Chapter 15 #2
“I was now eight, almost nine. Bradly Jr. was five, and not in the…abusive picture yet, but Mr. Bothwin made up for that.”
Petula cleared her throat. “He started out with punishments for small infractions. He’d say I took something from his desk, or he’d make some kind of a mess, and blame me for it.
For those crimes, he’d…” This was where things would start to get tough.
“…discipline me. That meant spanking. Hard. On my…bare skin.” Petula took a deep breath.
“He said that’s how it was always done to him, so he saw no reason not to use the same on me.
After the first time, I went to Mrs. Bothwin and told her.
She was…sympathetic, to a point, but said there was nothing she could do to help me, and that if I behaved, everything would be alright.
“Even at the age of eight, I knew she was lying.
“Mr. Bothwin found out I’d told his wife, and the punishment for that was even worse.
” Petula wouldn’t go into detail. Julian could use his imagination on that one.
In actuality, she’d been beaten again, then once Mrs. Bothwin had left to wherever she went every day, Petula was made to walk around the house without her clothes.
It had been humiliating, and of course young Bradly Jr. had been watching, which was even more horrifying.
“After that, I kept my mouth shut, except in letters to my brother. I somehow knew that if the Bothwin’s found out I was telling him everything, the privilege of any contact with him would be revoked.
So I did it all in secret, writing at lunchtime in school, then mailing the letters to him on my walk home. ”
“Are you sure you need to keep going?” Julian’s body was shaking with what Petula knew was suppressed rage, but she wasn’t scared. He was clearly angry on her behalf.
“I’ll just give you an overview, before I move on to Junior.” Petula swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.
“Bradly Sr.’s abuse went on like that for about five more years. Statler did what he could. He alerted the proper authorities, but as you already know, Mr. Bothwin had lots of connections. So when those ‘visits’ from DHHS did occur, nothing was ever done.
“Of course Mr. Bothwin eventually found out it was Statler making the complaints, and he was incensed. I was punished that day until I was bloody, and he threatened me with even worse if I kept telling Stat what was happening.
“It almost killed Statler to back off, but he knew he had to, and things returned to…baseline abuse. I guess I should be thankful that it never went so far as…losing my virginity, but I thought, at the time, that this was the worst hell I could endure. Then I turned thirteen.”
“Deep breath, Petula,” Julian told her, gruffly.
Petula hadn’t been aware she’d been holding it. So much for being able to tell her tale without losing it.
Still, she had to get everything out.
“Junior was ten. That’s when Mr. Bothwin began…enlisting his help. The elder Bradly, sick bastard that he was, must have had those arbitrary ages in mind all along, because he had a lot of things planned for the two of us. It was…awful.
“There was…touching, and…posing for pictures, and eventually…” Petula almost gagged, recalling. “…worse. But I’ll get to that.”
She remembered to breathe again. “I was told over the next four years that if I didn’t comply, if I told a soul, I’d be killed and buried somewhere so deeply I’d never be found.
And I believed it. Nobody had come to my aid before, so there was no expectation there’d be intervention regarding any crime the Bothwins’ might commit. ”
“He taught his son to be just like him.” Julian’s teeth ground so hard, she could almost hear them crack.
“He did. And with his son’s involvement, I finally found out why there was no…intercourse attempted.”
That concession had been huge; calculated though it was.
“Senior told his son, in no uncertain terms, that DNA evidence in court would be irrefutable, so there’d be none of that. But that everything else he could dream up, was on the table.
“I attempted to run away many times from that point on, but I was always brought back by people who Bradly Sr. had in his pocket. The punishments got worse every time, and there was nothing I could do, so I finally stopped running. Which brings me to…water. When I was seventeen.”
Julian slowly stroked her shoulder, and she could feel the trembling in his fingers.
The tears she’d been holding back, began to fall.
“By this time, Mr. Bothwin was spinning out of control with his fantasies and his…ejaculations over the things that he had me doing. He put a lot of thought into his debauchery.”
She could get this out. She could.
“We lived right on a pond, and one night, when Mrs. Bothwin was away—which happened more and more as time passed—they took me down to the water and made me strip naked. Junior then…filmed me while Mr. Bothwin—disguised with a mask for the video they were making—held me under and brought me to the edge of death over and over again.”
“What the fuck?” Julian snapped, the sound coming from his chest was like that of a wounded animal.
Petula couldn’t blame him. What she was revealing had been the cruelest, the vilest thing that had ever been done to her. And that was saying a lot.
“It happened on many occasions after that first time,” she managed to get out. “Mr. Bothwin would choke me and hold me underwater, while Bradly took movies and pictures. Never with his father’s face uncovered, of course.”
