Okay, so this is OC, maybe AU too, and it is going to deal with some seriously sad and adult themes; and we are going to mention Uncle Bartlett, because I want to explore how if he had been the one to raise Sookie, and not Gran, how much different things could have gone for her. Bill and Eric will still be here, Pam too, but Sookie is going to be a very different character.

The scenes of the childhood sexual abuse will not be very graphic, but they will be mentioned, maybe as a way to exorcise some demons of my own. SO if you don't want to read them please stop now and move on to a different story, I won't be offended.

As always, the characters aren't mine, I am just taking them out to a very dark playground to have a try on the swings and slides.

This is different for me; tell me if I make you cry.

Merick

Part 1

I've never tried 'blogging' before. Hell, I've never done much of anything on computers. We had two back at school, before I left, and my grade never had classes on them. But I thought I should get this out, now that I've made some decisions about how my life is going to go. Since I don't have any person to talk to about what's happened to me, I thought I'd just put it out there, and see if anyone bothered to read it. And just hope, that maybe if someone hears my story that they can recognize the signs, and maybe save some other girl from going through what I did, and ending up where I did.

It isn't going to be perfect, I'm sure my spelling will suck, and my grammar too; though it seems to underline things in red and green as I am typing which likely means I've made some kind of error, so I'll use those as cues to try to fix things. My tenses are probably going to waver too, and I go from what happened, to what is happening, and whatever is in my head at the time I type this.

Confused yet? Still want to read this? Good, I'm glad some of you are still there.

My name is Sookie. I don't suppose it matters anymore if I use my real one, once I finish this story I'll be dead anyways and it won't matter if someone recognizes it. Some evil little part of me hopes that the adults who couldn't see me before or made themselves not see me, and listen to me will find it, and feel some guilt that they could have stopped all of this if only they'd cared. But who wants to stop and help the strange little orphan girl with the weird eyes anyways?

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. That's what you're supposed to say at the meetings aren't you? I went to one, mostly because it was really cold out, and the girls said they would have warm coffee and fresh doughnuts, and I didn't even have to say anything. So I sat at the back, and ate and drank, and tried not to listen too much, because I didn't want to hear how strong everyone else was in dealing with it. My toes warmed up, and my stomach stopped growling, and by the time it was done there was still a lot of night left to go out and make some money. The leader of the group tried to talk to me, I lied about my name, and where I was from, but she could tell I belonged there, even if I couldn't say the words out loud. I'm a coward, maybe that's why I'm writing all this on the anonymous internet, so I don't have to look anyone in the eyes and say out loud what he did to me when I was just a child, and what I'd let myself become to escape him. I'm not a survivor, I'm a victim.

Well, here it goes.

My parents were taking me, my brother Jason and my gran into town for something; I don't even remember what the occasion was anymore. We were driving over a bridge when the water just sort of pushed it over, and us into the river. It was funny, in a tragic sort of way, 'cause I don't even remember it being rainy, or stormy when it happened. It was just kind of like the hand of god smacked itself down in the river and splashed up a wake out of nowhere.

Jason and I got out of the car, no one else did. He was eleven, I was eight. The social worker who came in from Shreveport drove us over to Uncle Bartlett's from the hospital. He was the only family we had left then. He moved our stuff from Mom and Dad's house on the weekend, sold the house, and drank it away. Gran had had enough sense to make a will, leaving her house to us, I mean Jason and I, so the lawyer handled that sale and put the money in trust till we turned twenty-one. Guess I'm never going to see any of that, I'm not going to make twenty-one.

Uncle Bartlett loved Jason. He'd never had kids of his own, and Jason was an up and coming talent on the football team at school, even at eleven the high school coaches could see potential. Uncle Bartlett saw other potential. I'll get into that later. Uncle Bartlett liked me, but for a completely different reason. I should explain something here, and don't let it freak you out. I can read minds. I can't remember when I realized that I could, I think I've probably always been able to do it. Uncle Bartlett's mind was sickening. From the time I was young he'd always had really nasty thoughts about me; sexual thoughts. Something that no man should ever have about a little girl. If we all got together for a family thing, party, fourth of July, Christmas, he'd find every excuse to yank me onto his lap. He'd hold me there tightly and I learned really early on not to squirm, he liked that, and it made something in his pocket get really hard.

