20 comments/ 231007 views/ 47 favorites Taking Dani's Place By: Sabledrake Letterman was on the bedroom television set with the volume turned low when Joanna realized that Rich was muttering thickly in his sleep. He groaned, a sort of aching, needful groan that made her lower her book and glance over. He insisted that he liked to watch the evening news, followed by the late night shows, and got haughty with her whenever she pointed out that he was usually sound asleep before the sports and weather, let alone the opening monologues.. Rich was curled on his side, his shoulders a broad beam – still strong and fit at nearly fifty – and his iron-grey hair was an unkempt tuft. He smacked his lips, muttered again, and Joanna was just about to go back to J.A. Jance when her husband distinctly uttered a single word. “Dani,” he said. But it wasn’t the word itself that so riveted her attention. It was the tone. A yearning, low, husky tone. “Dani,” he said again, and rolled onto his back. Bedclothes rustled. The sheet that reached midway up the dense grey mat of his chest hair had developed a noticeable formation a ways lower down. Joanna shook her head a little, blinked a few times, frowned. Surely she was not seeing what she was seeing. No, she was. She was seeing it, all right. Which was startling enough on its own. Sex had never been high-priority for either of them. In their fifteen years of marriage, they probably averaged eight times a year. Now, here like an unexpected guest, was a visible erection tenting the sheet. And, like a most unwelcome guest, that word. That single word. Her daughter’s name. “Dani,” Rich said for a third time, and took a deep, snoring breath. His arm fell across his waist, his hand pressed down on the stiff bulge. Rubbed it in a sluggish manner. At first too shocked to react, Joanna stirred her legs beneath the covers and cleared her throat. Loudly. Rich coughed, smacked his lips. Beneath closed lids, his eyes moved. Dreaming. But he took his hand away, and rolled again. Onto his side. Toward her. She inched away before he could touch her. Disgust crept like a slow wave of spiders over her skin. Dani? Dreaming of Dani? With that kind of result? For a moment Joanna thought she might throw up. Her evening cup of decaf tea bubbled like acid in her stomach. Her spit tasted sour. Letterman wrapped up the Top Ten and went to commercial. Rich lay in a deep and quiescent sleep now. No more muttering, no more groaning. Joanna risked a peek beneath the covers. No more erection. Just the wilted suggestion of one, his cock drooping from its bushy nest to lay along his thigh. She slipped from the bed and into the bathroom, where she drank two cool glasses of water and dabbed her face with a wet washcloth. The nausea settled. A dream, that was all … and certainly not Rich’s fault. Nobody could be held accountable for the strange things their slumbering minds created. It didn’t mean anything. Least of all anything that Joanna herself had to worry about. Still, it was unsettling. What could she do, though? If she asked Rich about it in the morning, he either wouldn’t even remember, or if he did remember, he’d be so embarrassed that he certainly wouldn’t admit to it. The entire idea was absurd, anyway. He had never been anything but a good stepfather to Dani, and to Kyle. His relationship with her children was similar to his relationship with her, and with his associates. Crisp, professional, businesslike. Wild passions had never been part of the equation. Evan had been all the wild passion any woman could want, and just look how well that had turned out. Swept into marriage at nineteen, a mother of two by the time she was twenty-one, and a widow before she reached the quarter-century mark of her life. No wonder she’d been so drawn to Rich. Everything that Evan was not. A father-figure for Kyle and Dani who might actually stick around long enough to see them into adulthood. No crazy, daredevil hobbies. She went back into the bedroom and surveyed him by the glow of her bedside lamp. He had a strong, lawyerly face. Only in sleep did the stern lines of his features soften. Good man, all clear-headed calm and sound business sense. People sometimes told him he should run for office. The same circles of people often told her that she’d make the ideal politician’s wife. She’d built a respectable career for herself and was known for being capable. She’d risen to vice president in the company, made a very comfortable salary in her own right, and was an assured, confident woman. Whenever the subject was brought up, she always countered by suggesting that maybe she’d run for office herself. This never failed to make them cough and stammer and apologize. It wasn’t as if she was worried about Rich straying. He spent his days surrounded by buxom young secretaries and fledgling law-school graduates – barracudas with tits, who’d do anything or anybody to get ahead. What in the world had gotten her onto this train of thought? A few mumbled words that didn’t mean anything? What was it that she was thinking? That, all along, Rich had been harboring some secret lust for her Dani? That was ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing she could imagine. Joanna knew that several of her friends had problems galore with their various divorces, re-marriages, stepchildren. She counted herself blessed that Rich and the kids got along as well as they did. There had never been any of the fighting, no “you can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my real father” stuff. True, Rich and Kyle had never been the sort to go out and throw around the old baseball, or build model airplanes together. Neither had he spoiled Dani, or been overly strict. They’d all just sort of gotten along, the way passengers on a long train ride did. He drew in a gasp. “Oh, Dani, yes. Oh, God.” Joanna, who had been about to get back into bed, froze. This time, there was no mistaking either what he’d said or how he said it. When she did slide beneath the covers, Rich moved toward her. His eyes were still shut, still moving behind their lids, but his erection was back full-force. It jabbed against her hip. He ground against her, and moaned. “Rich!” She elbowed him in the chest. Goosebumps had broken out all over her. “Unh.” He snorted. Peeled one bleary, confused eye open. “Sorry … was I snoring?” “Yes,” she said. Her throat was tight. “Sorry,” he said again, and heaved himself around so that he was on his side with his back to her. Within seconds, he really was snoring, softly. Oh, Dani, yes. Oh, God. A shudder ran through her. Joanna’s face and palms were clammy with sweat. Her nightgown felt pasted to her body. A dream. That was all. She turned off the television and the lamp. Her spine was rigid as a crowbar. Her eyes stared