Sardines

by Lubrican

Chapter : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Chapter Four

Waking up the next morning wasn't romantic at all. My left arm was completely asleep, and it flopped like it was paralyzed. I had to pee something fierce. My mouth felt like leather and I knew my breath stank. Chrissy and I had awakened with morning breath hundreds of times. Chrissy was on the other side of the bed, snoring. Mr. C. was gone.

I got up and, naked, went to the bathroom in Chrissy's room, where I had my own toothbrush in the rack. I got another T shirt out of my drawer and went to the kitchen to get something to eat. I was starved. I found out why when I looked at the clock on the stove, which said it was eleven in the morning. My parents were probably freaked out of their mind. I was sure they had called the cops.

I called them and my mom picked up after the second ring.

"I'm sorry!" I moaned. "I came over to Chrissy's last night and fell asleep."

"Mister Carter was good enough to call us this morning and let us know," said my mom. "You could have called last night, Mallory."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry. I didn't plan on staying all night."

"Well, you're a big girl now," said my mother, amazing me. "We'll see you later today."

"Thanks, Mom," I said.

I hung up the phone and turned to find Mr. C. standing there, looking at me.

It could have been weird, I suppose. But he said "Morning, gorgeous," and everything felt okay.

"You're not so bad yourself," I said.

"Are you okay?"

"Do you mean am I walking funny?" I asked. I shook my head. "No. I wouldn't even have thought about it except you just reminded me." I took a couple of steps and winced. I threw in a moan for good measure. He looked concerned and I couldn't help but laugh.

"I see," he said, frowning. "My girls have decided I'm some dim-witted old fogy who can be gamed night and day."

"I was just teasing," I said. "I'm fine, really."

"And were you just teasing last night, when you helped Chrissy do something really stupid?"

"I didn't know she was going to do that," I said. I crossed my heart. "Honest."

His face changed. "How do you feel about the fact that I ... uh ... didn't protect you?"

"Curious," I said.

"That's it? Just curious?"

"Well, you seem so firm and resolved about not doing that with Chrissy," I said.

"She's my daughter," he said.

"I might as well be," I replied.

"As much as I agree with you, our blood does not. If I got you pregnant, it wouldn't be the end of the world for us both."

"My parents would kill me," I said.

"I'm not saying it would be a good thing," he admitted. "But it's something we could survive. I really did lose control with you last night. I had not intended to do that until you were older."

"Like this summer?" I asked.

"Like in a year or two," he said.

"But I'm going to college?" I said. "What if I had met a guy there?"

"I hoped you would," he said. "I still hope you do. It would be better for you. You deserve a normal life, Mal. What I've felt for you all these years has been a crazy, juvenile fantasy and I know it."

"What about what I've felt for you?" I asked.

"Puppy love," he said. "At least I hope so. You get to always love me, as Chrissy's adopted sister and my adopted daughter, but you deserve a man you can understand and who you have things in common with."

"Puppy love," I muttered. Puppy love was what I had for Jerome Quincy in the second grade, and Paul Starkey in the third grade. Boys had gotten tedious after that, and had only been worse as time passed. "Well, I'm not sorry about last night," I said.

He smiled and I felt flutters in my belly again. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that."

You're probably thinking that after that we had Bacchanalian orgies regularly after that. It wasn't like that at all. He never let Chrissy drink alcohol and never offered any to me, though he had a little Scotch now and then. I don't know how often he and Chrissy slept together. Or I should say I don't know how often they made love. She probably slept with him every night except for the ones I did.

Now, you see, when I stayed the night at their house, I didn't sleep naked in bed with Chrissy any more.

But it wasn't often either. That summer I got to have him maybe five times.

Part of that was because both Chrissy and I got jobs at the day care center run by a consortium of churches in town. The center itself was at the Methodist church, and it operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We had a packing plant and two other heavy industrial outfits in town that ran around the clock, and their workers needed "day"care around the clock too.

I loved it, because I loved kids. Chrissy was good at it, but she didn't have the same drive I did. They had a full staff of very committed people. Chrissy and I got hired so they could take vacations or other time off, so our schedules were crazy. Sometimes we worked together, and sometimes we didn't. We worked all hours of the day and night. They'd have let us work seven days a week if we wanted to. It was good for saving up for college.

