Most girls of a certain age have a crush on their fathers. Heâs their protector and their first love. Heâs their knight in shining armor and the most important man in their lives. He loves them unconditionally and they love him right back. And somehow fathers are always handsome in the eyes of their little girls.
Some of the wilder and braver girls might even harbor secret fantasies about having sex with him. Most of them would never act on such thoughts, though. Societyâs guilt, a virginâs embarrassment and the possibility that daddy would reject them all combine to dissuade their lustful imaginings. No matter much they might wish for it late at night when theyâre alone in bed, they donât trust themselves enough to take that step. They feel the rush of impending womanhood and the thrill of their first self-induced orgasms, and daddy seems like the answer to all of a girlâs new longings. Itâs something that grown-up women simply never discuss with each other, so thereâs no way to tell just how many women felt the lure of forbidden sex when they were young and impressionable. And most girls never actually did anything about it. But Iâm not most girls.
And Iâm lucky. I remember very clearly the day that I first saw my father not just as a father, but also as a man - someone who could make wild and passionate love to a woman. Most girls somehow manage to get through their whole lives without quite believing this to be true, and respond with disdainful sounds if anyone should allude to their parentsâ sex lives.
It was a Friday. School was over and the warm spring afternoon spoke to all young girls with the promise of a loverâs kiss, a hint of the romantic possibilities in our lives wafting gently on the breeze. I walked home enjoying the warmth and daydreaming about what I might say if Jake Holden asked me to the senior prom. It would be so cool to have a college boy take me, even if I really didnât have any romantic designs on him.
Iâd come home from school early, my after-school activity of tennis lessons canceled by Mrs. Venable. I knew that Dad was home with Rita because both of their cars were in the driveway. With teenage blinders on, it never even occurred to me that they werenât expecting me.
My real Mom got a divorce from Dad not long after I was born. The way it was told to me later, they just decided that they couldnât get along. Since it happened when I was so young, I never doubted the explanation. Iâd never lived any other way, and our arrangement seemed normal to me. And it wasnât like Dad was some kind of absentee father.
He played the âdivorced daddyâ part to the hilt, lavishing me with love and gifts whenever we got together. I saw him every weekend and even sometimes during the week. Mom obviously got along with him much better after they were divorced, because she never turned him down if he wanted to take me somewhere. There were annual trips to the circus (with lots of cotton candy!), a rafting trip down the Arkansas, and he even took my girlfriends and me and to see Duran Duran once! I can only imagine what he really thought of that. But he did it because he loved me, and he even pretended to like it.
Dad and I were like best friends. There wasnât anything I couldnât tell him, and I always looked forward to seeing him, even if we were just going to hang out. Itâs not like I didnât love Mom, too. She was my other best friend. Mom was always there for me too, and I grew up feeling very secure and loved in spite of my fractured family.
I know that most teenage girls live a life of angst and unnamed needs, but the three of us were quite happy with our little arrangement. And I know that some of my girlfriends were quite jealous of me, for I had the best of both worlds. You might wonder why I never thought about trying to get them back together, but I guess that just because it had always been this way I never really gave it a second thought.
Then Mom died. A drunk driver hit her as she was driving home from work, and our lives were changed in a heartbeat. For the first time I found myself living with my Dad. We helped each other get through our loss, consoling and grieving together.
Eventually our new daily routines asserted themselves, and our lives became more normal. Daddy left every morning for his job as an engineer with an oil company, and I went off to school. He was still my best buddy, joking around with me after school and watching movies on TV with me while we threw popcorn at each other. I did my share of the household chores, and I enjoyed our domestic tranquility I suppose I would have been content with that life for years.
But Daddy wasnât living in a vacuum, attending only to my needs. After a couple of years of living the bachelor-daddy-and-daughter life, he met Rita. She was bright and cheery, with short red hair and lipstick that left marks on Daddyâs lips when she kissed him. I wish that I could say I was jealous or betrayed because she was replacing my mom. But the fact is that she fit into our lives so seamlessly and we both loved her so much that if Iâd ever had any such thoughts they were so small and insignificant that I was never even aware of them.
They were married in a big ceremony and I was the maid of honor. Dad still worked for the oil company, and Rita had a high level job at the local amusement park. As much fun as Dad and I had always had together before Rita entered our lives, I could now see a contented look in his eye that didnât used to be there. Rita and I had about the same build and shape, and Daddy took to calling us âhis girls.â I grew to love her, and we were warmed together by his love. And so our lives went on, Daddy and Rita and Nikki.
I guess that I didnât make much noise that Tuesday afternoon when I walked into the kitchen and caught them necking, or they surely would have stopped. Rita was sitting on the counter, her bare legs wrapped around Dad. He was still dressed for work in his khaki slacks and an expensive shirt and tie. His briefcase was on the floor beside them. She had her tennis shoes on, and her dress was pushed up far enough that I could clearly see Daddyâs hand on her white cotton panties, firmly rubbing her between the legs.
I stood in the doorway, frozen by the sight. It was as if I knew that Iâd come across one of those secrets that grown-ups seem so effortlessly to keep from their children. A fundamental truth about what really went on between a man and woman was about to be revealed to me, if only I made the best use of the opportunity. I backed up into the entryway and peered around the edge of the doorframe, watching and hoping that theyâd continue. I could always pretend that Iâd just walked in, couldnât I?