Reality is Different Ch. 05

"I mean, I love you, dad." Fervent feeling scratching husky in my throat, a quaver deep inside. "I really, really do. I can't imagine ever loving anybody more. And it's like...I don't know. It's stupid. It might be that I'm just afraid, you know. Afraid of moving out, of being an adult. Of leaving you. Because the women in the stories, it's like they get to stay their daddy's little girl forever. They get to totally devote themselves to loving him, and being loved by him, and I just...it sounded like something I'd almost want. That part of it."

I'm expecting him to answer, as I drift off into silence. To give me some kind of a response, even if I don't know what. I halfway thought that he'd have cut me off already, before I even got this far, told me with a grimace that he didn't have to hear the rest...he didn't, though. He doesn't. He hasn't even seemed to move through all my recent rambling, still stroking slowly at my neck. And as I sit there staring at my knees, the anxious awkwardness pulls tighter at my nerves until I hardly feel as though I have much option but to tell a little more. To deepen my confession, lay bare to him a further portion of my soul.

"I started having dreams about you." Even the softness of my tone feels all too audible against the background stillness. "Daydreams. Both. I had all these little fantasies, and sometimes I told myself I shouldn't, that it was sick to think about my dad this way, but it never really helped." Another breath. "And it made me feel good to kind of like...to pretend that they were real. To tell myself that I'm - that I'm just yours, you know, that everything I do should be to make you happy, any way I can." There's a tremor in my heartbeat, giving voice to the idea. "That's why I did that stuff. I started cooking for you because it's what a woman is supposed to do, for a man she really loves. Or what she can do. Because when I think that way, it's like the most important thing that I can do is please you. I pretended that I was asleep because...god, because I didn't want to have to leave, to be away from you. Because it feels like I belong there, when I'm next to you." A beat, an ache inside my throat. "And because - because I thought that maybe if you thought I was asleep, you might try something that you wouldn't while I was awake. That maybe you would touch me, just a little bit, and then...and then a lot of other things could happen."

Still my dad is silent. Not a word, not a sound. Just his fractured fingertips, rubbing, kneading softly on my skin. And it's foolish, god, I know it's foolish past belief for me to feel my heart stir slightly faster once again. Wondering. A nervous little tremor of excitement sneaking willful up my spine. Because why would he not answer? Why would he hesitate right now, unless - unless he feels a trifle tempted after all. Even just a tiny bit. Unless he's quarreling inside himself, fighting with an urge to grab me, pull me close, to show me just exactly what those other things could be...the dreamy, desperate part of me is quick to leap upon the possibility, to clutch it tight, hardly seeming to be much concerned or slowed my all her recent failings. Whispering at me emphatic that I ought to take advantage of this moment while I can, that I should throw myself into his arms before I miss my chance.

Insane, of course. Absurd. To even think like that again, after the terror and the heartache I just suffered through, still raw and keening in my chest. There could be a dozen explanations why he hasn't answered yet. Just thinking what he ought to say, what he ought to do with me, now that I've confessed the truth. Already he's been kinder than the reaction that I'd feared. The fact that he at least remained beside me, that he didn't pull away in horrified disgust. He's kept his hand there, comforting behind my neck, the steady warmth and reassurance of my father's touch, his strength, his love...and god, it's such a wave of unendurable emotion that trembles through me at the thought, that seems to ripple outward from where his fingertips rub gently at my skin. Despair and yearning, sharpened by what feels the thinnest ray of hope.

It clearly hasn't knocked a bit of sense into my head, this catastrophe today. The fantasy, the wish still aches so bittersweet inside my mind, despite the beating that it took an hour past. Insisting that this couple seconds' silence is the proof of the desires I've been dreaming he might share, that I should turn around and kiss him fervent on the lips, when I can't even muster up the confidence to look at him at all. Offering up pleading little recollections of the stories that I've read, where things began with a confession much like mine, an admission of the girl's lurid fantasies that swiftly spurs her father into bringing them to life. If I only knew that it were true. If I were certain.

