I’ve been carrying the dirty secret around for so long I didn’t realize it was a secret. It was buried down so deep that it didn’t even hurt. Something I never really wanted unearthed, and I am not sure what the benefit is of the realization, but knowing is always better than not knowing, or so I’m told.

It was in the midst of some Daddy/little girl play with Sir that I realized it. I think somewhere I had always known, but I covered it up somehow. I made jokes about it, “I’m almost certain he was inappropriate with me at some point.”

I’m 38, but my character, my little girl, is maybe 12. At this moment I’m in a cute white skirt and a button down shirt and we are playing out a little fantasy that we have both discovered. He says, “Let me help you with your shirt, baby…”

The visual comes to my mind, as if a flashback in a movie. It happened in slow motion in my head, I could see my bra coming off. Through my arms. I could see the dark shadow of my bra slipping through my fingers by the light of the TV. Then he was doing it. He was rubbing my breasts. Yes. I remembered it. Then in a flash, it was gone—and here I am, playing out this fantasy. I blinked it away.

This was a new mental playspace where I had no rules and no knowledge. It was hot, it was edgy, and so arousing for us both. Even in the dark of it, we played in the safety of our trust for each other. Daddy isn’t a “father figure” but merely a trusted grownup and I’m certainly not a little girl. This is no different than the school teacher and naughty student, or the lonely housewife and the UPS driver. This is safe play with someone I trust.

“Are you sure this is ok?” I ask as he unbuttons my blouse, “I won’t get into trouble?”

“No sweetheart,” he says pulling my blouse off of my arms, “but it’s best that you don’t tell anyone. It will be our little secret.”

It wasn’t really a secret that I would sit with him in the dark. I had been doing it since I was very young. Sneaking into the living room where he would be up late, watching TV long after mom had gone to bed. I would sit with him in the dark and watch TV. It wasn’t a secret, but I guess I never did tell anyone. He never told me not to, I just never did. It was our special time. I got to stay up late and watch TV with him. Besides, it was the only time he was really ever nice to me.

“Ok, I won’t tell. Can I have another piece of candy?”

“Of course, why don’t you sit here on my lap and I’ll help you with your shirt.”

It was a vague memory. I was in high school and I had come home drunk. My first time drunk. He opened the bathroom door and saw me throwing up. He didn’t say anything except, “clean up and you can sit with me on the couch.” This is when it happened. I was laying on the couch next to him. Floating in and out of conciousness in a Bud Light haze. And he was rubbing my stomach, and then he said, “You should take this off.” Then he took it off. Then he was rubbing my breasts.

We played this scene all day until we were both spent and exhausted. Afterwards, we spoke quietly, debriefing, caring for each other, coming back to reality. I told him about the flash that I saw and he encouraged me to talk about it. I was cautious, but let the words come out. Words I had never spoken before. Recently, I had read that many people who are sexually compulsive/addicted have experienced some sort of sexual trauma. I don’t believe in repressed memories, especially when it comes to abuse. It’s so uncertain. I think you can be conditioned to believe things that didn’t happen. I wanted to believe that I was making this up, but I know I wasn’t.

“The weird thing about it is that he really didn’t like me very much,” I told Sir, “He was very mean to all of my siblings but it seemed as if he especially disliked me.”

I told him in great detail how he would constantly berate me. As I got older and started dating, the berating became more personal. He would call me a slut and a whore. When he found out I was sexually active, he threatened to kill my boyfriend. He would always make dirty jokes, comment on my body, and say that I dressed like a tramp. He almost acted—jealous.

Even when we would fight and argue during the day—at night, if I couldn’t sleep I’d come out and sit with him on the couch and we’d watch TV. We didn’t really talk much, I’d just soak up the attention he gave me. Acceptance from the only father figure I had. He’d rub my back, and stroke my hair. And I’d lay on the couch, across his lap with my head on a pillow on the other side of his legs.

That memory came back a little more harshly. Along with the realization was that at this time, I was a developed teenager and unaware that walking around in half shirts and panties in front of my step dad was a problem. He never said anything, of course NOW I know why. A feeling came over me like rotten meat. “Oh God—It’s no wonder he hated me. I was this bitchy moody slutty teenager during the day and at night I’d come crawling on his lap.”

“You didn’t know any better,” Sir assured me—but no, I did. I certainly should have, “You wanted love and attention and he was giving it to you. He was your dad, since you were very young. He was the adult, he was wrong. He manipulated you. He made you long for a loving father, and then pretended to be that, so he could abuse you. “

I cried and sobbed but I was not sad or angry that my step-father felt me up. I felt guilty and dirty.  I couldn’t stop that feeling.  I felt defensive to what Sir was saying.  I felt, scared and uncertain. I have no memory of how many times he did it. For all I know, it was just the one time. However I do recall him taking off my bra on more than one occasion.

“You shouldn’t sleep with your bra on, it’s not good for you,” he would tell me. Of course—I was told by my friends that if I didn’t sleep with it on, my boobs would stop being perky. So I always slept with it on, except the nights I would sit with him. Those nights, I’d let him take if off of me.

That doesn’t seem as significant as the rest although on it’s own it’s enough to make any parent cringe. The fact that somewhere the innocent little girl sitting with her dad turned into a trusting teen being manipulated is enough to make any stomach turn. He was sexualizing me and I was accepting what I thought was love and affection. His own health issues had long since taken away his ability to have sex with my mother, so he turned his attention to me. I was the little bitch who openly hated him to my siblings and my mother but who climbed into his lap several nights a week. Shaking her teenage ass in his face and somehow thriving in his inappropriate but unnoticed advances.

“You’re safe now,” Sir told me, taking me into his arms and holding me tight. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Yes, so was I. This opened up a whole new level of issues.

Daddy issues. Seriously.