She put her purse and coat on the table with her keys and crept to him on her toes. The soft carpet muffled her steps but she was pretending to be stealthy. He shook his head and returned to his survey of the refrigerator.
“You’re still up,” she whispered into his ear.
“Mmhm,” he grunted.
“Are you mad at me?” she pouted at him.
“Mm-mm,” he grunted.
“Oh, DA-ddy,” she teased, tugging at his shoulders. She pressed herself against him in her shimmering top and hung from his back. He felt her chest nestle softly under his armpit. “You’re not hungry,” she chided him.
“No,” he sighed. “Just can’t sleep.” His daughter giggled. He turned to her. Her luminous eyes shined up at him, lovingly, her face flushed and tinged with humor. She had been drinking, a little. He could also smell it on her breath, which she knew; but she knew he knew. “What’s funny?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said, biting her tongue between her front teeth. That expression always made him want to grab her and squeeze her until she relented in her teases. And were she younger, he younger, he would have. But Katie was as much a woman now as his secretary-bad thought. That wouldn’t have been respectful. Of course he didn’t know that she wanted him to.
Dale shut the fridge. His hand still on the door, he planted his fist at his hip. He knew he looked ridiculous but he was her father after all. He probably looked ridiculous when he was clean shaven wearing a suit and briefcase. Right now he was wearing a forest green and black plaid robe that draped to the floor, and matching pajamas (matching in that they were plaid, not in that they were bright red). He was not, however, wearing a shirt. His hair was turning slightly gray on his chest, which he rather enjoyed. Katie was staring at his gray hair now. Then her eyes traveled down to his stomach.
“Wow,” she said.
Suddenly self-conscious, he looked down. “What? Is the flap open?”
Katie giggled at him again. “No,” she said. “But I see you’ve been hitting the gym harder than usual.”
He grinned suavely. “Well, sweetheart, remember that to look like this, ‘than usual’ is just in the last four months since you’ve seen me.”
“Yeah, but,” his daughter went on, “you were always at the gym before. I guess now it’s just, uh…” She drifted off. “Could I have some water?” she asked.
“Can’t you get your own water?” She pouted at him again. He shook his head and got a glass from the cupboard and filled it at the tap. He didn’t know what time it was. It was so still time seemed to glance over them. Katie was wearing a short, black shimmering skirt. Her little toes on the kitchen tile were red from dancing. When he handed her her glass he asked, “Did you have a good time tonight?”
She took the water with a murmur of gratitude and gulped it immediately. When she finished she let out a refreshed gasp and smiled again. Ignoring his question completely, she asked, “Dad, do you know Vanessa Linares?”
He didn’t have to think about it. Dale knew Vanessa Linares very well. He had fucked her eight ways to Sunday off and on throughout college. He thought he was in love with her at one time. Then she got married to her boyfriend who-apparently-she’d been dating since high school. He wasn’t invited to the wedding. But there was no way his daughter meant that Vanessa Linares.
“Actually, I did know a girl named Vanessa Linares,” he said, trying to be vague. His daughter glowered at him.
“I know when you’re lying, Daddy.”
“Oh?” he said.
“Mmhm,” she murmured from her next sip. “Don’t pretend.”
“Not pretending,” he told her. “I just highly doubt that your Vanessa Linares and my Vanessa Linares are the same people.”
“Well she’s definitely your Vanessa Linares and she’s my Social Policy professor.”
If Dale had been drinking the water he would have spat it out in classic cinematic fashion.
Katie went on, “We’re really close. Sometimes we go for drinks at the bar on campus and she asked me about my last name.” Katie grinned like a cheshire cat. “She remembers you very fondly.”
Dale was pleased. “You don’t say.”
“Yeah.” Katie drifted off again. Her eyes kept flicking from his face to his chest as if he wasn’t watching her watch him.
Suddenly he understood. “You and Vanessa drink together?”
Katie smiled into her now empty glass. “Sometimes, yeah. She told me some stories about you.”
Dale was inexplicably nervous. And probably explicably turned on. “Oh?” he tried to feign nonchalance.
Katie giggled at him again. “I told you I know when you’re lying. You want to know what she said.”
“I know what we did.”
“Well I know a little about that too.”
Dale laughed. But what she said next stopped him cold.
“She said all it took to get you to drop everything was a wet, sloppy blowjob.”
Dale didn’t know what to say. He stared at his daughter. Katie had her arms crossed over her chest, the glass pressed against her upper arm. She broke the silence. “I was kind of thinking about it.”
What did she mean?
“Dad, do you and mom have sex?”
“Katie, I don’t know what-”
“Come ON, Dad.” She strode to him and let him catch her as she draped her arms over him. She was sleepy, staring up at him. “Don’t pretend I’m too young to hear the truth.”
“Well,” he said. How did one proceed in this conversation? “Well,” he said again. And finally, “No, Katie, your mother and I don’t really have sex that much anymore.”
Katie stared up at him with something akin to sympathy and something very much like loneliness. “Vanessa said you kind of had a reputation at college.”
“What kind of repu-”
“She said you fucked. A lot.” Katie smirked. “And that you were very… gifted.”
Dale’s head swam. He became intensely aware of his daughter’s breasts pressed against his chest. She continued, “And I was thinking about that. I kind of couldn’t stop because, um, you’re my dad? But, I was thinking how I never thought of you that way. Mostly because,” she looked at him intensely, “I don’t think I ever heard you having sex. With mom.”
“Katie, I don’t think this is appropriate.”
“OK,” she said. “So you and mom don’t have sex?”
“Katie-”
“But you used to have a lot of sex back in the day.”
“It wasn’t ‘back in the day’-”
“And now you just don’t have sex at all?”
“Katie-”
“That sounds like it really sucks, Dad.”
He stared down at his daughter. Her eyes flitted over his, over his cheeks, over his nose, his ears. Her face was flushed. Suddenly he felt her heart ramming against her breasts and beating on his ribcage; he felt his own heart pounding.
“I love you,” she said to him.
“I love you, too, honey.”
“Uh huh,” she breathed up at him. “I’m sorry you don’t have sex anymore.”
“Oh, Katie-”
“I said it sucks. Does it suck?” She pronounced the word in a very deliberate way. He started to say something but she reached down and grabbed him in a place-the exact place-that was eternally off-limits. “Does it suck, Daddy?”
“Katie!” He pushed her back. She set her glass on the table and giggled again.
“Sorry, Daddy,” she said. “I think I’ve had a little too much to drink.”