Anonymous Story: Grandad’s betrayal

Grandad’s betrayal

I was safe until I was about 3, when my grandparents moved back into our state. Before that it had been short visits for birthdays and Christmases. No time to be left alone.

When my grandad and Nanna moved back nearby, my mum decided this would be a convenient time to start back at work part time. My younger brother and I would be dropped to their place on her way to work night shift as a nurse and she would collect us on her way home. Sometimes we would stay two days so she could sleep in the day before her next shift without worrying about us kids. I suppose this also gave her and dad a bit of break from my brother and I too!

I’ll always remember the smell of their house. Intense cigarette must mixed with unwashed dogs and cats. So pungent and revolting.

Grandad would always pick me up and make me give him a kiss the second we walked to the door. I remember being so uncomfortable as he would sometimes suddenly turn his cheek and accidentally kiss him on the lips. I can’t believe my mum didn’t sense what a creep he was as he would comment on her looking cute in her nurse uniform too…and sometimes spank her on the bottom and say things like ‘oops my hand slipped!’ Disgusting!

Once mum left Nanna would cook dinner while grandad watched cartoons with us. He started grooming me with tickle games which quickly turned in to him touching me in inappropriate places.

After dinner Nanna would bath me first then send me out to the lounge for grandad to dry and dress me. That’s when it really started. He would be sure to use the whole time my brother was in the bath with Nanna to sit me naked on his lap and touch me and molest me. Of course at the time i had no idea this was wrong. He said he had to make sure I was really dry so I wouldn’t get a wet patch on the couch. Little did I know that the only wet patches were caused by him.

As I grew older the chances to get me alone continued. He’d come in and check on me at night. Or some school holidays he’d pick me up and my brother and I would stay for a week at a time.

He built up to sneaking into my bed at night and molesting me while my brother slept next to me. I wish that I knew it was wrong and said something to my Nanna. I don’t know how this happened for so many years without her knowing.

One time she was at a women’s event at church while grandad hosted the Mens event at their house. At the end all the men went home except one guy. Grandad said he was writing plays and we had to help him act it out. Could I be the little girl in all the plays? Of course I obliged. They took me to grandads bedroom. He’d never taken me there before. The man sat on a chair at the foot of the bed and proceeded to read his erotic fiction aloud. It included tales of father/daughter and other underage incest erotica that I had no idea being five or six at the time was so wrong and explicit. That was the first time my grandad made me touch and suck him. His friend told me I did a good job and wondered if I’d do it to him too. My grandad sounded unsure when I said yes and made me promise to keep it a secret. What a sicko reversing the psychology like that. As though it was a great treat for me to be molested by another man.

Once he was done with me he told me that he was so impressed by me that he was going to write a story about me online for everyone to read. I should be proud that I would make lots of people happy. So now whenever I feel triggered I spend my time trawling sites, trying to find this story he wrote about me. Trying to understand how people get off to that. Trying to tell myself it is better that people are reading it instead of perpetrating it I suppose.

My grandfather backed off as I grew into school age. I suppose he was worried I’d know it was wrong. Perhaps I wasn’t as appealing now that I was older. He still took the odd chance to touch or finger me, sometimes he’d walk into the bathroom as I showered. But nothing as graphic as when I was younger. When I was 11 he got pancreatic cancer. I was happy. I was so guilty I was happy. I was asked to sing at his funeral. There was a line in the song ‘Yea though I walk, through the valley, of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’.

I broke down on stage at the church as I sung it. For I knew I would no longer have to fear no evil. Of course eveyone thought I was just grieving my lost grandfather. But I was finally realising that I didn’t have to be numb anymore. I could be free.

I still have never told a soul of what he did. Not even my husband. I can’t. I prefer to put it in my past and do my best to move on. When I’m feeling really triggered I still search for my story. As I read other stories I wonder why or how people can do this to children. I hope just knowing that I have managed to live my life, become a successful teacher and help other children will enable other victims to know that it gets better.