The first time a guy offered to pay me for sex I was 12. He came up behind me and offered me $10. I don’t think I had my periods yet. He was scary and I ran all the way home to ask my grandmother about it.

Lots of men thought they could touch me. I would walk through the city and men would come up, grab a bit of behind or a handful of breast and run away quickly before I could hit them. They especially protected that area between their legs, although they felt all of my areas were fair game. I used to hate building sites. Men would stop what they were doing and wolf whistle as I walked past. “It means they think you’re attractive,” my mother said, “you should enjoy it.”

“I don’t,” I said. She suggested I might need to talk to a psychiatrist. I never mentioned the subject again.

When I was 15, my stepfather told me he had to teach me about sex and how to appreciate it when boys came with offers. He invited me to sit on his lap and so I did. He was supposed to be my father so I didn’t think much of it and I was curious about what he was going to teach me. There might have been something hard I was sitting on, but I adjusted my seat.

We were in the loungeroom and my mother looked in to see what we were doing. I think he may have been about to touch me when that happened but he stopped. My mother didn’t do anything, she just walked into the kitchen but I felt instantly guilty. Uncomfortable. I got up and followed her into the kitchen. I wasn’t sure how to interpret the look on her face but nothing was ever said.

I knew it was wrong that my father wanted to touch me and I knew it wasn’t a thing that fathers did but I was curious too. We had Adam and Eve statues with the genitals fully realised. They were cartoon characters because if they’d been real they would either have not been manufactured or they would have come with fig leaves. Such were the times. But I had no brothers, so I didn’t know what it looked like. I kept sneaking peaks at the Adam statue.

I used to get up early back then and prepare my diet breakfast my mother had insisted I eat, because she was fat and I was a little pudgy, so we had to diet together. The kitchen would be quiet and I would prepare my breakfast and my lunch to take to school and think my adolescent thoughts with no one to bother me, till my stepfather realised that I was alone. He took a shower and came out to the kitchen with a towel wrapped around between his thighs and his belly button. While I was cooking something he took it off. I looked around and saw his erection. I wanted to inspect it but I knew I shouldn’t because it would upset my mother, who was the only person that mattered. She’d been the only constant in my life. I kept looking at him anyway but out of the corner of my eye.

He used to come in and talk to me, explain the ways of the world to me and I was full of adolescent angst so I relished the attention. My mother never disturbed us but he waited till she was out anyway before he suggested we try sex.

“While nobody’s here, why don’t we have our own sex thing,” he said.

“No,” I said.

Surprisingly, he went away. I say surprisingly, because I have heard stories about girls, younger even than I was, being tricked, or forced by their fathers. I was lucky mine wasn’t pushy. My mother liked weak men, she was forceful enough for both of them, well, except in this case.

When I was nearly 17 I had driving lessons with an instructor who promised my mother that his students always passed first time. He may have promised her a discount too, but I think he planned for me to pay that off. At the first lesson I was wearing school uniform and it was easy for him to put his finger into my vagina and stir it around a little. He felt like sandpaper.

I didn’t tell my mother because I didn’t want to end up talking to a psychiatrist so I would change into jeans before every lesson. “My girl doesn’t like me touching her anymore,” he whined after the first lesson I did that. You bet, I thought. He stopped after that and I learned to drive. True to his word, I passed the test first time. My mother was pleased.

My mother recommended him to all the young women who bought their first car from her. It was a year later when one of them rang up and complained about his behaviour. My mother called me in to explain why I hadn’t told her. She was angry, her reputation was on the line and she had trusted her daughter to tell her something like this. Telling her that I was afraid she would send me to talk to a psychiatrist didn’t seem to be the right thing to say. I said nothing. Life continued but for the first time I felt vindicated.

My mother had her own problems. She kept hold of the money and would never give my stepfather any, in case he spent it on his girlfriend. She rarely let him out of her sight. Once, when she went overseas, she accused several women of lining up, waiting for my father’s attention. My sister and I were first on the list. She should have trusted us.

I don’t know what my stepfather did with my sister but once, when we were talking, she swore she would never leave him alone with her daughter.