Toni looked up and realized that her father was staring at her boobs.

She was sitting on the living-room floor at nine o'clock on an ordinary Tuesday night. Job applications, envelopes and copies of her resume were spread from hell to breakfast all around her.

Mom had told her that since she was out of high school but only taking a few classes at the community college, she'd have to get a job and pay them rent for the privilege of getting to live in the same room that had been hers since she was a baby. Rent and her own phone bill, but Mom added – like she was doing a big generous favor – that Toni would not be expected to kick in for groceries and other utilities. Big of her.

And here was Daddy, staring at her boobs. Like he was in a hypnotic trance or something.

She glanced down. She was wearing torn, faded jeans and one of his hand-me-down denim workshirts with the sleeves rolled up. The top button was missing and the next one down had come undone, and the front of the shirt gaped open, showing the edges of her bra and a deep shadowed valley of cleavage.

He hadn't realized yet that she'd caught him looking. If she gasped and snatched the shirt together, he'd know. It'd be awkward. Embarrassing. What would he say? What would she say?

But she couldn't very well sit there giving him an eyeful ... it was Daddy, for crying out loud! Her father!

And what the hell was he doing, anyway? The pervert. The dirty old man. She was his daughter! His nineteen-year-old daughter, with his wavy black hair and his bright blue eyes. He had no right to be ogling her like she was one of those girls from his magazines.

Oh, yes, Toni knew all about the magazines. The ones he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. Magazines full of tit-shots and beaver-shots, with ads in the back for phone-sex hotlines and escort services. She knew about the videos, too. And the porn on his computer.

The way she figured it, Daddy was a man and men were all alike ... men were pigs. Men looked and men drooled and men jerked off in the lonely dark.

And here he was, looking at her. That was really kind of sick. She ought to glare at him, let him know he'd been caught in the act. See what he did then. How would he explain it away?

Toni picked up another application – several stores out at the mall were hiring, just her luck – and pretended to go over it. She felt flustered and indignant, but at the same time strangely powerful.

After all, he must think she was worth looking at. That was flattering, in a way. Toni was aware that she had a decent body. Her waist was maybe thicker than she'd like and her legs a little chunky, but she had big plump tits and a killer ass.

So let him look. Let him have his eyeful, the old pervert. It wasn't like he could do anything about it. Take a picture, Daddy, it'll last longer.

She leaned way over, reaching for one of the farthest applications, and her breasts bulged into the gap of the shirt. One nearly popped out of its bra cup – the bra was on the skimpy side for someone as endowed as Toni – and she imagined Daddy's eyes nearly popping too. Was he over there wishing, sending mental vibes, hoping for the next button to slip its hole? Hoping for a glimpse of areola?

This was ... almost fun. Wrong, but fun.

Toni risked a sidelong peek as she sat back up. Daddy's face looked flushed, his gaze fixed on her chest. His throat moved as he swallowed.

Acting like she was concentrating, like she had forgotten he was even there, Toni rolled over so she was lying on her belly, propped up on her elbows, chin in hand as she pretended to study the application. Her boobs were pushed together, Cleavage City.

She twiddled a pen between her fingers, then inserted the end in her mouth and nibbled on it thoughtfully.

Another peek. Daddy was definitely red in the face. All of a sudden he sort of twitched, and cleared his throat, and rustled his copy of TV Guide. He looked guilty and ashamed.

Power. Yeah, it was a feeling of power. If he felt guilty, that was good, that could be useful, she could work that in her favor to make him side with her against Mom when they had another of their eternal arguments.

Daddy fidgeted in his chair. As he crossed his legs, Toni glimpsed what might have been a lump at his crotch.

Was that what she thought it was? A hard-on? Eew. Okay, that was gross. Guilt was one thing. Turned on? That was something else.

Not that it mattered. It wasn't like he was going to do anything about it ... well, except maybe ... next time he ...

No. Daddy wouldn't. Daddy wouldn't dare. Not thinking about her while he did it, anyway. That would just be too wrong.

But it'd also be kind of ... hot.

A warm tingle rose into her cheeks. Great, now she was blushing! And her nipples had puckered into hard little peaks.

What was she thinking?

God ... she never should have broken up with Devin. The lack of a steady boyfriend was turning her into a sex-maniac. And if she was getting all heated up by imagining Daddy imagining her while he jerked off, she must be really desperate.

