The day I celebrated the 15th anniversary of my birth was to change my life yet again. For one day each year, my birthing day, father allowed me to be a child. He would not make me perform favors for his friends or him. He would usually bring me a treat from the market. That year, though, was different. My father began drinking early in the morning. By noon he was drunk. While the rest of the city rested in the midday heat, my father told me to disrobe in the courtyard. I dared not disobey, for fear of the violent temper that often surfaced when he was under the influence of too much wine.

When I stood nude, he staggered up to me. Then standing unsteadily before me, he began to appraise my body. He traced a finger down my nose and across my full lips. He lifted a lock of the midnight ringlets that cascaded across my shoulders and halfway down my back.

Commanding me to flex my arms, he felt them for any excess fat. He then turned me around and ran his fingers slowly down my spine. Cupping one hand under each cheek of my high, firm buttocks, he lifted them and then grunted with approval when they did not wrinkle with fat. Turning me back to face him, he cupped in his hands the breasts that had grown dramatically over the last few months, squeezing the nipples between thumb and forefinger.

When a small drop of liquid wet his fingers, his eyes darkened and a scowl replaced the smile of approval. Turning my body, he rubbed his hand up and down over my belly. Going behind me, he placed one hand on each side of my stomach and pushed them inward, squeezing my waist between exploring hands. Finally, he exploded, "You are with child! How long since you bled last?"

Turning to face him, I replied, "I have been notching the sticks like you told me father. But the time between bleeds is not yet even. You told me that as my body became a woman's, the bleeding would happen when there were about 25-30 marks. Sometimes I bleed after that few, but often there are 40 or more marks on the stick before the blood comes."

"How long?" he growled.

"There are 66 marks," I admitted.

Grabbing my hair, he yanked me behind him as he stumbled to my room. Throwing me on my bed, he said, "Do not move."

As I cowered naked and afraid, I considered trying to dress and flee to the house of the woman where I had been told I could get herbs to rid myself of an unwanted child. Thinking that my father was not yet beyond reason, I decided to talk to him rather than fleeing and incurring his wrath.

When he returned to my room, I was sitting on my sleeping pallet.

Glaring at me, he barked, "Lie down Delilah. I cannot remove the fetus with you sitting."

"But father," I protested, "there are herbs I can get to stop the growth of a child."

"Do as I say," he spat out. "I will not have my daughter the talk of the town when some old crone shares that she provided you with herbs designed to cause an abortion. The men who seek your favors might be less inclined to come if they knew you had conceived. No, Delilah, I will do what is necessary. Then I will tell the others that the womanly curse is upon you and you are unclean."

With that, he emptied his laden arms onto my floor. He had brought a couple of blankets. He said they had been my mother's birthing blankets. He had also brought a wine skin, plump with liquid. There was a container of some kind of medicinal balm. Finally, he had an old walking stick.

Handing me the wine skin, he told me to drink. "If you drink enough, it will dull the pain," he informed me. "While you get yourself merrily drunk, I will carve down the end of the stick so it is narrow and pointed."

When I hesitated, he snapped, "Drink, girl. I will remove the fetus whether you are drunk or sober. This is not a procedure you want to be conscious for. Drink yourself into a stupor."

Realizing my father was determined and that he was between the door and me, I had no choice but to do as he bid. So I drank. I drank until I felt lightheaded. Then I drank more. I drank until I began to see double. Then with a giggle, I said, "I fear that if I drink any more I will pee on the birthing blankets, father."

Glowering, he said, "I will not have you urinating on me while I perform this nasty deed. Come, use the chamber pot and then we will proceed."

When I tried to stand, the room began to spin and I fell back on the bed. Father had to lift me and carry me across the room to the pot. Once I had emptied my bladder, he carried me back to the bed where I collapsed like a limp rag doll. When he told me to spread my legs, I simply stared at him through wine dulled eyes. He pulled my legs open and then tied both my ankles and my wrists to the bed so I could not impede him during the surgery.

Although I was in a haze, I was still conscious. I watched as father took the thin sharp stick he had whittled and applied the medicinal balm to the end. I tried to tell him I was the one that needed medicine, not the stick, but I could not form the words and no sound escaped my mouth.

Picking up the nearly empty wine skin, my father downed the remainder of the contents in one gulp and then leaned over my body. He inserted the sharp end of the stick into my womb and gave a vicious jab. I screamed in pain and then passed out as water and blood began to gush from me, but the merciful faint did not last. As I came to, I saw my father pull something from between my legs. Cursing he flung it into a basin, saying, "My wife could not give me a male heir, but my daughter produces a male child that has to be destroyed."

As I stared at the wriggling mass in the basin and the bloody stick lying beside it, I began to wail. The sound was a high pitched, eerie sound that came unbidden from deep inside. It was the death wail of a child for a child. As the keening sound rose and fell, my father grabbed a veil and tied it tightly around my mouth, saying harshly, "Hush, Delilah. The neighbors will come to see what horror causes you to wail so."

