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Message-ID: <45401asstr$1069103403@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: DrSpin <drspin@newsguy.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Why Rose 36 Cried (MF, inc, caution very bleak) ~ by DrSpin/Neil Anthony (RP)
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 16:10:03 -0500
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

Why Rose 36 Cried (MF inc, very bleak)
By Neil Anthony/DrSpin

---------------------------------------------------------
* This story is published here by kind permission of Ruthie's 
Club, where it appeared stunningly illustrated by Umbra 
under an exclusivity period for six months. Ruthie's Club 
(http://www.ruthiesclub.com) carries about 90 more of my new 
stories. 

* The author welcomes comments and opinions from readers 
and is invariably motivated to respond. Write to:
neilanthony@austarnet.com.au

* DrSpin's Standard Disclaimer: 
I write and you read, if you care to. That's all there is 
to it. Any reader who is offended should not have been here 
in the first place.
---------------------------------------------------------

She turned 36 and, that very day, Rose cried. We were sitting 
in a bar drinking slow J&B, talking and sharing frustrations, 
and all of a sudden she looked at me directly and said it was 
her birthday. 

"Really?" Maybe I should have known but I didn't. "Remind me. 
How old are you now?" 

"I'm 36," she said, and her blue-grey eyes filled with tears 
so big and heavy they overflowed instantly down both cheeks. 
She dashed them aside with the flat of her hand, one side then 
the other, embarrassed near to the point of panic. 

Astonishing. "Rose?" I queried. Like, is that you? 

She jumped from the bar stool and threaded the tables in a 
rush, her face twisted and crumpled and tears flowing 
copiously. She swept out the door and people turned to look at 
me. 

"It's her birthday," I shrugged. "She turned 36." 

There was a general nodding of heads. Right. Understandable. 

I'll say this straight about Rose. I am possessed and 
hopelessly besotted. I can never love a woman other than her. 
She knows this but only if she remembers. It barely impinges 
on her. Rose can and does fall in love with all sorts of 
appalling men at various times but she can 
never love me. But she adores me because I am her best friend. 
Her accomplice. Her confidante. The last buddy on earth. I 
could cry about it myself if I let my guard down. Which I 
won't, because I'm not here to be 
me. Around her I'm not me. I'm Jack. Just Rose's pal, Jack. 

I remember the first time when I tried to be more than that. 
We were work colleagues, kindred spirits and friends 
developing from casual to close. I met her for lunch with a 
careful plan, ready to lay down my case with beautiful logic 
and my life with devoted abandon. As usual she disarmed me 
when I had barely started and I was left breathless and 
witless. 

"I'm crazy about you," I said to her across the table. I sat 
back in surprise, amazed I had said such a thing. 

"I'm amazed I said that," I said. 

"I knew this would happen," she said, not looking at all 
flattered. 

"I can't help it." 

She dismissed my cause with an impatient gesture. "Nothing's 
going to come of it. It's hopeless." 

"Gee, that was quick," I said, impressed despite the crush of 
disappointment. "My whole life flashed in front of your eyes." 

"Sorry," she said far too quickly, looking restlessly around 
the room. 

"Rose, give me a chance." 

"Stop it," she said. "I like you well enough, Jack. But you 
can't do this." 

"Yes I can, because I'm crazy about you. You're the one who 
can't do it." 

She sat there, looking at me with her hands folded on the 
table, her face failing to register emotion or express 
opinion. Somewhere big hands and little hands moved on clock 
faces but on Rose no movement showed. 

"Rose," I said. "Say something. Give me a signal, for pity's 
sake." 

"No, Jack. There's nothing I can do for you." And as though 
she'd just remembered something important, she rattled around 
in her handbag and extracted a plastic container. With her 
hands below the level of the table, she unscrewed the cap and 
shook out a tablet that she popped in her mouth. 

"What's that?" I asked, curious about anything that was part 
of her. 

"A Christmas goose," she said, "with all the trimmings." 

"I didn't know you took pills." 

"Everybody takes pills," she said. 

"I don't." 

"You wouldn't." 

I pressed. "What sort of pills?" 

"My sort of pills. Now leave it, please. What else do you want 
to know about me? Shall I turn out my bag on the table?" 

"Well yes, that would be most interesting." 

She regarded me steadily. "What did I do to deserve this? I 
haven't encouraged you one bit. You're not my type, Jack. I 
make it a rule not to fuck my friends because I don't have 
enough of them. So back off. I don't like being scrutinised. 
You're like an X-ray machine. You think I'm strong and tough 
but I'm not. I go to pieces. I fall apart. Please, Jack. Don't 
do this to me." 

And I could see she meant it. "So it's back to being pals," I 
said. 

"That's all it can ever be," she said. 

In the two years I'd known her, Rose had crashed her way 
through several relationships and been screwed by a lot of 
men, none of them worthy. Mind you, all of them looked good, 
but in the most obvious and insincere quasi-rebellious way, 
like lead singers in rock bands. Pretty guys who wouldn't 
waste a smile on man, woman or beast if there wasn't something 
to be had from it. Barely a handful were even halfway 
reasonable people. Her taste in men was simply awful. And I 
was always there to clean up afterwards. 

One guy I remember more than others. If ever the chance falls 
my way I will do him harm. Rose called me and I went around to 
her place. The guy, tall, thin and good-looking in a dangerous 
fuck-you-too way he cultivated and made the most of, was just 
leaving with two suitcases. He'd been around for a month or 
so. 

"She fucks like a dead cat," he said to me with smooth malice 
at the front door. "I hope for your sake that's not why you're 
here." 

"Wouldn't know about that," I said. "But I'm smart enough to 
recognise class in a woman when I see it." 

