A Loving Daughter

As Told To Theodore Roosevelt TwoHorse

From the Diary of

Alexia Martina duCota

Please note, this is not the full Diary, just an excerpt of Mrs. Alexia duCota's diary. The full account has not been released and may not ever be released. Ms. Cindy duCota is maintaining it intact for her children.

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A Personal Note From Cindy:

I found Momma's hidden diary as I was getting her stuff ready to move to our other house and secretly read it through. Most of the stuff was dull and boring stuff, some of it was just plain racy. This part is the part concerning me and my conception. She had it all down, from meeting my father to my conception and pictures that she and Tantie Bree and Tantie Katie had taken of each other. We are not going to show those, they're private pictures of a nude and pregnant Momma. All in all, however, this part is an amazing and moving story of a woman in love and lust with her man, her own father, and within these few pages is that story, for better or for worse, it is the story of my father/grandfather and my mother/sister. Keep in mind that The Good Book says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged and found wanting," so I'll let you form your own conclusions.

Prologue:

His sister's funeral was going to be in four days, but he'd come when his sister had been hospitalized with this last stroke, so he'd been here about two weeks. The stroke had affected her badly, and she'd had another in the hospital not too long after the first one, as well as a blood clot, an embolism I think they called it, that had hit her heart and stopped it. The second stroke hadn't been too severe, and had it not been for the blood clot, she'd have survived to fuss and cuss another day, but not anymore. She was gone.

His full name was Dauphin Martíne duCota, better known as Duke, and he'd been gone a long time, almost the entire length of the Iraq war up to now. Operation Enduring Freedom had been his ticket back into combat. He'd contracted with KBR and gone back to what he knew better than the back of his hand. He had made it through several tours of duty in Viet Nam and made it into Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War before he was unceremoniously put out to pasture, as he put it. He hadn't been out for long, when the action in Afghanistan heated up. He tried to re-enlist to get in on this one, too, but they had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was no longer fit to fight. KBR, however, was looking for security people, so he took a contract with them, the next best thing to being a soldier, and went off to make some money. This was as bad as he'd ever been hurt, so he'd come home to recuperate.

At first people didn't notice his missing foot, then when they did, they'd treat him like an invalid. Sooner or later they forgot his missing left foot and treated him normally. A lot of his mobility had gone, by then, and he blamed it all on his missing foot. In spite of his injury, he'd lost none of his taste for a good fight, lost none of his love of the adrenalin rush that it brought. In between Iraq and Afghanistan, he'd made several of million in pay and bonuses which he'd put into a foreign American Express account and he hadn't spent much of it, except for the child support. He still had a couple of piles of money left since you can't exactly take off and go shopping in combat. At the age of fifty-nine, you could say he was retired from the military but never from combat. During his convalescent leave, he went back to look for his family. He had just found his brothers and sisters again, when this happened. Family gathered from miles around. People and cards of condolence came from all over the country, as well as from overseas, and not just from the insurance companies. He'd never realized how well she was thought of, he'd just thought of her as a crotchety old broad, a lot like him.

He had married just before retiring from the Army at the ripe young age of forty-seven, a month shy of his forty-eighth, to a very young woman who'd fallen for his older warrior looks and status. Carmen Inocencia Fernandez had been nineteen, a young Tejana, barely out of the cradle, they teased him. It was true, he was an older guy with a 'way too young wife and a baby girl. Their marriage, like so many May-December marriages, ended in divorce. Their marriage may have been doomed to failure but it wasn't because of problems in the bedroom.

He had done his best as a father for her, although he was always traveling with the many various jobs he'd held. His little girl loved him, but she didn't go for long periods without seeing him, until KBR came along. He'd always been close enough to go see an occasional ball game or school play and play with her take her to Mickey Dee's or that cheesy old mouse's pizza place, you know the one. The KBR contract, however, had been a long, tedious thing and he hadn't seen, nor hardly thought of, his little girl in five years or so. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a gawky thirteen, falling in love with one boy band after another. He'd been afraid she would run off to be with one or another of them, but the few letters he received from her mother reassured him that she hadn't. He and Carmen were still on friendly terms with each other, overnighting on occasion, usually at her request when he'd been in town. She still missed him there. That had stopped when she re-married, but she still let him know about Lexi, that she was still at home and still behaving like a good girl.

