This is how it begins

I am three. My father sends me to get a handkerchief from his drawer in his bedroom. I am off happily on a mission. It is a low dresser, with six long drawers, three on each end, and three small square drawers in the middle. The handkerchiefs are in the center small drawer, along with a pair of magnets. They are old, heavy and large. Each one is a bracket with rounded corners, they come together to form a sort of rectangular zero. I am fascinated by magnetism, it is magical. They are lovely magnets, quite powerful. I love to play with them. So when I open the drawer to get the handkerchief, I am mesmerized by them, and forget all about my obligation. I take them out and start playing with them, putting them at opposite poles and pushing one with the other. Then I hear my father's voice, sternly saying my name. My stomach drops. Had I learned already that it was too late to fix it, to rush his handkerchief to him and apologize?  It's fuzzy then, I imagine I was interrogated, and the next thing I remember is him telling me to go get the belt. I start crying, terrified. This was not new. I don't know what other infraction I was guilty of before to get this punishment, but I remember knowing what was coming; this had happened before. His belts hung on a rack which hung over the closet door in his bedroom. My parents' bedroom, but why mention my mother? She might as well have been dead for all the protection she offered. Still crying, but unable to escape, I head for the belts. I must select the instrument of my torture, and deliver it to a monster. This was a beating, not a spanking. On a three year old. My pants were pulled down, my underpants too. On my bare skin I was hit so hard there were welts. My sister told me about the welts, she saw them, I'm not sure how long afterward. That was the last time I was beaten. My brother and sister were older by 4 and 5 years. I don't know why the beatings stopped then. But the torture did not stop then. It merely changed form. The ravings of a lunatic raining down on me, trying to convince me of whatever he felt it was that I needed to understand, still powerless to escape, my only defense was to agree with him, pretend I understood, and hope it would stop soon. In this way I was conditioned to allow myself to be abused, to not fight back, not defend myself. The world was all to happy to step in for him when he could not be there, part of the world anyway. Most of it was content to play my mother's part, turning a blind eye to the assaults.