How They May Be: After the Fall

I only slowed while she came upon me, the shudders of delight rattling through my body as I continued to pound into her, the air growing thick with the scent of our activities. And I resumed the pace afterwards, eager for my own release and driven by an irresistible, impossible vitality. Emily could only cling desperately to me now, as though to a bucking bull, and with lips up beside my cheek she stuttered madly into my ear between sensuous cries. "God - just fuck me - fill me - give me your baby."

It hardly seemed I could have been any harder than I was, but this notion drove me to new heights, and an animal power filled my thrusts as all thought gave way to sensation. The pleasures were as great as our first night, a heaven of flesh in white and pink. Every motion was ecstasy, every sound a symphony. I hardly noticed the heat and haze that appeared behind my eyes, experienced it first as an ambiguous, thoughtless urgency, that I must hurry with her before . . . I knew not what. But it grew quickly stronger, an uncomfortable brightness in my mind, until in the last moments the world around me seemed to grow thin, and finally fall away.

My eyes flickered open, staring into the morning sun which peered at me through my bedroom window. I lay upon my bed, alone, the covers disarrayed where I had kicked them about. A dream - nothing more. I felt a shallow relief at that, along with a deeper, damnable disappointment. It had been so real, so compelling; my nerves still echoed with the touch of her body, and I could almost smell her passion on the air.

Indeed, I was painfully aroused, rigid against the mattress, my mind intoxicated with images of my dream and memories of the night which had inspired it. My body demanded relief, and I had little strength to refuse it. Turning over, my hand dropped to my boxers and I took hold of myself, slowly stroking, reliving the fantasy before it faded from my consciousness. God, the feeling of her skin, the taste of her sweat - it hardly seemed to matter if it was real or imagined. Either way, my blood was set to boiling, my ardor burning like wildfire. In minutes I was near the edge, the tightness of incipient release twitching in my loins. I opened my eyes to look for a tissue, or something else to deal with the looming mess, and as I did, my gaze caught upon a picture on my bookshelf.

It was a photograph of Emily and Irene, from one of the many ballet recitals I had missed. I don't even know exactly when it was taken; Emily looked to be eight or nine, wearing a light violet leotard and tutu and smiling broadly with an innocent delight, colorful braces adorning her teeth. Her mother crouched beside in a modest blue dress, beaming with proud affection. It was an icon of virtuous, parental love, of the bonds of family, and as the image sunk into my mind I was swept up in a torrent of shame. This was my daughter I fantasized about, my flesh and blood that my sick mind had dreamed of impregnating. My hand dropped away, my insides twisting with renewed guilt. I could not do this - if I was to have any hope of being a proper father again, I had to resist these desires, even in private. Any submission would weaken me for the future, and I was already far too willing.

Though the hour was still somewhat early, I saw little chance of getting back to sleep. Instead I dressed and made my way downstairs to the kitchen, feeling that breakfast might help steady my mind and settle my nerves. Putting a pot of coffee on to brew, I fired up the griddle and prepared a few egg sandwiches - a simple standby of mine, heavily used over the years. Then, sitting at the counter, I ate, and drank my coffee, and worked at clearing my thoughts of the filth which infested them.

It was perhaps twenty minutes later that Emily appeared. She stepped so lightly that I did not hear her arrival, just gradually noticed her standing on the staircase, looking down at me with a weak smile on her face. "Good morning, daddy," she spoke first, quietly, with little of her usual cheer.

"Morning, sweetie." I raised my cup to her, an awkward, casual greeting.

She took another step downstairs, paused. "I was, um." Her voice had the tones of a confession. "I wanted to wake you up today. When you weren't in your room, I was afraid that maybe you'd . . . left again."

I took a long sip of my coffee, fixing my eyes to the dark liquid, thinking of what I should say. Finally tried for a half-hearted humor. "Sorry, princess, but you're not getting rid of me that easily."

She looked away with a quirked smile and let out a brief huff of laughter. More for the effort, perhaps, than the sentiment. A beat passed, silently, and I could almost see her worry, rubbing raw at her psyche. What to say, what to do. I thought of what I would feel, if I worried that a stray word might send her running from me, and a sympathetic shudder ran down my spine. I had to show her that it was all right. I rose to my feet, gestured vaguely to the stove. "Ah, if you're hungry, I have everything together for egg sandwiches."

