Serendipity 01: Snowstorm

Warning: This is not literature.

It will not reveal to you any insights into the human condition.

It will not help you achieve a better understanding of yourself -- your wants, needs, desires, motivations, or conflicts.

And it is certainly not a celebration of the English language, replete with paragraphs of finely-crafted prose and artful metaphors. In fact, much of it is in the form of dialogue, with all the illiteracies and disfluencies and hesitations and awkwardness that most of us demonstrate when we talk to each other. Do not let this bother you.

This is a story. It is meant to entertain.

More specifically, this is a love story. Actually, it's several love stories. Also, although many of the people in this story are related, it's not an 'incest story.' It's about people who love each other.

Because this is a love story, it is

not

primarily about fluids and friction.

And, as in real life, it takes a while to get "from here to there."

I don't like stories that are basically, "Gee, Mom, you're hot." "Gee, Son, you're hot, too. Let's fuck." Such stories do not capture the hesitant, delicate courtship that goes into such encounters as they occur in real life -- such as in this story.

Similarly, this story contains far fewer attempts to describe the real or feigned sounds of real (or feigned) passion and ecstasy. And it does not include extensive descriptions of participants' brassiere sizes or penis specifications.

Oh, yes -- all participants in this story were of legal age in the places where these events, if they occurred, might have occurred.

Janey, Lauren, Paul, Georgia, Candace, Ted, Ben, Mai, and I hope you enjoy our story.

**********

I. Snowstorm

"Damn! That certainly doesn't look good."

The lighted highway department warning display on the shoulder of the interstate read, "ROAD CLOSED AHEAD *** EXIT AT NEXT RAMP *** ." Well, not a lot of decisions to make here -- that pretty much said it all. Not surprising, since the strong winds from the west often blow massive amounts of snow across highways that run north-south -- like this one.

I eased the SUV onto the exit ramp, which was already backing up from all the other vehicles that were being steered off the closed highway. It's not like this storm was unexpected. In fact, my daughter Jane -- Janey's -- roommate, Lauren, and her dad had left University for home the day before.

Janey and Lauren had been roommates since the University housing department assigned them to the same suite at the beginning of Janey's second year. Lauren was two years older than Janey, partly because her birthday came in November and she had to wait until the following year to enroll in kindergarten. Also, she went to community college for a while to make up some subjects that she had missed in high school when her mother had been very sick (her mother died later from that illness -- cancer, I think).

Despite the age difference and the differences in personalities -- Janey has an effervescent, outgoing personality, like a high-school cheerleader (which she never was), while Lauren is more quiet and reserved, perhaps even 'cautious' -- they hit it off almost immediately, and they quickly became each other's closest friends and confidants. I'd met her dad on a number of occasions, and he seemed like a nice guy, too.

Getting an early start on the trip home had been our intention, too, but an unexpected issue at work had kept me from coming down until this morning. While we got on the road as quickly as we could, it obviously wasn't soon enough. Well, not a catastrophe, anyway. There appeared to be a number of motels clustered within sight of the interstate, and we didn't have to be anyplace special at any particular time.

As we approached the stop at the end of the exit ramp, I was relieved to see that the "Services At This Exit" sign displayed the logo of a lodging chain where I often stayed and belonged to their 'Honored Guest' club. This meant (1) they're reliable, and (2) they try to hold a few rooms in reserve for members with 'Elite' status.

Meanwhile, Janey noticed the signs for several familiar pizza and carryout chains and said, "It's all right. It'll be an adventure -- like a surprise vacation!"

I was a little surprised by her degree of enthusiasm regarding what I thought of as an unexpected inconvenience. However, if she had such a positive attitude toward it, I could certainly go along with that.

First, we headed right for the Inn to make sure we got a room. And, indeed, the young man at the front desk said, ''Good thing you got here now. We've probably had 15 check-ins just since 4 o'clock." So I guess we were right to make this our first stop.

When I got back to the car, Janey was waiting with the motor and heater running. "The weather lady says that this storm is expected to get even worse tonight and that it's going to keep up like this for another day, maybe two. We should probably plan on being snowbound. We ought to lay in enough supplies to last us 'til Monday at least."

