Reality Is Different

It's been a week now since my birthday. Almost a week. I don't feel any different. Or, well. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I don't feel any older. Still no sudden bloom of beauty, nor of wisdom or assurance. Still struggling to do better in my studies, to keep my eyes from glazing over as I read the book assigned for English, laying on the bed. The warmth of early afternoon outside my window, close and sleepy. I'm trying to stay focused. I really am. But the archaic words I need to parse keep fuzzing there beneath my gaze, my mind wandering afield.

Distractions. That's the difference. One particular distraction, anyway, in a million different forms...I think I might be going crazy, maybe. A little bit. I can't get it off my mind - it's like all I can think about is sex, drifting off into a fantasy at the slightest provocation. Dirty daydreams bubbling up eager in my mind when they find anything at all to hang upon, or even sometimes when they don't. I can't even maintain the comforting illusion anymore that I'm just thinking about

someone's

daddy, not my own. No mistaking that it's my father that I see before me when I close my eyes. His hands that touch me, his chest that crushes down upon my own, his arms that hold me, his lips that kiss, his erection that presses hot between my thighs...

I haven't even seen it. Not for real, despite the crucial role that it so often plays inside my fantasies. In the stories it's always huge, imposing, so that's how I imagine it, but it's not like I really know. I mean...I've seen him naked, but it was a long, long time ago, when I was just a child, young enough to have the just the barest hint of memories surviving to today. Young on earth to wonder what on earth this thing was that I saw dangling between my father's legs, so different from what I had there. It looked big then. But everything looks big, when you're a little girl.

Not like it matters anyway, if he is or isn't. Firstly because nothing's going to happen, either way. Secondly, because probably I'd barely know the difference. It's not as if I'm some connoisseur of cock. I've only seen two of them in real life - not counting when I saw my dad's, or any embarrassing-to-remember games of 'doctor' I may have played with the boy who once lived down the street. Two seen, two touched, one tasted...and that's it, the sum and total of my sexual experience. I know it isn't true, but there are times when I feel as though I must be the only twenty-year-old virgin on the planet, when my girlfriends laugh and brag and gossip with each other about the guys they've been with, and I can only sit there quiet, trying not to call attention to myself. Listening to their accounts with mingled envy and dismay.

I can't say exactly why I haven't done it. I don't think it's just one single reason. I mean, I've never had guys beating down my door, never had my pick of anyone I might desire. If I did, maybe I would have gone farther, would have wanted to. I'd imagine it's easier, if the guy you're with is the hunk that everybody drools over, someone that drives you crazy with desire, instead of just...someone that was interested. Someone who could make you laugh, sometimes, who could address at least a little of the urges that those teenage hormones raise inside you. Necking on the couch, touching one another in the back seat of a car. Even if they weren't the hottest things on two legs, it wouldn't have been too hard for me to yield to the moment, to content myself with who I had.

But I never let myself do it, in any of the opportunities I had. My first time can only happen once - I wanted it to be special, to be

with

someone special. I guess I still want that. Even if the idea of my virginity as a precious gift is just some medieval, patriarchical anachronism...I don't want to be in a position where I'd look back and cringe, remembering who I gave it to. And I'm pretty sure that's where I'd be right now, if I'd ever given in when either of my former boyfriends had suggested we go all the way. I liked them, both of them, but even at the time I think I knew it wasn't love, that it wouldn't be forever.

The thought, the word is an anxious little ache in the middle of my stomach. Forever. Such a stupid thing to fret about. But that's what I do. I think too much. I worry about the ends of things even before I've started. And there's always an end. So how can I give myself to someone when I know that in six months or in a year, we'll be broken up, will be no one to each other? Even if I

do

love him at that moment, how will I feel about it five years down the road, when he's just that jerk with the ponytail?

It's not even a surprise now to find my thoughts drifting in the direction of my dad. Nervous, furtive wonderings. Just - if anything is forever in my life, it's him. Us. I love him, and I can't even imagine how that would ever change. If it were with him, my first time, if I gave him my virginity, if he were willing to take it, it's like it would almost be...safekeeping.