wide and unseeing at the shadow-patterns on the ceiling. It didn’t mean anything. Only a dream. Dreams, never mind Freud, or Jung, or whoever, had nothing to do with a person’s waking thoughts. Or desires. Rich and Dani. The whole notion was ludicrous. Though Dani had been acting funny lately … Of course she had. Dani was going away to college in less than a week. Her life was one drastic change. She would be leaving the only real home she’d ever known, moving away from all of her friends, starting a challenging new school. Thank goodness there wasn’t a boyfriend to add to the stress. Dani was pretty and vivacious, dating frequently but not getting serious with any of them. She’d told Joanna flat out that she wasn’t going to even think that way until after college. The last thing she needed or wanted was to be locked in with some high school sweetheart. Dani hadn’t been dating as much lately, now that Joanna really stopped to consider it. A lot of that was being caught up in other things. College applications, planning, packing, finals, SATs, trying to get in as much fun with her friends as possible. But some of it … some of it … Joanna remembered wondering a few times over the past few months if she shouldn’t ought to talk to Dani. All of a sudden, it seemed, Dani had stopped being so concerned about her appearance. Not that she’d let herself go, no, nothing like that … but she’d given up the kicky, stylish outfits in favor of frumpy old jeans and sweatshirts. She’d gotten her long blonde hair cut even shorter than Joanna’s own. But it had seemed such a petty, silly thing to address. Dani was concerned about more important things. College was going to be a lot harder than high school. On the one hand, Joanna was worried how Dani was going to cope, being away from home for the first time. On the other, she was worried that Kyle was never going to leave home. He couldn’t live in the basement and take classes at the community college for the rest of his life. She tried to get comfortable and failed. Her mind was awake, but spinning its wheels. Rich moved again, and Joanna tensed. He stopped snoring. She tried to brace for his words. He said nothing. His breathing was deep and even. Her taut limbs relaxed the slightest increment. Only a dream, only a meaningless dream, just as she’d known all along. Embarrassing, to be sure, but nothing she should lose sleep over. So why was she? The digital clock’s cool green numerals told her it was almost twelve-thirty. When her eyes opened, she wasn’t sure when they had ever closed. One moment, she had been lying there in the fitful dark, and the next it was seven in the morning, the shower was running, and Rich’s half of the bed was empty. The bedroom was full of diffuse summer sunlight and the house of its usual morning-sounds. She could hear Kyle in the kitchen, no doubt rustling up a healthy breakfast of leftover pizza. It was a miracle that he hadn’t gone the way of so many basement-dwellers, turning pallid and soft like a mushroom. She guessed that he made some use of the exercise equipment he’d built down there after all. By the time she was up and into her robe, Kyle had vanished back to his subterranean lair. Proof of his presence was indicated by the now-empty pizza box and a note on the fridge telling her that they were out of Dr. Pepper. Joanna shuffled through the motions of her own routine. Coffee maker, bagel, toaster, jam, paper, radio tuned to the daily traffic reports. Her unease of the night before was a distant thing of the past. As she headed back to the bedroom to get dressed, all of those feelings came back in a rush by a scene in the hallway. Dani had the air of a trapped animal as she looked up at Rich. Her back was to the wall, near her door. One hand groped for the doorknob, while the other clutched her bulky terrycloth robe at the collar. Rich seemed to loom over the girl. His shirt was on but unbuttoned over a white undershirt. His chin was freshly shaved, his hair swept back iron-grey. His eyes were those of a hawk. She’d seen him stand that way – looming – in the courtroom, when he felt he had some witness on the ropes and was getting ready to move in for the kill. The moment broke as Rich saw Joanna at the head of the stairs. He settled into an easier pose and flashed his best L.A. Law smile. Dani shot Joanna a glance both nervous and pleading. At once, Joanna knew that whatever rationalizations she might have told herself in the small hours of the night, something really was very wrong here. This wasn’t Joanna jumping to conclusions. This wasn’t Joanna reading too much into a discussion over the car, or the phone bills, or misuse of the credit cards. This was worse. Rich, still smiling, came to her and brushed a kiss on her cheek as he passed. He smelled of aftershave and shampoo and musky deodorant. A wine-red tie dangled from his hand. He wished her a good morning and asked if coffee was on. Joanna nodded, and he began whistling as he went down the stairs. Dani, like a deer in the headlights, was rooted to the spot by her bedroom door. “Dani? Is everything …” She was going to ask if everything was okay, which was stupid. Clearly, everything was not okay. “Are you still going to San Francisco this weekend, Mom?” Dani asked. No, she didn’t do anything so simple as ask. She blurted the question, and all at once it was as if Dani was seven again. A frightened little girl. “The conference,” Joanna said. Her insides were knotted. The bagel she’d eaten was a blob of lead in her stomach. “I’m scheduled to be there, yes.” Dani’s shoulders sagged. Her head bowed. She slumped against the wall. “Okay.” Then she turned and vanished into her bedroom. Joanna shot a glance back. Rich was down in the kitchen, still whistling. The toaster popped up. The paper – the business section, no doubt – rattled. She dressed for work, applying her minimal make-up. Silence from Dani’s room. Muted noise elsewhere in the house. A host of inexplicable and awful suspicious were coming home to roost in Joanna’s mind. She felt memories turning over, little things that she hadn’t even been aware of noticing, but that she must have realized on some level. They occupied her the entire time she was at work, and on her drive home later that evening. Dani’s change in wardrobe and self-care. Making herself less attractive on purpose? To avoid – dear God! – unwanted attention? The way Rich watched Dani sometimes, when she was chatting on the phone with her friends, tossing her long hair. The long hair that was now gone, hacked short and swept away in some beautician’s shop-vac. The time she’d seen him standing fixedly at the window, gazing down into the backyard, where Dani and Vickie Anders had been tanning themselves in tiny bikinis. He was interested in Dani. Had been