Robby found his voice. He was amazed by all he had heard, and had been content just to listen. But now he spoke.
“Our lives have been wonderful,” he said. “I hardly remember my father. We have no complaints at all!”
“This is wonderful for me to hear,” said their newly discovered uncle. “Perhaps I have spent too many years with people who had to struggle every minute to make their lives bearable. I know I felt as if I were more blessed than possible when I saw what they had to live like day in and day out. Perhaps I am jaded.”
“I still need you,” said Ramona. She darted a glance at her children. While their lives might have been carefree, hers had not. She didn’t know how to explain that to them without making it sound like they weren’t worth everything she’d had to go through.
“You have to understand,” she said to them. “I wouldn’t change anything if it meant that you would disappear from my life. I love you more than life itself. But I have never loved a man like I love this man.”
“Not even Daddy?” asked Debbie, who had only the vaguest fragmented memories of the man she had just named.
“I loved him,” said Ramona firmly. “He loved me and saved my life. He gave me you two, and you saved my life when he was taken from us. It’s hard for me to explain, but when we were little, Robert saved my life too. Without Robert I would have wasted away and died of a broken heart. I love him too, and I always will. I cannot change that.”
“This is all so strange,” said Debbie. She looked at the man who, until an hour ago she had called “Smith” and hated. Now she didn’t know how to feel about him. She had a sudden thought.
“Then this is our house!” she yipped. She realized how that sounded and restated it. “I mean, our grandparents lived here, and you lived here, Mommy. That’s your bedroom upstairs … the one with the girl’s things in it!” She looked at her uncle. “And the one with the toys! That one was your room!”
“How do you know all this?” cried her mother. She suddenly remembered them in the secret passageway. “How did you know about the secret places?”
That led to another hour of discussion and explanation as the children confessed to their countless trips to the house, how they’d found the bent place in the fence, and then the root cellar and its secret tunnel. They talked about the games they played. They left out the sexual games - that was still something they were uncomfortable discussing - but described how they had found things, and what they had thought of the things they found, and how they had felt at home here, like they belonged in this place.
“I never knew,” said Ramona. “My own children, spending hours and hours here and I never knew!”
“We were afraid you would have forbidden us to come back if you ever caught us,” said Debbie.
“You were right,” said their mother firmly. “I would most certainly have done that. I can’t believe you kept that secret from me!”
“Like you kept the secret of who that horrible bearded man was when he came to our house? When he ruined everything?” Debbie shot back. Then her head jerked as she realized what she’d said. “I mean it’s not really ruined, I guess. But it was then.” She got flustered.
“I always hoped that once this place was restored to its original condition that I might lure your mother and you to live here with me,” said their uncle. “I hadn’t planned on suggesting that until you had gotten to know me, but such is life.”
And that led to another hour of discussion about why the disguises and subterfuge had all been necessary when Robert first came back … was still necessary for another few weeks at least.
And that led to an attempt to discuss, on the part of the kids at least, where the money was coming from to do the extensive restoration that was going on. Neither of the teens was stupid, and they knew that it was going to cost more money than they could imagine to complete the task.
“Your Grandfather’s fortune was passed on to us,” said Robert simply.
“I don’t know about you,” said Debbie, “but we certainly don’t have any fortune.”
She looked at her mother, who was looking at her folded hands on top of the dining room table.
Ramona talked to her hands. “There are several other things I never told you.”
And that led to Debbie attempting to grill her mother about money, at which point Robby stood up and said “I’m starving. Can’t we get something to eat before we do any more talking?”
Debbie was obviously consumed with curiosity about the “Nettleton fortune”, but Ramona stood up too.
“An excellent idea!” she said. “Be patient Debbie, we can talk about all this more later.”
Debbie groaned and made much of being told to be “patient” again. She did, however, reflect for a moment on how much information she had gotten in the last few hours, and how many of her questions had been answered, albeit in an astonishing manner. So she clamped her jaws together and stood up too, at which time she realized she was also ravenous.
“Would it be all right if I invite your Uncle to dinner again?” Ramona asked. Her voice was neutral.
Both kids looked at each other. This wasn’t anything even remotely like what they had expected when they wondered who Smith was, and it was all so new that they still didn’t know how they felt about things yet. But he was their uncle, and their mother did love him.
“Of course,” said Robby, speaking for both of them.
“We’ll call for pizza,” said Ramona. “When was the last time you had pizza Bobby?” she asked.
“I can’t even remember,” he grinned. “Must I wear my disguise, just to go next door?”
“You do and I won’t speak to you,” growled Debbie. But she smiled tentatively too. “I have more questions.”
“I can’t wait to give you answers,” said her “new” uncle.
TBC
Ramona, who had driven her car to the house, found her briefcase and told the kids to come with her. Robert suggested that by going the secret way, he could get to the back of the house without being seen. He asked Robby and Debbie to go with him, and they immediately agreed.
Ramona said she’d get pizzas on the way.
The siblings and their uncle, who grabbed a flashlight, entered the passageway through the same bookcase they’d been uncovered behind, pulling it closed behind them. Then they led their uncle back down to the tunnel. The only thing they’d ever used for light was candles, and the flashlight made it seem both lighter where they were standing, and much darker where the light did not penetrate. When they got to the root cellar and Robby pushed the shelf/door open he commented on how amazing it was that a mere six year old boy could have opened the heavy door.
“There was a counterweight on it back then,” said Robert. “And the hinges were oiled. It opened quite easily. I imagine the rope has broken over the years. I’ll have to add that to my very long list of things to repair.”
They led him up the stairs into the darkening evening, and then through the trees to the fence. They were surprised when he was able to fit through the fence too.'
“This opening must have been made by the men who killed your Grandparents,” said Robert sadly. I saw it the other day, when I caught … when I saw you two. But I didn’t think anything of it then. From now on you may enter the estate through the gate. There are other smaller gates also, but all are chained and locked with rusty old locks."
“Are we really going to live in the manor?” asked Debbie.
Her uncle walked along for a few more steps before he spoke. “Nothing would please me more,” he said. “But that is up to your mother. I have no claim to her, other than blood. She may not wish to give up the home in which you were raised. And the mansion has bad memories for her. I have laid those ghosts to rest, but I don’t know if Rami will be able to do that.”
Robby spoke, his voice surprisingly adult. “You really love her, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.
Robert nodded. “I love her above all else. Were I destitute, the only thing I would crave is her love.”
“But you’re not destitute,” said Debbie. “How much money do you have?” She couldn’t resist asking and, as a mere teenager, she had not learned of the unwritten rules of society that frowned mightily on asking such a question.
Robert laughed. “I have a lot. Your mother probably has more. She has never touched her inheritance. I have spent some of mine.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” said Debbie, stopping at the edge of the forest. “How much?”
“You will have to ask your mother that question,” said her uncle with a gleam in his eye. “As I recall she wanted to wait to talk about that.”
“Oooooo!” said a frustrated Debbie. “You two must be brother and sister! You’re both driving me crazy!” She stomped off toward the house.
Robert and Robby watched her go. Both men watched her butt cheeks lift and drop as she strode along.
“She has so much passion. I think I am envious of you nephew,” said Robert.
Robby shook his head slowly. He, like his uncle, was watching the rise and fall of Debbie’s buttocks as she stomped across the yard. “You have no idea,” he said. “But I think that’s what makes her irresistible to me.” He looked at his uncle. “I think I might be a little envious of you too,” he said, ready to back up if things turned ugly.
“Your mother is a beautiful and passionate woman too,” said Robert, completely unfazed at the idea that this boy might lust for his own mother. “I am the luckiest of men in the world.” He grinned. “Except perhaps for you.”
