Sexual Annihilation

A family gathering with friends, altogether about a hundred people, an amateur band playing, people getting up to dance, my wife with her ancient uncle, me with my daughter, groups of women, men standing on the sidelines watching, some couples looking expert.

Looking around, seeing an unknown woman of stunning beauty dancing with a much older man, looks like her grandfather. Wrenching my eyes away, then keeping a lookout for her. Later, bumping into her, inviting her to dance, she agreeing, but strangely, neither reluctant or enthusiastic, as if complying mutely. The dance ending, both of us drifting off our separate ways.

Later, my wife telling me the tale. The unknown woman, daughter of a family friend, never previously been seen because of never being allowed out of a rehabilitation centre. Or hardly ever. At the end of each long rehabilitation, apparent recovery, release, but her old heroin dealers then finding her again, waiting their moment, plying her, ensnaring and enslaving her again.

Before all that, my wife telling me, she was a shining star, a gifted student, a blooming beauty, giving up all other interests to become a ballerina. Maybe some unknown thing went wrong, maybe she found the wrong friends, maybe she just wasn’t quite good enough as a dancer. Anyway, one day, a phonecall to the parents, you’d better come and be with your daughter. Arriving, finding her confined to bed, she’d disappeared for a week, eventually found in nearby woods, naked, confused, needle-punctured, bruises and welts over her whole body.

And apparently used for sex so often as to eradicate the whole idea of sex other than as a means of getting her next fix. The damage apparently permanent and irreversible. Once vibrant, now just a meek, compliant rag doll.

Each episode of rehabilitation, the daughter emerging with stunning looks and ballerina body restored. Soon to be the plaything of dealer gangs. My wife telling me, better enjoy seeing her now, you won’t see her again like this, she’ll either be spaced-out and broken-backed, or she’ll be in rehab again. The process incidentally bankrupting her parents.

Driving home, thinking, hurting. The terrible loss of such a lovely person. Somehow made worse by the sexual annihilation. That precious sexual germ, such a wonderful thing no matter how difficult, no matter how protean, how terrible to have it hollowed out entirely.

Without Complications

Back from Jenny’s, feeling terrific. Brewing coffee, taking in its smell, pouring a mug. Standing at the window sipping it, checking out the scene outside. London still in confusion after days of riots, but boarded up windows somehow looking ridiculous.

Jenny’s sexual touch continuing to work its magic. All problems now somehow soluble. My wife, happy in her sexless way, incomprehensible to me, but still a good person to share a life with, maybe it’s best thing for me, having an arms-length connection, it gives me freedom to seek adventure elsewhere.

Carol, maybe I was asking the impossible with her. A relationship without complications, maybe no such thing exists. Well, sipping coffee, thinking, it does actually, but there’s only one way. You visit an escort, you pay your money, you have your time, everyone knows where the boundaries are. An excellent way to strip out the complications.

Another sip of coffee. Thinking more about Jenny, her offer of a free blowjob, how sweet she is to suggest such a thing. But not in fact taken up by me, I insisted on paying, she didn’t demur. A smile from her, mutual recognition of meanings, the offer made to signify warmth, payment made to signify boundaries.

A warm glow sweeping over me, just thinking of her. Any time I want to see her, I can, more or less. And if I don’t want to see her for a while, no problem.

The phone ringing. My daughter. Please daddy, I’m supposed to be home by four, do you mind if we make it a bit later? How much later, sweetheart? Don’t know. Well, ring me back when you know, sweetheart, until then it stays at four. Okay, eight o’clock, is that okay daddy? No, sweetheart, especially not with all these riots. Ah please, daddy. No sweetheart, actually my max is five o’clock, either agree with that or stick with four. Oh, okay, bye.

Raising the coffee mug to Jenny, thinking, you see, immediate payoff, managed to handle that situation with my daughter without acrimony, would have been impossible if you hadn’t settled my body down. Smiling, reaching for the coffee jug, refilling.

Stay Alive, Stay Vulnerable

Dammit, still can’t get Carol out of my system. Sitting in the train with my daughter, tagging along an a shopping trip for clothes, her fingers busy sending texts to her friends. Looking out the window, my insides like a dishtowel twisted tight to wring it out, all I can do is think of Carol and her vibrancy and her smile and her twinkling intelligence.

The train stopping. The door swishing open. Passengers leaving, passengers joining, the door swishing shut. Life continuing.

Thinking, Carol, beautiful times together, every moment. Meeting, tentative steps closer, joining up, making love. The moments becoming even more painfully beautiful as they recede into the past.

