Panic swept across Wynter's elfin features. "Where... where... where...?" she stammered as she flushed scarlet in embarrassment.
Nurse Ellen Carter held the smallest vibrator forward. "I saw the tip of this sticking out between the nightstand and the wall. It wasn't there when I left because I had cleaned this room thoroughly, and there were no dildos in here when I finished."
Dildos. Wynter added that to the list of words to put in her notebook of "Sex Terminology" while she tried to remember how the vibrator could have become stuck behind the nightstand. She had moved them from the rollaway table to the nightstand. Later she was picking them up to return them to her mother's dresser drawer. Dragon, who'd just had a drink from his doggie bowl, had stuck his cold, wet nose to her naked butt. She had jumped and dropped them. She had thought the noise would awaken her sleeping father, but he was more unconscious than asleep. Drat! She had been chastising--a grown-up sounding word that she really liked--Dragon while she picked up the vibrators again and had failed to pay attention to the details like a good nurse would do.
Nurse Carter pulled back the vibrator and pushed forward the blonde pubic hair. "I found two of these under your father's neck and one under his leg. I see you got around while I was gone."
Wynter's father looked blurry through her streaming tears. His upper body was lying at a forty-five degree angle. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling and he looked very, very upset. She knew he was mad at himself because she had wanted to change his sheets before Nurse Carter returned, but he had asked her not to. He was blaming himself for something that was all her fault. A good nurse would have done what was best for her patient, not what he had wanted because it was less work for her.
Her father had wanted the oral sex, and the intercourse, too. She loved him, and she wanted to show him through the oral sex and intercourse that she loved him. And she had also wanted the sexual activities. But it wasn't what was best for her patient, or for her father, in the long run. A good nurse and a grownup would have done what was best for the patient in the long run, but she had acted like a spoiled, thoughtless child interested only in what was best for herself at the time.
Nurse Carter's voice rose and got much angrier and her face turned very red as she shook the hair in Wynter's face. "Jesus, I thought he was in the good hands of a responsible nurse, not the hands of a little slut!"
Wynter felt the Labrador retriever's body pressing against the front of her legs. It vibrated with his growl, a deep, rumbling noise that caused Nurse Carter to step back and almost fall onto the bed.
"Ellen," her father said in a quiet voice that still sounded very angry, "if your attitude doesn't change immediately, Dragon will eat your face, and even Wynter won't be able to stop him." Then his voice softened and his eyes looked at Wynter with love that made her heart ache for the trouble she had stupidly caused him. "Wynter, honey, take Dragon into the den. Please close the door on your way out. Everything will be okay, I promise. I'm going to have a little chat with Nurse Carter, and she won't want to be disturbed until it's over. Please?"
She nodded and wiped her flooded eyes with the back of her right hand while her left closed around Dragon's collar.
"I love you, honey...."
Nurse Carter glared down at him over her shoulder and cut him off. "Is that how you talked her into your perverted...."
"ELLEN!" he shouted, startling her into silence. Dragon began growling again, louder this time, and Wynter felt him pull forward a little. Then in a soft, almost gentle voice her father said, "Wynter, release his collar."
She did. Dragon didn't move and continued his low, rumbling growl. Through her tears Wynter saw the blurred white streak of his teeth.
Richard fixed the nurse with a hard stare. "Now, Ellen, I don't know with absolute certainly that he will attack if you raise your voice at me again, but do you know with absolute certainly that he won't? You know as well as I do that he will attack if you raise it at Wynter again."
Nurse Carter seemed to collapse inward, like a party balloon that was losing air.
"Honey, everything's going to be just fine. Nurse Carter doesn't want you to hear what I'm about to tell her, so please go wait in the den with Dragon. She'll be along to apologize to you in a little while. You can have some cookies and milk if you want them. Not too many this close to supper."
She nodded and tried to say, "I love you," but her voice broke.
Her father gave her that big warm smile that made her heart feel much too big for her body. "I love you, too, honey. We won't be long."
She nodded again, wiped her eyes, and took Dragon's collar. Any other time he would have followed her out the door, but she wasn't sure whether he would do so now. He went out the door with her, but his eyes never left Nurse Carter and his low growl did not stop until Wynter closed the door.
Wynter held her long blonde ponytail in one hand and threw herself face down on the couch in the den, trying to control the huge sobs that wracked her body. How could she have been so childish and caused such a huge problem for her father, who loved her with all his heart, when all she wanted for him was to be the best grownup nurse possible? How could he still love her if she were such a huge disappointment? And how much more trouble would she cause him when Nurse Carter told Mother?
Dragon whimpered and sniffed her, looking for clues that would explain her condition in terms his canine mind could understand. When he found none, he licked the hand covering her cheek, looked over his shoulder to the hallway door, and growled softly.
"Just what the fuck do you mean telling her that I'll 'be along to apologize in a few minutes?' I'm not the one...."
"Ellen," Richard said in a gentle tone, "Dragon can hear you from the den, and I can guarantee you that door won't stop him if he wants in." Actually, only the first half of that statement was true.
He couldn't guarantee that the hollow-core door wouldn't stop Dragon, but he would not bet money that it could. "Wynter could hear you if she weren't crying her eyes out, probably face down on the couch. You know how emotionally shaky she is because of puberty. Your attitude isn't helping one goddamned bit, and I won't allow it to upset her any further."
"You...." She glanced at the closed door and forced her volume control down, but in her fury construed his gentle tone as meekness.
"You won't allow it? I won't allow you to abuse that girl any further, you child-molesting son of a bitch! I ought to call Larry White to come put you under house arrest and get Wynter to safety until I can get Angie back here. What the fuck were you thinking, using her to get you off? If the pain in your damaged vas deferens was that bad, you should have told me and I'd have gotten you off."
His grin, as if of triumph, took her aback, and she wondered if he had divined her innermost thoughts.
"Do you know who recommended you to be my nurse during these at-home recuperations?"
"Yeah," she snapped. "Kevin Taylor. What...."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Kevin merely said you'd be a good choice when I asked him about you."
"What does that...."
"Tommy Rosenbaum recommended you."
"Who?" Then she gaped. "You know Tom Rosenbaum from Pittsburgh?"
"We were on the same committee for the Geological Society several years back. I'd been to his house a few times before the divorce, and once or twice after. But I didn't say 'Tom,' I said, 'Tommy.'"
The color left Ellen's face and her arms fell to her sides. The strands of Wynter's pubic hair drifted to the floor. "T...--Tommy? Oh, Jesus."
"Tommy. Doctor Rosenbaum. He was--what? Sixteen? Fifteen the first time? The father and the son for over two years?"
"Tommy told you? And.... Oh, Jesus. And Tom told you about us?"
"You look like you'd better sit down," he said and waited for her to do so after she put the small vibrator on the night stand. "No, Tom didn't tell me the details of his divorce other than he'd been caught with another woman. Tommy finally told me who when he recommended you for my home nurse. He said that his father couldn't have been in better hands, but that I should watch out because you had dependency issues. He said that it cost you your own marriage as well, and that you'd tried to convince Tom to marry you. He said you left Pittsburgh as the price to keep Tom from filing a professional complaint and charges against you.
"Tommy knew about my injury and said that if I ever needed you to relieve the pressure, that you wouldn't be satisfied with providing just a handjob, and that things would slowly spiral out of control. He apparently did a couple of papers on you while earning his psychology degree. He also said you were the 'greatest piece of ass' he'd ever had, although that was a personal opinion rather than a professional one."
Ellen Carter's pasty-white face slowly reddened, this time with embarrassment.
"I never planned to tell you I knew, but, Ellen, two things I can't stand are hypocrites and somebody threatening my family, and a threat to my marriage is a threat to my family. Naturally I haven't told anyone else. In a small town, a secret like that won't stay secret for a year, and it would be a lot harder for you to hide the facts if you were forced to leave here than it was when you were forced to leave Pittsburgh."
She twisted her hands together in her lap. "So, if I promise to keep my mouth shut and just leave quietly, you won't tell anyone about my past? You'll trade your silence for mine?"
"No."
She stiffened, and Richard was struck by the similarity between her face and Wynter's during one of his daughter's panic attacks.
"I don't want you to leave. You've overcome your past, and you've established a good practice here, both as a private nurse and at the hospital. People admire you, respect you, and depend on you.
And I hear that Dusty Hughes has taken a fancy to you. I have only a few conditions besides the trading of silence. Are you interested?"
She sighed as if the weight of the world had been lowered onto her shoulders. "Do I have a choice?"
"You always have choices, Ellen. However, you have only one good one."
"Wynter?"
Dragon was standing and facing the door when Ellen entered the room. She had stopped just inside the door, waiting to see what the dog would do. He wasn't snarling or growling, but his muscles were tensed and his eyes were fixed on hers. It was a challenge, and she responded by lowering her eyes from his.
"Wynter?" she asked again. "Don't cry. I--I came to apologize."
Wynter sniffed and lifted her face from the couch cushion long enough to sob, "You aren't the one who was bad."
"Yes, I was. Wynter, you made a mistake, but so did I, a long time ago. I am still mad at myself about that, and I took it out on you. That was another mistake I made. Richard reminded me that we can overcome our mistakes and continue to be good people. Wynter, I said some mean things to you and your father, things that I, of all people, had no right to say. I am truly sorry that I said them, and I hope that you can forgive me. If you can't, then I understand, and I won't blame you. But I do hope that some day you will be able to, and that we can be friends again."
Her head came up again. "I..." [sniff] "I can forgive you. I'm not..." [sniff]"...a hypocrite."
Tears suddenly streamed down both of Ellen's cheeks. "Thank God for that. One of us is already too many."
Wynter suddenly bolted upright, startling Dragon. "Daddy! He's all by himself," she said, brushing away tears and wiping her running nose.
"He'll be okay for a little while," Ellen said. "Can we sit together and talk?"
"But Daddy might need us."
