A Stolen Life_ A Memoir - Jaycee Dugard [6]
When we are inside the strange house, he takes off the blanket and instructs me to sit on the wicker sofa. He is a very tall man. He has very light blue eyes and brown hair that is thinning on the top a bit. His nose is kind of long and his skin is a bronze color. It looks like he spent too much time in the sun. He does not look like a bad guy. He looks like a normal guy. Like any ordinary guy you would see in everyday life. But he is not! He couldn’t be … could he? He shows me a black thing with metal ends that look sharp. He calls it a “stun gun” and he says he will use it again if I try to get away. He turns it on and I hear the strange zapping sound I heard before when my body would not work. The sofa I’m sitting on has a lot of cat hair. I look up and I see a cat sitting on a washing machine. The cat looks like a Himalayan Persian tortoiseshell and there is another one that looks like a very fat, tabby torty. I ask if I can pet them. He says if they come to me, then I can. One comes over and I give it a pet. Its hair feels silky and real. I think this cat is the only thing that feels real right now; everything else feels like a nightmare but this is too real to be a dream. The man says to follow him.
Reflection
Looking back on that day, feelings of dread come to mind. I was eleven years old, still very much a kid. I was very scared and alone. I didn’t know what was going to happen and if someone had told me what I would be enduring for the next eighteen years, I would never have believed them. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. What this man had in mind for me was like a foreign language. I had never been subjected to any form of sexual abuse before, hadn’t ever heard the words either. My only reference to sex was what I had seen on TV or movies and then acted out when playing Barbies, which would be in the form of Barbie and Ken laying in the bed together side by side. That is what I thought “sex” was. I know—silly, right? But that is the truth. My aunt Tina says that I asked her once how babies were made and she explained it to me. I do not remember asking her this question and I don’t remember her answer to me. Even if I had understood or remembered what she told me, it still would not have prepared me for what Phillip did to me. No amount of preparation could have helped me understand why another human being would do what he did to another human being, a little girl, for that matter. I still don’t get it.
The Secret Backyard
I follow the man. I don’t have a choice. There is nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide. I have no idea where I am. Everything is turned upside down. All I can do is wait for my mom to come and find me. I wish I could be back at home right now. I would even like to hear a criticism from my stepdad Carl; anything familiar would be okay. Anywhere other than being here with this stranger that has hurt me with the stun gun. When we arrive at the bathroom in this stranger’s house, he closes and locks the door. The shower is running and the strange man says that he wants me to take my clothes off. No, I say! Why does he want me to take my clothes off? I am very self-conscious of my body. The man says if I do not do it myself, he will do it for me. I am too scared to move, my body is shaking, so I do what is easy: I just stand there. He pulls down my pants and takes off my shirt. I am naked and very embarrassed. He stuffs all my clothes, shoes, and backpack in a bag. He doesn’t notice the tiny ring on my pinkie. I am relieved. I was afraid he would take that, too. He takes off his clothes and I try not to look. He asks if I have ever