Idiot's Guide to Your First Love Ch. 02

AUTHOR'S NOTE: All characters, in this fictional story, involved in any sexual situation are 18 or older. No sexual activity of any kind happens with, around, or because of anyone under the age of 18. Warning: This story DOES have a strong sexual relationship between father and daughter, so if that is not for you, read at your own risk.

The next month was difficult for me. Dad and I never mentioned me moving out again, but there was a strain between us that had never been there before. We continued our routine, same as before, though, there seemed to be so many unspoken words that filled a chasm between us. We no longer felt natural, no matter how much we tried to pretend things were normal; Something had changed.

Catching my father in the act of self-pleasure seemed to unlock something in me. My desire for him had only grown, and throughout the month that followed, I began to think back on our interactions. The realization that my growing libido seemed to correlate with the amount of time we spent together shocked me to my center. However, instead of shying away from the revelation, I explored it and could not stop imagining my father in sexual situations. After that night, I tried on more than one occasion to catch him masturbating again, but it never happened. It began to make sense that I had never been able to find anyone who I was interested in, as the full effect my father had on me came to the forefront of my mind. I continued to masturbate to the image of him taking himself to completion, but it was becoming less and less effective. I wanted more. I knew that it was impossible, but I couldn't help myself.

When I received the call reminding me of my upcoming doctor's appointment to renew my birth control, I realized the point was moot. The only person I desired was the one person I couldn't have. I canceled my appointment, knowing I would not need it.

I kept my fantasies to myself, not daring to tell even Kyla. I wasn't sure she would understand, despite how she often commented on how sexy my dad was, saying she didn't know how I could handle being around such a hunk all the time. Now I knew why it irked me so much to hear her say that. I could finally define the emotion that came over me whenever any of my friends mentioned my "hot" dad. I was possessive — territorial, even.

By the time Christmas break came around, my sexual frustration had me so tightly wound that I couldn't reign in my short temper. Not long into the break, my period came back with a vengeance. I had always had relatively mild periods. They were consistent and I hardly ever cramped. The first one since being off birth control was the worst. It felt as if my insides were tearing apart. Dad had come home from work to find me lying on the couch, curled into a ball, and moaning in pain. I was unable to muster any energy to cook dinner, or anything at all, that day.

He sat on the edge of the sofa and stroked my hair.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

I wanted to lash out at him. Instead, I just groaned and grabbed my stomach, rolling away from him.

Clicking his tongue, he said, "Come on, sweetie. Tell Daddy what's going on."

I turned to glare at him.

"Cramping," was my singular response.

Without a word, he stood up and left the room. Several minutes later, I heard his approach, though I did not turn to acknowledge him. Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted into his arms, with one arm beneath my knees and one at my back, cradling me. Instinctively, my arms laced around his neck.

"What are you doing?"

"Shhh, baby, let Daddy take care of you."

I let myself relax in his arms and rested my head against his shoulder. He carried me into the bathroom, and I saw steam rising from the filled bathtub. He lowered my legs to the floor, and I released my arms from behind his neck and stood on my own. His arm did not leave my back, and I felt the pressure of it like it was a brick. Only it was pleasant, rather than uncomfortable.

"Take a bath, it will help with the pain," he said. "I'll be back." He turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" I said, my voice was more of a whine than I intended.

He smiled, "Your robe is on the back on the door."

He left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I was half tempted to follow him, but the warmth of the room, caused by the steam from the bath water, enticed me to stay. The smell of lavender wafted its way to me, and I realized he had put some of my essential oils in the water. I stripped and eagerly climbed into the bath, sighing as I lowered myself into the hot water.

Dad was right. It wasn't long before I started to feel better. My cramping eased, and I allowed myself to relax in the tub. I closed my eyes and relished in the warmth of the water. I dozed off and woke to a soft knock on the door.

My father's voice came from the other side.

"Lily, are you okay in there?"

The water was cold now, and I began shivering almost as soon as I became conscious.

