For most of my life I have had an extreme interest in "cheesecake". Now, for those of you who are under forty, "cheesecake" was the old term for pin-ups or slightly naughty pictures of women. I would guess that at this time my collection consists of over 100,000 images. Now, many of them are more explicit than would ever fit under the definition of "cheesecake" or pin-ups, but those definitions work for me.
I haven't made a point of mentioning my collection to my wife, and she has never expressed an interest in what was in my collection. That was the state of things right up until she died of a heart attack, four years ago. Now, I am in my sixties, overweight, diabetic, and single. The images plus a vibrator, since I can no longer get an erection due to poor blood flow, provide a minimal sort of relief. I say minimal because there is nothing like a long session of cuddling followed by a good sixty-nine play time. I had just about resigned myself to this remaining the case when help came from a highly unusual direction. But, more about that later.
My wife and I had two children; a son and a daughter. Our son, Mark, lived on the "left coast" and was all but married to his job. Our daughter, Violet, lived two states away. Her marriage had been good, but childless. Her husband was of German descent and their sir name was Schwartz. She and her husband had good teaching jobs, and as it turned out, excellent insurance. I've always been proud of my daughter. She has a MS in computer science and is an excellent programmer. I heard from them every week or two and they visited once or twice a year. That is, until the accident.
A drunk driver came across the median and hit their left front at about a forty-five degree angle. Unfortunately he was doing over ninety at the time and was driving a big car. My son-in-law died instantly. He probably had only a second or so to realize what was happening. My daughter lived, but spent six months in the hospital. When she was ready to be discharged she had very limited vision in one eye, and none in the other. Her face was scarred enough, even after the re-constructive plastic surgery, so that even I couldn't easily recognize her. She couldn't stand up for long periods of time so teaching was a thing of the past. She was emotionally deeply scarred, and felt very alone.
As her father, I had to do something to help so I invited her to move back home. It only took her a few moments to say yes. She made one request that I couldn't initially figure out. She wanted me to tell anyone who asked that she was Miss Schwartz.
She sold their house and most of its contents. With the insurance pay out and the settlement from the drunk's estate (in seven figures) she had a savings of over four million dollars. Since I had made my living as a financial analyst I organized her finances so that she had some liquidity but that she also had extremely safe long term investments at a very good interest rate.
She only kept items that had sentimental value for her; so she only needed a small moving truck to bring them to my house. In turn, I emptied out her old room and the guest room and turned them into her area.
Things might have simply plodded along if it hadn't been for a strange twist of fate. A few months after she came home my computer developed a bad "glitch" that made it unusable on line. I tried all the normal things to fix it, but to no avail. Without a lot of forethought I asked Violet to look at my machine and see if she could fix it. Her limited vision slowed her down, but she could see enough to run the computer. She pulled out my hard drive and connected it into her machine so that she could use what she called "real tools" to see what the problem was.
I was in the living room minding my own business reading a novel when she came in and sat down on the couch with me. I have always found it difficult to read her expressions. With her scars it was now impossible. However, I could still read her tone of voice. When she started speaking, I thought I detected a strange mixture of sadness, and something else I couldn't pinpoint.
"Dad, you've been awfully lonely haven't you?" It was more of a statement than a question.
"Yes, Violet, I have been very much alone in many ways for the last four years."
"Dad, I need to pry into your private life a bit. Will you be angry with me if I do?"
"I'll try not to be, but I may try to avoid some questions."
"How has your sex life been?"
I hadn't expected that pointed a question so I tried to finesse it.
"It's been better." Then she hit me with the big question. "How long has it been since you have had sex with a woman?"
I sputtered a bit, bit my tongue, then answered her "since your mother died".
I sat there quietly as she leaned into my shoulder. She was gently crying.
"What's wrong sweetheart? Can I help you?" She shook her head no.
"It's my turn to ask a question. What made you ask me your questions?"
"Your hard drive! The problem that you have been having is that you have almost all of your 30 Gig hard drive full. Now, you have an old computer, but no computer likes to have less than 10% of the hard drive left free. Your drive was within 0.5% of totally full. "To see what was taking up all the room I did a search on file size. I looked for data files of greater than five Meg at first. Up came lists of XXX rated movies, mostly of women giving men hand jobs or blow jobs. I then searched for files over 1 Meg and found over 150,000 image files of beautiful women. If you are so intent on sex, why haven't you found someone you could become intimate with?"
My dark little secret had been partially discovered. I told her that I would answer her question, but that she might not like the answer.
"Tell me, Dad."
"This problem dates back to before your mother died. I have a severe blood flow problem in my lower abdomen. Specifically I can't get an erection. At most I end up partially full but not enough to enter any woman. Your mother and I solved the problem by learning to enjoy sixty-nine; but then she died. The closest thing I have had since then has been a vibrator and my pictures."
Violet was crying and hugging me harder now. I knew that she cared about me, but this had to involve more than that.
"Baby, what's wrong? You can tell me anything and I won't breath a word of it to anyone."
"Dad, you only know of part of my injuries. Do to the accident they had to do a complete hysterectomy plus taking most of my vagina. I will never again have regular sex, and I loved sex almost as much as I loved my husband and almost as much as I loved you and mom. We are both locked off from the thing that gave us much pleasure. It seems so unfair."
"I am so sorry to hear about your problem. If your mom had had that problem we would have been able to alleviate it with sixty nine and cuddling. After all, we would have then been a sort of defective matched set." I purposely chuckled at that point, trying to ease up on the heavy atmosphere.
My daughter calmed down a bit and seemed to be thinking.
"A penny for your thoughts."
