All Comments on 'A Father in Trouble'

It was all right and proper, but that is my problem with the story. It was just a tale that had details, but didn't excite me. I'm an American, so I don't usually make much sense anyway.

RS

The following is a message I received which contained a critique of the story. I think it deserves to be seen by a wider audience, Comments please - Hunter.

Over all, I thought the story was nicely told, with a pair of modest exceptions - actually, one of those is more like a "nit-pick".

When Dad speaks of how to thank Jaqui, she suggests that chocolates or "... a pot plant..." would have sufficed.

This " pot plant " bit might be a Briticism that I'm not aware of, and - if so - you might wish to know that the American (and most likely the Canadian) reading audience would say "potted plant" or "house plant", in its stead. A "pot plant" would - at first hearing - be interpreted as meaning a marijuana plant. <grin>

The only other "objection" that I have, to the story as it exists, is to its overall pacing. Jaqui hears her father express his feelings of both romance (apart from typical father-daughter affection) and his sexual desire for her, whilst she is in the bath.

In the narrative, your choice of descriptive and dialog for her (at that point in the tale) paint her as only mildly shocked or surprised by his desire. She's not aghast, at his suggestion, as one would suppose she'd be, given both the religious and societal/legal taboos associated with incestuous behavior. It's as though she's actually given some thought to the possibility, already, on her own.

This is made more complex when she inexplicably goes from having covered her breasts with her hands - at her father's entering the bathroom, to standing and blatantly displaying her naked body to him, even doing a slow pirouette so that he can see absolutely all of her unclothed flesh - and her "naughty smile" as she does so. If she's going to refuse his overture, why display herself in this manner, when to do so - following her refusal - must surely torture him all the more, displaying to him that which she will not allow him to have?

I think that, given these bits, plus the obvious goal (as this is an erotic incest tale) of getting the two into bed and making beautiful love to each other, the pacing should have been slowed, somewhat.

Instead of surrendering herself to him that very night, she should have spent the night in her own room, gone to work, and then home to her own flat. Then, over the course of the next few days, she finds her thoughts being drawn back to his offer of his love and his body, and the concept does not seem as shocking as it initially did. Over the course of a month or so (and this would be easily handled in only a few short paragraphs) she finds herself becoming more and more 'fascinated' by the possibility of becoming her dad's lover. Eventually, she reaches the point where the sheer curiosity (as she's a virgin) of what it might be like, if she went to his bed - coupled with the notion that no other man could love her as deeply, or would be so gentle with her virgin body, as her father - overwhelms her, and she plans a way to allow him to 'seduce' her.

The next visit could be a Saturday, when she arrives at his house for breakfast, followed by a day filled with the annual "spring cleaning" of the home. That night, she goes to take a bath - to wash away the day's accumulated dirt and grime - while he heats some sort of "pie" dinner that he prepared earlier in the week and then froze, for use on Saturday so as to not have to cook.

When he comes to the bathroom, to alert her that dinner will be served shortly, then she stands and displays her body to him, thus whetting his appetite for her later try at seduction.

Overall, I think that taking this sort of route, though it would have drawn the tale out for another page, would have made the entire story seem more realistic, as opposed to having her seem to fall into bed with him so quickly.

The story is very sweet. It struck me as a little abrupt that the daughter would go from "no" to "let's sleep together and see". But this is a story and we need to suspend disbelief.

great story but the sex was way too subtle if you ask me.