Part Two: Girl

Our bodies twist into each other in my bedsheets, and I break our kiss, not realizing the music had stopped until the silence sinks into our hot, bitten skin. Sweetly, you smile at me, granting me permission to your body. My patience has been rewarded, and my face breaks into a grin.

I lift your shirt up—the one I used to wear when I was fifteen. Then, I watch you pull your pants down—a pair of rags we found at the thrift because you're too small to fit any of mine. I blink, surprised, when you're left in nothing but your underwear—muscles loose and your skin a shade askewed thanks to your mother. You're a strange thing, because somehow over the years your body managed to configure itself into the shape of a young woman, and I can't help but stare at your transformation.

Deformation?

Usually, you just look like an emaciated boy. You know, the kind forgotten at the back of a classroom. But as your dad, I don't really mind, because I was also that boy. You prefer to be clothed when we're intimate, so you cover your naked breasts, and I soften my gaze, because maybe I was wrong. You're hardly a woman—probably just a girl. That, or only a kid, and nothing else.

Confession: I don't think that the word "beautiful" describes a body like yours. But believe me when I say that it's fine, because your dad will always prefer a weird little thing like you over something as untouchable as "beautiful."

What I'm trying to say is that you're just my type. Though, that doesn't mean you're perfect yet.

Red-faced and quiet, your movements are shaky and you won't look me in the eye. It's not as if we haven't fooled around before, but we both know that tonight you'll give me something from inside you that's really, really special, and I'll be able to hold it deep inside me forever. It will be just like marriage, except it'll probably hurt.

To show you my excitement, I smile and tug at your panties. You lay down for me slowly as your rib cage rises and dips with each heavy breath. I tug the small piece of fabric down, then try to turn you on your stomach. You comply, although with your lips tight and hesitant, and I run my fingers through your hair and kiss you on the head.

"It's okay," I say, but you look up at me, conscious of my next move.

The times we've felt each other were only sneak peaks for tonight. It was always so exciting, and I remember when I once asked you if I could touch you harder. Despite your hesitance you allowed me, and I saw how your face reddened with each hit. Afterwards, you laughed it off, embarrassed, and I never asked you if we could do anything like that ever again, but it was only because it was too difficult to hold myself back when I heard you whimpering like that for the first time, and I didn't want to scare you off just yet.

I open the drawer to take out an old bottle of lube and place it on the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see your chest sink in relief, and I strip off my pants while biting down my smile.

I hear you shift in bed, and I turn around to make sure you haven't moved, but I only see you combing your hair with your fingers. They get tangled a few times, but you gently pull them through, smoothing and patting it down, as you get rid of every knot. You've always been worried about your ratty hair, asking for me to buy conditioner and oils and whatnot, as well as money for the salon. In the end, your hair is still brittle and messy, and that seems to weigh you down. I don't really get it myself.

When you were in middle school, I once noticed a bag that I hadn't seen before in your room. Inside, I found all kinds of boxes and containers of eyeshadow and blush and mascara that I never bought. When I confronted you, there was panic when you admitted to stealing them from the store, but that wasn't why I was confused. I was confused because I didn't understand why you wanted those things in the first place.

"To be like the other girls," you answered, head down, "The pretty ones."

"You want to be pretty?"

"I. I guess so... yeah."

I was silent.

"Maybe... Maybe, um. People would be nicer to me..."

I didn't know what to say, so we both stood there in silence as I watched your eyes become wet, before you turned around and locked yourself in your room for the rest of that afternoon. Later that night, I felt a sense of relief when I found the trash that I saw in your room in the kitchen garbage.

I don't want to watch you try to be like anyone else, because the thought of you becoming beautiful makes me sad. If you became beautiful, I know that you would leave me behind, and that would be the same as killing me. Everything I do is because I want you to know that. I tighten my fists and stare into the wall below the window.

"The world will never love you," I whisper.

"Huh?"

I lift my gaze and see you peering over at me, but I just smile.

"Nothing."

With a blink, you rest your cheek against your folded arms.

I make my way back to you and pin you underneath me. Breath sharp, your face twists a single degree, and you try to break your arms free, but I'm just too strong for you. I like you how you are: when your skin is sickly pale, body skinnyfat and useless, but there's one problem. You're not perfect. Something is still missing.

Or rather, maybe there's too much of something. Maybe something needs to be broken, somewhere deeper than deep. Somewhere nobody should go, except me.

