Hatred Is Not A Family Value

The following story was written for an anthology about child abduction, and the editor specified no happy endings. "Hatred Is Not A Family Value" includes some pretty unpleasant scenes about kidnapping and sexual abuse/incest, which is why I consider it a horror story. If you find these topics stressful, you might want to skip this piece.

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There's a crack on the ceiling that looks like a spider. I wish it would eat me up. Sometimes I imagine it's a cave instead. I wish it would open up and pull me through. But it's only a crack on the ceiling. I could draw it in my sleep.

Nobody listens to kids, you know that? Nobody who matters, anyway. My moms listen but nobody listens to them either. Maybe it's not just kids.

Last year this stupid counselor came and took me out of class. She said my parents decided to get a divorce because they don't love each other any more. "That's not true!" I told her. "Mama Jeanne and Mommy Katrina love each other tons and tons. Tons!" They do, too. Mommy Katrina's going to have a baby soon and I'll be her sister.

But the counselor just made a face at me, like she bit into an unripe persimmon, and said, "No, your real parents. Your daddy wants to come visit you sometimes, to see what a nice young lady you are."

I wrinkled my nose at her. "I'm not a nice young lady. Ladies don't get to do anything fun. I want to be a scientist. And I don't want to visit some guy I don't know!" She said I had to, though, 'cause he's my daddy.

Nobody listens to kids.

At first it was okay. He took me to the park and the zoo and the museum. He wouldn't take me to planetarium. He bought me ice cream. He wanted to buy me clothes but he only picked out these dorky dresses with lace all over them. I told him I'm allergic to lace and he made a persimmon face himself. I told Mama Jeanne when I got home and she laughed. She and Mommy Katrina don't like that I have to visit him but they can't do anything about it since Mama Jeanne used to be his wife.

Then one day after school I went outside to wait for Mommy Katrina. She picks me up after she gets off work. She wasn't there yet, but he was. I won't call him Daddy. I hate him. He made me get in his smelly old truck. I told him Mommy Katrina would worry when she got to the school, but he said I didn't belong to them anymore, that I had to come live with him. So I started to cry because I didn't want to, and he hit me.

I thought it couldn't get worse, but it did. He lives in this nasty little apartment with no refrigerator and only one light and a mean old tomcat that hisses at me. I hate it here. All my books are at home. So are all my toys and clothes and everything. I don't even have my own bed. I have to sleep with him.

What's a "dyke"? What's a "whore"? He talks about my moms and that's all he ever calls them. I don't know what a "dyke" is but if that's what Mama Jeanne and Mommy Katrina are then it's loads better him! He yells. He hits.

He touches me.

After he brought me here he said something about Mama Jeanne never "putting out" for him. I thought he meant taking out the garbage and I said I would. He laughed, not happy like my moms but twisted and ugly.

"I couldn't get any from her, but I sure can from you," he said. "Since she won't do her duty, I guess you'll just have to do it for her." He undid his belt and I thought he was going to hit me again, but he didn't. He just dropped it on the floor and kicked his pants off.

Then he pulled my clothes off and he touched me! All over! Even my bathing suit places. I yelled and hollered and told him to quit it, but he wouldn't. He said I deserved it. He said I wanted it. I didn't, I didn't! I want him to die!

I want to die. It would be better than this. I don't even get to go to school any more. He says a good wife doesn't need to know anything more than how to raise babies and make her husband happy. But he's not my husband, he's my ... no, I don't call him my daddy. I don't have a daddy. I have two moms and they love me and they love each other. I have Mama Jeanne, and I have Mommy Katrina who loves us both, and pretty soon I'll have a baby sister from Mommy Katrina. If I ever get to see her.

I miss them. I miss them so much. I wake up in the morning thinking about Mama Jeanne fixing scrambled eggs for breakfast. I go to sleep thinking about Mommy Katrina singing to me and the baby. I wonder what I'm missing in school. I try not to think about my last day at school, and him.

I wish he'd die! I wish he hadn't picked me up at school. I wish somebody had stopped him. I wish that stupid counselor listened to me. I wish I could go home. I really, really wish he'd die. I wish a lot of things. It doesn't help, though.

"I'll teach you how to be a real woman," he says, "not like those bitches you lived with. I won't let them turn my little girl into some stuck-up butch. Oh, no. Nobody makes a dyke out of my daughter."

I still don't know what a dyke is.

I don't know what a whore is.

I know what a "slut" is, though. A slut is a girl whose moms are dykes. Her daddy takes her away and touches her all the time so she won't be one too. She has to lie there and just stare at the spider crack on the ceiling. A slut is a girl who makes men want to carry her off and do those things to her.

I know what a slut is because that's what he calls me.

I'd rather be a dyke, but I won't tell him that.

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Art on this page is from the "Gothic Shadows" set, at Velvet Gypsy Designs.

The URL for this page is http://www.worthlink.net/~ysabet/specfic/hatred.html and it was last updated on September 23, 1998.