Free Birds in the Bayou

RYAN

“If you’re a man in America, and you have a great divorce lawyer, you get the kids every other week. If you have a decent divorce lawyer, you get them on the weekends. If you have a bad divorce lawyer, you get them a week of every month. If you have my divorce lawyer, you get them for one month every year before school starts, and no contact until then. You know, I sympathize with women activists in this country, I really do. It makes no sense that half the population had to claw through hundreds of years of bullshit just to finally be treated like a proper human. But if you ask one of these militant feminists -who, by the way, I usually agree with-, if you ask one of these feminists about how bad a man in America gets fucked by the divorce courts, they don’t have an answer for you. You know, if you spend enough time being the victim, I guess it’s hard to recognize when you’re victimizing someone. Or maybe I was just always a victim. A victim of my own shit decisions and weakness.”

Dave withdrew the glass of whisky he was about to serve me. “Would this be one of those shit decisions, Ryan?” He asked me.

“Why do you say that?”

He pointed to the clock behind the bar. “It’s nine in the morning.”

“It’s also a Saturday.”

“Every day’s been a Saturday since you got laid off, and you’ve spent every one of them right on that stool.” He opened the register for effect, “Is your entire severance package in here?”

“So what if it is?” I snapped. “The kids are eighteen, so no more child support payments. I’m a free man!”

“You sound overjoyed.”

I glowered at him. “Just gimme the damn drink, Dave.”

“Look Ryan, I’ve been in this shithole long enough to know when a man’s drinking to get the day started. If you want to become an alcoholic, then go full-tilt and start drinking alone in your goddamn whitie-tighties, but I’m not gonna stand here and watch you drown day after day knowing I poured you the first glass.” He pulled the glass away, “From now on, you’re money’s no good here until after noon.”

“Ah, piss off. You ain’t my goddamn priest.” I grumbled, getting off the stool.

“But I am your goddamn friend.” He crossed his arms, “You say you never gave a shit about that job at the mill, but you’ve been nothing but miserable since they canned you.”

I looked to my left, making sure that the bar was empty. Then I looked at Dave, and sighed. “It ain’t the job, Dave. I never gave a shit about that job, and I still don’t. It’s…” I twirled my hand, searching for the words, “My girls are grown now, and I’ve seen them a grand total of a year since they were five. They’re headed off to school on the other side of the country, and…” I chewed on my lip, “I had prospects, you know? After the divorce, I could’ve gotten ten different jobs –real jobs- in Phoenix, but I stayed here, because this is where my girls were. I put my whole life in a goddamn holding pattern for twelve years, and now it’s over!”

I yelled the last words to cover up the sob in my throat. They echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the implacable stare of Dave Farmstead. “The holding pattern, or your life?” He asked.

I shrugged. “Somewhere down the line, the holding pattern became my life. I don’t know, man; you keep waiting for the future, then you realize it’s behind you, it happened, and it wasn’t nothing like it was supposed to be.”

Dave looked at the glass of whiskey he’d pulled from me. “You’re daughters are coming today, ain’t they?”

“Yeah.” I breathed it out like a confession.

“So you’ve got one month of future ahead of you.” He took the glass, and carefully poured it back into the bottle, “Enjoy it.”

KELSEY

Mom and Daniel were arguing in the front seats of the Escalade. They always were these days. It was one of the reasons Josie and I left the more comfortable middle seat empty, and sat in the back instead.

“You might as well pay up now.” I sniggered at my twin sister.

“He won’t say it.” Josie said, listening carefully.

“Oh, he’s getting there.” I grinned, “It’s right on the tip of his tongue.”

“He won’t say it.”

“…while I work my ass off every damn day, and what are you doing, huh? Collecting checks from how many men?” Came Daniel’s voice from the driver’s seat.

“Oooo, we’re so close!” I giggled.

“He won’t say it.” Josie narrowed her blue eyes, “He doesn’t have the balls.”

“…and where are you when I call, Daniel?” Mom spat, “On conference again? That’s what Shelly says, but of course, Shelly always seems to be out of breath when I call her! Such a rigorous job it must be, being your secretary!”

