WYNTER
by Russell Hoisington
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This is an erotic fantasy. The characters and the situation are
purely imaginary, and this story is NOT intended to be a guide
for actual behavior. Any similarities between this story and
actual people, or actual events that you should be ashamed of,
are purely coincidental. If it is illegal in your part of the
world to access and read erotic fiction, or if you are underage,
or if you don't like sex stories, then stop now.
This story is copyright 2003 and 2005 by Russell Hoisington.
Please do not remove the author information or make any changes
to this story. You may post freely to non-commercial (free)
sites, or in the "free" area of commercial sites. That does NOT
mean that they are in the public domain, nor does it mean that I
give permission for you to use them in spam advertising. I
reserve the right to determine what is "spam advertising" by MY
definition, not yours or anyone else's.
Thank you for your consideration.
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This is a 2005 revised version of the story with errors corrected
and with a new chapter added to PART THREE: MOTHER'S LITTLE
HELPER.
WYNTER
PART THREE:
MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER
One of Nine
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 "Sex Terminology" notebook 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 night stand. 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,
stuck his cold, wet nose to her naked butt. She jumped and
dropped them. She 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 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 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.
Her father 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 shook 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 his little human, 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.
Two of Nine
"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 Angie gets 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.
Three of Nine
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. After
giving him a quick kiss she 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 or Uncle Bob.
Ellen held the piece of cardboard before him and asked,
"Ready?"
"Go," he whispered in anticipation, 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.
Four of Nine
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. 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 not 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."
Five of Nine
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 the 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 released by 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."
Six of Nine
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 bandanna. 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!"
Seven of Nine
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. This was something he'd been awaiting and was
prepared to handle.
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 having more kids to talk
to 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 eat 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 which 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. Like all men,
Richard refused to fight fair.
"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. Her daughter
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.
Eight of Nine
Angie wasn't surprised that Wynter had met her at the gate.
Dragon would have given her plenty of warning, though she
suspected that Wynter had been waiting for several minutes, given
the girl's apprehensive look. She put a smile on her own face,
which was never difficult whenever she saw her daughter. "Are
you finished with the drawing?" she asked.
"Uh huh," she said in a quiet voice. "But, do you mind if
Daddy sees it the same time you do?"
"Of course not," she said, opening the gate and holding an
arm out for a hug. She wrapped her arms around Wynter and felt
the girl's muscles shuddering with tension. "Let's go show him."
"Are, um.... Are you still, um, mad at us?"
"I'm not mad, sweetheart. I'm not sure exactly how I feel,
but I'm not mad at anyone, unless it's at myself."
Wynter pulled her head back and looked up at her with
brimming blue-green eyes. "Why are you mad at yourself? You
didn't do anything."
Angie let out a wry chuckle. "I guess that's why. I didn't
think when I should have. Your father pointed that out to me and
then gave me time to go think about it."
Wynter sniffed lightly and nodded. "He's good at that. He
did the same for Nurse Carter while you were gone."
"He did, huh? I don't suppose he told you what Ellen did?"
"Well, no. Daddy didn't. Nurse Carter told me, but...."
She hesitated and then sighed. "Well, it's patient
confidentiality."
"But, sweetheart, I'm the patient's wife," she said,
wondering what Richard had said or done that needed to be kept
confidential.
"Oh, no! Not Daddy. Nurse Carter was my patient. She said
I could be her psy.... Her psy-chi-a-trist." Wynter looked
frustrated because she'd stumbled over the word, but she'd kept
her eyes on Angie's. "She said it helped her to talk about it
and to show me why she shouldn't have been mad at me."
"Because of what you and your father did?"
A tear fell out of the corner of her right eye. "Uh huh."
"Well, I won't make you break a medical confidence. Come
one. Let's go see your picture. Dragon looks like he wants to
go see it, too."
"Oh, he's already seen it. He thought it was scary, too."
The catch in her throat caught her by surprise. The Wynter
she had left behind wouldn't have said that a dog would think a
picture was scary. She coughed once. "Maybe he just wants to
see if we agree with him."
Wynter frowned and looked at Dragon. "Could be."
~ ~ ~
As one, Angie and Richard exchanged glances, looked at the
drawing again, and then to Wynter. Hollywood directors might
spend hours reshooting a scene to get such perfectly-timed mirror
reactions.
"That _is_ scary," Richard said, his eyes jumping back to
the drawing. "Gruesome," he murmured.
Angie was still trying to get words out of her mouth. "I
agree," was the best she could do before her eyes were also drawn
back to the dark shape oozing out of the tree like some
malevolent creature intent on committing great violence and
mayhem with the small girl with the blonde ponytail cowering on
the ground before it. The drawn girl seemed to be quaking on the
paper as they watched. Angie felt tears accumulating in her
eyes. "It certainly gets the point across to me," she murmured,
one hand reflexively curling around Richard's left wrist.
