Chapter 6: Panties for Daddy

From Carol Ann’s Private Diary

Daddy stopped dating other girls, but he turned cold toward me. Almost refused to be in the same room. Probably blaming himself for what happened. In many ways, he’s so much naiver than I. How doesn’t he get it?

Dear lord, in Heaven, I’m the one starting this.

Two weeks go by, schools out. Difficult to change Daddy when he’s spending days and half the nights at his business. Hands-on at remodels, new house construction, and commercial builds. I need to brainstorm with someone. So, I went to see Rachel. Couldn’t say, How do I get Daddy to fuck me?

It started out funny, before everything went sour. Rachel and I were sprawled on her bed, cell phones tossed aside, the light outside melting into shades of blood and rust. I confessed how Daddy was the hottest man alive, and I’d been stealing his boxers to sniff them in bed at night.

Not daring to admit the basketball intimacy. My God, she’d freaking shit her panties. Well, she freaked out anyway.

She said, “You’re fucking sick.” but laughed anywho, then rolled over to whisper that I should get myself off and leave my wet panties for him to find. I almost cried from laughing, until she said something that really boiled my blood.

“Maybe I should fuck him for you. Bitch.”

“Fuck you,” I said, and left her plopped on her ass in the middle of floor begging me not leave and forgie her. But went home.

Earlier, we were draped across Rachel’s bed with empty diet soda cans on the floor. Surrounded by damp hoodies, old sneakers, and incense from a half-burned stick spiraling into the room’s corners. Outside, the rain tapped against the windows, gray and constant, and the wind made the tree branches scratch like long fingers on glass.

I imagined the house being swept down the hill in a mudslide. It’s California baby, this shit happens.

Her parents were still at work, and her kid brother was off somewhere with his loud ass brat friends. So, the house seemed cavernous and abandoned. An expanse of creaking wood floors and locked doors. We hadn’t bothered turning on any lights. The room was filled with soft shadows and dark outlines, almost private. Almost a secret.

I watched her pull her sweatshirt over her head, her hair falling like water, and I wondered how long I could wait before bringing it up.

“Guess what,” I said.

She looked at me with wide, curious eyes.

“What?”

“I did it again,” I said. I gave Rachel a glance, I figured to drive her crazy. I’d been dying to tell her all day.

“What did you do?”

“My dad, It’s like, the fifth time, I’ve tried and now his pissed at me,” I said.

She squealed and grabbed her pillow, burying her face. Her voice came out all muffled. “No way!”

“Yes, way.” I grinned and pushed her with my foot. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. I saw you looking at him last weekend. When he picked me up.”

“He’s your dad,” she said. She peeked over the edge of the pillow, eyes laughing at me. “Your actual dad.”

“You’d understand if you saw him getting out of the shower.” I shrugged.

“Gross, Carol Ann!” She tossed the pillow at me.

“What? He’s hot.”

“Stop!”

“Fine.” I tossed the pillow back and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain and the wind.

“It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong,” I said after a while, my voice almost a whisper, “Just taking his boxers.” I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. “And maybe sniffing them a little.”

Rachel rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. She pretended to gag, but her smile told me she loved it.

“You’re so fucking messed up.”

“You know you want to. I’m not the only one who thinks Daddy’s cute,” I said.

“You’re so, so messed up.”

“You should see his muscles. It’s insane,” I said.

Rachel shook her head, pretending to be disgusted, but she kept leaning closer like she was hypnotized.

“So, what do you do?”

“When?”

“When you sniff them?”

“What do you think I do?” I laughed.

She sat up suddenly, eyes wild.

“You should do it,” she said, “in his room.”

I looked at her, confused.

“And then,” she said, each word slow, delicious, and sultry sweet, “leave your wet panties for him.”

The laugh erupted out of me, and I thought I might explode. I gasped for air, clutched my stomach. Rachel joined in, holding onto my arm as we rolled around on the bed. We laughed until I thought we might cry, til tears ran down Rachel’s cheeks and the dim room echoed with the sound of it all. It was so easy to laugh with her. It was so easy to believe nothing else matters.

“I should, and I might,” I said when I finally caught my breath, a sharp thrill running through me.

Rachel wiped her eyes, the wetness smeared across her face. “He’d probably die if you did.”

I imagined Daddy finding them, knowing. The thought made me shiver. “He’d love it.”

“Carol Ann,” she said.

I turned toward her, my mind already halfway down that road.

