Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Michael Lloyd worked from home.

True, his work often took him out into the outside world, but much of it could be done using a computer without the need to be at the office. Much of the time, he had the house to himself. His wife worked steady hours, from 9-5 monday to friday, and his stepdaughter went to college 4 days a week. Not that she spent that much time at home when she wasn't at college. The quiet suburban area held little excitement for her, and she would spend half her evenings with her boyfriend, or out with her female friends, often coming home after midnight, or not at all. That was fine with Michael. She was 19 years old, and well able to take care of herself.

Emma was a pretty girl. Tall and slender with ash blonde hair. Clever and vivacious, yet feisty and quick to anger when she felt badly done by. Very like her Mother in that last respect, Michael thought, after a skirmish that had seen her slamming the front door behind her and going out. All because her Mother had asked her to tidy her room. That closeness led to an intensity in Mum and Daughter's relationship that could be both incredibly loving, and sometimes quite breathtakingly destructive.

Michael tried to avoid arguing with either of them. Anything for a quiet life. He enjoyed the alone time during the day without the hassles and distractions of other people.

Besides, Michael had a secret hobby. He found his stepdaughter's dirty panties irresistable. Every now and again, he would go to her room, and find some recently worn underwear, and would bring himself off, with his nose buried in the crotch. Sometimes, the crotch would be stained with a yellowish white discharge. Occasionally, there would be a sanitary pad still in place or some dried blood around the edges of the gusset. These he especially prized. The whole thing was such a rush! His adrenaline levels surged when he made these clandestine forays. Any noise in the house would set his heart hammering in his chest, and he would quickly and silently go to the bathroom, where he could use a call of nature as an alibi. After he had climaxed, he would put everything back as close as he could to how he found them. She was not a tidy girl, and her untidiness meant that he could be fairly sure nobody would notice anything.

But the best laid plans go aft astray.

It was just the faintest of uneasy feelings. Nothing Emma could put her finger on. Just a sense that something wasn't quite the way she had left it, right on the threshhold of her awareness. The first few times she felt it, she just put it down to herself, and she put the unease out of her mind. Yet these little things started to add up, although she couldn't have said, if anyone had asked, what it was that made her feel uneasy.

So she started paying attention to specifics. On the floor next to the bed was a pair of shoes on top of a bra. One of the shoes was lying on it's side, at right angles to it's partner. Next to these was a dressing gown. It was crumpled up, with the left arm trailing across the floor towards an apple core, now brown and dry, which lay on top of a red crisp packet. Mostly under the dressing gown was a pair of tights, and in the top of those was a pair of white panties. A set of hair straighteners lay casually on top of the dressing gown. The flex trailing off to the socket in the wall. And so on.

She left the house, went to college, came home, and went to her room. And things didn't look quite the same. The pattern of creases in the dressing gown seemed somehow different. The arm was pointing in a slightly different direction? Was it? Was she sure? Wasn't there a loop in the flex of the hair straighteners this morning? There wasn't one now. She just couldn't be sure, but her sense of unease grew greater.

So next time, she took some photographs on her phone. Before and after. Looking closely at the pictures on her monitor, she could see that there were indeed some subtle changes. Well it couldn't have been a gust of wind, and there was only Michael in the house. What was going on? Why would her stapdad be going into her room - her private space - and move things around? Emma had a pretty good idea why.

So she set a trap of sorts. This time, she left her underwear clearly on display next to her bed, and photographed her room as before. This time, nothing else had moved at all, but the panties were crumpled in a slightly different way.

That did it. Next time Michael was out of the house, she showed the pictures to her mother.