Vanessa woke up when her father swung his legs out of the bed, enough light filtering in through the tinted windows to break through the thin barrier of his sleep. She stretched with a little grunt, which made Liam glance over at her.
'Good morning,' she murmured.
He nodded at her and left for the bathroom. It took her a few moments to remember what she'd seen the previous night, and all the sensations the sight had provoked in her, but she was able to quash those concerns. Her dad was taciturn, as usual, and he didn't seem particularly embarrassed, so he probably hadn't caught her looking. Their nudity had already become less awkward over the previous afternoon, and she was going to get to sleep in today. All in all, given the circumstances, things were pretty good, and she was actually kind of looking forward to the questions to come.
She listened to the faint sound of her dad brushing his teeth, and got ready to snuggle into the covers for a little more rest when a jarring, electronic buzz came through the doorway. A muffled swear from Liam, another buzz, and he stalked back into the bedroom as Vanessa sat up, clutching the covers to her collarbone to hide her nude body. 'What happened?'
'The damn –' Liam stopped, and took a deep breath. He turned to look at her. 'I went into the shower, and it flashed a warning at me saying the water won't turn on unless there's two people in there.'
'Oh.' Before she could comment further, he continued:
'I understand the clothes , sort of, and anyway, it's do what the screen tells us or hit the road without a penny, but this is just –'
He shook his head, and Vanessa easily read him: it was perverted, unnecessary, and since it wasn't being part of a prompt or question, they didn't have to play along. And that was all true. She could just nod, and they'd take sponge baths, and that'd be that. Eyeing her father's flaccid penis for a second, however, she looked back at his face and cautiously said, 'The point of the experiment is to build rapport, like they said. I guess they know about our history, right? So maybe they're… trying to create some of the same situations we had growing up. You bathed me for a long time, and you were in the shower with me for a while after that just in case the heat made me pass out. The Labs might be throwing us back to those times.'
Liam didn't seem totally convinced, but he was listening to her, probably because she usually didn't take the time to offer counter-arguments. She couldn't really explain why she wanted to argue, but her eyes kept flickering down to his hanging prick, curious, and in truth, she really did want the freshness only a shower would provide.
'And the shower's pretty big, like the bed. We can get clean without touching each other.'
She meant they wouldn't brush against each other, but the ambiguity of her words almost made her blush. Liam didn't seem to notice, thankfully, and just sighed. 'If you're sure it won't bother you…'
Vanessa shot him a reassuring smile and slipped out of bed to accompany him to the bathroom. Once they'd both stepped onto the shower tiles, the small screen on the wall flashed a white checkmark, and the water began pouring down on them. Ness followed Liam's lead in turning around, so they were back to back, closed her eyes, and tipped her head back. Being in such a spacious shower felt good, and the consistent water pressure was a relief, massaging her skin and making her feel renewed. For all the talking she'd done earlier, there really was no awkwardness right now, because they had ample room to scrub up without getting in each other's way.
In fact, she'd almost forgotten she was sharing with her dad until she turned around to better get under the water, washed the suds out of her hair and face, and let her eyes flutter open to see his growing boner.
Vanessa's gasp was drowned out by the droplets drumming down on them, which was just as well, because Liam hadn't noticed her gaze yet. He was shampooing his hair, eyes closed, and if she had to guess, his daughter would assume he figured she was still facing the other way. Unlike last night, she could see his cock perfectly, sticking out first straight ahead, then arching slightly so the pretty pink head pointed to the ceiling. The squiggly vein that ran the length of the shaft was less pronounced now, flattened by the skin tightening around his mighty erection, and for the first time, she really noticed his balls. The way they hung low, weighed down with potent sperm, already refilled after last night's draining session. With a quick glance at her father's face to ensure he still had his eyes closed, Ness allowed her fingers to find her pussy, shivering when she glided over the stiff little pebble of her clit and started to toggle it. Even more than yesterday, she wanted to know what the skin of his prick felt like, and cradle his nutsack in her hands, taking all the time in the world to study these implements of masculinity she'd only seen on her computer and phone. Her mouth was watering. Why was her mouth watering?
