Anonymous

I was eight when I first encountered semen. I was also eight when I saw a fully grown hard-on pulsating penis; it looked like a dark, writhing monster with a swollen red head, the colour of an open wound.

I never saw that penis much, because the boy was always pressing down on my pelvis and legs, and my head was almost always looking up at the ceiling. If my head wasn’t looking up, it was looking to the side, checking the door in case someone walked in on the shameful act. He was 17 or 18, his beard was already sprouting and his penis was huge.

I knew it was large before I even saw it because when we all had to sleep in the same room, he would press it up against my bum, or make me touch it under the blankets.

No one questioned the wisdom of putting an adolescent boy in the same room as young girls. It was partly our black way of thinking—all the children are our children, they share everything and the older ones take care of the younger ones. During the day, the older one would find ways to sneak me into a bedroom when the adults were gone and hump me fully clothed. His sister was two or three years younger than him and I think she knew what he was doing, but chose not to walk in on it.

I’m convinced she knew because, on the night of the semen story, she was sleeping on the bed and we were on the floor. The television was on; we were watching a late-night film, and we hadn’t switched off the lights. It bothered me that the lights in our room were on because I knew what was coming and was afraid the adults would come in and catch us.

The boy was sleeping in our room again because an activist was on the run from South Africa and his room was the only one available for that man. He always set it up that I ended up next to him and that night it had been, “Let’s stay up and watch films, why don’t you get off the bed so you don’t disturb my sister when she wants to sleep?” I always obliged, so I got on to the floor and we watched the television from his temporary sleeping area.

When the moment seemed right, with his sister snoring on the bed, he rolled up on top of me like he normally did. This time, he escalated things. He unzipped his pants and, although I can’t remember exactly what he did in the seconds that followed, I remember the panic that came over me because I was afraid we would get caught. But what I feared the most was that he would actually put his penis inside and have sex with me.

On the floor, on my eight-year old back, I looked up to his eyes, hoping he would read my anxiety, but he was unrelenting. I whispered “Please don’t do that. I’m going to fall pregnant.” He whispered back, “No, don’t worry, that only happens to grown girls like my sister.” No, no you don’t know that it can also happen to me! I wanted to plead reason because I had read in the paper a story about an eight year old who had fallen pregnant. I didn’t want to wake anyone, so I quietly said “No, no Sbu, no.” I tried to keep my legs tightly together.

We battled with my underwear for a few seconds. He won and threw my panties under the bed; I watched where they went so I could find them afterwards. I don’t know what happened after that because I can only remember the light on the ceiling, the worries in my head, his weight. I was ready for anything.

But very suddenly, he rolled off me, onto his side and made a grunting noise.

I sat up quickly and saw a whitish blob on the carpet. He went to the bathroom, leaving the damning evidence behind. I hoped he would return quickly to wipe it away, we always had to remove traces of these acts. I did my part by looking under the bed, but it was dark and I couldn’t find my underwear. Careful not to wake his sister, I got into bed, hoping it would be easier to spot my entangled panties in the morning light.

The next morning, when I woke up, I saw that the white blob had disappeared and I was just very relieved.