Father's Keeper (7 page)

“You don’t,” he said, and banged his
big hand on the bar. “You look like you. You’re gorgeous and you look like your
own goddamn self and not your mother,” he said a bit too loud.

“Okay,” I laughed. “Thank you for that
stellar endorsement of my own personal beauty. Bottom line is, I just wanted
something new.”

“Blue is new,” he said and then
laughed at himself. “Blue is new,” he said again, as if he were tasting the
words. “And blue is you,” he said, reaching out to stroke the blue ribbon of
hair that swung near my cheek.

His finger brushed my cheek and my
nipples went hard like a sudden chill had overtaken me. My pussy grew moist for
him just from the memory of him touching me in other places with those warm
fingers. “Thanks,” I managed.

Gil caught himself, looked angry,
pulled his hand back as if he’d been burned. “Beer?”

“No,” I said.

He shrugged and hit the bar once more
but not very hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked and then my
brain kicked into gear and I figured it out. I bit my lip, waiting.

“Your mother called,” he said.

“I forgot to leave you a note,” I
said. “I was supposed to warn you and I--”

He put his hand over mine. “Not your
fault, not your problem.”

I took another sip of my beer, decided
I didn’t want it and dumped the rest in the bar sink. Carl was laughing with a
bunch of band members in the corner and looking at the female bass players
tits. I shook my head and sighed. “But I should have remembered. I was so
pissed at her and then I got the hair cut and my brain is fried. I’m totally
stupid right now, Gil I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He patted my hand again
and sighed.

“So why are you upset? Because she
wants some stuff sent? Not to be disloyal, daddio,” I laughed, “But I think
you’re better off without her.”

“I’m not upset because she wants some
stuff,” he said.

“Then why?”

He leaned in and I moved forward to
hear his whispered words. “I’m upset because I’m not upset.”
“Oh,” I breathed, my body responding in an entirely inappropriate way. I chose
to ignore it.

“And I’ve had too much to drink,” he
confided.

I smiled then, a smile that touched
not just my face but my heart, too. “You don’t say.”

“I do say.”

“How about if I make sure you get home
okay? I’m off now,” I said.

“You are a gem, Jenny. You are the
best almost daughter in the world.”

“Thanks,” I said and clocked out. I
told Carl to party on and that I’d see him later and off I went, making sure my
almost dad got back to my almost home.

“Do you feel weird about me being
here?” Gil asked as we walked. The streetlights lit half his handsome face but
threw the other half in shadows.

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Because I’m not your dad and I’m in
the house your mom was in before I met her.”

I shrugged. When he lit a cigarette I
drew a deep breath and held it, relishing the rich fiery smell. He offered me
one and I shook my head. “Nope. No to the cigarette and no to the question. I
do not feel weird. She left, not you.”

“True,” he said and kicked a soda can
before sighing, stooping and picking it up. Gil stuck it in his back pocket.

“Why are you upset that you aren’t
upset?” I asked, feeling oddly shy but hugely curious.

“Shouldn’t I be upset?”

“I guess. It would make sense, but
only if you were happy. Were you happy?”

He turned to me, so fast he threw me
off kilter and I stumbled. The beer was wearing off and he reached out a hand,
fast and sure, and steadied me. “I thought I was. But now I wonder if I just
assumed I was instead of actually feeling it.”

“Then it’s a good thing she left,” I
said softly and turned, continuing so fast that he took three running steps to
catch up.

“I’m sorry if that sounds like
something an asshole would feel,” he mumbled.

“The only asshole in this is the one
who ran off,” I said and then snorted. “That sounds kind of gross.”

At home he pulled his key from his
jean pocket and let us in. “Beer?”

“You sure?” I said and smiled. I hit
the small light in the living room. Something about the dark was comforting. I
wasn’t ready for real light, so the small lamp’s glow was more than enough.

“I’m fine. I wasn’t, but now I am. You
calm me,” he said and then frowned and moved away from me.

I saw my chance and I walked in the
kitchen behind him. When he shut the fridge door, I put my hand on is arm. “Can
we talk about it?” I asked.

“What? Your mother?”

I shook my head, popped the caps off
the beers with a small souvenir opener screwed to the wall by the back door. A
reminder of vacations past. Of youth and absurd souvenir stores and family
vacation.

“Not my mother,” I said. “Last night.”

“No.” His jaw went tight and he moved
from me.

I grabbed his arm and said, “Please,
Gil.”

“Nothing happened.”

“But it did,” I said in a rush. “It
did and it was great and I can’t shake it or the thought of it or that fact
that…” Here was where emotion surged up in my throat and I had a hard time.

His dark eyes were unreadable in the
dim light. “That?”

“I want more,” I said, pushing the
words out. Something I really had not admitted to myself and I was admitting it
to him aloud.

“No.” He walked out of the room and
that was that.

But I’ve never been that person. I
could never take a no and leave it be. I had to poke it with a stick. I had to
go one step further. I hurried after him and found him in his room kicking off
his work boots. “Gil--”

“I said no. I don’t even want to talk
about it. There’s nothing to talk about.”

I dropped to my knees and looked up at
him. He kept his head down but I dipped my own, looking up into his eyes,
forcing him to look at me. “Gil, you make me feel safe. You make me feel sane.
You make me feel something that no one else can. Not my mother, not Carl. Not
all the other yahoos I’ve dated or the ones I’ve fucked.”

“Jenny--” he started, sounding pained.

“I want you again.”

“No.”

“I want you all the way. Not just your
fingers in my cunt,” I said, mostly for shock value I admit. I wanted him to
hear me even if it was because of coarse language or brusque words.

“Jen!”

“I do. Please, listen to me, Gil,” I said
and put my hands on his thighs. I stroked the soft denim that had been worn
into submission for so long.

