In the Way Ch. 03

I had half a mind to play the rest of the tape inside my car before I started home, but the hot air that rushed out of it shook me out of that notion. It was a hot day for spring even though summer was just around the corner, as they say, and I preferred the cold climate any day of the week better than the heat wave we had been having for the last few days. I considered sitting inside, motor idling, air conditioner on high, and finish the task that was the highest on my to-do list, but I did not want to run out of gas on the way.

Maybe I should have done it anyway. Maybe I should have talked the doctor into letting me stay for a bit more time and play the entire tape. Maybe I should have plugged in a pair of headphones and listened to her as I drove home, but I knew I wanted to pay it - and her - my full attention. Maybe I should have driven down to a drive-in, ordered some food and sat in a shady alcove with the recorder plugged in. Maybe I should not have met Dr. Chivago at all. Whatever. Nevertheless, in retrospect, I think I would have played things a lot different if I had done - or not done - any of those things.

As it was, I pulled into my empty driveway the better part of an hour later. My wife took the bus to work - it was only a short walk through the neighborhood to the stop, and the route took her just a block south of the hospital where she worked. We had presented her two-door coupe to our daughter on her birthday, and its absence meant that Miss. Kane was still out at the mall with her friends. It was unlikely that she would be back before dark and my wife, as I told you, worked the graveyard shift too- although I suppose that is a politically incorrect term when you work at a hospital.

Which meant that I walked in under the mistaken impression that I had the house all alone - except for Buster, our German Shepherd - and the solitude I needed while I played the tape. As a detective, even if retired, I suppose I should have noticed the fact that Buster did not come rushing to my feet the moment I opened the door, which he always does when he has been left alone for any length of time, or that the filter in the aquarium - one of Nikki's more recent hobbies - was switched on, which was usually my task for four in the afternoon. I like to look at the little things floating weightlessly on the water, their mouths opening and closing in a silent opera, the light throwing off reflections on the ceiling... and the significance of the running filter completely escaped me.

I shut the door and walked upstairs to the master bedroom. Nikki had her room on the mezzanine floor halfway up the stairs, jutting out over the small pool I had built behind our house when I retired. The door was closed now, as it always was when she was not home. My lounging clothes were on the bed, right where I had dropped them when I had left to see Dr. Chivago. I placed the recorder on a shelf next to the door and dropped my pants. I needed to take a pee before I -

"What the?" I asked as I opened the door and a wall of steam rushed out.

"Dad," came her scream a moment later.

"What are you doing here?" both of us asked each other at the same time across the swirling mist of steam that was rushing out of the bathroom like a fumigator. I suppose I should have been the gentleman - hell, she couldn't be one even if she wanted to, right? - and shut the door straightaway, protecting her modesty, and I am sure I would have done exactly that if a sudden draft of air - channeled through the corridors exactly as I had once wanted - had not cleared the air between us. Literally.

I stared as she seemed to appear out of the mist - or maybe I should say fog, just to be technically accurate - like a goddess. Of course, I would never have said that she was not beautiful. What proud father would, even if his offspring looked like something the cat had dropped at their doorstep, and mine had admirers crawling out the woodwork class that she had taken during her vacation. It was not just my opinion, it was a fact that she was a stunning girl growing up into a stunning woman, and it was something I suspected gave her own mother a slight inferiority complex. Maybe that is why she was making all these assumptions about Nikki and me.

If you want to give me credit for being so levelheaded as to think all this while staring at my daughter's naked body, think again. I did exactly what I said I did - I stared - and all those silly thoughts like Dr. Freud came to me much later. Like a few minutes later. For the moment, though, I stood rooted to the spot.

"Dad," she said, her brown hair plastered to her shoulders and running down her back, one hand across her chest in a partially successful attempt to cover her breasts while the other was between her legs - hold your tongue! - covering her you-know-what. Legs even prettier, with toenails painted a deep red, stood amid a pool of water that was slowly draining away somewhere. "Dad," she said again. "Toss me that towel, will ya?"

