lymphae

THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE BECAUSE I KNOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE GONE THROUGH THE SAME THING. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

I vividly remember this day as if it was yesterday. I find this odd because most times I can't remember what I did yesterday, but this day I remember.

I was like seven or eight years old and my grandma lived in Windsor Locks at the time. It was a "safe" neighborhood and times were different then. All of us kids used to play outside and roam the neighborhood all day without adult supervision.

I don't remember who I was with that day but there was a neighbor who was around thirteen years old who had a cool shed in his backyard. He was also the neighborhood paperboy. I remember he had flaming red hair. All the kids in the neighborhood used to go to his house to play in his shed.

This shed was in his yard, set away from the main house. It was surrounded on three sides by woods and was located down a hill in his yard. It was painted blue but almost all of the paint had worn away through the years.

When you entered the shed you went down three wooden steps to get to the open area. The shed had a large open area and along the walls were your typical yard equipment. It was cool and damp inside which is why we liked to play there on hot summer days. The floor was concrete but had a dusting of dirt on it.

On this particular day, myself and two other kids (I believe they were probably my cousins, but I don't remember this clearly) went to the shed with the neighbor boy to play.

The neighbor wanted to play a "game" in the closet that was located in the shed. This closet was full of shelves and had one light bulb in it that was controlled by a switch that was outside the door. The other two kids I was with didn't want to play so they left. But myself, being the curious kid that I was, decided to stay.

The neighbor told me I could pick out a game in the game closet and followed me inside. At that point he shut the door behind us, turned to me, pulled out his penis and told me to touch it. My heart leapt in my throat and I told him no. He was standing between the door and me. When I said no he left the closet and shut the door behind him and turned off the light leaving me trapped. It was so dark in there that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I started to cry and pushed against the door but he was pushing against it from the other side so I could not get out. I was screaming for him to let me out but he said not until I agreed to play his game. I was so scared that I finally agreed. He opened the door and I ran out the door, across the shed floor to the stairs. As I ran up the stairs to the outside I heard him say that if I told anyone they wouldn't believe me. I ran all the way home, never once stopping to look back.

I never told anyone about the incident because all the adults in my family always talked about what a great kid he was so I really believed that they wouldn't believe me. The worst part was that I still had to see him whenever I went to grandma's house and it always brought back awful memories.

I believe that I finally told my mother about it around twenty years later because even though I had forgotten the incident for so many years, it just popped into my head one day during therapy. I don't remember what my mother said about the incident but it was good to finally get the information off my chest.