She squirmed her hips, telling herself to ignore the fact that she was feeling a little steamy down there.

It didn't help that Daddy was kind of a hunk for a guy almost fifty. All her friends said so. Mom's friends said so, too. He had that short dark hair salted with grey, like George Clooney. Dreamy blue eyes. A slanted grin like Harrison Ford. He jogged, and worked out four times a week, so he was in good shape and didn't have a potbelly or saggy muscles.

Mom certainly never complained. Toni heard them sometimes, rattling the headboard in their bedroom on the other side of the wall. By the sounds of it, Mom always enjoyed herself. Hell, she howled like a catamount in heat.

And these were exactly the wrong sorts of things to be thinking about.

A dull, hot throb pulsed in her pussy and nipples. Toni was breathing too fast, chewing on the end of the pen so hard she left marks. She had been gazing blankly at the same application for several minutes, the lines of type so insensible they might as well have been in hieroglyphics.

God, she was horny. She missed Devin. At the time, dumping him had seemed like the right thing to do. He was a grabby, selfish, sulky bastard who had cheated on her with one of her former best friends. But right now she would have welcomed his hands all over her.

She wished they were up in her room ... the two of them alone in the house ... music playing ... and Devin at the edge of her bed holding her knees over his shoulders while he pumped his cock into her like a big meaty piston into a greased sheath.

Her jeans were too tight, rubbing against her, creating a friction both infuriating and delightful. There was no way she could finish the applications. Not in this state. She could see herself trying to fill in the required fields, and where it said "sex," instead of circling "M" or "F," she'd scribble "YES!" in stark black letters.

Toni started gathering up the paperwork. Daddy glanced up from TV Guide, his features carefully neutral and his eyes not straying lower than her chin.

"Done already?" he asked. His voice was mostly even, and if she hadn't been specifically listening for the huskiness, she would have missed it.

"I'll do them tomorrow," Toni said, standing. "I'm tired. I've got to go to bed."

"It's only nine," he said.

"Yeah, well ..." She made a show of yawning and stretching, realizing too late that when she did, she caused her tits to jut out, the nipples still erect and making little tents in the denim.

TV Guide trembled in Daddy's hands. His gaze dipped lower. Toni pretended not to see.

What was the matter with her? Sick, sick, sick ... but she was getting a charge out of his discomfiture. It was funny to watch Daddy struggling, wanting to look but not daring to look, even when it was on display right in front of him.

She dropped her pen and bent over to get it. The front of her shirt drooped. In the instant before she straightened up again, she was sure that if he'd been looking just right, he would have had a spectacular view. She almost wished she wasn't even wearing the bra.

And she was sure that she'd been right earlier. That was a lump in his crotch. A sizeable one. He was wearing sweats, which didn't conceal much.

That weird dirty sense of pride struck her again. He had been looking at her. Gotten stiff looking at her, even though she was his own daughter.

Or maybe even because she was his own daughter. Forbidden fruit and all that. The absolute ultimate forbidden fruit.

Toni went upstairs to her room and dumped the stupid job applications on her desk. She thought about Daddy downstairs and wondered what he was doing. He wouldn't really be fantasizing about her, would he? That would be so wrong. Wrong of him to be down there in his chair with his hand inside his sweatpants, curled around his cock and rubbing, while he remembered the way her tits had looked.

He wouldn't. Not right in the living room like that. No, he'd wait. He'd get in the shower, all hot and wet and soapy ...

Her knees went weak and Toni had to sit down. She couldn't believe she was being so affected by something that should have horrified and offended her. This was Daddy she was thinking about, her own father! Why was she sitting here envisioning him masturbating? And worse, thinking about her while he did it?

Daddy wouldn't do that. Daddy wouldn't dare.

A new idea hit her then, one that she didn't like at all. Mom would be home soon from her shift at the casino, and what if Dad took Mom up to their room, stripped her, and fucked her ... while seeing Toni in his mind's eye? What if he thought of Toni as he was sucking on Mom's tits, as he was sticking his cock in Mom's mouth?

And she'd be right in the next room. Hearing them through the wall. Hearing Mom moan and wail, hearing the headboard clatter and the bedsprings squeak.

Was she ... was she jealous?

That was crazy. She wasn't jealous. If she was, that'd mean that she wanted to fuck her Daddy, and she didn't. It was revolting.

