I have always lived alone, at least in a mental since. I grew up in a house where my father left the country to provide for us and a mother dying from cancer. By the time I was six I had no parents around, my sisters had their own lives to sort. I grew up an introvert in a country where an alpha extrovert is the minimum. So I never really had anyone to whom I could talk as I grew up. The story (or stories) I share here are once I have never shared or shared with very few people.
"Speak if You Want to Die"
"Speak if you want to die", those were the words spoken to me by my Twenty-three years old cousin at the time to nine years old me the morning after my birthday.
I had a life growing up as an outcast, surrounded by my cousins I always felt that I didn't belong. Up until I was nine I had changed schools four times, I always struggled to make friends and had no around. I don't even remember celebrating my birthday before, the closest I got is when I was eight. My sisters at the time promised to throw me a birthday party then they ended up staying at my aunt's place when they went to buy me a cake and pick her up, they just liked the company at her house and didn't return. I had locked myself outside at around five P.M as it was raining heavily and spent the night sitting because I couldn't sleep as there were four cats looming around me, the next day I had gone to school before my sisters return in the same clothes I was wearing the day before.
But for my ninth birthday celebration we decided to drop by my aunt's place (A different aunt), as I wanted to celebrate it with someone. My uncle was also visiting as well as other cousins. My uncle had bought a digital camera to which we decided to write and film few sketches, I remember some of them were reenacting of famous Egyptian movies scenes, a sketch where we pretended to be a terrorist group making demands with an 'American' hostage on the floor, few others where we are guests in a confrontational political shows, and some where we just sang.
It was a fun night, we never got around to actually celebrating my birthday but who cares really? I had fun. After we all got tired we went to sleep. I remember we were like eight in one room, my cousin Hussam's room, and I had the misfortune of sleeping in front of my cousin Salwan. Deep into the night I had an urge to pee but when I woke up I noticed something strange. My shorts and underpants were pulled down, and I could feel something warm touching my bottom.
At first I was frozen with fear as I has gotten used to having nightmares in my sleep, but this time it felt more real. I could feel my cousin sneaking closer and closer until I could feel his stinking breath on my neck. I reached to my shorts slowly as I was also trying to feel what is touching me. Before I knew I had grabbed his penis, and before I could remove it he put a tight grip around my hand, and as I was trying to escape, he moved his other hand and covered my mouth. I was trying to reach to my other cousin with my other hand but he got closer to my ear and whispered in mouth that smelled like cigarettes and shit "Speak if you want to die"
He then preceded to move my hand that was around his penis in a masturbation gesture with his other hand covering my mouth. I could hear him occasionally moaning quietly. I laid on my side paralyzed for some reason, the only movement I could make was my eyes staring at the door strongly wishing anyone would barge in. My scared hopeful mind was even hoping for my dead mother to somehow be the one walking in, but no one came in. I was completely under his mercy.
I don't know how long the encounter last, but I know it felt like it was days long. I had a hundred thoughts running through my head with hundreds of hopeful scenarios. I remember near the end he had removed his left hand from my mouth and moved it to pinch my butt-cheeks. And then I could feel it- the memory of it keeps me up at night sometimes- him ejaculating on my back as I hear him moan one last time.
I moved further away from him and I don't know how long it took me to muster up the courage to just put on my pants and run downstairs to sleep on the couch. I couldn't even muster up the courage to remove his sticky ejaculation off my back as I felt sticking to my underwear. I couldn't sleep until I got too exhausted, I didn't even find it in me to even go to the bathroom to pee. I just stayed there frozen, keeping an on the living room door in case he shows up. I woke up the next day having peed myself on a light brown coach for everyone to see and for me to spend the rest of the day ridiculed and mocked.
That was over sixteen years, during which I have seen him countless times. Birthday parties, weddings, funerals, and family gatherings. His mere existence became a source of unexplained anxiety for me as far the rest of family is concerned. For the longest time I felt like I have lost the ability to talk about anything happening to me thanks to that event and few more, stories have become buried deep within my mind, ones to which I hope to find closure before I die.