Meeting James

I don't have any firsthand knowledge of my father, but from what my very biased mother has told me, James spent the first eighteen years of my life screwing his way through Tampa. He even married a few of those women, for whatever reason. He must have been very careful, though, because he never gave me any brothers or sisters. And believe me, he would've known, because those women definitely would have come after his money, which he has plenty of. Nope. My mom was the first and only woman he ever knocked up. I guess he learned his lesson.

My father is considered the Porn King of Florida. If you're at all familiar with that illustrious state, you know that's really saying something. Ever heard of

Brass Loves Ass

? Maybe

Feed Me Daddy

? Or perhaps

Vanilla Thighs

? With as disgustingly rich as he is, I'm guessing half of America has all three of those masterpieces. Look—I don't judge. I've seen some of his films. The actors are all hot, the scenes are imaginative and well-written, and the production value is top-notch.

Is it wrong that I've gotten myself off watching his flicks? Maybe. But since I have no sex life, self-service is imperative. Plus, I get his stuff for free, so why not enjoy it? The only sex partner I've ever had is my six inch vibrator. I call him Vinnie, and he's been fucking me regularly ever since he came into my life on my eighteenth birthday, two months ago. It was one of my gifts from James. I'm fully aware of how fucked up that is, but that doesn't mean I'm going to look a gift cock in the mouth.

My other birthday gifts? Ten thousand dollars and a round trip ticket to Tampa. The money, I'm used to. James may have neglected me emotionally, but financially, he's earned the Best Dad Ever mug. I'd probably be a spoiled brat if I didn't resent every cent he ever gave me. I try not to spend any more than I have to, so most of it ends up in savings. At this point, I can pay for college without any more help from him, and that's exactly what I intend to do.

It was the plane ticket that threw me. There was no note and no explanation. What's a ditched-at-birth daughter supposed to think? He's never once indicated that he wants any kind of interaction with me. He doesn't send birthday cards, just checks. No calls, no emails, no contact, whatsoever. I've talked to his personal assistant Sandra once a year since I was five. She calls to ask how I'm doing, if school is going well, and if I need any extra money. She's smart not to ask my mother that last question, because the answer would always be a desperate yes. His PA has also friended me on every social media site I have an account with. I could have easily declined her requests, but there's a part of me—a part I'm not happy with, by the way—that likes to think it's James' way of keeping tabs on me.

That same part of me also makes me google him. Frequently. I can't help being curious about the man who helped make me. He stays out of the spotlight, for the most part, but every once in a while, I'll see photos of him at charity functions. At least that means he's generous with his money. I like that there's this one redeeming quality to someone I share genes with. My mom doesn't have any at all. Hell, I'm sure she would have abandoned me, too, if I didn't come with fat monthly checks.

Am I fucked up because of my parents? Absolutely. But I won't let that ruin my life. I don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs, and don't have sex. Vinnie has really come in handy since I started playing with him. Just because I've never had a dick in me, doesn't mean I don't want one, because I do. All the time. I'm a little worried that once I actually start having sex, I won't want to do anything else. I apparently get more from my father than just my looks.

Yeah, I look a lot like him. Obviously, not my body. That's the only thing mom ever gave me. I have an hourglass figure—C cup breasts, narrow waist, and proportional hips. I'm not overweight, but I'd never call myself skinny, either. Some creepy old guy at the supermarket once called me "luscious." He was gross, but he wasn't wrong.

Everything above the neck comes from James. His parents are Croatian, so we both have thick, dark brown hair, lightly tanned skin, and caramel colored eyes. Since I'm lucky enough to have his great hair, I like to keep it long, and when it's dried straight, it just brushes my nipples. While I'm average height, James is really tall, and from what I can tell from his pictures, he keeps in nice shape for forty-five.

But back to that ticket. I'd like to say I ripped it up, stuffed it in an envelope, and mailed it back to him, along with an Instax pic of my middle finger. I should have. At the very least, I should have agonized over my decision whether or not to use it, but I didn't. I knew immediately that I was going to Tampa. Did I mention I was curious about my father and completely fucked up? I wasn't exaggerating.

