Poor but Rich.

On a brightly lit stage, with a green backdrop, stood the cast. They bowed to the applauding audience with beaming cherub faces. All of them looked out into a room that was filled with parents, siblings and their teachers.

They felt elated, laughed and smiled, as they waved to loved ones before the curtain dropped.

I was eight at the time and rushed backstage with my friends and fellow performers, most of whom were the same age, and we all chatted away in excitement as our teacher congratulated us. The very air felt as if it was filled with euphoria and I couldn't stop smiling as we stored our costumes and quickly got changed.

I clearly remember my parents faces when I went to see them. My father looked so happy and proud, my mother gave me a massive hug and said how fantastic I had been.

"Best Angel Gabriel EVER." she had enthused as she squeezed me to her chest and kissed my cheeks. I had never felt happier in my life.

On the way home, even my brother, Andrew had said he had thought the play was good and that I had done well. This was epic from him, as he was two years older than me and prone to being sulky and rarely leaving his room.

It was that day that I became hooked on acting and the day I decided that I wanted to be an actor.

***

For the next four years I took part in every school play and signed up for extra acting classes. Very sure that I was going to be the next Reese Witherspoon or Dakota Fanning, both of whom, I looked a bit like.

I even got a part in an advert when I was fourteen. Proudly declaring that Colgate toothpaste was why my smile was so bright.

My father was amazing throughout that period of my life as he drove me to all my auditions, paid for extra classes and bought me all the various things I thought I needed.

Things changed when I was fifteen. I was studying late one night and heard my parents arguing downstairs, being nosy, I snuck to the top of the stairs and listened in.

"We are BROKE Daniel. You can't keep spending this much on her and taking days off work." My mother hissed out. Her voice partially raised in that shout within a whisper as they tried not to get loud enough to wake me or my brother.

I listened intently as my father tried to reassure my mother that he had everything under control.

My mother hit back with hard facts and I heard the rustle and shuffling of paper, the unpaid bills were her evidence, and she told my dad that even if she got a second job, there was a danger of losing the house.

I was shocked by her statement and the facts she had lain out. I recall walking back to my room with tears in my eyes and sitting on the edge of my bed. Feeling a massive guilt wash over me as I realized that I was the centre of the argument. That all my extra classes in dance and acting had caused this rift between my mum and dad.

That night, I couldn't sleep and lay awake with my eyes on the ceiling as I tried to work things out in my head, it became clear to me that I had to give up the extra classes and maybe get a job to help out.

***

My mother was very pleased when I gave up the extra classes. My father was confused and a bit upset, but he never said anything directly when I told them I had decided to give it up. Both were surprised when I got a part time job and began to work the weekends.

Over the next two years, I worked in the local pub as a waitress and saved every penny I could, I stopped accepting money from my parents and learnt to be independent. Much to my mother's joy and my father's further confusion. Though they accepted it and I think put it down to me being a teenager who had had a sudden change.

Our family began to fracture despite my efforts, something inside me changed when I realised that my parents couldn't manage, I knew I had to step up my efforts to help.

In a way, I became the responsible one out of my brother and I, as I worked most weekends and used my money to pay for food shopping, plus a few other little things that my father didn't realise I was paying for.

It wasn't much really, just enough to make things a bit easier. My dad thought mum was bringing in a bit more and she thought it was him. Between babysitting, the waitressing and helping out my uncle at his garage, I could usually afford to put a little away for emergencies too.

Andrew finished high school and went to University when I was seventeen. By then, I was peeking at the household bills and would send off a payment for at least one of them each month. But sadly, my parents were already hardly talking to each other.

Things escalated quickly over that year. With Andrew's Uni fee's hitting the family budget hard. Dad took to working more and mum was too. Yet even with that and my own contributions, we couldn't make ends meet. Andrew was oblivious to it all and would keep asking for money and mum would send it, even though we couldn't afford it.

One night, just before my eighteenth birthday, my dad came home drunk. Not just tipsy, absolutely off his trolly, drunk.

