Dancing For Daddy

 Dancing For Daddy

By Robert Lubrican

Bookapy Edition

Copyright 2020 Robert Lubrican

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, lend them your e-reading device. Otherwise, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen

Nineteen | Twenty | Twenty-one | Twenty-two | Twenty-three | Twenty-Four | Twenty-Five | Twenty-six | Twenty-seven | Epilogue

Foreword

I have gotten a lot of mail from readers who say things like, "The ending was rushed." Sometimes they ask me questions about what happened after the end of the book, such as what happened to this or that character. Generally speaking, I like to leave something for the reader to fill in with his or her imagination. It's very difficult to keep a story going past the climax without it turning into something mundane and (to me) uninteresting.

But I hear all these people. They want a story with more detail in it on what happens to everybody. So that's what this book is about. I wrote it to the point where I would normally have stopped, and then wrote that much more. I did not let the children grow up and become adults and have children of their own. That would have made it fifty or sixty chapters long and I'd have pulled out my hair.

But I did write it twice as long as I thought it needed to be, or would normally have done it, or something like that. I hope you think it was worth it.

Also, I write about "what things are like in Africa" in this book. I've only been to Africa once, and only stayed a week. I'm an author, though, so I used some of what I learned there in this book. The rest was created in my mind, just like the rest of the book was made up in my mind. It's quite likely I got some things wrong, but all I intended was to make the plot flow. Please don't form any opinions about "Africa" based on this story.

Bob

**********

Chapter One

Rudy, Bob's warehouse manager, stood in front of him and ruined his day.

"I called them and they told me the truck broke down. They have to send a new tractor to pick up the trailer and then they'll deliver it," said Rudy. "They said it won't get here until tomorrow afternoon." Rudy looked sad. "They said it will be here by six P.M. for sure."

"Well that's just fucking wonderful," growled Bob. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with ten thousand pounds of chocolate at six P.M. on Valentine's Day? People are buying chocolate today, for Valentine's Day. The only people who buy chocolate at six in the evening on Valentine's day are the ones who forgot to get something. Do you think we have enough of those idiots in town to buy ten thousand pounds of chocolate?"

"Probably not," said Rudy.

"Call 'em back. Tell 'em they own all that chocolate and not to expend the fuel to get it here. I'm not signing for it. It was already late. It was supposed to be here three days ago. If they give you a hard time, tell them to read the contract. The contract guaranteed delivery on the tenth, not tomorrow fucking night!"

"Mister Jeffries, there's a call for you," said a perky woman at the door.

"Thanks, Heather," said Bob, his voice weary.

"Mister Jeffries?" mouthed Rudy, with hit eyebrows raised.

Bob looked at the door. The woman was gone.

"The new hires always show me the respect I'm due," he said. "It's the old dogs like you who get lazy and insubordinate and disrespect me. Don't you have something to do in the warehouse? You're the warehouse manager, after all."

"Hey, don't get mad at me because a truck broke down ... Mister Jeffries."

Rudy's grin softened the formality of his comment.

Bob picked up the phone.

"Bob Jeffries," he said into the microphone. He stuck his tongue out at Rudy, who gave a sloppy salute and turned to go back to work.

"Bob, Karl Appleton. I manage the Cokeley's store in Williston, North Dakota."

"What's going on in the far north?" asked Bob.

"I just got finished with a surprise inspection by the vice president of operations for the eastern division."

"How is Adolph?" asked Bob. The vice president of operations for the eastern division was Dave Esty, but everybody called him Adolph, as in Hitler. It was only partly because of the moustache he had, and it was always behind his back.

"As sour as ever. I got a peek at his itinerary. You're next."

"Well, that's fucking wonderful," groaned Bob. "I should have stayed in bed today."

"Trouble in paradise?"

"Ten thousand pounds of chocolate that was supposed to be here at seven, three days ago, broke down and won't be here until six PM, tomorrow."

"Ouch," said the manager of Cokeley's Emporium in Williston, North Dakota. "Have Adolph help you unload it. That might give him a taste of what we go through."

"Yeah, right," sighed Bob.

"Make sure your rat traps are empty," said Karl. "And take him to a strip club. He loved ours."

"I'm trying to imagine what a strip club in Williston, North Dakota, would be like. The image in my mind is of an old west saloon," said Bob.

"Not even," said Karl. "It's state of the art, a critical part of our infrastructure up here. The oilmen mob the place, and their pockets are stuffed with money. The owner gets a new stable of girls in every two weeks. They're college girls from Missouri and Arkansas and who knows where else. They come up here and make enough money taking their clothes off to pay for next semester's tuition."

"In two weeks?"

"Yup. And that's just if they dance. As I recall, you were a marine, right? You know the deal. They probably make enough on their backs to pay for a couple of years of college."

"Yeah," said Bob. He didn't want to talk about hookers. Not if Adolph was on his way to put the final nail in the coffin of Valentine's Day. "Thanks for the heads up."

"No problem. Have a good one. Send me a box of peaches. I could probably sell fresh peaches for ten dollars apiece."

The line went dead and Bob rubbed his face with both hands. Peaches. Karl's comment about peaches was because Bob's store was in Georgia. Nobody bought peaches for Valentine's Day, though. Even if they wanted to, peaches weren't in season.

Valentine's Day. All it meant to him anymore was that it was another reason to have a sale. Valentine's Day hadn't meant much at all since Trudy went off to the Congo, or wherever, probably to drill wells so the natives could have clean water. She'd become a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist while he was deployed to Afghanistan (as in: "I couldn’t possibly live with a baby killer") and when he got home, he found she'd emptied the house of all her stuff. She'd taken their daughter, Chastity, with her too. He'd been served with the divorce papers six months before he got back. Her lawyer had been smart. It's possible to get a divorce in every state without the consent of one spouse. She had filed papers that claimed she and her daughter were routinely abused when he was home, that he had severe PTSD and was a danger to both herself and their child, and that if he knew where she was, he would find her and take revenge. The judge granted the divorce and her request for an official name change at the same time. It was as close to being in the witness protection program as a 'civilian' could get. When Bob got back, he couldn't find either her or his daughter.

That had been five years ago. Chastity would now be a senior in high school, assuming she was in school at all. The only reason he had any clue about his ex-wife's situation at all was because the post office had held the mail until his return. In it were letters from various NGOs thanking her for her interest in a variety of social service missionary type things, and telling her how to apply to work for them. Trudy had already been a tree-hugger before she decided being married to a marine was being married to a murderer. It was hard enough being deployed in a war zone. It didn't help when you came back to the world and your life mate hated you.

He didn't miss her, to be honest.

But he missed his baby girl. Chastity had been the light of his life, smart as a whip. The last time he'd seen her she was twelve, and she could throw a baseball hard enough that it stung his hand when he caught it. They'd only had his old glove, back then. He'd wanted to get her one of her own, but then the Marines sent him off (for the third time) to protect her from afar. He'd never seen her since then.

He thought about her now and then. He wondered what she looked like, and how she was doing in school. Was she overseas with her mother? Could she speak more than one language? He didn't even have a picture of her to put in a frame on his desk. He'd had a wallet size shot of her with Trudy, but it got lost after he got shot up in a fire fight, when they cut his bloody uniform off of him.

He sighed.

Thinking about his daughter wasn't getting the store ready for Adolph's white glove inspection.

He stopped at Heather's desk on his way to the sales floor. She'd only been on the job for four days, and was still trying to get up to speed. The woman who had previously done her job had decided to just quit, rather than take maternity leave. She'd worked up until her water broke. Bob could still see the faint outline of the puddle that had been on the floor, and Heather was sitting in a new chair.

"You can call me Bob," he said.

Heather looked up at him. She was forty-four and had raised two kids. Once they left, she was bored. She had no work experience, but this man had given her a chance anyway. She liked him. If her husband continued to neglect her, she might even entertain the idea of having a fling with him. She'd only worked there for four days, but had already been told four times that Bob Jeffries was single. Half a dozen women who worked there seemed to have fantasies about being with him. Thus far, though, he hadn't flirted with anybody. At least she never saw anything like that.

"Yes sir," she said.

"We like to think of this as a family business," he said. "Not so formal."

"Got it," she said. "I'm just used to being polite."

"Polite is fine," he said. "Just don't make me feel like I'm my father."

She smiled.

As she watched him walk away, she thought about how John hadn't touched her sexually in over six months. The kids were finally in college, and they were alone again. She could walk around the house naked, again, like she had before there were any babies, but it wouldn't do any good. She was still in good shape. Her boobs sagged a bit, these days, but walking every day had kept her thighs and waist trim. Still, John never came to her and presented an erection anymore, grinning and rubbing it against her. Now all he did was read the paper while he ate dinner, and sit in his recliner in front of the TV, until he fell asleep.

