Dory Ch. 02

"Your daughter watches too much television," I said. I was actually talking to my sort of father-in-law. Dory's father.

"Too much television?" he repeated.

"Yup."

"That's all you know?"

Is that all I know? Is that all I know? "She's about 5 feet 2, doesn't weigh 100 pounds. She's very clean. Knows more about epic poetry than your average professor."

"You know my daughter."

Sort of. "Um," I said. "I'm kind of married to her." Kind of as in not legally.

Silence on his end.

"Let me explain. She ran away from the cult. I helped her and we fell in love." I carried the phone into the kitchen, took a Fresca from the refrigerator and swigged it. "She knew her last name, her birthday and that she was from Santa Barbara. I paid a company to search for her birth records."

"You mean she's with you? Now?"

I looked at Dory. She was physically in the room but her head was lost in TVLand. "Not right this minute," I told him. "I didn't want to upset her." He started to protest. "She doesn't even know her name is - or was - Regina."

"What's her name?" he asked.

" Jehovannah Dorinda."

"Oh my God," he said.

"My feeling exactly." I drained the Fresca. "I call her Dory."

I gave him my phone number and an email address. I told him I'd talk to Dory about him. I hung up.

"Hey, Reggie," I called.

No response. But I could set off a bomb next to her and she might not move. She loves The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I sat next to her on the couch and pinched her nipple. "Hey, Reggie," I said.

Without looking up, she said, "Is that a name for my breast?"

"Could be. Actually, it's the nickname for Regina Erin Mattson." She looked at me. "Which is you," I continued. "Your father is Robert James Mattson. He misses you."

Dory turned off the TV. "My father?"

"I just talked to him."

"My name's Regina." Uh-huh, I nodded.

"I like Dory," she said.

"I like Dory, too."

"You talked to my father?"

"Yes." I stroked her hand. "I wanted to talk to you before you talked to . . . I didn't want to upset you."

"Why would that upset me?"

I tell you it's definitely like dealing with a Martian. Most anyone, you tell them you found not only their real name but their long lost parent and they'd cry or freak out or something. Not Dory.

"He called me Reggie?" she asked. Dead calm, no breeze at all. I nod. "That's nice," she said.

"Did you know your parents divorced and your mother basically kidnapped you?"

She shook her head. No visible emotion.

"Does any of this bother you?"

"Why should it?"

"Do you want to talk to your father?" She raised her hands, managing to indicate in that one little motion of course, who wouldn't, why are you acting so strange?

I called her father. "Hi. It's Jack. Dory, pick up the phone."

"Honey, is that you?" her father sobbed.

"Is it me?" Dory said. That was addressed to me.

"Yes, it is," I answered.

"It's me," Dory said.

Her father flew out the next day. We met him at the airport. Dory had never been to an airport before. She didn't like it much. I told her no one likes airports, except maybe the people who work there and probably not even them.

I'd like to say they had a tearful reunion, but I'd warned Robert not to expect much emotion. He brought pictures with him. Dory did look like her mother, with the same pointy chin. She had her father's blonde hair and blue eyes. Her mother was beautiful.

Dory honestly had only the vaguest memories of her father, but more importantly she'd been raised to treat her elders with distant respect. I explained to Robert what I could. His reactions ranged from excitement at seeing her to depression to bewilderment to acceptance that she would never be the little girl he hadn't seen in over a dozen years.

That first visit Robert stayed for five days. He slept on the fold out couch in the second bedroom I used as an office. He saw enough of Dory and me to know we were happy. He saw enough of Dory to know she was odd.

We went out during the day and Robert was excited by her liveliness.

"She's really smart," he whispered to me at lunch. "Her mother was brilliant, too."

"You don't have to whisper. She doesn't care - maybe doesn't notice - if you talk about her."

That night, Dory was as usual curled into me on the couch, TV remote firmly in her control, when Robert asked me to come into the kitchen. I started to stand but Dory resisted - she's very strong for her size. I may have been reading too much into her action, but I thought she wanted to hear what we said. I looked at Robert.

"Can't we just talk here?" I said.

He motioned, "It's about . . . ", meaning her. I shrugged, so he continued. "Why won't she look me in the eyes?" he asked.