“Now you listen to me, you vindictive cunt!”

“Bingo!” I cackled, though the exclamation was drowned out by Mom’s wrathful shrieks.

Josie groaned. “Do I have to pay you now?”

I undid my safety buckle, and rotated on the leather seat. I eyed Josie with a devious smile as I opened my legs, and rolled up my skirt. Yes, Mother’s propensity for vitriolic arguments was one of the reasons why her daughters sat in the very back during long road trips, but it was far from the main reason.

It started ten months ago. I’d awoken one night to the sound of Josie shifting noisily on the bunk above me. Curious, I’d climbed the ladder, and peaked over the edge.

“Wha’cha doing?” I whispered.

Josie’s blonde head poked out from the covers, her big blue eyes narrowed in irritation. “Flicking the bean, what does it sound like?”

“Underneath the covers?” I queried with a confused smile, “Mom’s out drinking again; who are you worried will catch you? Aren’t you getting hot in there?”

“Go away, Kelsey!”

“What video are you watching?”

“A James Dean submission video, now go away!”

I smiled crookedly. “That, my dearest sister, was a lie. You know we can’t lie to each other, and we never keep secrets, so why don’t you tell me what you’re really watching, or I’ll check the web activity log on the router and find out for myself.”

She bit her lip. “You promise you won’t make fun of me?”

“I’ll only make fun of you a little.”

“You promise you won’t be mad?”

“Why would I be mad at what you flick it to?” I laughed, climbing onto her bed. I pulled away her covers, revealing a body that was nearly identical to my own. She was slender and long-limbed, her shoulders narrow and delicate, and though her breasts were modest, they were pretty. Years of gymnastics had toned her silken belly with soft shadows of muscle, and had rounded her glutes into alluring domes that ornamented her wide hips. I’d seen her naked thousands of times, and she’d seen me just the same, and not once in all that time had either of us known shame because of it. So when Josie covered her breasts with her forearm and looked away with blushing cheeks, I became concerned.

“Alright, what the hell are you watching that caused all this…” I trailed off when I read the title. Blonde Teen Sisters Fuck While Mom’s Away.

I blinked. I blinked again. I looked at Josie, whose eyes were brimming, whose lip was trembling. If she had tried to play if off as just a kink, I would’ve given her nothing more than a gentle teasing. Shit, I’d watched incest porn simply because it established the barest amount of plot, and sprinkled just the right amount of guilt into the sex to get my motor running. But Josie wasn’t just mildly embarrassed; Josie was mortified.

“How long?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” she sniffled, “I guess I always… you know, we’ve been with each other since the beginning, and you know… I thought we’d always be together, and you know, I just… when we started growing up, I always noticed how pretty you were, and… and…” She broke into a cry, curling in on herself, her diaphragm wracked with sobs. “Oh my god Kelsey, I’m so sorry!”

I pulled her into my arms, running my fingers through her hair, comforting her with the gentle rock of my hips. It was a maternal embrace that we’d needed to give to each other, because we’d never gotten it from who we were supposed to. “It’s OK, it’s OK.” I murmured into her ear over and over. Her breathing eased, and the rigid ball she’d contorted herself into relaxed.

“This changes everything between us, doesn’t it?” She hissed into my arm.

“Only if we let it.” I answered, watching the ‘teenagers’ (give me a break) slithering together on Josie’s iPad. One had the other pinned down by the shoulders, and was kissing her like a lioness feasting upon downed prey, undulating her body with the liquidity of a serpent. I’d often wondered how pornstars could do it; take that leap, become that woman, make the decision to not only do such things, but to do them without shame in front of millions of people. I’d never even kissed a boy up to that point, though it wasn’t for lack of suitors. I just couldn’t take that leap. I couldn’t take any leap without Josie. We were two halves of a whole, and grew together like we were conjoined. But… we’d always known there would be a time when we’d have to separate, right? When one of us took the leap that the other could not, and flew away from the nest once and for good? Does it have to be that way?

“Which one of them is me?” I whispered to Josie.

“The one on top.” She sniffled, “You always were the braver one.”

