The Gift

Author's note: I wrote this for a story contest on another site recently (which, sadly, I lost). But I liked the story and decided that I wanted to share it with everyone at LitErotica. So, yeah. First, the requisite disclaimer:

While I do NOT practice nor condone incest under any circumstances, I DO acknowledge that it's one hell of a sexy topic to think about. Real life, though, is harshly different- and this is ONLY fiction! All characters are over the age of 18 and are completely make-believe.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy the story and, if you do, please leave a note and vote to show your appreciation... ESPECIALLY if it gets you off!

-NightShadow

------------

I love my father deeply. However, there was a time when I was worried that I was going to lose him forever to the most painful sort of depression. My mother had died a year earlier and while it was difficult for me to move past it, Dad didn't seem capable of doing so. He had been deeply in love with her and, when her life was taken in a horrible car accident, he took it so terribly hard. The other half of his soul had been snatched away from him in a blink, after all. I tried to be as supportive and helpful as possible during that year. I picked up the house, cooked, and generally did all of the chores that Mom used to do. Dad, though, simply wallowed in his mourning and lost himself in a long line of benders. Through all of it he had somehow managed to keep his job, but, at home, all of the fire had gone out of him. I did everything I could think of to try and bring him out of his shell, but nothing seemed to work. I mean, I was only 18 when she passed, so it's not like I had a lot of life experience to inform me on what to do. And only a year later, at the age of 19, I was no more informed than before. At some point I simply gave up and just held out hope that he'd crawl out of the hole of depression on his own. To some degree he had, but the man he'd become was a mere shadow of who he'd been before.

I put my own life in order by continuing my education at the local community college. I loved science, so I took some courses in genetics and biology along with a few basic classes. Fortunately, I didn't have to keep a job since, before her death, Mom had made some very smart financial investments early in her life that made us fairly wealthy- and Dad's income only helped to bolster our financial health. We're not Gates Foundation wealthy, but wealthy enough that even if Dad did lose his job, we wouldn't be hurting for several years to come. Our house and cars were paid for and my college fund was fat with lots of extra money left over on a monthly basis. As an only child, I tried my best not to let our wealth make me into a bitch or anything, but I think that was mostly due to how my parents raised me- always kind and helpful to those who were in need. That was pretty much our prevailing philosophy as a family: helping others is helping yourself. Waiting for the right opportunity to help my dad was a hard test in patience. That opportunity did finally arrive, however, in the most unexpected way.

I had just gotten back from shopping with some friends on a beautiful Spring day. The sun was out, the sky was clear and there was every good reason for just about anyone to be positively beaming with joy at the wonderful weather. When I put down my shopping bags just inside our foyer, though, the inside of our house seemed more like a mausoleum than a home. The lights were off and no one was there to greet me, even though I'd seen Dad's car in the garage. I called out to see if Dad was awake, but he didn't respond, so I figured that I should go check up on him and make sure that he hadn't slept the day away. I mean, geez, it was such a beautiful day! Why on Earth would anyone hide indoors on a day like that?

"Dad?" I called down the hallway that lead to his room. Still he didn't reply. As I got closer to his bedroom door, I could hear the muffled sounds of his TV. When I got directly to the door I was able to decipher those sounds and recognize them for what they were: Dad was watching porn. Again. He'd been doing that a lot lately. He just couldn't bring himself to start dating again, to go looking for a new mate, but a man, despite his depression, still has needs. In my father's case, his needs were met by proxy and his drinking had only made him sloppy about keeping it private. I'd found him in various states of undress a few times already, passed out while watching porn. Most of the stuff he found tended to star women who looked a bit like Mom, but sometimes it was just whatever tickled his fancy. Over the last few months I'd learned a lot more about my father's sexual interests than I'd ever wanted to know. Like, who wants to know that their father's favorite sexual position is doggy-style? But what could I do? Scolding him about it might embarrass him, which might cause him to withdraw from me further, and I certainly didn't want that.

I gently knocked on Dad's door to see if he was awake. Still no reply. The door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open quietly and was less than surprised at what I found. Sure enough, there was Dad, sprawled out on his bed, completely naked, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a wash towel in the other. He was also blissfully passed out and oblivious to everything around him. Shaking my head, I moved towards the TV to shut it off.