I had just got home from a babysitting job and mum was working late, yet again, and for the fourth time that week. So, it was up to me to deal with daddy and his vomit stained shirt and get him to bed.

He kept saying he was sorry as I managed to get him upstairs and into the shower.

"I'm so sorry pumpkin." He moaned sadly, as I dumped his clothes into the laundry basket, and watched him lean against the bathroom tiles. Water cascading over him as he stood there in a half daze.

"It's okay daddy. You will feel better in the morning." I replied gently as I got my blouse and jeans wet to help him out from the cubical.

"No, No. Nothing's going to be okay." He mumbled as I grabbed a towel with one hand and held him with the other, propping him up against the wall. He seemed delirious and I doubted he knew what he was saying.

"Don't be silly daddy. You just need some sleep." I reassured in a calm voice as I dried him off.

He nodded as if in agreement and I finished drying him off. Then helped him into his bed and covered him with a sheet. It was a hot night and there was no need for a blanket.

Once I was sure he was comfortable. I brushed back his floppy and damp hair, kissed his forehead the way he used to kiss mine at night and then turned off the bedside light.

"Don't leave me Kathy." He murmured, as I reached the door, his voice broken in a way that tore at my heart.

Katherine was my mums name and I assumed he was confused. But there was also something so sad, lonely and broken about the way he said it. I couldn't just leave.

Unable to leave him, I took off my damp blouse and jeans before slipping under the sheet and cuddling up to him from behind.

"I'm here daddy." I whispered gently and heard him sigh.

It wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep and began to snore softly.

I lay there with worried thoughts running through my head as I looked at the back of his head. My Father had never seemed so vulnerable and sad before.

I decided I had to do something and talk to mum when she got home. I knew they weren't getting on very well but was sure that she would know how to fix things. They just needed to talk things out properly, or so I thought.

I waited and waited and tried to stay awake. But I was tired too, I had had a long week at school and been working in the evenings. Exhausted, I fell asleep around three in the morning.

The alarm woke me at six and dad hardly stirred. Muzzily, I rubbed my eyes and then slipped from under the sheet and my fathers' arm. He must have turned around in his sleep and I had awoken with his arm around my waist.

Still half asleep, I padded to the bathroom and slipped off the bra and panties I had slept in. The shower woke me fully and it hit me that mum hadn't come home last night.

Concerned, I finished up quickly and went to my room to grab my phone.

Mum answered on the sixth ring and I breathed an initial sigh of relief.

"Hello?" she said and then everything spun when I heard another voice.

"Leave it baby." I heard a man say and the world seemed to end right then.

"Abby? What's wrong?" my mum asked.

I couldn't form any words and hung up. Too distraught and angry in a way I had never felt before. I felt incredibly betrayed and hurt. Tears sprang to my eyes and I wept as I stood staring at my phone and trembled. My body uncontrollably shaking as my numb brain kept hearing that male voice.

My phone buzzed and I hit decline every time it did. Unable to speak to my mum and desperately trying to get my bearings.

The phone dropped from my fingers and I walked out of my room and back to my parents' room. I stood in the doorway and gazed at my sleeping father and wondered how she could do this to him, to me, to our family.

***

Mum never came home after that. I guess she knew I would never be able to forgive her. I found out that daddy had known for quite some time, he hadn't been able to tell me or my brother, he had tried to deal with it with hope. A foolish hope that my mum would come back to him. Come to her senses.

For some reason that I still don't understand, Andrew sided with mum and started to go to her new home when he wasn't at Uni. It left me to clean up the mess and deal with my father.

My eighteenth came around and I didn't think it was important. Daddy was too busy at work and I was doing my final's while continuing to work. Not a good recipe for passing my exams and I was sure that I was going to fail most of them. I hadn't had enough time to study properly, I fully realised it, as I sat each exam and had to stare at papers full of questions that I couldn't answer.

But that night, the night of my eighteenth, my father knocked on my bedroom door.

"Happy Birthday Pumpkin." He said when I opened the door. He held a small birthday cake with a candle in it and a gift under his arm.

