Back to the Garden (3 page)

“I suppose,” Kim said with a shrug. “As long as I don’t have to go nude.”

“You’re in luck,” Ed said with a smile. “You picked the one day of the year when we do something with clothes on.”

“Do you remember the last time I wore that dress?” Kim asked. Libby saw some sort of communication pass between her parents.

Ed popped the tab on his Coke, sitting next to his daughter. “Of course I do.”

“The night you were conceived,” her mother told Libby, using a long fingernail under the tab on her Coke.

Libby looked up at her father, remembering his reaction to her in the dress. “Oh.”

Kim’s cell phone rang and Libby rolled her eyes, reaching for the remote. It was the fourth time in as many hours.

“Hello?” her mother said after flipping it open, sighing as Libby turned up the TV. “Hang on, David...”

Kim scooted off the sofa and went into the kitchen, but they could still hear her talking.

“No, I told you…Wednesday...” Kim paced, prowling the perimeter of the small kitchen. Libby saw her mother out of the corner of her eye. “Yes, I promise you, I’m keeping my clothes on...”

Libby snorted, nudging her father in the ribs. He shook his head and shrugged, taking another drink of his Coke.

“It’s disturbing, actually.” Her mother lowered her voice. “They’re both naked together all the time, and I told you about the supposed nightmare thing...”

Standing, Libby tossed the remote next to her father. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s only eight o’clock.” He looked up at her, surprised.

She shrugged. “I’m tired...”

Libby heard them talking in the living room, her mother asking about her. She tried to drown them out, looking for a cool spot on the sheets. Most nights they left the windows open, but tonight she felt unusually warm, even though there was enough of a breeze to blow the curtains around.

Squirming under the covers, she kicked them off. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered her father watching her try on her mother’s dress. She could feel his hands, helping her hook her bra, the way his lips brushed over the skin of her belly like a brand.

She wasn’t sure if it was excitement or shame that made her so warm and flushed, but whichever it was, it was a long time before she drifted off, her mind returning to that moment again and again, when she looked over and saw the proof of his arousal swelling between his thighs.

It was late when he slipped into bed beside her and leaned over to kiss her shoulder in the dark. His lips were soft, warm, and she remembered his mouth and breath against her belly, how he looked at her. Every movement made her tingle—the weight of him in the bed beside her, the shift of him rolling onto his side.

She feigned sleep for a while, listening to the sound of his breathing become deep and even as she stared up at the shadow patterns the curtains made as they blew the moonlight around the ceiling. The breeze touched her skin, giving her goose bumps, although she didn’t feel cold. In fact, she felt entirely too warm, her whole body filled with a slow heat.

“Daddy?” Libby whispered in the dark, looking over at his broad back, hearing the sound of his breathing. He didn’t respond and she knew he was asleep.

Closing her eyes, she slipped her hand down over her belly, finding the soft, downy red triangle of hair between her thighs where all of her feeling seemed centered tonight. Everything down there was swollen, wet, and her fingers slipped easily between her lips, through the soft folds of flesh.

She remembered his hands, the way they gripped her, the look in his eyes, like he could devour her, as she nudged her tender, sensitive clit in the dark with her fingers as quietly as she could. Her breath came faster as she recalled how hard he had grown just from looking at her in a pair of panties and a bra, how the sight of her barely concealed flesh had aroused him.

Her fingers circled her clit, pressing it harder, faster, her muscles tightening against the mattress as she imagined her father’s hard cock, the way it swelled and stood up and pointed at her, as if it wanted something. That one brief moment of arousal, knowing he was looking at her, desiring her, the lust showing not just in his eyes, but throbbing undeniably between his legs as well, made her wild with wanting.

What would it feel like? She wondered with a shiver, sneaking a hand up and tweaking her nipple. What would it be like if he kissed her and pressed it up against her? She’d watched his erection rise like an exclamation point, a demand, something that knew exactly what it wanted and knew just how to take it.

