Reality is Different Ch. 03

"Mm." Another muted, wordless sound. I guess it isn't too surprising. Not like we're still one big happy family, glad to spend some time together. Even if you're as even-tempered as my dad, I can't think it would be a pleasant thing to eat across the table from the man who stole your wife, to smile and chat and laugh with him, as though everything were fine between them. To see my mom, as well, the woman who so blithely cast off her marriage vows, who lied to him, to me, just to go out and get fucked by someone with a slightly bigger wallet.

I hope he doesn't miss her. My eyes touch on his hand, laying on the cushion there beside his knee. I don't think he does. Even when the storm of anger that had gripped him was blown over, he never really tried to win her back or anything. Not that I'm aware. No pleading phone calls, begging for her to return. He's said a couple times that he misses how things were before, but never about mom herself. I hope that means he knows he doesn't need her, that he deserves a better woman, that he's more than man enough to get one. A women who can see his strength, his kindness, who loves him with all the fire and the fervency that is his due. Who would cherish him. Honor him. Obey.

"I don't really want to." My voice is low and even when I speak again, a faint admission. Leaning over sideways on the couch, enough to rest my head against his shoulder. Feeling just his presence, his body's gentle warmth. A little taste. "But I'll go and see her, if you tell me to." There's a subtle kind of satisfaction, saying it. Simplicity. If I didn't have to worry what to do, if there were only his command, his word. Doing what my Daddy says...

"Sweetheart, don't be silly." He turns his head to better look at me. I can barely see it, at the corner of my eye; it's easier to hear the slight perplexion in his tone, mixed in with the more familiar sound of reassurance. "I'm not going to tell you to do something you don't want to do. Just think about it, okay? You've got a week or so, anyway, before you really need to give a yes or no."

"Okay." Quiet. Perhaps a tiny trace of disappointment in my voice, my offer of obedience rebuffed...though I can't exactly find it a surprise. It's one more strike against my fantasy, a point the voice of reason in me always raises. He's not that kind of man, the kind the stories always seem to feature. Hard men, brooding, forceful and demanding. The kind of men who don't care who they hurt, who just take what they desire. Even the body of their only daughter. Men who give commands and expect them to be followed, who don't hesitate to back them up with punishment, with pain.

In my dreams, I cast my father in that role, I make him speak the necessary words. But when the lights are on, there's no pretending that it fits him. He's sympathetic, kind, for all his size and strength. He'd never put his wants above my own, never make demands of me to satisfy his own desires. He loves me. And I love him for it, for the regard and the concern that shows in every move he makes, for being so much my unfailing protector, always there to sacrifice on my behalf. And yet I fantasize like this about him turning round and using me, controlling me, making me his toy....it's insane, impossible, it's an utter contradiction. Loving who he is, more than I even should, all while wishing he would treat me in a way the father that I know would never do.

"Actually, um," I speak again abruptly, staring at his hand. His cracked and calloused fingers halfway curled around the paper's edge. Just to feel that hand upon my body...it wouldn't need to be a forceful thing, not really. I've kind of gravitated to that sort of story, but it doesn't have to limit my desires. If he would stroke right now behind my neck, the way he often has before. If I could ask him for it, or only show him that I need it, that I need him. His fingers roaming on my naked skin, slow and gentle, pleasure in each soft caress. If it didn't matter who we were to one another, or if we just forgot. "I thought we could do something together today, maybe."

"Yeah?" Bright enough, inquiring. "What'd you have in mind?"

"What about a picnic?" I look up now, crane back my neck to meet his eye as the suggestion leaves my lips. Only half-considered. Maybe foolish, even - how long since we've done something like that? Years? "Um, we could bike out to the park, bring along some food. If you're not too busy with the truck..."

He laughs at that, brief and mild. "Heck, no. I can work on the truck any day. A picnic with my favorite daughter, that's..." Trailing off a moment, with a mischievous sparkle in his eye. "...well, probably we could pull that off most days, too. But you get the point. Picnic it is. Though, ah, I think we're actually running a trifle low on provisions at the moment...you want me to run out to the grocery store while you get dressed?"

"Nah, I'll do it." The smile drifts hopeful back onto my face. "Honestly, I need a little while before I'll be hungry enough to eat, anyway. You can just hang out, take it easy; I'll head over to the store."

