I Spied on My Father That Night and Then Went Down to Find Him

My mother’s moan was cut off at once, smothered by a thrust so hard I felt it in my own body. It wasn’t a whimper: it was a bite of air torn out by force. Through the crack in the doorway, in the reflection of the wardrobe mirror, I saw how my father sank into her without pause, without tenderness, without asking. And I, hidden in the dimness of the hallway, came apart inside.

My hand trembled when I lowered it to the elastic of my shorts. The fabric was damp, and it wasn’t summer sweat. It was me, a thick heat that had been simmering for hours over a low flame. I slipped my fingers underneath and the first touch was like grabbing a live wire. I was swollen, slick, burning. I smelled something sweet and salty at once, a scent of my own that only he knew how to wake up.

When my father began his savage back-and-forth, I found the exact spot and started rubbing. Slowly at first, tiny circles with the pad of my finger. Each circle was an echo of his thrusts. When he drove forward, I pressed harder. When he pulled back, I let out the breath I hadn’t even known I was holding.

The sounds from the bedroom were the soundtrack to my own ruin. The obscene slap of his body entering and leaving hers, a wet rhythm that froze my blood and set my belly on fire. My mother’s moans were no longer of surprise, but of pure surrender.

“Like that, harder,” she panted. “Use me, don’t stop.”

And his grunts, deep, guttural, sounds that didn’t seem to come from a man but from something older.

“Here, this is for you,” my father hissed against her nape.

But I knew the truth. It wasn’t for her.

I closed my eyes for a second and focused on the sensation. My finger moved faster now, slick with my own wetness, and I could feel the tension climbing from my lower belly like a violin string someone was tightening mercilessly. I opened my eyes again. I needed to look at them.

In the mirror, the scene was brutal. My father, his back muscles taut as ropes, sweating, his face twisted in a grimace of fury and hunger. He gripped her hips so hard his knuckles went white. He had her dominated, possessed, and every удар of his pelvis was a violence shouting at me from the other side of the hall.

“I’m going to split you in two,” he said, and his voice reached me like a promise thrown in my direction.

I slid a finger inside myself. It went in without effort. I was so open, so wet, I offered no resistance. The inside was hot and spongy, and I curled around my own hand. I imagined it was his finger. I imagined it was him. I started fingering myself to the rhythm set by the mirror, while with my thumb I kept hammering the spot that was driving me out of my mind. Two counts, his and mine, fused into one filthy, perfect thing.

My mother let out a sharp cry, the announcement of her own end.

“I’m coming,” she said through clenched teeth. “God, I’m coming.”

That was what pushed me to the edge. Seeing her lose control, knowing it was my father tearing it from her, was too much. The cord in my belly snapped.

A spasm shot through me from head to toe. My legs gave out and I had to brace myself on the doorframe so I wouldn’t fall. A torrent of heat burst from inside me, a wave so intense it brushed against pain. My vision blurred; I could only see smears. A rough cry escaped my throat and I swallowed it in time, biting the back of my free hand. I came with a force I didn’t know I had, shaking, dripping, feeling the heat run down my thigh.

While I was still convulsing, my father went rigid all over. With a roar that seemed to move the walls, he finished inside her. I saw him sink in one last time, saw him go still for an instant, and then he collapsed backward onto the mattress, panting.

The silence that followed was worse than the noise. Heavy, full of sweat and something like remorse.

I stayed in the threshold of my room, my hand still inside my clothes, trembling. The air smelled of sex, mine and theirs. And then, as my father sat up on the edge of the bed, he turned his head toward the half-open door of my room. I don’t know if he saw me. But I think he did. And in his gaze there was no guilt. There was a question. And a warning.

***

Hours later, the memory was still lodged in me like a hook: the image of him sinking into her, the sound of his roars, the taste of my own orgasm still on my fingers. It had become a drug. And I needed another dose.

I got out of bed with a determination that surprised even me. I wasn’t thirsty or hungry. I had an animal need to be close to him, to breathe the same air, to find out whether the storm had passed or whether it was only the calm before a new cyclone.

I left my room without making a sound. I was wearing a thin T-shirt, nothing underneath, and cotton panties so small they barely existed. I didn’t bother putting on anything else. I wanted to feel the cold air on my skin, I wanted my nipples to show, I wanted him to see me.

The kitchen was dark, lit only by the bluish light of the open fridge spilling into the hallway. And there he was. With his back to me, the refrigerator door open, the outline of his body drawn in that cold glow. He was only wearing his pajama shorts, and his broad back and shoulders made him a mountain of shadow. He was drinking water straight from the bottle, his head tipped back. I saw his throat move as he swallowed, and that stupid little detail turned me on.

