Author's Warning: This chapter deals with sexual abuse. This is a difficult subject, but it is needed to help the reader understand Delilah.

The memory that I most want to erase is the feel of his rough fingertips against my damp cheeks. The taste of salty tears still takes me vividly back to the night he wiped away my innocence. I allow men to caress me elsewhere, but their fingers never touch my face.

"Delilah."

The name was muffled, like when I shoved fingers in my ears to drown out Mama's awful cough.

"Delilah."

His thumb and finger stroked my cheeks just below my eyes. I startled awake. I must have cried out because his hand clamped over my mouth.

"Shh, Delilah, you'll wake your mother."

A rank odor brought me completely awake. The smell was that of hard work mixed with hard drink.

One day when he came home late and he stank like he did now, Papa had found me curled up asleep in the corner of Mama's room with my fingers still in my ears. He shook me awake and told me to go to bed. His eyes were red. His breath was foul, and he talked like the beggar in the marketplace with the crooked mouth.

"You smell bad," I said.

"I do," he agreed. "If you sniff your fingers, they'll stink, too, from being crammed into dirty ears. You plug your ears to drown out your mother's cough." He waved his wine skin. "I drown the sound with this."

I giggled. "That won't fit in your ear."

"No, but it dulls my senses and lets me forget for a few hours."

Now, I pushed his hand away from my mouth and whispered, "You've been drowning Mama's cough again."

"I have, but it's not enough to drown her cough anymore." His thumb caressed my cheek. "I don't think it's enough for you either. You cried yourself to sleep again."

I looked into his eyes. I searched for tenderness, any sign that I was still his "lamb." Sensing pain and sadness, I finally nodded.

"We have to comfort each other," he said.

He pulled back my cover and lay down beside me on the sleeping mat. I scooted over until I felt the roughness of the wall against my arm. He lay on his side and propped his head on his hand. He was looking down at me. I held my breath to try to keep from tasting the stench of him.

"Don't be afraid, Delilah. You can help me be a better husband. If you do the things for me that your mother can't, maybe I won't have to drink away my sorrows."

"I already grind the grain and make bread," I said. "I try to keep the house clean."

"I know you do, lamb."

My heart jumped. He hadn't used his pet name for me in a long time. I had thought his love for me had been drowned along with Mama's cough, but maybe...

"I'll try harder, Papa," I said. "Just tell me what to do."

He slid his hand up under my shift. It lay heavily on my belly.

"You're a big girl, now," he said.

"I'll be a woman in a few years."

"You're more like a woman than most girls your age." I felt proud. "Your mother's illness has forced you to grow up fast. You have to be a woman for me now."

His hand slid down. He pushed it between my legs and touched me where Mama told me no one was to touch me. It was a sacred place, she had told me. A place where a husband would one day fondle me. I was to keep it clean and safe.

I sucked in my breath. The sound was loud in the room.

"It's okay," Papa said.

I was sure he was wrong. It didn't feel okay.

His finger parted my soft skin and pushed its way into a place even I had never probed.

I whimpered.

He leaned down so that his lips were close to my ear.

"Your mother told you that one day a husband would touch you where I am touching you," he murmured. "I can't touch your mother there anymore. She's too sick. You must let me touch you. You can do that for her so she can get well, can't you?"

I bit my lip and nodded.

"It hurts," I said.

"It'll hurt a little the first few times," he said. "A man has to stretch a woman's skin a bit."

"I'm not a woman yet."

"No, but you're a big girl, remember."

I squirmed, trying to ease the pain.

"Just be still," he said. "Moving will only increase the pain. I'll just caress you a little with my finger until you're stretched, and it doesn't hurt so much."

"What else could he possibly use?" I wondered. I didn't voice the question, but lay perfectly still. I thought about Mama and her sickness. I visualized her as she was before the illness stole the sparkle from her eyes, the blush from her cheeks, and the tinkle from her voice. I imagined her laughing, as she had not done for a long time. I told myself over and over, "This is for Mama, to make her better."

Finally he withdrew his hand.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, lamb?" he asked.

"No," I lied, afraid he would become the distant drunk again and forget his pet name for me.

"Don't tell your Mama that you're doing her womanly duties," he instructed. "It would only upset her and make her sad. That will be our little secret."

I wondered why I couldn't tell Mama. She would probably be glad that Papa wouldn't hurt her down there anymore, but I kept silent.

Mama didn't get better, though. She kept coughing. Her skin grew thin like a granny's. I could count her ribs, but her belly was swollen like a woman with child. She was sad even without knowing that I was acting as a substitute wife.