They aren't like mine, though. Not honestly. The girls in the stories, fresh from bed and barely dressed, pouring out the slightest sensual details of their dreams in words that drip with sex. She calls him "daddy" with her every other sentence, infusing it with all of the devotion and the desperate need that's thumping heavy in her chest, that throbs between her hips. She whimpers helpless with the memories of her desires, telling him so plainly that she needs him to take care of her, take charge of her, to hold her down and make her dreams come true. She's not afraid of showing him exactly how she feels, or what she wants, not afraid that he would think she's crazy or she's sick, because he never does. There's never really any reason for relief or for surprise, when he responds by pulling her against his chest, by drawing meaty fingers firm and hungry on her thigh, or closing them around her breast. It's obvious, inevitable. The only way that things could go.

That's the biggest difference of them all, between the stories and reality. That certainty. The girl can flaunt herself, can flirt, can force herself into her father's arms, because he always wants her, too. Always. Because there wouldn't be a purpose to it, if he didn't. It wouldn't be a story anyone would want to write or read. And if I could have that for myself, if I could be as sure how it would end...I think I'd do whatever it would take. I'd turn around right now to tell him that I don't care if it's crazy, I don't care what anybody else would think. I want to stay his little girl. I want to wake up every morning encircled in my daddy's arms, warm and safe, protected. I want to feel his weight on top of me at night, his hardness pounding powerful between my bruised and blushing lips, and know with utter certainty that I belong to him, that there's nowhere else I'm meant to be than with the only man who matters in the world.

How can I do it, though, without that kind of confidence, without knowing in advance that it would work out the way I wanted? How could I ever take the risk? Even if it isn't quite as much a revelation now, even if I've told him how I've felt...I haven't really claimed it as my own. It's all past-tense, abstract, excused and qualified. I was obsessed. The stories made me feel that way. It isn't me, it's not my fault. It's safer, with that kind of distance. If he knows I know it's nothing that can really happen, nothing he or I would act upon. It shows that I'm not totally insane. And if I should turn around right now to throw away that slim façade of sanity, to crawl onto his hap and beg to be his babygirl, all because I felt a bit of promise in the way he's held his tongue...there's no telling what might happen, what it could do to our relationships. I'd be risking everything for this, gambling with what I treasure most.

...it always is, though. Gambling. He said that, I remember, back a week or so ago. However long it's been. Talking just about romance in general, of course, not about the two of us, but...he said you have to try these things, even if they might be a mistake, even if you might get hurt. Even though you can't be sure which way it's going to go. You have to wager something if you want to win, to get what you desire.

It's a gamble either way, besides. If I don't strive for this right now with all my strength, if I permit the moment to slip past, accept without complaint the murmured wisdom he might offer that it's just a bad idea - I could end up like I thought about before. A woman harboring a dream grown cold, always wondering what might have happened if I'd only tried a little harder. Clutching bitter to regrets of what I didn't do, to possibilities closed off by time and distance, by walls rebuilt of inhibition that are weaker in this instant than they've ever been before. And I'm sure it won't turn out like in the stories, anyway, that it could never be as picture-perfect as the things I fantasize about. But if I really, truly love him, if I'd trust myself to him as utterly as in my dreams...then I shouldn't be afraid to trust him with the deepest truth of what I feel. Of what I want.

"Dad?" I am afraid, of course. It trembles in my stomach as I turn to face him, sliding underneath his hand until it's gently clasped upon my shoulder. Fear and longing twisted tightly in my chest as my gaze lifts halting from the couch. I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know what words would work the best, to offer him my heart, my body. His eyes are looking into mine, dark and strong and quietly unreadable. Not angry, anyway, that I can see. Not repulsed, even as I shift myself a trifle closer, touching my own hand upon his knee. "Daddy?"

It isn't much. But maybe it's enough, to hope.

THE END