"Yeah, Dad. I'll be out in a minute," I said.

I pulled myself out of the water and dried off with the towel that was hanging on the rack. After taking the necessary menstrual precautions, I wrapped my robe around me, enjoying the feeling of the plush fabric against my naked skin. Before exiting the bathroom, I pulled the plug from the tub to let it drain.

Dad was sitting on the sofa when I entered the living room. The first thing I noticed was takeout boxes sitting on the coffee table. Dad had set some plates, flatware, wine glasses, and a bottle of wine on the table. I was a little surprised. He did not like eating in the living room, and so we generally kept food out of it, even snacks. Gesturing for me to sit down, he picked up the corkscrew from off the table, which I had initially failed to notice. He opened the wine and filled each glass halfway. When I sat down next to him, he handed me a glass of wine.

"There's a heating pad next to you, and I ordered your favorite," he notified me.

I looked to my left and saw the heating pad; its cord plugged into the outlet next to the couch. Turning it on with one hand and laying it across my tummy, I smiled at my dad appreciatively. I settled into the back of the sofa and took a small sip of wine. I had never had wine before. It was sweet. And delicious.

"What's the occasion?" I asked.

Dad began serving the saltimbocca and sides - from the best Italian restaurant in the city, at least, in my opinion - on each plate before setting one in front of each of us.

"I just want to take care of you tonight," he replied.

I didn't complain. It was the most at ease we had been in weeks.

"Thank you," I said softly.

I took another large drink of my wine, before setting it down on the table and grabbing my plate. As I began eating, Dad reached across and refilled my glass of wine, before delving into his meal.

"Are you feeling any better?"

"Yes," I said, "But, how did you know the bath would help. And the heating pad?"

He gave me an amused look.

Smirking, he said, "When Kathy stopped birth control she had a similar response. It was a couple of months before things got back to normal for her."

"Oh." I was shocked. Dad rarely mentioned mom, and never by her name. Beyond that, though, the way he had phrased that made it seem as if they had a much longer and closer relationship than her mother had told her.

Our conversation was casual while we ate. Dad mentioned he had bought dessert and rented a couple of movies that we could watch. I drank liberally from my glass of wine that somehow never seemed to be empty. It wasn't long after dinner that I began to feel giddy. I was giggling quite hard at my father's jokes. When I was saying something particularly funny myself, I would reach out and touch his arm affectionately. It barely registered that he had opened another bottle of wine.

He cleaned up the food and plates quickly, putting them in the kitchen, before bringing back two bowls of ice cream. Our wine glasses sat side by side on the coffee table, momentarily forgotten as we ate our ice cream, laughing about a story I told him about some faux pas a classmate of mine had committed. Once finished, we set our empty bowls on the table, and he started the first movie. Sitting back down next to me, he picked up both our glasses, having refilled them, and handed me mine, before settling into the couch.

Feeling affectionate -- or maybe brazen, I'm not sure -- I snuggled against him as we watched the movie. He put his arm around me, and I nuzzled deeper into him. I could not focus on the film. His smell intoxicated me as much as the wine had, if not more. I felt his heartbeat under my hand, and it seemed to be beating almost as fast as mine. We drank through the second bottle of wine before the movie finished, though, when it did, neither one of us made a move to get up. We both seemed content in our positions. His arm was still around me, his hand resting on my hip. I had curled my legs up beneath me, my robe having risen, revealing my knees which were leaning against his leg. At some point, his other hand had made it to my exposed knee, though it never traversed elsewhere.

My mind went over the events of the night. It wasn't as though my dad never did nice things. He often did. However, this treatment was out of character. He had never let me drink alcohol, other than a taste here and there. He never drew me a bath. And we never snuggle on the couch. The most physical interaction we had was the occasional hug. I thought back to the comment he made about my mother.

"Daddy?" I said, lifting my head off his shoulder to look at him.

"Hmm?" His eyes were closed, as he acknowledged me.

"Can I ask you something?"

He opened his eyes and looked down at me.

