He sat in the shade of the big tree on the lawn. Up on the tennis court to the side of the house his daughter was playing one of her friends. The two of them made a pleasant contrast, Sally blond and fuller figured and her friend dark-haired and slighter. Their white tennis skirts bounced up and down on their firm haunches and from time to time showed the white pants snug to their bottoms. He realised that made him see Sally in a different light - less as simply his daughter, more as a girl like other girls, as attractive as other girls, and for that matter with a bottom which was as appealing as her friend's. It was pleasant to muse on this, whiling away an afternoon so hot that he had his legs parted in his shorts to cool them and a glass of chill white wine in his hand.
Time passed in a bit of a haze till the couple left the tennis court, the friend got into her car in front of the house and drove off, and his daughter crossed the lawn towards him. She parked herself on the ground in front of him, lying on one side with an elbow on the ground and her head on one hand. How her haunch mounted, swelled, he thought - a different view of the same feature he had enjoyed while she was playing.
-Claire had to rush off, she said. You seemed to be taking an interest - I saw you looking. I thought you weren't interested in tennis?
-I'm not. It was a pleasant sight though.
-She's attractive, is Claire.
-So are you.
-Am I? To you? That's good to hear.
-Don't you think I think you are?
-I don't think you think about it one way or the other. If you do you never say so.
-Something in that. I'm sorry. You looked very attractive playing, so I'm telling you that, at any rate.
She sat upright, knees up and apart, ankles crossed. He noticed her short skirt fell between her thighs concealing her crotch, and noticed himself noticing.
-Well, thank you for looking. Maybe you should get yourself another girl friend. You could look at her all you wanted. It's a long time since mother...
-I suppose I should. But I could say the same. You seem to have been out and about a bit, but if there's a boy friend you've kept him very secret.
-There isn't really. Not that I haven't tried a few times.
-Not interested? Well, sometimes people aren't, till they meet someone who...
-Not interested? I'm only too darned interested. It's more that...
-That what?
-Hard for us to talk about it, isn't it. Maybe if mother was still alive...
-As long as you're interested, what's the problem? After all you're eighteen, you can trust yourself not to be stupid, so why not be interested? Lots of boys would be interested in you.
She shuffled about, indecisive or prevaricating.
-Glass of wine, incidentally? he asked.
-Yes. Cold, I hope.
He had brought out two spare glasses in case she brought her friend for a drink. He poured and passed. She bent forward to take one and then drank most of it, her brief skirt bunching up. When she sat back he could see the lower part of her white pants between her thighs. Could see, and looked. And swiftly took in details - the white pants cutting in across just below the cheeks of her bottom, holding and emphasising them, and then the seam at their edge vanishing at the two edges of the soft pouch between her legs, the top of which vanished from sight under her skirt.
-Dad, she expostulated.
Caught in the act he looked up at her face. She was blushing slightly, her eyes on him part surprised part reproachful part amused. She did not change the way she was sitting.
-It's difficult, she said, holding his eyes so that her pants were now dim, at the edge of his vision, though he was still so aware of them.
-I mean, I can give it a go, she went on. I have, if I can tell you that. Only. Nothing lives up to, or has at all lived up to - well, what one imagines. Heaven knows I have the interest - only how to live it? With anyone? Unless they're of a like mind? Pretty much exactly like my mind, in fact. A lot to ask.
-You're very self-aware. Maybe too much for your own good, or at least your own ease in living.
-My father's daughter, then. Living it too much in my own head.
-You think I do that?
-Come on, dad. Living here on your own. I know your books. I know what you get up to. Or can guess.
-Now it's me who feels it's hard to talk.
-Embarrassed? So'm I in fact. But why not get through it? When we're alike but don't say.
-I suppose so. Doesn't get either of us any nearer a solution
-Why shouldn't you look, she said unexpectedly. If you want to look. I don't mind you looking. Why should I grudge you it? Why not share it? Two people wanting things...
