Chapter Thirty six
Mandy started life as Samantha Colleen Giacobone. The Colleen was for her grandmother on her father’s side. Her father often told her what a beauty her grandmother was and that she looked just like her. Samantha enjoyed being a beauty. Until the age of ten, she led a fairytale existence. Her mother and father doted on her almost to the point of idolatry. She was given everything a child could dream of. She had total run of the house and if a servant should fail to do her bidding their service would soon be terminated.
She roamed freely over the estate, usually in the company of a massive German shepherd named Victor with a nanny hovering near by. She would gather frogs and polliwogs from the stream that ran across the back of the estate. If the nanny were to admonish her for wading with her shoes on, Samantha would soon put her in her place. After all, daddy would buy her new ones and she already had more than she could ever possibly wear out. Never the less the nanny had trouble holding her tongue. She abhorred waste and she was well aware that Samantha’s shoes cost more than her weekly stipend. She was also aware that she would be berated for allowing the shoes to be ruined, but she wouldn’t be fired. She after all knew her place and her place was not to discipline the child, or for that matter even instruct her. Her place was to tend to the child’s needs and to save her if need be from her own foolishness.
Her mother had turned one of the rooms over the garage, that had been intended as servant quarters, into a playroom. It was replete with child-sized furniture including half-sized working appliances. The kitchen counters were designed to accommodate a person of approximately four feet in height, as were the cupboards. The room contained a stereo, television and her own telephone line. There was also a computer equipped with high-speed internet service.
Her birthday parties were social events for both children and adults. Everyone who wanted to be in her father’s good graces came and brought their children. That included not only the higher echelon of the criminal element but also a goodly portion of the legitimate tradesmen of Toledo. For certain it included most of the local politicians.
When she was ten, almost eleven, her father came into her playroom where she was reading celebrity magazines. It wasn’t unusual for him to come there, but this time she thought he was acting odd. After a short time, he began to fondle her, not in the usual way, but a way that made her uncomfortable. He told her that this was how grownups played. By the time he left the room Samantha was disheveled and had tears running down her cheeks. After he left the room, she ran to find her mother and told her all about it. Her mother told her that she was imagining things so she went to her nanny. Samantha was not accustomed to being ignored.
The next day the nanny was gone and when Samantha asked about her, she was told the nanny had quit. When Samantha asked when she would get another nanny, she was put off. Eventually she was told that she was too old to need a nanny. The fondling continued and soon her father started giving her nightly baths. It wasn’t long after that he started bathing with her and Samantha was required to help him wash his private parts. Although she found this disgusting, especially once he began ejaculating while she washed him, she got used to the ritual. However, she always took a shower after their shared bath. Then on her twelfth birthday he came to her room at night and raped her.
This was much worse and she went to her mother again. This time she was told that she was growing up and that there were certain things that a woman had to endure.
“Your father is a very powerful man that takes what he wants. That is just the way it is and there is nothing either of us can do about it. If we try, we will lose everything we have. You are going to have to learn to live with this the same as I have.”
Samantha did learn to live with it after a fashion, but he frequently did things that hurt and the longer it went on the angrier she became. Shortly after it started, Samantha began plotting revenge. She had been in control her entire life and did not care for this shift of power in the least. She also could not understand how her father, who had provided for her every whim for so many years could suddenly decide to torture her this way. Neither could she understand how her mother could tolerate this situation.
Samantha hated her mother every bit as much as she did her father. She assumed that her mother was all right with the situation because it meant that he would leave her alone. It never occurred to her that her mother was jealous of her.
What Samantha didn’t know was that her mother was far too terrified of her father to stand up to him. She was sure that if it came to divorce she would be left penniless and would lose her daughter too boot. She suspected that if it came down to paying her off or eliminating her, she might just disappear. One thing she knew for certain, he would not give up his daughter easily and he was a very powerful man with few scruples. It had been made clear to her not long after their wedding day that she was property, and not awfully valuable property at that. However, as long as she didn’t overly assert herself she was treated, if not lovingly, at least amicably.
Although she would never admit it, she had married for the money anyway. As long as she had the house, the cars and the credit cards she could live with a loveless marriage. There were plenty of doting men available to a beautiful rich woman and most of them more sexually desirable than her husband.
