Loving Dad
I love my dad. Not like most people, who love their dads, where there are those levels of propriety which limit their love, nor like those who twitter 'love you' as they air-kiss a proffered cheek, but totally, unconditionally and without limits. And he loves me.
I was a fat child. Not just chubby or 'big-boned', I was a waddling ball of flab. I think it might have been my mother's inability to cook anything unless it included chips - not made in any healthy way, but with a deep fat fryer, which meant they tasted awesome, but contained more calories than a week's worth of fast food. Teamed with sausages or some other processed monstrosity, and with vegetables as an optional extra from the microwave, my waistline was doomed from the second I stopped eating mush. Of course, we didn't have that every night. Some nights we had take-away - pizza, burgers - all with chips. On an exotic evening, dad would go to the local chip shop and get us - you guessed it - sausage and chips. The typical diet from the typical bone-idle English mum.
By the age of five I was spherical. By the time I was eight, I was cylindrical (I got taller), and I was heading to conical (gravity dragging it all to the bottom) when mum died. Her heart gave out. That left dad and I alone.
Now, dad was my hero. He ate the same as mum and me, but teamed it with a rigid fitness regime. He played football and cricket, jogged in the evening and had a small home gym where he worked out. He was also my protector. At school, I would be teased and bullied mercilessly - until dad stepped in. he was never violent, never threatened, but when he spoke to my teachers, or, if they were ineffective, my bullies, they listened and left me alone.
When mum died, he sat me down and talked to me. He explained that things were going to be different. He was going to be cooking, and he would make different things - things I had never eaten before - and if I didn't eat them, then, sorry, but I would be hungry. As it turned out, there was never a problem, as he was a great cook (who'd have thought it) and I wolfed down his offerings, even content to forego the crisps, biscuits, chocolate and sweets which topped up my diet before.
When I was about eleven, I also discovered football. My previous loathing of all physical activity (I never did PE, due to undiagnosed asthma) vanished, and I started kicking a ball for all I was worth - at first in the back garden with dad, then in the girls team at the club he played for. At first I was a joke, waddling around, out of breath after half a dozen running steps, but things changed. The healthy diet, the daily games of football at home or at 'the club' (the local park), the occasional times in our home gym and soon I was losing weight.
It's true that it's easier to lose weight if you're young, and even easier if over-eating and not exercising are the main causes, and while it's never easy, I found myself gradually becoming slimmer. My early puberty growth spurt hit and I shot up, which helped as well. Soon, I was a tall, slim young lady - especially when I started joining dad on his jogs. I had a runner's build and became a fairly good wing back for the football team.
Dad and I became close. We had to in some ways, but it doesn't happen for everyone. Some single parent families see arguments and fallings out of all sorts, especially in the teenage years, but not us. Dad also seemed to lack any embarrassment around me, and guided me openly and honestly through my teenage years. Maybe I wasn't too difficult - I had few boyfriends (rarely going on more than one date with each one), I helped around the house and loved my dad's company. My sole hang-up was my stick-thin runner's physique, but if I moaned, dad would smile and say 'don't worry, it'll either happen or it won't. If it doesn't, you'll look like a supermodel, and if it does, you'll look a thousand times better.'
Eventually, it did. Much later than most. In fact I was eighteen when I suddenly realised my 32A bra was too tight and my knicker elastic was digging in. Of course, when I first realised, I ran excitedly to tell dad.
"Dad! I'm getting boobs! And hips!"
He smiled. "Told you. We'd better go shopping."
And that was it. I wanted him to look and appraise me, but that wasn't our way. Some homes may see nudity as natural, others as something which just happens from time to time. We never saw each other naked. There was no prudishness about it, we just didn't. We dressed and undressed in private, had bathrobes and kept our doors shut. That was it. The most we saw of each other's bodies was on holiday in swimming costumes. It just wasn't a 'thing'.
My boobs and hips grew to match my quite tall stature, making running more difficult (definitely needed a support bra) and proving to be beneficial for football, as I filled out to match my general abilities with a new-found strength, while mercilessly flattening my boobs.
It also attracted it fair share of male interest from the lads at University, but I wasn't interested. Maybe when I qualified, but not before. Until then, there was just one man in my life. It seemed this worked both ways, as dad never dated either. He never made an issue of it, but I became aware of it. He was a good-looking man, only eighteen years older than me (he once explained the reason why he ended up with mum was that he had been a 'bloody idiot' - once for getting her pregnant and once for trying to do the 'right thing' by marrying her). He was tall, muscular, had a full head of light brown hair and his own teeth (he was only thirty-six after all). He had his own house, a well-paid job and an independent daughter.
We often spent evenings at home, cuddled up on the sofa watching TV, and had always had a physical closeness. We hugged unselfconsciously, kissed frequently and expressed our love openly and without embarrassment. That changed one day, however.
I had got home from Uni early and gone to my bedroom. It was a hot, Summer day, so I had stripped to a crop top and knickers and lay on the bed with my door ajar to allow a through draught. At some point, I must have dozed off, because I heard movement on the landing outside my room. Not stealthy movement, just someone opening doors. I checked the time. Dad wasn't due home for a couple of hours, so who was it? I froze, lying on the bed, my first thought being that I should hide (as dad said I should if there was a burglar).
I was about to slide down behind the bed when the door flew open. I gasped in horror as I gazed at the apparition before me. Not a muscled rapist intent on having his way with me (like in some of those er... awful?... er... nightmares?... that I had that left a wet patch on the bed. No. Far worse than that. It was dad - in nothing but his boxer shorts.
Maybe that should have been a relief, but the situation was totally new to us. I was lying on the bed in a tiny crop top that barely covered my boobs (if I stretched up, the underside was clearly visible), with rock hard nipples from whatever dream I had awoken from (the intruder in my home, maybe), and knickers which, while hardly sexy, were high legged and close fitting around my shaved pubis (I shaved because the other girls in the football team did). I might even have had a camel-toe, and there was a definite damp patch on the grey cotton.
Dad stared. I half expected him to run too, but he seemed frozen to the spot. What was evident (though I have no idea why I chose this time to look) was the impressive, curved lump in his shorts. It certainly was impressive. I had seen porn, and on those few dates I had been on since starting University, had even tried hand jobs (I actually gave one of them a blow job - typical eighteen year old - he blew off in my mouth within three minutes). What I could make out under dad's shorts was way more impressive than any of those.
Finally I broke the silence. "Sorry, dad. I thought you'd be at work."
"I... I thought you'd be at Uni", he stuttered.
He went to cover himself with his hands. I laughed.
"Don't be silly, dad. For christ's sake, I know what you keep in there! Does it matter? We're both adults."
He seemed about to drop his hands, when he became aware of his semi-hardness.
"Yes," he mumbled, "but... er... it's a bit... y'know..."
I smiled, despite my fluttering stomach and the flush across my body. "Oh dad. I know how it works. Don't worry. You're a man, you have needs. So do I."
He glanced at the damp patch on my underwear, before his eyes travelled to my bullet-nipples. My instinct was to cover up, but I forced myself not to. I wanted this new level of intimacy. Why shouldn't we be comfortable around each other? I wasn't sure I was quite ready to see dad's erection in all its glory, but part of me was desperate - the part that was currently leaking liquid on to my knickers.
I decided to be brave.
