My Daddy loves to kiss my feet. Other places, too, but what I love about the way he frenches my toes is that it shows how much trouble he’ll take to make me feel good — how much he worships me. I’ve been with boys my own age, and all they care about is their dicks. They think a girl’s sole purpose in life is to blow them or jerk them off. But my Daddy knows just how to touch and caress me, and where, and for how long, and the way he moves inside me — whether he’s being whisper-gentle or slamming me like a bull — makes me come and come.

I know calling him “my Daddy” sounds precious. Most of the time, I’m cooler than that. At home, I call him by his name, which is Brendan. He’s “Dad” in front of the rels. But in bed, when I’m fucking crazy with sex, he’s Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

And I’m his little angel, even though I’m already fourteen.

I haven’t mentioned my mom yet. It’s still hard to talk about her, though I suppose if it hadn’t been for her, Daddy and I wouldn’t be together. She did tell us to take care of each other.

On TV, when a mom dies, and the dad starts dating again, they never talk about how hard it was, or how long it took, or what she died from. They don’t talk about how scared she was when she got the diagnosis, or how she almost bled out on the operating table, or how sick the chemo made her. Or the family time when you sit with her in her room (and it was her room, now, with the hospital bed) and watch TV, or play Scrabble, or Dad reads from The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency, and you think, this would be a great memory someday, if only I could forget why we’re all here.

Afterward, Dad had problems with the bed. By that I mean when he sent the hospital bed back and brought his and mom’s old bed out of storage, he couldn’t make himself sleep in it. So he got rid of it and bought a new one, but he couldn’t sleep in that one either. He would stay up late at night, reading downstairs with the TV on, and he’d fall asleep on the sofa. The sound would wake me up about two or two-thirty, and I’d go down and turn it off.

“Come on, Brendan,” I’d say, shaking him by the shoulder. “It’s time to go to bed.”

It happened again and again. I should have felt bad for him, but it annoyed me, too, because now I wasn’t sleeping, either, and I had to keep going to school.

So one Saturday, over dinner, I told him I didn’t like it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s hard to sleep up there.”

“It’s hard on me, too,” I said. “You want to switch rooms?”

“What, move all our things?”

“No, just sleep in my bed for a while, until you feel better.”

“That could be a long time.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll move my clothes out, anyway.”

“You don’t mind sleeping in the same room where —”

“I think I might like it. It’s like she’s still here.”

“That’s the problem. I’ll think about it.”

He didn’t think about it long.

That night, I took a long hot bath. I lit three candles, which I placed on the toilet lid, the sink, and window sill, and I lay there up to my neck in bubbles, rubbing myself all over with the washcloth. I even let myself get a little turned on, soaping up my titties and admiring the way my nipples stood up through the suds. They’re pink, but in the soft candlelight they looked darker, like pennies.

I felt myself getting warm downstairs, too, and when I dipped my finger in, I was slippery in a way that had nothing to do with the soap. For a second I wondered if I had a right to feel this way, but I remembered the sex talk Mom insisted we have. She told me it was OK to masturbate if I needed to, that it was better, in fact, than getting myself in trouble, and now I looked up at the ceiling and said, “See, Mom? I’m taking your advice.” And I pressed down on my clit.

That’s good, Baby, I heard her say. Do that.

“I’m doing it, Mommy,” I whispered. “I’m doing it. I’m—aaaah!“

I slid my butt down, resting my head on the edge of the tub, and my knees came up covered in fluffy bubbles. I was oily inside, which was good, because water is a terrible lubricant. I brought my slick juice up from just inside my opening and spread it over my clitty, and when the water washed that away, I went back for more — first with one finger, then with two. Each time I had to go in deeper, until finally I said fuck it and stuffed my fingers in up to the knuckles. I jiggled them in and out, and my clitty stood up, getting tighter and more ticklish and begging for attention. I told myself I was being a slut, which I like to do sometimes when I play with my pussy. The words rang in my head: Dirty little slut. Filthy fucking whore—

I’ve had a lot of comes, but nothing like this. It was, seriously, the nicest orgasm I could remember, probably because I needed it so badly. After everything that had happened, it felt like all the weight and the pressure I’d been carrying around was falling to pieces. My back arched away from the tub. My titties broke through the bubbles, and the bathwater sloshed as I shifted my pussy-pumping into high gear. Adding to the noise, like a fool (I admit I wasn’t thinking clearly), I let out a gasp just as Brendan was passing by in the hall.

“You OK in there?” he said.

“I’m fine!”

