Sandra Pasic - Life with the black demon

He put me in his lap. Although he almost never did, even though as his child, I longed for my father’s embrace, I didn’t feel well at the time. He started stroking me and saying I was his princess. His gaze was strange. I shuddered. Then he started touching my legs. I was confused. I didn’t know what such touches meant. He is my father. I am only ten and a half years old, I loved him. Although I was afraid of him, I loved my dad. And no matter how drunk and rude he was, I always tried to see the best in him, just like any little girl would.

He pressed me harder to his lap. I started shaking. He spoke words he only said to my mother, I remembered them:

- You are so good, pretty and I will never let anyone touch you except me. Even when you grow up, you will be mine.

Even though I was a child who didn’t understand any of it yet, I understood what he meant. I froze. Few minutes later, he started kissing me all over my body. I tried to pull away without success. I was terribly frightened when I felt his tongue in my mouth. Until then, I never dreamed that my father could kiss me like this. I could smell his foul breath and the smell of stinking alcohol all over me. I was shocked. Helpless to do anything. I couldn’t even scream. I only cried. I remember my words well:

- Dad, why are you kissing me like that? That’s not how kids should be kissed! Let me go, please! Let me go, I beg you!

To all my pleas and begging, he just said that I shouldn’t be afraid and that everything would be over quickly. I froze. I felt trapped in his arms... I knew, looking at his face, that I could no longer say a word, because that, as always, would only cause trouble, beatings, shouting.

I prayed for mum to come home. I prayed for anyone to appear, anything to happen just to save me from all of this. I said to myself:

- Mum, where are you? Why don’t you save me? Why did you leave me alone? Why did you have to go to work today?

He didn’t stop. He just kept going... He removed clothes from my body, piece by piece. I still didn’t know what that meant. He kept touching me where he wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t supposed to do that! Yet he did. His hairy, big hands slid down my thighs, and my body. Restless fingers stroked all over my body. I was trying to get away, but I couldn’t. Out of fear, shock, uncertainty... He crossed every line with those fingers. It was clearly not enough for him. He carried my little body to the couch and lay down on me with all his weight. He captured me. He jumped on me like a scary black hound. I couldn’t understand what he wanted from me. Even though I wanted to scream, I lost my voice... He overpowered me. I couldn’t even look at him. My eyes were full of tears. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. All I could feel was the weight of his body and the putrid smell of alcohol. He forced himself inside of me! At that moment, I felt severe, unbearable pain. I screamed! I begged him to let me go. He covered my mouth with his hand and continued to defile my weak and small body. I knew, that was the bite of the black demon, my biggest nightmare. It went on for about ten minutes.

For me, those ten minutes were an eternity. It was the worst torture and the greatest pain I could remember. Not even all those beatings, harassment, nothing could compare to the pain I felt then. I wanted to die! Disappear! I wanted to be no more!

When he finished, he told me to get up and go to the toilet to wash myself, and then to come back. I barely got up and went outside. I hid behind the house and sat in the woodshed. I was broken both mentally and physically. I was afraid to go back inside because I wouldn’t be able to go through that horror again.

A few minutes later he came outside and called my name loudly:

- Sandra, Sandra, get over here right now you fucking bitch! You’ll rue this day if you don’t get over here.

Even though I didn’t want to, the fear spoke out of me. He found me and made me go back to the house. Standing there at the door, he slapped me, knocking me to the floor. I was lying in the foetal position, my stomach hurt terribly. I was wearing white tracksuit and blood started appearing on the fabric. Seeing the blood, I was even more scared. I was confused, lost. I didn’t know what to do. Completely petrified, I urinated. He forcibly lifted me, grabbed my hand and ordered me to take a bath. I went to the bathroom. The underwear I was wearing was covered in blood. I took the blood-covered clothes and packed them in one bag. I was terribly afraid that my mother or someone else would discover the clothes.

When I took a bath, I came to the living room. On his command, I sat down next to him. He said:

- What has just happened here you are not going to tell anyone, especially not to your mother, you will have to keep it for yourself until you die! You are going to forget about all of this right now!

There was nightmare in my head, buzzing in my ears, my gut was shaking. I stared at him with a look filled with hatred and fear. He said if I mentioned any of this to anyone that he was going to kill all of us, to commit a massacre, because he didn’t mind spending time in prison:

- I’ll kill you all, it’s nothing for me to kill someone, I will go to prison after that, I don’t mind, but you won’t be alive anymore, you motherfuckers.

I got really scared then. He made me scared by his threats, which he would surely fulfil. I shivered as he shouted:

- Why are you shaking? Why are you crying? Why are you sobbing?

I knew, from that moment on, my family’s life was in my hands, because if I said anything to anyone - everyone would be dead.

After about an hour, mum came home from work. I was sitting on the couch with my head down, my eyes swollen and red from all that crying. When she saw father angry and drunk, she knew something had happened. She had no idea that what had happened was the worst experience a girl, or anyone’s daughter could go through by her own father’s doing.

I was thinking about telling my mum what happened. How could I tell her? I couldn’t, because I knew that her heart, like mine, wouldn’t survive it. Additionally, there would be an utter massacre.

She asked father:

- What’s the matter, old man? Is everything all right? What did Sandra do that would bring her to tears?

I wanted to scream and say everything, but then I raised my head and saw my mum’s scared and questioning look. I told her:

- It’s nothing. I didn’t do anything.

Mum, as though she sensed something was wrong, began to cry. I got up to hug her, and my father noticed that the tracksuit I wore had blood on it. He reacted furiously:

- Fucking bitch. Take her out of here, take her to the bathroom, get her out of here and talk to her about a menstrual period.

He didn’t stop swearing:

- Fuck all of you, your father, your mother, your sister and brothers, fuck all of you; you didn’t teach her anything. Do you see her walking around me like that? Has she no shame?

Mum took me to the bathroom and looked at me in complete shock. She talked to me about sanitary pads, I didn’t even know what those were, let alone what they were used for. Mum bathed me again. I was crying. She saw the bruise on my arm and she knew he was beating me. She thought that was the reason I was crying. She helped me get dressed, put a pad in my panties and started crying along with me.

She hugged me and said:

- My God, how much longer? Oh God, have I sinned so much that you have to punish me like this?

I didn’t know if mum knew or if she noticed what actually happened.

She told me that all of this would pass one day, that I should study hard, be smart and that one day, God willing, I will get married and have a wonderful husband who won’t behave like this, like my father behaved towards us.