Guilty Pleasures Ch. 09

"I'll never forget, Clark," Anne said. "I just thought your feeble old-man brain might need a refresher!"

"Why, you...!" I growled, and smacked her arm with my paperback. She squealed with laughter and took off. I am lucky that sweet ass of hers had not been in reach, or I might have spanked it with my book. That would have been a bit farther than I wanted to go. Or it might have made me end up going farther than I wanted to go...

I watched Anne dash back to the rest of Becca's crew, and plop into the water with them again. They tried not to act like it, but I could tell that they were now all keeping an eye on me.

I had barely reopened my book when Stephanie returned again. "Hey, Howie," she chirped. "Why aren't you working today?" Her overall body language was hardly a come-on this time, but her one hand, the one you'd have to be close to us to see, was trailing over the upper curve of her tit in that bikini.

"I am caught up for once," I said with a smile. The least I could do is seem appreciative of what she was up to. "It lets me relax and see what's what." But I was not going to look actually eager. Sorry, girl, you don't get that.

She just got my eyes focused on that tit she was outlining... I couldn't help but give her that.

"Okay, just checking. You are always so cool to let us all come infest your backyard so much," Stephanie said, then turned away. She definitely bounced her ass at me this time. "Have fun!"

And she was off once more.

I watched her glide away, and shook my head.

I looked over again to the pool, where general hilarity was going on in the group. Except for Becca, who had gone off somewhere else.

Shit. Where was she? I hoped it was the bathroom, and she'd be back before the gang in the pool got crazy. But Monica was with them, even if she currently wore far too wide a grin. She'd keep them in line. Right?

I got two whole pages further into my book. Two!

Mary.

It was Mary's turn to come over and fuck with me.

As long as it was just, 'with'...

She... she sat on the arm of my chair. That sweet ass of hers was nestling down just inches from my arm. I found myself involuntarily remembering not once, but twice being on the verge of coming inside this girl, and getting caught both times.

I looked around, unable to help myself, waiting for my mother to show up. Or maybe the Pope.

Hell, they'd probably show up together. With a camera crew.

"So, are you having a good afternoon?" Mary asked cheerfully, in a voice that tried to be devoid of guile.

All three of these girls were utterly adorable. They knew instinctively how to play The Game. Someone better marry them soon, because they were going to wreck lives, happily, until then. But they still had a kittenish clumsiness about how they played that Game that was adorable but a little transparent. I knew she was there to screw with my mind, for some damned reason. What was it?

"Why are you three choosing to suddenly torment me? I thought we were all in agreement, that this needs to not..."

"Oh, we aren't coming over to torment you!" Mary exclaimed quietly. "That part is just a bonus for us. We are tormenting Stephanie."

"What?"

We're making her have to keep marking her territory. It's hilarious."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Language!" Mary laughed, and ruffled my goddamned hair. Casually, but also obviously. Maybe she wasn't so clumsy. She sure as fuck was sexy. "You mark my words," she went on, "if I do my job right, your blonde goddess will be back over here two minutes after I'm done playing with you."

"Oh, my God..."

"She isn't used to competition, you know." Mary said softly. "You are welcome..." With that, she rose, pushing herself upright on my shoulder and pranced back to the pool. Oh, God. That ass...

I closed my eyes and hung my head back against the chair. There was no way...

"Howie! I don't suppose I could get a second round?" Stephanie said, sidling up to me. "It is hot today."

I surreptitiously checked my watch. One minute, fifty two seconds.

Yes, I had been timing it. Now, I felt like I mentally owed Mary five bucks...

"What can I get you this time?" I sighed, leaning over to get out of my chair.

"Oh, I'll get it," Stephanie said smoothly, resting her hand on my bare shoulder as she sank down to her knees and bent to reach into the fridge. Her hand went right past the black cherry right in front, and she leaned deep to grab another lime.

Yes the view was every bit more spectacular than you can imagine.

I knew this girl was just toying with me, playing a power game to boost her own ego. And fair dues, she had to know she was boosting mine. That was all this was going to be.

But if I did get the chance to fuck this girl, it was going to be glorious.

Oh God.

'If I did get the chance to fuck this girl'?!?!

I was so depraved, I was actually not even feeling bad about thinking about nailing this girl. This twenty one year-old girl. My daughter's age.

