The Nanny

Twenty minutes after Cassie went to bed, I’m still trying to figure out what I did wrong, mulling it over in the shower. I know she’s right about everything, that I’ve been getting in my own way when it comes to Sophie and even the situation with Iris, and I meant it when I said I would take steps to rectify it. I thought that it had gone relatively well, the discussion between Cassie and me, which means I can’t figure out how it got weird there at the very end.

Even after our tense conversation, it felt by the end that we’d somehow mended things, or so I thought. So why did she run off like that? I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face—something like surprise and panic, and no matter how many times I go over it in my head, I can’t make sense of it. It’s a far cry from the way she’d looked at me before that, at least.

That’s something I can’t exactly get out of my head either.

There had been a lingering way about how she’d looked at me, and sure, I hadn’t expected to be surprised by her so late at night while being shirtless in my kitchen after a quick but dumb decision, but I know I’m not imagining the way Cassie looked at me. I’m well aware that I shouldn’t be acknowledging it, that I should be actively ignoring it, but I would be lying if I were to pretend that I was doing any of the things that I should be.

Maybe it makes me a creep, the things I can’t help but think about her. It probably does, I know that, but surely it counts for something that I have been actively trying incredibly fucking hard to bury those things. Especially given our . . . incident. That night when she’d told me about her first run-in with Iris.

I press my head against the inner wall of the shower, closing my eyes as the water drips down my hair. It’s not something I do on purpose, recalling her too-tight T-shirt in soft pink, shaping against parts of her I’m not supposed to have seen. In fact, I’ve done everything I can in the last week to avoid remembering, including keeping my distance from Cassie as much as possible. Because I shouldn’t think about her soft mouth telling me she isn’t going anywhere, or about her blush when she’d misspoken that we should go to bed, and I definitely shouldn’t be recalling the shape of her tight little nipples pressing against her shirt every time I close my fucking eyes.

It’s absolute torture, trying to actively not be a creep.

I blast the cold water on myself to try to combat my traitorous thoughts, shivering a bit in the spray before shutting it off altogether. It helps, but only a little. I’m still wondering what it is that made Cassie’s mood shift so quickly, and what it was that had her practically sprinting away from me only seconds after we were laughing together. I glance down at the darkened skin of my scar at my abdomen, frowning. It was almost like she’d been spooked by it, but by any account, that doesn’t make sense.

It’s incredibly late by the time I’m toweled off and dressed, my eyes burning with a need to sleep as I shuffle down the hallway from my bedroom to Sophie’s so I can peek inside. She’s sprawled on her bed like a starfish, one leg poking out from underneath her comforter as she snores softly. I smile as I cross the carpet quietly to lean over and kiss her forehead, recalling all of the things Cassie said and feeling that familiar pang of guilt in my chest.

That kind of loneliness can really fuck a kid up.

I make another silent affirmation to be here more. I know Sophie deserves that.

I back out of Sophie’s room just as quietly, sighing softly to myself as I pull her door shut behind me. I’m on the third floor, but my thoughts are two floors lower, where I know they shouldn’t be. It’s ridiculous to even entertain the thought of going downstairs to check on Cassie, even to me that sounds like a terrible idea, and I stow the thought away as I trod off to my own bedroom. It’s well after midnight, and I know I should get some sleep after the day I’ve had, especially given that tomorrow night will be a shit show since I promised I wouldn’t go in early, but even when I’m tucked into my bed, I can’t seem to shut my brain off.

You are a good dad, Aiden. I promise.

Why does it feel so important to me that she thinks so?

I close my eyes, letting my head thunk against the headboard. I might be in real trouble. I told Cassie that I’d been avoiding her for her sake, and sure, that’s partially true, but the whole truth of it is that I’ve been avoiding Cassie because after that night, I haven’t been thinking about her in the way a boss should. Especially given our situation. The way I’ve been thinking about Cassie would have her quitting in an instant, and given that she seems to be the first nanny Sophie has ever actually liked having around, that’s not something I can risk. I laugh bitterly to myself, thinking that I have a real way of picking the worst women to be interested in.

