N: But Dad, why do you have an erection? [Kissing continues.]
D: There are a few reasons, honey.
N: Tell me.
D: Well, first, you're kissing my neck. I know it's only a couple of inches away from my cheek, but I feel like you crossed an important boundary.
N: [Kissing continues.] You mean this jawline, this perfect jawline right here? That's an important boundary?
D: It was. It seems sort of trivial now.
N: Mmmm. What else?
D: There's also the way you're kissing my neck. I mean, you are not just kissing me, you are, like, caressing me with your mouth. You are teasing and tonguing and suckling and nibbling and nuzzling, and ohhhh, baby...
N: I really am getting into character, huh? Is there more?
D: First let's be clear that no more would be needed. Just the kissing would certainly, easily be sufficient cause for the effect you observed. But there is more.
N: Tell me.
D: There's also the way you're sort of grinding on my thigh, and the fact that your little bikini bottoms are soaked right through.
N: Mmmmm, those all sound like pretty valid causes, Dad. I think I should probably try to quantify the effect a bit. You know, for science.
D: Mmhmm, for science.
N: Ohh. Ooooh. Oh! Ohhh, fffuck that's a big dick, Dad! I never pictured it that big.
D: Pictured?
N: [Giggles] Yes Dad. I have pictured it. Inaccurately, but yes. I have pictured it, I have pictured...us.
D: Once?
N:
D: Occasionally?
N:
D: Often?
N: Always, Dad.
D: Always? Since when?
N: Since always.
D: I don't understand.
N: [Sighs] You never knew Bob. You didn't miss much. The main thing I remember about him is just - coldness. He never knew I wasn't his. Of course, Mom didn't tell him! She didn't tell anyone - how could she? You were barely eighteen when it happened, still in high school, and she was a married woman. She was stuck in a marriage she hated, but she couldn't see any way out of it, especially after I was in the picture. She hoped Bob was my father, or at least that nobody would ever find out differently, and she kept her mouth shut.
So, he never knew, but he was always cold to me. He provided for me, he wasn't cruel or abusive - but he had no affection for me. He saw me as an obligation, and that was obvious to me, and it hurt. I didn't feel wanted by him; I didn't feel loved by him. I always craved that, but I never got it.
Fast forward a dozen years. He walked out and vanished completely from our lives. A while after that, Mom reached out to you, and after the DNA test, she told me. She said that Bob was never really my dad, and that my real dad had just found out about me and was going to come and see me. She said you were a soldier, stationed somewhere very far away, and that it would take some time. I waited for weeks, and I got more and more nervous and excited.
Finally, the day came. You were at the airport, and then your taxi was pulling up outside and Mom went out to get you. I was too hyper to sit, so I stood in the middle of the living room, watching the door where you were going to come in. But you were talking to Mom, and the first thing that came through the door was your voice. So deep, and smooth, powerful, but gentle, and warm, so full of warmth. I was still reeling from it when you suddenly appeared in the doorway. The light from the window was shining on you, it was like you were glowing, and you were just gorgeous, like a movie star. So tall and broad-shouldered, such chiseled, handsome features. Your eyes were sparkling with kindness and humor and warmth, again, so much warmth.
And then you saw me, and your eyes filled up with love and with tears and you ran to me. It was only a few steps, but you ran, and you scooped me up and spun me around, exactly like in a movie. You were so strong, and you were holding me so tightly, but so tenderly. I was crying hard, my face buried on your neck and shoulder, and then I would peek up at you to see that look in your eyes again. You loved me. You adored me. There was no hesitation, no resistance, no avoidance. You loved me and you wanted me, and you were thrilled to claim me as your own.
In thirty seconds, I was showered with more masculine love and affection and warmth than I'd had in my whole life before, a thousand times more. It was overwhelming, Dad. I was smitten, I was thunderstruck, I was just gone.
And then you were gone, too. Your visit was so short and then you were back on assignment, somewhere dangerous and far away. I knew that you were my father, but you didn't feel like my father. Bob still felt like my father. You felt more like a beautiful stranger, my movie star man who loved me. So, every night I went to bed, and I kissed my pillow, and pretended I was kissing you, the way I'd seen movie stars kiss, the movie kiss.