I closed my eyes, and let out a slow breath through my nose. “You’re going to have to be the braver one tonight, Josie.”

She raised her head from my chest, and turned around to look up at me. Her straight platinum hair shown nearly blue in the moonlight, her pale flesh nearly white, and the smattering of freckles across her high cheeks was nearly mauve. Her azure eyes shown like sapphires in the night, staring into me, a question in their depths, a plea, a fear. Her pale lips parted to sound what lay within her eyes, but instead, her little tongue slipped out to moisten them. She moved up me, and I stayed on my elbows, frozen in my fear of the moment, wondering if I should leap off the top bunk, smack my head on the floor, and claim amnesia about this whole ordeal. She straddled me about the waist, and loomed over my face, her hair falling in a silver curtain to isolate us from the world. Just she and I, and her body was pressing against mine, and her hands were drawing unsure fingers up my side, sliding beneath my t-shirt, moving gently up my ribs.

“Kelsey…” She whispered, her brows knitted together, unsure of what she was doing, afraid of what it might mean, but compelled to continue by something she didn’t fully understand. I saw all this in that gaze, for I knew her like I knew myself. “I can’t do it unless I know you want it.” She said, “We have to take this dive together.”

I knew then, teetering on the vertex of such a perfect crisis, that this moment would decide everything, but the decision wasn’t mine to make. I couldn’t want something that I did not, no matter how much I wished it. And I wanted with all my heart to not want this. I wanted to pretend in that moment, that I was who I’d always thought I was, that my nature couldn’t be so corrupted by such a heinous perversion, but I was too much like my sister to deny it; to deny the growing ache between my legs, the saturation of desire wetting my thighs, the knowledge that I wasn’t just aroused because I loved my sister, but because what we were about to do was so wrong. That a concoction of terrible parenting and sibling codependence had manifested such a darkness within me, and that I had suppressed it for so long that the lie had become truth in my mind, a denial that had become blindness. And now here, with her atop me, with her fingers moving so gently to cup my breasts beneath my shirt, with her lush lips expiring sweet breath into my nostrils, with her eyes staring into me, knowing me so well that words did not need to be spoken, I could not lie anymore.

“I want it.” I whispered. She broke into a tearful smile, and lowered her lips to mine. We learned things that night. We learned how to kiss through trial and error, through the painful clicking of teeth, the smiles that broke the contact of our lips, and the slithering motions of our tongue within each other’s mouths, tasting the ruination of our innocence as the awkwardness ebbed from us, and the unbridled desire took hold. Then we were devouring each other’s mouths, our lips sucking with a gluttony of lust, our tongues dancing in ardent combat, our noses inhaling sharply as our hands found each other’s breasts, and our fingers found each other’s nipples. Josie was the brave one that night. She was the one who finally broke the kiss, and licked her way down my body. I moaned with my hands covering my mouth, ashamed of the lecherous noises that came unbidden from my chest, each one compelled by the tingle her lips brought when she sucked both my nipples, then traced a path of saliva down to my navel, and past it.

“Josie!” I cried, and though it was a cry of alarm, it wasn’t a demand for her to stop. She planted delicate kisses along my waistband, then hooked her fingers beneath it, and pulled my panties down. I whimpered. The heat of her breath was on my netherlips, whispering her desire into my virgin slit. She looked up at me with those blue eyes, now void of indecision, now predatory and wicked. They smiled at me as her curious little tongue dipped into the bottom of my crease, and slipped through me. I gasped. Her wet tongue slid into the ovule of my flower, and the petals bloomed in arousal, outturning and leaking to splay my folds for her, to present my virgin sex so that she could taste it. She inhaled my feminine scent, and her eyes rolled indulgently, the pupils dilating as though my chaste pussy was a narcotic. Her face pressed into me, her nose upending the bottom of my clit, her tongue invading me, searching for my weak spot. Finding it. I cried out. She grinned open mouthed at me, her tongue halfway inside, a portrait of my violation. She curled her tongue upward, and began her work.