I walked up slowly, barefoot on the cold tile. He didn’t hear me.

“Can’t you sleep?” I asked.

My voice, barely a rough whisper, made him jump. He turned sharply, gripping the bottle so hard the plastic creaked. His eyes, already used to the dark, found me at once. They swept over me from head to toe and stopped at my chest, at my bare legs, at the tiny fabric that barely covered me. I heard him catch his breath.

“Irene. What are you doing here?”

“I’m thirsty,” I lied, and took one more step, until I was almost brushing against him.

I flung the fridge door open wide and bathed us both in a white, clinical light that left nothing to the imagination. I put my hand on the shelf, searching for the carton of milk, and as I did I let my arm slide against his back. The contact was minimal. Electric. I felt him go rigid, hold his breath. I, on the other hand, inhaled deeply and filled my lungs with his scent.

I took out the carton, cold and heavy, and turned to face him with the light at my back. I knew the silhouette of my body was fully visible beneath the T-shirt.

“Want some?” I said.

He shook his head, unable to look away.

“No.”

“I’m sure you do.”

With deliberate slowness, I brought the rim of the carton to my lips. I didn’t drink. I let a drop of cold milk slide down my lower lip and, without breaking eye contact, I licked it off very slowly with the tip of my tongue. The invitation was as clear as if I’d shouted it.

He swallowed. It was audible in the kitchen’s silence.

“Irene, don’t start again. What happened before… was a mistake. A huge mistake.”

“A mistake?” I set the carton down on the counter with a sharp thud and took a step, closing the distance between us. “Was it a mistake to fuck Mom like she was a stranger while you were thinking about me? Because that’s what you did, right, Dad?”

The words hit him like a whip. His face hardened into a mask of pain and anger.

“Shut up.”

“I’m not going to shut up.” I rested a hand on his chest, over the heat of his skin, and felt the frantic hammering of his heart under my palm. “I heard everything. I saw you. I saw you use her. I heard her scream while you gave it to her all the way to the end.” I lowered my voice until it turned into sweet poison. “And while you were doing that, I was touching myself in the hallway imagining it was me you were breaking.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. A shiver ran through his entire body.

“Please…”

“Please what? That I touch you? That I pull your cock out and suck you right here, in this kitchen, until you come in my mouth and make me swallow it all?” The words were raw, direct, designed to tear down what little will he had left.

He opened his eyes. They were red, full of an inner battle I was enjoying like never before.

“You can’t say things like that.”

“I just did.” I slid my hand down his stomach until it settled over the bulge beginning to tighten the fabric of his pajama shorts. I didn’t squeeze. I just left my hand there, a promise of weight and heat. “And your body is telling me it likes them.”

He didn’t move. He stayed still, a marble statue on the verge of cracking, with his daughter’s hand on his sex, awake again. The silence stretched, dense. I felt his pulse beating against my palm, a dull rhythm that matched my own.

Then, in a movement that was almost convulsive, he grabbed my wrist. He didn’t pull my hand away. He held it. The grip was firm, on the edge of pain.

“This has to stop, Irene,” he said, his voice hoarse, desperate. “We can’t. It’s wrong.”

“What if I don’t want it to stop?” I whispered, bringing my face closer to his until our lips almost brushed. “What if I want to be wrong?”

He looked into my eyes, and for an instant I saw the resistance crumble, saw desire winning the fight. But something changed. A shadow of real suffering crossed his face.

“No,” he whispered, and this time the word was different. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea. “I can’t do this to you. I can’t destroy you.”

With a slowness that seemed to cost him his life, he removed my hand from his crotch. But he didn’t let go of my wrist. With his other hand he picked up the carton of milk I’d left on the counter and held it out to me.

“Take your milk and go back to your room,” he said, with the voice of a man who has lost a battle but refuses to lose the war. “Now.”

I looked at him, my heart hammering in a mad rhythm of frustration and triumph. I hadn’t managed to make him touch me. But I had broken him inside. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that it was only a matter of time.

I took the carton. Without looking away from him, I brought another trickle of milk to my lips, and this time I let a white drop run down my chin and fall onto the neckline of my T-shirt, shining under the fridge light.

“As you wish, Dad,” I whispered.

And I turned, walking back to my room with the milk in my hand and the taste of victory on my tongue. This wasn’t over. It was only beginning.