Chapter 15

Joe glanced toward his daughter cowering against the passenger door of the Escalade. They'd just passed through the gates to Carol and David's estate en route to Nora's apartment. Careful to avoid eye contact with him, Nora hadn't said a word about her blatant exhibition.

She felt his eyes on her, and without looking at him, and in a meek tone of voice, said, "I'm sorry, Pops. I went too far again."

"Yeah, you did."

"For what it's worth, I didn't plan what happened. I..."

"Sure you did."

"No, I..."

"You suggested a soak in the hot tub, set it up so the four of us would be buck-naked in a sexually charged situation, and then took center stage. The only thing missing was a spotlight."

She lifted and squared her shoulders and turned toward him. Anger glinted in her eyes. "Is that what you think?"

"It's what happened, isn't it?"

"Uh-uh. Oh, I took center stage, and the only thing missing was a spotlight, but I didn't suggest the soak in the hot tub. That was Carol's doing. She set it up so the four of us would be naked together. She planned the campaign like a five-star general."

His daughter's statement surprised him. "Really?"

"Yes." She went on to tell him how Carol had brought up the hot tub, Carol's explanation about nudity in the Stanley family, and about Carol's plan to entice the men to join the ladies in the bubbling water.

"I'll be double dipped!" He shook his head and glanced toward the ceiling of the vehicle. Carol's as adventurous as you, Tess. Every time I think I know her, understand her, she surprises me. He breathed a sigh of frustration. And how about our daughter? She's just like you, Tess, always goin' too far, pushin' at the edges to see what happens.

They were silent for a few minutes while the SUV hummed down the highway.

"I'm worried, Pops," Nora said, breaking the silence.

"What about, peanut?"

"It has to do with David's expertise with psychic sex. He had to learn about it with someone, and only three women know about his ability: Carol, Darla and Denise, and Denise is a lesbian. That leaves his mother and sister. I could be wrong, but I think David has had psychic sex with his mother or sister or both. With Carol's admission to family nudity tonight, now I'm wondering if one or both of the Stanley women has had or is still having sex with David while he's in his body, too."

Dammit! Now what? Joe asked himself. One thing was certain. It was time to put on his daddy hat. "If your assumptions are accurate, how do they make you feel?"

"How do you think they make me feel? Criminy, Pops, we're talking incest here!"

"Yeah, we are. Let's break your assumptions down, and look at them separately. Scenario number one: David and his mother practiced psychic sex, say when he was a teenager. That's it; that's all. Now how do you feel?"

"It's still incest, Pops."

"True. You didn't answer my question."

"Are you asking me if I approve of incest?" she said, aghast.

"Yes and no. I'm asking how you feel about David having psychic sex with his mother when he was a teenager. Try to get beyond the I word and tell me how you feel!"

Nora blushed and thanked the dim light in the vehicle for masking her emotions. Should she be completely honest? Yeah, she should, but not immediately. First she wanted to understand how her father felt about everything.

"You love Carol. How does scenario number one make you feel?"

It's just like her to answer a question with a question, Joe thought. What the hell? My feelings are as involved as Nora's. I might as well come clean, too. "I'm embarrassed to say scenario number one turns me on."

A jolt of sexual energy clenched Nora's genitals. "You're kidding me."

"Not at all. I'm serious, and for what it's worth, Carol admitted she had psychic sex with David when he was a teenager. The admission took place while we were having sex, and... let me just say, a short time later we were cuddling in the afterglow of shared orgasms."

"So it's true!" Nora exclaimed.

"Yes, but I can only attest to the fact that she let him touch her with his fingers. Nothing more. Also, it could have been a one-time event, for all I know."

So he finger fucked her! "If she let him touch her once, she let him do it again, and she let him do more than just diddle her, Pops. Count on it." And if he fucked her while out of his body, neither Carol nor David would resist doing the same while he was in his body, Nora decided.

Joe shrugged in the dark, a gesture Nora didn't notice. "Probably," he admitted. "You never answered my question, Nora. You turned it back on me. How does scenario number one make you feel?"

"Numb," Nora said. "The whole concept makes me feel numb. It's like I'm unable to react."

"That's a copout. Answer the question!"

She didn't speak for a few seconds while she gathered her courage. "To start with, I don't believe for a second that scenario number one is valid. I believe David and Carol graduated from psychic sex years ago, and I suspect they're still involved sexually, but for the sake of argument, let's say scenario one is valid." She hesitated, wondering how honest she should be, not only with her father but also with herself.