"Sounds like a plan." A pronouncement light and cheerful, captivating with the richness of his voice. Friendly. Familiar, the way that people talk when they're so close to one another that it hardly even matters what they say. Affection in his tone, the kind that adds the meaning to the moments when he calls me his favorite daughter. If this were a story -- god, how I keep going back to that. But if it were, he might reach out right now, put his hand upon my naked knee, might gently squeeze it in his grasp.

It wouldn't be the way I fantasized about before, in the middle of my birthday dinner. Not possessive and demanding. Just absently instead, unthought, a gesture that he means to be no more than kind. Unconsciously inspired by the glimpses that I've tried to tempt him with, the suggestions that I've sought to give. He doesn't even truly realize at first how intimate the action is, his fingers rough and strong against my skin. Not until I gasp, and blush, and look away, unable to conceal my reaction to his touch - then suddenly he sees more clearly what he's doing, pulls his hand away, gives me some uneasy, slightly stammering apology to which I can think of no response.

Nothing further in that moment. Only later, as he turns it over in his mind, as he finds that he can't keep himself from thinking about touching me again. Thinking also how I failed to pull away when he stepped beyond what's proper, how I didn't tell him "no." How in fact I pushed in a little closer to his side, how my legs had shifted slightly, opened wider...

"Well." Reality disrupts my daydream once again, my father speaking firm and final, pushing to his feet. Leaving me to sit up on my own. "Guess I'll take the opportunity to pop open the truck, take a look at least. You can take your time, come and get me when you're ready for that picnic, okay?" Standing there above me, half a smile on his lips. Tall like this, with me still sitting down. Or, well. He's always tall. But the differential's greater, here. Closer to my fantasies. His little girl, craning back my neck to meet his eyes. Looking at him through my lashes.

"Okay." I want to add another word. Daddy. Okay, daddy. Yes, daddy...it hangs there just behind my lips, almost spoken, holding an allure far greater than anything that reason would suggest. As though if I just spoke the words that those girls in the stories use, it would bring my fantasies to life.

But I can't. My worries stand before me, hold me back. It's still too unfamiliar for me to call him that, too much out of the ordinary. I can get away with it in closer moments, when there's some great stirring of emotion there excusing it, gratitude or joy, something he could maybe tell himself would be the reason I would slip back into that old endearment. Or maybe it's just in moments like that that I can get out of my own head enough to do it. When there's a burst of feeling there to pull me past the fear. Without it...I can only sit there watching, concealing my quiet yearning as he quirks at me a little smile, tousles at my hair in brief, affectionate farewell before he heads out the front door. Leaving me alone there on the couch, wishing things could be as simple as they are inside my dreams.

---

"There's still a piece of chicken left."

An old and checkered tablecloth lies between us on the grass, laden with the remnants of our lunch. Nothing particularly fancy. A little tub of mac and cheese I put together from a box. The peels from two oranges, somewhat past their prime. A plastic container of fried chicken, from the supermarket deli - that's a favorite of my dad's. And then the thing I hesitated over for a while before putting in the bag - dad's box of wine, taken from the fridge. It isn't normally my drink. Not that I dislike it or anything, not really. It's silly, but every time I have some I keep on expecting it to taste like grape juice, to be sweeter than it really is. The reality is jarring. But Martin said that drinking with somebody is one of the best ways of breaking past taboos and inhibitions, so...wine it was. What I drank of it now courses pleasant in my veins, giving everything a certain fuzzy glow.

"Don't you want it for yourself?" Dad's sitting with his back against a narrow tree, his legs stretched out beside the tablecloth. An inquiring eyebrow raised in my direction. "I think I must've ate at least two-thirds of that already."

"You ate two-thirds of everything," I point out the obvious, and can't help a little snort of laughter as he puts on a stricken look, pretending shocked and mortified. "And anyway, it's gotten pretty cold. I don't think I could eat it even if I was still hungry. Lukewarm chicken is kinda gross."

"But you figure I won't mind? What am I, the human garbage disposal?" Amusement plays pleasantly about his lips, threading through the words.

"I don't know. 'Human' might be pushing it." Friendly teasing, warm inside my voice, my smile. "I'm not sure a human being could survive some of the things I've seen you eat."

