Pussy Tax
"Can I take your car to go to Sephora?"
I sigh hearing the words; I knew this was coming eventually. It was just a matter of time. Inevitable. Yet, even with having expected it, I still wasn't prepared how to handle it without a confrontation. My mouth opens, intending to say no...
"I just want to take Peyton to Sephora and then to get some stuff for the baby. And get something to eat. She's eight months, Dad, she can't drive herself," my daughter states, escalating the scope of the sojourn and attempting to offset the audaciousness of the ask by mixing in elements of need and selflessness.
Frustrated, the words pour our reflexively, "Well, good thing Peyton wasn't with you when you decided to drink and drive and wrecked your car." Shit, that was harsher than I intended, regardless of the factual basis.
"Dad, c'mon. It's been six months. I got my license back. I've learned my lesson. It's 11 am; we'll be back in a couple hours. I swear," my daughter explains, hands waving about in exasperation.
The part of me that remembers being 19 years old and doing dumb, risky stuff regularly, tells the now 44-year-old dad part of me I'm being too hard on my daughter, Dakoda. The 44-year-old dad part isn't buying it, in the least. The memory of just beginning to wonder why Dakoda wasn't home yet and then getting the phone call from the police telling me she'd been in an accident, was injured and en route to the hospital, and was suspected of DUI, has yet to loose it's sting.
Physically, Dakoda has long since recovered from her concussion, broken wrist, and various bumps and bruises. A few weeks in a cast, and some physical therapy appointments and she was as good as new.
Financially '
we'
are out nearly twelve thousand dollars in court costs, fines, fees, fees, more fees, fee-fi-fo-fum fees, and lawyer's fees. Also a not quite, two year old Toyota Rav 4, totaled because it spent the night half submerged in the canal Dakoda slid into after sideswiping the power pole. Plus another nearly three thousand dollars in insurance deductibles.
Legally, thankfully, due to the high-priced lawyer I hired, and the fact her blood work showed she was well below the legal limit, Dakoda was ultimately only charged with misdemeanor possession of alcohol due to the open container of vodka found in the purse. Her license was suspended for six months pending completion of several remedial drivers education courses, which she grudgingly completed.
Mentally, regardless of claiming to have swerved to avoid hitting a family of possums crossing the road, Dakoda hasn't accepted responsibility for drinking and driving and has not been repentant beyond saying she's grateful no one was in the car with her, especially since she had just found out that her best friend, Peyton, was pregnant.
"That's not our deal," I remind my daughter. I had told her she had to repay the legal fees before she could drive again and once she had we would discuss getting her a new car. I had even given her a job working for me to accomplish the task.
"Dad, it's going to take forever with what you're paying me, $25 an hour is nothing. Especially if I have to keep paying to Uber everywhere. You wouldn't let me manage the girls, and you know my Always Fans hasn't taken off yet," Dakoda complains. I can only shake my head at her brashness.
I have to admit my little girl is a spoiled brat. Not poorly behaved in general or unintelligent, just unbothered and disconnected from reality to a large degree, especially where money is concerned. I take responsibility, I've been moderately successful in business and having grown up in poverty, I've indulged Dakoda, my intention being to give her opportunities I never had. I had hoped she would recognize those opportunities as such but instead she merely takes them for granted, her expectations of life much higher than I'd dared entertain when I was her age.
Unfortunately her attitude is, at least partly, likely a byproduct of her mother dying when Dakoda was 14. Sudden and senseless, her mother's absence shattered us both and left a huge hole in our lives that took years to adjust to. The change was gradual, but during high school, the serious student who talked about wanting to become a marine biologist slowly morphed into a superficial party girl.
Dakoda managed to get through high school, but just barely, and not without collecting a group of dubious friends who were often up to no good. It took me a while, but I eventually realized my daughter wasn't merely a follower, but was likely their ring leader and instigator. Her life revolved around having a good time, her friends often at our house to tan and swim. I rationalized that letting her do what she wanted at home was a way of keeping her safe, at least she wasn't god knows where, doing god knows what.