She felt a little thrill at the thought of Bob Jeffries inviting her into his office to discuss something, and then making a move on her.

He had a couch in there, after all.

******

Bob stayed late, doing his own inspection, pointing out things that needed to be done before Adolph showed up. The store was already in good shape. It always was. That was something he'd brought with him from the Marine Corps. Things needed to be squared away, and that ethos was part of his management style.

That said, he didn't sweat the small stuff. His people liked him and wanted him to be happy with their work. If something needed attention and everybody was busy, he'd step in and do worker bee stuff himself. He didn't have any use for slackers, and they never lasted for long. But stepping up when everybody else was busy didn't bother him at all.

He was at the store bright and early. He was in the middle of a call from somebody at the candy company, who kept insisting that he take the late shipment of chocolate, when Adolph showed up.

"I told you," said Bob, without raising his voice. "The contract says delivery by the tenth was guaranteed. It wasn't here. We're not taking it. If the truck shows up, I'm sending it back. You need to take this up with the trucking company, not me." He hung up.

Adolph looked around, disdainfully. Bob hadn't redecorated his office when he took over from the previous manager. Things looked a little worn and tired, but Bob didn't care. He just worked there. The two men knew each other. It was Adolph who had hired him.

"I didn't expect to see you," said Bob, extending his hand. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"Yeah, right," said the regional manager. "I'm doing a surprise inspection. What was that all about?"

"Shipment of candy was supposed to be here Monday morning. The truck broke down and they said they couldn't get it to me until tonight. I told them never mind. This guy was upset that I'm refusing the load."

"The contract is clear?"

"Yes."

"Fuck 'em, then," said Adolph. "We'll find somebody who does value our business. That will put a dent in your anticipated February sales, though. Won't look good."

"I'm glad you were here to get the explanation in person," said Bob. "What do you want to look at first?"

******

The only bright spot in the whole day was that the truck full of candy didn't show up at six. Adolph was still there, walking around the store. He'd pored over the books and sales reports. All Adolph did was sweat the small stuff. And ogle the women. He'd had the mandatory sexual abuse training, and knew better than to say anything to them, but he leered.

Finally he turned to Bob, who'd hadn't gotten anything done all day, because he'd had to follow Adolph around.

"Where are you taking me for dinner?" asked the man.

"Olive Garden, Rambler's Steak House, Chili's, take your pick," said Bob. "We've got an IHOP if that's what you feel like."

Adolph chose a restaurant and then ruined the meal by talking about his inspection, nitpicking and complaining. It wasn't until the server brought the bill that Adolph leaned back and asked, "You got any night life in this town?"

"What kind of night life are you looking for?" asked Bob. "We don't have any clubs. Not like the ones you'd find in Atlanta."

"How about a bar? Maybe one with girls?"

"We've got a strip club in town, but that's all."

"That'd be fine," said Adolph, his mood improving. "We'll have a couple of drinks and relax. My flight doesn't leave until eleven-thirty, tomorrow."

"Buster's, it is," said Bob.

******

After getting the 'heads up' call from Karl, in North Dakota, Bob had done some research. He didn't want to ask around at work if there was a strip club in town. That might give his employees the wrong impression. Instead, he visited a bar after work and asked around, there. The name "Buster's" had come up, and directions to the place had been obtained.

Buster's was in the industrial part of town, and located in a building that had, at one time, been a windmill manufacturing plant. The reason they went out of business was because they made the old style farm windmills, and technology had passed them by.

The interior had been cleaned out, and walls built. There was one large dressing room for the girls, and four rooms for private dances. The bar ran the length of one wall and the stage was on the opposite side, long enough that four different girls could perform at the same time. Tables were scattered around. A line of chairs were placed three feet from the edge of the stage itself, for those who didn't even want to pretend they were there to drink and chat.

Buster, the owner, kept a low profile. He didn't want official attention, and he didn't want a bunch of do-gooders from the moral fringe organizing pressure to get rid of "that den of iniquity" he'd built in the only place the zoning commission would let him put his club.

He ran a tight ship. As far as dancing, anything went, including full nudity. That was up to the girls. Everybody knew that the more you took off, the better the tips would be. In the private rooms the dances could get a lot more up close and personal, but there was no actual sex. A little touching was okay (on the part of the girls), but nothing hot and heavy. Buster put CCTV cameras in every room, and they were obvious. They were there for the protection of the girls - and Buster. Signs on the walls clearly outlined what would get you thrown out and banned. What the girls did on their own time, after they left, was their business, but there was no hanky panky going on in his club. He had a golden goose, and he wanted that goose to stay alive and healthy.

There were plenty of girls who wanted to make some cash. Buster's books were also clean, showing how much he made on cover charges and sales of booze, as well as what each girl made in tips, and charges for lap and private dances. Whatever they reported went into the book. He didn't count it, and he took their word (and ten percent) for it. The veterans enlightened the new girls. A good dancer could make three hundred a night. The IRS would believe it if she reported a third of that. One reason there was so much dancer loyalty to Buster was because he let them stiff him, right along with the IRS, and didn't complain.

Buster didn't spend a lot on the decor. His club wasn't for trendy Millennials. His place provided booze and naked girls. His patrons couldn't have cared less what was on the walls.

They weren't looking at the walls.

He got a lot of repeat traffic from towns thirty or forty miles away. Men, particularly groups of friends, could come to Buster's and be pretty sure they wouldn't run into anybody who knew them.

Like people who might see their car in the parking lot and mention it to the wife … who might mention it to other wives.

******

When they walked in, Bob knew the tip to bring Adolph here had been a good one. The man lit up. It was dark and smoky. Speakers all over the place made the bass thump reach the heart and make it race. There was a crowd, and topless waitresses dancing between tables, delivering drinks and dodging seeking hands. A girl met them at the door. This one was wearing a bikini, probably because she could be glimpsed through the open doorway.

"Welcome to Buster's, y'all," she said, with a wide smile.

"Hey there, pretty thing," said Adolph. "We've never been here, but we heard a man can have a good time, here."

"Well, we aim to please," she said, putting one lacquered fingernail to her lush lips. "No touchin', 'xceptin' to tip a dancer. The cover is seven dollars and there's a two drink minimum. Lap dances at the table are thirty, and if y'all want a private dance, just dicker with the dancer." She winked. "When I say dicker, I don't mean dick - her." She grinned as if she'd just told the joke of the century. "Y'all just sit back and we'll make you fergit all yer troubles."

She took the twenty dollar bill Bob produced and led them to a table. She leaned over far enough that Bob could see through her cleavage to her flat stomach and said, "What can I tell the bartender to start you off with?" She didn't offer Bob any change from the cover charge, and he didn't ask for any. Adolph's eyes were already on the women currently on the stage and he ordered his two drink minimum without even looking at her.

The waitress, when she arrived with their drinks, was wearing a lacy apron, with a black g-string under it, and nothing else. Her breasts were high and firm on her chest, and the nipples and areolas on them appeared to have been colored with lipstick. She was a brunette and had her hair in a ponytail tied high on her head. It bobbed and swung as she walked. Her only concession to comfort were sturdy, white walking shoes.

Three girls were currently dancing. It became obvious there was a system to the show. One girl was still attired, wearing what was supposed to be a softball uniform. She had a plastic bat and a whiffle ball. The skirt she was wearing was short enough that her panties showed, even before she lifted her skirt, trying to look embarrassed and innocent. Two men were leaning over the rim of the stage, waving paper money. One said, "I got some balls for you, Baby."

Another dancer was half nude, gyrating to the beat of the music, swaying and teasing, thumbing her panties down to reveal a small tattoo just above her money maker and then pulling them back up to cover it. She had three men begging her for more.

The last was naked and she was all but masturbating, just out of reach of a group of men who threw money at her like she was on fire, and the money was water.

As soon as the naked one minced off the stage, crushing her take to her naked breasts, a new girl took her place. The one who had been half naked got all naked and let the boys examine her tattoo close up and personal, while the "soft ball" girl lost half her clothing. That pattern continued. Each girl only spent five or ten minutes on stage. Buster knew his clientele, too, because the girls came out dressed in almost everything. There were women in hard hats, fire fighters, cops, secretaries, nurses, maids, and even one girl who came out as Rosie the Riveter. Whatever fantasy tickled a man, all he had to do was order drinks and wait, and it would show up. And when it did, he could go to the edge of the stage and interact with his dream, begging her to take it off for him and she'd do it.

