Abuse, love, suffering, fetishism E-Book

J. R. Reichel

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 208

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The life story of a woman who was abused as a small child. She was still too young to understand what was happening to her. The events were anchored in her subconscious. A few years later, it caught up with her in a bitter way. After recognizing it, she closed her heart. She was met by a great love with an even greater secret. She did not realize what it meant when a man said "I am a fetishist", what significance this word has in the lives of lovers. But she was to find out ...

Leseprobe

Prologue

The life story of a woman who was abused as a small child. She was still too young to understand what was happening to her. The events were anchored in her subconscious. A few years later, it caught up with her in a bitter way. After recognizing it, she closed her heart. She was met by a great love with an even greater secret. She didn't realize what it meant when a man said "I'm a fetishist", what significance this word has in the lives of lovers. But she was to find out ...

Part I

1950-1982

My name is J. R. Reichel. I was born on August 25, 1950 in a small village in the Eifel. When I look back on my life today, I see moments, moments, experiences, tragic, emotional, moving, interesting and always beautiful. It's clear that everyone has to carry their own baggage, each in their own personal way.

The house where I was born still stands today, only the inside has been remodeled. There were two large gardens in front of and behind the house, which my mother planted with fruit, vegetables and lettuce. There were large fruit trees with apples, pears and plums as well as all kinds of berries. She also tended her beautiful flower bed. The house was at the top of a hill, there were only nine houses in total and we children from these houses were a rattling bunch.

I had four siblings, a sister who was two years older than me and three brothers who were 10, 13 and 15 years older. So I was the youngest, the so-called baby of the family, but I wasn't treated as such. My brothers tried out the role of father on me.

When I have to describe myself, I always say today that I am an aging girl, because despite everything I have not lost the laughter of a child and can laugh at myself. I can still laugh and cry together.

We children from these houses were a little rascal gang. We still played cops and robbers, the plump sack goes round, clicker, also known as marbles, hula-hoop and wedding in the neighbor's big chicken coop. The bridal veil was an old, large curtain, the bridal bouquet daisies from the meadow. Mother Franziska made us a nice wedding menu consisting of white breadstullen with jam. It was a wedding after all. I doubt whether the children of today still know anything like that.

There was still a lot of snow in winter at that time. We had a big steerable sledge, Hermann, one of the rascals, was the driver and the rest of us children sat on the long trailer. Of course, when we went downhill, we often went into the snow. It was fun, we had fun and at that time it was still possible.

I also had a little sledge just for myself, a one-seater so to speak. One of my brothers had beaten me up terribly, I don't remember why, and then built me this little sledge. I raced down the mountain on it and was happy. When I was cold and hungry, I would go home and my mother would bring me a cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich, which I would eat on the front steps. I remember I was wearing a yellow hat with black stripes. Then I went out into the snow again.

In summer, we children went to the fields with the farmers to bring in the harvest. We made a small campfire and grilled freshly harvested potatoes. They were delicious. Our hands and faces were black from the soot. We looked like little Klabauter men. Then we drove home on the fully loaded cart pulled by two beautiful cold-blooded horses. I remember they were foxes, light brown with a bright, mighty mane.

One afternoon, which didn't end so well for me, my mother sent my sister to the farmer to get milk. She refused and said that my mother should send me. I heard that and complained that now I had to go. Then, of course, I had to go all the more. On the way back, I stumbled on the hill, fell and all the milk flowed down the hill. I came home in tears toand told them about my misfortune. What happened was that people didn't believe me. They insinuated that I had spilled the milk on purpose and I received a severe beating with a wooden spoon. So I was beaten for something I really hadn't done, and I still remember it to this day. This experience would later play an important role and form the basis for a decision I had to make.

Once in my life I prayed a rosary, the first and also the last one I ever prayed. I was about 7 years old. My sister was sick in bed and I was sent to the grocery store. I was in the grocery store and in front of me, under a glass bell jar, were beautiful chocolate kisses. Without permission, I bought 5 pieces, also for my sister, and enjoyed one of them after leaving the store. Just at that moment, one of my brothers came by in his car. He gave me a lift and at home I got another beating for the unauthorized purchase. A large crucifix hung above my parents' marital bed. As an additional punishment, I had to stand at the foot of the bed and pray a rosary loudly in front of the crucifix, of course with bitter tears, and I was listened to. So there was no way of escaping.

