I remain a hurt child.

People sometimes ask me how others around me didn’t know what was going on. Well, it was because my father was smart enough to know better. He was manipulative and cunning. To everyone around him he was trustworthy and respectable, popular with everyone. They didn’t see his true inner self. At one moment he could be the most loving and devoted father of the year, but then there was this little look and smile, that when I saw it I became ill. He once told me I was his best friend. The next day…

'I'll give you something to cry about.' 'Wipe that look off your face, or I'll wipe it for you.'
I don’t think my father viewed what he was doing as wrong. To him it was okay and completely natural. Doing what he did was his way of showing me he loved me. He made me feel like he really loved me and was only doing the things he did because he truly loved me for who I was. He told me it didn’t make him any difference if I was big. He would sometimes buy me things that my brothers and sisters didn’t get, and then afterwards he would tell me just to make sure I didn’t let them see what I had.

It had been our secret.

I felt pleasure when being fondled and kissed, but at the same time I felt guilty, confused and shame. When he was done he always convinced me not to say anything to anybody, it had to be our secret or I wouldn’t get any more prizes or money from him. Even worse, something really bad might accidentally happen to someone in my family.

My father made a big deal of making sure he knew when I was on my period. I didn’t understand why he always keep track until years later. He made me put a calendar on my bedroom wall near the bathroom door and mark the days on the calendar when my period started and stopped. Mom told me it was a good idea so I would know when to expect my period. However on the day that I marked my period had stopped my father always had sex with me that night outside. I was in a stage that I was enjoying the times when my father would sneak me out into the field somewhere where we could have sex. When it got close to the middle of the month if we had sex, he never cam inside of me. He knew it would lead to pregnancy so he avoided me during those times, often not looking or even talking to me. He believed he was teaching me the facts about life.