The older Bradly got off on it right away, and every time, he’d made sure she watched as he…took care of himself. It didn’t take long for Junior to get his pleasure from it, as well. She’d never forget the disgusting sounds of arousal from the pair.
“It was those pictures and films, I guess, that finally did Jr. in,” she relayed, this time with a little more strength in her voice.
“By the time I reached high school, there was a teacher at school who I trusted implicitly. She was new. From Boston. And I decided to seek her help. But of course, I needed evidence.”
She brought her eyes back to Julian’s and saw the anguish there. It allowed her to continue.
“I wasn’t young and helpless any more. I was seventeen, and one year away from Statler promising to get me out.
But here’s the kicker. Mr. Bothwin was already talking about adopting another young girl, and I just…
couldn’t let that happen. I waited patiently, knowing I had to get my hands on those pictures that Junior always uploaded onto his computer.
“I watched him carefully, until one day I was present when he logged in, and I saw his password. It was a partial success, but weeks passed before I could act on it. Finally, one night, Bradly Jr. wasn’t feeling well, and went up to bed, forgetting his laptop; leaving it on the kitchen counter.”
Julian wasn’t moving at all now, as if his stealth was needed to hear the rest.
“Everyone retired for the night, and after the house went quiet, I snuck downstairs with a memory stick in my sweating hand.” She felt her palms getting wet, just remembering.
“I was able to copy everything that was on Junior’s computer, shaking the whole time, but I was determined. I knew I couldn’t let some other unsuspecting child into this filthy, evil-ridden household without doing my best to stop it.
“After I had everything copied, I snuck back to bed, but I didn’t sleep all night.
My nerves were almost shot. Still, I was able to meet with that god-send of a teacher before school the next morning, and I told her everything.
About the abuse. About the cover-ups. About the pseudo-drownings and the fact that Mr. Bothwin was going to do it all again, with a new victim if I didn’t speak out.
I handed her the memory stick, and made her promise that once I was out of that house, she’d get that evidence into the right hands. And now I know that she did.”
“So you were the reason the FBI knew to look into the family.”
“I guess,” Petula managed, but she felt vindicated that she’d saved another child from her horrendous fate.
Julian’s jaw was ticking a mile a minute, and Petula knew she had to finish before he lost it.
“I don’t know what she said, or how she did it, but she found me as school was ending that day, and drove me back to the Bothwin’s.
She had words with Mr. Bothwin, out of earshot of me, but he looked…
scared for the first time. Whatever she told him, it did the job.
He never laid a hand on me again, and neither did Jr. Today was the first I heard that Jr. was arrested.
My teacher’s warning, whatever it was, probably had Sr. scrubbing any evidence that could be held against him, so he couldn’t be implicated.
The rest you know. Statler got out of the Army, we moved in together, and we’ve since forged a good life for ourselves ever since. ”
Julian didn’t let go of Petula, but peeled her off his chest and propped her up to look her right in the eyes.
“I understand from Tex that Junior took the heat for all of that, since it was his laptop that held all the pictures. I also know from the records that the older Bothwin’s got off on technicalities and personal recognizance.
” He growled at the injustice of that. “But what kept Bradly Sr. from coming after you for the retribution he might have sought, after the fact?”
That had been a concern at the time, but she and Stat had no longer been helpless children.
“Statler,” Petula was able to tell him, giving a small smile for the first time in over an hour. “He went to the Bothwin’s house in the middle of the night. He broke into the elder Bothwin’s bedroom, and…may or may not have held a pillow over Senior’s face to grab his attention.”
Petula remembered the conversation she’d had with her brother the next day, very well. To hear Statler tell it, he’d done the pillow thing to scare the man, but Petula knew Stat’s need for some kind of retribution had fomented the action.
“I don’t know how he didn’t fucking kill him,” Julian snarled. “I would have been tempted.”
Statler had told her it took everything he had within him not to do just that.
“He used restraint, he said, because he wanted to be around to take care of me without being in prison. It was the only reason he resisted.”
“And the threat worked?” Julian questioned.
“It did. You’ve seen the size of Statler, right?”
“Yup. He’s a big dude.”
“Exactly. And Mr. Bothwin was a soft, pudgy asshole. There was no contest. Statler made two demands that night. That Bradly Sr. never darken my door again, and that the Bothwin’s give up their quest for another adoption.
“Of course, now we know that Junior went to jail, so the last bit was moot. The state wasn’t going to trust that household, ever again.
And as for not seeking me out for revenge, well, Mrs. Bothwin also must have stepped up in a very minor way to make sure Mr. Bothwin never bothered me again.
She must have held evidence of some kind against him, because he didn’t… pursue me,” Petula ended.
“And now he’s dead,” she added with satisfaction that felt bone deep. “It might make me a bad person, but I’ve never been happier in my entire life, hearing about someone going to hell.”