Homecoming Girl

Almost.

Then I thought of the implications and put my hands around Emmy's waist and pushed her away. She went without the expected resistance and got to her feet. She glanced down at me, then turned and went inside. I heard her in the kitchen, then the door of her room closed, and then I heard nothing.

I shifted on the lounger. Laid my hand across the ridge in my bermuda shorts, knowing Emmy must have seen it too. I wanted to strip them off and grasp my cock and rub myself until I spurted. But I knew Emmy might return and catch me. I thought of going to my room and snicking the lock, but then what would she think when she found it that way? She would know what I was doing, why I had locked it. What would she think of her Daddy then, I wondered?

I stood and waked down and into the ocean and kept going until my feet no longer touched sand and I swam hard, trying to think of nothing at all, trying not to think of my beautiful daughter and what I feared I wanted to do to her. I was sick. Evil and twisted. I ought to just keep swimming, further and further out until the ocean took my guilt to itself and swallowed me down

I didn't, of course.

When I stopped and trod water to look back I was maybe a mile out and the water was cool under me and I thought of cruising sharks. Now that would serve me right.

When I walked onto the porch Emmy was on the sun-lounger again in just bikini pants like nothing had ever happened. She turned her head to look at me as I dripped water onto the planks.

"Better?" she said.

I nodded.

"Good. Me too." She lowered her head and after a while her breathing slowed.

I sat in my lounger and watched her sleep, the way her back rose and fell, the way the small weight of her breasts pushed out on each exhalation, drew back when she inhaled. I stared at the bikini pants caressing her ass. I stared at her feet, plump and short, even those becoming objects for my perverted desire.

After a while I got up and went into my office and closed the door.

I opened a new document and started to type, words spilling from my fingers onto the screen, words I needed to erase from my soul in the only way I knew how.

*

We drove into Heartsville and ate junk food in the mall. I asked Emmy what movie she wanted to see, going along with her choice and secretly enjoying the show. After a while in the dark her hand came out and took mine and I let it. She drew my hand across until it lay in her lap and I allowed that too, disgusted with myself but unable to stop. I was starting to think I wasn't the only one wanted something more than we should have, father and daughter, but the idea of that scared me almost more than my own perverted thoughts.

We? I thought.

We?

Really?

I pulled my hand free and reached for some popcorn, but when I raised it to my mouth all I could smell was Emmy from where my hand had lain in her lap.

We shopped and Emmy tried on clothes, coming out for approval each time, and when she was done I paid. She slipped her arm through mine as we walked through the Mall, stopping to study windows then moving on. It felt good. It all felt so damn good it scared me.

So good we decided to have dinner before going home, which is where things started to go wrong.

I picked the restaurant, Emmy picked the food. It was fun to see her scan the menu then order for both of us.

We were on dessert before Hannah walked in on the arm of a man who had to be her husband. At least I hoped it was her husband and she wasn't cheating again. She didn't see me at first, and then she did. I saw her eyes widen and she said something to the man before starting across. He veered away to a table behind the Maitre-d but Hannah came straight as a die toward us.

"Steve!" As if she was pleased to see me. She waited, and eventually I stood and kissed both cheeks. She smelled of perfume and powder and sex. Hannah had always smelled of sex. It was one of the things that drew me to her and one of the things that drove me away when I found that, for her, one man was never enough. It was fun for a while, a wild ride, like hanging on to a bucking bronco with no straps. In fact, almost literally like that.

When the kisses were done she put a hand on my chest and looked toward Emmy.

"Hannah," I said, "this is my daughter, Emily. She's staying with me over summer."

"Hi, Emily." A slim hand, touched and released. "You are such a lucky girl to have a Dad as good as yours." She smiled my way, a smile full of meaning, lust and memory.

"Your husband?" I asked, nodding to where the man was studying the wine list far too hard.

"Sure, if you want," she said, and I knew she hadn't changed.

"I think he's waiting," I said.

"He doesn't mind. Besides, I'm worth waiting for. As you know." The pressure of her hand increased then trailed away, her fingers running across my belly. "It was good to see you again, Steve. Give me a call sometime."

"Sure," I said, but it would never happen. Not that Emmy knew that, not then.

"Who?" she asked after the waiter had brought coffee. She added cream and sugar to hers, stirred.

"Just an old friend."

"A hot old friend," Emmy said.

