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.
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. I do intend to continue with the original series now that I am back home but 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
Part Three: Travels With My Aunt
Traditionally, Christmas day was just for the family apart for our morning walk we always stayed at home and then Mother held 'open house' on Boxing Day when friends would sometimes drop in for drinks and occasionally lunch which was usually done buffet style.
We were all up and dressed by eight o'clock, in what Mum called our Christmas Morning 'dog walking' gear, just old jeans and sweaters, and thick boot socks anything comfortable ready to drive over to Windsor Great Park after breakfast. Cora made a large pot of tea for Mother and herself, they were both early morning tea people whilst I made a pot of strong coffee for myself and Aunt Julia. I had been a little surprised to discover that like myself she was a serious coffee drinker, seldom touched tea and liked her java strong and black and without sugar, another misconception about my aunt...I had her pegged as a milky tea drinker.
Aunt Julia joined us in the kitchen as I was preparing breakfast. We always had the full English breakfast... the Christmas Cardiac Special.... bacon, sausages, devilled kidneys, eggs, fried bread and mushrooms. It had become a minor tradition that Cora and I cooked breakfast for Mother at Christmas and on the morning of her birthday. None of us were usually great breakfast eaters, my mother started her day on fresh orange juice and a slice of toast; Cora wavered between cereal or toast and honey, but I had given up eating in the morning when I was about thirteen and just settled for a large mug of coffee and a tumbler of grapefruit juice. As a teenager I was usually in training for the cross country running team and like my mother took a run in the morning which was more comfortable if I had not eaten. I was a mid-morning snacker and usually grabbed a bacon sandwich or sausage roll from the Cornish Pasty Shop in Peascod Street on my way to school or during break.
After a hearty and cheerful breakfast, Cora volunteered to wash-up whilst I helped Mother to prepare the vegetables for lunch. Once the chores for the day were completed we all went through to the sitting room to open our presents. Usually Mother, Cora and I sat on cushions on the floor in front of the Christmas tree and took turns at handing out the presents.
I thought that Aunt Julia must have felt a bit excluded from our set family routine as she excused herself and went back to the guest flat... I remembered previous years that she had stayed over the Christmas holiday and she had either not joined us until later in the morning or had just sat quietly in a chair at the back of the room. I felt a bit guilty because in the past it was probably me that had driven her out of the family circle and was on the point of going to fetch her back when she returned.
She returned armed with a frosty bottle of champagne, four flutes and a pitcher of fresh orange juice which she must have prepared in the guest annex kitchenette before coming for breakfast. "I thought we could start the day with some Bucks Fizz.." she announced.
"Oh how super!" Mum exclaimed. "That takes me back.... I haven't had champagne on Christmas morning since we were girls. When I was a teenager," She explained to us, "Julia always came home from university on Christmas morning furnished with champagne and we would drink Bucks Fizz with Mother and Daddy whilst we opened our presents.... Those were lovely times....weren't they Jules...?" She got up hugged my aunt whilst Cora and I filled the glasses and handed them round.
"Happy Christmas, everyone..." Mother said, "Happy Christmas!" We all chorused chinking glasses. All the women were a little teary eyed I think and even I felt a bit of a lump in my throat. I was beginning to come around to the idea that having Aunt Julia with us on holiday might not be as bad as I had anticipated.... Up until now she had been amiable and if we both carried on trying I thought we would probably be able to get along. She was turning out to be a lot more fun than I remembered, especially when she dashed off and returned with a second bottle of bubbly as soon as the first was finished.
"Come and sit down with us, Jules..." Mother said, throwing another cushion onto the floor beside the tree.
"Jules....?" I couldn't stop myself blurting out my surprise that my scary aunt had a family nickname. Everybody went quiet....Mother and Cora glared at me and I mentally kicked myself for fucking up again..."Er... " I stuttered not knowing whether to apologise or not...
