Chapter 14
I was sick--so damned sick I didn't give a shit about anything except trying to hold down enough liquor to make me well. It wasn't easy; my stomach was rebelling and I was already weak in the knees, but I used one of my standard cures--a double shot of bourbon in a glass of milk with a raw egg, mixed well and gulped in a hurry. Sometimes it worked well enough to keep me going for a few more days; sometimes it didn't.
Lucky this time, I felt the warmth and a little strength moving through my body, and felt well enough to make it into the shower. While the strength lasted, I scrubbed myself all over, washed my hair and got it fairly dry. When I toweled, my skin was tingling and I felt pretty good, but I knew from past experience that it just wouldn't last. Wearing Darla's clean robe, my feet in a pair of her scuffs, I made it back to the kitchen and mixed another helper outer.
This one was better yet, and I even enjoyed my cigarette, telling myself I would get up pretty soon and see if I could find a can of soup and maybe some crackers. With the new alcohol buzzing through me, I figured I might be good for quite awhile yet, especially if I ate and didn't get gastritis. But what then? Naturally, I shook off that question, because there wasn't an answer; not one that I wanted to face, anyway.
Pulling on my cigarette, I finished my mixture and considered having another before looking for that soup, but sternly put it off. Alkies never taper off a drunk; they just taper right back on one.
I was getting a hold on myself, reasoning things out, and possibly I could ration the booze for today, eat something, and get my head on straight enough to figure what to do. I couldn't stay here at Darla's forever, but I just couldn't walk away, either. There was the liquor supply, for one thing--very important in my condition, financial and physical; and the kids next door--they would come over again soon, once they knew I was all cleaned up and fairly sober.
Thinking of Angel and Kent, I felt my skin turn sensitive and the tips of my breasts swell a little. Crossing my legs and lighting another smoke, my thighs whispered together and I thought of their beautiful young bodies, of their honest lust for all things sexual, and a little tremble worked at me. My twin devils were alive and well, alcoholism and nymphomania, and it seemed that one of them was inextricable from the other.
Quit drinking, stop screwing? They might as well tell me to stop breathing, because that's what it amounted to, my life itself. The hell with it, I decided, and poured Patti Cooper another drink, leaving out the raw egg this time around. When the doorbell sounded, I flinched, and let it ring several times before pulling myself together and going to answer it.
It was Dan, his "lined face calm in the sunlight, that patient, wise look of his eyes like an approving pat on the cheek, but I knew he couldn't be approving of me, or what I was doing. The sun also kissed his gray hair, and I stood back to let him in.
"Did Darla ask you to chase me out?"
He shook his head. "No; she asked me to see if you were okay; she blames herself for bringing you here and getting you on the juice again."
Walking toward the kitchen, supremely aware of his nearness and of my own burgeoning desires, I shrugged. "It isn't her fault; you know that. Nobody ever twisted my arm."
"Or mine," Dan said, taking in the makings on the table, "but she's worried about you. She said you can stay as long as you like, but she wishes you'd come back to Hope House with her."
Defiantly, I finished my milk and bourbon, but didn't feel any better for it. "Pm a trouble maker, Dan, or haven't you noticed? Johnny, Mark, Janet, Darla--they're all upset because of me being around. I screw up everybody."
"Nobody twisted their arms, either."
He was so damned calm, going to the cabinets and sink and stove, making a pot of coffee. So much like my father, I thought, but without dad's aura of powerful sensuality. Or was Dan hiding it from me? My nipples brushed the robe, and I shivered; my thighs were tense, and I fiddled with the empty glass as I sat there, smelling coffee that I sure as hell didn't want, wanting a man I shouldn't make a pass at. But maybe I wouldn't have to; maybe it would just happen.
There was something familiar about that thought, as if I had been waiting before, almost sure it was going to be, but afraid, because there were pitch forks and deep, dark pits where you burned forever, if it did happen.
Under the table, my knee brushed his, and a tremor raced through me, violent and aching, turning me into a mindless robot. I got up and moved around the table, putting my hands upon Dan's shoulders and drawing his dear, lined face between my swollen breasts, pressing it into the perfumed valley.
"I need you, Dan," I murmured. "Oh god, how much I need you. I--I always have."
He tried to pull back, but I held him fiercely, straining my lower body against him, into his chest as he sat there. Between my tits, he said, "Always, Patti?"
Frowning, I clung to him for a long moment, trying to puzzle that through, but the pulse was too strong in me, urgent and thundering. So I stepped away and let my robe slide from my shoulders. My breasts leaped out high and proud, and when the thin material passed over my hips, I gave a consciously sensuous wriggle. I was naked before, this man, displaying my fine body in all its warm beauty, appealing to him to simply reach out and take whatever he could want of me.
