"Dear Diary,

"Life for a nineteen-year old girl is often too frustrating. Then again, in my case, it has always been frustrating - first, it was my competition with Ronnie over Arch, and now... I really don't know how I keep getting into these messes. Maybe it's because I care too much about the people I love.

"Mom and Dad had another fight yesterday. Once again, it was over Peggy. My poor Sis - all she wanted to do was have her baby, but Mom is very unhappy that she chose to have it out of wedlock. In fact, the two haven't spoken for the last six months, when Sis had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not going to abort the baby. As a girl, I can guess how she must feel, but I also feel sorry for Mom.

"At the same time, though, she is getting difficult herself too. Okay, so when Mom's friends asked her, Peggy shouldn't have said that she had no idea who the father was; she could have blamed it on a runaway fiancee; Mom got angry and said that it made her sound so much like a whore - I know I have never used that kind of a language in here, and I hope you understand - that she was ashamed to call my sister her daughter.

"It's the ninth month, and I am starting to get afraid that we might not be there for my sister when her water breaks. Dad and I have promised her that we would be there in a couple of days' time, and poor Dad - he has tried all the tricks he knew to calm Mom down, but instead, she seems to be the one frazzling him. You know how Dad never loses his temper - and he almost lost it with Mom yesterday.

"'No, and for the umpteenth time, no. I am not coming with you to that little excuse of a daughter of mine. You and Bets can go, but leave me alone.' These words of Mom still ring in my years, and I really find it hard to believe that my Mom, that caring shoulder I have turned to for years, is being so cold-hearted as to deny her eldest daughter her hand during her first pregnancy.

"To top it all, I am starting to get feelings about... I am almost too ashamed to reveal it, dear Diary, because even I am ashamed to admit it to myself, and I have no other secrets from you, as you know; I write every single one of my hopes, every single fear, every single tear, in these pages of yours, but still, there is this feeling - this strong and taboo love - that I have for a person towards whom I should never have such things.

"My father.

"It was a shock to me, and it still is, when I realized that I was falling in love with my father, and I tried to discredit all the reasons I could come up with to justify the feeling, and yet, as much as I try to erase it, it becomes that much stronger. For example, when I saw Dad sitting in his chair, sad and forlorn that he had failed to reconciliate Mom and Peggy, I just wanted to comfort him in a way no daughter should ever want to comfort her father...

"... I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted him to feel my body against his, my heart against his. I wanted to make love to him!

"There! I have done it. There are no more secrets I have that I can tell you, dearest diary, because you know all of them. Even my most secretive secret. You know more about me than even I do, because I know what I write stays between us. And this last secret, my dear diary, should stay hidden.

"As always, lovingly, Betty."

The petite blonde sighed as she shut her diary. She stared at the leather-bound book for a few seconds before locking it with the special key that hung from a necklace that she wore. The necklace itself was a cheap piece of jewelry, but since a thoughtful Herbert Cooper had brought it for her, it was worth a lot. Her father meant a lot to her, and as she had jotted down, the thought of just how much scared her.

Just then, the man of her dreams knocked on the door. Herbert Cooper was a moderately good-looking man, an attribute more due to the homely baldness he had than the thinly-silvered mustache or the sharp eyes that could still scare a cat out of darkness at forty-two years of age. He had a slightly protruding stomach, a proportion that he neither encouraged nor discouraged.

As he had once told himself, he wasn't endeavoring to be the neighborhood hunk. He was just the plain Dad-next-door type. The perfect American.

"Huh, Sweetie? Still awake?" His soft voice filtered through the door, looking for a response from his daughter.

"Just a minute, Dad," Betty replied. Hurriedly, she shoved the diary under her pillow and dived under her covers; her baby doll nightie was hardly the right dress for her father to see her in. "You can come in now."

"Hi, Bets," he greeted lovingly as he stepped into the darkened room. "Whatcha doing up so late?"

She returned his warm smile. "Nothing. Just catching up with my diary."

"Diary, eh? Never too old for the leatherback, right hon? Anyway, I wanted to tell you that we are going to LA tomorrow, noon shuttle."

"Is Mom coming?"

Even in the darkness, she could see the hurt spreading across his eyes. "No," he said after a moment, "She is not. Aren't you?"

"Of course!" But her voice was low, too. It wasn't just the same without her mother.

"That's my girl!" Herbert perked up. No matter how much his wife's stubbornness hurt him, he decided, he wasn't going to let it show. His little girls deserved much more than that, and he was determined to go to the lengths of the world to keep them happy. "Sleep well, sweetheart."

Although it had always been the tradition in the Cooper family to kiss goodnight, the father stood undecided tonight. He had realized that she was wearing a nightie he had bought for her more than two years ago, and with a little of the hallway's light seeping into the room, he could make out the smooth, fresh skin of her breasts under the translucent cups, and, as much to his liking as to his dislike, the two dark outlines that were her nipples.

