Out the Window Ch. 01

For a long time Dale thought there was something wrong with him. He thought about girls a lot when he was a kid. And then, no sooner did he hit puberty than he began to masturbate. His problem was his imagination. It was vast, and got him into all kinds of trouble. But what it never failed to deliver was an endless permutation of sexy situations and beautiful vixens sprung fresh from his fantasies, his mother's and later sister's lingerie catalogues, actresses, billboard models, classmates.

For a long time he thought there was something wrong with him. He masturbated a lot for a kid but slowly (painfully slowly), as he entered his teenage years and started working jobs and driving cars and dating girls, his masturbatory proclivities dimmed some. But then, of course, once he'd started working jobs and driving cars, the dating became much more involved. And the explosiveness of his sexual fantasies collided with his new, dripping reality.

He liked to imagine that it was simply the hormones in the turbulent air of his high school days that made the sex so glorious in the back of his car (or her father's bed, or the neighborhood pool, or broom closet). Surely women like that didn't exist anymore at his age. But he often looked back fondly on those later years of high school, and then college, despite his fear, that those women were the sultry hellcats he should have married.

What this boils down to is that Dale had sex on the brain at a near perpetual clip from the time he was about eleven onward. There was the rub, if you'll excuse the phrase. When the urge came over him and boiled in his stomach, his chest hot, his fingers tingling and his cock swallowing all the blood in his brain, he just couldn't think of anything else.

When Dale met his wife he thought she was the same. Or, rather, he wanted to believe she was the same, in their hurried romance as the girl of his best friend. His guilt over their stolen trysts fueled the fire of his passion for more time, more fun, more daring feats of affairs of the heart and whatnot. But many years later when they were married and Mary started putting on weight with their sex life secluded to a pleasant but all too comfortable once a week, Dale realized - too late - that his life had acquired stability at the cost of his libido. Not that his libido went anywhere, mind you.

For the first months of the later years of their marriage he was catching himself masturbating at every spare moment. At long last, in his late twenties, he finally decided to quit jerking off altogether. It wasn't easy. A week or two would go by without incident and then all of a sudden, Mary out at the gym (infrequently) or shopping, he'd happen upon a scintillating advertisement on the internet or think of his dashing young secretary, Margaret, who was all of twenty-years-old and didn't seem to know how to buy a bra that fit her. And he'd be at it again.

Things went on this way for a long time. But one year, finally, his dick really exhausted of options, Dale managed to stop touching himself for two months. It was worse than quitting coffee and cigarettes. He still fantasized daily but finally, somehow, with so much progress behind him, he resigned himself to a more controlled existence.

Control. That was the problem. Dale yearned for the days of his youth that popped with the erotic antithesis of control. What he learned how to do with the brash, sexy (no matter how beautiful or ungainly) girls he'd known in the past was useless to him. Maybe he'd never been that upstart Lothario. He started off his marriage resentful of that. But as the years went by and Mary and he began to raise children he understood that it wasn't her fault. Mary didn't have his sex drive. Maybe no one else did. Maybe there had been something wrong with him all along. But he had a job, an office, a beautiful house and a beautiful family, three kids and a dog. And he hardly ever masturbated anymore.

The problem raised its swollen head again when Dale and Mary's eldest, Katie, began to flower into her own womanhood. Even before then Dale would catch her having kisses stolen from her lips by well-intentioned but still trespassing young men. Well-intentioned or not, Katie was too young to be sneaking boys into her room to play doctor. He raised hell and asked where she learned that kind of behavior but she always burst into tears before he could get too angry, and that was that.

Katie began dating boys in middle school. Because she was an early bloomer there was no end to the slavering grunts that pursued her. But Dale was at least a good enough father to ensure that her mind developed along with her body, and even when he had to drive her to a private tutor to make damn sure she was getting the education her public school couldn't provide he was quizzing her on mathematics, history, English, the whole bit. What he didn't realize he was doing was raising a little girl that would be too clever by half for the boys she would date later in life. But Katie, ever adaptable, ever maturing, was able to put aside her more rational notions when it came to getting what she wanted. She became very good at that.