“Stop,” he said.

I shook my head, tears pricking my
eyes. I pushed my hands higher on this thighs listening to the whispery sound
my skin made on his jeans. “Let me,” I said to him, head bowed.

He put his hand on my head, on my new
clipped hair and my fancy blue streak. He tilted my head back and leaned down
so he was bent over. Eye to eye he said, “Go to bed, Jennifer.”

I shook my head and kissed him. He
pulled back for a moment and I chased him with my mouth, kissing him again. The
sound he made half broke my heart, but not enough that I stopped. He kissed me
back, his mouth sweet and hot and hoppy from the beer.

I tugged at his buckle, his button
fly, his boxers. I took his cock in hand and dipped my head and licked the tip
of him until he stopped his soft protests.

I sucked him deep and he said, “God,
Jenny, fuck. I’m your father.”

“Almost,” I said. “But not quite. And
nothing that is almost ever counts. Not in love or war or marbles.” I licked
down his cock until he moved under me like a wave. His finger tugged the short
strands of hair that kissed my jaw and he thrust up under me, moving so that
his cock slammed deeper into my mouth. I pressed his legs flat and immobile
with my upper body so I could control how far down I went, how deeply I would
take him. I stole his power and thusly his guilt.

“Jenny, you can stop. You can stop now
and we’ll pretend. We’ll pretend we never did this. We never crossed this line.
We never strayed from what’s right.” Each word was a breath he blew out. Each
one accented by a jittery thrust of his trim hips and the warm silky slide of
his flesh over my lips. Each utterance was accented by the sight of his fist clenching
my mother’s fancy bedding and the groan that he gave when I cupped his balls,
set me on edge. I wanted to make him come. I wanted to taste the salty flood of
him in my mouth.

“No,” I said. “No. I don’t want to
stop.”

And I didn’t want to and I didn’t
stop. I sucked him harder and he barked out words I couldn’t understand and
then he was coming, a warm rush of his orgasm on my tongue, trailing down my
throat, stickying my mouth with warm wet whiteness. I rested my forehead to his
pubic bone, my new fancy fringe tacky with his fluids.

“Come up here,” he said and I climbed
to him. He kissed my mouth which shocked me. It was something Carl would never
do. Gil kissed me deeply curled me to him and I dozed off. I could feel his
heartbeat steady and true against my shoulder and his soft breath on my face.

I awoke a bit later to a fireman’s
carry. Gil carried me over his shoulder up the steps, the stairs creaking under
our weight, the world swaying with each step he took. He didn’t know I was
awake and he laid me on the bed, yanked off my jeans as gently as possible. He
left my tee on and my panties. He kissed my forehead and my nose. And almost
like an afterthought, he kissed my mouth. A tender kiss that made my heart
twist up sideways in my chest.

“I’m sorry, Jen. I never should have
let you. But god, I don’t think I’ll shake the reminder that you did. Or the
smell of you. Or the feel.” He brushed my hair off my forehead and I sighed
deeply like I was asleep.

I wanted to reach up and touch him. I
wanted to kiss him and ask him to come to bed with me. I wanted to open my
thighs and beg him to take me. But the back door slammed and Carl was home and
before I could decide what I would actually do versus what I wanted to do, Gil
had left the room and crept back downstairs.

Chapter
9

Carl took a shower before he climbed
into bed. I tried to lay there and wait for him awake. I wanted to know why a
man would come home after two a.m. and take a shower. But I kept drifting in
and out. When he came into the room and dropped his clothes, I smelled a sweet
puff of some feminine scent, but not enough to rouse myself to comment.

Carl climbed into bed with me and
curled himself to me. But when he touched me tentatively between the legs, I
rolled away, mumbling like I was dreaming. Soon enough I was.

* * * *

I woke late again and Carl was gone.
No note, no nothing, just missing money from my wallet. Probably for lunch or
so he would say. I took a lazy shower, part of me oddly, insanely sad to feel
my hair go from tacky to smooth as the remnants of my encounter with Gil went
down the drain.

The coffee pot had a sticky note on it
that said: DRINK ME. I grinned. Gil and I had left notes like that for each
other when I was young.

COMPLETE ME on homework, EAT ME on
birthday cake, CLIMB INTO ME at bed time, USE ME! stuck on the shower door
after my softball games. I poured a cup of coffee and listened to the sounds of
Gil in his workroom. Subtle bangs and swishes since he had the garage door
open, the constant lazy drone of the radio. Some morning shock jock going on
and on about something or another.

I put a piece of bread in the toaster
and waited for it to magically turn it to toast. Extra butter, more coffee, I
wondered out into the work room, nibbling my toast and wondering how I should
bring up last night. Or if I should at all.

By the door was a box full of stuff
and on the concrete floor next to it, some packing tape, a permanent marker and
an address label. Marian’s stuff. “Good morning?” I called.

“Good morning to you, Sleeping
Beauty,” Gil said from the loft. I looked up and he winked at me, giving me a
little wave. “I’ll be right there.”

He came down the steps that were more
ladder than staircase and dropped a photo album in the box. “Mom?” I asked.

“Who else?” He grinned at me and
stooped to seal the box.

“Hold up,” I said, curious. I grabbed
the photo album and flipped through. My Grandma Irene, my other grandmother
Jill. Me with no front teeth. Me pigtails. Me and Gil at he beach with me
clutching a big red raft. Me and Gil at the state fair. Me and Gil making
oversized pancakes the size of dinner plates. “Hunh.”

“What?”

I flipped some more. “What do you
see?”

“Pictures,” he said.

“Well, thank you, captain obvious.”

He laughed, smacked my butt in a good
natured way but something in me suddenly bloomed to life. I ignored it.

“What I mean is, what do you notice
about those pictures?” I flipped a bit faster and he shook his head at me.