Reality is Different Ch. 02

"I guess." Discomfort knots a moment in my shoulders, restless, upset. I don't like admitting that she did anything of use, don't really like to think of her at all. Just want to forget she even existed...but I have to grant that it usually was her that made the meals for the family together, when it happened. Before she decided that dad wasn't good enough for her. "I don't care about that part, though. I'd just like to have that time again, with the two of us."

"Well." He shakes his head at that, smiles white and open. "That's very thoughtful of you, sweetheart. I think I'd like that, too." There's a quiet sense of loss inside as his hand departs from mind, his fingers curl thoughtful on the back of his chair. "What'd you make, anyway? Need me to bring it out?"

"Uh-uh." Denial swift and vigorous, beaming foolishly once more as I move towards the kitchen to fetch the food. "You just sit down, relax, let me take care of everything. Man of the house shouldn't have to bother with any of that when he gets home from work."

In the kitchen, a largish metal pot of pasta sits upon the stove, the burner set at its lowest simmer, just to keep it warm. "'Man of the house,' huh?" Dad's voice drifts in from the other room, tolerantly bemused as I'm picking up the pot. "Is it the fifties again? Did nobody tell me?" He's grinning crookedly by the time I make my way back over to the table. "I mean, I could get used to if it is, but...mmm, that does smell good."

"Thanks." The giddy thrill of feeling on my tongue almost adds another word, calls him 'daddy.' A burst of richer scent rising up along with wispy clouds of vapor as I open up the pot. "I saw we had some bacon left, so I looked up a recipe for a creamy pasta sauce with bacon bits. A little broccoli in there, too; that's my own idea. I guess we'll see how well it works out."

"Oh, god," he feigns dismay while I serve up a solid helping of the food onto his plate, fettuccini soaked in sauce, specked with little bits of red and green. "Bacon and cream? You're trying to give me a heart attack, aren't you. I knew this day would come. Trying to get your vast inheritance ahead of time...I'm on to you, little lady."

"You got me, dad." The smile crooked on my lips, looking over at him for a moment before I serve up my own meal, rather smaller. "That's it exactly. You want anything to drink? Beer, soda?"

"Well..." He considers only briefly, chuckles. "I guess I'll have a beer, sure. And I'd say that I can get it for myself, but..."

"Nope!" I speak my line in his expectant pause, and fairly scamper off into the kitchen. Two cans of aluminum taken from the fridge, one mostly green, the other white; I hurry back to plant the former there beside his plate. Lightness in my step, eager and excited. Silly, maybe, but there is a certain warmth inside me, waiting on him like this. I don't get to do it often. Not so explicitly, anyway. It makes me feel...good. "Anything else you need? There's pepper in the sauce, but I almost feel like it might need a little more; I could get the grinder if you want, or-"

"No, no, no," he bares his palms at me in theatrical surrender, as though begging me to stop. "It's enough, I swear. It's perfect. Sit." A brief gesture at my chair, before he brings his fork and spoon into the tangled nest of pasta, prepared to eat.

No sooner have I plopped down into my seat, though, than he looks up again at me, lets his utensils drop against the upward-curving plate with a quiet clink of metal on ceramic. "Sarah." The steady humor that usually inhabits his expression is retreated, making room for a quieter sincerity. His eyes in mine, strong and brown, deep and warm...I sit attentive there across the table, listening. "Before I even start - this is very sweet of you. You set everything up so nicely, and the food smells just delicious. I...well. I really appreciate it." His smile quirking up again, wryly. "And if you're maybe planning on asking me for a favor or something, well, you've already got me pretty much to 'yes.'"

It's a dizzy kind of happiness that stirs up bright and fuzzy in my breast at this appreciation, this approval, a rush of bliss that sparks my heartbeat faster; I couldn't keep the smile from tugging up delighted on my lips, even if I wanted to. And in this buzz of feeling, it's not entirely an accident this time, the word I let slip out. "Thanks, daddy." Humming soft from high up in my throat, relishing its taste upon my tongue. It shouldn't give me such a thrill, to call him that... "But there isn't any favor. I just wanted to do something nice for you."