God, what a foolish idea. But I mean, I know he's always going to care about me, always going to love me. I wouldn't ever be just that girl he fucked that once, the one whose name he can't even quite remember. He wouldn't turn into a man that I regret I ever saw. If he were the one to have me for the very first time, to make me into a woman...a giddy little pulse of feeling shivers up my spine, then drops back down again, sternly scolded. It isn't a romantic notion. It isn't. But god, it feels like one. Entrusting my daddy with my innocence. Having my first time be with the man that I love most in all the world, who I know would be just as careful as I need, who would do everything he could to make sure that I enjoyed it. Whispers of husky reassurance in my ear as his strong arms held tightly, tenderly around my back, as his hardness pushed between my hips. Pressure growing at my center until all at once it blossoms into pain, my body tearing open for his passage, and suddenly my daddy is inside me and I know with utter certainty that I belong to him...

Christ, I'm wet again. Frustration laid atop my simmering arousal, casting round for something it can blame. It's these fucking stories. I forbade myself to read them anymore, and even sometimes kept to that restriction, but they still live inside my head, giving rise to all these foolish fantasies. My imagination imitating things I've read before, and the rest of me is just drawn along behind it as it dreams of what it might be like to be my father's lover, to have him kiss me with ferocity and fire, to taste his tongue as it invades my mouth. Of disobeying his commands and being punished for it, turned over his knee, my jeans and panties yanked down to bunch about my shins.

All my struggling is futile against his greater strength, my arm held twisted there behind my back. I can only beg and plead with him, promise I'll do better, before even this is silenced by the electric, agonizing

smack

of his palm upon the bare skin of my bottom. The sudden pain of it is enough to make me gasp, make tears well up abruptly in my eyes as my body tenses there upon his lap, my muscles tighten - it only makes the next stroke hurt even worse, arches up my spine in anguish as sensation sears along my nerves. Sobbing openly, brokenly as he maintains a slightly varied pace, so that I don't know exactly when each stroke is going to come; my behind glows cherry red from his assault, but beyond the pain, beyond the tears, there's a growing warmth inside of me, a rosy sense of rightness.

I know he's doing it for me, to correct me of my faults and failings. I know he only punishes me because he loves me - and as I stop resisting, as I surrender slack across his knees, lift up my hips a little bit to give him greater access, he lets me know of his approval. The steady smacking of his opened palm now interspersed with moments where he pauses, where his big hand stops and strokes along one aching cheek. Caresses soothingly upon my burning skin before the next strike comes, alternating pain with pleasure until I don't know even which one I prefer, until the fragrance of my arousal fills the room and his fingers can slip easily between my sopping lips. Impaling me with gentle thrusts, my labored breathing mirrored to the movements of his finger there inside me, even while his other hand comes down to slap from time to time upon my rear, and I can only softly tremble in his lap, hoping that my fervent cries and whimpers will tell him my devotion, that he knows how glad I am to be his little girl.

This time, the daydream isn't interrupted. It only finishes, fades, falls silent and leaves me lying on my bed with a dismal hollow in its place. They always seem so exciting, so thrilling. Or sometimes only quiet, sweet. Imagining what it might be like to wake up naked next to him on some morning after, cradled closely in his arms, feeling warm and safe and fuzzy in my dad's embrace...but it's a dream, a fantasy in every sense. A mirage, all of it. I mean, jesus, there's no reason I should think that I would actually like it if he spanked me for real. He's never done it, even when I was little. But the stories made it sound like something sexy, fulfilling, so that's how I imagine about it, in phrases and in moments that are only copied from some author's pen. Keyboard. Whatever. Just like all the other things that I've been thinking for the past few months, as though a few charged words could tell me how I'd really feel if things were like that between my dad and me. As though it all were perfectly simple, that I could have him as a father and as a lover, too, with not a trace of conflict or of complication between the two.

