Father's Keeper Read online

  “I can do that,” Carl said.

  “Good. Do that, Carl. Do it really, really well.” I spread my legs for him, now bare and flushed. I felt my sex, blushing and tender, exposed to him. Carl -- in true Carl fashion --dove in head first. Pushing his hot lips and slick tongue to my slit, my ass, my clit. He ate me like I was a mirage that might disappear with his next inhalation.

  “I will, girly. I will do it really, really well.” His long, cool fingers pressed into me. The talented digits that plucked at and cajoled guitar strings played me like a fine instrument and under his fingers and his lips and his tongue, I shook and shuddered out an orgasm for him. “One,” said Carl.

  He liked to keep track.

  That distant, furtive sound again and I wondered about the ancient oak outside my bedroom window. It’s branches spanned the whole left side of the house and it seemed to be welcoming me home but scratching and licking at the siding.

  Carl sank into me one inch at a time. His hand holding my lush hips flat to my pink bedding. He watched his cock drive into me, watched the fat pink petals of my cunt close over him and take him in. “You’re so pretty, Jen,” he said with bald faced honesty and I nearly cried.

  I nodded at him and touched his scraggly stubble. His strawberry blond hair shining like an angel in the subtle overhead light. I pushed up to meet him, feeling the rush of his cock over my G-spot. I tilted just a bit more until he nudged and bumped and stroked it with each graceless but lusty thrust. “Good,” I said softly.

  “You make me crazy, Jen,” he said, kissing me. “Your body. It’s sick. It makes me nuts. I can’t even get a good rhythm with you,” he laughed. “I get too flustered.”

  I pulled at him with my fingers, yanked his hot skin close to mine as if he could smother the crawling, worried, anxious feeling in my chest. “It’s a good non-rhythm,” I said, hooking my ankles behind his waist, tugging him deeper into me with my legs and my hands. My fingernails scraped along his freckled arms but he didn’t complain. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and sucked my tongue hard enough to make my cunt flex.

  “Come for me, Jen. I can feel it there. I can feel your wet pussy tight around me. I can feel that you want to. That you can. Come for me,” he demanded. His fingers threaded through mine and he held my hands down to the mattress, pressing them so tight it hurt a bit. Hurt just enough to make me come, make me shiver under him with the force of my release. “Good girl. Two,” he said.

  My cheeks blossomed with warmth at his praise and Carl flipped me. Lanky arms turning me with incredible strength. Carl was like a snake. You couldn’t let the size of him fool you. Appearances could be deceiving. A man who hauled gear and worked bars, built stages and broke down sets and could still pluck out I’m On Fire by Bruce Springsteen with ease after a long day was not to be trifled with. “I am good. A good, good girl,” I grunted.

  And I thought for a second, finding my balance on my hands and knees as Carl wrapped my golden brown hair round and round his ruddy hand, that my mother should love me. I was a good girl.

  “Yes. Yes, you are, baby cakes. You are good. In more ways than one.” Carl ran the tip of his cock to the tight star of my ass and when I shivered he laughed. “Don’t worry. Not tonight. But maybe tomorrow.” The threat and promise made my body hum. The possibility of that darker sex we had. Where he played with my pain and my pleasure. Where he walked that line that made me beg him, only I didn’t know if I was begging him to keep going or begging him to stop. That loomed over me in a deliciously frightening way.

  Carl pushed deep and held me by my hair and by my hip. My head stayed high and true like a horse because he had me there, my long mane coiled around his talented hand. In my head I heard Hey, little girl is your daddy home?… Bruce’s shattered whisky rough voice hissing in my mind as Carl sank deep and started to fuck me hard, tugging at my hair so I held my breath.

  My eyes found the cracked bedroom door and a thrill worked through my stomach like a ball of fire. It looked like someone was watching us. Standing in the hall, buried in the shadows. Partially hidden but there. I held my breath as Carl surged into me, slamming into me so fast and so hard that I moved across the bed in little millimeters of movement. I sighed out, the excitement of someone--it could only be Gil--watching me, watching us. My skin grew tight with goose bumps, my cunt wetter still with urgency and excitement. Lush and full and teetering on another slippery peak, I shook under Carl and he fucked me. Hard. Harder than I could remember.