The problem arose late in Katie's Junior year. She was seventeen, she was beautiful. She had breasts that defied gravity unlike her mother's ever had. Of course Dale didn't know, but to make an educated guess on a light day she might have been a generous B cup, and during that time of the month she edged farther into C's. When she matriculated to college her bosom hovered between those two measurements but her breasts retained such round, fruitful shape that it appeared much larger. Not that Dale noticed. At first.

The problem did not arise till one very boring game of high school football, Dale sitting in the stands next to his wife. Katie was on the cheer squad, shaking her pom-poms beside the other girls and screaming all of the rah-rah nonsense that came with it. Dale was there to support his daughter and not, despite the proud fathers of the jocks on the field who earnestly quizzed him on how he thought they were doing that year (I gave up masturbation for this? Dale thought to himself). His mind was wandering. He was sleepy. The economy was shit and there had been several lay-offs at the office that Dale had had to perform himself. And he hated it. His superiors had had their fun screwing over everyone at the bottom by outsourcing all but their most important positions (positions) to countries that did it cheaper and faster (faster) and now they were paying the price. As he sat, disgruntled and feeling old (he was in his late thirties), his eyes drifted over the lithe body of one of the girls on the field. They all had their backs to the audience. They were cheering to the boys on the field. One of the girls bent over. Dale saw the elegant swell of her calf, the glistening tan of her skin rising up to the back of her knee and then to the impressive and fleshy tone of her upper thighs. That ass was something else, he thought. He appreciated it. It was the kind of ass a man, if he was so lucky, held on to, tenderly smacked, lovingly kneaded and squeezed.

He was hard. He watched the slope of the girl's back rise as she raised her arms. Her delicate shoulders lifted her arms up over her blonde head...

Dale quickly shielded his hard on with his newspaper, not to hide it from the crowd (it was not going anywhere) but from his wife. He suddenly realized, staring at the back of the girl's curly blonde head, that there were only three natural blondes on the cheer squad. And two of them were twins and a good foot shorter than his Katie.

He had, unwittingly, been fantasizing about the back of his daughter's young body. He was embarrassed, guilty. Horribly depressed, really. But that was the problem. He was still turned on.

After that it became difficult to unsee what he had seen. In the morning, boiling up a pot of necessary coffee, Dale caught glimpses of his daughter just awake. They were both early risers. Her brothers slept until the afternoon if they could and her mother until eight. But Katie was up not long after him, wiping the sleep from her eyes and padding into the kitchen in her bare feet, a long shirt drawn over her body that now, Dale was sad to see, was too small to shield anything below her upper thighs from his curious eyes. He hadn't really appreciated those long, toned legs until that night on the field. Now she was striding towards him, smiling her sleepy smile, upper lip so delicately upturned and slightly smaller than her full, pouted lower lip. She had an upturned, rounded nose like her mother and winter blue eyes like her grandmother. And golden curls that shimmered in any kind of light, dirty or freshly shampooed.

"Morning, Daddy," she'd say, and peck him on the cheek, and steal his coffee. Until this morning, he swore, he'd never felt the heavy caress of her breasts underneath her loose cotton top. It was the heavy softness of full breasts freed from a bra, the way a girl sleeps when she is alone and doesn't realize how soft the skin around her ribs and nipples are, and how they titillate any man, anywhere, any time.

That first morning after Dale saw Katie and could not unsee the woman she had become, that first morning, in lieu of coffee, he went quietly to the downstairs bathroom and masturbated. It would be inaccurate to say he knew just what he was fantasizing. It had been so long since he'd jerked off that it didn't take much at all really. But it is with absolute certainty that he saw Katie's face in his mind, surprised, shocked, upper lip slightly raised and her eyes wide, as he came forcefully against the back of the toilet seat. In his mind, Katie was ashamed of him. And in his mind, that shame fucked his impertinent lust until it begged for mercy and more in the same breath. Dale let off an overwhelming sigh.

