Chapter 20: Gareth Chancelor, Monday afternoon

Benito looked at me and said, “So?”

I took a deep breath. “Bonnie and Estelle have a long way to go but they’re making good progress. It helps that Bonnie understands and is actively helping to rebuild their relationship. Jen and Bonnie never had problems – they’ve always been good with each other. I mean sure, they’ve squabbled occasionally but not much and not often. I don’t think Jen and Estelle will ever go back to a child/parent relationship. I think both Jen and Estelle have worked out that Jen is now an adult and should be treated as one. They’re gradually building a new relationship based on that.”

I stopped and thought about what to say next.

“If you asked me two weeks ago, I would’ve said I had a great relationship with my daughters. Over the last two weeks I’ve discovered it wasn’t as good as I thought it was. But I would say we’re now heading somewhere better than I thought was possible. You were right, by the way. Jen decided she didn’t want sex with me. All she wanted was the increased intimacy.”

I’d deliberately left one relationship until last.

“Estelle and I have to do better at communicating with each other. We’ve made a start, but we aren’t as good at that as I thought we were. We’ve talked about re-building our intimacy. We’d lost a lot of that before all this blew up. I was explaining to Bonnie what the word ‘intimacy’ meant, and it reminded me of how much Estelle and I had lost. We’re going on a dinner-date together on Wednesday. Hopefully doing things like that will help us reconnect.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“I’m trying to be more assertive but it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. Jen gave me a lesson in that yesterday. She really told me off when I wasn’t doing the right thing. I was kind of shocked but also kind of impressed. And I felt bad because Jen was right and I was wrong. It really reinforced to me that Jen is now an adult. I already knew that but yesterday drove it home.”

Benito nodded. “What about Estelle?” he asked.

“Estelle has acknowledged that she doesn’t know me as well as she thought she did. She’s promised to try to understand me better. I never imagined that she would like...”

I stopped and looked at Benito.

“Estelle and I have been looking up on the internet about B.D.S.M.” The acronym felt awkward to say. “I didn’t know that people do things like that – not in real life. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Estelle is finding out she likes things like that. Looking at the internet was good. She pointed at a couple of things and said she didn’t want to even try those things. But she does want to try having me tie her up sometime and then have sex with her. It goes against the way I was brought up to treat women but if it makes her happy...” I shrugged. “I’m prepared to try. Fortunately, she doesn’t want that all the time. ‘Just every now and then,’ she said. ‘Surprise me,’ she said.”

I shrugged. “That’s a major difference between us. She likes surprises and I don’t. We talked about that last night. We talked about how I should try to surprise her occasionally with different things, but she should try to avoid doing the same to me – not for big things, anyway.”

I stopped and thought back over what I’d just said.

“Um, I think that just about covers it.”

Benito flipped his notebook closed, leaned back on the couch, spread his arms out along the back of the couch and crossed his legs.

“Okay,” he said. “That took 5 minutes. What do you want to do for the rest of the time?”

I blinked at him. “I thought you would give me some advice on how to do all that.”

He flipped his hand at me and made a “phfft” sound. “I could talk for an hour or two giving you hints but you don’t need it. You know what to do and you know how to do it. You just have to put in the time to make it happen.”

“But I don’t want to get it wrong,” I said.

“Phfft.” He flipped his hand again. “I could talk for even longer about things not to do. But I’m not going to. You talk about getting something wrong as if that would be the end of the world. You will make mistakes. Estelle will make mistakes. That’s natural. Treat them as learning experiences and try again. The important thing is that you know what you’re trying to do, and you’re actively working to achieve it. I can’t promise that you’ll get to the place you’re imagining. But I can promise that you’ll get somewhere which is better than where you were two weeks ago.”

“Huh,” I said. “I’m already somewhere which is better than two weeks ago.”

“Okay, then I promise things can get even better than where you are now.”

“All I have to do is keep trying to fix things?” I said.

Benito looked at his clock. “I have a bunch of kids’ games over in that bucket. We could play a game or something.”