"Sure, that sounds nice." Her voice relaxing slightly, she started the rest of the way down the stairs, while I attended again to the stove. Just an ordinary day, I told myself. A regular morning with my daughter.

"There's fresh coffee, if you want some." I glanced back at her over my shoulder, and immediately wished I hadn't. I could see now that Emily was in her usual sleeping clothes - just a large, baby-blue t-shirt, the bottom curve of a pair of white cotton panties barely sticking into view. Her legs stretched down beneath, bare and lithe and beautiful, like carvings of alabaster. I was cast back to our time on the Hawaiian beach, when I had run lotion-slick fingers up and down those trim, delicious thighs, had felt the muscles twitch against my hand...

Damn it. A cold fury clawed at my mind as I tore my gaze away. Not five minutes into the morning together, and I was already lusting after her. It would almost have been funny, if it didn't bode so terribly for the future. I had to deal with this. Taking a deep, deliberate breath, I focused my gaze and my attention on the stove. If I didn't look, if I kept myself controlled . . . it was a place to start.

"How many do you want? Two, three?" I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral.

"One should be fine, actually. I'm not super hungry." Past the spit and crackle of the frying egg, I could hear her bustling about the kitchen. The quiet clinking of a ceramic mug being pulled off the shelf, the liquid gurgle of pouring coffee. The soft hiss of sugar poured from the carton - it seemed to go on forever, and a small smile tugged on my lips. Emily practically turned her coffee into syrup, and I'd made a habit of telling her that all that sugar she drank must be why she was so sweet. For a moment, my mouth opened to repeat it once more - then closed again, silently. It wasn't a proper thing to say, now. Too heavy with meaning.

Her food was ready a minute later, the sandwich neatly centered on a thin blue plate, and I braced myself to look at her again. "Here you go, sweetie," I spoke, somewhat absently intoned.

Her eyes were already on me as I turned to face her, brilliant silver orbs fleetingly locking with mine before falling away. Gentle hands cradled the mug of coffee at her chest, her fingers loosely intertwined around the white ceramic. It was almost a thoughtful expression on her face in that brief moment, a wondering kind of hesitancy which she quickly swept away with a neutral smile, working free a hand to take the plate. "Thanks, daddy," she answered, a soft and precious sincerity in her voice.

She turned then, to eat at the counter, while I tried and failed to look away again. It was so easy to be captured, looking at her - to be ensnared by the vision of loveliness she posed. Dark as midnight and damp from her morning shower, Emily's hair loosely obscured the nape of her neck, long enough now that I knew she would soon be getting it cut, maintaining the pixie look I had come to love. The shape of her body was faintly outlined beneath the draping cloth of her shirt, gentle curves sliding down to her narrow waist and hips, just the right width to put my hands around. And beneath that, my gaze fell to her trim derrière, perfectly sculpted and delectably elevated as she leaned gently over the counter. I could not forget how it felt, grasping and squeezing her as she rode me on the hotel room bed. A thin layer of yielding fat over firm muscle. Like steel wrapped in silk.

"Daddy." I stiffened as my gaze shot back up to her face. She looked at me over her shoulder, half a smile quirking her lips, clearly knowing where I had been staring for what must have been minutes. But her voice remained hesitant. "Are you thinking about that night?"

"No." Furious with guilt at my wandering eyes, I lied automatically, thoughtlessly - and hardly even realized that I had, until a disappointed frown descended on Emily's lips, and her eyes narrowed with accusation. She opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head instead. The expression on her face as she turned away said enough - liar. My soul squirmed, pierced by shame in two directions. Less than a day, and I'd already broken my promise that I would no longer deceive her.

"Wait," I sighed, trying to make it right. "I'm sorry, I . . . yes, I was thinking about it." At that, she faced me again, hitting me full-bore with a stormy-eyed, demanding glare. "I was, but I shouldn't have been. I need to put it behind me - we both do. I know it's not easy, but we need to just forget about it."

She snorted softly, bitterly, and glanced away. "Seems like it's too easy."

I paused at that, uncertain. Was it an accusation? A complaint? An offer? I didn't know quite how to respond, and finally said as much. "I'm not sure what you mean, honey."