They hurried after Debbie, not so much because they were in a hurry, but because she was getting too far away to watch. She got in the door before them and slammed it behind her.
They found Debbie hounding her mother, who was setting out the fine china again, even though all they’d eat on it was pizza. Ramona, recovered somewhat from the ordeal she’d just been through, seemed to be ignoring her daughter. When the men came in Ramona turned to them.
“Take your uncle and show him the house,” she said tersely. “And take your sister with you.” It was apparent she was not as oblivious of Debbie’s repeated attempts to find out how rich the family was as it had first seemed.
“Maaahm,” came Debbie’s drawn out moan.
“Go,” said Ramona, unrepentant at her own obstinacy.
Debbie dragged her feet on the carpet as the men turned toward the hallway. She followed them silently as they went to Robby’s room and various things Robby was proud of were pointed out. Then they showed him the bathroom and her mother’s room. Robert stood in the middle of Ramona’s bedroom and took in deep breaths.
“This place smells like my sister,” he said smiling.
But when they got to Debbie’s room she stood in the doorway, facing them.
“I’m still not sure I like you,” she said, obviously still in a funk. “My room is private.”
Robby rolled his eyes and started to move her by force, but his uncle stopped him.
“One must always respect a lady’s boudoir” he said. “Perhaps one day I shall see it.” He turned toward the living room. There was no place else to see in the modest house.
Robby shot his sister a dark look and then followed Robert. Debbie stood uncertainly in her doorway and then finally followed the men.
The arrival of the pizzas interrupted any attempt by Debbie to pick up where she’d left off. She didn’t really know why she was so interested in how much money her uncle and mother had inherited. Had someone asked her what she’d buy if she had more money she’d have been hard pressed to come up with more than a few new outfits and perhaps her own stereo system. She was still too young to think about cars and college and things like that. Her needs were pretty well met already. But still, she wondered, and her stubborn nature made her pursue the answer.
Finally, when the boxes lay empty and grease-stained, and they all felt full enough that all they wanted to do was sit and rest, Robert leaned back and sighed.
“Now, what do you want to know?”
“How much money do we have?” Debbie promptly asked.
Ramona sighed.
“That money, the money that is in the bank, came from the death of my parents. They were murdered for that money. And we don’t need it. We have everything we need already. I had thought a little about using some of it to send you two to college, but I have never wanted that money. It is blood money.”
Debbie started to say something but her mother held up her hand.
“And, if you suddenly have a lot of money, it changes things. People treat you differently. They want some of your money. There are some who want all of your money. They don’t care about you … just the money. Even your friends will act differently toward you. They say things like, ‘Well you have more than you need, so give me some.’ And even if it is your money, to do with what you wish, if you do not give them some they feel like you have taken something from them. Money is not a bad thing, but the lust for money has caused more pain than all the wars in history. I don’t want you two to have to face that pain.”
Debbie thought about that for a minute. “Okay” she said finally. “So … if we said we didn’t want any of that money … would you tell us how much there is?”
Robert laughed, a long, loud belly laugh. Debbie frowned at him, but he held up his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that it is very hard to ’not want’ money when you know it is there. But there are ways. Let me ask you this. Are you thirsty?”
Debbie looked confused. “Thirsty?”
“Yes” said her uncle. “Are you thirsty for a drink of water right now?”
“No,” said Debbie, still confused.
“But you will be thirsty some time in the future, yes?”
“Well of course,” said Debbie. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Money is like that,” said Robert. “At some point you become very thirsty. If water is scarce, then thirst is a horrible thing. But if you can just turn on the tap any time you wish then water means very little, yes?”
“It still means a lot if you’re really thirsty,” said Robby.
“True” said Robert. “But, most of the time, you don’t think about the water in the faucet, yes? Only when you are thirsty.”
Both kids nodded.
“Then, you must look at your money like it is water. When you have great thirst, it is good to have. But one must not think of it all the time and give it inflated importance. Do you understand this?”
Again both kids nodded. Debbie shook her head then. “But money isn’t water. There’s water everywhere. There’s so much water that you couldn’t drink it all. That’s why you don’t think about it all the time.”
“And this money that you are so interested in,” said Robert. “What if there were more of it than you could ever spend? Would you then lose some of your interest in it?”
Debbie blinked. “That would have to be a lot of money,” she said.
“How much is a lot?” asked her uncle. “Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?”
Debbie looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Millions I guess.”
“And how many millions?” he pressed. “Just millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?”
Debbie looked shocked. “I think a million or two would be more than anybody could spend,” she said. “I mean unless they bought stupid expensive things that they don’t really need.”
“Then, my beautiful niece, let me assure you that your mother has more money than you, and your brother, and any additional brothers and sisters that may come along could ever spend. Just think of it as if it were water.”
The first thing Debbie thought of was what her uncle had said in the woods … that her mother had more money than he did, because he had spent some of his and she had never touched hers. She looked at her Uncle.
“And you?” she asked again.
“The same,” he said softly. “More than all of us could ever spend.”
Debbie licked her lips and looked around.
“More than four million?” she asked.
“More than forty million,” said her uncle.
Debbie’s mouth hung open. “How?” she gasped.
Robert waved his hand. “The banks. They have kept our money, and used it and made money with it, paying us interest. The interest was added to what our parents left us and then they paid us interest on the interest. It is the way of banks. And it has been some thirty years they have done this.”
Debbie couldn’t breathe. “We’re millionaires?” she squeaked.
“Many times over, my dear,” said Robert.
“Wow,” said a stunned Robby.
Ramona had to speak. “But we don’t need millions to live. I like our life the way it is now.” She darted a look at her brother. “And now that Robert is back in my life I love our life. We mustn’t let money change things! It could ruin everything!”
“One can drown in very little water,” said Robert, nodding.
“Bobby,” said Ramona. “I thought you couldn’t receive your trust unless you graduated from college.”
He nodded. “When I was in East Africa there was a need for both expertise and money in the tribes I was working with. They were just establishing the Royal College in Nairobi, and I managed to get a degree in engineering through them. Officially it was awarded by the University of London, but it satisfied the prerequisites for obtaining access to my trust. It made a huge difference in the good I was able to do in the following years.”
His bland statement led to questions from both teens about where he’d been, and what he’d done, and that led to questions about the people he’d met and what they’d been like.
Ramona sat and listened to her brother with a warm feeling. Just looking at him and hearing his voice made her feel good. The mantle clock chimed and she listened with half an ear until it reached ten melodious clangs.
“It’s late” she announced suddenly, interrupting her brother’s account of working with the Masai. He was talking about Kali, a Swahili word for the hot, spicy food he loved.
“We don’t have anything to do tomorrow,” objected Debbie. She and Robby both were completely enthralled by the stories their uncle had been telling them.
“Ah, hurul-ayni,” he said to Debbie, “but I have much to do on the morrow, and need my rest,” said their uncle.
“What does that mean?” asked Debbie, smiling.
“It is Swahili for ‘beautiful maiden’” he said, bowing to her.
Debbie blushed, but grinned hugely too. Perhaps this strange man wasn’t so bad after all.
“Okay” said Debbie, her face slightly flushed. “But you have to promise to tell us more stories later.”
“You are, of course, welcome in my home …” he looked at Ramona “Our home, as far as I am concerned, any time. Any time at all.” Again he bowed to the children. He saw their look of amusement and added, “It is a habit I acquired in foreign lands. It soothes people. They are more willing to hear you when you bow.”
“So,” said Debbie cheekily, “You’re trying to soothe us?”
“You have made your dislike for me clear,” said Robert.
“Well … yes,” admitted Debbie. “But that was before we knew who you really were. I guess you’re not so bad,” she finished, unable to meet the eyes of the man she’d screamed her hate at.
