Against My Own Will

Against My Own Will

By Tania Fabo







        Once upon a time, my family was happy. Once upon a time, Mom was still alive. Once upon a time, Dad wasn’t an alcoholic. Once upon a time. I never wanted to live my life this way. Sex slave to any man- or woman- that met the price. All I wanted was to be that little princess who would one day find her handsome prince. Then again, whose fairytales ever end up becoming true?

         Mom, Dad, Stephanie, and I are all in our kitchen, eating dinner- spaghetti and meatballs. I am seven and Stephanie is 5
         Stephanie climbs onto our father’s lap with a book that she had gotten from her bookshelf upstairs. “Daddy, will you read me this story.”
         Dad looked at the book. “All right. Wise Grandma Duck… Huey looked out the car window…” And so, he began, using his funny Donald Duck voice in a different way for each character. Stephanie giggled out loud while I laughed to myself and Mom smiled.
         This was the image of my perfect fairy tale image. But everything is not what it seems to be. Mom’s teeth were yellow from all that smoking she did. Little did she know that this would soon kill her. Dad had just finished his third bottle of beer. Later, he’d begin having five or six every day and become a stupid alcoholic that Stephanie and I be too ashamed to call our father. All of those bills stacked in our living room would later come back to haunt us. So is this really your ideal perfect family? Umm…not so much.



Chapter 1

         It wasn’t always like this. I used to be a great student: A’s across the board, track, cross country, soccer, basketball, swimming, girls scouts, piano. I don’t know how I found time for all this, but somehow I managed. Teachers and friends alike told me I was heading straight for Harvard.
         But, they didn’t know what went on at home. My sister and I would quietly sit in my bedroom, waiting. We’d have our arms around each other, in fear that our father would come upstairs and beat us like he did our mother. We would sit and listen to the yelling, the hitting, and sometimes even the sound of things breaking. After it stopped, my sister would silently crawl back into her room and, on some nights, I’d cry myself to sleep. Then Mom would wake up the next day and tell her friends at work that she’d tripped and fell, which was her most common excuse. But, they didn’t believe her. I know they didn’t. When I sometimes went with her, I could see their suspicion.
         No one knew. Didn’t they wonder why I never brought them home? It was because I lived in fear, thinking that one night, I’d bring one of my friends home and Dad would walk in, drunk, the strong smell of alcohol surrounding him and on his breath. That then they’d know. I’d be forced to endure my school year as a social outcast. Alone. All because of him.
         Mom is no better. Did she think I don’t notice how high she is every night? That she spent twenty percent of her day coughing because of that crap that was in her lungs? Did she think I didn’t that this could, and would, kill her? Did she think I was an idiot?
         Stephanie and I were forced to depend on each other, for if we broke apart, neither of us would make it. Stephanie a sophomore and me a senior, we didn’t see each other much. Yet, we were about as close as sister’s got. We took turns cooking meals because that was something we couldn’t count on Mom or Dad for, watching the door. What kind of parents were they? Not cooking meals for their own children? Making them live a life of fear. Suddenly, an idea sprung to my mind.
         “Stephanie,” I said, quietly, still afraid.
         “Yeah?”
         “…We should run away.”

         The day Mom died, I didn’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt for not being sad. She did this to herself. She decided to smoke. She wouldn’t quit even after her doctor pleaded her too. All this was on her. Though, I had a slight feeling that Dad had played a role in her death also. Perhaps if it weren’t for him and his daily beatings, mom wouldn’t have felt the need to smoke to get rid of her pain, physical and mental.
         I didn’t tell anyone about Mom’s death. It didn’t matter. They hardly even knew her so why should they care? Maybe they’d find out some day. Maybe not.

         That night, Dad began throwing stuff downstairs. Stephanie and I sat on my bed, frightened. Then, it was our worst fear. Dad began to climb the stairs that led to our bedrooms. No! This couldn’t be happening! When he opened my door, Stephanie and I were both shaking violently. Even while he was at the door, we could pick up the scent of alcohol. He was drunk.

