Reality is Different: Afterword

Which made it all the harder to acknowledge, even to himself. That she would be an easy object of desire. That her body was a lithe and slender thing before him, veiled but not fully hidden by the oversize t-shirt she wore to bed. The shape of her could still be traced; her girlish hips, the subtle arching inward of her waist, the gentle swell of breasts just big enough to fill a lustful pair of hands. And that trim, delicious little bottom she'd presented him to be spanked...he couldn't truly see it right now, not with her sitting firmly on the bed, but he could recall it all too clearly, the sight and feeling both. Heart-shaped, soft and yielding beneath his hand. Her legs stretched out beneath, long and lean - for all that she complained sometimes about her height, it certainly afforded her a lovely pair.

Her features, too, above. Looking at them now...he couldn't call them sultry or seductive, but there was an allure to innocence as well. Too much of one. Or perhaps it was just him, a kind of saviour complex; he'd always felt a greater pull, attraction when a woman plainly needed him, when her weakness offered him a chance to show his strength. An adolescent impulse, certainly. But the image of a waifish girl, helpless, possessed of beauty without even knowing it - it was a role that she could play too well, that fit her all too perfectly when dolor crept into her mood.

The quiet sigh that passed her lips served only as a further demonstration, sweetly poignant on his ears. Perhaps as a reminder, too, of how long he'd been silent, leaving her unanswered...hell. "Yeah." He shook his head ambiguously, echoing her sigh; his tongue felt dry inside his mouth as he compelled it to continue. "All right, if you have to know, if you insist...yes. You are a beautiful, desirable young woman. And no, I don't just mean your smile or your eyes. I mean all of it. Of you. If you weren't my daughter, I'd be...I think I'd find you very tempting." His throat twitched for a moment with the thoughts that followed, what that could be. If she were instead the daughter of a buddy of his, coming to him with a heated, adolescent crush, he might well prove himself to be a sorry sort of friend indeed. Or on the job, a customer, one of those scenarios that come up infinitely more often for repairmen in pornographic films than in reality. But these were probably not things he ought to speak. Instead he offered up the obvious. "But you are my daughter. And that's the number one thing for me, the most important. Being your dad. Taking care of you. It doesn't...leave me room for something else." He swallowed, hoping this made sense. Hoping it was true. "You understand, princess?"

She looked like she still had a mind to argue. A quarrel in her eye, stubbornly insistent - but she only shook her head a little, smiled weak and wry. "I understand." Breathed softly to the air. The remainder of the echo came a couple seconds after, lower, almost melancholy. "Princess."

"What?" He asked her with just a thread of careful teasing. "Don't you like that anymore? 'Princess?'"

"No," she answered swiftly, affirmatively, the meaning made apparent mostly by her tone. "No, I do. Probably too much, I guess. It's another of those 'things,' you know. My crazy-person things." A modest and self-conscious murmur of admission. "Pet names, I mean. It always made it feel more real, in those stories, when the father called her daughter things like that. Made them feel closer to each other. Sometimes the same things you call me. 'Princess,' or 'sweetheart'...which, yeah, of course those are pretty normal, so I shouldn't really be surprised." A pause. "Sometimes they said other stuff, that wasn't quite as normal."

"Did they." It wasn't quite a question. He wasn't sure if he should ask.

She answered, anyway. A wobble of a nod. "Yeah. I mean, not the stuff they said when they were...you know, but earlier, before. The stuff that was supposed to be just innocent. Like he'd call her 'kitten.' And I can't really even say that anything is wrong or weird about that, specifically, but it just feels different. Doesn't it?"

It did, at that - or at least, her suggestion that it might was itself enough to lend the scent of innuendo to the term. And his own quiet nod of acquiescence gave her confidence to press on further. "Like it says something about the two of them, for her dad to use that name for her." A breath of silence. Two. "There's another one of those that really grabbed me, that I read a couple times. When the father...when he called her 'babygirl.'"

"Well," His smile was a trifle slender, wry. "You are my baby girl, I suppose."

