Before Sandi, I had been with women who were good in bed and who shared my tastes to some degree. But no matter how young, crazy, and disinhibited they were, there were always fantasies I didn’t dare share with them. It may have been them, or it may have been me—it’s hard to tell in retrospect. But with Ali, I was far along the path of thinking that I had found that mythological creature—the soul mate—whom I could tell anything, and who would understand me no matter what.
So one Saturday night, when Ali had come over for a couple of hours before going to a bachelorette party with her sister, we were in bed together, talking about what we had just done—lying a couple of feet apart and masturbating, without touching each other. Neither of us had done it before, and, honestly, we didn’t expect much because neither of us could think of a good reason to be naked side-by-side without being all over each other. But we both found it to be an incredible turn-on. I had of course enjoyed watching her rub her clit while she gave me blowjobs, or while I fucked her from behind. She had even taught me to use her vibrator on her, which was quickly becoming one of my favorite pastimes. But watching her like that, disconnected from me and doing nothing but pleasuring herself, was like looking at a work of art. We checked with each other while we were playing with ourselves in order to come together, and once we had, we enjoyed narrating our versions to one another, noting the points when each other had done something especially sexy. So during a brief lull in the conversation, with the spirit of innovation still fresh in the air, I told her something I had never admitted to another human being.
“I’ve always had incest fantasies,” I said. And I had. I loved reading incest erotica—mother and son, and brother and sister, mainly.
“Incest?” she said tentatively. I knew in an instant that I had finally come to a bridge that she wasn’t eager to follow me across. My heart sank at the terrifying thought that I could lose her over this. What an idiot I had been—there was no way to know what she would think of this. What if she was one of the many girls who had been molested by some creepy uncle at some point in her life? “What do you mean? What kind of incest?” she said with a look of concern.
“Any kind,” I said, “between consenting adults. I don’t know—there’s just something about breaking taboos that turns me on. And there aren’t many taboos as taboo as incest, you know?” She was looking at the sheet now, flattening it out with the palm of her hand. I looked at the clock—it was about time for her to go. “Listen I said, I’m sorry if I freaked you out. I guess I got carried away with being honest.”
“No,” she said, “it’s… it’s okay. It’s just not something I’ve really thought about before, so you caught me off-guard.” She didn’t sound very convincing. I lay there looking at her for a few seconds, wondering if this was the last time I would ever see her in my bed again.
“You’d better get going,” I said glumly, “you’ll be late for the party.”
She tried to reassure me again a few times, but she also told me that she was staying at her place that night (which was also her sister’s place) because they were all going to breakfast the next morning. I wasn’t very hopeful when she walked out the door. I even imagined her telling the other girls at the bachelorette party about how she thought she had found this great guy, only to discover that he was a pervert who wanted to fuck his own mother. It depressed the hell out of me to think about it, so I just shut of all the lights and went to bed.
It was raining when I woke up the next morning. I put on a pot of coffee and read the paper, then ran a couple of miles on my treadmill. I shaved, showered, and got dressed, all before it occurred to me that I had nowhere to be that day, and that since I was unlikely to hear from Ali, I might as well just sit around and feel sorry for myself. I made some breakfast even though I didn’t have much of an appetite and sat at the kitchen bar eating it and reading an article online. At about 10:30, I heard a key click in the door, and turned around to see Ali walking in. She was wearing black leather shoes, knee socks, a red tartan skirt, and a practically see-through white blouse. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she had a backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Hi Dad!” she said cheerfully.
I was speechless.
She walked up and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before opening the refrigerator and pulling out a cup of yogurt. She sat down on the stool beside me, opened the yogurt, grabbed the spoon off my plate, and dug in.
“School was such a drag today,” she said. “I’m so sick of hearing about the senior prom this, the senior prom that.” She was completely in character, speaking in an affected teenage voice with facial expressions and gestures that weren’t her own. I was still having a hard time believing my eyes. “So how was work today?” she said innocently, as if she sincerely wanted to know.
“You know,” I said, hesitating “…same old, same old.” The shock was wearing off now and the fact of what an unbelievably lucky bastard I was was starting to sink in.
“That’s good,” she said distractedly, and gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Is there something on your mind sweetheart?” I said. There was no way I was going to waste anymore time marveling at my good fortune. “Something you want to talk about?”
