I opened my eyes as if by impulse. My half-conscious brain nearly shut them again, and it would have been a simple mid-night awakening followed by more slumber. 

But my eyes registered a light in front of me, a blurry but bright light that changed in flickers of blue, green, tan. Lots of tan. 

What’s going on? I thought to myself. Where am I? It came back slowly but I remembered: I had fallen asleep in the living room, on the couch. I couldn’t see well because I’d taken my glasses off. I always wore glasses back then, before I made the permanent switch to contacts a few years later. 

The next thought that registered in my mind scared, and excited me. It was a new mix of emotions, inexplicable using my current vocabulary extent. My heart beat faster and I squinted to see more clearly--all the while not moving a muscle besides those around my eyes. 

In front of me on the screen were naked people, mostly girls. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t be looking at this screen. I was raised to always change clothes in complete privacy, to believe that girls were gross, and to be ignorant of all sexual matters. Still somehow, I knew I’d be in trouble if I was caught watching this.

But I didn’t turn this on, I was sleeping...

I shifted my eyes across the room, and made out a dark-haired, slouched man sitting on the other couch. I couldn’t see more than these scant features, but it couldn’t be anyone but my dad. 

I quickly shut my eyes, thinking he might see that I was awake. He hadn’t noticed, by all indications. The TV stayed glowing, and he didn’t move. Neither did I.

This has happened before, I suddenly recalled. Halloween night, about two years earlier. I had woken up similarly for no apparent reason, and seen a fuzzy image of a women with no shirt on. That time, I instinctively shut my eyes, thinking it some kind of innocent mistake. I had fallen back asleep quickly without any further questions or contemplations about it. 

This time around, the questions bombarded me: Why is dad watching this, and with me in the room? Does mom know? Why do I want to open my eyes and keep watching? Is this kind of thing normal? This feeling, normal?

I didn’t know how to answer any of these, and instead of pondering them more or trying to fall back asleep, this time I did open my eyes again--slightly, so he wouldn’t see. I knew instinctively there’d be trouble if he knew I was awake. Trouble for who, I didn’t know.

An occasional itch flared up, due to my body being locked in one place. I scratched at these, but with the nonchalance and seemingly unthinking movements of one shifting in sleep. I had used to fake being asleep toward the end of car rides. If it was a decent performance, I would get carried in by my dad and laid in bed. Then I would open my eyes ecstatically and declare with triumph that I had been awake the whole time. 

There’d be no sense of satisfaction now, no can’t-believe-you-fell-for-that’s. I was ashamed at my act now, and there wasn’t going to be any big reveal this time. The shame was overridden though by a new kind of ecstasy, and my eyes remained half-open for as long as I could manage. Tired of straining them and tired from breaking my young boy’s sleep schedule, unconsciousness eventually overtook me. 

When I awoke the next morning, I was still young. Still continued to play on the playground with friends, still believed that anything was possible, even aliens. But I had changed somehow, and quickly after that moment. Maybe lost something quickly. I wasn’t able to put a word to this either, and wouldn’t be able to for some time. Such time passed with little to no external differences. No one asked me why I was acting up, why my behavior had changed. Because I wasn’t and it didn’t, not at first. My thinking had changed basically overnight, but that was my own personal secret, the second thing I’d ever believed I couldn’t tell another soul. 

I thought differently about my dad that first day after. He wasn’t who I thought he was and wouldn’t ever be that symbol of admiration for me again. I thought differently about myself...I suddenly saw something truly dark in me. It scared me, but confirmed what I’d been taught my whole life: humans are bad, that’s why some go to Hell. I hadn’t thought I was in that category before, at least not deserving of the lake of fire, anyway. But it was clear now that there was evil as well as good in me. And that the evil was suddenly overpowering. 

Over the following months, that realization would haunt me, persist, and grow in severity. That first thing I hadn’t been able to tell anyone came back to mind as further confirmation that I was indeed evil, maybe even destined to be so. 

That thought waned eventually, but as it festered through the next year it would almost prove too much for me. In the immediate aftermath of that darkness, a new one took its place, beginning with a reminder of that night on the couch. It was this reminder that caused me to look up, for the first time on my own, pictures of naked women. This too I would eventually learn a word for. But until then I waded in ignorance, my habit growing in severity, my hatred growing in depth. Hatred toward myself, and for the man who introduced me to the habit, who raised me. 

I found justification in this habit: This time’s to get back at him, This time’s because I can’t get any more messed up anyway. Most common became I’m tired of fighting, tired of trying to avoid the inevitable. Another warped sense of destiny--same form, different consequences.