But more than that, their beauty, they lay partly in the promise of things to come. A promise now snatched away. The wrench still bearing its cargo of pain. Now, on a trip with my daughter, stomach still wringing.

My daughter looking at me, patting my hand, you okay daddy? Sure, sweetheart, just thinking about things. A brief shared smile, then her attention distracted, phone bleeping, a text from a friend.

The train rattling on. Thinking again. Carol. Moments together, purest when taken for what they are, mere evanescent flickers. Yet their residue enduring, the grasping mind refusing to let them go, precious memories forming. Inescapable, the hope and expectation of more.

So you slide into old stratagems, secure the future together. A weird alchemy taking over. The passing moment dislodged from its primacy, crowded out by plans and schemes and dreams of what’s to be. And thus by stealth vitality leaks away and sclerotic staleness starts its slow ascent.

My daughter patting my hand again, texting duties done. So what are you thinking about, daddy? Oh, just about life and the crazy world we live in, sweetheart.

Well, another eternal human conundrum. Stay in the moment, disallow the past, refuse to build a future, stay alive, stay vulnerable. Or retreat into security, feel safe, succumb to staleness. To hell with it, my life’s had enough of staleness’s suffocations, the moment with all its cruel pangs, that’s my choice.

So, come on then, pull out of this mood, spend the moment now, with my daughter.

Sexual Formation, Sexual Reformation

School holidays and my daughter staying for a week, an opportunity to spend some time together. Thoughts of happy families quickly dispelled, however, she quickly making clear the main attractions, namely, relaxation of the absent mother’s rules, the opportunity to hang out with friends, and shopping for clothes.

Oh well, teenage years. Can’t fight them, may as well roll with the punches, stay relaxed. After two days of an empty house, a change in tone, suddenly rooms filled with my daughter and her friends, silence no longer a possibility, chatter and music now my daily companions.

Taking a break, walking to the park, thinking. My daughter and her friends, all of them girls, snippets of their conversations filtering through, mostly about boys, who’s cute, who’s not. A consensus developing as to the cutest. Hearts beating faster at the prospect of going out with him.

Something anthropological here. The boy’s desirability driven not by how attractive the girl finds him, rather by what her friends think. Some sort of submission to communal wisdom.

Returning to the house. Oh good, silence. Not for long. My daughter and her friends piling back through the door. All of them smiling, friendly, chatting. Polite to me. Later, talking with my daughter, asking, why don’t you and your friends hang out at their houses, why here so much, the answer coming quickly, oh, they prefer it here, their parents just lecture them, you don’t, we like just being left alone.

Next day, more of the same. Clothes, hairstyles, shoes. Boys' clothes, hairstyles, shoes. More anthropology. Forget the inner boy, concentrate on the displays of wealth or its proxies. Then compete with your friends for the one with the most.

Thinking about Carol. I wonder if she was like that once. Maybe it’s how sexual preferences are formed. Part of it anyhow. Still, Carol seemed almost the opposite, showing no interest in my wealth or otherwise, in fact, she seemed uninterested in the trappings, as if relieved to be free of them, like a maturation, grown out of childish teenage ways.

Sexual formation, sexual reformation. Amazing how it never really settles. My daughter and her friends, they’re just starting out on a long mazy rock-strewn road.

The Balance, Everything

Early morning on my bicycle, skies clear but rain promised by forecasters. The newly lubricated gears spinning nicely. Good speed around Regents Park, ninety minutes down, feeling good. Then remembering the Tour de France on the television, the cyclists in that, and feeling humble.

An email from Carol last night, Hi R, still glowing, Cxxx. Replying, Same here honey, Rxxx. Nothing further. The exchange made sweeter by the brevity.

Strange how it works. Our brazen lovetalk at the restaurant, like adolescents. Now, the stopping short of incontinence, like adults. The balance, everything. Like on the bicycle.

The wheels beneath me still spinning, a little slower for the last quarter hour. A first spit of rain, so fine as to wonder if it was real or imagined, then another.

Pondering the nature of love affairs. Times gone by, I would have been too intense, two or three women, if I’d just eased up a bit things would have lasted longer. But my need was too great, they filled too deep a hole, half an hour without contact and I’d become desperate. The intensity, too much for them, too much for me, quickly burning everything out.

Now it’s different. With Carol, it’s like going to a secret corner in a garden, where the world is new and the cacophony is muted and the fragrance is sweet. But you don’t always have to go to it, this secret garden corner, it’s mostly enough just to know it’s there.