Libby tried hard to control her breathing as she rubbed and rubbed her clit, listening for any sounds or indication her father might be waking. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this, thinking about this, but she couldn’t help it. His body had responded to the sight of her, and her body now responded to his presence, so close, less than a foot away from her on the mattress. She wanted to reach over and touch him, and she wanted him to touch her.

Her fingers were wet and slick with her juices and she couldn’t control her breath at all anymore. It came faster and faster, she was panting and gasping, her thighs trembling with her effort.

“Oh Daddy,” she whispered, her breath hitching, her voice barely audible even to her own ears.

She was arching as her belly tightened, her fingers edging her clit toward release. “Daddy, yes, yes.”

Her climax shook her and the bed, although she tried hard to be still, not to cry out as the waves of pleasure rolled through her. She took a deep, hitching gasp, still petting her sticky mound in the darkness, her fingers playing idly, unfocused, just teasing little shock waves through her body now and then.

Quietly, self-conscious now, she rolled to her tummy, hugging her pillow. She closed her eyes, her body finally relaxing, sinking into the mattress as she began to drift off.

In the morning, she recalled whispering, “I love you, Daddy,” just before she sailed off into sleep, and thought he might have breathed, “I love you, too”—but maybe, she told herself in the light of day, maybe it was just a dream.

—

Libby wasn’t used to being looked at. Strangely, living nearly her whole life among nudists made her quite unselfconscious—but she was used to being around people who didn’t look at her in a sexual way. She’d had boyfriends, of course, but it was a Christian community, and people didn’t act or think that way, for the most part. Being naked stripped everyone of their pretenses, and there was nothing left to hide, so there was nothing really to look at.

Now, on her way back to the dance floor from the bathroom, she felt eyes on her in a way she never had before. Men looked at her breasts, pressed up in her new bra, and her legs, which looked long and shapely in heels. It made her feel shy, something entirely new to her.

“Hey, would you like to dance?”

Libby noticed his tattoo first, a tribal arm band that showed beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. Then she met his eyes, bright blue and smiling, his hair nearly as red as her own, although she thought it might have been dyed. She opened her mouth to reply and found she couldn’t form the words.

“Come on,” he said, standing. “This is a great song.”

Libby waved to her parents on her way by, pointing to the young man holding her hand and then to the dance floor. The community held an open—and clothed—get-together once a year, where people could invite their family members and friends who might have concerns about a nudist environment. Daddy joked it was the “We’re Not Aliens” dance.

The music was too loud for them to talk and so they just danced, song after song, their bodies shifting closer together as the floor got more crowded. Libby was sweating lightly and noticed he was damp, too, when he pressed her to him for a slow dance and they finally got a chance to breathe. She looked for her parents and saw their heads were bent close and her mother was sipping her drink.

“What’s your name?” he asked against her ear. The feel of his breath there sent shivers through her.

“Libby.”

“I’m Will. Nice to meet you, Libby.” He pressed closer still until she was breathless with the heat of them together.

“I’m thirsty,” Libby protested, when a new song started. “Do you want to meet my parents?”

Will raised his eyebrows, but smiled and nodded. “Sure.”

Libby made the introductions and while her mother smiled and offered Will a seat, her father stood, towering over Will as he shook his hand.

Instead of sitting, too, Libby slipped behind her father’s chair as he sat, putting her arms around his neck. “Come dance with us, Daddy.”

“Only if your mother joins us.” Ed glanced over at Kim. “Don’t want to leave her here all by herself.”

Libby gulped the rest of her father’s diet Coke. Kim took her estranged husband’s hand as they stood. The music was even louder on the dance floor and the bodies were warm and moist around them, a surfing swell of flesh that rocked and swayed together.

Bumping her hip against his, Libby teased her father as she watched her parents put their arms around each other for a dance as the music slowed. Libby and Will melted into each other but she found she couldn’t concentrate on anything, because her mother’s head was resting against her father’s shoulder, and Libby saw the tender look in his eyes as he stroked her hair.