How powerful, the look of longing that convulsed across her features for a brief, unguarded moment. "Um." The tiny quiver of her chin, the husk that crept into her whisper as she ventured to correct him. "It's really just one word, the way they do it. Just...babygirl." The last word scarcely spoken.

"Babygirl, then," he softly echoed - even as a little voice inside him cautioned that perhaps he shouldn't, hearing how much feeling she infused into the word. Seeing it in her expression, agony in bittersweet, the faintly anguished parting of her lips, the curl of her fingers on the sheets, the silence that was left to linger afterwards, until finally she summoned up a single, shaky note of laughter.

"Hah." Her gaze escaped again, evading to the ceiling's edge, away from him. "You shouldn't, um." Her voice again a whisper, half directed to herself. "That one's kind of special, actually. If someone calls a girl that, it's like he's saying she belongs to him. That her...her only purpose is to make him happy. So you should only say it if you mean it." Not hard to hear the note of yearning that was threaded through the words - but when his only answer was a lifted brow, awkwardly bemused, she muttered slightly more. "God, I really am a crazy person, huh."

Perhaps there was a whiff of madness to it, feeling so extreme a meaning in a simple, cutesy name. But for him right now, regarding her, the impulse rising up most strongly in his chest was just that he should throw his arms around her, hold her tight, stroke his hand behind her neck the way he'd done when she was young to soothe her sorrow and her hurt. A flat denial didn't fit here, hardly mattered anyway - it wasn't what she asked that truly bothered her. "Like I said, sweetheart. You're my little girl. I love you more than anything, now and always. No matter what." A pity, really, that she was already laying down, that he couldn't, shouldn't simply sweep her up into a hug. Instead he let his hand drift down to clasp against her cheek.

A tiny gasp, an inhalation passed her parted lips as his palm first touched upon her skin. Her own hand followed quickly after, rushing upward in reaction to hold fervently above his own, begging it to keep in place. Not that he was of any mind to pull it back, not now, not yet - in truth there was a dangerously pleasant flutter of emotion in this, a warm and warning buzz somewhere around the center of his stomach, electric at the tiny tremble of her softly tapered fingers clutched upon his hand. At the whisper, whimper that just barely managed to escape her lips, ashamed, apologetic, prayerful, ecstatic. "Daddy..." At the flash of feeling in her eyes. Adoring. What else can you call it? An echo from the past, perhaps, from when she truly was a little girl, hanging on his every word, begging his attention for her skips and somersaults. When in the frightful dark her tiny hand would tightly clutch upon his own, and nothing could be plainer than how much she needed him to keep her safe, take care of her.

You can't expect such things to last. You accept it when they fade, when age brings independence and rebellion, shaping out a self away from those who were your guardians. You understand that life is built of losses like that, large and small...and so it was a guilty kind of rush to see them resurrected, despite the complications of her greater age and womanhood, despite the fantasies he knew she'd bound into this very thing. Or perhaps it was because of them. The supplication that it felt of her, to press her cheek so urgently into his palm, to let her fingers curl and intertwine with his, insistent, begging wordless that he gently stroke along her skin.

She tugged and fretted, urging at his hand, his thumb, until it touched upon the corner of her lips and rested there for languid seconds, lingering, softly kissed against and by that pair of pliant little pillows. He could feel their subtle, sometime quiver, the dampness of that satin skin, feel how her breath rushed shallowly between to warmly brush upon his fingertips - and what was more, could feel in his rising pulse the sensuality of this, implicit, how intimate a touch it was to have her lower lip so gently crushed beneath his thumb. But the beginning nagging of concern that that inspired was quickly overshadowed by a splash of simple shock as another tiny tremor of her chin presaged her tender mouth abruptly opening, craning forward just enough to close again around his thumb, enveloping it almost to the knuckle. Not biting him, not quite, though her teeth did graze a bit along his skin, the barest little touch - she only held him there between her sealed lips, her mouth a slick and warm cocoon around his calloused digit, her tongue just tentative in contact, underneath.