"Hm."

"She is, Daddy. Real hot. I saw how she looked at you. Is she the old girlfriend? The one from two years back?"

I nodded.

"Hmm. I can see why you have to jack off a lot now."

Then she laughed at my expression.

"What," she said, "I know all about jacking off. Well, not the male version maybe but the female version. It's OK, Daddy, everybody does it." She reached out and touched my hand. "Even me."

I saw Hannah watching us and drew my hand away. "You want to drive on the way back?" I asked.

"Really?"

"Sure."

We hadn't brought the SUV. Instead I'd taken the tiny Miata out of the garage and popped the hood down. It wasn't fast until you came to a corner and then it just stuck like it was nailed to the highway.

"Can I go fast?"

"Sure," I said. "Fast as you damn well like."

"So what are we doing still sitting here?"

I caught the waiter's eye for the check.

Emmy's short blonde curls danced in the wind and the warm night air kissed everywhere it touched. I tried not to be jealous. I tried not to think at all, because every time I did those thoughts careered off toward disaster.

She sat low in the bucket seat, legs straight, skirt riding up to show most of her thighs. When I glanced a little higher her nipples showed as sharp nubs through the linen shirt. She was smiling, hands and feet coordinated as she threw the little car through curves as fast as she could but still not fast enough to lose grip.

"I want one," she said, raising her voice.

"You'll have to wait for your next birthday," I said, laughing when she pouted.

"What did I get for this one?" she said.

"It was so long ago you can't remember?" I knew what I'd gotten her, same as I had every year, a mindless parent with too much money and too little thought.

"I wanted something personal."

"Sorry," I said, having no idea what that something personal might be but willing to do better next time. Maybe even a Miata.

She pulled a face. "Geoff bought me underwear." Geoff being the new husband. Banker, groomed, not my favorite guy.

"Underwear?"

"Yeah. Like slinky, silky underwear. As if I might model it for him. Not appropriate. Not appropriate at all."

"I'll kill him."

"Will you, Daddy? Will you fight him for my honor?" She grinned.

"Of course. Beside, he's a sleazy fuckwad buying you underwear. What the hell was he thinking about?"

"Oh, I think we both know what he was thinking about," said Emmy. "So punch him good and hard. Punch him in the balls, that'll cool his ardor."

"Does your Mom know?"

Emmy shook her head. "Uh-uh. And I threw them out, the slinkies. They were cheap and tacky, the kind of thing a fuckwad would buy thinking it might get him into a girl's panties."

"I will kill him," I said.

"Swoon, swoon," Emmy said, then grinned and gunned the engine as we tore down Beach Road toward the house.

Emmy stopped the car and leaned across and before I knew it she had one arm around my neck and we were kissing like this was a first date and we both wanted to know if anything else was going to happen. It was my cue to cup her breast and I almost did as I let the kiss go on too long before breaking it and pushing Emmy away. She stared at me, her lips parted, color in her face.

"What, you don't like kissing me, Daddy?"

"What kind of kiss was that?" I said.

"I bet that woman Hannah used to kiss you even better than that."

"You're not Hannah," I said. "You're my daughter."

Emmy made a face. "One more? Just one, Daddy?"

I looked at her face, her neck, her ears and hair and legs and arms and knew the war was lost, but there were battles I could still fight.

"One," I said, and she practically climbed onto my lap. Damn, she did climb onto my lap, straddling my waist and pressing her ass down against my erection. Then she grabbed my face and kissed me hard. Her tongue came out but I kept my lips tight so it had no access and eventually Emmy gave up.

"You're no fun, Daddy," she said. She climbed off me and got out the car without opening the door.

"I think that's the point, isn't it?" I said to her retreating back, and she gave me the finger.

By the time I got in she was in her room. I hesitated outside, knuckle raised to knock but afraid of what might happen if I did.

"G'night, baby," I called through the door.

"Goodnight, Daddy. Sleep well."

As if.

"And try not to jack off too much." A coarse laugh followed me as I paced away.

As I undressed and stared down at my raging cock I thought of how Emmy's voice had been shaky when she called out to me and I think I knew what she had been doing. The same thing I wanted to do. The same thing I almost started doing until I stopped myself, knowing I would be thinking of Emmy when I shot my load and I wasn't sure I wanted that.

Just how wrong can a grown man be?

