Amber Ch. 02

As the days passed, Amber and I became more like a father and his daughter. We spoke more often. We sat and watched television together more often. We played board games more often. I helped her with her homework more often.

It was strange in a way. Amber was clearly a woman, and was beginning to take care of me as if she was my wife, yet I had known her since she was a little girl, and in some ways I tended to think of her as my daughter, even though she did not share my blood and I had never adopted her.

I truly felt like a father when Amber returned from school one afternoon and seemed conflicted. She did not need to say anything - her internal turmoil was imprinted upon her face.

"What is it, princess?" I asked, purposely using my long-assigned pet name for her.

Amber stepped into my home office and sat in the recliner across from my desk. "I'm... confused about what to do," she admitted with a sigh.

I smiled a bit to try to reassure her. "Well, I can't know what advice to give if you don't tell me what's troubling you."

That made Amber smile a little, so I knew the situation was not critical. "It's Danny," she said flatly, and I immediately knew the issue. Danny certainly had an interest in Amber - I had noticed it the first time I met him over a year ago, when the three of us all happened to stand in the checkout line of a nearby convenience store at the same time - and I knew that Amber was not particularly interested in him.

"Danny asked me to prom today."

I had not expected that. "It's not even Halloween!" I exclaimed. "How can he be thinking of prom already?"

"I know," she agreed, sounding annoyed - whether annoyed with Danny or with the thought of being asked so soon, I could not discern. "He's nice, and I'm glad I know Danny, but... ugh."

"Would you rather go to prom with someone else?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I'm neutral about prom. If I go, fine. If I don't go, fine. I'd rather not be forced to wear uncomfortable heels and be shoehorned into a dress anyhow."

"Shoehorned" was one of Paul's signature words, and I had to smirk at hearing that word come from the mouth of someone so young.

If Amber noticed my reaction, she did not react to me. "He just isn't... The guys in general just aren't..."

I waited, not wanting to jump to conclusions which were probably incorrect anyhow.

"I've heard them talk. I've heard him talk. Especially if he's asking me so damn early" - another trademark of her father: swearing – "he must be thinking about how to get inside my clothes during or just after prom. I don't want that unless..."

She hesitated. "'Unless...?'" I prompted.

"Unless someone truly loves me, truly cares for me, truly looks out for me and wants the best for me. He doesn't, although he's not as bad as most of the guys in school."

"Bad about what?"

"Talking about how he'd love to fuck me, or Sally, or Jenni, or Samantha, or Rachel, or Joanne, or Cherry, or just about anyone else in the building under the age of twenty-five who has breasts, especially large ones."

I pondered that for a moment. "Is there anyone you would prefer to be your prom date?"

Amber was silent, which was not particularly unusual for her.

"You don't need to answer that," I assured her.

"No," she agreed, "but maybe I should."

"Okay..."

She looked me dead in the eyes. "You."

That surprised me tremendously. "Me? You'd want me to be your prom date?"

"Sure," Amber replied. "I know you care for me. You've known me almost for as long as I can remember. You've always been there for me. You've always had my best interests at heart. I know you love me in a quasi-familial way. And from when we were jumping in the leaves not too long ago, I know you find me attractive, perhaps even beautiful. I felt you growing and getting hard. I liked it. I liked that it was you reacting like that to me."

I felt rather warm despite the cool breeze coming through the window. Almost certainly, I was blushing. I definitely remembered that moment when I suddenly realized that Amber was no longer the little girl I had watched grow up, that she was very much a woman.

"I know you can't take me to prom," she said, sadness evident in her voice. "I think you'd be the perfect prom date. You've always been kind and respectful with me, you've never given me any reason to be concerned. And especially since my parents died, you've always placed me first and foremost. You're exactly the type of person I'd want for a prom date, or a boyfriend, or... a husband."

I blinked several times, stunned by Amber's admission. "A husband? You'd want me for a husband?"

"Well..." It was evident that Amber was trying to decide whether to admit it. "Yes," she finally admitted, "I think you'd be a great husband."

"For you?"

"For me."

I smiled, albeit nervously. "I'm as old as your father," I noted for her. "I've practically been a second father to you for all these years. In fact, I do tend to think of you as the daughter I never had."

"And daughters eventually grow up," Amber countered. "Little girls eventually aren't so little, and eventually, they aren't even girls anymore."

She had a very valid point. "I can't argue with that," I admitted, again thinking of our moment together in the leaves.

"And we're not related by blood or marriage," she added, "so if you're concerned about incest, that isn't an issue."

I actually had not considered incest. As I gave Amber a keen appraising look, it was clear that she was no longer the little girl I had first met so many years earlier, and it was very evident that she had indeed become a woman. Just the fact that we were having this type of conversation was proof that she was definitely a woman.

"That day," she confessed, her voice quieter and more introspective, "laying on you in the leaves, feeling you grow hard beneath me, it... It made me... wet."

I was stunned that Amber would openly say something like that to me, and certainly my surprise was displayed in my eyes. "It's true," she continued. "I was turned on by the fact that I could turn you on, and it made me start to think about you differently. Not just as a father figure, but perhaps as more. As possibly... a lover."

A long silence passed, and we did not - could not - look at each other. My mind was jumbled with conflicting thoughts and images.

When Amber finally stood and approached the desk, I looked up again. She walked around the desk, a serious expression on her face, and bent down to hug me. Her grasp was tight, as if she did not want to release me ever again.

Yet I hugged this young woman with the same fervor. The feel of her breasts pressing against me was impossible to ignore, and I realized just how long it had been since I had last seen a bared breast, just now long it had been since I had last touched a breast, or gently sucked its nipple. I realized just how long it had been since I had last shared a bed with a woman. I realized just how long it had been since I had last slowly unwrapped someone, tasted her, ultimately made love to her and filled her with my essence...

"Amber..." I breathed as I fingered her amber strands.

I knew that, without a doubt, things would never be the same between us ever again.