He would simply refuse to touch me for days on end. My father had never hit me or scolded me his punishments were usually more severe and silent. This was not like before when he would refuse to touch me because I misbehaved. It was the same look he had when he shot Dragon our Alsatian. I knew my father I knew the look on his face. I had hoped he didn’t mean it, that this was just another punishment, but the way he said it convinced me it was final. It was usually the best birthday present he gives me, a passionate night of love making right out of a romance novel. I thought my birthday would have ended sensually, like all the others. I had taken the week off from school just to be with the only man in my life, the best man I ever knew, or so I thought. It felt like a full stop at the end of an epitaph. He said it wasn’t right, what we do, and that we must stop. Everything was perfect.Īnd then, on my twentieth birthday, the unthinkable happened. I doubt if any other child had so much love. I was twelve that first time, and a happy child, happier than any other child I knew. We began to do it more often, and each time I enjoyed it more. I went to him the third time it happened, it was raining and the thunders scared me. He told me it was our secret, our special thing, and no one should know about it.
