Chapter Text
Alina wakes with a vague sense of dread heavy in her stomach and stale stickiness between her legs. She considered showering afterwards. After she stopped sobbing, after she was certain she heard the click of her father’s door closing through the thin wall. But it felt cowardly to do so. She is here to face her past, but a single reenacted memory had sliced through her in unexpected places. Walking into this house yesterday, she expected to need steadfast strength to make it through the week. Clenched fists, gritted teeth, brute willpower. It will not be so simple, she acknowledges now. It will be more akin to dancing through a minefield.
She lingers in her bedroom until past nine a.m. despite her craving for the coffee she smells brewing in the kitchen, its rich scent wafting beneath her bedroom door like a childhood omen. Lingers and putters, until she resolves to taking a shower. Resolves to making her way downstairs for a full mug before retreating back to her bedroom. Maybe she can actually make some progress on the book. Or maybe she’ll stare at a wall and come to terms with her decisions. To her disappointment, her father is sitting at the kitchen table, his own laptop open. Her swooping stomach makes her abruptly halt at the doorway; a familiar blend of yearning, guilt-laced shame, and resentment carved into something sharp, something lethal, after so many years.
“Good morning,” he says, fingers paused on his keyboard. “There’s a fresh pot.” Nods at the coffee pot on the counter, but to her surprise and relief, says nothing more.
She exhales and makes her way to the coffee, desperate for anything that might be a distraction to her senses. “Did you run this morning?”
“Of course.” He glances at her again, assessing. Perhaps wondering how many words is too many. Wondering what combination will send her bolting from the room if not careful. “There’s a decent trail that begins down the road. The foliage is beautiful right now.”
Alina nods, exhaling another shaky breath as she pulls a mug down from the cabinet above the coffee pot. Her father, if nothing else, is a man of targeted willpower and routine. With the exceptions of Sundays—the single day he allowed himself to sleep in, to linger in the kitchen wearing his forest green bathrobe—he began each morning with a five mile run. Immediately followed by a shower and making her parents’ bed with military precision. Always goodnaturedly teasing her mother about her supposed inability to make the bed as he poured coffee into a tumbler, just before he shrugged on his suit jacket.
Goodbye, Alinochka, he would tell her, leaning down to press a messy kiss to her forehead that made her giggle and push him away in equal measure. Be my little ray of sunshine at school today, will you? I can’t wait to hear about your day when I’m home.
Alina swallows thickly, glancing at her father. His attention shifted back to whatever work he is doing on his laptop, evidently accepting her silence as her answer. After pouring a dash of her almond milk creamer into her mug, she pauses to indulge in a sip. She had meant to make an immediate retreat, she knows, but something in her hesitates. Perhaps because of the normalcy of this moment, in this kitchen with her father. But normalcy has a different meaning for them. Her father has twisted and bent that word into something too difficult to look square in the eye.
“What do you have planned today?” he asks, seemingly taking her presence as interest in a conversation. “I was hoping we could go for a walk—maybe into the village. There’s a coffee shop and cafe that looked quaint. Maybe they have those—”
“Dad, stop.” She looks over at him. Forces herself to look him in the eye, more exasperated than angry. “How many times do I have to explain that this isn’t a vacation?”
“If there’s even a small chance I can hear about my daughter’s life, I have to ask.”
Despite everything, her chest squeezes. Something akin to pity he doesn’t deserve dangerously takes root. “We should just stick to the plan.”
“Now?”
“I—no. I mean, we can, but—” She shakes her head. “No, not this second .”
She doesn’t want to walk with him, to be near him. It isn’t fear of him—she can credit him with that much. Despite her anger, he was not wrong. He never did force her, never did hurt her. Trusts, despite everything, that he won’t hurt her—at least not in a way that will bruise anything but her heart. What she fears is herself when she’s around him. But maybe this matters too. Maybe this is just important as the rest—that she reaches a place where his very presence does not swallow her sanity and sense of self.
“Fine,” she concedes. “We can walk to town.”
His expression is unguarded; unfamiliar compared to the tight-lipped grimace she came to associate him with towards the end. The twisted face of a guilt on a lover. But his joy—relief, even, she thinks—makes sense. He has nothing to feel guilty about when it comes to wanting to act as her father. Even if that’s exactly what it feels like to her—an act.