It’s always the ones that I shouldn’t be involving myself with that seem to catch my eye.

My fingertips ruck up the edge of my shirt before they begin to trace the puckered edges of my scar as I think back to another time when I’d told a woman I’d begun to care for about it. It’s no wonder that Cassie’s reaction would bring up memories of the woman I try so hard not to think about on any given day; she’d been as surprised to hear about it as Cassie was to see it. Come to think of it, I think the woman in question might be the last person I’ve talked about it to. Some desperate attempt to connect with a person who had been vulnerable about her own scars. Now that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

I had been no stranger to the phenomenon that was OnlyFans when it blew up. It seemed like everyone had heard of it, at the very least, and I was no exception. It’s just that before I went looking, I thought it was something I wasn’t interested in.

I think maybe it had gotten to me, the loneliness that comes from my packed work schedule that made it so hard to meet people. Maybe that’s how I ended up surfing OnlyFans late one night at the suggestion of a coworker. I’d found her profile by complete accident, something about her drawing me in even though she kept her face half-covered by a mask.

It started with innocent scrolling, checking out her nonsubscriber feed, which had been designed to make you want to become an actual subscriber. Which I did, obviously. It hadn’t taken anything at all to get me to do that. At first, I would just buy her videos when they came out. They were always solo sessions, always her, front and center and set to some soft music, but something about this woman whose face I couldn’t see and whose hair always sat covered under some bright wig . . . something about her hooked me.

So I started paying for private shows. Actually, that’s laughable. I started paying for a lot of private shows. It was so easy to hop over to Skype with my camera off. So easy to indulge in the fantasy of a show put on just for me. Like I was the only person in the world, as far as she was concerned. I think it was the idea of sharing her with other viewers like me that made me feel . . . jealous. Somehow. And isn’t that outrageous? Isn’t it ridiculous that I would start to romanticize my encounters with a woman I was paying to watch touch herself?

Except . . . she seemed lonely too. She even told me so. More than once. Maybe that’s what made everything seem like more than it was in my head. It was easy to let myself believe that I was special to her, but it was never real. She never had plans to meet me in person. Even if she pretended to. Her disappearing completely was evidence enough of that.

I can still remember the soft curves of her body even now, hips that begged for my hands, and breasts that begged for my mouth, and when she touched herself, when her slim little fingers slipped between wet folds to tease me night after night . . . well. It’s no wonder I became a little obsessed. Especially when there were so many nights when it felt like it was all for me.

The memory alone is enough to make me stiffen in my pajama pants, an ache building there as the thought of a woman whose name I never knew is, as always, enough to make me hard. Even after all this time, she still affects me. She’d gone by Cici, but I’m not dense enough to think she’d given me her real name. It’s another reminder that it had all been a fantasy.

I hiss between my teeth as I press my palm against the straining cotton, feeling pathetic for resorting to this but knowing that there aren’t many other options of release for me at this stage of my life. Between the demands of my job and Sophie . . . there hasn’t exactly been time for dating. My eyes flutter and my teeth press against my lower lip when I reach inside my pants to wrap my fingers around the heat of my cock, a shaky breath escaping me when I start to pump my fist up and down to relieve some of the pressure. I can feel slick liquid beading at the tip that coats the inside of my fist to glide back down the length. In my head I am safe in the memory of that masked woman with a fake name, her fingers teasing between her legs and pinching at her nipples all for me, just for me.

Even then I had thought about what she would feel like if I were ever able to touch her. If it were my hands teasing her, instead of hers. It was something that I had almost thought was a possibility at the end. She had made me feel like she wanted me as much as I had wanted her. So where did she go? I hadn’t been gone very long, had I? While I was dealing with Rebecca’s death? Why had she completely disappeared when I came back to apologize?

Because it had never been real.

