After my wife died, I had trouble sleeping in our bed. We had too many pleasant, and I admit, sexual memories under those sheet. I tried replacing the sheets and mattress, but that did not work. I spent too many nights crying myself to sleep from loneliness
I was now the widowed father of two teen-aged daughters. One was nineteen, the other eighteen. They each had their own rooms. I’m sure there were nights I kept them awake with my sobbing.
I went to the oldest, Colleen, with a request.
“Honey, I was wondering if you would like to have my room?
“Why, dad?”
“I can’t sleep in there. I’m losing my concentration at work because I’m tired all the time.”
“Is that from lack of sleep or lack of sex, Dad?”
“Colleen!”
“Dad, I know you and Mom had sex at least three times a week. It’s been eleven months since mom died and you haven’t even dated. You’re too young to give up on life and its pleasures.”
My daughter was so right it hurt. But, I did not want to go out on the dating scene just yet.
“Dear, we’re switching rooms tonight. We’ll start moving clothes when I get home from work.
That night, Colleen and I made the switch. The smaller bed did not seem as empty as the king sized one that was my marriage bed. With a few problems, I had the best nights sleep since Wendy, my wife of twenty-two years, died.
The biggest adjustment was that the bathroom was shared with my youngest, Nancy. I was not used to locking the doors because the master bedroom had its own bathroom.
I was getting out of the shower when Nancy walked through her door. She was ready to take her shower. I was nude and wet. She was nude and dry.
We looked at each other. There were no screams, like I would have expected. There was no embarrassment.
“Dad,” said Nancy, “please, remember to lock the door.”
Nancy stepped into the shower. I dried off and left the bathroom. I was combing my hair when I realized how much Nancy looked like her mother when we first met. She was the spitting image of Wendy when we made love the first time. That was when I got an erection. It was the first one since Wendy’s death.
I was standing in my eldest daughter’s former room with a hard-on. I closed my eyes; my hand went to my cock.
“Oh God, Wendy I miss you so.”
I was stroking away like mad. Just as I came, I heard the sound of a woman cumming. I turned to see that I had left the bathroom door open. Nancy was watching me and masturbating too. In my sexual frenzy I thought it was my late wife or her ghost.
I turned to her. My hand motions increased their speed. The apparition watched as my jism finally shot out of my cock. She closed the door.
“Wendy, don’t leave me.”
I fell on the bed crying.
I finally made it to the dinning room for breakfast. I knew by then that it was not Wendy watching but Nancy. I was ashamed to face my daughters. I knew that Nancy would tell Colleen what happened.
It was a good thing that it was a Saturday. No one had work or school that day. My state was such that I would have screwed up my job.
While Nancy had her mother’s looks, Colleen had her personality. Wendy and Colleen often clashed with the force of two mountain goats in rut.
“Dad”, said Colleen, “ are you sure you want to stay in my room? Nancy told me you didn’t lock the door to her room and she walked in on you. Then you didn’t shut the door to your room and she saw you dressing.”
I looked at Nancy. I saw she did not tell her sister about watching me jack off. Or Colleen had the decency not to mention it.
“I’m sorry, Nancy. I can’t sleep in the room I shared with your mother.”
“Dad, I know this will take a bit of adjustment. Let’s just put this morning behind us,” said Nancy.
The girls went their ways and I stayed home to read. I did not read. I dug up the old photo albums. I looked through the pictures that were all I had left of Wendy. The pictures were of our dates and marriage before the girls arrived.
They also were of our first heartache. There were two of Wendy holding the son we had. Jeremy lived only one day. We never told Colleen that she was not our first-born. The loss of Jeremy was too hard for Wendy and me to talk about. The last words Wendy said to me was that she was finally getting to be Jeremy’s mother.
It was this memory that made me let go of Wendy. She was with one of our children. I was with the other two. It was time to live. It would hurt, but I was determined to live.
That night in Colleen’s former room, I closed my eyes and let my senses go. My old room was full of death. This room was life. I could smell the subtle scents of my daughter. I realized what was happening to me in my old bedroom. There were too many memories of Wendy. Too many little scents that I could not smell but were there anyway.
It was not fare to take Colleen from HER room and put her in mine. She spent her whole life here. She was part of the room and the room was part of her. I would move back to my old bedroom and remodel. It was time to retake my life.
