"Open the goddamn door! Now! You two are gonna get a smack and you're gonna get it now!"

I stared at Sloane with big eyes. I wanted her to think of a way out of this mess. She was twelve and she needed to take charge.

"Ask him if it's with the belt or his hand," Sloane said.

I looked at her to make sure she was serious, then yelled back, "With your hand or a belt?"

"What?!"

I went closer to the stairs that led to the door. "Are you going to hit us with the belt or your hand?"

He was shaking the handle now. "No one's getting hit with a belt!" he shouted. "One… two…"

This was before there were time-outs, so my sister and I didn't know what to make of his counting. I wondered if his ABCs were next. He stopped at "three," and we braced ourselves when "four" didn't come.

Sloane was holding on to me for dear life. Her crying had turned into heaving, and now she started to shake uncontrollably. I tried to comfort her by rubbing her back like my mother did but was too preoccupied with my imminent beating to be very reassuring.

Since my sister had turned into a real mess, it was up to me to devise a plan of escape. At that moment, Sloane wouldn't have been able to lead a horse to our swimming pool, never mind leading me to my bedroom without getting my ass kicked.

"We have to go up and just let him hit us," my sister whispered.

"Ah, I don't think so. I don't make appointments to get hit. Plus, this was your idea and Dad should hit you both times."

"I want to get it over with!"

"No fucking way. I am not going upstairs to get hit."

This was the very first time I said "fucking" in front of anyone and I liked the way it sounded. I had heard my brothers and sisters use curse words but had never dared use one myself in front of anyone. But I had practiced alone in my room lots of times, trying out different cadences and intonations: "Fuck, fuck, fuck you, fucknut. Shit, shitstain, fucker! Go fuck a duck, you asswipe!" My favorite was, "What a fucking cocksucker." The plan was to say this casually to one of my new friends while one of our teachers walked by. No one in kindergarten ever really got my sense of humor, so I was hell-bent on making my mark in the first grade.