His next project after his sister was buried was going to be to re-connect with some of his family, maybe renew his ties with his daughter and speak to her about inheritance. As was said before, a lot of people came to see his sister off, among them was his own darling daughter, Lexi. He had kissed his sister good-bye helping to get her to Briggs Funeral Home and signing some necessary paperwork as next of kin. Her ex-husband hadn't been around in a long time and her kids weren't sure about what needed to be done.

He was staying at the St Francis Inn, your basic dump, since he didn't believe in paying a lot for a place to sleep, and what with the Shriner's convention in town, even they were about out of rooms even at the minimum four hour rate. It had a tavern by the office, and it was thirsty work putting people in the grave, so he went there to have a couple.

He stood at the bar and drank the first beer thirstily, nursing the second while thinking and staring vacantly into space. He was contemplating the shortness of life, when he was rudely bumped from behind. He moved over and ignored it, in this tight little honky-tonk, people were always jostling each other.

"I said, hey!" he became aware that somebody was hollering at him, "are you deaf or are you stupid!" he felt the hand shove him on the shoulder again and turned to look.

"I guess, I'm stupid," he answered turning back to his beer.

"No," the loudmouth continued, "you think I'm stupid if you think I'm going to let you stare at my woman and get away with it!" he shoved Duke's shoulder again.

"Look, ass-head," Duke spoke without turning, "all I want to do is drink my beer and go to my room. One funeral at a time is all I care to handle."

"Funeral!" the loudmouth yelled grabbing his shoulder.

Duke came off his stool swinging the beer bottle, with any luck, he'd connect, but he knew that this loudmouth had probably fallen for this one before. The bottle whizzed through empty air as Duke's assessment proved correct. He figured a knife or a club was the other man's weapon, so he let the bottle go and spun into a roundhouse kick, spinning on his good foot. The prosthetic foot connected with the side of the loudmouth's knee and he went down hard, screaming his pain loudly. His partner jumped in swinging a knife, Duke, wearing his heavy Carhart jacket was well armored against it. It was cold outside, so he'd worn his well insulated and very heavy canvas jacket. It turned the knife blade just enough to avoid heavy damage to his arm and protected him from the sharp edge. He slapped the knife arm as it flashed past him spinning on his prosthetic heel, brought the other elbow into the shoulder and neck joint, putting him down for a few precious seconds. The loudmouth had his back to Duke as he tried to get back up on his broken knee, so Duke punted his balls into his stomach. Nobody else was getting in on the slaughter, and Duke kicked the second man in the ribs, keeping him down. The deputy manning the door as bouncer was trying to edge behind Duke, but when Duke stood up, the deputy put a hand on his gun and pointed with the other, telling him to simmer down.

"Call an ambulance, they need some help," Duke told him going back to his beer.

The cops arrived with a couple of meat-wagons and surrounded Duke, taking his weapon, a .40 caliber Glock, and ammunition from his under-arm holster as the medics worked on the whimpering and bleeding men on the floor. The police shift supervisor came up to find out what was going on, Chief Deputy Johnson, he called himself. Duke looked up, recognizing the name and the man.

"Grady," he called involuntarily, "Grady, you old fart, how you doing buddy?" his hands were quickly shackled behind him.

The deputy's head came around with an audible snap, recognizing the voice, but not the face.

"Sorry," Duke grinned, "it's me, Duke," the deputy hauling him off paused to let him say his hellos to the Chief Deputy just in case he was a VIP. The Chief Deputy nodded to him tipping his hat back and looking at him hard, trying to recognize him. Suddenly he grinned.

"Say, hey, Duke," he reached for Duke's hand and realized he was cuffed, "hold him outside, for me," he instructed the deputy, "gently, and take these damned bracelets off him. Duke don't run. Duke's never run, huh, buddy?" he continued smiling and slapping him on the arm again.

"Yessir," the deputy responded as they led Duke outside. The Chief Deputy stayed inside assisting in the interview and getting the various versions of the story.

