Daddy’s Forbidden Fantasy (An Erotic Romance Series)

Chapter 3

Sasha

I bent at the barre, stretching out my glutes. Oh god, that felt good.

Somehow this morning I’d woken up a little stiff, my body like that of a forty-year-old, even though I’m only eighteen.

“Umm,” I murmured below my breath, bending my head towards the floor. Almost there … almost there … there! Did it! My hand touched the ground, small fingers trailing against the polished wood.

Because I’m a ballerina, well, more of an aspiring ballerina, I’m part of the junior corps at the NYC ballet, and I haven’t made it on stage yet. But I get to practice with the actual troupe, and we’re understudies for the big-name girls. So yeah, it’s been a lot of hard work, going to practice morning, afternoon, and night, without much payoff so far.

And frankly, there isn’t that much time left. At eighteen, I’m already considered “old” in this job. Some of my fellow dancers are sixteen, seventeen, one girl’s probably fifteen, I think she faked her papers somehow.

So yeah, I’ve got to get rolling, I’ve got to really pull out the stops if I want to dance with the prestigious NYC Academy of Ballet. Time’s running out, and my mom’s words rang in my head.

“You’ll be fine,” she soothed, a worn, wrinkled hand taking mine.

“You’ll be fine, Sasha.”

I bit my lip, looking at her as we sat on my twin bed. We were in my childhood room, the one with the pink and white décor, looking out onto our tiny patch of lawn.

“I dunno Mom,” I said doubtfully.

“Some of these girls have been doing ballet since they were five, and you know I only started three years ago.”

Mary clucked.

“I know honey, but what did Miss Harrison say? Are you a natural? A real talent with an amazing feel for the music? Your teacher couldn’t have said nicer things about you.”

I nodded but inside there were still doubts.

“I know Ma, but we’re here in Janesville, population one thousand. There isn’t much competition, you know. With Rhonda down the street and Teresa from school as my fellow students, you can’t help but stand out, you know?”

My mom laughed merrily because Rhonda and Teresa are great girls, and I grew up with them. But Rhonda has two left feet, I don’t know how she’s stuck with ballet this long. And Teresa? That girl is so tall she’d be better off as an Olympic basketball player.

But hey, this is Janesville, Kansas, and we’re lucky even to have a ballet studio. I’m not sure why Miss Harrison came and started one a couple of years back, but I was so excited when it happened. The minute that the “Open” sign appeared in the window, I begged my mom for lessons.

“Please,” I’d pleaded.

“Please, you know how much I love to dance.”

Mary nodded.

“I know sweetheart, I know. But we don’t have that much money left over from your Dad’s life insurance, and I don’t want to leave you with nothing. We have to budget honey, and ballet lessons are bound to be expensive.”

I’d been thirteen then, a sulky, self-absorbed teen, stalking off to my bedroom in a huff, slamming the door. Surely Mary could see how important this was to me. And besides, we were fine. Dad’s insurance had left us with a good amount after he died, and Mom didn’t even have to work. So how bad could it be?

But soon a soft knock sounded on my door.

“Sasha, may I come in?” came Mary’s voice.

“Sasha?”

I snorted again, still huffy and upset. But fine. We could talk.

“Come in!” I said sulkily.

And the door opened to reveal my mom’s pudgy form, her hair in a graying bun. I feel for Mary, I do really. After my dad died, she fell into a tailspin of depression and sadness. Grandma Nancy had to live with us for a while to take care of me and make sure food got on the table becauseMary couldn’t even get out of bed.

But in the decade since, Mom has recovered. She’s disabled, so she doesn’t work a formal job. Instead, Mary stays home most days, doing some tailoring work for a nearby shop, but really, we’re living off the proceeds of my dad’s life insurance policy.

“Honey, you’re old enough so that we can have an adult conversation,” began my mom gently, the bed creaking a little as she sat next to me. I moved Raggedy Ann out of the way, refusing to look at her.

“What?” I mumbled, staring out the window.

“What?”

“Honey, we didn’t get that much from life insurance, you know that,” Mary said gently.

I interrupted.

“But you don’t work! I mean, not really, just helping out with a couple of things from the shop.” My mom nodded.

“That’s true, your late dad had the foresight to set us up well,” she began, eyes tearing up at the thought of her husband. I know they’d been in love, that they were high school sweethearts who never had eyes for anyone else. But the truth is, I had no memories of George. Zero. Zip. I didn’t have the heart to tell Mary that her precious husband was merely a ghost to me. He was my father for sure, but he also wasn’t because I couldn’t summon a face, a voice, or anything. He was someone who lived in stories and pictures only, tales of “George this” and “George that.”

And like she could hear his name, Mary took a big breath and tried again.

“As I said, Sasha, your father had the foresight to buy insurance. But have you ever heard of something called the stock market?”

I nodded.

“It’s where you buy stocks, right? Buy and sell them? Why, what does that have to do with us?”

Mary took another deep breath, her eyes tearing again.“I think that’s right, honey. Honestly, I’m not so sure myself, you know I’m not good with financial things. But from what our accountant tells me, we were invested in the market and things haven’t been going so well. We don’t have much anymore. In fact, we’re almost down to nothing.”

I shook my head, confused.

“How is that possible? How could that happen? I thought Daddy left us plenty!”

Mary gulped again, one slow tear trickling down her cheek this time.

“He did honey, but I guess I trusted the wrong people. You know I put the money with a financial adviser that I found on the web. They had such a fancy website! There were so many colorful graphics, and the customer representative was very nice when I called.” I gasped.

“Ma, you used an online financial adviser? With no references?”

“Well, there were testimonials on their website,” she said sadly.

“There were so many reviews that gave them five stars and I thought that was enough.”

I groaned inside, shaking my head. Even at thirteen, I had more common sense than Mary. Because there are so many scams on the web, you can buy f*******: likes, you can pay people to review your product, saying, “Oh yeah, XYZ is amazing, thumbs up!”

But my mom is living in the past, and besides, she’s innocent. Mary grew up in the time of typewriters before there was a World Wide Web, so in some sense, you couldn’t blame her.

“How much did we lose?” I asked, voice trembling.

“How much do we have left?”

Mary swallowed heavily, her spotted hand grabbing onto mine.

“We have enough for another year,” she said in a quiet voice.

“We can survive another year.”

“Another year or what?” I cried, gesturing helplessly.

“And then what happens?”

Mary shook her head.

“I don’t know honey, I don’t know. We’ll have to move, we’ll have to find a cheaper place to live. We’ll have to economize, we’ll have to give up meat maybe. Would that be okay? I know you’re almost a vegetarian already, Sasha.”

I goggled at her. This was way worse than what I expected, even my thirteen-year-old brain recognized big trouble on the horizon.

“We won’t have enough money for food?” I asked quietly, my hands twisting in the bedsheets.

“Really?”

“No, I didn’t say that!” rushed Mary, her face flushing.

“I just said that we need to eat more cheaply, maybe by giving up meat. Maybe we’ll go on a fun vegan diet, you know, beans, rice, no animal products. How does that sound?”

My mouth remained closed even as I stared at her, dumbfounded. First, because clearly my mom had no idea what she was talking about. Veganism can be really expensive with all the special items you have to buy to maintain a balanced diet. There’s special tofu, special supplements, and a host of vitamins to make sure you don’t wither away.

And second, a vegan diet sounded bad. I don’t want to eat like a rabbit, I don’t want to eat truckloads of salad and beans to stay alive. I appreciate veggies, but all the time, non-stop? Not my cup of tea.