"Right now he needs us to be friends again more than he needs anything else." She began easing toward the couch, avoiding any sudden movements and watching for any sign of displeasure from Dragon. "He explained a couple of your questions to me and said he'd like me to help answer them for you, if you don't mind."
Dragon watched for any threatening sign as the tall human female sat beside his short one. They held each other and made sad noises. He didn't understand why they did this, but he did sense that no threat to his human remained. Dragon watched and listened, trying to comprehend, unaware that the expression on his face was very similar to that shown by his human male when he, too, was trying to comprehend females.
Richard shook his head. "You two are a mess."
Ellen and Wynter looked at each other's red eyes and tear-stained clothing. "I guess we are," Ellen admitted. A lot of tears and mucus had flowed for almost two hours. "Would you like for us to call in the other nurse?"
"What other nurse?"
She looked down as Dragon brushed past her legs. "Here he is."
Richard laughed. "I don't think he can hold the urinal steady."
Mother Hen worry appeared on Wynter's face and she sprang into action, retrieving the container from its storage place under the foot of the bed. Then she hesitated and offered it to Ellen, who shook her head.
"You can handle it," she said. Richard laughed again, and she realized what she had just said. She rolled her eyes. "Jesus. I mean, it's your job. You do it for him." This time both Richard and Wynter laughed. "Oh, to hell with it! I'm going to clean up." She turned and headed down the hall to her room.
Wynter looked at him with twin blue-green pools in a sea of red beneath a brow furrowed in concern. "Do I have time to raise the bed the rest of the way?"
"No," he said, shaking his head, "but I do have time for a quick kiss." He hummed contentedly as she gave him a kiss on the end of his nose and a quick daughter-like kiss on the lips. "That's better," he sighed as she pulled down the sheet and raised his hospital gown. "So do you and Ellen have things worked out now?"
"I guess," she said as she began working the flat pillow under his buttocks. "She said she was sorry and, Daddy, I think she really meant it."
"She did, honey. She was surprised and reacted before she had time to sit down and think. I gave her time to do that."
Wynter paused to glance at his face before resuming her task. "I think you did more than just let her sit and think."
Richard grinned. She was burning with curiosity. Obviously Ellen hadn't told her everything, but she wasn't about to pry. She was giving him the opportunity to volunteer information. It was one of the devices her mother used. "Well, sometimes people need a gentle nudge in the right direction when they aren't sure what they should think about. And speaking of gentle, that was the first time my leg didn't hurt when you put the pillow under me."
She broke into a wide, happy grin that warmed his heart. "Maybe you're finally healing."
"Or maybe you're getting to be an even better nurse."
The smile faded, and she ducked her head before threading the head of his dick into the urinal. He saw a faint tinge of red spread across her face, one that he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been watching for it. She had regressed back into the little girl who didn't know how to handle a compliment. So much progress these past two days and now a setback. He'd spent enough time in hospitals and home sick beds to know that setbacks were temporary. Still, it almost broke his heart to see his daughter slipping back into the little girl who, just one day earlier, he had wanted her to remain. Ellen's next task would be to explain to Wynter how a lady accepts a compliment from a gentleman. He wasn't going to wait until Angie returned to begin teaching Wynter how to interact with other people, one of many things she'd know by now if he and Angie hadn't insisted on this isolated lifestyle without giving thought to their daughter's needs.
"Finished?"
Her question brought him back to the real world. "What, honey?"
"I asked if you were finished. You stopped almost a minute ago."
A minute? Yes, the pressure in his bladder was gone. "I'm sorry, honey. Yes, I'm done. I guess my mind went on a trip and left my body behind."
She stripped the remaining piss from the Beast in two pulls that would have it hardening if it weren't exhausted from the number of times she'd brought him to orgasm the past two days. "Did it go visit a nice place?"
"I'm, not sure where it went." He glanced at the snow melting in the spring sunshine outside the window. "Maybe it went looking for some spring flowers because it was tired of all the snow."
She gave him an odd look and frowned for an instant. "What kind of flowers?
"Probably columbines," he said, watching her grin spread when he mentioned her favorite blossom. "Maybe some other flowers, too, like in that glade down by the pond."
"Maybe you'll see some soon," she said. "I'll go empty this and be right back for the pillow."
"Would Nurse King do her patient a favor when she returns?"
"Sure. What?"
Richard wiggled his newly-freed fingers. "Could you bring back a washcloth and some soap? My fingers feel like they've been in a mine sump for a month."
"Sure!"
Richard smiled as she hurried as fast as she dared into the bathroom. Nothing like a little occupational therapy, especially when it benefitted the patient as well as the nurse. He wanted--needed--to talk to her about their relationship and the guilt he knew she had placed on herself, but she wasn't emotionally ready.
Plenty of time for that after she had slept on it. One thing he had learned after hours, days, weeks at a time in hospital beds was patience, even if he didn't like it.
Richard pressed the channel selector again and found himself back where he'd started. "Damn," he muttered, then selected a news program for background noise.
Wynter had placed the remote control on top of three large, thick books and adjusted the suspension of his right cast until he could reach the channel, volume, and on/off switches. She then cornered Ellen in the hall, spoke with her in whispers for a moment, and then disappeared into her room to clean up. She hadn't emerged or even opened the door after the shower stopped. Now Ellen was in the kitchen preparing supper.
For the first time, Richard felt lonely in his room. He didn't realize how much he'd grown accustomed to Wynter's constant presence.
He didn't mind solitude. He occasionally welcomed it. The unceasing presence of someone else, even his wife, occasionally wore on his nerves, but that wasn't the case with Wynter. Her invariable worrying every time he hiccuped or sneezed might become a minor irritation, but not her presence. Even a visit from Dragon would be welcome, but the black Lab would never leave the room with Wynter in it unless he had to. Richard sighed and tried to become interested in the latest Middle East flare-up.
"Richard, do you need anything before we eat?"
He hadn't heard Ellen's approach. Maybe he'd dozed off. "No, I'm fine."
She nodded and knocked on Wynter's door. There was a pause before Wynter invited her in. Richard wondered if his daughter had been practicing "solitary sexual techniques," or some similar adult-sounding term. He found himself wishing he could have been there to watch.
"I'm almost finished," Wynter said. Ellen's body blocked his view of her desk, but he suspected there was nothing to see on it.
"Ten more minutes?"
"Okay." When Ellen turned to leave, Wynter smiled at him from her doorway. "I love you, Daddy."
That cheered him up. "I love you too, honey."
Her door closed. Five minutes later it opened. She flashed him a bright smile, all coral lips and teeth as sparkling white as her pullover blouse, low-rise socks and tennis shoes. She blew him a kiss before disappearing toward the main part of the house with her four-legged shadow in tow. When she reappeared she was carrying one of his metal rulers, a razor knife, and something else in the pocket of her pink jersey shorts. She blew him another kiss before closing the door.
Most un-Wynter-like. She was obviously up to something, but what? He amused himself by trying to guess.
Wynter was smoothing down the last piece of tape when Nurse Carter knocked on the door again. "Wynter, it's time to eat."
"I just finished. I'll be right there."
She heard Nurse Carter say something to her father, but didn't hear his reply. She stood back and looked at her work. "I dunno, Dragon. What do you think?" she asked picking it up and showing it to him. He sniffed it and looked up with his head cocked to one side and his ears alert. She called it his "curious pose".
"I supposed it will have to do," she said, holding her blonde ponytail with her left hand at shoulder level and pinching her lower lip with her right, "but I wish I could have done better for Daddy. Maybe if I wrap it, he might like it better. What do you think?" He perked his ears, and she assumed that meant, "Yes."
Nurse Carter was placing the tray on the rollaway table when Wynter opened the door. "If you and Wynter don't mind, I'd like to bring mine in here and eat with you tonight."
Both Wynter and her father said they'd love to have her join them. Nurse Carter was about to return to the kitchen when she saw the flat, wrapped packet in Wynter's hand. "Do I get to stay for the unveiling, or would you rather be alone with your father?" she asked with a smile.
"You can stay. If it's okay with Daddy, I mean." When her father agreed, Wynter handed the flat package, wrapped in silvery foil paper and sporting a big yellow bow, to Nurse Carter. "You can unwrap it for him," she said.
Nurse Carter held the present where he could see the bow and the wrapping paper. Wynter always kept a roll or two of wrapping paper and some bows in her room for presents that she gave to her parents and sometimes to special visitors like Doctor Taylor. She had placed her father's present face-down against a piece of cardboard to protect it. Nurse Carter held the present so that her father could see it first and slid the cardboard away at his nod.
She watched her father for his reaction, her fingers crossed and a worried frown on her face. He stared at it for a moment and tears began collecting in his eyes. "Oh, my god," he whispered so softly she almost didn't hear it, and then he shook his head.
Drat! She just knew it wasn't good enough and that he wouldn't like it, and she was right! She should have taken more time with it, but she wanted to give it to him right away. And now, instead of making him happy, she had made him sad. She had been a child again.
Richard understood the gesture. Allowing Ellen Carter to unwrap his present for him was Wynter's way of saying that all was right between the two of them. He admired the way the present was wrapped. His very best efforts rarely equaled Little Miss Perfection's worst efforts, which were usually when she was wrapping something for Aunt Diane, who was Angie's older sister, or Diana's husband, Uncle Bob.
Ellen held the piece of cardboard before him and asked, "Ready?"
"Go," he said, and she slid the cardboard away.
Wynter had used woodgrain-patterned posterboard to make a frame around an eight-by-ten, intricately detailed, colored-pencil drawing of the pond, looking down from the northside hill. The field of wildflowers lay to the west, but in the foreground she'd added a patch of columbines. The scene was breathtaking. Angie had accidentally seen a sketch of Dragon in front of a waterfall in a notebook that Wynter had left open, and she had told Richard that Wynter had shown talent, but he had no idea that his daughter was this talented. He felt tears puddle on his lower eyelids.