  The shadow seemed to shift and move and I didn’t stare at it full on. Afraid it was there, afraid that it wasn’t. Afraid that if Gil was really watching us, that he would be mortified at being caught. Or I would be or we would be or…maybe I was more afraid that we wouldn’t.

  “Jesus Christ, Jenny Girl,” Carl said and yanked my hair so hard I cried out, but his long, lanky arm snaked under me and he pinched my slick clit in his strong fingers and then rubbed me slippery fast and we came together, him hunched over me, shuddering like a dying man while I cried out softly, eyes glued to the narrow black ribbon of open door.

  Nothing moved. From what I could see. Which wasn’t much when Carl dropped on top of me, forcing me face down flat on the bad, big callused hands palming my ass.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “Yeah, wow,” I echoed, raising my head real fast to check that door. And saw nothing. Nothing at all.

  Chapter 3

  When I was in middle school we’d been assigned to grow something for Science class. We were to start in the spring and tend our crop until the end of school. I’d tried strawberries. I’d seen them growing small and wild all over our property and figured it would be an easy A. The strawberry plants I planted were barren and dry. A dry rotted, churlish yellowish green color that made me pucker my mouth in a frown whenever I saw them. My “crop” had been two hard berries, small as marbles and just as hard. A sickly whitish green color, I had received a C- on my project. And I think the teacher was being nice.

  I dreamt that night, after possibly seeing Gil spy on us, of standing in a field of strawberries. Lush and red, as brazen and whorish as the brightest red lipstick they made me just as happy. I filled my sweater, that I had scooped up to form a makeshift apron.

  “Quite a harvest, Jenny,” Gil said.

  I turned to him, laughing, happy. Red juices staining my pale sweater and my white fingers. The juice, when I licked it from my fingers, was sweet and sharp--they tasted like summer. “I know! I can’t believe it.”

  He hugged me then. A nice, secure hug that made me feel loved and safe. The wind blew the dark, sweet scent of ripe berries in my face and I sighed. “Sometimes crops need to be tended a long time before they yield the sweetest fruit.”

  Somehow that seemed important and I looked at him. My face turned to Gil and the sun, both warming me. But he bent quickly, his favorite ball cap obscuring his face from my view as he bent and started to pluck ripe, wanton strawberries and dropped them in my makeshift sling. Berry juice stained my top and my fingers, my torso and I felt it running in a wet river down my belly. Soon it would stain my jeans. And when Gil finally looked up from where he knelt in the field, his hands brimming with red orbs, I willed him to bend his mouth to me and lick the trailing juice from my skin.

  When I opened my eyes, Aerosmith smiled down at me from a poster and my heart pounded like I’d been caught having sex in the back seat of the car. I grabbed a pillow, pulled it tight to me, my heart in my ears and my throat and I realized after taking a deep breath--in my pussy.

  I sucked in a shaky breath and turning, put my hand out for Carl. He wasn’t there. His jeans were gone from the floor and his duffel was open, spilling out colorful guts made of band tees and flannels for chilly weather. “Carl?” I whispered, but I said it softly so no one would hear. I really didn’t want anyone to answer me.

  I heard the kitchen cabinet thud beneath me and I sat up, my knees weak and watery like I was recovering from a flu instead of a mildly dirty
dream about my father. Stepfather. “Either or. Tomato, tom-ah-to,” I said to myself and then laughed at the sound of my own brittle voice. “Just a dream, Jen. NO. Big. Deal.” I pulled on little white socks and a robe. It was June but the nights still got chilly and so did the floor.

  I snuck down the steps like I’d done something wrong, listening so hard for the sound of voices my ears rang. Nothing. I heard a radio and Mr. Miller’s old French bull dog Daisy barking her damn head off. I heard what I was pretty sure was the garbage truck and I heard the coffee grinder. I did not hear voices. Maybe Gil had run out for something. Maybe he was outside. Maybe Carl was outside. Maybe he’d run off with a meter maid. I snorted, covered my nose and mumbled. “Or maybe you could waltz your fool ass into the room and find out where everyone is, genius.”

  “Who you talking to?” Gil asked from behind me. I hadn’t seen him squatting down to get in the lower cabinet and I jumped about a foot, clutching my heart and shrieking like some exotic bird.

