Young Writers Society

This is a story based off of my life, however some details were changed slightly.


Warning: this chapter deals with graphic rape. It will become a love story of sorts but for starters it is not all happy and lovey. Just thought I would warn you.



Bad Girls Need Love Too

Chapter 1

Isn’t it funny how years can turn you into what you swore you would never be? When I was ten I promised myself I would never smoke, yet here I sit taking drag after drag off of a cheap cigarette. I breathe in and savor the flavor of smoke in my lungs, the bitter taste playing on my tongue. I told myself time and time again I would never be like her, my mother. Yet I look in the mirror and I am the spitting image of what I used to despise.

I suppose it’s not fair to start you off in the middle of my story, so let’s take a moment to go back in time and take a look. Maybe I can answer some of my own questions about how I became who I am today.


March 23, 2002.

(11 years old)

I walked through the park impatiently, the constant Washington rain beating down on me. My hair was drenched; the hood on my sweatshirt wet all the way through. ‘I’m sure I look just great.’ I told myself with a sigh.

They were late, again. I shouldn’t have been surprised, they were always late. Stupid boys. John and Aaron were supposed to meet me at the park over an hour ago, and yet they weren’t there. My mind kept telling me to just walk to John’s house, it wasn’t that far away and I was positive his mother would let me in. But the idea of walking up the hill to get there seemed too daunting.

I kicked a rock with my toe and watched it skip along the ground. My fingers were cold, and shoving them into my damp pockets just wasn’t helping anymore. I growled in frustration and started off towards the bathroom, hoping to find a hand dryer to stick my sweatshirt under. I opened the door and was shocked to find a man standing there.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have walked into the wrong bathroom.” I told him apologetically.

I backed away from him, searching with my hand behind me to find the door. Before I could get there he grabbed me, gripping my arms hard. Something about the crazed look in his eyes terrified me, I realized I was shaking.

“Please, let me go. I didn’t do anything bad I swear.” I sobbed.

He laughed at me then; still I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t know what this man wanted with me, my innocence showing far too much.

He threw me to the floor and I hit my knee hard before I fell completely. He covered me with his large body, the physical contact making me feel sick. I felt him trying to roll me over and I kicked out with my legs as hard as I could. My tiny body not strong enough to fight him off.

Again he laughed at me, threading his fingers through my hair and pulling hard. I cried out, pain lacing up my spine. His other hand was pulling my pants down, and still in the back of my mind I had no idea what was going on. No one had ever laid a hand on me before, and my confusion was evident to him.

“I’m going to make you a woman.” He whispered to me. His voice sent a shiver through me.

It took him a while, but finally he had me naked beneath him. I struggled against him still, but to no avail. I felt something pushing against my private parts, and then came the pain. Unlike anything I had ever felt before.

The man rubbed his hands all over my face and body. “You are such a pretty little girl.” He told me.

I whimpered but didn’t say anything, in my mind I begged God to strike this man down before me. But nothing happened. When he finished he told me I was his favorite so far. Then he left me lying there.

For hours after that I lay sobbing on the floor. Finally I got up to get dressed, trying to cover my body with my sopping wet clothes.

I wish I had known then that things would only get worse after that.

*That's sad.*

Wow very good writing skills.
I despise rapists
My friend went threw that when she was 10......

Looking forward to the next chapter

Thats sad.
I also don't like rapers.
still, looking foward to next chapter

i like how desciptive it is also I'm glad that you posted this it is good and left me wanting to know more and find out what happens next not a lot of stories do that to me any more. Plus i agree with every body else and the general population rapists are bad.

ditto^all of the above...

Really good story. I don't like rapists either. They are sick perverts.

Hey, OverEasy!

I've been wanting to look at some of your work for awhile; I've finally gotten the chance. This was a really sad story for me to read--dealing with these things is never easy, for those directly involved and all the people on the outside. You did a good job in handling this subject matter, and I definitely look forward to seeing more of what you can do. ^_^

You might want to pick up the book Mysterious Skin, by Scott Heim--it wasn't my favorite stylistically, but it was still a really sad book that discussed the before-and-after of sexual abuse.

