He didn’t know why it was happening. Why him? He just knew he couldn’t say anything or else he would be killed. That was the promise. The anger inside would rage like a wasp in a jam jar but he knew it was a waste of time. Just as a wasp couldn’t unscrew a lid, he had no chance of getting him off. He was too strong.
Overpowering.
Steve Jacobs was six when it first started. The tickling, the friendly rub and the help with getting PJs on at bedtime. The knowing smile from the man who was part of the family. The smile was too friendly but he was too young to really understand the sinister in it. Way too young to know the tickling meant more to his uncle than to himself.
It wasn’t until he was thirteen that the real abuse started. ‘I’ll look after him, you go out and enjoy yourself Sandy,’ he would say to Steve’s mother. What a good brother in law he was.
Not.
Sandy would be grateful of the time out with the girls. Nothing could bring her husband back, but a little light relief with some very close friends would at least make her feel human. If that was possible when you had lost the one thing that had made you feel whole.
Once Sandy was out of the way uncle Jarvis would give Steve’s older brother Matt some money ‘Go out with your friends, get drunk. This is England all the kids are doing it. See you in a few hours.’ The best uncle ever. Matt hadn’t suffered at the hands of his uncle like Steve had. Maybe because dad was still around when Matt was six. Maybe it was too dangerous. Maybe he was too old when dad had died to be groomed or maybe he was not as soft as Steve, who knows? Steve pondered these questions nearly every day of his childhood. These questions are ones that children should never have to ask.
The door would close on those nights and Steve’s stomach would drop. He knew what was coming. The mental and physical pain. Along with the threats of violence if anyone would ever find out. ‘I’ll tear your heart out you little fuck! No one will believe you; I bet your mother wishes she was you right now. The slut,’ the last bit hurt Steve the most. His mother was nothing but amazing. She helped Steve and his brother Matt through the most difficult period of their life when they lost their father. She stood strong when they lost the rock of the family. She never let them see her cry but he was sure she waited until they had gone to bed before grieving her husband’s death.
Steve accepted he would die if he spoke of the suffering that was being laid out by the hands of his uncle. He often thought about calling the police. Yeah that was a good one. If only he could pick up the phone and dial 999, that would have made life so much easier. The person who was raping him was no other than detective Jarvis Jacobs. One of the best in the business, he was well loved by everyone on the force. He had a case success rate of 95% and the 5 % left; well he was working on at the time.
They would never believe the boy who had lost his father. He would be an attention seeking kid his uncle promised to make him out to be. Uncle Jarvis was right. No one would believe him. He was doomed to suffer like this until he was old enough to not be the liking of his uncle’s sick sexual taste or detective Jarvis Jacobs died.
As his older brother Matt went out with money in his hand and excited for his night with friends, Steve knew that the second option would be the one that would free him. At thirteen years old Steve knew his uncle must die. And be killed is exactly what happened to Jarvis Jacobs. What Steve didn’t know is that it would spark off events in the future that would terrify him to the very core of his adult being and change his life forever.