How They May Be: After the Fall

"Yeah." Emily's gaze turned away as her smile faded almost to nothingness. Crawling on her knees across the bed, she picked up a small brown paper bag I hadn't before noticed from her nightstand, and turned it upside-down into her hand. "Um, I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home today..."

Looking quizzically at her, a long few moments passed before I recognized the slim rosette in her hand. I may be excused in my delay - after all, it had been quite some years since I had had occasion to see a case of birth control pills. "Emily..." I spoke with a note almost of rebuke, and did not know how to follow it up.

"I need to know if I should start taking these," she replied defensively, a frown lightly traced across her lips. "I mean, if we . . . if this happens again-"

"It won't." I cut her off firmly, definitively, hoping to make truth by the force of my words.

"So then, I shouldn't take them?" She looked at me appraisingly now, her mouth a small, thin line.

"I'm not - I didn't say that." I felt trapped. If she started on birth control, it would be removing a barrier that, God forbid, I might one day need to hold me back. But if I told her not to, and then fell to my temptations anyway . . . I remembered my dream of the past night, the diseased pleasure I took in a fantasy of her carrying my child, and a shiver of righteous revulsion ran down my spine. Accompanied, I hated to notice, by a slick, quiet fascination. I could not trust myself with the choice. "It's not my decision, princess."

"You can still advise me," she returned, softly petulant. "I mean, you're my dad. That's what you're supposed to do."

"Not in this." My tone solidified. "You're an adult now, and this is an adult matter." I had never been so relieved to treat her as a grown woman, and doubted that I ever would be again. "I don't want to prejudice you, one way or the other." I certainly knew what Father Brown would tell her - but that was a concern that felt very far away indeed.

A frustrated snort, followed by silence, as Emily turned the case over and over in her hand. Eventually she spoke again, a faintly irritated tightness to her features. "Fine." I watched as her slim fingers prised open the plastic cover and pulled out one of the tiny pink discs. Her eyes fixed defiantly on mine as she popped it into her mouth, and with deliberate movements, grabbed a water bottle from her desk with which to wash it down. I exhaled quietly, not knowing how to feel about her decision.

"All right," I spoke carefully. "Was that all you wanted to talk about?"

Half a laugh squeezed through tightly-pursed lips, and she shook her head. "No. Um, this was just kind of a side thing, that I realized today."

I shifted my weight uneasily, resting my shoulder against the wall. "Okay. What else did you have in mind, then?"

She was quiet, glancing awkwardly at me as she curled her legs beneath her on the bed. Her mouth opened for a moment, only to close again silently, and I cautiously asked, "Do you need some time to think about it?"

"No," she denied emphatically. "I just . . . could you sit down or something? It's making me anxious, you standing up there watching me like that."

A faintly amused smile curved my lips. Emily could be adorably candid with her sensitivity at times. "Of course." And I took a seat on the corner of the bed, a safe few feet from her, my gaze fixed to where I could just see her in the periphery of my vision.

"I..." She spoke after a time, and I could hear the quietly nervous quaver in her voice, forging through despite her attempts to quash it. And then quickly, the words coming all in a rush so they could not stall again. "I had my first orgasm thinking of you."

I blinked, not expecting this, and glanced at her. She was staring at the wall, the way I had been a moment before, only the very corners of her eyes visible. "What, you mean..."

"When I was twelve, almost thirteen." A low resilience in her voice, strengthened by her confession. "Forever ago, it seems like. I mean, I was just a kid, basically. But even then, I felt..." Another slow breath. "I didn't really totally understand then what I was doing, or what I was feeling."

The quiet built up then, until I felt compelled to speak. "Well, look," I tried gamely. "Everyone's first . . . experiences . . . are a little awkward, a little inappropriate. Just because you happened to think about me - that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Dad." Emily rolled her eyes, her tone mildly exasperated. "I didn't think I had to say, this wasn't a one-time thing. I always thought about you. I didn't even realize for a while that it wasn't normal." Her index finger traced softly at the patterns in the bedsheets. "I only figured that out...um, maybe about a year later. I had some of my friends over for a sleepover, and I guess they were trying to tease me or something, because they were talking about how my dad was totally hot, and asking if you gave good spankings. And I mean, I didn't usually talk about this at all, but it was a sleepover and I was feeling all giggly and open, so I said that yes, you were hot, and yes, you gave the best spankings."

