The Day Everything Changed

I stepped into the bathroom stall then turned and locked the door. When I turned and started undoing my pants, I noticed several books on the floor. My mind took a moment to ponder what it meant, but the reality was that I had to go and get back out to my hamburger and chocolate shake. It only took a moment to get my pants undone, and just as I was about to start peeing someone knocked on the door. I froze in fear, hurrying to button my pants back up before I said anything.

"Hey, I forgot my books. Can you open the door and hand them to me?" came the voice on the other side of the door. I was still a little freaked out, but his words and the logic of them made sense enough to my seven year old brain that most of my anxiety faded. I reached down and grabbed the books and unlocked the door, and my whole world changed forever.

The man forced his way into the stall and quickly locked the door. I held up the books to him and he took them and set them back down. In a soothing tone the man said, "calm down, I'm not going to hurt you." I had no doubt he could see the terror on my face.

He pulled a dollar out of his pocket and asked, "You want to earn a dollar?" As he handed me the dollar, he exposed himself to me. My mind was in a whirl. The books, the money, and the man's penis right in front of me. I was too shy to yell. I could not help but stare as he started moving his hand back and forth along his member.

He reached down and grabbed my unresisting hand and said, "Here put your hand around it like mine." My mind screamed NO, but I could not seem to do anything. I'd never seen a adult male penis before. It was hard and soft at the same time. He kept talking, asking me if I liked it and telling me that he liked what I was doing. He told me to move my hand faster, and I was to shocked/scared to refuse.

When he ejaculated, it got all over my hand and wrist. I remember thinking that it looked like white snot, ewwww gross. I looked up at the man and he was busy doing something that I realize was cleaning himself up. When he was done, he threw some toilet paper into the toilet and flushed it. He moved as if I was no longer there. He didn't say anything more to me, as he picked up his books, unlocked the stall door and left. I watched the door to the bathroom close and didn't know what to do. Then I saw my hands, and I went over to the sink to wash them. I never did go to the bathroom, and I could never seem to get my hands clean enough after that.

I finally left the bathroom and went out to the table where my Mom and not yet step-father and my little brother were sitting there eating like nothing happened. Couldn't they tell? I sat down and began to eat the food I didn't want any more. After what seemed like forever, my Mom asked if I was okay. I shook my head, and she asked what was wrong? I told her,

"The man in the bathroom made me touch him."

I said it so quietly that she asked me to repeat it, and I leaned over and said it again. This time she sat up.

"What?" she exclaimed.

"What did you do?"

"Who was it?"

"Where is he?"

"Are you lying to me?"

The questions kept coming, and I knew that I was in trouble. I already felt like I did something bad, and her reaction made it worse for me. Then I did what I did best when I was in trouble, I shut up. She told my not-yet step-father, and he went to the bathroom and looked and found no one. We left the restaurant without making a scene.

If you can believe it, what happened to me at this restaurant, this thing that changed my life was not the most traumatic thing that happened to me that day.

Everyone was quiet on the way home. I knew I was going to get in trouble once we got home because of what I did. I was terrified, not because of what the man did - well that too - but because I didn't want to get whipped.

When we got home, to my surprise, nothing happened. The rest of the day went without incident until I went to take a shower.

I had just gotten into the shower when I heard the door open. My not-yet step-father had come into the bathroom. This time when he came to the shower doorway, he opened the curtain and looked down at me. He looked at me with what I later understood to be a leering gaze as he said, "Hey mahulani." He laughed at the look on my face when he said that. (Mahulani is a term meaning homosexual, derogatory).

With these words that he spoke out loud, the fears that I had in my heart about what I had done that day came to the fore.

Was I a mahu? I didn't want to be, but what if I was?

For the first time that day, I started crying.

"Turn around and don't look at me!" he growled in such a way that I immediately obeyed. Facing the wall of the shower, I tried to finish my shower knowing he was there looking at me. He left a few minutes later without closing the curtain.

This would be a regular occurrence from this point on that he did to me and my brother for the next several years. I have to admit that even after the events of that day and the things that later happened to me, it took me years to realize what he had been doing when he made my brother and I turn around in the shower and stand there for minutes at a time. I do know that I was terrified of him and that being forced to do that on any level was scary and humiliating.

The traumatic experiences of that day and the aftermath set the tone as to how I would respond to every other traumatic experience that happened to me after that until I finally came to prison. I did not trust anyone except for my brother who I also hated. I lied and acted out and had no idea how to handle what was going on in me. My life stopped on the Day Everything Changed.

And I never told anyone ever again when someone hurt me.