Chapter 11

It was one of the best summers I could remember for a long time. Even though it was at the expense of her 'car accident', we had Victoria home with us for almost three weeks (she still had some "lingering pain" after two weeks!). The issue of the SUV accident was finally behind us. I had worried about that for a long time, without telling anyone. Three men hurt one of Victoria's babies, and two days later, they were dead? Too convenient. Not that I blamed her. I would have done it if she hadn't, but she's probably better at it. However, we'll never know now. Sure as little fishies she wasn't going to tell me, if she refused to tell me whom she works for.

Victoria and I had always been close, and had what I would call an ideal marriage, but we'd grown closer in the last several months. Even though I always knew it, I was now completely confident that she would do anything for her family. She would always be there when she was really needed and it counted. It was crystal clear, even more so than before, that we were everything to her, the most important thing in her life. I learned that we could be that, and she could still do her job. The two were not incompatible.

I also put aside the irritation I always felt about her job. She couldn't tell me, and that was it. Not wouldn't - couldn't. She vowed not to lie to me anymore about anything. If she was unable to answer, she would just say she couldn't talk about it, and I vowed I would not pursue it anymore when she said that. I was touched the night she expressed to me how badly she was feeling, even to not being able to sleep at night, every time she lied to me. I think we loved each other more than ever, and that was saying a lot.

Cindi was getting better every day. She was more confident, although she was still leery about boys. I think that will continue until she falls in love with one and finds out they are not all jerks. Probably someone a little older than her, more mature, more sensitive. That was possibly what attracted her to me.

One thing I was both happy and sad about - we were slowly phasing out our sexual relationship. Not deliberately, it just didn't happen as often anymore; it wasn't needed as much by her as it once was. We still got together occasionally and we still enjoyed it tremendously, but it appeared she really just needed it to get her over her bad memories. It just took more than the one time she planned. I missed her that way - but we also found that we were so close, and loved each other so much, that just cuddling together on the couch or snuggling in bed was almost as good as sex.

I've never been deprived, at least in quality if not in quantity, by my sex life with Victoria. Horniness or deprivation was never the reason for my actions with Cindi, but love and a desperate need on her part. Plus, it was doing wonders for the lingering guilty feeling I have always had. We made no plans to stop completely, but we knew it might just stop all of its own accord. I think Cindi recognized she was just not ready for a recurrent sexual relationship with anybody. She agree with me that she was just too young.

I've always been closer to Amy that Cindi ... No, that's not quite right. I was closer in a different way. That was still true, because as Cindi and I grew closer that summer, so did Amy and I. I had an even more profound respect and admiration for Amy since her performance during the episode with the cops. There's nothing like someone saving your life to make you trust them completely. Amy had a maturity, understanding, and wisdom well beyond her years that Victoria, Cindi and I had come to trust explicitly. Yet she still maintained her ability to be a cute, giggly, wiggly 13 year old. She flicked back and forth like flipping a switch when it was needed, and it was obvious immediately when she changed hats. Her capacity to read and understand a situation, adapt to it, and read other peoples emotions and parts in it, was uncanny. I sometimes wondered if she can read minds. But then, I decide she couldn't, or there were times I would have been in big trouble!

Both the girls and I still enjoyed immensely snuggling together in bed at night. Except for the occasional trysts with Cindi, there was little sexual content there. Although there were times I wondered about Amy, if it was there, neither of us dared to act on it.

Somehow, the girls concocted a kind of system of who was going to snuggle on what night. The nights that they both came in, it was obviously deliberate. There was no hiding it as if it was wrong - they did it just as often when Victoria was around as not.

The girls were really heavily into cheerleading, so that meant, even more than before, the constant presence of cute 13-14 year olds around all the time. They were all enjoyable - the one I enjoyed the presence of most was Katie. She was almost as sweet as my girls are. Probably as sweet, but I always gave my girls first place.

She was around quite often, even staying overnight on a regular basis. She and her mother didn't have that much in common. Her mother had five other younger kids to raise, so she didn't really mind that much if Katie wasn't at home.

