After Don Peterson lost his wife in a car accident, he was left with the daunting task of being cast in the roles of both mother and father to his daughter Nancy, who had survived that fateful night when a drunk t-boned the car the two were riding in.
Nancy had lived through it, but not without damage that went beyond the trauma of a girl who had lost her mother. The little waif's right leg was badly damaged, so much so that she would never again play soccer like she had back in junior high school and was lucky to be doing well to be able to walk with only the limp she would probably carry for life.
Nancy's neck was also injured in the crash and while the doctors had told them that she was lucky not to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Don knew that wasn't something a teenage girl wanted to hear. Not when the other girls in school were playing soccer and going out on dates.
Nancy was not going out on any dates, and while part of that was due to the injuries she had suffered that left her less desirable to teenage boys with raging hormones, part was also due to the fact that Nancy wasn't exactly a raging beauty.
Cute as the dickens, Don thought, but he was her Dad. The fact was that she was very plain looking and as for her body, it looked little different that it had five years ago before she left the house with her Mom that fateful night. It was as if when the car hit, it froze Nancy in time.
Tonight, Don thought, was the worst. Not only was it the anniversary of the accident, an event that went unmentioned but was not forgotten by either, but it was the night of Nancy's Prom.
She told her Dad that she didn't care about it, and it was stupid to waste money they didn't have on a gown, but Don knew better. What girl didn't want to go to their Prom, and who deserved it more than Nancy after all she had been through. No one asked, and although Don was tempted to ask Nancy if she wanted her to take her, he chickened out. How corny would that be, having your old man go to the Prom with you?
So after Nancy had gone to bed Don got into his pajamas and sat at the kitchen table and had a cocktail, and then another while thinking of all they had lost since that night. It was amusing in a sick way that while Nancy couldn't find anybody, he was doing no better. The only relationship Don had in the last five years was with his hand.
"Daddy?"
Don heard Nancy's voice from her bedroom down at the end of the hall, and that woke him up from the daze he was in. More than once Nancy had gone through episodes after the accident and he had been forced to rush her to the hospital, and while it had been a while Don took no chances.
"Honey?" Don gasped as he opened the door and saw his daughter sitting up on the bed. "What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry Daddy. It's nothing bad except that my neck - I can't get to sleep," Nancy said as she squinted from the sudden light.
"Want me to rub it for you honey?" Don asked, knowing that sometimes eased the tension and the pain.
"Would you Daddy? I'm sorry...'
"Nothing to be sorry about precious," Don said, and after he looked around he saw a bottle of some kind of lotion on her make-up table.
"Uh..." Don said as he wondered how he would do this because when he did it in the past his daughter would be sitting at the kitchen table and the one time he had done in with her in bed - well - nothing had happened but what had gone through his mind that night was scary and furthermore it seemed like Nancy sensed it too.
"I can sit there," Nancy offered, pointing to the chair in front of the make-up table that she had gotten as a birthday present years ago.
It had been a present from Mom and Dad and although it was juvenile now that Nancy was eighteen, Don knew that it was in the room to stay.
"Okay," Don said, and as Nancy worked her way out of bed he looked away, and not only because of the scar on his daughter's leg but for the fact that Nancy seemed to be only wearing a baggy tank-top that used to be her Mom's.
It was a faded yellow thing from a concert Don had taken his then future wife too as a first date, and although it wasn't likely that Nancy knew who Motorhead was, she liked to wear the shirt to bed.
"Okay then," Don said as he worked some lotion between his hands, smiling when he saw Nancy looking at him in the mirror. "Let's see if these magic fingers can still do the trick."
"They always do," Nancy chirped, and then jumped when Don's oiled hands landed on her neck. "Oooh!"
"Hurt honey?" Don asked, stopping for a moment, but Nancy shook her head.
"Feels good. I try to do it but it isn't the same," Nancy declared, shrugging her shoulder to get her reddish-brown hair out of the way.
Don was sweating almost right away because although he tried not keep his eyes elsewhere, perched behind Nancy like he was it was difficult not to look either down the baggy tank-top or from the sides through the gaping armholes.