"Oh, my god," he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief and continuing to study the detail. He tried to look at Ellen but couldn't. "Ellen, this is incredible."
Ellen Carter turned the picture slightly and leaned sideways to look. "Jesus!" she whispered in a voice as awe-struck as his own must have sounded.
"Honey, how long have you been working on this?"
"I started after I got out of the shower. I'm sorry it's not any better."
The tremble in her voice caused him to drag his eyes away from the drawing for the first time. "Sorry for what? You did all of this, in this much detail, in just a couple of hours?"
She sniffed. "I can do it over. I'll take my time 'n' do it better for you. I was in a big hurry to give you some flowers to look at, 'n' didn't have time to do a really good drawing."
"Didn't...." He glanced up at the nurse, who hadn't moved. "Give us some room, please?"
Ellen straightened and moved aside without shifting her eyes. "Jesus!" she whispered again.
"Kiss?"
Head down, Wynter moved beside him and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
"Honey, if you tell me you can do a better version of that drawing, then I believe you, but I really, honestly, truly don't see how you could improve it."
She sniffed again and kept her eyes down. "I could put more detail in the background trees 'n' the mountains 'n stuff, 'n' the water in the pond's not quite right." Before he could interrupt her she added, "'n' I could put Mother in the picture for you."
"Jesus!"
Richard gaped at his daughter. "You can draw people, too?"
"Uh huh," she said in a small voice. "They take longer to make them look right, though. They're harder than Dragon."
"Jesus!"
"Ellen, you sound like a revival meeting."
Ellen Carter looked at him for a second and then focused on Wynter. "Did you overlap the frame pieces before you cut the miters for the corners?"
Wynter turned to face Ellen, her thin blonde brows pulling together. "You can do that?"
Ellen shook her head. "Yeah, I thought so. Here. Look at these," she said, turning the picture toward Richard and pointing at the corners. "Freehand! Wynter, I know only two surgeons who can make cuts that precise. You make the rest of them look like amateur butchers."
Wynter flushed a bright red, lowered her head, and stared at the floor.
Ellen glanced at Richard, who mouthed, "We need to talk about that," and indicated Wynter with his head. She nodded.
"Let's put it where I can see it. We'll figure out where while we eat. And thank you very much for my flowers and for loving me enough to draw them for me."
Her head came up and she gave him an almost pleading look. "You really like them?"
"Honey, they are the fourth most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Honest." He frowned, twisted and looked down at Dragon, looked at the picture, and looked back to his daughter. "Maybe third."
She exhaled pent-up breath, then giggled and threw her arms around his neck, strangling him with a huge hug. Then she pulled back enough to give him a big kiss. He felt the tip of her sweet tongue on his lips and gently, briefly, caressed it with his own. When she pulled back her face glowed with delight. "Oh, Daddy, I was SO afraid you wouldn't like it because of the mistakes."
Richard heard Ellen stifle a laugh, but ignored her. "Honey, maybe YOU can see mistakes in it, but I can't. I can't draw good enough. How long have you been able to draw like that?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. Four or five years, I guess."
"And in all this time you never let Mother or me know?"
She shrugged again and looked down at her left hand resting, from habit, on his arm cast. She slid her hand down to grasp the two exposed fingers. "I didn't want to show you until I was good enough," she said in a low voice. "You wanted to see some flowers to make you feel better, so I thought maybe I could help, but I wasn't sure they'd be good enough for you. But, it was what you said you wanted, so I took a chance."
"Jesus," Ellen murmured again as she examined another area of the drawing.
Richard threw her a quick glance. "Amen."
Ellen Carter sat in one of the padded chairs reading a book. Richard half-watched a science program and half-watched Wynter. She had scooted down in the overstuffed chair adjacent to the door. Her feet rested on the front edge of the seat cushion, and her left hand pinned a drawing pad to the easel formed by her long, slender legs. Her face was screwed into a mask of concentration that occasionally flickered an eyebrow or mouth corner or eyelid as her hand guided a number two pencil across the paper. Sprawled across the floor at her feet, Dragon began twitching his paws as he chased a rabbit or perhaps a squirrel. Or perhaps he raced across the fields with his little blonde human. The flower drawing was on the wall over her head, on the wall opposite the window so that he didn't have to see the snow while he was looking at the springtime meadow.
Ellen lowered the book and looked at her watch. "It's bedtime, young nurse."
"Three and a half more minutes," Wynter mumbled. Ellen raised her eyebrows at Richard and looked at her watch again.
Three minutes and twenty seconds later Wynter lowered the pencil, relaxed, and sighed. "It's probably not very good 'cause I did it from memory."
She couldn't get out of the chair without awakening Dragon, which was the reason the dog had chosen that spot. She poked his ribs with a toe and he jumped to his feet. While he shook everything back into place, Wynter rose and showed Richard the drawing of her mother.
Richard blinked in surprise. "Honey, that's incredible. Show Ellen."
"Jesus! You know, Wynter, if you can't make any money as a nurse, you could always moonlight as a police sketch artist or a bank note forger. She looks like she should speak to me."
"Well," Wynter said, pointing to a spot, "right here I...."
Ellen gently pushed the girl's slender arm down. "Wynter, maybe YOU see mistakes, but you don't have to point them out to everyone. Let other people enjoy what you've done. I look at that, and I feel as if your mom is right here in the room with me. It helps me forget that she's half of two continents and a whole ocean away, and I'm sure it helps your father forget that, too."
"Yes, it does," he agreed, switching off the television.
"But when you point out your mistakes, it keeps people from enjoying the feelings you inspired. You put a LOT of effort into creating something people can enjoy. Let us do so, please? And when you point out mistakes that only a museum art critic might notice, you make those of us with no talent, and whose mistakes would probably include putting both eyes on the same side of her nose, even more jealous of your talent."
Ellen smiled to take the sting out of her words. "Perfection as a goal is admirable, but it's a goal you can't achieve. Not consistently, anyway. And certainly not in the medical field, where you will have far too many problems, far too few resources, and far too little time. And even with something like this," she indicated the drawing with a sweep of her hand, "you do the best you can in the time allocated. Don't be concerned with the fact that it wasn't perfect; be concerned that it's better than what you did before within the same amount of time. Understand?"
Wynter was looking at her bare feet. "I guess so," she mumbled.
"You'll find that out when you become a mother, and you'll realize you've...." Her mouth worked without sound for a moment, and then she sighed. "Well, it's not so much that you did your parents an injustice as it is that you didn't do them a favor."
Mother Hen worry settled on her face as her eyes rose to meet the older nurse's. "I don't understand."
"Well, your job as a parent is to raise your child to be an adult. The measures of progress are the development of your child's new skills, her first time to roll over, her first time to sit up, her first steps for instance, and how her skills improve--first time to take two steps without falling, then three steps, then four and so on. But when you go from having a child who, as far as you know, has no drawing talent to having one who is Leonardette da Vinci in one afternoon, you realize you've missed out on watching her improve and in sharing the joy of her successes with her." She shrugged. "I guess you could say it's rather selfish."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Richard wince. She understood as much as he did the impact that would have on Wynter, but it needed to be explained to her in those terms, and neither of her parents could, or would, do so. As an "outsider," she could phrase the situation in the necessary terms. His silent nod of thanks assured her that he understood.
"Now: recuperating patients, growing girls, and old women need their rest." She looked at Dragon. "And he looks like eighteen hours of sleep weren't enough." She hugged Wynter, stood, and said, "I'll be in my room if you need me, but I won't be the least bit surprised if you don't, Nurse King. You give him his bedtime medications. Good night, Richard."
She pulled the door shut on her way out.
Richard heard Ellen moving about. He glanced at the clock. She was an early riser and must have been up for at least an hour. She was also overdue with his morning pills by about fifteen minutes.
She wouldn't wait much longer. He suspected that was the reason he had heard her.
He nuzzled his chin across the top of the blonde head lying on his chest. After the anticipated and drawn-out apologies for being selfish and not sharing her talent with him, she had asked if she could sleep in his room. It was his little girl who had asked, and there was no "sexual activity" as she would call it. She had offered to bring in her sleeping bag, but he knew she needed the physical contact. They had both needed it, and he again became her mattress.
He rubbed her head with his chin again. "Morning, honey."
She seemed to take a moment to realize where she was, then lifted her head and gave him a heartwarming, if still sleepy, smile.
"It's your fault," she said.
"What's my fault?"
She yawned. "I was having nice dreams because I felt safe and loved. It's your fault."
"Good. How about a kiss?"
She frowned. "I have dragon breath."
"Then I'll keep my eyes open so I'll know it's you and not him."
She gave him her ritual kisses, one on the end of his nose and another on his lips. "Good thing I kept my eyes open, too," she said with a grin.
Dragon shook himself awake, stood by the door, and whimpered. Wynter gasped. "I forgot to let him out before bedtime!" She pushed herself up and carefully crawled off the bed. For a moment Richard had a flash down her neckline of two tiny pink cones atop soft white swells, and he felt the Beast twitch.
"Go let him out first. He needs to go worse than I do. I'll still be here when you return, I promise."
She made a face at him. "Smarty pants!"
He laughed and watched her follow Dragon out the door.
"Morning, Nurse Carter," echoed down the hallway.
"Good morning, Nurse King. Has the patient had his morning meds yet?"
"Not yet. I gotta let Dragon out now."
Ellen was chuckling when she turned the corner into his room. They exchanged greetings, and Ellen counted out his pills. Her voice turned somber. "I caused her to regress, didn't I?"
Richard shrugged. "Maybe. But maybe having to be an adult pushed her too far forward too fast and she's just returning to normal."
"You sound disappointed."
"I guess. But not because of the sex. It's because I was finally coming to terms with the fact that my little girl won't be that same little girl forever. Pain pill instead of the ibuprofen. I was her bed last night and there's some increased pain in my arms."
Ellen gave him a curious smile. "Medically I should warn you that that's not a good idea, but you've already discovered that for yourself. And I doubt it would do any good."
