Reality is Different Ch. 05

"Names."

The flow of time is often cruel. It feels no more than minutes I've been here beside him, than maybe one or two, but the glowing numbers on the clock beside the bed are saying that it's been half an hour. Which probably is why I hear the looming of finality inside his tone, a greater thickening of drama there amidst the rough and vibrant melody that's served to line the background of my fantasies. "Thousands, tens of thousands scrolled along the tiny screen, too fast for him to read." A little hammy, even, how he says it. "Each one followed by a string of numbers like the ones he'd seen on all the boxes. A city's worth of people, and of the strange, alarming microchips he'd found. And when the scrolling ceased, one final name was blinking redly back at him there at the bottom - his own!"

I don't need to hear the book slap softly closed to realize he's finished off the chapter. My body is already tensing, anxious with the thought of what that means. "Well." His voice returned to normal now, only speaking for himself. Quiet, nudging faintly at my back. "Good place to stop tonight, I think. I've got to hit the hay, and you should probably do the same." The suggestion pretty plain, the expectation obvious that I would get up from his bed and head back to my own. That's what anyone would do. The only thing that makes much sense for me to do, considering my situation, or the two of ours. There isn't really any reason I can think of that would tell me I should stay.

But I want to, anyway. God, I want to - giving thought to the desire makes it rise even stronger, clutching tight upon my throat, beating fevered in my heart. I don't want to have to go. I don't want to leave his side, to lose the subtle warmth and scent of him that trickles from beneath the covers, the pleasant pillow of his shoulder, the comfort of his arm behind my back. Holding me, if just so slightly. So far from what I fantasize about, and yet...yet it's the nearest thing I have, the closest that I've felt since I was with him on the couch, when for a moment anything seemed possible.

...which is an answer of its own, I guess. The thought pops suddenly into existence, and I leap upon it with the eagerness of desperation. To do what I did then, pretend to be asleep. Not planned out quite as carefully this time, but...it worked before. He can't really see my face, my eyes, from his position. I've mostly had them half-closed anyway, while he was reading, to better hear his voice, to better see the visions in my head. And even though I'm not too great at artifice, I do think I can manage to convincingly say nothing in response. To only lay there still and silent at his side, breathing only slowly, like a girl deep enough in sleep that her father wouldn't want to wake her up again.

I think it works, as well. I hope. He only seems to try half-heartedly to rouse me from my rest, patting awkward at my back, at my side, on the subtle inward curve above my hip. His voice restrained as he addresses me directly, distantly cajoling. "Come on, Sarah. On your feet. Gotta head up to your room, now." Probably not loud enough to wake me up, if I really were asleep.

As it is, of course, I'm careful that I show no sign of a reaction whatsoever. No answer but a thought, a message that I try again to beam into his mind. No I don't, daddy. I have to say right here, with you. What I might say to him outright, if I were in a story where the father has to be convinced to claim his prize, his doubts and moral qualms assuaged. I love you, daddy, so, so much. I need you more than anything, more than anybody in the world. I'm only happy when you're close to me, when I can feel our bodies touch...an aching in my heart to think the words, so near to being true.

It could almost be an answer, too, the sigh I hear above my head. "Sarah..." A trifle weary, how it sounds. Enough for me to start to worry what it means, or what he might be thinking. Enough for me to hold my breath a moment, before I quickly realize that that's the last thing I should want to do. But there isn't any follow up, no other words or action for a long and nervous while. Nothing but eventually a tiny jostle, like the shaking of his head. And then the movement of his arm behind me, letting go my back to tug upon the covers on the unused portion of the bed. To pull them, toss them up and over me, enfolding me within.

