Father's Keeper (5 page)

* * * *

“You shouldn’t fall asleep with a full
beer in hand,” Gil said and pulled the warm bottle from my hand.

I sat up, confused by deep sleep and
being home. “Why? Will I burn the house down?”

“You waste a beer,” he said and
offered me his hand.

“Carl?” I took his hand, feeling a
stab of guilt from my harsh words earlier. He pulled me to standing, tucked my
messy hair behind my ear.

“Not here yet.”

“Time?” I yawned.

“A little after one. Come on Jenny,
let’s get you upstairs. You’re wiped out.”

“Why?” I asked, truly curious. Why was
I so fucking tired? Why did I feel as if the world had been strapped to my
back?

“Because coming home can be
exhausting. Especially if you don’t know which road you’re going to take.”

“Which road did you take?” I asked,
letting Gil lead me to the staircase.

“I took the one that I thought would
make me happy,” he sighed.

“Did it?” I turned to Gil, suddenly
terrified. A crushing kind of fear settling on my chest like a lead apron.

“For a while. That road made me happy
and then there was a fork. Only I wasn’t the one to take an alternate road.”

“And?” I sighed.

“And I can’t control that. You can’t
control other people. Only yourself. So now I’m on a new road and I’ll see
where that goes.” He put his hand on my head, letting the weight of it ground
me and calm me.

I shut my eyes, swaying from fatigue.
Tears pricked my eyes and I nodded. “Got it. Off to bed, then,” I said, my
voice catching just a bit. Just enough for me to want to kick myself.

“You okay, kid?”

I nodded.

“You’re lying,” he said.

I shook my head, no. But I was lying
and we both knew it. I took the steps slowly. Each one felt nine feet tall. I
brushed my teeth and shucked my clothes, pulling on a big white tee over my
panties. I washed my face and opened the door only to rear back with a small
cry. Gil grinned. “Sorry. Just checking on you. You sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” I lied.

“Lie,” he said. “I’ve known you for a
long time, Jenny. And you’ve lied to me plenty.”

“I have ne-
eh
-ver,” I said
dramatically but laughed. “Okay, once or twice.”

“It’ll be okay,” Gil said.

“Tell me again,” I said, sagging
against the wall outside the bathroom.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, brushing a
damp strand of hair out of my eyes.

“Even if it’s not true,” I muttered,
closing my eyes as his fingers brushed over my skin.

“It’s true. Promise.” He touched the
tip of my nose. “Goodnight, Jenny,” he said and kissed my cheek.

My whole body reacted in that moment.
The warmth of his lips on my skin, that fact that it was Gil--who I trusted so
much--telling me I’d be fine. It was a huge rush of love and gratitude and long
stifled attraction. When he kissed my cheek, I turned my face and kissed his
lips. Putting my hand in his soft hair, feeling the strands sift between my
fingers.

Gil’s body went stiff and I kissed him
harder, pushing my tongue to his lips and past them. When my tongue touched his
tongue heat unraveled through my belly down to my pussy. He tried to pull back.
“Please, Gil. Please,” I said, realizing I was not drunk. I was totally sober
and in that moment and all I wanted in the world was for him to kiss me back.
“Please, kiss me, Gil. Please.”

His body softened and his hands
touched my hips. His lips moved against mine in a gentle dance before he opened
his mouth and really kissed me. His hand cupping the back of my head to hold me
tight as he kissed me like we were going to die in the next breath. “Just this
one, Jenny. Just one,” he said against my lips and kissed me more.

“I feel your kiss all over,” I said,
babbling now. I’d say anything to make him keep kissing me. Make me feel
better. Make me feel safe. Make me feel sane again. “Here,” I said and put his
big hand to my chest so he could feel my heart banging like some wild thing in
my chest. “And here,” I said, pushing it to my belly. That roller coaster
feeling coiled through me and when he curled his fingers gently over my tummy,
his lips still moving against mine, I felt my pussy grow wet and ready.

“Jenny,” he said but I pressed my
mouth to his and stifled his words.

