The Next Morning

I was awoken the next morning by my PJ-clad daughter, laying beneath the covers with me, smiling.

"Good morning, honey."

"Rose! I mean...Mary! What're you doing? You know I sleep naked."

"It didn't seem to bother you yesterday."

"Yes, but you were...out there. You weren't...in here, with me."

"Oh come on, Andrew. It's not like it isn't anything I haven't seen before."

"Yes," I hissed, "but that's...not...not while you've been..."

"Fine," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I just..."

She trailed off, and that slight blush returned.

"What?"

"Jesus, I have no idea how teenagers do it. I feel like my every thought is spelled out on my forehead."

"For the love of god, Mary, what do you want? What if someone comes in?"

That young laugh again, familiar but different.

"I can assure you, there's no chance our teenage daughter is going to come in and risk seeing her father's phallus."

"So what do you want?"

"I just..."

Again, she trailed off. In a much softer tone, I prompted her again.

"What?"

"I just wanted a cuddle."

The realization that my wife was lonely made my heart melt, and I reached out.

"Come here, honey."

For the next fifteen minutes we cuddled and chatted, her head on my chest, my arms wrapped lovingly around her. I shut my eyes, tried to ignore the pitch of her voice, and tried to pretend this was just a normal morning conversation with my wife.

That afternoon, I was woken up from a mid-afternoon nap by Rose storming through the door.

"What?" I spluttered, sitting up. "What is it?"

My daughter's face was streaked with tears, her cheeks were red, and her eyes were puffy. Forgetting for a moment the unusual situation we'd found ourselves in, I held out my arms.

"Come here, Rose-drop."

She threw herself into my arms and sobbed for a few minutes. I held her comfortingly and my brain continued to wake up, reminding me that I was being used as a tissue by my wife, not my daughter.

"What happened, honey?" I asked softly.

"I did it," came the muffled reply. "I broke up with Spike."

"Oh..."

For a moment, a flicker of worry flew through my brain. I dismissed it instantly, of course - a teenager was no threat to my strong, healthy, 20-year marriage.

"So...why are you crying?"

"He was so mean," my wife bawled into my arms. "He laughed when I tried to break up with him, and then said that he'd been fucking another slut cos I wouldn't put out."

I took a moment. That was a lot of information to process at once.

"Our daughter's a virgin."

"I suppose," Mary sniffled. "I'm impressed, to be honest. I've never felt so turned on - even after I got myself off four times last ni...-"

"La la la la!"

"What?"

"Honey, I really don't want to hear about that kind of thing."

"Oh come on," she said, pulling away and looking up at me balefully. "You've never minded hearing about it before."

"Yes, when it was you in your body. I don't want to hear about my daughter...doing..."

I made a face and trailed off. A half-smile appeared on Belle's face.

"So you would be okay hearing about what our daughter is doing in my body."

My eyes widened, and I answered without hesitation.

"Nope."

My wife giggled, something that I don't remember her doing for almost half a decade. I smiled down at her.

"You feeling better?"

"Yeah," she said softly, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "Thanks."

"Anything you need, honey. This is a weird situation, and we're going to get through it together."

"Thanks," she smiled back. "I can't believe our daughter was dating such a jerk. More than that, I can't believe how much his words got to me. I feel so fragile - I'm gonna go have a little nap, okay?"

I didn't say anything as she left. She wasn't wrong, when she'd described her face as an open book.

My wife wasn't going upstairs for a nap. She was going upstairs to...

I sighed, went back to my office, and tried very hard to think about something else. Anything else.