He turned back and studied me for a second. "Poor bastard," he 
said with frank amusement. "She's got you by the balls." 

 From early days I belonged to Rose who did not belong to me. 
In our own way we had a relationship. I knew a lot about her. 
I knew she'd left home far too early, of her own accord, 
leaving behind a desperately-ill mother and a father who could 
not be talked about. Ice-cold anger on that subject. I tried 
to find out the reason but she dismissed me with naked and 
forbidding hostility. The doors were locked and bolted on the 
matter. 
Since the age of 17 she'd been making her own way in the world 
and she gave every appearance of being leaner and meaner than 
most. She was not easy or quick to please, a no-shit woman 
with a tongue like a blade of spear grass who gave no quarter. 
Except for the selfish and shallow pretty boys, that is. I 
often berated her for it and she accepted the 
criticism with good grace. No man was a good enough package, 
she would explain with bitter humour, so she might as well 
waste her time with empty vessels who at least looked and 
smelled good in the morning. 
The pretty boys seemed to serve a purpose of sorts, because 
when she didn't have one she could fall into black moods. She 
would retreat from the world, poison herself with alcohol for 
days at a time and speak to nobody. Not even me. I tried once. 
She treated me so harshly I learned not to do it again. 

Rose could be intoxicating to be around. She was sharp and 
sassy, vibrant and vivacious. Time would fly past at 
bewildering speed. But she had a dark side and too often a 
need to hurt people around her when it seemed neither 
justified nor necessary. Before I came to know her she spent 
time in clinical treatment for depression. She told me about 
it one day by 
way of apology for a bad spot of behaviour. Maybe that was why 
she took pills. 

I certainly knew Rose well enough to stay low the day she 
cried on her 36th birthday. It would not have made her happy 
to have been seen as vulnerable, as so fragile that she would 
cry simply because she might be old and past her best. She 
would tough it out and deal with it in her own way. Or so I 
thought. 

I got home late that night and found a message from her on the 
answering machine. She was sullen. I had failed her in some 
way. I should have been available and I wasn't and it was 
about time I showed up. Of course I rang and said I would be 
around to see her immediately. She merely grunted and 
disconnected. 

Rose was, in a word, irrational. She looked awful. She was 
wearing an old grey bathrobe and her eyes were dull and 
bruised-looking. Her face looked as though she'd suddenly lost 
a lot of weight. She stood in the doorway and plainly ached, 
looking at me without greeting and as though I had caused a 
lot of bad things. She left the door open, turned her back on 
me and went inside. In help mode I followed her. "You're ill," 
I said. "What's wrong?" 

"Wrong? You are, as usual," she said, openly hostile. She 
slumped in a chair and I saw the close-to-empty bottle of J&B 
beside her on a table. 

"You're drunk," I said, with that hint of ecclesiastical 
accusation I find hard to avoid. 

"Wrong again," she snarled. "But I'm gonna be." 

"I don't know why you need to be like this," I said. "So you 
turned 36. No big deal, Rose. You don't look a day older than 
yesterday." 

"You don't know shit, old buddy. You think you do but you 
don't. All the studies say a woman is in her prime at age 35." 
She laughed bitterly. "But nothing happened. Looks like I just 
blew it away." 

I sat down opposite her. She lifted a glass and drank from it, 
looking at me challengingly over the rim. 

"So you showed up at last," she said acidly. "Where have you 
been? Slipping it to that pallid little Barbie doll, I 
suppose." 

Barbara was a girl I took out occasionally. She was a nice 
ordinary girl who did not deserve scorn from anybody, but for 
some reason Rose disliked her intensely. "I haven't been 
fucking anybody," I said, which was true. 

She splashed more whisky into the glass and held it in front 
of her, continuing to look at me in accusatory fashion. "How 
come you fuck Barbie doll and you don't fuck me?" 

I shook my head at her slowly. "You can't be serious," I said 
gently. 

But she was spoiling for a fight. "Tell me the truth," she 
said. "Why don't you want to fuck me?" 

"I do. I have always wanted to, from the moment I saw you." 

"You never said so," she said, sneering aggressively. "You 
never even asked." 

"You never offered." 

"What do I have to do, Jack?" she asked mockingly. "Beg? Are 
you that useless?" 

"Why are you doing this to me?" 

She glowered at me. "Because you'll sit there and take it. 
You're so pathetic." 

I sat there and took it, now acutely aware this was a matter 
beyond mere alcoholic aggression. 

"I can do anything to you," she said nastily. "You'll just sit 
there and wobble your head at me like a golliwog." 

She flung the contents of her glass at me and the spirit 
soaked into my trousers. "You'll take that," she said. "No 
problem. Like water off a duck's back." 

I sat there and took it, wobbling my head and hoping to make 
her laugh. Instead she became enraged. She jumped to her feet 
and cracked me hard with her hand across the left side of my 
head. 

"You bastard!" she screamed at me. "You prick!" She hit me 
again, and again, and a few more times after that. She rained 
blows at my head and face but they became weaker and lost 
force as she sobbed and cried. I sat there and took it. 

She snatched up the glass from the floor and lifted it high, 
ready to crash it against my face. Instead she paused and then 
threw it aside. She slumped to the floor, sitting loosely 
cross-legged and bending her head over into her body, 
shielding her face with her arms. 

I sat there for some time, my ears tender and my left 
cheekbone aching dully, watching her in her desolation as the 
crying subsided. Eventually she lifted her head. Her eyes were 
red and rimmed with tears. Her nose was running and she wiped 
it carelessly with the sleeve of her bathrobe. 