"Dan--Dan--am I so damned ugly? Come on, man; come on!"
He sat quietly, so I reached down and caught his hands to lift them to my breasts, to cup them there for awhile, then moved them tantalizingly down over my hips and thighs, rocking on my feet as I did so, my pelvis swiveling, begging.
"Not ugly," he said, "but beautiful, Patti. You must have always been lovely, even as a child."
I answered automatically, as if he had pushed some button: "No; no, I wasn't. The other girls, the older women--they were all prettier than me. Otherwise, why would he--why would they--"
Backing off, I lifted my pelvis at him, thrust out my tits and slid my hands over my pulsing body. "What in the hell is wrong with you, Dan? Here I am; take me."
His eyes bored up into mine. "Who is he, Patti? Who thought the others were prettier than you?"
I felt a chill pass over my naked skin. "Nobody. What the hell do you care? Are you a man, damn you? Can't you still handle a woman? Don't you want to fuck me, Dan?"
He didn't smile. "Did he? Did he just want to, or did he go through with it, Patti? Did he fuck you?"
Swaying, I covered my breasts with one forearm, and spread the fingers of my other hand in a futile attempt to hide my crotch. When I turned and retreated to the living room, he was right behind me, and somehow, I didn't want him to see me naked because I would burn in hell forever. But I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it. Hadn't I tried not to, ever since that first time I hid myself in the closet and saw him do it to her?
I curled on the couch, pulling the pillows around me, hiding again, but he came to sit beside me and said, "Your father, Patti. When a beautiful young woman has a hang-up on older men, it has to be because she had--or still has--a thing for her father."
No! my mind screamed. No, damn it--it was them, it was all the others, not me, because I was his flesh and his blood; I was his only child, his daughter, and I wouldn't--I couldn't.
His voice prodded at me, digging in, peeling back layer after layer of protection. "Did you seduce him, or did he come to you? Look at it, Patti. Look."
Oh God, oh no, oh Christ. If I had sneaked more whiskey on top of the sips they'd given me from their glasses, if I were drunk and lonely and mad at that mouthy blonde bitch for walking out on him, I would have never...
The voice boomed at me, echoed inside my head: Look, Patti.
Maybe he thought it was her. Sometimes she'd sleep in another room when they were having a fight, and maybe he thought it was her, because he was drunk, too, and mixed up. I was just starting to drift off, feeling all warm and cozy from the liquor, feeling so fuzzy I didn't care so much about being alone. I didn't even hear the door open.
When he sat down on the bed, I murmured sleepily and turned toward him. He slid under the blanket, and his body was nice and warm against mine, nice and hairy and smooth, and that wonderful big thing was throbbing against my tummy, feeling like iron wrapped in rubber and covered with the softest silk. Dreaming; I was dreaming again, and as I so often did in my dreams, I cuddled to him, my hand feeling over that beautiful shaft, caressing the distended head and exploring down to the base where it lifted so thrillingly hard from the furry nest of his balls.
His hands were moving over my body, too, discovering my aching breasts and their stiff nipples, finding the flatness of my belly and the hairy mound of my trembling pussy.
It couldn't be wrong, I told myself over and over; it felt too good to be bad, and the whiskey I'd had earlier was buzzing in me, numbing my mind because I wanted it to. I snuggled closer, feeling that wonderful prick that I'd seen him put to different women, caressing that wonderful, unique meat for myself this time, and rolling my hungry snatch up at it, rubbing my cleft against the base of his rod and against the wondrous softness of his balls. I was in seventh heaven, blind to all but the urgent roaring of my maddened blood.
Oh, I adored him so, worshipped him, and this was beautiful, what was at long last happening between us. It wasn't ugly and obscene like when he did it with the other women, because they couldn't ever, ever love him the way I did. We were special together, and I shuddered violently when his mouth closed over mine in the exotic darkness.
Gladly, joyfully, I opened my lips to his kiss, and felt the slide of his tongue between my teeth; my own tongue leaped to meet his, and the wet flames scalded my throat. He pulled my tongue into his mouth and sucked on it; I almost fainted right then, the sensations were so wild and thrilling. They were almost frightening, and for one split second there, the visions came back to warn me, the images of forever fire and searing sulphur, and my body went stiff against his warm one.
But the decision lasted only a millisecond of time, and was whipped away by the stronger feeling--the deep and vital need to love him, to know what he felt like inside my pussy. There could be no holding back now.
