Chapter 8
"Turn around for me, lovely. Slowly, slowly, that's it," her daddy was saying. He stood in the center of her little white room, watching her pirouette for him. There was no mistaking the love and pride and pleasure in his eyes. The little girl-herself-moved as he directed, turning her head first to her daddy's loving eyes, then to her own reflection in the oval mirror as she turned and turned.
"What do you have for me, Daddy?" she laughed, as her turns brought her closer to him. He held one hand behind his back, teasing.
And then he looked beyond the young girl, to the doorway where the grown-up Catharine stood. He saw her but his eyes were hard, knowing, as if they were accomplices together in some terrible game. The young girl, Catharine at thirteen, was unaware of her own self watching.
"Daddy!" Catharine cried out from the doorway.
But he looked away from her. He gave the little girl all the love the older woman craved.
"Here you are, Catharine, my pet. For being so beautiful, and so sweet." He held out the white leather case.
Young Catharine took it eagerly and opened the clasp. It was the silver hand mirror and hairbrush. Yes, this was exactly the way it had happened. Catharine knew what was going to happen next, but she could only stand there and watch, this time.
"It was your grandmother's set, and her mother's before that. It's time you had them," her daddy said, smiling down on the excited child.
She stretched on her tiptoes to give him a warm kiss full on the mouth. Her thin arms hugged his neck as he leaned down to accept the caress. And then she danced to the mirror and sat down on her little white chair, to begin brushing her long shining hair.
She and her daddy exchanged glances in their double reflection. Her strokes became slower, more self-assured as the two of them-the three of them-watched the lovely golden hair grow thick and smooth under the glinting silver brush.
"Oh, Poppa, I love them so much. Doesn't Mommy want them?"
"She doesn't need them."
Her daddy moved closer to the young girl, glancing over his shoulder at the woman in the doorway. You see, his eyes seemed to say, you remember, don't you, you know what is going to happen, you want it to happen, you can't stop it, you feel what you felt then, don't you, Catharine. His eyes said all this, his cold eyes said it all in a second's glance, and then he turned his full attention back to his lovely little girl. Her brushing continued until her hair was free and floating across her proud shoulders.
"Does this mean I've grown up, Daddy? When Grandma's things become mine?"
"It means you're very beautiful. It means it gives me pleasure to look at you. like now ... when you're ... excited this way." He stood so close to the child that his hands, hanging at his sides, were almost touching her hair as she sat looking up at him. Their eyes met in the mirror. The young girl, flushed and filled with physical stirrings she had never known; the man whose singular presence filled every room he entered, concentrating his intense devotion on her alone.
"Oh, Daddy ... do you really love to look at me?"
He moved back a step. "Stand up, Catharine."
When she stood, the top of her head came only to the open button of his shirt. His own dark curly chest hair formed a rich background for her pale golden iridescence. The two stared for a long moment at themselves. Catharine was amazed to see her own face suddenly flushed and expectant as a grown woman's. Above her in the mirror, her daddy seemed different, too. He was breathing hard, with his mouth slightly open, and his intense eyes seemed to penetrate beyond their reflections with a grown-up sensation she could only wonder at.
The older Catharine understood. She wanted to cry out, to warn herself, but more than that she longed to be herself again, the little girl who made her daddy's eyes shine and smile with love.
"I am grown-up, aren't I?" the little girl whispered. "All of a sudden, I see..." Her voice tapered off.
"What is it, Catharine?"
"Nothing, Poppa. I feel..." The strange feeling was not entirely delicious. It was frightening, too. Young Catharine turned away from the mirror in a terrible anxiety of mixed emotions and physical confusion. "I ... I'd better go to bed now, Daddy. I have to get up early."
She darted out from between her daddy and the mirror, and moved toward the dresser.
Her daddy looked over at the doorway, a sly smile on his lips. Again, Catharine tried to call out to him, but she was frightened, more frightened than she had been when it had happened.
The little girl had taken her nightie from the drawer and laid it out on the starched white coverlet of the four-poster bed. She reached her graceful arms up to find the zipper at the back of her pretty party dress.
"Let me do that for you, sweetheart," said her daddy.
Her hands dropped but she did not lift her eyes. Her daddy touched her and the electricity of his nearness did something funny to her pounding blood. Gently, he lifted her golden hair with one huge hand and with the other, glided the zipper slowly down her back, all the way to where her small round bottom began to curve. His fingers moved over the smooth, downy skin of her back, barely touching, making the little girl squirm with the indefinable sensation.
