Mark was aware that there was a lot of tension in the kitchen the day after Christmas. He hoped that Heather didn't notice it.
Mark was glad that Heather was home from college for Christmas vacation, but he wished that his only daughter got along better with Nancy, his wife of five years. Too many hens for one rooster, Mark jokingly told his friends. He thought that the main issue was that Nancy, aged 29, was closer to Heather's age of 19 than to Mark's age of 50. Heather had been disturbed by her father's decision to marry his secretary so soon after he divorced her mother, and Heather had long suspected that Nancy had broken up the marriage. Heather was 16 when her dad married Nancy, and she was constantly embarrassed by the way they couldn't keep their hands off one another in public. It was worse at home. Her dad was always patting Nancy's ass when he walked past her in the kitchen, and then he'd lean in and whisper something Heather couldn't hear, and Nancy would giggle. Although they weren't exactly close, Heather was used to Nancy, and so Heather couldn't help notice that there wasn't the same interplay between her stepmom and her dad now that they'd been married a while. Her dad didn't have his hands all over Nancy, and Nancy seemed crabby with him a lot.
Nancy resented having Mark's kid home from school. All his attention was drawn away from Nancy. People had warned her that it was foolish to marry Mark. He was obviously having some kind of midlife crisis, and offering up herself as his trophy wife was not going to make him happy for long. Sure enough, things had cooled down considerably after three years together. Mark still enjoyed sex with her, when she'd let him near her, but otherwise he mostly ignored her. For his part, Mark was feeling the strain of his decision to pursue Nancy. Sure, he brought home a lot of money, but he also gave a bundle to his ex-wife in alimony and then poured a lot more into putting his spoiled brat daughter through college. And now Nancy apparently didn't like having sex with Mark with his daughter there in the house. Now that Nancy's initial passion for Mark was lessened by the realities of living with a middle aged man, she was embarrassed by the memory of how they'd screwed like rabbits when they were first together. Nancy realized that she'd grown accustomed to the privacy that they had now that Heather was out of the house. Heather's room was at the other end of the house, but if she went up or down the stairs for any reason, she would go past their bedroom. Nancy didn't want Heather to hear them going at it.
Mark just wished that things were like they used to be. Nancy had not let him touch her for almost a week and he was feeling mighty horny. What he wouldn't give to have Heather out of the house for a few hours and to have Nancy in a good mood, bending over the back of the sofa while he fucked her fast and hard. He had a vivid image of his cock impaling Nancy, doggy-style, and it made his meat twitch with anticipation. Mark suddenly felt his ears turning red with shame as he realized that he was actually watching Heather from across the kitchen. She was bending forward, looking in the oven where a pie was baking. He realized that he'd been evaluating her shapely ass, imagining sex with her, rather than Nancy, just as if he was looking at a stranger instead of his daughter.
Heather was not a skinny girl, like Nancy. She was pear-shaped, like her mother, with ample hips and generous breasts. Like many redheads, her skin was pale white and freckled. She wasn't a beauty queen, but her face was pretty. Now that she was a woman, she strongly reminded Mark of her mother, and how much he missed fucking a woman who wasn't skin and bones. And now that Heather had been away at college, she'd started to dress differently. Before, she'd dressed in baggy layers of clothes that de-emphasized her body. Now, she wore short dresses with brightly colored tights, and blouses that showed a hint of her ample cleavage. He orange tights had drawn Mark's eye when she bent over to check the oven, and he'd followed them up the back of her meaty thighs to the point where they disappeared under her blue skirt. If she bent forward just a little more, Mark was thinking, he could see what color panties were hugging that fine ass. That's when he realized where he was, and that he was getting aroused by his own daughter's legs and ass.
It must be because it had been too long since he and Nancy had sex, Mark assured himself. He had no interest in his daughter. He wasn't some pervert! Nancy had better put out when they went to bed tonight, and take care of the load that was building up inside him, taking control of him and making him act so foolishly.
Thankfully, Mark thought, Heather was going out to a movie with some girlfriends after supper. It would let her get away from Nancy for a while, and that might give his wife some time to cool off emotionally. And that would give him his chance to initiate intimacy and to relieve the tension he now realized he was experiencing! Of course, Mark didn't know that Heather was really going bar-hopping with her recently acquired fake I.D. But what daddy doesn't know won't hurt him, Heather thought as she waited to escape Nancy's constant surveillance.
Much to Mark's surprise, things went from bad to worse once Heather's friends arrived and picked her up. Heather was barely out the door when Nancy started to rant. "You have to take charge of that girl, Mark," she hissed. "Look at how she's dressing. You sent her off to another state where she doesn't have family to watch her, and now she's turning into a slut. You better talk to her about how she's starting to look and act. You don't want to wake up and find out that she's knocked up and you're supporting her kid." Mark didn't know why that sounded so bad, but he didn't get a chance to answer. "Don't you imagine," Nancy continued, "that I'm ready to have people call me 'grandma' at my age!"
"So what if they do?" asked Mark. "It doesn't change how good you look. And everyone knows she's not your daughter. You're way too sexy to have kids."
With that parting praise, Mark went into the den to watch some TV. There was no point in continuing to discuss it, since it would only rile up Nancy.
About ten o'clock, Mark was thinking that it was time to go find Nancy and plant some kisses on the back of her neck, to see how she'd respond to physical overtures. Nancy came into the den. "I'm taking a sleeping pill and going to bed," she said. "I need some rest." Mark knew what she was really saying. No sex for Mark. She was punishing him. But having endured one marriage that ended up in nothing but fighting, he knew better than to pick a fight he couldn't win. "Okay, sweetheart," he said, as if nothing was wrong. "You get some sleep."