How They May Be

I noticed Emily's presence only gradually, as I felt rather than heard another pair of lungs sharing the air. Looking up, I was not surprised to see her standing there nude and unselfconscious, eyes large and apprehensive. When she spoke, her voice was small, low, asking "Is it really so terrible, daddy?"

My mouth opened, but no words came out. I had to shuffle across the short distance between us on my knees, clasp one of her hands in mine, before I could begin to choke out an answer. "I'm sorry, Emily. Oh, god, I'm sorry. What I've done...terrible doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm..." I brought her hand to my brow, wept into it as though begging for the absolution I knew I did not deserve.

"But you don't have to be sorry, daddy, really you don't." She crouched in front of me, trying to catch my eyes, her voice anxious and reassuring all at once. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"God, don't try to defend me!" I cried out in anguish. That she should still be worried about me, about my feelings, after all I had done, only brought home the magnitude of my sin. "I'm a monster. I...you're my daughter, the person I care most about in the world, and I - I raped you." The word crept from my mouth like some slimy animal, quiet and low.

"What?" Emily exclaimed, appalled. "No! Daddy, that's not true at all, don't say that." Her knees pressed lightly to mine as she put her hands to my face, tried to raise my gaze to hers. I would not cooperate. I did not deserve to see her. "I wanted everything that happened, everything you did. Everything. It was wonderful, daddy. And I mean, I did some of it myself, didn't I?" She was almost pleading.

I did remember her responsiveness the past night, her sounds and words of pleasure, her eagerness upon me. But I could not accept them, could not acknowledge what they signified. Emily was my angelic child - she could not have willingly partaken of this sin with me. There had to be another explanation. "You were drunk," I said shortly. "I got you drunk, and I...and I put the idea in your head. I took advantage of you while you weren't yourself."

"I got myself drunk," she argued. "And I certainly didn't get the idea last night. Daddy, this is crazy. I know what I felt, what I wanted."

"I should be jailed." Muttering to myself, I hardly even heard her. "I should be...or a mental asylum. God. My own daughter. I don't deserve to live."

"Damn it, daddy." The note of anger in her voice finally made me look up. Frustration in her eyes, along with a worry and a yearning I could hardly bear to see. "Stop trying to beat yourself up and listen to me for five seconds, would you?" Grasping my hands in hers, she spoke firmly, her melodic voice sliding to persuasive tones. "I love you, okay? And I loved last night. I wanted last night. The sole regret I have, the only one, is that since I was drunk, it's all kind of...fuzzy, in my memory." She stared seriously into my eyes for a long few moments, forcing me to accept her words. Forcing me to believe the unbelievable. When she spoke again it was with a lesser certainty. "But even that's okay, because we'll have other chances. Other times."

It was question as much as statement, and I shook my head reflexively. "No. God, no. Even if you did want . . . it can never happen again. It shouldn't have happened even once. It's wrong, Emily, terribly wrong. It cannot be allowed."

"But why?" she begged, her silver eyes large and pleading. "We both want it, don't we? Doesn't that matter?"

"No!" I shot back forcefully. "No, it doesn't matter. It's a crime, Emily, and it's a sin. These things don't become okay just because you want them." I pulled my hands from her grasp, covered my eyes with my right. She was still so beautiful. I couldn't stand to look at her.

There was silence for a time, and when she finally spoke I nearly wept again to hear the tremble in her voice. "Didn't you like it, daddy?"

"Like it?" A single, hollow laugh. "Emily, it was...it was probably the single most incredible experience of my life." My voice was twisted with emotion, the truth of this tearing a fresh rent in my heart. "But It. Doesn't. Matter. I'm your father. I'm supposed to do the right thing for you, no matter what I feel, no matter what you feel. That's my job."

Quietly, dismally. "Your job." She breathed before me, slow and doleful. "I understand. But I...I want to tell you a story, daddy, okay?" A beat passed, and I grunted assent. "It's a story I made up, about a little girl who didn't have a daddy. All she had was a mother. A perfectly fine mother, maybe a little too strict sometimes, maybe sometimes too serious when the little girl wanted to play, but a mother that she loved all the same, especially since she was the only parent the little girl had."