"None whatsoever." He watched her write the medications in his records. "Do you regret not having children?"
The question surprised her. Richard rarely asked personal questions. She hesitated before finishing her notes. She put the records down before answering. "I have many children. They just have other parents is all."
He nodded. "I didn't mean to pry."
She poured his water. "It's okay because I'm going to. Do you think you can keep this a secret from Angie?"
"No. I'll have to tell her, somehow."
"Will you tell her I know?"
"Not unless she specifically asks. I won't lie to her."
She started popping pills into his mouth. "But you'd cheat on her with your own daughter," she said in a quiet voice.
He stared at her for a moment and nodded at the water. Ellen held the straw for him and added, "I'm not being judgmental, Richard.
Really. I'm just trying to understand."
Richard swallowed and released the straw. "Do you understand why you screwed both Tom and Tommy?"
"No. Oh, I've rationalized it a dozen different ways, but...."
She shook her head. "No. I guess I hoped your answer would answer my own questions for me."
"We make a hell of a pair, don't we?"
"Huh! I'll get the urinal out for Wynter so you don't have to wait."
"You're going to pass on the opportunity to handle it yourself?" he asked in feigned shock.
She winked. "She's doing well enough that I think I can take a night off and handle Dusty's."
"Must be terrible having to settle for second best."
She gave him a wry grin. "Well, I wouldn't know about that. I've not had the--pleasure--to make the comparison."
They were still laughing at bad jokes and double entendres when Wynter returned.
Ellen paused at the door to give her substitute last minute instructions, but Wynter had one more question.
"What are you and Dusty gonna do tonight?"
Ellen stared at the face grinning up at her. The previous questions had come from an eleven-year-old girl. The voice tone and facial expression for this one was from a thirty-year-old. She wondered if Wynter had any idea of how she changed personalities.
"Oh, I dunno," she replied. "Probably the same thing you and your dad are going to do. If that's any of your business. I was teasing," she added when she saw the stricken look. "Wynter, wait to see if you really have offended someone before you start feeling guilty. Boys aren't the only ones who play rough. If you're going to survive medical school or nursing school, you have to learn to play rough, too. Give them a reason to respect you, and they will. Or give them a reason to and they'll run roughshod over you.
Wynter frowned. "Why? That doesn't sound very nice."
"We'll talk about that when I get back tomorrow. For now, let's just say that people respect you if you can stand up for yourself. If you show signs of weakness, then they think you might not be deserving of respect. Medicine is a tough field. You have to be tough to survive. Maybe they are just weeding out those who can't make it before they can become a burden to others. Now: don't forget what I said...."
As she tramped through the melting snow to where she'd left her car, Ellen couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Wynter.
Wynter looked down at her sleeping father. He looked so very uncomfortable suspended that way, but some of his fingers were now free. It wasn't much of an improvement, but any was a welcome one. She held her blonde ponytail to her shoulder and bent to gently kiss his forehead. Then she shooed Dragon ahead of her and retrieved a notebook and pencil from her room. While she positioned herself in the overstuffed chair by the door, Dragon again established a blocking position at her feet and dozed off.
When she decided the drawing was to her satisfaction, she stuck the pencil behind her right ear, snagging it in her drawn-back hair to keep it in place. She guessed it was okay, though if she had another couple of days, it could be a whole lot better. She used the back of her right hand to cover a yawn while she again checked the drawing. She lowered the notebook...
...and looked into her father's sparkling green eyes. "Daddy! How long have you been awake?" Mother Hen almost stood up on Dragon.
He jumped and shuffled aside to shake, giving her room to rush the two steps to her father's side.
"Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes." He had the most amazing look on his face, sort of like when he saw her flowers picture. "I was just watching you and thinking about how much I love you and how lucky I am to have such a special daughter."
Her eyes dropped to his cast and she blushed. She was furious with herself because she didn't know why she'd done that. Doctor Taylor and Nurse Carter had told her about looking people in the eye,
but here she was acting like a child again.
Her father knew. She had regressed that much. Some of his little girl he was almost happy to have back, but he would give that part up if she'd just learn how to handle a compliment and remember it.
Then Mother Hen returned. "Do you need anything?"
"I certainly do. I need a kiss."
She gave him the best nose-and-lips kiss she could manage so that he would know she loved him with all her heart.
He smiled at her and made that heart feel too big for her chest again. But then he said, "Dragon breath's that bad, huh?"
For a moment she wondered, and then realized. "Oh. I didn't know if you'd want me to, you know...." She couldn't stop her voice from trailing off. She pushed the words to the tip of her tongue, but they would go no further.
He settled back into his pillow. "Honey, I don't want you to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. You know that."
She tried to think of the words for what she wanted to say. She was having trouble with them, and she grew angry with herself for acting childish. Her father gave her a look almost of sympathy and asked, "Can I see the picture, or is it private because it's in one of your notebooks?"
She breathed a sigh of relief. "It's private for us," she said, opening the notebook to the place marked by her finger. She almost said, "It's not very good because I didn't have much time," but she remembered what Nurse Carter had said. Instead, she turned the book so he could see the page.
They were sitting on the big flat rock by the creek. Both were dangling their feet in the water. They were holding playing cards. Dragon was curled beside her and sniffing at a butterfly floating just above his head. Dragon was wearing his collar, which was more than the humans were wearing. She had captured every one of her father's scars. She had debated about whether to include them, but they were who he was, and she didn't want him to think she was ashamed of them.
"That's incredible," he said. The awe in his voice made her heart swell up in her chest again. "It looks like we were playing strip poker."
"Uh huh."
"And we both lost."
She lowered the notebook to frown at him. "No! We both won!"
He smiled suddenly. "I like that. We both won. Can I see it some more, please?"
He looked at it for several seconds and made happy sounds while she waited for him to notice. "Wait a minute. If we were playing strip poker, where are our clothes?"
She grinned and pointed. "Right there. You were wearing that lei of wild flowers, and I was wearing this one of columbines."
His smile grew wider, and he winked at her. "We were walking around naked?"
"Nooo," she said, trying to sound like Nurse Carter patiently explaining things to someone slow. "You were wearing that lei of flowers, and I was wearing this one."
He made big round eyes and nodded slowly. "Oh! I see. I thought you were drawing naked pictures of your father."
She couldn't stop the blush, and she knew that he guessed the truth from that.
"Oh," he said, looking embarrassed. "I didn't mean to pry. Your mother and I both agree that whatever you put in your notebooks is personal, like a diary, and none of our business. It's not our place to ask. I'll forget that I said anything."
She hesitated, wondering what she should do, and then said, "It's okay. I can show you some of them."
"Wynter," he said, giving her his most serious look that told her what he was saying was something he really and truly meant, "I would love to see any of your pictures that you have drawn, but you don't have to show any of them to me if you don't want to. Okay, honey? I don't want you to think you have to do that just to make me happy or to keep me from getting mad. That would be blackmail, and I love you too much to blackmail you."
"I know," she said, and she really and truly did know.
"Good. But before I look at them, may I have the urinal first?"
She sighed deeply and put her notebook on the nightstand. "I guess you'd better. I'd be awfully upset if you exploded and got the pages all wet."
Richard shook his head in wonder. "When did you have time to draw these?"
"Mostly while you were asleep. You aren't mad at me, are you?"
Amazing, he thought. One sentence she sounds like a thirty-year-old woman, the next she sounds like a six-year-old kid caught raiding the cookie jar.
"Of course I'm not mad at you, honey. I told you that what you put in your notebooks was your personal business and wasn't my concern. I can't then complain about what you put in there." He looked at the current page and added, "Though you might not want your mother to see these. Not until I've explained to her."
She nodded. "I know," she said in a soft voice.
He shook his head slowly. The picture of a naked Wynter straddling his hips, her head thrown back in orgasm while he himself was cumming--obviously inside her--was enough to stir the Beast, and he felt it move under the sheet and his hospital gown.
"Is that really what I look like when I cum?" he asked.
She nodded but said nothing, eyes wide like a deer's caught in headlights.
"I'm surprised you and your mother let me anywhere near you! But your face is exactly how you look. How did you know how to draw yourself?
She gave him the look of patience that women had been using on men for the past few hundred thousand years. "Daddy! There are mirrors in all the bathrooms, my dresser, that dresser over there...."
"You masturbated while watching yourself in the mirror?"
The adult Wynter returned. "No, silly! I wouldn't have seen anything! I had to remember what it felt like and then act it out while peeking through my eyelids."
"Can I see the one before it again?" In the straddling picture he'd been in his hospital bed, arms and legs suspended. She turned back to the one of them in a field of columbines. She was on her knees and he was taking her from behind, doggie style, the way he had described it to her. "Is this a wish for when I'm better?" he asked.
Then he realized what he'd said and hastily added, "Of course, you don't have to answer that. That's prying. If you pretend I never said anything, I'll understand."
She held the notebook in her right hand and ran her left down the cast to grasp his two exposed fingers. "Thank you for not wanting to pry."
He nodded.
"It's a wish." A smile washed across her lips. "I wish you could be well and not ever be hurt again, and that we could be in a warm field with flowers and naked together, and that we could make love forever and ever and ever and never get in trouble for it." A tear escaped and trickled slowly down her left cheek. "But if we do it together again, Mother will hate both of us, won't she?"
He squeezed her hand with his fingers. "No, she won't hate us. But she'll be upset until she understands."
"I love you. With all my heart."
"I love you with all my heart, too, honey."
She leaned forward and kissed him, her soft coral lips parting and her warm, pink tongue sliding into his mouth in a lover's kiss. The Beast, sufficiently recovered from the workout she'd given it while they were isolated, roared to life and tented the sheet.
