I.
Expecting the power to go off at any time, now, I'd finished the last of the document scanning to DVD. All the 'special' packages had been sent to California.
The doorbell took me by surprise: as the town's new-minted pariah, the last thing I expected was a visitor. I got up from the table I was using for a desk, down the hallway, crossed over the spot where the fire-bomb had burned and went over to answer it.
Standing outside was a pretty brunette, her face obscured partly by shadow, and partly by a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. Looking just past her, I saw a little sporty car, a 2-door. One I'd never seen before in town.
Opening the door, and starting to say, "Yes?," I was staggered to hear the girl say, "Hi, Dad."
"Sophie?," I kind of chocked out.
"The one and only," she said, and grinned. I remembered that grin. 100 watts of power, and her mother had never been able to erase it, though Dolores had tried hard.
"Is Mom home?" my daughter added.
I answered truthfully, "Your Mom won't ever come back to this house again."
The grin went up to 150 watts immediately. "Thank God for big favors," she said, "I really dreaded meeting up with her, but I just HAD to see you again, and here I am. You gonna let me in, or am I gonna sleep in the flowerbed tonight?"
I know I'm supposed to guess accurately and describe my brunette daughter, gone for years from mid-teens, by exact weight, height, bra and cup size, etc. Give me a break! I had a quick chance to glance at a slim, tanned and toned brunette, wearing a short denim skirt and a crop-top, bare-midriff, and high-heel sandals. I saw the usual pretty bumps on her chest, nice hips and lovely long legs. Being a man, that took all of 2 seconds.
I'm Noble Goode Freeman, Ph.D., a former university historian. Also former cuckold, accused-homosexual, impotent, wimp, ne'r-do-well, unemployable, child-raping, fraud-indicted failure of a human being, if you listened to the hysterical gossip spread around town, the last couple of months. I'm tall, about six-foot-two, but not athletic, with a middle-aged gut that I'd like to loose, if I ever get around to exercising, which I hate with a passion. For the last 24 years, I'd had the sexless, loveless, marriage-from Hell, barely existing in helpless hatred, wedded to Dolores Ramona Luisa Daemona Freeman, nee-Guzman.
My daughter, Sophia Freeman Noble, aged about 20, had just swayed into my front room, after a self-imposed absence of 4 years. She left, with my tearful blessings, when she was 16. But I'm getting ahead of this narrative.
I gestured her in to the old living room, with the battered couch and two chairs, all that was left after the vandalism. She looked around at the bare spaces, and at the plywood panels that graced most of the front window panes that overlooked the street, more sudden memories of the sudden township dislike I'd been living with these last couple of months. She stared at the charred and melted circle where the fire had been, too.
I turned around, just in time to absorb a chaste, daughterly kiss on the cheek. I growled, but also grinned, saying, "OK for a 'hi, how are you, Dad' kiss. I just said your Mom wasn't here and won't be coming back. You haven't seen me for four years. How about I get a real kiss, like the one you gave me when you left on the bus?"
The grin expanded to 200 watts, and included a devilish tint, and I found myself on the receiving end of a thorough, wet, sloppy kiss, delivered with full tongue, combined with roaming hands slipped under my t-shirt, with full body press and one leg brought up to crook around my waist. This went on for quite some time.
"Wow," I said, when she broke the kiss, for more air."
"Lots more, where that came from, you dirty old man."
She added, "Hi, Dad. I'm glad I'm home, with you. Just you."
"For as long as the electricity's on," I kind of whispered to myself. She quirked her eyebrows, but I didn't add anything right then.
Sophie dashed out to her car, and dragged in two suitcases, which she then carried in to the back of the house, and re-parked her car around back. When I caught up with her, she'd dumped both in the master bedroom. Silently, we toured the house, which didn't take long, it being a typical 3-bedroom rancher, in a small town. Sophie's old bedroom was full of junk and wreckage that her mother had done, during her last rages, and I was using the 2nd room as an office.
"I'll rig up some kind of a bed for me, and you can have my bed," I said.
"Damn right, I will," she said, "and you can have it too, you old pervert. I'll take the right side, you take the left side, and we'll have meetings in the middle. And that settles that. End of discussion!"
Sophie marched out of the master bedroom, hips swinging exaggeratedly, flashing me a look over her shoulder. I was left sort of stuttering, "um ... er ... well ...."
I joined her in the living room, and we talked. About what? Just about everything. What I'd been doing. Old memories of my wife, her Mom. She was sort of evasive about her job as secretary and girl-Friday to an executive in MegaCorp, in Las Vegas.
And I was just as evasive about her Mom's current whereabouts, and why there was plywood in some of the front windows, and a big charred-melted spot in the front room carpet. I figured I'd have to tell her about that, but, oh, not yet, not yet.
The afternoon and early evening slipped away in chit-chat. After all, my only daughter had been gone for four years, with only brief letters and cards, sent to the town's Post Office General Delivery. Not to the house, because her Mom would have latched on to them, torn them up or tried to use them as leverage with me.
Perhaps you've guessed that I had had a hate-filled, sexless marriage for years. For decades. You'd be right.
We both ran down, and just sat. I fixed her a simple meal, soup and sandwiches. I pitched the kitchen waste onto the growing pile out the back door, since no one would do trash removal any more. I kept my fingers crossed that we'd still have electric service for a couple more days.
We both ran down and stopped, as night came on, and we both settled down in companionable silence. The TV Cable service had been shut off for a couple of weeks, but we didn't miss it. I had my hands over the back of the couch, and Sophie relaxed into my side. She turned her head and smiled a little, reached up and back, clasped my hand and drew it down over her shoulder, and then settled back with a sigh.
She snuggled around some, which I liked, and then she turned, reached her head and body up, and kissed me again. Lots of tongue again, which I also liked. The girl liked to kiss at 16, and she hadn't changed at all. But, as she settled back into my side, my hand was maneuvered, oh-so-carefully, to cup her breast. I stiffened, of course, and waited for the firm push and the exclamation of outrage. It didn't come.
What I did hear was, "mmmm, I like that, Dad. Squeeze a little, would you?"
I looked down at my daughter, and raised my eyebrow, and she responded with an other , "mmmm. Feels good, Dad. Don't be afraid, I'm not mad. Squeeze. Don't stop."
So I squeezed a beautiful handful of lovely, young-woman, pretty brunette, daughter's breast flesh. And again. And again. Under my palm, I felt a hard point develop and start to rise, poking out.
Again, I looked down, and watched my lovely, newly-returned daughter take several deep breaths, eyes half closed. She crooned, "ah, that feels so good. I like your hand there. Don't move it. Don't stop. Yeah, squeeze harder. Massage me, Dad."
Then she added, "Dad, my nipple is hard. Pinch it, pull on me a little. Look down and watch yourself doing it. Mmmmm... Please, Dad."
So I started to seriously massage her breast (the right one, I should say), and got my fingers around her nipple. My penis was getting hard, I couldn't control it. I pulled lightly, pinched and twisted a little, hearing little soft cries and moans.
Sliding my hand around her crop top, I started looking for the outlines of a bra, and didn't find one. Sophie must have read my mind, or maybe the motions of my hands. She said, between moans, "Ah, like that, just like that. I don't have a bra on. Mmmm, damn, you're good. I almost never wear one, don't need it. Mmmmm, come on, Dad, you like what you're looking at, work on the other one, too."
Sophie slid down and half rolled over, relaxing across my lap, back arched, and breasts straining upwards. I dropped my other hand over her left breast, and started to make love to it, as well.