Tempting Daddy by Ava Sinclair
Chapter Sixteen
Carmen
There’s a large box at work when I arrive Monday morning. My throat constricts a little. The 27-inch iMac computer is powerful enough to enable a user to log decades of church information, put together a dazzling newsletter, promote the church youth group on social media, and streamline bookkeeping.
“Useless nonsense. This is a church, not a business,” my father says when he sees it. He drove me to work and walked in with me. I know why. The last time he faced Father Dominic in person, the priest got what he wanted and so did I. Now he’s about to turn the tables and wants to revel in his petty victory.
Father Dominic emerges from his private office and is obviously surprised to see that I’m not alone.
“Mr. Angelo,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting you. How are you?”
“Fine,” my father says gruffly.
Father Dominic looks at me, his eyes filled with relief to see me. “Are you ready for a busy day, Carmen? I guess the first order of business will be to get this new computer up and running.”
“It’s a shame she won’t get too much time to use it,” my father says.
Father Dominic looks at him and then at me. “What do you mean?”
My father puts on his best fake smile, and I know what he’s about to do. As cold and callous as he is, he can feign friendliness when it suits him. “Carmen was planning to tell you today, but I’m sure she doesn’t mind if I let the cat out of the bag. You probably noticed our absence from church on Sunday. I’m a godly man; I don’t let my family play hooky from the Lord’s house without good reason, but I felt like we needed a family day to talk. I’m so busy with work; Laura is so dedicated to running the house. Now Carmen has the job here at the church. We made a commitment this weekend to spend more time together, so I thought I’d offer Carmen a job in my company and she’s accepted. She starts in a week. It’s a better fit for her than the church, and she agrees.” He looks at me. “Don’t you, sweetheart?”
Butter wouldn’t melt in my father’s mouth, but his eyes are cold with warning. I think of my mother’s bruised face, and his veiled threat of what life will be like for her if she refuses him. I think of her refusal to leave or do anything to help herself.
“Sweetheart?” He raises his eyebrows, prompting me to answer.
“Yes,” I say, keeping my gaze on the floor. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Okay, sweetie. See you this afternoon.” My father leans over and kisses me on the cheek. It’s all I can do to keep from drawing away in revulsion. I honestly cannot remember the last time he kissed me. He’s only doing it for show now, part of the façade he’s creating. He’s hedging his bets, knowing if I say anything he can claim innocence. He won’t show his true side again like he did at the council meeting. Now that I know he’s beating my mother, he’ll be a lot more careful to be charming to outsiders.
I tense up as soon as he leaves. Father Dominic and I are alone. I’m still looking at the floor, still avoiding his gaze. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. He picks up the computer box off the floor, and I watch as he opens it and slides out the large monitor. He puts it on the desk.
“Do you want to help?” he asks.
I go through the box and fetch the mouse and keyboard.
The room is quiet as we set everything up.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he says.
“There’s nothing to say, Father.”
His back is to me as he kneels and plugs the computer into the surge protector he’s pulled from a separate bag. “Really, Carmen? Was this your idea?”
I don’t answer right away, but in his question, I see a way to protect him. If he thinks my hand was forced, he’ll try to make it better. He’ll involve himself in a situation that’s already messy as it is.
“It’s for the best,” I say. “We’ve gotten too close, but I couldn’t tell my father that. I asked him if I could go to work with him.”
“That’s not what he said, Carmen. He said he offered you a job.”
“Right, because I said I wanted one.” I’m not a good liar. I still can’t look at him. “You know it’s the right thing to do, Father. I had the weekend to think about it.”
“And your father wants to spend more time with you, does he? At work? That’s quite a change for a man who originally wanted you to work here instead of with him, a man who couldn’t even be bothered to take care of your mother.” He pauses. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Carmen?”
I move around him and sit down at my desk. I push the button on the base of the desktop, launching the setup protocol.
“No,” I lie. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Father Dominic goes into his office, and I swallow the lump in my throat. Is he angry? Disappointed? I can’t tell. I feel numb as I continue setting up the Mac. It’s an amazing computer. I helped pick it out online and was so excited for the chance to transform the parish record keeping. Now someone else will do it. I think of another, faceless woman sitting in this chair. Will Father Dominic flash the same handsome smile when she walks in the door? Will he bring her coffee when he pours some for himself? Numb despair turns to anger and I bring my fist down on the desk in act of frustration.
“Carmen?”
I gasp and turn. I didn’t hear Father Dominic come out of the office. He’s standing there, a puzzled look on his face.
“Father, I…”
He walks away before I can complete the thought I’m still trying to form.
“Come with me,” he says, fetching my coat and holding it out to me. It’s not a request. It’s an order. I stand, my legs slightly shaky at the sternness of his tone.
