This story is mine and it's true.  I reserve all rights to it.
Please don't repost or do anything with it unless you get my
permission.

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out a typo, drop me an email at twylamarie @ ymail.com.  I
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He pointed a gun in my face and said "You'll take your last
breath tonight."

Obviously, it wasn't true or I wouldn't be here, but a thug in a
black ski mask said this to me when he and a buddy were robbing
the grocery store I was working at. They had us (there were four
of us) in the back room and one had a gun pointed at us at all
times.


It was about 2AM and they were trying to get us to tell them the
combination to this stupid little safe they had and none of us
knew it. It said so right on the door of the safe - "Employees do
not have combination." We also told them so. They didn't believe
us or were just sadistic assholes, so they decided to torment us
and see if anyone would give up the goods.

They had already beaten a bit on Barry the night manager before
they started on me. He was all of about 22 and looked like a
pimply stock boy - I don't think they even knew he was the
manager. He was bleeding from his ear where they had hit him with
the side of a gun grip and it tore his skin  His eye was black
and swollen. (Later, when they took him to the hospital, they
found a crack in the bone around his eye socket.)

I think they actually beat him first just to scare me.  I was the
oldest looking one there and I think they thought I was actually
the night manager. If they were trying to get my attention it
worked - I was scared to death and shaking like a leaf. I would
have given up the combination to the safe if I had known it. I'd
have given up anything to get out of there alive. No doubt.

I was taken into a different room by the big mean one - an office
where the owner's wife did the bills during those rare times when
she wasn't reading movie magazines off the shelf.  Once there,
the robber slapped me in the face repeatedly - so many I lost
count and almost lost my consciousness. Then he threw me into a
wall by my hair.

(Some of it came out in his hands and I still have a small bald
spot near my right ear though only I probably notice it.)

Next, while I stood there stunned, he started adding molestation
to the violence.  He grabbed at and rubbed my boobs roughly and
ran his hand down the front of my panties after unbuttoning my
fly and unzipping the zipper. When he tore my blouse and tried to
get it off my shoulders, I realized what was happening through
the fog of pain.  I recovered enough to resist him and pull away
at least temporarily.

That really got him mad and he started whispering while he hit
me, telling me he was going to "take what he wanted" and then
kill me for being uncooperative. He called me a lot of ugly names
- told me ugly things he was going to do.

He pushed me back into the wall again and stood back - I think to
enjoy his handiwork.  I was a mess.  When I moved my hands up to
block him from seeing into my torn blouse, he told me not to
bother to be shy because the `fun" was just beginning. Then he
pinned me to the wall with his body and started pawing around on
me again.

I resisted and squirmed when he was trying to shove his hand down
my pants. I even tried to bite his nose since his face was so
close that I could.  I screamed at the top of my lungs and spit
at him and swung my fists though he took the blows like they were
nothing. (I wasn't very strong.)

In return he hit me hard with a closed fist into my stomach and
when I bent over from the blow he kicked me so hard one cheek of
my ass was black and blue for weeks.  It took my breath away and
I sat bent over crying until his demands for me to stand up got
too loud to ignore.

When I straightened up, he put the gun right up to my mouth -
actually slightly into my mouth - and calmly told me to stop
fighting or I would be dead. That simple. He waited for that to
sink in, and then gave me instructions to take my pants down and
bend over the desk.

He stepped away to make room and I could tell he expected me to
comply.  I really do think he was capable of murdering me because
he was so violent, but I was crying and irrational and just
refused to do it. I didn't say no. I just didn't move.

It wasn't bravery at all. It was anything but that - I just
wasn't thinking clearly. If I had thought about what I was doing
I probably would have done exactly what he said and who knows
what would have happened.

Instead, I just became his punching bag again - this time with
closed fists into my stomach and slaps to my face.

I had been with my attacker for about 10 minutes - being beaten
and bullied the whole time - and thought for sure he was going to
eventually rape me and probably beat me to death too when his
partner called for him.  My molester grabbed me by the hair on
the back of my head and pulled me back to the group.

When I got back to where they were holding the others, all my
coworkers saw my torn blouse and that my pants were open and my
panties were ripped at the top. (The robber didn't rip them -
they had got tangled up in the dryer and I just couldn't afford a
new pair.)  Also I was crying pretty hard and so they put two and
two together and figured I had been raped.  The look on their
faces was somewhere between panic and rage. 

(At the time there was a dark joke going around that if you raped
a girl it was better to kill her after since the Iowa laws gave
greater penalties to rapists than killers. I know - not funny,
right?  But that's the way it was.  Rapists got life and killers
got out after about 20 years.)

I think the guy's partner thought he'd raped me too, because at
first he looked pissed at my attacker.  It was very intense and
felt like something really bad was going to explode between them.
It brought up the fear factor considerably because now we had
two guys with guns mad at each other - but after some whispers
between them and some sour looks nothing more was said.

A few minutes later, the other robber - the one who hadn't
molested me - started saying things about getting his turn maybe.

(In the end he never even touched me - but every time either one
of them moved my direction I flinched and feared the worst.)

They finally left after about 50 minutes. I think they were
getting nervous because they had been there for a while and it
was a 24 hour store.

They didn't know it but we only really stayed open 24 hours
because we stocked shelves at night and so we were staffed up for
that anyway. We saw maybe 30 customers on an average on our shift
and most of them towards the morning around 6AM when they were
awake but the big chain grocery store on the highway wasn't open
yet. They could have taken their time and tortured us all night
if they had wanted to.

