“No!” I lean away from him, flinching. “I don’t want that.”
“You little fucking liar. You want to fuck. Say it. Tell me the truth, Coralie. Tell me you want to fuck.”
If my life were a movie, this would be the part where the camera pans back away from my father and me. It would be the part the director wants to spare the viewer, because it’s just too graphic and violent and disgusting to be seen even in an R rated movie. You’d see the back of my father’s head. You’d see the tears welling in my eyes. My lip wobbling. They’d use some fancy special effect so that the lens of the camera somehow pulled back through wood grain, and then you, the viewer, would be standing out in the hallway, on the other side of the locked door. You’d hear me crying. You’d hear the unmistakeable sound of skin slapping skin. You’d hear my father screaming at me. Me screaming in general. You’d be able to tell by the way the camera finally fades to black that something terrible is happening to me in the bathroom, and you would feel uncomfortable and scandalized, and then we would move onto the next scene.
Sadly, this is not a film, and there’s no camera to spare the details. This is my life. This is my father, sliding his hand up my thigh, leaning into me, growling and baring his teeth.
“Say. It.”
I can’t placate him and give him what he wants this time, though. I just can’t. If I utter the words he wants to hear coming from my mouth, I’m in so much trouble. For the past two years, he’s been skating toward an eventuality that I know will happen one day. I know, beyond the hair pulling and the slapping and grazing touches, there’s more to come. I’ve managed to avoid it up until now, but I see the way he looks at me. I’ve felt his eyes on me when we’ve been eating dinner. I’ve kept my head down, my eyes on my plate, and I’ve prayed so hard that today isn’t the day I find out how far he’ll go. Now, with a few beers in him and fire in his veins, I know without a doubt I’ll be signing off on something if I say the word fuck.
“I don’t want to have sex until I get married,” I whisper. “I don’t look at boys like that.”
My father grabs hold of my hair and yanks my head to one side, shoving his face into mine. Once upon a time, my mother looked up into his eyes and saw love and affection there, I’m sure, but all I see is hate and anger. “You should know by now that I can tell when you’re lying, Coralie. I’ve seen you grow from a baby into the beginnings of a deceptive little whore. I know exactly what’s going on in that head of yours, and it’s fucking filth. Every time you see a boy on the street, I know what you’re thinking. You. Want. To. Fuck.”
I shake my head. “No, no, no. I don’t. I promise I don’t.”
My father leans in so close to me that the end of his nose is touching mine. I can see the fine spider web of purple veins that spread across his cheeks, and I can smell the alcohol on his breath. “Look me in the eye and say it again. I want to believe you, okay? I want to believe you, but you make it so goddamn hard.”
I can barely see him through my tears; I blink them away, too scared to lift my hand and wipe my eyes. “I don’t ever want to have sex,” I say. “Not until I’m married.”
“Not without my blessing?”
I nod sadly. “Of course, Daddy. Never without your blessing.”
He pins me under his gaze for a minute and it’s the longest minute I’ve ever lived through. I see a succession of emotions play across his face—anger, sorrow, curiosity, desire—and it’s like I’ve just spun the wheel on some sort of game show. I don’t know which emotion he’ll land on, and my heart is beating out of my chest like a jackhammer just thinking about what will happen if he settles on lust.
Finally, he reels back, shaking his head as though he’s majorly disappointed in me. I’m relieved, but I’m also still very worried. Disappointed is better than turned on, but this is still my father. He still does terrible, terrible things when he’s disappointed.