                             Coping
                      by Michael K. Smith


  Even as he flicked off the bedside lamp just after midnight, Tom knew it was going to be a
long night. He wouldn't be falling asleep anytime soon, if at all. His eye followed the familiar
patterns the shadows cast on the walls of the dim bedroom, remembering how Margaret had once
talked him into a game of "cloud shapes" with the shadows.
  Margaret had been gone six months. Six months tomorrow, in fact.
  Tom's mind shied away from an extended contemplation of that datum. He couldn't help but
think about it, but it wouldn't help things to dwell on it all night. With a sigh, he pushed back the
covers and padded naked into the bathroom.
  The container of sleeping tablets Dr. Wetherell had prescribed three months before was still
half-full. He hated to take medication for anything less than severe illness, but he knew that
without an occasional tablet for assistance, he would again lie awake all night, growing more
miserable and despondent by the hour. And in the morning he still would have to go to work, but
he wouldn't get anything useful accomplished. And then his boss would give him that look that
combined sympathy, strained patience, and calculation, as he obviously wondered whether Tom
would ever return to his old, efficient managerial ways.
  He ordinarily allowed himself only one tablet at a time, but tonight, after a moment's thought,
he shook two out of the vial and quickly downed them both, dry, before he could talk himself out
it.


  At a quarter after midnight, Tom was hazily aware of a light tapping at his door. Then it
creaked open and a reddish-brown mass of hair appeared in the opening.
  "Dad?" Rachel opened the door a little further and peered at the form under the covers, all the
way over on one side of the big bed. Whenever she saw her father alone in the bed he had shared
with her mother, her eyes blurred. She swallowed and stepped all the way in.
  "Daddy? Can I come in here for a little while? I can't sleep because . . . you know. Thinking
about Mom and everything. Dad?"
  Tom shifted under the comforter. Part of his mind was aware that his daughter had entered
the room, but he couldn't seem to make his tongue work. He settled for an incoherent mumble.
  Rachel took this for permission and quietly pushed the door shut before tip-toeing to the
vacant side of the bed. At thirteen, her legs were already long and athletic, and she made it in
three graceful, barefoot strides. Carefully pulling back the covers, she slid between the smooth,
cool sheets, settled herself, and closed her eyes.
  And opened them again. She actually had hoped to be able to talk with her father a little bit.
She knew what tomorrow was. But she realized the anniversary was probably even worse for
him, and she didn't even consider waking him. Probably couldn't anyway, if he had taken one of
those pills. And he probably had.
  Gazing thoughtfully toward the master bedroom's dressing area, she finally climbed out of
the bed again. The label on the container said she -- her father, rather -- could take up to two
tablets at a time. Just one would be enough for her. She shook one out onto her palm, studied the
number code on it, and swallowed it with a handful of water from the tap.


  Usually, a sleeping tablet meant a profoundly dreamless sleep. But, as he often was, Tom
became aware of tonight's dream beginning to form.
  He was driving home from work, just as he always did, relieved to exit the freeway and to
wend his way into the far reaches of their subdivision. But as he turned the corner of their cul-de-
sac in the growing dark, he suddenly noticed a human form sprawled in the street. He slammed to
a halt and fumbled with his seat belt, but when he looked again, the street was clear.
  He got out anyway and looked around -- and then he saw the body again, halfway up his own
driveway. It was a woman and it looked like. . . .  But then it was gone again. He finally eased the
car up the drive and around the corner of the house into the brick carport, watching carefully for a
reappearance of the body, but the way remained clear.
  And when he went into the kitchen, there she was. Margaret, sprawled lifelessly on the tile
floor, a broken coffee mug near her hand. He knew she was dead, knew she had had a coronary,
knew that the doctor would tell him over and over that there was nothing he could do, had
*never* been anything he could do, she had been dead since sometime that morning.
  With a choking, strangled sob, Tom dragged himself almost physically out of the horrible
truth of the dream. He turned the other direction on the pillow and felt himself sinking down into
the mattress again.
  Another dream -- but this one recalled pleasant memories from early in their marriage, before
Rachel's arrival began to require circumspection and more careful timing of their romantic
impulses.
