by Francis Ashe
“Anyway, call me Nate,” he said, “I quit going by Nathan when I took up boxing. I dunno, one of those psychological hitches, you know? I felt like when I was still Nathan, I had a lot more connections to the old me than I wanted. So, it’s Nate. New man, new name, right?” He winked and grinned.
Chin still near my chest, I looked up at him. “What do you mean, new man? What’s so different?” I playfully prodded him in the arm.
“Well, it wasn’t just the weight. I was kind of a wuss. Life was passing me by, you know? Took up boxing, gave up all the moping and self-pity, and here we are. Talking to a gorgeous girl. You wouldn’t have got five words out of me a year ago.”
His candor was surprisingly refreshing. I could never do that.
I guess talking about losing a few pounds, taking up a new sport and getting confident is a little different than having a baby with your mom’s husband. Would he still think all these great things about me if he knew the truth?
“Sure,” I said, “Nate it is. Well hey; I have to get to class. Starts in a few minutes. See you around?”
“Oh, definitely. Say, what class is it? Can’t be Physics II with... uh... I can’t read his name. Something German looking. Sh-sh-sh-shwansh? I donno.”
I had to laugh. “Oh, yeah looks like it is. Don’t worry, I can’t pronounce it either. Hopefully he’ll tell us how.”
***
Class was unremarkable, but both Nate and I noticed that the professor avoided pronouncing his own name; something we had quite a laugh about afterwards. And then, the thing I had not even realized I was absolutely terrified of happening, happened.
“Hey, Liz, you want to hang out sometime? Just for, I donno, coffee or a drink?”
He had a charming smile, just like Peter’s. He must also have been intuitive. He noticed my balking.
“Oh, no worries. I’ll bet you’re really busy. But hey – invitation is open. If you ever change your mind, just let me know. Hell, we can even just meet up before class if that’s more your speed. No pressure.” He said, adorable grin still in place.
“Th-thanks, Nate. Really, I appreciate it.” I replied.
I really did like him. And that felt a little wrong. It seemed like he meant he wanted to hang out as friends, but I wasn’t so sure that’s all I wanted. Even if it was only a friendly cup of coffee, how could I explain my living situation without scaring him off?
Just too much, too soon, I thought, especially on my first day of the new, normal life. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for a friend.
“Wait a minute,” I said in spite of myself as he was gathering his things, “I really do want to hang out sometime. I’d like to catch up. It’s just... well, a lot has happened this past year. A lot. It’s hard for me to even understand it myself, much less explain it to anyone. Give me some time, okay? I promise I’ll take you up on it soon.”
He nodded, with that same easy smile on his face.
“I was serious too,” he said, “no worries. Anytime you like, we’ll have a blast! Don’t feel like you have to explain anything to me. The new Nate, he doesn’t judge anybody.”
I nodded and realized that for some reason, Nate’s gentleness and caring had almost made me break down in tears. I knew I needed to be careful not to unload on this poor guy and terrify him. But, he seemed to be so genuine that I wasn’t terribly worried.
“I gotta run,” he said, “gotta get in some time at the heavy bag before work. See you for class Thursday?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Have fun punching the shit out of a bag.”
That got a good, hearty laugh.
He surprised me with a hug goodbye.
I hugged back.
His arms were strong, and they felt good around me. That was the first time that I had felt connected to someone outside of my curious little family in ages.
“Liz,” I said to myself on the way back to the bus stop, “maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to open up to someone. If it does happen, it should be Nate. Maybe I need this.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied, feeling slightly embarrassed that I was conversing with myself in broad daylight. “I just gotta give myself some time. Time to adjust.”
Chapter Four
“Hey! There she is!” Peter’s comfortable baritone greeted me when I walked in the house, took off my shoes and slumped into my favorite chair.
“Man, missing bus stops can be a real drag,” I said. “For future reference, Route J is not the same as Route I, even though the letters look alike. Ugh.”
Peter laughed. “Well, how was school? Did you see anyone you knew?”
