Chapter 15

The next morning, Nicole got up late since it was a Saturday. When she came downstairs for breakfast, she was surprised to see Alison was there and Jack wasn't. This was unusual - since Jack worked from home and didn't have a lot of friends, he rarely left the house, whereas Alison always seemed to be off doing something.

Nicole asked her, "Where's Dad?"

Alison replied, "He and I were making breakfast together, and we realized we were running low on some vitals, like eggs. So I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until he comes back from the store before we can feed you.'

Nicole nodded. She was thinking about going back upstairs until Jack got back. Just being around Alison and no one else made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

But Alison said, "Can you sit down at the table for a minute? I have a question or two to ask you." Nicole sat down, but she tried to look as impatient as she could, to make this go faster.

Alison said, "While you and Linda went to your party last night, Jack and I cuddled in front of the fire. It was very nice." She smiled benignly. But then she got to the kicker. "The funny thing is, though, I heard some very strange noises. I don't think Jack did, but I did. It sounded like they were coming from only a short distance away too."

Nicole blanched. Her heart seemed to stop, and her breathing did too.

In truth, Alison only had some suspicions that Nicole and Linda had been spying on them last night. She hadn't actually seen anything, but she'd heard one curious yelp, and there were a couple of times during some quiet passages in the classical music when she thought she'd heard some quiet whispering. But she couldn't be sure. However, the aghast expression on Nicole's face confirmed her suspicions.

So she continued more confidently, "You wouldn't know what was causing those noises, would you?"

Nicole shook her head negatively back and forth with great force. She wasn't good at hiding her emotions, and her eyes were still wide-eyed, like she'd just seen a ghost.

Alison reached out to take Nicole hand across the table, but Nicole jerked her hand away like a snake was trying to bite it. Still, Alison persisted, and forced a smile. "Nicole, look. I'm not mad at you, or at Linda either. Let's not beat around the bush about who was there, or what you saw."

Nicole was so distraught at being caught that she feared she'd throw up.

Alison continued, "I know that girls your age are curious about sex. That's only natural. But it's not right to spy on-"

Nicole interrupted her with a sudden outburst. "Don't tell Dad! Please! Please! I'll do anything, but just don't tell Dad!" Suddenly, she was panting hard so hard that she seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating.

Alison saw that, and tried to calm her down. She attempted another smile. "Relax. I'm not going to tell him anything, and you're not in trouble. These things happen as a part of growing up. I get you're curious about sex, and I know you have very special feelings for your father."

She was going to say more, but she stopped because Nicole's eyes went even wider. Nicole took Alison's "you have very special feelings for your father" comment to mean that Alison knew of her incestuous desires. And in fact, she wasn't entirely wrong, although Alison was trying to be vague about it, since she still only had suspicions.

This was about the worst thing Nicole could ever imagine. She was shamed and distraught beyond anything she'd ever thought possible. It was literally too much for her to take. She suddenly stood up and started running back to the stairs so she could hide in her bedroom. As she ran away, she screamed back at Alison, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" And then she was gone.

Alison was left at the table, feeling stunned. Whoa. That was not how I thought things would go at all! I guess I came on too strong too fast. Still, it was probably a good thing, because I learned a lot. I DID hear them! I knew it! Not only that, but she's all but confirmed my suspicion that she has a crush on Jack.

Shit. What am I going to do about that? I know a lot of girls her age have crushes on their fathers. They even have a name for it: the Electra complex. But her feelings are obviously way stronger than some mere passing phase crush. She's totally devoted to him.

I'm in a tricky spot, to say the least. I really want to be a full member of this family, but I'm hanging on by my fingernails. Things are better with Jack, much, much better, but Nicole tolerates me, at best. Now she's gonna be scared of me, because she fears I could reveal her secret and destroy her relationship with her father. What am I supposed to do? If I tell him the girls were spying on us last night, he's bound to get upset and let the girls know. Then Nicole will only hate me even more, and my hopes of her eventually really accepting me as her mother will get that much slimmer. And if I tell him about how she's crushing on him, she'll hate me for life! Besides, what good would it do? He must know already.