* * * * *

So here I am, one week after graduation, sitting in first class on a flight from Baltimore to Tampa, and wishing one of the flight attendants would take pity on me and serve me some champagne. You'd think that, at 40,000 feet, silly laws like the minimum drinking age would cease to apply. Instead, I'm downing my second can of cola, amping up my anxiety instead of numbing it.

Once we've landed, it doesn't take long for me to get my luggage. I only have one suitcase to grab from baggage claim and my carry-on weekender bag. When I get closer to the exit, I see all the chauffeurs holding up signs with names on them. Not one of those signs has Novak on it, though, so I start to freak out. Did he forget I was coming? Did he even know, or was this something his PA set up? I'm getting ready to call her, when I hear someone shout my name.

"Jenny!"

It's a man's deep voice, coming from my left. When I look over, I am thoroughly shocked. James stands twenty feet away, smiling like a madman. I'm rooted in place, just staring at him as he walks toward me. He's even more handsome than he is in pictures. The man apparently ages like George Clooney—handsomely and hardly at all.

You'd think a porn mogul would go around in a cheesy velour tracksuit and flashy gold chain, but not my father. He's wearing a light grey suit with navy pinstripes, perfectly polished brown oxfords, and an ice blue tie. He even has a coordinating pocket square. I'm suddenly feeling really underdressed in my denim skirt, cotton tank, and flip flops.

When he gets to me, he throws his arms around me and lifts me up in a tight embrace. What the...? I have no clue how to react, so I just don't. My arms are limp at my sides, and I'm staring at the side of his head. He has a bunch of grey hairs at his temple. Lucky for him, it works with his whole seasoned businessman look. And he's still holding me. I should probably say something.

"Hi, James," I say, flatly.

There. That should be good enough. He flinches when I use his first name, but what else am I supposed to call him? Dad? Not happening.

He sets me back on the floor. "I can't tell you how happy I am to finally see you," he says. His eyes look a little glossy, as if he's overwhelmed with emotion. It's probably just allergies.

"Funny," I reply, sounding like a brat and not caring, "you had plenty of chances to be happy over the past eighteen years."

"We have a lot to talk about, Jenny. I hope I can make you understand why I stayed away."

"Fat chance of that," I mumble under my breath, and then ask, "So, where's our driver?"

James looks confused for a moment before it clicks. "Oh, no, it's just me. I love driving too much to let anyone do it for me."

Yay for him. He's smiling again as he takes the luggage handle from me. We head for the exit and out to his car, which is parked right outside. I guess money really can buy you everything, including the luxury of parking anywhere you like. It also buys you expensive Range Rover SUVs. James opens the passenger door and helps me climb in, then hands an airport employee what looks like a twenty dollar tip for putting my two small bags in the back. I guess I can't accuse my father of being stingy.

"Are you hungry?" he asks, as he starts driving.

"I could eat," I tell him. And I really could. I haven't eaten all day—nerves completely destroyed my appetite. Now that I'm here, my stomach won't shut up about how empty it is.

"What do you like?" he asks, because he has no idea, of course. We've never once spoken, so there's no way he could know what I like and don't like. His PA certainly never asked me those kinds of questions.

"Italian, American, Mexican... really, anything but Asian." Asian food gives me heartburn, and just the thought of sushi turns my stomach. I refuse to eat any protein that isn't cooked. Unless it's eggs that are in brownie batter, which is a completely legitimate exception to the rule.

"I know a great burger place just off the highway, about five minutes away. Sound good?"

Just then, my stomach lets out a very loud rumble. "Yeah, apparently it does," I say, and I smile at him for the very first time. He looks over and beams back at me.

* * * * *

We each order two cheeseburgers and bacon cheddar cheese fries. I think he got the same thing I did so I wouldn't feel like such a pig. I wouldn't have cared, either way. If I need two cheeseburgers, I'm going to order two cheeseburgers, damn it.

As we wait for our food, I decide to dive right into the shark-infested deep end.

"You said we have a lot to talk about. Does that include why I've never met you before today?" I ask, trying to sound cool but absolutely not succeeding. It's clear in my voice that I'm hurt, and I hate that.