Adolph wasn't picky. He just wanted to smell pussy. He wasn't shy about that, either. He'd lean forward, waving a ten and shout, "I wanna smell that pussy, Baby, let me sniff it!"

What saved the night for Bob was that Adolph slammed his double bourbons and, within an hour, he could barely get out of his chair anymore. Bob had to buy the drinks, but at least Adolph used his own money to tip the dancers. He just waved money and yelled.

Then 'the cowgirl' came out, dressed in boots and rodeo finery, swinging a loop around a ten gallon hat. Her honey blond hair cascaded down her back, and her grin made it clear she couldn't wait to make some man's night.

Bob blinked. She looked a lot like his daughter, Chastity. Or, to be more nearly correct, she looked like what he thought Chastity might look like, all grown up. She had the nose, and the high cheekbones. The chin was Chastity's. The hair was wrong. Chastity's hair was black, but then this girl was probably wearing a wig.

It couldn't be her, though. Chastity was, currently, seventeen years old. She wouldn't be eighteen until the 27th of April, two and a half months away. Chastity was in high school. At this time of night she was doing homework, or talking on the phone to her friends or whatever high school girls did these days. She wasn't taking off her chaps and removing tear-away jeans, exposing polka dotted panties that matched her polka dotted shirt.

Bob looked away. He had suggested to Adolph that they leave, but the man had waved at him, slurring, "In a little bit. Relax. Have a drink." Now Adolph was leaning forward, his eyes wide open. He liked the rodeo queen.

"I'd fuck that," he slurred. He waved a ten dollar bill and tried to stand up. He wobbled and Bob decided he'd just let the man fall on his ass. He was an ass. Maybe if he fell down, the bouncers would throw him out.

Adolph made it to the stage, though, staggering all the way, waving his bill. Once there, he leaned over and, with the support of the stage, started yelling how much he wanted to fuck this dancer.

By now, the shirt was gone, and the rodeo queen's perfect breasts were gently bouncing as she bent her knees, feet wide apart, and hopped, one arm out straight in front of her, like she was riding a horse. Her polka dot panties turned out to be a thong. She had the kind of areolas and nipples that were just a shade darker than her natural skin. They made you want to get closer, to see them better, and Adolph was trying to crawl up on the stage. She danced up to Adolph and, reached for his money. She tucked it in her G string and, with the heel of one cowboy boot, gently pushed him back onto his feet.

Adolph dragged out a fistful of bills.

"I wanna smell that pussy!" he yelled.

The thong magically disappeared, and she thrust her bare, shaved pussy forward. It bulged as if there was something inside of it, trying to get out. The flesh of her inner labia pushed between her outer labia.

"This pussy?" she yelled.

"Oh fuck yeah!" screamed Adolph. He threw his money at her and she used two fingers to spread her pussy lips apart. Bob saw Adolph actually drool before she finally took off her cowboy hat, using it to put the money in that was all over the stage at her feet.

Adolph tried climbing up on the stage again and Bob saw two bouncers weaving their way purposefully toward him. He didn't want any trouble, so he got up and went to the stage to pull Adolph back down.

"Time to go home," he said, loudly.

"But I wanna fuck her!" yelled Adolph.

The dancer came forward to pick up a bill, and as Bob pulled Adolph into a position where he could "help" the man out, his eyes rose and met the hazel ones of the rodeo queen. Those eyes got round, showing the whites, as she stared at Bob.

"Daddy?" she squeaked.

He was stunned. Even the furor of his very first firefight hadn't staggered him like this did.

It was Chastity!

He almost dropped Adolph, so shocked was he. The bouncers arrived and took Adolph away from him, dragging him toward the entrance.

"What are you doing here?" yelled the rodeo queen, who was totally naked, except for her fancy cowboy boots.

"What are you doing here?" he croaked.

The music changed. Chastity's eyes blinked.

"I have to go," she said.

"Wait!"

But she was up and gathering her costume, clearing the stage for a girl dressed as a matador to come out and fight an imaginary bull.

Bob stood, looking around. Adolph was gone, probably sitting in the street, by now. But Bob didn't care about that. Adolph was a big boy. He could take care of himself. It might cost him points on his inspection if he abandoned the man, but Bob had more important things to think about. His baby girl had just taken off her clothes and flashed her pussy at a crowd of men.

Suddenly, he realized he was rock hard in his jeans. How the fuck had that happened?

He'd seen the curtained door men were led through by dancers, and knew it was where the private dances took place. But how did you get to the dressing room? That's where Chastity was, most likely. Maybe through that curtain.

He was stopped at the hanging red cloth by another bouncer.

"Private," was all the man said, with his hand flat on Bob's chest.

"My daughter's in there," said Bob.

"Ain't that sweet," said the man. "It's still private."

"I mean I need to talk to my daughter," said Bob.

"Which one is your daughter?" asked the man.

"She was just on stage. The cowgirl," said Bob.

"She ain't back here," said the man.

"Okay, where is she?"

"You can't see her here," said the man.

"I want to see my daughter," growled Bob.

"You just did," smirked the man, who must have signaled in some way, because a second bouncer joined him. It was one of the ones who'd taken Adolph away.

Bob held up his hands.

"I don't want any trouble," he said. "I just want to talk to my daughter."

"That's the kind of thing you do at home, man, not here," said the second guy. "Your friend is waiting outside. Maybe you need to take him home. Or I can call both of you a cab."

What went through Bob's mind was that, if there was trouble, he could get tossed out, himself, and maybe even be banned from coming back. His tactical mind wrestled with the problem. It was definitely Chastity. She was alive and well. She worked here and her performance suggested she wasn't new at this. She'd be here again. He'd come in later, maybe talk to the management, explain his predicament.

He didn't need to assault the place, just to be tossed in jail, right when he might be able to find his daughter and reestablish contact with her.

"I'll take him home," said Bob.

"Good plan," said the bouncer.

Chapter Two

Adolph was sitting in a puddle of his own vomit when Bob left the club. Rather than mess up Bob's classic '66 Chevelle, Bob called an Uber, who promptly declined the ride when he saw what state Adolph was in. In the end, Bob paid a patron with a pickup truck to haul Adolph's half conscious body in the bed of the truck, to the hotel. On the way he decided to take pictures with his phone. He wanted this to be the last time Adolph showed up at his store.

The hotel staff helped Bob get him to his room and into the bathroom. Bob got him naked and hosed him off in the shower.

"Wanna smell that pussy," mumbled Adolph.

"When hell freezes over," said Bob.

He got the man in bed and covered him up. He lifted the phone and asked for a six o'clock wakeup call. It was only ten-thirty, so Adolph should be able to sleep it off by then.

He thought about going back to the club, but he had to work the next day, too, and there was no way of telling if she'd still be there or not. Based on the attitude of the bouncers, nobody was going to cooperate with him. It occurred to him that men probably tried to get to the dancers all the time, and who knew what stories they told, in their efforts.

No, he needed to handle this in a way that might lead to success of the mission, without hitting any ambushes or IEDs.

He'd gotten to see her this night when she danced.

She would probably dance again.

And he'd be there when she did.

******

It wasn't as simple as it first looked.

He went back the next night, and she never showed up on stage. It occurred to him that they opened at four in the afternoon, and stayed open until two in the morning. He wasn't there the whole time. How long was the "shift" for a dancer? Did she only dance once a night, or did she rotate in for a certain time set and then leave? Was she always the rodeo queen, or did she change outfits? If they were open ten hours, were there two five hour shifts? Five two hour shifts? He had no idea.

Based on the fact that the rodeo queen had performed around nine o'clock that night, he went back at seven and stayed until eleven, three nights in a row.

Nothing.

On the fifth night, he was there when they opened, and talked to the hostess, who was a different girl, with the same southern drawl.

"My daughter works here," he said. "I need to talk to her. Can you get her a message for me?"

"Who's your daughter, sugah?" asked the bikini clad beauty.

"Chastity," he said.

"Chastity what?"

"That's the problem," he admitted. "My wife divorced me while I was deployed overseas, and changed their last name. That record was sealed, so I don't know what last name she's going by."

"There's no Chastity working here," said the girl, whose accent had suddenly evaporated.

"Maybe she's not using her real name," said Bob.

"That's not helpful," said the girl. "These girls don't need trouble. They have troubles enough of their own. They dance for money, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't even know your daughter's name, it's safe to say she doesn't want to see you. I think you need to leave."

Bob backed off.

"I'm not trying to cause trouble. I just want to talk to her."

"Like I said, maybe she doesn't want to talk to you."

Again, the threat of being blacklisted caused Bob to back off.