Her expression grew doleful, and she was quiet long enough that I began to think of what I might say - perhaps just pointing out that I hadn't ever actually spanked her. But before I settled on anything, she spoke again, her voice low and quiet. "I can still remember the look on their faces. The room just stopped dead, and they all stared at me like I was crazy, like I'd said the wrong lines in a play. They looked so . . . unnerved, disgusted. That was the moment I realized that it was - different, the way I felt. And I realized at the same time that I could never tell you about it. I never, ever wanted to see you look at me the way they did." Ferocity in her voice for that final sentence, her hand clutching tightly at the covers, and slowly releasing. "Um, I had to tell my friends that I was just kidding. They seemed to accept that. That it was just a bad joke." Her expression bent unhappily, heavy with memory.

"You could have told me, princess," I offered quietly.

"Could I?" An almost ache of accusation suddenly smouldered in her voice. "I kept it all shut up inside for years, because I was afraid I might lose you if I didn't. Even in the last couple weeks, when you kissed me, and touched me, and I didn't see any other reason for it, I still didn't dare say anything. Not until you - you made love to me, because then I knew it was okay, I knew you felt the same way I did." She shook her head forcefully. "And even then, after being so careful, the first thing you did when we got home was...run away. Leave me." And she looked towards the window, away from me.

I swallowed painfully. She wielded guilt quite effectively, whether or not that was her intention. "I'm sorry about that, sweetheart." More was needed - I reached across the bed and laid my hand gently atop hers. "I am sorry. But I did that because of how I felt, not you. If I had known earlier..." I trailed off, uncertain. I could not truly say what I would have done, if she had revealed her feelings to me years prior. Perhaps I might have set her on a better path, and inoculated myself against my present infatuation. But with fewer years tying us together, I might have tried to solve the problem by sending her to live with relatives, so she would forget me. Or, worse still, the knowledge might have ignited my desires while she was still very much a child, and made of me even more a sinner...

"I had this fantasy." she said quietly, still looking away. "A daydream, a regular dream. I'm taking a shower, and you burst into the bathroom, not knowing I'm there." Her tongue peeked out for a fraction of a second, wetting her lips. "I try to cover up with my hands, but not before you see me, and just having you look at me when I'm naked makes me feel so . . . so vulnerable, so weak. I don't want to cover up, but I do anyway. I'm supposed to. And you apologize quickly, and leave, and that's it."

"But then I'm in my room later, and you walk in the door, and something is different. There's this hunger now in your eyes, and I feel like I'm still naked when you look at me. You say you want to apologize again, and you ask if I'm okay, but you're standing so close to me that I can't even think to say yes or no. So close I can smell you, a little hint of sweat, and that deodorant you use that makes my knees tremble. I can't help myself. I step forward into you, and you're holding me. I can feel your every finger on my back as you squeeze me tight against your chest." Her eyes were closed, lost in the retelling. She might have been talking to herself, with me not even there. "You whisper to me, you never realized how beautiful I was, and your hand slips down, lifting up my shirt, rubbing bare against my skin, and I want to give you everything."

"I don't have to tell you." There was a haunting, quietly desperate undertone to her voice, a half-decade of worries finally spoken. "I don't have to worry about what you'd do, if you'd be grossed out or hate me. You already know, and I know, and there's nothing in our way. I'm naked on my bed, on this bed," my heart skipping a beat as she connected her dream to reality, "and you're kissing me, soft little baby kisses on my lips and my chin and my throat. And then gentle bites, your hands running over my body, warm and rough. I'm melting with your touch, and you're so hard on top of me, against me. I'm opening to you."

"Emily, why are you telling me this?" I had to jump in, had to interrupt her before she got any further. Her account was too provocative; my heart raced from the telling already, my body sparked to its urgency. Her own cheeks were flushed, and her eyes opened slowly, as though reluctant to leave this fantasy.