"Are you sure you don't want to eat first and talk about this back at the house?" he asks, and it sounds like he's procrastinating. I don't blame him. There's nothing he can tell me that would fix things between us. I'm never going to say, "Oh, daddy! I forgive you, and I love you so much!" Gag. Not gonna happen.

I tell him that I'm sure, and then he takes a deep breath and says something I wasn't expecting.

"When you were born, your mother made me promise to stay away from you until you turned eighteen." He pauses to let me respond or to gauge my reaction. I'm not sure which, but I don't speak, and my face is blank, so he goes on. "I was already successful in the industry when Alyse got pregnant, and I had no plans to change my career. She decided it wasn't a lifestyle she wanted our daughter around, and I can't say I blame her. That's why I agreed to keep my distance."

"You could have, though. You could have changed careers at any point in my life. But you chose success and money instead of your own daughter." I'm more hurt than I am angry. Did he not love me enough to make that sacrifice? I mean, this is basically him saying I wasn't worth it. So, why bother with me now, when he's finally no longer financially obligated to me?

My hands are on top of the table, ripping a napkin to shreds. Once I'm done with the first one, I'm ready for another, but James grabs my hand and squeezes it before I can reach the chrome dispenser. His hand is warm and strong and comforting, and that small amount of contact sends a jolt of electricity through my body and causes my breathing to hitch.

What the hell was that?

"Jenny, I'm sorry," he says, dipping his head to try and get me to look him in the eye. "By the time you were five, I knew I'd made a terrible decision. I just figured there was no going back, at that point. Knowing Alyse, I was sure she'd turned you against me. She never liked me, even when we were... dating,"—aka screwing—"so that's when—"

"That's when you started having Sandra check in me," I realize. That was the exact age when I got my first call from his PA.

"Yes. It was my way of getting around the promise I made to your mother."

"And you had her follow me on all my accounts."

"No, that was me. I was just using her name," he confesses. "It was my only way to watch you grow up and get to know pieces of the person you were becoming." He squeezes my hand tighter and smirks at me. "You haven't made it easy, though. You only post things once a month, at most. Actually, I admire that about you."

He admires something about me? Here, I'd always assumed he never thought about me at all, let alone thought something like that.

"I google you," I blurt out.

Ugh! Why would I admit that? But then his thumb begins stroking my knuckles, causing my heart to beat faster and a tight knot to form in my stomach. My light violet nail polish catches his eye, and he smiles looking down at it. I hate to admit it, but after eighteen years of not having him in my life, seeing my father smile at me means so much.

Am I going to be

that girl

? You know, the one with serious daddy issues, who latches on to the first sign of male attention and misinterprets it as more than it really is? I have to keep reminding myself that James' sweet words and physical affection don't erase the fact that he's been absent all these years.

"You have no idea what that means to me," he finally says, his fingers still wrapped around mine. "I assumed you hated me. I think that made it easier to justify the choices I made."

"Part of me does hate you, and maybe always will. I do like that you're not trying to bullshit me, though," I admit, reluctantly.

I'm going to be here for a week. There's no need to make it more tense and awkward than it absolutely has to be by constantly shutting him out. If at the end of the seven days I decide I don't want a relationship with him, my walls can go right back up.

"That's fair. And I will never lie to you Jenny. I can't give you the time I threw away, but I can always give you the truth." Our amber eyes meet, and if he's lying to me now, I can't see it.

The waitress arrives, then, with our many plates of food, effectively pressing pause on our conversation. We eat in strangely comfortable silence. From time to time, I'll look up to see him watching me, which is a bit disconcerting. To be honest, though, I'd be sneaking glances at him, too, if he didn't keep beating me to it.

James is really handsome, for an older man. He doesn't look the way he does in all the pics I've seen of him, and I realize it's because his expression isn't blank, like it usually is—it's... happy. I wonder if I look happy, too.

We order dessert, even though neither one of us is hungry after our carb and protein overload. He uses the extra time to ask me questions about how I liked high school, if I'm excited for college, the different places I've traveled, and what I want to do with my life. He even tackles the trivial stuff, like my favorite movie, book, animal, and color. When I let him know that my favorite color is violet, he reaches across the table to brush his fingertips over my nails before taking my hand in his again, this time locking his fingers with mine.