His next idea was to find where the girls parked and hang around there, hoping he'd see her coming or going.

It turned out the bouncers patrolled the employee parking lot, too, and enforced the "Employees Only" sign at the entrance.

In the end, it was just like Afghanistan, where you went on patrols where nothing happened, and sat in the green zone, where you were bored to tears. But you had to do it, because sooner or later, there was going to be action.

For Bob, the action happened three weeks after Adolph had gotten him into the club.

By now, he was a Friday night regular. He'd stopped asking about his daughter, and just sat at the bar, ordering Scotch and Drambuie. The bartender didn't know his name, but he knew what he always ordered. When he came to tend to Bob, he didn't ask what Bob wanted. He just slid the glass in front of Bob and said, "One Rusty Nail."

Bob sipped, and could make a drink last half an hour. He looked at each new dancer, but didn't really watch them strip. Instead, he watched the crowd. By the end of week one, he could see what the bouncers saw, in terms of trouble building, and the difference between a raucous fan and a problem.

He started smoking again. He'd kicked the habit on his last tour, and been clean for a long time. He was amazed at how normal it felt to suck smoke into his lungs. He didn't cough at all. Maybe all that stuff about how fast your lungs healed after you quit was a load of hooey.

He almost missed her. She came out as a red head, doing a Pippi Longstockings routine. It was her nipples that caught his attention, with their almost flesh-colored, difficult-to-see coloration. He looked at the structure of the chin and cheeks, and got off his bar stool. Thirty seconds later he was standing at the stage, money in hand.

"Chastity!" he called.

Pippi's head twisted away from a man who was holding out money. She hadn't yet removed her G string, and she tucked the man's offering into the string.

"Come on," yelled the man. "That was to get you to show me your pussy!"

She danced closer to him, pushing her hips out, and pulled the front of the G string aside. The man whooped and reached, but she batted his hand, shaking one finger at him and restoring her "modesty".

Then she danced over to Bob.

She leaned down, letting her breasts hang, and bared her teeth.

"Put it in my mouth," she said, loud enough that three men nearby yelled and jumped up and down.

Bob had no idea what to do.

"Do it!" she hissed, softer.

He reached and she bit the bill, plucking it from his fingers. She stood, tossed the bill negligently on the stage behind her, and then slowly took her G string off for him. It was obvious she was performing for him, rewarding him for playing her game. Men crowded up against him to see and throw money. She moved to one side and reached to pull her pussy lips apart. A roar went up and the crowd of men in front of her doubled. Money flew at her.

"I love you!" wailed a fat, perspiring man.

"I love you, too, Sweetie," she called out, grinning.

Then she was whirling away, making her red pigtails fly out away from her head. It was obvious her time was almost over, and men began to drift back to their chairs.

At the last minute, as she was scooping up her take, she darted toward Bob.

"Tell your waitress you want a private dance," she said.

Then she was off, running toward the stage's entry point, her butt cheeks jiggling like Jell-O just out of a mold.

******

"Which dancer?" asked his waitress. Her name was Rebecca, and she liked Bob. She didn't dance, which meant all she got was her cut of the combined tips that the serving staff accumulated. That included the jars on the bar, and she knew Bob tipped generously.

"Pippi Longstockings," he replied.

"Her name is Trudy," said Rebecca. "She's sweet. She doesn't usually do private dances, but I'll ask."

She was back ten minutes later.

"You're in luck. That'll be sixty bucks."

Bob paid her and was led to the curtain. The same man was there, but he didn't recognize Bob as the man who had asked about his daughter three weeks earlier.

"Trudy's expecting him," said Rebecca.

The curtain was pulled aside and there was another bare-breasted woman waiting for him.

"Have you done this before?" she asked.

"No," said Bob.

"Follow me. You can't touch the dancer, but she may touch you. There won't be any sex, so don't expect or ask for that. Your session will be recorded, so don't break any rules and everybody will be happy."

"Can I talk?" asked Bob.

"You can say anything you want, but she'll decide how long the dance goes, so don't be an ass about it, okay?"

"Got it."

She led him to a wooden door and opened it.

"Pippi" was already inside, dressed in her jumper again. She was standing. The only thing in the room was a straight-backed chair about three feet from one wall.

Bob sat, and stared, as the half naked woman closed the door. He glanced up at the camera in one corner, and wondered how many hours of porn had been taped of his daughter stripping for strangers.

"I have to dance," she said. "You can't just pay to be with me. It's against the rules. There's somebody watching the monitor, and if I don't dance, that means I want them to come help me."

"Can they hear us?"

"They say no, but who knows," she said, moving to a button on the wall. She pushed it and music came from hidden speakers.

She began to sway.

"Is it really you?" he sighed. "I can't believe I'm actually talking to you."

"When Mom took me away from our old house we lived with Nana Perkins, and she put me in another school. She said you didn't want to see us anymore. She said you kicked us out of our house."

That figured. Trudy wanted to be all independent of his "control" but all she did was move across town and mooch off her mother. Chastity was undoing the closures of her jumper, revealing lacy undies.

"I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you last time. I was freaked out and I had to clear the stage. When I could think clearly enough to look for you, you were gone. I was afraid you'd never come back … afraid Mom was telling the truth."

"She wasn't telling the truth," said Bob. "I wanted to find you, but I had no idea where to look."

Her perfect breasts appeared in front of his eyes.

"You don't have to actually strip," said Bob, as he felt his penis begin to misbehave.

"Yes, I do," she said. "The session is over when I stop dancing."

"Just meet me outside after your shift," he said.

"The cops watch for that," she said. "Buster doesn't care, but if a dancer gets in a customer's car, they get pulled over and arrested for prostitution."

"I'll tell them you're my daughter."

"My driver's license doesn't have the same last name as you. When she got the divorce, she changed our last name to Peters. And anyway, I'd get busted, regardless. I had a fake ID, but it expired. I'm only seventeen."

"Yes, you are," said Bob. "You won't be eighteen for a month and a half. How did you get a job doing this anyway?"

She shrugged. It made her breasts wobble enticingly.

"I lied. Lots of girls do it. That's what the fake ID was for. Buster makes a copy of it and puts it in your file, so if anybody ever asks questions, he's covered."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"I want to go to college, Daddy," she said. "My mother is overseas digging wells. Or making solar panels out of empty cans and black paint. She's said both. They don't even pay her. At least that's what she says. I don't get to talk to her very often and I'm not sure how much of what she says to believe. About three years after she left, Nana started forgetting things, and now, sometimes, she asks me who I am. Mom says it's my imagination, or accuses me of lying, being selfish and trying to get her to stop doing the important work she loves and come home. I'm afraid Nana is getting Alzheimer's or something, but I don't know what to do about it. She still gets her social security, and I've been doing the shopping and paying the bills."

The wig came off and she shook her short, black pageboy. The hair made a curtain over her face and then settled to hang. Her face had an impish, pixie-like look to it that had nothing to do with makeup. Now all she had on were high-rise, pale blue panties.

"I went back to our old house a bunch of times, but you were never there. Then, one day, somebody else lived there."

"I sold it when I got back. There were too many memories, there. I tried to find you, but she had all the records sealed. She said I abused both of you and would hurt her if I found her again."

"That's bull shit," said the mostly naked woman in front of him.

"I know that, and you know that, but the law doesn't know that," he said.

"Where have you been all this time.?"

"I got out. I run the Cokeley's Emporium, over on Halston," he said.

"You're kidding! How long?"

"I got out four and a half years ago. I've been at Cokeley's for four."

"You mean we've lived in the same town all that time and never saw each other?"

"I pretty much work and sleep, and that's it," he said.

"Did you ... get married again?" There was something in her voice that sounded like more than mere curiosity.

"Trudy was enough to last me a lifetime," he said. "Speaking of which, they're calling you Trudy."

"That's the name I had on the fake ID. I knew everything about her, so that's the information I had them put on the ID. Other than the date of birth, of course."

"Your mother never looked like this," he said, watching her sway.

She cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples.

"Thank you," she purred. She came closer, so close he could smell something like body wash.

"This is ... awkward," he said, feeling his prick arrive at full hard.

"Not for me," she said, actually brushing his cheek with the tip of one breast.

"I don't get that," he said. "You were never like this."

"No, what I meant is that, ever since I started dancing, whenever I'm on stage, I imagine that every man I dance for is you."

"Me?"

"Yes. I loved you. When Mom took me away I missed you horribly. I cried for months. She insisted you hated us, but I knew better. I knew she was a flake, even back then, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. Who listens to a twelve-year-old? So, if I liked one of my male teachers, I pretended he was you. And when I screwed up enough courage to actually dance, thinking about each man as secretly being you made it okay. And then one night, it really was you!"

