Life with the black demon. Sandra Pasic

even look at him. My eyes were full of tears. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. All I could feel was the weight of his body and the putrid smell of alcohol. He forced himself inside of me! At that moment, I felt severe, unbearable pain. I screamed! I begged him to let me go. He covered my mouth with his hand and continued to defile my weak and small body. I knew, that was the bite of the black demon, my biggest nightmare. It went on for about ten minutes.

      For me, those ten minutes were an eternity. It was the worst torture and the greatest pain I could remember. Not even all those beatings, harassment, nothing could compare to the pain I felt then. I wanted to die! Disappear! I wanted to be no more!

      When he finished, he told me to get up and go to the toilet to wash myself, and then to come back. I barely got up and went outside. I hid behind the house and sat in the woodshed. I was broken both mentally and physically. I was afraid to go back inside because I wouldn’t be able to go through that horror again.

      A few minutes later he came outside and called my name loudly:

      - Sandra, Sandra, get over here right now you fucking bitch! You’ll rue this day if you don’t get over here.

      Even though I didn’t want to, the fear spoke out of me. He found me and made me go back to the house. Standing there at the door, he slapped me, knocking me to the floor. I was lying in the foetal position, my stomach hurt terribly. I was wearing white tracksuit and blood started appearing on the fabric. Seeing the blood, I was even more scared. I was confused, lost. I didn’t know what to do. Completely petrified, I urinated. He forcibly lifted me, grabbed my hand and ordered me to take a bath. I went to the bathroom. The underwear I was wearing was covered in blood. I took the blood-covered clothes and packed them in one bag. I was terribly afraid that my mother or someone else would discover the clothes.

      When I took a bath, I came to the living room. On his command, I sat down next to him. He said:

      - What has just happened here you are not going to tell anyone, especially not to your mother, you will have to keep it for yourself until you die! You are going to forget about all of this right now!

      There was nightmare in my head, buzzing in my ears, my gut was shaking. I stared at him with a look filled with hatred and fear. He said if I mentioned any of this to anyone that he was going to kill all of us, to commit a massacre, because he didn’t mind spending time in prison:

      - I’ll kill you all, it’s nothing for me to kill someone, I will go to prison after that, I don’t mind, but you won’t be alive anymore, you motherfuckers.

      I got really scared then. He made me scared by his threats, which he would surely fulfil. I shivered as he shouted:

      - Why are you shaking? Why are you crying? Why are you sobbing?

      I knew, from that moment on, my family’s life was in my hands, because if I said anything to anyone - everyone would be dead.

      After about an hour, mum came home from work. I was sitting on the couch with my head down, my eyes swollen and red from all that crying. When she saw father angry and drunk, she knew something had happened. She had no idea that what had happened was the worst experience a girl, or anyone’s daughter could go through by her own father’s doing.

      I was thinking about telling my mum what happened. How could I tell her? I couldn’t, because I knew that her heart, like mine, wouldn’t survive it. Additionally, there would be an utter massacre.

      She asked father:

      - What’s the matter, old man? Is everything all right? What did Sandra do that would bring her to tears?

      I wanted to scream and say everything, but then I raised my head and saw my mum’s scared and questioning look. I told her:

      - It’s nothing. I didn’t do anything.

      Mum, as though she sensed something was wrong, began to cry. I got up to hug her, and my father noticed that the tracksuit I wore had blood on it. He reacted furiously:

      - Fucking bitch. Take her out of here, take her to the bathroom, get her out of here and talk to her about a menstrual period.

      He didn’t stop swearing:

      - Fuck all of you, your father, your mother, your sister and brothers, fuck all of you; you didn’t teach her anything. Do you see her walking around me like that? Has she no shame?

      Mum took me to the bathroom and looked at me in complete shock. She talked to me about sanitary pads, I didn’t even know what those were, let alone what they were used for. Mum bathed me again. I was crying. She saw the bruise on my arm and she knew he was beating me. She thought that was the reason I was crying. She helped me get dressed, put a pad in my panties and started crying along with me.

      She hugged me and said:

      - My God, how much longer? Oh God, have I sinned so much that you have to punish me like this?

      I didn’t know if mum knew or if she noticed what actually happened.

      She told me that all of this would pass one day, that I should study hard, be smart and that one day, God willing, I will get married and have a wonderful husband who won’t behave like this, like my father behaved towards us.

      I asked:

      - When exactly is this going to happen?

      Our conversation was interrupted by my father’s yelling:

      - You two, come here right now. He started shouting at my mother.

      - You fucking whore, who are you crying for? Explain to me who you’re crying for, fuck your whole family and that crazy father of yours.

      At that moment, the most important thing for me was just to protect my mother, so she wouldn’t get beaten.

      We sat down. Mum tried, as always, to calm him down:

      - Come on, old man, let’s calm down. Let’s turn on the music. Do you want something to eat?

      He played the role of a “master,” while we were victims who had to obey him, or as the expression goes, “to dance to his tune.”

      That wasn’t a problem for us, especially for my mother, who most of all wanted peace in the house, so that no one would touch or shout at anyone... He used to tell my mum that we all irritated him and that we would make him do the worst possible thing that is to kill all of us.

      Thanks to my mother, father calmed down a bit. She always did and tried everything to calm him down.

      Night fell. It was raining. We could hear thunder, and we could see lightning. He made me go to my room. Mum was right behind me and she put plastic film on the mattress because I’d wet the bed almost every night. The gloomy weather made me even more crushed and disheartened. Lightning illuminated my room. I lay down, covered my head and cried. Mum would always come and kiss me goodnight. Truthfully, after that day, I didn’t look at my mum the same way either. I was disgusted by everything. I could smell the abhorrent odour on myself. I couldn’t get rid of his odour, the smell of alcohol that left a deep mark on my brain.

      I heard mum and dad having sexual intercourse in the next room. I heard my mother’s moans. I couldn’t understand how he could do something like that, after everything that happened, after the beatings, shouting, swearing, after what he did to me.

      I didn’t fall asleep until the next morning. My mind was racing. I was sad at first. I wondered why I couldn’t be in the position of my sister and brother. They had fun and enjoyed the wonderful time spent together with grandparents. I knew they were having a nice time at the farm. Working at the farm brought nothing but happiness to me.

      Sunrise. I didn’t want to leave the room, nor did I know how to get up, what to say, or how to behave. I heard my father got up. He opened the door and entered the room. He acted as if nothing had happened the day before.

      I couldn’t look him in the eye. In those moments,