"Oh, God, Daddy! You feel SO fucking good inside me! Fuck me, Daddy! FUCK ME!" the starlet on the television shouted gleefully. Glancing up at the screen, I could see that she looked a lot like Mom. Which also meant that she looked a lot like me, because I was damn near a clone of my mother when she was my age. I just stared dumbly at the screen for a minute as realization dawned on me: my father was jacking off to incest porn. This was the third time that week that I'd caught him like this, watching a porno with this particular daddy-daughter theme, but it looked like he'd finally found something that hit a little closer to home.

"Babygirl, you feel so fucking good!" the male actor told his "daughter" as he fucked her from behind. "Daddy's got a big load for you."

"Fuck, Daddy! Yes! Cum inside me! Cum inside me like you do with Mom!" the girl who had more than a passing resemblance to me cried out.

I shook my head as though snapping out of a trance and quickly hit the TV's power button. What had my father turned into? What kind of man had he become after Mom died? I totally got it that men need release, from time to time, but how had he changed so much in such a short period of time? For the last year I'd pretty much taken Mom's place in every way except one... and now it seemed that Dad might be looking for me to fill that other forbidden role, too.

"God, I miss my daddy," I muttered as I turned around to regard his passed-out form. "What happened to you?" As is perfectly natural, I guess, my eyes fell upon his spent cock as it lay flaccid against his cum-spattered thigh. Even when it was soft, Dad's cock looked to be pretty big. "Good Lord," I whispered in disbelief, "how in the hell did Mom handle that thi-" I stopped myself in mid-sentence. I mean, holy shit, what the hell was I saying?! That was my father! "Snap out of it, Nat! Just... let's just leave the man in peace, okay?"

I went to the bed, focusing my attention on the towel in his hand, and carefully took it from him. He didn't even stir. The towel was... stiff in some parts. Dear God, I was holding my father's cum-rag that was stiff with his dried semen. Trying to take the high road, I prepared to gently drape the well-used towel over my father's large cock and deliberately ignored the fact that there was still a small amount of pearly-white seed flowing from his bulbous cockhead. I was no blushing virgin; I'd seen male plumbing before, but I have to admit: Dad's cock was practically a work of art! I stared at it in awe for a moment before I got myself together and covered it with the towel.

As I started to leave Dad's room, I caught a glimpse of myself in Mom's old vanity mirror. I was wearing a thin summer dress and my long, brown hair was hanging softly over my shoulders. My cheeks were slightly flushed, too, but I tried to ignore that even as I realized something: that girl in the porno could almost be my twin! We had the same large breasts (mine had smaller areolas), the same curvy hips, our tiny-looking pussies were both completely bald, the same toned thighs and arms. Yeah, I finally admitted to myself, Dad was definitely masturbating to the fantasy of having sex with me. Or maybe it was just an analog of Mom when she was young that he was jacking off to. I don't really know. And I wasn't sure how I felt about it just yet. I gave my sleeping, naked, cum-spent father one more long look and then quietly walked out of his room, pulling the door closed behind me. When the door closed a bit louder than I'd intended, I cringed.

Dad's voice immediately came from inside his room. "Natalie?" he said sluggishly. "Is that you?"

I took a deep, calming breath. "Yeah, Dad. It's me. I just got back from shopping with some friends. I'm gonna go take a dip in the pool and then make dinner. Come out whenever you're ready."

"Okay," he said softly and then said nothing more, presumably so that he could continue to sleep.

----

While I changed into my bikini in my bedroom, I found myself looking at my reflection in my bedroom mirror once more. I was naked as a jaybird and turning this way and that, eyeing my curves critically. Were we really that similar, that porn actress and I? Maybe my butt rode a little higher and was a little smaller (it was hard to tell with having only seen her on the TV screen for a moment or two), but the resemblance was indeed hard to ignore. I just couldn't believe Dad was watching that. Was he really thinking about me, his own daughter, in a sexual way? I couldn't wrap my mind around that possibility. It had to be Mom he was thinking of. But, a small part of my mind insisted: what if it wasn't? I mean, he had been watching a lot of incest-related porn lately. Maybe me doing so much around the house was causing him to transfer his feelings for Mom onto me. I was no psychology major, but that did sort of make sense. Should I discourage it or should I just let it slide and wait for him to get it out of his system? If I waited, how long would that take?