A pillow propped up Richard's head so he could see on the flat bed. Wynter was impaled on the Beast, thrusting herself toward her third release. Her first was a new treat for them. She'd allowed him to eat her pussy to the point of orgasm and then had moved so that he could finish her with his fingers of his right hand. It hadn't been a fully satisfying cum because Mother Hen had been worried about hurting him, so she immediately returned to his face, locked her hands behind his head, and humped that hot, wet, aching little slit on his tongue and lips until she came violently.
She laughed and giggled as she came down from the second orgasmic high, her forehead resting on the wall above the headboard and that sweet, lightly-haired set of lower lips hovering above his face where he could watch her spasms trail off to nothing. After resting for a minute she slowly moved down until her slit was over the Beast. She brushed it lightly with her soft, short, blonde curls and then slid her sopping slick slit along it. Richard fought cumming outside of her.
She leaned forward. Twin blue-green pools of intertwined love and lust looked deep into his eyes. Her lips crushed his, and her tongue tasted her own juices on them as it sought his, invited it into her mouth, and playfully tried to keep it out when it accepted her invitation. Her head snapped back as if it were mounted on a catapult, and her face momentarily contorted as she moaned. Her eyes returned to his, and she grinned wickedly. "I'm gonna make you cum as big as you made me do it," she announced, and again glued her lips to his.
Entry was a little easier this time, though whether it was from the stretching from her first intercourse or the effect of the juices flooding her tunnel was anybody's guess. She was still very tight around the Beast and it required all his effort to avoid spewing while sliding into her. She began slowly, then increased her pace slightly. Once she'd mentally established the rhythm and the length of her strokes she began slipping the head of his cock almost out of her tight little love tube, hesitating, and then sliding down around it, allowing him to force her pussy open. She began inhaling on the up stroke, holding her breath on the down stroke, and releasing it in a soft explosive sigh at the bottom. It was the most erotic thing Richard had ever heard.
Her blue-green eyes unfocussed for a few moments. She returned to focus and looked deep into his green ones. She paused to squeeze the Beast within her tight young twat while at the bottom of a stroke, then resumed pistoning. "Does that feel good?"
"Incredible! Where did you learn that?"
"Girls have their secrets."
He blinked in surprise. "Ellen told you?"
"Would you be mad if she did?" A hint of worry had crept into the playful tone.
"Mad? I'm going to give her a pay raise!"
Wynter giggled and did it again.
"Honey, I can't hold it back," he gasped and then released his load in a wave of indescribable pleasure as she tried to maintain a pound-and-squeeze rhythm on his bucking hips. When he finally relaxed and opened his eyes, she started giggling. "What?"
"I think I'm ready to ride the bucking broncos at Frontier Days now!"
He tried to force the concern he felt through his dreamy facial expression, but it wouldn't appear. "Did I hurt you?"
"Unh uh," she said shaking her head. "I was worried about you, though."
"Are my arms and legs still attached?"
She looked. "Yep."
"Then I guess I'm okay, too."
She squeezed his limp dick with her pussy, and it shot out of her, allowing a little more slimy jism to dribble into the lake of it she was sitting in.
"Drat!" she said with a pout. "I wanted to keep you in me."
"Well, that happens. Tell you what," he said with a conspiratorial grin. "I'll let you put me back in you later, after I get a little rest. Okay?"
She used her fingertip to cross his heart for him, then dipped it between her legs and brought it between the small, round, pink-capped orbs rising from her own slender chest. "I promise to let you," she said, tracing an "x" with their mixed juices, "any time you want to, now and forever."
Wynter knocked gently on the door frame. "May I come in?"
Her father's eyes jumped from the television screen to her face. He smiled his biggest, warmest smile, the one that always made her heart feel like it would explode from her chest like that yucky creature in "Alien," except it wanted to explode in joy, not pain. He put down the handgrip exercisers, reached for the remote control, and turned off the television. "My nurse is always welcome in here." He brought the head of the bed from forty-five degrees to full upright and held his arms open to her. "You don't have to ask."
"I don't think you and Mother would have liked me walking in without asking last night," she said with a giggle as she snuggled her face against his neck. She pulled back and gave him her biggest smirk. "Would you?"
For a second he looked almost embarrassed. "We thought you were asleep."
"Unh uh," she grunted as his hands kneaded her back through her knit top. "I was doing what Mother was doing, except I had to imagine you and use my fingers." She sighed deeply and looked very put upon.
"It's not as good."
She saw the reaction in his eyes as he realized he wasn't feeling a training bra strap. She giggled. "Mother went for a walk.
I thought," she said, straightening and reaching for the hem of her top, "that you might like to exercise your hands with these." She lifted the bottom of her blouse above her small titties and twisted slightly to let him have a good view of the pink cones on them.
The delighted grin on his face made her feel wonderful all the way down to her toes and back up again. He took the soft, pale orbs in his hands and gently squeezed. "I can't squeeze these as hard as I can the exercisers," he said in mock complaint.
"No, but these will be gentler to your hands. Doctor King prescribes you use them for a while."
He raised an eyebrow. "Doctor King?"
"Uh huh. I think I want to go to medical school." She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly as he massaged her small breasts. She giggled when he tweaked her nipples to open her eyes and gave her a stern look.
"So that's why you and Kevin disappear together every time he shows up. He's been giving you a sales pitch! And here I thought you were just sneaking off to have sex together."
She giggled again, then leaned forward to give him a nose-and-lips kiss. She backed away for a second and then, as the horny feeling between her legs grew unbearable, she glued his mouth to his and invited his tongue in to play. She moaned in anticipation as his big hand slid down to cup her butt and squeeze it, then continued down to the leg of her pink knit shorts. His fingertips slid under the shorts, and two wiggled their way under the leg opening of her panties. The flats of the nails of those fingers slid around the front of her leg to the short cornsilk curls and then moved downward. His fingers shifted position and the fingertips came to rest on the fat little pads on either side of her split.
She shifted her feet further apart to give him better access. Her split made a wet sound as his fingers pulled it open. Then his ring finger entered her panties and held her split apart so that his middle finger could stroke first through the puddle of liquid at the entrance to her vagina and then across the hard little stick of her clitty. She moaned and sighed around his invading tongue.
He withdrew his tongue and pulled his head back to focus on her face. "I get the feeling your fingers weren't enough last night."
"Unh uh." She could hear in her voice the desperation she felt in her pussy. "It's been two weeks, and I got really horny during my period last week. It hasn't gotten any better since. Please, Daddy, I know we can't make love, but can you get me off with your fingers? Please?"
She knew she was begging like a child, but she was so horny, so desperate for relief, that she couldn't help it. She had cum four times the night before, and it had barely helped.
His fingertip began vibrating her clitty. Relief mixed with need shot through her from that spot. His fingertip dipped slightly into her desperate cunt, gathering more pussy juice and causing a new sensation as he stretched her open slightly. His finger returned to attack the ache in her clitty. The clockspring in her pussy began tightening. As if it were attached to strings reaching to her face, the tightening spring pulled her face into a scowl and then a pucker as it kept winding tighter and tighter andtighterandtighterand....
She tried really hard not to make any noise when she came, just the way she had done the night before, but the feeling was too good, especially when he stopped rubbing her clitty directly and slid his finger inside her throbbing pussy at the height of her climax. The fingers on the fat little pads on either side of her split continued to squeeze-stroke her. A strangled groan escaped from her throat, and she thought it might have been loud, but she wasn't sure. Her ears stopped working while the spasms shook her body.
As she came down she gasped, "Daddy, I love you!" She gasped twice more before she could add, "With all my heart."
His heart-felt smile made his face glow. "I love you with all my heart, too, honey." His fingertip traced the "X" over his heart.
She gasped as her breathing slowed, never taking her eyes off his face, searching it and finding only love for her written all over it. It made her whole slender body tingle more than the orgasm did.
"Want me to do you?" she asked with a mischievous grin.
"We don't have time," he said, and he looked really and truly disappointed when he said it. But he left his finger inside her.
"Daddy, haven't you told Mother yet?"
He shook his head. "I've dropped plenty of hints. One of the best ways to handle your mother is to give her information she needs to work out answers for herself. If her mind has subconsciously prepared itself for what you're going to tell her, then it's easier to break news to her."
"And you think that will work this time?" she asked, squeezing his finger with her cunny muscles.
"Well, I certainly hope ...."
The slamming door rocked the house.
Her father removed his fingers from her pussy and her panties and sucked them clean.
Wynter jerked down the hem of her blouse and smoothed her clothing into place, then dropped into the overstuffed chair by the door as footsteps stomped through the house and down the hall. A scared feeling made a cold knot in the pit of her stomach, and she looked to her father for courage.
He looked from the door to her and mouthed, more than he said in a soft voice, "I don't think that's Ellen back for a visit."
Five feet, five inches of red-faced fury stopped in the doorway. Angie's shoulder-length, light-brown hair was tied back with a blue bandana. A white-knuckled left fist gripped her walking stick. Her .38-Special wavered in her right as she gasped for air. Her face was wet with sweat. She'd obviously been running. She glanced down at Wynter and then snarled at Richard. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
Richard gave Wynter his warmest, most reassuring smile. "Wynter, would you excuse us, please? Your mother wants to talk."
Angie's furious gaze swept down to Wynter and caused her to cringe back into the chair. "Wait a minute. Wynter, did he molest you?"
Tears brimmed in the twin blue-green pools. "M--m--molest me?"
"Did he," she indicated Richard with the gun barrel, "force himself on you and molest you? Fondle you? Coerce you into fondling him?"
"Angie, put the gun away. You're scaring her."
"ANSWER ME!"
Tears exploded as Wynter cringed and folded her legs up into the chair and along her body. She wrapped her arms around them and tried to make herself as small as possible. "Mommy, it wasn't Daddy's fault, it was all mine. He couldn't make me do anything. He was hurt and in the bed all the time," she cried through tears.
Angie turned her fury back to Richard. "You've got her taking the blame for you," she spat.
His voice stayed calm, rational, and gentle. "Put the gun in the holster, Angie. You aren't Patsy Ramsey or Lorena Bobbitt, and you aren't going to hurt either of us."