Where was my daughter?

I was horrible.

But I'd fuck this girl in a heartbeat if she went insane and let me...

I... I was even thinking about how to advance that prospect.

Stephanie took the can from the fridge, and still kneeling beside me, she held it up, "Thanks. But could you please still open it for me?"

I did. Slowly. And I handed it back down to her with an almost condescending smile. "There you are," I said, trying to look away. That was not a task I could accomplish.

Stephanie rose and turned to go. "Thank you, Howie," she said casually, as she turned to go. She leaned back over her shoulder so I could see her put the can to her lips.

I shuddered. I wanted to panic. I wanted to find a way to banish her. I should not let this go any further. But I just could not find the shame in myself about her that I had with the Hellions.

Or were they The Trinity?

Which were they?

My eyes finally found Becca. She had gone off to sit with... John Bain.

I had told that punk to go talk to girls, hadn't I? But he chose my daughter as the girl to talk to? My opinion of his intelligence had possibly been overblown. You just do not interview with a guy, an interview you personally engineered, then go and hit on his daughter, right in his full view!

Monica came and settled into the chair next to me.

"That bikini is an upgrade over the other suit," I observed distractedly. But it was true, and she deserved to know it.

"Thank you," Monica said drily. "Having an interesting afternoon?"

"I don't know what is going on," I said grumpily.

"You don't?" she snorted.

"Well... I mean..." I sought for a subject to divert from what she clearly meant. I did not want to have to be embarrassed by Monica questioning me on the Stephanie and Company Show. "First of all, there's that young man over there, the good-looking one, talking with Becca? He came here today to talk to me. About professional opportunities. I was very impressed. Then he goes off and hits on the damned daughter of the guy he was here to meet? Where is the judgment in that?"

Monica looked over covertly. "Does he know she is your daughter?" She kept staring at them for a minute.

"Um... I don't know," I admitted. That hadn't occurred to me.

"And not to put too fine a point in it, but Becca seems to me to be doing the majority of the hitting," Monica added. "Not all of it, to be sure. But most of it."

"Shit," I grumbled. "You know that logic and reassurance are not necessarily what a father wants at times like this?"

"What times? When he is being distracted by a college cheerleader?"

"And the ancillary folderol," I said before deciding that talking about Stephanie was bad enough, I did not need to start down a discussion about the three who must not be mentioned. Especially not to Monica. "I just... I mean, come on!"

Monica just grinned, and patted my cheek.

"And why have you come over here now?" I asked, still non-plussed, and now feeling like Monica was not actually inclined to be helpful. "Can I get you a drink, or are you just here to be my bodyguard?"

"I'll take a beer in a minute, thank you," she said with a slightly evil grin, "but for now..." a flash of insecurity crossed her face. It was quick, but I caught it. Then it flowered back in full. "For now... I decided to come over and see if I still have what it takes to provoke Stephanie into coming back to re-mark her territory again when I leave."

I looked at Monica. I then deliberately looked down her body in the chair next to mine, and looked back up at her face. "She has eyes," I said snarkily. "If that is what she is doing, she'll be back the second you leave."

"It is absolutely what she is doing," Monica laughed merrily.

"For fuck's sake, this is psychotic," I grumbled. "What the hell does she think she is doing?"

"Hitting on a great prospect?" Monica shrugged, reaching into the fridge for a Mich Ultra.

"Me? I'm twenty five years older than her!"

Monica laughed merrily, took a big sip of beer, and leaned over toward me, hand on my knee. "What? You can sleep with her friends, but you are somehow too old to date Stephanie?"

"What?" I coughed. "What are you talking about?" I said, desperately trying to look bewildered. Had she guessed? Was she fishing? Or, please Lord, was she hopefully just joking?

Monica actually caressed my knee. It was a gesture meant to be seen. "Remember the water fight last week?"

"I do, what was that about?" I said, eager to change the subject. I'd have been eager to talk about the culinary uses of puppies at that particular moment...

"That was Anne accidentally spilling the beans," Monica chuckled.

"Wait. Anne!?!" I asked in shock. If one of them had actually said something stupid, it wouldn't have been Anne. Not her. It would have been... None of them were that stupid, were they?

"Oh ho," Monica said leaning back, the show of hand on my knee accomplished. She grinned and laughed quite a bit louder than we had been talking. "You challenge it was Anne to break her silence, not what her silence was about!"