Strangely enough, it didn't make me hard, it didn't break me, it made me strong. I have never and will never pray a rosary again.

These are drastic experiences that I have never forgotten, but I have made the best of them. As I said, it made me stronger.

I was a forest and meadow child, loved nature and animals. My father was a hunter, we had a rough-haired dachshund for hunting and a cat. I played the role of mother to this catand took it for walks in the doll's pram. I can still see it all in front of me as if it were yesterday.

In summer, my means of transportation was a small wooden scooter. I was a happy child at the time. However, something happened to me during those years that would later come back to haunt me.

We had a relatively large house with several rooms. I can't remember what the occasion was, but we had a lot of visitors. We all had to move in together so that all the guests could spend the night with us. My mother put me in a room with a man, certainly never dreaming that anything would be done to me that night.

I don't remember how old I was, but I do remember that I didn't go to school yet. I was a little girl, or rather a little child.

My best friend Marianne, whom I called "Mariellchen", was also part of our rascal gang. Although I haven't lived there since 1959, we still have the closest and warmest contact imaginable.

Every year I received a Christmas package from her mother Franziska, who was like a second mother to me. After her death, my friend took over this role and I still get home-baked cookies, a candle and sausage from the Eifel. Who can say that they still receive Christmas parcels from their old home at the age of 72? My paths lead me to her again and again and there is always a bed ready for me. It's so enchanting and I'm grateful for it.

We also did some fun things. When Mariellchen and I were out and about in the village, we came to the villagechurch. It wasn't locked, so we decided to go into the church to preach in the pulpit. There was no one else in the church and one of us sat in the pew and the other went up to the pulpit and preached. Of course we didn't pray, we just talked nonsense. Today I can still see us standing in the pulpit and preaching. It still gives us a hearty laugh today.

We children had to go to confession every 4 weeks. What nonsense, what should children always confess? After confession was compulsory for us, we decided to say at the next confession: "I lied, I stole and I pulled the cat's tail." We did not confess that we had preached in the pulpit. The decision was made and was carried out. We already had great ideas, imagine children preaching in the pulpit in a Munich church today. Unimaginable!

In order to make the soul connection of this friendship and the love between us clear, I'll start a little earlier. It was 1982 and I was very ill in hospital. Mariellchen was on vacation with her husband Rainer and said to him "we have to go home, repack our suitcases", she had to go to Munich, something was wrong with me.

Completely unexpectedly, because she didn't know I was ill, she stood by my bedside. A neighbor she had asked knew where to find me. She wept bitter tears and I asked her to take me home when I died and look after my grave in return for my sports car, a Triumph Spitfire. She sat by my bedside for a week and we laughed and cried bitter tears. But I managed it and we were both happy again. When we see each other, tears of joy still flow today. She is and remains a treasure and deeply anchored in my heart.

We moved to the city in 1959 and a different life began here. Being a child was over. My parents opened a restaurant and of course it was now kitchen duty. After school, we had to put our satchels in the corner and work in the kitchen. I had an hour of free time, from 2.30 pm to 3.30 pm. Then the following happened:

We had a sports festival at school and there was a riding stable next to the sports facility. I had passed all my exams and went to the stables. I will never forget it. There was a beautiful black horse in the anteroom to the riding hall, I went up to him and stroked his nostrils. I spent quite a while with this beautiful horse, when suddenly an old gentleman came out of the background, saw me and said: "Girl, you have to learn to ride." It was his horse, called Swallow, and my love of horses was born.

The question for me now was how I could manage to learn to ride, after all it cost money. Asking my parents was impossible. And I only had one hour of free time, then it was back to kitchen duty. Good advice was expensive.

Back then, in 1961, our employees were already paid DM 8 per hour. A riding lesson cost 5 DM, I worked about 8 to 10 hours a day, even more at the weekend, as I didn't have school on Sunday. I also cleaned the restaurant, the buffet and the toilets with my sister on Sundays. I was often out on the street at 3 a.m. cleaning the entrance.

The riding lesson cost 5 DM and I gave myself an hourly wage of 0.50 DM. So from Tuesday to Friday I always took 5 DM from the till. I said to myself,I'm not stealing, I'm just taking my meagre wages for hard work.

But now there was still the question of time, because I would need another hour of free time to be able to take a riding lesson at all. A 20-minute bike ride to the riding stables, a riding lesson from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., so I could be back on kitchen duty at 4.30 p.m. on the dot. As expected, my enquiry about an additional free hour was unsuccessful. I had no other choice, I refused to work.

