"I know she's not coming back," Larry stated in a tone of resignation, "it's just ..." he took a sip of his beer and sighed. "Valentine's Day of all days."
He looked at his daughter Linda and she nodded sadly in response, an affirmation of the profundity of his pain and the irony of the date.
"I'm sorry you felt like you had to come all the way out here for me. I'm sure Charlie had plans for the two of you; it isn't easy getting a table at a nice place on ... tonight."
"He understands," Linda replied and sipped her beer, "Really," she insisted, "And if he doesn't, well then he doesn't really understand me."
"That's the thing I loved so much about your Ma," he said and chugged the last of his beer down, "She could always find it in her heart to give to other people without ever askin' much for herself."
"It's got to be tough without her," she smiled warmly; "I know how much she loved you and she'd want you to go on ... you have to know that."
Linda knew he understood the words on a logical level ... she wasn't confident he understood any of them on an emotional one.
"It's been over a year, Dad," Linda looked out over the deck's railing at the blackness beyond the light's reach.
A year since she'd died in the car accident.
"Why don't you move into a place in town?" She grabbed another can of beer from the blue and white cooler between her and her father and flicked an ice cube caught on the rim at him. "It's too damn far out here for a man your age to be livin' alone."
His head jerked up in surprise. "A man my age?"
Linda snorted and managed to spray some of the beer she was just starting to sip over the leg of her jeans shorts and bare legs.
"Shit!" she laughed, "You aint no spring chicken, y'know!"
"Hey now!" he laughed in return. He was a working man and in better shape than the punks half his age at the warehouse. "Forty-Nine is the new ..."
"Fifty," she interjected.
"Forty-Nine!" Larry insisted. "I'm not that old ..."
"Hell! Fifty or Forty-Nine what's the difference?" Linda interrupted, pointing her beer at him for emphasis.
"Think about it - if I'm Fifty then you're Thirty, Missy!"
"Oh yeah," Linda admitted with a smile, "I guess you really are only Forty-Nine!"
He pulled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt and flexed his arm for affect, "Look at that! Hard as steel!"
Linda had to pause and admire her father's muscled arm for a moment. She found herself comparing her father's chest and arms to her own husband's and realized that in comparison, her husband was a bit lacking.
For a moment she imagined she was a little girl in his arms again and smiled to herself at the warmness the thought gave her.
"Besides, old man or not, I can still get it up!"
"Jesus!" Linda nearly snorted her beer all over herself again but managed to just spill it down the top of her blouse.
She sat up quickly and set the beer down and looked around for something to dry her shirt with.
She wasn't wearing a bra and although she was a full grown woman with a husband and kids ... she still didn't feel comfortable with the thought of her dad seeing her tits through her white cotton shirt.
"How many of those you had, Girl?" Larry laughed. "I'm gonna cut you off if you keep spillin' 'em!"
She stood up and staggered for a moment.
"More than I should have, I guess," she managed, "Charlie won't let me drink anymore."
She gulped down the rest of the beer and tossed the can into the bucket her dad set out for just that purpose,
"He says I can't control myself when I drink ... he's such a fucking asshole!"
She gasped when the words she'd just said to her father registered with her own brain. She looked at him apologetically but he didn't notice - he was leering at her tits.
She looked down and could see the dark circles of her hard nipples poking through the thin material outlining her full breasts. When she looked back up, her father was looking away over the railing into the darkness.
"Go change," he said in his certain fatherly way; the way that for some reason, she'd never really had the courage to disobey, "Your Ma's clothes are still in her wardrobe."
He looked back at her and unapologetically scanned her from head to toe.
"You're her spittin' image." His eyes lingered over her thick bare legs and breasts. "You shouldn't have a problem findin' something."
"Okay, Dad," she said, surprised out how 'little girl' her voice sounded to herself.
********************************
Her parent's room was exactly the same as she remembered. The last dress her mother had worn in public still lay draped over the dressing table chair where she'd left it - where she'd left it that last night.
It was a quaint dress, a style Linda considered quite lovely but most women considered old fashioned now.
It was a soft, nearly see-through fabric, a light tan color, and ankle length. The thin straps made the neckline so low that only a woman with breasts like Linda's or her mother's could truly wear it with confidence.
It had an almost Country Western bustier style to the top that helped accentuate the breasts but still had a loose, modest, yet clingy way of flowing around the legs.
She smiled at the image of her mother that the dress evoked in her mind ... the beautiful brunette with deep blue eyes and lips that always seemed to pout even when she smiled.
Her mother was beautiful and everyone had always commented to Linda, and to each other, how much she resembled her.
