Daddys Love

Tax time is always a ridiculous time of year. I got home late that night, which is usual for me in early April. From in the driveway, I heard them yelling in the house. "What the fuck," I thought, looking at my watch. 11:30. Almost the witching hour and most definitely the bitching hour in my house tonight.

I glanced around at my neighbor's houses. Most lights were out, so hopefully, my two ladies' little domestic squabble wasn't being giggled at up and down the street. I braced myself and opened the front door in time to hear my wife call my daughter a whoring slut at the top of her voice. "Ohhh-kayyy," I said slowly and calmly. "I take it that Ruby is now supplementing the household income with various clients?" The instant, if only momentary, silence was deafening. I'd always had a penchant for making flippant remarks at the right moment. When you live with two women, you take your entertainment how you can. "Don't you start your shit tonight, Rick? Ruby is about to pack her crap and get out of my house, and you can be right behind her if you don't watch it," my wife yelled. My wife is a pretty woman, perfect to me in most ways. But if there were one aspect of God's design that I could change, it would be to place a volume control knob right on her frigging forehead. "You're moving out?" I asked my daughter. "No," she uttered defiantly. I closed the door behind me, put down my briefcase, and walked over to the liquor cabinet to mix myself a drink. My wife trailed behind me, barking like a rabid Chihuahua. "Do you know what your precious little daughter's been up to tonight?" she harped. "Of course not," I thought, reaching for some scotch. "Well, let…Me…Tell…You…What… Miss Princess has been up to." I changed my mind and reached for the Hennessey and a shot glass. When my wife starts chopping sentences into one-word blocks, it is always a good time to get soused. "I decide to go to the movies, get there late, and decide to come back home," she paused for effect, and I groaned to myself, knowing just what was coming. I changed cups and dumped four fingers into a tumbler. Neat. No ice, no mixer. I didn't want to be sane or sober if I had to hear my wife for the rest of the night…or week, for that matter. "Your little trollop here was whoring with a man's nasty-ass cock all down her dirty fucking mouth!" I rolled my eyes at the ceiling, sighed, reached for another tumbler, and decided not to side with my wife tonight. "She's eighteen," I said, sealing my fate and pouring another sparkling brown liquid. Do you know how this complete, deadly quiet is in those seconds between a lightning flash and a thunderclap? The lightning flash was the sudden hard clout I felt on my back that nearly made me spill the drinks. I heard her suck in a deep breath, and I braced myself for a barrage of sounds worse than any physical punishment. "You moron! You jackass!" she shrieked. "Not in my house! NOT…IN…MY…HOUSE. She is NOT eighteen in my house! I don't fucking clean all day, slave over a hot stove, wash filthy laundry, and pick up after her ass to see MY house turned into a FUCKING whorehouse at night." "Microwave," I said. "You slave over a microwave." My wife keeps me around only because no one else will have her. I turned to see her with her mouth hanging open. "Oh, no, you did not just diss my cooking!" I shrugged. "And don't think you're going to drug me up tonight with any rum!" I looked at the two glasses in my hand and then up at her. "Oh, this isn't for you." I walked past her and handed a glass to my daughter. "Here, sweetheart. This will help get the aftertaste out of your mouth." Ruby woodenly took the glass from me and just stared at it. "You're supposed to sip it," I said. She hesitantly raised the glass to her lips and took a small sip while peering nervously past my shoulder at her mother. "Great! Just great!" The screeching started up again. "A whore and a rummy. And a god-damned father who encourages her." "Why don't you go to your room now, Ruby, and let me talk to your mother? I'll come see you in a few minutes," I said seriously. Ruby nodded and hastily retreated from the room. When I heard her door close, I turned and looked at my wife. I took a long draw from my tumbler. "So, you caught our daughter being a woman," I finally said. "A slut! A slut," she yelled. "A fucking slut disrespecting my home! And you no better putting up with her shit." "What would you have me do?" "Slap the fucking bitch into tomorrow, jackass!" "I get the feeling you already did that for me." "I didn't hit her hard enough. She's still standing!" "Come on, Dolly," I said, raising my voice for the first time that night. "Like you never sucked a cock in your life!" "NOT…IN…MY…MOTHER'S… HOUSE!" "Bullshit! In your mother's house. In my car. In the woods. At the club. Any place you could. Who the fuck do you think you are talking to, you fucking hypocrite!" "I'm talking to my husband, who I can suck and fuck any damn place and time that I feel! SHE isn't married to that dirty ass disease-ridden street punk." "And you weren't always married to this dirty ass disease-ridden street punk when we started doing all that shit that you couldn't get enough of." "We are not having this conversation. We are not having this conversation." She started walking in circles and pulling at her hair. "I never got caught. We were smarter than that piece of shit in there." "You are talking about OUR daughter," I said, getting mad. "I didn't raise my child to be like that." "Oh, you are so wrong, Miss High and Mighty. So, fucking wrong. She is a woman, and she will do women's things. Maybe her timing was wrong, but her behavior was in no way whorish or sluttish. I will talk to her, but I will not chastise or punish her." "You're just going to condone her behavior." I sighed and went to the bar to pour another drink. "Be reasonable, Dolly. Have you ever given one ounce of thought to how she feels about being caught?" "I hope she feels like shit!" "I'm sure she does. She's probably traumatized as hell." "Good. And while you are talking to her, make sure she is packing. Dawn will NOT see her in my house." "Our house," I yelled, slamming down the glass and turning on my wife. "Our house. And MY daughter will never, ever be turned out of MY house. NEVER!" "You going to choose her over me." "I would rather not have to make the choice, but if you force me, yes. She's graduating in June, has a good shot at college, and I will not see her struggling out on the street. If she wants to stay here until she's eighty, she has a home in my house." "Yeah, you would turn our house into a whore's den." I nearly slapped her then. For the first time, I almost raised my hand to a woman. I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. "I will talk with her. I will not put her out of the house. I will ask her to respect your precious house in the future." "Let me ask you," she said in her low, dangerous voice. "What would you have done if you had walked in on her?" I thought momentarily while watching her smug smile and arms folded defiantly across her chest. "I would not have hit her. I would do just what I will do now: Talk to her. However, I could not vouch for her boyfriend's safety." "Now, who's being the hypocrite," she sneered. I returned to my drink, took a sip, and said, "I'm going to talk to her now," before leaving the living room. "Out of my house, you hear?" my darling wife shouted at my back. "Out…of…my…HOUSE!"