Over the next few months, she noticed that I was sad and silent. She thought it was because she was so sick, and I had to do more chores than other girls my age. I didn't tell her the real reason. I was ashamed. I was supposed to be making her better, but it wasn't working. Maybe I was doing something wrong.

Papa came to my bed at least once a week. He always smelled of drink. Obviously I was not banishing the sound of Mama's cough. I tried hard. I clinched my teeth and didn't cry out when his fondling hurt me.

Then one night, he told me that he thought I was stretched far enough.

"Tonight I'll make you a real woman," he said.

"I'm not ready," I answered. "There's been no blood to mark my passage from childhood."

"Sometimes womanhood comes before the body signals that it's time," he said. "For over a year, you've had to do extra chores because your mother is ill. You've served as woman of the house during the day. Tonight you have to become a woman of the night before your body is mature. This is a sacrifice you must make for your mother."

I stared up at him. I would do anything if it would make my mother better.

"You said that your touching me would ease Mama's cough," I said. "But it hasn't. You haven't stopped drowning the sound in your wine skin either. Are you sure making me a woman will help?"

"Do not question me, girl."

His voice was hard. The sound grated on my ears and caused my skin to prickle. What had happened to the soft voice he used when he called me his lamb? Had his sorrow stolen that comforting voice and replaced it with the voice of a monster?

"Take off your shift," he said. In the faint light that came through the window, I saw him untie his belt. He dropped it to the floor and his sleeveless coat followed. He drew his tunic over his head.

I stared at him. I could not tear my eyes away from the hideous sight. His fat belly sagged above a patch of kinky black hair. Sticking out of the hair was a thing that bobbed in the air. It looked like what a dog rammed into a bitch in heat. Suddenly I knew what he meant when he said, "I'll just use my finger until you're stretched."

I sucked in air to scream. His beefy hand came down over my mouth and nose.

"Don't cry out, Delilah. You'll cause your mother's death if you scream and she comes in here and finds us.

I couldn't breath, yet the stench of his foul breath seemed to fill my body. I felt bile rising in my throat. I fainted.

A searing pain in my loins brought me back to consciousness. There was a gag tied around my mouth. The torn pieces of my shift were pulled together covering me. My father was sitting on the edge of my pallet fully clothed. He sat with his face in hands that were propped on his knees. I tried to raise my hands to move the rag from my mouth. They were bound to my side. My movement must have roused father. He raised his head and peered at me. He leaned down close to my ear.

"If you promise not to scream, I'll remove the rag from your mouth," he whispered. I nodded my assent. I gulped air like I was drowning. "I'm sorry, Delilah," he said. "I had no choice but to have intercourse with you."

I wasn't sure what intercourse was, but I imagined it had something to do with the pain between my legs and the hideous sight I viewed before I passed out.

"Your mother's unable to meet my needs," his voice continued its explanation. "I can't go to a harlot; her smell would linger on me. Your mother would know, and her pain would increase. You may not understand how, but you're helping your mother by doing the things for me that a woman does for her man. If you tell her that you're doing this for me, she'll suffer more because she'll be shamed that you must do everything she promised to do when she married me. This must remain our secret, Delilah. I'll come to you only when I can't deny my manhood any longer. I know that I hurt you, but each time the hurt will be less until it's gone."

As my father spoke I tried to look into his hazy red eyes, seeking reassurance that my world was not completely destroyed. As soon as I caught his eye, he looked away, dropping his eyelids to hide from my searching gaze. Never again would my father willingly look into my eyes. From that day forward, he avoided me as much as possible during the day. When forced to speak to me, he would give curt instructions concerning housekeeping chores or my mother's care.

I wanted to talk to him about the pain in the night, but he wouldn't give me a chance. As the days passed and he stayed away from me, I wondered if I had done something wrong to make him stop loving me. When he finally came to my room again in the night, after weeks of treating me like I was almost invisible, I was willing to do anything to regain his love.

I thought if I opened my legs willingly and let him do what he would with my body, he would love me again. I was wrong. He continued to be distant. When he spoke to me, it was in terse sentences and without warmth. The silky tones and the pet names were gone, replaced by the harsh raspy voice of the bedroom.

When he came to me and pumped and sweated and slobbered, I retreated from the reality of the moment. I pictured mother and me dancing in a meadow. It was filled with beautiful flowers. We wore garlands in our hair, and we laughed at each other. I fled to that meadow whenever he would force me to do Mama's wifely duties.

When he left me, I fantasized a fitting torture for my nocturnal tormentor. I pictured him stumbling home late at night, his wine skin clutched to his chest. Thieves set upon him and beat him, leaving him lying in the gutter. Rats crept out of the weeds and dismembered him. His screams as they chewed on his manhood were a balm to my broken spirit.