This difference in me, maybe it’s because of Jenny, my body now no longer in sexual starvation. Emerging from emaciation, receiving nutrition, building strength. Robust and healthy in the knowledge that it doesn’t need to worry about sex. Now, if hormones nag, I can always see Jenny, don’t have to pester Carol.

Strange how that works too. Here I am, looking after my own needs in my own way, result, everyone around me happier. My wife, Carol, probably work colleagues too. And my daughter. All free of that irritant, a frustrated man taking it out on everyone else. Yet if I told them how I did it, oh, sure, I’ve been much more at peace since visiting escorts, they’d be shocked and I’d be ostracized.

The rain starting in earnest now. Life’s rich mosaic. Best be heading in.

She Zings My Mind

Arriving at home, head still full of Carol. My wife in the kitchen, early from work for once. A quick peck on the cheek, hi R, thought it might be nice to give you a break from the cooking, why don’t you sit down, put your feet up.

Doing as suggested. Pondering, that’s the thing with marriage, its intensity fades, a necessary dynamic, being together for so many years has that slow effect, another day can’t have the excitement as when you’re more often apart. Today, the one day my wife comes home early, you’d have thought that she’d want to be intimate, refresh our sexual relations, absent now for months, or is that years? But no, just the steady domestic routine.

Moving into the spare room, home to occasional guests and my sports kit. Picking out a bicycle, flipping it upside down, checking the gears. Getting on with cleaning and adjustments and lubrication.

Working on the bicycle, still pondering. Marriage’s intensity fading, it’s inevitable, but it’s also just as well. Say my wife was like Carol, desperate for sex. That would be fun for a bit. But then what? Surely the fire would burn out. Or if not, it would start to hurt, to burn. Only so much heat a human can take.

So it fades. Leaving the humdrum workings of everyday life. Steady, health-giving, untraumatic. Suitable platform for other enterprise, such as work or bringing up children. My daughter, coming to stay with us this weekend, she’ll feel relaxed and secure, she’ll have the requisite mental space, unsullied by parental tension.

Spinning the bicycle wheel, hearing machinery’s satisfying song. Still pondering. Always gets back to the same thing. The steady domestic routine, necessary, sure, but also containing a crucial lack. No excitement. To be steady, domestic and routine, it can’t be sexual. And life without sexual excitement, is that really life?

Ask twenty people, you’d get twenty different answers. Some just prefer the unsexual. Well, good luck to them. Me, I need extra. And now with Carol I seem to have it.

Dammit, the thought of her, she zings my mind. Wonder when I’ll see her again.

Free Love

Looking after my daughter for the weekend. Friday evening, laughter, messing about, chatting. Saturday morning, different mood, time spent with a father being an annoying distraction from doing cool things, such as hanging out with friends.

An argument starting, she wants to meet some friends at the coffee shop, wants to go by herself, doesn’t want anyone to walk her there. The argument becoming heated, from her side, she doing all the talking. Eventually, stopping. A pause, clear anticipation of unreasonable fatherly response. Sure darling, of course you can walk there by yourself, you do a good job looking after yourself in other things, you’re big enough to do this, just make sure your phone’s turned on, make sure you’re back on time, or if you’re running late, phone me.

Time to go, and my daughter ready to leave. Her clothes changed, now jeans and a teeshirt, zany lettering with the message, I believe in Free Love. The expected fatherly reaction, not forthcoming. Best to rise above such things, let her do the things young girls do.

After her departure, the house silent. Thinking about Free Love. Two most complex and intractable concepts. Achieving freedom, it’s like creating a vacuum, stuff gets sucked in to gum it up. Love, it’s a mushy empty word, seeking to make generic and limitless that which can only be specific and particular. Free Love, a great slogan for a teeshirt, to be worn only by the innocent ignorant young.

Freedom and whatever-love-means, about to be tested. An email last night from Carol, hi R, I’ve just had a bit too much tequila, probably should just shut up, but this last week, firelight flickering and starry skies above, it would have been so good to have had you here to chat to, maybe you could have stroked my arm again, made me tingle, let’s meet up again, I’ll be back Wednesday, email me with a plan, I’ll email back as soon as I can pick it up, can’t always do that out in the sticks here, I’m pressing the Send button right now before I can change my mind and chicken out love Carol x.