Although Cindi and Amy were not all that close to her, she really liked Victoria and me, and the feeling was mutual. When I stayed up late at night and she was staying over, she would often come downstairs and snuggle up to me on the couch, or lie on the couch with her head in my lap, to watch TV. We would often stay up for hours just talking about anything and everything. Many nights she fell asleep with her head on my lap and I would carry her into the spare bedroom to put her into bed.

She and the girls were very good about somehow scheduling the time so that there was never a conflict with Katie when Amy or Cindi wanted to cuddle or talk. I have never understood how females do that, seemingly without ever talking about it.

She hadn't quite reached the point of talking about her father yet. The poor girl had been hurt very badly, and since she didn't talk about that or her father, I sensed they were related. I saw some of the same signs in her as what Cindi went through. I hoped I was wrong.

One interesting situation occurred over the summer with Amy that I found nerve wracking at the time it occurred, about midway through the summer. The cheerleaders decided to host a get-together for all the girls and guys they knew, kind of like an informal party and dance.

We didn't let Cindi or Amy formally date yet, but if it was an informal group with chaperones, etc, we would let them go. This one wasn't at our house, but was hosted at Laura's house, one of the 15-year-old cheerleaders. We debated letting the girls go, since Laura's parents weren't the best chaperones in the world, but we finally figured there would be enough other people there that it would be ok. They're not bad, just not as watchful sometimes as we were about the things teenagers always try to get away with.

We weren't worried about our girls - just the idea they could be caught up in something if anything went wrong. Amy was excited about going; Cindi made it clear that she wouldn't be there, for exactly the reasons we had questioned, and because she wasn't ready for that much contact with boys yet. She decided to go to Elizabeth's house for the night, where a bunch of girls were gathering whose parents wouldn't let them go to the other gathering.

Amy had an 11:00 PM curfew time to be home. At 11:00 PM, the doorbell rang. Thinking Amy had forgotten her key, I answered the door to find Amy, drunk as a skunk, being held up by Cindi and Elizabeth's college age sister. Cindi quickly asked me to hear out what happened before I got mad and grounded Amy until her 40^th birthday. They helped me get her in, and I laid her on the couch and turned around to hear from the two girls why I should let her live!

As I calmed down I remembered that Amy never drank, did not like the taste of the stuff, so I knew there was some kind of story here. It turned out that someone had spiked one of the bowls of punch and Amy hadn't realized it. Amy loves punch. By the time anyone figured out what was going on, she couldn't walk by herself. It would be hard to tell if Amy was drunk till she started losing motor control, since she was so outgoing in a group and acted drunk half the time anyway. Finally, someone called Cindi pick her up, since nobody dared to bring her home. Cindi said she would stay to take care of her, but I told her to go back to Elizabeth's house. There was no sense in ruining her night; I would take care of Amy.

The first thing I noticed was that she stank! Sorry, Amy, but it's true. She, or someone, had spilled alcoholic drinks on her clothes, and she had thrown up at least once with her head not in the ideal position, if you get my drift. Think about what can happen when you throw up in a toilet bowl with long hair. Sorry, maybe too graphic, huh?

The first thing was to get her cleaned up. It was too big a job for a washcloth and sink - it was in her hair and everything. She was in desperate need for a shower, and since she was too unstable to go in alone, it looked like she was going to take a shower with Dad.

A drunk Amy loses all the maturity that people are so impressed with. She becomes a constantly giggling 13 year old that says and does bizarre things. Much to my consternation she became much more interested in sexually oriented subjects.

Can you tell this is an embarrassed father trying to talk about his daughter? She found it great fun, while I was holding her up and washing her, to play with the hair on my chest. Of course, this was hilariously funny and necessitated much giggling. Sigh.

Then she discovered that if she ran her soapy fingers over my nipples they would get hard, just like hers. Giggle, giggle, giggle. Lord, give me patience. Good thing I love this girl. Then, did you know that if you kiss Daddy when he's not expecting it, you can stick your tongue in his mouth as he gasps in shock? That deserved a full fledge laugh. It also rated a slap on the butt for her, and a retaliatory turning off the hot water for a few seconds. Little drunk Amys shriek very loud in a cold shower. Hee hee.

