Child Abuse Story From Suzanne

by Suzanne
(London, England)

WARNING: CONTENTS MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME VISITORS: 
My babysitter sexually abused me from the age of 3 until I was 15. I am now 19 and at university in Cambridge. Recently a friend of mine told me that she was also sexually abused as a child and found it easier to explain her life by writing about it on a forum. Although I was abused by a man I should have been able to trust, I have never spoken publicly about it.

It started innocently enough. I grew up in London, England with my mum. I have never known my father. Mum just said that he left when she was pregnant. In order to earn enough money to pay the bills, mum worked pretty much all the time. During the week she did home secretarial work for a company, typing up letters, etc., and at weekends she worked nights in a call centre for an alarm company. This meant that I was babysat for by our landlord and his girlfriend.

In the beginning, he never touched me a great deal. Usually it was innocent stuff, like stroking my back and legs whilst I was cuddled up next to him watching TV, etc. As time progressed he became a little bit more adventurous with his stroking, but I was always used to him doing this so it didn't seem unusual.

During the day when Mum was asleep, the landlord's girlfriend would take me to the shops as well as swimming and the cinema. Quite often the landlord would also come with us and they seemed to enjoy playing at being parent figures. All this changed when I was 5. The landlord and his girlfriend had a big argument and she walked out leaving him on his own. Despite this, Mum was happy for him to continue babysitting me. Friday nights I would settle down and watch the TV with him. Saturdays we would go to the shops. Sundays we would go swimming or to some other fun activity.

The first couple of weekends, nothing serious really happened, but as he became more adventurous the intimate cuddling became more commonplace. The sad thing is I didn't know what he was doing was wrong. Whenever we went swimming, I used to share a changing room with his girlfriend who would help me change into my swim suit and dress me after we had finished. He continued to do this with me when we went swimming, but insisted that I never tell anyone. He would always dry me thoroughly from top to bottom before dressing me and then himself before we left for home.

By the time I was 6 he had started to sexually abuse me and was also videotaping the abuse. It started out simply by him rubbing me between my legs through my underwear. As time progressed he convinced me to take my underwear off but said that I could keep my skirt on, almost as if he was doing me a favour. Usually before the abuse he would set up his video camera.

At night I would get my bed clothes on and put on my dressing gown before cuddling up next to him on the sofa to watch TV. Usually I would fall asleep on the sofa and would wake up the next morning in the spare room. I found out later on that he would take more pornographic images of me as I slept. Soon after that he progressed the abuse to the next level. He set up the video camera before we left to go swimming. We spent the day at the leisure centre swimming and having fun like any kid would. This time as he dried me and dressed, he deliberately left my knickers off saying that was part of a new game. We drove home and went into his flat. He made me wait in the hallway before calling me into the front room.

He had the camera working and called me his little princess. He asked if I had a little secret to tell him, and from behind the camera he held up my knickers. Believing this still to be part of the game I giggled and said that I didn't have my knickers on. He got me to lift my skirt and show myself to him. I turned around, bent over and opened my legs as he told me to.

Going swimming etc without my knickers on became the norm for us. Each week he would progress the play a little bit further. One night as I returned to the front room dressed for bed, he stopped me as I walked in front of him. He undid my dressing gown and opened it up, lifted my nightdress and took off the knickers I had on for bed. Again he would stroke me on my vagina whilst showering me with kisses and compliments.

By the end of the summer holidays, just before my 7th birthday he performed oral sex on me. He was very gentle and I admit that I enjoyed it. He always bought me a little present to secure my silence and as a child I always came back thinking that there was nothing wrong with the games we played. Soon after he started inserting his finger into my anus and this lead to us starting to sleep in the same bed.

By the time I was 8 the only sexual activity left for him to impose on me was full intercourse. I didn't realise it at the time, but I had become fully sexualised for him. I was getting daring in the sex play. Mum would drop me off at his flat with my overnight bag totally unaware that I wasn't wearing my knickers under my skirt. I enjoyed this sort of freedom, it made me feel special and different, and as a child I loved being able to keep a secret from Mum.

For birthdays and Christmas he would always buy me 2 sets of presents. One that I could take home and show Mum, and another that was just to kept in his flat. Usually it was a sex toy of some description, which he would take great pleasure in teaching me how to use (which of course he would video tape)

Just after my 10th birthday I went down to his flat. By now I was going there on my own. He opened the door and let me in. I went into the front room and noticed that he had the camera set up and was pointing at a chair in the middle of the floor. He undressed me and posed me in various poses on the chair before inserting his fingers inside me and then getting me to perform oral sex on him. The whole time he made the abuse seem like fun and I giggled my way through it like I always did. What I didn't know was that he copied the tape and sent it to a group of his friends that he would subsequently invite to join in the abuse.

These friends joined us a month later and the occasion was marked by the loss of my virginity to each of them. The experience was traumatic and quite painful. Each of the men penetrated me and climaxed inside me. This abuse soon became the norm for a Friday night, I, as a 10 year girl being raped by three or four paedophiles.

This abuse continued until I was 14 when Mum and moved to be closer to my gran. I didn't realise that what we were doing was wrong until after it was far too late for me to realise that. By the time I had realised I was so sexualised that I accepted it as normal. I have often toyed with the idea of reporting the abuse to the police, but I am scared of the story becoming knowledge. I have never told anyone, least of all my mum. I am scared that she will blame herself for it as she was uncertain about me being babysat by a man at such a young age.

I hope that by writing my story through a forum such as this I can at least start to put the abuse behind me.

Note from Darlene: The volume of contributor submissions has now made it impossible for me to comment personally (especially in great detail) on each and every contribution. If I haven't left you a comment or one that is in-depth, please do not take my lack of a personal response as a slight, or as a statement that your story is somehow unworthy of my time. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, could be further from the truth. If there was a way for me to respond to all of you at length, I would.

Email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses AND website/blog URLs in visitor comments are STRICTLY prohibited, and could result in being banned from making further comments on this site.