I can remember your face, your teeth, your eyes, even your ears. I can remember the sound of your voice. I can still smell you near me. I still see you, and everything you did to me vividly, as if it happened yesterday instead of eighteen years ago. But I can't remember your name. The one detail my frail young mind chose to block out was your name. To this day I believe I would still be too embarrassed to tell anyone your name, if I could remember. I guess I still blame myself for all the things you did to me.

The details of this letter are very hard for me to write down. See, the shame I lived with then, and still live with today, has prevented me from really 'opening' up this proverbial can of worms with anyone. I have only casually mentioned this nightmare to three people, at most. Putting it down will be MY closure. You need not worry, Mr. Blank, your name is nowhere mentioned in this letter. MINE is. Coming out with it is the only way I can release my demons. The only way those I cherish can come to understand certain things about me. This is my dirty laundry, my shame, and hopefully, my triumph.

You were my best friend's stepfather. You were so cool. I loved spending the night at your house. My girlfriend and I would play monopoly, and sorry until we wanted to go to bed. No limits on bedtime at your house. It was great. Then you started. First time: You wanted me to hold your penis while you urinated, like "the big girls do" with their boyfriends and/or husbands. I was NINE years old. I thought that made me important to you. All the other instances are still crystal clear to me, but the first I consider the most significant. Nine years old, perversely holding an adult male's penis while he urinates...Innocence. Gone from that point on.

Naturally it progressed. I remember desperately not wanting to go to your house anymore. But, for whatever reasons: guilt, shame, loyalty to my best friend, etc, I continued to stay the night. You forced me to have oral sex with you. You forced my best friend and me to perform oral sex on each other. You showed me how to masturbate with various objects other than my fingers. You laughed at me, calling me pathetic when I couldn't bring myself to orgasm. At NINE years old, I felt inadequate because I couldn't "cum". It never occurred to me that I was not SUPPOSED to know how to make myself "cum" at nine years old. My hell with you lasted eight or nine months. You got transferred away. I was happy you were gone, but I felt guilty because I knew my friend was going to continue to endure your sick games. Eight or nine months of sexual abuse managed to ruin eighteen years of my life. I have a deep insecurity that I can't seem to get a handle on. I have a very difficult time keeping a happy and healthy relationship. Surface is great, but there has always been an incredible amount of intense unhappiness brewing underneath. I have never been a self-confident person. Everytime I achieve any small victory I NEED everyone around me to tell me, "good job", or "knew you could do it". I never had enough self-love to be content with congratulating myself for my small victories.

You did this to me. I am, to this day, unable to talk out loud of the things I wrote down in this letter, of , but I am going to submit this letter, with all the graphic references. I have to. I am assuming a little more control of myself and taking a little more of you control away.

I feel that I may always be ashamed. Ashamed that I never told. Ashamed that you believed I actually enjoyed it. Ashamed that my fiance will read this and think less of me. Ashamed? Possibly. Forever enraged? Definitely. Even as I write this down I feel stronger. My childhood and most of my early adulthood are gone. I have no happy memories. I forgive myself for allowing ME to withdraw into a weak child. I will NEVER forgive you, Mr. Blank, and I truly hope that if you are alive today, you are in a lot of pain...and that still wouldn't vindicate me.

Sincerely,

Amy