Nikki's Test

Chapter 1

Her fifteen minutes gone, it was lately she turned her sights on becoming the bane of his existence. Often, alcohol was the bane of his existence. For a good while it was her mother; and then, the other, serious thing.

Nikki spent four years in gender studies at Oberlin College. And despite the rigors of such pursuits, she managed a minor in rhetoric and composition. So, she was not just a broad who was in your face with a progressive agenda, she could also make you look silly in a twitter fight.

A darling in certain circles, she was well-read online. Her blog was a trailblazer in the movement to reclaim pussy, ripping it from the feral corners of men's minds. She was a Thomashauer acolyte and amplified the call to embrace the word; use it with pride and sanitize it. She co-sponsored an event on pussy, the word, and workshopped it at a woman's conference.

Sometime around thirty, she completely abandoned men. Before then, she was often in the company of quiet and tidy academics. Slim boys in button-down shirts who drove Subarus and played escort at cocktail parties. Nodding in quiet agreement, then dropping in something pithy with perfect timing. Willing subjugates of masculinity, hoping if they were good little boys they might get to play with her reclamation project. It was little wonder she came to prefer her own kind.

Most men would consider Nikki attractive, somewhere between a five and a ten. Trim and muscular, but born that way. She kept her hair short and had a face that was kind to short hair. Round and sturdy cheeks which gently tapered to the crest of her eyes, keeping them apart and shallow. It gave them a dramatically wide and inquisitive look. Her lips were narrow and serious, even when she smiled. She probably wore too much makeup for a feminist and preferred dresses to slacks when out in public. He suspected his daughter still enjoyed teasing a good old-fashioned hetero, even though she had become a dedicated homo.

Undoubtedly, being a homo was a resume enhancer. She lived well as a freelance grant writer, getting work with liberal arts colleges and big-time leftist think tanks.  She spent two years at the Roosevelt Institute.  No matter how absurd the cause, she could swill the bitter truth into a noble quest. At one time she signed her correspondence with she/her, but recently enlightened to they/them.

And Nikki loved a good fight, always had. The respect her writing garnered among peers was equally despised by enemies. A particular right-wing talker ridiculed her work and it really brought out the haters. She never deleted the vitriol, but instead skewered them with rhetoric and composition. It was the time of her life. Her moment.

His only daughter, he came to prefer the distance they shared. Nikki's rejection of everything him made it easier, really. And for some time he was convinced the distance made for happier lives. It seemed awful to say, he preferred it, the distance. They parted ways back during the great parting. Back when things that were, were no longer. 

Nikki had sent him a text earlier in the week announcing she was in Chautauqua, at the  Institute, and she would be coming to see him at ten-thirty on Tuesday. It was her way. Not, will you be around? Not, would it be all right? Just, I'll be there at ten-thirty. Of course, he didn't respond and she likely didn't expect a response.

He thought about running out, concocting an excuse. And then thought about hunkering down, sitting quiet in an interior room with the doors locked, but Willie Jo wouldn't understand. She would wonder why he was avoiding his daughter and the explanation would seem silly.

Willie Jo worked as a housekeeper at the Indian casino and her days off they spent together on the hill.  The rest of the week Willie Jo shared a small apartment in Salamanca with two other Pinays who also cleaned rooms at the hotel. It was a third-floor apartment in an old Victorian owned by the Senecas. There was a smoke shop and pot dispensary on the first floor of the house.