I'd always known it wasn't right. He wasn't meant to be doing it to me. But I didn't know no different. I didn't know it wasn't normal, that it was something bad, Hell, something that people are sent to prison for. But I'd always felt it wasn't right.
I was just a kid, 'bout nine, maybe ten when it started. Maybe it had been going on before that, maybe, I don't trust my memory too well these days. But all I remember is that I was a kid.
Dad had always been the one to look after me. Mom was the working woman, and me and my sister had to stay at home with Dad. We liked it that way. Dad was the fun one to be around, Mom was too strict on us. Didn't like her all too much back then. But I was just a kid that didn't like being told No. Yeah, used to really like my old man. I guess it's what kept me from saying anything, just convinced myself it was normal 'cause he loved me. It ain't normal, I know that now.
Yeah, I was, I was about ten I remember. I didn't know it was something strange to have your Dad still give you baths of a night time. I didn't know that. And it was in such a careless conversation that the weight of the situation came spilling out. It was such a pointless conversation, the one I was having with my friends. We were talking about what T.V show was on the night before, the one we weren't meant to be watching, South Park.
Our parents had told us many times that it wasn't suitable for us, but we knew better. They were talking about the show, my friends were, and I'd told them I didn't get to see it 'cause my Dad was giving me a bath. I remember how they all just froze. The look on their faces, something I'll never forget. And that was the moment I knew it wasn't right. My senses weren't off, that lingering feeling of something being out of place was dead on. But anyway, kept my mouth shut after that. I'd always felt like I was different to the rest of the kids at school, but I lived with it.
Then, after that day, I didn't even want to look at myself in the mirror. I Hated the way my friends looked at me, like I was disgusting, not even human.
I asked him. Asked my Dad why my friends didn't think it was normal. He told me my friends weren't loved by their parents, that they didn't know what it meant to have a loving family. And I believed him. I knew a lot of my friends didn't like it in their homes, I knew that. Made it all the more easy for me to believe my Dad.
Eight o'clock, it was bath time. Mom had already given Lissy her bath well before then. Lissy was younger than me and had to be in bed by eight. But me and Dad, we got to stay up all the time, was never in bed by eight.
Dad would always get in the bath with me. I didn't ever know Mom didn't do that with Lissy, not 'till I was much older anyway. We'd sit in the bath, facing each other at opposite ends. He'd take the sponge out of the cabinet, giving it a rinse from the night before. Some nights he would fill the tub with bubbles, it always made me happy, the bubbles. And other nights he'd just add a dollop of bath oil to make the water smell nice.
I really did like bath time, looked forward to it of a night. I didn't see what was so wrong with it. The water was always warm, so warm that you could be in there for half an hour and only feel the temperature drop in the slightest. The steam breathed through the room, fogging up the mirror and window. The bath oils had my muscles relaxing, and I really didn't have a care in the world. I couldn't imagine a place in the world that would ever bring me such comfort. Bath time, it was my favorite time of the day.
Like I said, I have a little trouble with my memory, and I couldn't honestly tell you how long this went on. I didn't remember ever having that feeling, you know, the one that said something was wrong. It wasn't until I had turned ten when I didn't feel so comfortable anymore.
Dad had always washed my hair, a dollop of shampoo, and a rub-a-dub-dub, and I'd be clean from a days worth of dirt. He'd always given me a wipe over with the sponge, asking me how I managed to get so dirty at school. I never knew how I'd get dirt everywhere, we were boys, that's what we had to do. And then, yes, when I was ten, I didn't feel so comfortable anymore.
With the sponge in one hand, and my penis in the other, he massaged me until I became hard. I felt frozen in this near boiling water. I found it hard to breathe, I was panicking under the skin. I tried breathing in gulps of air, and all I took in was steam.
The sponge floated beside me, bobbing alongside my elbow. Dad had both his hands on me, working them over my rigid penis. I'd never had a boner before, only ever felt the slightest tingle down there.
"Son, do you know what this means?" Dad had asked me.
Fear, I didn't know why I felt it, but it had me paralyzed in that tub. I could offer him no explanation for my body's behavior.
"It means that you are gay," he said.
I sat perfectly still, my eyes stinging from the steam as it huffed over me. Waves of splashing water worked their way past me.
He told me it was okay to be gay, and it was okay that the touch felt good. My head seemed to fill with led, my mind turning to haze. I felt sickened with myself, my brain telling me to be ashamed and this was far from okay. But my body, well, it told me this felt damn good. And it did. It was the worst part of all.
I didn't feel so comfortable in the bathroom, I didn't look forward to night time anymore. Dad was good at assuring me that what we did was really okay. I still thought of him as a best friend, still sought him out for a soccer game in the back yard. During the day, we were father and son, but of a night, I felt like I became somebody else.
I did things with him that I don't know I can ever speak about. Things that still have me avoiding the gaze of a mirror. Some mornings when I awaken, I'm so sickened with myself that I physically can't get out of bed.
Twenty years later, I still can't get those words out of my head.
Son, it means that you're gay.
My whole life I've been with men, and I can't help but wonder if it's right for me. What if for these past twenty years I've just been kidding myself. Am I really gay? Or is it just how my father raised me to be? And you know what the worst part of this is?
I don't think I'll ever have the answer.