Herbert wanted to turn away from the sight, to tear himself away from the room before he did anything stupid, but a sudden insight caused him to stay. Leaving in a hurry would arouse suspicions, and his guilt wouldn't - couldn't - stand the scrutiny of his daughter's examination. He forced himself to stay in the room.

You fool! his reason shouted at him. She should never know that you are uncomfortable around her. He moved towards her, intending to land only a quick peck on her forehead. Betty smiled warmly as he bent over her and gently pushed away some of the golden tresses that had fallen across her face, and it stabbed his heart to see that in spite of her cheerful outlook, his younger child was just as troubled by the way things had turned out.

At the last moment, just as he was about to kiss her, something caused Betty to twist her head towards her father, upwards and at an angle. She started to say something, but it just caught in her throat at the last moment. Guided by inertia, though, her father's lips made contact, but not with her forehead as he had intended, but with her mouth.

Betty had been on the verge of saying something, and with the mouth wide open, Herbert's tongue involuntarily ventured out at the same moment hers did, and although the contact was instantaneous, its aftershocks remained long after the bodies themselves were pulled apart.

"Sorry," Herbert muttered hastily as he hurried out of the room. Jesus! What was he thinking? He had kissed her - he had actually kissed her on her lips. He had even tongued her! What kind of a perv was he?

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs that had suddenly gathered there in a bunch - he had to get a grip on himself. Now that he was out of her room, he was able to get a better grip on himself. Calming down near the bottom of the stairs, he took a deep breath. "Relax, old boy," he said to no one else but himself, "It wasn't a kiss after all. Just a little accident." Besides, he hadn't actually responded; it was just a surprise to feel her soft tongue. That must have been it... he decided to hit the sack. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

'Tomorrow' found them only an hour late from their scheduled time of arrival at LAX. Elizabeth, his wife, had dropped them off perfunctorily at the airport, not even stopping for a good-bye hug or kiss, and Herbert decided he really wasn't going to care anymore. He had enough things in life to feel guilty about, and worrying about his wife was not going to be one of them.

"Dad! Betty!" Peggy exclaimed when she saw them. "I am so happy to see you. I thought you wouldn't come at all!"

"What, and miss the birth of my first grandchild? Even if you hadn't invited us, we would still have shown up," Herbert quipped as he dragged the suitcases into the apartment. "Ain't that right, Bets?"

"Yeah, Dad. And Peggy, did you really think I wouldn't want to be here when you make me an aunt?" Betty remarked to her sister as she gave her a hug. "If only Mom..."

"It's all right, actually. I mean, I still have you guys. I am sure when she misses you, she will show up." Peggy tried to make light of the situation, but it was a halfhearted effort, there being no real conviction in her hope. A second passed with no words being spoken, and then she broke the ice. "Let me show you around!"

Herbert smiled to himself as his elder daughter gave them the tour of the place, proudly pointing out the places where her individuality stood unquestioned. She was a mature lady, and had proven her place in the world a long time back - now was the time for his little girl to come of her own as a mother, as a responsible single parent for the little baby that was living inside her.

"Earth to Daddy. Earth to Daddy. Come in, Daddy."

Herbert realized he had been distracted by the proud thoughts of a father, and focused back on the lovely, smiling faces of his daughters. "It was nothing," he answered, grinning. "Just wondering about how beautiful my daughters could get."

The three of them spontaneously hugged each other, taking care not to press against Peggy's pregnant belly too hard.

"God, Dad," Peggy said, playfully wiping her nose. "You stink! Why don't you go get a shower or something?"

"Yeah," echoed the smiling Betty.

"I get it," replied the father, warming to the idea of a bath. "You two girls want to be alone - you could have just told dear ol' dad about that, instead of slandering him like this... God, where have all the innocent children gone?" He raised his eyes in mock-prayer.

"Git out," the two young women returned in unison as they pushed him out of the kitchen. Herbert heard them close the kitchen door just as he was about to close his bathroom's, and it struck him as a great relief that it was just like old times, when Peggy would come for a visit and the sisters would coop themselves in Betty's room to gossip all the latest details.

But things had changed since then, and he was not a blind man to not realize that. His wife was not there with them, and he had little hope for a reconciliation. His relationship with his wife - that was also a question only the wind could answer. And to top it all, Betty, his darling little daughter of nineteen years, was hardly his little daughter anymore. Herbert knew that in his eyes, she had finished the transition from being the girl in his lap to the woman of his dreams.

He shook his head under the cold water of the shower, hoping that it would at least infuse in him a resolve not to think of his younger daughter in a sexual manner until things were more... conducive. With an imminent pregnancy and the breakup that would inevitably follow once he got back home, a sexual dalliance with his daughter was not entirely in the list of options.

