Reality is Different: Afterword

Perhaps it wasn't wholly inconceivable. Not with the fantasies of being disciplined she'd told him of before - but christ, she hadn't even liked the exercise. Had she? She'd had to stop him for the pain of it, she'd wandered off in tears. Elaine had never really cried like that...or at least, when tears did flow, her corresponding pleasure had been quite apparent. And granted, Sarah was far newer to the reality of it, perhaps more fearful of expressing her reactions openly, but still...

"Daddy..." The whisper from the doorjam plainly wasn't meant for him to hear. Husky, straining on the very edge of audibility - but it effectively dispelled whatever doubt he had still managed to maintain. And it was a certain kind of guilt, of ambiguous embarrassment that clutched upon his gut to recognize what she was doing in there, to think again about his own participation in the dining room downstairs. The role that she'd picked out for him, that he'd stepped into far too easily, too willingly.

"Ohh, I'm such a bad girl." A whimper to the words; he could mostly make them out, and those he couldn't, he could guess. "I'm such a bad girl, daddy, you have to punish me, you have to tame me daddy, mmph..." A couple moments then of wordlessness, of breathing rapid through her nose, and he could all too readily conceive of how her slender fingers must be rubbing frantically upon her flower, seeking out her satisfaction. The helpless moan that followed seemed a sweetly textured note of it. "mm, god, make me your good little girl, daddy, make me your perfect little toy, oh daddy, I'll, you have to..."

Maybe there was more to follow, from that soft and silver tongue of hers. Almost certainly there was. But he managed the composure finally to pull himself away before he heard it, treading back and down the stairs again as quietly as he was able. Making his escape with heated skin, and with another whisper of unspeakable emotion trailing slow along his spine, his nerves. It was a feeling he tried more to quash than to consider as he stumbled back into the kitchen, stuck the cups of ice cream in the fridge to save a while and rummaged briefly for another can of beer instead. He deserved one, with a day like this, a situation like he faced. Even if it was partially his own damned fault.

Somehow, despite all her confessions of that morning, he hadn't quite considered the most apparent of their implications, that she was masturbating to those fantasies she'd spoken of so vague and quietly abashed. That his little girl was up there, had been up there for who knows how long, touching herself to a dream of his dominion...the thought of it was tangled in his stomach, anxious, wired tight. Surprise and scrambling denial from the part of him that saw her as a child still, forever innocent, that didn't care how many years had piled up or even what she outright told him she had thought about and done. He knew that she was grown, that she had sexual desires, that she had taken some few steps at least into that world...but to know was very different than to feel. Through those eyes, it was still a shock to find her in so sexual an act at all - let alone that it was aimed at him.

For there was then that fact, that drove the iron hammer of reality into the whole affair. It meant that there was more to this than words, more than just a bloodless sort of fantasy she entertained, born of fears about her future. And perhaps that should be something he already knew, with how she'd wormed her way into his bed the night before, perhaps it didn't even really change what he had said and thought about it heretofore - but it still felt a revelation, an added weight upon his back to work this out the way he should.

The final voice inside his head was almost hidden, swimming in the depths. Lurking like a beast...because there was an almost thrill to it again, a savage kind of vanity. To see that you can turn a girl's eye, that without even trying for it you can spark desire in her heart enough that she must hide herself away to work it off alone. That the thought of you could send her slipping into rapture, imagining what you would do to her, or what you could - it made a virile feeling, masculine and strong. Even if the girl in question is your daughter. Or perhaps it was particularly in that case. For surely it bespoke an even greater power to have so much of an effect on her despite the fact that they were family, despite the shield of taboo.

The sound of footsteps drew him from his introspection. Faster than her careful totter from the dining room before - Sarah fairly scampered now across the room and to the kitchen, scarcely giving him the opportunity to glance in her direction before she pounced and threw her arms around him from behind, clutched herself against him in a close and energetic hug. Her chest against his back, squeezing tightly, contact softened largely by her own particular cushioning. She didn't say a thing, of course. Of course. Just let out a single little sigh of satisfaction, pleased - it fell to him to figure out what he should open with. What he could say to bring this up, to tell her it was not acceptable for her to think of him like that, when she was pleasuring herself...lord, how ludicrous it was. Not an area that he would even try to regulate in normal circumstances, the fantasies she had. He didn't have vocabulary for it, didn't have the proper state of mind to put on his official Serious Expression and tell her Sarah, I forbid you to masturbate to me. It just didn't work. It didn't.

