A Family Christmas Ch 07

WARNING TO READERS - This is a long, rambling story and VERY British which has been divided into several parts for ease of editing and reading. The individual parts will make more sense if read in sequence as they follow straight on chronologically. Parts Seven and Eight have been amended and brought up to the present day and are now offered as a single rather longer than normal chapter.

Most, but not all chapters contain some sexually explicit sections and the story has a strong incest theme which some readers may find disturbing and might wish to cease reading now...

Whilst this is a stand-alone story some readers may recognise some of the characters from my submissions from a couple of years back entitled 'The Touch' which can still be found in the Novellas section of Literotica. These new tales were put together without reference to the earlier stories whilst I was recuperating after an operation and follow the fortunes of some of the characters a few years on from the original tales.

GF

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Part Seven: The Silver Lady

The formal announcement of Julia's retirement from the judiciary was made at the end of January on the same day that I finally passed my driving test. I had not seen my aunt since we returned from Austria but we now telephoned each other at least once a week. At first those calls had been painfully maudlin, at least on my part, I guess that I was suffering from youthful love sickness but after a couple of weeks it settled down and I just looked forward to talking to her and sharing inconsequential chatter and personal confidences although my deeper feelings for her had not changed.

Cora remained unwell for several weeks and her broken arm was not fully functional until the end of February and so although her car was completely restored she was unable to drive and I got to act as her chauffeur to and from school most days although neither of us had a large number of tutorials that we needed to attend during that final term. I guess that the greatest trauma for my sister was not being able to play her drums, or any musical instrument whilst her arm was healing and she had been told to lay off of energetic drumming for six months. A lot of our former closeness returned, in the end we were twins and nothing was going to change that but we never did return to regularly 'relaxing' each other. We shared one final mutual masturbation session when Mum was away overnight in February but it was very subdued and I guess that we had moved on and were both looking for something else.

For Cora it came in the shape of Gregory Silver, a bass guitarist in a local jazz-rock band 'Silver Lining' based at Basingstoke. They had met at a gig in Reading and started dating, their talents meshed and within a couple of weeks or so they were writing songs together and Cora was spending as much time at Greg's flat in Basingstoke as at home. I liked Greg he was good company and intelligent and worked as a barista whilst he was completing his music master's degree to supplement his meagre earnings from the band, although his family were quite well placed, both were doctors of medicine I seem to remember. We shared a mutual appreciation of good whisky and bad gin. It came as no surprise to anybody when Cora announced that she was going to accompany the band to Germany where they had gigs booked through until mid-summer. She was starting to play again but was also writing nearly all the new numbers for the band and scoring their standard sets. As Julia had put it once...my sister had talents beyond her own understanding.

I wasn't jealous of my sister's relationship with Greg although I seldom went out on dates myself. I saw one of the girls that I had served with in the army cadets for a short time. Brigit was fun and sporty and waiting acceptance to the University Officers Training Corps, we had always been mates and for a few weeks we became friends with benefits and shagged like rabbits but neither of us wanted long term commitment and when her enlistment opening came up we just parted as good friends.

It didn't change how I felt about Julia but to my surprise I was not wracked with guilt about sleeping with another woman... I guess that I had finally started to accept that what Julia and I had in Austria had been beautiful but could never be anything more. Julia's attitude towards my seeing girls was somewhat reserved, we talked about dating and sex sometimes although I never discussed the intimate details of my periodic short lived affairs and although she did not actively discourage me from dating other women the only time that I suggested bringing Brigit up to Aylesbury to meet her she simply said, "No! I Don't think so..." I never raised the idea again. I guess that we still selectively thought of each other as past lovers rather than aunt and nephew.

Julia went into the Nuffield Health York Hospital in March for her valve operation and despite her protestations Mother and I drove up to be with her. I had never been to Julia's house at Dunnington, a small rather elite village about three miles east of the City of York. The house was a large six bedroom early Victorian house enclosed within a high brick wall with electric gates which ensured privacy and security. Mother had insisted that she stay with Julia whilst she was in hospital and during her convalescence and I had seized upon the opportunity to be close to my aunt for a few days.

