Share
MidReal Story
Secrets of a Desperate Father
Anonymous
May 15
Scenario:A single widowed father of a teenage daughter, who is living double life as a pornographic actor to pay off his late wife's medical expenses.
Create my version of this story
I was just about to come when I heard the front door slam.
My eyes shot open, and I quickly pulled out of the woman beneath me.
She groaned in frustration, but I didn’t have time to worry about her.
I jumped off the bed and grabbed my clothes from the floor, pulling them on as fast as I could.
“Sorry,” I said over my shoulder.
“I have to go.”
I didn’t wait for a response as I ran out of the room and down the hall, nearly tripping over my own feet in my haste to get out of there.
I couldn’t let her see me like this.
I had to get home before she did.
I had to get home before she found out what I was doing behind her back.
I made it out of the house and into my car just as she pulled into the driveway.
She was already getting out of her car by the time I parked in front of our garage and ran inside through the kitchen door.
“Dad?”
I threw myself against the door, panting as I waited for her footsteps to fade.
When she finally left me alone, I let out a long breath and a shudder of relief.
That was too close.
I’d almost been caught.
I’d almost lost everything.
But I hadn’t been caught.
I was safe.
And my daughter would never have to know about this.
Emily had no idea what I did for a living.
She had no idea what I did in my free time either, for that matter.
She didn’t know about anything that happened in this room, and it was going to stay that way.
I took another deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart, but it was no use.
I was still shaking with adrenaline and fear as I went to take a shower.
I had to get clean before she came home, before she took one step inside this room and realized what I’d been doing in here.
I couldn’t let her see me like this.
I had to get everything cleaned up and put away before she could figure out what I was doing.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the hot water as it ran down my skin, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her face when she saw me just now.
She would’ve been so disappointed, so ashamed of me if she’d known what I was doing with her just down the hall.
But she didn’t know.
And she never would.
It took longer than I wanted it to get everything cleaned up and put away, but eventually the room was spotless, and you could never tell what had happened here just an hour ago.
I stepped into fresh clothes and took a deep breath before unlocking the door and heading back into the living room.
“Hey,” I said when I found Emily sitting on the couch, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at me with a confused expression.
“What are you doing home?”
“I came back for my phone,” she said.
“I forgot it in my room.”
“That’s fine,” I said, trying to smile even though my cheeks felt stiff and uncomfortable.
“I’m glad you’re home.”
Her eyes were wide with worry as she looked at me, and I forced myself not to look away even though every bone in my body was screaming at me to run far away from her.
“Are you okay?”
she asked after a moment.
“You look… are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly.
“I’m just tired.”
“Oh,” she said, biting down on her lip so hard that it turned white.
“Okay.” She paused for a moment before nodding to herself and standing up from the couch.
“I’m going to go lie down for a little bit,” she said.
“Just let me know if you need anything.”
“I will,” she said with a small smile before disappearing down the hallway.
I waited until her door was shut before I sank down onto the couch and put my head in my hands.
How am I ever going to explain this to her?
“Dad?”
she called from the doorway, and I jumped in my seat.
I hadn’t even heard her come in.
“What were you doing in there?”
she asked, furrowing her eyebrows as she looked from me to my bedroom door.
“Just… nothing,” I said, trying to sound casual even though I was still shaking like a leaf.
“Nothing happened in there.
Why are you so worried all of a sudden?”
“It’s just that I heard a girl in there,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“And then I heard you tell her that you loved her.”
“I did not say that,” I said quickly, praying that my cheeks weren’t turning red.
“And even if I did, it wouldn’t mean anything.
It was just a friend playing a prank on me.”
“You have friends that do that?”
she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, no,” I said, racking my brain for a better explanation.
“But it was close enough for me to hear when we were talking, and then she yelled it out loud when she thought she was alone.
“It doesn’t sound very likely,” she said.
“It sounds more like you were caught doing something you shouldn’t have been.”
“I wasn’t,” I said, trying not to sound like I was panicking.
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I wasn’t doing anything at all, really.
