AUTHOR'S NOTE:
All characters, in this fictional story, involved in any sexual situation are 18 or older. No sexual activity of any kind happens with, around, or because of anyone under the age of 18. Warning: This story DOES have a strong sexual relationship between father and daughter, so if that is not for you, read at your own risk.
*****
I am the product of a high school romance. Rather, my mother was in high school, while my father was in college. They had met at a party, and my mother, ever gorgeous, bewitched my father. He was smitten with her happy-go-lucky personality and good looks, and she had hardly spared a second glance at him. At least, that is how she liked to tell the story. Of course, my mother was always attractive, but my father was by no means hideous, and from what I've gathered, could be quite charming.
Their relationship ran as hot and ended as abruptly as an explosive, but before they fizzled out, they made me. Mom didn't know she was pregnant until after the breakup. According to her, Dad didn't want to be too involved with the whole ordeal, so he sent her money every month, thanks to a shapely looking trust fund left by his parents. And so, that is how my mother became a single parent at 17.
Being raised by my mother wasn't awful. We were never
close
, by any means, but she wasn't mean. Distant, really, seemingly disinterested. I never went without, having been provided for financially, although my mom mostly left me to my own devices. Most of my financial support was due to my father, I knew. He sent his monthly child support checks, and on my birthday and Christmas, he would always send me a few hundred dollars. What child of eight needs $300, I don't know, but I imagine he didn't want to bother with trying to find me a gift. And for all the things my mother wasn't in my life, she never stole from me. She always gave me the money my father sent me. Well, she put it in savings, anyway.
"For college," Mom would say.
She was always talking about college. She didn't get to go, and I think she was trying to live vicariously through me. Honestly, I didn't mind. It was the only time she ever seemed interested in me. I got excellent grades, and I was a good kid. I had no idea what I could have spent that money on, at that age, so putting it in a college fund was fine by me.
I never had much of a relationship with my father. I hardly knew him growing up. I never even met him until he took my mom to court for visitation rights. I started visiting him twice a year after I turned ten. One month in the summer and a week before Christmas I flew out to Seattle, before returning to my normal life in Illinois. I thought it would be awkward, staying with a relative stranger, but he worked all the time, and I rarely saw him. He had hired a nanny to stay with me during the day, and in the evening, while he was home, he was usually holed up in his office. Meanwhile, I occupied my time by playing games on the computer he bought me or reading.
I stopped having a nanny during my visits when I was 13, but my dad told the doorman at his building that I wasn't allowed to leave if he wasn't escorting me, so nothing much changed. Having the apartment to myself during the day was pleasant. I didn't have to get out of my pajamas until I knew dad was coming home. I could play music loudly and dance in the living room. I could watch cable all day if I wanted. I had a freedom that even my mother's lackadaisical rules didn't allow me.
I didn't usually mind my father's absenteeism. If my mother hadn't warned me of his lack of interest, perhaps I would have, but even still, I liked being alone. I had friends at home, and good ones, but they were few, and I have always been relatively reserved and remote. So, it worked out in my favor that dad was unavailable.
I was 14 when I went to live with my father permanently. I want to say it was because he wanted to have custody of me so much that he fought my mother for it, but, no, it was because she had died quite suddenly. Dad moved out of his apartment that "wasn't suitable for raising a teenager," as he said. He hired an agent to buy a house for him almost as soon as he heard mom had died. He then flew to Illinois, taking three months away from the office - although he worked remotely - so I could finish the school year. He helped me go through all my mom's stuff and anything I wanted to keep we shoved in the back of a moving truck after the last day of school and drove it back to the home he had purchased before he had ever stepped foot in it.
* * * * *
That was the most extended amount of time I had spent with my dad, up until that point. I learned that he didn't know how to cook. Neither could my mom, so I had long since taught myself. I made all the meals after getting home from school and this habit continued with him after mom died. I also found out he could be quite funny, as we'd chat throughout dinner and he would tell me stories from his younger days. He never really talked about my mother, but he would hold me silently whenever I broke down in grief. He knew I was good at school, something he said my teachers had told him, but he always sat and worked from his computer as I did my homework, in case I needed his help.