"You are growing up. Soon you'll be able to do what you want to do."
Catharine slipped out of the pretty dress, and laid it over a chair for Lisa to hang up in the morning.
"Do what, Daddy?" She stood in her chemise, looking more innocent than ever, her small breasts just hinting at a roundness above the sheer white linen that already strained from the signs of imminent maturity.
"What do you feel when you are all alone and looking at yourself in the mirror?"
"I don't ... I don't know what you mean." But her blush was not the innocent flush of childhood.
Her daddy looked at her as he had never done before. He was strangely flushed, too. There was something in his eyes just for the two of them, not his daddy-look of pride in his little girl but a new private look for her alone to share. It sent shivers down her skin. But his voice was deep, calm, and quiet. "Go to your mirror, Catharine."
She did as he told her. She stood there looking at herself, and at her daddy standing behind her, and she trembled with anticipation.
He turned his head to look at the woman who stood in the doorway. This time, he spoke directly to her.
"Show me what you do when you're alone here, Catharine."
The older Catharine was caught in a spasm of fear and longing. Desperately, she searched her daddy's eyes for the love she used to find there. She could not speak. She heard herself, the young child, the thirteen-year-old on the brink of discovery, and again she said the words she had that night."
"Do you really want me to, Daddy?"
His answer came from far away and from close, close to her ear. "Look at your body, how it is changing, how beautiful. Don't you touch yourself, when you are alone? To feel the changes, the new sensations, the pleasures your beautiful body has in store for you?"
"I'm ... I'm afraid, Daddy. It feels so ... funny."
"Daddy knows."
"Should I, Poppa?"
"If you want to. If you want me to see."
From the doorway, the older Catharine nodded her head, filled with rushing blood that forced her answer. Yes, yes yes yes!
The young girl let her chemise slide over her shoulders, down to her waist. Her daddy sat down next to her, in the little white chair. His head was just level with her sweet pink nipples. Her breasts were surprisingly ripe and tilted upward like two delicate spring peaches unblemished by the sun.
"Are they beautiful, daddy?" she whispered.
"Yes ... yes, my darling girl. They are very beautiful. There have never been such breasts."
"Oh, Daddy!"
The girl half-turned toward her daddy, and the nipples stirred, rising like firm little buds pleading to be plucked. But the man sat motionless, staring ahead, into the mirror.
"See the profile, Catharine. See how beautifully they stand, high and proud. You are very special, my princess."
"I feel ... funny, Daddy."
"It's a good feeling, baby. Isn't it? Relax into it, enjoy yourself as a woman, a beautiful young girl-woman. Can you do that? Don't be afraid of what you are feeling. Daddy knows."
Breathless, the little Catharine murmured, "Yes." She watched her daddy's admiring gaze at her reflection in the mirror.
The woman slumped against the door frame, weak from desire and the pain of remembering. Her body was a live volcano. Hot lava flowed down her legs. Daddy, I'm here, I'm grown now, I need you, come and do it to me, now. To me, me, not to her. Don't destroy her ... me ... again. Her mind bubbled and boiled with the erupting emotions she could not utter.
"What else do you want me to see?" her daddy said gently to his little girl.
Young Catharine flicked her wet tongue against her lips. Her breath came faster as she began to slide the thin slip over her narrow hips. She moved her body gracefully, instinctively, as the soft material fell in a heap at her feet. She stood naked except for her panties. They were pale pink silk, formless, edged in a border of handmade lace.
Unconsciously, she spread her legs. She was about to pull the waistband down, but her daddy turned to help her, and she let her arms fall to her sides. His huge hands held her through the thin silk. Strong gentle fingers cupped her little buttocks, but not in the same affectionate gesture she had always felt. He rubbed slowly against the silk, caressing her trembling skin underneath. With his other hand, he touched the inner skin along her thigh, moving slowly upward until he touched the faint down that was beginning to grow there. His palm covered the throbbing cleft, from the curiously sensitive button in the front all the way through to the back where his other fingertips touched her tiny rosebud opening. The little girl felt dizzy, but she kept her eyes open wide to watch the wondrous reflection of her daddy's love for her.