         It wasn’t me I was worrying about. I had developed some strength from all the sports I did. I could handle a blow. It was Stephanie. She was so brittle. All she ever did was read anime, write poems, and draw. She had an entire portfolio. No sports whatsoever. He’d break her like a twig.
         When he hit me, I tried to think of swimming. The cool water that hits your body like a lightening bolt when you first get in. The way you slowly adjust to the coolness of the water. The ease that you swim with and how light you feel. Before I knew it, he was finished with me. I looked at myself. A couple of bruises here and there, nothing major.
         But then, he strode over to Stephanie who was crouched in a corner. I shielded my eyes. I couldn’t watch this. Then, I heard a crunching sound and I realized that Dad had broken Stephanie’s arm. He stopped and walked out of the room without even looking back for a second, as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just beaten his daughters. As if he hadn’t just broken one of their arms. As if-
         My thoughts were interrupted by a faint whisper. “Jennifer, help me.” I quickly rushed to Stephanie’s side.
         “Oh, god, Steffy. Um… where does it hurt?” She pointed to a spot just bellow the inside of her elbow. I could see a huge bruise forming that was blue, purple, and black. How could he do this to us? He’s a sick…
         “I’m gonna take you to the hospital, okay Steffy?”
         “Nooooo… If you take me there, then they’ll ask for an explanation and I’ll have to tell them about Dad. Then, they’ll call like some child abuse center and Dad will go to jail. But he’ll find a way to break out, I know he will. He’ll track us down and who knows what he might do to us then, Jenny…” She had such a frightened look on her face that I said so many swears and curses in my head to him, I was certain God would have an extremely hard time forgiving me.
         I picked up Stephanie and rested her in my arms, careful not to move her arm too much. But despite my precautions, she still cried out in pain every 5 seconds. Not that I could blame her. It was his entire fault. I told Stephanie to quiet down as we headed downstairs.
         I was just at the door, my hand around the doorknob, when I heard, “Where do you think you’re going” I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Dad, with his alcoholic stench following him wherever he went. And I didn’t. Instead, with Stephanie in my arms, I bolted for the beat-up pick up truck in our driveway, despite Stephanie’s constant shrieks of pain. I practically threw her into the passenger’s seat and then went around to the driver’s side. Meanwhile, Dad had tried to chase after us, but he couldn’t keep a steady run, considering how drunk he was. I climbed into the driver’s seat, hit the gas petal, and drove off into the night.





Chapter 2

         “All right,” the E.R. doctor told me. “She’s got two broken arm bones, a sprained hip, and a sprained ankle.” Wow, I thought to myself. Could Dad really cause that much damage?
         “That’s pretty bad,” I said more to myself than to the doctor.
         “Yes it is. She’ll need some metal brackets inserted into her arm to help it function properly. Now, tell me. What happened again?
         “She was climbing a tree in our backyard and she fell out of it,” I said, almost automatically.
         The doctor stared at me for a while with his icy, penetrating blue eyes. After a very long moment, he finally said, “That’s funny.”
         “What?” I asked, worriedly.
         “When I asked your sister what happened, she told me that she’d fallen down a flight of stairs,” he said, suspiciously. Dammit. Stephanie wasn’t always best at remembering instructions. Now, it was coming back to bite us in the rear end.
         “She must have some sort of a concussion,” I said, a little too hurriedly.
         “I took an X-ray of her skull, checking for any cracks within it, but there weren’t any.”
         “Then maybe she was just in a state of shock. Those can last for days, weeks even.”
         “Maybe…” he mumbled, but I knew he didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. I didn’t even believe myself.
         I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whirled around and there was that doctor again. “You know,” he began. “If you ever want to talk about your…umm…problems, I know a great therapist who works with patients for free.” Then, as if nothing had happened, he walked away. It took me a bit of some time to comprehend. My “problems”? What the-. Then, a little light bulb went off in the back of my head and, just like that, I knew that he knew.

         I stayed at the hospital with Stephanie that night, sleeping in the chair that was next to her bed. She was sleeping and eventually, I fell asleep too. The next day, the doctors said that she was fit to go home, but she just shouldn’t be too active. I walked her to the car slowly and drove back home. We didn’t say anything to each other but I knew we were both thinking the same thing. What was he gonna do to us now? As I turned the car onto our street, I gripped the wheel tighter. When I pulled the car up to our driveway, I saw Dad standing outside. But it wasn’t just him. He was outside with two short large businessmen and they were arguing with him. Dad was red in the face and the other two men looked semi-calm. What was going on? Then I saw the for sale sign in our front yard.