"I was here with one of the bigwigs in the company. He has a thing about clubs like this."

"I remember. He wanted to smell me."

She thumbed her high rise panties down. Her fat, flushed pussy peeked out at him.

"Girls don't fantasize about their fathers," he said. "Doesn't that bother you?" he sighed.

"Not if it's you," she said, pushing them down and off. "And girls do fantasize about their fathers. You were the first man I fantasized about. You were warm and funny and you loved me. You were always insanely happy to see me, and it was obvious. What girl wouldn't fall in love with that?"

She moved to sit on his thighs, her naked pussy only inches from the lump that was the front of his pants. Her breasts, with nipples and areolas he could now see clearly, were right in front of him. Her nipples were erect.

"I never mind what customers say when I imagine it's you."

******

She only tortured him for a few more minutes.

"Do you remember where Nana lives?"

"Sure," he said. "I never thought to look for you there. I knew Trudy didn't like her mother."

"My mother is such a bitch," sighed the girl. "Come over tomorrow, after school. Don't come early. I have no idea how Nana would react. She never wanted you to marry Mom. Her memory has been getting worse and worse, but she might remember that. After Mom left she talked about what a mistake it was for Mom to marry you."

"I didn't know that."

"It was something about you being in the service. I think Mom married you to spite her mother," said Chastity. "Wait until about three. I'll be home from school by then."

She stood, no longer dancing. She backed up and reached to push the music button. The room went silent. The door opened almost instantly. The same half naked girl who had brought him there escorted him back to the curtain.

Nobody even said goodbye.

******

Being the general manager had a few perks. One of them was that Bob could leave work pretty much whenever he wanted to. That sounds great, until you realize the general manager clocked at least sixty hours a week and, being salaried, didn't get paid overtime.

He parked on the street, across from Mona Perkins's house at three P.M. He'd only been sitting there a few minutes when Chastity came out of the front door and skipped over to his car. She looked every inch the carefree teenage girl he wished she was. He'd had a hard time getting to sleep, the night before. The male in him could not ignore the female in her, particularly since she was so comfortable being naked and even dancing for him. What kept his prick hard, after he left the private dance room, was the fact that she was so accustomed to thinking about him while she danced, that for her, it was just one more lap dance.

Except that there had been a time, during her lap dance, that she'd rubbed her lush, bulging pussy lips against the lump in his pants made by his hard cock. He knew she felt it, knew she was completely aware he had a boner for his own daughter, and it hadn't bothered her to continue the dance, being completely naked for him.

Now, though, she just looked like any other teenage girl, smiling, skipping a bit, dressed in torn jeans and an oversized sweat shirt, tennis shoes on her feet.

Why, then, was his penis beginning to fill with blood?

"I told Nana we were going to have a visitor," she said. "I told her one of my teachers was going to tutor me."

"But she knows me," he said.

"She used to know you," corrected Chastity. "You'll see what I mean."

She took him inside, where he was met by his scowling ex-mother-in-law.

"This is your boyfriend?" asked the old woman, peering at Bob. "There'll be no sex in this house, young man!"

"Of course not," said Bob.

"You look too old to be dating my daughter," said the woman. "You men think you can say sweet things to a woman and she'll just fall into bed. Well, not in this house! This house is a moral house! The bedroom door stays open in this house!"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Bob. Chastity was right. The woman was in the grip of severe mental decay.

She went on to shock him even more.

"If you can't control yourself, then rape me, not her," said Mona. Her face took on a grimace that Bob realized was actually an attempt to be coquettish. She cupped her sagging, flat breasts through the house dress she was wearing. "We'll have to be careful you don't get a baby in me," she added, conspiratorially.

"We wouldn't want that," said Bob.

Chastity tugged at his arm.

"We're going to go do homework, Nana," she said.

"All right, Dear. I'll fix you and your boyfriend a snack."

"We already have one, Nana. You can watch your program on TV if you want to."

"All right, Dear. Call me when he wants to have sex."

Mona turned and shuffled toward the parlor, where Bob had "courted" his wife before they were married. The house was over a hundred years old, and Mona's attitude about dating had matched the age of the dwelling. Bob hadn't been allowed past the dining room until they got married. He'd known his mother-in-law was odd, even back then. He realized now that she'd been hung up on sex, not just careful about it affecting her daughter. Her easy willingness to have sex with a "stranger" to protect her "daughter" came from a place in her mind where it had lived for decades.

Chastity's room also looked completely normal, in terms of being the living space of a teenage girl. There were stuffed animals around, and knickknacks. A bottle of perfume sat beside a snow globe. A little plastic soccer trophy suggested participation, rather than victory. Her bedspread was feminine. The only thing that drew his eyes was a poster on the wall that was obviously homemade. Permanent markers of various colors had been used to construct just one word, that seemed to be exploding: * DADDY!!! *

He walked over to stand in front of it.

"When I wanted to give up, I stared at that," came her voice.

He turned to find her right there, inches away. Her arms came around his neck and her soft body pressed against him. She shook as she sobbed.

"Hey," he said, reverting to being just a caring father. His hands stroked her back and he scolded himself for noticing there was no bra strap in the way. "It's okay."

"It's okay, now," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. Her tear-filled eyes came up. "Now that I found you, it will be okay."

"I think it's the other way around," he said. "I'm the one who found you."

She leaned up on tiptoes and kissed him. It was on the lips and was a soft, gentle kiss that only lasted three or four seconds, but was incredibly intimate.

It wasn't the normal daughter/daddy kiss.

She let her feet sink back down, which pulled her lips from his.

"I wanted to do that while I was dancing for you, but it's against the rules. You can't kiss the customers."

"I get it," he said.

"No, you don't. Buster's rules have nothing to do with logic. All he cares about is not getting shut down. I could have sucked your dick and that would have been fine, because the town council and cops love getting their dicks sucked. But kissing is forbidden, so they can all go home to their wives and say they haven't kissed another woman and be telling the truth."

"You're kidding," said Bob. The idea of his daughter sucking anybody's dick made him want to break something.

"That's why I don't do private dances, generally. I turn almost all of them down. If you don't let them get you alone, then you don't have to try to get out of bad situations."

"Well, you can quit, now," said Bob. "You don't have to dance anymore."

"Yes, I do," she said. "College costs a ton, Daddy."

"I make pretty good money," he said.

"Can you spare fifty thousand a year?" she asked.

"It can't cost that much," he said. "Or do you have your sights on Yale?"

"It's not just tuition. It's books, and living expenses. It's having a car, and insurance. It's paying rent and buying food. I don't want to have to work while I'm going to college, and I haven't saved enough yet to cover it all."

"How much have you saved?"

"I only have about seventy-five thousand," she said.

"You've saved seventy-five grand? How long have you been dancing?!"

"About a year. I started when I was sixteen."

"And you've saved seventy-five thousand dollars in just one year?"

"I dance four nights a week," she said.

He did a little mental math.

"That's over three hundred dollars a night."

She nodded. "If I did private dances I could raise that to about five hundred, but I really don't want to do those."

She pressed her body against his, just bouncing it gently.

"I don't mind doing them for you, but not other men."

"You understand how messed up that is, right?" he asked.

"What I understand is that I don't care what other people say I should and shouldn't do, and how I should or shouldn't feel. How I feel is my business. I'm going to go to college by paying for it with money I earn dancing. I'll probably have to dance while I'm in school, too, but I hope not as often. That's also nobody's business but mine. It's my body and my decision. I'm not warped. I'm not a sex fiend like my grandmother."

"She's not a sex fiend," said Bob.

"You don't live with her and have to listen to her lectures on how to have good sex," said Chastity. "You know how she told me to call her when you wanted to have sex? She wasn't kidding, Daddy. She'd come up here and give us pointers on how to do it right."

"But she said there wasn't going to be any sex in this house," he pointed out.

"She always says that, but that's just what she thinks of as her sly and clever way of bringing the subject up."

"We're not going to have sex," he said, suddenly uncomfortable.

"She thinks we are. She thinks that any boy I bring here is my lover, and that we're going to have sex in my room. I learned the hard way not to bring any boys here to study with them. She thinks that the FedEx guy delivering a package is the gigolo she hired to come ring her bell."

"She wasn't like that when I was dating your mother," said Bob. "She was the opposite."

"Probably not. She just repressed it, back then. And now it's all coming out." Chastity sighed.

"Maybe there are options, now," he said. "I can help."

"She needs to be someplace where people can watch her more. I feel bad about leaving her alone when I go to school or work."