for a long time now, and Joanna hadn’t seen it. Dani had, though. Dani had sensed it, and started doing what she could to try and deflect him. No more shorts and little tops. No more flitting down to breakfast like a sprite in tee shirt and panties, all long legs and pert bottom. It dawned on Joanna that these changes had been going on for months. Since February, at least. Since … since when? Since Dani’s birthday. As if Rich, ever the legal eagle, had decided that it was all perfectly okay and aboveboard to ogle a girl once she’d hit that magic age. “Dani,” Joanna said, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, honey.” Arriving home before Rich, and hearing music from Dani’s bedroom, she rapped on the door. The room was in transition, much like Dani herself. Cardboard boxes held the things she’d be taking to college with her. Books, CDs, her computer, her stereo, clothes. Other things – her collection of Breyer horses, her boy-band posters, her stuffed animals – had been pushed aside and looked forlorn. “Dani? I think there’s something we need to talk about.” The girl’s face was blotched as if she’d been crying, but silently. For the first time? Joanna doubted it, and felt a stab of sharp hate for Rich. “I didn’t do anything, Mom,” Dani said. Her eyes – huge and blue – welled with renewed tears. “I didn’t do anything.” “I’m so sorry,” Joanna said. “I didn’t realize. He’s … he’s been bothering you? Rich has?” Mute, a single tear trickling, Dani nodded. “Has he …?” She couldn’t say it. Had to say it. Dani quickly shook her head. “He hasn’t … you know … touched me or anything. He just … he just looks. Always staring at me. Watching me. It’s so creepy, Mom! But I didn’t dare say anything. I mean, I’m leaving in a week and I thought that maybe I was imagining it. He never did anything like this before. I’ve been … I was afraid that you’d … you know, think I was making it up.” “Yesterday, I might have,” Joanna said, more to herself than to the girl. “I guess I must have thought I was imagining it, too.” “He’s never tried anything,” Dani said. She sniffled. “Honest, Mom. Except, well … no, never mind.” “Tell me, Dani.” “It’s gross.” “Tell me anyway.” “Some of my … my panties … are gone. I put them in the hamper, but now I can’t find them.” “Does he say anything?” “Nothing obvious,” Dani said. “Stuff that, you know, you could take a couple of ways. But it’s been getting worse. And now, with you going to the conference, I … it’s dumb, but I’m scared. Like if he was going to try anything, he’d wait to do it until you were gone.” “Why haven’t you told me this before?” “I didn’t want you to think I was crazy, or a liar, or something,” Dani said. “It’s not like there’s any proof, and he’d deny it, and he’d say I was only trying to make trouble. And … I thought you’d believe him instead of me. But then I saw you in the hall, and I saw your face, and I knew. I knew that you might believe me.” “I believe you, honey. Don’t you worry. I’ll tell him –“ “No!” Dani gasped. “No, Mom, he’ll be so mad!” “He can’t do this, Dani. It’s wrong. Even if he’s not your biological father, even if you’re eighteen now, it’s still wrong. I should have seen what was going on and stopped it a long time ago.” “He’ll say it’s my fault,” she said miserably. “He’ll say that I’ve been teasing him and flirting with him, and Mom, I haven’t! Not ever! I never even thought about him that way. I mean, he’s so old!” Joanna’s lips quirked despite the wretched sickness in her heart. “No one is going to blame you, Dani. I promise.” A timid hope crept into the girl’s eyes, then died. “But what are you going to do? You can’t divorce him.” “I certainly couldn’t live with him, not knowing all of this.” Dani buried her face in her hands. “I knew it. I knew I’d ruin everything if I told. I should have just shut up. I’d have been gone in a few days, and nobody would have had to know, and now it’s all going to be wrecked.” “Stop, Dani, stop. This is not your fault. I need you to believe that, okay?” “But you and Kyle … and Rich is a lawyer … he could …” “We’ll be fine. Rich and I have always been great advocates of prenuptial agreements and separate bank accounts.” How could it be that she was sitting here on the edge of her daughter’s bed, so calmly and rationally discussing divorce settlements? Had it really come to that point so quickly? But what else was there for it? Damned if she’d continue to live under the same roof as a man who’d think that he had every right in the world to make a play for his stepdaughter once she was of legal age. Damned if she would! Dani hugged her, and Joanna hugged back, feeling the girl tremble in her arms. Months of feeling alone, frightened and guilty … poor Dani! Suffering like that, and some mother Joanna was for not having a single clue! If not for Rich’s sleep-talk in the night, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. She’d still be blissfully ignorant, while her daughter lived in a state of terror. She soothed Dani as best she could, while the cold and analytical part of her mind was already taking over and planning what she’d say to Rich. He was a sly one, yes. A lawyer. Good at arguing, at twisting the truth. She had no doubts that he would try to turn it around. Make her feel like she was leaping to crazy conclusions without a shred of evidence. She’d have to get him in a corner, pin him with logic and fact so that he couldn’t claim any sort of misunderstanding. But how? He was too careful. Always, so careful. So cunning. The bastard! An idea came to her then. If it was evidence she needed … “Listen to me, Dani,” she said. “He’s not going to bother you any more.” The look on Dani’s face would have been comic if the situation hadn’t been so horrible. As if she thought that Joanna was talking about something quite a bit more dire than divorce. Something more like murder. Joanna patted her hand. “I’m going to make sure he can’t weasel his way out. But I’m going to need your help. Here’s what we’ll do. I want you to call Vickie and arrange to spend tomorrow night at her house. Can you do that? But don’t tell Rich or Kyle, or anyone else. Say that you’ve got a date, you’re going to a movie, you’ll be back late.” Taking Dani's Place “Sure,” Dani said, her brow furrowing. “But you’ll be gone tomorrow and Saturday.” “No, I won’t. But he’ll think I am.” She eyed Dani. They were the same height, of similar builds. Once – it seemed so long ago now, so far away – they’d joked about being able to wear each other’s clothes, of looking more like sisters than mother and daughter. It could work. The only real difference, at least without a real close look, was the hair. If she was in Dani’s darkened room, in Dani’s nightie … with Rich safely sure that his wife was in San Francisco … yes. It could work. He