For two years then he masturbated very infrequently. There was one year, her first year back from college, that Katie paraded around their backyard in a tight camo bikini and Dale almost lost it right there. He tried to encourage his wife to have sex with him but she was tired very often these days (or at least claimed to be), and submitted to his urges only reluctantly. Dale hated it. Once women had told him he made them horny - or at least he remembered they did. It was too long ago now! Now he had to cajole his wife into bed with him (because heaven forbid they make it anywhere else) and by that time he was so turned off by the affair that he seldom grew more than half hard, came weakly, she weakest of all, and they tidied up and showered and went back to their respective businesses. From early on in their marriage Dale had vigorously applied himself to physical exercise. He lifted weights. He ran. He did anything he could to obliterate the whirling lust inside him. To the misfortune of no one but himself, he realized he was in better shape at 39 than he'd ever been as a young man.

He was seriously contemplating stepping out. Maybe his twenty-year-old secretary with the loose cleavage and easy laugh. Maybe an old friend from college...

The problem returned when Katie returned. It was her college's winter break. Robert, her brother, was back as well and excited to tell his folks all about the college life. Katie was in an Ivy League university on nearly a full scholarship and too pleased to be away from constantly cramming to even mention school. For most of the week she was a mere phantom, flitting in and out of their home to do laundry and share dinner but just as quickly gone until the early morning hours from reminiscing with friends and not being too drunk to drive home. It was during one of these very late nights, sometime between eleven and two am, that Dale was staring into the refrigerator and wondering when he would ever manage to sleep like a normal person.

The sound of the key in the front door did not startle him. He was glad Katie was home and knew that if there were any boys under her sway she was too smart to let him in through the front. (He had caught the little nymph sneaking a boy into her window sometime in her sophomore year. Since then he didn't know where she kept them.) The sound of his daughter's heels rapped loudly in their foyer. Dale leaned back from the refrigerator to look into the main hall that opened into their living room. He briefly let out a relaxed groan as the cool air hit his abdominals (brutal hours at the gym did wonders for sublimating his baser urges). Katie caught his eye silently as she perched on one leg and undid the straps on her platform sandals. She let the sandal drop (louder than she intended), then uncurled her beautiful leg to stand and repeat the process with her other. She smiled at him.

She put her purse and coat on the table with her keys and crept to him on her toes. The soft carpet muffled her steps but she was pretending to be stealthy. He shook his head and returned to his survey of the refrigerator.

"You're still up," she whispered into his ear.

"Mmhm," he grunted.

"Are you mad at me?" she pouted at him.

"Mm-mm," he grunted.

"Oh, DA-ddy," she teased, tugging at his shoulders. She pressed herself against him in her shimmering top and hung from his back. He felt her chest nestle softly under his armpit. "You're not hungry," she chided him.

"No," he sighed. "Just can't sleep." His daughter giggled. He turned to her. Her luminous eyes shined up at him, lovingly, her face flushed and tinged with humor. She had been drinking, a little. He could also smell it on her breath, which she knew; but she knew he knew. "What's funny?" he said.

"Nothing," she said, biting her tongue between her front teeth. That expression always made him want to grab her and squeeze her until she relented in her teases. And were she younger, he younger, he would have. But Katie was as much a woman now as his secretary—bad thought. That wouldn't have been respectful. Of course he didn't know that she wanted him to.

Dale shut the fridge. His hand still on the door, he planted his fist at his hip. He knew he looked ridiculous but he was her father after all. He probably looked ridiculous when he was clean shaven wearing a suit and briefcase. Right now he was wearing a forest green and black plaid robe that draped to the floor, and matching pajamas (matching in that they were plaid, not in that they were bright red). He was not, however, wearing a shirt. His hair was turning slightly gray on his chest, which he rather enjoyed. Katie was staring at his gray hair now. Then her eyes traveled down to his stomach.

"Wow," she said.

Suddenly self-conscious, he looked down. "What? Is the flap open?"

Katie giggled at him again. "No," she said. "But I see you've been hitting the gym harder than usual."

He grinned suavely. "Well, sweetheart, remember that to look like this, 'than usual' is just in the last four months since you've seen me."

"Yeah, but," his daughter went on, "you were always at the gym before. I guess now it's just, uh..." She drifted off. "Could I have some water?" she asked.