"I'm sorry," she said raggedly. "I asked you here tonight 
because I was going to fuck you. Then I was going to tell you 
to fuck off." She smiled at me wanly, like a little girl. "I'm 
full to bursting with anger. I hate myself when I get like 
this and I need to take it out on somebody. And, Jack, you're 
always close by." 

"You're a bit of a mess, all right," I agreed. "But I'm crazy 
about you, remember? I was crazy about you yesterday when you 
were 35 and I'm still crazy about you today when you're 36." I 
shrugged. "There's no accounting for taste." 

She put her head down on the arm of the chair and began to sob 
again. I didn't know why; for herself, most likely. Because 
she'd turned 36. 

She stayed way-down-low unhappy. I could see there was no 
quick and easy path out of it. She also got badly drunk and I 
didn't try to restrain her. For several hours she swung 
rapidly between bouts of reckless animation and mute 
melancholy. I sat in the chair and tried to come to terms with 
the real Rose. I didn't know enough to know the extent of her 
problem. She'd said herself she was clinical and I thought it 
likely she 
was manic-depressive. Whatever the condition, she sure didn't 
make a happy drunk. At times she taunted me mercilessly. She 
stripped and danced naked before me in exaggerated lewdness, 
mocking me with extravagant invitations. She questioned my 
virility and then my sexuality. She told highly improbable 
stories about her experiences with mysterious and shadowy 
lovers. 

Then, with apologies, she would fall limply to the floor and 
mutter to herself for a time. I waited for her to sleep but, 
even after extended periods of silence, I found her awake. 

Eventually she vomited, her flat stomach heaving convulsively 
long after anything in it had been expelled. She became 
rubber-legged and incoherent, and at last I was able to take 
over. 

I cleaned up and tidied everything, Rose included, then sat 
back in the chair and waited for something to happen. Morning 
arrived and I remained sitting there, unasleep. I don't 
remember giving any consideration to anything. I made myself 
bitter coffee and waited for the next event. 

Rose emerged in the late morning, wearing the bathrobe, 
holding on to the doorway and looking at me sitting in the 
chair. "You're still here," she said, and she shuffled into 
the kitchen and drank a long glass of water and then another. 
She went back to her bedroom. "Go home," she said. 

Two hours or so later I heard the toilet flush and she 
wandered out again. "Still here," she said. "Why don't you go 
home?" 

Half an hour later she came out more purposefully. "I can't 
sleep because I know you're sitting there," she said. "I feel 
like an invalid." 

"You are an invalid," I said. 

She stood with her hands on the back of a chair, across from 
me. Her mouth turned down, very Rose-like. "At least you're 
not full of care and concern," she said. "I hate that." 

"I remember. You hate being scrutinised." 

"With justification. Why are you still here? I don't need you. 
Wait, I need you to pour me a drink." 

I got up from the chair and walked to the sideboard where I'd 
put the bottle. 

"You'd get me a drink?" she asked. 

"Sure, if you want." 

"Then I don't want one." She trudged back to her bedroom. "I 
feel like shit," she said. "You can stay if you want." 

At nightfall I put the lights on and made more bitter coffee. 
When I returned to the chair she was sitting in her usual 
place. 

"I feel better," she said. She made a face. "I mean, the 
hangover's gone away." 

I gave her my coffee and she sipped at it. "You don't say 
much, do you," she said. "What happened to the wisecracks?" 

"You beat me up last time I tried to be funny. I must be 
learning at last." 

She drank more coffee. "I don't know how long I'm going to be 
like this," she said. "It's been a while since it last 
happened. I feel so tired." 

"So sleep. I'll hang about. I've got nowhere else to go and 
nothing better to do." 

She looked like an abandoned lover. "Sometimes you can be 
funny," she said. "Come on, Jack, make me smile." 

I thought about a few gags but they died. "I can't," I said. 

"Then I'll just have another drink or two," she said. 

I let her do it. There was no point in stopping her, even if I 
could. I had no ownership rights. In any case, one of life's 
more futile exercises is trying to stop people who want to 
drink from drinking. 

She drank and she relaxed; she was friendly and talkative. She 
drank and she laughed as she recounted experiences. She drank 
and she talked about her disappointments. She drank and told 
me she had no friends. She drank and she cried over her lost 
opportunities. She drank and grew angry with me because I 
wouldn't drink with her. So I did. 

We drank together, drink for drink, for three more hours or so 
and she got big drunk and I got little drunk. She got big 
depressed and I got little depressed. Then she got angry and I 
thought about getting angry too, but in the end I just stayed 
depressed. 

I'm definitely no fun when I get like that. I don't know 
whether I'm much fun when I'm not but I'm definitely no fun 
when I am. I sat there drinking morosely, staring at the 
floor, while she performed solo angry scenes. I barely 
listened to her in my lost and wandering mood. I 
sat there drinking, replaying my life and wondering why I went 
on with it. 

It was a brilliant ploy, or it would have been if it had been 
a ploy, because she stopped drinking and went to bed. I didn't 
know she had until I reached out to pour another drink and 
found she was gone. I looked in on her and she was asleep, so 
I threw off my clothes and went to bed myself in her spare 
room. 

I didn't sleep because I often don't, and I particularly don't 
when I've been drinking, which is one of the reasons I almost 
never drink. On my back, I looked at nothing and felt bad 
about it as the night edged onwards. At some point Rose got 
into bed, muttering drunkenly and 
incoherently. I didn't understand what she said and couldn't 
muster the concentration to query it. She threw an arm loosely 
across my chest, placed her body in its bathrobe against me, 
pushed her head against my shoulder and instantly fell asleep. 
Eyes open, I looked at the dark near the ceiling. 