We drove to a nearby pizza restaurant and ordered a large cheese-and-sausage for tonight, then thought "better be safe," and ordered two of their sandwiches, some cheesy bread, and an order of their cinnamon twists. While the pizza was being prepared, we drove a little farther down the road and went into the local outlet of a large national drugstore chain -- you know, the kind that carries drugs, cosmetics, soft drinks, inflatable swimming pools, truck tires, and a modest selection of overpriced groceries. We stocked up on cold cereal, instant oatmeal packs, two kinds of Archway cookies, milk, and some Bic razors and shaving lather for me. Janey went off on her own, and when I met her at the check-out she had already purchased some cheese, crackers, several bottles of wine, several cartons of ice cream, and some other stuff that I couldn't see.

By the time we got back to the pizza carryout, our order was done, and we packed up and headed back to the motel. We drove to the entrance closest to our room, parked, and began to unload. First, our purchases, since there was no sense in leaving them in a rapidly cooling car.

We found our room and went in to see where we would be spending the majority of Janey's "vacation adventure." It was a perfectly nice room -- somewhat large, in fact, with two queen beds and, I guess because of my Elite status in their guest program, they had put us in kind of a suite, with a small kitchen, a separate sink and counter outside of the bathroom-proper, and ... a small fireplace. Natural gas, of course, but still, a nice touch. Janey pulled open the sheer curtains to see what kind of view we had, which, in this part of the country, of course, was a cornfield. Still, it was kind of pretty countryside, blanketed with the accumulating snow.

"Welcome to our honeymoon suite, Daddy!" Janey gushed, to my surprise, and to my confusion.

We put the groceries away, turned up the room heat, and went back to the car to get our luggage. I had brought an overnight bag -- 'just in case.' Janey had her large suitcase filled with the clothes she wanted to have over school break, as well as the things she intended to take home and exchange for other items to take back to school. She also had a smaller carry-on type suitcase with I-don't-know-what in it.

We set about settling in, unpacking toiletries, shaving gear for me, make-up and all those mysterious potions and poultices that women routinely take with them everywhere they go, and, finally, getting out of our traveling clothes and into something more casual. Apparently Janey and I consult the same fashion magazines, since we both ended up in sweatpants and shirts.

And like all good motel residents, we turned on the TV. First to the news, to get the latest on the prospects for the weather. No change since the report Janey heard in the car. Then we decided we were both hungry, so we plated a few slices of the pizza, figuring that it was best now and would only decline over time. We had some of the cheesy bread, along with a few small juice glasses of the fairly decent red wine blend that Janey had picked up at the drugstore. Then we cleaned up, put leftovers away, and -- like all skilled motelers -- plopped down on the bed to watch TV.

We watched the news, alternating between national and local for any latest weather or highway updates. Sitting companionably together on one of the queen beds, shoulder-to-shoulder, we watched, in no particular order: A sitcom about a family with an older dad, a hot, slightly wacky Latina wife, a gay son and his husband, and a rebellious, punky daughter with lots (for prime-time TV) of piercings and ink. Then, a doctor-hospital program with hunky young residents. Then a fire department show featuring a number of hunky young firemen and several hot female paramedics (one of whom might be lesbian). You get the picture -- you've seen all these before. During one break, Janey went to get some of the ice cream she'd bought at the drugstore.

"Chocolate or pistachio?"

"Pistachio!"

"Of course you would!"

As we ate the ice cream, we settled on a movie that was on one of the cable channels. You could call it a 'romantic comedy,' and I guess it was. Except I was a little unnerved to find myself -- meaning

us

-- watching a number of pretty explicit sex scenes. Nothing that would jeopardize the movie's TV-Mature rating, but only a very little was left to the imagination. True, the picture did not show any of what the British would call the actors' "naughty bits," but just about everything else was there for your viewing pleasure. And I'm sure there was nothing that either I or Janey had not already seen before, probably much more explicitly. But I had never watched them while sitting side-by-side with a beautiful, still-teenaged daughter. Oh, yeah, did I mention that, as the motel room warmed up, Janey had removed her baggy university sweatshirt and was sitting there against me wearing a thin white knit tank-top that was stretched tightly across -- across what it was stretched across?

