Reality is Different: Afterword

He halted there abruptly, bit his tongue in consternation, somewhat surprised he'd even brought the topic up. It didn't feel like it was right to say here, somehow - too real, too tangled of a feeling to it. When he'd felt his most betrayed, abandoned by the woman who had blithely cast aside their vows. Bitterness and anger and despair arising sharp inside him, as it seemed the life that he had built was cracking, breaking, and who knew what pitiable shreds of it he would have left. The horror stories that you heard, of men who lost their homes, their children...but Sarah had decided to remain with him, with him alone, had scarcely even seemed to think she might have chosen otherwise. She stayed, when he had feared that he would be suddenly alone, bereft, and it seemed even that their sometime quarrels vanished as in her quiet way she tended to his hurting heart with tenderness and care.

A wave of fierce affection swept across him at the memory, of love so strong it ached inside his chest. What point was there to worry over words, about propriety? Surely she deserved whatever she desired, whatever language stirred her fancy. His arm went tighter round her waist, his right hand rising smoothly up to clasp upon her cheek as he began again. "You're my princess, Sarah." Murmured with a shiver of sincerity, a huskiness that faintly scratched upon his throat. Her skin was hot beneath his fingers, flush with fevered feeling as she let out a whimper at the words. "My lovely little princess, little treasure, little rose." An echo in his mind, from what she'd said before. "And I'm sure you'd be the sweetest little toy a man could ever have..."

"Ohh, god," the sound burst soft and helpless from her lips, her fingers quickening upon her flower. "I would, I would, I swear I would...oh, daddy..." Her slender body arched beside him, in his grasp, quivering towards culmination. Her breathing came in gasps, in sighs, a quiet susurration lapping sweet as silver at his ear. But when he thought she must be near the precipice of rapture, she slowed a little, hesitated, lingered while she asked in tones that mingled shame and prayer atop the greater depths of her desire. "Daddy...can you tell me when?"

"When?" he murmured back, inquiring. Perhaps there was an inkling in his mind of what she meant - but he felt in little state to think about it, stroking slow and undeniably possessive at her jaw, her cheek, her neck, feeling how her tempting little tush was rocking softly there against his thigh, so near to where his own arousal strained and hungered.

"When I can..." She scarcely whispered, eyes still shut, still hesitant to speak a harsh or vulgar word in front of him. Good girl, indeed. "Finish. When I can - you know. I'm not supposed to do it, without your permission."

He hadn't actually played that game before. But he was certainly aware of it, and the offer of that supplication was a further rush, an intoxicating surge of power that collected rough and coarse upon his tongue. He could speak, at least, what she could not. "You want me to tell you when you're allowed to cum, Sarah?"

If any further blush could have developed on her face, it surely would have at the baldness of the question. As it was, she only nodded faintly, bit her tongue without a sound. He was the one to speak again, offering an edge of iron in his tone. "All right, pumpkin. But there's something you're going to do first, before I let you." His thumb rose up an inch to stroke, caress across her lower lip, to feel how she shivered as he did. "You're going to look me in the eye. You don't get to hide from me that way." There was more that she could show him than her eyes, of course - but right now somehow they felt the strongest lure.

She obeyed him, slowly. A fluttering of lashes open, her pupils hanging low, unwilling yet to rise to his. Even her position at his shoulder made it difficult to look upon her face directly, as he wished - but that was something he could fix himself, shifting her compliant form to rest upon his arm, instead, her bottom sliding forward eagerly into his lap, compressing warm and soft and heavenly against his hardness...he couldn't help an exhalation at the contact, a tiny breath of satisfaction. And it was with that sound that her gaze first flitted up to his, dodged away and then returned, edging closer like a wild creature sniffing at an offering of food. Encouraged by the steady presence of his heavy hand upon her cheek, and by the quiet reassurance that he murmured. "That's right, that's right." Returning to bestow the praise she'd begged of him before. "Good girl...such a good girl you are, princess."

Such a wicked thrill it was, as well, to see the impact of those words, the blissful shudder arc along her spine. To watch her bite her lip and look at him with utter love, embarrassed adoration, staring at him like he was the only man in all the world. The parting of her soft, strawberry lips under his thumb, pliant to his touch, the whisper straining from her pale, slender throat. "Please...oh daddy, please..."

