The Night I Stopped Looking at My Father as a Daughter

The summer I turned nineteen, my mother left us. There was no argument, no slamming doors, no tears at breakfast. She was simply gone one morning: she had left with a man we barely knew, to start a new life in Italy, far from the house she had shared with us throughout my childhood.

My father loved her too much to recover. He spent the following months in a kind of silent mourning, not looking for anyone, not even wanting to hear another woman’s name. I watched him sit every night in the same armchair, his gaze lost on some point in the ceiling, and I understood that he was still waiting for her even though she was never coming back.

What neither of us had foreseen was the problem I represented. Over that year I grew up, shed the last traces of girlhood, and month by month my face became my mother’s. The same mouth, the same cheekbones, the same expression when I laughed. Every time my father looked at me, he didn’t just see me: he saw her.

***

The first time something changed between us was by accident. My father had gone out with an old friend and came back after midnight, unsteady on his feet and smelling strongly of whiskey. I took him to his room, holding him by the arm, took off his shoes and shirt, and helped him lie down on the bed that still smelled of my mother’s perfume.

When I bent over him to arrange the pillow, his hands groped for me in the dim light. They were not looking for me, of course. In his drunken delirium he murmured her name and stroked my chest with a tenderness that was not meant for his daughter. I stood still, not daring to breathe, feeling the heat of his fingers through the fabric. A moment later he fell asleep, and I left the room with my heart pounding against my ribs.

The next morning he remembered nothing. He served me coffee as on any other day, asked if I had slept well, and I answered yes while part of me wondered why I couldn’t forget the touch of those hands.

***

From then on I started noticing things. The way his eyes rested on me when he thought I couldn’t see him, and how they jerked away the moment I turned around, as if I had caught him doing something forbidden. Far from making me uncomfortable, that look fed me. It meant I mattered to him, that I existed for him beyond the memory of my mother.

Would I ever find a man who desired me the way he had desired her?

And then something happened that scared me because of how natural it felt: I started to get jealous. Jealous of my own mother, who had left without deserving it and who still occupied all his heart. Every time he mentioned her in that broken voice, I hated her a little more, and I silently promised myself that I would be able to erase her.

***

One afternoon I found him sitting in the living room armchair, reading. Without thinking too much, I sat on his lap like I used to when I was little. But I was no longer a child, and he noticed before I did. I felt his cock harden against my body, quick, unstoppable, a reaction neither of us could pretend did not exist.

I tilted my head back, cheeks burning, and looked him in the eyes. A low moan escaped me, almost a sigh, and that sound jolted him back to reality. His hands shoved me away roughly. He stood up, crossed the room without a word, and locked himself in his bedroom. I heard the click of the lock and knew I had frightened him.

If I wanted to get to him, I would have to be more patient. More subtle.

***

I changed strategy. I started leaving small signs, seemingly distracted, innocent on the surface. I’d “forget” a used thong on the edge of the sink. Sometimes I left the bathroom door half open just as I stepped out of the shower, and I’d linger drying myself in front of the mirror, my legs barely apart, pretending not to hear his footsteps in the hallway.

When the door opened, instead of covering myself and turning my back in shame, I would slowly turn toward him, letting him see everything I had to offer. It lasted only a second, just long enough for the image to be etched into him before he muttered an apology and withdrew.

I didn’t know how much time passed before I noticed my efforts were bearing fruit. The next time I “forgot” a thong, I memorized the exact place I had left it. When I came back hours later, it wasn’t there. I found it moved, in another corner, and felt a thrill of victory. He had touched it, had held it in his hands. The mere idea that he might have brought it to his face to breathe in my scent made me shiver from head to toe.

***

From then on I took every opportunity to touch him. I came back from the gym in tight leggings and a Lycra top that outlined my body, my skin still warm from the effort, and greeted him by throwing my arms around his neck. I pressed my chest against his just enough for him to feel the firmness of my breasts, the hardness of my nipples through the thin fabric.

At first my father was rigid, uncomfortable, like a man trying not to slip at the edge of an abyss. But his resistance wore away week by week. There came a point when he seemed to expect my greeting, and his hands, instead of letting me go, held me against him with a force that betrayed him.

I started wearing miniskirts around the house. We spent more and more afternoons together, sitting in the living room watching anything on television, talking about nothing. And nothing was easier than settling into the armchair and letting the skirt ride up, slowly, until the line of my underwear was visible to him. I would glance sideways at him and know, from the tension in his jaw, that he liked what he saw.

***

And then my twentieth birthday arrived.

—What are we doing tonight? —he asked me in the morning.

—Going out to dinner and having a drink somewhere —I told him—. It’s my birthday, I decide.

That night, while I was getting ready, he knocked on my bedroom door to ask if I was ready. For a second I thought about opening it just as I was, in nothing but white lace lingerie and a garter belt. But it still wasn’t time. I couldn’t put his half-naked daughter in front of him and expect him not to run again.