As it turned out I did sleep. I must have done so because I 
was having an erotic dream and Rose woke me out of it. It was 
near four in the morning. I remember turning my head and 
looking at the clock. Rose was moving her body up and down 
against me. The bathrobe was loose and open, her pelvis was 
scraping against my hipbone and her hand was fluttering on my 
stiff penis. 

I lay still, collecting my thoughts. I was awake and it was 
not a dream. I turned my head towards her and it looked like 
her eyes were closed. She seemed to be asleep. I put my arm 
across her and down her back, nudging her gently across her 
buttocks. "Hey," I said softly. "Hey, Rose." 

She moaned and spoke indistinctly. I could see her eyes were 
still closed. Then she said it again, this time more clearly. 
"It's all right," she said, slurring her words and running 
them together. 

I nudged her once more. "Rose, are you awake?" 

Her eyes snapped open. "It's all right," she said fiercely. "I 
want you to do it." Her eyes closed again and she kept moving 
her body and her hands. 

I was confused. The message was unequivocal but instinct told 
me all was not well. I nudged her again. "Rose, let's talk 
about this." 

Immediately she rolled on top of me and thrust herself on the 
erect penis she held. It was done in an instant and I was 
enclosed by her, warm and wet. 

"No talk," she said, gliding smoothly. "I hate talking. Don't 
talk. Let's just do it." 

Oh shit, I thought. I did not know whether she was awake, 
asleep, half-awake or half-asleep, or just plain dead drunk, 
and I did not know what to do. So I did nothing as she rode 
her way onwards. I lay flat on my back, hands by my sides and 
watched her. She had her hands planted on the bed beside my 
chest for balance, her head was thrown back and her breasts 
were bobbing and swaying. She powered on with athletic 
intensity, thrusting efficiently with her long and lean 
thighs. 

I was not even close to letting myself go when she quickened 
her pace in short, sharp movements. She shuddered from side to 
side, clenched her hands around my ribcage and sank her head 
slowly to my chest. My penis remained hard and firmly 
enclosed. 

"Oh daddy," she whispered. "That was a really good one." 

My heart jumped mightily in my chest and I was seized with 
desire. I rolled her over, still strong inside her, and began 
to pump furiously. 

"Yes, daddy, do it again," she said savagely. "Do it again." 
She appeared to reach orgasm swiftly and then again before I 
found release. 

I sighed and held myself above her with my arms outstretched, 
shrinking within her, and my eyes found her eyes. 

"Jack," she said in a clear and different voice. "What have 
you done?" 

I could feel the weight of a great accusation. I was still 
affected by alcohol and still shrouded with the melancholy it 
had brought to me. I 
was not in shape to accommodate the question. 

"You did it, Rose," I replied. "I didn't do it. You did." 

"Bullshit," she snapped, ejecting me with a quick pull and 
twist of her hips and throwing me off. 

"No," I said, lying on my side and looking into her face. "You 
did it. I tried to stop you." 

"Liar!" She rolled away and off the bed, closing the bathrobe 
and belting it tight with angry hands. She strode out of the 
room and flicked on lights in the living room and the kitchen. 
I heard the clink of glasses and the tap running. The problem 
was growing and taking shape like a rampant virus. I was 
lacking mental agility and I knew I would soon be needing it. 
In the meantime my only choice was to go with the truth. 

"You woke me," I insisted, sitting up in the bed and calling 
to her. "You were all over me. You were on fire." 

"Liar!" she said again, shouting. 

"I wouldn't lie to you, Rose. Think about it. Maybe you were 
half-asleep. Maybe you thought you were dreaming. Maybe you 
were so drunk you didn't know who I was. I don't know. But I'm 
telling you what happened." 

She returned to stand in the doorway, a dark figure against 
the light behind. "You treacherous bastard," she said 
bitterly. "What happened is that I woke up and you were inside 
me." 

She pressed the bathrobe against her thigh. "Ugh," she said 
unpleasantly. "Your stuff is running down my leg." 

"No," I said. "You came into my bed, remember? What happened 
is that I woke up with you crawling all over me. What happened 
is that you coaxed me out of my sleep and climbed on top of me 
and fucked me. That's what happened. You only want to remember 
the end of the story, not the beginning and the middle." 

"I didn't do anything like that," she said. "I couldn't have. 
You're inventing it." 

I tried a different tack. "What were you dreaming about before 
you woke? Can you remember?" 

"No." But she turned her head away suddenly. 

"Maybe you were dreaming about your father." 

"Filthy bastard." 

"Who? Him or me?" 

"You. That's a vile thing to say." 

I sighed heavily. "Rose, do you want to go on with this? 
Perhaps we should call it a night and be done with it. Perhaps 
it's better for you to believe you were drunk and I took 
advantage of you. I'll play it your way." 

She came into the room and sat on the bed. On the very edge, 
at the bottom corner, as far away as she could get. "No, 
Jack," she said. "Let's have it out. Then I can decide if I'm 
ever going to talk you again." 

My heart sank. "I don't think this is a good idea," I said 
warily. 

"As it stands now, you're out of my life," she said. "You've 
got nothing to lose, so tell me the truth. You never know, I 
might just forgive you." 

It was tempting because I knew she might. I could tell her she 
was a victim of my drunken lust and she would accept it. But I 
feared it would alter our circumstances irretrievably. I 
feared losing her trust so I went the way of the truth. 

"For me to come clean you have to come clean," I said. "You 
told me once you don't have orgasms from fucking." 

"I don't." 

"You just did," I said. "More than one, I'm pretty sure." 

"Bullshit." 

"Are you telling me you've never had an orgasm?" 

"I told you, I don't." 

"But have you never?" 