  “Jesus Christ on a crutch, Gil!” I yelled, my fear turning sharply to anger because no one likes to nearly wet themselves first thing in the morning.

  “Sorry, kid,” he laughed good naturedly and I could tell by his grin he wasn’t sorry at all. “I was getting the filters and I guess you missed my big ugly self over here.”

  “You’re not ugly,” I said automatically but then flushed hot when I remembered my dream. He kissed me on the forehead the way he had for the last eighteen years and I smiled. “Where’s Carl?”

  His face clouded over for just a pulse beat and I wondered if it was anger I saw. Or just worry. Or something else. “I sent him down to Erick Urban to see about helping out with some landscaping stuff. I remembered that Erick just got a contract to do a few small memorial parks for the schools and he could use a little grunt work laying stone. Figured if Carl went down an introduced himself he could get an in with the boys. And Erick’s brother Ken owns the bar that might want a little musical talent come the weekends in the near future.

  I kissed Gil on his stubbly cheek and said, “Thanks.” I meant it too. We’d be fucked without a little help here and there. A good word or three.

  “No problem, kiddo. Coffee?”

  “God, yes. I’d sell my soul for caffeine,” I said, grabbing a mug and holding it out.

  “Don’t sell that soul for anything.”

  “Just kidding. Listen…” I hopped up the counter mostly because my mother always had a fit when anyone sat on them. But Gil sat on them just as much as me and it had been a little thing we shared. She abhorred asses on the counter, we looked at the counter as one big extra seating space. I stalled then, swinging my feet, kicking the cabinet.

  “Yes?” He leaned against the opposite counter. Two counters connected to form an L. At the base of the L was the sink. Gil propped himself on the short part of the L and waited, big blue eyes shiny with an almost preternatural light. One moment they were sky blue, the next they were gray like a summer squall.

  “About last night,” I said.

  “It was fun.”

  I frowned, shook my head. “Not that.”

  “Not the fire and the beer and the fish and the singing?” he asked, sipping coffee. Tan, weathered face as unreadable as a foreign language.

  “No. After we went to bed. Carl and I - I’m sorry if we were loud. At one point is sounded like well, I’m sorry if you - you know, saw.”

  “I came up,” he said quickly. “To ask about sheets and stuff, but I really didn’t see anything and I’m sorry if I startled you. I really didn’t see anything,” he repeated. But he said it a bit too fast and wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t want to embarrass you. Or me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I kept saying over and over and I didn’t know why.

  Gil put his hand on my leg and I stopped swinging it suddenly. The absence of that motion was like coming out of a noisy room to a deafening silence. We both looked down at his big, tan hand on my knee, over my white robe. My mouth when dry and he flexed his fingers against my skin for just an instant before pulling his hand back.

  Irrationally, I wanted to grab his hand and put it back. The heat that blazed up my leg was staggering and best ignored. I swallowed hard and he said, “Don’t be sorry. That’s silly. You’re all grown up now, Jenny. And I should have knocked.”

  “Does it change how you think of me?” I blurted. I didn’t even know I was going to ask him that until it flew out of my mouth like some small winged thing. Part of me wanted to snatch it back in and swallow it down. Part of me wanted an answer.

  “Yes. It does. But not in a bad way,” he said in a rush. “It just makes me realize that you’ve grown up. You’re a woman now. And you’re beautiful, kid.” He kissed the tip of my nose and walked out the door, tossing a “I’m gong to go take a run” over his shoulder.

  I watched his broad back recede and drank my coffee. The clock ticked off a half an hour before I hopped down from the counter to go take a shower.

  * * * *

  Carl snaked a hand into my robe and I jumped. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t even see you there!” My heart clogged my throat and my body coiled tight when he yanked me in for a rough kiss. “You’re dirty,” I said, but the words were soft and stifled by his kiss.

  “That guy Erick hired me on the spot. They were digging some holes today and I guess I looked like a real good hole digger,” he said, his lips pressed over my pulse. Carl pushed his tan nicked up hands up under my white robe and grabbed my ass. I let him.

  “You do look like a real good hole digger,” I laughed, finding an immense amount of humor in such a small, juvenile joke.

