Chapter 1

Life can be all sorts of things. Fascinating. Hard. Confusing. The list could go on and on. What’s interesting is that, most of the time, we’re not paying attention to what adjective might best describe what’s going on in our daily lives. Most of the time, we’re just trying to get through another day. We have tunnel vision. Get this done ... make sure you do that ... try to avoid overtime so you can get home ... whatever. We concentrate on the next couple of hours and plod steadily forward.

Of course it’s not always that way. Anticipation of a particular event can fill your mind and distract you from the ordinary. But most of the time the mind is dulled by the routine of daily life.

I swear that’s the only reason I bought Riley a bikini. I was thinking about other stuff and did it on impulse.

Riley is my daughter. She’s sixteen and as normal as the day is long. She’s sweet, and grumpy, energetic and lazy, has tons of friends, but no steady boyfriend (thank goodness). Not that the boys haven’t tried. She’s a looker, with long light brown hair down to the middle of her back, and curves that seemed to appear overnight.

If you’ve never been the father of a girl, it’s impossible to explain the angst a man feels as that little girl grows up and becomes a woman. As a man, you know how to “process” a woman in your life. If she’s cute, you lust after her. It’s just in your DNA. If she’s available, and you’re not tied up in some other relationship, you might go after her. If you are tied up, and have decent values, you have an occasional fantasy about her, but don’t act on it. It’s the same if she’s tied up. It’s much more complicated than that, of course, but cut down to the bare bones, that’s pretty much it. If you don’t believe me, (and you’re a man), think of any woman in your life outside the home. You have a relationship with her that puts her in one of three categories: “No thanks”; “I’m going to try to get closer”; or “It would be nice, but it just isn’t in the cards.”

That’s for women outside the home.

But what do you do when you have the occasional fantasy about a woman inside the home ... who it’s totally inappropriate for you to have such fantasies about?

She could be your sister-in-law, for example. Or even your mother-in-law.

She could even be ... your daughter.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I was a ravening beast in my inner, secret mind. I just appreciated her beauty in a male sort of way. The last time I’d seen her naked chest, she’d been ten or something, and still flat as a board. Now she had great, jiggling humps under her shirts. I couldn’t help but wonder what they might look like without being covered up.

Then again, I’m a tit man. I adore my wife’s breasts. Amanda has a rack to be proud of and I avail myself of every opportunity to go ‘hill climbing.’ I check out women’s breasts all the time. It’s just kind of automatic. To a man, (at least for me, ) breasts are fascinating, mysterious things. They’re soft, but can be firm. They come in all sizes and shapes. Each one looks a little different from the others, but have similar characteristics. They can be like twin sisters to another pair, or like children from different families. Which, I suppose, most are. They make food, for Pete’s sake!

Okay, so that’s the background that set me up for failure. I’m a bit of a pervert with some naughty thoughts. I love Amanda dearly, partly because she knows about my proclivities and forgives me for them. She also knows I’d never cheat on her. And that’s true. I’ve never seriously thought about cheating on her.

Anyway, when school ended and Riley’s summer vacation was still just a bud on the branch, unformed but with lots of promise, we were sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast and Amanda asked Riley, “So, what are you going to do with yourself this summer?”

It was a perfectly ordinary, mundane kind of conversation. She said a lot of ordinary, mundane things. She talked about getting together with friends, and looking for a part time job. She said she was trying to save up to buy a car, and gazed at me with big puppy dog eyes in an undisguised effort to get me to say that wasn’t necessary, because I was going to buy her one.

And somewhere along the way, between bites, she said, “I can’t wait to work on my tan.”

A day or two later, while I was tunnel-visioning my way through the day, I had to go to Staples to pick up a case of paper for the copier and there was a sidewalk vendor displaying beach towels and swim wear. It was the towels that caught my eye, over-large, brightly colored and gay. In the old meaning of the word.