"What is this? An inquisition? I'm telling you, I don't." 

"Let's leave that for the moment," I said. "Now you have to 
concede you were dreaming about your father." 

"I'm not sure. I might have been having some sort of 
nightmare. Why?" 

"You called me daddy." 

She twisted and rolled towards me, close enough to look 
directly into my eyes. "What?" 

"A couple of times. You called me daddy." 

"I called you daddy in my sleep?" 

"Rose, you called me daddy when you straddled me. You called 
me daddy when you reached orgasm. I didn't imagine it. It was 
very clear what you were doing and saying, and it was very 
clear who you thought you were doing and saying it to. It 
certainly wasn't Jack Blake." 

She put her hands to her face. "I didn't," she said. "I 
couldn't have." 

"You did." 

"Tell me what happened," she said softly, putting her head 
back to the pillow and drawing the blanket tightly around her. 
"Leave nothing out. Tell me everything." 

I told her, simply and plainly. She was silent for a long 
time. 

"You must despise me," she said finally, hollow with dread and 
despair. 

"Why should I despise you?" 

"Because you know the truth. You know what I did all those 
years ago. And it's true, God help me. That's what I did. 
Jesus, that's exactly what I did." 

"Tell me, what did you do?" 

"He called me his baby wife. I was 15. Mother was sick for a 
long time. I had to do it and I tried to tell her but she 
didn't say anything, and she didn't say it in such a way that 
I knew I had to do it. At first I hated it. I was miserable 
and scared. Then after a time I learned the power of it. I 
took control, I stopped being scared and I learned to like it. 
I knew it was bad but it was exciting. Christ, I got right off 
on it. But I shocked myself as well, and after a time I 
finished it. I left and ran away. You know that. I told you." 

"Jesus, Rose. Is that the truth?" 

"Why would I lie about it? Everything I told you is true." 

"Except about the orgasms," I said. 

"I don't have orgasms," she said. "I did back then but I don't 
now." 

"It seems you do," I said. "I was there." 

"That's so disgusting." 

"Don't be absurd." 

"Jesus, it doesn't bear thinking about. If it only happens 
when I'm fucking my father or I think I'm fucking my father, 
that's not only disgusting, it's obscene." 

"You're blaming yourself for something that wasn't your fault. 
You were just a 15-year-old kid. Give yourself a break. Your 
father took advantage of your first sexual awakenings. No 
blame can be attached to you. You're clean, Rose. You've been 
badly fucked up, but you're clean." 

"I don't feel clean. I've never felt clean and I never will." 

"Well, you're clean with me," I said. "I'll make you an 
undying pledge." 

"Jack, I can't handle anything emotional at the moment. I'm 
humiliated and terrified. I feel like dying." 

"Rose, I love you." 

She placed a finger vertically across my lips. "Never say 
that," she said. "Never say I love you. It brings bad luck." 

She rolled away. "I feel wretched and tired and I don't want 
to talk 
about it any more." 

"What did your father do?" I asked her. "For a job, I mean." 

"Why? What does that have to do with anything?" 

"I was just curious." 

"He was a minister of the church," she said quietly. 

"Jesus." 

"Hardly." 

She had silenced me. She snuggled a little closer and threw an 
arm over me. "I'll go to sleep now," she said. And she did. I 
looked at the side wall for a few hours, cramped and unable to 
turn or move.

In the morning she cradled a cup until the coffee turned cold. 
She talked about who she was and why. I sat and listened, 
offering no comment and letting her talk on and on, and I 
waded into Rose's sexual swamp with my eyes open. She 
harboured dark and shadowy monsters, hungry beasts lurching 
around looking for prey. Mostly they fed on her. 

She had obviously crossed the border between girlhood and 
womanhood with some speed. One day she was a flat-chested 
little girl; the next she wasn't. She remembered it as 
something that happened virtually overnight. Her mother, 
listless and ill, hadn't seemed to notice. But Rose was an 
educated modern young woman in the making. She knew about 
these chemical changes to her body and she welcomed them. 

She was not prepared, because the fine progressive education 
system was not that fine or progressive, for the chemical 
changes to her dreams. She became instantly sexually active 
behind her cool eyes. Everything took on a new shape, a new 
texture and a new subtlety. 

She dreamed what she had never dreamed, she thought what she 
had never thought and she saw, all of a sudden, what she had 
often seen but never previously recognised. For example, she 
saw that her father and her mother did not appear to have 
sexual compatibility. She saw nothing she had not always seen 
but now she knew it for what it was. 

Her mother was ill, of course, but there was more to it than 
that. She saw the barrier that had grown between them. She had 
became aware of such things, all of a sudden, and she paid 
close attention. 

One day, one early morning, she was in her room getting ready 
for school. She heard her father call out to her mother. She 
heard it clearly because her father had been in the shower and 
he had obviously opened the door of the bathroom to call his 
wife, and Rose's room was diagonally opposite. Her mother went 
to the bathroom and stood in the doorway, holding the door 
open. Rose slipped across her own doorway to get a clear view. 
Her mother stood at the doorway, holding open the door. Rose, 
shrinking back against the wall, peered around her door. 
Pastor Vincent Cooke was standing in the centre of the 
bathroom, dripping wet, with a rigid penis jutting from his 
body. 

"Have a look at that," he said happily to Rose's mother. "Who 
says it won't work any more? Who says that now?" 

Her mother looked at her father and Rose looked at her 
father's erection standing out so assertively, with its dark 
red skin and its knobbly head, curving upwards like a banana. 

She'd never seen such a thing. She knew about such matters 
because she was an educated young woman but she'd never put 
flesh to the concept. Away from direct line of sight, peering 
around the corner, she had an uncompromising view and she 
looked with considerable curiosity at this celebrated 
appendage. 