“You have taken a huge weight from my shoulders,” he said. “Perhaps some day I’ll even be worth a hug.”
The first thing Debbie thought of when he said the word “hug” was the hugs she’d seen her naked mother giving him, while he made passionate love to her. Debbie felt a rush of emotion that she wasn’t able to categorize as being either good or bad.
“Yeah … well, some day,” she said carefully.
“Until then,” he said, turning.
Something startling occured to Debbie suddenly and she turned to her mother. “Mom? Robert … Robby? Is Robby named after … him?”
Ramona nodded, her eyes turning to her brother, who finally looked startled.
“It was the only way I could have him near me at the time,” she said. “Now, come. I’ll take you home Bobby,” said Ramona. “So you don’t have to walk.”
Robby barked a laugh, and when the adults looked at him he blushed. “Sorry” he said. “I was thinking of … never mind,” he finished, also unable to meet his mother’s and uncle’s eyes. He had been thinking that every time his mother went to the manor she ended up naked with a stiff prick buried in her.
Robert smiled. “Perhaps you want to come with us?” he offered in a gracious voice. “You can watch without having to hide behind the walls if that is what you were thinking.”
“Bobby!” squealed Ramona. She reached out and slapped his arm.
Robby was so unnerved by his uncle’s bland invitation to watch them have sex that he was momentarily lost for words. Finally he blurted out, “Maybe later.” Then he turned even redder and lay his head on the table with a moan.
Robert laughed. “Yes, I imagine you would like to be alone too, eh?” he said with a chuckle.
Ramona turned around and pointed at her children. “You two don’t do anything until I get home. We still have some things to talk about!”
Both kids just nodded, looking pale all of a sudden.
Ramona pushed her brother toward the door, still looking at her children.
“And I’ll be right back!” she said firmly. She then berated her brother as they went through the door, telling him he was shameless and crude and … The conversation, if it could be called that, was cut off by the door as it closed.
TBC in next Chapter…….
Chapter Eleven
Debbie looked at Robby. “What do you think she’s going to do?”
“I don’t know. She said she’d be right back. Probably nothing,” he said.
“I don’t mean with him,” said Debbie, rolling her eyes. “I meant about us!”
Robby looked at her miserably. “I don’t know that either. Sounds like she doesn’t like the idea of us doing … things.”
“That’s not fair,” said Debbie, her stubbornness coming out in her voice. “They do things.”
“Deb, they do a whole lot more than we do,” said her brother.
“Yeah, but not that much more,” she said, still wanting to argue.
“Deb, I never thought of actually … doing what they do,” he said. “I mean I thought about it, but not like I was really going to try to get you to do that,” he said. “Did you think about doing that? With me?”
Debbie felt another rush of emotion. “Not really,” she said. “I like what we do just fine. I mean I’ve wondered what it might feel like. You know? But seeing them … and knowing who they are … I don’t know how I feel any more.”
“Well you better figure out how you feel, ‘cause Mom said she wasn’t going to be long,” he said.
As if to punctuate his sentence they heard a car door slam outside. They waited and then tensed as their mother came through the door. She did, in fact, look unhappy.
“Sorry Mom,” said Robby automatically.
“What, exactly, are you sorry for Robby?” asked Ramona. She was in full parent mode and wanted her children to articulate their errors in a way that would convince her that their breach of behavioral rules would not be repeated. It was something she’d done with them for years.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend more time with Uncle Robert,” he said sincerely.
“What?” asked Ramona, surprised by his statement.
“Well we kind of ruined your evening with him,” said Robby. “And we’re sorry. Aren’t we?” he hinted to his sister, who was also looking at him strangely.
“I guess so,” she said honestly.
The overwhelming nature of everything that had happened settled on Ramona like thickly falling snow. She had gone from being inflamed with passion for her brother’s touch, to horrified and ashamed that her children had seen it, followed by absolute joy that her children still loved her. Upon the heels of that was her anger that they had lied to her all these years and her astonishment that they were having sex. She knew how she was supposed to feel about that, her own behavior notwithstanding - that was different … wasn’t it? - and she had planned on laying down the law to them when she came in the door. Piled on top of that was the warm safe feeling she had enjoyed for most of the evening as they talked, like a real family, which was upset by her brother’s completely tactless invitation for her children to watch him ravish her. It didn’t help that he had begged for forgiveness, claiming that he was kidding … trying to shock the children further out of the opinion they had formed already about him.
It was all too much to think about … to deal with. She felt a need to just get away from it all, but she knew she couldn’t. It left her feeling a little shell shocked. She sat down heavily on the couch and stared at her children.
“Mom?” asked her daughter. “Are you okay?”
“No,” said Ramona. “I don’t think I am. This is all so confusing.”
Debbie, unfettered by all but her own concerns about how this was going to affect herself and her brother, spoke with typical teenaged innocence.
“What’s to be confused about?” she asked. “Uncle Robert came back, and you’re glad. It’s true that you have bad memories about the manor, but he’s fixing it up really nice and everything, and we can go visit him whenever we want to. I mean what’s changed all that much?”
Ramona gave a strangled sound that was half laugh and have groan.
“How I wish it were all that simple,” she said.
“Isn’t it?” asked Debbie.
“Well, let’s see,” said Ramona. She ticked things off on her fingers. “The house I hoped would fall down into a pile of rubble is being rebuilt so it will never fall down. My brother, against whom I have no defenses whatsoever, is bound and determined to father a child on me! Meanwhile my children are busy trying to make babies of their own … together! People in town are going to just go nuts when they find out that the meek little woman at the bank is, in actuality, Elizabeth Nettleton, the rich heiress of the Nettleton fortune. I’ll probably be fired. My children are much too interested in money that I have, but don’t want. Have I missed anything? Isn’t there something else I’ve forgotten that can ruin our lives?”
Debbie looked startled as she realized that there were a lot of things she hadn’t thought about.
Robby, perhaps because he was male, but not necessarily so, took a more pragmatic view of things. He too, ticked things off on his fingers.
“First of all, you don’t ever have to go in the house next door again at all if you don’t want to. Second, there are lots of ways to keep from having babies. If you don’t want to have Uncle Robert’s baby then just tell him so. Third, nobody in town has to know who you are now any more than they did last week. Everybody will know about Uncle Robert, but unless the two of you announce who you are, everybody in town will still think you’re the … what did you call it? … nice little woman at the bank? And you have the wrong idea about Debbie and me. We fool around a little bit, because we love each other, but we’re not trying to make babies. We haven’t done that at all. And they can’t fire you just because you’re Elizabeth Nettleton. It’s not against the law to be Elizabeth Nettleton. And if the money is that horrible, then I agree with you that we don’t need it. Give it away or something. I don’t care.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
Debbie had been nodding her head … until he got to the part about giving away all the money. She wanted to complain about that, but she really felt her mother’s distress, so she bit her lip. She could suggest some alternatives to that later.
Of it all, Ramona had zeroed in the most on his statement that he and Debbie “hadn’t done that”.
“You two haven’t had sex?” she asked, tentatively.
Debbie thought to reassure her mother. “Well, we have sex, but not like you and Uncle Robert.”
Ramona didn’t know what that meant. “Let’s just talk about that,” she said, glad to have picked one topic that could be explored, and which might be less unsettling than she had previously thought.
So they did, disregarding the fact that it was getting later and later. Ramona wasn’t tired, and she was fascinated by what she was hearing from her children. It sounded to her like a carbon copy of what she and Robert had done when they were young … younger even than these two.