  Tom's dream-self smiled, remembering the times Rebecca would be waiting for him at the
kitchen door on his return from work. Sometimes she wore a wispy negligee, showing off her
slender, almost boyish form, posing for him in the doorway with one hip canted, knee turned in
like a pin-up.
  Sometimes she would be naked, wrapping herself around him before he had a chance to take
off his jacket. Once she had even come out into the sunny carport that way, watching him with a
crooked grin as he got out of the car. She was stroking her pussy with both forefingers and the
aroma of her was nearly overwhelming, even outdoors.
  And sometimes they didn't even make it back to the bedroom, but fucked right there in the
kitchen, or in the living room. Once, he had turned her around and pressed her up against the
sink, pushing down his slacks and then entering her from behind as she pushed her small, firm
ass hard against his groin.
  Tom-in-the-dream remembered Margaret's slender waist, the slight flare of her hips, the
lovely, unblemished expanse of her lower back. He pictured the way the muscles worked and the
flat bones shifted as he spread his hands across her back, the way she could grip and squeeze his
cock with her cunt as he pushed deep, deep within her.
  He remembered her breasts, too: Not large but not immature, with dark red nipples that could
become as rigid as light switches. He was fond of her breasts -- but he was crazy about her ass.
The first time he ever saw her, she was wet and laughing in denim short-shorts and a halter top,
doing her share in her sorority's Pledge Week Car Wash.
  He had stood across the street with his textbooks under his arm, mesmerized by the beauty of
her bottom. The next day, he prevailed on a girl he knew at the house, and that Saturday they had
their first date. From that evening, there had been no one else for either of them but each other.
  Margaret acknowledged the debt she owed to her ass in catching his attention in the first
place, and she delighted in showing it off for him -- wiggling provocatively as she preceded him
up the stairs, or sitting on his lap and clenching her gluteal muscles. Once she had raised her skirt
with her back to him in a hotel elevator to demonstrate that she had removed her panties before
leaving their room.
  In his dream, Tom did what he hadn't had the nerve to do on that occasion. He pressed her
flat against the mirrored interior of the elevator car, grinding himself against the perfect
hemispheres of her ass. Then he stretched her arms high up the wall, working the head of his
stiffening cock between her cheeks, straining against the warmth and moistness that spread out
from between her legs. He kissed the back of her neck and nipped the flesh a little. Margaret had
sometimes enjoyed being man-handled a little, and she moaned and leaned her head back against
his shoulder, her thick red hair tickling his nose.
  His cock was poised at the entrance to her, and there he paused, nibbling at her shoulder as he
made a game of pushing into her a fraction of an inch and then withdrawing. And, as she
sometimes did, Margaret responded by whispering "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, . . ." and making
small animal sounds in the back of her throat, knowing how that aroused him.
  "Oh, Tom, . . . put it in me. Oh, God, fuck me! Daddy? What. . . ?"
  Margaret had never called him "Daddy" before. Strange, Tom thought, as he began pushing a
little harder. Damn, she was really tight, much more than usual. He slid his hands back and forth
around her hips, enjoying the shape of her.
  "Daddy? What are you doing? Are you. . . ? Ohhhh. . . ." The voice faded with a tremor.
  Tom tried to blink his eyes and the elevator car began to fade. Margaret looked back over her
shoulder, only . . . only she looked different, and a little fearful.
  He peered down at his hands, squeezing and massaging the youthful, naked hips. The head of
his penis was wedged between the cheeks of Rachel's ass, pressing against the opening to her
pussy. And his daughter, lying spooned on her side beside him, was slowly humping back against
him.
  "Oh, Daddy, . . . is this what you and Mom used to do? Do you need to do it with me, now?
Will it help you, Dad?"
  The effect of the sleeping tablets was sloughing away now. Tom finally understood what he
was doing. His desperate mind dreaming about fucking Margaret, his body reaching for what was
available. He lay trembling, feeling the rigidity of his cock, overwhelmed with lust, wanting so
badly to make love to his wife.