It's more than simply physical, the warmth that blooms inside me as he tucks the aging comforter around my body. Relief and gratitude, commingling with one another, pulsing giddy and delighted in my heart. He's allowing me to stay, to share his bed. To sleep beside my Daddy, just the way a little girl should. Even though it's what I wanted, I still don't think I really thought that it would happen. I imagined that he would only wake me up, or maybe at the best that he would carry me upstairs again, the way he did before. That I could surrender to his arms for just that little while, and perhaps receive another tender little kiss upon my brow. This, now - it feels a gift, a victory, the breaking of a barrier that would once have blocked the way, and I have to forcibly restrain myself from hugging tighter to his chest, the way that every instinct says I should. From craning up my head to kiss him, urgent on his jaw, his neck, showing him the force of love that thrums inside my veins, the adoration squirming in my stomach. From whispering his name. Daddy. Daddy, oh, my daddy...it's thrilling just to think the words, to hold them silent on my tongue. Letting fantasies ferment inside my consciousness, simmer in the space between my thighs.

Nothing happens more than that, despite the eagerness of my imagination. No sturdy hand that slips down hungrily beneath my clothes to stroke against my skin. No close embrace, no thickened bulge that brushes up against me as he shifts positions, revealing his pent-up need. The covers stand between us, keeping me from touching him directly, skin on skin, the way I think about. And maybe, probably I'm reading too much into this, investing all too many of my dreams into the situation here, the fact of sleeping at my father's side. My Daddy's. Thinking of what always happens in the stories to a girl who does anything like this, how her father's lusts arise so often in the night, or how he dreams of making love and then begins to touch her, claim her while his mind is still asleep, or else - or else a million different things, that always end the same. But even if I push them all aside, even if I put away those dirty little fantasies that dance so eager and enticing in my thoughts...it's still something special, being here. Feeling how his arm fits comforting and strong behind my back, how his chest expands and falls beneath my hand. How the two of us are nestled close together, sharing one another's warmth. How the sense of his protection thumps a slow and reassuring tempo in my heart - and such an ache of love sings back to answer it, tingling so powerful along my spine.

It's almost more than I can bear. A tremble of belonging, of feeling everything in place. It's deeper than the sex, than whatever all the pornographic stories say. I'd feel the same way if I'd never seen them, if the thought had never crossed my mind that a girl and her father could be more to one another. It's him. It's me. It's us, the two of us - I'm supposed to be here with him, halfway held in this almost-embrace. I'm meant to be here. He's my Daddy. He's the man who brought me into being, who made me into who I am, who's at the very center of my world. There's no place that I would better fit than in his arms, no fulfillment I could find that would compare to that which lies beneath his hand.

Or it's pleasant thinking so, at any rate. Soaking warm within the notion, cradling it tight against myself as sleep begins to crowd upon the corners of my mind. I know my thoughts can be a little fuzzy at a time like this, prone to flights of fancy. But it's still an aching of delight inside to let myself believe, to tell myself it's true. To shiver with the joyful melody that echoes in my soul, even as awareness starts to slip away, and I let myself surrender to the siren call of sleep.

-

Consciousness emerges slowly, licking outward aimless and haphazard like a flame amidst a scattering of leaves. The machinery of thought kicking temperamental into gear - it's mostly feelings at the start, impressions. A sense of urgency that flutters at the bottom of my skull, grabbing madly for attention, left over from when I was asleep. I'm supposed to be somewhere. I should be...swimming. At the beach. What beach? I don't know. But I'm late, aren't I? And it's important, though I can't remember why. I have to be there, swimming...

It takes a dozen seconds' inner quarrel, and a few more cobwebs shaken off my mind, before I finally decide that this is nonsense. Just the remnants of a dream, the random jumble of emotions and ideas that can find you on the boundary between unconsciousness and waking. Which I guess means I'm awake, then. Bleh. I keep my eyes shut tight for now, and only wiggle slightly deeper underneath the covers, holding tighter to the pillow that I sleep beside. Which actually feels a little large this morning. But anyway. I'm pretty sure it's not the weekend yet, which means that I have class today, which I am so not looking forward to. And I know it doesn't actually help anything for me to stay in bed, to pretend that I don't realize the duties that I have, to refuse to check the clock...but man, I just don't want to deal with it right now. I'd much prefer to take a minute here, a moment for the fog of sleep to slip away in comfort. A private moment for myself, relaxing in my bed.

In my bed.

Hm.