"You seem much improved," he managed to intone instead, eventually. Thin-lipped, with a faintly sour note upon his tongue. "I guess it didn't hurt you all that badly after all." Perhaps a slight sarcasm to the words.

"No, no." She answered though with all sincerity. Her voice was muffled, aimed halfway into his shirt - it took the effort of a couple moments shrugging to dislodge her from the hug, to turn around and face her, though even then she edged herself particularly close. A tiny, glowing smile upon her lips, one that at any other time he would be gladded to observe. Even now, it was difficult not to thaw a bit, himself. "I mean...well, it does still kinda hurt, I guess. Or ache. But it's like - it aches in kind of a good way, I think. It makes me think of you." The look upon her face was bashful and excited all at once, as though carrying a secret that she wasn't trying very hard to keep. Her eyes engaging in that dance again he'd seen from her the past few weeks, climbing up to touch on his a beat before they flitted timidly away. A trace of nerves, of hesitation in the last two words she spoke. "Thank you."

"Mmph." It was an almost mutter for himself, bemused. Reaching for a drawl of disapproval, without quite getting there. "Are you supposed to thank someone for spanking you?"

"Yes!" If anything, the question seemed to light a brighter spark within her, her hazel eyes shot wide and vivid with her eagerness, intensity. "Yeah, I am. You are. I actually forgot at first, right after. But that's...well, it's one of the things I read about, you know. That a girl should be grateful when her dad spanks her. Corrects her. Because he's teaching her to be good." A momentary bite upon her lower lip, as her soft and subtle smile struggled to restrain itself. "Because he knows what's best for her, and...and she needs him to tell her what to do."

As he ought to do right now, no doubt. His own expression drawn a trifle tight - she'd hardly hidden that the concept was another fantasy, sexually charged, a thought she shouldn't entertain. It just made a strange rebuke, to tell her...what, now, that she shouldn't listen to the things he told her? Maybe just that she should try not to enjoy it quite as much? It was peculiar either way. Just as the entire situation was, the mess that they were in.

He tried, though, anyway. As best he could. "Maybe you should be giving those ideas a bit of a rest, huh?" Just a shadow of the normal humor that he managed with his reprimands, a hint of it upon his lips as he raised his eyebrow for a momentary Look.

Her own lips parted once without a sound, the attempt of a rejoinder, reaching out for a riposte...but she stopped before it found her tongue. Stepped back a foot or so, as a chastened look drew slow and heavy through her features, dimmed the luster of her eyes. Her left hand lifted up to lightly touch upon her brow, as that gaze again evaded to the floor. "Yeah. No, I know. I..." Hesitation in the answer that came stumbling a couple seconds afterward, not quite a stutter. Knocked down to earth once more, after the dreaminess that had touched her tone. "I know. I kinda just got, um...I'm sorry." Fainter, quieter; it was a paler echo of the humiliation that had stricken her that morning. "I'm sorry."

"Hey. No big deal." He shot back half a toothy grin at her, and hoped that he was right. "I get it, you've got a lot going on in that head of yours right now. Makes things complicated, right? That's why I always keep mine empty."

It was comforting at least to hear the little snort of laughter that this earned from her, to see the tiny smirk and rolled-back eyes of tolerant appreciation. She didn't answer anything beyond that. Didn't need to, really. "Listen. I already served us up a couple things of ice cream, if you want. Dessert." He was already reaching for the fridge.

"Yeah." And a blossoming relief inside the hopeful half a smile she returned, gratitude despite the furrow of her brow. "Yeah, yes, that's...thank you." The last two words arriving as he dropped the bowl into her waiting hands, and shortly after started in on his own serving.