During the time after my beating, the one guy who had tried to
rape me went back to menacing us while the other cleaned out the
register and filled some bags with cigarettes.  (The cigarettes
were certainly worth more than the change money we kept in the
register at night.)

Periodically he would hit one of us for no reason hard and
constantly told us we were going to die if we didn't give up that
safe combination. For his sick fun, he also repeatedly told me to
get on my knees and blow him (I didn't) and also grabbed my bra
and tried to tear it off me right in front of the others.  It was
a support bra that was built like armor, but it hurt so bad when
the straps tore into my arms that they left welts and he did
manage to get it far enough off my chest that I was exposed
completely a few times.

I was hanging out of my blouse when the other robber came back,
and he said some pretty crude things to me that I could never,
ever repeat to anyone - not even the cops when they took my
statement. What I will say is that he was going to take me with
him when they left so he could "fuck him some white girl ass" and
that I would never want to leave once I'd gotten a taste of his
big cock but that was okay because he would share me with his
buddies (If that's the part I'll share - imagine what the rest
was like.)

When the time came, they actually got out of there quickly and
made no attempt to get me into the car, which I was so relieved
about I actually thanked them.  Once they were gone, all of my
co-workers surrounded me like I was the only victim, though they
were all beat-up pretty horribly. I was crying so badly that it
took a minute to let them know that I hadn't been raped, though I
really don't think they believed me.

(The cops didn't either and repeatedly requested I submit to a
medical exam - which I didn't do for a lot of reasons. Mostly
because I had so many illegal drugs in my system it probably
would have set off alarms.)

The asshole thug had been fond of using his fist on the guys
mostly and all of them had black eyes, broken teeth and bloody
noses. I was actually less hurt than they were, but they didn't
know that and couldn't stop repeating how sorry they were that
they didn't protect me more.  Barry was crying and I felt so bad
for him and all of them really.

None of us made a move to call the cops immediately - we were
really all in shock - but eventually one of us got worried they
might call back so he found a working phone. (The ones in the
office had all been torn out of the wall and this was before cell
phones were common.)

The most awkward part of the story was that we had to call the
cops, and all of us had been smoking a joint about 10 minutes
before the robbers stormed in. (Manager included. We would never
have won "employee of the year" awards any of us.) We all swore
that we wouldn't tell the cops about being high before they got
there, but they questioned us separately and we were all worried
the other people would tell.

Instead, we all just said we were very, very frightened which was
true - though the cops knew Barry and I by reputation and
actually asked us if any "drugs were stolen." (This store didn't
have a pharmacy nor stock anything stronger than aspirin - but we
were already suspects because of our history with the cops.)

Yes, we were beat up, but in the end there was nothing very
serious. Other than Barry's cheek, everything healed pretty well
on all of us. (Barry had a scar which actually improved his
appearance since it helped to re-arrange his baby face.)   A few
of the guys got some dental work done that also improved their
smiles.  It could have been a lot worse.

During the robbery and abuse, my co-workers saw by breasts and
heard the horrible things the robbers said to me.  For some
reason that felt like rape in a way and I took it very hard at
the time. I had been "date raped" before - basically by guys who
took advantage of me when I was too drunk or drugged to say no -
so I was no stranger to the feeling of having been sexually used
I guess, but this was just completely different.  It was so
violent and ugly. I felt so violated.

I had actually been pretty good friends with a few of these guys,
and the way they cared for me in the wake of the attack should
have drawn us closer, but after the hold-up we drifted apart
pretty quickly. I felt so bad about that, but it was impossible
to see them and not think of the attack and all the pain and
humiliation.

One of the other stockers on the job that night was an older guy
and acted all tough and superior all the time because he was
"more mature" than us.  We found out he peed his pants during the
attack which we teased him about even in the police station and
hospital. He left and we never saw him again ever - not even at
the follow up questionings at the police station.

Truth be known though, I would have peed mine too but had just
gone and hadn't drank anything.  I felt bad when he left. I think
we all did.

Barry quit the store, moved back in with his parents and I hear
he went back to college. He was one of the last people that I saw
before I left town for good and he seemed like he'd been "scared
straight."  I know he never got high with us again after that
night - I think he found God or something too.

The last stock boy was a younger guy named Clyde who kept working
for the store but got awful quiet after the robbery.  He was
probably the least hurt of all of us, but seemed to take it the
hardest of all the guys.  I know he started hitting the bottle
hard but they never fired him when he got to work late or not at
all, at least not while I still lived in town. That owner had a
little class (very little) anyway.

I tried to keep the job, but there were just too many memories so
I quit the store and went back to living on my savings which were
pretty substantial actually. (My boyfriend would always peel me
off a few hundred dollars whenever he had done a big drug deal
and I almost never spent the money. It added up after a while.)

With my new freedom from employment I took up cocaine and
narcotics as a full time profession for the next few seasons. I
think that night and a few trips I took to the police station for
follow-up questions were the only times I was close to sober for
months.  I buried the pain and memories under a pile of blow and
pills and that worked after a fashion.

They never caught the guys who robbed the store. I often wondered
if they were people we had seen before, or maybe even knew us. 
But if they had "cased" the store carefully we probably would
have been hostages back there for hours as they would have known
the store didn't get much business.  I doubt we would have lived
though who knows. They could have killed us any time. I might
have "only" been raped - "only" being a word that a detective
used when explaining that most robberies don't end in murder -
and I don't know how I would have handled that.  I've had friends
that were victimized and it leaves scars that no one can fix. I
probably would have killed myself.  I really think I would have.

I don't like to think about this much, but did so I wrote it
down. Sometimes that helps me when I have bad memories I want to
erase from my mind.