Kay Ebling downtown Hollywood California                  

                                                        

Kay Ebeling

California, U.S.A.

I had a baby when I was forty years old; up till then I had a bizarre and unusual life.  Having a baby gave me a focus and I dedicated myself to being a good mom. I picked up and moved to the country in Northern California. I never married and it was just me and the baby. When the baby was two years old I realized I had not stopped drinking and using drugs. Up till then I did not have a reason to quit but once I was living out in the country it was empty and quiet. I got clean and sober for my daughter. For over two years I was clean. When my daughter turned five I started getting neurotic and over-protective. I was going to A.A. meetings and I was bringing this person up from Los Angeles, who was a Catholic Priest to speak at a speakers’ meeting. Everybody was thrilled to hear this man speak. It was a combination of these things; being clean and sober for two years, my daughter turning five, this priest coming and speaking at an A.A. meeting. I could not go to the meeting and I was making one excuse after another. My body froze in pain, I could not move I was totally crippled and stayed this way for about a week. I was just lying in my bed with all this pain. I started remembering it just as I always known something weird had happened. For some reason I did not remember anything before the age of six, it was blank. I have not remembered everything; there are still things in my head that come up. 

I was five the abuse took place in Bartlett, Illinois, about thirty miles from Chicago. We were living in the city of Chicago where I was born, my family moved out of Chicago onto twenty acres of land. My dad was a successful attorney and the house was a mansion. There was a ballroom and a tower, the tower was my playroom. There were three daughters and it was 1949. At the same time we moved the Catholic Church started the parish of St. Peter Damian. St. Peter Damian, a Cardinal in the 11^th century wrote a piece about pedophilia amongst the priests and how it was scandalous. The priests could go to the confessional to confess their sins of pedophilia. 

Fr. Horne came from Chicago and started the church in 1949. My dad was an usher for the church and my mother was an atheist. My mother never believed in the Church. My dad would travel all week and my two older sisters would be in school. I would be home alone with my mother. She was angry because she had this child. She had wanted to use birth control but her Catholic husband would not let her. So if anyone would take me off her hands she was happy. Fr. Horne started hanging around my family. He first started paying a lot of attention to my older sister; she was six years older than me. When she was nine years old he stopped paying attention to her and started going after me. This created sibling rivalry because she liked the attention and so did I. When he stopped abusing her and started with me this created a dynamic that continues to this day. We do not get along, we both ended up being promiscuous, we had no boundaries and we both had a compulsion to do things on camera.

I remember some kind of smoke, I do not know if it was opium or hash, I do know I was stoned during most of the abuse and I know I liked it. I was very aroused sexually and I was five years old. I knew how to masturbate and I was going around showing all the younger kids in the neighborhood how to masturbate.  

Fr. Horne and my mother had a relationship. I walked in on them. My mother was big busted and she was sitting next to him with her blouse and bra open.  Her breast was out and his hands were on it.  I know he was doing something to her. He stayed at this parish till 1974. The parish was bankrupt, because he had blown the money. He died in the 70’s. 

My sister has come forward regarding her abuse and I’ve tried to find a lawyer but most of them tell me it has been too long. Our family did pick up and left suddenly. I stayed clean and sober for many years, but I started using methadone for pain. I think recovering all the memories is over. I think I know enough and that it happened.  The damage it did to me was that, I was a sexual maniac all my life. I did not think there was anything wrong with what I was doing. If I thought your husband was hot I would get him in bed with me. I would joke that I would never be alone with a man without having sex with him. I seduced every guy who was ever in a room with me, in the elevator, men I would meet on the street, I had to do everybody. Fr. Horne taught me how to talk dirty and fantasize in the confession class, while teaching me how to confess. I think he placed ideas in my head about what I was supposed to do with him.  He did the same to my sister. There was this thing about having sex with everybody.

I never did it for money. If there was someone I was not attracted to but who wanted sex and offered money, I would not do it. This was not what it was all about; it was me going after whomever I wanted. I know my entire life women hated me; I never had a female friend. I did not understand why I did not have friends because did not understand what I was doing was wrong; it was something I felt I had to do. I thought everybody else felt the same way, I did not realize I was different.  I thought they all wanted me to do this because I am better at having sex. I never held a job, I never got promoted, even though I excelled and I did my job well. I should have been winning awards and getting promoted but I would always get fired instead. I spent a lot of time in bars. 

