Looking back, some of the red flags probably started when I was real young, though anything obviously sexual didn’t start till later. I was maybe 7 or 8? Something like that, and She wasn’t my babysitter yet, I just knew her as Tracy who was my slightly older cousin Tom’s friend. Tracy was just becoming a tween at the time. She would come over with my cousin sometimes, and she would be all over me, calling me cute and just her type and having me sit on her lap while videogames were being played. I just liked being included with the older kids.

It could all just have been a girl thinking a kid was cute rather than anything that would be a red flag though. I guess I was pretty cute back then, babyfaced and with curly hair and really wide curious eyes. I was also what I would later discover to be her type, a rather pretty boy, androgynous enough that only clothing and attitude gave away my gender. Maybe I found her pretty too, in the way young kids find older girls fascinating. I liked that she seemed so cool and mature, and the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled at me, or that she was so tall for a girl and seemed so strong to me. There wasn’t anything weird about it though, not obviously. For all anyone knew, she just liked to dote on a cute kid and I liked having the attention of a cool older girl.

She was very intimate and cuddly, but nothing happened that anyone would call bad, she just… focused on a few things when she played with me that in hindsight might have meant something. She really liked to play with my feet and toes, and her face would be against my tummy a lot when she gave me raspberry’s, and she wanted me in her lap pretty often. But that could have just been her being playful with me, I don’t know if she always saw me as something to indulge herself with, or if it started innocent. 

Those were things that might have been red flags back then, how much she liked playing with my feet and giving me raspberry's on my tummy. I was very ticklish and always devolved into helpless giggles whenever she did blew raspberry’s on my tummy, but she would do it A LOT, and linger with her face against my tummy. She would also would give my feet kisses after she was done tickling them, or hold onto them and play with them for a bit when she was done. It wasn’t anything too weird at the time but looking back… she might have enjoyed that too much. Already, when she was just getting to know me, she might have been seeing me as something to indulge her tastes with. But even knowing what she will be like later on, maybe it was innocent, she was young too, not that much older than me, and I don’t remember the earliest moments of my time with her very well.

Tracy adored playing with me when I was that little, and I enjoyed the positive attention a lot. Even after I started thinking hugs and kisses from girls were gross, I still let Tracy hug and kiss me and hold me while she played games with my cousin. It just felt normal to me, since she always did it when she came over. It seems like a lot of affection for a young girl to give a younger boy, but she was an only child, maybe she put all her longing for a younger sibling onto me during those years.

My parents loved Tracy though, they loved that we got along, they found it adorable. I have a lot of photos and home videos of little kid me excitedly going to the front door when I heard Tracy’s moms car pull up. They thought it was the cutest thing and joked that she was basically my older sister. I have siblings but they are all younger than me, and the cousins who are older than me are guys. So with my parent’s telling me that she was filling this role of older sister, something that I was supposedly lacking in my life, I ended up thinking of her that way. I liked that there was this older girl in my life that felt sisterly, now I knew that that was something I could want.

Eventually Tracy would come over to my house just to see me, without being here to play videogames with my cousin, and my parents thought that was fine. I was happy she was coming over just for me, it made me feel special. I didn’t really have any friends at school to invite over, I was super shy around my classmates, but Tracy would come over just to play with me and keep me company. I didn’t mind that she liked to tickle me so often, even though I was way too ticklish to the point that it was overwhelming sometimes, because she was happy to play anything else I wanted to play. We would hug and cuddle a lot while I watched cartoons too, but that could have been innocent too. It felt innocent at the time... She was just a particularly cuddly and friendly older sister figure when I was that young. Nothing that was obviously questionable ever happened until she started babysitting me years later. Maybe I am reading too many red flags into what could have been innocent, but because of what happened later on, I can’t help but wonder if she was using me to indulge in her urges even back then, even if her urges weren’t anything too bad back then. Did she revel in our closeness when I was that young? Or was it still innocent? I really couldn’t tell you.

But how we were together back then would be the status quo until Tracy started babysitting me.

My mom started working afternoons when I was almost 10, and my parents absolutely did not trust me alone in the house, they thought my adhd meant I’d somehow make napalm on the stove or something. So I would go home from school with Tracy for the afternoon until my mom got home, she was seen as very mature and responsible and was happy to take care of me, so they payed her to. Even though it was very unfair that she didn’t need a babysitter herself and I did. My cousin was over there too most days, so they thought that three kids keeping an eye on each other would be good enough, and Tracy’s mom was around sometimes.

It feels like things changed now that I was at her place and she was ‘in charge’ of me. Even though the fact I spent afternoons at her house instead of mine shouldn’t really have changed much between us. She got very serious about making sure she was ‘taking care’ of me, and being ‘a good older sister’ and a ‘real babysitter. So she started making me do my homework with her, or make me meals to eat instead of the usual snacks. It was little things like that that changed it from hanging out at her place to her being ‘in charge’. 

