This section of this story deals with child abuse. If you find this content disturbing or if you are under the delusion that abuse doesn't exist, leave now. Child abuse does exist and often in this fashion.
Another event that I shall never forget for as long as I live:
For the next couple of days after the funeral, I was extremely pissed off and extremely depressed. Nothing seemed to make sense...everything around me was falling apart. The whole world was collapsing onto me and crushing me. It's surprising that I'd never contemplated suicide, but I didn't. I felt, that despite all that was happening, that there was still a purpose in life. I was still young, just eight years old at the time, and always felt that at some point, I'd be rewarded with something good.
I became very spiritual and would kneel down at my bedside and pray every night to whomever it was who was supposed to answer these prayers before I went to sleep. Some of the other kids in the dorm would make fun of me, but I didn't care. I needed support...any kind of support...for me to carry on the way I was. I prayed for a better future...I prayed for love and for somebody whom I could depend on...someone, anyone, who actually gave a shit about me. I wasn't picky. I wouldn't pray to become supreme ruler of the world or for psychic powers, like those in X-Men, or for anything that was too stupid to come true. Trust me. When you see, with your own two eyes, your own mom being heartlessly poisoned by your so-called "dad", you're never picky about anything.
I just couldn't get that image out of my head. My dad shoving rat poison down my mom's throat...so that he could be with another woman! The woman with my dad at my mom's funeral...I hated her...that whore...she was the reason my mom died! I would often picture her in hell...her flesh burning in the unbearable heat while the demons gnawed on her bones.
I never told this to anybody. Everybody at the Bollittierri Academy knew that my mom died and felt really bad for me...but they didn't know the whole story. I regret, to this day, not having the nerve to tell anybody and just allowing my dad to get away with such an act of sheer heartlessness.
I trained hard that year. My body was getting into amazing shape and I struck the tennis balls with a type of power and a type of abandon and recklessness that I'd never even known existed within me. I would work out tirelessly in the gyms for many hours everyday and go onto the practice courts and crush whoever I was supposed to play that day. My results in the tournaments that I was entered in improved dramatically in the summer of that year.
"Yecheng...relax. You're pushing yourself too hard," my coach would often say, but fitness training and tennis had become my passion...pain had become my joy. I would train like a dog for hours and hours, just as long as I could keep my mind off of my SOB dad and what had happened to me.
For a while, it seemed to work and the summer and fall seasons were filled with amazing results from my competitive play and passed in what felt like a matter of days. But alas, winter break came up and the dorms at the Bollittierri Academy closed. This was a joyous occasion for everybody else...but not for me. I had to go home...to my dad.
The snow was falling, in chunks (something unusual for a tropical environment, like Florida), from the sky and a good friend of mine agreed to give me a ride home. I walked up to my snow-covered house, thanking my friend's mom, and stepped in. From the outside, it hadn't changed at all...it was still the quaint, Victorian-style house that it was the last time I saw it. But when I got inside, I was stunned. The clean, cozy home had become a pigsty. My mom had always kept the house incredibly neat, but now, the once-white walls were stained with gray and yellow. The carpet was soiled with all sorts of shit...as though it were one, big diaper. The food on the counter was moldy and the piano, the TV, and the refrigerator stood buried in a pile of garbage, collecting dust. The entire house reeked of alcohol and smoke, as if some drunkard had been wasting his pathetic life away in it.
I walked up the creaking stairs which, just months ago, had been brand new. The second floor was better...not nearly as filthy, while bearing some miniscule resemblance to the way it was the last time I saw it. The door to my dad's room was closed, so I assumed that he was sleeping in his room. Ha...was I wrong! I slammed the door to my room open, as I always had...and there was my dad! He was in my bed...on top of a woman!
The girl, who I must admit was very attractive, screamed at the top of her lungs, humiliated beyond reason. She grabbed the bedsheets and covered her breasts. My dad looked equally embarrassed and his face turned bright red. I just stood there in the doorway...shocked. It was truly the most disgusting sight that I've ever witnessed in my life, but for some reason, my legs refused to budge. My eyes locked straight onto my dad, but I wasn't looking at him. I was blanking out...I was just so shell-shocked that I felt my organs rumbling and boiling inside of me. I felt a cold sweat on my forehead and my mind suddenly became empty.
"Get the fuck out!" my dad demanded, his face overflowing with fury. I had just snapped back into reality and was about to turn to get out of my room...too late.
"Get the fuck out!" he screamed again...this time with more rage and authority, as he jumped out of bed, not bothering to put his clothes in, snatched me by my neck, and slammed my entire body against the wall with such force that I felt the entire house shudder. I let out a loud cry of pain as his grip on my neck tightened even more. The whole room started spinning and I was desperately gasping for breath, for I felt as though my head would explode from the pressure he was exerting onto my neck.
"Yecheng, you pervert!" he yelled. "You're interested, aren't you!? Interested in your daddy's sex! Daddy's gonna teach ya a lesson today! You better learn it well so that next time, you'll know to keep your ass out of my business!" With that, he pinned me against the wall and slammed his fist into my stomach...then again...and again...and again. The pain was excruciating as I felt the gush of blood bursting through my mouth. His fists never seemed to stop coming. At one point, I thought that he had ripped right through my belly with his fist. But I was wrong, much to my relief.