I worked my way through University of Texas in Austin; I had to take five science courses to get a degree. I started taking astronomy, because I was attracted to intelligent, fast moving men.  I already had seduced holy men, bishops, preachers and I was in my mid twenties when this professor said something about N.A.S.A. and space.  With this I had to get to N.A.S.A., I worked hard, I took physics and astronomy courses. I got myself the title science writer. N.A.S.A. in Huston created a job for me, everybody knew who I was and they were watching me. I was in a community of scientists, engineers and I went after them all. I started fucking and this was what I came for. 

During the day I would be turning out incredible work, because I am smart, I could grasp these concepts, I could write about physics and science, and make it understandable. I would then show up at the bar and I would fuck three guys before I went home. I did not see anything wrong with this. I had a visible job, everybody knew who I was because my job was editing. I would show up in different departments with my camera and take photographs. I would interview these guys and then fuck them.  After I was there for three months they realized what made a mistake they made in hiring me. Since I was a civil servant they could not fire me; it took them three years to get rid of me. They made working conditions so bad I eventually quit. It was three years of living in turmoil; I could not understand why I was not getting promoted. It did not dawn on me that somebody might be telling my boss about the stuff I was doing at night. 

One time I crashed a party for the astronauts and I showed up in the hot tub doing this thing to one of the astronauts. He did not want me to, but I was a sexual predator and I did not think there was anything wrong. I thought I had this gift that everybody else wished they had. I did not understand why other women would never make friends with me, or why somebody at a party would turn their backs to me. I could not understand there was anything wrong with who I was. I always said inappropriate things because I did not try to hide it. There were no boundaries.

I tried an acting career, I was talented. I think it had to do with P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) I did not just act I would take on the persona of the other person, I was really good.  I screwed this up by making pornographic movies. It was easy money and it helped pay for my acting, singing and dancing lessons. This was in the 60’s and I did not see anything wrong making these movies. I would do this and nobody would find out about it and I would have lots of money. I had to leave Hollywood because I made so many pornographic movies I ruined any chance of being a legitimate actress.

 

I heard of a commune in Laguna Beach and I thought I have to go. I dumped my stuff, hitchhiked to Laguna Beach and joined the commune. I had a compulsion to combine religion, sex and career. This did not work out and I ended back in Los Angeles with a journalism job. I had sex with the boss; we would go to trade shows and have sex with all kinds of people. I was in my mid thirties; the female body is not made to take a lot of penises of different sizes, shapes and rhythms and I was hurting all the time. It hurt when I had sex but it did not stop me. In my late thirties I was living in a part of Los Angeles where you could go and have sex on the streets, it was wide open and nobody was going to stop you. This is where I ended up pregnant from one of those encounters. I look back now on my life and see how painful and degrading this was. It would have been nice to be a normal person. 

I am convinced there is a God, angels and spirits around. These things happened to me when I was five years old. I believe God saw this girl, knew I was going to have a terrible time and he dispatched some angels to watch over me. I have done things, been in dangerous situations where I should have been killed and got out. When I graduated from high school my parents sent me to Europe. I had a job lined up in a bank in Switzerland, but I left there and took a ride to Paris to go fuck. I was a seventeen year old blond from California walking around in Paris by myself looking for guys. I found two guys who took me in, I asked them for drugs and they took me to this house outside Paris. They kept me drugged; I do not know for how long, they just kept fucking me over and over. I realized I was locked in this room and they were having sex with me even when I said, “No.” I was in trouble and they kept me drugged. One day they were gone and I heard them come back.  I was listening to what they were saying. They were speaking French to these two Arab guys, describing me, they were selling me. This was when I realized I was in trouble. They went back out and I got my suitcase full of clothes. I’m lugging this suitcase around the house and all the windows were nailed shut, the doors were locked and I could not get out. I went to the basement; there was a big wash basin and a tiny window that was open. It was the only way out of this place. I had a huge suitcase and I climbed up. I barely squeezed through the window but the suitcase would not come through. I was not going to leave all my clothes behind. Eventually I pulled the suitcase through the window and got out of there.  I went back to Paris and survived. I never told anybody what happened till twenty years later, and it was my secret.

I’m alive in Los Angeles with my daughter; she has heard most of my story. When she turned five years old I realized what happened to me. When she was sixteen years old I would worry about her doing things like I did. I’m very protective of her. When I talk about my past I still get sexually aroused, there is still a monster in me.  Fr. Horne put a monster in me. 

One of the things that happened to me on the twenty acres of land we lived on when I was child, Fr. Horne would take me into the woods on the property. My dad surprised him by selling the house and our family moved into Barlett. One of the first things I did when we moved was jump on my bike and ride over to the church. I was banging on the rectory door, I wanted more, because I liked it. I was excited and sexually aroused and I remember him opening the door acting like he did not know what I was doing there.