When Tom was around I really didn’t like it when she told me what to do, it was embarrassing. But when it was just us two any complaining about being told what to do was mostly performative, it was kinda nice to have someone like… care for me. Mom seemed always busy and I had this nice older sister who would tell me to do my homework or make me food, it was a little annoying being told what to do, but it was like… caring bossiness. So it was kinda nice too.

Sometimes Mom would get home so late that she would call and ask if I wanted to just stay at Tracy’s that night instead of have to be driven home in the dark (I hated being outside in the dark). And when that happened Tracy would be all over the older sister taking care of me role, making sure I brushed my teeth and got my pjs on and stuff.

Maybe I can sort of see where it was becoming less innocent here, maybe, nothing sexual happened but the pjs she put out for me were always her old ones, she would squee so much to see me in her old pink or animal print pjs. Maybe she was using me to indulge her tastes even then, even if they weren’t like… anything that weird. Finding young kids in cute clothes squee worthy isn't that weird. I always pretended to put up a fuss, but wearing cute stuff was kinda nice, I actually liked the cute animal print pjs even if i pretended to be way too much of a big boy for stuff like that. There was lots of stuff like that that Tracy encouraged, letting me play with her girl toys and stuff. At home all I had was very BOY coded toys, so having different stuff to play with was kinda neat (even if I still fake complained about them being girls toys).

As long as Tom wasn’t around, I felt safe enough with Tracy to not be so fussed if what I was doing was what “big boys” were supposed to, I could just enjoy stuff. But maybe Tracy was also pushing me in that direction? But I did genuinely end up enjoying myself when we had pj days in cute animal pjs or I got to play with her plushies or watch less boy coded cartoons like winx club together. And cuddling and being that close to a girl certainly isn’t what big boys were supposed to do, and I didn’t want to give that up, so when I was with her I figured I was already going against what that role said I should do, might as well do that with more things.

Being squeed over how cute I looked in her old pjs was kinda nice, if embarrassing, I did still think id rather be ‘cool’ than ‘cute’, but that level of positive personal attention from someone i liked so much was still nice.

It was slow, but things sort of continued in that vien, she started brushing my hair while we watched cartoons, or encourage me to play dress up with her from her old dress up box, and it’s not like she had a ton of “cool” stuff to be a dashing hero with in that box. It became sort of normal to like… use her old stuff when I was at her place. I could always play with my boy toys when I was home after all.

Maybe looking back at things, the cuddling was kind of a lot even if we had been real siblings instead of just fake ones? I don’t cuddle with my siblings that much. But it was nice, the attention was nice, the intimacy was nice. I got to be basically attached to my favourite person for  pretty much the whole afternoon most days. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

When Tom was around we played more boy traditional stuff together, he was mostly there to be with Tracy and not play with me though, I feel like he was only nice to me out of family obligation. I think maybe he was a little annoyed I was taking time away from him being with his friend? I guess they usually hung out alot before she started to babysit me weekday afternoons.

There was less cuddling and stuff when he was around too, but I just thought thats because Tracy didn’t want to embarrass me, and I would have gotten pretty embarrassed if someone saw how mushy and cuddly I acted normally with her. Definitely not acting cool like a big boy.

As time went on, mom got busier, I spent more and more nights at Tracy’s house, and Tracy got… I don’t want to say more bossy? But she told me what to do more. But like in a… family way? It was almost like playing house. Making sure I got my pjs on, making sure I brushed properly, putting me to bed at a regular time instead of just going to bed when I felt like it. I just thought she was getting into having a little sibling and being more serious about it, now I was spending so much time practically living with her. Her mom was cool but she definitely left everything to do with me to Tracy, but because Tracy wanted to be the one to do it, not out of laziness or neglect.

With my mom so busy, having someone do the regular mom stuff was a little reassuring.

This has to be where things were getting… less wholesome, even if it felt innocent to me at the time. Her making sure I put my pjs on properly ended up with her basically dressing me, coming into the bathroom to do my buttons up basically as soon as my pj pants were on. And her making sure I took a bath before bed turned into her poking her head in and checking I was washing properly. She had to have been doing that to like… peek right? Maybe it wasn’t her escalating with like… a goal in mind. Maybe she was just trying to mom me and also curious about bodies. Or maybe thats me making excuses for her, and she knew what she was doing.

It was a real nice time in my life though, having this older sister who loved me and spoiled me and maybe was a little too involved in taking care of me, but she was so earnest and sweet about it that I let her. And it was nice. Still embarrassing, I was 10 already, I could do all that stuff by myself, but still nice.

Id go back to those days if I could, even if the signs of what she wanted was not just a wholesome sisterly relationship was starting to show. Yes yes she abused me blah blah blah I know (my therapist is NEVER reading this, but I still sort of imagine they are as I write this), it was still some of the happiest times in my life.