I had always been extremely close to Christie, probably partially because of my lack of intimacy with her mother through much of our marriage. We became that much closer when Chris left us. She seemed to hold up well, considering. I told her all the time that her mother didn’t leave because of her. I told her that her mother loved her, it’s just that sometimes mommies and daddies, blah, blah, blah. It would have been easier if the bitch would at least call her daughter more often.
As for me? If I missed having a cat, I figured I could scatter hair on all my clothes and furniture, put a litter box full of shit in the utility room, scatter vomit in unexpected places throughout the house and have the experience without the vet bills. As for missing Chris? We hadn’t had sex in over a year by the time she left. I missed sex miserably, but not Chris. And I didn’t miss sex enough to make it worth dating. My friends tried to set me up all the time, and I tried a few times, but every time it was a miserable failure.
I was mother and father to that child, in addition to working a demanding job. The only good thing that I did while married was make the sacrifice to get a college degree. I took classes nights and weekends for six years, in addition to working full time. So at least I was able to take care of Christie on a single father’s salary.
I threw myself into being the best dad I could. I was at all the school events, parent’s night, PTA meetings, you name it. I checked her homework every night, read her papers, helped her with math. We did everything together; movies, skating, date nights.
When she went through puberty it was a bit awkward. Of course, that’s an awkward age no matter how many parents you have, but the first time she had her period, I had to have a talk with her. No dad should have to be the one to have that talk. Don’t they have that talk in the fifth grade like they did when I was a kid? Probably not. We live in Texas, where people think it’s immoral to educate kids in school about their bodies.
I can still remember that night; she came to me, thinking something was wrong, and told me she was bleeding. When she told me where, I immediately knew what was going on. I told her to use a washcloth while I went out to get pads. How the hell was I to know what kind? Why are there so many damn brands and styles? How many different shapes do women need? To wing, or not to wing?
I got a few different kinds and took them home. We sat at the table, embarrassed, reading the instructions. She picked one out, and we got a pair of her panties and figured out how to attach them, then she went to the bathroom to clean up and try it out. I hoped that would be the last time I’d ever have to do anything like that. Poor kid; every time she saw me for a month her face would turn red. I figured out what kind to buy her by seeing which box was almost empty, and kept those on my shopping list.
I could tell from her laundry that it took her a while to figure it out. Poor kid; I hoped she wouldn’t be embarrassed by an accident at school. I can understand why Chris left me, but why couldn’t she be part of her daughter’s life?
As Christie grew, she became more independent and more plugged in to activities at school. She was into the theater arts department, and would stay after school for hours practicing. She had private singing lessons twice a week, and dance lessons three times a week. She was becoming very talented, and it was keeping her in great shape. Her junior year, she got the part of Liza Doolittle in the school’s production of My Fair Lady. A great coup for a junior. I was proud of her.
Her growing independence enabled me to concentrate on work, and spend more time at the office. I moved up in my company, and my future looked bright. Maybe when Christie moved off to college, I would date and entertain lady friends. I might even remarry. I was still only thirty seven, and I missed female companionship desperately.
On Christie’s eighteenth birthday I decide to leave the office early; something I never did. It was Friday, the one night of the week that her Theater Arts director never had anything scheduled, so I hoped she’d be home. I had bought her a car, and I wanted to give it to her as a surprise. It was a red, two door Acura, very sporty, only two years old. It was a lot of money, but she would need a reliable car when she started college in just a few months. I knew she would love it. I picked it up at the dealership and tied a big blue bow to the top. I planned to have her drive me back later to pick up my car.
The garage door opener was in my car, so I had to park in the driveway. Luckily I had my front door key. Her door key was on the table by the front door, so I knew she was home. I was so excited. This was the greatest birthday gift ever. I was as happy for her as I knew she would be. I had an ear to ear smile, thinking about the look on her face when she saw the car in the driveway.
