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exactly what he wanted in front of his camera. But that's part of the
pedophile's nature: he gets off on the power over the young and weak and
small, the power to corrupt innocence through unspeakable acts."
BZZZZZZT!
"Of course, I didn't know they were unspeakable then, but there had to be
something wrong because I was never allowed to mention them. And some time
before I reached ten, the picture taking stopped. I guess I was too old then.
I guess the people he was trading pictures with liked their little girls under
ten. Whatever the reason, it stopped and& would you believe?& I felt sad. How
sick is that? Not because of what I'd actually been doing, but because my
father no longer seemed interested in me. He'd never been warm or even vaguely
nurturing the words 'remote,' 'uninterested,' 'disengaged' don't even come
close but at least& at those times& when I was doing those things by myself or
with Thomas, I'd had his& attention. Now I didn't even have that. Can you
imagine?"
No. Jack couldn't even begin to imagine. He felt his gorge rise as he thought
of someone making Vicky do what he'd seen in the few prints he'd glanced at,
and fought the urge to grab the phone and call her to make sure she was safe
at home with Gia.
BZZZZZZT!
"But as I grew older, I learned, and I realized what I had been a part of. I
tried to tell myself that it had never happened, that I'd imagined it all,
dreamed it, but I knew no imaginings like that could have originated in me.
How could I make up those perversions? No& I must have been there. And so I
worked on blocking them out, making myself believe they'd never happened, and
I was doing pretty well at it& until my early teens when I started developing.
That was when I woke up one night and found Thomas with his hand on my breast
wanting to 'do it, just like we used to.' I managed to fight him off, but that
was confirmation, and it brought it all back. I began sleeping with a knife
under my pillow."
Jack didn't want to know this much about her, but didn't see how he could
stop her. And it wasn't as if she was talking tohim . She was talking to the
air. He could have been a mannequin.
"I knew then and there that I had to get out. But how? I was too young to
support myself and I didn't want anything anything from that man. And I know
you're probably thinking, 'Why didn't you go to the authorities and " She
stopped and looked at Jack. A wry ghost of a smile twisted her mouth for an
instant. "Okay, anybody but you would say that. But how could I? Exposing
Ronald Clayton meant exposing myself. It meant making those pictures public.
Even now the thought of it makes me want to crawl into a hole, but can you
imagine how that prospect looks to a teenage girl? I mean, a pimple on the
chin is a reason to hide when you're a teenager. Making my 'sins'
public because Iknew that everyone would think I'd been a willing
participant was unthinkable."
BZZZZZZT!
"So I worked on getting out. And I mean, Iworked . I was pretty much asexual
then. I was repulsed by the notion of anyone, boy or girl, touching me, so I
became a bookworm. I all but lived in the public library, studying, studying,
studying. I got straight A's. I found a book on how to 'package' your child
for a scholarship. Well, no one was interested enough to package me for
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anything, so I packaged myself. And it worked. I got a full academic
scholarship to college at USC. That allowed me to move out of that house. I
left in August before my freshman year and never looked back. Last night was
the first time I've crossed that threshold since."
BZZZZZZTl
"In college I worked a job while I booked my butt off. I found summer work at
resorts that offered room and board as part of the job. I got into med school.
A full ride to med school is all but impossible, but people will loan money to
doctors-to-be. So I borrowed up to my lower lip to cover the expenses, and
I'll be paying those loans off for another ten years, at least. But I did it.
I got through it. And the thing that kept me going was the determination not
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