But my excuse for spending so much time at Chrissy's was gone. We had graduated, and we were hopefully going to be roommates at State, so there was no big drive to spend the last days of summer "vacation" together.

I found out the real reason Chrissy wanted her father bareback in her. Condoms are nasty. Maybe if I had never felt it without one I wouldn't have known the difference. But the first time he went in me with one on I could tell the difference instantly. It wasn't as warm. I didn't feel as much. And the warm ball at the end was missing entirely, of course. Then there was this thing hanging off his cock, with white stuff in it, which looked yucky. I know, I know. I was willing to let him shoot that white stuff in my mouth and swallow it. I loved doing that, in fact. But it was different somehow when it was in this bag. I still shudder when I think of a cum-filled condom.

I hated them, but he wouldn't budge. Apparently my ability to drive him crazy-out-of-control had abated.

But it was still wonderful, and I still loved every second of it. I'd have loved it even more without the condoms, though. And the pill was out of the question, of course. My parents are Catholic. They don't attend mass, but they're still Catholic.

And so the summer passed, and the day I wasn't ready for approached.

And then it was there, and the car was packed, and we were ready to take off on our great college adventure.

And I was a basket case.

I did all right when we left my house. Chrissy came and packed me up first. But then Mr. C. and I helped her pack her stuff in the car, and it hit me that I was leaving, and he was staying, and there wasn't going to be any more going over to Chrissy's to see my best friend and, oh, by the way, get laid.

And I bawled, and that made Chrissy bawl. And I wanted one last time before we left. It was funny, because while I was being a complete little girl about it, begging him to take me to bed one last time, I remember thinking "If he does it, I'm not going to let him use a condom!"

But of course he was the adult in the situation and didn't carry me off to the bedroom for one last quick fuck, like would have happened in a romance novel.

I cried for twenty miles, until Chrissy yelled at me.

I admit that things were different enough, and exciting enough at college that I was distracted for a while. I was, in fact, distracted for almost an entire semester. It started when we found out they had screwed up and Chrissy was in a whole different dorm than I was. They couldn't do anything about it, so we both had strangers for roommates.

That turned out to be less than a disaster, at least for me. My roommate was named Letisha, the first black person I had ever spent more than ten minutes with. We were a little wary of each other for a while, but that passed as we got to know each other and found out we had more in common than separated us. Chrissy got along with her roommate too, but we vowed to get things fixed by the next semester.

Chrissy, being beautiful, had guys all over her. She even liked a couple of them, but she had a rule about not dating anybody exclusively and she told every guy that. I had guys all over me too, but I was pretty sure it was just an attempt to get at my best friend through me.

There was one guy named Jack who was interesting. Part of that might have been because he was a Junior, and was a little older and a little more sophisticated than my Freshman classmates, who reminded me of high school guys. But college guys - especially juniors - weren't into double dating, so I no longer had Chrissy to help me fend off the attentions of men on dates. And Jack had a silver tongue. More important, he didn't seem at all interested in Chrissy. And he was a great kisser, and his hands felt good on me. And everything went fine until I decided to find out what a different man felt like inside me.

Jack, it seems, had an aversion to using condoms. Jack, it seems, expected me to be on the pill. And when I thought about how Mr. C. cared enough about me to insist on protection, and Jack kept saying "Come on, honey, you'll love it and it will be okay," I suddenly compared him to Mr. C. on a detailed level. Jack came away a very distant second place.

So I dumped Jack and threw myself into the books. I told myself that Mr. C. would reward me for good scholastic habits. Finals came and I did well. So when we went home for the Christmas break, I expected everything to be just like it was before we had left.

But it wasn't.

Some things were the same. My parents treated me just like they had before I left. That meant just like I was still in high school.

I had Chrissy drop me off at home first, because we had agreed she got her father first. I was supposed to come over the next day.

But my parents couldn't understand why, when I "lived with Chrissy" at college, I needed to spend any time with her at all during this precious time they had with me. My mother actually cried when I said I just needed to get out of the house for a while.

