Kitten's Father's Story Ch. 01

I was almost dozing, when Kitten's leg brushed mine and she asked: "May I, Papa?"

May she what? And why "papa" with the European pronunciation? I nodded, opening my eyes, recognizing that she wanted to put her feet up on my leg, and when she did, that she had taken off her shoes. That was more than I expected. I glanced over at the Italian family and then understood that she had said "papa" so that they could understand and not be surprised by what she was doing. Maybe I shouldn't have fondled her foot for a second when I closed my eyes again, long enough to feel her curl her toes.

Had it been a good idea to stretch my legs out like that? At least, she had confirmed my expectation that one of them would want to touch them, just not that directly, her crossed ankles on my thigh. Of course, it would have been Kitten; she had started the playing footsie, then maybe suggesting with her other foot that Marlie do the same. Quite a team, the two of them, and with their experience together with Pierre in Paris. What did that promise for me in Venice? Better not think about that.

"Mine too?" I heard Marlie ask. Yeah, a team - don't think about that. I just nodded without opening my eyes and moved my other leg. What were the Italians thinking, I wondered, as I felt Marlie's foot slide up on my thigh and then felt the weight of her other leg on it. I was tempted to also fondle her foot, but didn't. I couldn't touch her bare foot like I could my daughter's, even if the Italians assumed we were also related, Marlie a close niece perhaps. We hadn't spoken since we returned to the compartment; they couldn't recognize that she wasn't also American. When I felt her rock her foot, I still didn't fondle it, but she had suggested that she wanted me to.

Don't think about that, I admonished myself again, worried that I might have to put my hands on my lap, if I contemplated anything about Venice. Luckily, maybe considerately, they didn't move their feet again, and I thought about world events, recalling the headlines on the newspapers I had read on the plane. That worked; I almost dozed off again from the lulling the sound of train, forgetting that the weight on my thighs was their feet.

I remembered then, however, when something moved on one thigh and then on the other, then heard Kitten say:

"We've got to go again."

When their feet slid off my thighs, I opened my eyes and nodded. They both smiled, putting on their shoes or sandals. I was surprised, when Marlie spoke: "Thank you. That was nice."

She just smiled sweetly, but Kitten smirked slightly as she nodded. The Italian couple let them pass and open the door. The child was curled up, sleeping. They slid the door closed and disappeared, leaving me with my thoughts. Did they really have to go, or just wanted to talk? If they really had to go, had the first movement on my thigh been because hers had twitched together? Which one? I didn't remember which girl's feet had moved first. Or had they been whispering with their heads together and just wanted the excuse to be able to talk more? It didn't matter; they could talk about anything they wanted - as long as it didn't lead to their making me think about Venice.

Before they returned, I also got up and went out in the corridor, going in the other direction. If I didn't have to go now, I would before we were in Venice, but they wouldn't have to go again. I found the toilet in the next car. When I returned, they were waiting in the corridor, not in front of our compartment. There was no one else in the corridor. They both almost grinned at me. They had been talking. I grinned with a shrug and asked:

"You two! Whose idea was that, your feet, all your feet, also before?"

They chuckled, glancing at each other. Marlie nodded for Kitten to reply. She smirked slightly and said:

"Oh, it just happened - 'all our feet'. We didn't plan anything, really, but, of course, we wondered how it would be from school to Venice."

"Like I did, better than I thought."

Marlie nodded with that smile from before, with almost pursed lips. She understood everything, just was a little shy about speaking English, or shy about talking to me, like I was with her, our both knowing too well what I had meant when toasting them: "as delightful as we all want it to be."

"She likes you," Kitten murmured. Marlie blushed deeply, giving her an angry look and saying something in French. Kitten smiled a little apologetically, but replied in English:

"You told me you did."

Marlie was still blushing, but nodded slightly with a very wry expression, wrinkling her nose. It wasn't the right time to look to see if her nipples had popped out, and I knew couldn't see them, if they had. I really managed not to look, but she still rubbed her forearm over them, then smiling like that again. I smiled back, trying to smile the same way, and said to Kitten - still looking at Marlie:

"You can tell her that I like her too, ... with the same French words."