No, I think I just need to sit tight and let things settle down for a while. The girls are going to be so freaked out from being caught that they won't try anything with him for a while. Maybe they'll even rethink their unhealthy and hopeless crushes. Eventually, perhaps Nicole will see that I can be trusted with her secrets. I hope she starts to see me as the "cool mom" and not the enemy. I may have to be extra tolerant for a while to get that image, but it's a key part of her accepting me in her life in the long run.

After Nicole had that conversation with Alison, her attitude changed drastically. She went back to her old ways, using conservative baggy clothes and not the revealing garments she had used in the last weeks.

She became reserved and shy again. In fact, she often grew flushed when her father got near her.

She stopped her teasing partly because getting caught made her feel tremendously guilty. She remembered all her arguments about the immorality of incest, and doing things like jacking Jack off definitely seemed to have crossed the line. But also, the shy girl was ashamed. She couldn't bear to be around Jack or Alison, and when she was, she couldn't look either of them in the eyes. It was so bad that for several days she and Linda hung out at Linda's house instead, even though it didn't have a pool and it was a much less fun place to be. Also, in part, she was afraid. She kept waiting for the hammer to fall.

But the days passed, and Jack's behavior towards her didn't change, except he was clearly puzzled that she and Linda were suddenly so intent on avoiding him.

The girls took it as a good sign that he was so confused. That strongly implied that he didn't know what was going on because Alison hadn't told him anything.

The next weekend, Alison again found a chance to be alone with Nicole. It wasn't easy, because Nicole had been doing her best to avoid her, but the girl couldn't hide forever.

Again, Alison had Nicole sit across from her at the dining table. Just the locale made Nicole nervous, since it strongly reminded her of their last conversation.

Alison immediately tried to put her at ease. "Nicole, I haven't told Jack anything. He has no idea that you and Linda were spying on him last week. I'm not going to tell him either. I want to be your friend and your mom. I want you to trust me. If you say that you and her aren't going to spy on him again, that's good enough for me. Then we can consider this whole matter closed. Can you do that for me, and promise no more spying?"

Nicole felt incredibly relieved. She eagerly agreed. "YES! Definitely! It was just a freak thing since the party we wanted to go home didn't work out and we came back early. I'll definitely never, never, NEVER do it again! I promise you that! I'm so embarrassed that I just want to die!"

Alison smiled encouragingly. "Don't be. Remember, I was a teenager too once. I know this is a time of great curiosity. Kids play doctor and nurse, and spin the bottle, and all that kind of thing, because they're curious about sex. It's totally natural. If I was in your shoes at your age and I had a chance to see a couple having sex, I probably wouldn't have been able to resist taking a peek. The way I look at it, there was no harm done, as long as you don't do it again."

"Right! Definitely!" Nicole felt like she was sweating bullets, but so far things weren't going so bad.

Alison continued, "I know you love your father very much, and part of loving someone is respecting their privacy. If you want to be treated like an adult, you have to act like an adult."

"Yes, ma'am," Nicole said demurely. She'd started to panic when Alison brought up loving Jack, but she was relieved to find out it was just a mention of normal familial love and not any kind of erotic love.

The rest of the conversation was fairly mundane, with Alison giving out typical parental advice. Although Alison remained almost certain that both Nicole and Linda were in love with Jack, she felt it was unwise to bring that up directly at this time. Instead, she encouraged Nicole to go back to normal instead of trying to hide from Jack and her all the time.

Nicole took that advice to heart. Over the next week, she pushed herself to go back to all her old habits, including tanning by the pool every day with Linda. It was like the entire house breathed a sigh of relief as everything went back to normal.

But it wasn't quite the same as before. For one thing, Nicole was still very spooked. She had a gut feeling that Alison knew about her physical desire for Jack. She knew Alison was clever and very perceptive, and constantly feared that Alison was checking on her or even spying on her with monitoring devices.

Linda sensed all that, and toned down her sexual conversations with Nicole. They rarely directly talked about their desires for Jack anymore. It wasn't that their feelings for him changed any, but the fear of getting caught was always on their minds.

Three more weeks passed.