I looked at her, or tried to. My eyes wouldn't meet hers. What the Hell did she think of me? "What did she say?" I asked hoarsely. I needed to know what Monica knew, lest I fill her in on any details she did not know about...

"You really want to hear it?" Monica asked, clearly, inexplicably, amused. At least she had not run straight to Wanda, or worse, Yancey. Not that she would have been bringing news of anything they didn't already know...

I bent over and grabbed myself a winter wheat from my beer fridge. Cracking the can, I sighed and nodded.

"We were discussing Stephanie's current infatuation with you, and where it came from. None of them offered an explanation, beyond Mary just saying, 'Duh'. But then Carol says, 'Regardless, I guess I was right about how to encourage it. Look.' We all turned and laughed when we saw that girl making a beeline back to you after Carol had left." Monica shook her head. "I, in my apparently vast ignorance, said to Becca, 'Isn't your father a little old for Stephanie? She'd give him a heart attack.'"

I snapped out of my misery for just a second, shooting her an indignant look.

Monica just shrugged in insincere apology. "Then Anne laughed so hard she choked, and said, 'Stephanie doesn't actually date, much less sleep with that many guys. I'm more afraid the Full Clark Experience would break her mind.'"

Oh shit.

"That Anne had had The Full Clark Experience was obvious from what she said, but the horrified reactions of the other two was priceless. Becca's was even better," Monica went on.

Uh oh.

"'Nice leak, Anne! And TMI,' Becca sputtered. 'You guys know I just do not need to hear about what he did with any of you.' She stopped, and looked at me in horror. The rest of them stared at Becca. She turned beet red. I am sure that I turned beet red. Then Anne scoffed, 'Oh, so I am the security problem?' And then the water fight broke out."

I looked at her in dismay. "I don't know what to say."

"Well, I am going to say, um, well done, and toodleoo, and then go back to the pool," Monica said as she rose, making the time to stretch in front of me. "I think I won't take my beer back into the pool. When I tell them I told you I know their secret, there will probably be another water fight. I'll be ready this time..."

I watched her go, sourly. Yancey already had a grand old time busting my chops on all subjects, great and skeezy. Now I had a friend who was shaping up to be doing it from a female perspective. I also watched her go because the view doing so afforded meant that Stephanie was most certainly coming back.

Yep. Monica had spent the most time with me, and now Stephanie returned the fastest. I was looking out for it, and saw her uncoil from where she had been sunning herself with two boys who, as far as I was concerned, were both better-looking than me. She paused, and reached down for her tube of sunscreen and catwalked back over toward me. I pretended to read my book.

"So Howie, will Becca still bring kids over here once school starts back in the Fall?" Stephanie asked, sitting down in almost bland fashion. To the extent that any movement this girl made was bland. Then she started to apply sunscreen.

God bless the instructions to re-apply every ninety minutes.

I felt it only polite, since she was talking to me, to put down my book with a neutral expression and give Stephanie my full attention. Well, I did smile a little when I heard a quiet whoop of triumph from Monica back in the pool.

Oh Jesus, did Stephanie have marvelous skin... marvelous skin stretched over marvelous curves. Her tan was perfection, lustrous and even, but gentle. She did not let herself get dark, just glowing. No leathery skin in this girl's future, I realized approvingly. The 100 SPF sunscreen she was applying now told me that she was quite deliberate and skilled in dialing in exactly how much sun she got.

"I hope she keeps bringing people until it gets too cold, Stephanie," I said, snapping out of what had been only a second or two of reverie. "The pool's not heated. But even once the water got too cold last year, she still had a decent crowd over for a few more weekends while it was still warm enough to hang out." I shrugged. "I guess you will have to put up with coming here for a while before your weekends become totally free this Fall."

Stephanie snorted, and for a moment, the kitty cat act disappeared entirely. "A totally free school weekend is a foreign concept, Mister Howard."

Oh yeah. She's a freaking Pre-Med. And a varsity cheerleader. I was lucky that I'd ever met her at all.

Then she snapped back to her smiling visage. And she began to work lotion into the exposed skin of the upper and inner curves of her breasts where they rested in that bikini. "Maybe I'll bring my laptop, and we can work together over here."

