Copyright© 2004

She was tall - nearly six feet. Her flat stomach, hunch-shouldered posture, and muscular limbs fairly shouted 'athlete', so I was a little surprised to see the embarrassed flush on her face.

"Hi!" she chirped as I approached the register.

"No I'm not!" I replied, feigning indignation.

"Uh, no, I mean, 'Hello!'" she tried again.

"'Hello' yourself, and see how you like it!" I seem to remember Huck Finn replying to someone (possibly Tom Sawyer) that way in one of Mark Twain's stories.

Really flustered, now, she asked, "How are you?"

"The best there is!" I boasted.

Her giggle was about to get out of control as she replied, red-faced, "Really!? I find that hard to believe!"

I leaned over the cash register and waggled my brows, Groucho Marx style, "There's only one way to find out!"

Finally, she surrendered and asked, "What can I get you?"

I contemplated a number of lewd responses before opting, instead, to tell her what kind of smoothie I wanted.

After a ride on a warm day, there is nothing better than a Jamba smoothie and I made a habit of dropping in to one of the two Jamba Juice stores near my house after each ride in the summertime.

Each time I came into this store, Jen (that's what her nametag labeled her) made sure she was at the register. Soon, we were on a first name basis, and I looked forward to seeing her when I came for my smoothie. That athletic body seemed to house two separate Jens. Most of the time, she was easygoing and self-confident, but occasionally a little girl peeked through.

Once in a while, Jen would become flustered and flushed, giggling nervously. At these times, her face seemed to lose about ten years, and despite her height, she seemed, somehow, smaller.

It was a curious tidbit I filed away, never expecting to have a use for it.

One day, as I sat at one of the little tables outside Jamba Juice, enjoying my smoothie, Jen came out to take her break.

"So they finally let you out of the cage!" I joked.

"Yeah," she replied, "the humane society makes them let us out for a run at least once a day!"

When I pushed a chair out for her, she settled gingerly to perch on its edge.

"So, Jen," I asked, more for something to say than out of real curiosity, "what's your sport?"

"Wha-," she looked startled, "what?"

"What's your sport?" I repeated.

"Why do you ask?"

I shrugged. "You look like an athlete, and I wondered what sport you play."

"Oh!" she fidgeted on the edge of the chair, "In high school, I played basketball, volleyball, and softball. Now I'm on the softball team at State."

"Really? Which high school?" I asked, still trying to get a handle on her nervousness.

"Oh," she replied, "uh, ___________ High School."

"I guess I really shouldn't be talking to you!" I joked, "My kids went to ____________!"

The two schools were traditional rivals when it came to sports.

Neither of us could think of anything else to say for a while. I tried to think of a way to make something of the high scholl rivalry, but that was a dead horse. Jen, meanwhile, became serious, as though she had something on her mind.

"Can I talk to you about something, Ted?" the pleading look in her eyes brought back memories of Tara's traumatic teen years, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure, Jen." I answered, puzzled, "What kind of secret?"

She didn't answer for a long moment, just hung her head and fidgeted in her lap. I put a finger under her chin and raised her face to my sight.

"It's okay, Jen." I said softly, making sure no one else was around, "It will just be our little secret. No one else will ever know."

I wasn't sure I could, in good conscience, keep that promise once I knew the real story, but at the moment I was concerned with gaining her confidence so she would open up to me. Something was hiding there and my fatherly instincts wanted it out in the open so I could make it all better.

Her face screwed up like my daughter's used to do when she was little and faced with a tough decision. Finally, it cleared, like the ripples caused by an errant breeze across still waters.

"Can you like, wait 'til I get off?" she said, looking around dramatically, like a ten-year-old with a secret, "There's... well it's really embarrassing, and you'll probably hate me for it, but you're like the only one I feel like can help me, and... Oh, hell! Can you just, you know, be here when I get off, please? I can't talk about this here!"

Her eyes continued pleading with me and my heart answered in the affirmative before my head even got in gear. Laying a hand on her upper arm, I said, "Okay, Jen, if that's what you want."

She got off work at three, so I went home and showered and changed out of my riding clothes. Jen was just coming out as I pulled up in front of Jamba. She smiled nervously as she asked me to follow her to her apartment.

I took one of the guest slots in the apartment complex's parking lot and waited for Jen to fumble with her keys, finally getting the door open after several tries. It was a student's apartment, and I didn't give it much thought. It looked about like my place just before Tara shows up to clean it for me. Jen had a roommate - a swimmer who was away at a meet.

After self-consciously throwing aside some dirty laundry and some clean, but not-yet-folded clothing, Jen had cleared away enough space for us to sit on the sofa - the only piece of furniture in the room for sitting.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as I studied her agitated countenance.

"Come on, Jen." I urged gently, "You know you want to get it off your chest."

Her head shook in denial, but suddenly the words came pouring out.

"It's not what you think, you know!" she blurted, leaving me feeling like I'd missed the first part of her story, "I loved my father and would have done anything for him! After mom left us, he was just so lonely, I needed to help him - to ease his loneliness somehow!"

"At first, he didn't want me to." her eyes pleaded with me for understanding, "Then one morning he woke up with me sucking on his big ol' thing, and well, he just didn't have the strength to make me stop. It wasn't that I wanted to seduce him - I didn't even know much about sex at twelve! It was just that I knew Mom used to do things like that for him, and I thought if I did them, he wouldn't be so lonely!"

I began to understand what the missing part of the story was about, and my heart climbed into my throat as I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, stroking her hair the way I used to do Tara's when she had some major emotional crisis going on. "It's okay, Jen. Let it all out."