The moment feels so fragile—like, once we leave this restaurant, all the comfort and openness we've established here will completely shatter, leaving no hope of putting the pieces back together. After just a few hours, I feel closer to James than I've ever felt to my mother. It's no surprise that I have abandonment issues, so the idea that, at any moment, I could lose that closeness with him scares the crap out of me.

A sick part of me can also admit that I don't want him to break contact with me. There's a heat passing between us where our hands touch, charging my body in a way nothing ever has before. It's palpable. I can't imagine he doesn't feel it, too.

Ok, so I'm definitely

that girl.

Sure

,

there's a chance I could be way off, but I don't think I'm misinterpreting a single thing.

It turns out, I don't have to worry about losing the feel of his skin on mine. When we finally leave, he holds my hand through the parking lot. Once we're both inside the SUV, he takes it again. Maybe, like me, he's afraid I'll slip right back out of his life if he lets go for too long.

* * * * *

About ten minutes into the drive, my bladder lets me know how angry it is with me. It hits me that I never went to the bathroom after the two colas on the plane or the water at the restaurant. James said it's a thirty minute drive to his place in Cory Lake Isles, and there is no way I won't piss myself in that time.

"Can we stop somewhere? I have to... um... use a restroom," I say, trying not to let on how desperate the situation is. I'm bouncing in my seat, scared of what will happen if I let my muscles relax.

"Of course. There's a gas station coming up. I know those bathrooms are notoriously gross, but—"

"No, that's fine!" I practically shout, cutting him off and sounding one hundred percent desperate.

He looks over at me with concern, and within a couple minutes, he's pulling into a poorly lit parking lot, complete with a flickering fluorescent light over one of the pumps. I have never once used a gas station bathroom, and I shudder at the thought of using one now. But it's a struggle holding it in just from the car to the grimy door, so there's no way I would have made it all the way to my father's house.

James gets out of the car, too, keeping an eye on me, since there's no light at all on this side of the building. There's only one door, so it must be unisex, and inside there are two stalls and one urinal. The floors are coated in layers of brown gunk, the sinks clearly haven't been cleaned since they were installed, and the toilets are—actually, it's best I don't describe them, or the smell wafting off of them.

I duck inside one of the narrow stalls and lock the door, using my tank top as a barrier between my hand and whatever deadly bacteria is gestating in here.

At some point in every girl's life, she learns to do the hover-squat over a filthy toilet. You just spread your legs, bend your knees, lean forward, and aim as best you can. And to all you men out there—I'd love to see you try that without your precious penises!

As I'm mid-stream, I hear the door swing open, and then someone enters the other stall, which shares a wall with mine. I force my bladder to empty itself even faster, wanting to get out of here ASAP. I rip off the few squares of toilet paper left on the cardboard roll and wipe as quickly as I can, before yanking my rucked-up skirt back down. Then I hear a zipper sliding down. At that sound, I turn and look at the metal wall to find that there is an honest-to-god glory hole carved out of it.

I start freaking. Could this guy have been looking through the hole while I still had my skirt around my waist and my underwear pulled down? There's no time to worry about that, though, because there's now a dick head poking through the hole.

I should leave, like, right now, but I don't move, partly out of shock and partly because I'm unable to look away. The owner of the erection must be encouraged by the fact that I didn't immediately scream and run, because his cock slowly moves forward, until the tip is just a couple inches from my hips.

All I can do is stare at it. I jerked off a couple guys in high school, so it's not as though I've never seen a dick before. I've just never seen one like this, and I've definitely never seen one without also seeing the body it's attached to. It's perfectly stiff, sticking straight out at me, with pronounced veins snaking up the shaft. It's way bigger than Vinnie, and so pretty, it could star in one of my father's films.

Next thing I know, I'm reaching out and letting my fingertips graze the swollen head It jerks at my touch, and a small bead of pre-come forms at the tip. Mesmerized, I scoop up the tiny drop of clear liquid with one finger and smear it onto his shaft, admiring the shiny little streak. The head is turning redder the more I play, so I wrap my fingers loosely around it and start lightly stroking it. A deep, quiet moan comes from the other side of the wall, and I tighten my grip, wanting to hear more.