....  I could blame my body, but it’s controlled by the mind.  I could blame Father, but I’ve spent too many decades confirming my obedience to him.  I could blame her...

She had golden hair.  She was so fair, her skin so pale, her body seemed so frail.  I can’t even remember who had left me alone in that room that day or who opened the door so that she could enter.  With this complete stranger, this quiet girl standing before me, it was Father who entered next and dictated what would transpire.

You have to understand; there was no doubt that what Father ever said would come to be.  I don’t think that girl, the first of many, the one whose face I’ll never forget, believed any less either. 

Father stepped into the room, dragging his heavy presence as always, his wrinkled face draped into a permanent frown, and stared with beady eyes at the two of us as we faced each other, pensively waiting for we didn’t know what. 

“Silas, knees,” Father’s voice boomed, shattering the silence surrounding the three of us.  I knelt down without hesitation and bowed my head as I had many times before.

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are you my son?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Then, rise, my son.”  I stood.  “Today, you truly become my son.  Today, you create life as I created you.”  Father carefully observed my face and the girl’s.  “Do you understand?”

My heart thudded in my chest.  I did not understand, but I was old enough to know what my Father wanted in an answer, the only acceptable answer, and that Father always receives what he intends.

I struggled to prevent my voice from shaking.  “Yes, Father.”  And he left us.

No floor ever felt more cold on my bare feet.  The girl stared into my eyes like a small deer facing its predator, completely accepting of its unavoidable fate.  And, right that moment, I just couldn't possibly fathom what that actually was.

She didn’t even have a name.  If Father didn’t speak it, it was not important.  The girl gently raised her hands, her eyes still on mine, and lifted her thin dress over her head.  Unceremoniously but carefully, it slid over her skin, revealing the smoothly shaved V between her narrow thighs, a flat, flawless stomach, and newly sprouted breasts.  I had never seen a naked woman before.

I was puzzled.  I had no idea what I was supposed to do, what would make Father happy, how to be the son I was to grow into here and now.  My hands clenched into balls at my sides.  I just waited.  I froze in place, waiting to become aware of – praying I would discover – just what Father expected of me.  I could hardly breathe.  The world of my childhood was suddenly so foreign, completely unknown.  I was lost.

And worst of all, she wasn’t frightened.  That very fact perplexed me.  It fed me a new emotion: jealousy.  How could this girl know something I didn’t know, especially when it came to Father?

The girl gently folded her dress in a neat square and laid it on the floor beside her.  And then, she just looked at me.

I quickly glanced down and back up along the shape of her small body, subconsciously looking for clues as to what Father wanted of me.  There was no sexual response whatsoever.  I wasn’t sexual; my life wasn’t sexual.  No one had ever made the world sexual for me.  Now, I know it has to be taught... even if it’s your own body serving as your teacher.

The girl took my hand in hers, the touch creating a tingling sensation instantly.  No woman had ever touched me before, very few had even spoken to me.  I didn’t know the tenderness, the tentativeness of a female’s touch.  It was completely new, further establishing how I was suddenly, overwhelmingly, in a completely new world.

Leading me to the mattress, the only furnishing in the room, I found myself studying the girl’s foreign form while I had the chance.  My eyes scanned the shape of her: how she was different from me, how she was the same.  I watched the curves above her thighs crease and shift as she walked.  I noticed the bony ridge of her spine, the single freckle on one shoulder blade momentarily revealed beneath her swaying blonde hair.  She was a complete puzzle to me.  I hardly knew why women existed at all.  I only knew of the one reason.

The girl stopped when we reached the edge of the mattress at our feet after a walk that seemed to take forever.  She faced me.  I almost detected a smile on her face.  Her hands moved to the button fastened at the top of my shirt; I jerked away without thinking.

It was the look in her eyes then, shot suddenly from the deepest green, that spoke volumes.  Do this now.  Remember Father.  I relaxed, grateful for the direction, and her fingers nimbly unbuttoned my shirt, allowing it to fall off my shoulders and drop to the ground.

I knew, finally, what was next.  ....