—
Alina shoves her hands into her pockets, her nose cold despite the bright sunshine and clear cornflower blue sky above. Admittedly, he was right about the foliage. Autumn is in peak and it’s nice to be out of the city. She even welcomes the way the breeze whips stray hairs from her bun.
“I read your book,” he tells her. “I loved it—I’ve never been so proud.”
Same aviators she remembers, despite them perched on a face with newfound agelines and a gray-peppered beard. Same warm rumble of his voice that she could nearly burrow into, if it wasn’t for the memory of the same voice groaning into her ear. Craves the sunshine warmth of a father’s love and attention, when she will always be charred from his inferno instead.
“I’m surprised you liked it.”
“What wasn’t there to like?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” she replies, sarcasm evident, “I guess I’m thinking about the fact it was centered around an woman’s relationship with her abusive father.”
“Is that your way of telling me I provided ample inspiration?” More curious, than offended. “I never laid my hands on you—not in that cruel manner.”
Alina rolls her eyes. “It’s a metaphor.”
“I see.”
“Is that all you have to say.”
“Well…no press is bad press, as they say.”
Alina scoffs, shaking her head. “My therapist was spot on—you are a narcissist.”
He chuckles, bumping his shoulder against hers. “It was only a joke, Alinochka. Humor is how I cope.”
“What do you have to cope with?” she asks, genuinely curious. Does he struggle with what happened between them? Does he harbor regrets? It’s too much to hope for.
“Losing you, of course,” he murmurs.
She lets his words settle. Lets them crunch beneath her boots and rattle around in her lungs. Losing her. Can one lose something they already chewed up and spit out?
“There was nothing left of me to keep.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Silence that aches in a sunshine too bright. “I do now.”
She inhales, the cool air refreshing. Lets him off the hook this once. “I’m working on my second,” she tells him. “Still drafting it though…I’m not moving as quickly as my agent and editor would prefer.”
He hums. “A little writer’s block?”
She nods. “Something like that. I guess…the first book was such a success. I don’t know how to live up to it and I already feel like I gave all I had to it. I just feel…dried up, I guess.”
He shakes his head. “You just need some time to sit with it—with the success of the first one, with this new idea you’re writing. You always did need a little time to marinate with things.” He laughs, runs a hand through his wind-whipped hair. “When you were a kid, for something as simple as a Disney movie, you would come to me days after watching it and ask questions about it. Talk to me about it. You were so insightful, even at that age.”
Alina swallows thickly. Wonders how someone so insightful could miss so many signs of wrong during their descent.
“Maybe,” she agrees. “Maybe I just need time.”
—
It’s early afternoon when they return to the house, empty coffee cups tossed into the trash and cool skin flushed as they shrug off their jackets. Her heart races when she looks at her father. She spent the walk there and back speaking only of herself. He did not offer any information about his own life and she resisted asking, but she finds herself wondering now. Doesn’t miss him, but the familiarity of him. The constant of him. Misses what it meant for him to be Dad in every thoughtless way that she never believed mattered until it was lost. But she cannot sink back there. Not again.
“We should continue.” She blurts it before she can do something idiotic. Like ask if he’s happy. Like ask the vague and brutal question: why.
“Now?”
She shrugs. “There isn’t a schedule.”
He swallows, eyes dark. She cannot tell if it is lust or fear. Does not know if such distinctions matter when it comes to the two of them. “The show, right?”
She nods. “The show.”
—
Alina lays on the couch in the living room of the cabin—her first time in this room. There is a grand stone fireplace, but nothing so crass as taxidermy animals mounted to the walls. Like the rest of the cabin, it excels in its theme as a rustic-chic aesthetic that is both too charming to label as cold and too trendy to label as home . She turns on the smart television that she ensured existed when booking the Airbnb and navigates to the HBO Max app that she diligently checked with the Airbnb hosts to ensure it was available. Navigates to the fourth episode without hesitation. Presses play with admittedly substantial hesitation.
