Dan had dreaded this day for years. He sat on the edge of his seven year old daughter's bed, struggling with the knowledge it was time to come clean.
"Daddy? Are you listening to me?"
Sighing inwardly, he looked up from his clasped hands.
"Yes, sweetie, I am."
"So, is Santa Claus real? 'Cause Kristen said he's not."
Stalling for time, he smoothed the comforter around Jennifer's shoulders and tucked her threadbare stuffed bunny in next to her.
"Do you think he's real?" Dan asked.
A horizontal frown line appeared up near her hairline. It twisted his heart a little; she looked so much like her mother.
"All the kids at school say he's not. Jeremy Johnson said his mommy told him that Santa's not real, too," Jennifer said tentatively.
Fucking kid, Dan thought to himself. Gets bad news and he has to share with his entire class.
"Well, that's sort of true. There's not really a Santa Claus, honey. The idea of Santa is bigger than one person, and his work has gone on for longer than any of us have lived."
Jennifer's eyes had grown wide. Shit, Dan thought, I'm totally screwing this up.
"But where do my presents come from?"
"They come from me, and when your Mommy was here, she helped too. I would fill your stocking, and Mommy would wrap presents for you. And our mommies and daddies used to do this for us when we were kids. Someday, you'll do it for your own kids, and they'll be so excited to come down on Christmas morning to see everything under the tree."
Jennifer was silent. Dan braced himself for an explosion; would it be sobs or screams?
"Okay," she said.
Dan blinked. "Okay?" he echoed.
The frown line came back. "But...is the Easter Bunny real?"
Dammit, he thought.
"No, Jennifer. The Easter Bunny isn't real, either."
"The Tooth Fairy? Is she real?"
Dan shook his head, watching his daughter carefully. Jennifer's tongue crept out of her mouth and swiped through the hole where her recently lost baby tooth had been.
"But when I put my tooth under the pillow, it was gone. And she left me money."
Dan smiled. "Just like Santa, there is no Tooth Fairy. I waited until you were asleep and then put two dollars under your pillow."
Jennifer yawned and her eyelids drooped. Holy shit, Dan thought, it can't be this easy.
"Okay, Daddy. Next time can I have five dollars? I want some new markers like Kristen has."
Dan chuckled and tickled her ribs. Giggling, she settled back into her pillow and blinked sleepily.
"Goodnight, pinkie," he said, leaning in to kiss her forehead.
"'Night, Daddy," she said.
He stood up and smiled down at her before shutting off the overhead light. Making sure her night light was on, he closed the door behind him and slumped against the wall in the hallway. Raising a kid on his own was a lot harder than all the mommy blogs made it out to be.
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After filling the dishwasher and putting a load of laundry in the dryer, Dan sprawled on the sofa downstairs with a beer and turned on the television. It didn't matter what appeared on the screen; anything was better than sitting in silence with his thoughts. In the few years since Maggie had passed away he had dealt with his loneliness by keeping busy. Nights were the worst.
His mind replayed the discussion with Jennifer. He accepted the fact that all kids went through this eventually but he wished it had happened after Christmas. She still had one or two more baby teeth to lose, too. He was relieved that he had jumped one more hurdle in her childhood; since her mother's death, Jennifer had hair-trigger emotional outbursts over things that normally wouldn't affect a kid her age. And why not? All the grief counselling in the world wouldn't bring her mom back.
His eyes wandered to the framed photos of his little family displayed in the bookcase. Maggie had been his best friend, a good partner and a fantastic mother. Their sex life had been regular but a little boring; her upbringing in a strict religious household had repressed her ability to be adventurous in bed. Dan long suspected that she faked her orgasms, either out of a desire to please him or to just get him to finish so she could go to sleep.
He set his half-empty beer on the floor and stretched out on the sofa, his eyes drifting closed against the flickering light from the television. His imagination sorted through the various women he had recently encountered; the curvy blonde in the grocery store, the redheaded barista at his local coffee shop who liked to flirt as she made his coffee in the morning. Jennifer's second-grade teacher made an appearance, with her sexy black-framed glasses and long legs. Settling on that image, he fantasized about watching her unbutton her blouse to reveal a sheer, black lace bra as she smiled teasingly at him.
Sliding his hand underneath the waistband of his athletic pants, Dan wrapped a hand around his thickening cock as his fantasy continued: the blouse slipping off her arms, the tight skirt unzipped and tugged down her thighs. He stroked himself slowly, imagining how her skin would feel, how tangy her pussy would taste like as she leaned back on her desk, her legs spread for him. He imagined leaning over her and driving his cock into her hot opening, watching her bare breasts bounce with each thrust.
Gradually he became aware of a bell chiming insistently into his ear. For a few moments, he wondered if school had started and he was about to be caught fucking his daughter's teacher in the classroom.
The chiming bell changed in tone and pitch and became a furious buzz. Startled, Dan's eyes snapped open and his hand froze on his cock. Squinting against the glare from the television, his eyes flicked over the room. Bee? Wasp? What the hell was that?
"Over here, idiot!"
The words drilled into his right ear and he yelped in surprise. Cautiously turning his head, he saw what his brain instantly identified as . . .
. . . a fairy.
The first thing that struck him was that she was about the size of one of Jennifer's Barbie dolls. Her gossamer wings were a blur behind her; he realized that they were the source of the angry buzzing. Her bare feet were planted wide apart on the back of the sofa and her arms were crossed. Wisps of blue silk fluttered around her thighs and wrapped tightly around her torso.
He examined her face: large blue eyes, pink lips pressed tightly together in a scowl. Black feathery hair swirled in the current from her beating wings. Slowly, he closed his gaping mouth and swallowed.
"That's right, I'm as real as you are!" she spat.