My heels beat against the sheet when my daddy slid his mouth down my throat, and my back arched in a spasm of desire as he took one of my aching nipples between his lips. Breath hanging in my throat and my heart beating furiously, I clenched my hand upon his gorgeous cock, hanging on to it for life and sanity. He opened his hot; damp mouth wider, and pulled my entire fit inside, to bathe it tantalizing with his busy tongue. I almost went crazy right then and there.
Then his hand slipped in between my tensed thighs, cupping my excited pussy, rubbing the palm gently but insistently along its shaping, in-flaming the cunt lips and sending delicious tremors of anticipation deep into my vagina. It was going to happen to me, and my heart ran wild with happiness, my pulses sang in rapture. When his finger worked tenderly between my labia, my crotch hiked itself to him, pushed against his hand hungrily, trying to spread itself wider for him, anything to make it easier for my wonderful daddy.
He muttered something against my breast, something about me being so damned tight, and I forced my thighs to open, forced my cunt lips to stretch themselves so his finger could move better inside my quaking body. I had to let go of his prick then, because he backed it away from me and took it in his own hand.
As my father guided that spongy-soft, steely-hard knob into the humid expectancy of my vulva, I began to shake all over, and felt it pressing painfully inside, the tip, then the bulge.
It hurt, but I welcomed the sharpness of pain, and my inner lubrication poured down from the vaginal walls to ease the path of my daddy's cock. I felt it push slowly into me, into my most secret place, and my pussy turned elastic around its strong shaft. Then the head found a barricade, a membrane that struggled against the piercing, that resisted any farther movement.
Daddy grunted and backed his prick a little bit, then shoved it forward again and again, while I wiggled upon this hard thing that impaled me upon its length and thickness. He ground his pelvis into my uplifted one, backed again, and with a sudden lunge, slammed through the barrier with a fierceness that made me bite my lip to keep from screaming out.
But it only hurt for a little while, and as his beloved cock moved back and forth in the tight gripping of my pussy, I knew for the first time the true sensation of being fucked, of being physically loved by this man I cared most for. No other woman could take this from me, for it was mine--his prick was mine, his balls were mine, mine!
Oh, it was magnificent, wonderful; I rode the slow, powerful stroking of his prick, thrilling to this slippery feeling, this overwhelming, being conquered sensation. And I tried to give him all the hotness of my young and straining body, lunging up to meet his thrusts, squirming back as he retreated for another stroke, gasping and heaving against this marvelous, perfect man.
My pussy gnawed at the swollen head of his prick, and my newly aroused clitoris ground savagely against the base of his rod. It seemed as if that meat was reaching far up into my belly, as if the glans was touching my heart, and I would have gladly had it come right out through my panting mouth. I loved him, loved him; my ass wiggled and my belly fluctuated; my pussy caught hold of his moving cock and adored it greasily.
His hands took hold of the cheeks of my slim ass, and he lifted me higher, rolling me back upon my shoulder blades in order to force that rigid thing ever deeper into my vibrating body. I fucked him back the best I knew how, raising my legs so that they were straight up, my feet and toes reaching for the ceiling, more alive than I had ever been.
His breath was rasping hotly in my ear. "Fuck me, you little bitch--fuck me! Ride your daddy's prick, you hot-assed little girl. Shake it, baby--grind that tight, hot cunt on your daddy's cock. Yeah, yeah, baby; that's it, that's the way. Ahhahh, baby, Patti--I'm coming!"
Sizzling waves broke over me; great flashes of lightning blinded me and exploded deep within my shivering cunt. I cried out in utter ecstasy, and his darling, beautiful come burst within my pussy, raining hotly far up into my vagina, spattering the walls and filling me with the richest, sweetest fluid I had ever known. I came to him, hunching against my daddy's crotch, rotating my ass to make his prick feel better, and I continued to feel his thick semen flooding me. It was the culmination of his love for me; he was giving me his body's most precious juices, and I luxuriated in the feel of them.
He loved me. My daddy loved me just as much as I loved him, and he had just proven it to me. Burst after starburst of joy spangled through my trembling cunt, and I wriggled delightedly upon his buried prick, knowing now that I could make him just as happy as any of his women. Happier, even, I thought in a warm daze, because I would always be with my daddy; I would never leave him. I would fuck him every day and every night, and suck his prick the way I had seen the other girls do it, drinking down his enchanted semen so I could possess it always within my body.
Because he loved me. He really and truly loved me.
"Patti!"
"Love me," I muttered. "I won't ever go away."
His face loomed above me, his face but not really his, changed somehow, gone different. "Patti! Patti Cooper."
I was sick. I wits so damned sick. "Get away from me, Dan."
He helped me to sit up, and I let go the couch pillow I had been holding to my naked breasts. "Don't hate me; don't punish me. I--I was drunk, and I didn't mean to--to do it with you, daddy."