"Like I said, I can help."

"No. Mom would have a whole litter of kittens if she knew we had re-connected. I'm going to have to keep you a secret, and anyway, Mom doesn't believe that Nana's really as bad as she is."

"When was the last time she was here?" he asked.

"She's never come back since she left. She doesn't have enough to buy plane tickets."

"You do," he noted.

"Daddy, it doesn't bother me that you know I dance, but if Mom knew, she'd go all old school feminist on me. It's bad enough living with my grandmother, who is losing her memory. She thinks I work at Seven Eleven. Why would I want two crazy women telling me what to do?"

"You have to do something," he said.

"What I have to do is make it to my eighteenth birthday, so I can tell my mother where to stick it," said his sweet, innocent, teenage daughter.

"So you have, uh, seven weeks to go," he said.

She was still in his arms. Their 'hug' had lasted a full ten minutes. Now she let go and stepped back.

"You remembered," she said. "That makes me happy."

"Of course I remembered," he said. "You're my daughter."

She held up one finger in a signal for him to wait, and went to her closet. She opened the bifold doors and bent over to reach inside. The jeans she was wearing cupped her firm ass lovingly. When she stood, a single shoe was hanging from her finger by a strap. It was a high heel shoe with a six inch spiked heel, and it was bright red. She extended it toward him.

"I am Cinderella, and you are my prince," she said.

"It's supposed to be the other way around," he said, smiling. "I'm supposed to offer you the shoe."

"Take it, and you can," she said. "The heel of the other one broke, but I kept this one, because I wished my prince would find me."

"I'd love to take you away from all this," he said. "As you have already pointed out, though, I can't do that for almost two months."

"Mom still has sole custody of me, right?" she asked.

"There haven't been any new court orders. I could probably go back to court, now that I know all this, and have a good case for taking custody away from her, but it would take a month or more just to make it happen."

"Let's just wait," she said. "When I turn eighteen I'll put Nana into a home and come live with you. Until then, we don't have to deal with my crazy mother."

The door opened and Mona was there. Her eyes were bright.

"Are you fucking, yet? You make sure she has orgasms, young man! A woman deserves orgasms!"

Chapter Three

"We already finished, Nana," said Chastity, smoothly. "He gave me lots and lots of yummy orgasms."

"Good. He brought a condom, didn't he? It's not right to make the woman supply the condom."

"Everything was perfect, Nana," said Chastity. "Are you hungry? Let's make some supper."

"I should get back to work," said Bob.

"Oh? He has a job? Better and better, Dear," nattered the old woman.

Bob followed them to the kitchen, where Chastity turned and embraced him.

"I wish I could invite you to stay for supper, but it wouldn't be a good idea," she whispered.

"I understand," he said. "At least I know where you live, now."

"If you come here she might do anything," said the girl. "I'll try to come see you, instead. Where do you live, by the way?"

He took a business card from his wallet and wrote his address on the back. She gave him a hug and kiss that were both entirely too intimate to be shared between a daughter and her father, and he left.

He felt like he'd lost twenty pounds, and was ten years younger.

******

She did not show up at his house the next day, and the lure of seeing her dance was too strong, so he went back to the club. He sat there for hours, and watched her dance two sets. During both of them she came to dance right in front of him. Her dancing was incredibly erotic when she was in front of him, and he found himself being crowded against by other men, all reaching toward her eagerly, with money in their hands.

The next night he told his server he wanted a private dance with her. Again, he was led to a painted doorway, behind which was his daughter. She was dressed as a school girl, with twin ponytails, or dog ears.

"You didn't tell her how you wanted me dressed," she said, as she went to the wall and punched the button to get the music started.

"I don't care," he said, letting his hands hang, like he knew he was supposed to.

"Aww, you're so sweet," she said.

"You haven't come to see me," he said.

"I'm laying the groundwork," she said.

"Laying the groundwork? For what?"

Rather than explain, she said. "Just be patient. Please?"

"Of course," he said. "For years I didn't even know where you were. I can be patient."

"Thank you, Daddy."

Her blouse came undone and gaped, to reveal she wasn't wearing a bra. She toyed with her plaid skirt, teasing him with glimpses that showed she wasn't wearing panties, either.

"It doesn't take long to do a strip tease when you're not wearing underwear," he pointed out.

"I tease other men. Why would I want to tease you?"

He pondered that. There could be multiple answers to that question. She took off the blouse, though, and began playing with her breasts, so he stopped thinking about that and just enjoyed the show.

"Don't you worry that your friends from school might see you dance?" he asked.

"Everybody gets carded at the entrance," she said. "Buster might not be too careful about the ages of his dancers, but he's death on fake IDs at the door. The bouncers are trained to spot fake IDs, and they have the authority to turn away anybody they want to, whether they have a reason or not. There's one other girl my age dancing here, but the last thing she wants is for anybody at school to find out about it, either."

"I guess that's good," he said.

"Yeah. Boys at school are bad enough as it is. The last thing they need to know is that I do this."

"This", at the moment, was dropping the skirt and moving to rub her breasts in his face. The urge to try to suck a nipple was so strong that he had to close his eyes. She backed up and all but masturbated in front of him.

"Okay," he panted. "You win. I've had enough."

"You make me feel good," she said.

"I shouldn't," he replied.

She leaned over to brush her lips across his and then stopped dancing and turned the music off. The door opened, he stood, adjusted his boner, and walked into the dark hallway. At the curtained door the bouncer put a hand on his chest.

"Buster would like to talk to you," said the man.

Buster turned out to be a rail-thin man with longish hair and a gold front tooth. A tattoo of some kind showed on his neck, above the collar of his shirt, but it was just a mass of dark blue that Bob couldn't identify. The "meeting" took place at the bar, which Buster leaned against. He wasn't drinking.

"I'll get right to the point," he said. "I always take an interest when a customer and one of my dancers get too friendly, and you have gotten mighty friendly with Trudy."

"Have I?"

"You sit here for hours, waiting to see her dance. You don't drink a lot, by the way. And she almost never does private dances, but when you come along, suddenly she's all about rubbing her tits all over your face."

"There's an explanation, but you probably wouldn't believe it," said Bob.

"Try me."

"Let me ask you something, first," said Bob. "Why do you care?"

"I care about all my girls," he said. "Girls who want to strip are a dime a dozen, but good dancers are rare. Trudy's one of the good ones. She makes money and she makes me money."

"Are you saying she's a hooker?" asked Bob, tensing.

"No!" said Buster, who suddenly looked around, alertly. "That shit don't happen here. If any of them are doing that, it's on their own time and I got nothing to do with it. This is a strictly legit strip club, and that's all. Are you a cop? Is that why you been hanging around so much?"

"I thought you liked regulars," said Bob.

"I like regulars who drink," said Buster.

"Of course," said Bob. "I'm her father. My ex got full custody five years ago and I haven't seen her since. I discovered she was working here by accident. She's only seventeen, you know."

"No she's not," said Buster, calmly. "She's completely legal and I have the records to prove it. I even have a copy of her government issued identification card."

"You have a copy of her identification card, but it wasn't issued by any government."

"Well, since you didn't bring the cops with you, I'm assuming you've realized how grown up your little girl has gotten. You're not going to make trouble, are you?"

"No, I'm not going to rock the boat. She'll be legal in  a few weeks, and she likes working here. The private dances were the only way we could talk. She said she can't leave with me or it will cause trouble."

Buster beamed.

"So I assume I'm not banned?" said Bob.

"Perish the thought. I can understand why a man would want to keep an eye on his daughter." Buster grinned. "Most fathers don't keep this close an eye on their daughters, but she's a good kid. If you're not going to rock the boat, I won't, either." He glanced at the bartender. "Marvin, give the man whatever he wants, but just this once." He looked back at Bob. "You need to drink more."

"You care about my daughter, but not my liver?" Bob smiled.

"I don't have to look at your liver," said Buster.

He turned and left. Bob looked at the bartender, who was already adding an ounce of Scotch to the Drambuie that was already in the glass.

"I knew there was something up with you," said the man. "Makes sense, now."

"It makes sense that a man comes to watch his daughter strip?"

"You ain't like the other horn dogs who come in here and drool after the girls," said the bartender. "You ain't here to look at her body. You're here to make sure she's okay."

"Don't be too sure about the not looking at her body thing," sighed Bob.

The bartender shrugged. He'd seen so many naked women that nudity had become routine. Bob had heard that, at nudist colonies, erections were rare. He'd heard people got used to nakedness and it was no longer sexual for them.

Bob was pretty sure he wasn't there, yet.

