Chapter 1

I'm a pervert. It's just that simple.

Except that it isn't simple at all. The definition is simple, but I have come to learn that just about all forms of human interaction are complicated, no matter how easily someone puts labels on them.

So how did I become a pervert?

Well, I suppose it's because I enjoy looking at a beautiful woman, and imagining that I'm making love to her. I fantasize about how happy she is that I'm doing that, and that she's telling me never to stop.

But wait. All men do that. So that's not perverted.

Okay, so I suppose it has to do with the fact that, one day, I noticed one of my daughter's friends was really cute, and her smile made me have this ache inside. Her name was Sally, or something like that. Amber, my daughter, is one of those girls who has more friends than a man can keep track of, and they come and go like the ebb and flow of the tides.

Actually, that's a pretty good analogy, come to think of it. Pretty girls, with bright smiles, and teasing glances ... girls who are fresh and unjaded by repeatedly having their hearts broken ... girls whose bodies are right at the perfect place to do their genetic part in replenishing the species ... those girls are as beautiful to watch as the waves, crashing onto the beach.

And those girls have the same kind of force that waves have. They can throw a man off his feet, and carry him away, tumbling head over heels, unable to think, until he finally struggles to his feet with a shit-eating grin on his face. He thinks "Fuck that was fun!" and then hopes it can happen again. Being around those girls can do that same thing to a man ... just turn his world upside down.

Of course there are people who hate sex, or seem to think they have the right to determine when, where and with whom one is allowed to further the species. I don't understand them. But somehow they have made all these rules, and come up with the definition of what a pervert is.

Like wanting to make love with a fifteen year old girl. They say that's perverted. It doesn't matter if she wants to make love too. They all say she isn't old enough to make that decision.

Of course that's because they're afraid some asshole will come along and use her and dump her and ruin her psyche.

Which, by the way, is my definition of a pervert ... no matter how old the woman is.

But that's not the accepted definition, so I'm stuck with the fact that, by definition, I'm a pervert. I suppose, in mathematical terms, I'm a pervert squared.

Maybe I should just tell you what happened, instead of beating myself up for something that I believe Mother Nature actually meant most men to be.

I didn't know it at the time, but it all started with a slumber party Amber told me she was having. I know that might sound a bit off to someone, a teenager telling her father what she was going to do, rather than asking if she could do it, but our situation was different than most. My wife was gone, you see, and Amber had, since she was eight, been the woman of the house. More or less.

I'm not telling this story well. It's all jumbled up. But that's just because my own mind is all jumbled up. Let me start over and see if I can do it chronologically. Maybe it will make more sense.

Heather and I met when I was in my last year at West Point. I was all gung ho about being in the Army and we worked hard and played hard. Heather was finishing up her bachelor's in education, and she had a part time job at this local eatery called Boss Hogg's, a barbeque joint that had it figured out. Their slogan was "Terrifying vegetarians since 1965." She was a babe, and she had this way of flirting, but only with her eyes. It drove me crazy.

Anyway, I invited her to my graduation, and was astonished when she agreed. We went out that night and she was as proper as the day is long. Nothing happened. Well, nothing except good conversation. She was a farm girl from Kansas, and she was one of those "good girls" you hear so much about from people with silver hair. All I got was a kiss on the cheek when I took her home and, to be honest, I thought that was it.

But then, the next time I was destroying a rack of ribs at Boss Hogg's, she asked me if I wanted to go to her graduation. I did, and afterwards she said she wanted to go home and change out of her cap and gown before we went out. So I went with her and she left the door open when she went in, so I went in too, and was standing around looking at the way she decorated when she walked out of her room ... stark naked.

Heather had long, blue-black hair, and she had, after leaving Kansas, stayed out of the sun, so her skin was milky white. Her nipples were darker than the rest of her skin, but so pale they were hard to see. She apparently didn't go in for skimpy bikinis, because it looked like she was all original down there.

"Have you ever wanted to fuck a teacher?" she asked.

Well, I was lost. It was like she owned me. I asked her to marry me, and she complained that she'd been waiting for me to ask her for over a year. It was like that. She never told me she wasn't on the pill. When I finally got around to having that conversation with her, she was already pregnant, and said "I always knew you'd be the one to father my babies."

The wedding was perfect. I had the whole arch of swords thing going on, with all my classmates there. My best man slapped her on the ass with his saber. I got orders for my first assignment, which was Fort Leonard Wood, and she networked through the placement office and had a sixth grade teacher's job all lined up in someplace called Waynesville.

Everything was perfect. I was going to be a father soon, and a general sometime later.

