The sun filtered in slowly, filling my room with a dull glow. Another day, or not. I was lying in my bed, eyes half open contemplating the pain of consciousness. There was nowhere I needed to be, I never had to work another day in my life. I was a wealthy man. I was a broken man too - not that it wasn’t deserved.
Still later, I was staring out my living room window, my perfectly clean *empty* living room. You reap what you sow. I learned important lessons, married after college to a woman I thought I loved, and partied and drank hard, selling and brokering oh so important things; had a horrible temper - and at the same maintained a perfect veneer of hypocritical moralism. My first wife had left me, and each and every child I had by her will have nothing to do with me. And then I remarried a wonderful woman. I had begun to pull my life together, felt this strange sensation of happiness. I had a wonderful beautiful supportive wife who understood me.
She was killed last year in a car wreck, by a road rage incident no less. My life at forty five was a ruin.
And then . . .
*******
“Hello.”
“Hi. Uh. Tom.??”
“This is.”
“Dad! It’s me, Sara. Hi!” My youngest. My God. I started to choke up. I had to think a little bit.
“Yes. Yes. Hello, Sara. Yes.”
“I’m in town - for a conference. I thought I would stop by to see you. I know it’s been a long time. I know it’s . . . I, uh, didn’t even know if this number still worked.”
“Well you got me. Sure Sure. That would be fine. Come over.”
“Wonderful. I can’t wait! I’ll see you then at 2:00.”
My youngest. She was the little accident that kept my wife and I together that additional two years. I turned to the clock - it was twelve noon. I was still in my underwear. I think I could get ready in two hours. I lifted myself from the chair at the window.
I lost all visitation rights for my children two years after our divorce and I lost the thread, had no idea where anyone was. Twenty years later I receive this call.
She arrived sometime around two. Her small frame silhouetted by the sunlight, smiling big white teeth at me. She came up to me quickly, this little bird, and gave me a hug.
“Daddy. Hi!”
I sat and stared at her. My mind was still in a fog most of the time. The last I had seen her she was ten, no more. She was this little awkward, quiet, skinny kid. Now she had on a simple pair of low jeans, and a top that rode above her hips so that her navel was set like a tear drop right at the center. When she moved it peeked in and out of view.
I learned she had graduated college, was top of her class, and had already received her Masters in Psychology. Her Phd program was next and it would be here.
I asked, “How do you get through to a doctorate at twenty? That’s what you are right.”
She smiled, proud, “I got through most of my undergraduate work in highschool and took an accelerated Masters.”
I nodded. “Wow. Smart, like your mother.” I watched her smile fade.
“I need to ask you something. And. . .” She looked down into her perfectly coifed little lap, her blonde locks falling around her shoulders. She was so small I remembered thinking to myself. This little girl. My little girl. She looked up, “You can say no.” She brushed the hair from her eyes.
I waited. I thought of the irony of this little psychology major sitting here and me in the throes of ruin. I was laughing inside.
“See, I thought maybe I could . . . stay here. . . I mean. I could clean. Take care of some things, in exchange for a room. I’ll buy my own food.”
She was leaning forward on the couch. Had her hands together. She was leaning back now on the sofa, throwing her hair back, and it brought her navel out once again - front and center folded in her concave tummy above narrow hips. She wasn’t wearing socks, just a pair of white sneakers, I thought that was somehow odd.
“I need some time to settle in and it won’t be very long. I get an internship in three months and start getting paid. And . .”
I was staring at her feet, no socks. “Ok,” was all I said. Just like that, and, “Sure. It would be fine.”
Then I got up and walked into the kitchen poured myself a red wine from the fridge. I felt the need to unwind. Someone in my life I thought.
“Sure yeah. We . . . uh, I have lots of room. You can help out, yeah.”
I sipped my wine. “Want some.”
***************
She settled in the very next week and in no time it felt, it really felt like she had been there forever. Her temperament, her personality somehow fit so well with me. I felt so terrible about losing out on the years we could have had together.
She had some quirks though. She was so comfortable in her skin and that comfort meant that I got to see a lot of it.
Mornings took the most getting used to on that score. She would come out of her room in the morning and pad into the kitchen wearing these oh so thin tops, these little half T shirts, and tiny matching bottoms; pink, yellow, white. Some kind of cottony fabric. Not panties really, but not much more. One morning I gestured to her standing in front of me sipping her coffee and asked, “What are those?”
She said, “What?” and looked down at herself, “Oh these!” She laughed and tugged at them from her hip. “They call them boypants.”
“I never seen any boys wear them?”
“No. I think they are FOR boys . . to like look at!” She laughed, “Like them?”
Mesmerizing.
She was swaying her hips at me just then, standing on one leg then the other, looking down at me since I was sitting. A sort of invitation to stare at her middle and I obliged, looking at her knees to navel.
She stood on one leg and let her hip tip up and then spun on her foot to the sink. I watched her bottom swirl and then step away. Her boypants today were a light yellow, and her top was so thin I could see her skin pinken the fabric. I didn’t see any bra. She looked amazing and her middle went on and on, her navel was this little thin vertical line.