Delilah

Chapter 1

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.