Letters

Since August 13, 1932, Dad (8 L), I have not easily been taken by surprise. Jeannine surprised me. If you saw “incest” in the offing pages since, it’s because I did too, this time around, recording her visit from log notes and memory. But at the time, though I’d certainly and clearly enjoyed Jeannine’s nudity, my pleasure was half impersonal and half the finally innocent admiration of a father for his mature and seasoned, still-attractive daughter. The sight of her, and our frisking about, had unquestionably reminded me of the pleasures of sex; but those were memories, not anticipations or desires. Or, if there was after all a mild touch of the latter, it was the wistful wish that she were not probably my daughter, possibly an adversary in the upcoming will dispute, and surely not interested in sex with a 70-year-old friend of the family. I was surprised.

But not out of my wits. Jeannine was sober; I too. Her possible motives, the possible ill consequences and other objections to our “going below” I believe I saw clearly, along with the great So What (and all the lesser Why Nots) in the pan. A lawyer is a lawyer; an old one even more so. Now Jeannine, I said, as neutrally as possible: that old chap there is semiretired.

She moved her fingers. Let’s un-retire him, Toddy. I’m feeling happy and horny. No obligations. No problems. Feel.

Well. We went below, took turns going down, managed a fairly routine coupling in the missionary position, but with her legs over my arms. No special frisson.

We cooled down awhile then in our sweat, and later made omelettes for dinner with the last of the Caprice des Dieux and a cold Moselle. Not much talking. The Trout Quintet, agreeably, on the FM. Both of us, in modest reaction, wearing shorts and tops now. After cleanup and bed-making we finished the Moselle out in the dew-soaked cockpit, regarding Andromeda and her friends, wishing we could take a final swim but not caring to be stung in the dark. The air was balmy, the forecast fine; even so, Jeannine prudently queried me about our anchor-scope before we went back below. We changed chastely into our nightclothes, brushed our teeth, washed up, and with a friendly good-night kiss turned in, me to the double berth forward, she to a settee-berth in the main cabin.

When the lights were out and we’d soaked in for a few minutes the sweet creaks and chuckles of a boat swinging gently at anchor, Jeannine asked, mildly, Should she come sleep up there with me? Had she said Could she, I’d’ve said Sure. As was, it seemed both more prudent and more comfortable to say Too sticky. Then I added, only partly lest she feel rejected: But we could visit in the morning. She’d like that, said my daughter.

I reminded her she’d forgot to ask her question. The one back there in the cockpit?

Oh, that. Her voice was sleepy and amused. She’d only wondered, when she saw for the first time her mother’s old lover’s cock and balls, whether she herself had sprung from there in — let’s see — January of 1933?

Perfectly likely, I acknowledged at once. And just as likely you didn’t. Does it matter a great deal to you?

She considered. Nope. It would, she guessed, if she were 17, or even 25. But after 35 years and three failed marriages, her legal father dead and her mother happy with a new lover, the question didn’t strike her as particularly important. And it wasn’t

why she’d propositioned me, or, she imagined, why I’d responded. Was it?

I laughed: Not particularly. She laughed too: Just normal depraved curiosity. One more taboo over the side. See me in the morning?

I was put in mind again of her mother and of Polly; now that everything was still I saw the questionable assumption in my thinking about the previous night’s phone-caller, that it had been a man. But Jeannine’s breathing indicated that she was asleep already; I’d ask her in the morning whether she was quite sure, etc.

End of Day One. (Almost. I never sleep soundly the first night out. When a tiny southeasterly swung us about at 3 A.M., I woke at once and went on deck to see how we all looked in our new positions. Half a dozen other skippers moved about with flashlights, doing the same: checking scope and anchor set and clearance from neighbors. En route back through the cabin I inspected my young friend; she appeared to be sleeping soundly, but when I bent and kissed her forehead she smiled and said wryly, Thanks, Daddy-O.)