What did she want, then?

In this state, she could hardly think straight. Toni knew she had to do something about it or she'd never be able to get to sleep. But she couldn't very well call up Devin and ask if he wanted to come over. She was on her own.

She peeled off the snug, faded jeans. She could see herself in the full-length mirror, the tails of the denim shirt hanging partway down her bare legs, black hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes smoky, her lips full and shiny as she ran her tongue across them.

Slowly, putting on a show for herself, Toni unbuttoned the shirt and let it hang open. Her skimpy white panties were sheer enough to let the black tuft of her pubic hair show through. The crotch of the panties was damp, clinging, outlining the cleft of her pussy.

If Devin had been here, he'd be on his knees in front of her, trying to remove her panties with his teeth. She'd be feeling the humid warmth of his breath on her skin. And when he got them down, he'd push his face between her legs, his nose in her thatch, his tongue snaking out to tease her clit.

Toni closed her eyes, imagining Devin as she shed her shirt and bra, then rolled the panties down her legs and kicked them away. Devin ... bronze surfer-boy hair, broad shoulders, narrow hips, that lovely long slim cock.

She fell back sideways across the bed, sliding her hands down her belly, pretending they were Devin's hands. Devin's fingers, stroking her pussy lips. He had been a bastard, all right, but he had been good for one thing anyway.

As she slipped two fingers into herself, she imagined Devin on top of her, Devin's cock driving wonderfully deep, moving slow but forceful. Devin's ass flexing.

Biting her lip to keep from moaning, Toni plunged her fingers wetly in and out of her pussy. Devin ... Devin fucking her ... so good ... his balls slapping her ass on each downstroke ...

And then, unbidden in her imagination, she saw the door to her room burst open and Daddy was there, an enraged Daddy dragging Devin off of her, pummeling him, shouting curses, kicking at him as Devin scrabbled frantically for his clothes and then leaped out her window into the night.

Daddy turning toward Toni as she still lay spread-eagled on the bed, too shocked to move or cover herself ... Daddy sweeping his hot gaze down her body, lingering on her upthrust nipples and the pouting, glistening pussy open and ready ...

With a harsh sound, she yanked her hands away and sat up. Her chest was heaving, her eyes wide.

"Oh, God," Toni muttered. "God, you're disgusting to even think about something like that."

But was it so bad just to daydream about? It wasn't like anything of the sort would ever really happen. If Daddy had barged in on her and Devin, he wouldn't have gone into a fury and chased Devin out. He would have stammered and blurted an apology and gone out fast, shutting the door in his wake.

And he never would have ...

Of course, until this evening she hadn't believed he ever would have looked at her that way. Staring at her tits. Not like he was marveling in that sad-amazed fatherly way over how much his baby girl had grown ... ogling her. Like she was one of the girls from a magazine. Not seeing Toni. Only seeing a pair of round, ripe young boobs ... and maybe thinking what it'd be like to wedge his stiff cock between them and titty-fuck her until he shot all over her face.

Toni groaned, and a stab of heat lanced up from her pussy.

Had he been thinking something like that?

What difference did it make if he had? He knew it was wrong. Why else would he have gotten all flustered? He'd been blushing. Ashamed.

She had done that. Had made him hot. Made him hard. Made him think those things.

Without trying, even. It almost made her wonder what she could do if she really set her mind to it. She could probably drive him crazy.

Weirdly, that notion served to make her hornier.

It had to be the power thing. Good old-fashioned feminine mystique.

God knew she'd enjoyed it with Devin and the other boys in high school. Being able to control them with a smile, a suggestive licking of a pencil eraser, an accidental flash of panties ... hadn't she and her friends always gotten off on that in a big way? It was funny, watching guys stumble all over themselves, trying to be cool when they were slobbering like dogs.

Naturally, the same tactics would work on older men. Hadn't her friend Sheila used them to good effect on Mr. Wharton, their math teacher? Sheila had given him the works, sitting in the front row with her knees apart, acting like she was oblivious to the fact that he could see all the way up her skirt, brushing her tits against his arm when asking him about an assignment ... by the end of the semester, poor Mr. Wharton had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

But this wasn't a teacher. This was her father!

And if Mom found out ...