He bent his thick curly head down, and his warm breath went right through her panties to the fine golden hairs of her little mound. He inhaled deeply, and the fingers of his left hand began to explore the hidden places deep inside her.
Both Catharines shuddered with ecstasy and terror. The child spread her legs as wide as she could, watching in the mirror as her daddy's head bent to give her love kisses, appreciative, unhurried, unashamed. Shame had nothing to do with it. He was her daddy, and he loved her. She was beautiful, and she was growing up to a new and wonderful kind of love. Daddy knew what to do. He loved his little girl. He knew how to make her feel loved. It was a melting kind of feeling, all soft and giving. She wanted to give her daddy a present of loving, too.
"Take them off, Catharine," her daddy whispered, his breath hot and moist against the thin silk that covered her still.
"Daddy..."
"Don't you want to?" he murmured, kissing with his tongue just barely grazing the little nubbin that seemed to rise to greet him.
Silently, she slipped oft her panties.
"Turn around ... let me see my beautiful ... ah. ... " He moved his head back, and she saw his eyes again, so loving and so private, just for her. He ran a single finger, then two fingers, along the curve of her back and around the two deep dimples, down into the secret cleft where her satiny flesh turned inward to hide the luscious softness inside. He cupped her little ass with both his huge hands, and spread her so that he could kiss the lips that opened to him. "Beautiful ... beautiful..." he whispered.
"Am I perfect, Daddy?" she asked shyly.
"Yes, perfect. You must love yourself, Catharine. Do you know how to love yourself? No man will ever love you enough, not as you deserve, not the way your daddy loves you. You must learn to love yourself. You are special, Catharine, you and I are special. We know that, don't we?"
"Daddy..."
"Do you touch yourself, Catharine? Here, and here, and here....."
"Should I."
"Yes. I want you to."
"I ... I don't know how."
She turned around to face him, but he held her with his firm grip and forced her to look in the mirror, not at him. "Look at yourself there. Put your hand there, as I did."
"Oh, Daddy ... you do it. Please ... you do it."
"Daddy won't always be here, Catharine. Do as I say."
The little fingers moved slowly toward her moist furrow. She trembled and almost fell against her daddy's firm shoulder. He cupped his hand under the rise of her small buttocks and with the other hand he guided her fingers, covering them with his own until she was lost in the sensation. Waves of pleasure shook her from head to toe.
"That's the way, my darling girl," her daddy said.
Catharine in the doorway felt the tremors and the roiling about to erupt inside her. Her fingers followed his instructions and the child and woman were one. "Oh, Daddy ... it's what I wanted ... it's what I always wanted..."
"Turn around, Catharine," her daddy said to the swooning child. Without moving from his chair, he guided the slim, naked little body down onto the floor in front of him. "That's right, Princess. Lie down there. Don't be afraid, Daddy loves you. No one else will ever love you like Daddy does. I want to show you what love is, my beautiful girl. You're Daddy's girl, you will always be Daddy's girl. That's right, do that. Do it to yourself. Does it feel good, Princess? Daddy wants you to feel good, very, very good."
"Oh yes, yes..." Young Catharine was writhing on the floor, her legs spread as wide apart as she could get them, her hands rubbing her thighs and the downy hair and the dewy rosebud that opened sweetly to show her daddy the most secret beauty of all.
He took her ankles in his big tender hands, and placed them on his knees. She thrilled to see his eyes spark with pleasure as he looked deep inside her. The loving smile on his lips told her that she made him happy with her gyrations, her tickling and probing and frantic fingering of herself that she could not now control. The little girl kept her eyes on her daddy's face, and his pleasure made her frenzied with joy.
"Daddy ... Daddy ... I want to ... I want..."
"Yes, Princess, do it. Do what you want to do."
Unable to think beyond the dizzying rapture, young Catharine sat forward and burrowed her face into her daddy's bulging lap. She felt the hard enormous organ straining to meet her, and with a cry she began to suck at the rough cloth of his trousers.
Her daddy caressed her golden head with one hand, familiar and loving. With the other, he deftly opened his pants so that nothing would be between them.
The only penis she had ever seen hung from Big Red, her daddy's stallion. She had always liked to look at it, and had seen it erect a few times, with vague moist stirrings she couldn't understand deep in her own private parts. But now she saw...