Obviously spending the night with Mr. C. was going to be difficult. Spending eight or ten nights with him wasn't going to happen at all.

Oh sure, I could just go do it, but then my parents would get all parenty on me and who knew what would happen then. For all I knew they'd figure things out and then try to make trouble for Mr. C. I was eighteen by now, and technically I could do whatever I wanted, with whoever I wanted to do it. But those bridges, once burned, are a motherfucker to rebuild.

So weeks went by, while I sat at home evenings. Dad watched TV and Mom did her needle point and hummed. They didn't actually do anything with me at all. They just wanted me there.

Finally I couldn't take it any more. I got up and put on my coat.

"Where are you going, dear?" my mother asked.

"I'm going for a walk," I said.

"Where?" she asked.

"Mother?" She looked at me over her reading glasses. "I'm a grown up now. I don't have to tell you where I'm going."

She looked startled, then miffed. "All right," she said. "When will you be back?"

I wanted to scream. But I didn't. "I don't know," I said. Then I left, before anyone could say anything else.

It was Chrissy's car, so it was at her house. I had run or biked over to her place countless times over the past decade, and it had always seemed like a hop, skip and jump to their house. That night the distance seemed to have doubled or tripled.

When I got there my spirits picked up. The door was locked, so I rang the bell. Chrissy pulled the curtains apart and then smiled. She let me in, asking where in the world I'd been? I told her and she commiserated with me.

"Where is he?" I asked. I admit I asked eagerly.

"Oh Mal," she said sadly. "He had some kind of business convention thing he had to go to. He won't be back until day after tomorrow."

My spirits sank again.

She took me into the kitchen and made me some hot chocolate.

We had lived for a semester in buildings two hundred feet apart. We went to each other's rooms, and went out together too. But with classes, and work and social events, we hadn't actually spent as much quality time together as we might have in the previous year. And Chrissy had gotten really chummy with a guy named Jesse, who was a nice guy. I liked him, but she spent a lot of time with him.

So this was the first time in a long time we'd had for extended time with each other.

Time in private.

We ended up in bed, of course.

It was just like old times. She was sweet and loving and appreciative. We went for two hours, having orgasm after unhurried orgasm together. While we were cuddling afterwards, she told me she'd let Jesse fuck her. More than once.

"Does your dad know?" I asked.

She nodded. "He says he's happy for me."

"Do you believe him?"

She nodded. "He got all tense about it until I showed him my birth control pills."

"You bitch!" I half yelled. "You never told me you got on the pill!"

"I was afraid you'd yell at me," she said. "I was afraid you'd look at it like I was cheating on Daddy."

"You were cheating on him," I said.

"I'm supposed to cheat on him," she replied.

"Well I didn't cheat on him," I said. "And now he's not even here to reward me for it."

"You're supposed to cheat on him too, Mal," she said. "You know that."

"So did he refuse to take you to bed?" I asked.

"Oh no," she said. "He was very happy I'm on the pill. No more condoms." She grinned.

"Why didn't he just put you on the pill when you were sixteen?" I asked.

"He was resisting the whole sex thing," she said. "He felt like if I was on the pill he'd give in completely. I honestly think that's one reason why he started with you. He was trying to do less with me."

"He only touched me twice a year," I reminded her.

"He had more control with you than he did with me," she agreed.

I looked at my watch. "I gotta go. My parents will call out the National Guard if I don't show up soon."

"He's going to be really sad he missed you," she said.

"Really?"

"He's resisting the sex thing with you too, Mal," she said. "But I know him. He wants you. He wants you like crazy."

"I want him too," I moaned.

"Maybe we can figure something out," she said.

I had never read the last Harry Potter book, and my dad had it, so I threw myself into that the next few days. My tryst with Chrissy had taken the edge off my horniness, but I still fantasized about Hermione getting well fucked by various of her peers and teachers at Hogwarts. I felt so silly.

I volunteered to go do any chores that needed doing, which is why I was gone when the call came. I got back from the store with three quarters of a bag of groceries and my mom came to help me unpack the bag and put things away.

