My father tells me that he worries about me when I come home late at night. He says that I should always ring him when I arrive at the train station so he can pick me up in his car. "It's not safe for me to walk home after dark," he tells me. I realise he is thinking of something bad happening to me. Perhaps someone grabbing me off the street and raping me? He tells me that he cares about me. He corrects himself. "Your mother and I both care about you," he says. I wonder if he often thinks about a stranger raping me. Is he jealous of that stranger? I feel uncomfortable talking about it with him. He isn't looking directly at me when he talks to me. Why? Is he embarrassed by what he is saying or does he suspect that he is giving away some of his private thoughts?
I am not wearing a bra. I don't enjoy wearing them. They're uncomfortable and it's a relief not having to wear one at home. A shop assistant at the department store tells me that the bra I'm wearing is too small and I need to get a bigger one. I don't want to talk about bras with my father. When I tell my mother she says that the shop assistant is a fool and only wants to sell more bras.
At the end of the day we have dinner together. It is one of my responsibilities to lay the table for dinner. Knife and fork for father; chopsticks for mother and me. "How was school today?" my father asks. "Good," I reply. "What did you learn today?" my mother asks. "Nothing," I reply crossly. "You there for whole day and learn nothing? Stupid girl," she says angrily. I say nothing and my father laughs at us both.
I am not wearing a bra. When he looks at me, I wonder if he notices. Does he enjoy looking at my breasts? Does he find me attractive, like the men in the street? Does he desire me in the way he desires my mother? He glances at them and thinks I do not notice what he is doing. He thinks he performs this furtive act so quickly and cleverly that he is not observed. He is so clumsy about it that even my mother notices. Later in the night my mother tells me he is a fool like all men are.
Sometimes at the end of the day I massage his feet. He enjoys this very much and he tells me that I do it well. "Better than most," he says. He is presumably comparing me to the massages he receives at the local Asian massage shop. "Perhaps I should give up my studies and become a massage therapist," I tell him and he laughs. "Your mother would be very angry with you," he replies. "So, perhaps not." I wonder if the girls at the massage shop give him happy endings. Is that what he is wondering and hoping for as he looks down at me, while I work on his feet.
When we meet at the end of the day I feel awkward. I want him to hug me and to show that he cares about me. When I was younger, he would always hug me when I came home from school. He would call me his "baby girl". We don't hug anymore. We stand apart. Perhaps further apart than is needed. It is as if we were aware of the pull of each other's gravity. That if we were closer, we would fall into each other's arms and kiss one another.
If I were working in a massage shop I wonder if he would choose me rather than the other girls working there.