As the first five minutes of the show plays, she watches numbly while sinking into another version of herself. Or at least, does her best to. Sheds years of bitterness, of distrust, of cynicism like she is shedding layers of skin. Remembers the soft feel of the worn gray couch on her bare legs in need of a shave. Months after her sixteenth birthday, on a late Friday afternoon in June with the windows open, the scent of her mother’s hydrangeas so common that it is nearly meaningless.
“What are you watching?”
She rolls her head back to look at her father who is standing behind her at the open doorway of their living room. Arms crossed and eyes lingering on the television with curiosity, the way fathers’ eyes do when they insist they don’t want to join, but are interested enough to hover.
“It’s called Scenes from a Marriage. I’m on the fourth episode.”
He raises his brow. “I think I’ve heard of it—it’s a bit mature for you, isn’t it? Did you ask your mother if you could watch it?”
Alina turns her head to focus on the show again, her silence an answer in itself. Her mother left ten minutes ago, out shopping for the neighborhood barbeque this weekend. In fact, Alina thought her father was going with her, hence waiting until the house was empty to slink off to the living room.
“I see,” he says, moving to sit down at the opposite end of the couch.
“Zoya recommended it,” she tells him.
“Ah, well then it’s guaranteed to be inappropriate, is what you’re saying.”
Alina laughs. “ No, definitely not. But her parents are less strict about art.”
He chuckles. “I didn’t know this was considered a work of art.”
“You know what I mean.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the screen as Jonathan and Mira sit in their own living room and embrace on the couch.
“What does a teenage girl see in this?” he asks. “It’s about a divorce, isn’t it?”
“It’s romantic,” she insists. “The idea that like…I don’t know. You’ll want someone forever, no matter what.”
His responding smile is nearly pitying. A silent condemnation and appreciation for her naivete. He doesn’t have a chance to respond before they’re both drawn back to the screen, as Jonathan strokes up and down Mira’s leg. The memory of her father’s own palm on her lower back is jolting—as alluring as it is revolting.
Some people just need warmth, and touch.
They never did talk about that night in the months that followed. He had spoken the truth. He’d shown her only that once. It didn’t happen again. Nothing to dwell on, as he’d promised (only she did dwell, if only in her own body and mind). Nothing to get upset over (only it tore her apart when she thought on it for any amount of time). But thoughts were easy enough to ignore. The way her body is humming for him now, just as she feared would happen again, is a hardened reality.
She only realizes she is shifting with discomfort when her father glances over at her. Jonathan’s hand runs over Mira’s breast and Alina’s mouth goes dry. Her father moves to grab the remote off the coffee table. To turn off the show, she can only assume. But his hand hovers; instinct losing this time. Weakness gaining a second victory.
“Do you need to go?” he asks, voice rough as gravel.
Yes, she thinks. I need to excuse myself.
Her eyes remain glued to the television screen, wetness pooling between her legs. She never could replicate the night her father had guided her to her first orgasm, despite his diligent instruction. Never could let her mind wander to such places, because he was always there. He was always watching her and she was consumed with such guilt by his imaginary gaze that she gave up before she started. But her father’s gaze is not imaginary now and she aches .
Jonathan kisses Mira. Alina watches them. Her father watches her.
“We should turn this off,” he says.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
Neither of them move. He swallows as Jonathan’s hand runs up Mira’s thigh again. As the man on the screen consumes his soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Do you need my help again?”
Weakness or manipulation? she wonders. But then she shakes off the thought. Sixteen year old Alina thought of neither of those things. She only thought of want, of shame, of the the shame-wrapped-want making the ache more enticing.
Alina nods. “Just—just your hand,” she manages, glancing at the television. “Just the touch. Like last time.”
Her father’s chest is heaving, expression torn to shreds. He moves closer a beat later and places his hand on her outer thigh. Strokes up and down. Would almost be soothing, if it wasn’t stoking flames. She squirms again, turns to watch the television and lets her hand wander between her legs. Moves beneath the band of her worn American Eagle boxer shorts as her father’s breath catches, but she focuses on the way Jonathan’s kisses grow all-consuming. The squeeze of her father’s hand on her thigh as Jonathan’s face disappears between Mira’s thighs. Alina’s back arches, but it isn’t enough. Her father recognizes that—because of course he does. Her father, who is attuned to her every need.