“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”

“He’d never know they were mine.” I shrugged again, trying to play it cool.

“Are you kidding?” Rachel said.

“He dates a ton of women.”

“Then, leave him a note or something. I know you.”

“You think he’d like that?”

“He’d totally know what you want.”

“Yeah, but maybe he doesn’t want it from me.” I grinned at her and tried to make it a joke with her.

She stared at me for a second, eyes dancing with a secret. Then, out of nowhere, she said it.

“Maybe I should fuck him for you.”

The room went silent, just like that. Rachel’s smile hung between us, and everything seemed to stop. The only sound was the rain, a steady prattle against the window. And my heart thudded, hard, in my chest. Rachel still smiled, but something shifted. Something brittle and sharp wedged itself in the space between us, cutting into me.

“You’re such a bitch. Fuck you, and your whole fucking family. Fuck you and snotty rich friends, and snooty mom and dad.” I sat up, the words like ice.

Rachel’s smile flickered, her eyes caught off guard.

“Oh my God, I didn’t mean it like—”

“You’re not funny.”

“I was kidding, Carol Ann! Fuck you,” I said again, “You don’t even know.” The rage came in a hot, red wave. She didn’t get it. She never got it. It wasn’t a fucking game, and she’d never understand. She’d never grasp what it was like to want something so fucked up and wrong that bad.

“Don’t be like that.”

“I have to go.” I stood and grabbed my slicker, my face burning, the room spinning around me. It was so much darker now, the light outside a fading bruise.

“Seriously?” Rachel sat up, too, confusion written across her face.

“I have to go.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, thin and lost.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Come on,” Racheal said again.

“I’ll see you later.” I was already moving, out the door and into the long, empty hallway, the air colder, less of an embrace, more of an attack. My heels made a hollow on the floor. I walked faster, almost a run by the time I hit the stairs, the anger in me growing like a scream.

The air outside was raw and wet, and by the time I got home. From my car to the door, the rain had soaked through my hair, my clothes, and my bones. The house was dark, the only light spilling in from the paddock lamp on the drive. It made shadows creep along the walls, elongated things that seemed alive.

I stood in the foyer; the outside chill clung to me, a presence more perceived than heard. Felt Daddy’s aura before I saw him.

Daddy sat in the living room. A manly outline in the dimness of fading light. He must’ve heard the door. Darling Daddy waited for me to come inside. I yearned to go to him and let him hold me the way he did when I was little. Before all of this got tangled up inside me like a web of longings.

Instead, I dropped my coat on the floor and walked upstairs, leaving a trail of water on the steps, each footfall a silent question.

“Daddy?” I asked the word pitched half an octave higher at the ending than the beginning.

“Yes, Baby-girl,” Edward said.

“Do you want to have that talk with me?”

“No, Carol Ann, I don’t,” he said.

“Can I sit on your lap and us cuddle?”

“No, you may not. What happened that night, we can’t ever do that again. I’m thinking you’ll go to Stanford.”

“No, Daddy, USC. We already agreed on that.” I rushed to him and fell at his feet on my knees. I started to touch him, and he flinched.

“The summer term starts June 21. I’ll take you up Monday and get you enrolled. Get you set up in a dorm. Maybe you can stay in the dorm, it won’t be long.”

I clasped my hands together, prayerful, and leaned into his legs. He stood up, knocking me on my butt and walked to the door. He put on his overcoat and opened the door.

“You’ll like Stanford. We can’t stay together, bad things will happen.” As he spoke, Daddy started out in the rain, refusing to look at me. “We can’t be together. Terrible, wrong things will happen. You’re my daughter, and I love you, but not like that. Not like a boy and girl.”

“I’m a woman and I love you like a woman loves a man.”

“You’re a child, and I’m your father. It’s terrible and wrong to make more out of it than it is. I’m going to work. Won’t be home until after midnight. Go to bed when you’re tired and don’t masturbate. Or at least, don’t masturbate to thoughts of me.” And he was gone, a whisp of smoke on the other side of the slammed door.

“Fuck you, Edward.”

There was a week to change his mind. So, I took his blue boxers, which were soft from too many washes and dirty on the floor of his room. I pulled them over my head like a hood. His scent filled me. Overwhelmed me.

The way he never had. I dragged them down to my chest, his smell lingering as I came in plain white cotton four times. Daddy didn’t even mention it. He left me a note about working late, not my nasty panties on his dresser. When I looked, they were gone. The first night, I thought he’d say something.

