“Don’t sweat it. I’m more-or-less teasing anyway. Are you still on for movie night?”

My friends usually drove out to Reddington Pass on Saturday nights to look at the lights and get high, but I preferred to spend the time with my stepdad.  It was sort of a father-daughter movie night. We’d been doing it for so long, ever since my mom left us, that not spending the time with him just felt wrong. Especially since I’d be leaving for college in a few short months. It was our time together. “Of course,” I said, glad that he had changed the subject.

“Good.” He then leaned over and kissed my hair before mussing it affectionately. I secretly wished he was sitting with me in the big chair, and I could nuzzle his body and kiss him back, on the lips.

Ugh, I thought as he walked away again, making my body ache with desire. I was almost happy that I was leaving him. I had to get this crazy obsession with my stepdad off my mind, lose these forbidden feelings and leave the nest to go and have a life of my own, dating normal boys and finally finding a group of friends I could really relate to.

****

After my shift lifeguarding, I met Caleb at our favorite coffee shop downtown.

“It’s called Sonic Emergence,” Caleb said, pulling a flyer for a music festival out of his backpack and setting it on the table in front of us.

“Looks interesting,” I approved, running a hand through his blond dreadlocks. The flyer had some kind of weird, druggy fractal thing on it, in a bloom of swirling blue and purple colors.

“I went last year, it was totally heady.” Heady. I wished he would stop using that word. Heady and trippy were definitely Caleb’s favorite adjectives, and I wished he would stop using them to describe absolutely everything, because they didn’t actually mean anything.

“Charlie and I are camping with one of the artists. He works for a company that takes care of the artists on tour, getting their groceries, whatever. He’s going to throw me a couple hundred bucks to help him out. You should come. Last year was too trippy.”

“Really?” I asked. The fact that Caleb was going to be helping his friend piqued my interest. I was thinking about a minor in hospitality management, and this seemed like a can’t-miss opportunity. If I could hustle my way in there and take Caleb’s job--which shouldn’t be too hard because he was such a slacker--I could get some real hands-on experience, something that would look good on a resume, something that would help me rise above the rest of the college grads four years from now when it came time to get a real job.

Caleb was poking at his iPhone, oblivious to the gears that were turning in my head. “Haha,” he laughed, “check this out. It’s too heady.”

“That’s really heady,” I said, stroking his dreadlocks and laughing at whatever was on his phone. “Hey,” I said, “I would love to go to Sonic Emergence.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. “Is your Nazi stepdad going to let you go?” I bristled inside at the way he talked about Robert.

“Of course, babe,” I said. “You don’t think I can be persuasive?” I looked up at him seductively, my mouth open in a little pout. The flirtation didn’t register; maybe Caleb’s brain actually was fried from all the pot smoking. I guess I had to take the direct route. I reached down and pressed my fingers against his crotch. I wanted to fool around at least a little, before the summer passed us by.

“Hey,” he said, “slow down, Panda.” Caleb liked to talk about how his spirit animal was a panda, and we had decided that I was one, too.

We kissed. I hated the way he kissed me, so limp and slow. Why the fuck was he slowing me down? Way to kill the mood again.

“Hey,” he said softly, “let’s take things to the next level at Sonic Emergence, okay?”

“Okay,” I said softly, nibbling on his ear. His hand settled on my waist, and I exhaled heavily.

“I want it to be a special experience for both of us,” he said, “it’ll be super heady, and it’ll be a great place to go further in our journey together."

Good, I thought, we could finally mess around a little more. But why the fuck did Caleb have to act like such a girl? Special experience? Our fucking journey together?  I had nasty fantasies about Caleb, bad thoughts about sucking his cock and letting him violate me in all kinds of ways. I liked indulging in them, least of all because it got my mind off Robert.  Oh well. I guess I would just have to wait three weeks until the festival.

I said good-bye to Caleb and swung by the video store on the way home.

****

“What did you pick this time, pumpkin?” Robert asked as we settled onto the couch.

“Dirty Harry,” I revealed. His eyes lit up. He loved Clint Eastwood. I always tried to pick movies he liked, and over the years, his tastes had rubbed off on me. I liked the same rough, alpha male characters he did.

The TV froze half way through the credits. There must have been a scratch on the disc. I jumped off the couch to attend to the problem.

“The DVD is scratched, I think. I’ll see if I can get the movie off the internet instead.

“Sure, sweetheart. You know all about that technology stuff.”

I bounded up the stairs to my room and flipped open my computer. It wouldn’t take longer than fifteen minutes to Torrent the movie.

‘Error. This version of Windows is not genuine. Please restart in Safe Mode and enter a valid product key.’

‘Fucking shit,’ I thought. ‘Of course Windows isn’t genuine. I have a Mac, and had gotten Windows through Bit-Torrent, just like I was about to get Dirty Harry.

Oh well. I could just use Robert’s computer in his office. I walked down the hallway to his office and stepped inside. Everything was neat and in it’s place as usual. There was a stack of papers on his desk next to his laptop, and I flipped through them as his computer woke up: it was a brief from the board of a company where he was a major shareholder. ‘Boring,’ I thought, turning my attention back to the computer. His web browser was running, with a couple of tabs open: sales reports and an investment portfolio. Boring and boring. I clicked to open a new tab and squeaked in surprise at when I saw the browsing history.

Porn. My heart started thumping a little faster. I didn’t feel disgusted. In fact, I was more than a little intrigued. What got my stepfather off?

I started downloading the movie, then clicked back to the porn that had unexpectedly popped up. I looked towards the half-open door apprehensively, then quickly back down at the screen. My heart was thumping in my chest, and I could feel a little twitch in my sex. Panting, I clicked to see what he had been watching, turning the volume down in a small moment of panic as the video began to load.

It was a girl, being called into what looked like a principal’s office. She was wearing a Catholic schoolgirl’s outfit, with a plaid skirt and a pressed white blouse. She looked young, and had a slender body and small breasts. Like me.

The principal, who looked like a meaty, steroid-jacked pornstar and about twenty years too young to be an actual high school principal, was talking on the phone. He looked up at the girl in annoyance.

“Goddamit,” he grumbled into the phone. He looked up at her balefully. “I’ll have to call you back. I’ve got to deal with a certain problem student...again.” He slammed down the phone.

“What do you have to say for yourself this time?” he demanded. “Not only are you ruining your future, but you’re wasting my time. And I expect more from you than I would anyone else. This better be the last time I see you in here.”

“I’m sorry, Stepfather,” the girl whined, squirming and looking down at her shoes.

Stepfather. I felt my pulse begin to race. Did Robert...? I felt my sex begin to wake up. Heat started to bloom from my center, radiating throughout my body. No, that would be so bad, so wrong. So…forbidden.