"That nice Mr. Carter called while you were out. He and Chrissy are going to some kind of concert and they have an extra ticket. He wanted to invite you to go along."

My heart thudded in my chest, and it was an effort to stay calm.

"Oh?" I asked casually.

"He asked you to give him a call when you got back," she said, peering at the expiration date on the milk.

"All right," I said, as if I might get to it some day.

I didn't get the chance. Chrissy arrived at our front door not five minutes later. She was bouncing off the walls with excitement, talking about how her father had been given tickets to a John Tesh concert in Denver, and they were VIP tickets, which meant seats in the first five rows and back stage passes. They might get to meet Mr. Tesh himself!

"You have to come, Mal!" she moaned.

"Denver? Why that's a thousand miles away," noted my mother. "Are you going to fly?"

"No," said Chrissy, suddenly subdued. "Daddy has this thing about airplanes. He's a wreck if he has to fly and he has to take this stuff that knocks him out." She brightened. "But it's the holidays and we can make a kind of road trip out of it. Daddy says he'll spring for hotels." She turned to me. "We'll have our own room, of course, and he says we can order room service and go to the spa and get massages and just everything! He says it's a Christmas present for me. Oh pleeease, Mal ... you just have to come! I couldn't stand it if I had to stay in a hotel room all by myself!"

"When is this?" asked my mother.

Chrissy turned to her. "The concert is on New Year's Eve. He wants to leave here on the 29th, just in case there are weather issues, and we'd be back on the second."

"Oh," said my mother, seeming to lose some interest. "As long as it's not over Christmas."

I was on cloud nine, of course. Five days and four nights with my two lovers. I couldn't ask for more.

I packed a bag, throwing in clothes for an extra day and night, remembering what Chrissy had said about the possibility of weather issues. My folks were actually glad to see me go, I think. I had been bored out of my mind for most of the time I was home, and my constant complaining probably got to them. My parents were hibernators during cold weather. Both were experts at finding things to do so they could stay inside when it was cold or snowy. Both had a dozen hobbies or more. Park Dad in front of a TV, for that matter, and he was happy. He could always find something to watch.

I expected Mr. C. to be in the car when Chrissy picked me up. I had assumed they would be ready and, when my stuff was in the car, we would leave town. But it was only Chrissy and she drove me back to their house.

"Daddy's a last minute packer," she said.

When we got to their house and got inside, Mr. C. came downstairs and kissed me hello. He said he was sorry he had been gone when I was last there. Then he handed me four tickets and said I was in charge of them. He turned around and went back upstairs. Chrissy suggested that we go to her room and I could help her finish packing and carry things down.

I followed her, looking at the tickets, which looked fancy and expensive, like tickets to the opera or something. My eyes flickered over the dates and then went back and stopped.

"Chrissy!" I said.

"Hmmm?"

"Something's wrong."

"What?"

"Look!"

I pointed to the dates on the tickets, which were in all numerical format. The first four numbers were 01/31. The last two were the digits for the next year.

"Shit!" said Chrissy. "He got the dates wrong! It's not the thirty-first of December. It's actually the thirty-first of January!"

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"We have to tell him," said Chrissy. "We can't go off on a road trip that has no purpose." She frowned. "Shit!"

I followed her to his room, where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. There was no suitcase ... no clothes laid out.

"Daddy?" said Chrissy. "Mal was looking at the tickets, and she noticed something. We think you misunderstood about the dates, because the concert isn't until the thirty first of January ... not December."

He frowned. "You mean it isn't for another month?"

"Yeah."

"Well shucks," he said. He looked around. "I guess we can't go, then. You two will be back in school by then."

Suspicion blossomed in my mind. Something was obviously wrong. He wasn't nearly upset enough.

"What will we do?" asked Chrissy, sounding tragic.

"I guess we'll just have to stay here and make the best of it," he said sadly. He looked at me and those dark, penetrating eyes were suddenly boring into mine. "Since your parents think you're going to be gone for almost a week ... you could stay here. I've missed you, Mallory."

