by Jamie Knight
“Good,” I said. “Then, it's settled. Tomorrow, we will go and get your car back on the road. Make sure you wear something that you don't mind getting dirty.”
Her face scrunched up at my last statement like I’d suggested we eat a raw snail for dinner. I had to hold back laughter.
“You mean, I'll probably get all icky and greasy?” she said, looking truly concerned.
I chuckled, not able to hold it in any longer.
“Maybe a little,” I said, thoroughly amused. “But don’t worry. I'll make sure that I do most of the dirty work.”
I tried hard not to think of all the dirty stuff I really wanted to do… to her. If her dad found out, he would probably kick me out.
Natalia smiled at me warmly. I couldn’t help but think she was flirting with me.
“Dad, your friend is okay by me,” she said.
“Good,” said James. “Then, it's settled. If you need anything from me, you have my cell phone and, most importantly, my credit card.”
He walked over and kissed her on the forehead before retiring to his room to pack.
Well, isn’t this something. He was about to be going out of town and leaving me with his innocent daughter. But, was she really that innocent? It seemed to me from the way she batted her long eyelashes at me that she knew what I wanted to do to her and wanted it just as badly as I did.
But maybe it was just my imagination. Hopefully, for the wellbeing of my future stay at this house, I wouldn’t have to find out.
Chapter 5
Bradley
“Are you sure that you'll be okay to work on the car?” Natalia asked me once we were alone, her eyes shifting about the room.
“Yeah, I'll be fine,” I said, brushing back my hair with my hand. “This thing looks a lot worse than it actually is,” I said as I pointed at my leg.
“Okay, if you say so,” she said. “If not, we can just do like my dad said and have it towed. I was kind of hoping for the chance to drive his car around, anyway.”
She clapped eagerly, looking around the corner as if to make sure that her father wasn't nearby listening.
“We can always get your car working and still drive the convertible,” I said, playfully. “That way, you can have your choice of cars. And if something happens to one of them, then you will have another one on backup. How's that for a plan?”
“You would really be okay keeping a secret like that from my dad?” she asked, amused.
I blushed. I felt like I had crossed some sort of line with her that I didn't mean to cross. I couldn't think of anything to say to follow up that question.
“Aw, c’mon, be serious,” I stammered. It was the best I could do.
I felt a little uncomfortable sitting there with her in the kitchen. Her hair started to stick to her neck, making little rivulets of curls. She fanned herself, causing her hair to blow around her. I could feel myself beginning to get hot, so I excused myself. Summer was just around the corner, surely, that was why my pulse was racing. Or at least that’s what I fucking told myself.
Once I got to my room, I closed the door and exhaled a sigh of relief. I hoped that she didn't think too much into the silly statement that I’d made. I only meant to joke, but I would hate for her to tell her dad what I said and then have to deal with him being angry with me and risking us getting into a fight. Or worse—him asking me to leave.
“I've got to get my shit together,” I said aloud to no one in particular.
I knew that I needed to put my mind on something else. Once I started feeling self-conscious or worried, my thoughts were starting to get locked in a circle of nervousness. This had never really happened to me before, when I was healthy. I could use my ability to focus on my work, not on my personal failings, or pondering the mysteries of what other people thought.
I walked over to the desk and sat down in front of the computer. I started clicking around until I fell upon a dating website.
Maybe that's what I need, I thought. A date to help me keep my mind off everything that’s going on.
I glanced through a few profiles. There were a few girls that I found attractive, their eager faces smiling from their profile pictures. I clicked on a few of them. But no one seemed to be able to hold a candle to Natalia.
The women who came up either looked desperate, unattractive or not into things that I found stimulating—what the hell is a keto diet, anyway? And why is a diet considered a hobby?
I was just bored with the whole affair. Dejectedly, I closed the screen.
It was useless. I wasn't going to find anyone online that would keep my interest in the way that I wanted them to. And once I became completely honest with myself, I realized that it was because of one thing: I was distracted by Natalia. Even though that wasn’t close to being cool, or decent, or even remotely acceptable, it was the fucking truth.
I pulled up the search engine and went to a porn site. I thought that instead of trying to find someone to date, I would find someone that I could imagine fucking. That was sure to take my mind off Natalia, I thought… or should I say I hoped.
I came across an image of a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and a pouty mouth. She wore a bikini that barely covered her, exposing what seemed like miles of skin. I clicked on her picture and it opened up another screen.
She was being fucked by a muscular man doggy style. She moaned and panted, looking straight into the camera. It was like she was begging me to put my dick in her mouth, but all I could think about was Natalia in the same position, wanting me to fill her every hole. I watched the video for a few minutes, watching her plump breasts swing back and forth in rhythm with the man thrusting his dick in and out of her.