Chastize me, spank my ass raw. Something would have been better than nothing.

So, marched up to his bathroom, and I pulled his boxers out of the hamper. Over my head, I sucked in the stench of him, and rubbed myself into oblivion. They were faded and familiar, his, and the scent of him rushed through me like a warm tide.

My climax started like it always did, in a swell of frustration and need. Darling Daddy didn’t even notice. Or was my dearest pretending? For the second night, I left them for him. And again, all I found was a note: Won’t be home until late tonight.

Leftovers in the fridge from what you left for me last night. I imagined his hands as he wrote it, big and rough, the ones I thought about when I touched myself, and I wondered if he even cared.

I couldn’t stop thinking about him coming into his room, seeing the white triangle on the corner of the dresser. When I went back to look, they were gone, but no word spoken about it, no sign he knew they were mine. Edward didn’t get it. Possibly he never would. I wanted to see his face and his appearance when he found out.

The rain had stopped, and a thick heat filled the air, sticky and heavy. I wore nothing but Pop’s oversized t-shirt, one he’d left in the laundry room. It was black and had the name of a tool company I’d never heard of. I wondered if he remembered I was the same size as Mom. If he realized that everything she wore and left behind would fit me. The same fracking her unmentionables fit her.

In the morning, I studied him while he dressed for work, his tie hanging loose until the very last minute. Even when I gave him the silent treatment, I’d still sneak glimpses of him through the crack in the door. I appreciated he’d be back tonight. Realized he’d find what I left. The anticipation made my pulse race, made everything feel tight and alive.

“Can you talk about this thing between us? I don’t want to be away from you.”

“No,” he said. And he was gone, and my time ran through the hourglass with so few grains left I mightn’t have a chance to change his mind.

This was the only trick I had left to pull. So I kept doing it. I couldn’t stop. The first time, I thought he’d put them in my room or my hamper to let me know he understood what I did. That he understood we were destined to be each other’s lovers.

When nothing happened, I tried again. In Daddy’s room, in my bed, on the panda. Again and again. Darling Daddy didn’t bring it up. He didn’t flinch. Just another note, another excuse. Fix dinner, leave mine in the fridge, don’t wait up. You’d think he’d have something else to say, some kind of warning or question. But he didn’t. It drove me insane, making me crazy how he pretended not to notice.

Maybe he knew what he was doing.

I pulled the giant panda from his comfy home in the corner and flopped it on my bed. It was one of those toys he’d won at the fair, way back when, Daddy took me and bought me everything I pointed at.

Wearing the tiny bikini bottoms, I fucked Teddy and prenteded it was him. I mounted it, knees spread on either side, my fingers clutching the top of its fuzzy head. I used one of its big, round feet the way I’d use Daddy’s dick if he’d let me. The way I imagined he fuck me.

Didn’t take long, the buildup like a fever, hot and urgent, rose in me. Growing until I would burst. The friction made me dizzy. The thought of Daddy made me wild. My breath came in ragged bursts, my skin on fire, my mind blank.

Humping my panda an phone blares with Donald’s ringtone. Grabbing the phone, without slowing my assault, I swiped to answer.

“What, lil’ man?”

“P-Pri-Pri-Priapism,” Donny boy said, sounding agitated.

“What?” I asked all, hot and bothered.

“Mmmm,” he said, “y-you made me c-c-cum. But P-Pri-Priapism is why it happens.”

“Don’t have time for this,” I said.

“I-I w-wan-want ta t-t-tell you ‘b-b-bouts it.”

“Later.” Breaking the connection, I tossed the phone and didn’t pick up when Loverboy tried again.

That’s when the first orgasm hit. I gasped and threw my head back. I could almost see Daddy, nearly feel him watching, feel his breath. And then, just like that, Nirvana again. And again.

My panties were wet. Sticking to my skin as I kept going, not even waiting for the pulse of the last climax to fade before I found the next one, greedy and desperate. Four in a row, rolling through me like a series of small explosions.

A chain reaction.

I slid off the panda and lay on the bed, heart thudding in my chest, the scent of him and me mingling in the air, a thick and intoxicating mix.

“You’re not sending me away.”

I put the thong on the corner of his dresser. Left them in the open, nothing subtle or shy about it this time. A brazen mark, impossible to miss. I grabbed his note on the way out and stared at his handwriting. The way his g’s sloped like a signature. The way his y’s curled and reached like his fingers.