We have a smallish back yard that I spent a whole summer erecting a privacy fence around, with dreams of talking my wife into sunbathing nude with me. I never thought about the fact that we had a thirteen-year-old at the time, and that we weren’t nudists. Amanda didn’t think it was appropriate to caper around naked in the back yard with Riley looking on. She also knew that if we did caper around in the back yard, I’d have a massive boner bouncing in the wind as I chased her.

Okay, maybe not massive. But it would be impossible to miss. It was one thing for Amanda not to miss it. It was another for our inquisitive, very young, impressionable daughter to notice such things. Even I knew that. But the fence was really nice anyway. Amanda decorated it with flower pots on hooks, and what she called objects d’art (wire sculptures and brightly colored bird feeders and such) and it was comfortable being out there knowing it was private. Amanda and I did fool around in that privacy a few times, when our daughter was engaged with out-of-the-house pursuits, but we never went nude out there.

The next best thing would be Amanda, in a teeny weenie, itsy bitsy, bikini, lying on one of these gorgeous towels, in our very private back yard. I imagined Riley, off with her friends, or at her so-far-imaginary part-time job, while I rubbed sun block all over my wife’s body. Don’t want to stain that lovely bikini, of course, so it would have to come off.

I was stiff just thinking about it.

So I bought some towels.

And there was this white bikini bra hanging from a hook that caught my eye.

The proprietor of this booth was a young woman, probably in her early twenties, wearing one of the bikinis they sold. She looked yummy, which may have affected my judgment.

“I need one of those for my wife,” I said, pointing at the white bikini bra.

“What size?” asked the woman.

I paused.

“Men never know,” sighed the woman. “How does she compare to me?”

She struck a pose.

I bet that girl sold a thousand bikinis while she was there.

“She’s a little fuller in the ... ah...” I was staring at her boobs.

“I’m a B cup. How much bigger is she?”

I held up my hands and put them to my chest, cupped. She didn’t bat an eye.

“We’ll go with a C cup, then,” said the woman. “Chest size doesn’t matter because that top ties in the back and there’s plenty of cord. You want the white?”

“Yeah, the white,” I said.

“Who else?” asked the woman.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Are there any others at home? Do you have a daughter?”

“Yes,” I said, blinking several times.

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen.”

I was just responding to questions.

“Does she take after her mother?”

“Um ... yes,” I said. Riley does take after her mother. If she was five or six years older, people might think they were sisters.

“Well developed? Not so much?”

“Um...”

I had finally reached the point where I couldn’t respond.

“I’ll give you a B cup for her. If it’s too small, bring it back. I’ll be here for a week.”

“Okay,” I said, still on autopilot.

“You want white for her, too? It would be cute for mom and daughter to have matching suits.”

In my mind, there were suddenly two women lying on towels in the back yard. I saw my hands reaching to spread sun block on both of them and forced my thoughts elsewhere.

I got out my wallet and she rang up three towels and two bikinis. I didn’t even pay any attention to how much the total was.

Then I went and got my case of paper.

It was just a minor blip on an otherwise normal radar day.

But that blip would lead to irrevocable changes in my life.

I didn’t mention my purchases until Amanda got home from work. Then I gave a somewhat garbled narrative of the process. What you read above has been edited by time and reflection, which hadn’t happened by then.

“You got a bikini for her?” Amanda said, in reply to my story.

“I got a bikini for you,” I said. “And then, later, I got one for her, too. They match. That was the idea. Matching bikinis.”

“A girl likes to choose her own swimwear, Bob,” said Amanda.

“I know,” I said, which wasn’t true. I hadn’t even thought about that. “But I thought you’d look so good in it. I imagined you on one of the towels I bought, laying out in the back yard. And then I imagined both of you like that, you know, bonding and stuff.”

“I can imagine what you were imagining,” teased my wife. “Okay, let’s have a look at these bikinis.”

Everything was all stuffed into one big plastic bag, and the towels were the only thing I could see. So I pulled out a towel and a scrap of white fell to the floor.