In fact I got to spend considerably more time with Julia than I had anticipated. She had decided to sell up in Yorkshire and live back down south and moved into our guest annex whilst she was looking for properties in the Aylesbury area where she and Mum had grown up. I spend a couple of months during that spring and summer driving her around in that sleek black Audi S6 5.2 FSI Quattro visiting estate agents, viewing houses and making trips to her London solicitors and even a couple of visits to the House of Lords.

It was a happy time for both of us I got to spend nearly every day with Julia, her operation had been totally successful and between trips away from home, the three of us, Julia, Mother and myself took long country walks or made trips into the West End to the theatre or the opera. When Julia and I were on our own we returned to walking arm in arm or sometimes even held hands and our relationship regained a lot of the closeness that we had in Austria that Christmas, but we gained much, much more... we became the closest of friends and confidants. Some of our trips away meant overnight stays in hotels or motels and we inevitably shared one bed, spooned together affectionately but we never made love. I guess that both of us knew that making love again could bind us to an irreversible commitment that could only end in disaster and heartbreak.

Julia moved into her new house in Aylesbury in early June. In fact it was a house that I had discovered. I had left her viewing one property and had taken the car to get petrol and on the way back had spotted an attractive looking four bedroomed detached house with a private FOR SALE sign in the garden. I had suggested that we look at it and Julia impulsively made the owner an offer after just spending half an hour looking around the house and gardens. I stayed with her for a week whilst she moved in and she allocated one of the spare bedrooms as 'James's Room' for my use when I came to stay, but in reality most nights I shared her bed as we always had. I came to love that house and still do.

At the end of that summer Julia accepted an appointment to the board of directors of a company of international legal consultants and began to spend a lot of her time in the Hague and New York, I missed not having her just an hour's drive away but I knew that she was happy now that she had constructive work to do again. Cora had returned from the tour of Germany with the Silver Lining band but had split from Greg and was now dating a music student called Benedict Wilkins who was also going to Edinburgh University in September so there was a good chance that they might stay together for a while. I personally thought that he was too weak a personality for my sister and would either become totally subservient to her or run away screaming after a few months. I was correct...he ran!

I had finally made up my mind about my immediate future and had chosen to start at Exeter University straight away instead of taking the year out that I had originally planned. I had been accepted into the History and Archaeology Department and part of my decision was based on the promise of some immediate archaeological field work as part of my course and acceptance as an Army Reserve Officer.

That Christmas was a bit strange as it was the first time that we had not been together as a family for the holiday. I came home to Windsor but Cora had committed herself to a series of Christmas concerts with an orchestra in Edinburgh over the seasonal holiday... Julia was in Washington with an EEC delegation, but Uncle Ted had asked if he could visit for a few days and so Mother and I decided to stay at home rather than go to Austria to ski.

I was totally and utterly shocked when Uncle Ted arrived. I guess that he was now in his late-seventies but looked a decade older. He was stick thin and his hair and beard were snow white and he leaned heavily on a silver topped cane. He had always driven himself in the past, clocking up thousands of miles in a year all over Europe in his vintage 1959 Jaguar Mk. IX moving from one race course to the next but that Christmas he had hired a chauffeur driven Mercedes. Naturally my mother offered him the use of the guest annex but he had already booked into the luxury Oakley Court Hotel and insisted the he would buy us Christmas lunch there. Mother and I took our customary walk in Windsor Great Park on Christmas Morning. It seemed strange there just being the two of us and as we strolled arm in arm I could not help but remember doing the same thing the previous year with Julia... It had been the start of our special relationship... It was doubly strange as Mother was so like her sister, the same height the same smile and she clung to my arm the same way that my Julia did.

