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

My mother’s moan was cut off in an instant, smothered by a thrust so hard I felt it in my own body. It wasn’t a whimper: it was a bite of air ripped away by force. Through the crack in the door, 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 was shaking 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 stewing for hours on low flame. I slid 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 smell of mine that only he knew how to awaken.

When my father began his savage rocking, I found the exact spot and started rubbing. Slowly at first, small circles with the pad of my finger. Each circle was an echo of his thrust. When he pushed forward, I pressed harder. When he pulled back, I let out the air I hadn’t even known I was holding.

The sounds from the bedroom were the soundtrack to my own undoing. The obscene slap of his body going in and out of 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.

“Take this, it’s 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 was moving faster now, slick with me, and I could feel the tension climbing from my lower belly like a violin string someone was tightening without mercy. I opened my eyes again. I needed to watch them.

In the mirror, the scene was brutal. My father, with the muscles in his back drawn tight as ropes, sweating, his face twisted in a grimace of rage and hunger. He was gripping her hips so hard his knuckles had gone white. He had her dominated, possessed, and every blow of his pelvis was a violence that screamed at me from the other side of the hallway.

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

I pushed a finger inside myself. It slid in without effort. I was so open, so wet, that I offered no resistance. The inside was hot and spongy, and I curled in on my own hand. I imagined it was his finger. I imagined it was him. I started fucking myself at the rhythm marked out by the mirror, while with my thumb I kept hammering the spot that was driving me out of my mind. Two beats, 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. Watching her lose control, knowing it was my father who was ripping it out of her, was too much. The cord in my belly snapped.

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

As I shook, 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, how he stayed motionless for an instant, and then collapse 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, one hand still inside my clothes, trembling. The air smelled of sex, mine and theirs. And then, as my father propped himself 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 stuck 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 near him, to breathe the same air, to find out whether the storm had passed or whether this 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 tiny they were barely there. I didn’t bother putting anything else on. 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 from the open refrigerator spilling into the hallway. And there he was. With his back to me, the fridge door open, the outline of his body drawn in that cold light. He was only wearing his pajama shorts, and his broad back and shoulders made a mountain of shadow. He was drinking water straight from the bottle, his head tipped back. I watched his throat move as he swallowed, and that stupid little detail turned me on.

I approached 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 start. He turned abruptly, tightening his grip on the bottle so hard the plastic crumpled. His eyes, already adjusted to the dark, found me instantly. They swept over me from top to bottom and stopped on my chest, on my naked legs, on the tiny fabric that barely covered me. I heard his breath catch.

“Irene. What are you doing here?”

“I’m thirsty,” I lied, and stepped closer until I was almost touching him.

I flung the refrigerator door open wide, bathing both of us in a white, clinical light that left nothing to the imagination. I reached into the shelf for the carton of milk, and in doing so I let my arm brush against his back. The contact was slight. Electric. I felt him go rigid, hold his breath. I, on the other hand, took a deep breath and filled my lungs with his smell.

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 completely visible through my T-shirt.

“Want some?” I said.

He shook his head, unable to tear his gaze away.

“No.”

“I’m sure you do.”

With calculated slowness I lifted the edge of the carton to my lips. I didn’t drink. I let a drop of cold milk slide over my lower lip and, without breaking eye contact with him, 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 silence of the kitchen.

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

“A mistake?” I dropped the carton onto the counter with a sharp thud and took a step, closing the gap between us. “Was it a mistake to fuck Mom like she was some stranger while you were thinking about me? Because that’s what you did, isn’t it, Dad?”

The words struck him like a whip. His face hardened into a mask of pain and rage.

“Shut up.”

“I’m not shutting up.” I placed a hand on his chest, over the heat of his skin, and felt his heart racing under my palm. “I heard everything. I saw you. I saw you use her. I heard her scream while you gave it to her to the hilt.” I lowered my voice until it became 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 tremor ran through his whole body.

“Please…”

“Please what? That I touch you? That I pull it out and suck you off right here, in this kitchen, until you finish in my mouth and make me swallow it all?” The words were raw, direct, designed to tear down what was left of his will.

He opened his eyes. They were red, full of an internal battle I was enjoying more than I ever had anything.

“You can’t say things like that.”

“I just did.” I slid my hand down his stomach until it settled over the bulge already tightening the fabric of his pajamas. 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 stood there, a marble statue about to split open, with his daughter’s hand on his sex, awake again. The silence stretched, thick. I could feel his pulse beating against my palm, a dull rhythm keeping time with mine.

Then, in a movement that was almost convulsive, he grabbed my wrist. He didn’t pull it 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 close 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 resistance crumble, desire beginning to win 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 pounding in a mad rhythm of frustration and triumph. I hadn’t gotten him to 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 taking my eyes off him, I brought another thread of milk to my lips, and this time I let a white drop slide down my chin and fall onto the neckline of my T-shirt, glinting under the refrigerator 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.