I turned off the monitor and decided to jump in the shower. I let the hot water run over me as I tried to think about the sexy woman in the video. But still, all I could think of was Natalia. I imagined ramming my hard cock in her wet mouth and letting her suck up and down the length of my shaft.
I rubbed my dick, pretending that my hand was her mouth. It felt so good. I rubbed faster and faster, imagining that I was standing behind Natalia, penetrating her soft, tight pussy with my iron cock, letting her wrap her warmth around me. I could feel my dick growing harder in my hand. I could feel my excitement growing as I stroked my dick and up and down. I was about to cum.
Right as I was cumming, the image in my head of Natalia turned so vivid I could barely stand it. I came hard. It was like I was cumming deep inside of her.
“Fuck!” I yelled, as the hot, slippery cum oozed out of my dick and onto my hand. The frothy whiteness rinsed off in the steaming hot water and went down the drain.
Down the drain—I felt like it was a symbol of what would happen to my friendship with James if he knew what had just gone on in my mind, and what I wished could go on in real life between Natalia and me.
I got out of the shower, got dressed, and laid down in the bed. I told myself that I couldn't have any more thoughts like that, of her, or else I would be in some serious trouble.
I drifted off to sleep with hopes that the thoughts would somehow just float out of my head.
Somehow, though, I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be all that easy. I would be fighting this very strong attraction to my new best friend’s daughter—and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to win.
Chapter 6
Natalia
“We'll be there in about twenty minutes,” said the tow truck driver, his raspy voice loud on the other end of the phone.
“Thanks,” I said, pulling my phone away from my ear, glad to be done talking to him.
I finished getting dressed, lacing up my long black boots and throwing a sweater on over my tank top. I was grateful to be getting my car back on the road, especially after the crazy day that I'd had the day before.
It was one of those days where one crazy thing happened right after the other. I was hanging out with my best friend Grace at her house and her mom came in and started talking the way that she alw
ays does.
This time, Grace’s mom started out by saying, “What else are you going to do with yourself, other than sit around here all day? You need to be thinking about your future, not rotting your brain on TV and sugar all day.”
She would drone on and on. She did that a lot, lately. Usually, we would just tune her out, almost make her invisible, the imaginary character in our haze.
But, that day, I noticed Grace getting agitated. She just kept talking about life after high school and trying to put together a plan. I just listened like I always did.
“Don't you think that we should have some sort of plan? I mean, maybe not have it all figured out, but a general plan?” she asked. I thought that it was a rhetorical question until she turned to me and yelled in frustration.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Don't you get it? Don't you care about any of it? You just walk around like you don't have a care in the world. Like we all don't have cares. Our world is about to change completely. Don't you think that we should start figuring things out?”
I opened my mouth and tried to speak, but no words came out. I stood there, opening and closing my mouth for a while.
Grace laughed.
“I sound like my mother,” she said, the words sliding out of her mouth like toxic waste. We both laughed loudly at that. She really did sound just like her mother.
We laughed, but I couldn't forget the worried way that Grace had asked me the question. Up until that point, I really hadn't given much thought as to what I wanted to do with my adult life. There was nothing that really struck my fancy.
My father was very traditional and believed that I should do womanly things. His idea of being new-aged in his thinking was that I should at least go to college. In that way, I could be self-sufficient, if I chose to be. I think being with my mother all of those years made him realize how important it was for a woman to be able to take care of herself.
I grew up a military brat. My dad was always gone. He traveled all the time. So, most days, it was just me, and my mom. We would always find other people, military or otherwise, to hang out with, take trips with, and do other activities with, but in the end, it was always me and my mom in some way, shape or form.
And she was the best mom. No matter where we were or what we were doing, I always remember her smiling. She always challenged me to use my imagination and have fun doing whatever it was that I was doing.
I remember a particularly hard doctor's visit that I'd had as a child. I needed shots. I walked into the office and my knees were knocking, I was shaking so badly. My mom told me that we were on an adventure and were superheroes. She even used a gown from the doctor and made a cape. She ran around the office, claiming to be Doctor Woman.
As usual, she was such a riot. She had all of the staff and everyone in the waiting room bowled over with laughter. And I laughed the hardest. I was her biggest fan.
In fact, that was what she called me. She would tell me that I was the president of her fan club and she would make little jokes about it all the time.
“Be sure to get this new picture printed out and sent to all the fan club members,” she would say, while showing me a picture of herself that she had just taken and that she was particularly proud of.
I laughed with my mother so much that my cheeks would hurt.
“Mama, I have to lay down,” I would say. “My belly hurts from laughing so much.”
Those were happy times. And I remembered when the laughter stopped.
It didn't happen all at once. It was more of a slow process, much like the setting of the sun. You couldn't quite see it happening if you stared at it, but the fading light let you in on the secret that soon, you would be standing in complete darkness.
We knew that the darkness was coming, but we tried to pretend that we would forever be living in the light. Until the one day I couldn’t deny that the end was near. I knew that things were serious when my dad came home from duty.