Then, exactly one week after reporting for duty at my first permanent party assignment, I was heading into the company HQ building for a meeting and had to pass by a scaffold a contractor had put up to do some kind of work. A bolt snapped and the whole thing swayed. The guy who was standing on top of it yelped, and I reached to steady things. It turned out to be more than I expected, and I felt something tear. The whole thing went down, and me with it.

And just like that, I was unfit for military service, and was medically retired with a 30% disability.

Well ... I say "just like that." Actually, it took over a year.

But Heather had a good job, and they need engineers everywhere, even in the Ozarks, so I thought everything would work out. What the Army calls 30% disability doesn't mean you can't do a regular job. It just means you can't be in the Army.

In the meantime, Heather had delivered me the cutest little girl I'd ever laid eyes on. Amber was the light of our lives. She was smart, even as a baby. And she was trouble ... even as a baby.

I kept in touch with a few of the guys from West Point. One of them was Americus Tybernium Brown, who was the first person in his family line to go to college, though not the first to serve his country. Americus, or "Merry" as all the cadets called him, was the descendent of freed slaves. His great-great grandfather had fought in the Union Army, and various other men in his line had been in the Mexican American war, and both world wars, Korea and Vietnam. His mother wanted him to have a memorable name, because she knew he was going to do great things.

Merry did two tours in Iraq without getting injured, and then, within 72 hours of getting back in the United States, he and his wife were both killed when they took a wrong turn and drove between a shootout between two gangs of drug dealers.

I found out when a lawyer called me and told me we were named in Merry's will as Godparents and guardians for his three-year-old surviving son.

So, suddenly, Amber had a brother who looked completely different than any of the rest of us. He was as black as coal, not the cocoa brown that most African Americans are these days. His hair had that tight, impossible to comb kink in it. He was like a lost puppy, and we all fell in love with him instantly. His father had resisted doing the same thing his mother had done, simply naming him Robert Alexander. Robert after me, and Alex after Alexander Hockenstone, the third musketeer in our class at the point. His parents had called him Alex, so we did too.

This is where it begins to get complicated. Amber was two, and Alex was three, and neither of them had any clue as to what had happened in their lives. Alex knew something was wrong, because he asked for his mom and dad for almost six months before that began to fade away. Amber was fascinated with him, and followed him everywhere he went. She was like his shadow, though it was a very pale shadow. Eventually they thought they were brother and sister. He asked a couple of times why he was different than the rest of us, but I told him I'd explain it when he was twelve. I picked that age out of a metaphorical hat, but events intervened and he learned the truth long before that.

That's because Heather got sick. It was some kind of cancer of the blood, and by the time they found a marrow donor it was too late. Amber was eight and Alex nine when we buried her.

They were definitely old enough to understand then.

A loss like that can make you mentally ill. I'm sure it happens in varying intensities, and that not everyone falls down the rabbit hole I did, but I'd bet that in every case like that, there is a time when you're certifiable. And, to be honest, when I got up one day and discovered Alex and Amber asleep in her bed, arms wrapped around each other, I understood exactly. I understood the need for someone to hug, and cry with, and I was glad they had each other, because I didn't have anybody. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. If I hated someone that much, I'd just shoot him and be done with it.

I'll tell you how sick I was. I was given a leave of absence from my job, and just never went back. I knew my clothes had been washed, but not how it had happened. I knew food appeared on the table, but not who shopped for it, or prepared it. I saw the kids come and go and I know I spoke to them, but I have no recollection of what was said.

Anyway, I think it was because I was in my own hurt locker that I didn't parent much, if at all. By the time I did get my head working again, six months had gone by and Amber had already taken over as the woman of the house.

And she and Alex were still sleeping in the same bed. Sometimes it was in hers, and sometimes it was in his, but I finally paid enough attention to realize that, even though they were only kids, it probably wasn't healthy for them to sleep together like that. Especially since, somehow, they had gotten out of the habit of wearing pajamas. What that means is that they slept in the nude.

And that is the point at which the first traces of my pervertedness showed up.

Others might blame this on my mental illness, which went untreated until I just woke up one day and realized I'd missed six months of my life. I don't. My kids were both stronger than I was, and they kept things going. Both of them knew how to use a credit card and they did the grocery shopping. Alex figured out how to set up the online bill-pay option in our bank account. Amber later told me that they knew I'd get better one day, and they were afraid that if they called somebody, they'd get taken away by social services. So they just did what they had to to go on living.

Anyway, back to my pervertedness. As I said, I woke up one day, and it was like I had been asleep like Rip Van Winkle or something. I realized a lot of time had gone by, but couldn't remember much of it. So I went looking for the kids and found them in Alex's bed. They were asleep, hugging each other. The contrast between her pale pinkness and his blackness was startling. So I pulled the covers down. I swear it was only to see more of that contrast, and not for any prurient purposes. That's when I realized they were naked.