That earns a brief guffaw, his familiar grin appearing wide and white in his expression. Mirrored in my own. "All right, all right, hand it over." True to form, he hardly hesitates to a hearty bite out of the wing, speaking several seconds later around half a mouthful still of chicken. "You gnow, shpeaking of cold, you musht be freeshing in that oudfit."

Oh, boy. I flush at that, look away a moment, biting slightly at my lip. I know exactly what he means. The clothing I picked out for this excursion, after going glumly through my closet for what must have been a half an hour. Hard to decide that kind of thing, when I don't know what he likes. What he would like, on me. This is one of the girliest things I own, though. A light and airy summer dress, done up in pink and white. Cut high up on my legs, frilly, low around my chest - it's revealing, in a way I think still looks mostly innocent. I hope. But it's closing in on winter now, and while I managed well enough in getting here, and even through most of the meal, the wind is starting to pick up. I can feel it on my skin, goosebumps rising with that faintly uncomfortable tingle as the chill slips easily beneath the flimsy cotton.

I do manage to smile back at him, at least. Eventually. A little awkwardly. "I'm okay." Slightly hollow, forced. If I were cold, we'd have to head back home...and I don't want to go just yet.

"Of course, of course." His head shakes mildly, indulgent disapproval. "Sitting here practically a popsicle, and you say you're all right. Why you girls refuse on dressing for the weather, I'll never know." Another beat before he moves, sitting upright off the tree as he grabs for the collar of his jacket. "Here, you can put this on. I'm inclined to let you suffer, personally, but..."

"Dad, no." I'll admit it, my protest is mostly driven by politeness, manners. One never accepts a gift the first time it's offered, after all. "Then you'll just be cold instead."

"Well." His sturdy hands don't even pause, taking off his heavy jacket. The rasping of the metal zipper singing quiet to the air as it's undone. "I suppose there's always the caveman method, too. If you're not too cool for it."

It's a spark of pure delight, the feeling passing through me with the words. Tugging up my smile into something giddy and sincere, while my heart soars higher in my chest. "Never." The 'caveman method' - it's kind of silly, cute, how glad he always is to declare himself a savage, a barbarian. A brute. It's just his term for keeping warm by cramming people close to one another. An answer that he gave when I was younger, when I would complain about the cold and he didn't want to turn the heat on. We'd curl up together on the couch beneath a blanket, watch TV or read aloud. Mom, too, at least sometimes. All three of us, a family, with dad there in the middle...it had the feeling of a game, almost. Something fun, exciting, so much so that I would halfway look forward to the colder days, to the chance of playing caveman on the couch.

Or on the grass, today. Perhaps a trace surprise there in my dad's expression, his eyebrow faintly elevated at the speed of my agreement, at how eagerly I'm crawling over to set down at his side, to take my place beneath his arm. But he suggested it, not me, and there's a blessing of security in that. If he wonders anything about my behavior, he doesn't ask it - just hums something almost silently beneath his breath, slipping off his jacket to lay it out and open as a makeshift blanket there across our laps. Leaning back again against the tree, and my heartbeat thrills a rapid patter to press in close beside him, to feel his body's gentle warmth, the presence of his arm behind my back, laid down loosely with his palm against the earth. My cheek is nestled at his shoulder, abruptly grateful for the rising chill of winter, for offering this moment.

It could be something from a story, too. Unsurprising now, the direction my imagination takes, the gleeful whisper in my mind. A girl and her father, thrown together in the cold...god, how many of them used that as a basis, as the impetus for their desire, or an excuse for its fulfillment? In sleeping bags, on winter nights, in cars that broke down on some isolated country road, far from any help. It's only practical at first, conserving body heat to help withstand the bitter chill outside. But it takes no more than minutes for the father to develop an uncomfortable awareness of his daughter's body pressed to his, her curves so soft and tempting, inviting him to touch. And for her own part...she has no doubts on what she wants, no uncertainties. She makes no protest when first she feels her father's fingers curl upon her finely rounded bottom, when he loosely grasps it in his hand. Or maybe just a single word, whispered in the tiny space between them. "Daddy..." Playful, tender, less a thing of reprimand than of encouragement. Her lips a centimeter from his neck, her every exhalation like a subtle kiss. I can feel what you're doing, daddy. I don't want you to stop...