  “I’d like to dig this hole. Ya dig?” he asked, pushing a finger along the wet ripple of my outer lips to find the already pulsing nub of my clit.

  I squirmed and he swallowed the small noise I made by kissing me wetly again. “Don’t worry, Jen. My fingers are clean,” he said. Carl pushed his knee between my legs and nudged me so I opened my thighs for him. He slipped two fingers deep inside of me and my body bunched up tight and eager around him. “Where’s Gil?”

  “I don’t know,” I said a bit too sharply. My mind quickly reversed to the warm weight of Gil’s hand on my thigh and when Carl flexed his fingers in my pussy I whimpered a little. “I’m not my father’s keeper,” I said with too much attitude for such a simple question.

  “Sorrr-eeee,” Carl said. He bit my shoulder kind of hard and my nipples peaked and tingled under the soft cotton robe. “Someone is tense. Why so tense, girly?”

  I shook my head, feeling perversely on the verge of tears. Why would I cry over such a simple question. “I’m fine. Just a bit claustrophobic, I guess. Small town suffocation and all that jazz.”

  Carl pulled back and frowned. His liquid green eyes shining in the late morning light. His eyes were gorgeous, like some giant feline always watching for his next kill, his next chance to pounce. “I don’t like it when you’re tense, Jen. Let’s fix that, okay?”

  “Mmm-kay,” I managed when he sank to his knees, parting my robe like long white curtains. I let him push his face between my legs, his willing tongue lapping at my clit, my outer lips, pushing rigidly into my wet slit. I rested my ass on the bookshelf that rimmed the banister of my floor. My ass pushed to books from childhood, books from teen years, big books of facts and very little fiction that belonged to my mother Marian. I refused to call her mom right now, I realized. I spread my legs a little more and mashed my bottom to all the memories that filled the shelves.

  “That’s it. Give it to me. Give it to me, girly. I can feel it,” Carl said and laughed, his lips pressed to my pussy lips. The tingly vibration of his amusement wound up through my belly and made me smile.

  “I will, I will,” I promised. He sucked my clit into his mouth and forced two big fingers deep into my cunt. He dipped the tips in first, smearing my juices around my outside before plunging back inside.

  “If you give it to me, I’ll fuck you.
I’ll fuck you right here on the floor, with your fingers on the spines of all those fancy books for smart little girls. I’ll fuck you while that big blue and white teddy bear watches. I’ll fuck you until you weep,” Carl said, his lips kissing my inner thigh so I squirmed a little from the touch of his mouth on that sensitive skin.

  “Yes, do. Do all of that,” I said, pushing the image of Gil’s fingers on my skin out, out, out of my head. For some reason I felt I needed to scrub that bit of memory from my mind.

  “Give me that orgasm, then,” Carl said and bit my clit just hard enough to make little white dots explode in my vision. My fingers clutched at the sharp edge of the bookshelf my knees shaking with my release. “Good girl,” Carl said and grabbed my arm. He tugged me down and I dropped to my knees in the hallway.

  Gil was out of the house. I was pretty sure of it. God, I hoped so, and yet a small part of me wondered if it was true. Did some part of me want Gil to know that Carl was taking me, fucking me, having me under his roof. In his home. His little girl. I shook my head. Being back in Pleasant Parks was fucking with my head. I helped Carl take my robe off and he tossed it in the corner where it landed on a big steamer trunk that Marian had found at an auction years before.

  “Turn around, Jen. Show me that ass.”

  I turned for him and he palmed my bottom in his warm hands. He pushed the head of his cock to my pussy and thrust so hard my forehead kissed the bookshelf and I grunted. “I like to fuck you from behind, you know?” Carl said almost conversationally. His hand skittered up and down my spine and then stroked my sides, my flank, my ass like he was petting me.

  “I know, Carl.”

  “I like to see your ass shake and your hair sliding over your back. I like the little ladder of your spine and your shoulders. Your shoulders turn me on to no fucking end, Jen,” he confessed.

  I rested my head to the shelf and sighed, pleasure flooding my lower half. Filling my pussy, my womb, my belly. I shivered in the warm air because I could feel his gaze on me and it made me feel odd. Almost high. Definitely powerful. “I know,” I said, because I did. He’d told me that before.