All women suck cock. That’s what I told myself when I opened the door and found my daughter with a cock in her mouth. The first thought that went through my head wasn’t, “Where did I go wrong?” That, after all, would be hypocrisy. I’d spent my single years trying to convince various women to put my cock in their mouths. Her mother sucks cock. Or, she used to. It only made sense that this woman would finally succumb. That this woman was my daughter was more an expected hurdle on life’s journey than a disappointment.
The disappointment was the cock. Usually when men find cocks in their daughters’ mouths, they hope them to be dangling from a doctor, an investment banker, or the guy who runs the local dry cleaning chain. Personally I’d have settled for a fiber artist, or a photographer with an unrelenting eye. But my daughter’s cock belonged to a mediocre mechanic from the local garage. He was someone she knew from Junior High. His most impressive credential was that he’d made a passing grade in Auto Shop. She’d ridden along recently when I had taken the car in for repairs. They became reacquainted. He was full of witty banter (for Junior High school). She laughed and purred at the novelty of it. He hadn’t had the same effect on the car.
He saw me before she did. His eyes grew wide. His body stiffened. He seemed to be enjoying this a little less than he had only moments ago. I was witness to the disintegration of what should have been a more tender moment. His palm ungraciously slapped her forehead as he pushed his way out of her mouth. He tumbled from the bed, gathered his fistful of clothes, and brushed past me. But I didn’t care about him.
I was watching my daughter’s face. When I had first opened the door, she was lost in complete ecstasy, in the joy she was giving. She found a short bit of humor when slapped in the head, quickly opening her eyes and registering rejection at being pushed away from her task. Then, following the boy’s glance, her eyes met mine and filled with horror and sadness. She knew she had disappointed me. She knew I would never look at her the same way again. She knew she had been found out, that she wasn’t my innocent little girl any more. And, as she stormed away for the shelter of her own bedroom, she was angry that I had stolen this moment from her. A moment that was supposed to have loosened the apron strings, opening her way into the world beyond these walls. Instead, her eyes said, she had tripped over those strings.
All these feelings flowed freely through her in those few seconds. My face had been an unreadable slate, time having taken much of the novelty from my life. Understanding, forgiveness, and surprise had all worn smooth my expressions until they came across like apathy or pent up aggression. Had I been outraged, she would not have gotten past me without a beating or sharp word. But those flames had long died down. The steam was slow building for an appropriate response. Her door was closed and locked before anything comforting or disarming came to my mind.
How long, I wondered, would it be before we sat across a table from each other, drinking a beer and laughing about this day? How long before she knew in her heart that these mortifying moments were just part of the human condition. We all get caught naked in the bath, masturbating, menstruating, soiling the sheets in our dreams. It’s all part of the Sisyphusian role we play, trying to tame the sparks of youth in the slow motion of our old age.
Slowly, methodically, I scripted the words that would hopefully comfort her, while gathering the sheets for this week’s laundry.
Selkirk's Ghost 