And she understood, instinctively, without fear or question. It stood enormously high and proud, so thick that she could hardly get her little mouth around its throbbing tip. She traced the pulsating veins with hungry, loving hands and opened her lips to it eagerly, sucking and murmuring to it in a sudden spasm of lust and love that transported her over the bounds of reality and into a floating planet of stars and rainbows flooded with the wondrous juices that flowed into her mouth and down her throat with the taste of all the world's hunger satisfied at last.
Her daddy looked over at the other Catharine, sobbing quietly now as she stood and watched, alone.
"It's what you wanted to happen, isn't it, Catharine?" he asked softly.
"Oh, Daddy ... I'm vile, I know ... I'm filthy..." The little girl lay quietly, her exhausted head resting still in her daddy's lap, while the older Catharine reviled herself through her tears. She had found her voice, finally.
"No, Catharine," her daddy said, staring over the child to the woman. "You're exceptional. I tried to show you that. Beyond the ordinary rules."
The older Catharine looked at him, for the first time in her entire life skeptical at what he decreed. Her tears stopped. "Exceptional?"
She watched in the mirror as her daddy gently removed the sleeping child's head from his lap and carried her to the virgin-white bed. His wide shoulders and strong arms bent lovingly over her for a second as he laid her on the coverlet as though she were a rare and precious china figurine. Then he turned to the other Catharine. Calmly, he adjusted his trousers, folded his still enormous limp cock inside his underwear, and zipped his fly. He fastened his gold belt and took a step toward her. She breathed in deeply the almost-forgotten odor of him-musky, male, special. Her daddy.
"Yes, you are exceptional, Catharine. You always have been. You're mine, you know. And now..." He took another step, but she found herself shaking her head, no, and shrinking back against the door. It was her own daddy-but her daddy was dead. "Come with me, Catharine," he smiled, with all his old charm and handsome self-assured presence. He held out his hand to her. He was wearing the gold ring she remembered.
"My own exceptional Catharine. If you come with me now, you will always be Daddy's princess."
She shook her head, suddenly terrified. "No."
The look of disapproval that she had always feared and dreaded came into his eyes. "Very well, Catharine. Stay here with these dull, commonplace people in this ordinary place. Get old and wither in it."
He smiled again, then, and her heart turned over in her breast. He turned away from her. She saw his face in the mirror, smiling.
"Daddy..."
He stopped, looking at her staring back at him in the mirror.
"Where ... where are you going?" she asked.
"You are Daddy's girl, aren't you, Catharine? I made sure of that, didn't I? You always will be, you know." He waited.
She peered across the room into the mirror, to see the comforting look that would tell her it was all right again, but his eyes were changed as the reflection stared back at her. They were green eyes, like hard shining emeralds. Her daddy's eyes were gone. A stranger's terrible green eyes were in her daddy's face. They were the same eyes she had seen before, in this mirror.
"You're not my father," she said, her voice shaking.
Her daddy's mouth spoke to Catharine, but the strange green animal eyes glinted demonically off the hard glass surface at her. "When you come with me, you'll be done with fools. Your tedious husband-he'll never give you an orgasm the way you and I can. The insufferable prigs you call your friends-they are jealous and envious of you, but not for long. You'll lose your looks if you stay with them. They have no class, no style, there's not a real orgasm among them."
"No ... I'm going with Richard ... I love him ... we're going to..."
"I thought you were exceptional, Catharine. I thought you had ... longings...." He shrugged his shoulders-her daddy's shoulders-and stepped right up to the reflection, almost touching himself and leaving Catharine smaller and smaller behind him.
"Don't go..." she started to say, but her voice was drowned out by the sudden loud cracking, a long dry shattering sound like ice makes when it separates.
He was gone.
Without thinking, Catharine ran to the mirror, and pressed her face against it.
"Are you there? Have you gone?" she cried aloud. There was no answer. "Please ... Daddy..."
It seemed, in the awful silence, that perhaps there was someone-something-listening on the other side of the cold glass.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't leave me here ... with them. I am special, oh, I am, I am."
She stared into the mirror for a long, long time, with the sure feeling that she was being heard. Her long slender fingers traced longingly with pink tapered nails over and over her image on the mirror's surface. She saw only her own reflection at first, but then the greenish light on the other side seemed to take form, and she thought she could see the little colored points of glitter from the jeweled rings on his fingers.
"Where will you take me?" she whispered.