Raising the hand he previously had on my knee, he brushed his thumb across my cheek. It sent an involuntary shiver through me.

"Anything, my love," he said.

"What did you mean by mom stopping birth control?"

His thumb paused its soft caresses. With a sigh, he lowered his hand to his lap. Something in his demeanor changed, and I expected him to move away from me, but he did not.

I wasn't sure he would even respond when he finally said, "When we were trying for a baby she stopped taking birth control."

I felt my eyes furrow in confusion.

"What do you mean, when you were trying to have a baby? I was an accident and mom didn't know she was pregnant until after you guys broke up."

I saw his eyebrows raise.

"What?" He shook his head emphatically, "No, sweetie, we were still very much together. I was thrilled when she told me. We were supposed to get married."

I pulled back in shock.

"Wait..." I tried to wrap my head around that, but I couldn't quite make my brain understand the words he said. "But, then, why didn't you want anything to do with me?"

He looked at me like I had stabbed him in his chest.

"There has never been a day that has passed where I haven't wanted you." He ran his fingers through his hair, clearly frustrated. "What did your mother tell you about me?"

I pressed my lips together.

"Not much," I admitted. "Only that you guys had a short fling, she found out she was pregnant, and you paid her off to avoid the responsibility of having a baby."

A deep growl erupted from my father. He stood and began pacing the floor of the living room.

"I knew better," he said with conviction. "I should have known!"

I watched him pace back and forth a few times, before daring to ask, "Should have known what?"

Dad looked at me as if he had forgotten I was in the room. His face softened, and he moved back to the sofa, though he no longer made a move to touch me. I tried to ignore the feeling of disappointment that rippled through me.

He smiled sadly at me.

"Since she was only 16, her parents wouldn't have agreed to us getting married unless she was pregnant. We decided we couldn't wait for the two years until her 18^th birthday, so we stopped taking precautions. After she told me she was pregnant, I had made plans for an immediate wedding. I was elated to be starting a family," his eyes held a faraway gaze. "After my father's passing, I had quite a bit of an inheritance. I have never been dumb, but with your mother, I was blind."

His pause seemed to stretch across the space between us. I scooted closer to him and put my hand on his knee as an encouragement. He looked at my hand briefly before continuing.

"My lawyer had convinced me to draw up a prenup, something I hadn't even considered. I figured that since she loved me, a prenup wouldn't even make a difference to her, so there was no harm. There wasn't anything I wouldn't have given her, anyway." He put his hand on mine. "She was... less than happy. At first, she just tried to convince me not to sign, but the more she tried to convince me, the more convinced I was that she should sign." His thumb caressed the back of my hand, absentmindedly.

"When she realized I wasn't backing down, she finally called off the wedding," he went on. "She took you away from me before you were even born. She disappeared, until one day, after she had turned 18, her lawyers served me papers. She was suing me for child support. Said I had relinquished my rights when I abandoned you. I found out that she told her parents I was abusive and they helped her disappear. Her mother said as much in her testimony. The courts granted her full custody, and I had to send a monthly check without ever having the chance to meet you."

My amazement grew throughout his story. All that time I had thought he had just thrown money at my mother to avoid responsibility, when, from his perspective, she had been extorting money from him when all he wanted was to be a father. However, I still had one question.

"But, if you wanted me so badly, why didn't you spend any time with me when you finally got visitation rights?"

He looked at me with a pain in his eyes I had never seen before.

"I didn't know how. You were already a person, coming to her conclusions on her own and making her own decisions. I didn't know how to relate to you. I didn't even know how to try. I was unsure and scared," the tremble in his voice as he made his confession was the only clue I had to how vulnerable he was feeling.

Neither my dad nor I spoke for quite a while. His hand remained on mine as we both processed the discovery each of us made. I mulled over his words. Part of me didn't want to believe my mother could be so cruel or greedy. She had never kept the money my father sent to me. Sure, she was distant and somewhat cold, but she was never spiteful towards me. But, I had grown to know my father. He was a sweet, caring man. Ever since it'd been just the two of us, he had never made me feel as though he didn't want me. I knew he wouldn't lie about my mother, so why had my mother lied about him?