Some things gradually changed over that time. Most obvious were the physical changes. Jack continued his diligent dieting and exercise. He had a goal of losing thirty pounds, but the closer he got to his target weight, the harder it was to make any more progress. At the end of the three weeks, he was still nearly ten pounds overweight. However, he didn't realize it, but he was looking a lot better. His fat was slowly being replaced with muscle, and his love handles were fading away. Even the balding medication was working, and more new hair was growing in his bald spot.

Unfortunately, Jack just didn't have the genes to ever look like some kind of studly Chippendales dancer, no matter how hard he tried. He was always going to have a certain soft look to him. And he couldn't change his face; it was a nice, attractive face, but he was never going to be mistaken for a male fashion model.

Still, Alison, Nicole, and Linda all appreciated his efforts, and all three of them desired him even more than before. And while he might not have looked radically different, he felt much better and more energetic. More energy meant he was horny more often, and thus more great sex with Alison. Plus, he didn't have to be afraid of taking his shirt off anymore.

The girls were already in great physical shape. They simply couldn't look any better. But their daily tanning efforts were having an effect. They'd taken to tanning in the nude most days, and their pale spots were fading away.

Even Alison was changing a little bit. Her natural hair color was quite a dramatic red. She'd dyed it to more of a reddish-brown, because she already got more attention from guys than she ever wanted, and a

less noticeable hair color helped her blend in with the crowd, if only a little bit. But now her goal was to attract Jack and keep his attention, so she'd stopped using the dye and her hair was returning to its stunning natural color. This process hadn't gone unnoticed - Jack had taken to jokingly calling her "Red," and, surprisingly, Nicole and Linda liked the name and sometimes called her that too.

But the most significant change was with Nicole's attitude. Gradually, day by day, Linda worked on her and tried her best to get her back to where she was before they got caught. One could see the change with their tanning efforts: at first Nicole didn't want to tan at all, and spent time at Linda's house instead. Then she tanned in her own backyard, but went back to her most conservative bikini. A few days after that, she switched to her micro-bikini. A few more days after that, they started going topless sometimes. Finally, they tanned in the nude (although mostly when they thought they wouldn't be disturbed, and only when Alison was gone).

Linda took a similar step by step approach when it came to talking about Jack. But by the end of the three weeks, the two girls spent a good deal of their afternoon discussions talking about Jack, his penis, and what they wanted to do with him and his penis. It was almost the same as before, except that Nicole still felt more skittish and shy when Jack was actually around.

Jack still had no clue what was going on with the girls. It wasn't like he could simply ask them "Why can't we fondle and kiss anymore?" since they weren't supposed to be doing that in the first place.

He tried to focus his considerable sexual energies on Alison. Things with her were getting better all the time. She and Jack fucked nearly every single night, often at her insistence. It was like she was trying to make up for all her years of having only unenjoyable sex, or no sex at all. And each time they fucked, she grew a little more uninhibited. Her prudish attitudes were steadily falling away. Handjobs, blowjobs, titfucks, cunnilingus, and sixty-nines became a regular part of their sex life, and she grew increasingly comfortable with all that as the days passed. The only snag was that it still took her a long time, and usually a lot of cunnilingus, before her sexual fires really ignited. But Jack was always willing to do his part with the necessary foreplay and build up.

Yes, she was staying sexually busy partly to keep Jack so satiated that he wouldn't be tempted by the girls, but she was having so much fun that she would have wanted to fuck him daily anyway.

But although his relationship with Alison was developing wonderfully, he still felt unsatisfied. He had enjoyed the taste of forbidden fruit with the girls, and he couldn't put what had happened out of his mind. True, he hadn't gone all the way with Nicole or Linda, or even most of the way with them.

But something changed in his relationship with Nicole in particular. He no longer could look at her without noticing her big tits and voluptuous body. She still was his daughter, but now she was a sex object for him too, someone he desperately wanted to fuck. He was constantly aroused when he saw her, and the more time passed, the more his desire grew. He noticed how she looked at him hungrily, and the sexual tension between them grew and grew. The innocence had left their relationship, and there was no going back.