My allure had never needed much artificial furnishings a touch here and a touch there, and I would be set to win any beauty contest. I went home that day with thoughts of my father obscuring all other thoughts. 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.