Toni winced. Mom wasn't going to find out. Daddy wouldn't be stupid enough to eyeball Toni's boobs when Mom was in the house. Besides, this had probably been a one-time thing. A momentary lapse. He'd just happened to notice. For all she knew, he might have been thinking about someone else. Might have been reading an article in TV Guide about one of his favorite actresses, and that was what had given him an erection.

Yeah. As if. It had been her boobs.

She heard the shower start in the master bathroom, off of Mom and Daddy's bedroom.

A cold shower? Or the hot, soapy, steamy one she'd thought about earlier? Was Daddy in there right now, unable to get his dirty mind off Toni? Was he using the hissing sound of the spray to cover his grunts and gasps as he lathered up his cock and fucked his hand?

Was he fantasizing about her? So what if he was? It was only fantasy. It couldn't hurt anybody. No one would ever know. Even if they were thinking about each other at the same time, that didn't mean anything. It still wasn't real.

Toni burrowed her hand between her thighs. She rubbed in slow circles, remembering the glazed look on Daddy's face when she'd caught him staring down her shirt ... remembering the way he had crossed his legs and the cloth of his sweatpants had momentarily pulled tight against the long firm shape of his cock ... how he had reddened, and averted his eyes ... his shame ... his guilt ... he was probably in there right now, calling himself all sorts of vile names ... disgusted with himself even as he worked his cock faster and faster through a clasping glove of suds ...

She came with such intensity that a nova of white light seemed to burst silently in her head, dazzling her vision and making her ears rush with a dizzy swooning sensation. She fell sideways on her bed, thighs clamped on her hand, and curled in the fetal position. The room spun and seesawed around her.

When equilibrium returned, Toni carefully sat up. She felt weak all over, and thoroughly mortified. The idea that she had brought herself off while thinking about Daddy thinking about her ... God, it was awful. It had felt so good, but was awful all the same.

The sounds of the shower had ended. Toni listened intently for movement in the next room.

Wouldn't it have been funny, wouldn't it have been a good joke on her, if there was a peephole in the wall? Like something she would have expected if she had a perpetually horny kid brother, trying to spy on her while she changed ... but what if it had been Daddy instead? What if he'd come up and turned the water on for cover, to make her think he was taking a shower, while he was really hunkered down with his eye to the peephole, watching her through the wall?

Watching her while she ...

Oh, God. The light had been on, and she'd been bare-ass-naked, splayed out across the bed for all the world to see, fingers buried in her sopping-wet pussy. What a sight! Ha ... if Daddy had seen her like that, he would have kicked down her door and ...

No, he wouldn't. What was she thinking? That he'd have gone crazy with lust, become some sort of raving fuck-beast? Burst into her room, his huge throbbing hard-on leading the way?

And there she'd be, so close to coming that she wouldn't be able to stop ... but maybe he would have yanked her hands away and dropped on top of her ...

"Stop it," Toni told herself. She felt a flutter of rekindled interest way down deep, and forcibly put it out of her mind. She got into a sapphire-blue satin sleepshirt, turned off the light and crawled under the covers.

This was really getting wrong. Twisted. Trip-to-the-shrink and tell me about your parents, Dr. Freud ... gross. Like that Oedipus thing, only for a girl ... she thought there was a syndrome or a complex about it, but damned if she could remember what it was called. And anyway, it was sick. Daydreaming about having her Daddy fuck her? Sick, sick, sick.

He'd never do it. This wasn't like a boy from school, or even a teacher. She could tease and tantalize him all she wanted, and nothing would ever happen. A boy from school or even a teacher, push him enough and sooner or later he'd snap and try something. Daddy, though? Her father? She could walk around the house in her birthday suit, could go ahead and let him catch her masturbating, and he would never lay a finger on her. He wouldn't dare. It was wrong. Sick, immoral, twisted and wrong. The law said so, the churches said so, everybody but the damn ancient Egyptians and hillbillies said so. Thinking about it was bad enough. Looking was bad enough. Actually doing something? Never happen.

Besides, Mom would kill him.

It would, Toni thought, be interesting to see what he would do. Would he have the guts to talk to her about it? What would he say? If she started showing off her body around the house when he was there, all innocent-like ... if she arranged 'accidental' nudity like pretending to take in a clean towel when she was bathing and then having to flit-fast-run-quick down the hall to her bedroom with only a small hand towel clutched in front of her ... if she pretended to fall asleep in front of the television while wearing one of her sleepshirts with the hem all rucked up to show tiny panties ...

