Innocence Lost (NSFW; disturbing)
Ever seen something in real life that just made your mind either come to a screeching halt or else run away with a thousand thoughts at once? That happens to me sometimes. Just a fleeting image, a simple scene, but it evokes such powerful emotion in me that I can’t help but be inspired. One day I was driving through Indiana or Ohio. It had been snowing within the past day or so and though the roads were clear, the ground on either side was covered with a pristine, undisturbed layer of snow. Sitting perfectly on top of the snow was a brightly colored teddy bear.
It made me think, now how did that get there? I found myself making up a story about it, and this is what I came up with. Be warned: it contains disturbing content and imagery, so reader discretion advised. It was difficult to write at times and I feel like I’m baring some dark part of my soul here. I don’t know where it came from. Nothing like this has ever actually happened to me, though sadly I’m sure something similar happens every single day to some child in the world.
Comments welcome…I kinda threw this together on the spur of the moment and would like to see what others think. I didn’t write it for myself or anyone else to get off on it, so please don’t send me any hate mail accusing me of being a sicko. I also didn’t intend to offend anyone with it. It is what it is, and once it was in my head I had to write it.
More behind the link due to content.
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“Come on, baby, wake up. We’re goin’ for a ride.”
Lucy opened her eyes as her daddy shook her awake. It was too dark to see him, but she sure could smell him. His breath had that funny smell it sometimes had, like he had swallowed a whole bunch of that nasty cough medicine her mama always made her take when she got sick. He also had that smell like he just came back from the woods with a fresh deer, all sweaty and smelling like pennies.
“Where’re we goin’?” she asked sleepily, clutching her blue teddy bear tightly to her chest as her daddy pulled back the covers.
“Just be quiet, ok? We’re gonna take a trip, just you and me. It’ll be fun. Wanna take a trip with Daddy?”
He picked her up, bear and all, and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. “Why do you smell funny?”
“Shh, baby girl, don’t worry about it.”
She buried her face into his shoulder as he carried her outside. He put her in the passenger seat of his pickup truck and slammed the door. He went back inside for a few minutes and came back with a small bag that had been packed in a hurry. When he opened the door, the light illuminated him for the first time that night, and she noticed the stains on his shirt.
“Did you go huntin’?” Lucy asked through a yawn.
“I told you to be quiet, didn’t I?” he said. Sometimes he got like this. Lucy had learned a long time ago that when Daddy got angry it was best to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t like to get smacked, so she tried to be a good little girl like he wanted. Sometimes he’d smack her even when she was doing what she was told, but at least it wasn’t as bad then.
Her daddy started up the truck and backed out of the driveway, and soon they were on the highway. He was driving silly again. Sometimes this made her giggle, and sometimes it scared her, like tonight. He reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle of that nasty-smelling stuff he liked to drink, took a few sips, and wedged the bottle in between his legs, not bothering to put the cap back on. She snuggled her teddy bear and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the icy cold window, trying to go back to sleep so she wouldn’t have to watch the truck drifting all over the slippery road.
It seemed like she had just dozed off when she felt him shaking her awake again. He picked her up again and carried her inside a strange building where he spoke to a man standing behind a glass window. Lucy looked outside and saw that it had started snowing. Maybe in the morning Daddy would let her go outside and play in it.
He finished talking to the man, gave him some money, and got a key. He carried Lucy outside and used the key to open up a door. There were two beds and a sink in the room, which Lucy thought was strange.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“A motel. We’re gonna stay here tonight and get going in the morning after the weather’s gotten better and they’ve had a chance to clear the roads.” He plopped Lucy down onto the bed closest to the sink. “You go ahead and get some sleep. I’m gonna get a shower.” He pulled back the covers and helped Lucy get settled in bed, disappeared into the bathroom, and after a few minutes Lucy heard the water running. She began to drift off to sleep again.