The seriousness of the conversation had a sobering effect. My giddiness had faded away, and I was left feeling dejected. The movie's load screen still played, in an almost taunt, until I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed the remote in frustration and muting the T.V. as violently as pressing a button could allow. My action seemed to break the spell that caused our silence.

"But, enough about that," Dad said, inserting a level of cheer in his tone that I knew he must be forcing. "No use worrying about things we cannot change. How about another movie?"

I agreed, but only because I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts. I spent the next hour and a half on the opposite end of the couch from my father, not retaining any bit of what played in front of me.

*****

For the next few months, Dad took care of me every time my cramps got too painful to bear. He was gentle and affectionate, doting on me and servicing my every need. Well, not my every need. The more he cared for me; the more my body reacted to him in a very not daughter way. I knew he was trying to be a good dad. He had been without his child for such a long time; now was his chance to be a parent. I began to feel guilty about the feelings that continued to grow. I tried to put a damper on them, but I had encouraged the urges for so long that by that point I could not control them.

I would catch myself watching him as he did mundane tasks around the house. He wasn't buff, by any means, but instead, had a natural fitness that denoted the fact he took care of his body. Of course, I had always known about his lean muscles and powerful looking thighs; only now I saw them. I dreamed about his full lips against mine. I noticed that he had started getting a couple of grey hairs mixed in with his black head of hair, but instead of turning me off, they endeared him to me even more. I fantasized about running my fingers through his thick hair while his face was between my legs. The harder I tried to stop these thoughts, the deeper they ingrained themselves into me.

I was beyond grateful when my second semester started. I threw myself in my schoolwork hoping to distract myself from my improper feelings. It helped during the day, while I was busy, but at night, my mind - and my hands - wandered. I had stopped trying to catch my father masturbating, which took all my self-restraint. I would lie awake at night, waiting to hear him climb the stairs, wondering if he was watching a dirty video while touching himself.

I started taking the bus or a cab, using the excuse that my school schedule conflicted with his work schedule. I began spending more time at Kyla's. My avoidance of my dad only grew. Eventually, I got a job at the university library. When I told him about it, he seemed upset, when he asked me why I could only lie.

"Because I want a car," I said. He didn't put up any resistance.

*****

I had successfully been avoiding my dad, and I felt as though I might finally be able to move on from my unnatural crush. Unfortunately, there was still no one I could muster up one bit of interest, even though I tried. There was a young man, Daniel, who would come into the library almost daily. He was handsome and sweet. He began to bring me coffee during my shifts. He flirted with me. He was charming. I wanted to like him. I tried so hard to like him. It was no use, though. He just couldn't evoke any romantic feelings in me.

About a month after I started working at the library, having been more or less kicked out of Kyla's for the night, as she had a guy coming over, I had no choice but to go home. I put it off for as long as I could, getting home around midnight. The buses had long since stopped running out there, so I took a cab. The lights in the house were all off, so I quietly entered the front door, closing and locking it behind me. I made my way to my room, as silently as I could, praying I would not wake my father. Once in my room, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I had just started to prepare for bed when my door was thrown open, and my father charged into the room. I quickly pulled my shirt back over me.

"Dad! What the hell!?"

He ignored my exclamation.

"You said you were staying at Kyla's tonight," he said.

My body almost instantaneously began to tremble in his presence. I crossed my arms to hide my nervousness.

"Yeah, well, she was busy tonight," I said, the irritation in my voice belying my true feelings.

He grunted noncommittally and went to sit on my bed. I continued to stand, resisting the urge to be near him. He was like a gravitational force, and I had to fight myself from moving towards him.

"So, when did you get a boyfriend?" he asked, casually.

I felt my eyes widen in shock.

"Huh? I don't have a boyfriend," I said, not hiding my confusion.

He looked at me intently.

"The guy with the coffee?"