It hadn’t looked like a “scrap” hanging up on the hook at the booth. But it did now.

“The towels make it look smaller than it is,” I said, hopefully, as Amanda bent down to pick it up.

I pulled out more towels and more scraps of white fluttered to the table. Amanda laid them out on top of a folded towel.

“These are thong bikinis, Bob,” said my wife, calmly.

“They are?”

She looked at me.

“Yes, honey. They are.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Uh uh,” I said, shaking my head.

“Good grief,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”

I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Riley hadn’t come into the room at that point. Amanda probably would have told me to take them back. And, being a dutiful husband, I would have.

But Riley did bounce into the room.

“Bikinis!” she squealed. “Matching bikinis, right? One for me and one for Mom?”

I swallowed. That had been the idea ... my great idea ... which my wife didn’t think was so great.

“Your father got them for us,” said my bride. “What do you think? Take a close look.”

That was it? I was astonished. I had expected Amanda to discuss how terrible this idea was with our daughter.

Riley did take a close look. She held up the bottoms of one suit. I blanched. There was almost nothing there. My daughter looked at me.

“This is daring,” she said. “I can’t wear this in public. I’d be arrested.”

“It isn’t for public,” said Amanda. “It’s just for the back yard.”

I heard tiny gears turning in my little girl’s head. It was something I was quite sure she never thought she’d own, much less get to wear - anywhere. And yet, now she did own one and she would get to actually wear it, even if it was only in her back yard.

She jumped up and down, squealing. Her breasts bobbed under her T shirt, making it crystal clear they were not confined in a bra.

“Maybe you should try it on,” suggested Amanda. She was looking at me, but I knew she was talking to Riley.

“We should both try them on,” said Riley. “This is so cool!”

“You think I should wear something like this?” asked Amanda, as one eyebrow arched.

“Mom, you’re gorgeous. Don’t be shy. Daddy will drool over you in this.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” The other eyebrow rose.

“Mom,” sighed our little girl. “I’m not a child anymore. I know the deal. I like it that my parents love each other and still have a love life.”

I admit I was flabbergasted. Amanda, however, was not.

“Thank you, Darling,” she said, hugging Riley.

“Let’s go! I can’t wait to try this on!” Riley jumped again.

I swear I tried to look elsewhere, but it was impossible. When she turned and skipped out of the room my eyes left my daughter’s chest. I met my wife’s gaze.

It was clear she knew where I’d been looking.

And I swear I didn’t do it intentionally, but my eyes fell to my wife’s breasts.

She pushed me, gently.

“Pervert,” she said, quietly.

“I didn’t know it was a thong,” I moaned. “We can take them back. She told me she’d be there for a week.”

“You can’t take them back now,” said Amanda. “Not after she’s this excited about it. She wants to look sexy.”

“I didn’t get it for her to look sexy,” I groaned.

“Oh, come off of it,” laughed Amanda. “A man doesn’t buy a woman a bikini without ulterior motives.”

“My motives concerned you, not her,” I said.

“I know. But you opened Pandora’s box, my love, and now you’re going to have to deal with it.”

“Mom!” came Riley’s insistent, distant call.

“I have to go,” said Amanda. She stared at me. “I have to go be sexy with my daughter. She might not be so excited once she sees herself in it. Wanting to be sexy and trying to be sexy are two different animals,” said Amanda.

“I don’t know what to do,” I sighed.

“Tell her she’s beautiful when she wears it,” said my wife. She smiled. “Me, too, for that matter.”

“You are beautiful,” I said. “Both of you are beautiful.”

“I know.” She gave me a peck on the lips. “And while you’re telling us we’re beautiful, try not to let her see your erection.”

“What?”

“I know you. She may be your daughter, but you’re a lecherous old pervert.”

“Don’t be crazy,” I said.

“Don’t you be in denial.”

“I do not lust after my own daughter,” I said, darkly.

“You will when you see her in that bikini,” said my wife. “She’s going to be practically naked when she wears it, and I’m going to feel like an old hag.”