We blew his plan and now we were in town. This is when I started interacting with a lot of other kids, I started taking kids up into the tree house and showing them what Fr. Horne showed me how to do. I remember being in the tree house full of kids masturbating. I remember one kid leaving and telling his parents.  After this there was a lot of turmoil. My dad later drove me into Chicago to the archdiocese and we had a meeting with a man everybody called the Bishop. The Bishop came in, talked to me and said, “You have to stop babbling about what Fr. Horne did to you.” I said, “You mean you want me to lie.” He said, “No, sometimes you have to not tell the truth to protect the greater good.” He was very intimidating, I’m sure it was Cardinal Stritch. I’ve seen a picture of him and he was the cardinal at this time. I never talked about it again. I was still aroused and I think this is one of the reasons my family moved from Barlett to Los Angeles. 

I never had a chance for a normal relationship. I had a son, sixteen years older than my daughter, who will not have anything to do with me. His father and I were hippies traveling around together. I came up pregnant twice; usually I would use birth control. In the hippie era I quit using birth control and ended up having a baby. He was a wonderful child. He has a P.H.D. in physics and was mostly raised by his dad. I think he got old enough to realize how screwed up I was. When he had children he made it clear he did not want me around. 

When I was with his father, the issues of having no boundaries, I was in love but that did not stop me from fucking his brothers. After this he did not want me around. He took the baby. I told him, “I wanted partial custody,” and he said, “Just try it.” I thought maybe he would bring up some of the things I did, I did not apply. He did let me visit. They were not mean, they just did not want me around. 

It is hard going through your life being treated like this and not knowing why. I did not think there was anything wrong with what I was doing; I thought everybody was doing it. At five there was this confusion, I use to think there was something special about having sex with me. If I could get a person to have sex with me, they would be more successful and be able to accomplish more things. I know the priest put this in my head about having sex with everybody because my sister was the same way. I think my dad might have had something to do with it as well. 

My mother was vacant she had some kind of ditsy quality. She had been a flapper. My mom had me in her late thirties. The flappers wore the short skirts and were the first liberated women in America. She would stay out late, pose nude and would show me the pictures. She was proud of them. The marriage survived, you did not get divorced in those days. 

Spiritually I read the Bible and listen to inspirational talks, but I cannot say I am a Christian. I do not believe in the religious fundamentalists but I still think the angels were with me. I started working on a blog regarding the sexual abuse by the clergy in Los Angeles. When I started I had no self confidence or self esteem and I was overweight. I started showing up at different trials and writing about the abuse and putting it on my blog. People started reading it and then I would send emails to different advocates on this issue and I would be answered. Up till then I was person who always got fired from every job I had. 

Most of the people in pornography are victims of sexual abuse. I would have rather not had all these compulsions. I think my sister’s way of dealing with her abuse might have been healthier than mine. She just went on to be a topless and bottomless dancer. We did not talk about Fr. Horne until we were older. None of this made any sense. I was a straight A student, I could have been the one with the P.H.D. in physics.  My father was a lawyer and his daughters were turning into prostitutes. 

I am over sixty years old and now I know how to live, to interact with people, and how to ride an elevator without seducing someone. It is a little too late to suddenly have a life. I know I would still have had this brain and had the ability to do a lot of things but  I would not have had the compulsive behavior and been so screwed up.

To other survivors; just trust that there is not always evil, there is some good and some reason I’m still alive. Some reason I became a journalist, I’m still alive and I’ve got a story to write. It is really good for me to get my story out and then let it go.  Remember not to judge each other and try to understand this abuse affected us all differently. 

When I was homeless I ended up at a Christian place, the only place that would take me in. I started going to Bible studies and it woke something in me, that in spite of all this there is a God, and one that wants vengeance, one that is angry about what happened and we are on the right side of justice. 

No matter what church say, you cannot just put pedophile priest rape behind you, it's there all the time. When someone dies, you mourn them, and then go on, but what do you do when it's your own life you're mourning? I lost sixty years and counting, as I was never okay, ever, from age five on, after Father Horne got to me. Now my story is the only asset I've have, and my compulsion for truth makes me keep writing about it, whether I want to or not. If the Church wants the survivors to stop criticizing them, they should fess up to all their sins, in public, with great humility, and do something really magnanimous in amends. Until then, I'm blogging on. www.cityofangels15.blogspot.com