"Are you close, sweetheart?" He lazily inquired, murmured in a teasing, knowing tone. A needless question - he already knew the answer, saw it in the glassy dilation of her pupils, felt it in the eager tremble of her hips, even heard the subtle slick of frantic fingers flickering upon her flowing petals, barely held restrained by her desire for permission. And when he breathed there was a scent upon the air, the delicately carnal musk of her arousal, unmistakable, intoxicating...the little nod she gave him was unnecessary confirmation, less eloquent than the testimony of his senses. And what was more, the instinct of an animal connection that pounded in his chest in syncopation with the beating of her heart, that echoed every feminine delight in rougher tones along his nerves, that felt somewhere beyond description just how near she was to her release.

Perhaps a man committed to the craft would have made her suffer there for longer, awaiting his consent - but he felt little need for that himself. The words came thickly, his own hunger driving roughly over the remaining fragments of misgiving. "Then cum for me, princess." And what a rush it was to speak them, to command her so and see the way her lovely little mouth softly parted to inhale, her fingers' pace redoubling beneath the pastel-colored cotton of her panties, striving in these final instants to obey. "Do it now. Cum for your Daddy."

That was enough. She froze a moment, muscles straining, and then his eyes devoured ravenous the sight of rapture curving on her lips, arching sharp along her spine, twitching, clenching at her thighs. The subtle music of the gasp that tumbled sweetly helpless from her throat, her glazed and lidded eyes remaining fastened desperately upon his own even as she trembled in the beginning throes of her release. "oh...!" Gazing up at him as though upon divinity - and with his fingers loosely laid against her burning cheek, with her trim and lovely backside gently rocking so deliciously upon his lap, he rather felt the part. "...oh, god, oh...god, oh, daddy..."

Senseless murmurings they were, delirious as she was briefly shattered by the little death. But every syllable of it slipped thrilling through his nerves, absorbing every sign and symptom of the overwhelming pleasure on whose waves she rode and crested, drinking them as sweet as wine. Her quiet features twisting as the force of it consumed her, distortions made exquisite by the passion that compelled them, by the knowledge throbbing in his mind and in his loins that they were his, that every little squeal and shiver that escaped her were a product of his words, his touch, her fantasies of his control. His manhood was an iron bar against her thigh, his fingers softly stroking at her cheek as another whisper crept upon his tongue, tender and triumphant all at once. "God, you look so beautiful like this, princess." And it was a bloom of satisfaction to see the added quiver of delight that rippled through her features and hung blissfully about her shining eyes, her faintly parted lips. Her fingers playing slowly yet within her hidden garden.

The moment couldn't last forever. For all he wished it would, just then. A dozen seconds, maybe more, and he could see her shudders settle, her rapid breathing slow, the manic flutter of her gaze regain a touch of self-awareness and reserve. And despite the lack of any bodily release himself, the fevered feeling that had gripped him in a mirror to her own excitement began likewise to still, to let the paler cast of thought return. Reflection, judgement creeping slowly back into his mind...for there was much to judge, to look upon in growing horror as the tides of sensuality withdrew. What he had said and done, what he'd allowed, what he'd demanded that she do. In public, no less - here his gaze shot up abruptly, cast hastily around to see who might have come upon them in the midst of his distraction, might have seen this indiscretion. But they were still alone. One man at the baseball diamond, almost seeming that he looked in their direction...but that was paranoia, had to be. He hoped it was. Lord, he hoped...

Guilt exploded through him at the thought, firing him heedless upward to his feet on tense and agitated muscles - and sending Sarah incidentally down to the grassy earth, tumbling softly from his lap. Such a tangle all at once, a welter of recrimination. That he should even worry about being seen instead of what he'd done, as though the fear of being caught were worse than the commission of the crime itself. That his body still ran hot, his manhood heavy in his drawers, turgid with the feeling that yet lingered of his daughter's soft and slender curves. That he'd allowed her in his lap to start with - no, no, damn it all, he'd put her there himself, hadn't he? That he should blame her for his actions like that, then, for acting on temptations that he never should have felt. That he'd - god, that he'd just thrown her careless to the floor. That her features looking up at him, flushed and tired and fulfilled, should catch upon his heart again so strongly when he cast a tortured glance at her, to be sure she was all right.

