Page 9 of Suddenly Entwined

“You feel like you wish I picked you up earlier?” I mirror her low back to her.

“Yeah, could you pick us up early next week for a daddy daughter date?”

Her eyes gleam with hope and I’m ready to promise her a hundred daddy daughter dates to keep them like that. And then I remember I agreed to be acting project manager next week.

Shit.

“Next week Daddy is pretty busy, but let’s do something on the weekend, okay?”

She nods and goes back to eating her meal (nobody took any issue with the bits after all) and Natalie tells us about a school dance coming up in the spring, her high, and that a boy in her class told her that there are one million spiders on every acre of land, her low.

Her expression is horrified. “Is that true?”

“About the spiders?” I sigh. “What the hell is wrong with the boys at your school? No, that’s not true.”

Lou gasps. “Hell is a bad word, Daddy!”

There’s a one hundred percent chance she’s heard me say worse.

“If it’s so bad, why did you say it?” Natalie retorts.

I scrape up my last bite and lean back in my chair as I listen to them bicker. There’s no point in trying to stop them. It always peters out on its own.

After clearing the meal and sticking the leftovers in the fridge, which I’m determined to remember for my lunch tomorrow,we start our evening routine. I send them off to play and I drag my feet all the way to my ensuite bathroom and lock the door. My shower is calling my name as I kick off my wool socks and black Carhartt’s and toss them in the overflowing wicker laundry hamper. My bathroom is a no kid zone where I can recharge. Hot water sluices over my shoulders as I scrub myself down, washing off the day. I revel in the quiet that the locked door affords me. Sinking onto the teak shower bench, I sigh, head relaxing back against the white subway tiles. This is my time. I need this fifteen minutes to unwind before I take on bedtime. Because most nights, once the kids are already asleep, I’m too wrecked to do anything. And then morning comes, and it’s the same thing all over again.

I think about Chris and Isaac and how they are both free to take Anna and Ashlyn out whenever or wherever. About how they are in their early thirties and probably don’t wake up to anybody jumping on them or with lower back pain. But even if they are staying in for a quiet Monday evening, at least they’re together. When was the last time I laid in bed with somebody simply watching television or sitting side by side reading? To get to that easy, relaxed part of a relationship, you have to do whatever people are doing in the dating world these days. I’ve hooked up with a couple of women over the years when the kids were out of town at my sister’s house, but those dull interactions only left me lonelier than before. Swiping and ‘talking phases’ and all that?

Sounds like hell.

I don’t want to waste a single evening taking some woman out who hates the idea of a man with kids. Who will pity me for being a widower. Or worse, who pretends she’s fine with the idea of a blended family and later down the line turns out to be terrible with them. I’d rather endure a lifetime of celibacy than expose the girls to a toxic dynamic like that. I lean forward, elbows on my thighs, breathing through my mouth as the water pours down over me. It’s right there in front of me, my semi-hard dick perking up as if to say, “Celibacy? Woah, we never agreed to that.”

So I curl my hand around my shaft, using the water and a loose grip to stroke myself to full hardness. One quick jerk, I think, to keep me from doing something stupid like downloading a dumb app I’ll regret using the next morning. I’m hornier than I thought, my arm flexing as I concentrate my strokes at the tip of my cock, sliding up and down in a steady rhythm. I lean forward, bracing myself against the shower wall and planting my feet on the slippery tiles. The woman in my mind is faceless, nameless, kneeling. I picture smooth skin and soft curves and sweetness. Eyes that bore into mine as she smirks around my dick. I cup my full balls with my left hand, mouth falling open as my breathing speeds up. Shit, I need this. Of their own accord, my hips thrust forward until I’m fucking my clenched fist, the wet sounds of flesh and pre-cum hardly audible over the spray of water.

“Fuck, yes,” I sigh, squirting repeatedly onto the shower floor with a stuttering gasp.

I slow my strokes, shuddering as I take a moment to touch myself more gently, like I imagine a woman might. It’s been so long. So damn long. I don’t want to just come. I’m craving intimacy. The touching and the talking and the companionship. After all this time alone, don’t I deserve that? There won’t be anyone in my bed tonight, though, for conversation or comfort. I force myself to cut the water and step out onto the bathmat. Wrapping a blue towel around my hips, I wipe a fist over the mirror to clear the fog. After applying my deodorant and some cream to my face and beard, I lean closer to the mirror. Lines bracket the corners of my eyes and more greys pop up around my temples every time I look.

“Daaaad! Louisa kicked me!” I hear from behind the door, the overhead fan only partly drowning Natalie out.

I stare myself down, flexing my arms. I suck in a bit, giving my tummy a pat. “Duty calls,” I say, and then I go do Dad things.

***

I stifle a yawn. “Last style, okay?”

Natalie squints, holding a comb that I’m pretty sure is designed for use on plastic pony hair. We’re all cross-legged on their bedroom floor, curtains shut and the lights dim.

“Ow,” I cry, as she drags it through my beard, ripping out a few hairs in the process, hopefully the greying ones. “This is torture. Pure torture,” I howl dramatically, grabbing my girlsand tackling them to their bedroom floor, softening their fall with a palm to the back of each of their little heads.

“Nooo,” Louisa protests, “This is not part of beauty salon!”

“Beauty salon?” I shake my head. “No, this is the bedtime ogre game. If you don’t get your butts into that bed over there, the ogre will commence his tickling.”

Squeals of laughter ring around my eardrums as I tickle them, anyway. We roughhouse on the carpet, rolling right over the discarded dress up clothes and costume jewellery. Eventually, I get up with a groan and click on the fan they like for white noise. Natalie and Louisa pile into the top bunk.

“Shove over,” I say, as I climb up the ladder and wade through stuffed animals to claim my spot.

“You’re too big! You’ll break it!” cries Natalie.

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