gave me more privileges, propositions and promises for more good things to come if I would -- yes, you guessed it, if I would continue making lends didn''t have a clue to my ''other'' life. It was him  in a guise for loyalty! He felt that being undercover wasn’t needed because of having his way with me all through my younger days. Yes, he wanted to be comtinually under the covers being definitive with a shift in his modus operandi on a larger scale using bribery for eliciting other favors. I was able to find out more about his family background as time progressed. Even mom didn’t know the whole truth. I relied on an obligation to give insight anew, and hip her to what I felt his intent was, but it went unheeded. Moreover, could I truly tell her EVERYTHING? I was more than apprehensive—I was scared! She wasn’t any help to me after a point, and it affected me immensely. After enticing, or should I say forcing her to help out at the ‘Company,’ (more on that later), John had her totally in the palm of his hand using her unmercifully to run his books and take care of the rooms. My brothers George and Ivan also were given menial jobs in the beginning.

    I always wondered how she was able to resign herself to the business without protest, knowing that her children were being used as pawns. It was years later that I realized what the real deal was, and why she had no choice but to stick and stay. She was weak and decimated, and didn’t have the nerve to contest Mr. Stevenson. I’ve asked myself many times—didn’t she know what I went through turning tricks and making the devil proud of every penis I sucked, or how many times my brothers, and myself had to suffer for all of the misdeeds surrounding the house of ill repute? John knew exactly how to manipulate my mom, and in the process he controlled me. Janice was suffering from a debilitating illness. Come to find out, she was battling Lupus that kept her bedridden and doped up half of the time. She finally died, ironically not from the aforementioned illness I believe, but from a broken heart. She was a devout Christian meek in manner and obviously incapable of stopping the madness that engulfed the family collectively, and especially me personally. I remember another one of her nuggets she left me: taking me in her arms in a rare moment of amorous affection, and ever so emotionally the tears welled up in her eyes as she pleadingly told me that, a “change is gonna come Baby, just be ready when the wings of the Holy Spirit sweeps you up in Glory!”  That’s Janice for you, always keeping her head toward the sky. A mother’s wit more often than not are intuitive notions where eyes were windows of the soul, and nothing stopped her from believing in God’s anointing Grace which is expected; but for a time that messed my head up because for the longest I thought that she was oblivious to what was going on…but why make such a statement not making an attempt showing contempt and pulling away from what has befallen the family earlier, while you looking to the sky? Realizing this, I desperately needed an ally, someone who I could talk to…someone who would have the guts to make a stand as a mother should. I needed my mom in that role. Eventually telling and relying on my mom wouldn’t have done any good, though. Earlier I shared how weak she was. Despite this, one day I braved myself thinking that she could become my confidante and voice of reason. if Not my saving grace mind you. Only God had that ability. Albeit, He one day He got ahold of me on the way to the altar. He became my Savior and lifted me up and above the chaff. As I reminisced I couldn’t believe that mom didn’t know what was going on with me earlier in my adolescent years. I loved her, though; but I needed her to be the caring mother that wouldn’t automatically take a man’s word that things weren''t the way that they were, or supposed to be. I needed a mom who wouldn’t tolerate her only daughter being ravished and wooed from pillar to post, from bed and beyond. Mom was too gullible and simple to do anything to protest, especially before he started touching me down there with only his fingers.

  I can''t help but drift to the past. The situation became such a systematic, if not dysfunctional debacle for me that I decided to come clean, expose his ‘operation’ so that no one else would have to be subjected to what I went through for 15 years. Yes, I remember, all too vividly. The molestation intensified when I was just shy of my 9th birthday...yeah, molestation, that’s what they call it nowadays but back in the day John called it by another name — ‘riding da horsy’. His ploy was to coerce me to play this game where I would sit on his lap and he would have both of his legs extended or drawn in, depending on my weight and how I was maneuvered as close to his pelvic region as possible. For instance, he would have me face him and we would rock back and forth. Other times he would find ways to maneuver his hands inside of my panties, have my back to his, but always it was this rocking back and forth, back and forth until it was possible to ignore what I felt. I would invariably notice this bulging hardness but didn’t understand what was going on. I remember how happy it would make him and how he would jerk and his middle would be poking me in my middle. Then all of a sudden he would stop the game and always come back to get me later to start all over again. This went on until I was 10 , but the ‘games’ we played became more and more tingling to me. I would feel this pleasurable sensation that felt so good that I didn’t want it to stop...and he didn’t either; then there was the time where he would want to see me in my panties, or watch me undress. He called it ‘window dressing’. I would be his model showing off the latest in children’s underwear. Oh yes, we had many different games back then. As I got older he would always say, “I want to invest in your future,” for you to someday run the business on your own. What?! Was he serious?

    He also said he wanted to teach me morre about sex education, and boy did the message register: the situation became such a systematic regimen, if not a dysfunctional debacle for me.  For years I lived with the fear and shame of doing John and Jim’s bidding because I didn’t want others to feel that I wasn’t worthy of being as respected as they were. A child’s mindset is not fully developed until they can fathom all that is presented, and the wherewithal to go deeper for discernment and deductive reasoning. Logic would come much later when I began to think beyond the limitation and box I was in. Common sense? I didn''t have that at the time.

    I knew it would take much more to get out of the situation, so I just endured for such a time when I could turn the tables in lieu of turning tricks. I held back too, because I was afraid that no one would believe that my family was so dysfunctional and disenfranchised from what a wholesome family should be. I was scared and reluctant to come forward. I shed many tears which became such an onus I couldn’t escape. Who would believe me? I began to feel the guilt and shame and doubted myself. My self-esteem was shot. What would my peers say? I wanted them to believe that my life was normal…but I was living a lie. John knew how to keep the screw in me tightened, anmd what a good screw truly was in his demented mind.. I remembered how semen would slide down my leg into a thick sticky glob, and how depending on the circumstances, it would flow like a gusher stimulated prior by probing hands or an inviting tongue. He would always have a towel at the ready and pass it to me to wipe myself. Rape is nothing no woman should endure...but I endured it time after time when I began to tire of being used and abused. Rape or seduction. Which one was it, and are there differences between the two? It was like men didn’t have feelings for what they subjected to me and others. Did they ever think about their mothers, daughters or sisters being treated the same? Rapists are monsters who will never care that women would want to marry someday and have kids.

   I wanted the world to know that there are alternatives once you’ve been through wringers, have wrestled and worried about self-esteem gone awry. I needed to put a stop to the madness and not be relegated to thinking that every man who came into my life would act and react like rapists-at-large. It would be hard looking at any man without thinking about the beast inside him once he saw me. I guess the main question you’d want to ask me is why did I allow this man to violate me? I can answer this with many reasons and more compromising alibis justifying me losing my virginity. Even in school I would find myself watching the other girls to see if there were any signs that I could recognize justification of me thinking that they were getting humped the way I was. There were a few that I had questions about, especially the ones who were silent and their eyes darted furtively around ready to jump out of their skins at the slightest gesture from one of those fresh boys always looking for something more. Now that you know my transitional stage in the beginning, you need to know the structure of it all, and how it became empirical for a person with an evil mind. You also need to know more about the house of ill repute. Hold on to your chair. The plot thickens!