She didn't have to, of course, and didn't, just nodding, giving Marlie big smile, who was blushing again, but also nodded, looking at Kitten with wide eyes, then giving me an abashed smile. I just had to hug her and did with one arm around her shoulders. She was surprised, but didn't pull away. She didn't look up at me; she was looking at Kitten with her wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Whatever she had told Kitten, I hadn't been there and heard it and wouldn't have understood, but Marlie's reactions seemed to suggest that whatever she had said had been more than just that she liked me, and that my spontaneously hugging her suggested that I meant the same.

Kitten smiled with a nod, as though she was confirming my thought. Whatever Marlie had said, it couldn't have been more than what we both - all three of us - were anticipating. When my hand held her shoulder, she did look up at me with a wry version of her pursed-lip smile, leaning against me. I hugged her again, and then she began to giggle, almost hilariously, turning out from under my arm and looking at me, grinning, then glancing at Kitten, who also started to giggle. I had to chuckle heartily. Whatever was so humorous, it was good. I wondered if one of them would ever tell me in English what Marlie had said about liking me. Apparently my response had not just been witty but had also agreed with whatever she had said.

Still chuckling, we returned to our seats, waiting to arrive in Venice. We still had an hour to go, just smiling and smirking at each other.

At the station in Venice, we let the Italian family go ahead and then left the train. As we walked through the station with various shops for travelers, I dropped their heavy suitcases and told them to wait. In a shop selling beverages, I found the most expensive bottle of spumante in the refrigerator and bought it, returning with it in a bag that didn't conceal that it was bottle. The girls grinned, and we left the station and went down to the dock for the vaporetto to the Lido and I bought tickets, having time to buy seven-day tickets for us, pleased that I recognized the possibility.

Venice, across from the station, isn't so characteristic, but when the boat moved through the Canal Grande, we were all delighted, recognizing palazzi we had seen in our guide books, the Ponte Rialto, of course, then more palazzi, and finally the Doges palace and San Marco. Then we were out of the Grand Canal, passing the arsenal, and in the lagoon with the Lido ahead of us. I remembered from my finding our hotel in my guide book that we should take a taxi with our luggage, although it was an easy walk without.

The girls were both thrilled, as was I. Venice was being everything we had expected from reading our guide books. They always make a place sound interesting, but sometimes one doesn't think it is. Of course, they must have also been a little excited about our hotel and what would happen, and knowing that there must be a bottle of wine in the bag I was holding.

When the vaporetto docked, Kitten offered to take it from me, but I didn't let, lugging their bags from the dock to the street. A taxi driver immediately recognized us as tourists and pulled up. He sprang out and grabbed our bags, while I opened the backseat door for the girls. When I got in and told him the name of our hotel, he seemed a little disappointed that it wasn't one of the hotels up the broad street and along the shore line. Ours was on the broad street, the Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta. I had been studying the map. When I gave the driver a good tip, however, he helped carry our bags into the hotel.

When I went to the desk, the girls hung back. The person found my reservation, my wife and I for the double bed. He looked up questioningly, and I explained that in the last minute her father was sick and that she couldn't come, then asking it was possible to have the room as a single occupant. The person smiled apologetically and replied that if we wanted the adjacent rooms, that wasn't possible. I shrugged and agreed to pay for double occupancy. Then the person looked at the reservation and glance at the girls and said that the twin beds were next to each other:

"You know, like double beds in many hotels, but with single bed covers. Will that be all right?"

"I'd better ask them," I replied, and went to them.

I was sure that they would be delighted, but didn't want the person to see their expressions.

"Don't grin," I said: "the twin beds - don't grin - are next to other. Will that be all right?"

Good girls, they just glanced at each other with a shrugs and nodded. When I turned back to the desk, nodding, I had to suppress my own grin; two double beds, not the problem of making three beds looked like they had been slept in.