"You're so pathetic," her mother said to her father. "You 
disgust me the way you expose yourself." She left abruptly, 
leaving him standing in the centre of the bathroom. He looked 
down at himself, his head bent. Then, while Rose watched him, 
he took his penis in his hand, waggled it, then ran his hand 
up the length of it. He shook his head slowly and turned away, 
clearly intending to return to the shower that was still 
running. As he moved out of Rose's sight, he continued to hold 
himself. 

Rose ducked back around from the door. She flattened herself 
against the wall. She was not comfortable. She should not have 
watched that scene. She found her heart thumping and her 
breathing quick and shallow. She could understand that, 
whatever he had been trying to do, her father had just been 
humiliated. But most of all she understood a whole lot more 
about the male sexual organ and its proportions. 

New visions now invaded her dreams. The image of her father's 
penis, in fine detail, appeared on a regular basis. The red-
brown banana, standing up so eagerly and expectantly, became 
attached in her mind to boys she knew, to teachers, to men of 
all ages, shapes and sizes. And more often than not, it was 
attached to her father. He stood there in her dreams, looking 
at her, looking at himself, proud and happy, clasping his 
erection. 

"Have a look at this," he said in her dreams. And in her 
dreams she stayed and she looked, because she didn't want to 
humiliate him. She looked and she touched. She clasped him 
like he clasped himself, and he was happy. 

Some time after this, and she couldn't remember how long, but 
she believed it might have been three or four months, she had 
her next substantial experience. Rose liked to have her bath 
at night before she went to bed. She would go to her room, 
undress, put on a dressing gown and go to the bathroom for a 
long hot bath. That was her routine. That was what she liked 
to do. 

One night, at her usual time, Rose set off for her bedroom to 
change for her nightly bath. As she turned the corner into the 
corridor she caught a glimpse of her father going into her 
room. She expected to see him there when she entered, but he 
was nowhere in sight. She was sure he was there somewhere. 
Gradually she became convinced that he was hiding under the 
bed. She didn't see him or hear him but she knew he was there. 
She also knew why he was there. It came to her immediately. He 
was hiding under the bed so he could watch her undress. He 
knew her routine. He knew she would take off her clothes and 
prepare for her bath. 

She remembered standing in the bedroom absorbing this. She 
remembered not thinking about it, particularly not thinking 
about propriety or impropriety. She remembered how she decided 
to proceed as normal and take off her clothes. She remembered 
that she did not know why she wanted to do it and that she 
pushed away the understanding of it. 

Aware that he was watching, she undid the buttons of her 
blouse and took it off. She walked to the mirror on the 
dressing table and looked calmly at herself, at her long fair 
hair hanging down below her shoulders and at her nice and 
relatively new breasts contained snugly in the pretty white 
lacy brassiere. Shunting aside thoughts of his presence, she 
faced the bed as she reached behind her to unfasten the bra. 
She took it off and walked around the room, breasts bare, 
pretending to examine things. She caught sight of herself in 
the long mirror, her hair long and her small but growing 
breasts looking distinctly cute. 

She moved back to the centre of the room and undid the button 
that held up her skirt. She lowered it and stepped away, 
quickly drawing down her pants, collecting them and throwing 
them on the bed. She looked at her naked reflection, at her 
slim hips and the light patch of hair at her loins. She 
thought she was neat. She thought she was pretty. 

With the actions of one who thinks she is alone, she studied 
herself deliberately in the long mirror. She ran her hands 
over her stomach and her hips. She examined her skin. She held 
a breast lightly and inspected the reflection. She did all 
this without thinking about the watcher, even though she knew 
he was watching. She collected her dressing gown from its hook 
behind the door and stood before the bed. 

She enclosed her slim and attractive body in it and left the 
room to have her bath. She was thankful he was gone by the 
time she returned. 

He never hid in her bedroom again. She would have known 
instantly if he had tried. She didn't know what she would have 
done if he did. But then it soon didn't matter anyway because 
other things happened and her life changed irrevocably. 

Rose was just 15 years of age when her father took her. She 
was young but so was he. He was just 36 himself, ungrown-up, 
unadjusted to himself as a parent and a husband, unsuited to 
his role as a servant to his God. He was, it seemed likely, 
still a young man in his own view of himself, unhappy with his 
circumstances, doubting his faith and doubting his 
sexuality. He grappled ineffectively with rejection and 
failure and he sought solace with his daughter. 

She was not an outgoing girl. She had difficulty making 
friends and could not bring herself to make the advances other 
girls did to begin relationships with boys around her own age. 
She was reserved and circumspect, watchful and suspicious. She 
had to deal with her deepening 
sexual awareness by herself and in her dreams and daydreams. 
It seemed to her she thought about sex too much. She thought 
she may have been abnormal because every night, every single 
night, she lay in her bed and masturbated. 

"Have a look at this," said the man with the rigid penis as 
she masturbated in her bed. She conjured images of herself 
naked, her pretty breasts exposed, as the man clasped his 
erection. She never pictured the man with her father's face, 
but when she slept her father came to her in her dreams. 

Rose did not recall fantasies or dreams about the sexual act. 
Rather, they were about men and boys with eager erections, 
watching her, adoring her, touching her, kissing her breasts. 
The penis stood to attention and she was wanted, admired and 
revered. 