She felt, rather than saw, his eyes on her because she
couldn't rip hers away from the creature in the drawing. She
realized she was shaking her head and forced it to stop. "I...."
She couldn't get any further than that one word, though she tried
three more times. She gave up, afraid that the next thing out of
her mouth would be a scream.
"It's the best I could do in the time I had," Wynter said in
an apologetic tone.
"I...." Her throat tensed, and she quit again. Fortunately
Richard knew what to say.
"Honey, I think it's good that you didn't have any more time
than that. I think it's perfect for what you felt. Sometimes a
rough drawing can be more effective at conveying emotions than a
full-blown effort with oils and acrylics and... uh, stuff."
Wynter's tone turned eager. "You mean a sort of minimalist
approach is best?"
"Ummm, yeah, I guess that's what I meant. Right, dear?"
She made herself look at Wynter, saw the girl's reaction,
and forced her face to relax. "What? Oh. Yes. It's, it's...."
She looked at Richard and saw the smile he was directing at
Wynter. She forced her own smile and gave it as well. "It's
remarkable." She willed her eyes to stay on the blue-green ones
and not return to the drawing. "Sweetheart, would you mind if
your father and I talked alone for a little bit, and then I'll
talk with you, and then we'll all talk together in a family
conference?"
"Ummm, okay. What should I do with the drawing?"
"You...." _Good question_. "You can put it in your room
for now, and then go have some cookies and milk if you want them.
Dragon can have a treat, too."
"Okay." She hesitated at the door.
"It's okay, honey," Richard said. "We just want to talk
now."
"That's right," Angie added. "Everything will be okay.
Save a few cookies so I can have some with you later?"
"Sure. Should I close the door?"
"Ummm...." She couldn't make her thoughts work.
"Yes, please," Richard said. "We wouldn't want Dragon to
come ask us to let him out because you were too busy with your
cookies and milk."
"Smarty pants!" She closed the door behind her.
Angie gave Wynter time to put the drawing on her desk and go
to the kitchen. That was her excuse. Actually she was trying to
find the words, but all she could ask in a trembling voice was,
"Did you see it, too?"
Richard smiled and shook his head as if dismissing what she
was thinking. "Don't read too much into it," he cautioned. "It
was subconscious because she was upset by what was going on. If
I'd asked this morning or yesterday, I'm sure it would have
looked more like Diana or Uncle Bob than you. You know as well
as I do that if she thought the creature looked like you, she'd
be in a panic and apologizing from now till breakfast."
Her voice cracked as she squeaked, "But she really thinks
I'm a monster and would hurt her." She pressed her face to his
arm and felt the tears roll off her nose.
"Of course she doesn't." Richard smoothed her hair in
gentle strokes the way he always did when she was upset. "Her
subconscious needed to get that out of the way and did so. If I
asked her to draw a picture of _you_ now, it would be as full of
love as the one she drew for Ellen and me while you were gone.
Trust me on this."
She wasn't convinced. But she changed the topic. "I saw
what you meant as I was leaving the yard. The only one she has
to talk to is Dragon, and she has to imagine his side of the
conversation. I think you were right about not considering what
was best for her. At least, not from her point of view. We
assumed that what was best for us was automatically what was best
for her. I can see where you might be right about that." She
knew that she was babbling to avoid the issue and stopped. As
she expected, he did not avoid it.
"And the main issue?"
She sighed and wiped her eyes on his arm. "Well...."
~ ~ ~
The family meeting occurred at the dinner table over steak
and onions with mashed potatoes and green beans and corn. "Your
father and I want to know what you think about moving to town."
Wynter stopped chewing and shifted her eyes between the two.
After several seconds she asked, "Town?"
"Yes. Your father said he'd mentioned it to you. Do you
like the idea? You'd be able to go to school with other
children, uh...." She hesitated when Wynter frowned at the
implication that she was still a child, then continued. "You'd
have other... you'd have others around to talk to and to play and
study with. You'd get to see more of Suzie, and you'd be able to
talk medical stuff with Kenny Taylor. Or with his dad and Nurse
Carter."
The guilty look spread across Wynter's face. "But Daddy
said this was your dream home."
"My dream home is wherever you and your father are. Our
being together is what's important, not where we are."
"But what about your nature walks?"
"I can do that in Otter Park. And there's Barber Beach
where you can go swimming in the summer. You'll be close to
Wizard Basin and can go skiing there in the winter. You said you
needed more practice at both. Suzie's the captain of the swim
team. I'll bet she'd help you learn to swim better."
They waited while Wynter resumed chewing, her brow furrowed
in concentration.
"What about Dragon?"
"We'll have to find a place with a big yard. Your father
said that Tom Jerome is moving to Denver and has his house for
sale. Daddy's seen it before. I haven't, but he says it's
nice."
Richard pointed at Wynter with his fork. "That's right.
It's a nice tri-level with a basement and a huge back yard. It's
at 1331 West Seabridge Trail. Do you know where that is?"