“Oh my god!” I cried, wringing my hands in my t-shirt, my hips shifting on their own accord, my belly flexing with pleasured contractions. Josie moaned a laugh into my depths, her eyes alight, her hands pressing against my thighs, compelling them to spread. They did, splaying wide to give her unfettered access to my sex, and she feasted upon it, her tongue relentlessly moving across that spot within me, rubbing, flicking, dancing in pattern until she found the combination that would unlock me. I threw back my head and moaned an escalating tenor, my hands leaving the protection of my shirt to find my twin sister’s head, to surrender to this obscene desire, and become who I really was. I pulled her into me, biting my lip as she rose with the elevation of my pelvis, compelled by the arch of my back that jutted my chest forth, sliding my shirt off my breasts to pool about my neck. My nipples ached pleasantly from when she’d sucked them, standing erect and swollen from my alabaster flesh. She withdrew from me with a smack of her lips, leaving me teeming for her touch, mewling like a whore for her tongue.

“Please!” I begged.

“Patience, Kelsey.” She grinned, her lips shining with my lust, “I want to know all your little secrets.” Her tongue tickled my hood, coercing the pearl therein to swell, aching and pulsating with sensation. She toyed with it, pressing gently and rubbing, gauging my reaction with curious blue eyes. I whimpered for her, nodding my approval, pressing my heels into the bedding. She paused, then drew her finger through me, the notch of her knuckle gently spreading my tight curtains, singing across the nerves of my entrance. She made it to the bottom, then with a devious smile, she traversed my taint, and rested the tip of her finger against my anus. My breath caught. Her smile widened. “You’ve played with this before, haven’t you?”

“Yes!” I moaned.

Her finger pressed harder, threatening to break through my resistance, my pelvic floor bowing inward with tension, getting tighter, and tighter. “Me too,” her voice was a covetous breath, “we’re really so much alike.” I could feel my aperture dilating, the sphincter slowly uncoiling. Her eyes were wild as she stared rapturously at my defilement.

“This is where you really like it, isn’t it?” She whispered.

“Yes!” I whimpered.

“Even more than your pussy?”

“Yes!”

“I guess we’re a little different after all.” Her eyes flashed to mine. “Beg for it!” She hissed, “Tell me you want me to finger-fuck your slutty virgin asshole!” She twisted her finger, and I whined in need. “Tell me you’re a depraved little whore who wants her own sister!”

“I love you!” I cried.

Her malevolent smile softened. “You’re really terrible at dirty-talk, Sis.” She lowered her mouth back to my depths, “And I love you too.”

Her finger pushed inside. I groaned in satisfaction, my entire being hinging on the point of her exploratory digit it as it navigated my filth, gently stretching my rim, singing through the smooth bore of my sinful hole. Her mouth came down on me once more, and she found my spot, working it with practiced, confident patterns. Her finger withdrew with a pop, then pushed in again, making me feel the full penetration anew. She kept doing it, opening me and letting me close before forcing through the nerve-swathed center once again, plunging into my heinous depths, ravaging the sensory nodes within that were never meant to know such pleasure! I undulated in a dance of depravity, my motions becoming more impassioned, my belly flexing and flattening as though I could expel the pleasure that was rising within me. Oh god, I couldn’t handle it! She tortured my spot without mercy until I knew the texture of her tongue by memory, and the sensations within were but a blur of chaos, blending together, churning within my depths and rising, rising, rising to the precipice, and I was calling her name with a broken voice, “Josie! Josie! Josie!” My pitch was nearly manic, I was pulling her into me, feeling her consuming muzzle become wet with my release as the pressure within me suddenly ballooned, firing up my spine to burn through the tips of my fingers and toes, flashing through my synapses to make my mind numb. I choked on my orgasm, unable to give voice to anything but a breathless croak, my entire body bowing upward like a drawstring, stretching with the tension that wound, and wound, and wound within me, oh god, oh god, oh Josie! The feeling burst, and I collapsed, panting to catch my breath, quivering with the aftershocks of my climax.

Josie was there, licking what I’d shot out of me, sucking the finger that had just been in my ass, moaning as though it tasted like the finest delicacy. She suddenly didn’t seem the dominant lover, but expressed in her eyes, a sweet vulnerability, a request, a hopeful invitation. I grinned at her, and licked my lips.