“Yeah. I talked to was a guy I met back when I started. Nathan. Or, Nate, I mean. He lost a bunch of weight, cleaned himself up, that sort of thing. It made me feel a little strange, actually.”
“Why?”
“Seeing someone I knew before, I guess. Nate’s a nice guy – he really is. He was so sweet. He asked me to get some coffee, told me I didn’t have to explain anything to him, but I got so nervous. I’m getting all upset. I don’t even know why.”
Peter crossed the room, smiled and pushed a length of hair that fell down in my face back behind my ear.
“Everything is okay, Liz. A lot has happened. You gotta give yourself time to readjust to things. Y’know?”
“But no, I mean I’m happy. I’ve never been this happy. With you, with Davis, with everything. I just don’t know why I got so upset when Nate started talking to me. I guess I felt like... if I wanted to have a friend that I needed to explain my – our – family.”
He nodded and sat on the chair’s arm, pulling me to his chest and smoothing my hair with one of his soft, powerful hands.
“Liz,” he said, “you know you don’t have to explain anything to anyone, unless you want to. I’m not going to say that I haven’t been thinking about this lately, though. Eventually we’re gonna go crazy unless we both get out of the house sometimes. Know what I mean?”
All I did was sniff and nod.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, “don’t worry. This is why it’s better to make friends with a guy than a girl. Guys don’t expect you spill your guts, he probably just wants to get a beer.” He smoothed my hair again, and I let myself relax against his chest. Ever so slightly, he started to rock me back and forth.
We sat there, me in my daddy’s arms, safe there, comfortable there. I kept letting my thoughts drift back to Nate, back to school. I knew what Peter was right, but slowly, the pieces started to fall into place inside my brain.
I am the one that wanted to talk to Nate, not the other way around. Every time he spoke, I wanted to interrupt him and talk and talk and talk. And then I wanted to talk some more, take a breath and keep talking. It’s been so long since I’ve really been around anyone else that I think I’ve forgotten how. At least, I think that’s what’s happening.
“Oh Liz,” I said inside my head, “just relax. Remember that hubcap? The one that told you to just go with the flow? It was right.”
I wanted to scream in frustration, more at myself than anything or anyone else. Why could I not just let myself be okay? “It’s just stress,” I told myself. “Everything will be fine. Everything is fine.”
And then my daddy kissed me and picked me up, effortlessly, in his arms.
“I’ve got to finish dinner, but where do you want me to put you? Anywhere you want. Bath? Bed?”
That did it. Out came the water works.
“I just don’t know what’s wrong! I can’t calm down. This whole day I’ve been on the verge of tears. I almost broke down when you were watching me out the window this morning. Then I was about to start up when I was talking to Nate, and I just feel like a mess!”
“Shh, shh... You’re fine,” he said, bending his head to kiss me. “Really! Just give yourself time. Do you trust me, Liz?”
I nodded.
“Okay. Then trust me when I say nothing is wrong. You’ve had a hell of a couple days – getting ready for college again, going back
to school, and then it all got topped off talking to someone from a time that seems a lot farther back than it actually is. How about you go play with the baby and put on your robe and I’ll finish dinner. Afterwards, I’ll do something I haven’t done in a while.”
Another sniffle and I blinked away a couple of tears. “What are you – wait a minute, you’re right. I do trust you. Okay. Alright, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Thank you so much, I couldn’t live without you.”
“Me too, baby girl,” he whispered and kissed me again, “me, too.”
Chapter Five
After all the plates were clean and the baby was in bed, my daddy led me to the bedroom, and playfully tossed me on top of the pile of blankets and pillows.
The first thing I noticed was how hard his fingers felt as they drove against the knots between my neck and shoulder. I rolled my head back and forth, trying to help my daddy unkink all the tightness, relax all the stress. He uncapped a little flask and dribbled softly scented oil into his hand, rubbed his palms together and then warmed my neck with his touch.
