Dear Daddy

by Lena Little

  In a very small way, in comparison to you, I feel the same way. Nothing makes sense for me in the world. I just wish we could hug and realize that maybe there is someone that understands us, gets us so to speak, even if our lives are so very, very different. Then again, we’re all people and all humans so surely we share some common experiences.

  I hear my stepdad yelling for me now so I better run. I’d rather send you this now, today, and get it to you faster rather than take more time and send it in a few days. It’s just me writing a stream of consciousness, but doing so really relaxes me. I feel like ‘talking’ to you is very therapeutic. Maybe it’s because we’re not face-to-face, although I have this strange feeling that one day we will be.

  Uhhhh! My stepdad is yelling again. I really have to go this time. I wish I had a real dad, someone who understood me and wasn’t so critical of everything I always do. Have you ever considered being a Daddy?

  XOXO,

  Josi

  I barely get my trousers down in time before I explode, my body twisting as I shoot a hot load against the bathroom wall. This girl’s words caused me to climax. I didn’t even know something like that was humanly possible.

  Then again it wasn’t exactly her words, but that one single word.

  Daddy.

  Each time I’ve read one of her two letters, and I’ve reread the first damn near what must be fifty times now, that word completely fills every part of me.

  I want to be there for her. I want to stand up to her stepdad for her, show him he doesn’t even realize the treasure he has in front of his very own eyes and then punch him right in the eye for all the trouble he’s given her. And then throw her over my shoulder and take her from there, forever.

  The craziest part about it all is that it is a possibility, but I’d have to compromise the one thing she commended me on in order to make it happen.

  But she’s the one who’s making everything happen, this complete transformation within me.

  Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks because this one sure feels young again every time I think of her.

  My little girl.

  Mine.

  6

  Josi

  I slam my bedroom door shut, throwing myself onto my bed as tears roll down my cheeks.

  My stepdad felt the need to remind me, yet again, that I need to start preparing for college. And he made sure to emphasize the fact that I’m not living here after I graduate. Either I go to college, or get a job, or live on the street. “Tough love” he called it, but I’ve never felt one ounce of love in all the years he’s spoken to me.

  One thing is for certain though. He’s right. I have to get out of here. No way can I stand living here a day longer than I have to. I strengthen my resolve, sit up on my bed, and move over to my desk. Time to get a job so I can get some money and be prepared to leave here the second I throw my cap into the air on graduation day if I even go to my own graduation.

  But the second I sit down at my desk I see the envelope that was in my own hands not much more than a week before, and it’s postmarked from San Quentin.

  I tear into the letter, this time not caring about saving the package. I need something positive in my thoughts, in my life, right now. And how crazy is it that a stranger who’s locked up for life seems to be the only one who can provide that for me, and I’m hoping it goes both ways.

  Josi,

  Have you ever been asked a question that completely changed your life, something so powerful it altered your entire paradigm, shifting the way you think?

  I have, because of you.

  Those seven words you strung together, “Have you ever considered being a Daddy?” They hit me like a punch in the gut, in a good way.

  I’m not sure if you mean a father to a child or in another way. To answer your question I’d never thought of either, until you.

  But now I already am a Daddy, in my mind. I feel like you’re the little girl I was always meant to have, but not as my child. More in an emotional and, if I’m being honest, physical way. Something about your words just make me want to have you in all ways…body, mind, and soul. And I never thought I’d say this to another person as long as I lived, but that’s what I feel like I’m giving you in these little letters we share.

  I say ‘little’, but only because they’re short and there’s only so much we can say. In reality, they’re huge, but they’d pale in comparison to actually seeing each other, being together.

  Are you with anyone now? Do you have a boyfriend? If you do, you need to tell them you don’t have time for a boyfriend, that you need a man in your life. A Daddy. Me.

  Baby girl, you’re everything that’s right in the world, not all the bad things your stepfather and mother want you to think you are. If I were your Daddy, I would remind you just how unique you are, and remind you that it’s that uniqueness that makes you special in a world full of clones. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever spoken with, or more accurately had a relationship with, or whatever it is that we have via these letters.

  I want to know so much more about you. I want to see you. I don’t expect you to come here and visit me, as it might be scary for you, but maybe you could send a picture.

  That will hold me over until we do finally meet, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. In reality, I feel like a caged animal, literally and metaphorically. And I need nothing more than to break free of that cage and run directly where I belong. With you.

  And that’s exactly what the future holds. Please trust me on this. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. And I know when it could be. Soon, very soon, little one.

  Your Daddy will come for you. Count on it.

  Love,

  Daddy

  P.S. I know you enjoy books and reading and I can see you’re a thinker so I hope I’m giving you the best of all worlds. Please enjoy this word search puzzle I made myself.

