No note. He doesn't need one. He'll probably be relieved. Just the tarnished wedding ring, left sitting on the top stair like evidence of a crime.

Soundless down the stairs and light streams in through the window. Hope. Beauty. Freedom. A chance.

Hesitation at the door. The cat. Huge golden eyes like sunflowers and she can't leave him behind. Scoops him up and he doesn't resist. Happy for once to be in the car. Watching the world go by him in a rushing green blur. Thirteen miles later and she pulls over. The twisting and grinding in her stomach blossoms into pain and she opens the door just in time. Blood in it this time. Her heart broken and bleeding, her tears unseen except by Romeo.

Sudden unwelcome cop and she slams the door. Go away. But he stops. Does she need help? Is she all right? Looks like you've been crying.

You're a bloody genius.

Suspicious eyes on her and she tells him. She's leaving home. Lost in the lonely crowd for too long. Forgot to live. Refused to die.

Romeo in a languorous sprawl beside her, watching but uninterested. Very well. Drive safe.

She doesn't remind him that it's her life.

Back on the road. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Nothing and no one to answer to. Bliss. Absolute, utter bliss.

Daddy. The only one with gentle hands. Asleep under the lilies. Memories come unbidden, comparisons unavoidable. Oh, Daddy. He was supposed to be like you. He was supposed to be you.

Eyes swollen with tears that threaten to bleed her dry. And suddenly she is back there. Back in the modest little chapel where he slept through all her grief. His hands. Crossed on his chest and she moves them, turns them over. Kisses them. Checks to make sure she is alone. Bends forward and rests his hand on her bottom. Love so pure it hurts and she longs for that kind of pain again. But no more. Not after that other man turned those soothing hands into something cruel.

She had something worse than hate for him. She had pity. Intolerable pity for the one who could never know love without destruction. But Daddy.

"I need you."

Silence.

"Daddy."

Her eyes open and he is gone. The empty chapel like the rooms in her heart.

Each day the blasphemy of the memory's slow deterioration, someday to reduce him to a hazy blur.

Romeo's slow, steady blinking and he creeps to her, curling into the hollow of her lap. His fur like silk, soft and cool. Rumbling purr and the engine seems to hum in harmony with him.

Where to go? A shrug. Away. Just away.

The End

© Copyright Summer, 2002

Reviews

Tami  <tamishy(at)webtv(dot)net>
There's a lot of pain in this story. Maybe a little too often we get caught into the idea that this fetish is safe. This story reminds us that is can go too far. I feel very sad for the character, she probably never got what she really needed, and now it's too late. Nicely written story.

Pam  <pamiMac(at)aol(dot)com>
That's one of the saddest things I've ever read on SSS. Tasha is so obviously a gifted writer. Interesting style. Very short sentences. Was that for the emotion she is feeling because of her grief? Like she is running into a wall each time she thinks of her sleeping daddy? Don't know but do know this is very well done. Not sure what category this goes in as the author didn't designate one.

Pablo Stubbs  <Pablo.Stubbs(at)newsguy(dot)com>
There's so much here. The prose is simple yet rich and satisfying, dropping little explosions throughout. The pain is palpable, but there's also room for enough hope to set against the darkness. The aloneness too is captured really well - it's both emphasised and offset by the presence of the cat. This feels like a much longer story; maybe deserves to be, too.

Needy Wench  <needywench(at)hotmail(dot)com>
So much emotion packed into so few words - I've shed a few mascara tears myself. This one just rips at my heart, Tasha. The staccato sentences really reinforce the ragged emotions.

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