Thank you for the encouragement. I have gone on ahead to the second chapter as requested, greatly buoyed by your positive words. It's a bit shorter, but I wanted to keep things moving along. I hope you don't feel it's too rushed – and I hope you don't feel short-changed. The anticipation is all, you know. Well, nearly. More to follow.
*****
Sometimes he even called himself "Linda's Dad."
He got called it a lot. When he'd picked her up from school her friends would sometimes chime in with "Oh hi, er, Linda's Dad!" when his actual name escaped them. Her teachers would introduce themselves as "So, you must be Linda's Dad." Other parents who he bumped into at those same PTA meetings. "Oh, how nice to meet you! Henry, come and meet Linda's Daddy. You must be so proud of the sweet little thing!" (He was, of course).
He didn't mind his life revolving around hers. That was part of the deal of being a single parent, he reasoned. If you wanted to look after a child, you make them number one. Your own life is less important. Sometimes he thought that maybe he could have been a little bit more successful if he hadn't always put her first. On at least two occasions he'd declined a move to the head office in another part of the country because he knew Linda was settled and happy where she was. He was really a bit too senior to still be stuck in a regional office, and younger men were starting to overtake him on the career ladder. But... success was relative, right? He told himself that, and most days he believed it.
But it was strange, sometimes, how his own identity had seemed to slip away over the years. He could hardly remember a time before Linda. Couldn't remember a time when she wasn't either in the house or he was waiting for her to come back to it. Couldn't remember a time when he wasn't thinking about her. He knew her timetable. He knew all her friends. He knew her taste in clothes, music. He knew – though she would be mortified by this, and he certainly never mentioned it – her monthly cycle.
And, alas, he knew her taste in boys. That Art, for example. She'd brought him over for dinner last week and he could see she really liked him and he and Art had finally found some common ground talking about classic 70s films and that had just about got them through the evening.
"Did you like him, Dad?"
"Yes, of course I did honey. He knows a lot about films, that's for sure."
"Yes, he really thinks about things. Not like most boys. I'm glad you like him."
Actually, he'd wanted to punch him, hard. Smug and condescending and stupid hair and sandals and generally just fucking irritating. You could do so much better, he wanted to tell her.
But of course he'd never say that. She was entitled to make her own mistakes, and his job now, sadly, was to slowly back away from her life. She was eighteen, she was an adult, he would always be there for her, but the relationship had to change now. His work, for the most part, was done. And, if he said so himself, he'd done a pretty good job with her.
It broke his heart, of course. If she could stay with him forever then that would be just fine by him. But this was his last job as a parent, he thought. Don't make her feel guilty about wanting to leave the nest. It's natural, it's right, and even if you lie awake at night thinking about how empty the house is going to feel far too soon now... well that was just how it was.
So it was getting to be time, he thought, to stop thinking of himself as Linda's Dad and to remind himself – and others – that he was also James (Jim) Hollins, he was forty-six, he wasn't dead yet, and he'd better start thinking about what he was going to do with the rest of his life. The money for her college was already stashed away, he had a reasonable amount of other savings, the house was paid off thanks to a couple of inheritances. If he wanted to, he could pack in the job and he could get a sailing boat and sail the world for a couple of years. Or climb Kanchenjunga. Or swim with dolphins. Or walk the Appalachian trail. Or take up scuba diving. Or... something.
Trouble was, none of those things appealed in the slightest to him. Maybe that made him boring. He hoped not.
What he mainly hoped his future held, to put it bluntly, was a Fuck Of A Lot Of Sex. Because by god, he missed that.
Since Linda's mother had left, he had been laid precisely four times. Once a year, each time when Linda had gone away to stay with her mother for a few weeks in the summer. (These trips with her mother rarely went well, which Jim was secretly very pleased by.) The town was just big enough to have a couple of escort agencies (thank God for the Internet) and Jim had availed himself of their services, meeting at a small hotel a few miles out of town. Outcalls cost a bit more, but he hadn't wanted the girls to come to the house. The house was just for him and Linda. It was their home. And there was something about the anonymity of hotels that added to the excitement.
He'd enjoyed the whole aspect of it. It was like a ritual, building up over a couple of days. Looking at the girls' photos. Reading their reviews. Making his decision and then the sense of growing anticipation. Showering at home before he left. Waiting in the hotel room. The knock on the door. The tentative hellos, the small talk, running his eyes over their soft, alluring curves, knowing that before long he'd be able to peel those clothes off, that pretty mouth would be on him, those long legs would be spread.
