A piercing shriek, obviously loud although distant, pierced the air.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!"
Hmm, why did that shriek sound familiar.
"Coach, come to the men's locker room quick!" stated Trey breathlessly as he rushed into my office slash classroom. "It's Adora."
"What happened to my daughter, and why is she in the men's locker room?"
"Some dumb senior prank to introduce a girl into the men's room while there were a lot of boys still naked changing out of their swimsuits. I understand her shock, but why is she screaming like a banshee?"
"She's had Phallophobia ever since that last Frontier Rendezvous your parents and I took you and Adora. It's the reason we haven't been back since she was 7 and you were 9." Trey had graduated from this high school two years ago, but was found a job here as equipment manager. He got the nickname Trey (his real name is Theodore) from the fact that he was always third place in whatever athletic event he tried. In solo races throughout his school life he'd come in third place, and whenever there was a ranking for top athletes in baseball, football, basketball, tennis, wrestling, tiddlywinks, whatever...he got third place. OK, I kid about tiddlywinks but you get the idea. He was never good enough to get a scholarship in any one particular sport, and he had no head for academics, so he couldn't even see himself in community college. Not a dumb kid at all, as he has more common sense than most professors, but he seemed to have no future and the school gave him a job because we felt sorry for him, as everyone liked him.
"What the hell is Phallophobia?"
"It is a fear of penises. At that last rendezvous I was at the men's shower and rest room where everyone showers in one large room. Here she is, some sweet innocent 7 year old girl, waking up early in the morning and wants to see her daddy right then. So she goes searching for me, walks into the men's building and voila, lots of dangling body parts she had never seen. She was positively frightened, and she could not even cope with the site of the building after that, which is why we've never been back. To this day, when she was supposed to have biology or 'sex ed' classes she'd lose it and have to go to study hall."
Trey asked the obvious question, "Didn't you ever try to cure her?"
"When you're a father who wishes to protect your father from the predations of boys, you can't help but think in the back of your mind it is better that she has this fear. I didn't have to worry about her getting knocked up by some boy who was solely interested in releasing his sperm so he could think he was a 'man' now, not knowing that being a man biologically is not the same as becoming a man mentally and socially." I finally realized I needed to have left already to tend to her, and started heading out the door, with Trey right behind me.
As we rushed to the locker room, the scream didn't die off, but instead just increased in volume. My ears were telling me something my mind was already thinking...maybe I should have already find some cure for her fear of penises. After all, I want her to give me grandchildren someday. At the very least, I would not now be realizing what a healthy set of lungs she has.
Trey and I rushed through the locker room door. My Adora had backed herself into a corner, half-standing and half-sitting, shrieking as if Lucifer himself had cornered her. The boys that were still there were not vocal, but their faces showed fright. Their terror increased once they realized the girl's father, myself, was there.
"EVERYONE GET YOUR ASSES OUT OF HERE NOW!!!" I was obviously not happy as a stream of boys in various stages of undress from fully clothed to practically nude dashed out. From what I saw of the penises that caused this terror in my offspring, I would have wagered only one or two might have caused the terror; the rest indicated to me that the vast majority of girls at the high school who were sexually active were probably rather dissatisfied.
"Coach Evers, what happened?" said Ryan, one of the two boys left. He and Jakob, the other boy who hadn't left, had known Adora for years. "We were getting dressed, and all of a sudden Thomas, Cris, and Revin brought Adora in here on their shoulders, sat her down, and off she goes. She scared the shit out of me, and I think the rest of us as well."
Comforting Adora in my arms, I tried to regain my calm. "Ryan. Jakob. I believe your story, but right now I think the fewer males around Adora the better."
"Sure thing Coach. C'mon Ryan, let's go." Jakob motioned Ryan to the door. As they left, Jakob stated, "I remember her and Haya freaking out in biology class once; I guess I know why."
Now that it was just Trey and myself left, I sat Adora down on one of the benches. Adora was starting to come around and in several deep breathes she started relaying what happened. "Daddy, it was horrible. Those bastards just picked me up, almost groped me as they brought me in here, and I have pretty much forgotten what has happened since." She then laid down with a thump. "I saw Revin and Cris, and I'll take Ryan's word that Thomas was involved too." She started to twist herself into a ball, as if she was starting to crumble again.
I turned to Trey. "Trey, make sure no one, boy or girl, is hanging around here, and then go tell the principal's office what happened. Better the office takes care of them before I decide to dish out punishment myself on them." With a nod, Trey dashed away. I knew that Trey would do as I requested.
I practically carried Adora back to my office, where Adora was finally gaining something resembling 75% composure.
"I'm sorry for freaking out Daddy, but I couldn't help myself. I saw all those...those...things...and I couldn't think rationally. I wish Haya was here."
"Who's Haya?"
"Oh, she was my best friend in middle school, and I still keep in touch with her on Facebook. She is also scared of...of...those things. Her parents had a strict curfew for her back then, and now she attends private school fifty miles away, which is why you've never seen her."
I thought it best if Adora kept talking, so I didn't interrupt her as her thoughts kept racing from one point to another. "I don't want to be a lesbian dad, but I'd like to know what it's like to be a couple. But one thought about those..things and I shudder." She looked pensively at me. "But then, when has a penis ever done anything for me except scare me."
"Well," I said, "it was a penis that got your mother pregnant with you, after all."
She gave her first smile of the day. "Well, besides that...penis." Well, at least she was coming around by using that word. "Whenever I think of that day eleven years ago when I saw all of those...things dangling, they frighten me but somehow, the times I picture yours, I don't get scared. Why is that?"
"Maybe because, deep down, you know it's Daddy's and you can't be scared of Daddy." I sat beside her on my desk, her strawberry hair dangling upon my shoulder.
"Oh Daddy, what am I ever going to do? We're not Catholic, but maybe I could become a nun." She sighed, "The only...penis...I don't fear is yours."
I decided then I had to do something; but what? Then a thought occurred to me. If she could get used to a penis, maybe she could learn to overcome her fear. But whose penis could do the trick. A thought occurred to me, one I wanted to chase away but I knew I couldn't. Only one penis could possibly do the trick and, as incestuous as it was, it would have to be mine. My determination to do it promptly kept me from realizing I should have waited until we got home.
"Honey, I have a solution. It is a bit drastic, but it has to be done."
"Anything Daddy."
"Close your eyes and keep them shut until I say otherwise, understood?"