And even if I was, it’s none of your business.”
“But what if Mom found out?”
she asked, and I felt a sharp pain in my chest at the mention of my wife.
“What would she say about this?”
“She would say that we should all mind our own business,” I said, hoping she couldn’t hear how thick my voice had gotten.
“And she would say that we should never go into someone else’s room without their permission.”
“But she’s not here,” she said.
“And after what I just saw, I’m starting to wonder if maybe she would’ve wanted me to go in there after all.”
“She wouldn’t,” I said, shaking my head.
“I know she wouldn’t want you to go in there.
So please, just drop it.
I could tell that she was still skeptical, but after a moment, she nodded and stepped away from the doorway.
“Fine,” she said.
“Whatever you say.” She paused for a moment before adding, “But I think we should talk about this more later.”
“No,” I said, standing up from the couch before she could see how much my hands were shaking.
“We don’t need to talk about this any more.
I do not want to talk about this any more.
I was just playing a prank on a friend, and that’s all there is to it.”
“But—”
“Go back to bed,” I cut her off before she could start arguing again.
“Please.” She opened her mouth like she wanted to keep going, but after a moment, she closed it again and turned away from me with one last worried look over her shoulder.
I almost caved right then and there and told her everything.
I almost told her about what was really happening in my bedroom every night when she was asleep and had no idea what was going on around her.
“I love you,” I whispered through the door as I waited for her to respond.
“I love you more,” she whispered back, and I could hear the soft thump-thump of her footsteps as she walked back to her bedroom.
I wanted to keep talking to her, to make sure that she was okay, but I didn’t, because I knew we couldn’t talk about this.
Not yet, at least.
Not until I had some idea of how to explain it.
And until then, I would just have to hope that Emily would forget about this by the morning.
Or that she would at least let me think that she’d forgotten.
I waited for a few minutes to make sure that she wouldn’t come back out again, and then I stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind me.
“Thank God,” Sarah said as soon as she saw me.
“I thought for a second you were never going to get her back in that room.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said, trying and failing to laugh at her joke.
“You know what they say,” I told her.
“Never go to someone’s basement for candy.”
She didn’t laugh either, and after a second, I let out a heavy breath and sat back on the couch.
“I’m sorry,” I said after another long moment of silence between us.
“We just… We can’t talk about this right now.
“I know,” she said, and after a moment, she sat down next to me and took my hand in hers.
“I know we can’t talk about it right now.”
“It’s just…” I let out a shaky breath and looked over at her.
“It doesn’t really feel like we can talk about it ever.
But we have to try, don’t we?”
She didn’t answer me, and after a moment, I looked away again and stared down at the floor between my feet.
“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?”
I heard her ask, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“You’re going to leave me.”
The words cut through me like a knife, and for a moment, I couldn’t respond.
For years now, it had been Emily and me against the world, and I’d always thought that we’d have each other’s backs no matter what.
But now I saw her eyes again, open wide with shock and betrayal as she watched me through the crack in the door.
And I realized that this wasn’t the first time she’d felt like this.
It wasn’t even the second time.
And maybe it wouldn’t be the last time either.
But there was nothing I could do about it now.
All I could do was try to make it right.
“I’m not leaving,” I said.
“I’m never going to leave you.”
“But how can you love me after this?”
she asked, and when I looked over at her this time, there were tears welling up in her eyes.
“How am I supposed to believe that you love me after this?”
“I do love you,” I said.
“I love you so, so much.
More than anything else in this entire world.
And I would never leave you.
No matter what.”
“You left Mom,” she said before I could stop her.
“And now you’re going to leave me too.”
“I’m not,” I said again, my chest tightening with pain as she repeated my worst fear back to me.
“I’m not going to leave you because of what happened with Mom.
I left because… Because it was an accident.
It was something that… That just happened.” The words tasted like ash on my tongue as they came out of my mouth, but before I could stop them, they kept coming anyway.
And then, just as quickly as they’d come, they dried up and left me struggling to come up with anything else to say.
“Why did you do it?”