A Recless Decision

This is another short one-off story, intended to be a single chapter without a lot of build-up. Mostly I just wanted to write something simple and fun. Hope you enjoy.

*

"Uh-oh," Nicole's father said. "Nicki, you'd better close your eyes."

Nicole Pryce looked up from her phone. She was curled up at one end of the couch, not far from her dad, who sat in the easy chair to her right. On the flatscreen TV mounted to the far wall, the lead actor in whatever Eighties action movie her dad had put on was, as he would say, "giving it to" some big-haired actress.

She scoffed audibly. Her dad loved these old movies, and she had nothing against them. But the sex scenes were always so cheesy. Slow-motion, saxophone music, lighting so subdued you couldn't see anything, the woman always arching her back in ways that seemed deeply uncomfortable. It all seemed so phony to her.

"Wow, look at those two shadows dry-humping," she remarked. "So risque. My virgin eyes."

"I do so love your sarcasm, sweetheart," her dad replied.

She grinned, returning her attention to her phone. "They want to impress me, they should have full penetration. I want to see this guy hang dong."

"Nicole Meriwether PRYCE!" her mother's voice rang from the kitchen. How her mom managed to hear anything over the blaring saxophone, she'd never know.

"Sorry, Mom!" she called. No further rebuke was forthcoming, which made her hope that put an end to the matter.

"Trou-ble," her dad said softly with a grin and a wink. She grinned back at him.

"I'm sorry," he said after a long pause. "'Hang dong'? Where did you pick that up?"

"I'm eighteen, dad. I'm old enough to know about..."

She trailed off, not wanting to incriminate herself any further. She and her dad had a comfortable rapport, but Nicole knew better than to push it.

There was a long pause, and then her father whispered, just loud enough for her to hear: "Dongs?"

Nicole snickered laughter, hiding her grin behind one hand. Her mother, while no ogre, didn't share their love of juvenile humor, and tended to get exasperated when Nicole and her dad indulged themselves in what she called "smart remarks." Not wanting to give them away, she settled for a conspiratorial nod to her dad and went back to scrolling through her phone.

They were all making the best of an uncomfortable situation. Nicole had graduated high school that spring, only to find college financially out of her reach. Her diligent saving from various summer jobs wasn't anywhere near enough to cover tuition, she hadn't been a good enough student for scholarships, and she refused to saddle herself with crushing debt to get an education. Reluctantly, she'd decided to take a year to figure out her next move -- and that meant continuing to live at home.

To their credit, her mom and dad had been more than generous about it. Nicole worked hard, and had even offered to pay rent. But her dad had turned it down, advising her instead to focus and figure out what she really wanted to do.

Nicole's mother, on the other hand, low-key wanted her gone. She knew this in her heart even if Mom hadn't made it apparent. She hadn't been cruel or demanding about it... Nicole just knew her mother longed to transform her bedroom into a craft space and live without a teenager in the house. She considered Nicole's foregoing of college a "reckless decision," and took many opportunities to say so.

As far as Nicole was concerned, the feeling was mutual. Living at home as a functional adult wasn't her idea of heaven, either. Very soon, she hoped to be out on her own and have an apartment, if not a dorm room at college. But for now, it seemed they were stuck with each other, for at least another year.

Nicole was ready to be gone. But until then, she planned to make the most of her last summer at home.

* * *

As the credits rolled on the movie, Nicole rose from the couch and stretched. She wore comfortable shorts and an old tee shirt short enough that she showed quite a bit of belly when she stretched. As she brought her arms down, she thought she caught her father glancing at her from the corner of his eye. A twinge of curiosity took hold of her. Was he looking at her, like... really looking at her?

She thought of the movie's sex scene, and found herself wondering if he'd been aroused by it. She realized she was thinking of her father's sexual arousal, and let herself be amused by the thought without pushing it away.

"I'm going up to my room," she declared. "And then probably to bed."

"Hey," her dad said as she moved toward the staircase. "No kiss goodnight?"

Nicole rolled her eyes amiably and reversed course to return to where he lounged in his recliner. The summer had been stiflingly hot, and he, like everyone in the house, was dressed lightly: a tee shirt and dad shorts. The shirt was just snug enough to show off a little muscle definition at the chest and shoulders; the payoff from his diligent gym visits.