She was, of course. Still in half a daze, it seemed, shifting somewhat awkwardly to sit upward on the grass - but she responded rapidly enough as he reached down to offer her a hand back up, accepted without comment or surprise the gruff "Come on. We're going home" that he manage to force out. Just a delicate "Okay" as answer. That and one more look, a dreamy, bashful little smile, a gaze that hummed and glowed electric even as it dodged away...but she only followed meekly as he seethed back to the car. Smoothing out her skirt with idle, distant strokes, while he paced rapidly ahead, his stomach twisting with the savage bitterness of shame.

--

Half the trip back home was made in silence, the kind of thick and awkward quiet that scratches so frustrating on the mind. He tried to be the one to break it. He thought about what he should say, could say. Apologize. For what he'd done, of course, the all-too-active part he'd played - if she would only take such an apology, if she wouldn't wave it off to murmur sweet and coyly that there wasn't any need, that she was glad of how the afternoon had gone. That it was just what she had hoped...this infuriating, intoxicating girl. Reprimand her, then. For her own part, her teasing, her transgressions of the unspoken rules he'd thought they'd set. But such a lecture would seem hollow, when his responses at the time had been to play along, flirt back. To 'punish' her with only what she'd begged for, what he knew would further stir her fancies.

She was quieter than he'd expected, too. After everything she'd said, all her whispered intimations, it was easy to imagine she would be triumphant here, exultant in this proof of her appeal. That when he glanced over at her she'd be lounging in her seat, her body stretched out lithe for him to see, flirtatious - he couldn't quite admit his own faint disappointment, seeing that she wasn't. For instead her pose was small and somewhat huddled, altogether proper, looking distantly between the hands that clasped together in her lap and the glove compartment there before her, with just a sometime little peek in his direction. Buried in her thoughts as much as he. And when she finally did break the silence for herself, it was with a tone a trifle diffident and shy. "Kinda crazy, huh."

"Crazy," muttered darkly back, under his breath. That, at least, he could agree with. "Yeah." Perhaps she hadn't been so pleased at all - the thought was yet another curveball thrown, another yawning chasm of catastrophe.

"It was, um." Speaking somewhat hushed and fitful. "It was a little different, actually, than how I had imagined things before."

"Of course it was!" His quiet cracked upon the rock of this confession, bitter indignation spewing forth. "Of course! Jesus christ, I told you, Sarah, I told you that - no matter what your stories say, it doesn't work. Anything like this, the reality of it won't be like in your fantasies, and you'll regret it, and..." She shook his head with faint ferocity, fighting off a further chill of disappointment that he didn't dare allow himself to feel. That if this wasn't what she'd dreamed, there would be no repetition, no further chance to touch her, see her squirm beneath his hand with unendurable sensation.

"...I didn't say I didn't like it." Sarah answered only with a murmur, taken quietly aback. A little of her doelike look again, wide-eyed, apprehensive for the moment that he turned his gaze in her direction. "I just said it was different. Really being there in front of you, and saying all those things, and..." She trailed off to take a breath, nestled hands together in her lap. "I didn't know that I would feel so embarrassed. I mean, I guess the stories kind of talked about it, but it's hard to really capture that, when you imagine it. But I also didn't realize that - that I wouldn't mind it so much, being embarrassed like that." A smile flittered weak and bashful past her lips, the briefest glimpse of pearly white. "Or I mean, right now it feels like I should have died there on the spot, but when it happened it was like it just made everything feel more...intense, and crazy, and I don't even know." She tried half a note of laughter, tremulous and wild. Then a softer tone of thought swept in, of wondering. "I didn't even realize before, but god, that was the first time that I had an...that I had that, in front of anybody else. The very first." She looked in his direction like a ray of sunlight, her voice a sudden melody of satisfaction. "Now that's something that belongs to you. That part of me, that - moment."

Nothing he could say to that. No action but to grind his teeth, to clutch his fingers tighter on the steering wheel, eyes fixed to the road ahead. And despite her other contemplations, Sarah scarcely could have missed the signs of his. A tone of faint chagrin, surprised again and hurt. "And now you're mad at me."

