The next morning, Tim sat alone at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in his hand, the newspaper lying unread on the table in front of him. His mind was too occupied to read. Guilt and shame ran through him like twin daggers. Sure, he had been mildly drunk the night before, but not so much that he shouldn't have been able to control himself.
Good Lord. Had he really flirted so unconscionably with his daughter? He groaned aloud as he recalled pushing his erection into her as they stood by the car. She had clearly been innocently playing with the idea of a grown-up date, and he had taken her too seriously. He remembered the way she twisted away from him at the last second. She had smiled at him, but that was probably just a knee-jerk reaction to preserve some shred of their natural relationship.
And then he had kissed her! And what a kiss it had been. He thought of her soft sweet young body pressed up against him, the feel of her lips on his. The gentle yielding presence of her mouth, the warm breath, wine-scented, the innocently closed eyes. Good God, he had taken full advantage of her.
Well, not full, he supposed. He had managed to restrain himself before he gave in entirely to his worse instincts. He had not tried to feel her up. Her eyes had been so smoky after that kiss, so hazy and intense. Somehow he had maneuvered her inside and sent her to her room.
And then, the final blow. He had been unable to resist releasing that sexual tension, sitting in the bathroom next to his bedroom where his wonderful wife lay sleeping, unaware of his illicit lust. How sordid it all seemed, like a scene from a melodramatic movie. He felt tainted. But that hadn't stopped him from shooting his seed all over his stomach, nearly up to his shoulders, it had rocketed out so hard.
"Good morning, sweetie," came Carol's voice from behind. He started, guilty in his remininscences.
"Uh, good morning, Carol."
"You guys must have had a good time last night, huh?" She was puttering around the kitchen, clearly unconcerned about her husband's date with their daughter. And why should she be? Husbands and daughters out was no reason for concern, normally. "You didn't get back in until after I was already asleep."
Should he tell her? Should he burst that bubble? No, this was a one-time thing that happened, a bizarre concatenation of circumstance. He would just have to be careful in the future with Marie. He would have to maintain his distance. But as he thought that, a pang of longing swept through him.
"Yeah, I guess it was all right," he said nonchalantly. He hoped there was just the right sense of boredom in his voice. "Honestly, I don't know why you set it up."
Oh, you sly dog, Carol thought, smiling to herself. If she hadn't heard him jerking off in the bathroom when she had been supposedly asleep, she wouldn't have suspected a thing.
"Well, maybe you need more dates with her then," she said aloud. "The point of you going out with her was to make the two of you more comfortable together."
"For crying out loud, Carol," Tim sighed, exasperated. Was he laying it on too thick? The truth was that his heart leaped at the idea of more nights out with his sweet young daughter. "How do you know Marie will want to go out with me again?"
"We can always ask her," Carol laughed. "But that will have to wait. I think she's sleeping off the effects of last night. What did you do, ply her with wine to lower her inhibitions?"
"What? N—no, Carol! What would make you think I would do a thing like that?" She had to laugh at his guilty expression. My goodness, he was too easy to tease.
"I'm just yanking your chain, Tim," she said soothingly. "And in any case, she's an adult, even if the law says she can't drink for another three years. If you wanted to share some wine with her, who am I to object?"
"Well, she might have had a little teeny bit of wine, I guess," Tim admitted, relieved that that indiscretion might be off his conscience.
"In any case, once she wakes up, I'm taking her to the mall. She desperately needs new clothes. Can you believe she hadn't worn that lovely dress because she didn't have a bra that she could wear with it?"
Tim's brain was immediately filled with the thought of that bra he had seen the night before. The image shifted to one of his lovely daughter, in that bra, her firm breasts supported and revealed at the same time. Jesus! He was sick, that's what it was. He shook his head and stood up.
"All right, then I'm off to do some work in the garage."
"And mow the lawn after, would you?" Carol's mind never stopped working. If she timed it right...
*****
"Honestly, Marie. I just want to know if you had a good time with your father last night. It's not some kind of inquisition."
"All right, all right," Marie laughed, exasperated. "Yeah, I guess we had a good time." Memories of him pressed against her at the car, that sweet kiss on the door step. God, she could feel herself becoming damp even as she sat in the car with her mother.
"Ha! I knew it," Carol smiled. They were sitting in the car on the way to the mall. Her sweet girl was so pretty, so innocent. "We'll have to get you some nice clothes so the next time can be even better." All the time, she had to tend the seeds she had sown. It was exhilarating, but at the same time, exhausting, all this work. But the payback would be worth it, she knew.
"Uh, Mom? Dad said something last night that had me kinda confused."
"Okay," Carol replied, looking at her daughter sideways as she drove. It looked like Marie was blushing. This could be interesting...
"Well," the girl went on, flustered. How could she ask about this? Best to just dive in. "He said that you were pretty, um, adventurous. That when you said not to do anything you wouldn't do, that was funny 'cause there really wasn't much of anything you wouldn't. Um, like, do, you know?"
"Uh-huh." Carol was laughing inside. She had known that he would find that statement funny, and had hoped that something might come of it. But on the outside, she kept her face open and encouraging.
"So?" Marie was studiously looking out of her window.
"So what?"
"What did he mean, Mother?" Her voice was quiet, embarrassed, but also passionate. The girl really needed to know.
"Marie, honey, when a girl loves her man, she'll do almost anything for him." A pause. No response from her daughter. "Sexually, sweetie."
"Like what?" So quiet.
"How much detail do you want, Marie?" The teenager turned finally to look at her mother.
"As much as you can give," she said, firmly. Carol marveled at her. She might have been young, but she knew what she wanted and she went after it with a single-minded purpose. It reminded her of her own personal style.
"Okay. On the night that I met your father?"