Ten minutes later, she was panting beneath me, her breasts and belly covered in thin scratches and red handprints, her makeup smeared, her legs splayed wide, both her holes yawning and swollen. I licked my fingers clean, and smirked down at her.

“You were saying something about my dirty-talk?”

“You’ve got a nasty mouth on you.” She smiled, her eyes drunk with satisfaction, “And an even worse temper. That felt vindictive.”

“I was just doing what felt natural.” I ran my fingers up her belly, “As were you, my submissive sister. I didn’t know you could scream like that.”

“Neither did I.” She crinkled her nose at me, “But don’t you start acting like my mistress, not when I had you begging with just my mouth.”

“That was just my inexperience.” I loomed over her, and grinned, “Now you’re my little bitch.”

She slapped me hard across the face, and my head whipped to the side, my hair flailing, a yelp shooting from my lips. “Ow, fuck!” I exclaimed, rubbing my cheek.

“Well?” She asked, her brows raised, “Did you like it?”

I noticed how my rubbing hand had turned to a trailing caress to savor the sting. I nodded, and sighed. “Goddamn it, I really did. Did you like hitting me?”

She inclined her head thoughtfully. “It was fun, but I didn’t get a thrill out of it.”

“Not like I do, huh?” I mused, pinching and twisting her nipple, enjoying the sound of her shuddering breath, the pleading glint in her blue eyes. “I really like this.” I whispered.

“So do I.” She moaned, her brows knitting.

“Sometimes, I won’t be very nice to you,” I said, “and at those times, I want you to call me ‘Domina.’”

“Domina?”

“It’s what Roman slaves called their mistresses.” I leaned in, “And I’m going to call you, ‘Pet.’”

“Oh…” Josie groaned, closing her eyes and licking her lips, “I like that very, very much.”

“We’re kind of kinky, huh?” I laughed breathily, “I mean, normal girls -and I know normal girls don’t fuck their sisters-, but besides that, normal girls aren’t into this weird shit right away, right?”

“We’re far from normal. We always were.”

“We’ve always been freaks, just not in the sheets; not until now.” I giggled, “We just didn’t know how bad it was. We still don’t.”

“I guess we have a lot to learn about ourselves.” She whispered, opening her legs for me.

I position myself between them, interlocking our thighs, pushing our slits together. “Well then, we better get started.”

Over the next ten months we explored each other to the fullest, then ventured out to explore other people. We held hands as we laid on our backs, lurching on the bed as the men we’d chosen took our hetero virginity. We kissed each other as we were bent over the back of a chair, our legs straddling the leather arms, our bare cheeks spread wide so that our anuses could be violated. We winked at each other from across the room at the BDSM club, our bodies hogtied in rough rope, every one of our holes filled with men. Needless to say, we escalated things quickly. I supposed a psychologist would label us ‘nymphomaniacs,’ though even as we delved deeper into deviancy, it was never purely for our own indulgence. We did it for each other. When I was swinging from the ceiling with my heels bound to my wrists, screaming around the cock ravaging my throat as two more grinded against the membrane that divided my holes, I was watching her succumb to the same violation, and what made me come wasn’t the fervent pumping of men into my orifices, though that was ecstatic. No, it was the look in her eyes; that animalistic, pure, mindless pleasure staring back at me, and knowing that what was being done to her was being done to me, that the lecherous bend of her body, the corruption brimming on her face, the yawning holes between her cheeks were all the same for me, and the pleasure we felt was the same too. We were being fucked by a room full of strangers, but we were making love to only each other.

We graduated high school later that year. We’d both committed to Puget Sound, which was geographically as far as we could get from our mother in Tampa Bay. Life was looking bright, and with each other, it felt like there was nothing we couldn’t do. There was just one thing that held us back, an anchor that tugged our hearts back into Florida: Dad. Every year since we were five, Josie and I had spent August with our Dad at his lonely shack in the panhandle. It was quiet, humid, and hot as all hell there, but it was by far the best month of every year. And this would be the last. We’d always worked hard to make Dad a present to hold him over emotionally until we saw him again. One year, it was a collage of construction-paper flowers. Another, it was a movie we’d made on our laptop, featuring us fighting stuffed animals in a cardboard space ship. Last year, it was a vase we’d spent weeks making in pottery class.