“And here,” I said, half desperate and
half terrified. I put his hand to the front of my panties and arched my hips so
that I moved against him.

He made a sound in his throat. A
strangled, tortured sound that made me press his hand harder to the front of
me. His thumb found the split of my nether lips through my panties. He pressed
the nub of my clit with just his thumb, his hot tongue stroking over mine.

“Gil--” I started but he shook his
head.

“Shh. This isn’t happening. Hush,
Jenny.”

I hushed and tried to remember to
breathe when his fingers slipped below the elastic of my panties. I tried not
to cry with relief and gratitude and arousal when he dipped a finger into my
cunt and painted my throbbing clit with my own juices. I pushed my hand to his
fly, feeling his cock and he backed up a step. “Don’t do that. Stay still.
Don’t move.” The way he said it, I knew to obey.

I dropped my hand and pushed it to the
wall. I stood there, legs splayed as he rubbed circles over my clit, his mouth
traveling my throat, my lips, my shoulders. Gil sucked my nipple through my
tee, the heat and moisture of his mouth surrounding that small, hard bit of
skin. It was so intense I felt my knees go. That intimate action but with the
barrier of cotton between us. His fingers stroked me and the orgasm in my pussy
swelled with each stroke of his finger.

“Let me touch you,” I begged him. He
thrust two big fingers into my cunt and fucked me, pinning me to the wall with
his hips as his fingers delved deep into me. I wished for all the world that it
was his cock he was shoving into me, but I knew better than to say. I could
feel the unspoken warning in the air.

“No,” he said an that was all. Not why
it was a no--just a no.

I shook my head but stopped arguing as
Gil thrust deeper with his thick fingers, brushing my G-spot with a final firm
stroke, his thumb pinning my clit with a wet, perfect pressure. I came, head
thrown back, fingers clawing at the dark paneling in my hallway. Gil’s mouth
covered mine and he swallowed my cries, his hand moving like warm silk over my
pussy until the last spasm worked through me and I hung my head.

He kissed my nose and straightened my
panties, my tee. “Goodnight, Jenny. Sleep well,” he said, head down. And then
he left before I could mention the thing that had just not happened.

* * * *

I heard Carl coming, his drunken
shuffle audible, about an hour and a half later. I lay there staring at he
street lights dappling the ceiling and daydreaming about tiptoeing down and
crawling into the marital bed with Gil. I tortured myself wondering if Gil was
down there thinking of me. Or had he fallen asleep, the smell of me on his
fingers. Or my favorite, he’d gone down there and he’d beaten off, licking the
taste of me off his fingertips as he came.

When Carl curled himself against me
and spooned me, I let him. When he parted my thighs--thinking I was
sleeping--and tested me with the tips of his fingers, I let him. And I
responded. My body giving Carl the rush of fluid I had created by fantasizing
about Gil as I lay there.

“You awake?” Carl asked peeling me out
of my panties. He shoved my tee high over my head and pulled it back.

“Yeah. Here I am, wide awake,” I said
and rolled to my back, let him lay over me. I parted my thighs, arching up to
allow him to slip is cock into me and sway over me. He kissed me and I let him.
He fucked me and I let him. When Carl twined his fingers in mine and held my
hands flat to the mattress, getting me off before coming himself, I let him.
But when I was coming and he was kissing me, in my mind, in that secret part of
me, it was not Carl. It was my stepfather kissing me, getting me off, fucking
me, holding me tight. And it was his arms around me when I fell asleep. At
least it was in my fantasy and the fantasy followed me way down into the dark
spiral of sleep.

Chapter
6

Carl was gone when I woke up late.
Eleven was really late for me. Before and I came back to Pleasant Parks I had
been a nanny for three little boys. I woke at five every morning to arrive at
my job by six. I nearly felt as if I’d slept my day away, but it also felt
good. A note waited for me on the counter. “Coffee’s on” and that was it in
Gil’s handwriting.