"No." He shook his head, reflexively - but it was only that, a reflex. He was never angry at her. That's what he would normally have said, have felt. If anything was normal here, if it would ever be again. "Yes. I don't know. Christ, you come rubbing up against me like that, kissing me, looking at me like..." His head shook once again, shifting of its own volition, his tongue frustrated briefly into silence. "...mostly I'm angry at myself, I guess. Not as strong a man as I imagined." Even this indictment felt inadequate. It shouldn't even matter, 'strength.' Not for a thing like this. It was a sickness just to feel tempted, surely - there would be no need for fortitude, to struggle at resistance, if he were not afflicted by it.

Sarah answered, though, as if he had been simply fishing for a compliment. "Daddy, you're the strongest man I know." Hopeful, sweetly ardent, perhaps a trifle overeager at the chance to offer praise - and he hated how he loved the sound of it, the sultry chill of pleasure that her voice cascaded down his spine.

"Stop it," he snapped shortly - angry now, yes, there was no denying it. At himself, at her, it scarcely mattered which. "We're not playing games right now. And this 'daddy' thing, it needs to stop as well. You're twenty years old, you're not a child anymore." Savagely intoned - right now he even meant it, despite the guilty satisfaction that the name had given him before.

"But, dad..." She pleaded, straining helpless. Struggling to find the proper words to shape what she desired, what she felt. After the passage of a couple moments, a somewhat dismal note of laughter found her tongue instead. "You know I actually, I thought at first you wanted to go home so we could be alone. I mean, I just..." A fragment of emotion twisted through her features, plaintive. "I just don't understand, dad. What did I do wrong?"

"The whole thing was wrong," he growled, vague and sour. "I played my part in that, I know I did. But it was a mistake."

"It wasn't," she denied in just a whisper, reluctant to intone a louder contradiction. "I loved it, dad. You know I did, you must." He could feel her gaze upon him, and thought again unwillingly of how she'd looked at him with worship in her eyes, with that exquisite wildness of need and adoration. "It was amazing. You made me feel...god, you made me feel so small and helpless, and excited, and - and beautiful and sexy, and I felt like I belonged to you, I really did, the way I dreamt about." She took a long and heaving breath. "And I know you liked it too. When I was in your lap, there at the end, I felt how-"

"That's enough." His snarl cut her off before she said it openly - though she had drifted towards a stop there anyway, stymied by the shyness of her tongue. "Dammit, Sarah, do you think that's all that matters here? What feels good right now, this moment, nothing else?" Her quiet 'no' went unheard and unacknowledged as he stampeded on. "What the hell do you think is going to happen in a month or two from now, when you recover from this little phase of yours and you're disgusted by the thought of..." He had the words that followed these, they were ready in his mind - but they fell silent on his tongue, unable to sustain the anger that infused it. It took a second more to speak them, in a sudden hollow tone. "Of every time I took advantage."

"I won't." Another contradiction. Her own voice grown thick with urgency, reassurance tangled up with quiet hurt at this reproach. "It's not a phase, dad. This is how I really feel. How I'm always going to feel."

A bitter laugh was all that he could manage in response to this, at least at first. "Jesus." Incredulous, dismissive. "How can you possibly imagine that you can tell me that, Sarah? You said yourself, you only got this idea in your head a couple months ago."

"Yeah, but..." She protested weakly, plainly unprepared for this defense. Ghostly, after a couple seconds taken to arrange her thoughts. "I mean it's not just the idea. It's more than that. It's like it...woke me up, it made me realize something that was already there, beneath the surface." A breath, a note of pleading. "Like how I told you maybe I was jealous of the women that you dated and I didn't even know it. I mean, I love you, dad. I've always loved you, more than anything, even when we used to fight a little bit. I've always wanted to be close to you, and make you happy, and this is just...another part of that, it fits with what I've felt forever. And I really think, you know, I really think it's maybe not that rare at all, that nobody talks about it but a lot of girls and their dads, they feel this way, they have this with each other. Secretly. And that would mean it wouldn't be a phase, that I would just be one of them, the girls who love their dad that much. Who need him that much."