What would it take to make him mention it? What would that be like? Daddy all uncomfortable, blushing and clearing his throat, suggesting that maybe she should dress more modestly around the house?

"But why, Daddy?" she'd ask, all big ingenuous eyes.

"Because you shouldn't go around dressed like that," he'd say. "In front of other people."

"It's just you," she'd say, and laugh. "It's not like you're a boy. You're my father!"

Make him have to tell her that, father or not, he was a man with a man's urges, and a man couldn't help responding to the sight of a nubile young female body even if it was his daughter's? Ha! That'd be good. Make him admit that he was a piece of pervert scum. Make him confess to looking at her, thinking about her!

She could really get some mileage out of that. He'd feel so eaten up with guilt that he'd never dare criticize her for anything. He'd have to side with her against Mom on this whole job-and-rent business.

That'd teach him for looking at her boobs and getting all this stuff started in her head. She'd show him who had the real power here, who was the real boss.

Thinking that, Toni fell asleep. It was a light sleep; she was unable to descend fully because some part of her was listening for Mom to come home, for Mom and Daddy to go into their bedroom and start squeaking the bedsprings and clattering the headboard.

When it didn't happen, she woke up enough to roll her head toward the clock. Almost midnight. The house was quiet except for the low rumble of Daddy's snores.

Had they, and she'd missed it? No ... she would have heard it if they had. Mom was noisy. Toni had inherited that trait from her, though she'd had to stifle her ecstatic shouts sometimes with Devin, when they were at his house or hers and anyone else was around.

So they must not have done it.

In the dark, a mean and sly little smile curved her lips. They hadn't done it, and she had a pretty good guess why. Daddy hadn't been able to. Daddy had shot his wad already, in the shower, busily fantasizing about Toni's boobs.

Take that, Mom.

What did he tell her, she wondered? A headache? Too tired? Too much on his mind? Yeah ... that last one ... but what would he have said when Mom wanted to know what was bothering him?

Finally, she sank into a deeper, blameless sleep, and woke to the beeping of the alarm and the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen.

She got up, saw her clothes discarded where she'd left them, and felt her face warm up as she remembered. Her face, and her ...

From down the hall, she heard Mom and Daddy's bedroom door open and close. Toni, her laundry gathered in her arms, opened her own door.

There was Daddy, wearing pants but bare-chested, carrying a plain white shirt and a clean pair of socks. His hair was combed back from his forehead and he was freshly shaved.

Yawning, Toni padded barefoot into the hall. Her black hair was a tousled just-got-out-of-bed mane. She was very conscious of how short the sleepshirt was, how much leg it exposed and how the shimmery fabric molded to her tits and to her butt.

Daddy saw her and stopped. Something like panic flashed in his eyes. An exultant, triumphant jab – gotcha, Daddy! – shot through her.

"Morning, Daddy," she said, and continued on to the small bathroom at the end of the hall. On the way, she contrived to let the pair of panties fall unnoticed from the bundle of laundry she carried.

The rest of her clothes, she dumped into the hamper. She kept the bathroom door open a crack long enough to see Daddy staring at the wispy-white crumple of cloth. For a second she thought he might pick up the panties, and she knew as if by telepathy that he was thinking about it. Thinking about grabbing them quick and hiding them in his pocket, so he could take them out later.

And what? Sniff them? They'd been saturated with her musk. Would he maybe even use them next time he jerked off? She thought about him with her panties all bunched up in his hand as he massaged his cock with them.

But Daddy, his hands clenched at his sides, did not pick them up. He only stared for a long, long moment, his throat working convulsively. Then he shot a nervous, furtive glance at the bathroom door, but the crack through which Toni was watching was too thin to let him see her.

He turned and walked away, moving – ha-ha – stiffly. She saw him heading down the stairs. Grinning, feeling all stoked up on power again, Toni latched the bathroom door and stepped into the shower.

The panties were still in the hall when she was done. Toni retrieved them and put them in the hamper with her other clothes. She dressed in tight black denim cutoffs and a pink tee shirt with a low scooped neck, and headed down to the kitchen.

Their kitchen was ridiculously nice for three people who never cooked. It was roomy and clean and inviting, with terra-cotta tile on the floor, mirror-shiny stainless steel appliances, decorative copper pots hanging on the walls, and glass cabinet doors that showed neat shelves of dishes. There were built-in cutting boards and knife racks, a rotating spice rack, a breadbox with sliding door.

