Chapter 14

Suddenly, my days had become very busy. So when Anita told me that she had invited her... our... daughter over, it was exactly what I least of all needed. Of course, I knew that sooner or later I had to face it and tell Anita everything, and after I'd told her all I could do was to hold my breath.

"I think it is time to introduce her to her father. Don't you think so?" Anita added, as if she needed an excuse to have her own daughter over.

"Oh... Well. I leave it up to you to decide. What are you going to tell her?"

"That you are her father."

"Just like that?"

"Oh, I'll tell her that we met and I recognized you and... Well I don't know. All I know is that she has to know. We owe it to her. She has lived her life without a father and the sooner she gets to know him, the better."

"Yes. Of course. I would love to meet her too."

"And now you will."

I was rather nervous while I waited for my daughter. I hadn't paid her any visits since I learned who she was, and I still hadn't told Anita that I had fucked our daughter. I was too afraid of what it might do to our relationship.

Chris came around just after six o'clock. Her jeans were as tight over her ass as I remembered, and the same baggy shirt hid her small breasts.

"Chris, I want you to meet Robert."

Chris shook my hand and gave me a smile that was a little hesitant.

"Robert is an old friend of mine. A very good, old friend."

We sat and just looked at each others for a while.

"Chris," Anita started, "There is something I have to tell you..."

"Yes?"

"Well, I guess there's no right way to tell this kind of news, but Robert's your father!"

"Oh."

She looked me over a little more carefully this time. I just sat there. Awkwardly. What do you say to a woman who just learned that she's your daughter? What is she supposed to say? And added to that, a woman that you had fucked?

"Is he my really my father or is he going to be my... You know... Stepfather."

"No, well I don't know about the latter, he is your real father and..."

"Mom, can I have a word alone with you?"

"I... I think I'll go for a little walk..."

"No!" Anita almost burst out. "No," she said a little calmer. "Come into the kitchen with me," she ordered Chris.

They disappeared, and I could hear some heated discussion muffled by the door that was closed. After a while they came back and joined me.

"Sorry about that," Anita said. "I had to straighten some things out with your daughter," she shot Chris a look and a little nod, before returning to the kitchen leaving me alone with a subdued Chris.

"I - I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"What for?!"

"I was rude."

I could see that she wasn't far from crying, tears watered her eyes.

"No, no you were not. Surprised, yes, of course. Who wouldn't be? Meeting your father for the first time as a grown woman."

She gave me a weak smile, and while we heard clattering of pans and plates from the kitchen, we talked about nothing. Our embarrassing conversation thankfully ended when Anita called that dinner was ready.

"So, what do you think, didn't that go well?" Anita said with an ironic smile after Chris had left.

"Awful and disastrous I would call it. I don't think she likes me and what I have to say will make me hated by the two women I most of all want to be loved by. I've met her, Anita. A few weeks ago."

Anita looked unbelieving at me.

"What?"

"I saw her, saw how much she looked like you and..."

"No! You didn't?!"

"Sorry. Oh I'm so sorry. At the time I didn't know..."

My apologies were interrupted by Anita's laughter.

"Who haven't you fucked? Your own daughter! No wonder she doesn't like you! And you lied to me!" She suddenly looked very angry. "You lied to me!"

"I didn't know how I could tell you. I didn't know who she was at the time!"

She looked at me for so long that I started to squirm.

"No. I guess you didn't. But, you should have told me."

"I never saw the two of you together."

"I showed you her photo, for heaven's sake!"

"Yes. A photo. It made me wonder... but I couldn't be sure, and what if I had been wrong?"

Of course, I had recognized Chris at first glance but that lie I could live with.

"Well, I'm not totally convinced but I'm willing to believe you. Besides, I know how tempting it is to fuck someone when you're invisible. I lost control over at Nina's, did I say 'over at Nina's'? I guess it should be 'back at Nina's'."

I smiled a weakly at her attempt to lighten the mood.

"What about what you said about Chris not liking me?"

"Oh, I think she probably recognized you, not consciously but on a lower plane. There are things that can't be seen directly that betray a man. Smell. Movements. Phrases. Hairstyle. I could go on. Now she recognizes you not only as the father that abandoned her mother and her, but also as the man who used her and then abandoned her. Tossing her aside."

"Oh. You women certainly are something else, aren't you? It's a wonder that you ever believe us, not to mention trust us."

"Who says we do?" She gave me a haughty look.