Managing to keep my eyes on her forehead and above, I reached for the towel that I knew would be hung just to the right of the doorway and tossed it to her. One hand peeled away from her body to catch it, but I had already closed the door by then. I was not that much of a pervert. Yet.

A few seconds later, I was still standing next to the door as it opened and she stepped out. We almost collided - almost because she had faster reflexes than I did - and sidestepped me. The smells of her shampoo and soap filled my nostrils almost immediately, which had the same pleasantness to it that I always feel when I am served a Double Whopper With Fries at McDonald's. She was tall, with the top of her head coming up to my nose, which usually made it easier for me to give her a peck on the forehead than one on the cheeks.

She smiled at me. "You went to see that shrink, didn't you? I didn't expect you home so soon."

I still did not say anything. I was not still staring at her body, if that is what you were thinking; I was wondering if the water dripping off her and on to the carpet would seep through and ruin the flooring.

"I really thought you would be calling from a police station somewhere after they arrested you for throwing him off that office of his."

"Believe me, that cross did thought my mind," I told her.

"What? What did you say?"

"I said, that thought did cross my mind." I felt a vague disquiet, as if I had forgotten something and did not know what it was.

"No, you didn't." She was shaking her head, and droplets went flying in an arc around her. "You got your thought and cross mixed up."

"Wouldn't be the first time today," I told her, handing over a smaller towel for her hair, preparing for a change of subject. "Why are you home so early? And where's your car?"

"It broke down a few blocks from here," she said. "So I spent some time over at Rosie's place and came back when she had to go out on some chores. Honest, dad, I really didn't expect you home so early - you know I wouldn't use your steam bath without asking."

She sounded worried, as if I would be angry with her, and I smiled at her for the first time since I had seen her naked. "That's okay, honey. I don't mind you using it, but just make sure next time that you don't forget to lock the door when you are inside."

"Thanks, dad, you're the best," she gushed, a little too thick, perhaps, and there was the fleeting instant of a Dad's Premonition - that she was fattening me up for the kill - which went away when she gave me an affectionate hug. It was only when I felt her towel-encased body press against mine that I remembered what I had forgotten in the shock of walking in on her. It was forgotten again as I breathed in her fragrance, a mix of soap and freshness I had always believed was unique to her, and gave her a peck on her forehead. "I love you too."

"I bet," she said, and I wondered what she meant by that as we parted. Okay, so I was sporting an erection, but my little girl was not supposed to know what that was, right? Not until she got married anyway. She bounded across my room and towards hers, stopping at the doorway to ask a very pertinent question. "Dad," she said, rolling the words off her lips like she did whenever it was a rhetorical question, "What are you doing in your underwear?"

Oh, right. I had forgotten again. I gestured to the bathroom and mumbled something about private business. She held up a hand and shrugged - she got that from me. "Never mind," she said as she turned around. "I don't want to know," giving me the distinct impression that she did.

From what I learnt later, this is the point in a story where the father jacks off, thinking his daughter has gone back to her room and he has his privacy, only to have her walk in looking for something - a hair clip? panties? a towel? - and catch him. Then, depending on how hurried the author is, it either sets off a situation that eventually sees them rolling in the proverbial hay or jumping into bed right then, because she is sopping wet (duh! she just had a shower.) However, like I said, this was the fruit of later research - I introduced it here because my editor said I had gone too long without a mention of sex. Story of my life.

For the record, though, this was where I closed the door and locked it, just to be sure, not because I wanted to masturbate the hell out of my cock - I was not sure what would come out, you see - but I did not want her walking in while I was dressing. I stepped into the now-clear bathroom, did all that I wanted to do - which did not include jacking off, or beating the peter or any other quaint term for what I do every other night, but did relieve the pressure in another way I do not have to tell you about - and came out and dressed in a loose t-shirt and a pair of long shorts. For those still wondering, I was no longer sporting an erection.