“C’mere,” he mumbles, pulling her onto his lap.
She hiccups, shaking in his arms, eye-level with him. Can hear Jonathan and Mira, wishes she could sink back into the scene. Wishes her cunt wasn’t pulsing on her father’s thighs. Looks down and notes he wears the same designer black work slacks he wears everyday. Smells like her father, so comforting that she buries her face in his neck for a beat, at the same time he turns them so that she can still see the screen. She turns her head on his shoulder towards the television as her father’s hands run up her thighs, her waist, over her back. He lifts a thigh and the pressure on her cunt makes her moan, just as Jonathan thrusts into Mira from behind.
“There you go,” he murmurs. “Rock against me—just like that. Use me. I’m here, sweetheart.”
She does. Use him, that is. Lets him use her too, only she doesn’t know that at the time. Only knows the hot pulse of her cunt as she rubs against his pant-covered thigh. He shoves aside her boxer shorts so her cunt is bare as it slides against him. She remembers the pillow, remembers his words as her clit rubs against the fabric, the friction all-consuming.
“Dad,” she pants.
“I know, you’re fine. Just needed a little help, I’ve got you.”
She moves faster as Jonathan fucks Mira. That’s what it is—a fuck. Something easily definable, unlike the animalistic rocking of her hips against her father. It takes almost no time for the heat to pool in her lower belly, the spark to tingle at her lower spine as her toes curl. He holds her safe against his hard body as she calls out for him.
Dad, she cries. Or is it— was it— Daddy? She didn’t know then, and she doesn’t know now. Only aware of the entrails of pleasure spilling from her as she collapses against her father and tries to catch her breath. He doesn’t remain still though. Shifts her instead until there is something hot and warm between her legs, even beneath his layers, and settled under her cunt.
Grisha , she knows she should say. At the very least, what could bring her more pleasure than depriving her father of his own? But sixteen year old Alina is still rooted in her, hooked beneath her ribcage. Her eyes find Jonathan’s face on the screen and she watches his slack jaw. Watches what pleasure does to a man so poised.
“Just a second, please,” he mumbles. “Just—”
He rocks her against him like a doll. She turns to watch his face, to meet his eye in a stark moment of bravery, but his own are closed, his mouth agape as he pants. As his hands squeeze her hips.
“It’s okay, Dad,” she murmurs.
He groans, moves faster, hips lifting instinctually, pushing his cock, still buried beneath layers, into her warmth. Her heart races as he grunts and abruptly stops, still holding her to him.
“I’m sorry.” His head drops to her shoulder, his own defeat evident as their sugar-coated moment grows stale and hardened with each passing second of silence. “Fuck,” he whispers. His hands leave her, as if she burned him. Maybe she did. Did she tempt him? Was this her own fault? How many outs had he offered before they both crashed into one another? “Fuck, I’m sorry. Fuck.”
Alina numbly climbs off her father. Glances at the wet spot, the stain on his pants, her cheeks burning. She falls back onto the couch, back to her side, numb as Jonathan and Mira face their own consequences. Her hand darts out for the remote but he reaches it first, turning off the television in haste. Inhales a deep breath as he turns to her.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats—maybe because she’s yet to speak. Maybe because the situation warrants saying it more than once. “Alina, I…”
“I started it,” she whispers. “It was my fault.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t…” His chest rises and falls in quick concession, his body reacting in an opposite nature to her own. His fights against reality with bruised and bloodied fists, while her own succumbs to a frozen cage she wonders if she will ever break out of. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your fault.”
Alina only nods.
She should have said Grisha , right? Just to say she did? Because the right thing is to want the moment to stop? But she didn’t want to, didn’t need to. Like all those years ago, she didn’t— doesn’t— feel as if she isn’t in control. Instead, she realizes now, it is the moment she first watched her father lose control.
—
The scene doesn’t break cleanly like the first, with a safeword slicing through past fantasies clean through to the bone. They sit in silence, on opposite ends of the couch, as the past dissolves around them and they are left to face the consequences of the stark reality it cultivated.
“Did you actually regret it?” she murmurs. “Or—or was it planned?”