Angie focused on the revolver as if she were seeing it for the first time. She tucked it in the holster and fastened the safety strap while snarling at him.
"Angie, it's not her fault, it's ours."
"Oh! So you can't accept your responsibility without shifting some of the blame onto her?"
"Not Wynter's and mine ours. Yours and mine ours." He smiled at Wynter. "Honey, you can go now. It's okay. Mother and I just need to talk. All right?"
She looked at him, her eyes dumping tears. "Okay." She looked up at Angie as she started unfolding. "Mommy, don't hurt him, please? [sniff] I love you both. I don't want you to hurt him. [sniff] Please?"
Angie tore her eyes from her husband to look down at her daughter. Some of the fire faded. "I won't hurt him," she said. Wynter's face said she wasn't convinced.
Richard had an idea. "Honey, would you do me a favor?"
"Uh huh. [sniff] What?" She rose to her feet and turned to face him. She looked ready to bolt into his arms but was too frightened to do so.
"You know that cedar tree that you said looks like it has a big scary thing crawling out of it? Would you take a drawing pad out there and draw me a picture of the thing? Not the tree as it is, but with the scary thing crawling out?"
She sniffed, looking from him to her mother and back. "Okay." She was being run outside and she knew it, but she went along with it because he'd asked for a favor. "Colored pencils or black and white?" she asked, sniffing again and brushing tears away.
"I think black and white might look scarier. Don't you, dear?" When Angie didn't respond, he stared at her and indicated with a nod in Wynter's direction that she should say something.
"Yes. Yes, that would be better."
"'Kay. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Mommy."
"I love you, honey."
"I love you, too, sweetheart."
Angie watched Wynter retrieve a pad and pencil from her room and then trudge down the hall with her shadow in slow pursuit. She turned to glare at Richard. "What...."
He held up a finger to silence her and pointed in the general direction of Wynter with it. "Sit down, please" he said in a gentle voice. "Wait until she's outside."
The closing kitchen door was barely audible in the silence. He preempted the opening attack. "We failed her, Angie."
" We? Richard..."
"We. Both of us. Here. In this place. With this house. This location."
She shook her head. "This is the house we wanted. We both wanted to live here."
"Yes, we did. But we made that decision before we made her. We never looked to see if that decision was still the right one after she was born."
Her left fist clenched around the walking stick. She brought it horizontal across her knees and grabbed it in her right fist. "You're trying to change the subject. You'd hinted at moving before. Were you planning all along to use that to distract me when I found out?"
"Wynter's being deprived by being out here all alone with us."
"Deprived?" Angie shook her head in bewilderment. "She has trees and flowers and nature and low crime and..."
"And no interaction with other people, especially people her own age. She's being raised like a miniature grownup, not like a kid."
"So you used her like she was an adult to get off. What the..."
"Angie, do you know how much she knows about sex?"
"Obviously a Hell of a lot more than she knew when I left. Just how much did you teach her?"
"Honey, please! One argument at a time. Do you know how much she knew when you left?"
"Well, of course I do, for piss' sake. I'm the one who had the mother-daughter talk with her."
"Exactly." He leaned back and lowered upper half of the bed slightly from full upright.
His complacent grin of triumph confused her. He had obviously scored a point, but why? What was the point of the point? She had been married to him too long. She knew not to ignore that look.
He adjusted the pillow behind his head. "Ever notice how she handles a compliment?"
"She sometimes gets a little embarrassed, but what the hell does that...."
"It's all related. And it's not 'sometimes.' She always gets embarrassed unless it's a teasing compliment. Always. Or did until Ellen and Kevin explained to her how to handle...."
" What? Ellen and Kevin? For piss' sake, Richard! That's our job."
"Yes," he said in a soft voice. "That's our job. But when we don't do our job, she has to go elsewhere to learn. And how do kids normally learn things they don't learn from their parents? They learn them from other people, especially other kids. But she doesn't have other kids around to learn from most of the time."
"Richard, you're crazy! There's Kenny Taylor, Suzie Middleton..."
"Suzie! Glad you brought her up."
Angie frowned at his grin, beginning to realize that she was being steered into setups.
"Kids learn a lot about sex from other kids. They listen to conflicting information, seek a general pattern, and assume that what most of the people say is probably what's right. Only she doesn't have any kids but Suzie to listen to, and Suzie doesn't always have answers. The ones she does have are frequently wrong, or at least incomplete. Not that any more would guarantee she'd get the right information.
"She didn't know what being horny was, or why she felt that need. She didn't know that she could masturbate to relieve the feeling, and she didn't know how to masturbate once she learned it would help.
"Do you know what else she asked me? 'Why would some boy in college want to look at my pussy?' She honestly didn't know."
Angie's knuckles turned whiter as she squeezed her walking staff. Richard supposed it was a proxy for his neck. "Well, number two, I suppose you showed her why, and number one, why would she ask that question in the first place?"
"I explained the answer the second time she asked it, though I was hoping she'd save it to ask you. And you're missing the significance of her question. She doesn't know. She doesn't understand what a sexual relationship is all about."
Angie rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling. "Oh! Well!" She glared at him and added, "Isn't she lucky that you are able to show her! I thought we were protecting her."
"Exactly."
She shook her head, wondering what part he was agreeing with, and suddenly realized he'd awarded himself another point. She was still being steered. "What?"
Richard shook his head. "We thought we were protecting her, but in reality we were preparing her to be a victim of the first slick-talking sonofabitch that realizes he has a naive winner on his hands."
"That would be you," she said with a sneer.
"Honey, you keep trying to start a new argument before we've finished with the old one," he said with a smile that did nothing to reduce her anger. "How do kids normally find out what the other half of humanity looks like?"
"Well, books and ...."
"No," he interrupted. "How do Dick and Jane really find out what the other half looks like?"
She stared at him for a second, and then slumped a little when she realized what his response would be. "They play 'doctor,' and 'show and tell,'" she said in a normal voice.
"Exactly!" He ignored her wince. "They go to Alice DeClerk and Eddie Thomas."
I should have never told him about Eddie, she realized, years too late.
"But Wynter doesn't have that opportunity to do so because we wanted to live here in isolation. You can't raise a child in isolation or you'll raise a social misfit who doesn't know how to act around her peers and who doesn't know how, or when, to protect herself."
"But I've told her how to protect herself from everyone. From everyone except you because I never thought...."
"Angie." It seemed strange to hear that patient tone directed from himself to her for a change. "That's the problem. You told her. She's far too trusting."
"Are we back to the new argument now?"
He ignored that. "If you don't say, 'I'm a bad guy,' she'll take anything you tell her at face value. She needs to have Little Billy and Little Johnny take advantage with something minor, or Bill and John will take advantage of her big time. About the only person she doesn't trust is Uncle Bob after all the promises he's broken over the years."
"So: you're telling me you took advantage of her with something minor--I'd say you took major advantage of a minor--to protect her later on?"
"Nooo...."
She released her breath in an explosive sigh. He'd stretched the word out and ended it on a higher note, his way of saying she wasn't seeing the obvious. "Then for piss' sake, what are you saying?"
He sighed. "First that she's been pushed too far too fast. She wants to be older than she is. That's not unusual for kids, but she takes it to an extreme and feels that anything she does that isn't adult in its execution is cause for alarm. Not concern: alarm. You've seen those panic attacks the same as I have. And you've seen the way her personality shifts wildly about. You're back to being 'Mommy' after a year of being 'Mother.' Also, she understands that sex is an adult way to express love and feelings, but she doesn't understand that no sex doesn't mean non-adult. Second, I'm saying that she's not had a proper opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. She was deeply embarrassed to assist me with the urinal, but once she discovered why the catheter had been removed...."
"Did Ellen tell her that?"
"No. She asked and I didn't lie to her. I won't lie to her. She discovered that semen buildup was painful and, well, you know Wynter when she thinks anyone or anything is in pain."
"And of course you didn't try hard enough to talk her out of relieving your condition."
"No, I didn't."
Angie blinked. She wasn't expecting that.
"Eventually her curiosity got the better of her, and I didn't try hard enough then, either."
"For piss' sake, Richard! Why didn't you have Ellen jack you off, then? Couldn't you wait until she returned?"
"I was prepared to wait longer than that, actually. I couldn't let her, though I might have given in within a few days."
"Oh! Well, yeah! You couldn't let Ellen but...."
"Angie, do you know why she left Pittsburgh?"
"No, but...."
"I do. I'm sorry that can't tell you, but, trust me, I couldn't let her handjob me because I didn't want to risk losing you."
"And just what makes you think you aren't risking losing me because you substituted Wynter for Ellen?"
"Faith in you. In your common sense."
That also caught her off guard. Her mouth worked silently, trying to spit out the words that weren't there.
"I know that you'll think it over and see how what I've said all ties together. You'll see what I've been trying to tell you, and eventually you'll understand. Why don't you go for a walk again, but this time let your subconscious work on what I've said for a while. It does a much better job of analyzing and sorting out than your conscious mind does. We can talk again when you return."
She slowly rose and stared down at him. She knew he was right about the walk. He was quoting what she'd said to him on more than one occasion. "Richard, just how far did you two go?"
"Don't waste time trying to pry information out of Wynter by telling her I told you everything. She's expecting it."
A hint of a wry smile teased its way onto a corner of her mouth. "You would tell her that," she said as she turned and walked out of the room.
Richard lay back in his pillows and let out a long breath as he lowered the head of the bed. He'd have done that if he'd thought of it in time.
"Wynter, I'm going for another walk," Angie said to the blonde ponytail seated on the pine stump.
Wynter turned her head, lowered the drawing tablet, and stood. Even from halfway across the large back yard Angie could see the tear streaks and red eyes. Wynter tucked the pencil behind her ear and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Is--is everything...." She dropped the pad on the stump and rushed toward her mother, arms flung wide to encircle her. She buried her face in her mother's waist and cried in deep, wracking sobs. Dragon sat beside her and looked up at the two in his curious pose, whimpering softly.