******

He got her schedule, and only went to the club on nights she danced. Once a week he got a private dance and she always danced for him as if he were any other customer. Except, of course, she didn't do private dances for other customers. He tipped her well, and he started ordering non-alcoholic drinks. It didn't matter if they had alcohol in them or not. All drinks were expensive at Buster's. More than once Bob wondered if Starbucks's pricing scheme was based on Buster's drink prices. Or vice versa.

He was there, one night, when a problem developed that brought more changes to their already complicated lives. It happened to be a Friday night, and the place was packed.

Two men got rowdy while she was on stage. They yelled that they wanted to fuck her, and said they'd pull a train on her until she passed out. One tried to grab her ankle, but she avoided him. A bouncer arrived at stage side and gave them a warning.

"Fuck you," sneered one of them. "We're buying drinks and tipping the dancers. In fact, we want a private dance with this slut. Set it up for us, pretty boy."

The bouncer disappeared and Chastity finished her set. Nobody came to get the men and they rose, going toward the curtain. An altercation ensued and both were thrown out of the club.

When Bob left, that night, he happened to notice a lighter flicker inside a car in the parking lot as a cigarette was lit. He got in his own car and sat there. It was just a hunch, but it paid off. One of the two men who had been ejected got out of the car and went to the rear of it to take a piss right there in the parking lot.

Chastity drove Mona's car to get to the club, and while the employee parking lot was separate, it was still visible to patrons if they parked at one end of the customer parking area. So Bob saw Chastity leave the building and walk toward her grandmother's car. He also saw the two men get out of their car and start moving purposefully toward his daughter.

He got there about the same time they did.

The confrontation was short. Bob had been out of the Marine Corps for four and a half years, but he was still in very good shape. He was, however, a little rusty, in terms of his unarmed combat expertise. He rendered both men unconscious, but one of them got in a swipe with a knife that sliced a six inch incision into Bob's stomach, just above his belt.

He didn't know all the girls were issued panic buttons, and that Chastity had pressed hers as soon as the men approached. By the time he was finished, two bouncers arrived on the scene.

"You're hurt!" wailed Chastity, pointing at the widening stain on his shirt.

"It's nothing," he said, applying direct pressure.

"I'll call 911," said a bouncer.

"Don't," said Bob. "We don't need any cops here, looking too closely at her employment records." Chastity was still a few weeks away from being eighteen.

"Oh, yeah," said the bouncer, confirming in Bob's mind that everybody was aware that Buster "fudged" on the girls' ages sometimes. "You sure you'll be okay?"

"I've got first aid stuff at home," said Bob. "It's just a scratch."

"I'll go with him," said Chastity.

Everybody in the club also now knew that "Trudy" was Bob's daughter.

"We'll take care of these two," said the other bouncer.

Bob wondered if they were the ones who would need an ambulance, later on, when they were found, no doubt somewhere far away from the club.

"Don't kill them," he said.

"Why not?" asked one of the bouncer's carelessly.

******

Chastity drove them to his house in Nana's car. He told her not to speed, and that the last thing they needed was mister nice policeman pulling her over for some traffic infraction and seeing Bob bleeding.

When they got inside she peeled his shirt back and gasped.

"That is not a scratch!" moaned Chastity. "You need to go to the hospital, Daddy," she panted.

"No I don't. If I go to a hospital they'll want to know how it happened, and the cops will get called and they'll want to interview everybody. Do you want there to be a police report where the exotic dancer witness turns out to be the underage daughter of the victim?"

"No," she admitted, reluctantly.

"You need to see how deep it is," he said, trying to think of something else.

"This is bad enough, thank you very much," she replied.

"Just pull the skin apart gently and see how far in it goes," he said.

"How am I supposed to judge?" she whined.

"Tug it open look and tell me what you see," he said. "Just do it and get it over with. Next week this will all be a dim memory."

She leaned over. He could see her biting her lower lip between pearly, white teeth. He could also see down inside of her plain, white blouse, where her hanging, naked breasts looked luscious. He felt his penis bob up and down, one time, as muscles there involuntarily clenched.

She winced as she pulled the edges of the wound apart.

"It isn't very deep," she said. "Maybe a quarter of an inch? I see something white, but it's starting to bleed again."

"Where it is, there's a layer of fat. That's the white you see. Okay, we're going to sterilize it with hydrogen peroxide and then you can sew it closed."

"You are fucking insane," said his daughter, standing up. Her voice and demeanor were completely normal.

"It's bad enough that you dance naked for strange men. Having a potty mouth doesn't help."

"I don't dance naked for strange men. I dance naked for my daddy. It just so happens that sometimes there are strange men there while I do it, and that sometimes my daddy isn't there. And my mouth has nothing to do with it. If you think I'm going to sew you closed, you have another think coming, mister."

It took him five minutes to convince her to do it. He held gauze over the wound, applying direct pressure, until she found his old Marine battlefield trauma kit, which had suturing materials in it. It was years past its official shelf life, but he figured that wouldn't matter for sutures.

He shrugged his shirt off and she reached to unbuckle his belt. His pants were soaked, where gravity had made the blood flow into them. He wasn't wearing underwear, a habit that was also a remnant of the Corps.

Her skirt and plain white blouse weren't a school girl outfit, but it reminded him of the one she sometimes wore to dance in.

She swabbed the wound with gauze, soaked in hydrogen peroxide. It was impossible for the state of his naked penis to be missed.

"Daddy!" she chided, as she glanced at his rock hard erection.

"Don’t worry. It happens all the time when guys get injured. The nervous system goes into overdrive."

"Bull shit," she snorted. "Don't lie to me, Daddy."

"Okay. It's not the wound causing that," he said.

"It's me?"

"It's you, Baby," he sighed. "I was thinking about you dancing."

"How can you think of that at a time like this?" she moaned.

"I confess I looked down your shirt. You have gorgeous breasts, not that I should be noticing them," he said, shrugging.

"Isn't this a switch in roles," she commented, wryly, gingerly wiping the blood away from around the wound with the gauze.

She peered at the wound.

"Daddy, I changed my mind. That's deep. You really need a doctor."

"You can sew me up," he said. "I'd do it myself, but I can't see well enough unless I bend over and if I bend over, the skin won't lie correctly as it's stitched."

"I can't sew up my own father!" she whined. "I can barely sew on a button!"

"I'll talk you through it. We'll have a discussion about something else. It will take your mind off what you're doing."

He got a suture pack out of the kit and opened it. He handed her the curved needle and a hemostat and showed her how to wield it, using his bloody shirt as "skin". He told her to tie off each individual stitch, took a slug out of a bottle of Wild Turkey, and told her to go ahead.

"Maybe the pain will get rid of that," he said, eyeing his still rigid penis.

She winced as she pushed the tip of the needle through his skin at the end of the cut.

"I know this needle is sharp, but it stretches the skin before it goes through it," she commented. 

"Skin is tough. It's what protects everything inside us," said Bob. " Talk about something else and it won't be so bad."

She was silent as she tied the first knot, and didn't speak again until she'd pushed the needle through his skin again.

"So, does it always get that way when you watch me dance?"

"You mean my manhood?"

She actually smiled.

"That's such a silly name for it. Yes, your manhood. Does it always get that way when I dance?"

"Every time," he sighed. "I'm sorry."

"I don't mind if you get excited when I dance, Daddy. It's supposed to be exciting."

"Not for me," he grumbled.

"Why not? You're a man."

"I'm a father," he pointed out.

"Every exotic dancer has a father," she pointed out.

"Yes, but those fathers don't come watch their little girls get naked and flash their pussies to a bunch of horny men."

"So what if I got married. Would it bother you if I flashed my pussy at my husband?"

"Of course not," he said.

"I don't believe you."

"What? Why not?"

"Because no father wants to think of his little girl as being sexual. Daddies want their daughters to stay virgins all their lives."

"Well, I guess that ship has sailed," he sighed.

She stood up and stared at him.

"Why did you say that?"

"I can't pretend you're a virgin anymore," he said. "Not after seeing you dance."

"Thanks a lot!" she brayed, clearly angry.

She threw the bloody gauze on top of his wound and stomped out of the room. The line of stitches was only half finished.

He tried to follow, but the pain of trying to sit up wrenched a groan of agony from him. Obviously, she hadn't gone far, because she rushed back into the room.

"You idiot," she snapped. "You need a hospital!"

"I told you why not. Just a few more stitches and you'll be done."

"If you weren't my father," she growled.

"I'm glad you don't anticipate doing this for anybody else. Why'd you get mad, anyway?"

She picked up the hemostat again. She didn't answer his question.