I just didn't have the answers to those questions. All I could do was rely on my instincts and hope for the best. I knew my father well enough to be certain that he would never cross a line uninvited, that was for sure. He was a loving, gentle person. Even when he was drunk, he never got mad or lost control. He just... wallowed in his self-pity, more than anything. Sometimes he'd stare at the TV for hours on end or spend the night surfing on the 'net. A few times I'd heard him quietly sobbing through his bedroom door. It broke my heart to see my father so crushed by Mom's absence, which is part of why I worked so hard to do the things she did. In his current state I seriously doubted that Dad would work up the energy to do it himself. Besides which, I love him. What kind of daughter would I be if I just did nothing while my father slowly fell to pieces? That wasn't how I'd been raised, after all. "Helping others is a gift to yourself," Mom always said.

I put those thoughts aside and got my bikini on. Once I was out in the pool, after swimming for a few minutes, I did notice something odd, though. When I glanced up at Dad's bedroom window, I noticed that he was watching me from it. He wasn't jacking off or doing anything perverted like that. He was just watching me. When he saw me looking up at him he gave me a soft smile and waved before receding back into his room after I waved back. It was a rare thing to see him smile and I would've done anything to see it more.

----

Later that night, as I was getting finished with cooking dinner, Dad came into the dining room wearing his normal attire of sweat pants and a t-shirt and sat quietly at his normal place. He remained quiet as I piled some spaghetti on his plate and brought it to him, having made a plate for myself already. When I set the plate down, he looked up at me with this peculiar expression on his face. "Sweetheart, about earlier today... I noticed that someone had covered me up while I was passed out. I... I'm guessing it was you. I'm really sorry you had to see me like that."

"It's okay, Daddy," I said. "I'm a big girl now and I know what men do to relieve themselves. It's perfectly natural. Just eat your dinner. Maybe later we'll watch a movie later or something."

He shook his head. "Thanks, Sweetheart, but.. well... I just.. I need to explain something to you-"

I gently placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Dad, you don't need to explain anything. I get it. You miss Mom. I miss her, too."

Dad shook his head more emphatically. "No, you don't understand, Natalie. It's not just that. As you know, this weekend will be the anniversary of her death. I've taken some time off from work to just, well... deal with it. I've had a lot of stuff bottled up lately and I need to tell you a few things that you didn't know."

Seeing the look of seriousness on his face, I took a seat close to him and gave him my undivided attention. "What is it, Daddy?"

My father took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. After a moment of steeling his nerves, he said, "Well... it's not just going to be the anniversary of your mother's death. You see.. the day before she died we learned that she was pregnant. We hadn't told you about it yet and, when she died, I just couldn't bear to put you through more pain and loss. So I kept it a secret."

I let out a gasp of surprise at hearing this. "What? Oh, Dad! That's... oh, I'm so sorry, Daddy! I had no idea! I knew something was bothering you, aside from missing Mom, I mean, but... oh, you poor, poor man! All this time you've been carrying that around with you?"

"I know I should have told you, Sweetheart," he said solemnly, "but I just couldn't stand to..."

I smiled at him sweetly and tried my best to let my feelings of love and compassion be evident. "It's okay, Dad. I forgive you completely. You were only trying to protect me. I totally understand."

Dad took a deep breath of relief and closed his eyes. Then he looked down sorrowfully at his hands and said, "The hell of it was that I was REALLY looking forward to being a father again. Your mom and I had been trying for a long time, y'know? And when we finally got the news that she'd caught, we were just so damned excited. But now... now all of that is lost." I could see the tears in his eyes and my heart damn near broke into a million pieces. That was the one piece of the puzzle I'd been missing. I had no idea that Mom was pregnant when she died, but now that I knew, everything made a lot more sense about why Dad was so despondent.

Oh, my aching heart! What could I do to help put him back together? My mind began to whirl with ideas, thoughts and solutions.

"Oh, don't say that, Dad! You're not exactly over the hill, you know. You could meet someone and still be a father again."

Dad was already shaking his head, immediately rejecting that idea. "No. It just... it wouldn't be the same, Natalie. Your mother... she was something special, Sweetheart. More than you can possibly know. And you look so much like her, more and more every day, that it's just... I couldn't fall in love with some other woman and have another child, Natalie. I couldn't do it and look you in the eye. I'd feel like I'd, I dunno, cheated or something. She was the perfect mate for me and you... you're our perfect combination, the best parts of both of us. I just couldn't, not with someone who isn't her."