"Why?" She hesitated, her voice small again after its silken strength in speaking of her dream. "Because . . . because I never could. I wanted to tell you everything I felt, but at first I was too shy, and then too afraid of what might happen if I did." A helpless shake of her head. "And because you keep talking like we just need to put things back to normal, but this is normal, for me. This is what I've felt, what I've wanted, and if I'd known that you..." She trailed off, her meaning clear.

"I see." I could think of little more to say. Indeed, through all the complexities of the moment, I found myself oddly impressed. From the sound of things, she had suffered through years of this mad desire without betraying it by word or deed, while I had stood scarcely two weeks before loutishly groping at her. Perhaps it was just that my lusts were the stronger. Perhaps.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, though," she intoned quietly. "I mean, when I thought about it, when I dreamed about it. If some miracle happened, and we came together...that was supposed to be it. We would be in love, then. Happily ever after. Not . . . throwing up, and running away, and saying it's wrong." A note of bitterness in that listing.

"That's the thing about life," I offered back gently. "It isn't very good at 'happily ever after.'"

"I guess." She turned then, looked at me squarely for the first time in what must have been half an hour. "So, um. I don't suppose I've convinced you that it's really totally fine if we sleep together." And the side of her mouth quirked upwards, struggling for her usual good humor.

"Tempted," I admitted, and immediately chastised myself for doing so. I could not afford to let the prohibition appear as anything but absolute. "But no. The rules here, they're bigger than both of us."

"Too bad." Despite her words, a wry little smile was solidifying on her lips. "But you know, I do feel a little better, just talking about it. Having you listen, knowing you know." Hesitation, as she touched her fingers to mine, a gentle gesture of gratitude. "Thanks, daddy."

"Of course, sweetheart," I spoke, and was faintly surprised to hear my voice thicken, to feel affectionate tears welling in my eyes. God, but the soul on this girl. Denying her wishes, abandoning her, breaking my promises - and she thanked me just for listening. Beneath the beauty of her body, her spirit shone with a radiance divine. "That's what I'm here for, right?"

---

It was movie night the next evening - another tradition which I could not bring myself to end, despite its dangers. To my surprise, rather than making our usual excursion to the video rental store for a new B-grade horror flick, Emily rummaged through our own small stockpile of movies until she finally produced a battered and much-used copy of The Little Mermaid. It had been a favorite of hers when she was a little girl, before time and her growing maturity consigned it to storage, and I raised an eyebrow to see it returned to active duty. "No 'Bride of the Blood Beast' tonight?" I asked lightly. "I don't know that I can manage without my weekly dose of gore."

Emily just laughed and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "No. Maybe it's silly, but I felt like watching this again. It's been a long time - I thought it would be kind of appropriate, you know?"

I didn't quite see it. "Appropriate?"

"Yeah." Seeing my blank look, she asked slowly, "You do remember why it's special, right?"

I frowned uncertainly. "I know you were once very fond of it. Is there something aside from that?"

"Um, yeah, kind of." She looked a trifle disappointed. "It's - it was the first movie we watched together. After mom..." She trailed off, not wanting to speak the word.

"Oh!" I didn't remember that, not really, but the timeframe certainly fit. "Of course. Sorry, sweetie, your dad's just a little scatterbrained sometimes." And I gave her a warmly apologetic smile, trying to smooth over the offense. "That does sound appropriate. Do you want to go ahead and get it started, while I finish up with the popcorn?"

"Sure." Sugar in her voice, forgiving me already. "Don't take too long, though. I don't want you to miss anything."

The movie made for a pleasant interlude. For all that I had managed a vicarious appreciation of her usual schlocky horror, I still preferred my movies to be on the gentler side, and this certainly fit the bill. As well, it had been long enough since I had last seen it that I could not predict the characters' every line of dialogue, as I could when she had had the movie in regular rotation. With the bowl of popcorn on my lap, it was not long before Emily was curled up against me in her usual pose, her head resting gently on my chest and her hand upon my stomach.