That's the problem, isn't it. Sex is easy in the stories, a simple thing in every way. You hardly even have to think about it - just get close to someone, even your own father, and pretty soon events will unfold in such a way that the two of you will end up naked with each other. There's always mutual attraction, and worries and misunderstandings always end up resolved, or else just help lead to the couple's union. Never any second thoughts afterward, no recriminations to speak of in the light and the sobriety of day. The act itself is easy, too, always perfectly fulfilling, unbearably satisfying for both of them; even when the girl is pure and chaste as fallen snow, she still knows how to give such pleasure to her daddy that he comes more times than I think is even really possible for guys.

Nor is he any less adroit at bringing her across the edge of rapture, sometimes managing it with just a hand upon her breast, or even just a kiss, a word, a command. And when the deed is done, it's happily ever after - at least, when there's an end at all, when it's not left open for the girl's induction into greater and greater debaucheries, for her use by an ever-widening circle of relatives and her father's friends. The only ending that can happen is an affirmation that everything is fine forever, that their desire and devotion to one another will never fade or tarnish. What surprise can there be, that it would sound appealing? It's a fairy tale, no less than the ones I had read to me as a child. A place where nothing can go wrong, where even pain is a delight.

Reality is different. Harder. You don't always know exactly what you want. You can make mistakes, ones that don't end up making you happy in the end. And even if you try for your desires, they might not turn out the way you want...I mean, what if something

did

happen somehow between my dad and me, and he just didn't like it? If I wasn't any good? Not like I really know much of anything about how to satisfy a man, for all the pornographic fancies that I carry in my head. Probably half of them are just ridiculous, things that wouldn't even feel good if I really tried them, that have no place outside a story. How heartbreaking would it be if he did harbor some quiet, secret desire for me, if one evening we drank together, lost our inhibitions and ended up in bed...and it was just a disappointment? If it wasn't like either of us had dreamt about, if the reality were only drab and awkward when placed against the fantasy?

I don't know which would be worse, if he didn't like it, or if I didn't, or if neither of us did - though it's the first of these that lingers painful in my mind. Waking up the morning after in a cloud of bliss, thinking everything was perfect, my fantasies fulfilled. Feeling like the girls in the stories sometimes do, adoration glowing like a beacon in my heart as I press against my father, move to softly kiss him as a welcome to the day...only for him to stop me, grab my shoulders, push me back. Only to hear the quiet rumble of his voice, serious and low, aching with a sympathetic sorrow as he tells me that what we did was a mistake, that it never should have happened. And when I protest that it's okay, that I wanted it, that I love him, he only shakes his head, and I can see the truth there in his eyes - that he doesn't feel what I do, that whatever spark of interest he had carried in me had been cured by this brief taste. That I'd had my chance, and I just wasn't good enough to be a woman he'd desire.

I feel sick inside, thinking about it. My stomach twisted into knots, frantic, pleading. It isn't

fair

. It wouldn't be, if something like that happened. But that's what life is really like. Shit happens. Things go wrong. You make mistakes, and they hurt, and there's nothing you can do about it but wait for them to heal. Or to scar...maybe that's where all of this is really coming from. Wanting to go back to when my life was simple, when I didn't have to worry about anything but having fun and doing what I'm told, when there wasn't anything beyond that. When dad was like a superhero to me, big and strong and perfect, and I could feel utterly secure, knowing he was looking after me. Knowing that nothing bad could ever happen on his watch.

Some truth to that, I think. Judging by the quiet ache of yearning that I feel in the thumping of my heart, considering the notion. I know my dad is just a man. Troubles of his own, flaws and errors and regrets. But I can't quite let go the burnished image that I have of him, the glow of almost worship, of a child for the parent she loves most. A girl for her Daddy. Is it so wrong for me to think of him like that, as my knight, my hero? Is it so awful to feel a little bit infatuated, a little bit in love, to say just that if he

did

want me like that, I might not turn him down? It doesn't have to be anything more than that. Just an acknowledgment, an admission to myself. And if there are heartaches in how it might play out, if something like that came to pass - well, there are some the other way, too, in deciding or pretending that it isn't true. If dad felt something for me, and I felt something back, but nothing ever happened from it because of what we feared...that would be a kind of tragedy as well. A loss.