“What should we get Dad this year?” Josie had asked me a month ago.

“Shit, I don’t know.” I sighed, “What do adults give their parents? A nice card?”

“Dads love beer, right? I can call up Thomas and have him buy us some lagers or something.”

“You think Dad would be cool with that?” I raised a brow, “I know he’d pretend to be, but he’d probably worry about where we got it.”

She gave me a frank look, spinning in her office chair away from her laptop. “I’m sure Dad drank in high school, Kelsey. It wouldn’t be some great mystery to him.”

“Yeah, but every time we see him, we’re a year older. He still thinks of us as the awkward nerds we were when we were seventeen, and now…” I gestured to the clothes were wearing, the tight skirt and tanks that exposed our midriffs. “If we’re too different, it’ll make him feel like he missed everything, and you know that’s his worst fear.”

“Yeah.” Josie sighed, looking up at the picture of Dad. She chewed on her lip, and typed on her keyboard. A second later, sound blared from her speakers, the slap of flesh on flesh, the moans of a woman being given what she deserves. I pedaled my feet against the floor, rolling my office chair across the room to sit beside her. Without even thinking about it, we slipped our hands into each other’s pants, and slid our fingers where they belonged.

“No Johnny Sins this time, huh?” I laughed breathily, “You done with your bald guy fetish?”

“I’m just shelving it for now.” She smirked, her face flushing with arousal.

I watched the middle-aged man railing into Dakota Skye, marveling at the ergonomics of the ordeal. How someone so small could take something so deep was truly a miracle of physiology. “I don’t recognize the dick; who is he?”

“I’m not sure what his name is.” Josie mused, expiring pleasured gasps between her words. She scrolled down to the summary, and that was when I saw the title. Dad Fucks Teenage (not) Step-Daughter. I looked at Josie, and she looked at me, and both our smiles curved wickedly.

“That’s it.” I whispered to Josie in the backseat of the Escalade as Mom and Daniel set the stage for her sixth divorce, “Get that pussy nice and wet for Daddy.”

RYAN

The black Escalade stopped on the dirt road in front of my porch. I was tempted to get off my chair and talk shop with the driver of such a fine automobile, when I saw that the driver was rather occupied screaming at the passenger. The passenger, who was a woman of many last names. Bridget Anderson was her maiden name, then Bridget Brees when she married me, then Bridget Rivers, then Bridget Cuddyer, then Bridget Young, then Bridget Hernandez, and finally, Bridget Dickerson. That made poor Daniel Dickerson the driver of the fine automobile, though I suspected Bridget would soon own it, along with half of Daniel’s shit before the year was out. Hell, three more and we could field a baseball team of Bridget’s ex-husbands. Actually, we should probably form a support group. I thought with a bitter laugh.

“Hey, Daniel!” I called from the porch, “Hope the ride here wasn’t too bumpy!” He ignored me, of course. I didn’t care. My eyes were fixed on the rear door of the Cadillac, my heart beating a little faster than normal, my mouth a little drier than it should be. I always got nervous before I saw them. Was this the year they’d finally realize what a useless sack of shit I was, and never talk to me again? I wrung my hands, and tapped my foot. The back door opened on the other side of the car. I saw the top of one blonde head, then the other. The door slammed shut, and Daniel slammed on the accelerator, apparently taking his anger out on the transmission. When the dust settled, I was staring at two blonde swimsuit models. I rubbed my eyes just to make sure. Gone were the baggy athletic shorts and band t-shirts of yesteryear; now it was crop-tops and skirts that were a summer’s breeze from being indecent exposure. My little girls had grown up; I guessed it was bound to happen eventually.

“Hey, you angels lost?” I called, “You’re in Heaven’s Gate, Calhoun County. I do believe the real heaven’s gate is somewhere in Fort Lauderdale, or maybe that’s just God’s waiting room.”

“You’re still so hilarious!” Josie called from across the road.

“Is it open-mic night in the swamp?” Kelsey jeered.