He managed to respond, of course, at least after a second of surprise. He shot her quite a look, of mingled incredulity and mild warning - but it proved rather ineffective, dashed against a pair of eyes that now were tightly shut. And words were far more difficult to find, looking down at her like that, at the subtle inward pucker of her faintly freckled cheeks. At the fervency that quietly infused her features as she softly, hesitantly suckled at his thumb, painted slow and delicate against it with her nimble little tongue...he was stunned by the experience, caught off-guard by the intensity of her attentions, unable to simply tell her she should stop.

That was an explanation, anyway. An excuse for how he only sat there watching, allowing her to clutch his hand against her cheek, his thumb between her lips, to press it deeper inward by a fraction of an inch. Harder to acknowledge was the stirring that he felt at her display, the low and thrumming ache of instinct that uncoiled like a serpent in his stomach. The mindless ember of the animal that lengthened, thickened just below the waist. Awareness any man would have, of the woman he had here before him, of her readiness, the need that man was meant to fill. It pressed upon the bottom of his mind as seconds drifted past the point where he could speak of his surprise, as the proper time for reprimand arrived and peaked and left again in silence. Almost silence. Just the subtle, liquid sounds of suction escaping from her lips, the shallow whisper of her breath. The darker hiss of his, as his fingertips began to barely stroke along her heated, blushing cheek, the turgid weight of his arousal aching in a jealous sympathy for the attention given to his thumb.

Perhaps a minute had gone by like this before the growing agitation of concern spilled over into action, woke him from his reverie. Maybe only thirty seconds. Awkwardness and guilt regardless clutched upon his chest as he gently pulled his hand away, his sodden thumb emerging from her lips beside a moist and quiet little pop. Her lashes fluttered open at the same time as his mouth, the former slowly and reluctant, the latter searching for something he ought to say...but the words died on his tongue before they could take shape. There was no statement he could think of that would fit the situation they were in. Not with his complicity, the long delay to this response. So finally, instead, he simply shook his head a trifle, stood up from the bed. Intoned a slightly strained farewell. "Good night, Sarah."

She was swift to echo him, a softly ardent murmur. "Good night, daddy." That again, of course. Not the 'dad' he'd been to her for years and years, but 'daddy' once more, recapturing another of the symbols of her childhood. Although there was a hum of implication in its invocation now, one which he could hear more plainly with its every repetition. Dependence and obedience made into a conscious choice, a promise wrapped inside of love and trust so total that they bordered onto worship - that was the whisper of the word that stuck with him as he began to stiffly make his way downstairs and to his bedroom, the thought of it inside his head. The slick of her saliva on his thumb, smearing as he rubbed it slow and absent on his knuckle. The image of her lingered in his mind, curled on her bed, her body outlined by the crooked sheets and by the t-shirt clinging to her curves, her pert and youthful bosom, her slender waist and hips. And god, but god, what could be said about that pliant pinkness of her lips, the tentative and tender ministrations of her tongue?

His manhood stretched and throbbed with hunger at the ready recollection, and he reached down instinctively to readjust himself, to cup and squeeze a moment through his jeans, relieving the discomfort of an awkward angle as he relived what had just transpired. Imagining how else it could have gone, if he had dared to think what never could be thought. What else of her he could have seen, what other part of him he might have thrust between her pretty little lips. The thought of it, the vision conjured of his princess kneeling there before him, looking up at him adoring with those wide and vibrant eyes of honeyed amber as she delicately worshipped at his crown...

His hand was already wrapped around his shaft, slowly stroking, before he recognized what he was doing; he swore a little at himself as he released it. "Jesus christ." Ridiculous. Disgusting. Recrimination, poisonous and bitter in his stomach...it was one thing for her to get this notion in her head; she was a teenager still, more or less, expected to be slightly crazy, to come up with strange preoccupations. He had no such excuse. That wasn't who he was, that kind of man, who'd masturbate over his own damned daughter, no matter what the circumstances were. It was the domain of - of perverts, of degenerates and worse. He was on edge with all of this, that's all it was, still off-kilter, struggling to adjust himself to what could possibly be expected of a father in a situation like he faced. Whatever soothing words, any firm and reassuring answers he had given her before were nothing more than wild, hopeful stabs at something that might point remotely in the right direction.