"That became a morning tradition for a couple of weeks." she said, trembling, but speaking as if she were reading from a script, deadpan "Then, one morning, he asked 'Do you want to make Daddy really happy, Jenny?'. Of course, at that point I would have done anything to see him happy. His thing was so big! Even though I was big for my age, it stretched me inside a lot! I wasn't going to let him know that it hurt, though. I really wanted to see Daddy happy again!"

I wanted to shout, "No real father would demand that of his daughter! His happiness was his responsibility, not yours!", but I held myself in check, hoping to get the rest of the story.

"Anyway, Daddy became fascinated with the way my little body looked with his big ol' thing sticking so far into it, and even though he enjoyed having sex with me, pretty soon, he got in the habit of sticking other things into me, each one a little bigger than the last. Over the next couple of months, he got me to where I could take the entire length of a ten inch dildo! I got so used to that stretching and straining to take bigger and bigger things, that sex didn't feel right if I wasn't being stretched! Every time I took a little more, Daddy would tell me what a good girl I was, and smile at me the way he used to before mom left!" Jen broke down again before continuing, "It felt so good to see that smile that I even started practicing putting bigger things inside me when Daddy wasn't around, so I could show him what a good daughter I was!"

"There, now." I murmured gently, stroking her hair some more. What I really wanted to say was: 'YOUR FATHER WAS A GODDAMN ASSHOLE, JENNY, AND YOU'RE LUCKY HE'S DEAD!'

"Some time after he started using me for sex" she continued, still wracked with sobs, "I started having orgasms. The more my little pussy stretched around whatever was fucking me, the harder I came! After that, I enjoyed practicing, knowing I'd be pleasing Daddy. It was just after my thirteenth birthday - I was so proud of myself when I finally got the eleven inch dildo inside, that I ran to the door with it still inside me. Normally, he just let himself in, but tonight, the doorbell rang. Thinking he had forgotten his key, I went to let him in, eager to show him what I had accomplished. When I saw the police at the door, I was mortified! Fortunately, my nightgown hid the the little bit of the dildo that was visible, and I excused myself to go to the bathroom and take it out. When I got done, the female police officer made me sit down, and told me what had happened - that Daddy had been killed in a car wreck while driving home. I didn't find out 'til later that he was too drunk to walk, much less drive."

Jen raised tear-stained eyes toward mine and continued, "I've been through all the therapy, and I know that my father was, at best, a weak man, and at worst a child-molester. I've learned to accept that about him, but all the therapy in the world hasn't made me stop loving him. I know he's never coming back. My therapist has tried everything, but there's this one big roadblock to me getting on with my life."

"What roadblock?" I asked, "You seem to be doing okay."

"Most of the time, I AM okay, but every once in a while, something happens that triggers a memory, and it's like I'm thirteen again, you know?" her eyes begged me to understand, "My therapist says that the only way I can overcome it is with some kind of regression therapy. Since it's all keyed around my Father, though, he says he can't think of a way to accomplish it."

"Accomplish what, exactly?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Since - since I never got to show Daddy how far I'd come with the big dildo," Jen spoke softly, looking at everything but me, "I've been kind of stuck at that place in my life. I can't seem to stop practicing - putting bigger and bigger things inside me. My conscious mind knows it's futile, that I'll never get to show Dad, but somewhere deep inside, I'm still getting ready for when he gets home!"

Jen's voice rose to a frustrated wail as she ended her sentence. I held her until she calmed a little before I spoke again.

"Why did you think it was important to tell me this?" Another question whose answer I wasn't sure I wanted to hear.

Jen looked around for some way to escape the question, and finding none, stared at her hands in her lap.

"It's, um, well, you see," she began, then, taking a deep breath to steel herself, she blurted out, "You remind me of him!"

"That's why you've been so giddy around me sometimes?" I asked, gently.

She nodded quickly, not looking up, then raised her face and said, "Crazy, huh? I mean I know you're not him, and I know he's never coming back, but somehow I feel like, if I could show you, it would finally be over. I could finally get my father out of my mind and get on with my life!"

I didn't know what to say. None of my experience in raising my own kids prepared me for this. I didn't think it was healthy for her to continue obsessing about her father and his bizarre demands on her, but if I could help her put her demons to rest, I would gladly do so.

"Are you asking me for something, Jen?" I asked, more as a delaying tactic than anything else. I knew what she wanted, I just couldn't face my own feelings on the matter.

Jen snatched the Jamba visor from her head and twisted it in her hands. For the first time, I noticed that her hair was a sort of dirty-blonde, gathered in an unkempt bun at the top of her head.

"I can't really ask this of you, Ted." she mumbled "I shouldn't even be telling you about it, but I get you and my father jumbled up in my head, and it would mean a lot to me if you could just, one time, watch..."

"That's all?" I asked, "Just watch?"

"Well, Dad used to play with me after I showed him something new." she looked up, ready to cry again, "Could you, you know, just kinda be him for an hour or so? I promise I'll never ask again, no matter how it turns out!"

I thought for a long time before finally replying, "I'm going to have to think about that, Jen. Let me sleep on it, and I'll get back to you, okay?"

She nodded, resignedly, and I could tell by the expression she wore that she never expected to see me again.

"Hey, Jen!" I said, a little sharply, to get her attention, "I WILL get back to you, one way or another. I feel honored that you've trusted me enough to share this with me, but I need to sort out my own feelings about it. This is a deep, dark thing you've asked of me, and I need to think it through, okay? I really want to help, but I need to be settled in my own mind that it's the right thing for you and for me."

For two days I wrestled with my emotions. The civilized, rational part of me despised everything Jen's father had stood for, everything he had done to his innocent daughter, body and mind! The barbarian I had spent my life trying to suppress, however, gave me a hard-on every time I contemplated having this lovely athlete as my daughter-for-a-day, to use and abuse the way her father had!