"Mommy, I'm [sniff]--I'm so sorry. Don't--don't hate me. [sniff] Please? It's not [sniff] Daddy's fault, it's--it's all mine. Please [sniff] don't hate him, either. Please? [sniff] Okay? Please?"
Angie jammed the point of her walking stick into the soft earth to hold it in place. Her left hand pressed her daughter's shoulders in a hug while her right smoothed the blonde hair above the ponytail. Her body twisted in a gentle rocking motion. "Sweetheart, I don't hate anyone. I'm just a little upset and angry. Why did.... No, never mind. I just need to go take a walk and think a bit. We'll talk then. Okay? How's your drawing?"
"It's [sniff] okay, I guess."
Angie disentangled herself from Wynter's arms and dropped to a squat. She removed her bandanna and used it to wipe the tears and mucus from her daughter's pitiful face. "I'll just hike up to the aspen grove and back. Can you have your drawing finished in about twenty minutes, or do you need longer?"
Drawing the scary thing was a brilliant idea, and she wished she'd thought of it. It gave Wynter a way to vent her fears safely.
"I can be done [sniff] in about fifteen minutes."
"Good. You can show it to your father and me at the same time. How's that?"
"'Kay," she said in a small voice She was struggling to stop crying, but tears escaped from each eye. Angie caught them with the bandanna.
"Good." She kissed Wynter's forehead. "I'll see you in a little bit." She kissed Wynter's forehead again and rose.
"I love you." Wynter's pleading voice sounded as if she were trying to convince her.
"I know you do, and I love you, too, sweetheart. I can't wait to see your drawing."
"'Kay." Wynter waved as her mother walked to the back gate and then, head down, trudged back to the stump, followed by her shadow.
Under the arbor Angie paused and turned, watching as Wynter moved the tablet from the stump and took her seat. She bent forward at the waist until she was almost lying on her legs, wrapped one arm around her knees, and engaged Dragon in a long, apparently one-sided conversation punctuated with pointing and waving of her free arm. As she watched a light slowly grew in the darkness of her thoughts.
The weather had turned uncharacteristically hot on moving day, three days ago. The water pump in the new house's swamp cooler chose that time to die, and McKeown's had to order a replacement from Houston. Fans stirred the air in the house, but were of marginal help. Angie wore a bandanna to keep the sweat out of her eyes as she unpacked still more moving boxes.
Over her shoulder she watched Wynter drop onto the edge of the living room sofa and slump, her legs straight out and sneakered feet pigeon-toed inward. Wynter sat with her arms dangling down between her legs as if she hadn't the strength to lift them to the seat cushion. The breeze from the fans stirred her bangs and the loose strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. "I didn't know moving would be so much work," her daughter said with a heavy sigh. Dragon collapsed at her feet. Standing guard in a fur coat while his human unpacked boxes and put things away had exhausted him, too.
Angie looked in the open box atop the stack beside her. Two more plates remained to be placed in the dining room china cabinet. She almost reached for them, but instead she sat beside Wynter and heaved a big sigh of her own. "I'd forgotten how bad it was. Of course, it's been a long time since I moved into that house, and we didn't have as much to move then. We added a lot of stuff after we'd settled in." She wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulders and squeezed. "Good thing I have a helper this time."
"I think your helper is worn out," Wynter replied collapsing sideways against her. "I'm going to sleep the rest of summer."
"Would you rather have a stranger put everything away in your new room? You'd never find half of it again." She felt Wynter's body tense momentarily. Wynter would never allow anyone else to touch her things.
"When's Daddy getting back with lunch? I'm starved." Her voice had a slight whine.
Sunlight flashing off a moving windshield swept through the window and around the room as Richard's new pickup pulled into the driveway.
Angie kissed the top of Wynter's head. "How's that for timing?"
"Any earlier and I'd have been too tired to eat."
Angie pulled away slightly to look at Wynter's face. "Is there any way to please you?"
Wynter giggled.
"Besides that."
"Unh uh. Daddy says I'm too much like you."
Angie rubbed one of Wynter's slender upper arms with her hand and felt a look of sympathy creep onto her face. "God help you, sweetheart."
Richard almost bounced through the door, whistling off key. "Kentucky Fried Colonels for everybody!" he announced, holding up two large red-and-white plastic bags. He looked back and forth between his two favorite women. "What is this, a loafer's convention?"
"Some of us had to work," Wynter sighed.
"Well, so did I! The new pump for the swamp cooler came in, and I also picked up lunch. I even carried it into the house all by myself, without any help from anyone else!"
"So where's the pump?"
"You ask about the pump when I bring food?" Richard sighed and indicated with a jerk of his head. "That's still in the truck. I was afraid the weight of it plus the weight of all this food might cause me to strain something." He saw the looks on their faces and added, "Kevin DID tell me not to overdo it!"
He looked from one to the other in anticipation as they rolled their eyes. "Well? Doesn't anybody want a kiss?"
"I do," Angie said, "but Wynter's too tired."
"Am not," she retorted, sitting upright.
"I spoke first, slowpoke. You can wait your turn." She rose and threw her arms around Richard. Still holding the bags, he crossed his arms behind her and bent her backward.
Wynter snorted. After a few seconds she tapped her foot, crossed her arms, thrummed her fingers on her elbows, and made impatient noises while her parents stretched out the kiss. She looked at her wrist as if checking a watch and thrummed some more. She coughed. Twice. "Well, Dragon, how about those Broncos?" When he looked up and thumped his tail she said, "That's what I thought, too," and looked at her "watch" again. "Read any good books lately?"
She saw a tremble in both her father and her mother. They were fighting to hold back laughter. "I'm all rested up now," she announced. "And if I don't get a kiss real quick, I'm going to go eat up all the chicken and the smarty pantses will just go hungry."
Richard's head jerked back, leaving Angie's tongue exposed for an instant. As she straightened, he transferred both bags to one hand, spread the other over his heart, and staggered backward. "Oh, no!" he cried. "Not the chicken!"
Angie threw back her head, eyelids squeezed shut in anguish, and pressed the back of one hand to her forehead. "Oh, mine cruel and heartless daughter! Take thy beak from out mine heart, and put instead a chicken leg in mine stomach!"
Wynter rolled her eyes upward. "I can go down to Jimmy McCauley's house. He'll kiss me."
That got their attention. They looked at each other and then back to her. "But I'd rather have you," she said to her father. Just before their lips met she added, "And it better be at least as good as what Mother got."
Angie took the food bags from Richard. "Then I guess I have time to go set the table."
"Um hmm," Wynter grunted before backing away to stage-whisper in conspiratorial tones, "I'm not wearing a bra."
Angie doled out paper plates on the breakfast table, the only flat surface in the kitchen that didn't have boxes stacked on it. Mother's little helper was the one who had insisted that she would be sorry if she didn't keep one surface, preferably that one, clear all the time. She reasoned that Wynter spoke from recent experience in her room.
Jimmy McCauley? She didn't know the boy, but he'd been in front of the house when they first inspected the house with the broker. He'd seemed quite smitten with Wynter at first sight. When they began moving in he'd been a constant presence, either volunteering to help or frequently riding past on his bike and staring at the house as if looking for someone. He still checked once or twice a day to see if he was needed. His father, Keith, was a supervisor for the county highway crew and someone she and Richard knew in passing.
Ellen Carter said that the twelve-year-old was his father's son, an upright, courteous, first-class individual and that Wynter could do far worse for a friend. Ellen also said that Suzie Middleton had her eye on Jimmy. The near future could become interesting.
Napkins. She shook her head. Richard had remembered to bring the plastic fork/spoon combinations that Wynter called "foons," but he'd forgotten the napkins. She reached for the paper towels.
Richard's relationship with Wynter still disturbed her a little, somewhere deep inside, but at least her daughter's first intercourse had been with someone who cared about her. Eddie Thomas had not only been the first to play looky-loo with Angie, back when she was nine or so, he'd also been the first for touchy-feely and was the first to screw her, shortly after she turned fifteen. And screw her, he did.
Her first experience wasn't 'making love.' It was getting royally screwed, and it was practically rape. He was putting on the rubber while he knelt between her wide-spread thighs in his parents' den. He suddenly realized he was about to cum prematurely. He dropped the rubber, jammed his boner into her virgin hole, and came two pumps later, before she'd recovered from the surprise and could tell him to get the hell out of there. He pulled out, wiped his cock on her bush, held both her ankles aloft in one hand while he slapped her bare ass with the other, and said, "Not bad for a beginner." Obviously it was something he'd learned from talking to other boys because he'd already admitted he was still a virgin, too. She'd worried about pregnancy for almost three weeks. It was the last time she let him touch her. She was in college and on the pill before she let anyone else touch her. Fortunately her daughter didn't have horrible memories like that of her first experience.
Angie looked out the kitchen window and sighed, banishing the memories. They had a huge back yard, with large trees that provided shade as well as the sense of closeness to nature she needed. They were on the edge of town, and walking trails and woods and meadows were close by. But those weren't on her property. Well, they were on public property, so they were partially hers. She'd been afraid that Richard would want to move to Denver or Grand Junction or Casper, some place larger and more boisterous. She hadn't considered moving down the mountain to town. It wasn't too far from their former mountain home. An older couple had bought their dream property and said that they were welcome to return to hike through the woods and meadows and to dangle feet in the creek any time they wished.
Wynter would be going to a real school for the first time, surrounded by people her own age. She wondered if Wynter would stabilize at their maturity level or bring some of them up to hers. She knew Wynter and thus knew which way to place that bet.
A sudden, sharp sound from the living room heralded Wynter's orgasm. Angie supposed it was better that she got it from Richard than from someone like Eddie. In fact, she knew in her heart that it was better. But Jimmy McCauley better keep his grubby little hands off--and other parts out of--her daughter if he knew what was good for him!
