What happened to your biological father? Don't know. Your mom doesn't speak about it? She gets very forgetful?so I decided to not press into it anymore.
Are you ever curious? I went on to a couple websites, tried to look for him. Either I didn't get on the right ones or he doesn't want to be found.
How is your stepfather? He was great. My parents divorced when I was 9. So up until that time, he was great, and I never even knew he wasn't my biological father. Until they split up.
Is that when you moved to New Jersey? [We] moved right before then, and that's when all the trouble started? I guess, when you aspire to something-what's that saying? Be careful what you wish for?
What were they wishing for? They just wanted a really nice house and a nice life for us, and then reality gets in the way and they freak out.
So your stepfather split? Yep.
So as a teenage girl, from nine to 15, down in New Jersey, your father-your stepfather-has hit the road. When did you start dating? I didn't really start dating, I guess, until I was about 16. Between that time, it's like you didn't date, you went to parties. You know, lights went off, the music went and you were pressed up against a wall. It was like a date.
Did you have night parties or daytime parties? I was allowed to go to nighttime parties, but my mother always made me dress up and I couldn't stand it because in those days, when you're a kid, you don't dress up anymore. But my mother's whole thing was, "Oh, you have to wear this dress."
She made you wear a dress? Yeah, she made me dress up.
Sunday best? Party dresses. My mother was very bourgeois.
Party dresses? This was the 80s? She figured that if you had to go out anywhere, you had to look your best? I broke out of that really quickly. I had clothing over at my girlfriend's house.
Why did she do this? She always tried to make me into a proper young lady, but I think she wanted to retain some sort of control. It was after they split up and she was working, she felt as if she had very little control. So she wanted to make sure that she was trying to be a mom.
Did you lose your virginity in New York or New Jersey? I lost it in New Jersey.
How old were you? Twelve. I was living next door to a family that had three adopted daughters. I never knew what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do. My mother was always working, my dad wasn't around. We were just getting by, so I was given money and stuff like that. He wanted to be like a father figure: "I'll take care of you, your dad's not around." One night?he let us drink.
This is the man next door with the daughters? Yeah.
How old is he? Oh, god, he must've been in his 50s. He was a Vietnam vet or something like that? He figured, under the premise of us being adults, you know, he'd treat us like adults. So he gave us drinks. And then he got us drunk.
Who's the "us"? Myself and two of the other daughters. And when I got really drunk, I was called up to the room and [he] told me he wanted to have sex with me and he wanted to be the first one. He said that I couldn't get pregnant because he had an injury during the war and so he wasn't able to get me pregnant. I was so far gone, and he said that if I told anybody, he would kill me. He went to the cabinet and he brought out a gun, and said, "I'll use this."
Would he have? I don't know. At that time, I was just so messed up, I had nothing. I had no one to say that when something like this happens to you, you're supposed to run. You're supposed to go tell somebody?
Did you ever tell anyone? I tried to tell my girlfriends, but that never really went anywhere. One girl stopped talking to me. I couldn't go over to her house anymore, her mother didn't want me in the house. And we just never really spoke about it. Nobody ever told my mom. I didn't tell my mom until, maybe about five years ago.
Ago? Yeah.
What was her reaction? Disbelief. I don't think she really wanted to believe that anything like that could happen right under her nose.
Does she believe it? I don't think so. [That's] not nearly the person who I am now. The whole stereotypical thing is that you're shattered-and it's come out in other ways, I mean my relationships have been fucked up for a while-but other than that, I've been okay. I went to therapy, told my therapist, dealt with it that way. But no, I don't think she would ever believe me.
Did it ever happen again with him? It went on until I was 15. That's when I moved [back to New York] and lived with my grandmother.
When did you realize it was wrong? When I moved in with my grandmother, because she was much stronger. She had five kids that she raised on her own, [she] got me jobs, made me get my GED. She's a much stronger presence. That's when I realized I could've stood up to him, and said something.
Were you having any other relationships during that time? I had a boyfriend right before I left New Jersey. To me, that was the first time that I ever really had sex. And it was awkward and it was funny, he came too quickly-
What was his name? Paul.
How old was he? He was 16 at the time.
And how old were you? Fifteen, going on 16. He was older.
Did it feel like a whole different thing? Oh, it was totally different. It was the way it should've been. It was painful.
Physically or emotionally? Physically? Fortunately the guy who had been abusing me was very small.
It's odd that you say "fortunately," that you'd be frank in considering that. It wasn't something I considered at the time, but as years go by, you think about those things. Because I wanted it to be right with Paul, I was glad. Thinking back on it, I was lucky.
Did you ever tell Paul? We started to talk about it, because one of my friends was his sister. So he asked me about it, and I think I probably denied it.
Was he under the impression that you were a virgin? I don't know. I'd have to call him up and ask him. We've been friends for years.
But to this day he doesn't know the extent of it. I don't think so. I never really talk about it. I talked about it with boyfriends who I had later on, since I moved [here]. And with girlfriends [who have] been in similar situations. But it's more discussing the observations you've collected over the years about it.
Has it made you stronger in any way? It's definitely made me stronger just because I just see people differently. I don't see them with any animosity. I always look at the situation first and how that affects a person. I can definitely understand what leads people to take advantage of others. I don't think it's right, I don't condone this at all-
What could have led this man to take advantage of a 12-year old? He had foster daughters, so he never really thought of them as his daughters. Don't get me wrong-I'm not sticking up for him. I think what he did was really fucked up. If you have any child in your care, you definitely don't betray their trust like that. But I think that a) he was a fucked-up individual in the first place, and b) the temptation that he set up for himself got the better of him.
Do you want to have kids? When I find a good breeding stock.
Are you going to tell your daughter? Yeah, I would.
Before or after you think she's lost her virginity? Before. I would definitely tell her before. [What happened] to me can happen to anyone, and it definitely does happen to other women. Just nobody thinks they can actually tell somebody about it.
Will you tell your son? Oh yeah.
Same thing? Yup. And I'll tell both of them that if I ever found them in a situation in which they're exploiting someone else, I'll hunt them down and kill them.
Where is this guy now? Um? I think he's probably still out in New Jersey, probably in the same house, probably very old, and hopefully dying of something.
You don't seem to wish him ill. There's so much that happens in this world. It's hard enough for me to get on my bike and ride to work. But I do believe in karma and I do believe that what you do does come back to you. So I just rest assured that he's hurting, hurting really badly right now.