A tingle thus entering my own life. Thinking, sometimes it’s best to play it cool, let some time pass, this isn’t one of them, she’s opened up to me, made herself vulnerable, I must repay the trust. Emailing her, hey lovely Carol, great to hear from you, firelight and starry skies, I’d love to be with you, why don’t you settle in when you get back and email me then, we’ll definitely do something, love R x.

Eternal Happiness

A phonecall last night from my ex-wife, Hi R, would you mind looking after our daughter for a couple of days. Her voice continuing, about to give explanation, where she’s going, why she needs me to step in. Interrupting her, fine, no explanation needed, you’re already carrying nearly all the weight, it’s the least I can do. Thinking, if she gives me the reasons it’s as if I have to assess whether they’re good enough.

Thanks, R, that’s great. Be careful with our little treasure though, she’s hitting teenage years with a bang, I’ve already had to say no to plans for midnight sleepovers and body piercing and tattoos, it’d help if you and I have a united front. Sure, of course, I feel the same way, it’s good she has a strong and wise mother. Well, R, it would be if she did, not sure I’ll be able to stay strong against the onslaught in the years ahead.

Now, making tea in the kitchen, my daughter sitting opposite, head down, texting something into her phone. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. A couple of spots showing on her chin. The tea placed before her, ignored. Finishing the text message. Looking at me cursorily. Twisting an earpiece in one ear, sounds of music zissing out.

Recognizing the tune, some girl band singing something about a boy and the love he inspires. My daughter tapping the beat with her foot. Dreams of boys and love and everlasting happiness swirling around in her hormone jangled mind, sweeping away any chance of sensible chats with boring fathers.

Oh well, so it goes. This stuff will saturate her thinking for years, pouring her mind into the same tired cast. Dreams of an ideal mate, finding one, the remaining future relegated to a postscript. Hey, little daughter, that remaining future relegated to a postscript, the bit that starts after age twenty, if you’re like your father you’ll discover that there’s where the interesting stuff begins, starting first with having to discard all the guff about eternal happiness you so uncritically imbibed starting age twelve.

Still, looking at her now, playing with the spots on her chin, reading some new text message, occasionally scowling at me, it’s her life, nothing a father can do, she has her own future, complete with freedom to make mistakes, same as the rest of us.

Years Of Experience

Walking home from school with my daughter, keeping an eye out for changes. Last night, a phonecall from her mother, hi R, just thought you’d like to know, our little daughter’s now a grown up daughter, she’s just had her first period, this is a good time to bring out your sensitive side.

Now, walking home with the not-yet teenager, chatting. Hey, look, it’s five o’clock already and there’s still light in the sky, it’ll soon be spring, long days, lots of fun, do you fancy trying something new this year, maybe get some new rollerskates.

Polite responses from her, but no interest in fatherly suggestions. The world constructing itself anew in her mind, the mainstay being that there are things that women understand and that men definitively don’t. Such things being everything that’s important. All other things, such as rollerskates, mere male trivia.

My job, stay normal, grounded. Not too difficult, years of practice, knowledge painfully acquired that no other way works, when a woman’s hormonally jangled, if you take her on, you pass through a meatgrinder and lose the argument anyway. Male forbearance, a small price to pay for not having to go through it myself. All well rehearsed, just have to apply it.

Passing a coffee shop, looking through the window, seeing young people looking cool. My daughter also noticing. Hey darling, would you like to stop for a hot chocolate? A departure from our routine. My daughter’s face lighting up. Then thinking again. School uniform. Being seen in a cool place with her dad. Maybe not.

Continuing our walk together, both of us in silence now. Me thinking, I’d like to keep communications open, say to her, oh, your mother told me, well done. Keep it light, don’t make a big thing of it. But the years of experience nudging. It might be no big thing for me, for her it’s huge, touch on the subject and it could set off a box of firecrackers. Leave it for another day.

Arriving home, putting on the kettle to make tea. My daughter throwing her bags aside, tripping over them, banging her elbow against a wall. Looking up to see if I’d seen. But experience kicking in again, one of the mugs suddenly discovered to have a strange thing that needs fixing, our eyes not crossing, no explanations needed.

Putting out the mugs of tea, watching the curls of steam, thinking, men, women, sometimes there’s a chasm between them that can’t be bridged, wisdom lies in recognizing that and not even trying.

Fine Sexual Line

Snow thick all over the park, an event in London too rare and exciting for an eleven-year-old daughter to contain her patience for long. The shops quickly selling out of sleds, but one luckily obtained, a plastic disc with a handle, now dragged behind her back up the snowy hill, laughing with her friends, frantically positioning for another slide down it.