I can feel his gaze on me through the momentary pause that follows, the beat of silence. Curious. His eyebrow lifted up the slightest fraction of an inch, and I wonder if it's because of what I said or what I called him. Faint warmth rising on my cheeks - but he doesn't outright question either. Just chuckles lightly, the way that he so often does, shakes his head a little in dismissal. "Well, I'd say you've managed that. Still got time to think of something you can ask for, too. But for now," another crooked grin, "Let's eat."

The pasta turned out pretty well, I think. Very rich, piquant, the crispy little bits of bacon giving scatters bursts of meaty flavor, interspersed with the sometimes mellow lightness of broccoli florets. I might make it again. But my mind isn't really on the food, at least not more than just as a diversion. It's my dad instead that occupies my thoughts. Of course. As usual. What he said, that I should think of a favor I should ask him. Which was obviously a joke, of course, one that I would normally let flow over me and forget about in moments...save for the fact that that gleeful, dreamy part of me is eager to declare it as flirtation. Or maybe not flirtation, but an opening, an entrance, a possibility. Like it's something from the stories - a man offers his little girl a gift, a favor, anything she wants. Anything within his power, he promises he'll give her...and she asks him for a kiss. For him to make love to her, to teach her how, to take away her innocence. He's shocked by the request, almost angry at it, but in so fine a man his word is bond, irrevocable. So he takes her in his arms, gives her a tender kiss...

God, it's absurd. He didn't mean it like that, obviously. It wouldn't work like that - even if I did get dad to promise he would give me whatever I would ask for, it's not like a promise is a magic spell. Which is about what a scenario like that would take. It wouldn't keep him from being revolted when my dreams were revealed, from being upset and disappointed that I would try to almost trick him like that. Even the most heartfelt promise doesn't mean that he would really do it, that he would accept it...and I don't even know that I would really want him to, either. For all of the excitement that I feel in the fantasy, the reality would surely be another thing entirely. Different in the real world, rather than the pleasant, fuzzy space inside my head. Probably I wouldn't even like it. Probably.

I can't keep myself from thinking of it, though, even with my earlier indulgence. Or maybe it's because of it. Staring at his face across the table, into his eyes, nurturing the breathless tingle of sensation that sits pert and warm inside my chest to have him here before me. My dad. My daddy...for all the fantasies I entertained of him before today, I didn't really have much sense of his own sexuality, of his desires. There's a private pleasure now to look at him, remind myself of how he lusts for younger women. Girls my own age. Even if he doesn't feel that way for me, he might silently appreciate it when I have friends over, might steal a couple glances at them and then retire to his room to masturbate. Might imagine himself seducing one of them, throwing her still-taut and youthful body across the couch to give her the fucking of her life, like in that video of his.

Maybe he even has, and I just don't know about it. My pulse spurs faster at the thought, a trickle of familiar heat between my thighs, excitement sharpened by a little ache of jealousy. He could have. It's possible. Maybe Catherine, Kate - I've always been envious of her appearance, of her body, small and slender but still curvaceous. Dad's never treated her any differently that I can remember, that I've seen...but that could just be them keeping it a secret. Maybe he communicates to her his orders in silent glances, and when she later slips away to use the bathroom it's really so that she can meet him there, can drop down eager to her knees before him, undo his trousers and take his cock between her lips. His fingers tangled in her long blonde hair, curled behind her skull, authoritative; he directs her every motion, back and forth, and she delights in her surrender, in being used for his desires. Maybe he does it to all my friends. Maybe he has for years, a little harem all his own.

I've read stories like that. Where a father takes his pleasures from his teenaged daughter's schoolmates, where she's aware of it, watching silent from the doorway as he makes them scream with ecstasy. Where jealousy and resentment bubble up ferocious in her soul, seeing all her friends receiving affection from her father that she never has herself, until one night she masquerades as one of them, switches clothes and sleeping places so that he comes to her instead. Laying on her belly in the darkness, she can hear his creeping footsteps first, a subtle creaking of the floor beneath his weight despite the careful quiet of his tread. Then his hand, stroking slowly down her back, up onto her bottom's gently rounded arch, where it gives a soft, delicious little squeeze.

