I swear I never meant for this to happen. I'm not that kind of guy. All I did was make some comments...
A bunch of guys from work and I take a trip once a year. Usually no place fancy, just a nice hotel somewhere to relax for a weekend and let loose. The first couple years, it was just me and four or five other guys from the office. But eventually there were more married guys in this group than there were singles, and so after a few years the wives and even kids came. As far as families go, I had the second oldest in the group. I'd been married for over twenty years, had five kids, and I was one of the few original members of the group who didn't mind having the women and children around, even though I made it sound to the guys like I did.
In fact, I even had to beg my wife to come this year. Though even my youngest had just more or less outgrown wanting to come along, I still wanted to keep this a somewhat family tradition. My wife had other plans to be with her sister on the same weekend, but we made a deal that she would show up a day after me so we could be together.
Anyway, on this latest trip, the group of friends had grown to six, which included three newcomers. One guy--the guy with the family even older than mine--had opted not to go for the first time since the tradition began, and another regular had changed jobs. It made me feel older, especially since the three new guys were now the only single men left. Even though there were only two of us now with kids, the third regular was married.
Bringing the three younger guys--who were both in their upper twenties (the rest of us ranged from me, at 46, to 32)--turned out to be great boost for the rest of us. They reminded us of our own first year, when we had been so reckless and crude and, well, fun. One day into the trip, and I'd laughed harder than I had in years. I'd also drank more, though not enough to get stupid. It was turning out to be the best trip since it all began.
But on the second night, as the six of us guys sat at the near-empty pool playing poker and taking shots, something happened that would leave a mark not just on the trip, but two lives. The hotel was small, with just a dozen stories, but it did have an indoor pool that the rest of the building surrounded. Each room had a window looking out into the parking lot or whatever was outside, while the door sat on the pool side. Typical hotel that I'm sure most people have stayed in. Because we go on this trip during the off season, and we try to book on off days, it was very empty. I only knew of about a dozen other people in the whole place other than our group.
And a few of them were swimming in the pool not twenty feet from us. One of the new guys at our table, Burt, remarked about how attractive one of them was. Over the course of three or four hands of poker and endless shots of tequila, he kept going on and on about this beauty in the pool, getting more and more descriptive about what he wanted to do with her, and what he wanted her to do to him.
Sitting with my back to the pool, I had to turn all the way around for my own glimpse. I took a look and saw instantly what he was talking about; a petite blonde wearing a bikini with a nice little body on her. Not wanting my eyes to linger--this girl's family was spread all about in the pool with her--I only gave myself time to admire her tight little ass. Never got to confirm Burt's description of her breasts because she had her back to me through my whole glance.
Burt kept going on about this girl though, and even started calling over to her after a while, saying things like, "nice dive", while hiding his flirting by showing interest in the other people at the pool, too, asking where they were from, things like that.
In my younger days, I would've been right there with him, but I'd changed, of course. And I still hadn't heard from my wife, who was supposed to be arriving sometime soon. She was either going to have to call me or walk right up to me for the room key. I didn't really want to be leering at some young blonde when she strolled up with her bags. So, though I laughed and enjoyed hearing about it, at first I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the table.
But then my wife called. Said she was with Meg and Patty, the other guys' wives, and that she'd come for the key later. Apparently she'd run into the wives as they were leaving for a movie in the multiplex down the block. She didn't have time to even drop her bags off.
Though I take all the blame for what happened, I would've been fine if my wife hadn't checked in with that phone call.
See, since I now knew my wife was busy and would be at least a couple hours, and she wouldn't be sneaking up on me, I also knew I could let loose and let my mouth run. So even though I wasn't watching the girl like the other guys, I chipped in my own filthy language, saying some things that were more alcohol than me, but enjoying it all the same. I gave some tips, shared bits of fantasies, and recalled my favorite carnal moments that I would love to live through again. Everyone else at the table joined in, and we all shared stories and laughs.
I wasn't even aware how serious Burt's flirting had become with the girl at the pool until he stood up and invited her over. I became very shy all of the sudden, because I was still sober enough to remember the things we'd all been talking about. I realized we were probably talking pretty loud, and this girl had probably heard more than we'd wanted. But the worst was when, bashfully, I got my first real, close-up look at the girl in the bikini as she came up from behind me to our table.
She didn't even bother with a towel, so when I glanced over at her, she was not only still dripping wet, but covered by nothing more than that tiny bikini, which looked even smaller up close. She didn't have a tiny body like I'd first thought when I saw her briefly from across the room, and I only say that because nowadays, tiny means you can count her ribs, which I couldn't. But hers was a slender body with subtle hips and a fairly tight little tummy. Above, her breasts filled the bikini top perfectly, and they stood high and close together, making some deep cleavage that I had to pry my eyes from so that I could keep looking up, up...into the eyes of my very own daughter.
Hanna had gone through a lot of changes over the last year. A former fan of the goth look, not long after her 18th birthday she finally changed her long hair back to blonde, lost interest in the heavy black make-up, and took up interest in tanning her very pale skin. She was now the beauty I remembered from three or four years ago, though I certainly didn't recall her having this amazing of a body. Her goth cloths had never showed much of her form, and now, seeing her in a bikini I didn't even know she owned, gave me a good look at how much she'd filled out over the past year.
The guys who knew Hanna wouldn't have recognized her because they always knew her as the goth child who spent these trips in the hotel room with a book. And I didn't recognize her because of three reasons: one, Hanna had denied the original invitation, just like all the other kids had this year. Two, my wife never mentioned Hanna had come, or that she was staying behind instead of going along to the movies. And three, the last time I'd seen Hanna--and in fact, every day of her life---she'd had long hair. Hanna had never let her hair get shorter than a foot. But an historical haircut had apparently taken place since I left for this trip, because now it barely covered her neck.
I didn't know what to say, but fortunately my silence wasn't noticed by the others. The guys who had met Hanna before not only didn't recognize her new look, but they were impaired by three hours of hard drinking. I crossed my fingers, hoping the secret was safe, but still wondering how to handle it. I couldn't very well suddenly tell everyone this was my daughter. Not after the things they'd said. Not after the things I'd said.
The only other one who knew about this was, of course, Hanna. But she didn't react as I would've imagined. I suspected she'd heard me say those dirty things about her, but hoped she knew I was only saying them because I thought she was someone else. If there was any doubt, I relied on my expression upon seeing her face to send that message of mistaken identity.
Well, maybe it was the liquor. Maybe I had gotten myself too worked up. Maybe I'll never know. But whatever expression I did give apparently didn't get my message across, because Hanna started flirting with the guys right in front of me, even to me! She pretended as if she didn't know a one of us, even though she was acquainted with two, not to mention me. When Burt asked her to join us, she accepted and pulled up a chair, wearing nothing but that skimpy bikini and beads of water. But the real shocker was when she introduced herself as Kim.
As time passed, Hanna and I got better at pretending we were strangers. But that didn't mean things were looking up. Though she did decline alcohol on the basis of being too young, Hanna did show her naughty side when, after Burt's mouth kept running with filth, she eventually joined in, a point that culminated with this question, directed to me.