Duke was questioned for his side of the story and they were just waiting on the Chief Deputy to come give them the go ahead to take him to jail. Chief Deputy Johnson finally came out and asked them to release the man. The deputy holding Duke's weapon and ammo said that they'd found these on him. The Chief Deputy asked Duke if he had a permit or license for it. When Duke said yes, the Chief Deputy didn't ask to look at it, he just told the other deputy to hand the weapon back.

"Duke," he threw an arm around him, "how you doing, old son?" he looked him in the eyes searchingly, then not seeing what he was afraid of, he smiled and slapped his shoulders, "your jacket's cut. Did the bastard git ya?"

"No," Duke replied, "sometimes I think that if I'd had this old Carhart around my feet, I'd never have lost my foot," he pushed his weapon back into its holster as Grady turned to his deputies.

"You can note that the suspect was questioned and then released by the Chief Deputy," he told him, "call it self-defense, the suspect was a better fighter than the two victims."

"Yessir," the deputy answered, "we'll be returning to routine patrol, then?" he scribbled in his notebook.

"Roger, that," the Chief Deputy slapped him on the shoulder, "good job, good outcome, okay?" They smiled back at him as they agreed.

"C'mon, Duke," Grady slapped him on the back, "let's get you outta this dump."

The ambulance loaded the injured men and quickly left as the police began scattering, one by one. Grady told him that one of Duke's old buddies ran the Red Carpet Inn out on the Evangeline, and would probably have a room he could have. Then he bullied the clerk at the St Francis into writing off the room and they picked up Duke's bags and left. He hadn't gotten a rental car yet, having been kind of busy, but Grady offered him his personal car and offered to bring it around.

It had been years since she had seen him. Five years and four months to be exact. Five years and four months of loss and loneliness. She didn't know why she loved her Daddy, it just seemed a habit any more, but she did, and she missed him intensely, never realizing that it was more in the nature of having fallen in love with him than a daughter's love for her Daddy. She wasn't the first daughter to ever fall in love with her father, nor would she be the last. As a child she had often dreamed that her Daddy was her husband and very much in love with her. Every time he'd kiss her mother in front of her, she'd pretended that it was her that he was kissing. When she'd learned the wonderful art of self-pleasuring at around the age of nine or ten, she would pretend that it was him on top of her, filling her young pussy with his big cock. She knew how big it was because she had "accidently" seen it more than once.

Now, years later, having had three sexually awkward boy-friends, she had perfected and refined her art of self love, learning how to touch her private parts. Still, five years and four months was five years and four months. The loneliness was an experience she didn't care to repeat and she knew full well that she would. She could hardly bear to be with any of these "boys," so she stayed alone and depressed. These thoughts and more filtered through her sleep deprived brain as she drove into town. It was a sprawling smallish city, no skyscrapers, no big buildings, not that there was anything wrong with that. It was just a small town. There was nothing to distract her from her thoughts and considering the impending reunion, she couldn't think of anything else except finally seeing her Daddy after all this time. She loved him and she was lonely without him and she never questioned why she felt the way she did.

She sighed as she got to the end of I-49 and it became the North West Evangeline Thruway, her gritty eyes burning her eyelids, she had driven all seven-hundred and thirty miles without stopping. All she cared to remember was how he had caressed her face and gazed into her deep blue eyes when he left her to go to Iraq. She had gazed back earnestly, all of her love and need mixed with her sexual desires and blatantly displayed for him to see, but still he left. She had never vocalized her love for him, and he was never very insistent on hearing her say it. So she drove on, daydreaming of the impending reunion and hoping for the best. Then just as she was about to kiss her Daddy in her mind, she felt the left front tire slam and sink into a pothole. She could feel one side lift up and slam down as the whole car slewed sideways and stopped.

"Oh, God!" she cried out.

The engine was still racing, so she shifted it into park. It came out of gear stiffly, but the engine settled down into an idle. She realized something was very wrong with the car as soon as she stepped out. It was sitting too low, the door sill practically on the ground, when she stepped out, the pavement seemed too high. She looked back and saw a long metallic smear on the road. It led from the pothole several hundred yards back to where the left front frame lay flat on the macadam. She looked up the road and saw a tire, which she suddenly realized was hers, rolling on down the road and into a ditch. At least she was dressed for the chilly weather, she thought. She wore a heavy wool jacket, fleece side in, over an old flannel shirt that hand once belonged to her Daddy, and a tight pair of jeans that snuggled into her ass, a pair of four-inch high heeled boots on her feet.