I wish I knew for sure. I wish I could know, if he's ever felt even a flicker of attraction, looking at me. If he's ever thought of me at night, the way I have of him. I mean, he must get lonely, in that way. It's been a few years now since the divorce, and though he's gone out dating a few times since then, nothing's ever really come of it. I'm pretty much the only woman in his life. Has there ever been a moment like the stories talk about, where he finds his gaze wandering unbidden down my body, and has to drag it back up into place? Where he hesitates a second outside the bathroom that I shower in, imagining me naked, lathered up, wet hands sliding on my skin? Maybe only just before he falls asleep, in that twilight time when the mind is free to wander wild and unruly, he's lingered for a little while on the thought that I'm a woman, that he's a man. That we could lie together, if we wanted to.

There isn't any reason I should think he has. No evidence. I can't recall a single time that he's acted in any way untoward, any occasion where it seemed like he might be staring where a father generally doesn't. And I've tried. But still. That isn't really proof. If he did feel something like that, he wouldn't want to let me know of it, any more than I've wanted him to know about the fantasies I've had. It would be secret, if he felt that way, nothing easily uncovered. In the stories, something like that often seems to be revealed when the girl hears her father masturbating, calling out her name, but...

Wait. The stories. Sudden inspiration perks up bright inside my breast - the clearest way that someone might discover what

I've

been thinking of is if they saw what I've been reading, if they ran across the history on my computer. Not really something that I've been too concerned about, since I'm the only one who uses it. I haven't even cleared it out. But if dad felt something similar, if he had thoughts the same as mine...I might be able to discern the fact by looking into his. He could have been visiting the very same locations that I have. There could well have been nights that we were almost connected, seated in our separate rooms but reading the same story as each other. Both of us enthralled by the idea of a girl with her Daddy, both of us imagining that it was us the words described, him and me, finding joy in one another...I mean, okay, maybe it isn't very likely. But it's possible. And it wouldn't be too difficult for me to check.

I close the book for English, leave it forgotten on the bed as I clamber to my feet. Can't focus now on reading, anyway. There's an excited little tingle up along my spine as I make my way down the stairway and to my father's bedroom, the creaking of the wooden steps seeming twice as loud as usual beneath my socks. Not that it matters, really. He isn't home, shouldn't be for hours yet, though his schedule is always a bit irregular, difficult to predict. If he does come home while I'm on his computer, well...I can probably just quickly turn it off. So long as I don't miss the truck pulling up again. Which I shouldn't.

It's quiet, taking my first step into his room. Slightly darker in here than in much of the rest of the house, thick curtains on the windows, mostly closed. Motes of dust drift slowly in the narrow beam of light that slips in from outside, dancing endlessly in the subtle currents of the air. The bed is only loosely made, forest-green covers tossed half into position after he got up. It's a big bed. King-sized, I think. Lonely, maybe, for him to sleep in it all by himself...his computer is on the desk beside the window, waiting for my approach, but I hesitate a while here, just inside the door. Slightly anxious. It's a funny feeling, being here. I mean, I go into his room often enough, but it's basically always when he's there himself, or when he's asked me to get something for him from it. It's a little different now, sneaking in while he's away. The faded wallpaper seems to stare at me, as though I'm an intruder.

I guess I kind of am, at that. Creeping up to his computer - it's an older one than mine, a big beige box beneath the desk and a clunky CRT on top. Beeping softly to me in greeting as I push the little button on the front that lifts it whirring into life. He doesn't use it all that much. Invoices mostly, email for work, that kind of thing. He used to call me in to help him sometimes with one task or another, until he got the hang of things himself. I almost miss that. Teaching him how to attach a file to his message, or where to find things he downloaded from the web. The role reversal, with him uncertain, ignorant, and me confident and capable. The wry and tiny smile he'd give me afterward, swearing that he had it down now, that he wouldn't have to bother me again...which was true, eventually. It's been years since he's asked me for my help with anything, computer-wise. I guess he's comfortable with it now. I hope he is. Comfortable enough that he would use it when looking for something that would get him off, that he would take advantage of the internet's vast selection of pornography - and leave some trace for me to find.