Dale stared at the envelope on his desk. It was a big one; a big yellow manila envelope without a return address but he knew well enough where it came from. He lifted his face out of his hands and sighed. From his office window he could see the city, the hazy mid-morning of a cold Chicago day. He pulled his arm back in a slow, wide arc and tried to stretch it as best he could.
His body was still sore. After he’d tumbled out that window he’d had to tear off and around his own house, pull on the ratty robe that was stuffed in the hamper on top of the washer in the garage and tell his wife, who had stumbled out of bed thinking she’d heard strange sounds from Katie’s room. He allayed her suspicions and told her he’d been chasing some big animal that had been snooping around their yard-and he might have hurt himself doing it. That last part wasn’t a lie.
Only once his wife had groggily tromped back upstairs did the pain kick in and Dale realized he’d fractured his ankle. He found out later at the hospital that he’d also cracked two ribs, fucked up a rotator cuff and sprained his elbow and seriously bruised his hip, possibly to the bone. His saving graces were in the pile of garbage he’d been meaning to carry out to the curb (for the last week) and the extreme spontaneity of his defenestration. Had he time to think about what he was doing, Dale likely would have seized up and snapped himself in half. Instead he was just coming off the best orgasm he’d received in ten years and flying wasn’t too far from his general mindset.
Of course, that orgasm had come at the cost of finding out what the inside of his daughter felt like.
Dale shuddered again and glared at the manila envelope.
He was in the hospital getting the cast on when Katie’s mother dropped her at the airport. He’d ignored her phone calls. He’d had the cast on for weeks and it had been months since he’d seen his daughter. Of course she called her mother with updates on her courses and the great time she was having at Purdue. But Dale found more excuses to stay and work overtime and miss those infrequent but inevitable calls. He missed talking to his daughter. But then again, he was bewildered by what they had done-or he had done; he wasn’t quite sure who to blame yet. Obviously the blame was his own. He was the girl’s father-he was Katie’s father-and in a moment of improper naughtiness he had let her go too far.
It was a moment of improper naughtiness because Katie had been modeled after her father from the start and her flights of impish fancy had always taken her right to the brink of her father’s patience before he finally pulled her back-testing barriers, always sneaking out or running red lights or stealing his drinks… right up until the moment he took her aside and told her what was what. Then there was no more sneaking out, or traffic tickets or stealing his booze. She always pushed that leeway until she could make him put her in her place. Maybe she did it for the attention, maybe she did it for fun. Dale realized it had always been like that. Why was this time any different?
Because she struck him where he was weakest. Even now he felt it. It was a blank fog that shrouded his brain, that made it nigh impossible to concentrate on the report that was due in two hours, on the grocery list he’d promised Mary he’d take care of. That fog was created by the evaporating mist around the naked body of whatever his cock was craving in the endless midnights he lay awake beside a wife who rarely fucked him and who he’d lost almost any urge to fuck. The body obviously belonged to Katie now. She’d set his internal infidel to a constant state of waking and now not even sleep was safe from the memory of Katie’s eyes as she stared up at him while she sucked the cum out of his cock.
Why did she do it? That was what drove him insane. No, scratch that completely. What drove him insane was how badly he wanted her again. What drove him insane was how fit she was, how carefully and wonderfully she had trained her body, how blessedly she had grown, and how skillfully she knew how to blow him, fuck him, let him…
Dale growled and smacked the envelope off his desk. Standing up, he stared down at his pants. There was his hard on bulging against his fly like it had something to say to him. Why was he made this way? he raged at himself. Why couldn’t he have been a normal man with normal problems, like… He faltered. Like what? What did normal men his age worry about? Their daughters, of course, but not in that way. He sank back into his chair, defeated, and wretched.
And, damn it, horny.
Margaret knocked at his door quickly and let herself inside. She was twenty-two now, he thought, and she’d finally figured out what her bra size was (to his dismay but ultimate relief). She came forward with a sheaf of documents from upstairs and laid them on his desk with a smile. But her expression softened and fell when she saw the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Quickly, Dale composed himself and sat up. “Nothing.” He tried to laugh. It sounded bad. “I’m sorry, Marge, it’s nothing.”