The sudden loudness of my own voice startled me, but it gave me one last surge of naughty pleasure before I managed to calm down. I lay there, half floating, looking up through a shaft of suds, while the water cooled down. The bubbles began to dissolve, too, and I suddenly decided I didn’t like the way my public hair looked, floating on the water like a soapy clump of seaweed. I’d thought about shaving sometimes, and I figured, as long as I’m here in the tub —

I smelled like lavender when I toweled off. I keep my hair short, and it didn’t take long to spike it up again with the hand-dryer. I put on my crimson nightgown, which covered me like a choir robe from my neck to my feet. It didn’t feel at all modest, though. It was loose and airy, and, strange to say, it made me more aware of my body than I was in the bath. I was especially distracted by my newly shaved pussy. It was a strange feeling — cool and smooth and naked — and my gown tickled the fresh bald spot whenever I moved.

I blew out the candles out and went to my room. I was pretty sure I hadn’t touched myself for the last time that night. The house was dark and quiet. I didn’t turn the light on, but I could see the bulky shadows of my dresser, and my nightstand, and one in my bed I’d never seen before. I knew right away what it was, but I didn’t mind. After coming the way I did, I felt like an innocent snuggle.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “I’ll go to your room.”

“Not sure this’ll work,” he said.

“Can I stay a little bit?”

“It’s your room, Sweetie.”

So I lifted the covers and crawled in.

“It’s nice and warm in here,” I said. “I should hire you to do this every night.”

Daddy was wearing his flannel pajamas. I rolled into the soft length of him, resting my head on his chest and tossing a knee over his leg. He crew me closer with his arm around my shoulder. We lay talking in the dark, like a sleepover, except there were no silly girls’ games, and no giggling.

“How are you doing, Sweetie?” he asked.

“I miss her.”

“Yes.”

“And I miss this.”

“What?”

“Sleeping with you guys.”

“You mean when you were little.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “I’d come in with Stuffy Bear, and we’d all three sleep together.”

“You know, that’s why you never had that little brother you wanted,” he said.

“I’m serious,” I said. “Why can’t we do this again?”

“You know why, honey. You’re a young woman now. It wouldn’t be right.”

“We don’t have to tell anybody.”

“No,” he said, “we don’t.”

And he kissed me on the top of my head. And I kissed him on the cheek. And he ran his hand down my back. And I picked at the flannel that covered his chest. And we looked at each other in the dark. And we kissed for real.

It wasn’t his idea. It wasn’t mine. We just bent our heads together, and when our lips touched, neither one of us pulled away. We were still for a long time while I tasted the softness on my lips. Daddy put his other arm around me and squeezed, lifting me halfway onto his chest, and my gown bunched up over my knees. Our lips pressed harder. I opened my mouth, just to cover more of his, and when his tongue touched mine it was like a jolt that I felt all the way down to my stomach, and lower. I threw my leg over both of his, and he clutched at my gown, pulling it above my waist. He kissed my face all over, and I got another jolt when he nipped my neck just as his hand settled on my bare butt.

“Ahhh!” I sighed, throwing my head back.

The feeling made me raise my knee, and my bare thigh passed over his thing. OK, his cock. I can call it that, because it was hard already, and it was poking out of his pajama fly. Now it was his turn for a jolt.

“Uh!” he said. He sounded like I did in the bathtub, though not as high-pitched. I reached down and touched it, just letting my open hand weigh it down. That was enough for him. He tilted his head back and let his mouth hang open. I slid my fingers around the head, grazing it lightly. It twitched and jumped under my hand. He wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

Our lips found each other’s again, and so did out tongues. His hands came up under my gown, stroking my bare back, roaming over my ass, and then, like the cold touch of a ghost, one finger brushed the swollen bud between my legs. I pushed my tongue far into his mouth, and closed my fist around the tip of his cock.

“Baby ... no!”

But I pulled down firmly on the shaft. That resolved any lingering doubts. His hands came up under my gown again, and this time they kept going until all of it, it seemed, was stuffed into my armpits. I had to sit up and let go of his cock. It was more complicated than it should have been, raising my arms while he drew the endless heavy folds over my head. Then the sleeves caught on my wrists. We had to laugh, and I was shaking so much I was afraid we’d have to give it up. But our family is nothing if not persistent. After a lot of tugging and yanking, the gown ended up on the floor.

“Oh, aren’t you pretty,” Dad said.

“You can’t see me in the dark.”

“I can see enough.”

He probably could. My eyes were adjusting, too, and when I glanced down, I could make out the long, shadowy shaft of his penis and a milky patch of light at the spot where it met his cockhead.

“Such beautiful breasts,” he said. “Watching you grow up, the first time you wore a bra, I never dreamed —”

“They’re small.”

“They’re lovely.”

Grasping me under my arms, just at the sides of my breasts, he tilted me toward him and kissed my nipples. His tongue circled each one in turn, lovingly, and they grew harder and longer under his soft prodding. Then, pressing my sides like a vise, he lifted me like I was nothing and laid me on my back. I held his head, losing my fingers in his hair while he munched on my baby breasts.