It was as I was getting dressed that I thought about Nikki and how beautiful she was, how proud I was of her and how her beauty might have given her mother all those fantastic ideas. Not that I am a hunk, or the other extreme, but I have known girls who adored their dads who looked like something the cops dragged in every morning at the local precinct. I suppose that is why Rachel did not find it too hard to believe that I might have some sort of sexual appeal for our daughter. As laughable as that notion is, I have known stranger things to happen. I even met an honest politician once, I swear.

Just as I was about to play the tape, there was a knock at the door. "Dad," Nikki called from the other side. "You respectable in there?"

"Are you going out again?" I asked, anticipating her request. "You can take my car, but just call the garage before you leave. They'll need to know where your car is."

There was a pause before she said, proving that I am a creature of habit, "No, I wasn't thinking about going out. I just wanted to, you know, talk to you. I mean, we rarely talk to each other, I am either gone out or talking on the phone, and you're usually watching TV or reading. But if you don't -"

I did not let her finish. Everything else has to wait when your kid says she has to talk to you. I opened the door and pulled her into a tight hug. "Of course, honey. I would love that," I told her, enjoying the downy feel of her hair against my jaw. She must have used her drier on it. "I just didn't think you would rather talk to me than go out somewhere."

"Oh, Daddy," she cooed, meaning, you have your moments, old man, but don't expect me to make this a habit. Teens speak their own language. Nonetheless, I savored the moment. The older she got, the less frequent such moments were. It was not just my daughter, I knew, but the whole generation which seemed to speed through their youth with such speed we never know where the years have gone until it is too late.

"Go on downstairs and prepare me a glass of your best-selling lemonade," I told her, giving a playful pat on her rump. The lemonade was an inside-joke in our household. When we had not bought her a bicycle for her tenth birthday, Nikki had borrowed our neighbor's cart - he had an old ice-cream cart he had bought at an auction, for nostalgia's sake - and camped across the street selling lemonade. She sold out a full load ten times that day. It was nowhere near enough for a bicycle, but I went out and bought it for her just the same - any little girl who is capable of putting together a business like that deserves a reward. It was only a year later, when she wanted to buy a car, that she discovered that her old man had stood on the corner, bribing everybody he met to buy a glass of her lemonade.

It took me three days to break down her anger. In a truly ladylike manner, she was royally pissed off that I had stooped so low as to round up her friends and recompensate them for the juice she sold them. "My lemonade wasn't that bad," she had screamed.

"Will do," she said, turning around and giving me a mock-salute. Then, for a moment, she sobered. "Are you all right? I mean, after that session with Dr. Chivago..." she let her words trail off, concern written all over her oval face. Suddenly, I remembered that I had absolutely no idea how much she knew. Mentally, I placed that at the top of my list. Maybe I did not have to go look for a Dummies guide on 'Asking Your Daughter What She Knows' after all. She had just given me the opening I needed.

"Whatever that jerk said," I told her, lying through my teeth, "I didn't give it a second thought. Besides, why shouldn't I be all right?" I smiled at her, and this was sincere and honest. "You've just made my day."

The grin returned to her face. I watched her go down the corridor, her figure shown off by the clothes she wore - a sleeveless t-shirt that, unlike mine, seemed poured over her and a pair of shorts that looked as if they had grown on her. With the light streaming in from the windows on the west side, she was a silhouette of grace and beauty. I remembered that it was what I had thought of her mother when I realized that I was in love. The coincidence was something I did not care to dwell upon.

I joined her on the patio overlooking the pool a few minutes later, utilizing the time to plan a few approaches that I could use to get her to tell me what she told Dr. Chivago without spooking her. I slipped the cassette player into my pocket and zipped it shut. I did not know if she had noticed it earlier, and I did not intend to subject her to the allegation if I could help it. I had a vaguely disquieting feeling that though false, my wife's words had somehow belittled the purity of my relationship with my daughter. I did not want Nikki to feel the same way.

My favorite mug sat on the table, full and cool, just the way I liked it. She was already sipping from hers, her back to me, watching the water in the pool slowly rippling even though there was no real breeze. I slipped a kiss on the top of her head and sat down. "Where's the pooch?" Before she could answer, I added, "And this is great, as usual," holding up the glass I had taken a sip out of.