Father Dominic flips the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ on the office door. He takes my hand, leading me out. He’s silent as I follow him from the sidewalk to the back of the church, where another narrow walkway leads to the rectory. Why is he taking me here? I want to ask, but I’m afraid. I feel like a little girl being pulled along by her father. I want to stop and ask what is going on, but I also want to find out why he’s doing this.
He leads me to the back door of the rectory. We enter through the kitchen. Father Dominic is still silent. He turns me around, takes my coat off and puts his hand on my back. He guides me to the living room, where he puts me in a chair by the fireplace.
“Stay put,” he says.
I obey, more confused than ever.
Father Dominic goes back to the kitchen and comes back with another chair. He puts it a few feet from mine and leaves again, this time heading down the hallway. When he comes back, he’s carrying the folded dressing screen I saw in the guestroom the night I stayed. He puts it between us now.
He goes to the other side. I hear him sit down in the chair.
The room is silent.
“Confess,” he says, and the command in his voice sends a shiver through my body. Between my legs, I feel my pussy pulse softly, his dominant tone like a match to the kindling of my need.
“Father… I have nothing to confess.”
“Confess.”
Firm, unyielding. He knows. Father knows I’m holding something back.
“Please,” I say.
“Confess.”
I close my eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
“Confess,” he says. “Confess your sins to Father.” He pauses. “Tell him the truth. Be honest.” Another pause. “Don’t lie to Daddy.”
I gasp. Tears come to my eyes. I look to my side, to the screen. On the other side is the man I love, the man who wants to save me, even if doing so risks his own vocation.
“Confess.” He has the tone of a man who won’t ask again.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” I say. Somehow, just saying the words makes my nipples grow hard. I can feel myself getting wet. “I lied to you. My father is making me leave here. He’s angry. He’s… I don’t have any choice.”
“No choice?”
“No.”
“Why did you lie to me? Is there more? Why do you say you have no choice?”
“Please,” I say. “Don’t make me say.”
“Lying is a sin, child,” he says. “It requires penance.”
“Penance?” I ask.
“Yes. You must submit to punishment.”
“Punishment?” I feel silly repeating his words, but I don’t know what else to do.
I hear him rise from his chair. He comes to my side of the screen and holds out his hand. I hesitate for a moment before giving him mine. He pulls me to standing. Father Dominic looms over me, tall and strong. A man of the cloth. A man of authority. A protector. The father figure I always longed for.
“That’s what penance is, child. It’s an atonement. You’re holding something back. You’re holding a lot back, I think. It’s a harmful habit, and one I mean to break.”
He takes my hand and leads me to the sofa. My heart is pounding in my chest. I know what he’s going to do. Didn’t I tell him, after all, how I longed for a daddy who would both love and chastise me? I’m scared, but it’s the same kind of fear I felt just before Father Dominic pushed his huge cock inside of me and took my virginity. It’s another first. Another unknown. I need this.
His expression is purposeful as he reaches underneath my dress to pull my panties down. He does not speak. My heart pounds as he pulls me over his lap and lifts my skirt. I feel the heat rush to my face. My ass is bare to his gaze and I feel even more exposed than I did the night we had sex. I’m in a vulnerable position—a child’s position. I feel him shift, catch a glimpse of his hand raising and a split second later, hear myself shout as he lands a burning swat across the crest of my bottom.
A spanking. I’ve secretly longed for this, but not from my own father. I’ve longed for it from someone whose motives were instructive, someone who cared.
I’m overwhelmed with emotion, but also with pain. Father Dominic spanks me with a steady cadence. He does not vary the force of the blows. They land repeatedly and hard, driving heated pain into the deep layers of my skin. I feel hot tears flood down my face. I taste their salt as they trail into my mouth which is opened in a helpless, childlike wail. I’m vaguely aware that he can see everything between my churning legs. He can see my wetness. He knows my truth. I’m aroused by the pain and humiliation. I’m aroused by this caring, paternal punishment.
“Please! Stop!” I cry out the words, although I don’t fully mean them. The room is filled with the sound of his hard hand impacting my bare skin, the sound of my pitiful sobs. A floodgate has opened; the pain is forcing me to let go of the internalized hurt. As he directs his hardest swats to the strip of skin at the juncture between buttocks and thigh, I expel what I’ve been holding back. Emotion pours from me.
When he’s finished, my ass is throbbing and sore. When Father Dominic turns me over to sit me, bare-assed, in his lap, I can feel his rock-hard erection pressing through his habit against my soaked pussy. I know then, that his discipline has affected us both. Father Dominic smoothes the strands of hair away from where they are plastered to my face.
