The room is dark at first. The sudden adjustment from the sunny living room to the poorly lit bedroom hurts her eyes. Olivia narrows her eyes and blinks to get used to the dimness. She makes out the array of her mother’s shoes, a bottle of whiskey on the carpeted floor an almost-full ashtray is on the side of the bed, and the shirtless man lying on it. He has a cigarette sticking out from the corner of his mouth, and like a tired dragon, smoke rushes out of his nose fogs the room for a brief spell, before disappearing into the darkness. A small packet peeps out of a shirt lying on the floor. On it are silhouettes of a man and a woman kissing.
“Lock the door behind you…”
She turns the lock knob on the door anticlockwise until she hears a click sound.
“Can I get the curtains? It’s too dark in here.”
“No no no no!” he says almost immediately. He heaves himself from the bed and walks towards her.
“Dad?”
She is answered only by a stare darker than midnight.
“Daddy?”
“Sshhhh Liv,” he says as he takes her by her hand, leads her to the bed, sits down and then places her on his lap, like he used to do when she was eight.
It’s been a long time since he held her like that. As she sits there in her school dress, she can feel something sturdy poking her buttocks from under his loosely tied pants. He strokes her hair. He asks her how her day at school was.
The discomfort makes her jump out of his lap.
“Where do you think you are going, Liv?” his voice is firmer now.
She retreats, taking a step back further from the booming voice, another one away from the licentious look on his face, and another one yet again from his trouser that is now pointing at her.
“Where is mummy?”
“Shut up!” he snarls, raising his hand wide open to smack it across her face. Startled, she steps back without watching out for the small table behind her. She trips and falls on her back.
His pants drop to his knees. He lowers his boxers, and stands over her. A towering beast with wobbling belly, forested by a thicket of hair growing off his chest and into his stomach. Grabbing her by the legs, he pulls her towards him.
“Daddy what are you doing?”
“Shut up.”
“Daddy, please.”
“OLIVIA I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
“Mummy. I want mummy!” she tries to get up. This time he makes good his threat and wipes his hand hard against her cheek. The impact sends her to the cold uncarpeted end of the ceramic floor.
She screams again. She calls for the gateman, but there is no response. The housemaid, nothing. She whimpers for her mother and even to God, but none of them is listening.
“Daddy you are hurting me, please” she cries.
He gags her mouth with his wife’s scarf, reducing her cries to mere soft whimpers. She wriggles to get herself out of his grasp, but her feeble muscles fail to match up to his.
He tears open her school uniform, and rips her patterned pink panties. He lowers himself on top of her. Low enough for her to smell the cocktail of alcohol, weed, piss and baby poop coming from his mouth.
His pot belly presses down onto her tummy, still soft with pre-pubescent baby fat. The rough hair on his chest pierces into Olivia’s barely-there-yet breasts. She wriggles again to break free, but manages only to break a sweat. She tries to scream. Maybe this time it might make a difference. But the gag is too efficient.
He forces her legs apart with his knees, spits onto her crotch and rubs at her vagina.
She squeezes herself shut and at claws his back with her fingernails. Her eyes are closed, fists clenched, her teeth grit the moment his penis forces its way in. Her nails dig deeper into his back. Then there is an explosion of pain as her little defenses are breached.
Slowly, she begins to fade as she is ruptured. She stops wailing, lies still to allow this man to have his way. The spikes on his chest still prickle her. His belly pressing down on her deprives her of air while his rotten breath suffocates her even further.
“Good girl” he says. “Oh yeah baby girl. Good Liv. Don’t move. Just stay like that Liv….yes baby…oh yeah…”
Behind his voice, Olivia can hear the sound of flesh rubbing on spit, moving back and forth, back and forth. A few minutes later, he increases his tempo, clutches her tightly, and plunges deeper and faster. Then he stops. He groans and exhales the rank smell out of his mouth and onto her face. He stays there for a while before withdrawing. She watches him pull up his pants, take another swig of whiskey before walking out with proud, satisfied steps, like he is the lord of all creation.
The sewage is gone, the hair no longer pricks. She is cold, trembling from the unfeeling ceramic floor, the violent pain between her thighs. She cannot get up however much she tries.
She is alone.
And then she is awake, her breath fast and shallow. Orange rays are leaking in through her bedroom window. Someone is banging at her door. She sits up when the door opens to let in her father. He is already in his tux.
“Wake up Liv. We do not want to keep your groom waiting.”
Her bespectacled therapist comes to mind. Now she knows why she itches for a fuck all the time. She needs to tell her that she has unlocked the memories, before she goes through with the wedding.
She remembers.