For their part, as the children realized she wasn’t going to fly off in a rage every time they added something to their story, they felt much more comfortable telling it. They were amazed at how they got a sense of freedom out of giving up the secrets they had been so careful to keep. They had to include the things they had done in the house too … the dressing up … the fantasies they had acted out … basically a description of the childhood in the manor that Ramona had been robbed of.
When they were finished, Ramona sighed. She had heard a love story. That much was plain. What her children had done with each other was clearly based on their love for each other. She understood that. That understanding was the core of her own personality, based on the same kind of love she had for Robert. She found herself unable to judge their actions harshly … and she knew it.
She looked at her watch and groaned. “It’s very late,” she said. “Unlike you two, who are carefree and able to sleep in, I have to get up and go to work. Off to bed.”
Debbie looked at her mother slyly. “If you used your money you wouldn’t have to work any more at all,” she said. “You could sleep in too, if you wanted to.”
Ramona tried to glare at her daughter, but it just seemed to take too much energy. “I like my job,” she said shortly.
“We’ve seen how much you like your job,” said Debbie innocently. “Several times. Like Robby said, sorry your job got messed up tonight.” Her voice was so innocent that Ramona had to laugh.
“Go on. Off to bed. Separate beds, my darlings,” she said.
“We’ve never slept in the same bed,” said Robby, trying to sound injured.
“Thank goodness for small miracles,” said Ramona under her breath.
No one got to sleep easily in the Franklin household that night. Ramona thought about everything she’d heard her children telling her, and it brought out her love and affection for her brother, who was a few hundred yards away … quite possibly naked … quite possibly wasting perfectly good seed. That led her to think about what she’d said about him fathering a child on her, and she examined that from several different angles, trying to decide exactly how she felt about it while his prick wasn’t buried in her. She already knew how she felt about it then.
Debbie lay in her bed, idly flicking her clitoris, also thinking about all that had happened. Even though her mother had specified separate beds, there had been no real heat in that order. Debbie clung to the hope that her mother could understand how she felt about Robby, not knowing her mother knew even better than she did herself. Debbie thought about what her mother had thought Debbie and Robby had been doing. She looked at that scenario from several different points of view, wondering again, what that might be like.
Robby also lay in his bed. The thing that kept coming back to his mind was his hand on his mother’s naked shoulder, telling her that he loved her. He felt a distinctly un-son-like feeling in is groin for his mother … the same kind of thing he felt for his sister when they played. He examined that from several angles, trying to figure out whether it was good, bad, or indifferent. He found his answer when he suddenly realized his hand was firmly wrapped around his stiff cock, and that he was stroking it.
Next door, in the Nettleton mansion, Robert Nettleton lay in his bed too, also thinking about what had happened that evening. Neither his niece or nephew had screamed hate at him. Their love for each other, something he too understood completely, was now out in the open. He knew it could not be quashed, no matter what his more conservative sister thought. He wasn’t too upset about how Rami had berated him as a pervert for offering to let the children watch him love their mother. He had noticed that the points of her nipples had pressed firmly through her blouse. She might not know it, but that “perversion” had appealed to something in her. “Methinks thou dost protest too much,” he said out loud ito the darkness of his room. Then he thought about how much turmoil he had caused in his lovely sister’s life, and examined that from several directions, trying to see if he had covered everything in his plan. He smiled.
He had big plans for his sister. She didn’t know them all. It would take time, but he was sure he could bring his plan to fruition. Perhaps, at last, the Nettleton curse could be broken. Thinking about his plan made him stiff, and he considered masturbating. Instead he rolled over and tried to find sleep. He would not waste his seed.
TBC
The next morning Debbie had to pull her mother out of bed, lecturing her on how she had to get up … had to go to work … had to be an adult. Ramona acted surprisingly like a teenage girl, snarling at the disruption of her sleep, moaning that she didn’t want to get up. She was horny too, and that made her temper unruly. Debbie ignored her, much as a good mother would ignore the unthinking barbs that a daughter often throws at the mother making her do something she doesn’t want to do. It was a remarkable reversal of roles.
Once she had pushed her mother out the door, kissing her and telling her she loved her, Debbie turned to her brother’s room.
Robby was still asleep, though how he could have slept through the ranting and railing of his mother she could not guess. With economy of movement Debbie stripped off her sleepwear and ran her hand under the covers to find how her brother was clothed.
Good. He had slept naked. She crawled into the bed, shivering at how warm it was. She cuddled up to her brother and closed her eyes, smelling his hair and the other scents that were … Robby. Even that didn’t wake him. With her arm draped over him, her hand only inches from his penis, she drifted into that place between sleep and wakefulness.
At work Ramona drank a cup of coffee and felt a little better. She really did love her job. She got along well with everyone at the bank. She had been more comfortable as an invisible teller, but even now the sheen of being involved with the Nettleton account had dimmed a little and people were back to business as usual.
There was a new pile of bills and invoices from contractors in her in box. She tackled them, using the nervous energy she had created by resisting her daughter. On one bill she noticed something familiar. She went into her files and pulled out another invoice. They were the same, though dated differently. Hoskins dry wall was trying to charge twice for the same work. It was a clumsy attempt at larceny. Only the dates had been changed. Even Robert’s signature on the approval line was exactly the same. She frowned, her nervous energy being channeled into the heat of anger.
Renee Wright had known Ramona Franklin for more than six years. She was shocked as she walked by Ramona’s new desk. Ramona’s face was red and she was shouting into the phone. “And if you try this again I’ll report you to the police!” snarled Ramona, slamming the phone down in the cradle. Renee looked at her friend like they’d never met.
“What was that all about?” she asked, leaning on the short partition in front of the desk.
“Hoskins drywall is trying to rip off my client!” said Ramona, reaching for her coffee cup, only to find it empty. She stood up to go get more.
“Well you go get ’em girl,” said Renee. “We can’t have our favorite client getting ripped off.” She looked around like she was checking to see who could hear them. “Have you met him yet?” she asked.
“What?” said Ramona, distracted by her urge for caffeine. “Who?”
“Robert Nettleton, of course,” said Renee. “I hear he’s young and single. I don’t know if he’s good looking or not, but who cares with all that money he has?”
Ramona’s radar lit up like a set of holiday lights. “I’ve talked to him,” she said carefully. “He’s pig-headed,” she added. She was horny and she blamed it on Robert Nettleton.
“I could get used to pig-headed, if it came with fifty million dollars.” Renee winked.
“You’re married!” said Ramona.
“Too true,” said Renee. “And I love Ted, but he doesn’t have fifty million dollars.”
Ramona was shocked. She hadn’t thought about the fact that her brother would be considered “fair game” by conniving females in town. Even beyond town. It made her stomach hurt.
“You’d leave Ted? Just for the money?” gasped Ramona.
Renee smiled brilliantly. “No. I really do love Ted. But a girl can dream … can’t she? What about you? You’ve got the inside track here. Has he made any moves on you?” She whispered the last question.
Ramona felt herself blushing and tried in vain to stop it. “Of course not!” she said. Her blush continued because of the lie.
Renee laughed. “Well then, you’d better loosen up a little girl. He’s the most eligible bachelor in the state - maybe in the five state region - and you’re a good looking girl when you want to be. How about I take you shopping and see if we can come up with an outfit you can go on safari in?” She grinned from ear to ear.
The last thing Ramona thought she needed was a bunch of people poking into who Robert Nettleton was “seeing”. No, now that she thought about it, the last thing she needed was a bunch of women trying to get her to introduce them to the most eligible bachelor in the five state region. No, now that she thought about it even more, the last thing she needed was to “get involved” with Robert Nettleton, and then for people to find out who she was.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to defuse the situation. “But I’m happy with who I am. All that money comes with problems attached to it. You can be sure of that,” she said firmly. “And I’m not about to become a dating service for that pig-headed man either, so spread that around. If anybody wants to meet him they can go to his drafty old house and knock on the door, just like anybody else.”