They danced together all night long. Once her mother was out there, she didn’t seem to want to get off the floor, except to go back to the table for a drink. When the last slow dance had ended, Libby said goodbye to Will, who asked for her number, and then she went to find her parents.

Kim was leaning against Ed as they left, the night air cool against their damp skin as they walked home. Libby watched as her mother put her arm around his waist.

Her father helped her mother to the bedroom when they got into the door. Libby slipped out of her shoes, her feet sore, and took off her dress, spreading it out on the chair and looking at it. She was standing there in her black bra and panties when her father came back into the living room—she heard him gasp.

“Is she ok?” Libby asked.

He was still wearing a suit and he looked so strange to her, not like her father at all. His eyes weren’t his either, raking over her, looking at her in the way the men in the club had looked at her. She knew what that look meant and it made her feel tingly and warm all over.

“She had a little too much to drink,” he father said, sitting on the couch, still staring at her. He patted the sofa and she moved to curl up beside him. He put his arm around her shoulders. “But she’ll sleep it off.”

“You still love her,” she whispered, snuggling up and putting her head under his chin.

He sighed. “I do.”

“She’s leaving tomorrow,” she reminded him, sliding her hand idly over his chest. She wasn’t used to so much fabric between them. “She leaves, Daddy. That’s what she does.”

“I know,” he replied with another sigh. “You coming to bed?”

She slid away from him. “No. I’ll sleep out here tonight. Until she’s gone.”

“Don’t let her do this, baby.” Ed frowned, sliding his hand over her shoulder, brushing her hair out of her face.

“She changes everything,” Libby murmured, feeling her mother’s judgment and the self-consciousness she brought along covering her like a blanket and she closed her eyes against it. “That’s what she does.”

Her father quoted softly, “‘Then the eyes of both were opened and they realized that they were naked.’”

“‘So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves,’” she returned his quote with one of her own, pulling a blanket up past her waist, nudging him with her bare foot. “Go to bed, Daddy.”

—

She didn’t know what time it was when she woke up in a strange place, the dog snoring against her feet. Her dream was still bleeding in around the edges, and she couldn’t remember anything except the feeling she had lost something. She found herself left with that aching tickle between her legs that made her roll around on the sofa, tugging the blanket between her legs.

She ached all over and longed for warmth. The dog raised his head as Libby stood, the blanket trailing behind her as she made her way down the hall toward Daddy’s room. Her old bedroom door was open, she noticed—so was the bathroom, and the door to her father’s room at the end of the hall.

That’s when she heard her mother’s voice. “Yes! Oh, Ed, don’t stop!”

Libby froze, pulling the blanket tighter around her. Now she heard the sound of bedsprings squeaking, the headboard knocking rhythmically against the wall.

She heard her father groan and call out her mother’s name. A slow heat filled Libby’s chest and belly as she listened to them.

“Harder, baby,” her mother moaned. “Yeah, oh, that’s it!”

Libby found herself creeping toward the sound of them rocking and moaning in the dimness. She could see past the door frame now, her father poised above her mother, the covers over the lower half of their bodies in the early morning light. The clock on the nightstand read 5:18.

“Oh God!” her mother cried, her hands moving over his broad, strong back. “Oh baby, fuck me harder! Yes, yes!”

The heat spread through Libby’s belly, lower into her groin, her eyes wide and mouth agape as she watched her parents having sex. Her father grunted and moaned, and she saw them kiss, their mouths hungry and eager for each other.

“Ohhhh Kim,” he moaned, his movements growing faster, harder. Libby bit her lip, a deep ache between her legs. “I can’t hold back...”

“Yes,” her mother purred. “I’m so close.”

It was over like that, a fast, furious pumping, the soft moans and cries of her mother, the growl and thrust of her father as they came together in a moment of bliss that left Libby paralyzed and breathless as she watched them from the doorway.

“Oh hell,” she heard her father say as he rolled to one side. The light coming in from the window was a little brighter now and Libby could see them sprawled side by side. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know,” her mother gasped, putting an arm over her eyes. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Ed apologized, turning up on his elbow.