I frown a little, to myself. My bed...there's a niggling uncertainty in that, a recollection drifting hazily on the horizon, just beyond my reach. What about my bed? There was something pretty significant with it, I think, something that I did, or didn't do, that I should-

Memory falls into place precisely as I hear the sound beside me, the drawn-out exhalation of my father's breath, tinged with both a whistle and a quiet snore. As my eyes snap open, staring at his stubble-coated jaw, his cheek, his head sunk half into his pillow. Instantly I'm wide awake, my heartbeat racing with the rushing sense of where I am, of what I did. My arm still thrown across his chest, the way I held myself against him as I fell asleep...ohh, my gosh, my god. I can't believe I'm here with him, can't believe I really slept beside my dad. Can't believe that I was able to. It feels a million times more daring in the light of morning than it did to me last night. Even with the covers separating us, the kind of chastity that they impose, it's still - I mean, it doesn't happen. A girl my age, a woman sleeping in her father's bed. I'm pretty sure I haven't done it since...since I was ten years old, at most. I think. A decade past, a world ago, when my feelings and my thoughts were well and truly innocent, unquestioned. To bring it back again today, to stake a place beside him in the night...the suggestion of it seems so obvious, so boldly underlined. Past anything that I could stomach doing, for fear of telling him too much.

But I already did it. And what's more than that, what really sets my stomach whirling is that he let me do it. The reflection is a flash of nervous wonder, a shiver that I struggle to suppress. Staring up and over at my father's tranquil features, at his barely-parted lips. Maybe at the start he would have thought it would be rude, or cruel, denying me the book I wanted him to read. But at the end? It wasn't all that late, the hour that he stopped. He could easily have woken me again, could have poked or shaken me a little, enough to where I couldn't act like I was still asleep, or couldn't stay asleep, if it had been real. If he didn't want me there to spend the night with him. If he thought that it was wrong. But he didn't do it. He barely tried to wake me up at all, just putting in a token kind of effort for a couple seconds before he gave it up entirely, allowing me to stay. And the only reason I can think for why he would, the answer that comes rushing up to meet me is that he maybe wanted me to be there, too.

God, it makes me feel giddy just to think it, the thrill a tickle in my throat. Afraid to really let myself believe it's true, even as that little voice inside of me embraces it with all her strength already, refusing to admit the slightest doubt. I mean, I know it isn't proof, I know. There could be other explanations, other reasons, probably. But it's the strongest evidence I've felt since...ever, the first and firmest sign I've seen that this is more than my imagination, that my dreams could be requited, mirrored in my daddy's thoughts. A balm, as well, for all my fears and worries, the gnawing doubt that always says I'm only being stupid, I'm insane, to think that anything like this is possible - it's quiet now, defeated by the triumph of the moment here. The inspiration. Any day that starts out with you waking up beside your father, in his bed...

Mmph. There's certainly a heated thought in that. Or two, or three, or dozens...stories mostly from the father's point of view, recounting their experience of being woken from a dream of sex, an intimate and lurid fantasy, only to discover that it's real. Of looking down to see his daughter slowly lowering herself upon his shaft, or stroking at it softly with her hand, or showing her devotion with her mouth, with velvet lips and skillful tongue.

Even if he quarreled with himself before, if he didn't let his hands explore across her body in the night, he can't bring himself to push her off. Can't do more than groan beneath the pleasure that she gives, and maybe gasp a pointless question, asking what she's doing. Perhaps a single protestation. Baby, we can't...but he only watches as she bobbles on his manhood, kneeling careful in the space between his legs, little slurps and sounds of suction punctuating her attentions, tiny choking noises when she pushes far enough to feel his cockhead pressing at the tightness of her throat. Her eyes are fixed on him, staring upward wide and white, begging for his love. The need to please him written in her gaze so plain to see that soon enough he can't resist to offer her the reassurance that she craves.

"Ohh, that feels so good, princess." Husky murmurs drifting down for her to hear, dissolving sweet as sugar in her mind. Meaty fingers curling in her hair. "Such a sexy little mouth you've got. Such a good girl for your daddy..."

