Fear Thy Father. Anonymous

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.

      To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to sit with the other kids in the back pew. They always made fun of my clothes and my braids.

      “When’s your daddy gonna let you wear skirts up to your knees?” they’d laugh. “What you hidin’ under there, anyway? And that’s the worst hairdo I ever saw! Your mama still braid it for you?”

      I just kept quiet, hung my head, and walked on by. But by the time I was fifteen, my resentment had grown until I hated my father with all my heart. He was still coming to my bed every night and beginning to make me do things that I couldn’t possibly believe were right. When I objected, he’d slap me hard across the face.

      “I’m your father!” he’d roar. “You’ll do as I say!”

      “Fathers aren’t supposed to do this with their daughters!” I said one afternoon. “I saw it on television the other day. They said it was something called incest and it isn’t right!”

      “Don’t you tell me about what’s right!” he roared. “I know what’s right and if that’s the kind of stuff you’re going to watch, we’ll just unplug the TV until I can supervise your watching! Now, you’ll do as I say, and I don’t want to hear any more about it!”