Not hard to understand that gratitude, really. It wasn't for the frozen treat itself, though probably that didn't hurt. But in an awkward situation like this one, simply having an excuse to keep from talking was a rather precious thing. God knew, he'd relied upon that refuge, here and there. And here, the both of them - they ate in mostly silence, Sarah leaning just against the kitchen counter, until the stiffness of her faint embarrassment and of his own uncertainty had had a chance to thaw, to melt beside the chocolate in their bowls. Long enough for him to think of what could follow afterward; he offered it when he was finished, while she still scraped up little spoonfuls of the third or so that she had left. "Was thinking I'd just work a while on the truck tonight, get the hoses all hooked up again and everything."

"Mm!" She answered almost instantly, but had to swallow before she could put words to it. "I'll help you."

"No, no." Dismissive. Gently so, he hoped. "No need. It's basically a one-person job at this point. You'd just be in the way. You should..." He stumbled briefly at the injured look that climbed into her gaze, but resolutely tried again. "Should find something else to do tonight. Go out to a party, movie, friend's place, something. Get yourself out of the house, you know?" Away from him a while. It would surely be a positive development for her.

Not that she seemed too quick to go along with the advice. There was a quarrel in her downcast eyes, reluctant now to go against his plain suggestion, while clearly still not pleased to follow it. It was a couple seconds quiet, stirring troubled circles with her spoon inside the bowl, when she finally demurred. "I don't really...um. I mean, honestly, none of those sound that appealing." Soft, reserved; a beat before she tried the question. "You said before, that we...that you thought it might be good for us to do more stuff together. For you to kind of baby me again. A bit."

"Does that even apply here?" He arched an eyebrow at her. "Anyway, that's right. A bit. Not every moment, every day. You're not actually a baby, after all."

"I know, I know." She answered that somewhat subdued, and it was another half a spoonful of her ice cream slowly swallowed before she followed up. "I mean, that's almost the point, I feel like. Part of the reason. Always getting older, right? And when I'm not thinking like a, like a crazy person, I know that pretty soon I'm gonna be...you know, transferring out, moving out, going to a college somewhere else." Emotion was a distant tremble in her tone, an echo of it in his heart. "Probably to Indiana, jesus. And I want...god, I know, it's all mixed up with all this other stuff, but even apart from that I still want to make the most of the time that I have left here. With you. Before I have to leave, and only see you on the holidays, when I get breaks, whenever."

Silence for a little while. She still stared into her bowl, into the puddling of melted ice cream that remained. His own container empty in his hand, until he dropped it on the counter with a quiet plastic clatter. Finally he spoke. "Yeah." A subtle lump inside his throat. Too true. How true it was, the facts he didn't want to face, the nearness of the time when he would have to give her up. Surrendering his daughter to the cold and cruel world. "Yeah, okay." His voice emerging fainter than was usual - though it somewhat regained its strength as he continued. "I guess you could always hold the light for me, or hand me tools, right? Just..." There was a tightness in his smile, warily conflicted. "Let's just keep our heads screwed on, okay?" And not entirely rhetorical, the inclusion of himself in that request.

For her own part, it seemed he hardly needed to have worried. She did nothing inappropriate, nothing he could call unusual in the hour and a half they spent working on a truck beneath the bright fluorescent lights that he had hanging up in the garage. Just hung around him, asking him a question here and there about the parts that he was hooking up, or banishing the shadows of the engine block with the worklamp that he'd had for something like a decade now. If anything, his own awareness was the greater problem, watching out for every moment that her body was up close to his, every fleeting contact that they made, every pose and stance she took, in case they might be meant as...a seduction. An enticement.

How absurd a thing for him to guard himself against, to watch for, from his daughter. Particularly when she wasn't doing it, she didn't seem to be. Even when she stood like that, bent slightly over, resting with her forearms on the left side of the hood - it wasn't an improper pose by any means, unusual, it didn't have that feeling of intentionality about it, that she set out to be provocative. But he was conscious of it, still. Conscious of her, in a way he hadn't been before, hadn't had to be before. It slowed his efforts, drew the corner of his eye to where she stood, or leaned, or sat in quiet diligence beside him, and the awareness was a dryness on his tongue, an uncertain tingle at the back and bottom of his skull.

