It's a room upstairs over a very old-fashioned kitchen, it always had a smell of boiling cabbage and bacon and stale beer. It might have been in the back of a pub but I truly don't know.
The first time here, I was led upstairs, there was a stairs with a door at the top of it. It opened straight into the room which had a single metal-framed bed, mattress and a cross on the wall over the bed. The only window was high up over the bed. During the summer some light came in there but it was mostly lit by a single bulb hanging from a wire in the ceiling, very badly lit too, lots of shadows and dark areas. There were never any sheets, pillows, or anything else on the bed. There was often a basin of water and a towel at the foot of the bed but that was not for my use.
On the very first time I was given a drink of what tasted like diluted orange, I assume something was in it because I woke up at home in my own bed in the middle of the night, tears streaming down my face from the pains all over my body. I was bruised all over, I had small cuts and grazes everywhere, every movement of every muscle hurt. I was left alone for a few days until the worst of it subsided.
It wasn't always like that, when walking into the kitchen area, I would look at who was there but making sure nobody knew I was taking it all in. There were usually 3 or 4 people there. I learned that certain people liked me awake but restrained to the metal bed frame. Others wanted me knocked out cold. It always took me days to get over these events. Some of the participants would beg for forgiveness looking at the cross while they did their worst, laughable. Some would try to build a relationship and want you to call them names and make them feel like gods.
One person would always give me a lollipop after the event if I was awake, my father always said "What do you say?" and I would obediently say "Thank you.". Holy fuck, isnt that insane?
To this day I dont know where that property was, I have no reference points to it. But I can remember the smells and the stains on the mattress very clearly. It was evident to me even at a young age that I was not the only person that it was used for. Sometimes I would scratch a mark onto the wall if I was alone in between visits, (3 parallel lines, 45 degrees left to right about an inch long). Someone else would sometimes make a mark on the wall, I know of 2 I saw a few times. It made me fell less alone, like it wasnt all my fault, there were others. I think about those people, were they boys or girls, did they survive.