Margaret gave him a kind look and glanced at the manila envelope on the floor. “What happened here?” she asked as she stepped to the middle of the room and bent, carefully at the knees (the slip at the back of her skirt afforded him a brief glimpse of skin). She picked up the envelope and slid it back onto his desk.
He gave her a look that said it wasn’t the time to ask.
In response, Margaret reached behind her head and checked to make sure her hair was in order, then she straightened her blouse. Dale always meant to smile more at Margaret. She was a cute kid and he thought she genuinely cared about him not making an ass of himself at the office.
“How’s the ankle?” she asked, beginning to organize the layers of documents.
“Not bad,” he said. “It’s my shoulder that’s been bugging me, really.”
“Let me see.”
Before he had a chance to wave her away she’d come around his chair and laid into him. He yelped in what he hoped was a brusque, manly way.
“You big baby,” she teased him. Guess not.
Margaret worked her little fingers into the flesh between his shoulder and neck and he had to admit she had the talent. Of course, so did his devious member and he pulled forward out of her grasp before either of his heads got any ideas. “Thanks,” he said, again more strained than he meant.
“The meeting with Ryan is at one and your tickets are in that docket at the bottom of the pile. Do you need a cab to the airport?” Margaret turned in the doorway with her hand on the knob.
“No,” Dale replied. He signed one of the documents absently and pulled the other papers up so that he could see the ticket. “Ryan and I are taking the shuttle over. We, uh-” He looked up. Margaret was waiting calmly in the doorway. He sighed. “Thanks.”
“It’s fine,” she said with a diplomatic smile.
“I mean it,” he said. “I’m not-it’s not a good day for me.”
“Seems like it hasn’t been a good month for you.”
He almost laughed. When she first started as his secretary she hardly spoke a word that wasn’t a direct response to something he’d say. In the two years she’d worked for him the formalities had gradually stripped until she told him directly what was what and what came next on the agenda.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding.
“Who’s the envelope from, by the way?” She raised her eyebrows in the direction of the package.
“Dunno.”
She smirked at him. “Liar.”
She closed the door lightly and he remained frozen until he heard her typing outside again. It was fair for her to say that. This was the third envelope in as many months. The first came to the office directly. The second was sent to his house but he didn’t dare open it there. This one was sent to the office again.
He knew exactly what he’d find inside. He’d tried all morning to ignore it. He realized now that ignoring it was impossible and the sooner he did what he had to do the sooner he could clear the fog from his brain and get back to work.
It was a short business trip, no more than three days, and he wasn’t going far, just to Bloomington. He had his bag packed and ready to go on the chair opposite his desk and he’d already sent the itinerary to his family via email and the numbers they could contact him at as well as the hotel where he was staying. The report that was due in less than two hours was the last real bit of business before he and Ryan were to take off-the meeting was just a brief brainstorming session.
But none of this really mattered as much as the envelope.
His fingers fell upon the yellow envelope and he tore it open. He ripped it lengthwise and out dropped a single, sheer pair of panties. They were almost transparent, like a lace made from blue gossamer. He did know a little something about women’s panties and these were… they weren’t necessarily expensive but they were… suggestive.
He reached out, tentatively, and picked them up off his desk. Like the others they were unwashed with a dark, ripe spot spoiling the fine fabric of the crotch. Unlike the others there was a yellow postit sitting in the cradle of lace. It said “Enjoy me”. And Katie’d signed her name.
As if he wouldn’t know. As if before he even put them to his face, before he’d even seen her adult body, he wouldn’t know that smell. He knew how the girl smelled. Still. He pressed the panties to his nostrils.
He absorbed a dozen noxious things about his daughter. His pants suddenly felt far too tight and he wished there was a way to get from here to anywhere else. He glanced out of the high rise window and sighed.
He had to take care of this.