wouldn’t try anything openly. Not when there was a chance that Kyle might skulk up from the basement and catch him. He’d be sneaky about it. He’d wait until all the household was supposedly fast asleep, and then he’d make his move. And what a surprise he’d find waiting for him! Joanna was ashamed to find that, as the evening went on and the plan continued to hone itself to razor-keenness in her mind, she was looking forward to it. Looking forward to flipping on the lights and trapping the son of a bitch. She was even more ashamed by the dirty, slinking thrill she felt at the prospect. It was an ordeal to get through dinner without giving something away, but Rich was distracted with thoughts of his own – oh, she just bet he was! She reminded the family that she’d be leaving for the airport right from work tomorrow, and would be back on Sunday. Kyle grunted, not lifting his eyes from his plate. Dani, striving for a normal tone but sounding to Joanna’s ears almost excessively relieved, mentioned her own plans for a late movie date. Bedtime was even more of an ordeal. Joanna found that it took an almost physical effort to get into bed beside Rich. If he so much as tried to touch her, she was sure she would scream, or fly into a rage. But he only gave her a smile as he turned on the news and settled comfortably into his pillows. As usual, he was asleep before the weatherman came on. Joanna studied him. A man with nary a care in the world. A man totally at ease with himself, with whatever putrid worm passed for his conscience. She even fantasized, for a few seconds anyway, of smothering him to death. He was fit, yes, but his blood pressure wasn’t the best … no. Forensic science was too good these days. But if he had begun to moan Dani’s name in that hungry tone again, she might just have done it and forensics be damned. That night was one of the longest in her life. She made it through, and made it through the morning, and packed her suitcase for the trip that she was not taking. The beauty shop at the mall was called “Hot Cuts,” and the employees were all girls not much older than Dani. They, and their customers, looked at Joanna like she was an alien. She supposed that, in this world, she was. They didn’t get many forty-year-old women in navy blue business suits. With the plan set in motion, she was consumed by fears of it all going hideously wrong. Of Rich deciding to come home from work early and catch Dani before she could go out on her ‘date,’ for instance. She struggled with these and other fears until a quick call to Dani at Vickie’s house assuaged her. Dani was fine, safe and fine. It was going to work. The house was dark when the taxi dropped her off at midnight, after her solitary dinner and a movie she could barely remember. A blue, flickering light showed in the master bedroom’s window. The television. Letterman. And was Rich asleep? Or was Rich wakeful, listening for the sounds of Dani coming home? She slipped in and went straight to Dani’s room, making the usual level of noise that a teenage girl trying not to wake anybody but not trying to sneak would make. Nobody confronted her, but she felt his presence in the house. Waiting. Anticipatory. Joanna changed out of Dani’s clothes and into one of Dani’s nightgowns. It was baby-blue, short, ruffled, with matching little-nothing panties. It used to be the sort of thing that Dani would carelessly go around the house in, but now would never wear outside the privacy of her own room without that bulky, shapeless terrycloth robe. As she drew the panties up her legs, Joanna was ashamed to feel that dirty thrill again. Her nipples tightened, poking at the thin nightie. She couldn’t wait to catch him. Let him try and argue his way out of this one! Oh, just let him try! The only light in the room came from a soft rose-colored bulb attached to the plug-in air freshener. It shed enough of a glow to give Joanna an eerie feeling as she looked at her dim reflection in Dani’s mirror. The resemblance was uncanny. The blonde hair, the long legs, the small but still firm breasts gauzily outlined in sheer cloth … she could hardly believe her eyes. She got into Dani’s bed. The sheets were cool on her legs, the blanket soft as she tucked it around her waist. A two-foot-high stuffed koala bear held pride of place, and she curled the toy into her arm. Time passed. Minutes, half an hour, a full hour. She’d been wrong after all. Rich was sound asleep in the other room, probably dreaming of nothing more incriminating than – A footstep in the hall. A sneaky footstep. And the faint creak of the doorknob turning. A draft as the door eased open. Through slitted eyes, Joanna saw him in the doorway. The gentle rose-colored glow just touched him. Rich. In his robe, which hung unbelted and open over nothing at all. “Dani,” he whispered. She realized she was holding her breath and released it, trying to feign sleep. It wouldn’t do to spring up now. Now, he could just say that he’d been in the hall and thought he heard something, was only checking on Dani. And his robe had happened to fall open. No, she needed more. Her heart was racing so that she was afraid he might hear its galloping gait. He whispered Dani’s name again. Then stepped into the room and closed the door as quietly as he’d opened it. The latch clicked shut. The bold bastard. If she hadn’t finally wakened to what was going on around her, if she hadn’t finally talked to Dani, she would have been in San Francisco right now, in some hotel room with no idea of what was about to happen. And it would have been Dani here instead, a Dani probably terrified and helpless. A tugging. The blanket. He was pulling on the blanket. It slid inch by inch down Joanna’s body, dragging the sheet with it. Now her hip was revealed, the hem of the nightie having ridden up over it. Now her thigh as she lay on her side, knees partly drawn up toward a fetal position. Now the covers were gone, and her bare legs exposed to him. He moved, and for a moment the shadow of his jutting erection was enormous on the wallpaper. Her ears – every one of her senses felt almost supernaturally attuned – detected the silky rasp of his robe dropping to the floor. Her fingers clenched in the furry nap of the koala’s pelt. Indignation at this violation of trust brimmed in her. She imagined him arguing that they had never specifically agreed that her daughter was off-limits, that that hadn’t been part of their prenup. Never mind that some things were a matter of simple decency, and didn’t need to be spelled out in so many words! It was as if his gaze were a physical thing, traveling over her skin like a touch. Lingering on her bottom, her thighs, the hint of her breasts behind the concealing koala. Was he suspecting? Noting differences? Would he realize that the