Jim Davis had not been having a good day. An trip to the dentist had left him in considerable pain. On the positive side, the dentist had prescribed a healthy dose of pain meds, and Jim had taken the max, with the sole intent of sleeping away the afternoon in a medicated fog at the pool behind his home.
As he pulled into his driveway he realized there would be a hitch to his plan, his daughter Alexius was home. She was spending the summer at home before going back to college, but he thought she'd be at work. He changed into his swimsuit and walked out onto the patio, where he saw his daughter and another girl catching rays by the pool. He didn't recognize the other girl, she was holding what appeared to be an anatomy textbook.
"Hey, I thought you had to work," he mumbled out through achy teeth.
Alexius couldn't help but laugh. "No, they are going to call me if they need me," she said. "Sounds like the dentist did a good job."
"Smashing," Jim replied. "Who is your friend?"
"You remember Kelly Simmons," she chided. "We went to high school together, now she's in pre-med at State."
Jim looked carefully at the girl, trying to remember, but the only Kelly he could remember was a shy nerdy kid who was overweight and had acne. This girl was long, lean and stunningly attractive. She smiled and put on some black rimmed glasses and suddenly Jim realized it was the same girl, all grown up. He had a quick flashback to a few years ago when he had overheard Alexius and her friends laughing about how Kelly was the class valedictorian but was so naive about boys that she asked Alexius to draw a picture of a penis.
"Right, Kelly, the ah..smart girl," he fumbled out in his drug-addled state. "You've really...ah...gotten older!"
Her smile got bigger and she blushed. "I guess I will take that as a compliment," she said shyly.
A few moments had passed before Jim realized he was nodding and gawking like an idiot. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I've taken some Vicodin for my tooth pain and I can't think straight. I'm just going to collapse on a chair and pass out."
The girls laughed. "How 'bout a Margarita?" Alexius asked.
Jim wasn't to thrilled at the thought of a cold drink on his aching tooth. "I think I'll just have a shot of Tequila," he mumbled.
A few Tequila shots and another few Vicodin later, Jim had skipped right past being seriously wasted and had landed somewhere north of bulletproof. Sitting in the warm sun, he felt like his body had melted into his chair, and he had to make a conscious effort not to stare in any direction for too long, especially toward Kelly. His face had settled into a permanent look of happy bemusement, and he was heading for an epic afternoon nap when Alexius got the call she was dreading from work.
"Ah, they need me to go in to work for a few hours," she said. "Kelly why don't you stay here until I get done and we can go out later?"
Kelly gave a grin and a thumbs up.
"Dad, you going to be ok?" Alexius asked.
Jim looked at her for a few moments before he realized she had asked him a question. He was really plowed. "Yeah, I think I'm going to go inside and take a power nap," he said.
"Uh oh, you remember last time you fell asleep after taking that Vicodin stuff, you were so out of it I could not wake you up," she said. "You slept through the fire alarm."
Jim rose slowly to his feet. "As long as my teeth don't hurt," he said, being careful to keep his balance.
"Kelly, if the house catches on fire be sure to wake him up," Alexius laughed. "You might want to check on him."
In his stupor, Jim wasn't sure about anything, but it seemed like when Alexius told Kelly to "check on him," he saw Kelly put on her glasses and give him the once over.
He shook off the thought as he staggered to his bedroom. Sure, he was still in good shape, but he was pushing 40 and old enough to be her father. Besides, he had sworn off sex for the past year, after his wife had taken off with a neighbor and gone to Vegas.
He had just enough clarity of mind to stagger into his room, throw on a pair of boxers and collapse on the bed, pulling a sheet up to his waist. He heard Kelly's car backing out and then he drifted off.
Vicodin had a tendency to give him very vivid dreams though, and soon Jim found himself back in the chair beside the pool. Kelly was there, in her bright red bikini, coming out of the pool wet and dripping, then walking towards him in an exact re-creation of the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, complete with the Cars tune blaring in the background. In fact, Kelly looked quite a bit like Phoebe Cates, except that she was inexplicably wearing glasses. As she came near to him, she reached up and popped the front clasp on her bikini top, and Jim suddenly woke up. Dammit.
He had come out of the dream but was still in a half asleep mode, and he allowed his lucid dream to continue just a bit. Normally he would be reserved about having fantasies with his daughter's friend, but it wasn't his fault if she had invaded his dream. He could also blame the pain meds.
In his state of partial consciousness, Jim suddenly heard a slight noise over near the door, but he was too groggy to open his eyes. He couldn't be sure but he thought he heard the bedroom door come open. He sensed someone coming in but he was still out of it, even when he heard Kelly whispering to him.
"Mr. Davis?" she said hesitatingly. Then again, a bit louder, "Mr. Davis?"
He wasn't even coherent enough to really know why, but for some reason he just laid there and didn't answer or move. Somehow he figured she was just telling him she was leaving or something and she would just go. But then she called out twice more, louder each time, coming all the way over beside the bed. Then he felt her poke him in the leg with a finger, lightly at first and then harder, then we he still didn't respond he felt her lightly shaking his knee back and forth.
Despite his drunken state, Jim suddenly became aware that Kelly was not trying to wake him up. Kelly was trying to see IF he would wake up.