“Fuuuck,” I groaned. “I’ll take it back.”

“You can’t. She’s just at that stage where she’s coming to grips with things. It was fun being slim and pretty while she was young but then she grew lady parts, and boys started saying things and men started looking at her. It’s not like growing up as a boy. Boys can express their sexuality and nobody thinks a thing of it. Tits can be great for her ... or not, depending on what, exactly, they attract. The behavior they attract I mean. The power equation can go either way. She’s going to need a male she can trust to ask questions to.”

It occurred to me that my wife wasn’t unhappy about the concept of me lusting after Riley. Well ... maybe she was more worried about Riley being able to deal with the fact that men (in general) would lust after her than she was that this particular man did that. What Amanda seemed to be saying was that if Riley realized I also lusted after her, then it might not be so foreign or scary.

After all, her daddy would never hurt her. She and I both knew that.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

“Just talk to her. Let her know that being sexy is okay, and teach her how to be safe about it.”

“And you think I’d be better at that than you?”

“I’ll be talking to her, too.”

“Okay.” I frowned. “But just so you know, my take on it is that the less sexy she is, the better it is.”

Amanda smiled.

“You should have thought of that before you got her a bikini.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll pay for my sins. I’ll talk to her. That’s assuming she wants to talk to me.”

“Good,” she said. “And be patient. She might be embarrassed, at first. She’s going to have to process this. Me too. Wearing something this tiny is harder in some ways than being naked. I’m worried about how I’ll look in mine.”

“You’re not a hag,” I said. “Compared to you, Megan Fox is a hag.”

“You’re sweet,” she said. “Ridiculous, but sweet.”

She left, to go join our progeny. I snorted. She was worried she might not look good?

My wife is 32. She runs five miles a day and has a better six pack than I ever had. She’s a stone fox and she knows it. Why she picked me as a mate I still don’t understand. Amanda and I still have an active sex life, of the three-times-a-week kind, no doubt helped by the ideal nutrition she enforces. Our sex used to be frantic, but we’ve learned to make it last. We used to fuck. Now we make love.

I know how lucky I am to have her.

I went to the den, and turned on the TV. I was standing in front of the screen, perusing potential selections on Hulu, when I heard them coming. They were talking and my daughter sounded much less enthusiastic than she had before.

“I love it, but it’s positively obscene,” came Riley’s voice.

“All the critical things are covered,” said Amanda.

I turned to look as mother and daughter, in matching bikins, oozed into the room.

The saleswoman’s guess about bra size wasn’t bad. Amanda’s bra was full to overflowing, but since it consisted of only two triangles that were pliable enough to mould over any shape of breast, it didn’t actually look too small for her frame. Riley’s breasts ... well, the phrase that comes to mind as I remember that was that they looked happy. They filled her cups happily. I guess the description might be that Amanda looked busty, and Riley looked like a swimsuit model. The bottoms were of the same pliable material, and it cupped their genitals lovingly, sweeping low over their mounds. Again, what comes to mind as I remember seeing it for the first time is that it looked like the cloth weighed pounds instead of a fraction of an ounce, and the weight was dragging it down. Or maybe it was that their genitalia weighed pounds, and they were dragging the cloth down.

One thing was crystal clear, instantly. These suits were not made for swimming. They were designed specifically to show off the women wearing them, to accentuate her sexuality, to lovingly nurture lust in the observer.

I’m thirty-five. I’ve gotten thousands of erections in my life. But I doubt I ever got one faster than I did that day. It was like an air bag went off in my pants.

Amanda twirled. From the back the only thing that marred her expanse of skin was the cord that was tied in a bow between her shoulder blades, and an identical one, sans bow, across the dimple of her lower back. She grinned at me. I think she was trying to give me an excuse for the boner that was straining the zipper of my pants.

Riley did not twirl. Her shoulders and arms looked stiff. I think she was making a physical effort not to cover things up with her hands.