*

She was late with coffee the following morning but I lay in bed waiting, thinking, wondering how to avoid the inevitable fallout of what was about to engulf us. I wasn't what Emmy needed. She needed a nice kid her own age she could take her frustration out on. I tried to think if there was anyone I knew, one of the boys of summer who came down each year. Maybe, I thought, just maybe. In fact, anyone who wasn't her father, for God's sake!

When she came in she looked like she'd lain awake about as long as I had. She was dressed in the usual panties and tank top and put our coffee down on the nightstand and slid under the sheet beside me, came across and hugged me tight like we hadn't seen each other in a month.

"I'm sorry about last night, Daddy. I was in a funny mood. And I didn't like your girlfriend. She was too sexy."

"Too sexy?" I said.

Emmy giggled. "Yes, way too sexy. I didn't want to think about what you two might have gotten up to."

"Well if it helps, the same things me and your Mom got up to that brought you into this world."

"Did you love Mom?" she asked, snuggling tighter, her fingers stroking the hair on my chest and I knew I should have worn a top not just my shorts.

"Once," I said. "Very much indeed."

"She's a bad person," Emmy said.

"She's your mother."

"Which means I know her, and she's bad. She's selfish and self-centered and obsessed with money and image."

"And?" I said.

She kissed my shoulder and I shifted to hide the tent my cock was making in the sheet.

"I wish I could have lived with you instead of her. We'd have had fun, wouldn't we, Daddy?"

"The court said otherwise," I said. "Besides, you know me, how could I look after you when I have to go away all the time?"

"You would've taken me with you."

"You're here now," I said, and without thinking I slid my arm around her. Emmy rolled onto me, her thigh between my legs, her belly against my erection, and she shifted ever so slightly from side to side to let me know she was aware of what was there.

"I love you so much, Daddy."

"I know, baby girl."

"I mean..."

I put a finger against her lips. "Don't say it," I said.

"Oh, Daddy, I have to." She moved again, shifted position so my cock wedged between her thighs. "This can't be wrong, can it?"

"We can't do this, baby."

"I want to. And I can tell you want to too."

"That's just a thing," I said. "A reaction I can't control."

"Then don't try to control it, not for me. Kiss me again, Daddy, like you did last night. More than you did last night. Kiss my anywhere you want." She used a hand to lift her tank top, revealing a breast. "Kiss me here. I want you to kiss me here so much."

"I can't, Em, you know I can't." But my hands were cupping the cheeks of her perfect ass and she was moving against me harder and I knew if she kept doing it everything would come crashing down, our summer, our friendship, our world.

I pushed her away too hard and she rolled out of bed and landed on the floor.

"Ow, Daddy!" She sat up, rubbing her ass.

"Go to your room, Em," I said. "If you have to take care of yourself you know what to do."

"Are you going to?" she said. She knelt at the side of the bed and stared at the tent my cock made in my shorts. "I can help if you want." Her hand came across and I caught her wrist to stop it.

"Go," I said. "Go now before we both do something we'll regret the rest of our lives."

"Not me," she said, but she got up and stamped out. Her bedroom door slammed, then I heard her call out, "And I won't try to keep quiet this time."

And she didn't. Her groans and cries filtered through the wall. The creak of her bed. The momentum to her act of self-love growing, fading, growing again, each time like the incoming tide, unstoppable. And I kicked out of my shorts and gripped my cock, almost coming there and then, but instead I held back, waiting, listening to Emmy work herself higher and higher until a final ululating scream rattled the house.

I grunted as seed jetted from me, harder and higher than I could remember since I was a teen and Mary Peters jacked me off for the first time in the back of her Dad's sedan.

I wiped my belly and chest with my shorts and tossed them to the floor, then lay as my body cooled in the breeze from the window and listened, but Emmy was making no noises now. I closed my eyes, saw her naked on her bed, one leg half raised, a hand against her own breast, the fingers pulling at a pale nipple. I almost went through to her but knew how close we had come to oblivion. I was the adult. I had to behave like one. But it was hard. So, so hard.

I must have dozed again. When I woke the sun had moved and fell across my feet, warming them. I listened to the house, the surf. There was a new sound, one I recognised but not when it wasn't me making it.

In her room Emmy's fingers flew across a keyboard.