“What does he look like?” asked Renee, not at all put off by Ramona’s tirade.
“I don’t know,” lied Ramona. “I’ve only seen him once and that was just for a handshake in Peterson’s office. I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple of times. All the face-to-face stuff is with Mister Smith.”
Renee shuddered visibly. “That spooky old man?” she said. “He gives me the willies.”
“Oh, he’s nice enough, really. A little strange, but a nice man all things considered,” said Ramona. “He’s only going to be around for another few weeks.”
“Well, you listen to me Ramona,” said Renee. “Pig-headed or not, there’s going to be a stampede by a whole bunch of women trying to get their claws into Mister Robert Nettleton. You think about what I said. You’re a sweet woman Ramona, and you deserve some happiness. And you do have the inside track. don’t throw away first crack at something that could be a nice thing.” Renee blew an air kiss and wandered off toward her own desk.
Ramona sat and thought about what had just happened. It was true. Women would flock to try to net a catch like Robert. It made her stomach roil to think about any other woman in Robert’s arms.
She stood up, grabbed her briefcase viciously, and stalked out of the bank toward her car.
TBC
Robert was talking to an interior decorator about period wall paper and fabric choices when he saw Ramona’s car speeding up the driveway. It was still gravel, and small stones spun from under her tires as the car swerved around a gradual corner. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see she was upset about something. He told the designer that expense was not an issue, and that he wanted authentic paper and cloth, and then excused himself to walk toward the car as it slid to a stop, scraping across the last five feet of gravel.
He opened the door of the car, noting that a plumber was standing and watching not far away.
“Mrs. Franklin!” he said loudly. “How good to see you again. Please, come inside and we can conduct whatever business seems to be so important that you spread Mr. Nettleton’s gravel all over the yard.”
It was the kind of thing a foreman for a rich prick would say to an underling. The plumber turned around to get something out of his truck. He felt sorry for the poor woman in the car.
Ramona’s funk was penetrated by the formal note in her brother’s voice, and she got out of the car without saying anything. She let him lead her into the house, and up the stairs, into the bedroom. When he closed the door she flung herself into his arms, crying.
“Rami, my sweet, what’s wrong?” he asked, stroking her back. There was nothing sexual in his touch; only the care and loving concern he felt for her.
“They’re all going to be after you,” she sobbed. “All those grasping women!”
Robert soothed her and took her to the love seat. He sat down beside her. '
“What are you talking about my darling?” he asked solicitously. “What grasping women?”
“You’re the most eligible bachelor in five states!” cried Ramona. She broke into sobs again and leaned against Robert.
Slowly he worked out of her what had happened. She told him what Renee had said, and of her fears that some other woman would worm her way into his life, shutting her out.
Robert held her until she calmed, her crying finally fading to sniffles. There was a box of tissues on an end table and he offered her one.
“Love of my life,” he started. She turned her tear-filled eyes to his. “Did you really think there could be any other woman for me than you? I am laid low that you would even think that some … grasping woman … could ever be welcome here.”
“But it’s true!” moaned Ramona. “They’ll hound you. They won’t leave you alone. You’re rich! Oh, how I hate that money!” She started to cry again.
TBC
Next door, at the Franklin household, the ‘man’ of the house smiled as his mind recognized that he was rising from slumber to wakefulness. That was a nice place. Good things happened in that place just before you actually woke up. Like now, for instance. He could feel a warm naked body cuddled up to his own. It felt so nice he didn’t want to wake up at all. But he had to. His bladder was killing him. He opened his eyes, blinking at the sunlight coming through the windows. He must have slept late. Why could he still feel warm naked body against him?
He came awake quickly then, feeling what had to be his sister’s arm draped over him. He could hear her slow breathing behind him … feel her warm breath on his neck. Now he could feel her breasts pressing into his back, and her legs against his. He lifted his head and looked at his alarm clock. Ten O’clock! He never slept that late. Then again, it had been a late night. His bladder reminded him that, regardless of how nice this was, he had to get up. He rolled the opposite way he would usually get out of bed, sliding under Debbie’s arm, which dropped to the bed softly.
“Mmmmmm,” she complained, her own eyes opening and her tousled head lifting a little. “Why did you get up?” she complained.
“Gotta go,” he said, his piss erection standing out straight and strong.
“Well hurry up,” she grumbled. “You let the warm all out.”
Robby did hurry, draining his bladder and then running on his tip toes back to his bedroom and the naked girl waiting in his bed.
“I liked it better the other way,” she commented, peeking out from under the sheet at his now flaccid penis.
“Well, I’m sure you can do something about that if you want to,” he said, climbing back under the sheet and pressing his front to hers.
They spent a while just kissing each other, their tongues dueling like flickering swords, and that caused them to move their bodies against each other, pushing, sliding and thrusting. Debbie purred as she felt her brother’s prick get long and hard again, poking into her mound.
She broke the kiss and reached between them to wrap her hand around his maleness.
“Mom thought we were … fucking,” she said, feeling a thrill at using a naughty word. “Have you ever wanted to … fuck me?” she whispered.
“I never really thought about that,” said Robby into her mouth, kissing the corner of her mouth. “Until lately.”
“I like what we do,” she murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth, like he had kissed hers. “And if we … fucked … I might get pregnant.”
“I know,” he said, thrusting into her hand. “I’m happy with what we do.” He thrust into her hand again. “It might feel good though.”
“I love it when I feel all your warm stuff shooting on me,” she sighed, moving his prick so it dug between her pussy lips and pressed against her clit.
“Maybe if I went into you just a little bit?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, breathing faster as she rubbed herself off with the tip of his prick. “It might hurt.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, thrusting again. His prick poked hard between her labia and stretched her opening before her tightness stopped him. She felt the stretching, but not as pain so much as the kind of discomfort you have when you want to take a bite of something and your mouth won’t open wide enough to get the kind of bite you want. She lifted her top leg, trying to open herself up more, to see if that made the stretching sensation go away.
“Suck my nipples” she commanded.
Robby tried to duck his head to get a nipple, without making her let go of him. It didn’t work, so he pushed her on her back and crawled between her legs, hovering over her as she automatically drew her knees up toward her chest to let him put his prick back in contact with her pussy. She had had to let go of him as he moved, and her hand found him again, grabbing him firmly and pulling his prick to her entrance.
In this position Robby could hunch and suck at her nipples while she again dug the head of his prick between her pussy lips and used that to massage her clit. Every so often she swabbed the tip down, into her vaginal opening, because that felt good too. It was just natural that, since she was pulling on him to get pressure on her clit, he helped by pushing. And, it was just natural that when she moved it to her pussy hole, he pushed then too, pressing against her maiden opening, as if knocking insistently at a door.
Debbie’s hymen was the worse for wear, because her fingers had plumbed her depths on many occasions. It had suffered even more when Robby’s thick finger dug into her. She had felt twinges of pain in the past, but they hadn’t lasted, so she ignored them, just moving her fingers away from that side of her pussy where the twinges happened. Had her maidenhead been in less abused condition, it might have put up more resistance to Robby’s prodding prick head.
But it wasn’t in very good condition at all.
TBC
And, when Robby pushed a little more forcefully one time, and the head of his dick slipped through her tight sphincter, it happened so quickly that neither teen was prepared for it.