"I mean I..." She stopped, waited, and released a brief, disconsolate sigh before trying again. "I guess it's because of how much I drank, but I don't really remember it very well at all. I have - flashes." She gestured with her right hand, grasping with her palm upwards, as though for an escaping memory. "Images. Moments. But it's mostly just...fuzz." A great frustration echoed in her voice.

I hardly knew if this was good or bad. "Well, what do you remember?" I asked cautiously.

She glanced into my eyes, and a small smile flickered on in her expression. "I guess . . . I remember getting back to the hotel room after dinner." Her fingers traced softly at the coffee mug, eyes unfocusing as she retreated into memory. "I felt so terribly warm inside, after the dance and the wine, and the feeling of your hand on my waist..." She took a deep breath, and I could see the slight shiver run through her body. "Um, I think I was just hoping that you would hold me more, touch me more. Maybe that I could sleep next to you again. I didn't really think . . . but then you kissed me, so hard I couldn't breathe, wrapped me up in your arms, and it felt so perfect, so right. Your mouth was like a branding iron, burning into mine." And her left hand rose to her face, two fingers lightly rubbing against small, pink lips, invoking the memory.

"Ah." I swallowed awkwardly. "That's..."

"Not just that, though," she continued quietly. "I remember lying back on the bed. Naked, with my legs behind your neck. You were licking at me, at my . . . at my secret place." She hesitated over the phrase, uncertain of her words. She'd never spoken anything fouler than 'damn,' at least for me to hear. "Your tongue tickled inside me, tingled everywhere it touched. There was this boiling in my tummy, this tightness as you drank me up, and I felt this incredible wanting, more, more, more. More of you. All of you." I was speechless listening to her, my pulse pounding. Down at her waist, her right hand moved against her shirt, pressing through to her inner thigh. Touching right where the flesh of her leg met with that of her hips. It seemed like she was breathing faster.

"Um." Her voice strained softly. "After that, I remember being on top of you, and you were inside me, filling me up. Just perfectly full, and then I moved down and suddenly I was overflowing, like I would burst, like I would break. I felt like screaming." A tiny, rueful smile. "Maybe I did scream. But I was on fire, feeling you push so deep inside of me. Feeling you slide and twist every time I moved an inch. I can't describe it, it was just so..." Her cheeks tinged with pink, she looked away, and I felt a weak relief as her confession wound down.

Silence for some seconds, letting my own pulse settle. Finally I spoke, a rueful note in my voice. "It seems as though you still have quite a bit left to forget."

"I don't want to forget it," she frowned, aggravation undercutting the self-consciousness in her tone. "I . . . if I could remember clearly, I could try to be happy just with that, you know? I could have that to go back to." A slow breath escaped her lips, and she crossed her arms, still looking away. A touch of vulnerability in the shape of her expression. "I thought about it so much, before it happened. I just wish I could remember the moment."

"The moment." I repeated quietly, questioningly.

"When you . . . entered me." She swallowed, hesitating over her words again. "Took me. When you made me a woman." That silver shimmer in her eyes as she looked up into mine. "That's what they say, right? A boy becomes a man when he kills something, a girl becomes a woman when someone..."

"That's what they say," I interrupted, sparing her from finishing the sentence. Sparing me from hearing it. I hardly knew what to say now, running on nervous improvisation. "Maybe it's better that you don't. This way - it's almost as though it never happened. Your first time, your real first time, can be with someone proper, someone good for you." Though the thought of her with anyone but myself was like a punch in the gut.

"Someone good for me?" Emily asked rhetorically, a faintly bitter smile struggling its way onto her face. "Well." She inhaled slowly through her nose, clearly trying to settle her emotions. "I have to get dressed pretty quick for school, but do you think tonight we could...talk, like you said on Sunday? I mean," and a note of accusation entered her voice, "I don't know if you meant that at all, or if it was just one of the things you 'had to say.'"

"Emily," I frowned slightly, stung. "We can always talk. Just as long as you understand that it isn't going to change what I - what there can be, between us."

"I understand," she answered quietly, dully, looking away while she said it. A final sip from her mug, the last dregs of sugar-thickened coffee clinging lovingly to her upper lip. Her tongue slipped out pink and dainty to lick it clean, and I had to close my eyes as my heart leapt into my throat. Such sensuality in even her most innocent motions. My body sang at her presence, resonated with her voice - and it was my responsibility to ignore it. A maddening situation.