I frowned slightly at that with deep compassion. "I... I understand, Daddy. I do. I just hope that, someday, you'll be able to get past it."

"So do I, honey," he said with a small, wan smile. "So do I. There's just not another woman on the planet like her."

"Except for me, that is," I added. Dad glanced up at me with a curious look. We stared at each other for a moment, my mind still spinning with ideas. Suddenly, like a grenade exploding in my mind, one thought leapt to the surface. "Maybe... maybe the solution... Dad, I don't like seeing you in pain like this. It's not fair. You deserve better. Mom was taken from us, but..."

"But what?"

I steeled myself for what I was about to say. "...but a part of her is still alive, in a way."

"Natalie, what in the world are you talking about?"

"Me, Dad," I said. The look of confusion didn't leave his face, so I continued. "I'm still here. And I'm half mom. Maybe if we did artificial insemination or something.. maybe get a surrogate mother? My egg, your sperm- at least SOME of Mom would be in there. I mean, it's Spring time! What better time of year to start a new life than now, right?"

Dad's jaw dropped in stunned shock. "Are you kidding me? Natalie, for one thing, that's an expensive procedure. It'd cost money that neither of us has. I mean, we're far from broke, but I just couldn't justify the expenditure. For another, what about two-headed babies? You might be half of your mother, but you're half of me, too!"

"Look, Dad, I know a thing or two about genetics. Yeah, I'm only into a few semesters, but I've learned a lot about that stuff already. Do you realize that the whole two-headed baby thing is really just a myth? Statistically speaking, we'd stand a better chance of winning the lottery than having a defective baby. Hell, a normal couple stands a greater chance of producing a baby with Down's Syndrome! Neither of us has any genetic defects, so, if anything, we'd stand a BETTER chance of making a perfectly healthy baby."

"That may be, Sweetheart," he said calmly. "But we STILL couldn't afford it and, even if we could, I'm not sure we could find a doctor in the state who'd be willing to try. Society alone would raise hell over it."

"No one would have to know that the egg is mine, Dad," I countered, warming up to the argument. Okay, it wasn't an argument. More like a debate, but I was feeling more invested in the idea as the moments passed. If Dad was depressed about being deprived of his second chance at fatherhood, maybe I could help.

Dad gave me an incredulous look. "Really? Whoever does the extraction would know. And whoever was assisting that person would know. And they'd probably have to do a genetic test of some kind in the lab. It's just- no, Natalie. It wouldn't work."

Suddenly an idea burst forward and I spit it out, almost without even realizing that it was me who said it. "Well how about doing it the old fashioned way, then?"

If Dad was surprised at the first suggestion, he was downright floored at the second. "WHAT?!"

"Oh, come on, Dad. Look- you're my father and I love you. Your last chance at being a father was taken from you. It was nobody's fault, but it happened. You've done so much for me all my life. Just once I'd like to do something for you."

Dad shook his head in denial. "Bearing my child wasn't in the cards, Natalie. You're my DAUGHTER. Fathers and daughters don't DO that kind of thing!"

"You'd be surprised," I muttered before I could stop myself. I had a couple of friends who, in complete confidence, had confessed that they regularly had sex with their family members. One slept with her brother and the other was fucking her father with her mother's blessing. But that was their business and I wasn't about to break my promise of secrecy, even if it was Daddy that I'd be telling.

Dad stared at me coldly. "What?"

I waved it off. "Nothing, Dad. Just... look, just forget it, okay? Or don't. I don't know. The offer's there if you want it. I know nothing would make you happier than to be a father again and if I can help make that happen, that would make ME happy." Which was all true as far as it went. But the real truth was that, after having seen the kind of porn my father was watching lately, most especially that day's sample, I had a sneaking suspicion that Dad was actively looking for reasons not to agree to the idea because he felt ashamed for secretly wanting it. Who could blame him? It can't be easy for any loving father to tell his daughter that he wants to breed her, even if she openly says that she isn't opposed to the idea! And, frankly, I'd already made up my mind. I wouldn't force it on him, but if he wanted me, I wasn't going to turn him away. I mean, if I could accept that two of my friends were committing incest, why couldn't I accept the possibility for myself?