         Stephanie and I sat on the couch of our new apartment, taking in the surroundings. Frankly, I had a hard time believing this home had been legalized. Coming in, I’d already seen more than 7 bugs roaming the place casually. The walls were destroyed, the windows were dusty, the couch was damaged, and the kitchen…well, that’s a whole other story. I wasn’t even sure that the stove, oven, or microwave worked. How were Stephanie and I supposed to survive now? Take-out? Why, why, WHY did we have to be given parents who didn’t care one bit about us? We also now had to share a room, not that it mattered. We’d be safer now, together, especially since Dad’s bedroom was no more than a few feet away.
         Stephanie and I got up to go to our room. When we opened the door, I wasn’t disappointed, since we hadn’t expected anything better. The bedroom was in the same condition as the rest of the house had been. There was only one desk and one bed, so we’d have to take turns at each. Stephanie turned to me.
         “I hate it,” she said, bluntly.
         “You’re not the only one,” I replied.
         “I mean, how could he do this to us? I miss our house, I miss my room, I miss the kitchen. I don’t even think we’ll be able to cook in that crappy kitchen.”
         “We’ll deal Stephanie. Don’t worry. We’ll get through this together. I’m not ecstatic right now either.” I swung an arm around over shoulders. “I know we will.”

         “So, what’s up?” one of my friends, Simonetta, asked. If only she knew.
         “Nothing much,” I lied. “You?”
         “Well…Martin Lyles came over to my house the other day and he was like, ‘I’ve had my on you for a while.’ So I was like, ‘Um…ok.’ Then he tried to kiss me and I was like, ‘No way in hell am I gonna place my lips on yours. I don’t even like you like that.’ So then…” Eventually, I just zoned out. I had too much on my mind to think of Simonetta’s little TV drama, guest-starring Martin.
         Who knew what Dad would do to us know? Would he one day maybe even…kill us? It could happen. He wouldn’t even have known, considering how tipsy he would have been.
         “JENNIFER!” Simonetta suddenly called.
         “What?” I ask, a bit annoyed.
         “Were you even listening?”
         “Yeah, totally…”
         “Then what did I just say?”
         “That umm…you umm…listen, Simonetta, I can’t really talk about this right now. I have…too mind. I can’t even think straight. Ugh!”
         ”Oh, ok,” she said, sympathetically, and then turned to tell her magnificent story to someone else who would listen. Not that it I wouldn’t. It was just that…I had more important things to worry about.

         When Stephanie and I got to the apartment later that day, we saw something that really astonished us. It was Dad. Sitting on the couch. With takeout on the floor. Didn’t he have his daily stop at the bar? Apparently not. He was looking pretty…okay. Stephanie and I halted in the doorway, looking at each other. We tried to tiptoe to our room, but he spotted us.
         “In here girls,” he called. We slowly, and cautiously, sauntered to the living room, and sat as far away from him as possible. I didn’t pick any scent. No beer, no wine, no champagne, nothing. “Eat something,” he muttered, roughly. Stephanie and I obeyed, each taking a paper plate and taking some food. I took fries and some KFC chicken, with ketchup. As we ate, no one said anything. Finally, I spoke up.
         “Did you want anything, Dad?”
         “Yes I did actually,” he replied, no looking at either of us. “As you know, we’re going through a bit of a…money crisis and could use the money you two bring in. Now, those places that hire teenagers would pay you minimum wage, which wouldn’t be enough to help us very much. We need to look at umm…alternatives.”
         “What do you mean ‘alternatives’?” Stephanie asked.
         He didn’t say anything for a while. When he did speak, what he said nearly made me choke on the piece of chicken that I was in the middle of swallowing. “You need to become prostitutes.”