"Not daddy," he said softly. "Dan; just Dan."
"You son of a bitch," I said. "Can't you see I'm sick and don't know what I'm saying?"
"You fucked your father," he insisted, "and ever since, you've been trying to blot that fact out of your mind."
I screamed. "No--NO!"
Then the room caved in upon itself, the walls billowing like darkly stained and horrible sheets, the floor rocking. I had to find my clothes because I had to run, had to run very fast and far away, and I couldn't run like I was, all naked and ugly in my sin, in my mortal sin.
Hands were holding me back, and I struggled against them. I wouldn't be held back, couldn't be stopped. I must run, get away, hide.
Sharp and stinging, something exploded against my cheek. My head rocked and I tasted the thick, sweet flavor of blood from a cut my teeth made. I screamed; now they were beating me for what I had done; they would torture me with the pitchforks and burn me over white-hot coals. I just kept screaming and begging them not to.
The second slap cleared my eyes and put a coldness into my head. The terrible pit vanished, the jagged rocks and leering faces dimmed, then faded away.
"Patti!"
I held my hands to my burning cheeks. "I--I think I'm all right now. I won't yell any more; I'm all screamed out."
Dan sat beside me on the couch, holding my hands. "Did he keep screwing you, Patti?"
I shook my head. "He--he never admitted he did. When I--I tried to get into bed with him the next night, he beat the hell out of me. I never--never saw my father again. I--I pretended a lot, then. Maybe the pretense got mixed up with the real, even after I was married."
Dan's voice was tired and wise. When at last I lifted my eyes to his face, I saw that he didn't look like my father at all. I peered closely, and tried to reconstruct a picture of my daddy inside my head. I wanted to throw up when I realized that I couldn't even remember what he looked like.
Dan said, "Patti, you blotted out that memory, and tried to drown it with your drinking. I'd say you did a pretty good job of it, all told. But now you've hauled out that ugly thing and looked at it."
"I--I don't want to. Please don't--"
"It happened," he continued softly. "It happened and nothing can change that."
"But I wanted him to screw me. I was such a little bitch that I needed him to fuck me, Dan."
He smiled. "Did you twist his arm?"
I blinked at him. "But he didn't have to lie, to put me down, get rid of me. I--I loved him, Dan."
"In all ways," he said. "As a daughter, a woman, a wife. Accept that and file it away. There's nothing you can do about it now, except realize it and go on with your own life. He can't touch you now, only as much as you allow him to. You're not that scared, lonely little girl now; you're a woman with a choice."
I felt weak, but no longer sick. I looked over at the bar where an almost full bottle of bourbon waited, golden brown and beckoning. "As I have a choice about drinking?"
"You've always had that choice," he said. "You can drink or not drink; it's up to you."
"Would you bring me my robe?" I asked, and when he did, I went into the bedroom I had shared with Darla and Kent and Angel, the one with all the mirrors. It was funny, but I could not look right into them and not hide my face. I dressed and stuffed my few things back into a suitcase and went back out to Dan.
"Got a room for a rider--to Hope House?"
His smile widened and turned brighter. "Any time, Patti."
The road back to sobriety and self respect is a hard one, and nobody is making me any promises, but maybe I can keep facing myself. I have to stop running sometime, I'm going to try, even though I'm a psychological mess--father-love, rejection, insecurity, alcoholism and nymphomania. But I could learn to live with me.
There is still the purely physical problem: after squirming under the passionate bodies of countless men, after thrusting against the hard, round lunges of their pricks, I may not be able to find just one guy who is willing to accept me both for what I was, and for what I hope to be. And if I do find him, I have no assurance that my love (for want of a better term) won't begin to fade, that I won't start looking around for strange sensations and the wild, free fun of screwing any man or woman I damned well please.
The liquor? My body is geared to that, too. If I ever get driven to pick up a cold, sweating glass that offers anesthesia, I'll be off and running once again--and maybe I won't find another place to stop.
Will I make it? I take a deep and honest look into myself and realize that I don't know. Patti Cooper may not be able to drop off the images and pressures she has so carefully put together during her misspent life. She may not really want to.
But for today, I want to. I have no inclination to run and hide. I was fucked by my father, and I wanted more of the same. If he hadn't been such a phony bastard, it could have been a lot of fun for both of us--or it could have turned into something uglier than it was. Who the hell knows?
One day at a time. God! How many times have I been told that's the answer. The shrinks and the do-gooders might as well add, "And one fuck at a time, Patti, remember that."
One on one... hah! The line is funny.
So, like the song goes, "Kiss today goodbye, and point me towards tomorrow. Wish me luck, the same to you... but I won't regret what I did for love."