He’s big and strong. He works out. His chest bulges through his T-shirt, but of course I’ve seen him without it, too. His chest is covered with the fine ginger hair that runs in our family. He has a beard, too. He’s always had that, as long as I can remember and I can’t imagine him without it. It wasn’t conscious exactly, but I think I grew my beard to be more like him. He’s kind and gentle. He knows who I am, and he loves me. He’s the man that I want to take me in his arms.

I started a journal. I read that if you have uncomfortable thoughts it helps to put them on paper. You can write them down and release them. It was the opposite for me, though. I couldn’t let them go. Picking up a pen was like setting a match to dry kindling. The flame of my desire grew. My writing changed from writing about my feelings to expressing my feelings and my stories became more and more explicit.

I would lie in bed at night and read them and touch myself. Even though I knew them. I wrote them, after all. They were in my own handwriting. But they seemed new every time I turned the pages. I knew I shouldn’t read them. I was supposed to be letting them go. Someone suggested burning the pages after you wrote them but I couldn’t. I held on to them like a life preserver. My only comfort.

Then he found my journal. I left it lying on my bed. Did I do it on purpose? Did I want him to find it? I don’t think so. If I had actually thought about him finding it at all, I wouldn't have thought he would pick it up and read it. He came in to get my laundry and there it was. Maybe he just wanted to check on me. To see if I was ok, what I was thinking. I’m sure he never suspected, in a million years, what he would find when he opened the cover.

I was sitting in the living room playing on my phone when he came in. I looked up and my heart sank, my stomach turned over, and I could literally hardly breathe. It was there in his hands. My journal. I didn’t need to ask if he read it. He wouldn’t be holding it if he hadn’t. But I had to say something. What else could I say, without risking saying too much?

He sat down in the chair across from me. He started slowly, gently, prodding me. He wanted me to say it. To tell him that I wanted him. That I wanted him to take me to his bed and fuck me. His face was clouded, though. His voice was tense. I didn’t know what me confessing my desires might mean. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. Would I fall? Would I fly?

I said what I had to say. I spoke the truth that was already lying there between us written down in the most explicit words possible. He stood up and walked towards me, took my hand, and lifted me to my feet. Then he kissed me. All of the lonely nights lying in my bed, holding a pillow to my chest, imagining this moment, still didn’t prepare me for his soft lips meeting mine. His beard was rough and scratchy, stroking my cheek.

Then he was undressing me, slipping my shirt up my chest and over my head. His strong hands explored my body. Seeing me in a new way, as I transformed in his mind from his son to an object of his desire. I could see it in his eyes. His growing desire, one that he had not had until this moment. Was it lust? Was it just the instinctive need to offer the comfort that every father owes his children? I can’t say that I cared. My words were rising up off of the pages of my journal and coming to life.

He gently pushed me back and I sat back down on the sofa. My legs suddenly felt weak with relief. His pulling his shirt over his head was the only sign I needed to remove my pants. Then he was kneeling between my legs. Kissing my thighs. Kissing the most intimate part of me. He reached up to pull my shorts off. He moved back between my legs. My body trembled with desire. His soft slips kissed me there and I knew our lives would never be the same.