He didn't finish up, not quite. But he did get far enough to stop, at least, to leave the rest of it for later. Greasy hands wiped mostly clean against a t-shirt that had graduated to a rag, turning off the radio that he kept permanently tuned to classic rock. The sudden silence that came after felt an altogether weighty thing, and it was Sarah who was first to break it. Softly. "I was thinking I'd head up to bed."

"Yeah?" He didn't voice the followup, but a glance down at his wristwatch said it, all the same. Still a trifle early yet, for her.

"Yeah. I mean, maybe not to go to sleep immediately. I've got some reading I should do, but at least to head there for the night." There were still some tools to put away, or at least to pick up of the floor; she hung a couple crescent wrenches back up in their places on the board before she asked, "When you said this morning you thought it was okay for me to carry me, put me to bed..." The question lingered in the air, unsaid.

"Did I say that?" He mused, uncertain. A touch of apprehension, too. Perhaps he'd been too careless with his words.

She hardly moved. "I think so." Quietly, with nothing after. A funny thing. She didn't want to speak the words out loud of her request, afraid that it was something he'd deny, or just embarrassing, or - who could say what other reason. It shouldn't even make a difference, to ask for it implicitly instead...but plain enough it did, for her.

Perhaps for him as well, at that. He might have turned it down, if it had been a question spoken openly, something to be answered first with careful thought. Instead, confronted only with her slightly lowered gaze, the wistful stiffness of her pose...he couldn't help a sympathetic tug upon his lips. "C'mere." As he had said that morning, comforting. Her own expression lifting to a bashful little smile, blended pleasure and self-conscious feeling as she padded slowly up before him, hardly half a foot away, and as he felt again the faintly awkward prickle of proximity to someone who a week ago such nearness would have been - unthought. Unspoken, unremarkable, for one's daughter to be close like this, or to have contact with each other, bodies touching now and then. Nothing to dwell upon, before she tells you of her fantasies. But there's new meaning in it once she does, new awareness of the woman's body that she wears, new tension in his spine to feel the warmth of her so near.

"All right." Muttered with perhaps a drop of irony. She'd been mostly horizontal on the couch, the last time that he'd done this, picked her up; it was a little trickier like this. One arm held out for her to rest her back against, his right hand gripping just beneath her shoulder. He had to stoop a bit to get his other arm behind her legs...it took a grunt of effort as he abruptly swept her up and off her feet, eliciting a sound from her as well, a gentle gasp, half through her nose. The weight of her was rather slight, all things considered, but it was still enough to slide her fully down into the valley of his arms, to crush her close against him, warm and soft. A moment of adjustment as he hefted her a trifle higher, and as she wriggled herself into place, laid her head down at his shoulder. Then he began to lumber with her back into the house, to bring her to her room.

"You know, you're a little heavier to carry than you used to be." He hardly had to murmur now, to speak to her so close. Trying for a touch of his accustomed humor, though it was more sincerity that sidled quiet to his tongue. "But I gotta admit, I do miss this sort of thing myself, somewhat. Takes me back."

"Yeah?" She only breathed the question, the word caressing brief across his jaw. A shifting of her head, her cheek against his shoulder. He could smell her hair, the distant scent of floral perfumes laid atop the clean and earthy odor of her skin, her scalp.

"Yeah." Confirmation as he reached the bottom of the stairs, began the careful climb. He had to turn a little to his side to keep her feet from banging on the rail as he headed up. "I remember one time, you must have been...god, what, six or seven, maybe. We drove home from your cousin's birthday party, got back kinda late, ten o'clock, eleven, and you were so tuckered out from everything that by the time we pulled up you were sound asleep." A curl of reminiscence on his lips. She didn't seem to know exactly where she ought to have her hands; one was laid a little awkwardly across her sternum, the other held in closer where her side was pressed against his stomach. Her wrist at rest upon her abdomen, while fingertips reached up and out to bridge between them, touched upon his shirt. "Had to carry you inside. I just remember looking down as I was holding you, and thinking, being struck, just - god, how much I cared about you, how much this silly little girl had come to mean to me. Which was nothing new, of course, not really. But suddenly, right then, you looked to me like such a little angel." He didn't quite expect the tightness that grew thick around his throat, that quavered faintly in his final words.