The night her father first came to her in reality, it was like 
a dream, or a fantasy, or a half-dream half-fantasy. The 
stroking of the hair was dream-like, the gentle kissing of the 
neck and shoulders likewise. Even the hand which slid beneath 
the neck of her nightgown and traversed her breasts and 
brushed her hard nipples. All this had already happened in her 
fantasies as her fingers excited her. She recalled herself in 
a dream fantasy, her body being stroked and she herself 
sliding her hand and working her fingers as she spread and 
wriggled her hips and stretched her toes. It was, as usual, 
luxuriantly pleasant. 

The smell of him first alerted her. There was a man in her bed 
smelling of whisky, and he was murmuring incoherently and 
grazing her neck and shoulder with kisses. His hand was on her 
breasts and her hand was between her thighs. 

"Daddy," she said aloud, because she knew who it was. Her 
mother was in hospital once again and only the two of them 
were in the house. She was just telling herself who it was 
because that brought her out of the dream. 

He murmured and kissed her bare shoulder and his hands moved 
across her breasts. She was awake now and aware of his body in 
her bed, pressed up to her side. He was naked and she felt his 
penis hard against her thigh. 
Rose recalled her most immediate concern was about her own 
actions, and she snatched her hand guiltily from her groin. 
But she doubted later whether he had known about that, because 
he was heavily drunk. She snatched her hand away but could not 
determine further action. She lay in her bed, her father's 
hands brushing her nipples, the nightgown off her 
shoulders, while he moved his penis against her thigh. She lay 
still, unmoving, her buttocks now frozen, and she tried to 
consider what she should be doing. 

His hand left her breasts and reappeared under her nightgown, 
brushing lightly through her pubic hair. She lay still, trying 
to decide what she should be doing. His hand slid under and 
cupped her genitals, and a finger probed at her gently and 
hesitatingly. She lay still, rigidly still, knowing she should 
be doing something but unable to formulate a plan of action. 
He shifted his body, and her hand that had been trapped under 
him came into contact with his penis. Involuntarily she closed 
her hand around it, just like she did in her fantasies. She 
recalled how rock-hard it was, how warm, how eager. She 
clasped his penis and knew she 
should not be doing that, so she drew away her hand. He 
shifted his body over her, holding himself away from her with 
straight arms. He was directly over her and she was acutely 
aware that the head of his penis was brushing against the 
inside of her thighs. It was smooth, warm, eager. She knew he 
was moving to penetrate her and she knew she ought not to 
allow it but she couldn't make a plan to stop him. 

He lowered himself and the smooth head of his penis nudged 
unerringly at her entrance. She felt the weight of his body 
for a moment and then he levered himself away and his penis 
pressed at her. 

"Daddy," she said flatly. But he pushed into her and she 
stopped thinking about what he was doing because she needed to 
know what was going on in her body. She analysed it. The penis 
was sliding into her, not vigorously but insistently. It was 
hard and warm and she was soft and warm. She enclosed the head 
of it comfortably. The parts of him and the parts of her 
seemed to work well together, smoothly, easily. He pushed 
harder and she was aware something in her had given way to 
him. She felt no real pain but she was stinging, as though she 
had brushed a nettle. He was sliding into her, all of him, and 
she enclosed him comfortably. She remembered thinking how she 
had taken him all the way into her, and how 
remarkable that was. She remembered thinking how well she had 
been made because she could do that. 

"Daddy," she said again, lying still and deeply aware of his 
penis deeply inside her. He murmured and moved, sliding out, 
sliding in, slowly, insistently. Sliding in, sliding out. He 
wasn't rough. He took his weight on his elbows on either side 
of her and he moved into her and out of her. Sliding in, 
sliding out. Slowly, steadily. 

She paid close attention. She knew it ought not to be 
happening and she didn't want it to happen because it wasn't 
right. But it was a very important thing that was happening 
and she needed to know about it. 

Without changing his slow motions, he jerked once, twice and 
then once more. He continued to slide in her but with lesser 
length to the stroke. Then he stopped altogether. He held 
himself above her on straight arms and she knew he was looking 
at her in the dark. 

"Daddy," she said. He sighed and moaned to himself, then 
withdrew from her, his penis smaller and softer. She felt him 
pop out of her and she felt the wetness of his semen on the 
inside of her thigh. Immediately he rolled away and climbed 
out of the bed. She watched him open the door and leave. 

She knew full well she ought to have done something. She knew 
she should have prevented it. But she didn't know how she 
could have stopped him without rejecting him, without 
humiliating him. And he had come to her in a fantasy, when she 
was weak. She had been stroking herself and he had been with 
her. At any given time it had always seemed to be too late to 
do anything. 

She lay in her bed, on her back. She felt his semen weeping 
out of her. She was stinging inside. The bed was wet, messed 
and uncomfortable but she didn't move because she still didn't 
know what to do. 

In the morning nothing was said. Rose washed away the blood 
that had dried on her. She scooped up the bedclothes and put 
them in the washing machine. Since her mother was in hospital, 
Rose was the de facto housewife. She cooked breakfast for her 
father and then she went to school. 

Nothing was said. Not a word. The routine went on. She cleaned 
up, cooked breakfast and went to school. She didn't look 
directly at her father. She didn't say a word and neither did 
he. 

Later on, she thought that was the time she should have said 
something. But she didn't know what to say and he said 
nothing. He was dull, unresponsive, mechanically chewing his 
breakfast. She went to school and he went to work, and that 
was that. 

That afternoon Rose visited her mother in hospital, as she did 
most afternoons after school. She thought she ought to tell 
her but didn't know how to begin to do it. Her mother was at a 
low point in a long stretch of radiation therapy; so 
wretchedly ill she could barely talk. She didn't have the time 
or strength to listen to her daughter but she did have a 
message. The pastor, her husband, was a troubled man. He could 
not make it on his own. It was up to Rose now to take charge 
of the household and to look after him, and the best way to do 
that was to fuss over him and make him feel important. She 
knew she could rely on Rose. 
Her daughter would do what she could not. 