I worried quietly at this closeness, at the intimacy of this arrangement, mindful of how a similar situation had served as a prelude to my first failure. Had we in fact been watching another of those low-budget slasher films, made to push hormone-driven teens into one another's arms, I think I would have disentangled us and enforced a greater distance. But this was a children's movie she had picked out, and that seemed to change the light cast upon our touch. As far as I was able to judge - as far as there was, in fact, a distinction to be made - I felt that this was an intimacy I could accept, the kind any father would have with his daughter. After some tens of minutes, I even draped my arm across her shoulder, my hand lying lightly at her waist. There was a pleasure in that, which I dearly hoped was innocent. I could no longer tell, could not separate any more the romantic from the paternal. All my feelings about her ran together in a single stream, one ambrosial current.

There were a few points of awkwardness, trying to keep my thoughts on the straight and narrow, as I found that even the antiseptic romance of a Disney movie could set my heart to flutter, when suitably warmed by the grace of her touch. And when the chorus of riverside creatures began singing to 'kiss the girl' - well, I had to fix my gaze on the wall beside the television, hold it there, far away from the threat of any stray eye contact with Emily, until they were quite finished. I felt her laugh against me, soft and self-conscious, and her fingers curled lightly at my abdomen as she perhaps contemplated pulling them away. But she did not, and neither did I take my hand from her side. There was too great a comfort in our little nest.

Likewise, reluctance, when the movie was over. I hesitated to release her, and remained sitting there with my arm around her shoulder as the credits rolled, drinking in her warmth, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her chest against my side. Only when the tape ran out entirely, and the screen flipped to a featureless blue, could I finally pull myself away, her body slipping grudgingly from mine as I took to my feet.

We were both of us quiet while I turned off the television, put away the empty popcorn bowl. Then I turned to regard her, and as my eyes settled upon her lovely features I felt a great trembling of irrepressible emotion, as though my heart was growing larger in my chest. Emily sat upon the couch, her head resting comfortably against the splayed fingers of her right hand, watching me with that same silently thoughtful expression I had seen from her the last morning, a look that spoke of hidden dreams I suddenly ached to see. On her perfect pink lips curled a tiny, joyous smile, carrying with it such a loving warmth that her countenance seemed to glow, all but lighting up the room around her. But it was her eyes - those eyes bright and beautiful, with which I had twice fallen in love - that truly gripped me, that made my heart beat with such force I almost feared she would hear it from across the room. In their silvery depths sparkled that adoring shimmer which cut straight to my soul, a sign of the love and the trust which I had never earned but which she gave freely nonetheless. I saw in that moment the most beautiful creature on the earth, and wondered how I could ever stand to be apart from her.

It was no good. Conscience was quiet now, but I knew what it would tell me, if I could still hear its strident tones. Separate. Sleep. Let the morning bring reason. My mouth moved before I knew what I would say. "It's a good movie." Meaningless words, to fill the silence.

"It is." Soft agreement, lined with amusement.

"Let's..." I stumbled desperately for virtue. "We should get to bed, I think. You have school tomorrow."

A moment of quiet, her eyes resting on me, searching my features. Then, softly, "All right." She brushed past me as she made her way to the staircase, and the thrill of contact rushed through me, electricity along my nerves. I closed my eyes, seeking balance. Telling myself that I could adapt to this, that I was strong enough to treat her chastely, as a father should. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered why I resisted. Morality - until this affair, before being tempted, I thought it the guiding principle of my life. Now it seemed a weak and pallid thing, next to the promise I saw in Emily's eyes.

---

I found a greater control at dinner together the next day. Distance helped, having her at arm's length across a table rather than pressed close against me, as did the public setting. With others around us, I could call upon propriety to keep me upright, and the most dangerous topics of conversation were kept at bay. We spoke, in fact, of rather light things - the gossip of her school, her upcoming track meet, a concert she wanted to attend. It seemed so utterly normal, so safe. I wondered what she felt, what she thought about, behind those softly quirked lips. Her voice gave no hint of it, light and melodic as birdsong, but I caught sometimes a flicker in her smile, a distant look in her eye. Footsteps of a silent thought. She must be used to such things, I reflected, having kept secret her feelings for so long. I could not hope to guess what she kept buried in her heart.