She's your daughter, Don told himself, just like he had told himself before, and he was grateful that Nancy wasn't the voluptuous and teasing type like many girls her age were.
Still and all he was a man and it wasn't like he hadn't already seen much of Nancy before, and while she was certainly not shapely, her Mom hadn't been either when she was 18 although nowhere near the waif Nancy was now.
Boyish. That was the word that described his daughter, and as he tried and failed to not look down the tank-top at the tiny swells that were Nancy's breasts with the little pink nipples no bigger than his own he felt himself getting hard despite himself.
"Want me to get my hair out of the way?" Nancy offered, and before Don could stop her - because he was about to stop - Nancy was already reaching up and pulling her hair up and out of the way. "Now you can do my shoulders too. Everything aches today."
"Glad to," Don said, although this only made things worse because not only did this make the shirt bow out farther but the raising of his daughter's arms exposed her underarms and the scent of the Teen Spirit deodorant Nancy used.
"So uh," Don said as he forced his eyes upward, focusing on the faded letters on the top right hand corner of the mirror that had been removed years ago although the image was still readable. "Is that Sean still in your class?"
"Gosh no Daddy," Nancy said with a giggle. "His family moved away years ago back when we were in 8th grade. He was my first boyfriend - just about my last too."
"That's not true honey," Don said as his fingers massaged this daughter's lightly freckled shoulders, another thing she got from her Mom. "There was - there was a Brian wasn't there?"
"Only in my dreams. That was a one-way love affair. Sean was my true love. He showed me his thing in the playground," Nancy admitted.
"He did? I'll murder the bum," I chuckled in mock outrage, remembering goofy stuff I did in my youth.
"Don't you want to know if I showed him mine?" Nancy said as our eyes met in the mirror.
"Oh no - that's your business honey," I said, and Nancy lowered her eyes after nodding.
Nancy's underarms - they were beautiful in his eyes. The pale gentle hollows under her skinny arms had usually been as smooth as butter but recently Nancy had started getting a little lax in that regard. Now the centers of her armpits were coated with a narrow strip of burnt orange-hued growth that was somewhere between peach fuzz and hair, and it had been a little over two weeks since she had shaved last.
And why do I know that? Don was scolding himself for being that aware of his daughter's body and routine, and as he mentally berated himself his hands had slipped off of his daughter's bony shoulders and the tips of his fingers were rubbing against the fur.
"Sorry," Don mumbled. "Daydreaming and not paying attention to what I was doing."
"Oh," Nancy said, looking crestfallen as the hands went back up where they were. "I was hoping you meant it. It felt real nice."
"Um - I - was..." Don mumbled.
"Did you stop because I haven't shaved in a while?" Nancy asked. "If that's the reason I can shave them now real quick - I just thought that maybe you liked me this way. I've seen you looking under my arms a lot lately."
"I'm..." Don said, looking at his red face in the mirror and wishing he could die.
"T was hoping maybe I was starting to look like Mom. I mean I know I'm not as pretty, but I saw that old picture of Mom in this shirt and saw she didn't shave back when she was my age. She looked so awesome." Nancy said.
"I know honey," Don said.
"Do you ever look at me like I'm not your little girl, Daddy?" Nancy asked. "Sometimes I see you looking at me - looking at me like a man would look at a woman he wants - and makes me feel tingly all over. Be honest. Do you Daddy?"
"Yes honey," Don said after a moment of silence, continuing to rub her shoulders and neck while his eyes welled up.
"I like to dream about stuff. You know what today is?"
"Yes."
"I remember when Mom was alive and sometimes I would wake up to go to the bathroom or something," Nancy recalled. "I would hear all those noises and the bed squeaking and although I didn't really understand it then I do now."
"I didn't realize we were that loud," Don said in a cracking voice. "Sorry."
"Gosh no Daddy. I'm glad I got to hear something like that, because I don't think I'll ever experience it myself."
"Nancy, that's crazy. Somebody nice is going to come along and find out what I already know - that you're a cute, bright and adorable girl with a lot of love in her heart," Don declared.
"Not sexy though," Nancy interjected. "You didn't say sexy."
"Sexy too," Don heard himself saying. "I think you're beautiful."