Suddenly … quite suddenly … The head of Robby’s prick was surrounded by tight, hot, slippery pussy flesh, and Debbie’s pussy lips complained as they were stretched farther than they ever had been before. That little place that gave her twinges occasionally gave a yelp of distress as what was left of her cherry was shredded and the tatters pushed out of the way. That his prick didn’t go deeper was only because, as Robby had pushed in the past, he pushed only so hard … only hard enough to keep firm contact with his sister’s pussy lips and mound.
“OH! Owww,” moaned Debbie, as she was penetrated for the first time in her life by anything bigger than a finger.
Robby froze, hearing the distress in her voice. He also understood something new had happened, and had a pretty good idea of what that was. He left his knob securely locked in her, as her pussy lips closed tightly just below the neck under that head.
“You okay?” he asked, breathlessly.
“It stings a little,” she said, her voice not quite whining. “It’s stretching me.”
“You want me to take it out?” he asked. He gave a tentative pull, just enough to feel that he was firmly stuck in her, and that if he pulled out it would stretch her even more … or again, as the case was.
“No,” she said. “Not yet. It doesn’t feel so bad now. I think I’m stretching or something.”
Robby was in a quandary. He knew enough about his penis that he knew it was bigger around in both directions from where it was so firmly gripped. It didn’t matter if he went further in, or pulled back. The results would be the same. It would hurt her.
“Maybe I’d better take it out,” he panted. It felt wonderful right where it was, but he didn’t want to cause his sister pain.
“No, it’s not so bad now. Just don’t move for a minute, okay?” She was beginning to pant too.
“I have to do something,” he said. “My back is starting to hurt.”
“Suck my nipples some more,” she said. She wanted to move her hips, but was afraid to. This was a whole new feeling. The top of his shaft, right behind the head, was in contact with her button, and she just knew that if she thrust upward that contact would increase. She wanted that contact to increase, but was also afraid the pain would come back.
Her mistake was that, whenever he sucked her nipples, her body did what it wanted to. She had never thought about the fact that as he sucked, her hips moved. And this time, when he sucked, and her hips moved, it achieved what she’d wanted to feel. Her pussy climbed the shaft of his penis about two inches and she was stretched again.
There were competing feelings. Her clit shouted, “Yes!” while her poor stretched pussy lips wailed, “Noooooo” The slight tear that was all that was left of her hymen squealed and pumped a few drops of bright red blood out of that tear as the bottom of his shaft scraped along there, spreading that blood deeper into her channel. Her nipple, which was being sucked into her brother’s mouth and bitten gently, added its scream of, “Oh fuck yes!” to the mix, and that was what overpowered the complaining parts.
Roby felt more of his prick enveloped by wet heat, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. He let her nipple pop out of his mouth and looked at her face. Her mouth was stretched into a grimace, her eyes tightly closed. She looked like she was in pain. He automatically started to pull back, pushing with his arms. He did it so quickly that it made a sucking popping sound as his prick was jerked out of her pussy.
Her eyes snapped open and her grimace went to a round shape.
“Nooooo don’t take it out,” she complained.
But it was too late. It was already out. They both looked down to see his hard cock suspended over her pussy. There was a sheen of moisture that went a third of the way up the shaft. It glistened like a coat of paint on his cock, with just the faintest tinge of pink to it.
“It was hurting you,” he said, pushing up to sit on his calves and give his back muscles some relief. The sheet slid off his shoulders and fell on his heels. His sister’s naked body lay spread eagle before him.
“It’s cold!” she said, reaching for him. “Come back.” She sat up and grasped his shoulders, pulling at him. “And it felt good too.”
Robby lay down beside her, pulling her on her side, to cover them with the sheet again and hug her. He kissed her lips.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said as she snuggled against him, trying to put as much of her skin against his warmth as possible.
“I told you it felt good too,” she said. “It was starting to feel even better. Put it back in,” she demanded.
“We can’t,” said Robby. “I told you. You could get pregnant.”
“You can take it out when you squirt,” she countered. Her hips were pushing against his penis, which was still hard.
“You really want me to?” he asked, unable to believe that she wanted something that hurt.
“Put it back in,” she repeated.
It was, in one sense, mere exploration, just as they had done before. But feeling that penis in her vagina had awakened something in Debbie that had been peacefully asleep before now. She had known, on an intellectual level, what intercourse was, but had never really thought to try it. It was a little like seeing a food one had never tried, and thinking that it might be good … that it could be good … but never actually feeling like you wanted to put it in your mouth.
All that had changed as she felt the pain of, in a purely sexual sense, becoming a woman. Now the thing that had awakened deep in her brain had tasted that strange food and the sensations were both bitter and sweet. As if it had taste buds, her pussy wanted another sampling of that new delicacy … wanted a mouth full of that strange taste … so she could experience it to the fullest.
Therefore, when she pulled her brother back on top of her, and he tentatively pushed the crown of his iron hard penis between her pussy lips, she unthinkingly thrust up at him.
To take the food analogy just a bit further … she bit off a little more than she could comfortably chew.
Robby felt her pushing up at him and his natural response was to push back. They’d been doing that for a long time - pushing their loins at each other - but this time his prick, already lubricated with her slick juices, pushed into her like a hand fitting into a too-tight glove. The stretching sensation started again at her pussy’s mouth, as their lips went suddenly white and thin as they tried to expand around not only the head, but the shaft that followed. Then her tight pussy clenched as the sensitive tissues were forced apart.
Her immediate response was to take in a big breath to shout that it hurt and, at the same time, to drop her bottom back to the bed in an attempt to get away from the thing that was stretching her so cruelly.
Ironically, it was her body’s attempt to get away from the sk$$$$$ng spear that dropped her clit into full contact with the top of his shaft as it went deep in her. By then there were only two or three inches of shaft left outside her body to scrape along her super-sensitive bud, but those two or three inches made all the difference in the world. The fact that Robby’s brain insisted on continuing to push once he was fully seated in her sex also caused his pubic bone to smash her clit as if it were trying to drive the little organ back into its protective sheath.
Her clitoris wasn’t about to surrender, however. It fought back by engorging even more, becoming rubbery-hard as it was over stimulated by pressure. It sent screaming signals along neural pathways, calling for relief.
The result was, that by the time her complaint of pain reached her mouth, with its jaws clamped firmly closed in a wide grimace, it turned from an expression of pain to a groan of satisfaction as her body got exactly what it had asked for … a pussy just stuffed to overflowing with a nice, long, hard male organ and the beginnings of a physical response called an orgasm rushing toward her like an ambulance hurrying to give aid.
Robby, meanwhile, was caught on the horns of another dilemma. As his penis was surrounded by hot pussy flesh that hugged him like a sexual bear-hug, he knew immediately that if he moved, even an inch, cum would boil out of the tip of his prick like steaming water gushed from Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. It was partly that feeling that caused him to keep pushing, to stay as fully seated in his sister as it was possible for him to be. He felt panic, joy and ecstasy all at the same time. He was quite literally overwhelmed with sensations and feelings.
Debbie, as her clit fought for its life, felt something else, deeper inside her. It was another pain as the tip of her brother’s prick, which had defeated her outer portal, found another doorway and tried to force its way through that one as well. Her virgin cervix refused to open, at least open enough to allow that invading monster to push into the womb those gates guarded, and that caused pain too. This pain was of a deeper type, not sharp and stinging, but a dull ache that was something like the ache in muscles that is eased by a good, long, body-bending stretch.
Her pussy muscles tried to adjust and do that stretching. What happened would probably have been called a spasm by a Doctor, as her abused muscles moved and shifted erratically, in almost a rippling motion. Her screaming clitty’s message flashed along a nervous system that was overloaded with sensations. Her body’s response to this overload of stimulation was to act a little bit like a circuit breaker. Except, in this case, when the switch kicked to “standby”, it energized another circuit that her orgasm flowed along at something close to light speed. Most of her body went rigid, muscles locked temporarily in that “stand by” mode, as the spasms took all the body’s resources and centered them on her pussy.