My mouth dropped open. It all came clear to me in a flash. The whole thing had been a ruse, designed to trick my parents and get me out of the house. I turned to Chrissy, feeling blood suffuse my face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I yelled.

"Because you can't keep a secret!" she laughed. "You'd have blown it, and then you wouldn't be here, with almost a week to be a very bad girl."

"Oh yeah?" I said, jutting my jaw out. "Well if I'm so rotten at keeping secrets, how is it you didn't know your father was diddling me for years?"

She blinked.

Mr. C. calmly said "Am I going to have to ban both of you from my bed again?"

We both said "No" at exactly the same time, and in exactly the same tone of voice, which was along the lines of "Don't go there, buster, because that's a non starter from the get go."

He looked at me. "I didn't mind lying to your parents, but I didn't want to ask you to do the same thing."

"Oh," I said.

"So ... will you stay?"

I felt hysterical laugher welling up from inside me. Was he serious? Did he actually think I might have some reason to leave?

Less than an hour later I was naked, panting, and already tired from the rigors of being the beneficiary of three orgasms, dispensed by the talented tongue and fingers of Mr. C.

Chrissy was in the kitchen, preparing something for us all to eat later. I lay limply as he got to his knees, his erection straining from the hair at his groin. He leaned over toward the night stand. I reached to grab his wrist.

"I'm on the pill now too," I panted softly.

"You are?"

"Just don't tell my parents ... okay?"

"Of course not," he said. "I'm just ... surprised."

I admit I hadn't had time to really think things out very well. But the fact was my vacation from school had been anything but memorable up to this point. I had been horny and frustrated for weeks. And when Chrissy had said she was on the pill, and that he was fucking her bareback ... I guess I decided that if this was all I was going to get during the holidays, I was going to get it the way I wanted it. And he had lied to my parents, to get what he wanted ... so I lied to him to get what I wanted.

"There was this guy at school," I said. "And you know how much I hate condoms. So I got on the pill."

His face went still. "And you and ... this guy ...?"

I shook my head. "It didn't work out. He didn't want to wait for the pill to kick in, and I wouldn't let him until it had. You know what they say about greener pastures."

"So you didn't ... I mean you haven't ... with anybody else?"

"Are you jealous?" I asked, smiling.

"Maybe a little," he admitted.

"I haven't," I said, not smiling any more. "Only you have ever loved me in that way."

"Oh Mal," he sighed. "Oh baby ... sweetheart."

His eyes got wet looking and I reached for him, thinking I'd get some kisses.

I did get one kiss. But just one. Then it was a repeat of that first time, kind of, where he put my arms above my head and held my wrists. He didn't have to pry my legs open, though, and he wasn't rough at all. He actually slid into me slowly, staring into my eyes. I realized for the first time that what he was doing, in his mind, was claiming me.

Then he went crazy, going as fast as he could. He gasped "I'll make it up to you later, I promise!"

Within minutes he was gripping me so tightly I could barely breathe, and he was lunging into me frantically, until I felt that lovely ball of warmth blossom at the tip of his prick, deep inside me. He thought he was being selfish, going fast to get his own cookies like that. But that wasn't the way I thought about it. He was crazy for me, and I loved that fact. He was eager to cum in me, and I loved that fact. He had given me three orgasms already, which suggested that he cared about my own pleasure.

And, of course, I knew he would make good on his promise.

We almost killed him during those four days. They had shopped ahead of time, so we never left the house. One of us girls was naked, in bed with him, as often as we thought he could get it up. He was only thirty-six, but two eighteen-year-old girls are more than a match for any man over twenty-five.

We both slept with him each night, making what we called a "Daddy sandwich." And when he was too worn out to perform, Chrissy and I teased him by making love with each other.

It was glorious. It was delicious. I felt so decadent. I decided I would have been an excellent harem girl, in some far off kingdom hundreds of years ago. I wished it would never end.

But of course it had to. We had to "come back" from the imaginary road trip. They had even thought to purchase Tesh's latest CD, which I "brought back" home and played for my parents.

And then it was time to go back to school.