D: Uuuuuuh. Baby. That never faded?
N: Well - yes and no. First it grew stronger.
D: How?
N: For a few months, all I had were phone calls. I lived for those calls, for the sound of your voice, it hardly mattered what you said. And then one time I cried, and I told you it wasn't enough, that I needed more. And right then and there, you came up with the Vacation Plan.
Half of your leave days, every year, all for me. You never backed out; you never shared that time with anyone else. Those days were mine, and on those days, you were mine. You took me to beautiful places, exotic places, fascinating places. You pampered me and catered to me and planned everything around me. I had all your attention and all your affection - Dad, those trips were incredibly romantic!
D: But I never had a clue...
N: Of course not. I knew I could never let you see. I knew you didn't have those feelings for me. I would have been freaked out, and creeped out, if you did. I knew that for me as a young girl to have romantic feelings about a grown man was normal and innocent. I also knew that for you as a grown man to have romantic feelings for a girl as young as me would be very wrong. I knew it in my mind, and I also felt it in my bones. But the other taboo, the one that made my feelings wrong because you were my father - I knew it, but I didn't feel it. I felt the opposite.
I had a fantasy that one day, when I was grown up, you would suddenly see me as a woman, and you would fall in love with me, helplessly and totally, like I was with you. Our love would be so perfect that it wouldn't matter what people thought, what the world thought. Nothing would matter but us, and we would be able to get married, and have children, and live together for the rest of our lives in happiness and love. I clung to that for a long time. Years.
D: And then what happened?
N: I went to college. I was a very late bloomer sexually. I guess that's because I was already in love with someone completely unattainable. You know how it is with college, though. Sex is flowing through the air ducts, seeping through the walls. I bloomed pretty explosively then, but at first it was just on my own. And deep down, my fantasy romance was still you. The first time I ever gave myself an orgasm, that was the image in my mind - the movie kiss, with you. Sex with you. And from then until now, whether I'm with someone else or by myself, that's the image that comes to my mind when I have an orgasm. The movie kiss, with you, while you're deep inside me.
But I met plenty of boys who did desire me and were attainable. My life got more complicated and busier, and I started only coming on trips once every couple of years. The sex fantasy was baked in, but I thought of it as a weird relic of the weird way we met. I told myself it wasn't really you; it was the glowing movie star dad in the doorway. I told myself that a lot of people have fantasies they would never want to see come true, and this was one of those things. That's what I told myself, and that's what I believed.
D: When did that change?
N: Well - in one sense it was just a few minutes ago. I told you that I was going to kiss your cheek, and right after that, I suddenly knew I didn't want to stop there. And right after that, I suddenly knew I wasn't going to stop there. I wasn't going to stop at all, as long as you were willing to come with me.
D: I guess it's obvious that I'm willing to come with you, baby.
N: Hugely obvious, Dad.
D: But you said, "in one sense." What's the other sense?
N: In another sense, it's been building in me for years. After Mom passed away, and your whole family cut us off when their church got all culty, we became each other's only family. I got to the age where friends started to drift away. Like we talked about, lovers come and go. I started coming on all the vacations again, and we started to get closer, and...
And then there were the flashes. That's what I called them. Once in a while, if I was wearing something sexy or skimpy, you would look at my body and shift uncomfortably or even turn away, as if the sight were too much for you. I knew you weren't prudish - were you attracted? I couldn't be sure. And sometimes, if I was looking in a different direction, and I turned to find you looking at my face, I would see something, maybe. It lasted a tiny fraction of a second, but in that instant, I thought I saw desire, a monster of desire, but on a very tight leash, and you yanked that leash back so fast - I really couldn't be sure. Because it was so quick, but also - it might have been wishful thinking. Because right around that time, I started having the fantasy again. Not the sex fantasy, that never left, but the other fantasy, the one where you would suddenly see me as a woman -
