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Chapter One
We always seem to hurt the one's we love. Why? And why did that thought suddenly pop into my mind? On a long bus trip, I guess lots of weird thoughts suddenly appear in your brain.
Mom and dad, they'd certainly hurt each other. After the divorce, mom had taken me with her to Baltimore, forcing me to leave my friends and everything else I'd spent a lifetime getting accustomed to. That had hurt.
Now, here I was on a bus, heading back to Cleveland to live with daddy. Over long phone calls, we'd decided it was best for me. Daddy had some good contacts at the community college there and was able to get me admitted, despite my terrible grades from high school.
In a way, I was happy to be going back to Cleveland. It was where I'd grown up, and my life in Baltimore wasn't that great. Mom's had a lousy job at some department store, and the money daddy sent us was what we really lived on. Mom seemed to drink all the time, and I got sick of her constant string of boyfriends.
She'd go out at night, and half the time she'd end up back in our apartment, drunk, dragging some guy with her. And I'd have to cover my ears in my bedroom so I wouldn't hear the moans and groans coming from her room.
Other times, the guys would come to pick her up for a date, and they'd hang around the apartment for a drink or two, and I could see the guys looking at me up and down, checking me out, like if they got mom in bed, I'd come as part of the package.
And I knew I wasn't exactly perfect myself. I just couldn't seem to find a job, so I ended up spending most of my time sitting around at home. In the evenings, I'd sometimes hang out at a bowling alley down the street. Actually, it wasn't just a bowling alley, they called it a recreation center. It had a big room with pool tables and a video game room and a bar-lounge type of place where you could sit and relax.
The guys would always buy me drinks and try to come on to me. After they'd bought me a couple of beers they thought they were entitled to something, and they'd sit there at the booth trying to grab my tits or put their hands in my pants. And the one's that weren't married would invite me back to their place, and sometimes even the one's who were married would ask me to come home with them.
Every once in a while I'd accept their offer, but most of the time I'd make an excuse and leave them there with their hardons. I'd stumble home, hoping that mom wasn't still screwing some guy in her bedroom.
At least living with dad, I'd be in a more stable situation. A nice house, a nice neighborhood, the whole bit. It had been over eight months since he'd visited me in Baltimore, and I realized I missed him.
*****
The bus wasn't very crowded, so I was able to stretch out and relax with a book. I noticed a guy across the aisle looking at me. He was an older guy, maybe sixty or sixty-five. I crossed my legs, my skirt riding up a little, and figured, what the hell, let him look.
I knew myself, and I knew I liked it when guys looked at me. I've never considered myself to be an exhibitionist or anything like that, but it always gave me a little tingle when I knew I was the center of someone's attention.
And guys did look at me. I'd always considered my body to be O.K. I'd inherited mom's large breasts, and my hips were full, but not fat, and I did try my best to keep my waistline trim.
One guy I'd dated said what really turned him on about me was my pouty lips. I remember going home that night and checking myself out in front of the mirror. They were a little fuller than most girl's maybe, but I wasn't sure I'd consider them to be 'pouty'.
Now that I was nineteen and out of high school, I somehow found myself wearing jeans less and less and more skirts and dresses. Subconsciously, or maybe even consciously, I knew I'd get more glances coming my way in a skirt than in jeans. I rarely wore pantyhose. I liked skirts and dresses because of their less confining, free feeling, and pantyhose seemed to defeat that purpose. I've always been proud of my legs, and I've caught guys checking them out with their eyes many times. And crazy or not, I knew I liked that.
I called daddy on the cell phone as the bus was just getting into town, so he was already waiting for me when we pulled into the station. I gave him a quick hug. He was the same old dad, tall, short brown hair, and, I thought to myself, as handsome as ever.
As we drove home, he caught me up on family stuff. He filled me in on what was happening with various uncles and aunts and how his cousin Gus was scheduled for a bypass. I noticed, though, that he didn't ask a single question about mom.
I watched him as he talked. For some reason, I'd always liked looking at dad's face. His brown eyes were expressive when he talked, and even when he was listening, I'd always thought he had a way of looking at me as if he really wanted to hear what I had to say.
Dad had on a white sports shirt and khaki pants. He'd always been a fitness freak, and I could see his well-defined biceps flexing against the sleeve of his shirt.
"Tomorrow," he said, "you'll have to go down to the mall and get some clothes. Probably a lot of your old stuff at home won't fit you anymore since," he paused momentarily, and I thought for an instant I saw his face blush slightly. "Since you're...bigger now," he continued, "I've put a little money aside for that. You can take the Buick in the garage. I haven't driven it for a long time."
"I have to apologize, Erin," he said as we neared the house, "this being your first day back and all, but I have a board meeting tonight I have to go to. I'll just barely have time to drop you off and change. I hope you can find something in the kitchen for dinner."
"I'll be fine, daddy. Living with mom has made me an expert at fending for myself," I said with a chuckle. This was the first I'd mentioned mom. His face showed no reaction.
"And baby," he continued, "when you see the kitchen... be prepared. There's nothing there. I'm not much good with... food stuff. In fact, I hardly ever eat at home. I didn't know what to buy before you came. I didn't know what you like. Maybe tomorrow you could go to the supermarket and stock us up, now that you'll be the woman of the house."
I looked at him and felt a funny feeling in my stomach. He'd said I'd be the woman of the house. I wasn't sure what the feeling meant exactly, but I somehow I liked it.
My room, I discovered when we got home, hadn't changed a bit since I'd last been in it almost two years ago. Looking around, I felt a little tear forming in my eye. So much had changed in my life. It was almost like I'd left here as a child, and now I was coming back as an adult. I brushed the tear away and smiled. My new life would start now, I said to myself as I unpacked my suitcase.
Dad was right, the kitchen was empty. There was a bottle of ketchup and six-pack of beer in the refrigerator, and nothing else. I found a lonely can of soup in the cupboard and that was dinner. I went back to my room and lay down on the bed - my bed. It had been an exhausting day, and I was soon asleep.