The confrontation

I want Mommy to know (so she will stop it).
Mommy mustn't know (because she's good and what we're doing is bad, because she'd be horrified and it would hurt her. I don't want to hurt or disappoint Mommy. Because Mommy is good.) That was my dilemma.

Daddy has me in bed with him. We are both naked and he is doing things to me. Suddenly Mommy is in the room, too and she is leaning over her side of the bed, shouting at Daddy. He is on the other side, raising himself to one elbow to face her, then sitting up to defend himself more effectively. I must be between them, shrinking into the bed. I am (also) watching all of us from the end of the bed.

I feel exposed, scared, guilty. Mommy wasn't supposed to know! Daddy told me that over and over and I knew it even without his telling me. Still, this is what I have been longing for--to have Mommy find out and take me away from him, make him stop. I am crucified where the two mutually exclusive needs conflict.

Now I see the two of them arguing and though I cannot hear their words, I know what they are saying. 

Earle, what are you doing?

What do you mean?

You know what I mean! What are you doing to her?

What? I was just rubbing her back. She likes it.

No, you weren't! That's not what I saw! She was lying on her back. You were touching her!

Barbara, you have a dirty mind! She had a stomach ache. I was rubbing her stomach.

Listening, I knew that what Mommy had caught us doing was wrong. Because Daddy was lying about it--I hadn't had a stomach ache--I thought it must have been my fault and he was protecting me. He was protecting me from her knowing and protecting her from being hurt.

She lashed out one last time: I can't leave you alone with her anymore!

First, he had pretended innocence, casting doubt on the evidence of her own senses: What do you mean? (There's nothing's wrong.) Then he contradicted the evidence of her senses: I was just rubbing her back. She likes it. (I wasn't hurting her. It was mutual.) Then he re-interpreted what her senses told her: She had a stomach ache. I was rubbing her stomach. (Not only wasn't I doing anything bad, I was doing something good. I was making her feel better.) And turned the attack on her: You have a dirty mind!

Now deliberately, icily, he demanded, "DON'T YOU TRUST ME?"

The question hangs in the air unanswered to this day, though both of them are long gone. It was the fatal, winning thrust. She pursed her lips to keep back the angry retort. Then her shoulders slumped and she shut down, smouldering inside, as she did whenever her attempts to reason with his bullying just made it worse. She recognized her defeat. She couldn't say she didn't trust him, although she didn't trust him. She could not pick me up and take me out of the room with her. That would imply she didn't trust him. He had just--masterfully--guaranteed that he would have continued access to me into the indefinite future.

He was so cunning. Just as cunning as he was with Eve in the garden at the dawn of time.