I mentioned that, despite her effervescent personality, Janey was never a cheerleader. She did play a lot of tennis, though, and it shows. The tennis had given her a 5' 4" body that might tastefully be described as 'nubile.' There are less tasteful terms that guys have probably used to describe my daughter's body, but since I'm her dad ...

The tank top was still proper, but it left no doubt that I was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and thigh-to-thigh with a very shapely young -- emphasize

young

-- woman. Despite this, I decided not make any remark or shift my position or do anything at all that might indicate I was not a cool, sophisticated Dad-of-the-World.

Oh, and did I mention the soft, shoulder-length light brown hair with the very faint reddish tint, which I've always thought of as "strawberry blond"? The hair she had just washed that morning, and which smelled faintly of -- strawberries? And that her skin smelled, well, like warm woman?

Shortly after the movie started, Janey got up and poured two glasses of the red wine we'd had with the pizza. When she brought them over, I saw that she had filled them practically to the rim. More than I would have done, but I figured we were already 'home' for the night; and from the looks of the weather, we certainly did not have to get up early in the morning and start driving.

So we sipped our wine and watched the movie. Janey was drinking hers faster than I was, and during a commercial break she turned, kissed me softly on the cheek, and said "I'm glad we're gonna be snowed-in together, Daddy:" Then she got up, refilled her empty glass, and topped-off my half-full glass without asking. I wasn't aware she enjoyed red wine that much.

The movie finished, the attractive couple were on their way to living happily ever after, their hot friends were on the verge of hooking up with each other, and all was well. After about five minutes of commercials, they started a second showing of the same movie we'd just watched. At that point, Janey took the TV remote and lowered the volume to where you could just hear that something was playing. Then, she took a kind of deep breath, swallowed a big drink of her wine, looked at me with her hazel eyes, and said,

"Daddy, something happened last night that I need to tell you about."

*********

JANEY'S STORY

"Because all the articles I needed were in, I got done with my research at the library sooner than I expected, so about 8:30 I checked out some books and went back to the dorm. When I got to our suite, I didn't see any light coming from under the door or hear any TV or music, so I assumed that Lauren wasn't in. I unlocked the door, went in, and headed straight to our little dinette table to dump my books and backpack and shrug off my coat. Then I heard sounds. They seemed to be coming from Lauren's room. Her door was about halfway open, so I looked in that direction, and in the light coming through the window, I saw the naked back of a man on Lauren's bed, and, apparently, Lauren lying under him. It was obvious they were fucking."

[ I purposely said 'fucking' to see how my dad would react. We usually don't use profanity around each other -- the occasional "damn" or "shit" or "son-of-a-bitch," but never sexual slang. He made the tiniest of flinches when I said 'fucking,' but to his credit, he "went with the flow."]

"I was surprised. Not that Lauren was having sex with a guy -- she's a big girl, and our suite is her home, too, so of course she can have sex in her own home. It's just that she hadn't said anything about having a date, or about going out at all, especially since her father was coming sometime today to drive her back home for the mid-term break.

"I looked at the guy in the small amount of light provided by the street lamp. He didn't look like a college guy. He looked to be in reasonable shape, but his skin wasn't as smooth and taut as guys I'm used to seeing, and there were a few wrinkles in his butt. And when I shifted my view a little, the dim light showed what appeared to be flecks of silver in his hair. Surprise -- I didn't know Lauren was into older guys. Or where she would manage to meet one who was 'suitable' to have sex with.

"Then I heard a voice say, softly, 'I love you, Dad.'

"And then it all fell into place. She wasn't going out tonight

because her father was coming to pick her up ... .

Ohmygod! It's her father! Lauren's fucking her father!!

"So I grabbed my keys and turned around and started toward the door and I heard Lauren say, 'Jane -- don't go. Please . . . stay.' I turned around and she was holding her arm out toward me, sort of beckoning me to come into her room.

