SIMPLY PUT, I was afraid. I was afraid to move on; moving on would mean accepting what happened, embracing it and then letting go of it. I couldn’t do either of those things. I’d rather forget or pretend it didn’t happen, but everyone said that that wasn’t the answer; that pretending something didn’t happen didn’t mean that it didn’t happen. But in my world, my thoughts, living in denial was far better than facing reality. I became afraid of my own shadow. I broke every mirror in the house; I felt disgusted at the reflection staring back at me every time I looked at one. What my parents and the psychologist didn’t understand was that it wasn’t the ‘what’ that terrified me; it was the ‘who’. I had a slurred speech pattern; I couldn’t finish a sentence without stuttering. I often had to fight my own tongue to pronounce words. I hated having to speak to people, especially in public. Some took my inability to carry on a ‘flowing’ conversation as a disability and treated me as a disabled person. That disgusted me. They started speaking slowly themselves so that I could understand them. But there was nothing wrong with my hearing. It frustrated me no end when I was treated like I was a disabled child that should be pitied. Even if they saw me as disabled, it didn’t mean that I should be pitied; disabled people are still people. So it frustrated me either way.

To bring ease to the situation, my parents decided on a solution; they would hire me a speech therapist. For two hours every day after school, the therapist would come to my house and teach me how to speak fluently. I felt that made me appear incompetent, but it was better than being pitied for being a disabled, so I didn’t object. I thought I could only gain from the experience, anyway.

Plus, Ms. Hubbard was a very pleasant person. She was the first person I came in contact with that saw me as a person and not someone  ‘born with a flaw in life’. She showed much confidence in herself, and even though friendly, was very professional. It was easy being around her, and no matter how many tries it took me to pronounce a word, Ms. Hubbard always had a smile on her face.

She never got agitated or frustrated with me. She was there to listen to me no matter how long it took me to say whatever I had to say. She guided me in the way I spoke, and taught me mechanisms I could use in place of the stuttering. It took me awhile, but I was getting the hang of it, and as the weeks went by, my stuttering slowly disappeared; I was making more complete sentences without the many attempts to pronounce one word. I was feeling proud of myself and my parents were, too.

But what amazed me most was that Ms. Hubbard was just twenty-eight-years-old and with me being her first client, it was very surprising that she had the patience and understanding, as if she was in the practice for decades.  I thanked my parents for finding her, and I felt myself lucky to have her as my teacher. Even my teachers in school noticed an improvement in my speech, and people started to desist from treating me as if I would crack like an egg if they held or spoke to me too hard.

Ms. Hubbard gave me a new outlook on life, and I felt a great sense of gratitude towards her. I felt she should be honoured; so I talked my parents into throwing a surprise party for her on one of the afternoons she would come to teach me. It took awhile to convince them, as they didn’t think it that necessary, but they went ahead with the idea, just to make me happy.

Ms. Hubbard was ecstatic and truly surprised. She thanked me for such a kind gesture, and after my parents departed, Ms. Hubbard said we would just spend the afternoon talking. In a way, it was an informal lesson.

It started off well, but then, Ms. Hubbard leaned over to me and kissed me on my mouth. I was stunned, but I didn’t stop her; I just froze. I didn’t understand what was happening to me; I didn’t know if it was wrong. My parents would warn me ever so often of being careful with men or boys approaching me or touching me inappropriately; they never told me about women doing it. I was just twelve years old; I didn’t know all the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ of life. 

Ms. Hubbard looked up at me and ran her fingers slowly through my shoulder-length, silky-black hair. Even then, I still didn’t move. Ironically, I’d spent months learning to speak fluently, and in an instant, I was completely at a loss for words. In spite of my being motionless and having a blank expression on my face, Ms, Hubbard kissed me again, this time, more passionately than  before. She drew herself closer in to me and squeezed tightly on my shoulders. I somehow found the urge to move, and I sprang up from her.

She saw the confusion on my face and stood up beside me. She told me that it was a normal act, an appreciation for the party I’d held in her honour. Ms. Hubbard told me it was okay for us to kiss like that, but that I mustn’t tell my parents. I asked her if it was okay, why should I have to keep it a secret. She said because she was much older than I, my parents would not approve of it and would remove her from being my speech therapist. Ms. Hubbard said that if  she didn’t continue to tutor me on my speech patterns, I would relapse into my slurred speech again.

So I didn’t tell my parents what Ms. Hubbard did to me; I wanted her to remain as my teacher. I didn’t want to return to being pitied and treated as a handicap. Ms. Hubbard continued to touch and kiss me every afternoon during lessons. At first I felt uncomfortable and weird, but then I just started to adapt to it. I just didn’t know what was happening to me; I didn’t know I was being abused. My parents always taught me that being abused meant being hit or beaten in a cruel way. Ms. Hubbard wasn’t touching me cruelly; she was always gentle.

But I soon learnt the difference. My mother had a garden party and invited some of her book-club  friends. ‘Aunt Crystal’ (my mother taught me to call her friends ‘aunt’) brought her daughter, Kenisha, to the party because she had no one to keep her. So, my mother suggested that  Kenisha and I retire to my room and spend the rest of the evening until the party was over.

After a while of being bored playing with dolls, I leaned over to Kenisha and kissed her the way Ms. Hubbard kissed me. Kenisha sprang up from the floor and asked me what I was doing. I told her it was okay, and that since we were the same age, my parents wouldn’t mind. Kenisha shouted that I was wrong to kiss her like that and ran out of my room.

She went and told her mother what I had done. ‘Aunt Crystal’ and my mother came to ask me what I had done. I told them I did nothing wrong, because it was normal for me to kiss Kenisha and it shouldn’t be a problem because we were the same age. My mother was embarrassed more than shocked, and asked me who told me that.

I explained to her what Ms. Hubbard had done and what was going on between  Ms. Hubbard and I during lessons. My mother sat me down on my bed and told me Ms. Hubbard was wrong in  what she was doing to me, and that such behaviour was not normal, whether it was male or female doing it. She called it ‘sexual abuse of a minor’. My mother said it was a criminal offence, and that I was being taken advantage of. My parents had Ms. Hubbard arrested.

But I was afraid that I would relapse into stuttering, but my mother said that that wouldn’t happen; that that was just Ms. Hubbard’s way of controlling me from exposing her. She said people with such behaviour often use some form of control, like gifts or money, to keep children from telling their parents or another adult. Ms. Hubbard wasn’t a ‘therapist’ but ‘the rapist’ that pretended to understan
d me.

But I felt ashamed that I was fooled in such a way. It was amazing that after spending months of learning to speak fluently, I didn’t want to speak at all. I became afraid of my own shadow. I was hurt and felt betrayed in the worst possible way. I couldn’t face people; I couldn’t bear the words of being abused spoken to me. I closed my eyes tightly and wished with everything in me that it wasn’t true; that I was in a trance; a horrible dream I couldn’t wake up from.

But it wasn’t a dream; it was my mother’s words of pity cutting through my thoughts of a delusion. So I pretended it didn’t happen. I didn’t talk about it; neither did I look at myself anymore. Reality was too much to bear. It wasn’t ‘what’ happened that terrified me most, it was ‘who’ that did it; the one person trained to understand me. Funny how now, I would give anything to stutter again; to return to the past before my future was forever altered.