But still, Herbert couldn't think of how it would feel if, indeed, his feelings for Betty were returned in equal measure. If, for example, Betty desired him as much as he needed her.

The need, he rationalized, was not purely physical - combined to the fact that she was an incredibly sexy girl, the sexiness all the more emphasized by the plain girl-next-door innocence that she had, was the realization that in the past few weeks, when his alienation with his wife had been on the rise, he had started to depend on her for comfort.

"By the way, Sis, did you hear the latest on Ronnie?" Betty asked her sister.

Peggy bit into her slice of a carrot before responding. "What about?"

"She moved away last year to France - I have told you that - and last month, she wrote to me. And you will never guess the man she is living with... the man whose baby she is carrying!"

"Ron! Pregnant? Who is the culprit... Man, that girl is one of the last people who I figure would want to get knocked up, and now you tell me she almost beat me to the labor room... Who's the guy who finally got her down, Bets?"

Betty paused, ostentatiously nibbling her carrot before even looking at her eager, unbelieving sister. She loved this part - the silence always killed them more than the secret, but in Ronnie's case, Betty thought naughtily, the secret was just as shocking.

"It's Hiram Jason Lodge!"

"Hiram... Waitaminute! That's her father!"

"Precisely!"

Peggy shook her head, apparently overloaded by the information she had just received. "You mean, she and her father got it on?"

"Yep. It all began when they went on a vacation to a riverside cottage of theirs. She told me all the details just before they moved away..." Betty's voice trailed off into silence, ending with a "Lucky girl," mutter that she thought her sister hadn't heard.

And because she hadn't figured on her sister hearing the last remark, Betty froze when Peggy pounced on her indeliberately sincere remark. "Lucky girl, Sis? Do I detect a tinge of jealousy in your voice, little sister? And a little envy perhaps?"

Betty tried to cover up her flustered reaction with a lot of self-righteous indignation. "That's ridiculous! Preposterous! I mean, how can you even think of such a thing-"

"Cool it," Peggy interrupted. "Don't go flying off the handle so easily. All I asked whether you felt jealous over the fact that while that girl has found her soulmate, the Cooper girls are all sitting alone at home. Not if you had any hots for our dear father, Mr.Herbert Cooper of Riverdale."

The younger sister smiled sheepishly at the other. The truth had almost jumped out, only to have been steamrollered at the last moment by her 'unwitting' older sibling. But her security, as she realized instants later, had been built on a tower of hay.

"Come to think of it, though," Peggy continued, and Betty felt her spirit sink as the sudden insight was gifted to her sister, "I guess the latter IS the reason, isn't it? OhmiGod, that's it - you are in love with Daddy, and you can't even acknowledge that fact."

"That's not true," Betty protested, the openness she had always felt in her sister's company causing her conviction to falter very perceptibly.

"See. Even you know it is the truth."

"It's not." It was a weaker voice that objected this time, the rest of the sound dissipating in guilt.

"Look, honey," Peggy began, gently massaging her sister's shoulders. "It's all right. I understand."

"You do?"

"Sure. It's a phase every girl goes through... well, almost every girl. Most never get to realize their fantasies, though, and in a way, that is good. On the other hand, there has been mixed reactions in those homes where incest does take place. Between the two of us, Betty dear, I had a huge crush on Grandpa from the time I was sixteen until I got my job."

"Grandpa?"

"Yes, and it really hurt when he died before I could have revealed my true feelings to him. I really regretted my silence when I should have spoken. Who knows what might have happened - maybe it would have been his baby inside me right now...

"So that's my advice to you, kiddo. If you love someone, tell them. Don't hold back, because if you do, you will always wonder if Dad wanted you just as much. I don't mind, honestly. In fact, I'd rather my little sister settle down with him than with any one of the million other guys who cohabit our planet."

"He will kick me out."

"He will do no such thing. If you still haven't realized it, let me spell it out for you - he wants you just as badly. It's in his eyes, the glow he gets when he looks at you. It's not the love of just a father, Hon, it's the love a man has for a woman he desires as his own. Besides, the worst he can do is advice you; he is definitely not going to have you committed!"

Betty smiled weakly at her sister. "Thanks Peggy, but I think I will wait for some more time -"

"Nonsense! I can hear him getting out of the shower... Girl, this is your finest chance. Just go in there, tell him how and how much you love him, and then..."

"Then what?"

Peggy grinned. "I wouldn't know - I have never seduced a father before!" Ignoring her sister's meek mews of protest, Peggy pulled Betty up and nudged her towards the room. Betty turned around one last time, but the elder girl motioned quite firmly towards the bedroom. Betty obliged.

Herbert had not thought it necessary to lock the door as he changed. As he toweled himself, he thought once more of Betty - damn him! He still couldn't control his thoughts. His hardon was prominently sticking out as he whipped his towel off, embarrassing him because he knew its cause.