On the drive to Washington, I found out we had similar taste in music, though, that wasn't surprising. Mom's taste had influenced mine, and I imagine that was one of the many things that attracted them to one another. We talked about relationships, him asking if I had a boyfriend, and I told him I never had. He said he had been in a particularly terrible relationship many years prior that really messed with him and hadn't been in a serious relationship since but didn't explain further. Our relationship was still growing, and I wasn't entirely comfortable enough with him to ask about it. We talked about books, something that we both loved. Mom wasn't much of a reader, so I guess he is where I got it. He said he noticed I would always read when I visited and made sure the new house had lots of bookshelves. I was surprised he even paid attention. He talked to me about why he moved to Seattle, having been from Illinois, too. He had an MBA and another Master's in Finance that he received from Northwestern University. There were more opportunities in Seattle for career growth than in Chicago, he explained.
And so, that is how my father became a single parent at 34. Only, things mostly went back to how they had been whenever I visited. He started back at work almost immediately. He was often gone before I woke up and would get home just before I had dinner finished. We still had dinner together, but he always went into his office straight afterward. He was perhaps a bit more involved than my mother - who only ever asked me about my grades - by requesting a list of anything I might want or need "to make it feel more like home." Having had his belongings moved while he was with me in Illinois, and never really having anything of my "own" at his place for when I visited, he knew that I only had what I brought with me. When I gave him a small list of just some necessities, he laughed, crumbled up the paper and threw it away.
"What is your favorite color?" he asked.
"Uh... Burgundy?" was my confused reply.
"Do you like animals?"
"Well, of course, who doesn't like animals?" Although, after thinking for a moment, I remembered mom wasn't fond of animals, which is why I never had a pet growing up.
"What's your favorite?"
I shifted, a little uncomfortable.
"Um... bats," I mumbled, slightly worried he would think me strange, as so many others had.
He looked mildly surprised but smiled like he was pleased.
"What are some books that you have wanted to read that you haven't been able to, yet?"
After I listed off a few, he nodded and walked into his office without another question, leaving me more than a little confused.
That Friday he came home with a bunch of shopping bags. He had bought all the necessities from my list - which I gathered he did from memory, as the paper had been thrown away by him - but he had more for me. He had the books I told him about, plus a couple of others I had mentioned on the drive to Washington. I was amazed he had remembered. He even bought me a copy of
The Sound and the Fury
, hoping I would enjoy his favorite book as much as he. He had curtains and bedding in my favorite color. The last thing he pulled out was a stuffed bat roughly the size of my head.
"Something to cuddle," he said holding it out to me.
* * * * *
Overall, he left me to my own devices, although, once school began, I was permitted to come and go as I wanted. I took the bus to and from the private school he had enrolled me in, and while the school was much bigger than my former one, it wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be. I still maintained good grades and being "the new kid", I gained my classmates' interest, so I made friends quickly and easily. The transition to this new life wasn't a bad one.
Having opened a joint checking account with my name and regularly adding funds to it for my use for clothes, school supplies, and even groceries, it became a pattern for us that I did all the household shopping. I didn't have a car, or a license at that point, seeing as I had turned 15 a month after the new school year began. I would take a cab or the bus to the store if I only needed something small, but I utilized a delivery service for our larger monthly purchases, at the suggestion of my father. It was apparent he did well for himself because money never really seemed to be an issue, even though we only lived in a modest three-bedroom home. Not that we needed anything larger.
The year past quickly. On my birthday my dad got me a cake and a new cell phone. Christmas, the first one since my mom's passing, was the best Christmas I had ever had. I almost feel bad saying so, but mom rarely did anything. I had never had a tree before, and dad got a real one. He bought a ton of presents, books, and electronics and even gave me outright money. I didn't know what to buy him, seeing as he could buy himself whatever he wanted, so on a whim, I decided to get professional photos taken of me, and framed the best ones for him. The smile he gave me warmed me from the inside. I made a delicious Christmas dinner, at his request, and he made eggnog, something he said he learned from his mother. He even allowed me to try some.
For my 16th birthday, my dad had thrown a party and allowed me to invite my friends. It was the best birthday I had ever had. My friends were all having fun. Charlie Rogers, the boy I had a crush on, sneakily gave me a shy peck on the lips. My presents were great. I wasn't even bothered by all my girlfriends making sly comments to me about my "hot dad" like I often was. It wasn't until everyone had left and dad was cleaning up, having told me the birthday girl should never have to clean after her own party, that I realized I didn't know my dad's birthday. I had spent nearly two years with him and never acknowledged his birthday. The thought brought me to tears, and in a rare moment of vulnerability, I ran to my dad and wrapped my arms around him in a hug.
"Oh, Daddy. You are amazing!"
I must have taken him by surprise because as he hugged me back, a noise sounded in his throat as if he was choking on his words.
