Chapter 9

To say that Carly got noticed when she walked into the day room, is like saying that if you fall into the river, you might get wet. The room was full of young men, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, all of whom lived a lifestyle that kept the testosterone in their bloodstream at peak levels. And here appeared a girl who was lush, and ripe, and who fairly exuded sex appeal.

About half of them thought she was somebody's Italian girlfriend, and were jealous of whoever that was. As she looked around, most of the men there wished she was looking for them. Then her face lit up, and a dazzling smile made them all start searching for the lucky bastard who got to put his hands on this woman.

When they saw it was SFC Rawlinson, the vast majority of them didn't believe it. Rawlinson never went on thunder runs in the ville, to get drunk. Rawlinson never went to the clubs, either on post or in town. Rawlinson was a straight up family man, always eager to get home.

When she went to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, those nearby heard her greeting, and relaxed. But those across the room didn't hear her say "Daddy! There you are!" and at least a dozen of them found reasons to go to that side of the room, to investigate.

Tom and Carly found themselves ringed with healthy young men, who were intensely interested in them. Tom, of course, knew exactly why they were interested.

"Gentlemen," he announced, and the buzz of conversation died down. "And you guys from first, second and fourth platoons too," he added. There were groans. "I'd like to introduce my daughter, Carly."

There was a long moment of almost complete silence, and then a voice called out "No way, Sarge."

That started conversations going again, some going back to what they had been talking about, and many starting a new thread of discussion. A man who carried himself different, somehow, came over and stood looking back and forth between Carly and her father.

"I knew you had a daughter, Sergeant, but I thought she was like ten or something."

"I'm not ten," said Carly, watching this man's eyes. He had better control. He only looked her body over once, very quickly, and then pinned his eyes on her face.

"I can see that," said the man. "I'm Lieutenant Dennis Nickerson." He held out his hand. "I'm the third herd platoon leader. Your father works for me."

Carly shook his hand, and then, just to see what he did, ignored him. She turned to her father.

"Daddy? You've been going off to work all my life, but you never talk about what you do when you get home. So here I am on take your daughter to work day. So show me what you do!"

"He strikes terror into the hearts of a lot of the men in this room," said Lt. Nickerson, who hadn't given up at all. Being ignored only allowed him to feast his eyes on this beautiful girl's body.

"I do not," said Tom.

"Yes he does," said a young man, about Carly's age.

Tom looked at him and then Carly. "This is Specialist Simmons. He's in second squad. He's one of my soldiers."

"What do you do in second squad, Specialist Simmons?" asked Carly formally.

"I hump a base plate," said the young man. He seemed proud of that.

"Hump?" Carly's voice went up a notch.

"He means carry," said Tom. "He's on a mortar team, and he carries the thing the mortar tube sits on."

"And mortars go up in the air and back down ... right?" Carly looked unsure.

"Right where we want 'em to," said Simmons. "And Sergeant Rawlinson makes sure we do."

"I'm sort of his supervisor," said Tom. "Except there are a couple of people below me in the chain of command. I sort of supervise the whole platoon.

"He runs the whole platoon," said Lt. Nickerson. "He makes me look good to the Captain."

"Captain," said Carly. "That's an officer ... right?"

"Exactly," said Nickerson. "I'm an officer too." He sounded like he hoped that impressed her.

She turned to her father again.

"So is he one of the officers you're always complaining about who fucks everything up?"

The stunned silence generated by her flippant comment broke as she slapped one thigh and laughed "Kidding! Boy you guys sure take yourselves seriously."

But that broke the ice in a way that nothing else would have. She had used a word none of them would have dared use in her presence, at least not with her father there. And she showed actual interest in what people did. Soon she was chatting with groups of men, before moving on to other groups, almost like she was working the crowd.

Tom stood with his platoon leader and, together, they watched.

"My daughter is only two," said Nickerson. "And I'm telling you right now, Tom, there is no way in hell I'm going to be as calm about it when this happens to me."

"She's just talking to them," said Tom, who knew what he was going to do when they got home. He was going to fuck her deep, long and continuous. She was so beautiful it made his chest hurt.

"Yeah, but we both know what they're thinking."

To Tom, this was dangerous ground. The first thing that came to mind to say was "Even you?" But while they were friends, the man was still an officer, and besides, Tom had no ground to stand on to complain about someone lusting after his baby girl. He'd done plenty of lusting after her himself. In that sense, he did know what they were all thinking.

"You learn to deal with it," he said, carefully.

"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din," sighed Nickerson.

"What?" asked Tom, who had never read Kipling.

The lieutenant's eyes ranged all over the girl's body and he sighed, thinking of what he'd like to do with this girl ... even if she was his own daughter. "I just suspect you're a better father than I would have been." He licked his lips.

It never occurred to the lusty lieutenant how ironic his comment might have been.

Just as going to work with her mother was the thing that precipitated a years long affair between Carly and her father, going to work with him under the same circumstances led to the eventual decline of that relationship. I'll risk killing the buzz, here, because it's important to understand what Carly was going through, to understand why she made the decisions she eventually made.

Once Carly recognized the power she wielded over men in general, and realized that there were men out there who weren't at all like the immature and goofy boys she had always known in school, her interest in men other than her daddy grew.

This is not to say she lost interest in either her father's affections, on an emotional level, or his penis, on a physical one. But sex with him became less than the center of her whole life. At the risk of being trite, I'll say that ... the honeymoon was over.

But if I were a punster, I'd say the hornymoon was over, because that's really what happened. Carly's libido finally got satisfied. She learned that her daddy wasn't the only man who found her fascinating, or was interesting. Gaining a lover at the tender age of fifteen had dragged her into the adult world of orgasms, and babies and intense emotional relationships. Ironically, that same relationship had retarded her social development, because she didn't need the attentions of males her own age. And that meant she didn't learn how to appreciate "men" for what they might offer her.

We're not talking about a stiff penis, which is what most men wish to offer a woman. What I'm referring to are smaller things, like thinking Carly was funny ... taking delight in something she said and laughing about that. Tom's relationship was based mostly on a normal father/daughter love, with the benefits of hot sex thrown in. Since all those interesting young men didn't get to have that hot sex with her (yet, they hoped, ) they had to make themselves stand out by appealing to her on more complicated levels. Attraction is great, but when a girl already has all the sex she wants, then it takes more than simple animal attraction to drag her away from her lover.

Without fail, when a man discovers his wife has been cheating on him, he cannot fathom why she would find another man more attractive than him. That's because he hasn't been paying attention to how neglectful he has become.

The analogy breaks down there, because Tom didn't neglect Carly. Far from it. When they got home that day, he did fuck her deep, long and continuous. And she loved it, just like she always loved it when her daddy was trying to breed her.

But this time, while he was satisfying her, she was curious about what it might be like to do this with another man. She wasn't fickle. She just knew that he was her father, and that while he might father children on her, she couldn't marry him, or kiss him in public, or do any of the things she could do with a boyfriend.

One of the things that both Tom and Carly would always cherish was the fact that having sex together resulted in their ability (and willingness) to talk about anything. So Carly talked to her father about all these new feelings, and how interesting those young men had been ... and how curious she was about things she had missed out on.