Gee, how can I make you all mine? I wonder, almost laughing to myself as if I don't know what exactly I need to do.

I crack open the lid of the lube, and I feel the goosebumps raise on your skin. I nuzzle deeper into the back of your head, nose buried in your hair, split ends scratching my cheeks. I'm ready to hear your voice. My lips twist.

"Don't move, okay? It'll hurt more."

"Wh—"

You scream, betrayed and piercing, when I plunge my fingers into your asshole.

I finally get to hear your voice, and I mean really hear it, and I think my heart is on fire.

Our forever ever after.

You freeze for a moment, breath caught in your voice, until you try to break free, lashing about from underneath me, and I hold you down as my hand trembles, shoving in and out of you.

"STOP," "DAD, STOP," and "IT HURTS." Your words clatter against each other and against the walls of my head, and I wish I could live in this moment forever.

You try to struggle and flail, but my breathing grows ragged as your movements grind against me. Though as I shift, you manage to kick me, and I wince. I try to twist your limbs in order to discourage your movements, but all it does is make you struggle harder as you cough on your own gasps.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's supposed to hurt, sweetie. It's okay. Just please stop moving."

You aren't listening to me as my voice mixes in with your wails—something about "the wrong hole." I scramble, trying to hold you down but you already managed to flip onto your back and your arms keep sliding out of place as you kick and strike the sides of my body.

My fingers, wet and slick, fail to hold you and your fist flings out of my grip, slamming my face, knocking off my glasses, and we both listen as it hits the carpet with a small, metallic rattle.

You stare at me, deer-eyed, as I bring my palm up to my chin to catch drops of red.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry, I—"

I glare at you.

"I didn't mean it, I'm sorry, it just—it hurt and I was scared and I'm sorry—"

I want to cry, but I don't. It's always like this. All the things I want to say, do, feel—I don't know how to show you in the right way.

It always just feels hot and black. When you look away from me. When you don't smile when I make your favorite food. When you don't say I love you when I show you over and over that you're mine. The only thing I'm good at is feeling that empty space inside me boil over, all the way from my chest, to my shoulders, to my fingers that found their way into a shape of a fist, breaking into hard contact with your small, bony body.

Maybe it's called desperation. Or maybe I'm just angry. I don't know. I think I just want to hurt you over and over so you can keep hurting me too so I can make you say you're sorry. Or maybe I'm the one who's sorry. Maybe I want you to make me feel like I'm broken, and in return I'll keep you pure. I'll keep you inside me so you don't have to become someone you're not.

What's purer than being alive, I wonder, as my fists are being impaled into your flesh over and over as you act coy, crying, pretending that your life is precious to you.

Because no.

No, no no noooo nononononono. No.

It's only precious to me.

Beneath me, you lay still, no longer saying you're sorry, and my fists slow to a stop, right at the side of your temple. Your glasses had flown off, joining mine on the ground, and your face has finally been finished into something that only a father could love: tear-streaked, dull-eyed, and perfect.

I lean down and place a kiss on your lips.

This time you don't kiss back.

A small hand squeezes at my heart, but I keep going. I always keep on going.

Even when I was little I never stopped, even when my life should have. Everyone made sure to make it known to me that there was no room in this world for someone like me. But I kept going, and, because of everything, I never learned how to stop.

You try to get up, pushing your hand at my chest, and I grab you by the shoulders to keep you down. You don't resist me this time, so my first instinct is to slap your face.

You look away, quiet and unaffected.

I slap you again and you continue to play dead.

Fingers digging into your skin, I flip you onto your stomach and press my hand against your back. The satisfaction of your intensifying breath brings the heat back to my heart and my groin.

For a split moment you looked at me with a look in your eye that I had never seen before—something that pierces straight into my chest. But I'm used to being a monster. You don't need to forgive me for what happens next.

I position myself, then feel, and before you can scream, I enter you, this time real.

I don't even know if it feels good. I just like laying on top of you, enjoying your tense body, paralyzed from pain. I made your brain stop. You can't even speak. I made you stupid, just like me.

I slide my palm over your hand, locking your fingers within mine. Leaning down, I bury my nose into your sweaty neck. It smells so much like me, and I love you so much.

Caressing your hair, I slowly begin to move. Your voice creaks, but nothing comes out. I know it's because you want to tell me to just please stop, but you won't, because you know that I'm the only person in the world who can love you for who you are.

I kiss your neck. My little girl. I'll keep you inside me so you can stop growing up in this filthy world. Dad's promise.