The Last Black Unicorn(13)

Foster Boy: “You wanna play with my dick? You want to play with my dick?”

Tiffany: “What the hell? What the hell is this?”

I freaked out and start running through the house, calling out to Foster Mom to get him.

Tiffany: “He out here naked! He out here naked!”

Foster Boy: “Stop being a snitch. Don’t be a snitch. I’m gonna fuck your shit up.”

Then she tried to blame it on me!

Foster Mom: “Oh, you tell this little boy to be naked like this?”

Tiffany: “I ain’t tell that little boy to be naked. He’s running around here with condoms on his dick. I don’t know what that’s about.”

She slapped me in the mouth.

Foster Mom: “Don’t be saying dick.”

Really? This eight-year-old running around naked with a condom on, and she’s worried about my language?

She told him to put on some clothes and stop playing.

The next day, that boy and the other boy started to make water balloons, right? Except all they had was condoms to make them with. Foster Mom was gone when they did this, and they started throwing these water balloons at me. Water-filled condom balloons.

I wanted to beat them up so bad, but I didn’t. I just cleaned up the mess and threw all them condoms away. Threw out the condoms and told them to stop playing games.

She came back, and later that night, she found the condom drawer empty.

FosterMom: “Oh, you fucking, huh? How you fucking this many people that fast? What is you doing? Are you a ho?”

Tiffany: “No, I’m not a ho! They made water balloons. They was throwing them at me.”

FosterMom: “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wait till I tell your social worker. Wait till I tell your social worker.”

I guess she never told, ’cause nothing ever happened.

When school started back up, I was still living there. One day Foster Grandpa caught me in the bathroom, putting toilet paper in my little training bra I had.

Foster Grandpa: “What are you doing?”

Tiffany: “Ah, just putting some tissue in my shirt.”

Foster Grandpa: “Why you doing that?”

Tiffany: “?’Cause all my friends, they got big boobs and I want to be like my friends.”

Foster Grandpa: “Well I can help you make your titties grow.”

Tiffany: “You can?”

Foster Grandpa: “Yeah, just let me suck on them every day. If you let me suck on them, they’ll grow.”

So, I started letting this old-ass man suck on my titties every day when I was thirteen.

He never tried to touch my cootchie or nothing. He just would suck on my titties for fifteen minutes before I left for school. Then I’d go to school.

When I was nineteen, I was hanging out with one of my girlfriends, and she was like:

Friend: “Yeah, I’m going to get a boob job.”

Tiffany: “I don’t know. I probably should get a boob job too, maybe.”

Friend: “Or maybe we get somebody to suck on our titties every day until they grow.”

Tiffany: “Oh that don’t work.”

Friend: “How do you know it don’t work?”

Tiffany: “?’Cause I did that shit when I was thirteen years old.”

Friend: “What do you mean, you did that when you was thirteen? I thought you didn’t lose your virginity until you was like sixteen, seventeen?”

Tiffany: “I didn’t, but this was different. This old man that was in my foster home, he would suck on my titties every day before I’d go to school, and it didn’t do nothing. They didn’t grow or nothing. They still the same size.”

Friend: “Bitch, you was molested?”

Tiffany: “Wait, what?”

I had no idea I was molested. In my mind, “molested” meant somebody hurt you in some kind of way. Like, they took something from you that you didn’t want to give. And what that old man did never hurt. It didn’t necessarily feel good, either, it was just whatever. And he never tried nothing else with me, not even once. It was just like—in my mind—he was helping me out.

Look, obviously I can see now that this was messed up and absolutely was molestation. But at the time, I had no clue I was being molested. Even at nineteen, I had to have this pointed out to me.

I used to talk about it onstage all the time, ’cause parents say, “If somebody touch your private parts, or if somebody hurt your pee-pee, or if somebody pushed their private parts on you, you tell somebody.”

But that man never did any of that. I never saw his penis. I never touched his penis. He never tried to make me touch him, and he never tried to touch my privates. He just sucked on my titties every day. And he wasn’t even like, telling me not to tell anyone. I just never said anything, because I thought he was hooking me up. I thought he was helping me out.

I guess maybe we gotta update what we tell kids—that old men sucking your titties is also molestation.





Belonging


As a young kid, it didn’t feel like nobody cared about me or protected me (except for my grandma). It didn’t feel like anybody gave two fucks about me, unless it was benefiting them. Unless they was getting paid. Unless it was making them look good in some kind of way. Me just being myself was never good enough for anyone to love me.