I sat listening to the grandfather
clock tick and looked at my mother’s angel figurines lined up along the shelf
in the dining room. There was a white statue I had given her when I was twelve,
for Mother’s Day I think. There was a copper one that Gil and I had picked for
her at a small antique store downtown. There was a blue angel holding a moon
that Gil had scoured every local store to find after she saw it but couldn’t
remember where.

I had the urge to knock them all off
and watch them shatter into multi-colored bits of plastic and plaster. Much
like I imagined Gil felt somewhere on the inside. Once we had gotten past our
turmoil, we’d grown close. Over the years we’d had an odd mix to our
relationship. Sometimes there was the parent and child element. Sometimes
friends. More than once there was a brother sister vibe. When I was unaware of
my own emotions I’d found myself attracted to him. Fleeting zips of urges and
wants that I would quickly shake off.

I sipped my coffee and wandered into
my mother and Gil’s room before I did something stupid like wreck her
collection.

Their room was the plushest room in
the house. Done in dark plums with accents of a golden honey color and apple
green. The thick bedding always seemed so opulent and my mothers jewelry still
took up most of her dresser. “She didn’t take this? Shocking,” I said. Cleary
the people she had left behind weren’t important, I just hadn’t expected her to
abandon her material positions too.

I sat on the bed, fingering a string
of black pearls still sitting on her nightstand. There was a framed photo of me
from high school graduation next to her antique alarm clock and I gently put it
face down on the wood. I didn’t want to see my own stupid, optimistic grin at
the moment. I studied the room for signs of Gil, sipping more of my coffee and
realizing I’d added too much sugar.

There was a ball cap on the door knob.
A picture of me and him on his tall dresser. I was holding a huge bass and he
was laughing his ass off. I remembered the trip. He’d taken me fishing and I’d
nabbed the biggest fish of all. No one, not Gil or his fishing buddies even
came close to catching anything to rival my fish. I had also lost my balance
and fallen in the lake. Which was why he was laughing in the picture. That one
I left face-up. I looked happy and so did he.

Gil was a simple kind of man. For all
the obvious reminders my mother had employed that this was her room, her
domain, her space, he had a few things here and there. More content with the
family in the home than the appearance of it, or his claim on it. Gil’s domain
had always been outside. The lawn and the trees, the vehicles and the fire pit.
And he’d been happy with it.

Aside from the ball cap and a book by
some mystery writer and that photo there was only a jar of money on his dresser
and a mug I’d given him when I was fourteen. #1 Step Dad. I had loved that mug
and bought it with my allowance because he was the best step dad I knew and I
had come to peace with the whole real father versus new father thing. And Gil
had helped me through a lot.

“And now that my mother has left me,
he’s still helping me,” I said to the ceiling. I sat my coffee on my mother’s
nightstand and flopped back on the bed. I watched her fancy ceiling fan do lazy
loops and I shut my eyes for a moment, vertigo having swept in out of nowhere.

When I shut my eyes I felt Gil’s
fingers slipping into my panties. I felt his lips crushing down on mine and
smelled the outdoor, campfire, leather smell of him in my nose. I remembered
the sweet rush as I came from his fingers penetrating me and the taste of his
tongue in my mouth.

I touched myself, thought better of
it, stopped. When I rolled to my side, my head hit his pillow and that smell of
him--so distinct and welcoming to me--flooded my nose and all I wanted was for
him to touch me again. And that would probably never ever happen. Knowing Gil
he was somewhere beating himself up for ever having done it the one time.

I pushed my hand back in my panties,
touched my clit. Rolling to my belly, I pressed my fingers deep in my cunt, the
smell of Gil having provoked a wetness between my legs. I pressed my pussy to
the heel of my hand, delving deep with my fingers, fucking myself with my face
pressed to Gil’s pillow. Calling up the image of his hands on me, of him
swallowing my sounds with a kiss when I’d come, I moved like a wave over my own
thrusting fingers, pressing my clit to my hand. Moving, moving, moving softly
but surely until I came, my lips pressed to where he’d slept the night before.