As for Samantha, she couldn’t comprehend a mother who was doting and protective suddenly withdrawing that protection. She never forgot her mother’s statement about losing everything they had. She made up her mind that if money were that dear to her mother, whatever plan she came up with would include taking away her wealth. When the abuse first started she would hide in her closet to sleep, but when her father found her, he would be angry and the resulting act would be even worse. After a time the pain stopped but the humiliation never did. The body that she had once thought of as warm and cuddly was now a vile obscenity. It was almost more than she could endure to have his blubbery weight pressing her down, even putting aside the other indignities. At first, she thought she would surely vomit, but she came to find that the human spirit can become inured to nearly any circumstance.
She had always been a spoiled demanding child, she now became even more demanding. She found that a woman that was sharing a bed with a man garnered some power from the arrangement even if that woman was his not quite mature daughter. Although her demands in the past had been attention and trinkets, they now became cash or things that could easily be converted to cash. She had come up with a plan and her plan was going to require a large amount of money.
On her thirteenth birthday, she discovered that her mother was having an affair with the yardman. She started watching her mother and keeping track of where she was as much as she was able. It didn’t require great sleuthing skills to discover that her mother was having sex with the yardman at least weekly. The yardman was of Greek descent. He was handsome in a arrogant sort of way and well built. In warm weather he was more often seen without a shirt than with one.
She was almost certain that her mother’s infidelity went beyond the yardman because of things she began to notice at her fathers many parties. She was amazed that her father was seemingly unaware of his wife’s dalliances.
What Samantha didn’t know was that her mother’s infidelities increased drastically after her husband began sharing a bed with his daughter.
This knowledge of her mother’s infidelities brought even more income. Although Samantha stopped short of outright black mail, she made sure that her mother knew that she was aware of her indiscretions. The veiled threat of course was that sharing her father’s bed gave her good deal of opportunity for sharing confidences.
Her dog died when she was thirteen and her father brought home another one. She would have preferred a Poodle or Scottie, but it was obvious that this dog was picked for his guard capabilities rather than for a pet. Of course, so had the last one but as a young child that had not occurred to her. This latest dog was twice the size of a Poodle and it was only four months old. She named him Hugo and decided to dislike him. He, however, worked his way into her affections as only puppies can. He soon was following her everywhere much the same as Victor had. Although Samantha, along with the rest of the household, considered Hugo her dog he was never allowed to sleep in her room and of course neither had Victor. The dog’s main job was to make certain that no one worked their way past the alarms and entered the house while the residents slept.
When she was fourteen she started having sex with any male that would have her, but soon decided this was foolish and would do nothing to get her out of her situation. She settled on a man that worked on the estate because he struck her as not to bright and somewhat brutish. She explained her plan to him and since it didn’t take effect until after she was sixteen he went along. She wasn’t bad looking and had a good body albeit a little plump and she always had money for drugs. He was twenty-two, but wasn’t bright enough to consider the consequences of having sex with an underage girl, especially an underage girl who’s father wouldn’t bother going to the law if he discovered the affair.
She graduated high school just after she turned sixteen and had saved enough money to get by until she was eightteen if they were frugal. A short time later her and her brutish boyfriend, who turned out to be anything but frugal, left the state of Ohio for warmer climes. Within six months, he had gone through what Samantha had planned on lasting them for the two years.
One day while he was out drinking, Samantha went to her stash for money to order a pizza. She discovered that there was less than two thousand dollars left. Although she was aware that he had been spending a lot on booze that certainly couldn’t account for this discrepancy.
When she confronted him about where the money was he told her to mind her own business. He was drunk, as usual, and when she demanded to know how much money they had left, he hit her hard in the face with a clinched fist.
The second her butt hit the floor she decided she was out of there, but not until she got what belonged to her.
He drank until bedtime and fell instantly to sleep. Samantha figured with the amount of alcohol that he’d consumed there, was little chance of him waking up and catching her. When she found out how little was left she was dumbfounded. She searched every inch of the apartment and car before accepting the fact that he had spent all of her money. She took what was left of her stash and what was in his wallet. Before leaving used his knife to slash the sidewalls of all of his tires including the spare. When she finished she tossed his keys in the trunk of the car, closed it and walked away. She would have taken the car but she was sure he would have reported it stolen.
Although she knew there was no way she could stay, she was none-the-less fearful of leaving. She was well aware that she couldn’t get by for long on the money that was left. She was also aware that there were very few ways for a sixteen-year-old girl to support herself. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she thought her best alternative would be to get another man.