I looked in the study, where she did her schoolwork, but she wasn’t there, so I continued down the hall to her room. The door was about a quarter of the way open. When I got to it and looked in, I was shocked to see her lying on her bed, naked. Her knees were bent, feet flat on the bed, spread widely. She was looking at something on her phone and her right hand was furiously rubbing her crotch. Lying on her back made her already small breasts look completely flat, but her nipples stood out long and hard.
I had been ready to knock, and my hand was still in a fist, poised by her door. My smile had been replaced by a slack jaw, my mouth opened wide in silent shock. I was so surprised I was unable to move momentarily, and that moment was when she climaxed. It all happened so fast and unexpectedly, I was completely unable to even turn away.
I flushed so much even my ears burned bright red as I watched her writhing on the bed, grunting and whimpering, her hand slowing. She had dropped her phone and was clutching a breast, rubbing her nipple. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was me, mouth agape, hand raised to knock on her door, my face red as a beet.
When she screamed I finally was able to come to my senses and turn away. I walked quickly to the kitchen, not thinking to close her door, and paced. I heard her door slam and lock behind me.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I thought.
What was I to do? Pretend it didn’t happen, hope it blew over? Damn, there was no way I could pretend I didn’t see what I saw. She knew it, and I knew it. We could ignore it. Damn, that’s all we could do.
My thoughts raced, tumbling on each other, but none stayed in my head long enough for me to make sense of any of them. I was visibly shaking, my heart racing, embarrassed for my little baby, embarrassed myself.
“Oh, shit, why didn’t I say something when I came in? Why didn’t I just say, ‘I’m home,’ like I always do? What was I thinking? Damn, Damn, DAMN IT!”
I went into my room and changed out of my suit. This had suddenly turned into a very depressing day. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was only 4:00. Too early for the news, and I had no idea what kind of drivel would be on TV at 4:00 in the afternoon. I didn’t care to find out. I paced the house, hoping Christie would come out, hoping we could pretend it never happened.”
At 5:00, I finally decided I had to say something. I knew she would be so embarrassed she wouldn’t want to ever come out of her room. Hell, I knew I would be if I had been caught by my parents with my pants down. But I had to say something. I didn’t want my baby to be unhappy.
I knocked on her door.
“Not now, dad.”
“Christie, please talk to me. I’m really sorry. I had no idea you were undressed. I have something for you, and I just wanted to surprise you. It’s my fault, sweetie, I apologize. Please come out.”
“I can’t.”
“Please, honey, it’s really okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“I love you, sweetie. Don’t be angry. It was an accident. It was my fault, but it was an accident. I didn’t know you weren’t dressed.”
“Leave me alone!”
At 6:30, I tried again.`
“Christie, sweetie, dinner’s ready. Come on out and have something to eat. I want to show you what I got for your birthday.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I ate alone, dejected. I decided to get out of the house for a while, at least long enough for her to come out of her room so she could eat. I didn’t want her to go without dinner. Her birthday cake sat on the counter, the candles unlit.
“Sweetie,” I said, knocking on her door, “I’ve got to go out for an hour. I’ll be back by eight.”
I drove back to the dealership, unlocked my car and pulled out the garage door opener. That killed fifteen minutes. It would take ten minutes to get back home. I drove around for half an hour, dejected, trying to think of anything I could say or do to make my daughter feel better.
I put her car in the garage. At least she had eaten some of the plate of food I left her on the counter. I cleaned up the kitchen and sat down to watch the news. I barely heard a word they were saying, as my thoughts were elsewhere. I tried to read, but found myself reading and re-reading the same paragraph over and over.
At 9:30, I tried one last time.
“Honey, won’t you talk to me?”
“I’m sleeping, dad.”
I sighed, and went off to get ready for bed. Lying in bed I tried to form the words for the conversation we would need to have eventually. Nothing came to mind.
The next morning I did the lawn early and showered. As I sat reading the paper, I heard her door open and her bathroom door close. After fifteen minutes, she came into the kitchen.
“Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?”
“Fine,” she said, not looking at me.
“Happy birthday, sweetie. Can I show you what I got you?”
“It was the worst birthday ever,” she blurted out, and started to cry.
The saddest sight a father can see is his daughter unhappy and crying. It broke my heart. I went to her and held her. Her shoulders trembled with her sobbing. She cried for a long time as I hugged her, trying to soothe her.
“There, there, sweetie, it’s okay. You’ll see. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”
She finally stopped shaking, and I held her face up.
“That’s better. Please let me show you what I got you for your birthday, okay?”
“Okay,” she said with a frown on her face.
I led her to the garage and opened the door. I pushed the button to open the garage door, so there would be more light. Her eyes opened wide as she realized it wasn’t my sedan in the garage.
“For me?”
“All yours, honey. I’m really proud of you. You’ve always been a great daughter, and you’ve worked hard at school. You’ve kept your grades up, and always helped out around the house. You deserve it. Want to take it for a ride?”
The smile left her face, and she said, “Yeah, I bet you’re real proud of me now.”
“Honey, you’ve done nothing to make me less proud of you. How can you say that?”
“Come on, dad, you saw me. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
Okay, dad time. Something wise will do about now. What would Bill Cosby say? Nothing came to me, so I figured I was going to have to resort to honesty.
“Okay, honey, I saw you. You weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Maybe not wrong, but so embarrassing.”
“I know honey. We’ve all been embarrassed before. I don’t think any less of you. You weren’t doing anything wrong. Everybody does what you were doing. Everybody.”
I could see her absorbing that.
“Okay, dad, let’s take it for a drive.”
I followed her home from the dealership. After she showered and changed, she took her new car out for the rest of the day to show all her friends. She came home for dinner, then changed clothes for an evening out with friends.
The next few days were awkward, but gradually it appeared that she was going to get over it and our relationship would go back to normal. As I thought back over the last year, I realized that she had begun to masturbate regularly, and I just hadn’t noticed. She would lock herself in the bathroom often for long periods of time. Where she had always taken showers, she began taking long baths in the evenings, even when she didn’t need to clean up. Hell, when I was her age, I rubbed myself to sleep almost every night. For that matter, I still did.
At dinner one night a few weeks later, she said, “Dad?”
“Yes, honey?”
“You said everybody did it? Do you really think everybody does?”
It took me a split second to realize what she was talking about. I had hoped we were done with that awkward topic. Time for Wise Dad to come to the fore again. Now where did I leave my cape?
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, hoping that would end it.
“Dad, I can’t stop doing it. Does the urge go away when you grow up?”
She had her eyes down, looking at her plate as she picked at her food.
“Well, it might slow down a little. Honey, you have to remember, you’re eighteen. Your hormones are raging through your body, and it’s hard to control them. You’re going to feel things you’ve never felt before, and you have no frame of reference for how to handle those feelings. This is a very vulnerable and difficult time for young people. You can talk to me anytime, about anything. It’s easy for young people to make mistakes when their hormones control their thinking.”
“Like you and mom?”
I hesitated.
“Yes, like me and mom.”
“Did you have to get married? Because of me?”
“You were the best thing that ever happened to us.”
“Did you have to get married?”
I decided right then that I was going to be honest with my daughter for the rest of her life. No more pretending. She was old enough to deserve and expect honest answers.
“Yes,” I said.
“So when does it get easier to control your hormones? Am I a freak? I can’t help what I do, almost every day. Sometimes more than once.”
“No, you aren’t a freak. You’re normal.”
“You said everybody does it. Do you?”
Once again I hesitated.
“Yes. I do too.”
“Does mom?”
“Yes, she does too.”
“Even while you were married?”
“Yes.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you need to do that when you were married? You had each other.”
For whatever reason, I had assumed that Christie would get the information she needed to have…