I just couldn't get into it. Even the fact that Chrissy and I were now roommates didn't help. She had missed Jesse, and he was practically insane for her, so they spent a lot of time together. I kept looking around for a guy of my own, but whenever I found one, he couldn't compete with Mr. C.

Chrissy set me up on dates, and I went on them. I even had a good time sometimes, but the idea of making out with any of the guys was just uninteresting.

Chrissy kept me from going crazy. Sometimes we slept together in the same bed, though they were really too small for that to be done comfortably. And she gave me lots of orgasms.

Then one night she came in from a date with Jesse and I was horny and one thing led to another. In the process I went down on her. About the time I stuck my tongue in her she sat up and squealed "No! Wait!" ... and I tasted sperm.

She had let Jesse fuck her.

I wasn't mad at her. I knew she'd gotten carried away. It was one of the reasons making love with her was so satisfying. We loved each other and loved to please each other.

But, in a blinding moment of pure clarity, I decided that if I was going to taste sperm ... it was going to be Mr. C.'s.

I sat up. The mood had been broken.

"I want to marry your father," I said.

She stared at me. "What?"

"I want to marry your father. I love him. Every time I am with some guy all I can think about is your father. I want to live with him, and have his babies."

She was blinking rapidly, her mouth open.

"But what about school?" she asked.

"Fuck school," I said harshly. "What am I doing here anyway? I don't know what I want to do. I'm just going through the motions." I stood up. "Can I borrow the car? I'll have it back in a day or two."

"You're serious!" she gasped.

"I've never been more serious in my life," I said. "I finally know what I want."

"You can't marry Daddy," she said, breathlessly.

"Why? Because you won't let me?" I asked.

She frowned, and, after a pause, shook her head. "No. He just won't do it."

"But if he would ... what would you think about it?" I asked.

"How the hell do I know what I'd think about it?" she yelped. "You just sprang this on me!"

"I just figured it out when I tasted Jesse's spunk," I said.

She flushed dark red. Then her eyes got wide.

"You'd be my ... mother!" she gasped.

"Step mother," I corrected.

"Like that makes a big difference?" She was incredulous.

And it was at that moment that I had another blinding epiphany.

The idea wasn't incredible to me.

"Do you love me?" I asked her.

"That's not fair, Mal!" she shouted.

"Do you love me!" I shouted back.

She blinked some more, and swallowed twice. Then tears overflowed her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Christina Carter," I said solemnly, "May I have your father's hand in marriage?"

I know, I know. I can imagine you, out there, laughing at the stupid girl who would come to those conclusions and say something like that in perfect seriousness. I had just turned nineteen, and all the science books these days trumpet about how the hypothalamus, in the front of the brain, isn't fully developed until at least age twenty-one, and often times even later. And that hypothalamus is integral to making decisions based on rational analysis of the facts and circumstances of a given situation.

But the fact is that I believed what I believed, and acted on it. We all do it every day. How could I do anything else?

I believe Chrissy's answer was something along the lines of "You're fucking crazy ... but you can give it a shot."

She gave me the keys. I made her promise not to call him, on pain of destroying our friendship forever. I think that's when she figured out how serious I was, and started taking it seriously herself. She gripped my shoulders and put her eyes three inches from mine.

"Are you sure about this?"

I nodded. "I can't stand the thought of living without him."

"What if he won't do it?" she asked. More tears leaked down her face.

"I don't know," I said. "I can't think about that. I have to at least try."

"Let me come with you," she said.

I shook my head. "This has to be between him and me. And if he does say no, I don't want you yelling at him."

"He's old enough to be your dad, Mal!"

"That didn't stop you," I said softly.

She blinked. "This is so fucking weird!"

I put my hands on her face, holding it and making her look at me.

"If I do this ... and by some miracle he goes along with it ... are we going to be okay?"

She looked right into my eyes.

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think about it. Mal, I can't even imagine it!"

I felt the first pangs of uncertainty. "I don't know what to do, then," I said.

She was Chrissy ... my best friend ... my sometimes lover. She had shared me with her father. We were sisters, and sisters were forever. She took a breath.

"Go on. Go talk to him. Tell him how you feel. Then call me."

<< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter >>