My name is Roberta, Roberta Johnson. Life was giving me no breaks at all; if it could go wrong, it sure as hell would. If it could go right, there was little chance that it might. I was returning home to my cottage in the dales, having spent two nights at my mother’s, two fraught nights where she still blamed me for her husband, my dad, leaving.

My dad had thought that it was right and normal that he should be able to lift my skirt and have access to my fanny.

“Good grief, girl, you are eighteen now; you need to give your father some relief.” He had said.

“Fuck off, Dad, it’s not right, no,” had been my answer. “That is Mum’s role, not mine.”

Mum had come into the room and looked at us both: Dad with my skirt in his hand and me with my hands on my hips.

“What is my role, Roberta Johnson?” She had asked.

“Fucking Dad, that is not down to me.”

She had looked at Dad, who had stared her down. “Well, she dresses like a trollop; what do you expect?” he had said.

An almighty row broke out between the two of them, I just left them to it and went to my room. It was time to leave, but where to go? I texted my cousin who lived in Birmingham; she had a spare room. She said I could go there. First thing in the morning I left, leaving a note saying I would be in touch. I had packed everything of value into a suitcase and walked down the street and caught the bus into town, and then another from the bus station to Birmingham.

My cousin Leah was there to greet me when I got off the bus, and we went on another bus to her house in somewhere called Edgbaston. I had only been to Birmingham once, and that was to watch a recording of Gladiators at the Birmingham NIA, staying overnight at some dive of a hotel not far from the NIA and then taking a train from New Street rail station to Leeds and then another train back home. The Gladiators recording had been fun, and a lot of the stars mingled with the audience before and after the show; it had been a very good experience, well worth the ticket money and the cost of travel. Even one of the OG Gladiators, Wolf, from the original series, was there, older, but just as naughty. When it had been shown on TV, I spotted myself in the audience, and I felt so cool.

Leah’s house was actually a rented ground floor two-bedroom flat, not far from the university. It had rear garden access and space for one car at the front.

“My dad tried it on with me too, Rob,” she said. “That’s why I left home. He actually had me bent over the kitchen table and was pulling my knickers down when Mum came home. She sided with Dad; he said I had been asking him, wanting him to. I just shook my head and went to my room. I managed to get this flat, and now here I am.”

“Do you ever see your parents, Leah?”

“No, and I don’t want to Rob, not since Dad decided he wanted to stick his dick inside me.” I hate it when people abbreviate my name to ‘Rob’; it sounds like a boy’s name, and I have a fanny, not a dick.

“I did actually used to fantasise about Dad shagging me, but I don’t think I ever let him know that; what he did just came out of the blue.”

“Yeah, I did too, but I knew it was just a fantasy world; I would never actually do it.”

“I have a friend who I know from school, Rebecca Arkwright; she is shagging her dad every time her mum goes out.”

“Wow. Does every girl think about it, I wonder?”

I had settled into her spare room, and my priority had been to get a job. I waitressed mostly and then got a gig at H&M, which gave me a discount on clothes. It was long days, but plenty of chance for extra hours, and I managed to save up and eventually get my little Citroën car.

Then an opportunity came up at H&M in Bradford which came as a floor manager promotion. I secured the job and then got a really cheap cottage in the dales; it was on a farm and was an old farmworker’s cottage. The rent was two hundred pounds a month, which was ridiculously cheap. It was three quarters of an hour by car to work, so not too bad. I had to bid a tearful farewell to Leah and moved back to Yorkshire.

Life had seemed good, and then out of the blue the farm wanted their cottage back, so I had to find somewhere else to live; everything had seemed to be going so well until then, too well. I rang mum and asked if I could go and stay with her for a bit. She, begrudgingly I thought, said yes.