I can see him doing it, my dad. I can pretend. His hand lifting up my shirt, his cracked and calloused fingertips tracing up my spine, electric, agonizing, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out and revealing who I am. The only sound is of our breathing, heavy, strained, and the rustling of cloth on skin. I don't know quite how I should react, what I should do...then his fingers slide beneath me to grasp possessive on my breast, pinch my hardened nipple, and my eager hips push up instinctive from the mattress, rise into the air for him to use as he desires. Propped up on my knees with my face buried in my pillow as he peels down my sodden panties, reveals my swollen, blushing lips, just barely parted. I can't see what he's doing to me, can only feel it, my awareness chained to the movements of his fingers on my heated skin. They trace along my outer folds, the subtle rasp of roughened skin already almost more than I can bear, my juices leaking like a faucet let to drip, seeping slowly down my inner thighs, a thick perfume upon the air. And then I hear him speak, a husky murmur there behind me, a smirking cousin of the friendly chuckle that I know. "You're wet tonight, slut. You must have missed this."

I don't dare respond to him in words. Just hike up my hips a little higher, wave them in the air, an offering, a plea. One that's answered as he softly chuckles once again and then lets his middle finger slip inside me, between my folds, and I can't help the quiet gasp that tumbles from my lips. "Yeah," triumph in his tone, whispering command. "You're about ready to cum already, aren't you, my little slut?" His digit thrusting slow within, plunging almost to the knuckle and then teasingly withdrawn, despite the hopeful clenching of my walls around it. He's right. I'm close, so close, the buzzing of excitement in my belly already risen up to claim my mind, directed by my father's fingers. The sweetness of it coursing up along my nerves, pushing back against his hand, my muscles pulling trembling and tight, and I'm awaiting only his command for my release. For him to tell me I can cum, for-

"Sarah." Another moment passes, lost in dreaming, before I recognize my father's voice as real. Before my eyes unfuzz to see I'm staring blindly at his face. His gaze on me as well, gently curious. "You're pretty quiet today. What's on your mind?"

"Um." My tongue stumbles as I try to speak, awkward and ungainly, clumsy with the fantasies so freshly in my thoughts. Warmth upon my cheeks, between my thighs, my heartbeat pounding swiftly in my ears - it's the struggle of a few more seconds before I find my words again, before I'm halfway centered in reality. "Oh. I'm, um. Nothing, you know. Nothing important." My voice pulled high and chirpy with embarrassment, with the excitement I still feel pulsing insistent at the junction of my legs. "How was work?"

I regret the words as swiftly as I've said them. It's far too obvious of a diversion, a change in topic. And I use it far too much. Like it's becoming automatic - any time he asks me something I can't answer, I just turn around and ask about his job. But today I don't receive the question in his eye that often comes with his response, with the pleasant rumble of his voice as he tells me what he did today. A wince, instead, a shadow of a frown that flits across his features before he hides it with another forked-up bite of pasta. I have to wait for him to chew and swallow before he answers anything at all. "It was fine today. Boring, really. Paperwork." His words come slightly tired, dismissive. Only a feeble struggling for humor at the end. "I tell ya, you would not believe how many forms the government wants you to fill out to promise that a building isn't going to burn down the first time someone turns the lights on."

"Uh-huh." I speak it diffident, quiet. Uncertain at his own distress, so plain for me to see. "What else happened?"

He chuckles at that, briefly, a tiny snort of laughter. More troubled than amused. "Well." His pupils rising up again, touched to mine. "Remind me not to play poker against you, sweetie. I think I'd lose my shirt."

"Dad, come on." All my flights of fancy are forgotten now, supplanted by the knot of worry growing cold inside my gut. "What's wrong?"

His eyes dodge off from mine, hide themselves upon the stuccoed ceiling while he takes another long sip from his can of beer. But I'm still there when they return, and eventually he has to answer. "I suppose you have the right to know." Slightly fatalistic, as a smile pulls weakly, wryly at the corner of his mouth. "You remember a couple weeks ago, I told you about that job I couldn't believe I landed? Guy building a mansion, practically an estate up there in the hills? Friend of his recommended me to him?"

"Sure, yeah." A thoughtful frown, nodding. For all the hours I've spent listening to him tell me how his days have gone, a lot of it doesn't exactly stick. But he did sound enthusiastic about this one. I remember. "Why?"