“Rose oil,” he said when I sniffed. “Supposed to be really nice for stress. After the day you had, I think that’s probably what you need.”
I approximated a chuckle by blowing a puff of air out of my nose and turned my head so that my face hung off the bed. He squeezed for a moment longer, and then rolled his knuckles along my shoulder blade and a little under.
“Just a sec,” Peter said, “I forgot something.”
He pushed off the bed. The mattress sprung back up where he was sitting, and I just drifted. It felt good, just to be alone in this giant, cloud-like bed, all by myself. The only thing I needed that I didn’t get much of was time alone. Closing my eyes and getting a nose full of the lingering scent of his rose oil relaxed me immediately. I imagined his hands running down my spine, pushing the knots and the tension off to each side and his fingers squeezing the tension out of my lower back then down and around my waist.
I had no idea that just imagining my daddy giving me a massage would be so relaxing. I couldn’t wait for him to get back. About that – I wonder where he went. Nothing was cooking, and he already put the baby down. What could he…
Just then, the door creaked as Peter stepped back in. “Sorry princess,” he said, “I forgot these.”
He set three candles down on the bedside table immediately to my left.
“Grabbed ‘em out of your bathroom. You seem to like them, and I’m really old so I figured I could use them for a light.” He laughed at his own joke. For some reason, that – his laughing at his own bad joke – made my heart melt. That seemed to happen a lot, especially where Peter was involved.
“Anyway,” he whispered right before he bent down and kissed the back of my head, right where my hair started, “I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am.”
I heard the pop top on the oil bottle again and listened as Peter rubbed his palms together. He was humming, tunelessly, in a low voice, the way he always did when he was most relaxed.
Softly, one hand went to each of my shoulders and he began to press his fingertips very gently into the muscle. “Tell me if it’s too hard, too soft.”
I grunted a “mum-hum” as soon as I realized he was talking to me.
Behind me, he laughed softly and pressed harder, fingers tracing the line of my trapezius up to my ear, then down to the point of my shoulder blade. At the end of each stroke, he pushed his thumbs into the indentation beneath my joint and turned it ever so slightly. That, mysteriously, made the top of my ass tingle.
I giggled a little, he asked why and I told him about my ass tingling when he pushed into my shoulder blade. The last thing I expected him to say was “does it feel good? When it tingles I mean?” That is, however, exactly what he asked. I thought for half a second and nodded.
“Hmm,” he sighed, “there’s something to keep in mind.”
That he was smiling as he spoke was obvious.
“Thank you so much,” I said in between pleasured sighs, “this is exactly what I needed. You’re so good to me.”
“You deserve it. Like I said… this morning? Yesterday? You’ve given me more in the past year than I have ever had. I could never possibly do enough for you.”
He rubbed again, this time twisting his thumbs and sweeping his hands, fingers pointing to my spine, along my backbone and out down my ribcage. The first few times he did it, his fingertips brushing against the sides of my breasts got me thinking about things other than relaxing massage.
“Liz, there’s something I need to say.”
“Of course, what is it?”
“I want you to know that I support anything you do. Absolutely anything. If you want to go out with that Nate character, don’t say no to him on my account. I couldn’t live with myself if you missed out on something because of me.”
I didn’t know how to respond. The thought had crossed my mind that I should hang out with Nate just for a little bit of ‘normal’ in my otherwise utterly bizarre life, but the last thing I wanted to do was hurt my daddy – my everything.
“No, I love you. Why would I want to be with anyone else?”
“Well,” he said, “I just want you to know I’ll always be here. You need to explore the world, see what’s out there. I won’t ever leave you. Understand?”
My mouth said “yes, of course,” but my thoughts were far more confused. I really did want to see more of Nate, but at the same time…
Peter pushed his thumbs along the top of my pelvis, which elicited a rumbling, throaty groan. No more thinking about Nate. Not then, at least. He pressed hard, rose-scented fingers slick and wet, gliding over my flesh, driving the pain down my sides and into the mattress, just like I imagined.
