It will happen again. Like it did last time.

I will wake, for I’m certain I’m asleep. I will awake and she will be there again. Bloated and cold, her face puffy, locked in silent scream, open eyes unblinking against the water. I wonder if it stung.

I will wake and she will be there, heavy, despite the blood loss. Heavy and stiff, draped across the stolen stoup. Her skin feeling like cold lifeless plastic in my hands.

I will wake when it goes quiet and find myself wet. Not wet from Daddy treats, wet from cold congealed blood swirled with holy water. The water he used to drown her.

I will wake and Daddy will be gone and I will be alone. Alone except for her. Alone, in the silence that echoes and fills my brain. The silence that wakes the monsters.

I will wake and I will be scared and I will want my Daddy, but Daddy isn’t here. I am alone and I know that I must get rid of her, the one that wouldn’t break, the one that didn’t give in to Daddy’s charms, the one that believes in the protection of her God. The one whose God didn’t save her.

God didn’t save her and neither did my Daddy but he came to save me, eventually. He came to save me, to save me from the silence and save me from my futile attempts to hide the broken dead corpse. When her muscles and bones resisted my weak attempts to rip them into manageable pieces I did all I could think to do.

I used my mouth.

I used my mouth and my sharp teeth and I disposed of her bit by bit. Mouthful by mouthful.

I don’t want it to go quiet. I don’t want to live that again. I don’t want to pull her out of the water and watch the liquid cascade off her deformed face. I don’t want to feel the still warm drench of her bowels releasing over my bare feet. I don’t want to bite into her dead flesh, lubricated by my own tears and chew and chew and chew…

I don’t want to wake so I squeeze my eyes closed. I clamp them tightly shut and only wish I could do the same with my ears. That I could stop this replay, for I know how it ends.

I listen as we go around again. I listen to Daddy denouncing her God. I listen to Daddy’s logical arguments against religion. I listen to her object. I listen to Daddy’s fists objecting to her objections.

I listen with dread.

I know what comes next.

The soundtrack plays out the same, chords and melodies made of deep rooted beliefs and unshakable faith. The passion in Daddy’s voice mirrored in hers, their arguments furiously rising up against one another to a clashing crescendo. Each vehemently defending their tenet as the truth, the one truth, the only truth.

The courage in her conviction will be her undoing in the face of Daddy’s violent persuasion. When he can’t win, when he can’t beat or plead the blind faith out of her, his rage will fool them both. His rage will take her life and leave his hollow, with questions unanswered, belligerent in a world of untruths peddled as life affirming righteousness.

His rage will leave me alone, soaked in the aftermath of his desperately failed attempt to overthrow a doctrine that denies his desires and lies to his face. Soaked in the bloodied remains of another lost soul.

I don’t want to live that again. Daddy don’t abandon me please. Don’t leave me here, unable to escape the stench of blood and shit, it covers my hands and coats my nostrils. Daddy don’t leave me here, not with her, unable to escape the way she looks at me, her eyes empty of life but full of judgement pleading with me as I desecrate her flesh.

I’m doing it for you Daddy, for you but I’m scared, and I don’t want to, not again. Daddy please I can’t… Daddy…

Daddy? I hear him.

I hear his growls, deep and low.

A different soundtrack. A different passion. Again, mirrored in female tones. Her whimpers to his grunts.

I’m not asleep. It’s not quiet and I’m not wet.

And she’s alive.

This one’s alive.

This is different. This now. This is not the same as it was before.

Groggy, I push up onto all fours. Several days of Daddy’s frustration has taken a toll. Every time he couldn’t break her, every time her vows blinded her to Daddy’s arguments, to the evidence of the madness behind her conviction. Every time his words and fists and brutal truth didn’t smash her deeply defended dogma; he came to me.

He came to me and I helped him, like all good girls help their Daddies. He rained his anger and frustration down until he was spent, until he was calm; restored by my love, my cunt, my blood. Restored and ready to test her devotion once more.

He would break this one in the right way, he promised me. “I will break her spirit, not her body. Not this time. This is how we do it Blade. This is how we triumph over God.”

My body is a sacrifice of a holy war, the bruises, bites and scars are my battle wounds. The confusion that is my fevered mind, one that flits between the horror of what came before and what I see in front of me, is a warped disassociation designed to protect the fragility of my beaten being.

It protects me so again and again I can help Daddy fight another day.

I crawl, unsteady, towards the source of the noise. Until I can see them from my vantage point on the floor. Until I can hear the low rumbles of words exchanged, no longer at odds, her voice no longer defiant against the condemnation of her cult.

“Yes… Yes…” she pants, moving with a slow rocking motion, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder. The habit usually so carefully positioned to cover the auburn falls clearly discarded, crumpled against the blood-stained floorboards.

“My child, you’ve seen the light. This, this is your true awakening.” Daddy’s sermon met with rapturous praise “Yes, thank you, thank you. Yes. Yes!” her agreements perfectly timed with his thrusts.

“Your realise now. You realise, don’t you, how your worship is misplaced?” deliberate nods answer Daddy’s questions “Why defend a God that denies you? When you could have this?” taking her hands and running them delicately over her aroused and responsive body.

She reacts like she’s never been touched before. Like the sensual touch of her fingertips is fuelled by fire.

My body aches at the thought of a soft touch, to be stroked by gentle fingers, the comfort it would bring.

“Why devote yourself to a God who would deny you food. Leave you hungry. Leave you wanting. Keep you here, keep you hurting…when I can make it stop. When I helped you, I showed you how you could have it all, you will have it all, just by realising the truth” Daddy gestures towards dirty dishes pushed to the corner of the room.

He finally fed her.

My stomach growls at the thought of eating again.

“Why commit to a God that would keep all the pleasures of the world from you when there is so much hurt, anger and wrong? Why wouldn’t he want you to have this? To enjoy all that there is to offer in this world. You can have it. You can seize it. You can take back your life; you can live it without the damnation of an all-powerful yet entirely absent father.”

Father.

Daddy.

I want my Daddy.

His words spur her on, running her hands up over her breasts and into her hair before leaning forward and grabbing him, embracing my Daddy with a passionate kiss. He responds in kind, pushing himself deep inside her, wrapping her in his arms and rhythmically pushing her towards climax. A physical and vocal release, screaming her rebellion, the rejection of her vows, the rejection of her calling. A violently expressive verbal denouncing of her God.

Daddy has done it.

I feel my hands give out from beneath me, my body so weakened by the war. A war we have won.