I won't deny that the sexy outfits and bikinis constantly on display didn't add to my acquiescence. Hot girls were not part of the crowd I ran with in high school, and unfortunately my hormones still often got the better of me, and I allowed the girls, and especially Dakoda, to get away with murder. The girls were all very open and unapologetic about all aspects of their lives, openly sharing details my generation would have kept private from everyone except our most trusted confidants. Their openness and youthful enthusiasm for life was invigorating, reminding me of things I had missed out on growing up and I found it increasingly difficult to admonish their behavior.
They were all up front about the fact they had started Always Fans accounts as soon as they turned 18 and they would spend a lot of time taking pictures or filming, doing sexy dances and poses, often flashing for their phones which seemed to be always in their hands documenting their lives. A few times I came home early to find one or more of them nude, including Dakoda. None of them seemed to be bothered by my seeing them in various states of undress, nor by the security cameras pointed at the back patio and pool. They would wave and often pull their tops up or down when walking by, even my daughter. Or especially my daughter is a more apt description as she lived there and was utilizing the pool daily, her behavior often just as brazen when her friends weren't around. Dakoda eventually took to tanning and swimming nude all the time, not bothering with a suit at all, only throwing on a t-shirt when inside.
I can't deny that I've come to look at my daughter with the same leering, predatory eyes as I do her friends. You'll assume it's fatherly bias, but I can honestly say Dakoda is the most beautiful of them all. Naturally pretty with a petite, incredibly tight, flawless body. Her physical charms are impossible to ignore, and the more she has flaunted them, the more comfortable I've become indulging my less than fatherly impulses. So, yeah, I have spent afternoons watching her from my home office window. I've watched her with her friends being sexy and naughty, and even occasionally pornographic. And I've watched her alone, swimming and sunning naked. And some evenings or late nights I've been unable to resist watching the security camera footage of when she had the house to herself, walking around naked or masturbating by the pool. Hey, I'm only human, we're all opportunist at heart, right? So, yes, I've indulged in fantasies about my own daughter, but that's all it's ever been, fantasy. And despite her ample physical charms, I also fantasize that my beautiful daughter becomes her old, kind, curious, funny, spontaneous self again and goes on to achieve success and happiness in her life.
There was a brief moment, after she declared she did, in fact, want to get a college degree, and I was able to get her into a local university, that I thought the tide was turning, but it was fleeting. Of course, despite her ample allowance, Dakoda had also become a black hole of money, constantly asking for more to fuel her rapidly expanding hedonistic lifestyle, so when her requests lessened after her first semester of college, I hoped it was the effect of different surroundings and was a sign that she was reapplying herself. I should have known better.
Did I mention that her accident wasn't her first run in with legal trouble? No, well, as awful as the call informing me of her accident and hospitalization was, and every father's worst nightmare; finding out my daughter was a pimp was in some ways worse and certainly not something I had ever dreamed. Yes, you heard me correctly; my daughter was acting as a pimp, or madam, for several girls on campus, including most of her friends that were regulars at our house. And she wasn't careful about it at all, using her everyday cell phone, the school WIFI, and school message boards to advertise services, and arrange dates. And she received and distributed money directly from her personal bank account.
Very fortunately for Dakoda and her friends, the school had discovered this by account of a couple of professors trading grades for sex, and were very willing to not prosecute and keep the whole ordeal quiet in exchange for all the girls involved willingly accepting being expelled and or banned from campus, to which they all agreed.
I attempted to put my foot down and re-establish boundaries with Dakoda, but then her accident happened only a week later. After the relief that neither she nor anyone else was severely injured faded, I had hoped the real world consequences of her decisions would make an impression on her and shock her into changing her behavior, but obviously that was wishful thinking and my 19-year-old daughter remains frustratingly immune from reality.
"Jesus Christ, Dakoda, we've been over this, you have to be realistic. Money doesn't grow on trees. Prostitution is illegal and just because it's possible to make a lot of money being a nude model, doesn't mean that you will, being beautiful doesn't mean you don't have to put in effort like any other job. And it's a highly competitive market," I tell her, not for the first time. And not for the first time she snickers and rolls her eyes at me. I feel my blood pressure rising. "YOU ARE going to work to pay off what you owe. And next week taxes are due, you have to declare the money from your little sex ring that you received into you bank account, and pay tax on it, and that is going to add to the total you owe me," I admonish her, raising my voice, growing angry.
