A Birthday Remembered (highly triggering)

This post contains content about rape that could be highly triggering.  Please do not read it if you know it could be a problem.  Even for those who are not abuse survivors, the content will be very disturbing.  Please take care when reading.

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I have to tell you what happened on October 20, 1984.  For Michelle’s 16^th birthday.  That night The Father told her they were going to go out somewhere special for her birthday so she dressed up pretty, the way she knew she had to.  In town, The Father said he had to run in to L’s and did Michelle want to come in?  L being Michelle’s favorite aunt, of course she wanted to go in.  There was a little surprise party waiting, with her grandparents and a few other family members.  We have a couple pictures of Michelle at the table with the cake, and her grandparents are in the picture.

You know already that the night wasn’t that simple, right?  You know it couldn’t be that simple, that easy.  No, after the surprise party The Father did take Michelle into the city or somewhere like that.  I don’t know where because he put a blindfold on her once they left L’s.  It was a little gathering hall of some sort and there were a number of men there, somewhere around a dozen.  It was a lot like the VFW hall in town, maybe it was something similar?

There was a quite a bit of drinking going on.  (And Michelle’s DH wonders why we cannot stand the smell of alcohol on his—or anyone else’s—breath.)  The lights weren’t bright but they weren’t dim either.  Everyone had to see all that was going on.  There was a table in the middle of the room, and that and around it is where everything went on that night.  They each got their turn and they each got what they wanted.  And if they wanted another turn, they took it.  Never before was there so much rape at one time.  This event was special because it was her 16^th birthday and she was becoming a woman.  She was becoming a woman and they were making her one.

There was no fighting it, no crying, nothing that could be taken as resisting in the slightest.  Experience had long since proven that resisting or crying or even the slightest whimper would result in more.  No, everything was taken as it had to be.  When it was all over with she got dressed, put her coat on, and went home with The Father.  When they got home he had his way with her one more time in her room.  As he was walking out the door he told her, “Happy birthday, baby girl.”

Unless there is something I’m not aware of, nothing ever happened again, after all the years of torture.  Ever.  The end.  Fine’.  He sure knew how to go out with a bang.

~Cait (the rememberer)

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