“Don’t give me that shit, young lady. C’mon. Get to your feet. Stand the fuck up right now!” He’s practically roaring. I learned a long time ago that it’s of the utmost importance that I do as I’m told as quickly as possible where my father is concerned. I jump to my feet just as he launches himself into the room and pulls back his clenched fist, ready to send it crashing into my stomach or my shoulder. He looks almost disappointed that I’ve done what he told me to before he reached me. If I hadn’t been able to, I would have suffered the consequences.
After the time he hit me in my face properly with a powerful right hook and he split my lip open, he realized how hard it was to hide visible damage like that. He’s been leaving bruises on my arms and legs since then. My stomach and my back. My buttocks. These areas of my body are always hidden from the prying eyes of the general public.
“You have no idea how lucky you are, Coralie,” he hisses. “Other parents wouldn’t take this kind of shit from their kids. You’re lucky I haven’t sent you off to live with your aunt in Charleston.”
I would love to go and live with Aunt Sarah in Charleston, but there’s no way he’d actually ever let me leave. I’ve thought about just packing a bag and getting a bus a couple of times, but then I think about the reality of what would happen when I arrived at my destination. Aunt Sarah, my father’s older sister, believes he hung the goddamn moon. She would never accept that he hurt me. She would accuse me of lying, call him and tell him what I said. He would come get me and my life would be over. He’d be so angry. He’d probably end up killing me.
“I know, Daddy. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful, I promise,” I whisper.
“Get yourself into the bathroom,” he commands. Fear makes my hands and feet tingle. Bad things happen in the bathroom. It’s as though he thinks, because we’re in such an enclosed space and he can lock the door, that the world will never know what he does. I don’t want to go with him to the bathroom right now, but I’m fully aware what will happen if I refuse him. It will be very bad.
I slide past him, my shoulders rounding in on my body as I try and make myself smaller so that I don’t make contact with him. I walk barefoot down the hallway, knowing that he’s right behind me and he’s bubbling over with rage.
Inside the bathroom, my father spins me around and pushes me back so that I have to sit myself down on the edge of the bathtub.
“Stay there,” he tells me. He opens up the cabinet over the sink and pulls out some antibacterial spray and grabs some cotton balls from the glass caddy on the windowsill. The alcohol in the spray stings as he applies it to my knee. He doesn’t mention the purple shadow that’s bound to be forming on my face right now.
“Are you even sorry?” he mutters under his breath.
“I am. I really am. I’m sorry, Daddy.” In my head, I try and be somewhere else, anywhere else but in this dark bathroom with my father gently stroking a cotton ball over my bleeding kneecap. He moves slowly and carefully, tutting when the cotton ball comes away red with my blood.
“You’re such a silly girl. Look at me. Let me see how sorry you are.” I look up at him, and my eyes must look pretty vacant. Dad sees what he wants to see, though. “Ahh, there you go. Yes, that’s better. I can see it now. You’re going to be more careful in future. You know how I don’t like to punish you.” He traces his fingers down the side of my face, brushing my hair back behind my ear tenderly. “I’ve had a hard day, baby girl. You know how it can be sometimes.” God only knows how my father thinks he’s had a hard day, but I nod my head dutifully. He bends down and kneels on the floor in front of me, and my palms begin to sweat. “Why aren’t you dressed properly, sweetheart?” he whispers.
“I was getting changed.”
He nods. “Okay.” Ducking down, he places his mouth over the cut on my knee and sucks gently, making a low rumbling sound in his throat. Pulling back, he says, “Don’t look so worried, Coralie. You’re my daughter. We share blood. It’s okay for me to do this.”
It’s not okay, though. I know well enough that no one else’s fathers are out there sucking the cuts and scrapes of their adolescent daughters. It’s wrong, and it feels worse.
Dad sits back on his heels and stares at my knee, and he has a worrying, hungry look in his eyes. I need to get the fuck out of this bathroom.
“I want to go to a party tonight,” I blurt out. “Would—would it be okay if I went out? Just for a little while. Everyone from my year is going.” The words come out in a rush, all blurred together. I panic halfway through saying them, and everything gets jumbled together. Dad frowns, looking less hungry and more horrified now. “You want to go out? Where?”
“To a party. It’s only a couple of streets away. I’d be home by eleven.”
“Will there be boys there?” I know this is a trick question. If I say no, he’ll know I’m lying because I just said everyone from my year is going. If I say yes, he’s going to lose his mind. I can tell from the wild, violent energy pouring off him that I’ve made a big, big mistake even bringing up the party. “Well?” He places one hand either side of me on the edge of the bathtub, leaning forward.
“Yes, there will be boys,” I whisper.
“So you want to go out and fuck a bunch of teenaged boys? Is that it?”