“It is, actually, but even the crickets don’t chirp after my punchlines.” I smiled, “Did ya’ll develop an allergy to clothing over the winter? You seem to have an aversion to it.”

“We’re on summer vacation, Dad.” Josie grinned behind her aviator sunglasses.

“We need to get some tan-lines before going off to college.” Kelsey said, displaying a pale thigh that would never in a million years be anything darker than Swedish ivory.

“Only thing you’ll get wearing that getup is a venereal disease.” I snorted, “Ya’ll better get in here before paying customers arrive.”

“Oh, Dad!” Josie and Kelsey laughed in unison, and came sprinting across the lawn. There were my girls, those jubilant smiles on their faces, that mischievous excitement sparkling in their blue eyes. I threw out my arms, and took them into me, squeezing them like I could juice the love from their bodies. They embraced me with the same desperate love, eleven months of separation washing away in just a second.

JOSIE

Dad was on the wrong side of forty, but he’d aged well. At least, he’d aged well up until this point. It seemed the last year had been rough for him. His brown hair was thinning and greying, and though his face was still ruggedly handsome, it now hung from his cheekbones with a worn-out look to it. His eyes were still sharp and blue, but were now cornered with wrinkles that were more crow’s feet than smile lines. He’d always stood tall despite his five-eight frame, but now his posture was slightly bent, his well-muscled shoulders rolled forward instead of thrown back to display his broad chest. Despite all this, seeing him from my new perspective was like seeing him anew, and as I ran my eyes up his body, I felt a tingle between the press of my thighs, and I knew that my desire had not been a mere perversion of the moment. I could tell just by the way Kelsey was standing as she watched him, that she felt the same. Still, we had our work cut out for us.

Dad’s shack was always a bachelor’s pad, but I’d never seen it in such a mess. Beer cans littered the corners, clothes were strewn about, and the dishes were stacked in precarious ceramic towers about the sink. Everything looked to be in a state of disrepair, and cobwebs hung from the rafters like streamers. I shared a glance with Kelsey as Dad tossed garbage off the pullout couch. Something was wrong here.

“I know, I know,” Dad said, reading our minds, “the place could use a woman’s touch.”

“So could you.” Kelsey said.

“Nah, I’m done with all that. Finally gave up on the dating scene and decided to try living with just me.”

I picked up a bottle of lotion from beside the couch. “I see you’ve been getting along with yourself splendidly.”

Kelsey sniggered. “I thought your hands felt remarkably soft.”

“I’m sure your mother told you I got laid off at the mill,” Dad brushed crumbs off the cushions, “so I’ve had nothing to keep my calluses thick.”

“I think Kelsey was referring to something else.”

“Specifically, your nights of passion with Lefty and Righty.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “You’re both very funny. This might surprise you, but men use lotion for more than just their pricks.”

“Is that so?” I extended my foot toward the couch, and stepped on a towel whose corner had been peeking from beneath it.

“Don’t pull that out.” Dad said.

I grinned. “Why? Because it’s as stiff as a board? Did I just find your girlfriend?”

“Do Lefty and Righty know about her?” Kelsey chimed in.

“How many of our dead brothers and sisters are on this towel, you murderer?!”

“Jesus!” Dad made a face. “No, it’s covered in bug repellent! You lay a spiked towel under your bed to keep the Brown Recluses away.” He shook his head, “I forgot how warped you two were.”

“And we’ve only gotten worse.” I giggled.

Dad opened the linen cabinet, and tossed some sheets onto the couch. “There, that should keep you guys situated for a while.” He grunted, stretched, scratched the paunch-belly he was growing, and smacked his lips. “Hey, you guys wanna shoot some shit?” He asked, then promptly exited the backdoor.

Kelsey exchanged eyes with me. “Dad’s… a little different, huh?”

“It’s not just me is it? I thought it might be because we changed so much, but he’s… well, you’re right, he’s different.”

She chewed on her lip, her perfectly-white teeth indenting the supple pink flesh. “How should we go about doing this? There’s not really a handbook out there on how to seduce your own father.”