  Little one…the word cuts through me like a knife, grabbing my heart and slamming it into overdrive. My panties are absolutely soaked, and I would be surprised if I’m now sitting in a pool of my own excitement.

  It’s too much to take.

  I move back toward my bed, grabbing Simba and grinding my clothed middle into him.

  My eyes close and my breathing hitches as I near my release. Just before I feel a wave wash over me, through me, and my floodgates open, my mouth opens first.

  And at first nothing comes out, until I utter the word that’s changed everything.

  “Daddy.”

  7

  James

  I set the book down, feeling an extreme sense of joy. I haven’t been able to read in over two decades, and not only that my little one picked the perfect book for me.

  Thumbing back to the passage in Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, I read the words he borrowed from Friedrich Nietzsche.

  One who has a 'why' to live for can endure almost any 'how'.

  That’s me, but after so many reasons the underlying reason has changed. For well over half my life it was because of my refusal to let the system win, despite the fact that I was the one they’d locked up and could hardly be considered winning. But now my why is no longer my own justice, which will never come, but her.

  Even though the judge said I was an exemplary inmate four years ago at my parole hearing, she said I still couldn’t face reality and couldn’t confess. That alone was holding me back, and showed I hadn’t ‘learned my lesson.’

  There was no lesson to be learned, at least not then. But now? Absolutely.

  The fight, the struggle, is everything. But it’s no longer about me. It’s about her. Getting out of here and getting to my little one. And with another parole hearing around the corner, it’s time to let the young, angrier me, go. It’s time to embrace all the wisdom I’ve learned in my forty years and to finally see an end to this. I need to sacrifice what I’ve stood for, for nearly a quarter of a century in order to live the future that I need, want, and desire.
Just like she does.

  I pick up her letter, which accompanied the book she sent me, and read it again.

  Dear Daddy,

  No, I don’t have a man in my life. I don’t have anyone in my life…only you.

  I know that you’re the person who can accept me as I am, that will allow me to be your Little Girl, and that you’ll take care of me with every part of your being. And I’ll be a good girl too…except when I’m naughty, but only so you can punish me. ;)

  I’m including a book I thought you might like and a picture of me so you can see what I look like. I found an old picture of you online when you were sixteen, and you are…well, let’s just say I can extrapolate and imagine how you look now. Taking those boyish features, but yet rough and masculine around the edges, and aging them like a fine whiskey…wow, I can only imagine how manly and perfect you look now, Daddy.

  I can’t wait to see you in real life, and start what will finally feel like the real life I’ve been waiting my whole life to live. When can we do that, Daddy? Make me happy and tell me soon.

  Your Little Girl,

  Josi

  If I hadn’t already released seven times, and counting, earlier today I’d explode all over again. My hand shakes as I slowly inch it inside the envelope where her picture had fallen, face down. I wanted to read her letter and the book first, to let the anticipation inside me build even more. I haven’t eaten anything all day, yet I feel more energetic and stronger than I ever have in my life.

  My nostrils flare and I hear my teeth grinding together as I bring the picture out of the envelope. Pause and then exhaling hard I flip it over.

  I swear I’m looking at an angel. Her blond hair cascades around her shoulders and her tiny features make her out to be exactly the little girl that we both know she is. How can others not see what’s so clear to both of us? How can the rest of the world not take a single second to try and view the world through her lens, imagining what it must be like to go through a big, hard, cruel world as a small girl who’s a bit shy and introverted? Is everyone that blind, or are they just so busy they don’t care?

  I care, dammit. I care more than anything.

  I adjust myself in my pants, feeling the tip of my cock catch on my underwear, knowing I’ve already coated it in precome.

  When I get out of here I’m going to get a job, buy us a house, and fill it with things that suit her personality, our personalities, and that makes us the happiest two people in the world. Because that’s exactly what she’s made me.

  I need to get out of here so I can get back into humanity and protect her from all the evil forces that lie within it. I need to be by her side, and vice versa. I need to take her hand and never let go, guiding her through all of life’s up’s and down’s, although I’m going to do everything I can to eliminate any and all of the downs. As her protector, her guardian, her Daddy, that comes with the territory and is something I embrace with everything I’ve got.

  And I’m going to make sure everyone knows she’s mine, that I’m her Daddy.

  “Right, Little Girl,” I mumble in my cell.

  “What are you mumbling about down there?” my cellmate asks.

  “Just a dream.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “The opposite.”

  “Bullshit. You got another letter from that girl. One of them fancy schmancy colored envelopes. Don’t pretend like I didn’t see it, and don’t pretend like I won’t tell the guards if you don’t let me see that picture she sent you.”

  “What picture?”

  “I know she’s sent you a picture…had to have. And if you don’t hand it over right now so I can jack my shit to her then I’m turning you in.”

  “So. You. Can. What?”

  “You heard me. You been going to the toilets all day. Think I don’t know what you’re doing in there? Now pass the picture of that bitch up here so I can get some relief.”