My mother and I both persisted. No one could get me to lift a finger.

One of our employees took pity on me and told my mother that if she didn't give me another hour off, she wouldn't come back to work for us. The battle was won, my perseverance had paid off. Now I had my free hours from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm. I cycled to the riding stables, from 3.00 pm to 4.00 pm I went to my riding lesson, so I was back in the kitchen at 4.30 pm on the dot. That's how I lived my life, school, work, horses. They were my world and my support. Of course, it was an escape into another world, but it allowed me to survive. When I earned my first money, I didn't take another penny out of the till.

Then came a day at school that hit me in the depths of my soul. I was about 11 or 12 years old. Back then, it was still common for us to be educated at school.

It was like a slap in the face and instantly hit me in my deepest soul. I realized what had happened to me as a small child. Shocked, I put my hands in front of my face and the movieof the abuse played over and over again in front of my eyes. I was paralyzed, could hardly breathe and felt like I was suffocating. I could smell his alcoholized breath again, which he was panting into my face. It wasn't my father, he would never have done something like that. He would have shot the perpetrator if he had found out.

It was disgusting, sickening, painful, kept fighting me back, but the perpetrator wouldn't let me sleep. I kept drying myself with my nightgown, lying down, away from him.

But he kept pulling me towards him so that I had to lie close to him from the front or with my back. I realized that it was his penis with which he had repeatedly and painfully tormented me.

I didn't have a chance until the perpetrator had completed his ritual, and not just once. He tortured me all night, again and again. I suffered it all again at that moment, over and over again. It was a huge trauma that had hit me.

What chance does a little girl have?

There is only one answer: none, it has no chance.

Who can believe it, who can understand it, that a little girl anchors the event in her subconscious and is confronted with it hard as nails a few years later. The subconscious is unpredictable, cannot be manipulated and is honest at the crucial moment. Triggered by some situation, it will come forward at some point. Then you have the choice of breaking it or working through it in order to be able to live happily after all.

I had realized what had happened to me that I hadn't been able to explain as a small child. I remembered my mother getting me out of bed in the morning - I was wearing a nightgown with little colorful flowers - and I wanted to tell her something from the night, but I couldn't, I didn't know what to say, I didn't understand what had happened to me during the night.

I remember my mother looking at my nightgown and I think she suspected abuse. She couldn't ask me, I was still too little. "I didn't wet the bed", I wanted to say, but I didn't, I hadn't wet the bed either.

I was afraid she would scold me for wetting the bed. What an irony of fate. Thank God she didn't. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say. I couldn't explain what had happened that night.

The movie of the abuse played over and over in front of my eyes and it became the hardest walk home from school that I can remember.

Silently, as if paralyzed, I made my way home, as I was on kitchen duty and could barely walk, sat down on a small wall, paused and asked myself: "What should I do now?" I realized that if I told this at home now, I wouldn't be believed, I would certainly be accused of lying and I would get a beating. I had already been beaten once for something I hadn't done, but I hadn't been believed and had been accused of lying. My thoughts went back to the incident with the milk, which I hadn't spilt on purpose, but had been accused of doing so.

I had no choice but to keep quiet, because they wouldn't believe me after all, after all, several years had passed.

But at that moment, I swore to God with a clenched fist that no man would ever be allowed to use me again. That was my plan and my heart closed with this vow. Sadly, I continued on my way home, as I was on kitchen duty. I repressed the experience in order to survive and not be broken by it. But it was to catch up with me again.

After another 10 years or so, in 1973, my parents gave up the restaurant and I continued my professional training. I wanted to be free, never to be dependent on a man and went to work in the big city, building my own little world. I had friends, but they couldn't touch or reach my heart. I didn't know why, I didn't realize that I had built a protective wall around myself. Later I realized that I couldn't love because I had closed my heart with my vow. But it was to be a hard road that led me to feel that I could love and what it meant to love.

Then a man came into my life, the love of my life. I trusted him so much and opened my heart, I believed him. My friends had often told me in the years before that I was polite, correct, but that I had a wall around me, that people couldn't really get close to me. It was true, but this man had broken through my protective wall. For the first time in my life, I had opened my heart. I gave him all the love I had denied him for so long.

The great loves usually end sadly, as did mine. Nevertheless, it was important for me to recognize myself. When it was over, I no longer understood the world.