"I feel conflicted, Pops. I know I should feel repulsed, but I don't. My feelings about this scenario get mixed up with my feelings about you and me when I was a teenager. If I condemn Carol and David, I'll need to do the same to myself." She laughed nervously. "Like Jimmy Carter said, I lusted in my heart for you when I was a teenager, Pops." Still do! "I was your precious daughter, the light in your eyes, the sunshine on your face, and you loved me more than I deserved. What's more, your love was pure. You were loyal and patient, the food on my plate, the roof over my head and the clothes on my back. You were mostly wise, mostly right, handsome, dashing, my mentor, always entertaining, so sweet, so dear, so near, and my favorite fantasy when I touched myself."

There, I've said it, she thought, but she didn't want her father to comment about her incestuous fantasies, not yet, so she hurried on. "If thoughts are psychic, I've had psychic sex with you more times than I can count. I teased you, enticed you, because I wanted you to touch me like David touched Carol. I wanted you to touch me, and more, especially after I discovered how much I enjoyed sex. If you'd faltered, stumbled and lost your daddy hat just once, I'd have let you do whatever you wished with me and felt little or no guilt afterwards. But in your wisdom, you resisted what I so obviously offered and wanted. You remained pure, and I..."

"Not so pure," Joe said, interrupting her. "We both know tonight isn't the first time I've watched you with a man, and back then, my thoughts about you were no more pure than yours about me." He paused and took a deep, cleansing breath. He needed to clear his mind and control his arousal. His daughter's words had excited him, aroused him even more than watching her with David earlier.

She had wanted him, wanted him as much as he had wanted her, but he wasn't overly surprised by her admission. Her confession only provided corroboration because he'd sensed she'd wanted him a number of times when she was younger, times he'd reluctantly backed away from her, just like he was doing at the moment.

"To summarize," Joe said, "like me, scenario number one turns you on because it reminds you of your feelings for me when you were a teenager, but you're conflicted, mostly because you think you should feel revulsion about the incestuous nature of the relationship. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Let's move on to scenario number two, which I'll define as David and his mother having sex not only while he was a ghost but also while he was in his body, but again let's limit the time frame to David's teenage years. How do you feel about scenario number two?"

"How do you feel about it?"

He groaned audibly.

"You're right, I'm not being fair," Nora said. "To my mind, there's no difference between the two scenarios."

"Really? I don't feel the same about the two. It's... I don't know. For some reason, psychic sex is more acceptable to me. It's not quite real, I guess. It's difficult to explain."

"I've experienced psychic sex with David. I assure you, Pops, it's more than not quite real; it's very real. Let me define scenario number three. David not only had sex with his mother but also with his sister when he was a teenager - both psychic sex and otherwise. If this happened, Carol knew about it, even condoned it, perhaps even joined them as a participant. Now how do you feel?"

Joe gulped. "Darla, too?"

"Why not? In fact, David and Darla could be the pair that breached the incest barrier first. Who did what to whom first doesn't matter, though. It's a possible scenario, one as valid as the first two, especially considering Carol's bisexuality. And don't forget Darla's getting-even method. She made David strip while she looked him over. They were teenagers at the time. Think back to your teenage years. Would such an event turn you off or on?"

"Judas! Do you honestly think mother, daughter and son all climbed between the sheets together?"

"It's certainly a possible scenario, an even likely scenario. There's more. I believe Carol and David are still sexually active. They might live in different houses, but the arrangement of the estate indicates they live together, Pops. David uses Carol's hot tub. She uses his swimming pool and gym. She cooks for him and does his laundry. Let's call this scenario four. Scenario five involves David and Darla without Carol's participation and stipulates David is still sexually active with his sister. Pull Carol into the current-day Darla and David scenario, and we have number six. My guess, and it's only a guess, is scenario three and four define the past and current situation. Darla appears happily married, and being the mother of a baby boy, I don't see her involved anymore. Scenario number one was acceptable to you, but from your reaction, I'm guessing number two wasn't as acceptable. When does the Stanley family sexual saga become completely unacceptable, so much so that you cut and run?"

"The sixty-four thousand dollar question," he said with a shake of his head. "I don't have any sixty-four thousand dollar answers. I love her, peanut, so I'm not what you'd call a disinterested judge or jury. I know the past is the past, mine as well as hers, and her past doesn't matter to me, even if it included an incestuous relationship with her son or daughter or both. We haven't discussed a future together, but I think we will sometime soon. The future counts. The future matters to me, as I'm sure it will to Carol, and if we decide to share the future together, we'll both need to talk about a lot of things, sexual fidelity being only one of many issues."