  I jump to my feet, grabbing him and jerking him down from the top bunk, and throw him to the concrete floor where I proceed to bash his face in.

  The sirens wale and seconds later guards are entering our cell. Then it hits me. The picture.

  I grab it, stuff it in my mouth and swallow it down whole, choking as the Billy clubs rain down on me.

  It doesn’t matter. No one in here sees what’s mine but me. I can take the punishment to keep her away from these animals, even if it’s only so much as a picture of her. But a picture of her means everything.

  Yet what I didn’t mean to do was what I just realized I might have done, what’s probably too late.

  My parole hearing is now jeopardized with a fight on my record, and this will get written down.

  The CO’s continue to wail on me and I don’t resist. I just need to take it, so I can get out of here.

  Because I can’t take one more second of being away from my Little Girl.

  “Daddy’s coming, angel,” I say softly.

  “Shut the fuck up!” one guard yells, just before his thick polycarbonate stick makes contact with my skull and everything goes dark.

  8

  Josi

  The end of the school year is rapidly approaching, including prom, and I haven’t heard from James for weeks.

  Maybe I was too aggressive with the Daddy talk in my last message. Maybe he found another pen pal if pen pal is the right word. To me, we were so much more.

  I’d never planned on going to prom, but silly little me had this strange idea that maybe he’d get out of prison and take me there. Yeah, I’d completely lost it and reality had set back in. How could someone in a maximum security federal prison be released at the drop of a hat? It makes no sense…or does it?

  Knowing that I am indeed crazy I grab my phone and look through what I can from James’ case again. The lack of evidence. The aggressive prosecutor who was up for re-election. The fact that James was an orphan and had no one in his corner to stick up for him. Not only that but I’m not sure how much D.N.A. was being used back then. Throw in the fact that he’d seen another woman in the area where the blazes started and it just seems like too little ‘evidence’ was brought against this man. My man. My Daddy.

  Why can’t I shake him like he’s seemingly shaken me? Maybe it’s because after eighteen years of feeling like an outcast finally came to a screeching halt after just a few letters were exchanged between us.

  Was he just telling me what I wanted to hear? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

  Was he invested in what we were doing or since I was providing the postage paid return envelopes was I just a form of free entertainment for him? I doubt it.

  Maybe he saw my picture and didn’t like how I looked? That would be the obvious thought, but I’m still holding out hope that that’s not it. He mentioned the mix-up in the mail from the beginning. Had they caught the error and now he didn’t get my letter?

  I pull up his picture from when he was sixteen and just stare at it. Those eyes flash honesty, and I trust this man even though I might be a fool for thinking so.

  Since I don’t have friends, which gives me a lot of free time to read, I’m pretty good at school. It’s basically just memorization after all. Now it’s time for a real education. Real thinking. This is life and death, not to mention I don’t want to spend time looking at colleges I’m not interested in just because my stepdad keeps shoving the idea down my throat.

  A lump catches in my throat at the thought of losing James, and I pull out my specially wrapped Starbucks grinds I bought at the beginning of my senior year. I’ve only used them twice so far when I had to stay up for important tests. But now? It’s time to call on the energy they can give me for a third time…lucky number three.

  Because I felt like the luckiest girl in the world when I found James. And now it’s time to find out what in the world’s going on with him.

  I’m ready for this heartache to be over. I’m ready to move on to the next chapter of my life, and it’s not college. It’s with him, my Daddy.

 
The coffee kicks in almost immediately and I look over the word search puzzle he sent me again, thinking maybe I missed something. I continue searching because I know there’s something here I’m not seeing, and if I want to be sure to see him again, I need to find it.

  And find it I will.

  9

  James

  The door to ‘the hole’ as it’s known, or solitary confinement, opens for the first time in I don’t even know how long. How can you keep track of time when it’s dark, dingy, and smells like mold twenty-four hours a day? Then again this just seems like one long repeating day, one nightmare.

  “You going to behave, asshole?” the CO asks, and I simply nod. “We’ll see about that,” he says, tapping the doorjamb with his nightstick and I rise to my feet and walk out of solitary.

  A few minutes later he’s putting me inside a new cell with a new cellmate, who looks me up and down and quickly, decides he wants nothing to do with me. I may have been locked up, but I wasn’t crazy or lazy enough to stop working out. A weak physique is a death sentence in here, literally, and you have to be ready to fight at all times, especially when you get a new cellmate and the pecking order for top dog is instantly determined.

  “It’s just temporary, until tomorrow when you’re parole is denied again,” he says, tipping me off to the fact I’d been locked in solitary for a few months.

  “Do you have any mail for me?”

  “You aren’t allowed to get mail, scumbag.” He pauses. “But if you’re referring to those little letters and gifts from your girlfriend then, yeah, we got them.”