After a year of grief and despair that I couldn't cope with, I sat down and started writing. I didn't know it was going to be a small book, I only realized that afterwards.

Please forgive my reactions and behavior, but they were the reactions of a wounded soul crying out for help, healing and love. I had the choice between living and dying, which I didn't realize at the time.

It was 1982 when I wrote a retrospective diary. I made up the names and places, but the text and the experience are verbatim.

Part II

Exactly one year has passed since it all began. But I feel as if what began so beautifully on March 11, 1981 was only yesterday. It's not just today that I remember and think about this experience; I have done so again and again since it ended and will certainly do so more often.

Why, I ask myself? Why can't I just say: "What's the point, over, done, over?" No, I can't because I'm trying to understand him and myself. I want to find out why we both acted the way we did. Today, as I relive all of this in my mind, I want to try to capture this experience with all my memories and feelings from yesterday and today and perhaps find a result. Self-criticism should not be ignored either.

Today I see many things differently, words sound different and have taken on a different meaning.

When I look around my small apartment, I see certain objects that remind me of happy times. Moments when I can say that I was very happy. But what do I have left? A bottle of French wine, his eau de toilette and mine, the lighter he gave me, two beautiful dresses, the underwear, the bikini. When I look at all this, I'm overcome with sadness and I think, oh my God, what have I got from these things? Nothing? Yes, something remains, the memory of him, whom I loved so much, and then I think, what was it that I experienced?

I have met Peter, as I would like to call him in my story, before. I have Bonny, my girlfriend, to thank for the fact that we met at all. It was in the summer of 1980 when she recommended him to me as a good dentist. I called him and asked him if he would take over a treatment I had started, as I was not satisfied with the dentist I had consulted at the time. During this first conversation, I already had a feeling of security and trust. There was something like magic between us. At the time, I didn't know what deeper meaning this had for me. I was dying to see this man. The feeling of security he had given me on the phone, he also gave me during the treatment. At the end, I promised him I would see him again in six months' time, but I never did.

Then came 11.3.1981. On Sunday, 8.3.1981, I spent the afternoon with my horse "Flämmchen", called "sweet bunny". I loved my horse, he was my everything. His upkeep had become very expensive over the last few years. But I fought for him because I wanted to keep him. Knuffi, my little dog, a mixture of dachshund and poodle, accompanied me wherever I went.

I hadn't been feeling well for quite some time. I was losing weight and in reality no longer had the strength I was showing on the outside. But I didn't want anyone to know. Now I also had a toothache. I thought that if they didn't go away tomorrow, I'd better call Peter, who was still Dr. M. to me at the time. The toothache stayed.

On Monday, first thing in the morning, I called the practice and was able to come straight away. My pain wasn't actually so bad that I couldn't bear it, but I wanted to see him and I thought, if you're with him, everything will be fine.

I left my office much earlier than usual and even earlier than I should have, because I wanted to go home to make myself beautiful. Today I ask myself why? I didn't consciously want to please him, I just wanted to go to him for treatment. I put on a wine-red bouclé suit and set off. It was almost 40 kilometers to his practice and I was looking forward to seeing him again. Too bad, I thought, I can't even greet him properly because I had injured my right hand while riding and it was swollen and sore.

I was there far too early, but that didn't matter to me. In the meantime, my toothache had intensified and the waiting time seemed much longer than it actually was. Then I was called into one of his consulting rooms. I went in, but he wasn't there yet. I took a seat and waited. When he stood in front of me and greeted me very warmly, I also responded very warmly. He asked me about my complaints and said that it should be over after the treatment. If not, the pain would return after three days at the latest and I should come in immediately.

He took his time and started talking to me about riding and my horse, because he knew I had one. When the treatment was finished, I got up to say goodbye to him and told him to please excuse me for not being able to say goodbye to him properly, but I had hurt my hand. I gave him my left hand and said that it came from the heart.

He looked at me in horror, took my injured hand and said that he would have to take a look at it. He said that it wouldn't look good. It could be broken. He told me to go to theorthopaedist immediately afterwards to have an x-ray taken, and I had to promise him that I really would. He looked at me from the side with his dark eyes and said: "It must have happened while riding, right?" I cheated at him and said, "No, I tripped over a phone cord." I had no reason to cheat, nor did I know why I did it. But how did he know straight away that it had happened while riding? In any case, I promised him I would see an orthopaedist straight away.