I see London, I see France, Someone isn't Wearing Underpants

“Miss. Ravers?”

Heather was walking back to her table, though it was noticeably empty, when she heard the voice call to her. It wasn’t a voice she recognised but she was familiar with the tone; the same restraint and enforced respect that all of her father’s staff addressed her with. Only those outside of her father’s direct employment, such as the board, addressed her any differently. So, it was not with surprise that she turned towards the man, but with an inquisitiveness, curious why they would come to her with their problems rather than her father. In fact, she supposed, they should all now burden Zack with their issues.

“Sorry to disturb your evening,” the man in his mid-thirties said once he had her attention. “But these people said that they know you, and that it was an urgent matter. I was inclined not to believe them, but one of them is-”

“Ashley! And Ranger White?” Heather cut him off as her eyes fell on the two blondes, unnoticed at first because they had remained a few paces behind the concierge. She dismissed him with an irritated hand wave as the other women stepped closer. “What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” Her eyes went wide, and her mouth became dry. “The video?!”

“Don’t worry, Hannah has been dealt with. Her confession will be handed over to the police by the end of the night. That’s why I called Jennifer,” Ashley explained, quickly as she tried to ease Heather’s fears, and gesturing to the older woman by her side. “I thought having someone in law enforcement might speed things up at the station.”

“I see, so then, why are you here?” Heather said, nodding long with the story.

“Before we hand this in, and Lisa gets released, I wanted to talk to Zack. There’re some things I think need to be said between us before Lisa gets out,” Ashley scanned the room for the man in question. “I saw online that the announcement had been made, so he should have a few minutes to spare for me now, right?”

“If it really can’t wait…” Heather agreed, still a little confused but finding her mood lightening at Ashley’s lack of panic. “Let’s see. He was dancing with my mum just a moment ago…but I don’t see him now.” Heather looked around the ballroom as well, though with the crowd of people mingling and dancing it was rather difficult to see any more than a few dozen people at once anyway.

“Perhaps we should fan out and search for him?” Jennifer suggested, falling back on the training that had kept her safe thus far.

Ashley nodded in agreement and the three girls split up to search the large ballroom. Ashley and Jennifer set out in opposite directions, east and west, skirting along the outsides of the dance floor, glancing at the tables of people, drinking and in deep conversation. Heather, on the other hand, cut a path straight through, almost back the way she had come when she had left her dad on the dance floor. It was unsurprising then that he was exactly who she bumped into on her way back.

“Heather! I just saw your friend Ashley come in with Jennifer White. Did something happen?” Glancing around, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “The video…is it…”

“Relax, daddy,” she leaned in and stroked his arm reassuringly. “Everything’s fine. Jennifer is escorting Ashley to the station to deliver Hannah’s confession. She just wanted to speak to Zack first. There was something of a love triangle going on between them and Lisa before she was arrested.”

“Ashley, Lisa, and…” He stopped short of saying ‘you’, aware of the number of ears that surrounded them. Though the music and talking was loud enough to distort anything that might be said, there were always attentive eavesdroppers who could potentially hear anything that was directly stated. “That boy does get around.”

“I guess he takes after his father,” Heather teased, swaying her body into her dad’s solid frame. “And his sister.”

“Yes, it seems so…” Robert admitted, slightly dejected.

His persistent, overpowering libido wasn’t something he had wanted to pass on to the next generation, and yet it seemed that both his children had inherited the very thing that had cost him so much. Regret wasn’t something that bothered him; he lived his life the best he could, by making the most of the opportunities that had come his way, and, he had been successful for the most part. But there had been sacrifices, such as his marriage. The experiences he’d had since, affairs, sex parties, meeting a pretty girl on the street at breakfast and charming his way into her panties by lunch; they weren’t experiences he had ever wished he hadn’t happened, but he did sometimes wonder…what if?

“I’m about finished up here,” he said, but unsure about whether he still wanted to spend the night with Heather, his daughter, so he suggested, “perhaps we should all go to the police station.”

“They have Jennifer, I don’t think they need us. Besides, if you announce that you’re stepping down then a few hours later show up at a police station, the rumor mill will be wild that the only reason for your ‘retirement’ is incarceration,” Heather noted, biting her lip as she looked at father with her sultriest look possible. “Instead, we should just go back to the house and have our own ‘celebration’.”