It wasn't until I saw that cake that I realised how much I had wanted someone to remember I was eighteen. Emotions welled up inside me and I felt my eyes well up with happy tears.

"Thank you, Daddy." I said in an emotional whisper, unable to say it loudly because I was so choked up.

We sat on the edge of my bed and I blew out the candle. Daddy held out my present and I opened it with tears of joy running down my face. It all sounds silly to someone else I suppose. But I can't describe how happy I felt, or how much it meant to me, that he had gone to the effort of baking a cake when he was working so hard.

With it just being us for the last few months, neither of us had seen much of the other. I was off to school a few minutes before he left for work, he got home after I was changed for my own job. Then I would get home and he would have left for his second job. I think we saw each other for a few hours a week and that was it.

We still had a mortgage to pay and the bills, dad was insisting on putting aside money for Andrew's Uni fees, even though Andrew had sided with mum, and mum's income was no longer going into the joint account.

I lifted a beautiful leather jacket out of the box and shook my head in surprise. I had seen it six months ago and said it looked nice, but the price tag had been way too much for me and I hadn't even thought about buying it.

"Oh Daddy... we... we can't afford this." I gasped.

"Yes, we can. I saved a bit and your uncle lent me some... It's your Eighteenth and you deserve it." He told me with a warm smile.

I bit my lower lip and looked at the jacket again. I really wanted it.

"Are you sure? we can take it back ..... maybe get something a bit cheaper?" I said. Unconvinced we could afford it. But wanting it very badly.

"Yes... I have crunched the numbers and have a plan for the future." He assured me. "Try it on. We are NOT taking it back."

It fitted perfectly. Lined with a silky soft material, edged in faux fur, the tan coloured leather came to the top of my thighs. I checked myself out in the mirror and couldn't stop grinning.

"Thank you, daddy." I said with feeling as I hugged him and smothered his stubbly face with kisses.

He laughed. Happy to see me happy as he held me tight.

"Anything for you Pumpkin." He said softly as we looked at each other and smiled. Very happy for the first time in months.

Another month passed by and I finished my exams. I knew I hadn't done well and with school over with, I got a job at one of the city factories. I was already resigned to the prospect of never going to university and a life working for minimum wages.

I still had a few evenings as a waitress and the tips helped a lot. I knew why too. By then, I had grown into a young woman and understood that a short skirt, an extra undone button on my blouse and a big smile, worked wonders for my tips.

Men especially gave me extra and it helped that I was fairly attractive. With long blonde hair, blue eyes and a size eight body that had decent curves. I knew boys my age and older men saw me as pretty or even sexy.

Dance and acting classes from my past, had given me good poise, and a graceful walk that I put to good use too.

Dad and I sat down one evening and went through our finances. He was now aware what I had been doing before and we discussed his plans for digging us out of our financial hole.

He felt guilty for not realising how much I had sacrificed and was bent on me starting up with my acting again. I told him I didn't need to, but he knew that it had been my dream and was sure that, with a bit of care, we could manage it.

So, after some hashing around, we put the house up for sale and looked for something much smaller. The mortgage was our biggest expense and we didn't need a four bedroomed house anymore.

It was me that found a tiny flat just inside the city and went to look at it. It was closer to our work and meant I could walk to the factory; dad would still have to drive but it was one less expense to worry about. Plus, it was away from the people that knew us, and I wanted to get away from the stupid conversations and fake sympathy.

It had a kitchen come dining area, a lounge that was very cramped but well designed, a nice shared bathroom and one bedroom that I figured we could share if we bought two single beds.

Dad thought it wasn't workable. Not with just the one bedroom. But after some convincing and the very good price, we put an offer in and secured the place a few months later.

It was a little awkward at first. I wasn't used to sharing a bedroom and I wasn't a little girl anymore. But we worked around it and found a routine that suited us. After a few blushing encounters that is.

***

Naturally, or so I think anyway, being that close to someone of the opposite sex had to develop into something more. Even if it was my dad, and my father was a very good-looking man, just turned forty, he had jet black hair and blue eyes, a strong straight nose and a firm jawline. Working on a building site suited him and he was well muscled without being bulky, his body had a slight healthy tan to it too.