body he was seeing was not, in fact, that of an eighteen-year-old but was his own wife’s? No … he was stroking himself. Staring down at her and running his curled hand up and down his cock. He had never masturbated in front of her before, and Joanna was appalled to find the experience disturbingly erotic even in her revolted outrage. What more would he do? How far would he dare to go? She shifted onto her back and let the koala fall off the bed. Heard his choked breath as her breasts came into view. Could he see that her nipples were hard? They were, to her shame. Worse, she was feeling quite warm and slippery between her legs. It seemed ghastly to be aroused by any of this. It was wrong. Dirty and wrong. Which was probably the reason for her arousal … and his. “Oh, Dani,” he murmured, and his hand moved faster. He edged closer to the bed. Excited prickles swarmed over Joanna. What was he going to do next? Would he risk touching her? Waking her? Or would he be content to just look at her as he jerked off, and then leave? His fingertips grazed her hip. Pinched the hem of her nightie and raised it higher, past her navel, so that the wispy panties were unobstructed. She had caused even more of a sensation at “Hot Cuts” when she’d gotten trimmed and waxed down there, and tinted a honey-colored blonde. Dani had blushed crimson to confide such intimate details, but neither of them knew how much spying Rich had already done. He was practically panting now. Was he going to come? Was he going to shoot it onto her? That would leave a mess that would be hard to explain away. Surely he couldn’t risk that. “Dani!” he barked in a peremptory voice of command. For a split second she thought of keeping up the ruse of sleep, but knew that there was no way the real Dani would have slept through that. She jumped as if startled awake. Her eyes flew open. “What? Who … Rich?” She tried to sound fuddled, groggy. The kids had never called him Dad, or even Father. Always just ‘Rich,’ though they had been young when he’d become their stepfather. “What are you doing? Why are you in my room?” It shocked her, how much she sounded like Dani as well. Shocked her that he had done that, woken her as he stood right there beside her bed with his naked cock in his hand. She sat up fast, as Dani would have done, and pressed herself against the wall, acting alarmed. “You’re … you … get out of here!” He slapped her face. A hard, stinging slap that rocked Joanna’s head to the side and brought tears to her eyes. “Not a word out of you,” he said. His voice was a husky growl that she barely recognized. “No yelling, either.” Joanna huddled against the wall. She had never really expected that Rich would outright rape Dani. Oh, she was going to get him for this, she was going to make him pay … He knelt on the bed, and before she knew what he was doing, his fist was knotted in her new short blonde hairdo and he slapped her again, this time with his cock. Its head, moist with eager fluid, left a dribble on her cheek. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” his husky growl continued. “You know it, too, don’t tell me otherwise.” “Don’t …” she said. He pulled her hair and she hissed. “I said to be quiet. Now, listen to me, Danielle. I always get what I want. What I want now is for you to open that mouth. Open it, and be a good girl, and nobody ever needs to know about this.” Her lips locked tight together, Joanna shook her head. His cock prodded. She had never had it in her mouth before. Oral sex was one of those things that neither she nor Rich ever expressed an interest in. Something better left to people who read Cosmopolitan instead of The Wall Street Journal or Forbes. “You’re old enough now, and it’s not like I’m your real father,” he said, proving to Joanna that her reasoning had been right on the button. “I’ve helped raise you, feed you, clothe you, and pay for your college tuition. You owe me something for that, Dani.” When she didn’t answer, and didn’t open her mouth, he pulled her hair again and then pinched shut her nostrils. He had her held against the wall now, his knees on either side of her legs. “No struggling, no fighting,” he said. “Just your mouth. Nice and easy. It won’t do you any good to resist me, Dani. No one would believe you, even if you told them. Your mother would hate you if she found out. Is that what you want?” The need for air was urgent, so she took a breath. The instant her lips parted, his cock was there, pushing its way in. She tasted him, salty and slick, and a muffled cry escaped her throat. Then he was in, as far as he could go, gagging her. Worst of all was the knowledge that this was making her hotter than ever. He thought, honestly believed, that he was forcing Dani to perform fellatio on him, and somehow that inflamed Joanna with heat. “Oh, God, yes,” Rich said, arching his head back. “Suck it, Dani. Suck it. Use your tongue.” She did, and he rocked back and forth, nearly choking her on the forward strokes. They had somehow slid and twisted down, around, so that Rich was kneeling above her and pumping his cock in and out of her mouth. Her hands were free, but when she brought them up to try and push him away, he caught her wrists in a viselike grip. The fine bones ground together as he forced her fingers around the base of his cock. “You know I’ve been watching you,” he said hoarsely. “Showing off for me … you’ve been wanting this as much as I have.” Joanna made a sound of negation that he ignored. In all the squirming, her nightie was bunched beneath her breasts and the narrow strip of cloth that formed the crotch of the tiny panties was wedged between her labia, so that every movement caused the most maddening friction. “Couldn’t let you go away without this,” he said. “Had to … had to do it. Suck it, Dani, suck my cock, that’s a good girl, what a mouth you have, good God!” It was the last coherent thing he said before giving way to a string of inarticulate cries and grunts. Joanna saw his expression contort and knew that he was about to come, he was going to come in her mouth and she’d have to swallow it down. The idea should have repelled her but she sucked harder, suddenly wanting to feel it, taste it. He let go of her wrists but she kept her hands where they were, gripping the base of his cock with one and cupping his balls with the other, feeling them tighten as his body strained toward orgasm. He had hold of her breasts then, kneading them roughly through the thin fabric, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. His ejaculation was a series of violent, jetting spurts that defied her best efforts to keep up. Sticky fluid spilled from the corners of her mouth and ran down her neck, puddling in the hollows of her collarbones. Rich stifled a yell by flinging his forearm over