And now we have a scene that's similar to that, my dad and me. Alike enough to stir the flame that burns familiar in my hips, enough to cause that foolish, hopeful voice inside of me to dwell upon the fact that it was him that offered it, to wonder breathless if he might not have those fantasies in mind as well. In my head, I know it's silly, it's absurd - this is just one more sometime ritual we share, a game, a joke we've had since I was little. In any kind of an objective sense, our position now is likely even less risqué than what we had this morning, when I sat beside him on the couch. We might be sharing space beneath a makeshift blanket now, but we're also out in public, restraining what could happen, and unlike before, I actually have something on beneath the waist. Aside from underwear.

It still feels different, though. Even if it's just because of what I've read...I can't help thinking of whatever tiny possibility there is that he did intend it in that way, that it was flirtation, his suggestion I should warm up at his side. A signal of his own desire. And what I could do to answer back in kind, to show him that I'm his to take...it could be a murmur there beside him, an exaggerated shiver for effect. My hand clasping at his wrist. "Daddy, I'm still cold."

"Well." He might reflect on it a moment, pretend to think of a solution, while taking careful cognizance of how I hold myself against him, the way I've brought my hand to sit upon his waist. His fingers curling on my hip, instinctively possessive. "I suppose we could always get a little closer." His voice vibrating low and rich, huskier than usual in the close confines of our pose...but I don't have time to lose myself in its enchanting rumble. Even as he finishes the words, I can feel his strong arm tightening behind my back, carrying me upward; it's no more than a moment later that he has me lying there on top of him, my back against his chest, my bottom planted neatly in his lap. Gently captured, held with one arm now circling around my waist, the other just beneath my breasts. Beautifully trapped in his embrace. "Is that better, baby girl?"

I don't intend to shiver, this time. Neither is it from the cold. Just from the feeling of his breath, tracing warm and moist upon my scalp, his lips buried in my hair. My entire body rising up as he inhales, lifted on his chest as though I weighed nothing at all...when I can speak again, my voice emerges only weakly, trembling with want. "It's a little better, daddy." My heartbeat pounding swiftly, a flutter in my breast, overwhelmed with what I've been already given. Afraid to ask for more. "But I'm still...it's..."

"Still not perfect, princess?" He speaks again behind me, interrupts, and I can feel the rumble of his voice vibrating so delicious through his chest into my body, into my soul. One big hand pulling free from its position to slide boldly up my side, roughened fingers slightly scraping at my neck, my cheek, brushing at my ear as they slip amongst my loose and messy locks. His tone is confident, subtly amused. Teasing. "Such a demanding little girl you are. Needy." His thumb strokes gently at my jaw. "Are you needy, Sarah?"

"Yes, daddy." Close to breathless. The word has never felt as fitting as it does to me this moment. 'Desire' isn't strong enough a term to name the feeling aching in my stomach, throbbing urgent in my heart. It's more than that, it's deeper. Need. I need my daddy's love, his touch, his careful guidance and command. Without it I would wither into nothing, a flower in the dark.

"Yes, of course you are," he murmurs back beguiling to my scalp, completely self-assured. His solid hand descending languidly one more upon my skin, tracing out my features, my profile. Beneath my brow, along my nose. An electric moment, held what feels like hours, as he strokes across my lips, as they're crushed pliant and obedient beneath his fingertips. There's a smile in his voice when at last he speaks again, a husky, smirking arrogance. "I do know one other way to keep a girl warm. But it's not the sort of thing a father's usually supposed to do." Dangerous and playful, a lion flirting with his prey. "You'll have to promise to be very good for daddy, if you want it."

"I promise, daddy." The excitement and the tension hum almost melodic in my tone, trembling on top of him. "I swear, I'll do anything you want."

He chuckles at that, low and powerful. The sound reverberating so exquisite through me, stirring up the butterflies inside my chest. "That's right, babygirl." His voice inside my mind, inside my soul, the only thing I need to hear. "You will." And then all my thoughts are frozen as I feel my father's hand slide down to grasp upon my breast, his sturdy fingers squeezing subtle and divine. Pleasure singing sharp along my nerves, along my spine, arching up instinctive at the sensation of those calloused digits stroking on my flesh, with just the slender fabric of my dress keeping him from contact. Down below, his other hand descends insistently between my thighs, rubbing slow and forceful through my skirt, and already I can't keep myself from letting out a little moan, a cry that bubbles up inside me as my hips press back against his touch.