It was the last time that any of us saw Uncle Ted. In February I got a telephone call from Mother to tell me that he had died at his home in Dublin from complications arising from the cancer which he had been battling for some time. He had requested that he be buried in the Connor family plot in Cork and so Mother, Cora, Julia and I flew over for the funeral and the reading of his will. The old boy had accumulated quite a fortune and apart from a number of generous bequests to charities the remainder of his considerable estate was split four ways, Mother, Cora and I each receiving £250,000 and the larger portion of the estate being left to Julia. Each of us received a short handwritten private note in Ted's unmistakeable scrawl. Mine simply read "You would do well to spend your money on books!" I puzzled over the meaning at the time but was later to wonder if Uncle Ted knew more about me than I realised.

I completed my degree and traded my Reserve Army Officer commission for a regular commission in 2010. Mum, Cora and Julia all came down to Exeter for my Graduation Ceremony and then later to Sandhurst for my passing out parade which was one of the proudest days of my life having the most important people in my life there on my most important day.

Cora had decided to stay on at university and take her master's degree, she was engaged to Howard Kubrick that year, a very amiable but totally useless musician who was apparently very talented but chose to spend his life busking on the streets of Edinburgh and St. Andrews during the tourist season and bum off of my sister in between. I only met him the once... He seemed like a total waste of space to me... and I suspected that he was into drugs... but I had promised Mother that I would keep my temper and not damage him beyond repair. I was still very protective of my twin sister and got frustrated with her persistent poor judgement at picking boyfriends. In fact it was Cora who later broke his leg throwing him down the stairs from her apartment when he departed her life forever.

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The year 2013 I shall remember as one of the happiest years of my life. I had completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan as part of a Military Intelligence Battalion and came home on accumulated leave. I had been promising Julia that the first long leave that I got I would take her away on holiday somewhere nice...the choice was hers...anywhere that she wanted to go.

"Cornwall... Years ago you promised to take me sailing in Cornwall..." She told me. I had not forgotten... It was one of those things that had been struck in my memory since it was mentioned in passing that first Christmas... But I was surprised that she had remembered.

"That can be arranged..." I told her. "I have a friend who hires yachts out of Falmouth... if you are sure it will not be too much for you I will book a boat for a couple of weeks but leave it open ended?"

I still thought that my aunt was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen... She had hardly changed at all over the past few years except that I sometimes thought that she looked a little less robust, slightly more delicate. She had almost given up smoking, probably because I was not around to encourage her and according to my mother now only had a single cigarette every night before going to bed. I still smoked but had become a bit of a cigarette snob... I only smoked the Austrian Belvedere brand cigarettes which I ordered specially from Davidoff's in St. James Street, and did not smoke at all on deployment. I guess the flavour of those cigarettes reminded me of Christmas in Innsbruck. Julia had completely retired from working and she and mother seemed to spend a lot of their time together, staying at each other's houses or slipping off on holiday to Spain, Italy or Portugal... I was glad... they appeared to be closer than I ever remembered and they at least had each other now that Cora and I had left home.

Cora was now working as a session musician and was in great demand, earning top dollar and enjoying travelling all over Europe as the assignments took her. Howard had been followed by Peter, a pleasant Swedish violinist who turned out to be gay... Peter gave way to Wesley who was one of my favourites, he was Jamaican and a jazz trombonist great fun but his family were very traditional and I don't think they wanted their son married to a white girl. I was sad to see him go although I inherited his stock of illegal white rum when he went home to the Caribbean. That year Cora was having an off and on affair with a guy that Mother and I had never met called Gordon?Something?, who was a producer in the West End... the secrecy surrounding Gordon?Something? led us to believe that he was probably married. I saw my sister the last time that I was on leave and she seemed happy and fulfilled by her career but we never really talked anymore about the important personal things.

"Do you want to come as well..? I asked Mother. "We can all berth on the boat or book a hotel in Falmouth... It could be fun and the Cornish fish and chips are phenomenal!"