his face and biting down on it, at the same time squeezing her breast so hard that she winced. Rich fell away from her, shaking and sweating. His chest heaved. His breathing was so ragged and labored that he sounded on the verge of a heart attack. He slumped, head down, taking long inhalations and releasing gusty exhalations. Joanna wiped her face and neck, and uttered a small sob. Her body was in turmoil and her mind was reeling from what had just happened. What he had done, what she had done. How much she’d liked it, in such a nasty, nasty way. “No one can ever know about this, Dani,” he said, and swallowed thickly. “It’s our secret. You don’t tell, I don’t tell, and everyone stays happy. Understand?” She nodded, not trusting herself to speak convincingly in Dani’s voice. “Besides,” he said, “it’s not like I hurt you. It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it.” The first, she was tempted to argue. That slap … But she really couldn’t refute the second. Her body, anyway, was a whirlpool of conflicting sensation and emotion. When Rich’s hand fell on her thigh, she jumped. His palm was hot, feverish. “Didn’t you?” Now was the time, she thought. To jump up, snap on the lights. Fire her accusations at him like machine-gun bullets and leave him riddled with the truth. But she couldn’t muster the strength to do it. Not yet. Not with his hand sliding up her leg, his fingers curling to stroke the freshly shaved expanse of flesh around the trimmed strip of pubic hair. “Dani,” he said, low. “You like that, Dani?” He wormed a finger under the bunched-up strip of cloth, and she knew he was feeling how damp it was, the heat rising from that part of her. She held her thighs together but it did not stop him from managing to probe the pad of his fingertip deeper until it touched her clitoris. Joanna’s body surged and she bit back a strangled moan. “I thought so,” he said, rubbing gently. She felt as though her bones and muscles were dissolving. When he moved her knees apart, she let them go without resistance, and now he had his finger pushing up inside her, exploring her. She hadn’t felt anything so wonderful in years, not in years. “That’s good,” Rich said. “Isn’t that good? Just hold still, Dani. Hold still. I won’t fuck you – that’s going too far and we both know it – but I’ll make you come.” Joanna whimpered. He arranged his hand so that his first two fingers, both wet from her arousal, formed a vee on either side of her clitoris. The indirect pressure thus applied sent spiraling waves rushing through her. On each downstroke, his fingers just dipped inside her, and she was horrified all over again to realize how much she did want him to fuck her after all. But to say so, to invite that, would mean he’d have to stop what he was doing long enough to get his cock down there, and she never wanted him to stop what he was doing, not ever, not until … Her orgasm was a slow-motion firework, bursting over her and making brilliant sunbursts explode in the darkness behind her eyes. Her loins clenched, trapping his hand, and she clawed the mattress as her upper body lifted, held poised for an endless moment, and finally fell back in an exhausted collapse. She was breathless, her head spinning. She was barely conscious of Rich rising from the bed. He gathered his robe and put it on. “Remember, Dani,” he said. “I … I will,” she managed. In the rosy glow of the little nightlight, she saw him smile. It was his smug, self-satisfied courtroom smile, the one he used when he knew he’d gotten away with something that would never be able to come back to haunt him. The door closed behind him and she was alone, the aftershocks still rolling through her. As her senses gradually returned to normal, Joanna sat up. The room swayed. She steadied herself. And that would have been Dani, she thought. That’s what he would have done to my daughter. He really does think he’s getting away with it. With no warning, she was in tears. She fell face-down across the bed, which was sorely rumpled, and shoved her face in the pillow, and cried like she had never cried before. It was, in its way, a release almost as great as her climax had been. He thought he had done all that to Dani. That he’d made Dani suck his cock, and made Dani surrender to his clever fingers. The arrogant prick! The unbelievable bastard! She could never let him near her daughter again. This success would only make him confident. He’d think he could do it any time. That Joanna would never know. Which, if this had been Dani and not Dani’s mother taking her place, might have been the truth. She couldn’t imagine her reaction if she hadn’t figured out what was going on. If Dani had come to her with such a story after something like this had happened. Joanna got a tissue and carefully wiped up the rest of his semen. She wadded this evidence into a ball and wrapped it in another tissue. Here was proof he’d have a damned hard time denying. She could march in there right now and … No. Not now. Not tonight. Not with both of them still smoldering from the events of the past hour. She’d want her head to be clear, her thoughts and her words as sharp as knives. She cleaned herself up, re-made the bed. The smell of sex hung heavy in the air despite the plug-in’s best efforts at masking it with perfume and sweetness. She opened the window an inch and listened to the secret hiss of the falling rain. Taking Dani's Place Dani was safe for tonight. Safe at Vickie’s house, and she would never again be at any sort of risk from Rich. Joanna would make sure of that. Nothing would frighten Rich more than the prospect of jail. He’d put away too many criminals. She had few illusions about how well a lawyer would fare in a prison setting. Shedding the soiled nightie and wishing she could shed her soiled memories and psyche as easily, Joanna put on a pair of Dani’s drawstring sleep pants and a ribbed tank top that hugged her breasts. She was astonished to be amused by a small but sassy voice inside her that said she certainly didn’t have to worry about getting older, not if she could pass for eighteen. At last she thought that she might actually be able to sleep. She had just closed her eyes when she heard stealthy steps, and the door cracked open again. So, this was how he wanted it? All right, he was going to be in for the biggest damned surprise … “Dani? Psst. Dani, is everything okay?” It wasn’t Rich. Joanna lay there, perplexed. “Kyle?” She could not recall the last time he’d even been on the second floor. Or exchanged more than the most fleeting of conversations with his sister. Kyle and Dani, a year apart in age, had been inseparable until grade school, then tormented each other in the best traditions of sibling rivalry, then generally just ignored each other once they’d reached their