That was what he had been afraid of. And it wasn’t as if the feelings that had developed for her had just gone away but after talking with Brooke, he had become aware that, as her father, it was his place to set her on the straight and narrow, not gleefully follow her down the broad path. He looked around, frustrated that he couldn’t speak clearly with all these people as he said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ve been…indulging you a little too much lately. We shouldn’t…I shouldn’t be allowing this.”

“Allowing this?” Heather sighed wearily, able to deduce that her father’s change of heart had only come after talking to her mother. “Come on.”

Rolling her eyes, he grabbed her father’s arm and guided him through the party. Though he was physically bigger, and strong, he allowed his daughter to pull him to one side. She led him out a set of French doors, onto the columned veranda overlooking a greenway leading down to the south shore of the lake. Even with the doors closed, the panels with glass inserts, and surrounded by walls of large unobstructed glass did little to offer much in the way of privacy, though they were able to obscure themselves from view partially between a column and a well-trimmed plant.

“What did mum say to you?” Heather demanded in a low voice, hands on her hips.

“Nothing. Nothing I wasn’t already thinking, or lying to myself about,” Robert stated with a grimace, unsure whether he had really convinced himself that his love for his daughter had grown sexual, or if Heather rubbing her naked ass on his cock had simply confused him. “I’m your father. I’m supposed to teach you right from wrong, to set you on the path to your own happiness. All I have ever wanted for you is for you to live a life not like mine, moment to moment, pleasure to pleasure, always seeking out the next because you’re never satisfied. And I haven’t been doing that. You should find someone who bring you happiness, continued happiness, not in big gestures but in the little things in life.”

“Daddy, I have found that person. It’s you,” she looked up into her father’s matching, dazzling blue eyes as she leaned forward to emphasise the word. “When I’m not with you, I’m wondering where you are and what you’re up to. I’m thinking about the next time we can be together, even if it’s just talking or taking a stroll. When I’m faced with a problem, I wonder how you would handle it. When I’m faced with an opportunity, I wonder what would bring you happiness. If you told me right now that we could never…” she paused, looking back at the party in full swing. “…could never…go to Paris…I’d be okay with that, so long as we were always together. I mean, I’d be pretty fucking disappointed, because I think Paris is hot and I’d really like to feel the Eiffel…I mean, see the Eiffel Tower inside…the point is, it’s not just about going to Paris for me.”

“Okay, honey, I admit, it’s the same for me. I used to think that it was natural, for a father to think so much of his daughter, and when you matured into such a…fine, young woman, I told myself it was just fatherly pride, but, if you’re as much like me as you say, you must know this can’t work in the long run. Not for me, or you,” Robert insisted, though talk of the tower in his pants was quickly making it grow from an Eiffel to a Tokyo Skytree. “I mean…how would you feel about me taking someone else to Paris? And I’ve already expressed my reservations about the fact that you and Zack may already have been to France.”

Heather’s eyes darted back and forth as she tried to parse the increasingly strained metaphor. “We both like to travel, that’s no secret, but we both know the difference between a business trip and a vacation. I can go to Paris with someone just to see Paris, and still go with someone else because I want to experience it with that person.”

“Uh, huh?” Robert squinted as he tried to decipher what she meant.

“Ugh, fuck it,” she said as she dispensed with the metaphor, but kept her voice low. “We both like sex, but we both know the difference between casual sex and actually being intimate with someone. Sex can be both a means of release and an ultimate expression of other feelings, one does not exclude the other, in the same way that I can eat to satisfy my hunger, or I can eat as a communal experience with friends. It depends on the context…and the person.”

“Yes, you’re right. It is situational,” Robert agreed, though he sighed, as he still felt conflicted. “But I’m still your father. I still feel like by just permitting this that I’m taking advantage, that I’ve somehow convinced myself how much you want this because of how much I want it. We’re on really shaky ground here, you know.”

Without warning Heather grabbed her father’s hand and shoved it up her long blue skirt. The action shocked him, and he looked around at the party, looking for anyone who might be watching. He tried to pull his hand away, but Heather held him there with all her strength, long enough for him to feel her juices leaking over his fingertips.

“For fuck sake, anyone could see,” Robert growled as they played tug of war with his hand. “And you’re not wearing any panties again.”

“Do you feel that?” Her eyes pierced his, her stare unwavering. “How wet I am? That’s because I’ve been thinking about this all day. Thinking about you all day!” She finally let go of his arm, stumbling back two steps as he withdrew his hand from her skirts, holding it aloft. Her fluids ran down his fingers, glistening in the light of the dim orange lamps that lit the veranda. His eyes met hers again. “You’re not projecting anything on to me. I want this. I want you to make love to me, daddy.”