It could be us. Be me, responding the little signal that he's maybe given with an act that leaves no room for doubt - though I can feel my heartbeat almost skip to think it, to hold it in my mind as something more than fantasy. A flush upon my cheeks, between my thighs. To just undo the covers, as careful as I can, trying not to wake him up before I'm ready. To let my hand drift down to stroke upon his groin, to find his hardness standing ready with the morning light, or rouse it if it's still asleep. I could crawl to take my place between his thighs, to kneel at his altar, staring at the shape of him that stands obscenely outlined by his boxers, throbbing only inches from my eyes - and god, how it would feel when I finally release him from his prison, when for the first time in forever I can gaze upon my Daddy's manhood, standing tall before my eyes, when I can breathe the scent of him, his musk, his masculinity. Caressing barely with my fingertips along that heavy, hungry spear of flesh, the totem that I've dreamt of oh so many times. Lowering my head in worship as I take that first, experimental taste...

I want it to be real. I do. I do. A liquid whimper of desire at the center of my being, just holding the idea in my mind. A little curl of my hips, instinctive, pleading to be touched...but it's still too much a dream for me to listen, to obey. Too bold and blatant, too impossible an act, even with the hope that I've just found. God, it would be crazy if I really tried. An act for all the fearless vixens of the stories who can stand to work without a net, without the safety of excuses, showing how they feel in ways that can't be taken back. For me...the uncertainty is still too strong, the anxious clot of worry in my throat, the thorns of it beneath my skin.

But there are other ways to show my gratitude. Simpler, at least for now. And it's one of those I have in mind as I begin to wiggle careful out of the covers, gingerly and slow, so that I don't accidentally wake him up. Almost skipping from the bedroom, to the kitchen, once I've accomplished my escape. I know what I can do. And I know it's kind of silly, too. But cooking him his meals, making things he likes...it has a pleasure of its own. A lot of people even say it helps. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," right?

Which isn't really aimed at some in my situation, of course. But even Martin gave it his endorsement, more or less, when I brought it up to him. It shouldn't do much on its own, he said, to really make him think about me in that way, but at least it ought to help me come across as dutiful, devoted. Obedient. It should make him think of me more fondly, bind me tighter to his side, make it hard for him to face the thought of getting by without me. Not sexual, exactly, for him to feel like that. But it can travel with it, hand in hand.

I haven't actually talked to him that recently. To Martin. Or sent him messages, whatever. An idle thought, gathering materials for breakfast, eggs and bread and sausage, the little bit of butter we have left. I should definitely let him know what happened yesterday, last night, find out what he thinks it means. Even if I'm pretty sure I know already what he's going to say. It doesn't demonstrate conclusively that my father feels attracted to me, or that he would act on that attraction...but it's a reason to believe he could, he might. The strongest piece of evidence I've found, that I've been waiting for. He'd say it's time I started flirting more directly with my dad, time I stepped beyond these halfway measures I've been using and really push the line between us. Show him I'm a woman with desires, that I know he has them too. Tear away the boundaries that make up the taboo, until he can't remember why he shouldn't listen to his wants, until the only thing that he can think of is the girl in his arms, soft and lithe and beautiful, the girl who seems to welcome every move he makes.

It's been his answer for a while now, his advice from almost the beginning. He's said I can't rely on simply waiting for my dad to suddenly turn lustful and aggressive, on letting him do all the work. Because he won't. A father has a lot to be concerned about, a lot more reason he should hesitate to show the slightest flicker of desire for a daughter that he cares about, even if he is attracted. He could do harm to her, or be discovered, arrested, jailed, worries I don't really have to share. And while there might be men out there who would ignore those dangers, who'd lay his hands upon his little girl the moment that she caught his eye, they aren't usually the best of men - and if my dad were one of them, I'd know it almost certainly already, for better or for worse. I might feel very differently about the thought of his affection, of his touch.

Since he isn't, though - it means I'm in the situation Martin says he's heard from many other women that he's talked to. Women who had thoughts and fantasies like mine, who daydreamed dirty things about their dads and wonder now what might have happened if they'd tried to make it real. If they hadn't missed their chance. When you're thirty, married, living in another state, it really does become impossible to start something like that, or close enough to make no difference. You don't even have the same desire for it anymore, exactly. Just the memory of what you used to think about, of how it made you feel. The bittersweet of longing, imagining the worlds that you've lost.