Chapter 3

         “WHAT?!” Stephanie and I both shrieked at the same time.
         “Settle down, girls,” he said sharply. “It’s only for-.”
         “SETTLE DOWN?!” I yelled. “How can you even say that?”
         “How could you do this to us?” Stephanie asked.
         “The neighbors will hear you!” he hissed.
         “So what if they here us?” I replied. “They should here what an ABOMINATION this is.”
         “It’s only for a little while,” he said. “We just need some money-.”
         “So you want us to have sex?!” I screeched. “I haven’t even had sex before! And now you want we to go give off my virginity to some STRANGER?!”
         “Do you realize how dangerous this could be?” Stephanie yelled. “We could get PREGNANT! We could get AIDS! Don’t you care about us at all? We’re just teenagers!”
         That’s when he slapped both of us square in the face. We were so stunned that he would do this when he wasn’t drunk that we said nothing.
         “We need the money,” he said. “You two should stop being so selfish and just think of how good it could be for this family. Now, since it is winter, it gets late very early. So after school, get home and be ready by five o’clock, sharp. Get yourselves all prettied up. The nicer you look, the more customers you get. I’ll pick you and drop you off at a clubs that I heard has many prostitutes who get lots of customers. Start by charging fifty to seventy dollars per person. As you get better, start charging more. I’ll come and pick you up at one o’clock in the morning so you can get some sleep before school. To start off, I want two-hundred dollars from each of you everyday. As time goes by, the expectations will rise. And you will tell NO ONE about this. Got that?”
         “Wait,” I said. “You don’t expect us to actually DO this, right? I mean, come ON Dad. Use some common sense. This is crazy!”
         “I don’t appreciate your back talk, missy! Now, if I say you’re gonna do it, then I mean your gonna do it! No ifs, ands, or buts about it! Now, both of you go to your rooms! You start tomorrow.”

         “I…I…I can’t do it, Jenny!” Stephanie cried. “How could he expect us to…I haven’t even…this is so…UGH!”
         “He doesn’t care about us. He probably won’t even use the money for the family. He’ll just buy more alcohol for his stupid addiction. We’re not the ones being selfish. HE IS!”
         “I refuse to become a slut like those other bitches in my class. I REFUSE to!”
         “What are we even supposed to say? Something like, ‘hey sexy fella, are you looking for a good time’?”
         “What if one of the people is a serial killer? Did he ever think about that?!”
         “Apparently he doesn’t have any common sense at all. Or a brain, for that matter.”
         “My god. This is so STUPID!”
         “But…what is he going to do to us if we protest?”
         “Huh? What do you mean?”
         “I mean if we walk up to him and refuse to…he’s just going to beat us again and again and again…”
         “Until we have no choice but to. Oh god…Jenny!”
         “I guess…we have no other choice but to do this.”

         I put on my crimson micro-miniskirt, so short that it barely covered my butt. When had I even gotten this skirt? Oh, yeah. A shopping spree with Simonetta, during which she said I just had to have this skirt. Well, it would certainly earn a whistle from the male spectators. I then pulled on black tights with tiny holes on them, to show bits of skin. I put on a super-tight turquoise shirt that went just above my bellybutton, revealing everything below, once again from that shopping spree with Simonetta. Then, I stood in front of our mirror and applied cherry red, extra-glossy lip gloss, eyeliner, mascara, and blush. If I did say so myself, I looked pretty hot. Too bad it was for the wrong reason, though. I glanced at my watch. It was quarter to five. Dad was going to be here any minute.
         “Steffy, are you ready?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. But when I saw her, she was just sitting on the bed, reading one of her books.
         “Huh?” She glanced up from the book.
         “Why aren’t you dressed?” I cried. “Dad’s going to be here any minute!”
         “I’m not doing this, Jenny,” she said. “I am not going to become a prostitute. I don’t care what Dad is going to do to me. I will not do this.” She then continued to read her book.
         I stared at her with shock. We had agreed last night to help each other out, to stick together. Now she was abandoning me? Before I could reply, I heard the apartment door open and Dad’s footsteps coming towards our bedroom.
         He entered our room and stopped in his tracks when he saw Stephanie.
         “Stephanie! Why the hell aren’t you ready?” he asked.
         “Because…I’m not doing this,” she replied in a frightened voice.
         “What do you mean your ‘not doing this’? Are you fucking kidding me, Stephanie? We had an agreement. You’re doing this or you can get the hell out of my house!”
         “Maybe I will!” she screamed back, crying now. Then, he hit her, so hard that when he moved his hand, there was a red mark in the shape of the hand. As Dad pulled his arm back for another slap, I forced myself between him and Stephanie.
         “No!” I heard myself screech, not believing I had the courage to do this. “Don’t touch her, Dad. I’ll get her ready. Just wait in the living room.” I pulled back a bit, half expecting him to hit me. But, instead of striking me, Dad put his hand down and walked out of our room, slamming the door behind him.
         I turned towards Stephanie, who had stopped crying. She was now dressed in an extra-short polka-dotted dress and was applying her make-up.
         “Wow. You’re a fast dresser,” I muttered.
         “I can’t believe you were brave enough to stand up to him like that, Jennifer. You saved me from getting another blow in the face.”
         “I wasn’t the only one who stood up to him. You did.”
         “Yeah, well…whatever. Let’s go.”
         “It’s going to be a fun night,” I mumbled, sarcastically.
         “Yeah…”