She leaned down over him, and he lifted his head to deliver the customary kiss to her forehead.

Later, she would tell herself she wasn't sure why she did it. It was just another reckless decision she hadn't thought through. At the last moment, as his lips were about to touch her forehead, she tilted her head up and let his mouth meet hers instead. Her father completed the kiss before he fully knew what was happening, and pulled back a little in surprise. Impetuously, she darted in for a second kiss, lingering just slightly longer than the first, then pulled away with a grin.

"G'night, Dad," she said softly.

They locked gazes for a moment, both of them seeming frozen, jittering in place and humming with latent energy, like her dad's old VHS movies when he paused them. Nicole couldn't fully read what she saw in her father's eyes. Surprise, certainly. But not displeasure, and not disapproval.

She also had to admit she wanted another kiss. But she didn't dare take it.

The pause finally broke, and he licked his lips and blinked, as if waking from a momentary dream.

"G'night, Nicki." He was the only person in the world who called her Nicki. She liked that.

Her mother's voice rang out from the kitchen again. "Nicole, bring your popcorn bowl into the kitchen before you leave."

"Yes, mother," Nicole answered, trying not to roll her eyes as she retrieved the empty bowl from the cushion.

"Don't just leave it sitting on the couch," her mother continued, for some reason.

"I'm bringing it now, mother," she sang back.

As she headed into the kitchen to put the empty bowl by the sink, her mother frowned mildly from behind whatever centerpiece crafting project she was working on. "I don't need a lot of attitude from you either, Nicole."

"Sorry, Mom." Nicole kept her tone as neutral as possible. It didn't seem to take much to annoy her mother these days.

As she passed back through the living room on the way upstairs, she exchanged another glance with her father. He smiled, and she returned it, feeling that spark of ineffable camaraderie jump between them -- but this time with something more, an added charge she couldn't quite sort out.

Whatever it was, it was just between the two of them -- and she found she liked that just fine.

She made her way upstairs and closed her bedroom door. The room she'd lived in since she was a child seemed smaller than ever, even though she'd stripped it of the childish accoutrements and left only the bare minimum. It was slightly warmer up here than downstairs -- the summer sun bathed this entire side of the house -- and Nicole was all too happy to strip to her underwear in the privacy of her room and flop onto the bed.

As the evening light waned and she scrolled through her phone, she felt a restlessness come over her, like a tickle in the back of her mind that wouldn't go away. She found it difficult to concentrate on what she was doing, and kept getting distracted.

Finally, she realized what it was.

She was thinking of the kiss. Of watching the sex scene with her father she'd claimed to dislike.

To put it simply, she was horny.

Nicole sighed and rolled over to gaze at the ceiling, listening to the sound of the fan as it blew a balmy evening breeze into the room. There wasn't a lot she could really do about it now. Though she was no virgin, she hadn't had a boyfriend since high school. And though she didn't have a mountain of experience to draw on, she'd learned enough to know her last boyfriend had been only barely better than nothing at all, sexually. He'd been fumbling and selfish and, somehow worst of all, a bit boring.

With another sigh, she stretched her arms over her head. It wasn't that she had a problem attracting boys. She was pretty, and smart enough to know it: shoulder-length brown hair, striking blue eyes, a lean athletic body from years running track and summers doing odd jobs. Her belly was taut and toned, her breasts small but shapely. She could turn heads if she wanted. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was, she craved something adventurous. She didn't want sex like it was in Dad's old movies: slow, delicate, plodding. She wanted something raw and sweaty and real. Something the average boy in this town wasn't going to be able to give her.

As with so many things in her life at the moment, Nicole felt stuck. But she didn't plan to stay that way for long.

* * *

The sun set, painting over the orange sky with deep blue. The noise of the fan and the fragrant breeze from outside soon lulled her into a doze, and Nicole was asleep before she fully realized she was tired.

Her ambient arousal followed her into her sleep, where she began to dream prurient dreams. At first, there was nothing but an assortment of concepts and images flitting through her mind: memories of past partners, furtive gropes in secret places, awkward kisses that turned into equally awkward sex. Some of the subjects of her dream were boys she'd been with; others were just wishful thinking.