Proceedings occasionally halted, a quick run to my side, a breathless summary of the last slide, hey dad did you see how far I went, this sled is amazing. Quick hug, off again. The air filled with laughter from children excited by the thrills and parents thrilled by children’s excitement.

Afterwards, sitting on a sofa watching television, my daughter exhausted, nestled at my side. An interesting dynamic, sometimes she avoids physical contact, sometimes she’s indifferent, other times like today she reaches out. Leaving me to draw a fine fatherly line, welcoming but not overly intimate, warm and inviting when she’s reaching out, unfazed when she’s not.

My wife offering slices of fruitcake. I wonder how things were between her and her father, just one perceived rejection from him, intended or otherwise, and the physical seed of doubt is sown, the sense of being unattractive to men. My daughter unconsciously now applying the same test, sitting beside me, soaking up the idea that her physical presence is something enjoyed by me. Utterly unsexual, more like pre-sexual. When she becomes fully sexual her father will be important only by dint of categorical exclusion.

Thinking about my wife again, that may well be how it started, an edgy relationship with an over-critical father, seeing herself as repellant, mentally putting in place a shield to protect herself against all men, now part of her fabric. Or maybe she was always going to be unsexual, who knows?

My daughter caught up in the television action, some cartoon mouse about to be caught by a fox, her slice of cake suspended in pause between plate and mouth. The mouse escaping, the cake eaten. She jumping up, going off to the next room, some new adventure, physical closeness over. A daughter constructing her worldview, posing a test of some sort for her father, marking criteria not disclosed, results only to be revealed after decades if at all. I hope I did okay.

Explode in My Mouth Baby

Firing up the escort website, finding Jenny’s profile. Excitement building. Not for long however. A brief message inserted at the top, gone on holiday, see you in the new year.

A sense of deflation taking hold, lasting all day. Gradually pulling out of it, recognizing its source. Over the last week or so, first Jenny, then Jane, flooding my everyday thoughts, filling the world with a warm glow. The universe in harmony. Euphoric but unsustainable. Inevitably to be followed by a downer. Now, no email from Jane, Jenny on holiday, nothing. Downer duly arrived.

Soon however rescued by the pressure of everyday life, meetings to attend, meals to prepare, workouts to sweat through. My daughter’s Christmas play, her turn in her class to do Mary. A glass of mulled wine with her mother, still looking great, still looking at me ambivalently. A visit from overseas relatives.

Next day, still feeling out of sorts, fidgety, in need of woman’s skin. Firing up the website again. Checking the recent joiners, adding them to my hot list, weeding out the inactives. Checking the options. SweetSamantha, full-bodied, toned, blowjob specialist, cum explode in my mouth baby. Smiling out of the computer screen, nose and eyes anonymized by photoshop blur, yes that’s exactly what I need, a good blowjob, let’s telephone her.

Five rings, a foreign woman’s voice answering. Yes I’m free today. Yes, twelve o’clock is good. Half an hour is fine. I’ll text you the street and postcode, ring me again when you get here and I’ll give you the house number.

Getting ready to go, a quick shower to be ultra clean for her, checking the map, putting on winter clothes. A familiar low-key excitement building, like before an important sports match or business interview, this is what you’ve been waiting for but now it feels unremarkable, the world has slowed down and gone quieter, not even sure you want to go through with it, but carrying on anyway.

Arriving at the street, ringing again, getting final directions. That distinctive feeling, being sucked slowly into a vortex, a different reality. Pressing her number. The door buzzing open.

Sexual Glue

Alone in the house this week, my wife attending some conference. Pottering about, watching the television programs I choose, doing exactly what I want.

After two days, bored. The daily routine, broken. It’s regular punctuation, meals, now uninspiring. Normally it’s a pleasure, go to the supermarket, pick out vegetables, go to the meat or fish counter, choose some meat or fish, bring it home, start the cooking. Throughout, working out how to cook it, which combinations to try, thinking about its presentation on the plate, seeing my wife’s response.

This week my wife’s away, no point. Quick thoughtless meals, a frozen tomato sauce reheated, pasta, thrown together, absently eaten, hardly noticing it’s there. No pleasure in the responses to the meal presented. The day’s events unremarked. No discussion of work or family or friends or planned walks or books. Nobody to prepare bedtime chamomile for.