Then came the worst of all - she discovered that Daddy has a cock and balls (giggle, giggle), that (gasp) gets really big when it gets hard (she's never seen one before, so what does she know about big?), as it does really quickly when you put cute soft little Amy hands on his cock and balls and rub them (yep, you guessed it - giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle, etc.). I couldn't believe this! Sweet, innocent little Amy? I was going to have nightmares about this for years to come <Completely traumatized, huh? Poor Daddy! J.>. I had to get her out of there quick, but unfortunately it takes time to wash her long hair when she has vomit in it. I slapped her hands and told her to behave. Oh boy, telling a drunk Amy she can't have something she thinks is fun to play with. Not good even when she is sober, useless when she is drunk. Victoria, there are times when I hate your job! This should be you doing this.

I finally dragged her out. Then we had more fun. Drying off a drunk Amy. Great! While I was drying off her hair and upper body with both my hands, well, of course, that means she can play with Daddy's privates again, since he has no hands to stop her. Right? That's the way things go in Amy's (drunk) world. Then, when I moved my hands down to her lower body to dry her, that means if you are Amy you are free to throw your hands around Daddy's neck and try that tongue kissing thing again. I finally decided the hell with drying her, she can just sleep on wet sheets, so I picked her up and carried her into bed, laid her down, covered her up, kissed her cheek, moving fast before she decided to do the tongue thing again, and started to leave the room.

"Daddy? Daaddyy? Would you sleep with me? I want to cuddle, I can't go to sleep."

Damn. How in the hell do you know, girl? You've only tried for 7 seconds! Did I say she was my favorite? I think she just slipped two points below the jerk, cop #1!

I crawled into bed and snuggled up behind her, with my arm around her waist. Go to sleep, Amy.

Then, after a few minutes, she started crying.

"Ok, what's wrong, Amy?"

"Why did they do all those awful things to Cindi, Daddy? It was terrible. And she saved me, Daddy. She let them do it to save me. Why did she do that, Daddy? It wasn't fair. She is so sweet and never mean to anyone and they made her do those awful things, and it hurt her so much. And it was all because of me. I tease her all the time and called her a bitch when she was hurting so bad and I didn't know she sucked cocks to save me. How can I ever make that up to her?" she sobbed.

"Amy, honey, did you watch that movie when you found it?"

"Y ... y ... yes. Please don't be mad at me." Damn. Why did I forget about that thing? I wish I had remembered to throw it out like I meant to.

"Honey, she did those things because she loves you. I think you would have done the same for her if you had to. They did it because they were bad boys. And they paid the price for it. You make it up to Cindi by loving her and being nice to her, just as you always do. Honey, Cindi likes your teasing, just as we all do. Her fun is in not letting you know that."

"Daddy, will you make love to me tonight?"

"No, honey, I won't. You're drunk, and you don't know what you are asking."

"Daddy, did Mommy kill those boys because they hurt one of her babies?"

Before I could answer, I heard her snoring gently. "I don't know, Amy" I lied, whispering, slipped out of bed, and went into the living room.

The next day was Saturday, so, fortunately, Amy could sleep late. She slept so late that she missed cheerleader practice for the first time in her life. Cindi went anyway. Amy woke a little after noon and came looking for me. Since I'd given up drying her, she had slept in wet hair, and it was frightful looking, sticking out everywhere. When she came into the room I took one look at her and screamed "Monster, Monster!" and jumped behind the couch, peering out around the edge. She didn't think it was funny at all. She gave me a dirty look.

"NOT funny, DAD!"she snarled.

I asked how she was feeling. I will not repeat her answer. Amazing how she can give a non-repeatable answer and not say a single bad word. Then she climbed up into my lap and hid her face in my shirt.

"I'm so sorry, Daddy. I'm so embarrassed."

"You didn't know the punch was spiked, honey."

"I don't mean for that. I mean for last night in the shower, and in bed." She was red now. "I'm sorry for the things I said and did, Daddy".

"It's ok, sweetie. Everybody does embarrassing things when they're drunk. Remember that."