“They hardly fall over themselves,” I replied, defensively.
“Bullshit, dad,” Jade said. “What about Mrs. Compton?”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Compton? Jessica’s mother?”
“Jessica? You mean that mean little bitch team captain from when you were about twelve?”
“She wasn’t so bad,” Jade came back, “but you’re missing the point. Mrs. Compton stood next to you at every match! She snuggled up next to you under that ridiculous golf umbrella whenever it pissed it down. She practically threw herself at you and you just… ignored it!”
“Well, I mean… I guess. Maybe.” To be honest, I hadn’t considered Mrs. Compton’s attentions to be anything other than the usual friendliness you got from all the other mothers of kids on the team. I was the same with all of them…
Oh. Oh!
“But anyway,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track, “she’s Mrs. Compton, right? So there’s a Mr. Compton somewhere? Right?”
“Somewhere,” Jade answered, “but Jessica didn’t know where. He used to send cards for birthdays and Christmas and that was about it. They got divorced when Jess was about five, I think.”
“Still – I wasn’t to know that…”
“She was fucking gagging for it,” Jade cried out. “She practically held your hand and threw herself at you, you gormless fuckwit!”
“I think I preferred ‘daddy’,” was all I could say, causing more giggles. Still, as I settled down again, I had to decide; was I really so blind as to miss that? Or was Jade over-egging things a bit? I thought back and, yes – there were the clues. Obvious, now I thought about it, but missed at the time.
“OK, daddy,” Jade was taking the piss, but I let her get away with it. “But still – you could have been balls-deep in Mrs. Compton any time you liked. Hell, she’s currently dating an old geezer who I’m told she doesn’t really like. You could probably be balls-deep in her tonight if you asked her. Of course, you’d have to ask your young man to leave first – I can’t imagine she’d be into that! Then again, you never know.”
“You’re incorrigible,” I said.
“You made me that way, daddy. You brought me up!”
“I thought I’d brought you up not to refer to sex as being ‘balls-deep’ in someone,” I admonished, but I was smiling as I said it and she knew I was just messing with her.
“OK,” she came back, “have your cock buried deep in her pussy. Is that better?”
“Anyway,” I replied, trying desperately to get the conversation back on track, “I’m not gay. Obviously. I mean, you’re here aren’t you? I was married to a woman.”
“So was Elton John,” she fired back.
“Well. He. I. I mean… OK, you’ve got me there,” I admitted. Fuck, but this ‘precocious kid’ shit was really starting to grate at me! “But the point remains; I am not gay.”
“Dad,” she said, staring at me, “I just walked in on you balls-deep… I mean with your dick buried in a strange guys’ arse. You don’t date women. It’s a natural thought that you might be.”
I sighed. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, per se, but she was still wrong. “I… guess I like both,” I said. “So, I guess that makes me bi.”
“Cool,” Jade replied and sounded like she meant it. I was mildly surprised. I hadn’t been ‘cool’ in… well, ever! Suddenly, her forehead creased and she asked; “did mum know?”
“No,” I said. “She… well, she was gone before I found out about my enjoyment of both genders. Had she lived, I may never have known.”
“That would have been a pity,” Jade said.
“Really? You think?”
“What?”
“I’d rather have your mother here, have had her here for the last eighteen years, than be balls-deep in anyone else – male or female!”
“Well, yes,” she replied, a little upset. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant… if you’re bi, that’s who you are. No-one should be denied the chance to be who they are. That’s all. I didn’t mean anything against mum by it.”
“I know, darling,” I replied, mollified and a little mortified that I had snapped in that way. “And, I’m sorry for shouting at you.” I held her hand. “It’s just… all these years and I still miss your mother. Bringing you up alone was very hard on me.”
“How hard on me do you think it was, walking in on my dad fucking some guy,” she asked, smirking at me.
“Excuse me, young lady,” I replied, smiling back at her. “You weren’t supposed to be here. I wasn’t expecting your smarmy arse back home for a good couple of hours yet – maybe not until tomorrow! So don’t go blaming me for what you stumbled across! If you’d just gone off and got your little boyfriend to go balls-deep in you,” here I grinned, evilly at her, “then you wouldn’t have come home to find your old dad balls-deep in mine!”
Jade smiled at me. “Your boyfriend, huh?”
“He’s a boy – very much a boy – and we’re getting on well, so I guess he’s a friend,” I replied.
Jade smirked. “Uh-huh,” she said.
“Listen, madam smart-arse,” I said, “unlike certain a young woman I know who may, or may not, be sitting very close to me right now, I don’t go giving my heart away to the first person who speaks to me.” I was ribbing her and she knew it. “But, just out of interest, why are you here and not at Wayne’s apartment with your legs in the air and his dick buried in your snatch?”
“Eww, dad!” she said with a mock grimace on her face.
“What? You asked me about my sex life. You’ve told me about yours – in graphic detail if my bruised memory serves me correctly. So come on, spill it!”
Jade sighed and looked a little crestfallen. “Wayne got sick,” she replied.
“What? How?”
“Fish,” Jade said. “Apparently, he’s allergic to seafood and the gormless dick didn’t realise that prawns are seafood. So he orders the prawn cocktail to start, eats about half of it, his face puffs up like a spotty balloon and he starts being ill.”
“Seriously? What the hell happened next?”
“Fortunately, he had an epipen in his jacket, so he’s fine now. But it blew the evening off – especially with dried vomit all down his favourite shirt. He offered to get changed and we could still go out, but he looked white and peaky so I told him to just get home and I called a taxi here.”
“You think he’ll be alright,” I asked. I didn’t like the little jerk, but Jade did and that was enough for me.
“Yeah, he sent me a text just as I was getting out of the cab,” Jade replied. “He said he was feeling a lot better, apologised for ruining the evening and said we’ll see each other tomorrow. If, that is,” she continued, with a sarcastic grin on her face, “I’m not too mentally scarred from seeing my dad fucking!”
“I’ll give you mentally scarred,” I smiled back. “Or do you want me to remind you all about your first fumbles with sex? I can, you know – it’s all in there. How he just about managed to get it in. How it was two pumps and a squirt! How…”
“Okay, okay, enough,” Jade laughed.
We smiled together. After a minute, Jade said; “go on. Go back to whatever-he’s-called. Maybe have a second round for me.”
“Thank you for that mental image,” I said. “But I want to make sure you’re alright. I’ll tell Julian to go home.”
“Dad,” she said, looking at me with a seriousness I didn’t expect. “Honest. I’m fine. I was fine. I will be fine. There’s enough crap on Netflix or Amazon or whatever to keep me entertained for five minutes whilst you give Julian another seeing to.”