Wynter's ponytail lashed as she shook her head. "Unh uh."
"Well, it's in the northwest corner of town, a little south
of the highway and east of the park. It's small hills with lots
of trees in that area, so that it feels like you're isolated even
though there are neighbors close by. It's about four blocks
north of Suzie's and three-quarters of a mile west of the
Taylors'."
Wynter pursed her lips and skewed them sideways in thought.
"I don't think we should move into a tri-level."
"Why not?" Angie asked.
"There would be too many steps for Daddy to fall down and
hurt himself."
Angie snorted a laugh. Richard made a face and said, "Now
who's being a smarty pants?"
Most of the mealtime was devoted to the idea of moving to
town, the house there, its neighborhood, and the disposition of
their current mountain home. The latter was not a problem.
Richard knew a broker who was always reminding him that he had
clients who were looking for mountain homes like theirs and
wanted to be the one called if they ever decided to sell.
An uneasy quiet settled around the table near the end of the
meal. Wynter's fork stirred a pattern in the residue of her
mashed potatoes as she tried to find the words. Finally she
chose some and spoke. "Um, what about...." She lost her nerve
and said nothing more, her eyes locked a spot of gravy in her
plate.
"Your father and I have discussed that, too. Wynter, I'm
not mad. I'm still upset, but not mad. I know it's too late to
change things that have already happened. Unlike your aunt, I'm
not dumb enough to try. I could ask that you stop and never
touch each other again. I'm not dumb enough to think that would
happen, even though you would mean it now if you promised it."
Angie waited while Wynter sorted that out and raised her
eyes. Angie cut off the objection. "Honey, if you're going to
be sexually active, I suppose I'd rather it be with your father
than some stranger. With your father I can be certain that you
aren't going to suddenly announce that you're pregnant or, worse,
have some terrible disease. So, I'm not going to put the genie
back in the bottle, but I am going to lay down some rules for the
genie. Okay?"
Wynter swallowed, glanced at her father and noticed he was
smiling, and nodded to her mother, her eyes wide.
"Good. First, just because I'm condoning it doesn't mean
that I want it flaunted in my face. There will be no humping in
front of the television while I'm trying to watch the news, and
we're not going to have any family orgies. Understood?"
The look on Wynter's face as she nodded told Angie that she
was scaring the girl. She had sounded too harsh. She softened
her voice and her face.
"Good. Second, Richard is my husband. I have first claim
to him. I'm willing to let him have one night a week with you."
She held up an index finger and waved it back and forth. "In
your room, not in our bed. Our bed is just for your father and
me. Okay?"
Wynter seemed to relax a little. "Uh huh. Um, yes, ma'am."
"Good. Third, that night shouldn't be when you have school
the next day, which means Friday or Saturday. I've decided it
will be Friday for my own reasons."
Wynter nodded. "That's okay."
"Good. Fourth, you know what will happen if _anybody_ else
finds out. You were lucky with Ellen. You will likely _not_ be
lucky the next time. Any time anyone else is around, whether you
can see them or not, you will act like a normal daughter and
father, not...." She sighed and swallowed. "Not like lovers.
Whenever you're sure nobody else is watching is when you can bet
your college tuition that someone is. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am. Nurse Carter explained all of that to me, and
so did Daddy. I understand that I can't trust anyone else to
keep a secret."
"Good. Fifth, you can ask me any questions you want, just
like always, but don't expect me to give you lovemaking tips on
how to keep your father happy. Questions about relationships in
general, especially since you're going to be in a school and
around other... uh, around young men, are part of my
responsibility of being a mother. They'll be yours some day, but
I'd prefer that 'some day' not be before you've finished high
school and college."
"And medical school."
Angie smiled. "That's even better."
Wynter nodded, the concern no longer evident in her eyes and
the hint of a smile teasing her coral lips. "Yes, ma'am."
"Sixth." She sighed. "Sixth. Sweetheart, this isn't going
to be easy for me for a while. I may get upset or grouchy
because of it, but if I do, don't forget that I love you. That
won't change. I may not love you in the same manner as your
father does, but I love you as much as he does. This is a bigger
change in my life than it is in yours. You may not fully
understand that until after you're married, but some day you
will. So, when I get upset or grouchy, give me some space and
let me get over it. Like your father did when he sent me for
that second walk."
Wynter nodded. "Sure. I love you with all my heart and
don't want to make you upset."
Angie had to bite back the "It's a little late for that."
"Thank you. Now: since you got your way with that, I get
my way now. You serve dessert."
Dessert had to wait while Wynter threw her arms around her
mother, buried her face in Angie's neck, and squeezed.
_That_, Angie decided, _is better than chocolate cake_.
Nine of Nine
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 it 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 it had received
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 on 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 sparkling 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 know, 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."
--
Copyright Russell Hoisington 2003, 2005
Wynter's story will continue in "Wynter & Jimmy"
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