Save Me, Daddy

“That’s okay,” I say inanely, caught in his glance. Of course it’s not okay. But neither is wanting to crawl into this stranger’s arms, and I feel like that as well.

“Go on up and get changed, Jordan honey,” my mother finally says, and I rip my eyes away from Mr. King.

“Yes.” I walk up the carpeted spiral staircase and head to my old room, the path I’ve walked so many times before. In my mind I hear Kelsey’s voice, feel her fingers wrapping around my hand and pulling me along, me falling behind, her urging me on to whatever scheme she wants to pull. I was her sidekick, her security blanket, and without her, I’m completely lost.

I push the door open into my room, and crumple on the bed, still in my dress. It’s so surreal. Kelsey, where are you? Why did you leave me? All those mourners standing around, eating hors d’oeuvres, shifting from foot to foot, spouting platitudes. I wanted to jump up and strike the food out of their hands and yell, “She was only twenty-three! How can you people just stand there! The whole world has changed!”

But it hasn’t, I guess. Not for them.

I saw the same look in the eyes of her mother and her father. The look of being completely lost, bereft of hope. I would have commiserated with them more, but they never really warmed up to me even when we were kids. They weren’t exactly warm people. Their living room was one of those with plastic covering the furniture. It was more of a sitting room that people weren’t allowed to sit in.

Kelsey and I spent most of our time as kids at my house, in this room. As I enter, the smell of it is stifling—the slight mustiness, the memories, the near-presence of Kelsey. The feeling that threw me out of here when I was eighteen mostly on Kelsey’s urging is still egging me to leave.

I stood there at the funeral home with her mother, playing with the napkin I was holding, trying to hide the fact that I was ripping it into tiny shreds. Her mother, clearly uncomfortable and looking everywhere but at me, said that Kelsey left me something in the will, and that I would have to attend the reading. I have no idea what it might be. I know she had some money. I wouldn’t be surprised if she left me a thousand dollars or something. Or maybe it will be like one of those soap operas and I’ll get a video of her talking. That would be spooky.

“Jordan, if you’re watching this, I’m dead now.” I shudder at the thought. But part of me is still curious as to what she might want to give me on the occasion of her death.

Whatever. A will is the last thing I want to be thinking about right now. It’s been too much, thinking of Kelsey all day, thinking of her dying, of me being left alone. I feel hopeless at facing life without her.

When she was still alive, I never faced the fact that I relied on her too much. I just put it up to being best friends. But I was always more dependent on her than she on me.

It’s too much to think about.

I reach up and undo the hook and pull down the zipper of my black dress, then strip it off. It’s funny—sometimes I have the odd feeling that I’m being watched when I undress, but not here in my old home. Must be a little quirk I have. Still, something inside me feels like putting on a show. And for Mr. King, too.

I imagine his eyes on me as I raise one foot onto my childhood bed and peel off my black pantyhose. I shimmy out of the other leg, and then slowly pull down the black thong I was wearing, not to be sexy, but to avoid panty lines. It catches between my legs and sticks for a second, probably because of the wetness that slicked my folds when Mr. King touched me.

Why am I thinking of him? My mind is uncontrollable right now. Is it just a reaction to Kelsey’s funeral? It all feels so strange, so fake. Like life is a performance. I unhook my bra and slide it off my shoulders, clutching the cups to my chest as if I’m embarrassed, before letting it fall down onto the floor. I thought being back at my parents’ house would make me feel like myself again, but then Mr. King showed up.

Now I’m naked. Part of me wants him to appear at the door.

“Jordan,” he would say. “Excuse me. I didn’t know you were changing...” His words would trail off and he’d stand there, the bulge in his dress pants getting bigger until it was clearly defined, the shaft, the head. He’d be frozen for a moment, wanting to leave, wanting to stay. Wanting to bend me over, let his cock free, and plunge every inch into me. “I’m sorry,” he’d say, “but I just can’t help myself. You’ve just gotten too sexy. And you’re going to have to obey me.”

My hand trails down between my legs and I try not to make any sound, but I want to moan when I come in contact with my slick clit. I look at myself in my childhood mirror, painted pink above a pink vanity, and see my nipples, hard and proud, the long stretch of my stomach, the recently stripped-bare mound. That brings me back too, to see my sex so naked, like it must have been when I first met Mr. King.

I draw my hand away and walk over to the dresser. I should get dressed. There has to be some old clothes here. I pull open the underwear drawer and find some old panties I used to wear and a bralette. The bralette is aqua-colored and lacy, and the panties are cotton with an aqua lace trim with the day of the week printed in girlish script on them. The bra goes on easily but the panties are a little small, though they’ll do. They only cover half my butt. I imagine Mr. King again.

“Jordan...” he says, running a finger under the lace. “You’ve grown up so fast, but you’ll always be a little girl to me.” His hand snakes between the fabric and my soft skin, flirting with the cleft between my buttocks. “Have you been behaving yourself since I saw you last?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, and my voice comes out squeaky. It always does when I’m nervous. Then I fall onto the bed, and with a few strokes of my clit, I explode into a violent orgasm, bucking on the bed.

When I wake up, I feel a tightness on my cheeks that means I’ve been crying in my sleep again. Realizing I’m exposed on the bed, just wearing the little panties and bralette I had on, I clutch the duvet around my body. What am I doing?

I’m filled with shame

and embarrassment. Fantasies are one thing, but anyone could have come up here, including Mr. King, and seen me at any time. My cheeks burn and I cringe into the pillow.

Jordan, you’re out of control.

My funeral clothes are strewn around the floor. In the dim twilight, they’re just losing their definition. In a few moments, you might not be able to tell what they are, but if anyone came by the door while I was asleep they would have seen the remains of my impromptu strip show.

I have to get out of here. Being at my parents’ house in my old room isn’t doing me any good. Everything is just too close.

Maybe I should take the money that Kelsey apparently left me and go somewhere else. Just get out of town for a while, where nobody knows me and I don’t have to answer to anyone. That would be perfect.

She and I used to talk about that kind of thing all the time. In her dorm at college she used to have a map over her bed, and she’d put red push pins in every place she wanted to visit, and blue ones in places she had already been to. The yellow ones meant first priority and Paris had a few yellow stuck in it, for good measure.

If she did leave me money that is. I can’t imagine spending it on anything else. Besides, it would be a nice tribute to her to go to one of the places we’d always talked about. Why not start with her favorite?