I gave him a look.

“Okay, let’s talk about this competition your daughter started,” said Benito.

“What competition?”

“Well, I suppose you could call it more of a challenge. They’re calling it the ‘Fifteen minutes with Daddy’ challenge.”

“Huh?” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I gather you spent a considerable time on the weekend carrying Bonnie around on your hip and cuddling her.”

“Yes,” I said, still unsure why that was important. Then I gestured at my chest. “She was more attached to my chest rather than sitting on my hip.”

“Well, Bonnie told her friends. Now they all want to do it with their own fathers. They seem to have decided that a minimum of fifteen minutes is necessary to get the proper effect – longer if possible. That whole circle of girls has gone in on it. I gather Britney is even organising to go and stay with her Dad up in Queensland next weekend just so she can do the challenge. They even made allowances for girls without dads. They said any adult man attached to the family would do, provided that – and I’m quoting the girls now – provided that he isn’t creepy.” He grinned. “How good is that?”

He pointed at me. “You and your daughter kept me busy on Sunday. Do you know how many kids I have? It wasn’t enough for Mona to have not one but two goes – apparently the first time wasn’t long enough – but all my other kids wanted a go too. My fifteen-year-old son wanted a turn. He’s bigger than I am. There’s no way I could carry him. He agreed to let me sit down. Then he sat on my lap and hugged me for fifteen minutes. We’re a family that hugs all the time. But it’s years since Mattia and I have spent so long holding each other like that. Man, it was intense. I shed a tear or two. I’m not ashamed to say it.”

He looked across at me. “You made me so happy, I should hug you.”

He jumped to his feet. “Stand up. I want to hug you.”

I stood up.

“You have two seconds to tell me if you don’t want to be hugged,” said Benito.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. I don’t think he gave me two seconds. I’m not used to being hugged by a man. It’s not something that’s happened very often in my life. It was different. I don’t know what I thought about it. I was still trying to decide how to react when he let me go and sat back down.

I sat down again.

“Um, I heard a rumour that you and your family are naturists,” I said. “Isn’t it a bit strange hugging your kids and so forth when you’re naked?”

“It’s only skin.” He shrugged. “They’ve done studies. On average, kids who grow up in a naturist environment are more likely to grow up well-adjusted than textile kids. I’m sure there’s more to it than this, but I have a theory that naturist families tend to be more affectionate than the average textile family. I know from experience that kids who’re getting affection as they grow up tend to have more resilience and therefore are better adjusted. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter whether your family is naturist or textile. As long as you keep showing them affection your kids have a better chance of enduring the turbulence of growing up without getting too messed up.”

“That sounds logical,” I said.

“So, about this challenge that started with you and your daughter,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see peer pressure acting in a positive way. The girls are actually pushing each other to demand more affection from their fathers, just at the age when nature is trying to make them push away from their parents. That’s one group of girls who will have a positive boost to their general mental health. Do you know what you’re doing? You’re putting me out of a job.”

He cracked his knuckles and leaned back, looking cheerful. “I might have to retire.”

Jennifer Chancelor, Wednesday evening

Dad and Estelle were out on their dinner date. I was sitting in my room and finishing off some practice questions for a biology test. I’d promised Bonnie I would do this for an hour and then I would spend some time with her. I glanced at the clock on my computer screen and saw that I’d gone about 10 minutes over the time when I’d told Bonnie I would stop studying and join her. I closed my books with relief and put my pens back into my pencil case.

At that moment, my door burst open and Bonnie jumped in and yelled, “It’s a raid!” Then she squirted Silly String at me. Bonnie was all decked out in her My Little Pony girlie pyjamas with her hair in the little twin ponytails that indicated her Kid Bonnie character.

I squealed and tried unsuccessfully to duck out of the way of the Silly String. Bonnie leapt up to stand on my bed and squirted Silly String at me again.

I squealed and jumped sideways out of the way. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

“The newsagent was having a sale. They had cans of this stuff really cheap. I bought 4 cans.” Bonnie tossed a second can to me, jumped off the bed and sprayed String at me as she ran past me and out through my door.