I gestured to my large table. "Plenty of room. We can have a whole study group."

"Nooo," she said sweetly still rubbing. "Too many cooks spoil the broth. The two of us can work quietly..."

Wait. Has she just flashed me? She had definitely lifted the fabric of her bikini to work the sunscreen down under the edge, but had I just seen a nipple?

It had to have been my imagination. But my imagination isn't really that good...

Given the way she practically purred when my whole body stiffened in reaction, yes I had been granted a viewing. I was not granted another, though she tugged on the suit once or twice more in ways that cruelly made me tense in anticipation.

Would I fuck this girl? Oh my God, yes. I no longer even tried to convince myself otherwise. Did she intend to sleep with me? I still doubted it. I was a toy that she really seemed to enjoy playing with for now. She clearly enjoyed my reactions. Would she change her mind about sleeping with me? That reminded to be seen.

Would I actively try to help her change her mind?

That was the only real question.

*

Yancey and I were denied our Wednesday happy hour the next week because Wanda and Monica decided they wanted to have a dinner with Mary that evening. Mary invited Becca, which caused Yancey to invite me out of pure self-defense. I went, not so much to give Yancey backup against the monstrous regiment of women, but because I didn't want them all talking about me behind my back. God only knew what might have come up.

"How's she doing?" I asked Yancey as we stood out in his backyard. Just because we couldn't go to the bar, didn't mean we couldn't share beer and bullshit.

"Better. I am amazed how much she is hanging out with the girls."

"Yeah. She seems to have fun whenever she comes over with them for the pool,"

"It is not just then. I've seen more of my daughter and Becca, not to mention Carol and Anne, around here these last few weeks than all last school year. They are good for Monica, and they know it. Makes me happy to see. It also makes me happy to get to see Mary a lot more than I would otherwise."

I just nodded.

"I almost never catch her just staring off into space anymore, either. And Wanda says she even took Monica to go buy a new bikini for weekends at your pool."

"Oh, that was a new purchase? I figured it was just a different suit from among what she rescued from the house."

"How did it look?" Yancey asked me casually.

"Whew."

"I gotta put in a pool..." he grumbled.

The dinner was amazing, as I fully expected. The fact that Monica and Wanda not only could both cook, but were a force multiplier when they cooked together, might have also had something to do with my willingness to give up happy hour at the bar...

After we ate, Wanda and Yancey retreated to the kitchen together to construct something elaborate for dessert, and they shooed the rest of us out to the back yard. I had dark suspicions about what else the two of them might be doing in there while preparing dessert for us to eat, but...

Becca and Monica got into some intense discussion off by themselves. I was concerned for a moment that Monica might be having a crisis about something, or maybe that they were talking about me. Neither seemed to be the case and I turned back to entertain Mary.

"Why are you lot provoking Stephanie?" I asked peevishly. My optimism about sleeping with the blonde tended to fade with distance, while my embarrassment about that optimism got much, much, worse. "And Becca even seems to be encouraging you."

"Come on, Mister Howard," Mary smirked. "Do not even try to pretend that you don't enjoy every second of it."

I stared at her.

"Both her attention and our encouragement, right?" Mary bore on.

"You are bad," I said heavily.

"Oooh. Gonna spank me?"

"Eww," I said without thinking.

Whoa.

Rebecca had liked a bit of a spanking every now and then when we were married. I certainly enjoyed giving a spanking, but I didn't seek it out. But spanking one of these girls? I had enjoyed, and did still enjoy the image of fucking this beautiful creature I was talking to, but the idea of spanking her brought back every wave of guilt I'd experienced before.

Mary pounced on the 'Eww'. "Listen, Mister Howard. Becca has largely chilled about what we all did, but the hangup she can't quite get past is the whole Father-In-Buddy thing. She thinks of us like sisters sometimes, and she thinks that makes us and you nasty. Maybe you have that hangup a little too?"

A little?

"Just to be clear, the three of us all think it's bullshit," Mary said sternly. "But we do love Becca, and it makes her life easier if we back off. So... sorry?"

"And yet, you guys have been back at it recently, and Becca hasn't freaked out. If anything, she's encouraged it."

"We have most definitely not been 'back at it' with you," Mary said huskily. "I wish!" Then she brightened. "We have just been encouraging Stephanie... and enjoying the process."