"Can't you get your own water?" She pouted at him again. He shook his head and got a glass from the cupboard and filled it at the tap. He didn't know what time it was. It was so still time seemed to glance over them. Katie was wearing a short, black shimmering skirt. Her little toes on the kitchen tile were red from dancing. When he handed her her glass he asked, "Did you have a good time tonight?"

She took the water with a murmur of gratitude and gulped it immediately. When she finished she let out a refreshed gasp and smiled again. Ignoring his question completely, she asked, "Dad, do you know Vanessa Linares?"

He didn't have to think about it. Dale knew Vanessa Linares very well. He had fucked her eight ways to Sunday off and on throughout college. He thought he was in love with her at one time. Then she got married to her boyfriend who—apparently—she'd been dating since high school. He wasn't invited to the wedding. But there was no way his daughter meant that Vanessa Linares.

"Actually, I did know a girl named Vanessa Linares," he said, trying to be vague. His daughter glowered at him.

"I know when you're lying, Daddy."

"Oh?" he said.

"Mmhm," she murmured from her next sip. "Don't pretend."

"Not pretending," he told her. "I just highly doubt that your Vanessa Linares and my Vanessa Linares are the same people."

"Well she's definitely your Vanessa Linares and she's my Social Policy professor."

If Dale had been drinking the water he would have spat it out in classic cinematic fashion.

Katie went on, "We're really close. Sometimes we go for drinks at the bar on campus and she asked me about my last name." Katie grinned like a cheshire cat. "She remembers you very fondly."

Dale was pleased. "You don't say."

"Yeah." Katie drifted off again. Her eyes kept flicking from his face to his chest as if he wasn't watching her watch him.

Suddenly he understood. "You and Vanessa drink together?"

Katie smiled into her now empty glass. "Sometimes, yeah. She told me some stories about you."

Dale was inexplicably nervous. And probably explicably turned on. "Oh?" he tried to feign nonchalance.

Katie giggled at him again. "I told you I know when you're lying. You want to know what she said."

"I know what we did."

"Well I know a little about that too."

Dale laughed. But what she said next stopped him cold.

"She said all it took to get you to drop everything was a wet, sloppy blowjob."

Dale didn't know what to say. He stared at his daughter. Katie had her arms crossed over her chest, the glass pressed against her upper arm. She broke the silence. "I was kind of thinking about it."

What did she mean?

"Dad, do you and mom have sex?"

"Katie, I don't know what—"

"Come ON, Dad." She strode to him and let him catch her as she draped her arms over him. She was sleepy, staring up at him. "Don't pretend I'm too young to hear the truth."

"Well," he said. How did one proceed in this conversation? "Well," he said again. And finally, "No, Katie, your mother and I don't really have sex that much anymore."

Katie stared up at him with something akin to sympathy and something very much like loneliness. "Vanessa said you kind of had a reputation at college."

"What kind of repu—"

"She said you fucked. A lot." Katie smirked. "And that you were very...gifted."

Dale's head swam. He became intensely aware of his daughter's breasts pressed against his chest. She continued, "And I was thinking about that. I kind of couldn't stop because, um, you're my dad? But, I was thinking how I never thought of you that way. Mostly because," she looked at him intensely, "I don't think I ever heard you having sex. With mom."

"Katie, I don't think this is appropriate."

"OK," she said. "So you and mom don't have sex?"

"Katie—"

"But you used to have a lot of sex back in the day."

"It wasn't 'back in the day'—"

"And now you just don't have sex at all?"

"Katie—"

"That sounds like it really sucks, Dad."

He stared down at his daughter. Her eyes flitted over his, over his cheeks, over his nose, his ears. Her face was flushed. Suddenly he felt her heart ramming against her breasts and beating on his ribcage; he felt his own heart pounding.

"I love you," she said to him.

"I love you, too, honey."

"Uh huh," she breathed up at him. "I'm sorry you don't have sex anymore."

"Oh, Katie—"

"I said it sucks. Does it suck?" She pronounced the word in a very deliberate way. He started to say something but she reached down and grabbed him in a place—the exact place—that was eternally off-limits. "Does it suck, Daddy?"

"Katie!" He pushed her back. She set her glass on the table and giggled again.

"Sorry, Daddy," she said. "I think I've had a little too much to drink."