Liam looked down, letting the soap run down his body, evidently getting his eyes out of the water before he could open them – which was Vanessa's cue to turn around again and pretend she hadn't seen his hard-on. She'd heard of morning wood, and she assumed it was something you woke up with, but maybe it could happen a little later? Or maybe the hot shower was having a physiological effect. He hadn't been hard yesterday, when they hugged, so why would it happen now , if she was the cause?
'Alright,' she heard him say, as her hand reluctantly left her cunt. 'I'm about done, if you are.'
Vanessa made an affirmative noise, and heard him walk over to the shower entrance. By the time he'd stepped out, stopping the flow of water, and she'd turned around, he'd already wrapped a towel around his midsection and was busy using another one to dry his hair, very deliberately facing away from his daughter. He moved on to continue drying off in the bedroom while she stayed in the bathroom, and when she joined him at the table near the flat-screen TV, there was no trace of his boner.
'Did you make breakfast?' she asked, taking a seat. There were two trays set out with toast, small jars of jelly and butter, orange juice, and coffee. Liam shook his head, swallowing a mouthful of bread.
'They came up in the dumbwaiter, but I had a look around the kitchen. There's food in there, too. I think they're gonna send us all our meals, though.'
The unspoken end of that sentence was, so you don't need to worry about cooking . Liam was decent with a pan, having had to prepare well-balanced food for his ill daughter and wife for the better part of his life, but once Vanessa was old enough to trust with a knife, he'd offloaded those duties onto her. She figured it made sense: he was at work most of the time, and usually came back exhausted, while she only had school to contend with. Sure, when she found out he was spending hours, sometimes days gambling his meager salary online, she felt a flash of betrayal for her wasted youth – as she'd steadily moved on to doing all the housekeeping – before that flame was extinguished by Liam's tears.
Not too long ago, he'd come to her and admitted, at excruciating length, the depths and debts of the rabbit hole he'd spiraled down, and though Vanessa was incensed at first, she couldn't keep up the anger in the face of her father's tearful apology. Liam didn't cry. She barely remembered him crying in the months after her mother died. He was ashamed. She was struck by how much he'd given up, and at the end of the day, her contributions didn't add up to that much. It made sense he'd find an outlet for the stress of their situation.
So they'd agreed he'd quit, cold turkey. Vanessa would gain access to their bank accounts to make sure he wasn't straying. And they wouldn't discuss it again.
That trend continued over this breakfast, as they ate in silence and slowly woke themselves up. Liam finished first and went to shave while Vanessa ate her fill and put the trays back in the dumbwaiter. She headed to the bathroom as Liam exited, and when she came back into the living room, he was arranging the chairs in front of the screen, facing each other, same as the previous day.
'Figured we'd get it out of the way early,' he said.
Vanessa nodded, and her dad straightened out, stretched, and ran a tantalizingly casual hand over his cock and balls. It was clearly thoughtless, done merely out of habit to improve his comfort, but time seemed to slow down as she watched his strong fingers wrap around the base of the shaft and tug down, then reaching below to briefly scratch under his heavy nutsack and adjust how it was sitting between his legs. It made her think of the boner she'd seen not even an hour ago, of the power of his ejaculation last night.
Sheepishly, internally chastising herself for her constant torrent of inappropriate thoughts, Vanessa took her seat in the same spot as last time, and met her dad's eyes when he sat down in front of her. The first question flashed on screen.
7. How do you feel, looking at your partner?
'Who answered last?' asked Vanessa.
'You. And I don't mind going first, anyway. It's a freebie. You're my daughter. I've taken care of you since you were born. I feel…' Despite his declaration of the question's ease, Liam paused. He probably wanted to get his words straight. He was always careful with the way in which he expressed himself. 'Well… I feel protective, and proud . When you were little, we weren't even sure you'd live to be ten, and now, you're a beautiful young woman. And smart , too. Very smart. I think about how me and your mom made you, and it's kind of hard to wrap my head around. Just sort of amazing.'