She crossed the room like she was entering a shrine and delicately lifted the dress to her nose. She imagined she could still smell her mother's scent in the fabric and for a moment she could almost feel her presence.
Her eye caught a glint of diamond from a necklace prominently displayed in the open jewelry box on the dresser. It was a beautiful drop necklace laced with several carats worth of diamonds. It was probably worth as much as the new car Charlie had just bought her.
She picked it up and admired it.
Her father had bought the necklace for her mother to celebrate their thirtieth Valentine's Day together ... the gift he'd had to finance to afford, the gift she'd only had the chance to wear once.
********************************
Linda admired herself in the full length mirror.
She'd pulled her hair up to match the parochial style of the dress; a loose updo that left a few strands of her dark hair to fall and frame her cheeks and blue eyes. It was a style her mother liked and it always suited her.
She pouted her full lips and admired how really beautiful and sexy the combination made her look; she admired how much like her beautiful mother the ensemble seemed to make her appear.
She turned side to side, caressing the soft material around her waist, enjoying the feel of it against her skin.
Her eye caught sight of her mother's perfume. It was ultra expensive and one of Linda's own favorites too. Although she'd run out a long time ago, her cheap husband somehow never got around to replacing it - even when she hinted during the holidays or her birthday.
"Don't mind if I do," she smiled conspiratorially to herself and added the final touch.
********************************
Her father appeared in the mirror behind her; his huge frame filled the doorway as he slumped drunkenly against the doorframe ... a bottle of whiskey dangled from his right hand.
Linda spun and gasped, setting the perfume down on the makeup table behind her.
She was suddenly horrified at the thought that her father might be upset to see her in this particular dress.
She wondered what emotions she might evoke by disturbing the last memories he had of the woman he'd loved since he was a child.
"Melissa?" he slurred, "Melissa ...?" he took a few steps into the room and staggered. He managed to catch himself by the rocking chair in front of the closet but the chair was no match for his weight or his inability to balance himself and he crashed to the floor taking the rocker with him.
Linda rushed to him and pulled the nearly empty bottle from his hand.
"Melissa, where you been?" he asked, hurt tinged his slurred voice, "I've missed you so fucking much!"
Linda put one of his heavy arms over her shoulder and tried to help him up but he grabbed her by the arm instead.
"Where have you been?"
She didn't want to do anything to throw him into a rage. She'd learned that keeping still and not saying anything that could be misunderstood was usually the best way to prevent provoking a drunken man.
He pulled her into his arms. It struck Linda as ironic that she'd imagined him holding her only a short while ago and now that he was - she was a bit afraid.
"Oh, Dear Jesus!" He sobbed into her hair; the passion in him made his chest heave and gave strength to his grip. "I'm sorry, Baby."
"Please!" she cried, her voice muffled by his shoulder, "You're hurting me!"
He let her go and flung himself onto the bed and bunched the sheets around his face to stifle his sobs until eventually, he passed out.
********************************
Linda crawled into the bed next to him and lay on her back, overwhelmed by the flood of emotions coursing through her.
She cried herself to sleep too.
********************************
The gentle rocking of the bed startled Linda awake.
The soft movement of the bed and the barely audible squeaking of the springs under her ear were the first things she registered.
The next things she registered was the feel of an enormous arm around her chest; a rough calloused hand inside the top of the dress gently pinching the hard, sensitive nipple of her left breast; hot breath on the nape of her neck; the feel of an enormous penis sliding slowly along the crack of her ass bunching the long dress between her thighs.
Her breath caught in her chest when she realized where she was and what was happening to her.
"Dad?" She said quietly.
He responded by nuzzling his nose into her neck and tenderly biting her shoulder.
"Dad?" she said again, hoping to wake him. He was obviously asleep, imagining that she was his wife. "Wake up."
"Be quiet," he whispered into her ear. "Just relax."
"Dad!" she cried, "What are you doing?"
"Be quiet!" He insisted.
She finally decided to try to resist but when she tried to move away he brutally jerked her back and twisted his huge hand in her hair to pull her ear close to his lips again.
"I'm not Mom!" She cried out in desperation.
"I know," he said, releasing her hair and sliding the strap of the dress off of her shoulder to free her breast.
"No!" She tried to pull away again but this time he wasn't giving her room to wiggle.
She grabbed his hand as he cupped her tit and pinched her nipple again but she was no match for his strength.
"Please," he begged. His voice cracked with emotion. "I need to believe that you're her right now."
Linda felt herself go to the place she went to when she felt helpless. The place where time stopped and she froze up ... like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck.
"Linda, please," he moaned, "I won't hurt you."