The telephone ringing, my daughter. Can she have some money, her friends are going to a theme park on Saturday, she wants to go too. Sure darling. Further conversation, some fatherly teasing, daughterly protestations, giggling. Putting down the phone. The house seemingly emptier. Nobody to share the phonecall with.

Watching television, quickly getting restless. Going to bed. Reading. Getting sleepy. Turning the light out. Settling to sleep. Nobody to say goodnight to, stroke her shoulder, hold her hand.

Never mind, she’ll be back soon. Funny, any other woman returning from a week away, you’d celebrate with some lovemaking, refresh your knowledge of each others’ bodies, release some tensions. A beautiful human interaction with intense therapeutic effect. Denied however to me, I know her well, it’s not how she works.

Once I’d have thought, the absence of sex, that means the glue’s not there, no point in being together. Now I think different. Sexual glue, it’s good at first, then it hardens and loses adhesion, then it’s just an impediment. Man and woman, the thing that holds them together isn’t sexual glue, it’s something deeper than that.

Strange how everything seems to point the same way. Let marriage do the things marriage is good at, find sexual release elsewhere.

Sexual Truths Too Strong

Sitting in a park with my daughter, watching the children in the playground, my daughter half wanting to play but half wanting to show that she’s too grown-up to do so. Chatting. Steering clear of drudge subjects such as school and house chores and whether it’s okay to wear lipstick at eleven. Just chatting for the warmth of the human interaction, no ulterior agenda.

A question bubbling to the surface, daddy why did you move out from mummy? My daughter trying to make sense of things, this being a crucial part of her world, understandably.

Explaining things to her, low key. Sometimes two people think they’ll get on, but it turns out after a few years they don’t any more. If they’re lucky they’ll have a daughter like you to brighten up their lives. These and suchlike vapidities being intended not so much as truths as a way of giving her salves to her wounds, also showing that discussing it’s fine.

The truth, more basic, too harsh for an eleven-year-old. Her mother, after my daughter was born, suddenly sexless. Hormones building up in me, eventually exploding. Drinks with a pretty woman at work, in bed together, a bright new dawn. Trying to keep it as an affair, the dynamics ultimately proving impossible, too much furtiveness, too much desperation.

In due course, splitting up with the new woman, turns out we both had urgent needs, too much prior deprivation, but once they’d been filled they weren’t enough to share a whole life together. Eventually, meeting my current wife, marrying. Now it turns out she’s sexless too.

My daughter however satisfied with the vapidities, at least for now. She’ll return for more over the years, I’m quite sure. Meanwhile, surrendering to a more pressing imperative, go and play on the swings.

What I could have said to her, but never will, is, shame the internet didn’t arrive earlier, I could have sorted out my sex urges with escorts, your mother and I could have still been together.

Father and Daughter

This weekend, my turn to look after my daughter. Watching her from the school gates, discussing something earnestly with her friends. Just eleven, and already a budding sexual awareness. Or at least, an awareness of sexual awareness amongst her friends.

My job, to be her father, the thing no other person on this planet can be. Maybe her mother’s new husband could be too, but one difference, for him it’s optional and renounceable, for me, for incontrovertible reasons of biology, it’s not.

Laughter breaking out amongst the eleven-year-olds. Me watching them. Thinking, what does this father thing involve? I think, try to preserve her innocence, let her sexual maturation be as natural and unhurried as possible.

Trouble is, that’s a near impossibility, listen to the knowingness of that laughter, the quickness with which my daughter will be laughed at or excluded if she isn’t knowing herself. Look at the shops we’ll pass on the way home, bras, sex toys, lipstick, teenage magazines with advice on blowjobs.

This however magnifying the father role, what I can be is the one person who doesn’t get involved in all that. Resolutely asexual in fact. A bit staid. Someone who she’ll shrug her shoulders about, say, he doesn’t get it, it’s a generation thing, things have changed so much since he was young.

My job, to be the one male that she can be absolutely certain loves her without reference to sex, loves her just because she is who she is.

Wonder if one day she’ll become like one of those girls I see online, escorts, pornstars, so on, Or do other stuff I’m not really interested in, bondage, lesbianism, suchlike. Well, her free choice, who am I to pass judgment? I’d rather not know. If I ever did, so what, she’s still my daughter, I’d still love her, the two of us in our own unique world, that other stuff belongs in another, and I’d act in such a way to make sure she knows that.

Dragging herself away from her friends, giving me a hug and a kiss. Holding my hand, walking away. Me thinking, well there’s a lot of time before all that becomes an issue, meanwhile I’ll just try to be a reference point of love and dependability as best I can.