—Almost —I answered, peeking out.

I finished getting dressed in a short, fitted skirt over the lingerie, and a white blouse so thin it let the lace beneath show through. When I stepped into the hallway, I heard him clear his throat. Was he as nervous as I was?

—My daughter has become a beautiful woman —he said, and his voice trembled just a little on the last word.

***

We had dinner in a quiet restaurant and then went to a bar where people were dancing. I dragged him onto the dance floor almost by force. He resisted, said he was too old for that sort of thing, but in the end he gave in. It was my birthday, after all.

I regretted wearing my skirt so tightly; otherwise I would have been able to catch one of his thighs between mine and rub against him to the rhythm of the music. Desire ran down my legs, and I saw it reflected, without concealment, on my father’s face.

I leaned close to his ear and whispered:

—Dad, I can feel how hard you are against me. It’s wonderful.

He shoved me away. He turned without looking at me and went back to the bar.

—Don’t do that again —he said quietly, almost pleading—. Behave yourself.

Half an hour later we were heading home in silence.

***

In the foyer, his gaze fell again on my crotch just as mine searched for the obvious bulge in his trousers. Neither of us looked away this time.

—Good night, daddy —I murmured.

I stepped closer and hugged him, sliding his right thigh between mine. I don’t know who made the first move. Suddenly our mouths found each other, open, clumsy with restrained desire. I let my tongue into his mouth and drank in his hot, ragged breath while our bodies rubbed against each other in the dim hallway.

I pulled away and took a step back, panting. A wet patch was growing on the fabric of his trousers. I had taken him to the limit. And yet I knew, looking into his eyes, that it still wasn’t time. He wasn’t ready to take the final step, and I didn’t want to ruin it by rushing.

I had waited so long. I could wait a little longer. My father wasn’t going to slip away from me now.

I watched him go into his room, leaving the door open. I left mine the same way. Barely two minutes later I heard his ragged breathing, the unmistakable sound of a man pleasuring himself on the other side of the hallway. Then I undressed and masturbated without making a sound, letting my moans reach him so he would know what I was doing too. I fell asleep almost at once, more satisfied than ever before.

***

The next morning we met at breakfast and neither of us said a word. We looked at each other over our cups, and there was more in that silence than in any conversation.

That afternoon I put on a tiny thong and a T-shirt with nothing underneath. My father stared at me speechless, his eyes roaming over me as if they wanted to devour me. It’s hard to explain how much I enjoyed exposing myself to that gaze, shamelessly, knowing exactly the effect I was having. The awareness of being his daughter ignited something burning and dark inside me.

He sat down in a dining room chair and, for the first time, he was the one to give the order.

—Come. Sit on daddy’s lap.

My heart lurched. For the first time he was taking the initiative, for the first time he was asking me for something. I straddled him and began rubbing my sex against his thigh, slowly, looking him in the eyes.

—Your girl is very bad, daddy —I moaned—. I can’t help being so wet all the time.

—No —he confirmed in a rough voice—. You can’t help it. —And after a pause he added—: Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. Would you let your daddy lick you there?

—Daddy can do whatever he wants to me —I answered.

***

He took my hand and led me to his room, to the bed he had shared with my mother. He stood in front of me, and his cock was already fully erect, straining against the fabric. Seeing him like that, so close after so many months of waiting, left me breathless. I only had to reach out my hand.

—I want to feel you everywhere —I whispered.

He stripped completely and sat on the edge of the bed. I took off my clothes with the same urgency, leaving only my stockings and garter belt on, and made him lie down on his back. I climbed on top of him with my thighs spread, caught his cock hard as stone, and guided it between my trembling legs.

The tip brushed my clit and stopped just at the entrance, exactly where I needed it. My whole body begged for more, hungry for deep penetration. I lowered myself slowly and took him all the way inside, until he disappeared completely into me, and we both moaned at once.

I was in control. I rose and fell, rolled my hips, twisted on top of him, setting a rhythm that grew ever more demanding. I felt his cock forcing its way inside me, pounding deep, while my body rocked, held up only by his strong hands gripping my waist. His fingers searched for the curve of my ass and stayed there, pressing, claiming every inch of me.

—Am I good enough for you, daddy? —I gasped.

I saw it in his eyes before I felt it. He was on the edge, about to finish inside me.

—Daddy... daddy... —I cried out, unable to hold back.

I felt him empty into me and an electric current ran from the nape of my neck to my heels. In the middle of my orgasm I realized that at last I was a whole woman. At last I was his, and the certainty that I always would be dragged me into a second spasm, more violent than the first.

—My dear daddy, how I wanted you —I murmured against his chest—. Now I’m yours.

I wasn’t the only one crying tears of overwhelming happiness. His eyes, wide and wet, were shining too.

—My daughter —he stammered again and again, stroking my hair—. I love you. I know it’s forbidden. And even so I love you.