I wondered if they'd had sex. It just popped into my mind. Then I paid attention to what had just popped into my mind, and it freaked me completely out. I mean they weren't even ten yet! Alex woke up and opened bleary eyes.

"What?" he asked. "Did the alarm not go off? Are we late to school?"

It was a school day. I didn't even know that.

Anyway, Amber woke up and they got up, like everything was completely normal (which I guess it was) and there was my daughter naked, and my maleness perked up and I suddenly knew I was a pervert.

I didn't do anything about it, of course ... act on the sudden interest I took in her body, I mean. She was only eight, for Pete's sake.

But I remembered it, and it affected me. For example, I did tell them they had to sleep in their own beds again. They wanted to know why, and they argued, but I had finally rejoined the living, started being a parent again.

Thank goodness the kids were smarter than I was. They'd done fine in school while I was ... away ... and they seemed like perfectly normal kids. Instead of trying to get my job back, I decided to do some consulting. I was still a little gimpy, emotionally, and consulting let me work on my own schedule.

It was at this point that they came into my bedroom one night, Alex in the lead, and Amber following him, like happened so often.

"My parents are dead ... aren't they," he said. His face was solemn.

I nodded. Then I started crying.

I will always be thankful that my kids were so strong. They sat with me until I could talk and then I explained what had happened to his parents. There were pictures, in a box in the top of the closet, and I gave them to him. Amber sat next to him, with her arm around him as he learned all this. We ended up in a group hug that lasted quite a while, and then he said "Thanks, Dad," and they left.

And life went on and I got better and better. The kids continued to do well too. I was so proud of them. Amber got interested in cheerleading, and Alex was in any play or musical they'd give him a role in. All in all, we tried to live a normal life.

But the pervert in me loved watching Amber mature. She entered adolescence with a vengeance, and her body blossomed. She began to look more and more like her mother, which brought both pain and exhilaration that was almost impossible to separate.

I had missed one each of their birthdays while I was sick. They had just dealt with it. And the next couple were simple family affairs, where we all went out to do whatever the birthday boy or girl wanted to do. It was when Alex turned thirteen that I insisted on a big party. He was entering his teens! He was becoming a man!

So we had a big blowout party and it was great.

Of course, the next year we did the same thing for Amber.

And it was at Amber's party, that I found an outlet for my perversion.

Both kids were popular in school, though I was clueless of that fact for a few years. It was when a gaggle of absolutely delicious looking teenage girls all stampeded into our house for Amber's birthday party, that I learned this. They were like young horses, frolicking in a meadow. Long, lean limbs, swelling bosoms, slightly rounded hips, and a carefree attitude about everything.

Thirteen-year-old girls are capable of outrageous flirting. They can convince a man they are capable of doing ... and want to do ... things society would normally reserve for an eighteen-year-old. Like fuck a man blind.

This is not to say any of those girls came up to me and said "I'd just love to fuck you blind, Mr. Carpenter." Nothing of the sort. But their eyes said things, and the way they held their bodies said things, and the way they touched me on the arm said things. Of course a psychologist (or judge, for that matter) would say I was "seeing" things that weren't really there. That's what they say about perverts. They say things like "She didn't really want you to suck her tender, pink nipples. She's not old enough to be able to form that kind of knowing intent!"

And of course I didn't do anything even remotely like that at that birthday party.

No, that came much later.

But let me explain, because I honestly think the psychologists (and judges) are just flat wrong about what kind of intent a young woman can develop.

As I said, I didn't do anything perverted at my daughter's birthday party.

Well, except fantasize a little.

But some of those healthy, energetic, sexy girls started coming back to the house on a more or less regular basis. They came to do homework together, and to form groups to go to the mall together, and to have sleepovers, and to use the pool and the hot tub and the sauna. And as I saw more and more of them, I got to know them better, and they got to know me better, and they got comfortable being ... I don't know ... relaxed, maybe? By that, I mean relaxed, socially, around an adult male.

What that means is that, during their frequent visits, over the next year or so, if it was a sleepover, they didn't seem to mind if I saw them in pretty revealing PJs. They also didn't seem to be averse to plopping down beside me on the couch to watch a movie in those PJs. And they eventually adopted the habit of kissing me good night just like Amber did.

And if they came over to swim, they changed in Amber's room, but after being in the pool they'd shower the chlorine off in whatever bathroom was free and then just wrap a towel around themselves to get back to Amber's room. Same thing with the hot tub and sauna.

Chapter 2 »