"Well, I guess I told you about it a little bit too soon." He shrugs at me, almost apologetic. "From what I understand, the man's spoken to his architect, who of course has his own go-to electrical team, and...yeah. Can't be that surprised, honestly. I had a look at the plans - it would have taken me forever to wire that place up, even if I picked up a couple subcontractors for it. Add in a nice premium for the travel time, to and from, and we'd have been talking a pretty good sum. One that, ah, I was rather hoping would be coming in, honestly. The way our finances have been lately."

There's a distant ache in his expression that I hate to see, that tightens painful in my chest, warbles uncomfortably in my voice. "So what does that mean?"

Instantly he's reassuring, comforting, giving me his warm and loving smile at its fullest strength. "Sweetie, it's fine. It doesn't mean anything. It would have been nice to have that job, yeah, but it's no big deal if I don't. Things are just going to be a little tight around here for a little while longer. That's all. Can't buy you that new car that you've been wanting, quite yet."

"Dad, I don't want a new car." A subtle scratchiness, husky in my tone. I know he's only kidding me, but I feel as though I have to deny it anyway. Have to assert how I don't care, how it doesn't matter if our stuff isn't as fancy or as new as it might be.

"I know, sweetheart." His smile is a little weaker now, bittersweet...but it's more honest, too, glowing softly in his gaze, pulling steadfast on his weathered lips, dependable and true, and I feel like laughing and like crying all at once. I love him so much. He's the rock, the anchor, the center of my life. He works so hard for me, and only ever lets me see him smile, so I don't have to worry about the things that he does. So I can go to school, so I can take it easy, so I can lose myself in dirty daydreams and then obsess about them like they're at all important. So I can fantasize about never growing up, never facing the responsibilities that he deals with every day.

"Dad, um," I offer quietly, with an almost sniffle that I barely manage to suppress. "You know, if it gets bad, or if it would just help...I could try to get a job myself. A part-time job, something. Just to bring a little money in, to help out with the mortgage, with groceries..."

His head's already shaking, serious and stubborn, as I drift off into silence. "No. Not a chance. Sarah, right now your only job is to do well in your classes, get a good education. You leave everything else to me." A quiet moment, as his fork scrapes up a few remaining strands of pasta - he clears his throat before he speaks again, a shade more circumspect. "And if it does get bad enough that we would need that to go on...I'd far sooner send you to move in with your mom instead, transfer to a college nearby. She'd love to have you there, and they wouldn't have any trouble providing for you, the way-"

"Not a chance." I cut him off, echo his denial fiercely, fervent. "Dad, I don't care if that...man she married would buy me a mansion of my own. This is my home. This is where I belong, here with you. I'm an adult now, anyway - you can't just send me over there to live with her if I don't want to go."

"Mmm." He mutters dryly. "I suppose. That 'adult' thing goes two ways, though, you know. I'm not under any obligation to let you stay here. I could, say, stick a bus ticket in your hand and kick you out of the house."

"If you did," I retort, my brow low and stern with mostly-affected warning, "I'd just camp out there on the sidewalk."

He manages to hold the frowning threat in his expression for a good few seconds after that before his smile breaks through, lopsided and affectionate. "Well." His familiar chuckle rumbles warmly in my ears. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that. The talking heads keep saying that the economy is getting better, that construction is picking up again. Maybe it'll actually be true, one of these days. And I can always try to shake things up a little. I was thinking maybe branch out into appliance repair or something, stuff that's actually better off when nobody has any money. Set up a website - everybody's got websites for their businesses these days, seems like. Think you could help me out with that, if I did?"

"Of course." There's a foolish, hopeful flutter in my heartbeat, on my lips. I feel better, reassured, buoyed up by his steady cheer. He always makes me feel better. "I mean, I'll do my best."

"Then I'm sure," his eyebrows waggle teasingly, "that it will be completely perfect." And with that, he scoops up his final bite of pasta, pushes to his feet. "Dinner was delicious, sweetie. Thank you. I'll put away the leftovers, take care of all the dishes and such."

"No, let me," I immediately protest, rising from my chair to gather up my plate. "You just watch TV or something, relax. I want to take care of everything for this."

"You do, huh?" His eyes fall lively in my own, curious and bright. "Well, I can't say I don't see some appeal i that, but...have you finished all your homework?"