"Sometimes, a man would come to the little girl's house, a man who claimed to be her daddy. She didn't really know what to think about him, other than that he must be very confused, because she didn't have a daddy at all. But he didn't stay for very long, and she was too shy to try to get to know him while he was there. So she didn't worry too much about the man who called himself her daddy. She had her mother to take care of her, to raise her as she grew up."

"Then something happened that wasn't supposed to happen. Just when the little girl was starting to wonder if there was something interesting about the strange creatures called boys, her mother died. And the little girl hurt terribly, hurt because she had lost her mother, and because now she didn't have any parents at all. No one to raise her anymore. No one to make her feel better. She wondered what would happen to her then, how she could live without her mother."

"Except then the man who called himself her daddy came back, and he said this time he was staying. He was there to help her, just when she needed help the most. And she found that he was wonderful in ways that she had never known about all the times he visited. He was strong when she was weak. He could make her laugh when she felt like crying. He made her feel like she was special, and loved, when it seemed like the whole world hated her. The little girl didn't have any idea what it was to be in love, but she fell in love with the man who called himself her daddy."

"Emily..." I tried to interject, but she silenced me with a finger to my lips. "I'm not done with the story yet, daddy. Please listen." And I did.

"For a while, that was okay. She was happy just to have him hold her, just to be around him. But the little girl got older, and came to understand a bit more about what boys and girls do when they're in love. She started to dream about the man who called himself her daddy, dreams about him touching her all over her body, about him kissing her, not the way a daddy kisses his daughter but the way a man kisses a woman. And she wished those dreams could be real. But she was afraid, terribly afraid." I could hear Emily's voice tremble again, see the wetness in her eyes.

"The man insisted he was her daddy, and had never treated her any other way. If she tried to kiss him, he might think there was something wrong with her. He might be disgusted. He might not love her anymore. If she tried to ask for more, she might lose what she already had. And as much as she wanted more, the little girl could not bear the thought of being without the man who called himself her daddy."

"So she decided to pretend that he really was her daddy. The little girl tried to bury the dangerous dreams deep inside, to hide them even from herself. And it was hard. It was so hard." A tear trickled slowly down Emily's cheek. "He was always there to remind her of the dreams. Every time he hugged her, every time he kissed her goodnight, she could feel them welling up inside, and had to push them back down again. It took years for her to bury them enough to really see other boys, to think that maybe, if she found a nice boy who liked her, she could love him instead."

"And then one day, something changed. The little girl suddenly felt like the man was looking at her differently. She didn't know if it was true. She didn't even really know if she wanted it to be true. But she hoped it was, anyway. She hoped as though her heart would burst from it. And then one day, the man who called himself her daddy kissed her in a way he had never kissed her before. And then one day, he touched her the way she used to dream about him touching her. And then one day, he made love to her, and she felt as though a promise made a million years ago had finally been fulfilled."

"The morning after that, the little girl knew that she was more in love with the man who called himself her daddy than she had ever been." Tears now streamed freely down Emily's face, and her voice was raw with emotion; she coughed once, trying to clear it. "And she knew that if she tried to bury her dreams again, it would break her heart to pieces. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't."

She flowed into my arms then, and despite our nakedness I could not turn her away. Not while pitiful sobs wracked her thin frame. Not while she was hurting. I hugged her close and stroked her back, murmuring small comforts while she watered my shoulder with her tears. "It's okay, honey. You're okay. Everything will be fine." And how I wished I were speaking truth.

Her story didn't change anything, of course. If my earlier neglect had given rise to this infatuation, then to give in to it now would be to redouble my crime. I couldn't do that to her. I couldn't even remain with her - indulgence may have made the force of my lust retreat, but it would surely return, and I had already proven too weak to resist. Knowing that she was willing, I would never last. Even in this moment the feel of her bosom against my chest, quaking with her sobs, carried with it a distant warmth I had to shutter.

No, I would have to leave. Hire someone to look after her while I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital. When she left for college I could come home again, maybe. She would cry for a time, perhaps, but she would surely recover. Emily still had a decent chance for a normal life, for a healthy adulthood. If I did the right thing. If I acted as an ethically upright man should.

But then, I reflected as my hand slid down the curve of her spine, I could never bear to see Emily cry...