"It sounds good...but I have a conference to go to..." Mum pleaded. "Besides I wouldn't deprive my sister of time alone with her favourite nephew..." I knew that she didn't have a conference... but I wasn't going to argue with her over getting to spend time alone with Julia I would make it up to her later, take her to Italy or France on my next long leave. Meantime, she and Julia had an excuse to go Up-West to do holiday shopping.

Michael Laity was one of the few close friends that I had made at university. He had been a fellow archaeology student and the leading light of the sailing club. We had hit it off in our first year, had become sailing partners and shared a house together throughout our time at Exeter University. I was an Army Reservist Officer and Mike was a part-time Lifeboat man. Mike was a true Cornish son of the sea his family had been boat builders for generations. A telephone call was all that it took to get us fixed up with a boat and a further call got us into the best hotel in Falmouth.

We drove down to Cornwall in the Audi S6. Strictly speaking it was still Julia's car but I had been driving it for the past two years when I was not on active deployment. My aunt had wanted to trade in her big motor for a smaller town car and so we had agreed to swap vehicles, I got the prestige Audi and she took my VW Golf GTi that I had bought to replace the original BMW Mini after I left university. The Audi was a bit flash for a young newly promoted army captain but it had been Julia's and I would not part with it for the world, in the same way that Mum still clung onto the ancient 1970's Volvo 245 estate car she had owned since her student days and religiously took out for a spin every Sunday morning to keep it working... it was probably the most reliable motor that any of us owned.

I had booked us into a suite at the historic Falmouth Hotel by Castle Beach and close to Pendennis Castle overlooking Falmouth Bay. We were due to pick up our boat from Mike's yard at Gweek at the western end of the Helford Passage the next day, and we would probably spend a couple of nights on-board but I thought that we would both appreciate a few nights in a luxury hotel with an award winning restaurant. The Falmouth Hotel is a rambling Victorian chateau-style hotel set in several acres of landscaped gardens, just an easy stroll into Falmouth town centre with the shops and restaurants and the maritime district and harbour. In fact there was a message waiting for us at the hotel when we arrived to say that Mike would bring the boat up to Falmouth harbour the next morning and would telephone with a time to meet us.

Our hotel suite was luxurious and had recently been refurbished in French Baroque style with reproduction white and gilt furniture and an enormous king sized bed.

"Oh My God, James..." Julia exclaimed after the porter who had carried up our luggage departed. "This is just fabulous...thank you so much..." She spread her arms and gave a little twirl like a happy teenager. This was my beautiful aunt, sixty-six going on sixteen. She could one minute be scary stern and the next as buoyant and bubbly as an 18 year old.

"Only the best is good enough for my lovely lady..." I told her. We still teased each other with the pet names that we had picked up on that first holiday together in Austria.

She looked almost the same to me as she had six years ago in Innsbruck. Her hair was perhaps slightly more silver than grey and there were maybe a few more fine laughter lines around her eyes and mouth but she had retained her trim body. I thought that she may have gained a few ounces on her rounded hips and arse and perhaps her breasts appeared to be slightly heavier but she still had a narrow waspish waist and her legs were fantastic, long and shapely, her feet small and delicate. There were probably hundreds of women half her age who would have traded for her body... and silver blonde hair was the height of fashion that year. Julia had dressed to travel in tight fitting beige coloured stretch jeans that showed off her shapely legs with a wide brown woven leather belt which emphasized her tiny waist and full mature hips. She was wearing a cream silk shirt with a floral silk cravat-scarf at the throat and a light brown suede bomber jacket which I recognised as one she had bought on our shopping trip to Salzburg. To me she looked perfect.

"What shall we do tonight?" She asked. "After dinner we could take a stroll into the town... maybe they have somewhere with a band and dancing..." She teased. We had only been dancing together once since the Austrian Christmas holiday. Whilst I was helping her to move out of her house in Yorkshire we had driven over to Harrogate one evening to the Cairn Hotel for one of their social dance events. It had been fun but we had never found anywhere around Aylesbury or Windsor that we liked and the only other times that I had danced since was with Mother at a couple of her army dinner dances which I sometimes escorted her to when I was on leave.