When Erica heard David had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she broke down. David wasn't related to her by either blood or marriage, but he was family as far as she was concerned.
Her father, Tom, had died of a heart attack when she was 11. It happened during a meeting of his Masonic lodge. One minute he was fine; the next, he was clutching his left arm and having difficulty breathing. A lodge brother called 911, but it was too late. Tom died en route to the hospital. The coroner concluded that it was brought on by a severely blocked artery that no one had detected.
Tom's death was shocking to everyone who knew him. He'd been a star swimmer and basketball player since he was a teenager. His skills on the hardwood had led to a college scholarship, which led to him being hired by a prestigious investment firm. A Fortune 500 company, no less. However, he considered basketball a means to an end. Swimming was his passion. His specialty was the 1500-meter freestyle, and he was so good that he was a member of the 1980 United States Olympic men's swim team. The games were held in Moscow, but the U.S. had boycotted the games in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Tom was crushed. After a back injury while training for the 1984 Los Angeles games, Tom retired. He would never swim competitively again, but never lost his love of the water. He lifted weights three times a week and maintained a religiously healthy diet. He'd even helped his wife, Nancy, to overcome her fear of the water and taught her to swim. If one were to judge his health by his lifestyle, Tom was healthy as the proverbial horse. It made his death all the more shocking considering the poor physical condition and vices of most of his lodge brothers.
Nancy becoming pregnant was unexpected. She'd miscarried twice and was told by medical experts that the odds of conceiving and carrying a baby to term were not good.
But nine months later, Erica was born healthy.
Over the years, Tom worked his way up through the ranks at the investment firm. Through wise, conservative investments over the years, Tom had cultivated a substantial portfolio. He had been offered a lucrative promotion, but he'd seen the effect it had on the man who formerly held the position and how he and his family suffered and immediately turned it down.
Tom's family always came first.
Erica remembered the phone call that horrible night. She remembered her mom, Nancy, screaming her husband's name and grabbing her and running next door to David's home. David drove them.
Tom and David had been longtime friends. David had bought the house next door at Tom's insistence. He said that the house was a bargain at the asking price and that the upgrades the previous owner had made had only increased its value. If David sold it, Tom said the profit could be substantial.
David, who was two years younger than Tom, had been a baseball star in high school. He was a little shorter than Tom, but was thicker. David was a talented switch-hitting catcher and first baseman who eventually made the majors with Detroit and was an American League All-Star in his second season. Arguably, his greatest claim to fame was a mammoth three-run home run in the second inning of an 11-1 rout of the National League All-Star squad. The ball traveled an estimated 450 feet and earned him the game's most valuable player award. Detroit won that years' World Series as well. Although some baseball memorabilia was displayed in his home, the famous image of him lifting the winning pitcher of the deciding game, 6'7" left-hander Jimmy Wilkinson, who had pitched the entire game on three days rest, was absent. In interviews, David said he was really only there to catch the ball because "Wilkie" was almost unhittable. By the time San Diego scored their lone run, a seventh inning fence squeaker, the outcome had all but been decided.
However, near the end of the next season, David suffered a career-ending ankle injury. With surgery and rehabilitation, he was able to walk normally with little trace of a limp. Thankfully, he had taken Tom's advice and planned for a life after baseball. He hadn't played long enough to earn a pension, but won an injury settlement. He invested most of that. Tom used baseball language when advising David about investments.
"Forget home runs to make up for losses; go for a lot of singles and doubles," he preached. "It's a long season. You can lose a battle and still win the war."
The strategy paid off handsomely. David later earned a degree in business management from a local two-year college and he parlayed that and a love of engines into a successful post-baseball career as a mechanic and a garage owner. He even penned a weekly column in the local paper where he answered automotive-related questions from readers.
Tom and David would occasionally trade good-natured barbs. Tom would call David a typical jock; David would fire back that Tom was doing okay for a guy who only swam fast in a straight line, but couldn't hit a breaking ball to save his life.
Erica knew that David had been divorced soon after she was born. She didn't know the entire story, but apparently his ex-wife, a woman named Caroline, had caught red-handed by a neighbor in a park not a mile from their home giving a blowjob to a man not her husband. The neighbor was David's star witness during the divorce proceedings. The man Caroline was having an affair with said Caroline had told him she was divorced.
Ultimately, Caroline got nothing but her maiden name back. David gave her a little money and told her to hit the road. Within two weeks after the divorce was final, she married another man. Whereabouts: unknown.
The experience soured David on marriage, but not on women. Erica knew David was a bit of a ladies man (although she'd seen none at his home in a while,) but he could never commit himself to another woman again after what that bitch Caroline did to him.
David had been one of her father's pallbearers and had eulogized him. Even through his own tearful grief, he tried to comfort her and her mother. Erica remembered him helping her and her mom in the days and weeks and months and years afterward.
Shortly after he was diagnosed, David sold his business to a competitor on the condition he keep "his people" intact.
Erica had come to think of David as a father figure. She even played matchmaker at age 13 and tried to convince him and Nancy to get together.
"Both of you are lonely," she insisted. "Dad wouldn't mind. If he was here, I'm sure he'd say so."
David told her that it wasn't that simple.
"Loving someone as a friend and loving them as a spouse are two entirely different things," he said. "There's something called chemistry. I appreciate it, Erica. Your mom appreciates it. But it just would not work because we have so little in common. There's no chemistry."
Erica grew tall and she had inherited her father's athleticism. Although she was a good swimmer, her forte was her father's "second" sport: basketball. She became a star small forward on her high school team and even wanted to try out for the boys team. She believed she was as good or better as most of the guys on the team. She graduated high school in the top five percent of her class and she'd received scholarship offers from several major women's college basketball powers.
David could be overprotective of Erica at times. Sometimes it caused friction, but Erica believed that David thought of her as the daughter he'd never had. Lustful glances from teenage boys at the mall when he took her shopping while her mom worked were met with a stern glare. And he'd told her to not succumb to peer pressure to become sexually active.
"It's not a competition; move at your pace," he said. "If the guy doesn't respect that he doesn't respect you. Be responsible. I'd prefer you to wait until you're married, but I trust you'll know when the moment is right."
Then about three weeks later, a new boyfriend had tried to force himself on her when her mom was away. David had been doing some light yard work when he heard Erica scream and try to fight him off. David barged in and stopped him. He forced the frightened boy to apologize and angrily told him to never bother Erica again under the threat of having him arrested for attempted rape. The boy never looked at Erica again.
Erica learned from an older cousin who was a medical student that the painkillers his doctors were going to start David on would dull the pain at first, but as the cancer progressed, the dosage would have to be increased. David would become increasingly incapacitated and given a cocktail of even more powerful -- and potentially dangerous -- painkillers and other medications. David's doctor told him an overdose could conceivably kill him before the cancer did.
Unofficially, a nurse told Nancy she hoped he did overdose.
"it would be more humane," she said sadly.
Either way, it was a foregone conclusion that David would never see the new year.
While swimming laps in their pool, Erica saw David through a window talking on the telephone and massaging the back of his neck and rolling his head.
Erica broke down. Then she came to a decision.
I'm an adult now. I'm out of school. Aw, to hell with basketball, she thought.
She climbed out of the pool and toweled off and ran into her bathroom and shed her red and white bikini. She quickly showered and damp-dried and combed her hair. She sighed and reached into her hairless pussy and felt her hymen and exhaled sharply.