"They're big on modesty," I explained. "You should have seen what she was wearing when we met." I described her outfit and our trip to WalMart. I told him about the 3 outfits that she rotated - and tapped Dory on the head hard while saying that I wanted to buy her more clothes. She rubbed her head but otherwise showed no sign that she'd heard.

I turned Dory's head toward me and kissed her. "Would you please try to look your father in the eye."

"I'm freaking him?" She asked. She'd been working random phrases from television into conversation.

"Yah, dude."

She kissed me. "I'm not a dude." Completely serious.

"Dude-ette?"

"Not that either." More deadpan.

"If you're not a dude, don't say freaking," I said.

I looked at Robert and started to shrug when I realized that shrugging had become . . . well, it had become my thing. It still is. People probably call me The Shrugger behind me back. Or maybe Shrug.

Dory managed to look at her father when speaking with him, but only in the apartment. At least she wore clothes while he was there.

While Robert and I watched Dory eat her usual breakfast of dry, unsweetened cereal, I told him about the "marriage" thing.

"You can't leave her," he said. I agreed. I had no intention of leaving her. So the three of us went to City Hall and Dory and I took out a marriage license. She wanted to know why she had to do this. I tried to explain that legal marriage gave us both rights, but it was heavy going because the more I told her, the more questions she had. I finally asked her if she'd do it as a favor.

"Of course," she said. I later realized Dory would only agree to most things if I asked her to do me a favor. Arguing with her was like trying to convince a rock to move - if it does, it's only a coincidence, not because of what you said.

The next day, after the 24 hour waiting period had expired, Robert came with us to City Hall to witness our legal union. I was moved by the experience. When the magistrate said, "You may kiss the bride," Dory put her head down. I explained that kissing in front of these people was part of the tradition. She then kissed me so hard it made magistrate uncomfortable. If I'd told her we had to fuck right there, she'd have been naked on my cock in a flash.

When we got back to the apartment, I carried Dory over the threshold again. When I put her down in the living room, she complained, "Only one door this time?" So I carried her through every door. I made sure to bump her head as often as possible. She knew I was doing it on purpose and laughed louder than I'd ever heard her.

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"How did you two meet?"

That was always the hardest question to answer. "I abducted her," was my standard reply.

Dory would always say, "He rescued me."

If pressed, I'd say we met on vacation.

My mom used to take in stray cats. Some became lap cats overnight while others remained skittish for years, until a steady diet of affection taught them the pleasures of being stroked and rubbed. It wasn't something the cat could control and it had nothing to do with intelligence. Some of the cats were genetically more feral. Dory reminded me of a feral cat that had been brought inside.

I never worried about her with other men. She never looked at them. I mean that literally. She somehow managed to look around men without actually seeing them. I sometimes wondered if one of the reasons she loved TV was for the opportunity to check out guys.

If a man other than me spoke to her, she'd look down. That got me in trouble more than once because she gave the impression that she was intimidated by me, that I controlled her. More than one woman speculated I abused her.

The exact opposite was true. I don't mean she abused me. I mean that I never won an argument - well, we didn't exactly argue, but whatever it was that we did, I never won. Her will was iron. Not iron, something stronger like diamond.

We spent our first Thanksgiving together at my oldest sister Claire's house. My mom flew in, as did my brother. Dory and I drove. The thought of her first plane ride being in the Thanksgiving rush was too much.

That sister - I have two - is a lesbian and used to be fairly militant. Though having a stable, loving relationship and raising two sons has mellowed her, she still has an acid tongue when it comes to me and my short comings. One look at Dory, her head tilted down, my hand on her shoulder, and Claire was convinced I was taking advantage of a vulnerable girl. She told my mother I was probably beating the poor thing.

Every single thing I did rubbed my sister wrong. Dory never worried about the impression she gave people, but I'd asked her, as a favor, to follow my lead so she'd seem more normal. Yes, I did say "normal" to her. I'd learned that words which might hurt other people didn't affect her at all.

I suggested to Dory that she eat this, not that, that she sit here, that she help with this. When I told Dory not to eat the pie - she avoided sugar - Claire actually pulled on my hair and dragged me out of the room.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded. Actually, she didn't quite get the last word all the way out when Dory hit her in the back. Hard.