She’d never had the courage to ask, despite how the question has hovered over her existence since. In part because she knows the answer hardly matters when she is certain she cannot trust his words one way or another. He looks over at her, more bewildered than anything else.
“You think I asked for this? Wanted this? To lust over my own goddamn daughter?”
Lust , he said. Not love. A slip up, maybe. Or maybe, a recognition that in this particular memory, such specific heartstrings were not yet tangled.
“I—”
“I tried, Alina.” He leans forward, elbows on knees and head in his hands. She realizes she may not be the only one impacted by their crude reenactments. He seems drained in a way he hasn’t appeared since they arrived at the cabin. She tries to remember if he was so torn to pieces in her memories, but it is hard enough to see through her own turmoil clearly enough to interpret his too. “God knows I tried, but not hard enough.” He shakes his head. “I’m a weak man—but you already know that.”
She didn’t, doesn’t, know that though. Because in her memories, her father was still her father—her protector, her guide. It had not occurred to her that it was weakness, rather than cruelty or carelessness. Perhaps because weakness is the more forgivable crime and she could not, cannot, concede so much to him.
Alina says nothing. To agree sounds both too cruel and excuses actions she cannot possibly begin to.
“Are you alright?” he asks, finally.
She nods, gaze assessing. “Are you?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“I know that—I told you that.”
A wry smile. He stands and scratches at his beard. The jeans he wears now do not display the wet spot as vividly as the black pants did, but she can still see those black pants as clear as day in her mind. Remembers her father walking out of the room without another word to her.
Today, he looks at her; looks like he wants to do the same as he did then, like he wants to escape her, but hesitates this time. She remembers anew the look in his eye, sees it now just the same as she did then, before he walked away. Beneath the apologetic gleam, something sharper—something like resentment, like anger, like blame. The same emotions that have made a home out of her in the years since.
“I’m going to get started on dinner.”
He reaches the doorway before she calls for him. He turns slowly, reluctantly. Waiting.
“Was it a lie?”
“Which part?”
Alina opens and closes her mouth. Lets the vague admission settle over her—an answer to something, but she doesn’t know which question to ask.
“I meant—when you said it wasn’t my fault.”
He exhales, tension draining from him. Walks over to her and leans down to press a kiss to the crown of her head. Only remembers she shouldn’t have let him when his lips are long gone.
“Of course it wasn’t, Alinochka. Of course it wasn’t your fault. I’m your father—I should have walked way. I should have walked away sooner than that day.”
She swallows, nods. This time, lets him do just that.
—
They eat in silence. A simple penne in vodka sauce with caesar salad that doesn’t, to her great relief, remind her of childhood. She supposes she should have been more stubborn. Should have cooked her own dinner instead of letting him care for her. Should have at least taken it to her room in protest, as a reminder to him of what he lost, as a way to throw his actions back in his face. She doesn’t though. In fact, she can barely summon the anger she arrived with. Still feels as numb as she did when sitting on the couch, in the aftermath of the betrayal—to themselves, to each other. To her mother and to the greater rules of society that exist for very good reason. Instead, grief eclipses anger. She feels gutted by what they became. The loss of their relationship, of any sense of normalcy in their lives, lays like a corpse on the table between them now. Somewhere to the right of his glass of water and just above her picked at caesar salad.
“Are you sure you want to continue this?” he asks.
“Are you?”
He swallows a sip of water. “I told you that I would do anything for you, and I meant that. If this is still what you want, we will continue.”
She stares at him. “It’s still what I want,” she insists. To him. To herself.
“What’s next?”
“What else could possibly be next?”
He raises a brow. “Did you bring it with you?”
“Yes—a new version. I threw out the other years ago at the advice of my therapist.”
He nods. Picks at his pasta. Doesn’t seem nearly as hungry as he was last night. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”
—
When she thinks about this night, she thinks about choice . Not slipping or falling, not instinct, not weakness, not regret, and not even mistakes. She thinks of a step forward, something deliberate. Surely for her father more than her, but she does not exclude herself. Can admit that much, even now. Even if her father holds the responsibility and accountability, she cannot claim she did not willingly step forward with him when he held his hand out to her. She had taken it with relative ease, the same way she had when the choice offered was a ride in his red Mercedes-Benz convertible and a kiddie chocolate soft-serve with rainbow sprinkles.