But only the coffeepot and the fridge and the microwave ever got much use. Really, the room served more as Mom's greenhouse than it did a proper kitchen. The windows were full of herb gardens. Potted plants hanging from hooks in the ceiling above the wide counters.

Daddy was in his usual spot at the end of the kitchen table, the newspaper open before him. A coffee mug sat beside a small plate with a bagel on it.

Toni got herself a cup of coffee and popped the sliced halves of a bagel into the toaster. As she went about these mundane morning tasks, she could feel his gaze following her around the room. Of course, whenever she looked at him, he was concentrating on the paper. But she could catch his reflection in the shiny glass and chrome of the cabinets and appliances ... Daddy watching her cutoffs ride up as she bent over to pick up a 'dropped' butterknife ... Daddy eyeing the outline of her bra through her shirt ...

"Where's Mom?" Toni asked.

Daddy jumped like a kid surprised with his hand in the cookie jar. The newspaper made a fluttering noise. "The health club," he said. "Aerobics class."

"I should start going to that," Toni said, though she had no intention of ever doing so. Sweating in a gym? Getting sore muscles on the machines, or bouncing around while some slut in a thong leotard told her no-pain-no-gain? No-thank-you. "Daddy, do you think I'm getting fat?"

Ha, now she had him. Now he had to look at her. Openly. As she sucked in her stomach, causing her tits to jut way out, and as she turned this way and that like she was trying to see her own ass.

"You're ... you're not fat," he said.

"I don't know ... my butt is so huge." She placed her palms on it and slid them up and down, over the pockets of the cutoffs.

His eyes seemed to glaze over.

Toni trilled an innocent laugh. "Oh, well, guys like a woman with curves, isn't that right? Someone with a little meat on her bones? Isn't that what they say, Daddy?"

"That's what they say," he echoed woodenly.

She let her happy look dissolve into a worried frown. "It's true, though, isn't it? Not just a lie to make the fat girls feel better?"

"Every man is different," Daddy said. "I can't speak for every member of the species. But, overall, yes. Men like curves." He returned his attention to the newspaper, though Toni would have bet a hundred bucks that he couldn't make sense of a single line of print.

"Mom's so thin, though." And, God, she was getting a kick out of this. Enjoying putting him on the spot. "I wish I looked like that."

Which was a bald-faced lie ... Toni thought Mom was too thin, all angles and lines, like a crane or heron or one of those other stilt-legged birds. Mom had boobs the size of teacups, and a flat, boyish back end.

"You look fine, honey," Daddy said.

"Fine?"

"Great."

"You're just saying that."

"No," Daddy said. "It's true." He was turning red.

"You don't think I'm too big up here?" Affecting naivete, she skimmed her hands over the slopes of her breasts.

Daddy's elbow hit his plate. It smashed on the terra-cotta tile, his half-eaten bagel skidding off to disappear under the fridge.

"Oops!" Toni cried, and hurried over to crouch beside Daddy and pick up pieces of broken crockery.

"My fault," Daddy said hastily. "I'll get it."

"It's okay." She knew he had to be getting a nice view of her cleavage, and what must he be thinking about, having her hunkered down right near him, her head on a level with his lap?

The chair legs squawked on the floor as Daddy shoved back from the table so fast he almost tipped over. He shot to his feet. "Really, Toni, I'll clean it up."

"Okay." She crossed to the fridge, then got down on her hands and knees with her ass waving in the air, while she fished around underneath searching for his bagel.

In the stainless-steel front of the appliance, she saw his reflection – slightly blurred and distorted but discernible. He was standing beside his chair, staring fixedly at her. She supposed that he was really getting an eyeful now. The seat of her cutoffs was pulled up snug between her legs, defining her cleft. Quite a bit of cheek was exposed, too.

She found the bagel – it was gross under there, bits of cereal and dried food all gummed up with grease and dust bunnies. "Yuck," she said, bringing the bagel out pinched between thumb and forefinger. "I'll get you a new one."

Daddy belatedly bent and began picking up the smashed plate. He was very red now, and averted his gaze as she ambled toward the trash can with her hips rolling – except, she saw in the glass-fronted cabinet, his head swung around like it was on a swivel once she had passed him.