As her slumber deepened, the dreams took on more shape and detail. She dreamed she was on the couch, in her favorite corner spot, the TV blaring something pointless and indistinct. But she wasn't curled up with her feet underneath her. She was face down, shirt hiked up, panties bunched around her ankles, ass in the air. Completely vulnerable. Strong hands pushed her head down, held her wrists, grasped her ass, impossibly simultaneous in the way dreams are. The unseen owner of those hands was inside her, fucking her with rough determination. For a moment, her dream-senses focused in on the smell of fresh-cut grass and the distant buzz of a lawnmower.

The sensation of being fucked was, in her dream, both arousing and frustrating: the feeling exquisite, but never quite coming to fruition as her dreaming self hoped. Easing into a semi-lucid state, she allowed herself license to cry out with pleasure with abandon, not caring if her mother, who was surely in the next room, heard her.

She tried to look back at this unseen partner, but each time she tried, those hands held her in place, pushing her head roughly against the cushions, grasping her ass and thrusting harder, forcing her further into the corner of the couch. Finally, as she sensed her dream partner coming rapidly to climax, she unleashed one last struggle against the forces holding her down, turned, and looked.

Nicole snapped awake in the dim light of her room, gasping. Gathering her senses, she realized her body was shiny with sweat.

Apparently she'd also been busy in the throes of her dream: her shirt was hiked up over her breasts, her panties half pulled down, one hand between her thighs. She'd been touching herself in her sleep.

Nicole jerked her hands away self-consciously, though her bedroom door was closed and there was no one to see. She only hoped she hadn't made the kind of noises she'd made in her dream. Given that her mother wasn't pounding at her door, Nicole guessed she hadn't.

She sat up in bed, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. The final image of her dream still loomed large in her imagination, pushing everything else aside.

The man in the dream, the one who'd been fucking her, was her dad.

There was no mistaking it. Every detail had been present: the slightly graying stubble on his cheeks; the single lock of dark hair that always fell over one brow no matter how much he combed; the scent of the cologne he sometimes wore.

She even remembered the roughness of his hands and fingers on her skin, though he was touching her in places he never had in real life.

Nicole sat up on the edge of the bed, listening to the silence of the upstairs, letting the fan cool the sweat on her skin. She didn't need to dig into her psyche to know what this dream meant, or where it had come from. There was no projection or displacement in the raw sexuality of her dream. It was all pretty straightforward.

Earlier that night, when she'd moved her head so he'd kiss her lips instead of her forehead, she knew what she was doing.

Maybe it was the long summer, which had kept them indoors, away from the stifling heat, so much of the time. Maybe it was partially boredom and her wandering mind. Maybe it was those feelings of camaraderie and togetherness that had finally bloomed into something more powerful. More carnal.

All these roads led to the same destination. She'd felt a spark of attraction for her father, and acted on it. It had been a reckless decision, but it wasn't one she regretted.

She did feel a certain pang of guilt and shame -- what would Mom think if she found out? But it wasn't enough to deter her from her own truth.

She sighed and cupped her hands over her eyes for a moment.

"Nicole," she whispered to the empty dark. "What the hell are you thinking?"

But the direction of her own desires were still murky, unformed, waiting to be willed into being.

She only knew one thing for sure. She wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon.

Quietly edging her bedroom door open, she slipped into the hallway and headed downstairs.

* * *

Nicole was intrigued but not surprised to see the flicker of the television and the muffled sound from the speakers as she padded downstairs. Her dad often ended up watching TV late into the night, even falling asleep on the couch until morning. As with many other things, Nicole sometimes worried that it signaled some kind of rift between her mother and father. Short of confronting one of them, there was no way to know for sure.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she caught sight of her dad, sprawled in a sitting position on the couch, head lolled to one side, asleep. He was in his boxers and a tee shirt, his hair slightly mussed, knees apart, one hand gripping the remote.

She grinned to herself. She actually thought he looked adorable, sleeping like that. His presence by day was much more masculine and assertive, traditionally dad-like. But she liked seeing him like this, asleep and... what? Vulnerable? Maybe that was it.