The good news was that Wynter knew how to handle him. She hoped. They had discussed sexuality and sexual relationships with a frankness that she'd never expected to experience with her own child. She'd certainly never experienced that candor with her mother. She had done what she hoped was an adequate job of explaining men to Wynter. She loved Richard, but unlike herself, he was blind to the faults, foibles, and shortcomings of his own sex.
Wynter had laughed oddly when she mentioned that fact, but her daughter had explained that she had somehow dredged up a funny thought from the past. But Wynter had admitted afterward that she now understood men well enough to help her take care of Richard's needs, especially if she had to leave town again. "Most mothers aren't lucky enough to have a helper for that," Wynter had said. "Not a helper who wouldn't run off with your husband." That had been the thirty-year-old Wynter making a reappearance after an absence of over a week.
She smiled warmly at her family as the other three, husband, daughter, and daughter's omnipresent shadow, trooped into the kitchen, one looking exceptionally pleased with himself, one looking dreamily satiated, and one looking as if he were performing the most important job in the world.
No, Dragon, you don't have the most important job. I do.
While Richard alternated between deep kissing Wynter's mouth and sucking her sweet little breasts, he had snaked his fingers up the leg of her shorts. He was surprised to discover that Wynter wasn't wearing panties, either. His fingertips felt soft cornsilk curls and moisture and heat. His desire ignited and he felt the Beast begin to stir, despite the workout both of his women had given it the night before. His tongue attacked hers with renewed vigor.
She moaned into his mouth when his index and ring fingers parted her labia, allowing his middle finger to drag some of her "natural lubrication" to the hard little pebble of her clit. He began gently massaging the tiny button with his thumb while his middle finger crept up inside her body. Moments later she jerked her hips in the way that he'd learned meant she was rapidly building to a climax.
Half a minute later her body stiffened and a sharp moan escaped through the tension in her throat. Her body convulsed. His thumb stopped rubbing her sensitive little clit, and his finger stilled within her hot, pulsing love tunnel. Three more jerks, then a pause, a smaller convulsion, another pause, and a final spasm. Another moan devolved into a sigh, and she relaxed against him, somewhere finding the strength to rub her hand down the back of his head. His head dropped to her breast and he gently nipped one the two sweetest little berries in the country.
She giggled, and after a brief pause said, "I love you Daddy, with all my heart."
He raised his head to look into the beautiful blue-green pools sparking with love and satiation beneath her blonde bangs. His free arm squeezed her in a tight hug. "I love you, too, honey." He smiled at her and added, "And I always will."
Why the hell did I feel the need to add that? he wondered. He'd never felt the need to add it before. He pondered the question as he released her from the hug and used his index finger to trace an "X" over his heart. He idly wondered if it had anything to do with the Jimmy McCauley remark.
It was The Moment the Lights Came On. All of the talk about first nursing school and then medical school, all of the talk about her being a wife with a husband and a mother with children of her own. All of that, and he'd never seriously understood that the day would come when he would have to face life without Wynter as a constant presence in his life. The day would come when "home" would be just Angie and himself in the house.
"Daddy?"
He returned to the present and looked into the worried face brimming with love and concern.
"Did you go away again?"
A huge smile of love spread across his face, and he felt sadness horning in around the edges. "Just for a minute. I'm back now."
"Did you go someplace nice?"
He dipped his head to give her soft coral lips a gentle father's kiss. "Not as nice as the place I came back to."
She giggled happily, but stopped when he reluctantly removed his finger from her sweet young body. He held the finger back as he pulled her top down. "The chicken's getting cold."
She gave him the lascivious grin of a thirty-year-old woman. "You know how to warm chicks up."
"Just the kind of chicks that don't have feathers," he said, popping his middle finger in his mouth to suck it clean of her juices. "Mmmm! Finger lickin' good."
"Smarty pants."
They laughed, and he wrapped his arms below hers, lifting her and kissing her in mid-air. She finished with a nose-and-lips kiss that suddenly seemed more precious than ever to him. He lowered her to her feet and took her hand. Dragon fell into place on her other side, and they trooped into the kitchen to see his other favorite chick.
Wynter rolled her eyes upward. "I can go down to Jimmy McCauley's house. He'll kiss me."
Where did that come from? She had no idea. However, it worked: they were focused on her. She made a mental note to remember that trick.
"But I'd rather have you," she said to her father. Just before their lips met she added, "And it better be at least as good as what Mother got." The love that sparkled in his eyes made her heart feel too big for her chest again.
Her mother took the food, freeing her father's hands for more interesting activities. "Then I guess I have time to go set the table."
"Um hmm," Wynter sighed dreamily as she closed her eyes and parted her lips. Then her eyes flew open. I almost forgot! She pulled back to whisper loud enough for her mother to hear, "I'm not wearing a bra." She almost giggled at the look her mother gave her, but then her father's lips touched hers and the world narrowed to the contact of their lips and the feel of his hand sliding up under her blouse to tease her nipple and cup her breast--her titty--and she closed her eyes again.
Strange that she should have to remind herself of the grownup word. It was the first time since her father had been allowed out of his recovery bed that she didn't remember. She'd been having lots of trouble remembering things since they'd moved to town, sort of like she was distracted, but there was nothing to distract her except the endless unpacking and storing of things.
Her father's fingers slid inside the leg opening of her shorts.
She felt his surprised reaction when his fingertips immediately found soft, cornsilk curls instead of panties. His kisses grew stronger.
"Mmmm," she moaned as his finger probed the firm, hirsute--she'd just learned that grownup-sounding word and liked it--outer lips of her pussy while his tongue did the same with the coral lips of her mouth. She felt almost like she could see his tongue chasing hers back and forth between their mouths, as if it were a movie being projected on the insides of her eyelids. And then her view shifted and she could see his blue eyes and light dusting of freckles staring at her from beneath his mop of red hair....
Huh? Her father had green eyes, brown hair, and no freckles.
Why would she suddenly think that?
Jimmy McCauley! Jimmy had blue eyes, red hair and freckles.
Her father's fingers must have done something special while she was distracted because the aching horniness in her split--her pussy--suddenly grew stronger. The clockspring began tightening as his finger slid into her hot, slick, wet pussy while his thumb did wonderful things to her clitty. As the tension built toward her release point her attention focused on what was happening inside her knit shorts. Now the movie on the inside of her eyelids showed his fingers playing with her pussy.
She wondered if Jimmy McCauley's fingers would feel the same way.
The clockspring exploded with the best orgasm she'd had in a week. She felt her pussy squeeze his finger as her body shook again and again and again and again at the end, like those earthquake aftershocks her father had told her about. Finally the tension left her body and she was allowed to relax.
She sighed contentedly and rubbed her hand down the back of his head, smoothing his hair. She felt just a little bit guilty about thinking of someone else when she came. She opened her mouth to speak but erupted with a giggle when he nibbled her nipple. She tried again. "I love you, Daddy, with all my heart." This time it meant two things. It was also an apology, even though he didn't know that it was or why.
She didn't feel much less guilty when he replied that he also loved her with all his heart. But then he added, "And I always will." For just a moment that made her feel really guilty. Then, all of a sudden, the guilt went away and she felt wonderful! She knew in her heart that she would always have her father's love, even if, as he'd said would happen, she found a boyfriend and later a husband, and she and her father stopped having sexual activities. Once again her heart felt too big for her chest. She started to say something about that.
His eyes were unfocussed, as if the eyes inside his head were too busy looking at something else. Maybe he was horny, too, and was thinking of the times she'd repaid his love and attention. Well, she could repay him this time, too!
"Daddy?" she asked, feeling her face pull into a worried frown all by itself.
His bright green eyes focused and looked deep into her, making her shiver with warm feelings of love. She wondered how a warm feeling on a hot day could make her shiver, but she filed that question away for later. "Did you go away again?"
She marveled at how he never seemed to smile at her the same way twice, yet every time that smile made her feel loved so very, very much.
"Just for a minute. I'm back now."
"Did you go someplace nice?" She thought maybe his mind had gone looking for spring flowers again. She hoped he'd found them. If not, she'd draw him some more, and this time she would take as long as necessary to do a proper job. She was still amazed that the very first thing he carried into this house was her flower drawing. He put it on the wall of his home office, right above where his desk would go.
He gave her a gentle kiss that made her tingle all the way down to her toes and back. "Not as nice as the place I came back to."
She couldn't have held back her giggle for a million dollars. It stopped when he removed his finger. She felt just a little bit disappointed when he pulled her top back down over her tits and felt a frown creep over her face.
"The chicken's getting cold," he reminded her.
She sure was. "You know how to warm chicks up," she reminded him.
They had just seated themselves at the table when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," Wynter said. She had a good idea who it was.
She opened the door and had to look up just a little bit to see blue eyes in an eager, freckled face. Dragon, standing beside his human, started wagging his tail. Dragon seemed to like the boy, possibly because Jimmy had twice brought him a big dog biscuit.
"I was just riding past and, um, wondered if you might, um--you now, need any, um, help or something," Jimmy said, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other.
Anxiety disorder, she diagnosed. Again. "No, thanks. We're just about to have lunch."
"Oh," he said as usual, with his usual disappointed look and his usual, "Well, if you, um, need anything just let me know. Bye."
"Okay. I will." She watched the slumped form turn back to his bike and surprised herself by saying, "Wait a minute."
He turned to her with an eager look she'd sometimes seen in Dragon's face, or in her father's face when they were about to snuggle together.
"If you can come back in about an hour, I could sorta use some help, um, unpacking stuff and--and putting it on the, um, top shelves of my bookcases and closet. Okay?"
Wynter had been to Las Vegas once, when her father went to a geologists' convention. None of the buildings there lit up the way Jimmy's face did. "Okay!"
They said temporary goodbyes, and he raced away on his bike. Wynter waved and then dropped her hand to scratch behind one of Dragon's ears. "You know, Dragon, he's kinda cute."
© Russell Hoisington 2003