"What the fuck?" my sister spluttered.

My hair hurt. "Dory," I said. "Claire, who is much older than me," the last I emphasized, "has always . . . " I stopped, realizing that I had no idea how to explain this. "You don't have to hit her."

"He's mine," Dory said, with a tone of resolve usually associated with drill instructors or military dictators.

Claire looked at me, then threw up her hands and stormed out. She avoided me the rest of the evening, all of Friday and until Saturday night. I could see her watching me. I knew she was listening to everything I said to Dory.

The kids were in bed. The adults were all in the living room, sharing the "remember this" stories that both unite and divide families. Dory stood up and pulled me off the couch. She led me into the family room, picked up the remote, pushed me into a recliner, hopped into my lap and started to run through the channels. My sister has something like 150 channels so Dory was in heaven.

My mom called from the other room for me to join them.

"Can't," I yelled.

They all came into the Family Room and sat. They looked at Dory. She was watching a Tony Roberts infomercial. I shrugged.

"She likes this crap? Why doesn't she watch something good?" my mom asked.

I put my hand in front of Dory's face to get her attention. "Why do you watch this crap?"

She moved my hand and answered, "I'm interested in cults."

"Tony Robbins is not a cult," Claire said. "He's new age empowerment."

"I grew up in a cult," Dory said. I'd never told anyone how we met. Dory actually looked around the room, though she avoided my brother's eyes. "It was an extreme cult. We were completely isolated from the rest of the world." She paused and changed the channel, stopping at a cooking show. "Cults are expressions of a natural urge that people have to give themselves to a higher power." She tapped me. "Your football games. New Age empowerment. Cults in varying degrees."

My family sat quietly, taking in what they'd heard. My mom ventured, "You grew up in a cult?"

Dory was locked into her cooking show. My mom looked at me. The show was ending.

"Her mother joined a cult when Dory was five," I offered as explanation.

"When did she leave it?" mom asked. I hesitated a tad too long. "Oh my God," mom said.

My brother catches on quickly. "You mean you were telling the truth when you said you abducted her?"

"He rescued me," Dory said. "I was running away. He helped me."

My family looked at us. "I gave her a ride," I said as off-handedly as possible, trying to make the story more reasonable.

"You gave her a ride," Claire said.

"He took me shopping at Wal-Mart and then we got married," Dory said.

Some families react with silence. Mine makes noises. Not words, just noises of disbelief, like a herd of skeptic beasts.

"It wasn't exactly like that," I said. "She needed clothes. And she needed help." I paused. "We fell in love. Then we got married. Her dad was a witness." I left out Dory's definition of marriage. "It happened fast, yes. But look at us. We're doing great together. We're happy. I'm happy. Dory, are you happy?"

"Not this minute," she answered. She was waiting for the next half hour of shows to start.

"I mean with me."

"Of course, I am."

"Do you love me?"

"You're my husband."

"So you love me?"

"You wouldn't be my husband if I didn't love you." Can't argue with logic like that. She kissed me, the kind of kiss you usually don't get in front of your mom, the kind that makes anyone watching either horny or uncomfortable. Dory didn't notice the reactions.

I turned to my family. "She watches TV to learn about the world she never saw," I said. "She also knows tons of poetry, a lot by heart. Dory, how much John Donne do you remember?"

"All of the poems. Most of the sermons."

"She knows Wordsworth, Milton, Cowper, Spenser, you name it. She could teach," I added. Yeah, she could teach as long as no men were in her class.

Later that evening, my mom took me aside.

"She's very good looking," she said in her indirect but probing style.

"It's not about sex," I answered. "I honestly love her." Mom tilted her head. She didn't even have to speak. Geez, mom, ease up. "The sex is fantastic." Okay, okay. "She's not a slut. She was a virgin."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked.

I fought the temptation to lie and admitted, "I have no idea what I'm doing. But I like what's happening. I'm just doing the best I can."

You'll certainly have an interesting life," mom said. She didn't necessarily mean that would be a good thing.

On Sunday, Claire walked Dory and me to the car. She kissed Dory and gave me a hug that spoke volumes.

"She runs your life," she said.