"Oh, no!" she gasped, "now what do I do?" she fisted her hips and kicked the car.

A city police car pulled up behind her and she glanced over to see a tall slender man adjusting his Smokey Bear Hat stepping up to her.

"Looks like you got a problem, ma'am," he said seriously.

"Yeah," she agreed fuming at the old rust-bucket that had at least gotten her this far, "that's one way of putting it," she shook her head and turned to him, set to ask if he could help.

"I know you, don't I," she suddenly cried out instead and pointed at his face.

"Oh?" he answered warily, then, "Alexia duCota!" he suddenly grinned, "you remember me? I'm Terry, Terry Smalls! Junior High!" he touched her arm.

"Terry Smalls," she smiled at him, "I remember the Junior High Prom," her smile widened, "do you?" he blushed at the memory of it.

"Do I ever," his face turned a beet red, "what brings you back, you're not getting married here are you?" he teased.

"No, no," she giggled pleased at seeing the familiar face, "nothing like that. My Aunt Janie's pretty bad off and she's not expected to be around very much longer," she punched him playfully on the arm, "I figured I'd better come and see her before she checks out, y'know?"

"Well," he frowned putting a hand on his gun like Barney Fife in the old TV show, "I don't know if it's my place to say anything . . ." his voice trailed off.

"What!" she asked gripping his arm in a half-panicky move.

"Well," he removed his hat in a gesture of respect, "Miss Janine passed away last night," he took one of Lexi's hands in his.

"I'm sorry, Lexi," he apologized earnestly, catching her as she sagged and settling her on the trunk of her old car.

"That's all right, Terr," she waved him away, "it's okay, we were expecting it and, frankly, I'm surprised that she lasted this long."

He'd pulled out a clean handkerchief and was trying to hand it to her. She accepted it and dabbed at her blue eyes as he settled in beside her, putting an arm comfortingly around her. She leaned on him and cried for a bit, but she finally managed to compose herself.

"Well," she straightened her eighteen-year-old shoulders, "I guess we need to get this mess cleared up," she waved at the remains of her car.

"I'll get Simmons Wrecker out here," Terry quickly offered, "they owe me a couple of favors," he pulled out his hand-held radio, "hell, Simmons might even take it off your hands for parts," he winked, "make a little money off it, anyway, y'know?"

"They may not be as good as I'd like them to be," she waved helplessly, "but I don't have much money. I ran down here more on the spur of the moment without my mom or step-dad's approval."

"Well, it don't look like it's going many places anymore," he agreed, "listen, I'm sorry, but I do need to clear the road, so if you don't mind I'll get Larry to bring his cab around, he's another fella owes me a favor or two and he'll give you a ride to the house, on the house," he got on his radio. Lexi smiled at his weak joke.

"Ya know I'm sorry about Janine," Grady offered, "she was a good woman." Duke grinned at him.

"She said the same thing about you last time I spoke with her. She kind of let on that there might be more than just a quick hello and how are you between you two," he glanced sideways at the Chief Deputy.

"Mebbe there was and mebbe there weren't," the Chief Deputy answered carefully, "a man tells no stories and doesn't brag of his accomplishments," his voice trembled, "but she was a wonderful lady," and gulped back his tears.

"She could'a done worse," Duke nodded in agreement, "she could'a done worse."

They pulled into the Red Carpet Inn and Duke spotted his old buddy, Alex, out front changing the street sign. Grady honked his horn and Alex stopped his work, laying the long pole carefully on the ground.

"Hey, Grady," he grinned dusting off his hands to offer a handshake.

"Alex," the Chief Deputy nodded shaking his hand, "look who I found raising hell at the St Francis," he waved in Duke's direction.

Duke was in the process of climbing out of the patrol car when Alex came at him. The rebel yell and tremendous bear hug let Duke know that he was well received. Alex had his arms pinned to his sides and was jumping up and down with him, just as helpless in that position as the two loudmouths at the St Francis had been. The Chief Deputy unloaded Duke's bags as Alex continued dancing with him. It took a while but Duke finally managed to get him to stop and they walked toward the check-in desk with Grady carrying one of the bags.