I grit my teeth as I work faster, a tightness in my chest as my pulse races and my blood rushes faster with the increasing pleasure that pools with every stroke of my fist. I can feel it, like a hot pressure that builds and builds and builds, my head falling back as my lips part with short bursts of air escaping me.

I’m trying to focus on the memory, the one that is safe in my head—clinging to that faceless woman with her soft curves and her perfect body and pretty tits that I still dream about sometimes, but my thoughts are drifting elsewhere beyond my control. Drifting to thoughts of soft cotton stretched tight over the shape of tighter nipples. I don’t mean to think of her, I really don’t, but without my consent my brain starts imagining a very not-faceless woman with a sweet smile and bright eyes and a body that is just as tempting, if not more, even fully clothed.

Without my consent, my traitorous thoughts are turning to Cassie.

My breath is trapped in my lungs, my back bending as I work my cock faster while that same pressure builds to the point of bursting and my thoughts flit between old memories and new ones until I can’t seem to differentiate where the faceless woman ends and Cassie begins. And why is it that it is so much harder to breathe now that Cassie’s face is cropping up in my thoughts? Why do I feel so much closer now that I’m thinking about her?

And when the hot release spills over to coat my hand as I pulse into my own fist, the memory is gone completely, leaving only Cassie’s face behind as I come against my palm. I’m trying to catch my breath after, my eyes open and fixed on the ceiling but not really seeing it, trying to come down from the high as the guilt of what I’ve done slowly creeps in.

You’d think that I might have learned my lesson the first time.

Hadn’t my last experience with caring about a woman out of my reach taught me anything? How much of a disappointment had it been when I let my loneliness drive me to make terrible judgment calls only to be delivered a rude awakening when I had learned none of it had been real? I close my eyes even as my chest still heaves, cursing under my breath.

Here I am, an entire year later, becoming enamored with another woman that is completely out of my grasp and probably out of my league. What in the world would Cassie want with a workaholic single dad barely even able to keep his shit together on an average day?

It’s ridiculous to even consider, for all sorts of reasons.

I really care about you guys.

I have to remind myself that she couldn’t have meant that the way I’d like to believe. That’s just who Cassie is. I’m sure that she only cares about me as a single father struggling to connect more with his daughter, like a pet project. Nothing more.

I walk to my bathroom in a state of shame to wash my hands, frowning down at the sink as the cold water brings me back to slight clarity. When it’s done, and I’m drying my hands on the towel hanging beside the sink, I catch sight of my still-flushed face in the mirror and shake my head at my own reflection.

“You dumb prick,” I mutter.

I fall back into my bed face-first, still cursing myself for being a delusional asshole but feeling less tense, at the very least. Even now, after slipping further into villainy without meaning to—I’m still thinking about her. Just as much as I have been since the moment she moved in, if I’m being honest. It’s ill-advised, and it’s definitely inappropriate, but there it is.

I sigh, pushing my arms under my pillow and burrowing into it as I try to push Cassie’s face from my mind. I tell myself that tomorrow I will work on burying this asinine crush deep, deep down where it belongs. That when I wake up tomorrow I will have breakfast with Cassie and Sophie and act like I didn’t just abuse myself to the thought of the nanny, because even thinking about it makes me feel like a creep.

Hell. Maybe I am.

I absolutely get no sleep that night, but that’s pretty much what I expected.

—◊—

I’m about to tell him goodbye, because by all accounts we’re done here; he’s watched me come, he’s paid his money—so why am I hesitating?

I can still hear him breathing on the other end of the Skype call, and it isn’t the first time I’ve found myself curious about what he looks like. His voice does unspeakable things to me, that much is clear, and surely someone with a voice like that must have a face to match?

I’m going to end the session. It’s ridiculous that I’m hesitating.

I clear my throat, about to tell him thanks for buying another private show, but he surprises me by speaking first.

“I’m curious . . . how much would it be to keep talking to you?”

I know that my heart shouldn’t skip a beat.

—◊—