"I know. Believe me, I know."

Claire stared at us. "I'd never have believed it."

"Me neither. But you know . . . I like it." I shrugged. "I really do."

My sister, my nemesis for most of my childhood, put her arms around me again and whispered in my ear, "I'm so proud of you."

On the ride home, I told Dory what Claire said. "She's never been nice to me. Mom says she resents having had to take care of me when mom was at work."

"I'll hit her again if it helps," Dory offered with a smile.

She did, too. And still does, every once in a while. And Claire has become Dory's fiercest advocate in the family. Nancy - Claire's partner - has confided that resolving the tensions with me has helped Claire relax.

"Dory's a gift," she told me.

"You know, a dory's actually a kind of rowboat." I can't stop being a smart ass. "It's also a kind of fish."

"That girl is most definitely not a fish."

"Nope. She doesn't taste like fish." I suppose she could taste like a rowboat, but what do I know.

See what Dory's done? I can talk about pussy with my lesbian sister and her lover.

Despite what my sister said, I don't fit the classic definition of "pussy-whipped." Dory doesn't trade sex, withhold sex or in any way use her body as a bargaining chip to get what she wants. She doesn't order me around. She just states what she wants in a way that I can't argue or often even discuss it with her.

Dory is never mean to me. It's not like she ignores me - if anything, she gives me too much attention. It's just that she makes certain decisions . . . and with such finality that . . . you get the picture. Spend enough time with us and you'd see that she kind of owns me.

She couldn't understand why I cared that she liked to fuck while watching television. "Fine," I said. "You want to sit on my cock and watch cooking shows, then I want the same thing during football." She had taken an instant dislike to the major sports. Maybe it was the men. She hated basketball most, probably because the men wore shorts.

You might expect me to say we compromised. We didn't. She likes to fuck, so she fucks me during her shows and fucks me during football games, the only difference being that during football she faces away from the TV. She takes perverse pleasure in jamming her tit in my mouth when I want to watch the play. And I'm convinced she takes it as a challenge to make me come when the game is on the line.

Dory had trouble leaving the apartment by herself until we developed a list of places where she felt comfortable. The Korean market because two women ran it. The dry cleaner because the owner's wife and sister ran the counter. See the trend. If I'd lived in a doorman building, she'd never have been able to get out - and once out, she'd never have been able to get back in. We needed a doorwoman building.

Other safe spots were delineated by animals and children, ideally both. She felt comfortable visiting almost any store near the local grade school in the early afternoon because kids would be all over. She regularly visited Doris and Elmo, the cats that lived in the old bookstore. Though she never bribed them with treats - not that I saw - the cats recognized one of their own in her. The owner's daughter gave us a picture she took of Dory sitting at their little table reading with the cats arranged like bookends in front of her. It's hanging in the hallway. You can see she's reading Pope, probably The Dunciad if I know my girl.

She taught me, in her typically Dory way, to get up early every morning. She'd wake up, brush her teeth, eat a handful or two of dry cereal and then suck my cock. Until my internal clock adjusted, I often fantasized about blackout shades that would keep our room so dark we'd sleep until noon.

I sometimes get involved in one of those guy conversations about wives losing interest in sex, how she changed after the wedding or after the first kid, how she used to give blowjobs but now it's straight sex, rollover go to sleep and half the time she doesn't even take off her nightgown. I can't relate. My wife walks around the house naked, sucks my cock for fun and loves the taste of cum - particularly the way it tastes different after eating something strong, like garlic.

The only sexual act she doesn't particularly like is anal. We tried it. She had an orgasm. She said she preferred my cock in pussy or her mouth. I ask her every now and then if I can fuck her ass - it's so round and firm. She never turns me down and she always comes. She does ask for anal when she's very pregnant. Her pussy and clit get too sensitive, but she wants the feeling of penetration.

Yes, Dory got pregnant. She simply announced one afternoon that we were expecting. If I hadn't been so completely stunned, I would have been angry - or as close to angry as I can get with her. When I asked why she hadn't told me, Dory rested her fingertips lightly on my chest and said, "I carry the baby. I give birth to the baby. I take the pill - or not. You fuck me the same with or without the pill." In other words, I didn't tell you because I didn't tell you.