It was like meeting a stranger that you'd heard about your whole life. I knew that he was my dad. I saw pictures of him all of time. We talked on the phone. But, he wasn't someone that I could say that I knew, not in the same way that I knew my mom. I knew what she liked to eat for lunch. I knew what colors she liked to wear. I knew her pet peeves.
I idolized him in scattered moments. But I really didn't know my father.
For the first few days that he was home, I would yelp, startled when I walked into a room and he was there, or if I was in a room and he would walk in. I could tell that he was embarrassed when it happened.
I could only imagine how he might feel, feeling like a complete stranger in his own house. But, the fact was that he had spent so little time there, it was almost like he was a stranger.
My mother acted like he had never left, though. Despite her waning health, she kept in great spirits. When the cancer hit hard, the doctors had put her on so many medications that she was hardly alert at all most days. Her best days, though, were the ones in which she was able to see my father. The nurses said that those were the days when she would smile the most.
On days when she didn't see my father, they said that she was withdrawn and irritable, that she didn't want to cooperate. Those were the days when we would get the calls from the hospital, begging us to have someone come down and help with her, to talk to her, to soothe her.
I would always go, of course. I’d be by her side constantly, just like she had always been by mine. But I knew that all she really wanted was to see my father.
But, when he couldn't come, when it would just be me, Mom acted like I was someone that she didn't know. The doctors explained to me that the cancer had spread to her brain and that she had a condition similar to dementia. For the most part, she knew who I was, but sometimes she would be delirious or just not be herself.
One day, when my father had been out of town for a brief trip, I got a call and went to the hospital. When I got there, my mother’s face was red. They said that she had been throwing things. They had her barricaded in one of the rooms and they were waiting for me to arrive. I went into the room and saw my mother sitting there fuming like a raging bull.
“Mom, what's going on?” I asked.
“These fucking idiots aren't letting me have my ice cream. They told me that I could have my ice cream if I let them fucking poke me with the needle and now they're trying to tell me that they're fucking out of ice cream. They can all suck a bag of dicks!”
She was fuming mad. I had never seen her so upset. She was usually happy and liked to get along with people, and she rarely cursed. But, I knew that she was not herself. And that whatever had brought on this change in her attitude had nothing to do with ice cream.
“It's okay, Mom,” I said. “I can take you to go get some ice cream when we leave here.”
“I don’t want your fucking ice cream!” she screamed, even louder now. “I want the ice cream that they promised me!”
There was no reasoning with her. She started to throw more things in the room, tissue boxes, her slippers. I had to dodge a book that almost hit me in the head. I slipped out of the room just in time to hear a glass crashing against the door.
I broke down and cried once I got home. My mother lived a few more months after that, but I always thought of that day as the one in which I had truly lost my mother.
After she passed, it was hard dealing with the realization that she was gone. Even though I had heard the doctors tell me some years back what was happening with her, it didn't really sink in until after she was gone.
I remember my grandmother coming into town for about a week. She made a few pans of lasagna and asked me if I wanted to come stay with her and my grandpa for a while. I told her that I didn't and she didn't really push the issue.
When she left, it was just me and my dad in the house. At first, we didn't say much to each other. We simply coexisted.
My father had been given a few weeks of leave to decide what he wanted to do. He had alre
ady been gone from active duty in the Air Force for a year while he was caring for my mother.
From what I could tell, they had been really understanding about everything that was going on and told my father to take all of the time that he needed. I guess they figured that all he needed was a week more to decide on what he wanted to do for the rest of his life now that his wife was gone.
Of course, that was a silly thought. So, he just kind of sat around the house, staring, sometimes at the TV, sometimes at his plate if he attempted eating, and other times at the blank wall of nothing. I stayed around the house, partly because I was so lost, of course—but also out of sheer curiosity.
I didn't really know enough about my father's personality under normal circumstances, let alone how he might react in crisis. I didn't know the extent of the relationship that he had had with my mother, or his end of things. I just imagined that he couldn't have been too emotionally invested if he had to spend as much time away from her as he did. But I suppose her death hit him just as hard as it had hit me, even though it was difficult to see it at the time.
Eventually, he chose to go back to work, and threw himself into it even more than before. It was just his way of getting through his grief. It meant I was home a lot by myself, but I got used to it. I had school, and Grace, and my other friends, and knew that I too would just have to find a way to work through my own grief. But, boy, was it lonely sometimes.
Chapter 7
Natalia
Just then, the honking of the truck out front broke me out of my swirling thoughts of parents and the past. I ran outside to meet the driver, seeing that my car was hoisted up on the back.
My mouth fell open when I saw the driver. Here I was expecting a middle aged, overweight guy covered in gray hair with a gut hanging over his belt, dirty with grit from towing cars all day. That’s what his voice on the phone had sounded like.