She texts him that she is ready after leaving the box outside of the door of her Airbnb bedroom. Conjures thoughts of a childhood bedroom in late June. Crickets singing and the scent of hydrangeas carried on a light breeze on a cooler-than-usual night. Pastel pink sheets beneath a more adult comforter that she insisted on as a birthday gift months ago—not such childish colors, but instead a simple pattern of stone blue and burnt orange draped over her twin bed. The glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to her ceiling above the bed—the ones she keeps meaning to rip off because they’re far too childish, as Zoya had bluntly pointed out, but she hasn’t yet. She just keeps forgetting, is all.
The knock on her door is jolting. She exhales steadily. “Come in.”
He opens the door slowly. “Hey, sweetheart.”
Hesitates at the threshold, as he has in every interaction they’ve had in the two weeks since she dry humped him to completion on their living room couch. Since she felt the shudder of her own father’s orgasm beneath her. She glances at the small box he has in his hand.
“Hey.”
“What are you up to?”
Alina shrugs. “Just reading.”
Her cheeks are already flushed. This is the moment, she had believed then— believes— that she has been on pins and needles over. Her mother is at a PTA meeting for at least another hour and her father must have decided that this is the time. The time for the awkward conversation about what occurred between them. An apology or condemnation or something in between. He sits down on the edge of her bed, but leaves plenty of space between them. There is hesitation in her father’s eyes, but that is now—not something she remembers from then. She considers calling Grisha simply to scold him for his poor acting, but decides it isn’t worth it.
“I got you something.” Clears his throat. Another deviation. “Something I think you’ll enjoy.”
Alina observes him quizzically as he hands her the sleek black box. Glances up at him for direction, but he only nods at her to open it, and so she does. Lifts the top to reveal a slim silicone toy, a bullet the length of her hand. Pastel pink, the same color as the sheets she has outgrown but has yet to replace. Her mouth goes dry—she is too young to see this, but old enough to know exactly what it is.
“Do you understand?”
“I mean…you want me to use it?”
“I think you’ll enjoy it,” he says, staring intently at her. “And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to help you with that too. Like…like before.” He swallows. “Would that be okay with you? Would you want that?”
Those are two different questions, ones that require different answers. But, as she did then, she only answers the latter, after a stilted beat. “Yeah—yes.” She exhales, looking down at the toy again. “Now?”
“If you’d like to.”
Alina hesitates, but ultimately nods. Curiosity wringing any self-control from her, want beating the self-preservation from her. Love for her father swallowing the regret that is already pooling in her stomach, shredded bits of it infecting her lust. Choice . This is where it truly begins.
“May I?” he asks, nodding at the box. She hands it back to him and he removes it from the package, setting the box aside. “Go ahead and remove your shorts—it’ll feel better that way.”
Alina blushes, but follows his command. Eyes on his face, while his eyes are drawn to her bare cunt after she is left in only her gray, oversized Ravka High Track & Field t-shirt. His gaze alone draws wetness between her legs and she resists closing them, watching her father with curiosity. He shuffles closer on the bed, sitting at her feet, her legs bent and cunt exposed. He reaches for her, one hand running up her thigh and handing her the vibrator with the other.
“Me?” she asks.
He nods. “Don’t turn it on yet—just rub it through your pussy.” Pussy . She shivers at the filth of the word, but he remains unfazed. “Get it nice and wet.” She glances between her legs and notices that they toy already glistens. Her father squeezes her thigh. “Good—that’s good.”
“Does it feel good?” he asks.
Alina nods. Anything else would be a lie. Her heart thunders in her chest, cunt pulsing, heat burning through her. Her toes are already curling when he looks between her legs again. “Go ahead and turn it on—just the lowest. Don’t overwhelm yourself.”
Alina nods again. She imagines him ordering this for his daughter or going to a store to buy it. Imagines the cashier who he purchased it from, who had no idea it was for his own sixteen year old. Imagines him unpacking it with care, charging it somewhere her mother wouldn't find it. She banishes the thought of her mother as immediately as it emerges, instantly sick at the reminder of her. They are betraying her, more than even themselves, aren’t they? No—no, she can’t think about that now. She switches on the toy and lets the vibration of it consume any thought, any guilt, any anxiety, as she slides it slowly through her folds
“Good girl,” he murmurs. “Does it feel good?”