Vanessa wondered whether he meant she was amazing, or if it was more of a general statement on the act of creation. She decided to take it as the former, because it made her happy, and pondered for a moment before speaking.
'When you said "protective," that kind of struck a chord, dad.'
Liam raised an eyebrow. 'You feel protective towards me ?'
'Yeah.'
'That's all backwards. You're the child.'
'But I know how to take care of people. I had to figure it out 'cause of mom. You don't think I look after you?'
Liam couldn't really respond, because the more he thought about it, the more it was obvious that while he provided whatever meager funds they scraped together, Vanessa had parented herself for the better part of a decade, and she basically ensured the household ran smoothly. She even paid all the bills, though she used his accounts.
'God,' he mumbled. 'I think I'm the kid.'
'That's not true, dad.' Ness leaned forward and took her father's larger hands in hers, completely on instinct. It struck her that she hadn't done this in a long time, either. She and her father probably hadn't held hands since her mother's death. This isolation brought about so many firsts, but all of them were somewhat pathetic. 'You did five times as much work as a regular parent when I was a kid. I'm just pulling my weight now that I'm able. We feel protective over each other, and that just means we'll be extra safe. It's like… a partnership, almost, you know?'
She realized the way she was describing their relationship was sounding more and more like a marriage, and in all honesty, she really was something of an ersatz wife. The only thing missing was the sex – and that thought made her very conscious of her posture, leaning forward in her chair, her young breasts pressed firmly together by her arms, giving her father a perfect view of her naked cleavage if his eyes drifted just a few inches down from her face.
Thankfully, Liam dispelled any nascent awkwardness by squeezing his daughter's hands before letting go. 'Alright. Protective. Anything else?'
Vanessa did feel proud of him, too. He'd steered clear of addiction relapses, and he'd been getting steady work as a courier and delivery driver. Still, not wanting to copy what he'd said, she took another good look at him and continued:
'Looking at you makes me feel like home. With all the moving we've done, I guess it makes sense, right? Hugging you yesterday was like a physical version of what you make me feel, dad. Comforting.'
Judging by the noise from the screen, whoever monitored their answers was satisfied.
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common physically.
Talk about a freebie. Vanessa shrugged with a small smile. 'Everybody always says we have the same eyes, and I think that's true. I remember grandma saying we could go to Kildare and find relatives just by the shape and color of our eyes.'
Ness's grandmother had never been to Ireland, but she repeated the words she'd heard growing up like she was personally acquainted with everyone in their ancestral county. Liam grinned at the memory, the way he only really did when he thought about his mother, and tapped the side of his nose.
'Didn't inherit the patented Anderson schnoz, though. You can thank the other half of your genes for that. What else is there… oh, this.'
He stuck out his tongue, rolling it up into a tube shape, which Vanessa immediately copied. She twirled a lock of her shoulder-length hair around her index finger, stretching out the loose curl in her dad's direction.
'And we've got the same hair color and texture, pretty much. Mine's been getting curlier over time, more like yours.'
'And that's three. I guess it's not as easy if the participants aren't related.'
'Right?'
Despite the softball first questions, Vanessa didn't relax. They'd felt similarly at ease before the wildest moments of the previous day, and she felt the Labs would play a similar trick today. Sure enough, the screen changed:
9. Has anyone ever caught you masturbating?
'Come on!' Liam blurted out, slapping his hands on his knees. His legs parted, maybe in some subconscious show of dominance, and Vanessa had to force herself not to linger on his fat prick and nuts resting on the seat of the chair. 'What kind of question is that?!'
'W-well, maybe it's some kind of – bonding through shame thing? Sharing deep, dark secrets? I don't know…'
Liam sighed, annoyed. 'I mean, I guess I'd answer that without any issues if it was a written questionnaire, or if… or whatever. But this is embarrassing.'
'Did it happen a lot?'