"Are you saying you'll accept Carol's incestuous past, if one exists, as long as she promises to remain faithful?"

"I said nothing of the kind. I said we'd discuss the issue."

"Surely you're not saying you'll condone a continuing incestuous sexual relationship," Nora said, somewhat aghast.

"I said what I said. Don't try to read more into my words than they expressed. What about you? When do you cut and run?"

"Hah! I'll not be as generous as you. That's for sure."

"How generous is the question?" Joe said as he pulled into a parking stall at Nora's apartment complex.

"If he's still having sex with his mother or sister, I'll run like a rabbit."

David returned to his body. When his eyes opened, Carol asked, "What's the verdict?"

"On the surface, I'd say you have a little more leeway than I."

"Oh, do tell."

He did - everything he heard and a few things he read between the lines. When he finished, Carol remarked, "It appears we're starting out a little better than I'd hoped."

David grinned. "That's my take on the situation."

"I'll say it again, son. If Joe asks me to give you up, I will."

"Of course. The choice is yours, always has been, always will be."

Denise was nervous.

She'd asked for and received David's permission to inform Colleen about his flights of consciousness, but she couldn't decide how to broach the subject. Every approach she considered sounded lame or completely unbelievable. Colleen would think she'd lost her mind, and if through some strange quirk of fate, Colleen actually believed her, Denise feared Colleen's reaction even more.

One thing was certain. There was no better time than the present to tell her. Colleen sat at the window seat, Denise on the aisle. They were in-flight, descending into Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.

Just do it, Denise ordered herself.

"Colleen," Denise said as she placed her hand over her lover's. Colleen's fingers were gripping the armrest between them. She was a white-knuckle flyer. "I have a secret you need to know about." Denise swallowed, and suddenly an idea surfaced that gave her a reasonable approach. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Colleen smiled, and her green eyes twinkled with mischief. "Secrets. Ghosts. Hmm. Ah-hah! I know. Dead people confide in you like that guy on TV. What's the name of the show? I remember. Crossing Over."

Denise groaned inwardly. She should have realized Colleen would turn the serious subject into a light-hearted discussion. "No, although my ghost talks to me, and he isn't dead. He takes what he calls flights of consciousness and visits me from time to time, leaving his body wherever it is during his visit."

"Interesting. Different." Colleen squeezed Denise's hand affectionately. "You surprise me, Denise. You're more imaginative than I suspected."

Colleen's comment gave Denise an opening, a way to tell all with Colleen's cooperation. With a sly smile, Denise said, "Thank you, but we both know you have the rich imagination, not me. I need your help. Let's explore this scenario together."

"Let's. Sounds fun. So I don't wander too far in the wrong direction, first give me a few more facts you've already developed about this fantasy of yours."

Perfect. "Okay. I see his ability to leave his body and visit other consciousnesses - mine, yours, others - developing when he was a teenager, and over the years he worked hard to improve the quality of his flights."

Colleen looked confused. "I don't understand."

"The first time he left his body, the only sense of the five senses he took with him was sight, and even sight was fuzzy, out of focus."

"Ah, I see. So over the years, he learned how to experience his five senses as if he were still in his body. A stretch, but what the hey? That's what imaginations do."

When the wheels of the aircraft touched down in Phoenix, Denise had described David's flights of consciousness completely, and she'd accomplished the task in layman's terms with Colleen's full cooperation. Although proud of herself, Denise still feared Colleen's reaction when David demonstrated the truth behind the fantasy.

They gathered their luggage and rented a car. A half-hour later, Carol greeted them at the front door of her home. After Denise and Colleen unpacked and freshened up, they joined Carol in the kitchen, where she was preparing the evening meal.

Carol pushed a casserole dish into the oven, straightened her back and said to Colleen, "Denise tells me you're a vegetarian but not a vegan, so I'm making a meatless lasagna for dinner."

"Marvelous," Colleen replied with a bright smile, "but I'd prefer you didn't go our of your way to alter your eating habits while we're visiting. Just cook what you'd normally cook. If you'll just add a few more fruits and vegetables than normal, I'll get by."

"Nonsense," Carol said. "A few meatless meals won't hurt me. David, either. He'll be joining us for dinner."

Denise had informed Colleen that Carol was one of Denise's ex-lovers, but at Carol and David's request, Denise hadn't exposed the mother/son sexual relationship.