“What if,” I started to ask and then reconsidered.
“What if what, baby girl?”
“No, no, nothing. I just said what I was thinking.” Really, I was about to ask ‘what if I brought Nate over here to meet you? I think you’d like him a lot, and maybe we could even have dinner or something?’ but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Then as Peter pressed his knuckles into my ass cheeks, sending tingles up my body instead of down, I wondered what it would be like to be between he and Nate. One cock in my pussy and the other…
“Daddy?” I asked in my best little girl voice, “can we do something different tonight?”
“Like what?”
I craned my neck to look at him and beckoned him close. He bent down, and I whispered, “I want you to fuck my ass,” into his ear.
His eyes got bigger than I’ve ever seen them.
“Ha! Well, you most certainly shocked me.”
“I wasn’t trying to shock you,” I whispered again, “I really want to try. I’ve never done that, and I want you to be my first. Again. Please?”
“Well, I’m not going to say I haven’t wanted to do it before. But, I never have. We’d both be each other’s first.”
The tone of his voice sent chills down my spine. Each other’s first. It felt right. It felt like how it should be.
“Why don’t we just see where we end up, baby girl?” Peter’s voice caressed me and he sucked my earlobe between his lips, before going back to work with his knuckles on my lower back.
Soft sounds of flesh stroking against flesh filled my ears as the oil’s scent mixed with sex-musk filled my nose. The only thing I could manage to think was how incredible Peter was, and how much I in no way deserved everything he did for me.
Another drizzle of warmed oil slipped between my thighs followed quickly by his fingers. He dipped them between my legs, moving his thumbs up right next to my sex and then out and over, pushing out more tension than I thought I carried. Another sweep and the tips of his fingers almost brushed my lips, just barely missing. He came so close that the hair on his knuckles tickled me.
Peter did another pass of knuckle rolling over my lower back and the beginning of my ass, and then back down between my legs. Gently, he ur
ged them apart and moved to one side of the bed, pulling my sore thigh muscles between his fingers, and then moving to the other side. Back and forth he went, squeezing, holding and releasing. As far as I could recall, nothing in the entire world had ever felt that good. Except, maybe...
Closer.
His hands inched nearer my already-wet pussy every time he switched sides and worked my inner thighs.
Closer. Come on, please just touch me. Please slip those fingers in...
Peter moved around to the other side of the bed and slid his hands, again, down underneath my thigh, so close to my pussy that I almost felt his warmth. He pulled up, pushing his fingertips deep against my muscle. Then I heard him grunt and his hands left my body. For a moment I wanted to look back and see if he’d gone somewhere, but just when I was about to do so, I felt the bed sink and felt my daddy’s knee brush against mine.
Oh please touch me. Drive that cock in deep, stick a finger in, anything, anything! Just please touch me!
Another drip of oil between his hands and he slid them up, over my hamstrings and back down. Finally, his thumbs pressed against either side of my groin and it felt so good I almost screamed. Slick and warm from the oil, he pressed hard and worked his thumbs along the sides of my lips and up until they met below my asshole.
Down and backwards on the same path his fingers went, still deep in my muscles. I felt my folds separate and his thumbs push deeper, stimulating muscles that I didn’t know I had. Again, another long, slow, deep press brought him back to the top, right below my ring.
“Does that feel good?” he whispered.
I didn’t bother to answer. He already knew what I was going to say.
“This pussy smells so sweet, baby girl.” I felt his tongue brush against me, down one side then up the other. “So sweet. Mmm...” His moaning vibrated against me, sending little thrills up along my spine.
In short back-and-forth motions, he flicked his tongue over my slit and dipped inside every so often. He put a hand on either side of my body and lowered himself onto my back, covering me with his warmth. There he stayed for a few short moments, but as badly as I wanted him to fuck my brains out, it was incredible to be completely covered with him, his security. I pushed my ass up, trying to stroke at the tool between my legs, but Peter got away before I could manage, and went back to licking and rubbing.