         As our Dad dropped us off at the club, he repeated his instructions to us. But, I wasn’t listening. I looked at my surroundings and took everything in. I looked around for potential customers and some fellow “workers”. I saw some girls leading guys to what looked like rooms in the back of the club, probably made for this purpose. Almost every guy I saw was sleazy, old, and disgusting. Ugh. I couldn’t believe that I’d be loosing my virginity to these guys. And for what? Oh, right. More money for Dad’s alcohol.
         When Dad left, Stephanie and I waited a little before moving. After a bit, we walked into the club together, holding hands, just waiting for what the night would bear.





Chapter 4

         “Can I get you anything to drink, ma’am?” the hot bartender asked me. If only all my “customers” would looked like him. Then this job would have been so much easier. But they probably weren’t. Instead, they were all probably going to be creepy, fat, disgusting old men who just wanted to get any young girl they could, even if they had to pay.
         “An iced tea,” I responded, absent-mindedly. But, I still saw the weird look he gave me.
         “We don’t serve iced tea, ma’am,” he said to me, coldly. “It’s either water or a real drink. Take your pick.”
         “I’ll take water then.” I needed to stay conscious for this night, although it did seem like a better option to be drunk, so that it would seem like nothing even happened. But, I needed to make sure I got paid. There was no way that I would provide those “services” and not get paid. Also, there was no way I could criticize Dad for his alcohol addiction when I was doing some drinking myself. Even if it was only one. Because one would lead to another and that other would lead to another and before I knew it, I’d be stripping on tables, without knowing I was doing so.
         I glimpsed at Stephanie, who already finished her first real drink and was moving onto her third. “Slow down, Stephanie, will you?” I said to her worriedly.
         “What?” she asked and I could tell she was already partly drunk.
         “Don’t become another Dad.”
         “What do you mean ‘don’t become another Dad’? You think that a few drinks will turn me into an alcoholic?” she asked defensively.
         “No Steffy. I didn’t-.”
         “Because you know what? I’m just trying to help myself get through this without having to deal with it as much. So that I won’t deal with the pain that I hear you get when you do it for the first few times. Don’t you think that I’m aware of what I’m doing?”
         “I’m just looking out for you. Don’t drink too much or else you might do some…stupid stuff.”
         “Like what?”
         “Like maybe…I don’t know…strip? Pole-dance?”
         “Do you really think that little of me, Jennifer? That I’d not have a bit of self-control over-.”
         “You don’t have much self control when your DRUNK!”
         “I’m just taking like three drinks! That’s nothing to freak out about!”
         “I’m not the one who’s freaking out! I’m just saying you should slow down! You’re the one who’s like yelling her head off at me!”
         “You know what, Jennifer? I don’t need this! And, I certainly don’t need you! You’re on your own, Jenny.” She stalked away from me and over to the other end of the club with, from my observations, was her fourth drink.
         Whoa. What had just happened? Stephanie and I never fought. Ever. We depended on each other. He did this to us.