"I put down my keys and hesitantly walked into her room and stood by Lauren. She took my hand and said, 'Here, sit on the bed. We want you to stay.'

"Then she said, 'Janey, you know my dad, Paul.'

"Her dad lifted his head and turned toward me and said, in a tone of voice that, under the circumstances, was improbably polite, 'Hello, Jane -- it's good to see you again.'

"Well, I was totally paralyzed. Nothing had prepared me for a situation like this -- sitting on my best friend's bed exchanging polite greetings with her and her naked father, maybe while he was still inside of her.

"Then Lauren said, 'I -- we -- wanted you to know. We hope it's all right.'

"I just didn't know what to say or do. Then, her father -- Paul -- said, 'We're sorry if we startled you. We didn't mean to scare you. I hope you're okay?'

"I kinda mumbled that it was all right -- I was okay -- and that I was startled but I wasn't scared. But I still couldn't believe it. Dad, you know Lauren -- she's level-headed, super-smart, confident, she wouldn't ever let anybody take advantage of her. And her dad is, like, so normal. I think of him as kinda like you are -- nice, polite, even-tempered, a good guy. And he obviously adores Lauren and seems to respect her. He's nowhere near the raging pervert pedophile daughter-rapist that you'd picture from this situation. I couldn't figure it out.

"Her dad started to get up and said 'I'll leave you two alone to talk.' He sat up in bed and then stood up, all the time still completely naked, with his thingy hanging out and looking a little deflated and wet. He didn't flaunt himself or anything -- he just stood up, turned, and walked normally into the bathroom, like nothing was unusual about it."

[ I suddenly had this inappropriate thought, "He has a cute butt!" But I didn't mention that when I was telling all this to Daddy.]

"Once he was in the bathroom and closed the door, I burst out, '

How long?!

'

"Lauren just answered vaguely, 'Several years.' But then she said, 'Are you okay with this? Are you and I still friends?' She was really concerned, and it looked like she was almost ready to cry.

"I hugged her and told her that, of course we were still friends -- that I still loved her and she was my best friend and that it would stay that way. But then I asked the big one: 'How?'

"Lauren got real quiet. She took a breath, and then she told me:"

********

LAUREN'S STORY

"Remember when we first moved in together and I told you that my mother had cancer and died when I was twelve? Well, that was really making a long story short. When my father took this great new job with the agricultural commodities brokerage and we moved to Bloomington, everything seemed great. Before we moved, Mom had started having headaches, some of them pretty bad, but we just thought it was due to the stress of moving. But after we moved, the headaches continued, and then they got worse. Two months later her vision in her right eye got blurry, she went to a new doctor, who sent her to a neurologist, who found an especially aggressive tumor in her brain. And six months after that, she died. This left my father and me devastated. We were there alone, in a new town. We had no relatives and no friends here -- all of our time since we moved to Bloomington had centered on Mom and her medical treatments, and taking care of her between treatments. We didn't have time to make friends. Dad focused all his energy at work on business things, with no time for socializing with his co-workers. I went to school, but I didn't have time to make real friends, either.

"So there we were -- a man who had just lost his best friend of 18 years and the love of his life, faced with the prospect of having to raise a 12-year-old girl who'd just lost her mom and her best friend. So, we became each other's' closest friend and ally. He helped me with everything at school. He bravely helped me through puberty. He prepared me for my first dances and dates. He basically was my everything. And I kind of was the same thing for him -- I welcomed him home each night, I usually made dinner for us, we shared doing the dishes and the laundry. I stayed home from school to take care of him when he had a bad case of bronchitis and didn't have the strength to do much for himself. Out of necessity, we were everything to each other.

"One night, it was during my senior year in high school, I think I had just turned 18, and I was just so miserable -- it might even have been depression, for all I know. Anyway, I was feeling so sad and so lonely that I got out of bed and went into Dad's room and crawled under the covers with him. I'm not even sure if he knew I was there. But with the sound of his breathing, and knowing he was there with me, I fell asleep. When he woke up, he was surprised to find me in bed with him but he didn't make a thing about it -- just asked me when, and why, and if I was okay now. I told him I was okay, and we got up and had breakfast together.