The next time she stirred, it was because she felt her bed sink a little with the weight of her daddy sitting on it. She felt him pull back her covers and smelled and felt his hot, mediciney breath close to her face. She opened her eyes and saw she was staring at the nightstand between the two beds. The bottle he had been drinking from earlier was sitting empty on that table. She turned her head to look at her daddy. His face was inches away from hers, and he wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“What are you doin’?” she asked.
He slapped her on the side of the face, not enough to hurt, but enough to know that she better do exactly what he said or she’d be in big trouble. “Be quiet,” he whispered. He was breathing heavy, like he’d been running for a while or something. He was resting his weight on his left arm and using that hand to stroke her hair, and his other hand was doing something in his lap that she couldn’t really see. Then he started kissing her over and over again, all over the face and on the lips, and in between kisses he kept saying over and over again, “Daddy loves you. You know that, right? Daddy loves you.”
Lucy felt his right hand on the inside of her leg. It started at her knee and slid up her thigh, raising her pink flannel nightgown with it. When it reached her panties she whimpered in fear. She didn’t know why it felt wrong, but she just knew he shouldn’t be touching her there. He placed a finger on her lips, shushing her. She swallowed hard and didn’t make a single sound after that. She knew that something bad was about to happen to her, but she knew better than to talk back to Daddy.
He sat up and used both hands to slide her panties off. Lucy hugged her teddy bear tighter than ever before and tried not to look at him because it was embarrassing. She turned her head and stared at the red blinking light on the smoke detector that hung on the wall next to her bed.
The next thing she knew she was in awful pain. It felt like two people had each grabbed one of her legs and pulled, trying to tear her in half. Something was inside of her, moving back and forth, and she could feel things shifting and tearing down there. She could feel him leaning over her again, breathing heavier and heavier and making weird grunting sounds. She squeezed her eyes shut and tears began streaming down the sides of her face and disappearing into her hair, but she didn’t make one peep.
Finally whatever it was was over. His breathing got quicker, as did the movement. Then the thing inside her got pushed in so far that she thought she wouldn’t be able to help but scream, yet she kept quiet. It felt like something hot was being squirted out of it as it started to twitch, and as soon as it hit the raw, burning tissue inside her it began to sting.
The whole thing couldn’t have lasted longer than a couple of minutes, but it felt like forever. After a few seconds the intruder was removed, and her father got up and went back to the bathroom. When he came back out he was dressed again and thankfully laid down on the other bed. After a few minutes he began to snore and Lucy felt like she could finally breathe again. She didn’t know what had just happened, but she had done exactly what she was told to do and kept quiet. She moved away from the spot she had been laying. It was wet and stained with blood. She curled up like a baby with her bear and sobbed silently until she fell into an uneasy sleep.
They left a couple of hours after dawn the next morning. Her father did not look at her at all when he woke her up and told her her bath was ready. She was still sore and the water stung at first when she sat down in the warm water, but after a while it felt better. She scrubbed herself all over with soap and a washcloth, but she couldn’t make herself feel clean for some reason. She gave up after a while and got dressed in the outfit her father had packed in the overnight bag. When she came back out she found he had removed all the sheets and blankets from her bed, but she didn’t ask what happened.
He didn’t carry her around today like he did the last night. She stayed a few steps behind him, staring at the ground as she walked, holding her teddy bear. After turning in the key, they were on their way to wherever he was taking them.
As they were driving down the highway, not a word was spoken between them. Lucy watched the pristine snowy landscape zoom by them. Her father lit up cigarette after cigarette, something he didn’t do very often. Her throat began to tickle and burn from all the smoke building up in the truck, so she rolled down the window to let it air out. As she was doing so, she happened to get a closer look at her teddy bear. Parts of its bright blue fur were stained with blood from sometime during the night.
It made her sick to look at it, and without another thought she tossed the bear out the window. She looked back as they continued to drive on. The bear landed sitting perfectly upright, and its color stood out in sharp contrast to the pure white snow. As the truck continued on, the bright blue spot grew smaller and smaller until she couldn’t see it anymore. Then she turned and looked straight ahead, suddenly all grown up, preparing herself for whatever lay ahead.