I'd been so innocent, not understanding what arousal was then. I only knew that he thought of the most ugly pictures. Me, all undressed, little hands wrapped around part of him I'd never seen before. Uncle Bartlett was the reason I learned how to block out people's thoughts, when I concentrated hard enough. He was the reason I learned to do so many things in my mind. He'd try to touch me when he though no one was watching, sliding his hands between my legs. I fought with my Mom against wearing skirts to those parties, it only made it easier for him. She never understood why I didn't want to dress like 'a little lady', because I was 'so pretty in frilly dresses'. I tried not to hate her for not understanding.

If those times had been bad, it turned to all hell when they made us go live with him, because there was no one for me to run to. He made Jason a room in the basement of his house, and put me on the second floor, beside his room, just so Jason wouldn't hear him getting up at night, and so he wouldn't hear me crying.

He made up a lot of crap about how what he was doing was normal, and that all good girls let their daddies, or grownup men do this. But I could hear in his head that he didn't believe any of that. It wasn't that he felt guilt, 'cause there was no guilt there, even when I did cry, at the beginning. Mostly there was anger in his mind, and a swirling sense of entitlement mixed in with the boozy haze. He'd done the same thing to my Aunt Linda, she was gone too, took her own life. She was the strong one.

He'd come into my room at night, slide up the nightgowns he made me wear and he'd touch me, between my legs, often smelling at his fingers after he did it. As I said, I cried a bit at the beginning, but it only made him nastier, and he'd threaten to beat me if I said a word to anyone. He smacked me a few times, just to prove his point, and then lie to the teachers who asked about the bruises, and there weren't many. He told them I was clumsy, they had no trouble believing him, they already thought I must be slow, when they thought of me at all.

I learned to be quiet.

When he'd make me touch him and rub him I learned to go to a little room in my mind. It was small, wood paneled, with a fireplace that crackled. I inhaled the wood smoke and forced myself to smell it, so I didn't have to smell the mothballs on Uncle Bartlett's clothing. I built up that little room piece by piece, every night he came into my room and locked the door behind himself. To this very day if I smell mothballs I have to throw up, there's no stopping it.

When I turned twelve he started making me kiss it and put it into my mouth. I kept some vicks vapo rub in my bedside drawer so I could smear it all over my nose after he left. He'd bought it for Jason, when he'd had a chest cold, I'd stolen it from Jason's bathroom. Nobody noticed.

That really was it, nobody noticed. All the signs were there. Quiet, withdrawn, grades falling. Losing weight, pale, loss of interest in things that I used to love to do. I was afraid of everything, shrank away if anyone raised their voice, whether it was directed towards me or not. Bruises, stupid excuses for them, and a haunted look that greeted everyone, even me, when I looked in the mirror.

I got my period when I was fourteen. Uncle Bartlett's thoughts began to change. I think he figured that I was a woman now, and he had new ideas about what he was entitled to do to me now. Apparently he'd been holding his depravity back, and was quite pleased with himself for his restraint. I still shake when I think of that first thought in his head, about taking my virginity, technically only, and pushing that wrinkled, foul piece of flesh into my body to do me properly.

His hand on my doorknob set me to sweating and shaking that night. The pictures were more than evil, but I don't even have a word for what they were. I was lying there on my bed, staring at him wide eyed like a possum caught in the headlights of his old pickup. Nothing about my terror ever made him think twice. He began to undo the belt on his pants and I started screaming. Even when he hit me in the face I wouldn't stop, blood from my nose streaming onto my lips. I heard Jason's footsteps pounding on the stairs up to my room, yelling my name. He probably saved my life that night, not that he knew it.

The glare I got from Uncle Bartlett could have frozen blood; it froze mine.

"She's just had a nightmare Jason, it's okay." He called out, without opening the door. He knew he'd have no way of explaining away my bloody nose. He did up his pants and stepped away from me.

"Clean yourself up girl." He left.

As I sat there, tears streaming down my cheeks, knees huddled to my chest I tasted my own blood seeping into my mouth. The metallic tang gave me some clarity. I knew I had to run.

Well that's about my five dollars worth of internet time here. I can't spend any more money right now. I have to pay my rent. The hotel manager won't take sex from me in exchange anymore. His wife is starting to suspect, not that he told me that, I took it from his head. He used to be really happy with our bargain, but he can't explain the missing money anymore, part of me feels a little better about that. It's just like another part of my life that I've wrapped up. I have some more stuff to unload here so I'll keep working, and I'll talk to you all soon.

Sook.