"Stop it!" cried an angelic, high-pitched voice. That's when my dad's girlfriend jumped out and grabbed my dad's fist. "You're such an asshole! Stop it! He's your own son! He didn't know we'd be in his bedroom!" My dad then let go of my neck as I fell onto the floor, like a sack of potatoes, tearing and gasping for breath. Then, my dad shoved his girlfriend aside, ran for the bathroom and began vomiting for about a whole minute, before passing out. That's when I realized that my dad was drunk. He was drunk all along.
"Baby...are you alright?" said his girlfriend as she ran over to his side and held onto him. I closed my eyes and crept back downstairs, holding onto my stomach. My dad had just split my gut in half, I thought, as it felt like it was being consumed by fire. I sat down onto the sofa and started crying weakly. The tears flowed down my face in torrents, but the sobs managed to can themselves within my body. I was too exhausted to sob. The burn that my lungs felt just didn't let me.
For the next few minutes, I sat on the sofa...unable to speak. I felt like a corpse...unable to grasp what had just happened. My whole body was in shock. My feet felt cold. My belly was burning with pain. My head was swirling and confused. It was then that I felt a deep, indescribable hatred for my dad. First, he killed my mom and now, he'd just beat the shit out of me. Then, I snapped back into reality. The police! That's what I was gonna do! I was gonna call the police...bust his ass...avenge my mom!
I ran over to the telephone and dialed 911.
"Can I help you?" said a kind, feminine voice.
"Come, quickly!" I begged. "I...I have a psycho in this house! He...he just beat the shit out of me and killed my mom! You have to get him...get him quickly!"
"What's your name?"
"I'm Wong Yecheng! I live on 39 Bradenton Avenue! Come quickly...please!"
Within several minutes, the police were knocking on our door. I welcomed them. They took my dad and his girlfriend away and put me in a children's center for a couple of days. I later learned, much to my horror, that after all that was said and done, the court was unable to find any evidence of abuse (haha...dumbasses). Therefore, my father was granted full-time custody of me.
He picked me up from the children's center that day and shoved me into his truck, his face contorted with sheer hatred.
"Don't think that just because I was drunk that I didn't know what you did! You turned me in to the police...almost got my ass busted real bad!" he told me as he was driving me home. "You think what I did to you that day was bad? Just wait 'til we get home! Then, you'll know what pain is really about!" At that point, my own hatred and rage had reached its limit. I didn't care whether or not my dad heard what I had to say or not. I was going to get beaten either way. I knew that I shouldn't have said what was on my mind, but I let loose and everything came out.
"You think I don't know what real pain is?" I snapped back. "After seeing you kill mom with my own two eyes?"
"What!?" my dad stuttered...shocked. "She...she died of coughing!" he lied lamely.
"Bullshit!" I yelled as I spat in his face. "I saw what you did! I saw how you practically shoved that rat poison down my mom's throat...how you'd been keeping her sick all those months, making her last moments on earth a living hell!"
"What...what..." my dad couldn't figure out what to say. He was just too ashamed and too shocked to say anything.
"You know what?" I continued. "You could beat me...maim me...rape me...I don't care anymore. All I know is that I hate you! You're not my dad! I..."
"Shut up, you little bitch!" he demanded as he shoved my fist into my cheek with so much force that I nearly fell off of my car seat and into the car door, as I grasped my swelling face...trying to force back the tears. My dad's face was flustered with anger and shame. "You are to forget everything you just said!" he demanded. "If you dare call the police on me again and tell them anything you just said, I will kill you!" I said nothing more throughout the car trip. Neither did my dad. Tears were streaming down my face, but I was satisfied...satisfied that I got to insult and mentally damage that drunken crackhead. That night, I got the shit beaten out of me.
Life pretty much sucked for the next couple of years. In the beginning, I got abused on a daily basis. My dad would come from the bar every night, drunk as a dog. He'd grab me, as soon as he sees me, and slam me against the wall and would scream and cry as he spasmodically pounded me like a punching bag. Eventually, however, I did find ways to avoid this abuse for days at a time. I would sometimes hide in places where he was too drunk to think of looking or spend the night over at a friend's house or stay in the Bollittierri Academy dorm, which was free after I got that scholarship. But in spite of all this, I would still get beaten up at least five or six times a month.
Two years later, my dad's girlfriend, who I later found out was a bartender at a night club named Sylvia Chen, got pregnant and gave birth to a son on my 10th birthday. I had and still have nothing against Sylvia or her son...I think that they are both decent people who had done nothing wrong. But I couldn't help but feel jealous and angry every time I see the three of them, gathering around the table, chatting happily like any regular family should. My dad spoiled Sylvia's son, giving him expensive gifts for both special and regular occasions that would cost dad his entire month's income or more. I just couldn't grasp why my dad hadn't treated me or my mom the same way he treated Sylvia and her son. He loved Sylvia and adored my "brother." He killed my mom with rat poison and abused me like a punching bag whenever he got the chance. Our "family" had a huge celebration on my 10th birthday...but I wasn't included. I sat in my room, crying...crying that nobody even gave a shit about my birthday. No cake. No candles. No presents. No celebration. I felt worthless. I felt neglected. I felt unloved. I would contemplated suicide several times in the following months, but would ultimately decided against it. Life was a living hell.