It hardly helped, as well, how long he'd been without the company of someone pleasing to the eye. Perhaps he was grown desperate, his instincts overeager for the whisper of a woman's touch. But christ, this wasn't like his silent sometime admirations of her friends when they came over visiting, far deeper than that simple little sin. She was his flesh and blood, his child; he'd be a monster if he got himself caught up in this, if he started seeing her as something else.

It was with thoughts like these, tension and misgiving crowded stiffly at the bottom of his neck, that at last he shuffled into bed himself. Enough. It was already more than what a father ought to have to face, her revelations of today, the buildup to them in the past few days and weeks. He didn't care to think about it anymore, not now, to agonize again about the proper things to say and do. Sleep would be a place to hide from it, at least a little while, to rest...though it was difficult to quite escape the topic as he settled down beneath the covers, remembering the way she'd joined him here the night before. The presence and the gentle warmth of her beside him, in a bed that all too often felt a trifle large and cold, alone.

Lord. He bit his tongue-tip, shook his head. It didn't matter. No. Now that this was off her chest, now that he'd...perhaps indulged her in a bit of it, perhaps more than he should...she might just soon get over it. It would lose its luster in the light, wither now that it was off of her computer screen. That was what he could hope for, anyway, that tomorrow might miraculously be normal once again, and all of this affair reduced to something he could somehow, someday kid and laugh with her about. A silly little fancy that had taken her, that she would blush about and softly smack his arm when he reminded her. That would probably be best. For now - for now, there was just sleep.

-

The next day didn't quite bring normalcy again. But neither did it bring catastrophe. In fact, the tenor of the week that followed was that almost of truce that blossomed into peace, the two of them accustoming somewhat to this new state of things, to secrets shared and known. The awkward tension of it settling a little as the days began to slowly pass. Perhaps reshaping what exactly constituted 'normal,' for that matter. The meals she continued making for the both of them, dinner, sometimes breakfast too - they were certainly becoming such. Even if the preparation wasn't always perfect, it was still a pleasant thing to have a homecooked meal ready for him when he walked in the front door, one he hardly could condemn her for. Or the way that she would join him on the couch now, leaning close against his side to watch TV, when in the past more often she would stay up in her room, on her computer, or even when she did come down would likely stay on her own side instead of snuggling beside him.

That one was more difficult for him to adjust to...while at the same time, it was all too easy. He could feel both sides of it, both meanings that it carried, that it could. The inappropriate, of course. The physical and sensual suggestion of a woman draped against him, warm and soft, the signals of her seeping through his skin. But just as much he felt the innocence, the simple honesty and rightness of a girl wanting to be with her dad, and no part of him could possibly reject that, could try to stop it. So when the evenings would begin to fall, when she crowded close and snuck one arm behind his back, the other thrown across his chest to hold herself against him in a faint but fervent hug, he made no try to stop her. Instead he often would respond, his own arm reaching solidly around her shoulder or her back to hold her nearer to him, and the pleasures of the moment - the plain paternal pride and satisfaction at a favored daughter's presence, plus the guiltier sensation of her slender curves beside him - were allowed to mix and mingle warm inside his stomach.

They talked as well, of course. Faster than he'd feared; it only took two days or so for them to speak again of nothing, of commercials on TV and silly games of words, the kinds of conversations that can only happen when you're comfortable in someone's presence. Though the topic did still drift sometimes to more incendiary topics. Her voice would slip in the direction of a hush, a whisper as she confessed in words a quarter euphemism of the stories she had read, the themes and the ideas that had taken hold of her imagination. How certain phrases had felt powerful to her, electrifying declarations that "a girl's body is her daddy's property," that "good girls do exactly what their daddy says," and other such demands of supplication and submission, while he was left to mutter noncommittal, diplomatic answers as his heart beat faster in his chest. And when he asked exactly why she felt the need to tell him things like this, if it was really something that she ought to do, she just laughed a little (at herself, it seemed) and answered with another of those affirmations - this time simply that a girl is supposed to tell her father everything. That he was supposed to know her perfectly, completely, inside and out.