Nicole slipped past him to the kitchen, all too aware she was in her underwear, which left very little to the imagination. Knowing her dad often slept down here, she could have slipped on a robe. But she hadn't.

As she fetched a water bottle from the fridge and twisted it open, things suddenly clarified for her. She knew why she'd come down here, why she'd deliberately chosen not to put on a robe, why she'd been so happy to see him there on the couch, sprawled out and asleep.

Are you really going to go through with this? she thought to herself. The consequences could be disastrous in the extreme, if she were rejected... or caught.

Oh well, she thought as she took a deep drink of the chill water. Nothing ventured. Time for another reckless decision.

Placing the half-empty bottle on the counter, Nicole took a deep breath. In the cool dark of the kitchen, she stripped out of her underwear and tossed them to the floor in a tidy heap. If she was going to do this, she was going all the way. There would be no mistaking her intentions.

She moved back into the living room, heart pounding in her chest. She felt exposed and vulnerable, every nerve on fire with fear and excitement. Involuntarily, she cast an glance to the top of the stairs. No sign of her mother, who usually took an oxycontin at night to sleep.

Her father slumbered on, unaware. Barely able to breathe with the nervousness she felt, she made her way to where he sprawled on the couch. With slow deliberation, she threw one leg over and slipped into his lap, facing him, her chest inches away from his.

Before he could stir to wakefulness, she put her hands on his broad shoulders and kissed him, softly but deeply, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her breath.

He mumbled and shifted, his eyes flickering open. In a half-awake state, his hands went to her waist, finding bare flesh. Nicole savored the feeling of his warm, rough hands on her for a moment before he started to full wakefulness.

He broke the kiss and looked at her, wide-eyed. "Nicki..."

"Dad," she whispered, and shifted her weight against him, letting her stomach touch his. The next few seconds would be critical. She'd already played out the worst-case scenario in her mind: her father yelling, throwing her bodily off him, her mother thundering downstairs. Scandal, screaming, maybe homelessness.

But he didn't do any of those things. Instead, she watched as he looked down at her nude body in disbelief, his hands still grasping her waist. With a slow exhalation, she shifted her weight a little lower, and felt the hardness of his erection burgeoning against her belly.

"Nicki, we can't," he said. His voice was low but steady, and she realized with a burst of insight that he hadn't found this totally unexpected. He'd thought about it, just like her.

"I want you," she whispered, her lips inches from his. "Please."

"You're my daughter."

"I don't care. I want you anyway."

He didn't say anything in response, but his gaze wandered down her body, drinking in the sight of her. And he was hard. She could feel it -- just as she could feel how wet she was already.

Nicole decided one reckless decision should follow another. If he truly felt they couldn't do this, she was about to find out.

She leaned down and kissed him again, and as she did so, she slipped one hand down his stomach and into the waistband of his underwear. A little fumbling and she found him there, thick and erect, warm in her hand. It took only a gentle tug to ease his cock out of his underwear.

"Nicki," he said again, his voice thick with urgency.

But he didn't stop her.

Taking him delicately between her fingers, she moved his cock into position and slid him inside her. She'd had every intention of going slow, but her thigh slipped against his and she suddenly dropped her full weight on him, his cock plunging deep all at once.

The pleasure was instant and blinding, almost indistinguishable from pain. She tensed and drew in a sharp gasp, and might have woken her mother with her scream if her father hadn't clapped a hand over her mouth. His palm muffled her cry to a barely audible squeal.

They locked eyes, his hand still over her mouth. Being so silenced only intensified her arousal, and she put her hand on his for a moment to indicate she liked having it there. He nodded in response, and began to gyrate his hips slowly, moving inside her.

The motion brought another stifled cry to her lips. Her father's cock was inside her -- he was fucking her, on the living room couch, with her mother sleeping right upstairs. The reality of it hit her like a blow, and she gave herself over to it.

They began to move together, in slow unison, but gaining speed and confidence as they learned each other's rhythm. She braced her arms against his chest, while he maintained his grip on her waist with one hand while still holding the other over her mouth.