Carrie Ann King not only knew she wanted to be a lawyer since her senior year in high school, but knew why. Roland King, her dad, is a lawyer, and there are few people in the world that she admires more than her dad. Roland King built his firm of King, Sullivan and Cromwell into one of the city's top law firms, recognized for giving their clients the best legal work money can buy. Cheap, they aren't, but then quality service never is.
It isn't abnormal for children to admire their parents' profession to the point where they'd like to follow in their footsteps. But Carrie Ann, unlike many children who end up doing something else, followed through. Always an academic standout, she went on to college and then law school, making law review in her second and third years. After working a few years as a public defender, Roland persuaded her to join his law firm. King, Sullivan and Cromwell became King, Sullivan, Cromwell and King.
Thus, Carrie Ann fulfilled her ambition to go into law, working alongside her beloved dad. So far, so good, and nothing out of the ordinary except for one thing: the incestuous feelings Carrie Ann developed in high school only got stronger. Indeed, she more than admires her dad professionally—she's downright attracted to him as a younger woman might be to an older man. She's thus far kept this to herself, though she dropped a subtle hint when a friend teased her about being too picky when it came to men. "Maybe by forty you'll find Mr. Right," the friend said.
"I've already found Mr. Right," Carrie Ann retorted. "Only he's married to my mom."
She does date. And yes, she's picky. But you'd think she'd pick men with her dad's physical and intellectual qualities. And sometimes she does, though more often it's men on a lower tier, men not as well educated, not as smart, not as accomplished professionally, men she can look down on, often literally from her close to six-foot height in heels. It's another weird juxtaposition of her sexual/emotional makeup. By sheer force of her intelligence and assertive personality, she dominates these men, something she can't do with Roland. Does she really want to find Mr. Right? Perhaps not.
She sometimes wonders if she should seek professional help. Books and Web searches give her some insight into her sexual psyche. She reads Freud and Jung in an effort to understand what drives girls/women into their dad's arms—and sometimes into their beds. The Electra complex, the Jung-named stage of development when young girls develop an attachment to their fathers, rings true to her. In normal development, girls grow out of it. Carrie Ann never really did. Growing up, her dad was the nurturing parent, the one that gave her the emotional sustenance she needed. She and her emotionally distant mom locked horns in perpetual competition for Roland's attention, a competition that carried over into her adulthood. Her research gives her some insight. Still, she doesn't fully understand it, though she suspects Roland's good looks play a role—his thick mane of chestnut hair, his square jaw and strong features, his lithe, six-foot-three frame that he keeps hard and toned through racquetball and weight machines. He's been an inspiration to the once sedentary Carrie Ann in that area as well. She's heard other women drop comments on their dads' good looks. Yet not once did any of them express anything beyond that. Not one said in reverse what a certain celebrity said about dating his daughter if she wasn't his daughter.
She's gotten closer to Roland since joining the firm. They do lunch together, play racquetball, share drinks during happy hour when firm business doesn't find them working into the evening. At times, she can feel the sexual tension between them, palpable and simmering. He feels it too; she knows he does. The way he looks at her, the way lots of men look at her, including the firm's two partners, Lester Sullivan and Stephen Cromwell, both, like Roland, middle-age and married.
By almost anyone's barometer of beauty, she stands out in a crowd. Standing a shade over five-foot ten, with turnpike-length legs on a body sculpted by good genes and a disciplined gym regimen, she's tough to miss. She wears her long, straight brown hair parted in the middle; that is, when she doesn't have it pinned up, her "executive doo," she calls it. She wows men whether she's wearing jeans or her dressed-for-success business duds. And her face, pretty in a patrician-refined way: high cheek bones, smooth, lovely skin, straight nose and a mouth, full and luscious and seductive when she's not wearing her game face and sometimes even when she is. Then there's her intelligence, her facile way with language, her unique verbal acumen that serves her so well in the courtroom and boardroom. Do smart men really want dumb women? Tis but a myth in her experience, not with all those smart, successful men that hit on her with predictable regularity, other lawyers, even a few judges she encounters off the bench.
Her dad never went that far. Sometimes she wishes he would, at least lead her on. Yes, she knows the law: vaginal intercourse between relatives in her state is illegal, punishable by one to ten years behind bars. But then so are other laws on the books regarding sexual conduct, archaic and virtually unenforceable.
*****
Happy hour in Brannon's, Pub, just two blocks from the downtown Circuit Court is winding down. Carrie Ann and Roland, after spending the afternoon writing legal briefs, share a small table off to the side, savoring their Samuel Adams brew on tap. Neither are heavy beer drinkers. One, sometimes two usually does it for them, helps them to unwind from a hectic workday. Roland's got his blue pinstriped suit jacket slung over his chair, and his preppy tie, green with black shield icons, hangs loose over his powered blue, button-down dress shirt. Carrie Ann remains fully attired in a charcoal skirt suit over a white blouse. Her hair, pinned up earlier, now hangs down, her only concession to informality since she left for work. When they meet like this, they usually discuss firm business first, the day's events, upcoming cases, etc. Then they might cover everything from politics to Carrie Ann's social life.
The Trump presidency has been an ongoing topic between them ever since the election. He voted for Trump, she for Hillary. Grudgingly, Carrie Ann is willing to give Trump more time to prove or disprove his fitness for the job. She's not one of those smug people who proclaim he's not their president. She admires his campaign manager and now adviser, Kellyanne Conway. "She's smart and she's tough," she tells Roland. "I love the skillful way she handles the media, giving as good as she gets."
Roland nods and knocks back some brew. "She does that. Kind of sexy, too." He winks.
She chuckles. "You think so?"
"Yeah. I mean, she's blond, cute and slender, looks good for a middle-age woman. But more than that, she's like you said, smart and tough, with exceptionally good verbal skills. Thinks fast on her feet. Kind of reminds me of you in that regard."
Carrie Ann beams. "Really? So—and you don't have to answer if you don't want to—does that mean you find me sexy as well?"
He blushes and looks away for a few seconds. "Um, well, I find you very attractive. In an objective way, of course."
"Of course. I mean, you're my dad, so I wouldn't expect you to see me the way other men might. The same is true on my end. I mean, I can think you're a really hot looking guy without necessarily harboring thoughts of seducing you. Or, Lord help us, putting thoughts into action, crossing the line." She flashes a teasing smile.
He loosens his collar and takes another swig. "Lord help us is right. It's called taboo for a reason."
They sit in silence for a while, sipping their beers. Carrie Ann feels the familiar sexual tension between them, taut as a fresh bowstring. "Dad, mind if I ask you something?"
"Work related or personal?"
"Um, the latter."
"Shoot."
She smiles shyly and giggles. "This isn't easy."
"You sure it's worth asking?"
The server, a blond, pony-tailed, mid-twenties female comes over and points to their near-empty mugs. "Another round?"
"I think I better," Carrie Ann says. "Dad?"
"I can't let you drink alone." He looks up at the server. "Make it two." When she returns less than a minute later, he says, "So, your question..."
She purses her lips, then takes a deep breath. "Right. Well, to proceed, is it just me or do you also sense this strange vibe between us?"
He knocks back a swig from his fresh beer mug. "Strange vibe? Strange how?"
She cups her hands around her frosted glass, gazes into his hazel eyes. "I mean, sometimes I feel we're something other than father-daughter or even law partners."
He rolls his shoulders and looks around before responding. "You sure you want to go there?"
She leans forward and lowers her voice to just above a whisper. "Well, first I'd like to know if there is any there there."