I lay and listened, wondering what she was writing. It went on for a while. After an hour I got up and showered, making sure to lock the door between us. The sound of typing was louder in the bathroom. She was fast, and didn't seem to make many mistakes, the words flowing from brain to finger to screen. I knew the feeling when it was like that. The best feeling there was. Almost the best feeling.

By the time I dried off Emmy had stopped. I found her on the porch dressed in denim cut offs that cradled the checks of her ass and a familiar tank top with nothing underneath but her. She had coffee and pastry, crumbs scattered across her top.

"Can we take the boat out?" she said.

"If you want."

"And catch dinner?"

"Snapper," I said, and she nodded.

I let Emmy take us away from the dock, standing close behind in case she made a mistake, but she didn't. She stood square on those plump little feet, body swaying in time to the swell of the waves.

"Best spot is about here," I said, tapping the GPS screen, and she nodded.

I hung around a while longer then went to sit up front. Water splashed from the bow to mist against me, and I put on a cap and dark glasses and watched the ocean roll toward me.

"Here?" Emmy called and I stood and looked over the side. I could see rippled sand and as I watched a flicker where fish scattered from the boat's shadow.

"Here's perfect," I said.

I baited two rods and handed one to Emmy, showed her how to cast and retrieve the line.

Time passed in companionable silence and I started to think things were going to be fine. Shows how much I know.

She was first to hook a fish. A snapper. Big enough to keep and I took it off to despatch so she wouldn't see.

"We only need the one," she said, slipping her rod into the holder on the side of the transom. "It's a shame to catch them just to throw them back."

"You want to go in?"

"Not yet. Let's kick back out here for a while. It's quiet."

She was right. The land was a distant haze. Another cruise ship passed a couple of miles east. As the ocean settled, growing used to the presence of the boat, fish leaped close by. A school of dolphin came near as if checking us out. They tumbled and twisted under the water for a time then moved on when we didn't want to play.

"You mind if I take my top off?" Emmy said.

I glanced across. She lay one side of the prow and I was on the other, a raised pod between us offering minimal headroom to the cabin below.

"You got anything underneath?" I asked.

"Sure I do. Boobies."

I smiled. "They're your boobies," I said. "Burn 'em if you want, just don't come complaining to me later."

Emmy tugged the tank top over her head and stood for a while as if deliberately posing for me. I considered it impolite not to look, seeing as she'd taken all that trouble.

"If I didn't go to college we could do this every day," she said, turning toward me.

I shaded my eyes. Her nipples were stiff little buds staring up at the cloudless sky.

"That's not going to happen," I said. "Besides, I have to work, and travel, and a whole bunch of other stuff. My life isn't staring out a window waiting for my muse to turn up."

"Can I be your muse, Daddy?" She pushed her hip out, hand on her waist.

"You already are, baby."

Emmy smiled. "How about I come home weekends when you're here? Atlanta's only a couple hours drive."

"More like four," I said.

"Four's not so bad. Can I, Daddy, come home for the weekends?"

"You'll have your own life to live, baby. There'll be boys you'll fall in love with." I grinned. "Maybe even girls."

She pulled a face. "What if I was a lesbian, Daddy? Would you still love me?"

"Of course."

"Except I'm not. I might be curious, but I don't think I am." She sighed and sat to lean against the transom, the skin of her belly folding twice in a delicious way. "Sexuality is different from when you were my age. More fluid. We're not hung up over whether we fuck girls or boys or whatever we want."

"Good," I said.

"Really?"

"Sure. Am I meant to be shocked? What were you writing this morning, Em?"

"Just something," she said. She slid down and rolled onto her front, tugged at her denim cut offs as if they were tight. "Daddy?"

"Mm-hm."

"Would it totally freak you if I took these off as well?"

"And you're naked underneath them too, I suppose?"

"Duh."

"I have seen you in the bath, remember," I said.

"You have. So is that a yes?"

"It's your ass gonna get burned," I said, original as ever.

Emmy lifted her hips and wriggled out of the cut offs and I watched the entire operation with a sense of total wonder that something so glorious was part of my life.

"And can we go skinny dipping later?"

"We?"

"Sure. We. You seen what I got now it's my turn."

"You want to stare at your Dad's skinny old-man ass?"

"When you put it so nicely, sure. And the rest." She grinned.

"I'll think about it. We need to go in before long. Got a big snapper to barbecue."