stupid thing?” he growled as his rough, hot hands encountered my training bra.
I struggled to pull away, but he only laughed and pulled me back hard against him. I felt totally humiliated as I felt his hard penis pressing against me. I struggled frantically, forcing myself not to scream. Even in my fright, I knew he’d only punish me more if I cried out.
“What are you doing?” he growled, releasing me for a moment and then turning me around to face him. “You don’t think I’m going to hurt you, do you?”
Numbly, I shook my head.
“Come on, Cathy, I’m your father. I only want the best for you. This is something every father teaches his daughter if he loves her. Someday, you’ll want to get married, and how will you know how to do that if your old man doesn’t teach you? God gave you to me to teach. The Bible says that you belong to me until you’re married, and until that time, I’m to teach you what you need to know. You understand?”
I stopped struggling and stared at him. Was he telling the truth? Was it all right for him to put his hands on me like this? Up until now, I hadn’t believed it. I’d heard the other kids at school sniggering about sex, but I didn’t know much about it at all.
“Come on,” he said, beginning to unbutton my blouse. “Let your old man show you what it’s going to be like to be married. It’s really very nice and you’re going to enjoy it.” His voice was soothing and his hands were trembling as he removed my blouse, and then my bra. Throwing the bra across the room, he said, “Don’t let me catch you wearing that damn thing again. You don’t need it.”
“Wh-what about the pizza?” I choked. “Won’t it burn?”
“Nah,” he said, his eyes glazing over as he took me in. “I haven’t even put it in the oven yet, so we can enjoy ourselves and then have something to eat afterward.”
He unbuttoned my skirt and pushed it down, leaving me standing before him in my panties. Frantically, I searched the room, praying that my mother would suddenly come home.
Help! Help! I screamed silently. Please, somebody help me! But there was no help for me.
Pushing me down onto my bed, my father pulled off my panties and began to rub his hands all over my body. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited, praying he’d be done soon. I felt the bed move as he climbed up over me. I kept my eyes shut. He had to quit in a minute, I thought. But he didn’t.
Shock ran through me as I felt his naked, hairy legs on mine and felt the hardness of his organ probing between my legs. Gasping, I clasped my legs together, but I was no match for his strength, and in a moment, I felt a searing pain as he tore into me. In spite of all my resolutions, I screamed out then, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was wild-eyed and drooling, seemingly unaware that I screamed each time he shoved himself into me.
I don’t know how long it lasted. At some point, I think I passed out. I came to lying on the bed with the spread drawn up over me. My body ached all over and my legs were so sore that I couldn’t move. Tears streamed down my face and my body shook as if I was freezing.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” my father said cheerfully from the doorway. “Get up and put some clothes on. The pizza’s done. Smells good, huh?”
“I don’t want any,” I mumbled from under the spread.
“Sure you do,” he said, the threat immediately back in his voice. “You have to eat something—need to keep your strength up. I know our little love tryst was fun, but you still need to eat.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t feel like it.”
“I said you’ll eat!” he roared. “Now get your ass out of bed and eat this pizza I cooked for us!”
Wearily, I dragged myself out of bed and put on some jeans and a heavy, shapeless sweater. I was still cold and the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was sit across the table from my father. Later, I would know that he had raped me, but at the time, I was torn between the thought that all fathers did this for their daughters and I was just being ungrateful, and that what we’d done was ugly and terribly, terribly wrong. I cringed later as I realized how naive I was.
We ate supper in silence that night as Dad watched the news on television, commenting now and then on something going on in the world. The pizza tasted like cardboard and the salad like grass, but I ate mine when I realized he was watching me closely and I’d probably get a beating if I didn’t satisfy him.
And so, my nightmare began. But there was no one to comfort me in the dark night because nobody cared.
A dozen times I started to tell Mom about us, but at the last moment, I always changed my mind. I wasn’t sure exactly what caused me to stop, but I somehow knew that she wouldn’t like it, and if there was something wrong, it would be my fault. I felt like she would always take my father’s side against me.
The abuse continued, but I gradually became numbed to the pain and humiliation. At first, it was only once a month or so, and then more frequently. Each time he hugged me and told me that he was preparing me for marriage.
“Someday, you’ll meet a nice boy and want to get married. You’ll be ready for him and he’ll be grateful for my teaching.”
I often wondered how I could possibly meet a nice boy when I had to wear such awful clothes and he never let me out of his sight except to go to school. At church, I was tucked in between him and Mom even though she suggested a couple of times that I might be allowed to sit with the other children.
“Do her good to mix with them,” Mom said, watching some of the teenagers file into the back pew.
“No,” my Dad said coldly. “She has no business with that riffraff. Sittin’ back there giggling and punching each other. I won’t have a daughter of mine actin’ like that in church.”
He was even more pious than he used to be. So pleased with himself. Always criticizing people because they weren’t like him. Always telling everybody what a happy little family we were.
“Nothin’ in the world better than a good family,” he would say proudly, pulling me close. “And I got the best family in the world. You won’t see my daughter gallivanting around at all hours of the night. I keep a tight rein on her, I’ll tell you. I’m makin’ sure she’s a fit wife for the right young man.”
Mama looked at him funny when he said that and about halfway shook her head. She’d come home from work one Thursday night and almost caught him on top of me. She called out as she came in the back door and Dad jumped off of me and scrambled into his pants. He was angry and nervous. He hadn’t finished and he was scared. Later, I heard them talking in their room. She was accusing him of something and he was putting her off with Bible verses and quotes like he always used when he got into trouble.
The next morning, my mother looked at me long and hard and turned on her heel and left. Suddenly, I knew.
She knew.
She knew, and she wasn’t going to do anything about it. She was scared of him!
Sometimes she’d try to separate us—come home early complaining of a headache, as if she hoped to keep him from harassing me, but she was never successful. He always found a way. I came to believe that she was even more scared of him than I was.
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