"Come on. Why were you mad?" he insisted. "What did I say?"

"You think I'm a slut," she muttered.

"No I don't," he said, automatically.

"I take off my clothes for strangers," she said. "In your book that makes me a slut."

"No it doesn't," he insisted. Even he could hear the doubt in his voice.

"You think I fuck around," she said, her face a frozen mask. "Isn't that what you believe?"

He didn't want to admit that. Not out loud. His feelings were still in an uproar. It had been less than a month since he found out his darling, precious daughter was a stripper. The ease (and skill) with which she displayed her body to lusting men made it impossible to believe no man had plundered her virginity. But he couldn't say it out loud. The thought wracked him, and yet, every time it invaded his mind, he got an erection.

He lifted his head to look. His cock had softened a bit as she sewed, but now it was iron hard again. It was so hard the head was hovering above his abdomen, only inches from where she was working on him.

"I don't know what to think," he said. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this."

She continued. She was on her seventh stitch and seemed to have adapted already.

"Who would have thought skin was so tough?" she muttered as the tissue resisted being pierced, and then finally gave up in a rush that sent the tip of the needle through the other side.

Bob was feeling a little light-headed. He'd talked her through the first six knots, but laid his head back now, confident she could finish this without any coaching.

Five minutes later she tied off the last of eleven stitches and stood up.

"I want you to know something," she said, looking down at him.

"What?"

"I am a virgin, you misogynistic bastard. The only things that have ever been in my pussy are my fingers and tampons! Just because I dance to get money for college does not mean I'm a slut!"

Tears leaked from the corners of both eyes, and spilled down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he groaned. "That's not what I meant."

"Yes it is," she said, wiping her eyes with her fingers. "Admit it. You think I fuck around."

He looked at her. Even angry she was so gorgeous it made his chest hurt. He'd gotten soft while she stitched him up, but now he could feel his cock engorging again. He felt shame.

"Look," he pleaded. "People make mistakes, jump to conclusions. I'm sorry. All I could think of was what I'd do if I was in that situation ... alone with you."

He blinked. That hadn't come out like he'd heard it in his mind. In fact, it hadn't made any sense at all.

"My mother told me I was named by my grandmother, who insisted that I have a name that would encourage me to stay a virgin until I was married. Well, it did," she said, reaching to grasp his almost erect member. "You may not believe it, but I've never even touched one of these."

She froze, staring at what her hand was holding. He lifted his head to stare, too.

"It's hot," she said as if something had just occurred to her out of the blue. "Wow." She squeezed, gently. "It feels so hard … except it's also soft and warm." Her hand moved, and the skin around is shaft moved with it. His foreskin peeled slowly off of the crown, exposing it slowly, like she exposed parts of her body when she danced.

"Baby," he whispered.

"I can't believe I have my hand around a penis," she said, her voice light. She looked at his face. Wonder was clearly displayed on hers. "Are they all like this?"

"This is the only one you need to worry about," he gasped. He frowned. That hadn't come out right, either.

"All those guys, drinking and staring at me. Each of them has one of these in his pants, just like this one."

"Chastity, Honey, you shouldn't be touching that," panted Bob.

"I know," she said, her voice light and airy. It was as if some friend had said she shouldn't use the color of fingernail polish she was trying out, because it didn't match her style. She squeezed again, and slowly returned his foreskin to its normal position.

"Are you going to stop?" he groaned.

"I don't think so," she said. "Not yet."

She stroked his now fully erect penis three times, as if she'd done this a hundred times.

"This is so cool," she breathed.

"It's so wrong," he panted.

"I've missed out on so much," she sighed.

"No you haven't. You haven't missed anything. You don't need this yet."

She looked from the cock in her hand to his face. She frowned.

"This got hard … because of me," she said.

"No," he tried to lie.

"Yes it did. You already admitted it. I didn't really think about it all that much, before. Well, when I first started dancing I knew guys got hard-ons. But all I ever saw was bulges. Seeing one for real is so different."

She squeezed his cock again, but didn't look at it.

"You know what's really weird about this?"

"I could list a dozen things," he gasped.

"What's really weird," she said, ignoring him, "is that it makes me feel good that you got hard for me. Isn't that crazy? With other guys it's kind of disgusting … you know, animal? But you're not an animal. You love me. I know you do. But you want to have sex with me, too. It's just weird."

"I don't want to have sex with you!" gasped Bob.

"Your mouth is saying one thing, but your ... manhood ... is saying something else." She looked up at his face, grinned, and then looked back at his cock. She stroked it three more times. "This wants to go inside me."

"Chastity, please," begged Bob. Had he been asked what he was begging for, he could not have articulated it.

"Please?" She looked back at his face. Her mind had no trouble imagining what he was begging for. "You want me to let you? You want me to let you do all those things you would forbid letting me do with boys?"

"Honey … I can't help it," groaned Bob, thinking about the erection in her hand, rather than his 'explanation' in the context of what she'd just suggested.

She suddenly let go of his cock.

"Not now," she said. "You're injured. You'd probably bleed all over me. That would be icky."

"What?" His dazed mind couldn't cope with the situation.

"You need to rest. I'll check on you later. I need to get cleaned up." She looked at her bloody fingers.

With that, she turned and walked out of the room. She seemed completely at ease. There was no visible evidence that seeing his bloody wound, cleaning it, stretching it open, and then sewing it up had traumatized her at all. On the same level, seeing his boner and working through the realization that her father lusted after her - and that it wasn't horrifying - didn't seem to have left any evidence of stress, either.

Bob lay there, dressed only in socks. He lifted his head to look at his traitorous penis, which was slowly wilting, now that the stimulus to keep it hard had left the room. It was bloody, too, and he winced, imagining that was blood from his own daughter's ruptured hymen. He let his head fall and reminded himself her hymen had been ruptured long ago, by a tampon.

He had no idea what to do. He sat up, wincing at the pain, and put his feet on the floor beside the bed. He looked at the whisky bottle and then reached for it. Three gulps later he capped the bottle and laid back down.

Ten minutes later, he was asleep.

Chapter Four

Chastity looked into the room from the doorway. Good. He was sleeping. He needed sleep.

She moved on to another door, a door she hadn't opened, but which probably led to another bedroom. Slowly, she pushed the door open and peered in. It wasn't anything like her old room, in their old house. Nothing of hers was in there, of course, but she'd always had a good imagination, using it to supply the 'normal' her life was deprived of. The room was empty, which made it easy, in her mind, to go back in time. Her vision blurred and, suddenly, the walls were the same. The floor was the same. The scratches on the window sill were the same. Her old dresser was there, empty, now. That it was empty was fine. There was nothing in that past that she wanted to bring forward to the present.

Leaving there, she explored all the other rooms in the house. "Her" room was the only empty one. Everything else had been lived in for four years, and it had all been redone completely. One room, a small bedroom, had become his junk room. In the closet she found clothing that must have been her mother's, things she'd left behind in their old house, and which he had kept. She changed into an old skirt and a tank top. They didn't match, but she didn't care. She didn't have a bra with her, and decided to go commando, too. Being with Daddy made her feel ... sexy.

She thought about that as she found the ingredients to make tuna salad. Every girl contemplates having sex for the first time. That contemplation can be incredibly complicated and detailed, or it can remain more of a hazy question mark. Most girls come to the door that, if opened, means they will no longer be virgins, and most girls turn away from that door more than once.

Chastity had merely glanced toward that door, in her young dating life. The concept of lying under a boy - or man - while he expressed his lust in ways other than giving her money had never seemed like something that would feel good.

Now, though, she gazed at the door, behind which lay her father. This was different, somehow. She'd had fantasies about him for years, and they had felt completely normal to her. Seeing him in the flesh … actually holding his flesh … wasn't equivalent to those fantasies. It was akin to having lived in a black and white world, and then realizing there were colors, too.

She didn't worry about it. Nor did she think too long and hard on it. She had known that imagining she was dancing for her father was "other than normal" but the other side of that coin was that she missed him. The memory of his smile and hugs had dimmed over the years, and substituting what she remembered of him onto the faces of Buster's patrons actually made her feel good, somehow.

And now she had found him again. Now he was here. She could touch him and hold him and kiss him. She didn't have to imagine his face anymore. She'd done private dances for him and seen the desire in his eyes. It was eerily similar to what she saw in the other men's eyes, but behind that was the fact that he loved her. He cared about her. He had been searching for her. He would never leave her.

She didn't care what the world said was right and wrong. She just didn't care. It was that simple, as simple as teenagers make many complicated issues.

That was a preview of Dancing For Daddy. To read the rest purchase the book.

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