“He’s still just a man.” I touched her lip with my thumb, unable to resist it, “And we have a perfect record against the weaker sex.”

She flashed her dangerous blue eyes at me. “Same tactic as always then? I’ll be the lead, and you’ll be the southpaw.”

“The one-two combination that put Tampa Bay on its knees; he doesn’t stand a chance.” I smiled, outlining her perfect mouth, “Now kiss me, you magnificent bitch.”

She pulled me hard against her, and our mouths met, our tongues seeking and wrapping in a practiced slithering dance. I traced her jaw with a trailing finger, smiling as I separated my legs about her leading thigh, rubbing myself against her. We parted with a braid of saliva bridging our mouths, and I twirled it about my finger, and brought it to her parted lips. As she sucked it clean, I brought our brows together, and whispered, “Go get him, Tiger.”

RYAN

I always thought of myself as a “cool” dad. I guessed every divorced father had to be the cool dad, since we couldn’t rightly claim to be the patriarch. It was a fine line to walk, being both a friend and a gentle teacher while maintaining the semblance of authority. It meant that if I wanted to say something about their life choices, then I couldn’t say anything about their music choices, media choices or clothing choices. Up until today, I never thought I’d feel the need to. I glanced up at my twin daughters, opened my mouth, then sighed, and closed it. That ship had sailed years ago. Yes, they were women now. They were definitely women. I undid the lock on the safe, and pulled out the lever-action thirty-thirty.

“Put on your ear protection, ladies.”

“You’re into guns now?” Kelsey laughed incredulously, staring out at the dozens of targets I’d set up in the back yard.

“You’re a bleeding-heart liberal.” Josie said, “Didn’t you once call guns ‘dangerous toys for men who never grew up?’”

“Well, I guess I got converted.” I chuckled, loading the gun, “You can’t go ten minutes out here without hearing one of the neighbors shoot their entire paycheck into the woods. You remember Fred Benson by the creek?”

“You mean the most fabulous man in the panhandle?” Kelsey smiled, making an affected wave.

“That’s him. Well, I went over to his house sometime in April, and we got to the topic of guns, and I figured he of all people would be sympathetic to my opinion. You know what he said? ‘Ryan, I’d rather be a flag-waving faggot than let those New York commie fucks tell me I can’t put led into the sycamore stump.’ He took me out back and threw a rifle in my hands, and well, I’ll be damned, it’s fun!”

“So you broke a steadfast principle of yours because it was… fun.” Josie smirked, exchanging a look with Kelsey as she put on her ear protection.

“How easily he succumbed to the forbidden temptation.” Kelsey smirked back, muffing her own ears.

“You can’t fight your surroundings.” I said, aiming down the sites, “A man’s gotta adapt to his environment. I know a good father would tell you, ‘stick to your principles no matter what,’ but well…” I pulled the trigger and cocked the lever in quick succession, sending five rounds down range in a barrage of explosions, “…your Daddy’s a bad, bad man.”

“Who just missed every fucking shot.” Josie tittered.

“What a bad man you are.” Kelsey laughed.

“You think you can do better, little cowgirl?”

She stood up, took my Stenson hat from my head, and placed it on her own, casting her face in the shadow of the brim, but her blue eyes still sparkled. “I reckon I can, little cowboy.” She smirked.

JOSIE

It was always a treat to watch Kelsey work. Whereas I played the ditsy party girl, she played the smooth seductress, gently breaking down are victims until they were putty in her hands. She had her platinum hair braided in twin ponytails, a do that might’ve been cute on a little girl, but was just southern-belle-slutty on a woman. She knew exactly what she was doing when she put that hat on. I eased back into my chair, crossed one thigh over the other, and admired the show from behind my aviator glasses.

“Now,” Dad instructed, “first rule is to always keep the business end aimed away from you.”

“So the opposite of what you’re used to, Kelsey.” I laughed.

She smirked over her shoulder at me, and Dad followed her gaze. He twisted his lips, then continued his instruction. “When in doubt, keep the weapon pointed at the ground. You have to always, and I mean always assume there’s one in the chamber ready to blow up in your face.”

“Oh, she always does.” I sniggered.