teens. “Are you all right?” “Yes,” Joanna said, but her voice quavered. The genuine concern in his tone … and here she hadn’t thought that her kids cared about each other. “No, you aren’t,” he said, and now there was anger, too, a fuming angry frustration. He came in and shut the door. “He got to you, didn’t he? That lowlife prick. I knew he was up to something. I had this feeling. I should have … aw, shit. Dani, I’m sorry.” “You … you knew?” “I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you. I thought he wouldn’t dare, you know, that he’d be too scared Mom would find out. Damn it!” “Kyle …” “It’s my fault. If I hadn’t moved down to the damn basement, he never would have tried. Did he hurt you?” “No,” she said. He sat heavily on the side of the bed and ran his hands through his hair. His shoulders slumped. “I’ll kill him.” Joanna sat up, very conscious of the delicacy of the situation. She wouldn’t have credited Kyle with being so perceptive, so caring. He was ten times more so than she’d been, that was for sure. While she hated letting him think that his sister had suffered at the hands of their stepfather, she didn’t know what he’d do if she revealed her deception to him. Best, maybe, to let him go on thinking he was talking to Dani. She’d be sure to explain all to her daughter, and hopefully they could all get through this with poor, dear Kyle none the wiser. “I’m okay, Kyle,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me.” “Did he, you know, go all the way?” “No!” she said. “No, of course not.” “Maybe you should sleep downstairs,” he said. “In case that sack of shit tries again. I’d never forgive myself, Dani. What’s a big brother for if he can’t even protect his sister?” At this, Kyle put his arm around her. Joanna couldn’t remember the last time her son had hugged her, and the tenderness in the gesture nearly brought her to tears. She let her head lean on his chest, thinking all the while that he’d close himself off forever if he found out the truth. He’d never trust her, or Dani, or any of them ever again. “You’re a great brother,” she said. “I don’t think Rich will try anything else. I think he got it out of his system.” “I dunno,” Kyle said. “A guy like him, you know how he is. It’s all a big power trip. A high. Like our real dad, sort of.” “He’s nothing like --” Joanna had to catch it quick to say ‘our’ instead of ‘your.’ “—our real dad!” “Risk taker. Maybe our real dad put it all into his stunts. The skydiving and bull riding and everything. Always more extreme. Rich is the same way, except it’s what he can get away with. He waited until Mom was out of town, but what if next time he thinks it’d be a kick to try with her in the next room? What then, Dani, huh?” She was aghast to think that Kyle had that kind of impression of Evan, but knew that Dani’s memories of Evan were even fewer than Kyle’s own, so didn’t argue. “I don’t think he will,” she said instead. “I’m going to college, remember?” “How could I forget? I wish you weren’t, but now I guess it really is for the best. Getting you away from him, I mean. That’s got to be worth how much I’m gonna miss you.” “Oh, Kyle,” she said. “That’s so sweet.” “It’s true, Dani.” He hugged her against him. Joanna couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable, but tried not to show it. But then, shocking her into immobility, he kissed her. Not on the cheek or on the forehead, but on the lips. And not a brotherly peck, either. It was a deep, wet kiss, and when her surprised mouth fell open, his tongue plunged inside. When it broke, she tried to pull away but his arms were still around her. “Kyle … um …” “I want you to know that it doesn’t matter to me, Dani. It doesn’t change things. You know, between us. Whatever he did to you. I don’t blame you for it. I don’t want it to get in the way of what we have.” Joanna felt like she’d been dunked into ice water. “You’re so special to me,” Kyle went on, as she sat there frozen in his arms. “These past few months … I know Mom worries about me, about why I’ve never moved out and gotten a place of my own. How could I explain it to her? I guess now that you’re really going to go, I’ll have to. It would hurt to be here all the time and have you be so far away. I’ll visit you, though.” He laughed a little. “Hey, maybe I’ll see if I can get into the same school. We could share an apartment, maybe.” The bottom had dropped out of the universe. All order and reason blown apart like dust. The enormity of what he was saying left Joanna dumbstruck. Kyle … and Dani? No. No, she had to be misunderstanding him. It just couldn’t be. Rich, that was bad enough! But … Kyle? His hand on her breast left no room for doubt. He touched her gently, lovingly, with none of the tentativeness that might have suggested it was for the first time. “You know I love you, Dani,” he breathed, cradling her breast. “I always have. And I know you love me, too.” How long? Dear God, how long had this been going on? She couldn’t believe it, but couldn’t deny it! Another secret, a worse secret, going on under her very nose? She had to stop him, stop this, put an end to it before it all went too far and too terribly wrong. “Please, Kyle, no,” she said, her voice shaking so that she nearly couldn’t get the words out. “It might be our last chance,” he said, caressing both breasts now, and nuzzling into the warm hollow of her throat. “I want to make it better, Dani. After what he did, let me make it better. Let me do what you like. Let me make you happy.” Her mind spun. If she told him now, it would shatter the entire family. But if she didn’t tell him, if she kept playing at being Dani … where would that lead? She couldn’t! Not with her own son! He guided her hand to his lap, settling it onto the bulge in his fleecy sweatpants. Quite a respectable bulge, as it happened, and an utterly unbidden heat rushed over her. No! How could she even be thinking it? With Kyle? With her son? But what would it do to him if she rejected him? If ‘Dani’, whom he loved, pushed him away? It would destroy him! “Just the way you like it,” he promised in a murmur against her neck, and he took her earlobe between his lips and suckled at it. Her indrawn breath was tremulous from a mix of horror and shameful desire. Beneath the hand she had been too stunned to move from his lap, the stony thickness of him twitched and swelled. “Kyle …” “Have to be quiet, though, with him right down the hall,” Kevin whispered. “Unless you want to try sneaking down to my room.” “We better not,” she said, meaning that they’d better not even do this at all, but he evidently thought that she meant something else. He climbed beneath the covers with her, their bodies pressed close in the narrow confines of the single bed. He pulled up her tank top and rested his head between