“You stay there, I’ll get it,” I reply, placing her on the sofa next to me.
I’m soon back beside her and have positioned myself so I’m facing Olivia for her revelation with an unsettled feeling that this is going to be horrendous.
“I will try and be as honest as I can, but maybe not a no holds barred version. It scares me Mason, because it’s ugly and I don’t want you to treat or view me differently to how you do now.”
I open my mouth to make promises that I would never do that, but she silences me with a shake of her head.
“Don’t. You can’t say that you won’t, neither of us can, until afterwards, so for now we just hope.”
She takes a gulp of water and a huge breath before starting with a very nervous expression and wobble to her voice, but there’s more, she has a troubled glint in her eyes that I’ve only caught glimpses of previously.
“Up until the age of nine I lived with my mum, dad and brother, Scott. We were happy, I thought, then my mum started to go to church. Not a regular church though, a weird one where the leader had some very odd interpretations of the bible. The more involved she became the more she changed, and it took its toll on my parent’s marriage until my dad left. He stayed local for a few months and then one day he upped and left. Mum told us it was for the best and before you could say abandoned, we were moving into the church which was a bit of a commune and she was shagging the head of the church himself, Raymond.”
I can see that all colour has drained from her face and I am beginning to imagine all the possibilities of where this is going but keep coming back to the same one. It’s him, it must be him, the one who called her darling and hurt her.
“It was okay for a couple of years. He had his own children with a few different women. Most of them lived there and with the children of the commune we were all one big happy family. He and my mum got married and Scott and I were told we were to take his name, Daniels. It wasn’t a legal thing, but we had no choice and wanted to be part of the family, properly. I was about eleven by then and all of the children there called him father. He was loving and kind, most of the time, unless you broke the rules, then he would get cross and was a great believer in physical punishments, spanking. With his hand and sometimes a slipper, a ruler, that kind of thing.”
“Did he hit you?” I ask with bile rising in my throat.
“Mm-mm, not often. I was usually well behaved, but one day, it was in the summer, when I was twelve. We all had chores, but the weather was so nice that I lost track of time and when I came in from playing he pointed out that my mother had fed the chickens not me.”
“Chickens?” I ask with a half-smile as I imagine Olivia as a child feeding chickens in wellies and a summer dress and she looks fucking adorable in my mind. There goes my inner voice mocking me and my words but I don’t care because all I can imagine is her, but more than that, a daughter, our daughter, dozens of them, young, carefree and a perfect mix of the two of us in summer dresses and wellies.
“Yes, chickens. I fucking hated them, they scared the shit out of me, the way they flap as they fly straight for you.” She sneers whilst flapping her hands as she mimics the chickens. “Anyway, I hadn’t fed them, so I was sent to my room without dinner and told to wait for father.”
“What happened?” My heart is in my mouth and bile is bubbling in my gut. Looking up I see her face beginning to crease in anguish and nervousness. “Please,” I encourage and with another sip of water she continues.
“I waited for about an hour and then he came into my room. I was sitting on the bed and he sat next to me and began to tell me that we needed rules in life or chaos would ensue which also meant that anyone who didn’t follow and comply with the rules needed to face consequences. I had been there before, not often. I really was well behaved in the main and I was compliant, so I expected the usual spanking then the hug and bed.”
“That’s not what happened?” I suddenly think that the bile I am battling needs not to put in an appearance or Olivia will never tell me anything else if I vomit at the awful things I am waiting to hear, but she shakes her head confusing me slightly.
“It’s exactly what happened, but it was different. I was wearing pyjamas, nothing out of the ordinary, a pair of long cotton pyjamas. As I say I was about twelve, and had just begun to develop, not too much, but my hips were broadening and my boobs had just started to develop. He looked at me and it was as though he was seeing me with fresh eyes, like suddenly I was someone different, and his touch felt odd to me, but I couldn’t place what had changed, not for years. I had been very sheltered; we mainly went to school in the commune. Our friends and peers were all in the commune and it was easy to remain innocent,” she says and then laughs a hard, bitter laugh at that. “It should have been, had been until that point. I had no knowledge of sex, not even in the scientific sense. We were never taught the facts of life.”
Yes, this is heading to a bad place, the one I was hoping it wouldn’t go to.
“He spanked me, hard, harder than before and I hadn’t behaved that badly, I’d just lost track of time. As I lay across his lap I could hear his breathing becoming ragged, his smacks were getting harder with each one and I just knew he wouldn’t stop until I cried and then,” she says shaking her head as if she’s been transported back there. “I could feel him beneath me, not that I understood it, but he was hard, turned on. I began to cry because not only was my arse on fire, but I was confused.”
I’m confused too because I have no idea how Olivia’s stepfather, Raymond Daniels fits into the picture with Conrad Mathers.
“So, what happened then?” I ask with my tone so even I am unsure if I sound hard and cold, but I am struggling to get words out at all so hard and cold may be a small price to pay.
“Usually we’d be left to consider our actions, to reflect and to pray, silently, but that night he put me on my knees on the floor while he sat on my bed watching me. Closely. Too closely. He made me pray out loud, prompting me for all the things I should be grateful for and all the things I needed forgiveness for. That was confusing too because he kept talking about temptation, provocation and inevitable consequences. He talked about the devil and the evil within people, but I just wanted him to leave so I could go to bed and cry, which he did once I had prayed to his satisfaction. As he left, he said,we’ll talk again, soon, night-night, darling.That was the first time he called me darling, unfortunately not the last.”
“Sweetheart that sounds all kinds of fucked up, but I don’t understand why the doctor earlier—”
“Sorry, he was a couple of years later. After that night nothing happened for about six months, my thirteenth birthday.” She remembers with a sigh as she nervously runs a hand through her hair and I suddenly realise that she hasn’t cried once while she’s been talking, although she cried for hours earlier so maybe she’s all cried out.
“I was in the shower and he walked in on me, accidentally I think but instead of leaving he remained and insisted that I finish off. He made comments about having to trust him, that all I was, was his and that I should never hide myself from him, not ever. My boobs were bigger and I was filling out generally and hair had begun to grow so I was really self-conscious and covered myself a couple of times with a towel and when he took it away I used my hands which is when he got really pissed off with me and sent me to my room, to wait, naked. He left me for three fucking hours and when he finally came in he told me that he didn’t want to do this, but I had made him, tempted him.”
“Fucking bastard!” I am unable to hold my temper down any longer while my girlfriend is calmly recalling what must be the most traumatic thing that can happen to a young girl. No wonder she was so suspicious of Leo and his relationship with Mia.
“Yeah, not that I fully realised just how much of one until years after. He made me stand before him, for what felt like hours while he circled me, looking at me, scrutinising me until finally he put me across his knee and spanked me, but this time he touched me,” she says with the first sign of real emotion, her face flushed with embarrassment and shame.
“Hey.” I reach for her hand. “You were a kid and he should have known better than to abuse his position and your trust. You did nothing wrong.”
“I do know that, but it’s odd, talking about it. I have never told anyone else this in such detail. Sarah knows who, where and when, and my counsellor, she knows plenty, but nobody else, until you.”
I am stunned at the idea that she has kept all of this in, until me. I want to hug her, kiss her, hold her, love her. “I like that you trust me enough to share,” I tell her truthfully.