With one hand she quickly bunched her skirt into her lap. He stared at the deep full soft pouch cased in white, her pants running tight down each side of it, forming and defining the shape of her hidden sex. Half a dozen stray straw-coloured hairs stuck out from the sides of her pants. Her bottom swelled firm and full beside the pouch, her unblemished skin an almost transparent pinkish white. He looked at the long insides of her thighs, the curve of the muscle under her skin.
-You look serious, she said.
-Of course.
-What do you want now then?
-Heaven knows what either of us wants, or can have.
-It.
-It?
-That's what I want. It. The things. I think about them. And in a way I've had them. But with those tiresome boys. Anti-climactic.
-Not a lot I can do about it. Or you either I suppose.
-Why not? You're serious. You can't help it. And so'm I.
She was silent, then leant back supporting herself with arms behind her. She put her legs down and parted them, He looked between, at the white cotton bulge at the heart of her pink-white flesh. They sat, neither of them moving.
-It's so hot, she said eventually, I think I'll sun bathe.
She bent to unbutton and unzip her tennis skirt, twisting her body so that her full breasts pushed against the fabric of her T-shirt. She tugged off the skirt, lifting her bottom to get rid of it. She drew up the T-shirt and pulled it over her head. Her breasts looked armoured in a heavy white sports bra. Full enough to need one. Uncomfortable to have them crashing about when she was playing. Sloshing hither and thither.
She turned and lay on her front, head away from him. Her hands reached up, undid her bra, pulled the straps to lie beside her and leave her back naked. She cradled her head sideways on her arms, her eyes closed.
He looked at the soles of her tennis shoes, then her white socks, then the line and swell of her closed calves to the inside of her knees, pinkish and curiously vulnerable and untouched-looking, then up her thighs to the sudden full swell of her bottom in the white pants whose seam ran up the crease below her cheeks, the crevice between the cheeks slightly shadowed under the white. Then the plateau of her back, her backbone, the tenderness of the nape of her neck, her blond hair sprawled sideways over her ear.
He sat looking. She shuffled, breathed deep. Then parted her legs wide, canting her feet out to lie along the grass.
The act itself excited him. Exposing herself. To him. He stared into what was exposed, the gap between her thighs, half shadowed as the sun struck from one side. The edges of her pants sank deep on each side of the back part of her sex, showing how deep her lips were. Then they vanished into shade.
She lay still. He felt his cock come life, stroked it softly with one hand. It grew, and was constrained by his shorts. He half-stood, pulled at the ends of the legs to loosen them pushed his cock round, stroked it softly, looking, till it lay half-erect along the top of his thigh.
Abruptly she rolled over, holding her bra over her breasts, shuffled herself, lay with her legs closed again. He stared up them at the swell of her mount at their head. The white edge of her pants lay along the side of her mount, tucking into the crease between mount and hip. The top of her pants stretched across her stomach just below her navel, another part of her which looked vulnerable, unvisited.
Again she opened her legs. Now he could see so much, so well. The thick swell of her cunt held in her pants.
She threw her bra to one side. Her breasts lay there full, swelling out at the sides, their tops flattened, pink nipples in their disks of pale puckered brown.
He looked, felt himself softly. His cock stretched, pushed upwards like some living thing with a will of its own, lay against his stomach, sensitive and trembling.
She raised her head suddenly. Opened her eyes. Saw. Sat up. Shuffled forwards between his knees. Leant back against his right thigh. Stretched round to hold his cock with her left hand, where it lay under his trousers. Softly, not saying a thing, not looking at him, she felt it, half-pinched it between her fingers, stroked up and down each side of it. He grew fully erect, stiff, rigid, his cock lying up his stomach, pressing out from the material of his shorts. She wriggled a finger round its top.
Changing position slightly, she took both hands to the top of his shorts to unbuckle his belt.
-Sally, he said.
She said nothing, fussing on with the buckle.
-Sally. Think. Best to stop while you can. While I can.
-I have thought. What do you think I was doing, lying there?
She spoke quietly, still not looking at him, got end of the belt loose, pulled it through the buckle, undid the two buttons that secured the top, got hold of the zip. And steadily, slowly pulled it down.