Rose remembered her mother's words with clarity. "Rose," she 
said, her face grey and streaked with pain, "you have to be 
me." 

I think incest is an ugly word. Few words are uglier. It's 
just a short word but it represents human weakness and the 
betrayal of trust. The man was a monster but hardly fearsome. 
He was sad and tragically pathetic, weak beyond sympathy. But 
that was just my view of it. I stood back from it, looking 
over the gap of the years, and I could instantly condemn him 
and the angels were all on my side. She, however, was a shy 
and reserved 15-year-old girl and she had to deal with it on 
her own, without objectivity and without help. She could have 
stopped it there and then but she didn't, and that was what 
haunted her. 

Presumably she loved her father then. But that was too easy to 
say. Maybe she was extremely affectionate towards him. She 
must have been at least warmly sympathetic in the 
circumstances of her mother's illness. She understood his 
rejection and humiliation. At 15, she was virtually in charge 
of the household. She took up the major domestic 
responsibility. 
Her sad father became part of it. 

He visited her bedroom irregularly. She couldn't remember how 
often; sometimes two or three times in a week, then sometimes 
not for more than a fortnight. On the first night he was 
thickly drunk, barely comprehensible. On the second and third 
occasions he had also been 
drinking, but not so heavily. Thereafter the act was performed 
without even the feeble excuse of alcoholic irresponsibility. 
It happened on the basis of his need and that's how she 
accepted it. 

She was a competent housekeeper, intelligent and well 
organised, and she became a competent bed partner. She became 
accustomed to him and his visits. She accommodated him as an 
obligation. She took sensible measures to prevent pregnancy by 
taking up her mother's unused supplies and prescriptions. She 
was standing in for her mother and it seemed the appropriate 
thing to do. The mother's illness persisted, became worse. She 
went to hospital frequently. Rose took up the role she 
imagined her mother filled in earlier and happier times and it 
became part of her life. 

In time, Rose became more than a passive bed partner. She 
remembered the turning point with clarity. He'd come furtively 
into her room late at night, as usual, and closed the door. 
This night she sat up and clicked on her bed lamp and he 
stopped, clad only in his pyjama bottoms. 

"Stop there," she said to him and he remained still, 
uncertain. "I think you should take off those pyjamas." 

He stepped out of them and stood before her, his penis 
flaccid. She looked at him steadily for a few moments, and 
then she pulled her nightgown over her head. "Do you like my 
breasts?" she asked. "Are they nice?" 

She watched as his penis rose quickly, steadily lengthening 
and growing. She told me this was what she had wanted to see; 
an affirmation of her desirability. He took a pace towards her 
and she reached out and clasped his erection in her hand. She 
folded back the sheets of her bed with the other hand. 

"Come on," she said simply. She had taken the initiative. "You 
don't have to sneak around like a thief any more." 

That night she told him what she liked and how she liked it. 
Some time not too much later she had her first orgasm through 
intercourse. Then, irritated by not knowing whether he would 
visit or not, she went to his bed and took over the schedule, 
even when her mother was home and in the next room. What did 
it matter? It was known. It may not have been 
spoken about, but it was known. Rose was simply doing what had 
befallen her, and like all her household duties and 
obligations, she developed proficiency. 

In time she put an end to it, after nearly two years and after 
she'd grown up quite a bit more. She left home and put it 
behind her. And she almost did, too. But every now and so 
often, the shame and the guilt swept in like a king tide and 
washed her away. These days her mother was long dead, of 
course. Her father she had not seen or spoken to since the day 
she left home. 

The story was a long time in the telling. My back was stiff 
and uncomfortable from sitting silently for so long. Her words 
trailed away and Rose stared blankly at the carpet without 
seeing it. 

"I've never told anybody that story," she said after a time. 

"Do you feel better now you have?" I asked. 

"No," she said, so desolately it had to be truth. "I told you 
because you knew too much and because you would never leave me 
alone until you knew it all." 

"Rose?" I asked, gently, tentatively. "What about us?" 

She lifted her head and looked at me. "There is no us," she 
said. 

"You're so cruel," I said sadly. "Do you know how cruel you 
are?" 

"I do," she said. "Your face never stops telling me." 

I wish I could say I liberated Rose from her guilt. I really 
wish I could say we lived happily ever after. But I can't. The 
best face I can put on it is that, because we stayed friends, 
she sometimes forgot to remember her problems. 

Trouble is, I can't look into her eyes any more and hope to 
see a light shining just for me. It's not there. It never was 
there, but now I know it. Hope has almost been extinguished. 

I still love Rose but it's different. I can't look into her 
eyes any more and not see the scars and bruises. I can't 
banter in the same old sexy way because too many topics are 
off-limits. I can't even fantasise about fucking her. The only 
thing she hasn't given me is her love. And that's not going to 
happen because I'm now nearly certain she doesn't have any. 
For me or for anybody. 

Soon she will turn 37 and in the past few months she has 
crashed through four more short-term doomed relationships. I 
have stuck with her. I suppose I always will. True friends are 
there to be needed. 

Just the other day she asked me: "Why do you keep hanging 
around? You know I'm not a kind and loving person." 

"But I am," I replied. "I must be. Lost dogs, lame ducks and 
children. I love you all." 

One day she just might strike it lucky and meet a man who 
makes her happy. Of all the hard things about Rose I have had 
to bear, that will be the hardest.

ENDS

Edited by Nat and Ruthie.

Neil Anthony/DrSpin can be contacted at 
neilanthony@austarnet.com.au

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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