Robby too was dealing with an overload as Debbie’s twitching cervical lips tried to close, then open, then close again, almost massaging the sensitive tip of his penis. With a helpless groan, Robby’s body did exactly what it was designed to do. Automatic reflexes kicked in and his body expelled the fluid that would sooth the electric shocks that were torturing his penis. Creamy fluid filled the tiny tube that was the primary complainant in his body at the moment and, having no place else to go once it had served that purpose, jetted out of the tip of his cock, splashing all over Debbie’s tight cervical mouth. Then, not satisfied that it had completely soothed his penis, his body served up four more helpings of that warm cream, to ensure that the stimulation was dealt with.
Debbie’s cervix, told by some nervous communication involved with her orgasm, finally relaxed, the lips loosening fractionally and dipping outward to flow around the blunt thing trying to batter its way past them. Three soothing warm jets of fluid then splattered into the soft dark cave deep inside her body that was made to welcome that fluid.
In the space of some twenty or thirty seconds, a million nervous impulses did what they were designed to do and did it flawlessly. And, in the space of only four or five seconds, even more millions of healthy, viable sperm cells were transported from one human being into another.
A miracle of nature had taken place in the space of a few breaths, and even fewer blinks of an eye.
Debbie felt, on some level, the rush of wet warmth that flowed into her body from her brother’s penis. She was instantly addicted to the feeling. She was addicted before she had any conscious thought of what was really happening, or the consequences of those actions. On a purely metaphysical plane of existence, she knew she had found the thing that made her the happiest she had ever been thus far in her life.
Robby’s experience was a bit more tortured. He knew exactly what was happening before it actually happened. He knew he was about to cum in his sister, and that there was nothing in the world he could do about it. He knew that even if he jerked his prick out of her, he couldn’t do it before he spermed her pussy. In his mind’s eye he knew he was going to fill his sister’s belly with life and the electrons bouncing around in his brain visualized his emission as tiny full-formed fetuses being injected into her womb, where the thousands he saw would grow and burst from her body, destroying her like some alien plague.
Even as he felt the explosion of ecstasy that went along with his orgasm, he felt the misery of having ruined his sister’s life. He berated himself, admitting that he knew better than to let her bully him into doing this thing. At the same time he felt his body insist that he stay right where he was until the last feeble clench in his groin expelled the last few straggling sperm cells from his body into hers.
Then, feeling completely miserable, he collapsed on top of her.
They lay there gasping for breath for a few minutes. Robby rehearsed in his mind the various ways he could apologize to his sister, who would now probably hate him for the rest of her life. He felt her hands come to his waist, and expected her to push as her angry outbursts began.
Instead her hands stroked along his sides, and up onto his back, and then down to his buttocks.
“Oh thank you Robby” she sighed. “Thank you so much.”
Robby was stuck speechless.
Debbie squeezed him with her arms. “I completely understand why Mommy wants to do that now.”
Robby found the energy to push with his arms, so he could look at his sister’s face. Perhaps the ‘alien invasion’ had altered her already.
“I fucked you,” he said. It was hard to tell if that was a question or statement. The words sounded harsh in his own mind, but that was how he characterized what had happened.
She just looked up at him adoringly, her eyes big and liquid brown suddenly.
“I wasn’t supposed to do that,” he croaked.
Debbie’s hands left his sides, where they had come to rest. She grasped his head gently and pulled him down for a kiss. When it was done she let him go.
“When do you think you’ll be able to fuck me again?” she asked. “You didn’t go nearly as long as Mommy and Uncle Robert go.”
Robby looked at her incredulously. He tried to roll off of her, but she gripped him and rolled with him until they were again lying side by side.
It took half an hour, but they talked about what had happened, and how each of them felt about it. Robby learned that, not counting the dangerous nature of the transfer of body fluids, he had done nothing but please his sister. She had already forgotten the pain and discomfort she had felt initially. She didn’t care about the fact that he might have made her pregnant. She would care later, but she was still in the grip of the chemicals a woman’s body produces during an orgasm that are designed specifically to encourage her to lie there afterward and let all that nice sperm soak in completely before she gets up.
In the end he insisted that, if they did this again, they had to do it only at times when she was unlikely to be fertile and that they had to try to find some way to acquire some rubbers. She, on the other hand, insisted that she would be extremely unhappy if he tried to keep her from enjoying this new thing they had found together, and that it would happen again or he’d be sorry.
While it sounds like they argued, it wasn’t really like that at all. It was more of a situation where each pleaded his or her case about what they wanted the future to be like. As with most teens, they couldn’t see very far into the future, and their plans were, for the most part, short term. It was impossible, lying there in the afterglow of sex, even if it wasn’t ‘good sex’ in a classical sense, not to give each other little loving touches and kisses.
Once they had said what they felt the need to say, they kissed some more. It was comfortable lying there together. Their speech got less and less focused and, eventually, they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.
That’s how Ramona found them when she broke her routine and came home for lunch for only the third or forth time since she’d taken her job at the bank.
TBC in next Chapter……..
Chapter Twelve
Ramona had entered the house with a lot on her mind. She’d been thinking about what she and her children had talked about the night before. She’d been thinking about what Renee had said. And, most lately on her mind, she’d been thinking about what she and Robert had just done, right next door. Robert had a singular way of trying to convince her that grasping women should be the least of her worries. His soothing voice had come with soothing hands and, like she always did when she was around him, she was soon panting with passion as he casually undressed her.
Then he had made love to her with his mouth, all over her body, driving her to distraction by bringing her close to an orgasm, but always pulling back before she got there. Somehow he had gotten naked while he did this, and when he stood to show her what she did to him he smiled. He had placed his open hand under his balls and that magnificent penis, like he was holding it, about to lift it away from his body to present to her.
“This is yours, Rami. It has no purpose but to pleasure you and give us children together. If you do not want it, then it shall lie unused for the rest of my life. You are my love, and I want no other.”
She had burst into tears of mixed joy and hope and frustration that she couldn’t just be like any other woman and love him and be allowed to love him. He had mounted her, somehow knowing that she wanted him and stroking her until her tears stopped flowing. She confessed her own love for him again and though they had done this many times, it was like the first time for her. He was gentle and brought her to an orgasm that was like being suddenly dipped in warm water when it’s freezing outside. Then he came in her, flushing her full of warmth deep inside too.
Ramona’s face got hot as she looked around the kitchen to see if her children were there, where they could see her reaction to remembering what had only happened thirty minutes ago. But they weren’t there and it was quiet in the house.
She went to her bedroom to change panties - the ones she’d put on for work this morning were no longer suitable to be worn in public - and she had to pass her daughter’s bedroom on the way. The door had been carelessly left open and she saw the still forms of her son and daughter clasping each other under the light sheet.
Had Ramona not been in the afterglow of her own sexual release, and had not her brother taken from her the burden of worry and fear that had been laid upon her by her friend, she might not have reacted to what she saw in the way she did.
She stepped into the room and leaned over her children, seeing that they were both asleep. Their faces were beautiful and peaceful in repose and she reacted to that like all parents do when they see their sleeping children. There was an upwelling of love in her heart. She noticed their bare shoulders, and understood without having to look under the sheet that they were naked together. But she and Robert had just been naked together too. While she KNEW how that felt to her, she also knew of the difficulties that siblings could suffer when they had that kind of relationship. The world was a harsh and unforgiving place for siblings to be in love in. Before this moment she had been teetering toward trying to convince her children that what they felt was a dead end, and not worth the pain and stress of keeping it alive.