Alina gasps when she runs it over her clit. Nods fervently.
“Go ahead and tease yourself,” he instructs. “It’s better not to run it directly over your clit at first—it might be too much.”
She arches her back as she slides the slippery bullet through the folds of her cunt, and explores the hood of her clit. Moans as she explores, her father’s hands exploring her body in tandem. Her calves, her thighs, her hips and lower belly. Tender strokes and movement that only spur her lust. Her free hand grasps at the front of his t-shirt, anchors her.
“I can’t,” she moans. “I can’t, I need—”
She works herself furiously, not quite able to get there. The pleasure is too acute. Too much and not enough all at once. He takes the toy from her, not reacting to the stickiness that now coats his hand too. Slides the toy between her folds, fingers grazing her cunt. Her pussy , as her father called it. He adjusts it, presses it just right against her clit. She cries out, on the precipice. Still too much. Too much, too much, too much—
“Grisha,” she calls, tears streaming down her face. Tears from pleasure, from overexertion.
The vibrator drops to the bed beneath her, still on. Her father—breathless, she realizes now—reaches down to turn it off before he climbs off the bed. He walks across the room, as far from her as possible without leaving the room. Grips the dresser, facing away from her. His breaths are heavy, given away by the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders.
She stares up at the ceiling, catching her own breath. Trying to make sense of the moment in front of her. Her cunt is still pulsing, dripping, not quite satisfied. But something else is satisfied in its place. She remembers how different that orgasm had felt back then—not peaked by her own actions, by the the roll of her hips over a pillow or her father’s leg, but by incessant and unavoidable pressure applied by her father. His body over her, the weight of his hand against her cunt, the toy his own tool rather than hers.
“Do you need me to leave?” A near growl. Anger, she realizes, but not aimed at her this time. Doesn’t hear the same resentment she witnessed in his eyes this afternoon.
“No.” She inhales a deep breath. “No—come back.”
She’s dripping as she stares up the ceiling. Laying at a crossroads as she feels the bed dip under her father’s weight. Part of her considers it—considers instructing her father to watch. Instructing him to watch as she makes herself come, without a hand of his on her body. Would such an act be one of control? Resistance even? Or is the thought of rewriting her history not only childish, but a betrayal to her sixteen year old self? She knows, trusts, her father would allow it now. But that doesn’t change his actions nine years ago, doesn’t change their past. She isn’t here to rewrite her past, but to move through it without crippling fear.
She hands her father the vibrator. “Go ahead.”
“Are you—”
“Do it, Dad.”
She closes her eyes for a beat, listens to the switch of the vibration buzzing again. He slides it along her cunt, working her up again. It doesn’t take long. Not with her father’s hands on her again, with his own battered breath landing on her neck.
“I can’t. I can’t, I need—”
The vibrator is pressed against her, an inescapable pleasure that suffocates. Her hands instinctively grip her father, one tangled in his t-shirt and the other digging into his bicep. She looks up at him, because the image is one she still remembers. The strange mangled determination on his face as he pressed harder and as she cried out, tears streaming, overstimulated as her orgasm lifted her off the bed.
“Daddy,” she cried, arching into his body. “Daddy!”
The vibrator is gone in an instant, turned off and tossed aside. Replaced by his warm hand as he cups her, lets her cling to him as she catches her breath. His hand is a comfort, a necessity, and she arches into it. Lets him hold her, soothe her. A balm to a wound torn open with his own two hands.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers. Gently lowers her back onto the bed, still stroking her. Still petting her pussy. “There you go—that’s better now. Feels good, doesn’t it? The emptiness after?”
She never did understand his words. Even now, cannot. Post-orgasm bliss was never possible with him. As soon as she was pushed over the edge, reality sunk its teeth into her. Dread, regret, nerves—so many things that took up too much space to ever be labeled emptiness —took root. But she doesn’t point that out now, just as she didn’t then. Only sighs as he her body levels with her; that was pleasure. Black, and rotten, but pleasure in its most base form.