That got a little chuckle out of him. 'You know how small the old place was. For a while, when that tree fell through the roof into my room – you remember the pictures grandma showed you, right? – I slept in the living room while the house got fixed up. Try being a teenage boy spending most of his time in a high-traffic area like that without being caught beating – uh, taking care of business. I'm just glad mom and dad were cool about it… and that nothing like that's happened in over twenty years.'
Vanessa laughed in return, thoughts of the previous night looming large in her head. If he'd jerked himself off so much when he was younger, and he couldn't resist a full day without stroking his cock now, she wondered how he'd masturbated in private during the long months they'd spent in motels, or when they were in apartments with walls so paper-thin you could hear every sigh and cough. Maybe he'd been too tired then to have a healthy libido. Did that mean he was usually raring to fuck? Did she get her horniness from him? She also wondered if the people monitoring them had seen her when she'd spotted her father jacking off.
'You've never been caught,' Liam asserted. 'I'd remember if I'd walked in on you, and you were pretty young when mom passed. Unless you got busy outside the house.'
That last sentence was clearly a joke, and it was true Vanessa had never touched herself outside the confines of her homes, however temporarily that label might fit – until now, she supposed, though she hadn't brought herself to orgasm inside this strange apartment.
'How do you know I even – do that stuff?' she mumbled half-heartedly.
Liam raised his brows. 'Because, as we just discussed, I was a teenager too, once. Even if it's hard to believe.'
Vanessa cleared her throat. 'Well… you were right, anyway. It hasn't happened to me. So we don't have to keep talking about it.'
Her dad nodded, and she regretted the way she'd phrased it. This was only going to make the situation weirder. She didn't know how to defuse it, though, particularly with the thoughts and desires swimming through her head. If only she had a boyfriend, or someone to satiate her curiosity and libido with! The next question came as a welcome distraction.
10. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
'You get to answer all the easy ones first,' Liam joked.
His daughter smiled. 'Right? Do you think they mean a specific moment or quality about my life, or what I feel grateful for in life in general?'
'Probably the first one, but you should answer however you feel. We got nothing but time.'
'That's true. Alright. Um, it's sort of abstract and maybe kind of pretentious, but I'm grateful for languages? Not just speaking, but every way in which we communicate with each other. Writing, and art, and music. I just find it really beautiful that there's so many different kinds of people out there, and that everyone expresses themselves a little differently. I guess that's why I like reading so much. It's like a conversation with the writer.' She paused for a moment, noting that Liam was listening carefully. 'We've had to deal with some difficult stuff, dad. I guess when it comes to my own life, I'm grateful that I'm even around to experience everything. It wasn't a given.'
Her dad nodded. She wondered if he might comment on what he'd heard, but he just lowered his gaze a little and mumbled, 'I'm grateful you're still here, and that you'll be here long after I'm gone. And that's it.'
Oh. Vanessa had no idea how to respond to that level of honesty. She'd been expecting… a throwaway comment about being grateful for beer, maybe, something unserious and self-deprecating. Mercifully, the TV moved on to the next question before she felt like she had to say something.
11. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
'I know what you're going to say,' Liam started.
'It's your turn to answer first, though.'
'I know. That's why I didn't answer for you.' He thought for a moment. 'I mean, calling back to what we were talking about, I guess I would've liked more privacy, but that implies a lot of stuff. Money for a bigger house, mom taking on fewer charity cases, doing good enough to get into a private school on a scholarship. And any of those factors would've changed my life completely. I might've been a real stuck-up snob. So… maybe I'll just say I wish we would've… communicated better? I bet that's something you've been thinking about.'
'Is that last part the answer you guessed for me?'
'Nah. That's all me. I thought about it thanks to you, though.'
It felt nice, having a natural discussion with her father. Vanessa nodded, and when she spoke, Liam did, too:
'Security.'
A beat passed between them, and Liam raised his hands, palms up, like, "there you go."
'I guess I'm predictable,' Vanessa conceded.
'I just have an unfair advantage. Let's see if that's true for today's last question, too.'
With small smiles, father and daughter looked at the screen expectantly, and let out simultaneous noises of confusion.