I soon realized that I was the only one in this world who could take care of me. I was the only one who loved me and cared about me. If I were to become anything in life...other than a hobo in the streets of New York, I was to make it in the world of professional tennis. I was to be ranked at least in the Top 100 when I turned eighteen. I needed good results from professional tournaments so that I could make enough money to support myself and eventually break away from my dad and all the abuse that I had to suffer. I soon learned how to take care of myself. I'd experimented with and learned how to do many useful tasks in life, such as making appointments, booking plane tickets, negotiation (that's how I got that scholarship), starting bank accounts, managing money, and many other things that preteens weren't supposed to know.
When I turned eleven, I got good enough to play a ITF and semi-professional tennis tournaments ...the traveling gave me time away from my dad. I played on average one tournament per month in places like San Diego, Beijing, Madrid...etc. and had even managed to win a couple of them and the enormous prize money that came with it.
My months of training at Bollittierri's were definitely paying off and I was getting fitter and stronger with each day. As soon as I hit puberty, the muscles on my body just started rippling out, as if from nowhere. By the time I was 14, I was very slim, very fit, and very well-muscled. I was still kind of short, at 5"3, especially for an athlete, but I knew that I would eventually be as big and as strong as people like Andy Roddick or James Blake. Then, I'd show my dad why he shouldn't have messed with me the way he did when I was young.
I was soon establishing a place for myself in the world of tennis. My world ranking in tennis skyrocketed from the low 600's to #246 in the world in 2006. I would soon be good enough to play professional tournaments. And I'd get to meet and perhaps even play against my idol, Andy Roddick.
My big break came, however, in the Spring of 2006 when I received a letter from an old friend...a Chinese government official named Wang Tiangang. In the letter, he told me that I was chosen to represent China in the 2008 Olympics (I was born in China, as were both my parents. We moved to the U.S. when I was three) and that I would train in the Xuzhou Tennis Academy, the Bollittierri's of China, for the summer. This was it! I thought. My big break! An entire summer away from my dad! And to play in Beijing Olympics, no less! I had to seize this opportunity! What kind of idiot wouldn't? So naturally, I accepted. We made the arrangements and after playing a tournament in D.C., I flew to China and met with Tiangang, expecting a nice, abuse-free summer. But what I would end up getting would change my life forever...I landed in Shanghai and was to stay in Tiangang's home for about two weeks...that's when I met...him, Tiangang's son, the love of my life.
The first time I walked into his home and saw Zequin, I was just blown away by the sight that greeted me at the door. He was a year older than me and about 3 inches taller than I was with a very athletic figure. His face was unlike anything I've ever seen...so flawless and so bright. I had never imagined that anybody could look so good. Zequin and I became almost like best friends within the first few days of knowing each other. All of his friends from school were on vacation, so the two of us hung out in downtown Xuzhou almost everyday. We did everything together. We watched movies, hung out at the arcade, went shopping at the mall (they say that shopping is a girlish habit, but it's really fun), swimming in the indoor pools, hockey, basketball, you name it! I was beginning to feel a special attraction to him. I would often find myself staring at him...I liked looking at him. He was like gold to my eyes. At first, I thought that I was staring at him simply because I respected his athletic body and that I was comparing it to my own in terms of muscle tone and thickness. I had always liked to do that with other boys, especially those who I was jealous of. But I soon realized that I wasn't jealous of him. I wasn't comparing his body to mine. I was attracted to him. I felt like Zequin actually cared about me...the first time I felt this way since my mom died. I felt like he genuinely enjoyed my company...he gave me a sense of self-worth and self-respect that I'd never felt in my life.
It was about a week into my stay at his home one night, as we returned from the indoor tennis courts. That night...I had a horrible nightmare in which I saw my dad sneaking up to my mom with a dagger...I woke up, my face drenched in tears, as my body was wrenching from the shock of that dream. That's when de came up onto the bed and put his arm around me and gave me a warm, tingly feeling that I'd never felt before...I guess this was love. Then, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, we were kissing passionately in the bed and all of our clothes came off. I wasn't sure exactly what we did that night...but it made me feel lightheaded and warm...as if I was floating on a cloud, getting drunk with the sweetest wine imaginable. All I remember was the ecstasy and the fact that he was touching me in places that I'd never imagined anybody would ever touch...and it felt good...it felt natural and sweet. Before long, I was basking in the glory of a new feeling...the greatest feeling of my life...orgasm. It didn't take long before I'd realized what we'd just done...we'd just had sex...this was my first taste of love. I'd met my soul mate.
Well, that was basically the story from Yecheng's point of view. Readers...you're in for a treat next chapter...I won't tell you what, you'll just have to keep reading. I accept all comments. If you have any, please email me at aramflag@yahoo.com. Please comment. It motivates me to write better.