"All right, then." When I opened my eyes again, her beautifully delicate tongue was mercifully hidden from view. "I think I'm going to take off for work, sweetie. Unless there's anything else you need from me right now?"

"Not much," she answered after a moment, a small smile quirking her lips. "Um, just a little hug, to get me through the day." And before I could respond, she moved against me, the side of her head resting against my chest, her thin arms loosely linked behind my back. Her petite breasts softly cushioning my lower ribs. Some abstract, calculating part of my mind said that I should pull away, that I should forbid this as well - but there was no real chance of that. Not only because of the warm delight I drew from her embrace, but because this simple physical affection was our oldest tradition. When she was just a child of eleven crying for a mother forever gone, and I a virtual stranger, I had gently held her much like this, rubbing her back until the flow of her tears was staunched; I could not now turn around and say that so basic a connection was off-limits. Instead my own hands rose around her back, my palms lying atop her shoulder blades, fingertips barely interlaced. And we were silent for a time, finding sanctuary in a touch that was neither wholly innocent nor entirely corrupt.

---

At work that day, my mood was surprisingly pleasant. After my abortive attempt at desertion, and the toll it had taken on my emotional well-being, I found a great comfort just in the knowledge that I would be seeing Emily again at the end of the day. More than that, I carried with me the memory of the morning's farewell embrace, its soft warmth touching upon my heart even hours later. I fairly hummed through the day's work, a song not far from my lips, and when it was complete I returned home with only a fragment of the apprehension that I ought to have felt.

The 'talk' - it was a worrisome prospect, especially after that morning, seeing how powerful a desire she could spark in me with nothing more than a handful of words and her own hazy memories. On the drive home, I briefly contemplated what I might say to her. That I could not afford for my duties to her as a father to be distracted by any other role. That she was still young, her feelings confused. That regardless of what we felt, morality must come first - though I knew by then how much she hated that argument. Indeed, loath as I was to admit it, I myself felt a kind of hollowness to these polemics. Logic seemed a pale and bloodless thing, when placed beside her smile, her kiss, her embrace.

Ultimately I could do little to prepare, not knowing what it was that she hoped to tell me. It was nearly four when I walked in the front door. Emily's car was in the driveway, but I confirmed her presence all the same, calling up the stairs, "Are you home, sweetie?"

"In my room," she called back down, and I relaxed, almost unconsciously. However baseless it had been, I had not entirely forgotten my worry of the previous day. Knowing she was there and well, I took my time, changed out of my work clothes, and finally ambled into her room.

Stretched out face-up on her bed, Emily wore an off-white summer blouse and blue jeans, soft ivory skin peeking tantalizingly from the low-cut neck and high-cut midriff. She was reading as I entered the room, a softcover book held above her head, but she set it aside with a small smile as I stepped into her field of view.

"Hey, daddy." Her voice was like the ringing of a bell, a sound pure and peaceful. "How was your work today?" She did not sit up yet, just remained lying flat on the bed, watching me through her eyelashes.

"Not too bad," I admitted. "The markets were down, but with some clever shorts, my division made a bit over a quarter million."

"Wow, that is clever." A mote of amusement sparkled in her eye. "I should start wearing them."

Caught off guard, I chuckled briefly. "Not that kind of shorts, I'm afraid." Still looking at me from the tops of her eyes, Emily made a playful moue of disappointment before rolling over and rising to her knees. A short silence before I spoke again. "How about you? I trust your teachers didn't give you too much trouble for being absent."

She shook her head pertly. "No, not too much. Um, a couple of them asked what happened, and so did my friends." A faintly wry look pressed upon her face. "I told them that I was just really down because my boyfriend left me."

The concern must have been obvious in my expression, for she quickly turned reassuring. "But I mean, that's all I said. And my friends just thought I was lying, since they said I didn't even have a boyfriend."

"Some friends," I murmured facetiously. Still, I was relieved that the secret was kept. On top of everything else, the last thing I wanted was to face public exposure, and all the legal and social retribution which would come with it. My hands were full with just my personal demons. With that in mind, I took a deep breath and moved to the day's true labor. "So . . . you wanted to talk."