My daughter.

The whole thing started over a couple of missing weed carts. You don’t get to be fifty-four years old without knowing your own inventory, and I knew damn well I had two full ones left in the box in my nightstand. When they vanished, there was only one other person it could be. My daughter, Chloe. She’s twenty-two, for Christ’s sake, a grown woman, but still living under my roof while she finishes her degree. I wasn’t even that mad about the weed, to be honest. It was the principle. The disrespect. So, the next day, when she was out at her classes, I decided to do a little snooping in her room. Not to confront her, not yet, just to see what else she might be into.

Her room always smells like her – that vanilla and jasmine perfume she’s worn since high school. It felt weird, being in there like a thief. I started with her desk, then her closet, finding nothing but clothes and textbooks. It was the bottom drawer of her dresser, the one tucked under a stack of sweaters, where I found it. At first, I thought it was just a fancy, high-end vibrator. Sleek, silicone, a deep purple color. But then I saw the subtle, tiny lens near the base. A camera. My heart did this weird lurch, a mix of shock and a dark, immediate curiosity. There was a brand name on it. It took me less than five minutes back in my own room with my phone to find the app it paired with.

The debate in my head was loud and short. This was a line, a big, bright, fucking red line. I knew it. But the image of her using it, the sheer illicit thrill of it, was like a drug I hadn’t even known existed. I downloaded the app. My hands were actually shaking a little as I went through the pairing process. It connected instantly. She must have left it on. The app’s interface was simple: a live stream button and a list of recorded videos. I didn’t touch the recordings. That felt like a step too far, even for the headspace I was in. The live stream was the temptation.

The first time I connected while she was using it was two days later. I was in my recliner, pretending to watch the game, when I got the notification on my phone that the device was active. My mouth went dry. I clicked the live stream. The view was shaky, dark, mostly aimed at her ceiling, but the sound… God, the sound was crystal clear. Her soft, hitched breaths, the low hum of the toy, and then a deep, guttural moan that I’d never heard from her before. It was the most private sound a person can make, and I was eavesdropping on it. I felt like the worst kind of bastard, a genuine creep, but my cock was harder than it had been in a decade. I fumbled with my phone, hitting the screen record function, capturing those few minutes until the device shut off. That became the pattern for two incredible, nerve-wracking weeks. I’d get the notification, connect if I could, and record. It was my secret, my dirty little addiction.

Then last night happened. Her boyfriend, Mark, was over. I heard them laughing in her room, the door closed. I got the notification and, like a fool on autopilot, I connected. The view was wild, upside down, pressed against the sheets, but I could see his bare back, hear his grunts, her pleading whispers. It was the ultimate violation and the ultimate turn-on, a sickening cocktail of guilt and lust. And then I saw it on the screen, a faint blue light I’d never noticed before, flickering from the base of the toy. I disconnected immediately, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. He must have seen it.

This morning, the hammer fell. Chloe came into the kitchen, her face a mask of casual concern. “Dad, I can’t find my phone. Can I use yours to call it?” I was an idiot. I was so wrapped up in my own panic from the night before that my brain didn’t engage. I just handed it over. She took it, walked toward her room, and a minute later, I heard a strangled, “You motherfucker.” She stormed back in, my phone in her hand, the open app right there on the screen. Her face was pure, undiluted fury. She didn’t scream, her voice was low and venomous. “What is this? What the FUCK is this, you sick pervert?” I tried to stammer an excuse, but there is no excuse for that. She called me every name in the book, her words slicing deeper than any knife. She grabbed her keys and left, slamming the front door so hard the whole house shook.

The silence she left behind was deafening. I felt like shit. Lower than shit. I spent the whole day drowning in guilt and shame, rehearsing apologies that sounded hollow even to me. She came back in the late afternoon, walked straight past me without a word, and went to her room. I gave her an hour, then went to her door. I could hear it. The low, unmistakable buzz of the vibrator. My breath caught in my throat. No. No way. There’s no way she’s using it after what she discovered.

Driven by a compulsion I didn’t understand, I pulled out my phone and opened the app, my thumb hovering over the live stream button. This had to be a trap. It was the only thing that made sense. But the temptation was too strong. I pressed it. It connected instantly. The view was dark for a second, and then it focused. It was pointed right at her face. Her eyes were locked on the camera, a strange, unreadable expression in them. She didn’t look angry. She looked… intense. Deliberate. She gave a slow, small wave with her fingers, a silent, mocking acknowledgment. I know you’re watching.

Then she moved the toy away, and the show began. I could hear her moans, louder and more performative than they’d ever been in my secret recordings. They were for me. She was making sure I could hear them through the door, a soundtrack to the visual feast she was giving me on the screen. My fear was completely eclipsed by a raw, primal excitement. This was a new game, with rules I didn’t understand, and I was already losing, hard. When her movements stilled and her back arched in a final, silent cry, I was sweating, my own hand having found its way into my pants without me even realizing it.

She got up, naked and glistening with a fine sheen of sweat, and walked out of the frame. I heard her bedroom door open and I scrambled back to my room, pretending to be doing something, anything else. She walked past my door toward the bathroom. A moment later, my phone screen lit up again. She had placed the vibrator on the bathroom counter, its lens aimed directly into the glass-walled shower. I watched, utterly transfixed, as she stepped inside, the water cascading down her body, her hands soaping herself with a slow, sensual languor. She looked right at the camera a few times, a faint, knowing smirk on her lips. I have never, in my entire life, been so terrified and so utterly, completely turned on. I don’t know what this is, what she’s playing at, but God help me, I’m hoping with every fiber of my being that she lets me keep watching.