her breasts. Joanna was struck with a new worry – Kyle knew Dani’s body! From much more personal experience than Rich’s surreptitious spying! What if he noticed? What then? “You feel so soft,” he said, stroking her. “So good, Dani.” The hell of it was that he felt good, too … that the warmth of him against her, and the urgent push of his loins on her hip stirred feelings she hated and craved at the same time. Her sensible mind screamed out in protest, telling her how very wrong this was, the worst possible thing she could do, the very utmost in taboos. Her son! This was her son! But oh, his mouth on her breasts was heavenly. Her hips bucked of their own accord when he skimmed his fingers over the flannel pajama pants and plucked at the drawstring. She could not seem to get enough air. Her breath was a quick, shallow panting, and small mewls came from her throat. Kyle loosened the drawstring and then his hand was on her, touching her, so light, so gentle. And she was hot, she was wet, she found herself wanting him to probe deeper. To slide his fingers into her. No. No, she had to stop this! “What if he catches us?” she whispered, frantic to stop him, desperate for him to continue. “What’s he going to do? Him of all people? Forget him, Dani. This is about us.” Kyle became a strange humpbacked shape, writhing beneath the blankets as he divested her of the pajama pants, and himself of his tee shirt and fleecy sweats. Her legs and feet felt his hairy thighs, and the dangling weight of his balls, and the stiffness of his cock. She tried to twitch away, tried to bring her knees together, but he had already flung the discarded clothes out from beneath the blankets and hunkered down between her legs. He kissed the inside of her thigh, and ran his tongue in a long licking stroke up to her groin. “Oh, no, no, Kyle, don’t,” Joanna pleaded. “The way you like it, Dani, I promise,” he said, and fastened his mouth to her. His tongue swirled and delved. Joanna bit down hard on her lip as the sensation – the unbelievable, unexpectedly wonderful sensation – coursed through her. Again, that voice in her mind shouted in panic that this was Kyle, this was her son, she was committing the worst kind of incest … but that voice was drowned out by rising passion. She wantonly spread her legs and raised herself to him, clutching at his hair, tossing her head from side to side on Dani’s pillow. She came almost at once, and with such overpowering force that she nearly lost consciousness. By the time her dizzied thoughts regained some semblance of coherence, Kyle was already poised above her and she felt the tip of his cock nudging her. “Ready, Dani?” “Yes,” she heard herself say. “God, yes.” And without knowing she was going to, her hand encircled him and guided him in. He groaned and sank slowly onto her, into her, burying his length. He was big, bigger than Rich, and that entering thrust seemed to go on forever. At last he was fully inside, their loins sealed together, his weight upon her and his cock throbbing in time with his pulse. Joanna held to his sweat-slick shoulders, looked up into his familiar face – a stranger’s face now – and saw his eyes half-lidded with pleasure. He withdrew with the same slow care, her flesh clasping at him, and drove forward strongly again. “Oh, Kyle!” “God, Dani, you’re so hot, so hot,” he said. “I love fucking you. Do you love it? Tell me how you love it!” “I … I love it,” she said, knowing it to be true as he moved above her with a quickening pace. She was going to come again, soon, soon and hard, a climax that would make the previous one look like nothing. The feel of him, the fullness, the sliding thick heat pumping and pumping, and she was swept up, thrown, tumbled by the onslaught, and it was all she could do with the last of her sense to keep from shrieking aloud. Kyle rocked and strained and thrust, faster now, faster, and Joanna gripped his sides with her thighs and his ass with her hands and helped urge him deeper. She thought she might just explode, might just die, and it was exquisite. As he began to quake, too, and to convulse within her as his cock surged with gush after gush, Joanna blacked out from the sheer ecstasy and knew no more. Awareness returned an unknown stretch of time later. She first realized that she was alone, and that she ached all over as if she’d run a marathon. Her body was clammy with cooled perspiration. Her loins felt pleasantly abused, sticky with the residue of spent passion. Every bone, every muscle felt wrung out and exhausted, but at the same time incredibly refreshed. Her eyes fluttered open to see Dani’s room in the bright light of day. She took a long breath, and let it out in a sigh that seemed to come from her very toes. Now was the moment of guilt, of hateful shame and self-disgust. She had fucked her son, and had enjoyed it like she’d enjoyed no man since Evan. That hadn’t been part of the plan. None of that had been part of the plan. She’d intended only to catch Rich, and keep him away from Dani. To save her daughter. Her daughter, who might have been an innocent victim of her stepfather’s lusts, but was a willing participant in her brother’s. The door opened. Joanna swung toward it, belatedly realized that she should have dived beneath the blankets, and saw Kyle standing there. “Morning, Mom,” he said evenly. Her jaw dropped. She stammered, but nothing sensible emerged. “Rich is gone,” he continued, leaning against the doorframe. “I told him that I knew what he was up to with ‘Dani’ --” Here, Kyle actually made the little quote-marks with the first two fingers of each hand, “—and that I’d tell you, I’d tell the cops, I’d tell the whole world about it if he didn’t pack up his shit and get out.” “Kyle … you …” “And that if he tried anything tricky, I’d beat the hell out of him.” Kyle grinned. “I’ve been waiting a long time to tell him that.” “You … you knew?” she cried. “About this?” He waved at her unkempt mess of short blonde hair, and his grin widened. “Yeah.” “But you and Dani --” “Never happened,” he replied. “No way. You really think I’ve stayed around because of her? Jeez, Mom, she’s not my type. But I saw my chance to get to you, and I took it. I knew you’d have to go along with it if you thought all that bullshit about me and Dani was true. Looks like it worked.” She stared at him. “So, don’t worry,” Kyle said. “Rich is history, and he’s willing to pay through the nose to keep me quiet about what happened last night. Dani’ll be off to college in a couple of days. Then, Mom … well, then it’s just going to be you and me.” He tipped his forefinger to his forehead and then at her in a kind of salute, winked, and sauntered out. She heard him whistling as he went down the stairs. Alone in her daughter’s bedroom, Joanna began to cry. ** The End