But, what had just happened between her and Robert was so powerful that she also knew that whatever means she tried to use to keep her children apart … it would fail.
She didn’t wake them. Instead, she turned on her heel, did what she had come there to do, and went back to work.
TBC
That afternoon, while Ramona was back at work at the bank, Robert Ellsworth Nettleton appeared in court, where the last of his legal issues was brought to settlement. He hadn’t told his sister about this for a couple of reasons. He didn’t know how things would turn out, for sure, and he didn’t want her to worry. He also planned on putting more of his plan in motion and didn’t want to argue about that with her.
Robert, by use of well paid and experienced experts, showed beyond any doubt that the claims against his estate for “services rendered” were not onlyh frivolous and without merit, but likely even attempts to steal from the estate. The gavel sounded repeatedly as the ambulance chaser hired by greedy businessmen to plunder the Nettleton fortune sagged lower and lower into his chair. He had enjoyed visions of a hefty income, based on thirty percent of what he anticipated “recovering” for his clients. He had already spent those hundreds of thousands of dollars in his mind. He had thought that, when the judge scheduled all six cases for one hearing, that the judge had already decided to grant all his claims. Why else would a judge try to do that much business all at the same time? Instead, he began to wonder if he would still have a job when he went back to the city and reported complete failure. He berated himself for filing these cases in a jurisdiction that was in the middle of nowhere. He should have known not to let this hick judge hear these cases.
“Mister Cochran,” barked the judge when it was all over.
The lawyer stood and looked up at the old man on the bench. What did the old fart want now?
“If you ever appear in my court room again trying to commit robbery, I’ll have your license and if things go like I want I’ll have your balls too. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
Jeff Cochran was stung. Nobody treated him that way back in the city. He was stiff with outrage as he responded. “Your honor,” there was a hint of sarcasm as he said that, “I merely pursued the objectives of reputable businessmen and believed their claims to be legitimate. You can’t fault me for that. That, sir, is what lawyers do.”
The judge scowled. “You just remember what I said, young man. I doubt you will, because you appear to me to be an idiot. Next time some fly-by-night contractor hires you, at least go look at what he claims to have done. Now, get out of my courtroom. I have real cases to hear!”
Robert, who had stood quietly as the exchanges took place, merely bowed toward the judge, by habit, and said, “Thank you your honor.”
The judge waved his hand. “Welcome back, sir. Some time perhaps we can have lunch. I’d like to hear what you’ve been up to all these years.”
Robert left the courtroom and went directly to another office in the courthouse, where he paid a reasonable fee for copies of certain documents on file there. These he placed in his briefcase before leaving the courthouse.
When he went outside there was a man waiting for him. The man had a notebook and pencil in his hand.
“Mister Nettleton!” he called “Randy Stevens, of the Howard County Picayune. Could I have an interview please?”
“Certainly, Mister Stevens,” said Robert. “But first, a question for you, if you don’t mind. What, exactly, is a ‘picayune’?”
Randy looked confused. “It’s a newspaper, sir,” he said.
“I understand that,” said Robert patiently, “But from where does that word come? What did it mean before somebody decided to use it as the name for a newspaper?”
Randy was still confused. He was all of twenty-six years old and, after graduating from college, had gone home to live with his parents and work for the biggest newspaper in the county. It had over two thousand subscribers, which seemed like an awful lot to Randy.
“I don’t rightly know the answer to that, Mr. Nettleton.”
“Ah,” said Robert sagely. “No matter. I was just curious.” Robert had been having a little fun, trying to needle the reporter. He was quite aware that a ‘picayune’ was a half dime coin that had been in use in the South in years past. The dictionary definition these days was “something of little value”.
Randy, on his first real live mission as a ‘society reporter’ just nodded and launched into what he thought were penetrating and important questions about what ’the famous Mister Nettleton’ had been doing since the tragic death of his parents. All this was the result of his editor, one Hortence Robinson, age sixty, who had seen the court docket and recognized the Nettleton name from her youth. She had instructed her ‘ace reporter’ to “get on down there to Nettleton and get me something to put in the paper. It’s been a slow week for news and I need to fill a couple of columns!”
Thus it was that Howard County and the city of Nettleton, found out that Robert Nettleton, the child of murdered parents, was back in his ancestral home, which was being refurbished in an attempt to restore it to its historical splendor. Roughly two thousand and twenty people (twenty bought the paper from a machine at the local grocery store) were pleased to read that a nice young man who had done a whole lot of missionary work overseas in six different countries, had come back to spend some of his inheritance in Howard County. The only sad part of the story was that, over the years, he had lost touch with his sister, who had gone on to live her life in anonymity somewhere. If, as Randy pointed out sadly, she was even still alive. Hortence filled her two columns and was happy. What with people sharing newspapers like they did so often (to her disgruntlement), it was quite possible that as many as twenty-five hundred people in the county had read the story. And if they talked about it to their friends, maybe the other thirty thousand residents of the county would be spurred to buy a damned paper themselves!
TBC
Ramona was glad to leave work that night. She needed to soak in a nice hot bath and relax. Her world had been turned upside down and, though it was beginning to settle, the world looked different to her than it had such a short time ago. She was astonished at the differences in the mansion. The landscaping was almost done, with the exception of the part of the yard that was reserved for contractor’s vehicles to park in. A large Gazebo had been built on the front lawn, surrounded by flower gardens and a winding path of flagstone. Hedges had been planted that, when mature, would make walls along pathways, turning them into private places, almost like a maze.
There was a fresh coat of paint on the structure. The shutters had been repaired, along with various portions of the facade and roof. The tower roof now gleamed with a new covering of burnished copper. The carriage house had been renovated and even the old carriage in it had been lovingly restored by one of the few people in the country who knew how to do the work in the original fashion.
The interior of the house looked like her dim memories of the home she was born into. There were some new things. She loved the stained glass windows and how they cast bright color over everything. Electricity had made a tremendous difference in the place, banishing gloom and dark corners to a past that was also becoming easier to make dim and unnoticeable. Robert had even restored her bedroom to its exact appearance in her memory. Wood gleamed everywhere with oils and polish. The musty smell had gone with the original fabrics which had been replaced with authentic period designs.
She had noticed all these things in her panicked trip to see Robert, and then had really seen them as she left. As she got in her car to go home and change panties she had realized that the house in her memories, the dark and forbidding place where so much pain had been felt, wasn’t there any more. This house looked like a warm and inviting place, where only love might live. It was unsettling in a strange way, because she wasn’t used to thinking about the Nettleton Mansion as anything but a sad, dismal and lonely place.
And then she’d come home to find her children naked in bed. After she went back to work and had time for her emotions to calm, the fact she’d left them alone began to niggle at her. It seemed like everything in her life niggled at her right now. All she wanted to do was soak in the tub, with maybe a little Mahler playing softly on the record player. She wished she had a bottle of wine.
She entered the house to find that her children were preparing supper. They had put together a green bean casserole with crisped onions on top, and had made a valiant attempt at frying chicken, though the breading hadn’t stuck and the pan was a bit too hot. There was a pot of semi-mashed potatoes on the stove. A little additional milk would finish them to a creamy texture. There was also the smell of baking bread in the room.
“You baked bread?!” she asked, incredulous.
“Well, sort of,” said Debbie, a little uncertainly. “It didn’t get all big and puffed up, like when you do it.”
Ramona looked into the oven and saw a loaf of bread about half as risen as it should have been. It would be very firm when it was cooked.
Still, it made her heart warm to think that the children had done this for her. She announced that she was going to let them finish while she took a bath. She wouldn’t get to soak quite as long as she’d planned, but it would be enough. She already felt better.
TBC