"Thanks," she said. I detected a slight blush on her cheeks at the compliment. "And Buster's gone for a walk with his girlfriend."

"His girlfriend, huh?" I grunted in mock-seriousness. "Where's she from? I can't just have a mutt show up asking for puppy support, you know."

She giggled, a sound that reminded me of small bells tinkling in the wind. "It's Marsha's Labrador." Marsha, for those who want to know, was an elderly lady who lived down the street. "And as for the puppies, I suppose we could market them as German Labradors. You know, an exotic breed."

We made some idle chitchat for a few more minutes before it lapsed into silence. Neither of us was facing each other, instead preferring to sit with our backs to the house and watch the sun glinting off the water. The air was quite sultry, and as I mopped my brow with my t-shirt, I remarked, "Hot."

She turned around with a silly grin on her face and crossed her arms over her chest. "Me or the weather?" I had heard her use the same tone when she was flirting with somebody over the phone.

This is the kind of question that lands you in trouble - say it's the weather, and the next question any woman asks is, "Why, aren't I hot?" On the other hand, while it is relatively safer when it is a woman you are not related to, a daughter is not supposed to be hot to her father. I would like to say I took my time pondering the question, but the answer was out of my mouth even before my mind had fully comprehended the finer points. "It looks like it will keep up for another week," I told her.

She deviated only slightly from the script. "So you're saying I'm not?"

Rather than answer the question, I threw one right back at her. "What did Dr. Chivago talk to you about, darling?" So much for finesse, so much for planning the whole show like 20-questions. Call me impulsive, and I think the world would agree. Call me a coward, and I would agree. Nikki and I had never actually flirted with each other, and as good as it felt - that she still found me interesting enough and young enough to share the joke - I was unsure where it would head. Our relationship, whether she knew it or not, was suddenly a game of dominoes for me. I had no idea when I would say the wrong thing and break it forever.

She turned away. I could sense a sudden hardness in her, an impromptu putting up of defenses it would be hard for me to break. I wondered what it was that could bring out such a reaction in my normally mild-mannered girl. I was angry with Dr. Chivago again for doing this to us, and I was just as angry with Rachel for putting our daughter through all this. God knows what that smiling bastard said to my kid, but I was about to find out. I needed to know the extent of the damage. And I wanted to reach out and touch my daughter, to reassure her that I was still her father, that I would protect her whatever the costs. To console her.

But I did not. I let her vent.

"That bitch," she hissed, and with a start, I realized that the focus of her fury was her mother. "Why's she doing this to us, Dad? Why's she doing this to you? Why the hell would she even tell him that you are - that you are fucking me?" She picked up her glass and threw it across our backyard. It crashed into the grass surrounding the pool but did not break. "And that too when you've hardly noticed that I am alive," she added, freezing me with those words. She turned around, her eyes instantly softening. "Sorry, Dad, I didn't mean that. But Mom's got no right to go around telling people that we are having an affair."

Her hand reached out across the table and I took it in both of mine. My heart went out to her ache. "I am sorry that you have to go through all this."

"Sorry? You are sorry?" she asked incredulously. A single tear peeked out from the edge of her right eye. Her lips quivered as she spoke. She gripped my hands tighter. Leaned forward. "She does all this to us, and you are apologizing to me?" Shook her head sadly. "You are too good to her, and the bitch doesn't even realize that."

I placed a hand on her lips. "Don't talk about your mother like that," I told her. I did not want to be stern about it, but I did not want her to start calling her mother names. If she started now and nobody stopped her, there would never be an end to it. Daughters should not call their parents names. "Maybe she's going through a tough time," I said, stroking the tear away with my thumb. "Maybe she's in some sort of depression. Maybe she's just jealous because Daddy loves you so much, and she thinks we don't love her enough."

She smiled, and it was obvious the effort it took her. "Now you sound like Dr. Chivago."

"Tell me what happened yesterday, honey. And him you can call whatever name you want."