As I struggled with the gag and my bindings, I wore myself out and finally fainted. How long I lay thus, I do not know. My next recollection is a room filled with darkness, an intense pain, the smell of incense and whispered voices. The woman who my father had brought to teach me how to be a prostitute now sat next to my bed and bathed my hot brow with wet rags.

For days I drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes I would be awakened by a frightful moaning, only to realize that the sound came from my own mouth. Gradually my fever lessened and my periods of wakefulness lengthened. The pain between my legs grew less intense. Eventually the woman told me that I had teetered on the brink of death for days.  She said I should thank the gods for deliverance.

"Why?" I shouted. "Why thank them? They have only delivered me back to a life of pain and humiliation. I would have been better off dead."

"No, child," she soothed. "You think that now, but one day you will be thankful. What your father did has caused you great pain. That could have been avoided with herbs. But what he has done is really a blessing. I perceive that you will never again have to worry about being with child. I am almost certain that his crude surgery has damaged your womb irreparably. While you should continue to take herbs as a precaution, you now can entertain men without fear. This may not sound like a blessing, but it will give you a freedom most courtesans do not have."

"And what of the baby boy he destroyed?" I asked bitterly. "Am I to thank the gods that he never had a chance to live in the cruel, warped world my father has created for me?"

"Yes, child," she replied. "Imagine what it would have been like for him had he lived. He would have been a bastard child. If he looked too much like your family, he would be rumored to be the bastard child of incest. That is not a heritage you want to give a son. Although what your father did seems unbearably cruel, it is best for the child."

That was the day I gave free reign to the hardened, flirtatious Delilah and buried the abused child deep inside my heart where she would mostly remain hidden until coaxed back into the light of day.

Life soon returned to what had become normal. I entertained the men my father introduced as his friends, friends being the euphemism he used for customers. The first few had been his drinking buddies but as they bragged about the nubile beauty they bedded, others began to seek out father to ask for a chance to 'meet' me. As more men sought my favors, father raised the price he charged. While he refused to tell me the going price, I had my ways of finding out what he was charging. I intended to be prepared when I freed myself from his dominance.

While my life was far from good, at least it was predictable. I would entertain father's friends several times a week. I still was required to meet his personal needs, but more and more they became less sexual. As his drinking took control, his needs often tended more towards nursing than sex. He often got into fights. He also suffered from diseases that were the result of his abuse of wine.

One day I sat beside the bed of my inebriated parent who had collapsed in a drunken stupor. He had been in some sort of fight, again. He had been dragged home by his so-called friends and left in my care. I knew to clean and bandage his cuts. I had salve to apply. I also knew to keep fluids in him and try to cool his fever, when it came. This was an oft-repeated ritual in our home. I had lost count of the times that I had nursed my broken father back to health, all the while praying for his demise. I hadn't the courage to let him die, his wounds untended.

As I bathed his brow, I berated myself. "You are such a weakling, Delilah. Why don't you just let him die? He has done nothing but hurt you. No one would know or care if he died of neglect rather than because your healing touch was inadequate."

My father moaned in his delirium even as I debated while I ministered to his needs. I repeatedly bathed and applied medicinal herbs while my internal dispute continued.

The harsh tones of the cynical Delilah challenged, "You weakling. You argue with yourself over the possibility of letting him die, when you could assist nature. Instead of bathing his brow, hold that damp cloth over his nose. It would not take long to shut off his foul breath forever. Then you would be free of his cruel domination!"

"And what would I do then?" the abused Delilah whimpered. "I would be alone in the world. I have no other family. No man will marry me. I would be doomed to a life of harlotry."

"You are doomed anyway," the derisive Delilah laughed. "If you hasten his death, you hasten your freedom. You may not be able to choose another lifestyle, but you can control the one you live. You can charge what you will. You can hoard your earnings and not have this vile man drink them away. Eventually you can leave this place and go away somewhere and start anew under an assumed name as a wealthy widow. His death means your freedom, Delilah."

Even as these thoughts tempted me to do the unthinkable, I felt a rough hand grab my arm. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing, father," I said. "Your friends brought you home. I'm tending to your wounds."

"Who are you?" he asked belligerently.

"I'm your daughter, Delilah," I said.

"My daughter is six," he said. "Go get my wife. She'll send you on your way."

"Mama died three years ago," I said.

"You lie," he screamed before closing his eyes and falling back into his stupor.

Leaving him sleeping, I donned my cloak and hurried through the streets to the home of my former mentor. After telling her of father's problems, I asked, "What should I do?"

"Give him water," she said, but do nothing else. "By nursing him back to health, you prolong his agony and yours. Once he starts to forget, he will not improve. He will become quarrelsome and dangerous. You provide mercy, this way, Delilah."

And so, I let my father die. I stayed by his side to the end. I gave him water to drink and I soothed his rantings with singing, but I gave him none of the medicines at my disposal. After three days he closed his eyes for the final time.

At sixteen, I was alone in the world. I had no family to care for me. I had only father's friends to offer me comfort.