  The thing was, Rachel at thirteen was agonizingly alluring. Tom was sure she was the image
of her mother at that age. Sweet, pretty, with thick auburn hair and a slender figure like her
mother's, too . . . and so unknowingly seductive.
  "Do you want to . . . to fuck me? Go ahead, Daddy, if that's what you need. I can do it, I
know I can."
  She pushed back against him again and her tee-shirt rose higher on the small of her back. Her
lower back formed a lovely curve and the sight, in the dim light, of her bare, smooth bottom
below the hem of her shirt burned itself into Tom's vision. He was very aware of the soft warmth
of her flesh beneath his hands. And the first inch of his penis was now hidden from view.
  Tentatively, almost without meaning to, he pressed forward just a little. Another half-inch of
his cock slid into Rachel, and she shuddered -- but not, he thought, in pain. Then the muscles of
her young cunt squeezed him, sending shivers through his own body. He couldn't help himself --
he wasn't even sure he was in control any longer. He held his breath and pushed harder.
  "Oh . . . God . . . ohhhhhhh . . . ." Rachel balled up the sheet in her fist and hunched her
shoulders. "God, that feels so . . . oh, Daddy . . . ."
  Tom watched in agonized fascination as his penis disappeared inside his daughter. He moved
slowly, he didn't want to cause her any pain, but he kept moving. And finally, he was there,
buried in her. He thought about all the times he had done this with Margaret, watched himself
fucking her as she writhed in his grasp, panting and moaning.
  Rachel was trying her best to hold still for him, but her pelvis was moving back and forth
sensually, still pressing her ass against him with involuntary little jerks and twitches.
  Slowly, carefully, he pulled his cock back until most of it was exposed. Then he pushed it
into her again. Rachel sighed deeply, lifting her head, straightening her arms in front of her.
When he was completely buried in her again, he pulled her hips harder against himself and
pushed even more. Rachel groaned and shook her head, and the lovely auburn tangle brushed
across her shoulder blades.
  "Oh, Daddy, it feels so big!" Her voice was soft but urgent. "Are you going to do it all, Dad?
Are you going to have a . . . a . . . ? What do they call it? An orgasm?" The sound of his
daughter's voice saying such things raised Tom's mind to a white hot cauldron, bubbling with
the need to finish what he had started.
  Out again, slowly. In again. Out, a little faster. And in. And out and in. Rachel's cunt was wet
now, and his cock moved more easily. Tom was breathing harder and he could felt the tingling
begin to build, back there behind his genitals.
  Rachel was gasping and shaking, almost sobbing, but she had reached back and was clutching
her father's hand where it squeezed her hipbone. He was sure she didn't want him to stop, not
now.
  As the pressure in his groin mounted, he remembered the sensation of coming inside
Margaret. He wanted so badly to feel the constriction, the explosion, again. But this was Rachel,
not Margaret. He tried to hold that thought in the front of his mind.
  And an instant before the last moment, he managed to pull himself out of her, sliding his
slippery cock up the vee between her cheeks. Then he erupted, and he watched in continued
fascination as his steaming semen stretched far up his daughter's bare back, white streamers
across her short ribs and along her spine. Another jerk, another geyser of come puddled in the
small of her back. Another, and a milky tear oozed down her ass.
  Rachel's face was buried in her pillow and she was gasping for breath, her shoulders heaving
up and down. "Did you do it, Dad? Did you?"
  "Yes, baby. But I didn't come inside you. It'll be okay, I think." He stroked her back, wiping
up his come as he went. So lovely, so enticing, so sweet, so sexy.
  When Rachel had caught her breath, she turned over and snuggled up to his chest. "That was
really something, Daddy. It felt so strange -- but so nice!" She spread the flat of her hand across
his sweat-damp chest. "I wish I could do everything for you that Mom used to do, Dad. I miss her
so much, but I could try to take her place, if you want me to. . . ." She peeked up at his face.
  Tom smiled down at his daughter. No one could replace Margaret, not even Rachel -- but he
thought they would be able to manage things together. Just the two of them. One way or another,
they would cope.


                              END
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Copyright 2000 by Michael K. Smith. Copies may be made and posted elsewhere for personal
enjoyment, but all commercial rights are reserved.
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