We got our room keys, and the page carried our bags and opened the doors, then with the usual demonstration of the facilities, until I tipped him. To my relief and delight, I had seen that the rooms were connected the way I had remembered. The page left. We were in the girls' room, their looking at their big bed, now grinning. Kitten didn't have to say: "Space for three," but Marlie just nodded with a grin, and I did. Whatever she had said about liking me, it was obvious that it included the three of us in one bed.

When I opened the connecting door, letting see the one I could open from my room, they chuckled, warmly, nodding. I was still carrying the bag with the bottle. Kitten looked at it and asked:

"What's in it?"

"Spumante?"

"What's that?"

Marlie grinned with a superior expression and replied:

"Italian champagne."

"Oooh!" Kitten responded with a grin.

"When I've been in my room," I replied and hurried back to it, tossing their key on their bed and closing the door.

I took my key from my door and closed, seeing that my double bed was smaller than their two adjacent single beds, but space for three - as Kitten had said. I rushed to find a glass and let the bag drop from the bottle and opened my connecting door. Wicked! The girls were already standing there with their glasses, grinning at me.

Kitten - was she really my daughter? - reached out to take my glass. She was, maybe remembering how I had opened the half bottle of champagne to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. They were holding out the three glasses, waiting for me to screw - why that word? - the cork out of the bottle.

"Pop!" and it was out, and I was pouring in the nearest glass. Bubbles, the next glass, and the next one, and then filling the first one again and the other two, all water glasses from the bathrooms, larger than champagne glasses. I took mine with the hand still holding the cork. Their glasses were already near their smiling mouths, not the moment for another toast. I raised my glass, and we all drank - not like one should take a first sip of champagne or spumante, especially when it has just been poured. The little bubbles were still rising in our glasses and then on the way to our stomachs. We all burped. The girls giggled, and I chuckled, and we drank again, less deeply. The girls had already been in my room, but Kitten stepped past me and murmured:

"Another nice bed," then asked: "Is your bathroom like ours?" Marlie and I followed her there.

"Oooh, yes, same big shower," she remarked, giving me a smirk.

It was the same as I remembered, an old-fashioned shower, maybe four by four feet, one side just a big slab of marble. She turned and looked at us with a grin and remarked, raising her glass, as though it were a toast: "Big beds, big showers."

We all drank again, and I emptied the bottle in our glasses. When I poured in Marlie's, she nodded with a little smile, looking in my eyes, reminding me to wonder how she had said in French that she liked me. We all had just a sip. Then Kitten asked if I wanted to see their bathroom. That seemed unnecessary, I thought, but as we went in their room and looked at it, it occurred to me that she had consciously or unconsciously wanted to invite me to their room through the connecting door. I hadn't said anything since I had left their room. If Kitten could say it, I could.

"Big showers, big beds," I said raising my glass, more looking at Marlie than at Kitten. She blushed as she raised her glass, but look at with a little smile, rubbing her arm over her breasts, as we all drank. Kitten shook her nearly empty glass, and we all emptied ours. Then she smiled and said: "We need them, showers I mean."

I didn't want to look to see Marlies's reaction and replied: "Good idea."

As I turned to go back to my room, Marlie finally spoke:

"Thank you for the spumante. That was nice, a good idea."

I just nodded and went back to my room, think that it had been a very good idea. I heard them open their suitcases and opened mine, hanging up a few things and taking my toilet kit to the bathroom. When I saw the big shower again, I wondered if Kitten was thinking that she and Marlie would take one together, trying to recall if she had said they had in Paris. Our showers were definitely large enough for two people to shower easily together, better than the one in Florence that Kitten and I had shared so often. I heard them talking in French, Marlie saying something in a surprised tone.

I wasn't looking at the connecting doorway, but then saw them flit by it, flashes of naked skin. The bathrooms were both next to the wall between our rooms. I chuckled and got undressed. Whatever happened, was going to happen, I needed a shower too. I heard the water in their shower and their giggling and talking. They hadn't closed the bathroom door. I was already in my bathroom, about the step in shower, then chuckled and thought, now or never. Well, not never, eventually for sure, but better now. I used the toilet and flushed, and grabbed a towel.