He sweeps her hair from her face and looks into her eyes as if examining her for signs of illness.
“I’m alright,” she whispers.
“Did it feel good?”
She nods. “Yeah—yeah, it did.”
Not a lie, but it feels like appeasement anyway. She knows an affirmative answer was important to him. Likely a piece of this night that he can bottle and use to soothe his guilt later, if he carries any at all. It’s alright, she enjoyed it. She wanted this. It’s alright.
He nods and rolls them onto their sides, her back pressed against his chest. The stickiness between her legs is like nothing she’s experienced, but she tries to ignore the evidence of the mess they’ve made. Tries to sink into his embrace as he holds her, hand stroking her belly under her t-shirt.
“It helps to be held afterwards,” he explains. As if she didn’t know that. As if human tenderness is something that needs explanation. Perhaps it is for him. Perhaps there is nothing instinctual about it for him. She only nods.
“I love you,” he whispers. “You know that right?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Swallows, her tongue heavy in her mouth. “I love you too.” The words taste bitter in a way they never have.
For a moment, she lets the present float to the surface again. Weak; like father, like daughter. She missed this, missed him. It is her greatest betrayal to herself, but she isn’t in the practice to lying to herself anymore. She missed this comfort, the scent of him, the scratch of his beard against her cheek. Missed her father—not as before or as after, but in totality. Completely, infinitely. She missed him.
She wonders if he too has slipped from the past as the minutes tick by in silence. But then, with a squeeze of her thigh, he speaks. He picks up where they left off.
“I’m going to clean you up, alright?” he murmurs, disentangling from her.
He stands, unable or unwilling to hide his erection from her. Tented sweatpants an accusation in itself; see what you do to me?
She swallows. “Do you want…”
He glances down. “No,” he claims—more forcefully than intended, if she had to guess. “I’ll…take care of it later.”
Disappears into her ensuite bathroom before she can answer and returns with a warm wet cloth seconds later. She spreads her legs on instinct, watching as he licks his lips. Looks as if he wants to ask something, but decides against it and runs the warm cloth between her legs. Washes her with the gentleness of a child, with an intentiveness far beyond her age. It soothes, she can admit. It soothes.
He leans down to kiss her on the forehead. “Remember to clean the vibrator before using it again. Just soap and water, okay sweetheart?”
She nods. Stares up at him from bed, and despite everything, still wants . Except what she wants now, more than anything, is to taste his lips. Wonders if that’s allowed, given everything that transpired, but is too afraid to ask. Doesn’t understand the new rules yet.
Now, in their Airbnb, her father stands awkwardly. Probably wonders if he should simply bid her goodnight and leave. That is what the scene requires.
“Do you—are you alright? Do you need anything more tonight?” he asks instead.
Alina closes her legs. Sits up and pulls her sleep shorts back on before hugging her legs to her chest. So many questions. Piled up in her throat, cutting off the air supply after so many years. But she still cannot bring herself to ask them, because what would be the point?
“Will you stay for a bit?” She surprises even herself with the request. The vulnerability they require, the cracks between them. “I just…not as this. Just as my Dad, like before.”
“I’m still your Dad.”
She looks him up and down. Belatedly realizes he no longer has an erection; it is pathetic, how much that means to her. Weakness, she thinks again. Not his, but her own. She reaches for a book. One she brought, but didn’t start. Didn’t know if she would want to read. She offers it to him and he steps forward willingly, like the gesture means the world to him. When he reads the title, his lips twist into a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.
“ Chronicles of Narnia, hm?” He takes the book and settles down on the bed beside her. “Haven’t thought of these in a while.”
“They were my—”
“Your favorite,” he finishes. “I know that—of course, I know that. Who do you think read all these two you?”
The ache in Alina’s chest is a chasm as her father flips to the first page and begins to read aloud. She focuses on the glasses perched on his nose, the warm tone of his voice that was once as familiar to her as her own. Lets herself slip into a more inviting past than the one she has spent the last days navigating. Walks through the closet with an open heart, all the while knowing that reality will be waiting with its claws out and teeth bared when she reemerges again.