by Hazel Mills
Chapter 6
Shannon Evans
I wasn’t sure about a lot of things in my life but there was one thing I knew without a doubt. I was happy to get away from my father’s house and his rules. If I live a million years, I will never understand how my mother put up with all of his bullshit and never said a word about it. It wasn’t like her ass didn’t know what he was doing. She knew. She knew because we tried to tell her what was going on and she would not even pretend to listen. She just sat quietly by the wayside in her own little world and let him do whatever the hell he wanted to do to her and to us.
I couldn’t wait to leave because I hated my parents and I knew that if I stayed one day longer, I would have probably killed one if not both of them.
In my eyes, my father was a miserable tyrant. The only thing that mattered to him was him. No one else in the household was allowed to do anything that would take our focus away from his needs. If my mother failed to do the simplest thing for him, he would say that it was because she had put something above the needs and desires of her husband. He would loudly continue to quote Bible verses about the role of the wife before finishing his speech with an open-handed slap across her pitiful face.
I watched him humiliate my mother by bringing home his “friends” and ordering my mother to cook for these women and wash their clothes while he openly had sex with them in the next room. This same man would get in the pulpit on Sunday mornings and preach to other folks about repenting for their sins.
We were not allowed to date nor were we to have boys call us on the telephone because our father was convinced that dating would lead to sex and we would end up pregnant and alone in the streets.
“I will not allow you to bring shame on me by showing up on my doorstep with a bastard child in your arms.”
I certainly couldn’t vouch for my sisters but I knew that the real reason my father didn’t want me to date boys was because he wanted to be the only one who fucked me. He wanted to be my one and only lover.
I have no memory of a time when my father was not molesting me. The innocent kisses exchanged between a father and his daughter turned into a vulgar robbery by a pedophile to his victim. As a child, I was powerless against him. When I turned to the one person in the whole world who should have helped me, she didn’t believe a word I said. I was too ashamed to talk to my sisters because I wasn’t sure if they would believe me either.
“You can’t tell your sisters. They will be jealous of the fact that I give you more attention than I give to them and they will want to kill you. Remember the story in the Bible about Joseph and his jealous brothers and what they did to him?”
My father was a sick man who treacherously twisted the Bible to promote his own agenda.
Once, I even threatened to call the police on my father after he came into my room one night and raped me. The look he gave me sent chills of horror down my spine.
“You call the cracker police on me and I will kill you with my bare hands.”
When I was a freshman in high school, I began to rebel by sneaking out of the house whenever my father was asleep. I hung out with what most people would consider the wrong crowd. I drank, smoked weed, consumed stolen prescription medications by the handful, and had sex with anybody that would have me. I desperately needed something to dull the ache of what was happening to me at home and I used anything I could get my hands on. I knew this behavior was destructive but I was powerless to stop it as long as I lived in that house.
By the time I was sixteen, I’d already had three abortions. To this day, I cannot say, with any amount of certainty, that those babies were not the result of my father’s blatant violation of me.
By the grace of God, I didn’t flunk out of school. School was the only thing that I seemed to do right. Although I wasn’t a National Merit Scholar like my sister, Nikki, I managed to graduate with a decent grade point average. I was thrilled to be accepted to Howard University.
Nikki came home less and less and, although I really missed my big sister, I understood why she stayed away. I was very excited that soon we would be just across town from each other.
On the train ride to DC, I thought a lot about Nikki.
Has being away from home for so long made Nikki more outgoing or is she still the colored Little Miss Muffet?
After seeing her at a party at her sorority house, I knew she was still as shy and as introverted as ever. I, on the other hand, was there to let my hair down and party like my life depended on it.
“Girl, this is your sorority’s party and you’re sitting there looking like you are scared to death. You need to get your ass up and dance,” I said.
“You know I am not a good dancer. By the way, where did you learn to dance like that, Shannon?”
“Please. It’s not hard. Just let your body respond to what feels good.”
I couldn’t believe I had just repeated the same words my father said almost every time he wanted to have sex with me.
A group of tall fine brothers walked into the house just as my song came on and I grabbed one and pulled his ass on the dance floor. He looked nervous at first. I could tell that he was probably used to being the one to make the first move. After I rolled my body against his, he relaxed and we danced all over the place. I knew he wanted to fuck me when I felt his hard dick against my stomach. Truth be told, I wanted to sex him crazy, too. He was a pretty, light-skinned basketball player with an ass as tight as a fat man’s pants.
Hmm, a basketball player has a lot of potential.
We went back to his apartment. Although it was dark, I could tell his place was in the hood. Inside, there were boxes and plastic bags everywhere and it looked as if this brother had no clue of how to use a vacuum. The mess didn’t really bother me
because, after all, I was there for one thing and one thing only.
To be fucked.