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.
