I looked for encouragement on her face but saw no reaction at all.
“But if you want me to be more than that, then you only have to let me know.”
“I understand, Dad.” She said in a friendly reassuring voice. It’s all so new to me. I don’t really know how I feel about it yet.”
I ran my fingers through her fine hair.
“Take your time. As long as you need.”
I looked around her room, my eye lighting upon the pile of stuffed toys she had scooped from her duvet onto the floor. I picked up a small teddy bear, about four inches long with a loop of cord fastened to the top of its head. My daughter had christened him ‘Albert’ when I had brought him home from a conference when she had been nine years old.
“Albert can be our messenger.” I suggested. “If you want me to be more than your Daddy again, just leave Albert either in the grandfather clock in the hallway, or hang him on your bedroom door and I’ll know how to behave for that evening. But I will always be your Daddy the next morning.”
Sophie looked as if she was concentrating hard. I continued.
“If you never want me in this way again, I’ll understand, Princess and I promise I’ll never put pressure on you. It’s always your decision.”
Susie reappeared in the doorway.
“I know you two have a lot to discuss.” She said sarcastically. “But it’s nearly eight o’clock and we’re due on court at half past, Mike!”
I stood hurriedly.
“Oh God!” I exclaimed and, kissing Sophie on the cheek, I ran from her room, into ours and changed hurriedly into my tennis clothes.
That night, Susie and I had some of the most exciting, adventurous and passionate sex of our lives.
Not surprisingly, I found it difficult to concentrate at work the following day, and when I returned home that afternoon, my wife told me that Sophie had gone to stay with a friend overnight. I felt uneasy.
Sunday was spent doing the garden and washing the cars as would have been done on any normal Sunday, and when Sophie eventually came home at tea time she behaved perfectly normally as if nothing had happened.
In fact, both Sophie and Susie behaved normally for the next few days, causing me more anxiety and unease than if we had had a blazing row. I began to wonder if it really had been a dream, until when I opened the front door after surgery late on the Wednesday evening, I noticed a small Teddy bear in the glass window of our grandfather clock in the hall.
My heart thumped so hard I thought it would explode. Dinner passed painfully slowly, with Sophie and me exchanging meaningful looks across the dining room table. I could barely wait for bed time. Sophie excused herself early saying she was tired and had an early start the following day.
Clearly she had told her mother her intentions because at around 9.30 Susie told me to go and say goodnight to our daughter. As I rose and walked towards the door, as excited as a teen on prom night, she said
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
Well, to cut a long story short, Sophie and I made love so softly and sweetly that I actually cried afterwards. We spent the night together and the following night too until, the following morning when we came down to breakfast together, my wife reminded us again that she was the woman I had married and she did not want to sleep alone any longer.