I juggled the can and caught it on the second try. Then I let out a war cry and chased after Bonnie. We spent the next ten minutes roaring around the living room as we chased after each other and sprayed Silly String at each other. We were both laughing in between the yells of triumph or dismay as we alternately sprayed or got sprayed. Eventually the cans were empty and we slumped together on the couch, gasping for breath as the laughter gradually subsided.

“That was fun,” I said. “That was a great idea.”

“Thanks,” said Bonnie. “I waited until after the time you said. Was that okay?”

“Totally okay,” I said.

I looked around the room and sighed. “I guess we should clean all that up,” I said.

“I guess so,” said Bonnie.

“We’ll do that soon,” I said.

“Soon,” Bonnie echoed.

About 5 minutes later I sighed and stood myself up. Bonnie stood up with me and without saying a word, we started cleaning up. Bonnie grabbed the little rechargeable hand vacuum while I plugged in the main vacuum cleaner. We had to clean the string off each other first, which involved a bit of giggling then we set to cleaning it up from around the house. We’d managed to spread it around pretty thoroughly so it took a bit of time to clean up but eventually we were done.

“Can we look in Estelle’s room?” said Bonnie.

I looked at her for a moment while I thought about it but then I shrugged and nodded.

I pushed open the door and Bonnie walked over to the bed. It was all set up for later with the covers removed leaving only the clean bottom sheet and a pillow. There was a sturdy cord attached to each corner of the bedframe with a cuff on the other end of each cord.

“Does Estelle know that you and Dad set this up?” asked Bonnie.

“No, it’s a surprise for her.”

Bonnie sat on the bed and picked up the cuff closest to her. “Is Dad really going to tie Estelle up and then have sex with her while she’s tied up?”

“That’s the plan,” I said.

“I don’t understand why that would make a difference,” said Bonnie.

She wrapped the cuff around one wrist and fastened the Velcro strap and then she pulled to test that her wrist was properly tied to the bedframe and wouldn’t come free.

I sat down next to Bonnie and thought about how to answer that.

“I’m not sure I completely understand it myself,” I said, ‘but here’s what I do know. Being tied up probably doesn’t make much difference to the physical act of having sex. But I’ve told you before that there’s a lot of emotional stuff that goes with sex. The amount you enjoy it depends about as much on what’s going on in your head as it does on what the other person is actually doing. Sex feels the best when you’re doing it with someone you really love. If you have sex with someone you kind of like but don’t really love then it doesn’t feel as good because the emotional part isn’t there.”

Bonnie looked at me and nodded. “I think I understand that.”

“It isn’t only about whether you’re doing it with someone you really love, you also have to be in the right mood for it to feel really good. If you’re anxious or upset or angry or tired then the sex won’t feel as good as it will if you’re happy and relaxed.”

Bonnie was listening carefully. “Okay, that makes sense, but it doesn’t explain this.” She held up her wrist with the cuff on it and moved her arm until the cord stopped her movement.

“Well, apparently it helps some people get into the right mood if they do something a bit different in the lead up to the sex. I’ve heard about people role-playing – pretending to be other people. I’ve heard about people going to odd sorts of places – the beach or the bush or out into the desert or wherever. And now I’ve heard about people who let themselves get tied up.”

“And Estelle is one of those people,” said Bonnie.

“Exactly. I guess if you’re tied up you have no control over what happens so you have to totally trust your partner to look after you and make sure that it feels good.”

“Oh,” said Bonnie. “You wouldn’t want to do that with someone you didn’t totally trust.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I understand a bit better,” said Bonnie. “It still seems a bit weird but...” she stopped and shrugged. Then she undid the cuff and laid it back down on the bed.

We straightened up the sheet where we’d been sitting then I got Bonnie to help me replace the covers which hid the cuffs. I held Bonnie’s hand as we walked out of Estelle’s room and went back to the living room. We sat together on the couch and put the TV on.