“Confess,” he says, gently this time. I press against the bulge in his pants, needing to be filled, needing the completion, the release. “Confess.”
“I want to be with you!” I take his face in my hands. “God forgive me. I want to be with you. You make me feel…”
His lips find mine and we are suddenly on the floor. Father Dominic pulls my panties off from where they are bunched at my knees. His body covers me, his hand pushing between my legs, his long fingers entering my pussy. I feel myself clamp rhythmically on him and he groans. My hands move to the buttons of his cassock. I tear at them, pull at the collar at his throat. I want to rip it away, to claim him as he has claimed me. I need him. I need him more than the parish. I need him more than God. It’s a horrible, sinful thought, but I know he feels it, too. His hunger for me is palpable.
Somehow, he frees his cock from his pants. The fabric of his robe drapes over me. He groans as he pushes inside me. He is not gentle. He fucks me hard and I raise my legs, clumsily wrapping them around his waist to hug him through his robe. The night he took my virginity, he came to me in his pajama pants and t-shirt. Today he is in the uniform of his vocation and somehow it feels more forbidden, more exciting. Who am I, to be so turned on by the authority he represents even as I want him all to myself?
My sore ass slams against the floor. I come on his cock once, twice. He lasts longer this time, driving me to two wrenching orgasms before emptying himself into me, his face buried in my neck, his breath hot against my throat.
His cock is still deep inside me. I feel the fleshy rod of it slowly soften and slip from my body. Father Dominic raises up; his eyes on mine as he arranges his clothing. He puts his hand down and I take it, raising myself to standing. My legs feel shaky; the orgasms have left me drained and languid.
I see my soaked panties a few feet away. He retrieves them and hands them to me. He does not clean me this time, and I am glad. I like the feeling of his seed slipping from my body. I like the way I feel after sex. I like the smell, warm and musky and somehow wild. These senses new and raw and alien in my world of forced domestication. I think of my mother and feel sad that she has never known such feelings. If she had, perhaps she could find the will to leave and find it again.
Father Dominic guides me back to the sofa. He sits down and this time he holds me in his lap, pulling my head to his chest. He’s gone from lover back to father figure, the transition seamless. I respond, sighing as I sink into his embrace.
“Now tell me,” he says, and I know he hasn’t forgotten. So, I do. I tell him, my voice straining as I divulge the awful secret of our family. The words, bottled by a cork of fear, come pouring out in the safety of Father’s arms.
He rocks me as I tell my story, his body tensing when I get to the part about my mother’s abuse and the threats that hold me to the house I want to leave. I don’t cry until the end, when I ask the unspoken question I’ve never even been able to put to my mother. Why?
Why does my father hate me? What did I ever do, save being born? I know he wanted a son, but I tried to be a good daughter. I stayed out of trouble and got good grades. I helped my mother around the house. As a little girl, I desperately sought to get into the good graces of a man who ignored me or barked for me to leave him alone. He was always busy. Always tired.
He went to the football games of business associates’ sons, but at school plays or awards ceremonies, I’d look out into the audience and see my mother but not him.
“I just wanted a Daddy,” I sob.
Father Dominic kisses my head. “I’ll be your Daddy,” he says. “I’ll give you everything he didn’t. Any man who treats a child like that doesn’t deserve her. I’ll take care of the hurt little girl inside you.”
His words flood me with love and warmth. But how? How can he promise such a thing? I ask him and the answer leaves me speechless.
“I’ll do it by building a life with you,” he says. “A new life. The priesthood isn’t for me, Carmen. But you are.”
I stand from his lap and back away. “No,” I say. “You can’t. I can’t. I can’t be the woman who takes you away from God.”
He stands. “Carmen. You aren’t taking me away from God. I’ve thought about this. I can’t stay away from you. I took your virginity. My mark is on you. You are mine and no man will ever have you while I live. I can’t think when you’re not with me. I can’t focus on the work. My focus is on you, and I can’t be successful in any vocation without you at my side. I can’t be a father to a parish. Not anymore. Not now. I can be a father to you, though. I can be a father and a lover, and your happiness will be the foundation of mine.”
“I can’t let you do this,” I say.
He takes my hand. “You have no say in the matter, child. What kind of father would I be if I tended to a flock and left its most precious lamb to the wolf? You’re mine, Carmen.”
“And my mother? How are we supposed to help her when she won’t leave?”
“We’ll get her out of there,” he says. “Together.”
I open my mouth to reply, but before I do a knock at the door interrupts my thoughts. Father looks at the door then down at me. I smooth my skirt. My hair is disheveled, my face flushed, and the room smells like sex. I hope he can make excuses to whoever has come to call.
