Note: This is a story about father/daughter incest. There's rough sex and dirty talking and so if any of that offends you, you shouldn't read. Nothing is intended to be strictly realistic, the people or their body parts, but rather the heightened reality of fantasy.
There's also some use of language that could be offensive to Native Americans. Just a FYI.
*****
Sunday, October, Somewhere in Canada
It was an ugly sense of deja vu that ran through me as I woke up. Somehow, I was back in high school, the cold grey dorm room I'd woken up in every day for the last year replaced by the bright yellow that had been my bedroom when I'd still lived at home. There was the photo collage of all of my friends on the wall and my old Macbook sitting on my desk.
Worse yet, I was waking up to the sound of my door being knocked on sharply by my mother.
"Keeley!" her voice said loudly, "Are you awake honey?"
My eyes slowly adjusted to the early morning light as I hopped out of bed and I remembered my surroundings. I grumbled as I walked to the door. I hadn't wanted to be home at all and that was before I knew about the involuntary early-morning wake-up call.
My plan had been to spend the holiday break with Mark, my now ex-boyfriend's family. I liked Mark's family, liked his mother's cooking and had been looking forward to a very nice thanksgiving. That had been before Mark had unceremoniously dumped me over the phone two weeks before. I'd heard about the "Turkey Drop" but it had still been out of the blue. Deep down I'd known that us going to different schools would make our year long relationship a long shot to continue but it had still been a shock to have been dumped so suddenly.
I opened the door to see my mother standing there. Her graying hair tied back, her coat on and her purse over her shoulder. I briefly wondered why she looked like she was going out at ten o'clock on a Sunday morning.
"What's up," I asked, trying not to sound too much like a bratty teenager True, having turned eighteen only nine months earlier I technically was still a bratty teenager but I was in college now. I wanted to at least seem adult.
"Oh, it's your Aunt Elizabeth I'm afraid," she said, "It seems like she's broken up with Tom and needs me to drive out to pick her up."
I shook my head. It seemed like it was shaping up to be a lousy Thanksgiving for many of the women in my family. Still, what my mother was saying didn't make much sense.
"That's insane," I said. My Aunt lived four hours away, "Can't you just send her the money for the bus?"
"I would, sweetie, but it looks like it's for good this time. She needs me to take the truck out there to pack her things and, you know..."
I winced at the mention of the truck. A reminder of why I really didn't want to be at home.
"Great," I said, "Give me a couple minutes to get dressed and I'll go with you..."
My mother took a nervous glance at the floor.
"Actually, honey, I was thinking you could spend the day here." she said, "There won't be a a lot of room in the truck with all of her stuff and it would give you a chance to spend some time with your father."
I stared in disbelief. She knew how I felt about my father even being in the house, let alone the idea of spending any one on one time with him.
My father hadn't been a presence in my life growing up. Or at least not a regular one. He'd left my mother when she was five months pregnant with me and had been a non-factor in my life until I was ten years old. That had been the first time that he'd gotten back together with my mother.
As I looked at her I wondered for the thousandth time why she did this. She was a smart woman, I thought. Hard-working enough to go from being a waitress to a secretary to a successful real estate agent. Yet, when it came to my father, her brains seemingly disappeared. My mom had even been seeing a reasonably nice guy named Terry who treated her well at the time. But she let him back in and even swore that things would be "different" this time.
That lasted all of five weeks. Then he was off again. That happened twice more in my life, when I was thirteen and again at fifteen. Both times the patterns were identical. He'd run out of money or been kicked to the curb by a woman who'd come to her senses and he showed up at the nice little house she'd bought for us, expecting to be taken back. And he always was. This time he'd shown up only a few days after she'd dropped me off at college.
"I don't want to spend time with him," I said, "I'll just go over to Rachel's or something,"
My mother's face twisted into one of exasperation.
"Please, honey," she said, "Your father likes to watch football on Sundays and really hates it when I'm not around. Just watch it with him and maybe fix him a quick lunch."
I stared at her in disbelief. Every fiber of my being wanted to scream at her, not just for the gall of asking me to make lunch for someone I couldn't stand, but for her inability to see him for what he was.
I held my tongue though. I might have had no use for my father but I cared about my mother. She'd worked hard to give me every opportunity I needed and now, with a seemingly bright future ahead of me, I owed her.
"Fine," I heard myself saying, "Just try to be back as soon as you can."
"Thanks sweetie." she said, kissing my cheek, "His beer's in the fridge and he likes his sandwiches with mustard and mayo."