Almost immediately I was thinking things that daughters shouldn't be thinking about when looking at their fathers.

It was highly confusing and yet unstoppable. I would catch myself peeking when he was getting ready for bed. He peeked at me too, I know because I caught him looking at my reflection in the mirror a few times. Each time it happened; I felt this strange rush of emotion that I can only describe as being thrilled and a little horrified.

He would look away and try not to show it. But I knew. I knew he had seen the curve of my bare bum or breasts as I changed. Just as I had seen, and appreciated, the way his muscles rippled as he took off his shirt. Or the way his head would tilt as he stretched, exposing the masculinity of his neck and shoulders as the sinews tightened.

Was it uncomfortable? Oh yes, highly. But not in the way you might imagine, not for me anyway. I began to feel very warm and realised I was becoming aroused in his presence.

On a night, as I lay in my bed, I would look at the shadowed form of my father and feel my nipples hardening. Pinging out to push against the material of my nightdress as my pussy began to throb with a need I knew was wrong.

I became sexually frustrated. Men had asked me out and I had refused, my last boyfriend had been when I was at high school and I realised I wasn't dating because I didn't want anyone else. I wanted my father to touch and kiss me as a woman.

Unable to control it. I began to masturbate in the mornings, plunging my fingers into my aching pussy as I rubbed my clit and thought about my father. I'm certain he heard me on a couple of occasions, as he would be very silent some mornings and eat his breakfast without looking at me.

Yet, the masturbation was only a momentary relief and made me want him more.

There was no helping it, we were living together, much like a married couple already. Our money went into a joint account, we slept in the same room and ate our meals together. Sat on our small sofa and watched TV, snuggling into each other's arms for comfort and talking about our day.

The flat was small and physical contact happened a great deal, most of it was normal for father and daughter. But sometimes, he would brush my boobs or buttocks accidently and it would feel electric.

We had more time together too. With our finances under control, I only worked two nights a week on top of my day job. My father gave up his second job too and most evenings were spent cooking our meal and then snuggling on the sofa.

Something had to give, and I knew he wasn't going to do anything about the mutual attraction we were feeling. He couldn't hide the numerous erections he got in my presence, not successfully anyway.

So, one day, while he was at work and I had an hour before he got home. I showered, did my makeup and then slipped into the leather Jacket he had bought me for my eighteenth. A pair of sexy high heels made my legs look great and that was it.

I waited for him to get home, siting at the small table where we ate our meals. Fidgeting nervously as I ran through my mind what I would say. It kept going blank and I almost chickened out. But I managed to remain seated and stop myself from abandoning the almost insane plan.

"Hi Abby, good day at work?" he asked as he breezed into our flat and hung up his jacket. I swear he was avoiding my eyes. He'd been doing that a lot lately. His voice seemed to be overly casual too, as if he was straining to maintain a semblance of normality.

"Hi Daddy, yeah. All good." I found myself replying and chickening out of my initial plan. The standing up and dropping of my Jacket suddenly felt way too brave.

"Great, I'll take a quick shower and then we can make dinner." He said cheerfully and headed into our bathroom.

"Shit." I swore softly under my breath. Annoyed with myself.

I listened to him in the shower and agonised about joining him. I wanted to but wasn't feeling very confident now that I had already fucked up one plan of action.

"Get a grip. We both want this." I told myself as I watched him pass from shower into the bedroom. Our bedroom. The room where we could have a double instead of two singles, the way it should be.

A bit shakily. I stood and took a step. My heel clicked on the wood flooring, followed by another click and then another as I gathered my resolve.

My father had his back to me and was towelling off. Another towel around his waist. His black hair tousled and damp.

My fingers shook as I fumbled with the belt of my jacket. My heart hammered in my chest and I gulped as I undid the buttons.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and then opened them, intent on dropping the jacket and taking this initiative.

"Are you okay Abby?" my father asked. His eyes on mine and a little wary. He had turned around and he looked as nervous as I felt.