A few things to look at, though:

PROLOGUES BITE:

Really, they do. You never know quite what to say, and how to justify what you're about to put on the page, and...it all gets quite messy, doesn't it? There are a few reasons why.

- You don't establish a norm. Readers expect the first few chapters of a book to explain the characters' everyday life and world--if you take them for a trip through time, they've no idea what to expect.

- If the character's life has taken a turn for the worse, it's easy to go "woe is me" on the whole thing. This is not good. Pathos is essential for a pity party; but you can't hope to throw one when we haven't been acquainted with your character for more than a paragraph.

- You could do just as well without.

Really, you could. If you think you need to "layer" something in before you go all out with a rape scene, you might want to consider lengthening the before part or including something of her life before, so that we have a contrast. (Neil's POV in Mysterious Skin starts right in with the abuse, but Heim does a really good job of prefacing it within the narrative.)

So? Take a deep breath. Go streaking--prologue streaking, that is.

MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA, YOU KILLED MY FATHER, PREPARE TO DIE:

...most characters do not introduce themselves as such, but quite a few characters in fiction--especially "bad" ones--seem to. Obviously, common sense tells us that a man standing in a bathroom with a crazed look in his eyes is a Bad Guy.

There's a short in Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs, in which he is more or less raped (as a teenager) by a priest in the church bathroom. It's a really terrible, disgusting scene, but it's only made so by the interaction between himself and the priest. It made me completely change the way I approach my Bad Guys--portraying them not as catalysts hell-bent on destruction and instead on broken, pitiful human beings helped to characterize them and make them more terrifying to my readers. Really, there's nothing worse than a likeable rapist.

Granted, you don't have to make them chummy. I'm certain things happen in real life the exact way you've portrayed it here, but there are some things in fiction--like concerts--that you can't write down quite the same way. Thus, when fictionalizing real life, you have to be careful to make it work as well as possible.

What to do?

- Lengthen the scene, especially in the beginning.

- Remember your five senses--taste, smell, the whole shebang. What's going on around her? It's a bathroom floor, for goodness' sake. In a park. What would normally be nasty is even nastier.

- Characterize your Bad Guy. (It'll help you on a psychological level to give a face to what, for most girls, is their biggest fear.)

___

Thanks for the read, OverEasy. If you have any questions or have another part put up, don't hesitate to PM me. ^_^

Thank you all for the reviews, this is actually almost an exact page from one of my diarys when I was younger. So yeah, this really did happen. I plan to talk more about his face in the next chapter.

It may be jumping around a lot from present day to her past (or rather my past, slightly edited in a few places) I hope you all enjoy the next chapter, which should be posted soon.

OMG!! This was so sad, but I want to know what happened next, please say that that creep got put in jail for the rest of his life. Oh...this...
Sorry I get a little upset when I read stuff like this but I must say you have great writing skills.

woah, this is very sad.
im glad someone is writing about it.
i cant wait to read more [:

That was extremely sad. I'm sorry that that happened. Someone close to me also experienced something like that.

To refer to your writing, I noticed only a couple things: Your punctuation and the beginning. I think it would be better if you just began it with the walk in the park. It gives the reader more of an impact when that man appears and does that to her.

And your punctuation: you used periods instead of commas, many times. Sometimes it's fine, but in many cases there needs to be a comma. Also, sometimes you used commas instead of semicolons. I bet if you just go back and look you can catch where.

Keep writing. I want to see more.

Oh my god, this is really good.
I mean, not like you know, her being raped... that's upsetting,
but the way it was described not to the point where it was nasty,
but to the point where it was just enough detail.
And it just was so intriguing. I loved it.
Im really excited for the next chapter.
Keep writing(:

this is a ad story is there a second part to it? please let me know because i see how you helped me understand better with my poetry so thank you i am working VERY hard to better myself with my poetry so let me know if you have anymore pointers

*sobs*

I seriously loathe people like that man.

Why are people like him in this world? Seriously, why?

Anyway, you did really nice with such a violent and emotional piece. I didn't see anything really wrong with it so I'll be on to the next piece shortly!

Keep Writing!