"That's Auntie Jules to you... James..." My aunt beamed one of her fantastic, radiant smiles. The tension was broken and we all started to laugh. I continued to call her Auntie Julia, I didn't have the balls to risk the Jules thing....not then anyway.
As a family we were never big on Christmas presents, Emma and I had always had lots of toys and presents, sweets and goodies as kids but once we reached fourteen present giving became a much more adult affair, clothing and special gifts, things we would not buy ourselves through the year. Inevitably it was music related things for Mum and Cora and almost always books for me, we were not precious about having dozens of presents to open Christmas morning, doing things together was more important than the gifts. We sat in a circle and handed out the parcels which had been stacked beneath the tree, mostly small gifts for Cora from her friends at school.
Cora went first; she had bought Mum a selection of cosmetics and we had bought her a cashmere roll neck jumper between us that she had admired on a shopping trip to London with Cora. It cost a small fortune but we wanted to get her something special; Cora had driven up to town to make a special secret trip to Harrods to get it for her. Mum was thrilled. I had added a newly re-mastered CD of Acker Bilk hits which I had found on Amazon and had squabbled with Cora over who was going to buy it for her.
As usual Mother and Cora both gave me book tokens.... I had reached that age when the only thing that I was really interested in was books, I was almost totally disinterested in fashionable clothing although Mother usually managed to magically find me something at Christmas and my birthday to wear during the winter and summer holidays, Cora still teased me about being the 'Scarecrow Skier'. This year Mum had found me a really good quality set of base layer tee-shirt and trunks. My surprise present was from Mum...she had bought me a Kindle electronic book reader....absolutely superb... I could not have wished for anything better.
A small knot of concern had started to form in my gut as I began to realise that whilst Mother had made Cora and I write Christmas cards for Aunt Julia we had not actually bought her a present and I realised that in past years I had selfishly just allowed Mother to send her some sort of a gift from the whole family without even knowing what it was.
Aunt Julia had always been very generous to Cora and I at Christmas and birthdays even if her style of gifting was a reflection of her stern and well organised personality. When we were born she had opened a Building Society account for us, not individually but a joint account. OK so we are twins but it had always seemed a strange thing for her to do in my mind no other siblings that I knew had a joint account; that was something for older engaged or married couples not brothers and sisters. Every birthday and at Christmas she paid a generous sum of money into the account which by now had built up to a tidy little nest egg. The other quirk attached to the account was that we were not allowed to have access to it until we were 21, until then it was jointly administered by Mother and my aunt. I always suspected that my aunt was confused by the twin thing....perhaps like other people I knew she had difficulty recognising us as individuals.
I was mildly surprised when Mother produced a wrapped gift box from beneath the tree and handed it to Aunt Julia, "This is just a little something from all of us, Jules.....Happy Christmas..." she announced. I guessed that she and Cora had bought something on their trip up to London on Christmas Eve.
Cora nudged me and put her lips close to my ear to whisper, "You owe me £10 for your share.."
They had bought her a Chinese silk bath robe, floor length and cream with an embroidered gold edging and a deep floral pattern in greens and turquoises around the bottom hem and the cuffs of the sleeves. "As always you are almost impossible to buy for...."Mother told her, "But you always loved Chinese silk and as we are going on holiday a robe seemed appropriate...."
"It is beautiful..." Aunt Julia held it up against her body and the soft shiny silk clung to her figure even over her pullover and jeans it looked sexy and elegant. "Thank you...thank you all of you..." She came to each of us in turn and gave us a soft thank you kiss on the cheek.
We finished our drinks then dispersed to get our outdoor coats and re-assembled outside by Mother's Landrover Discovery ready to drive over to Windsor Great Park for our Christmas Morning stroll. Mother, Cora and I were wearing our Berghaus mountain jackets, even though the weather was quite mild for December and I was surprised to see that Aunt Julia had outfitted herself appropriately with an expensive waxed jacket and Hunter field boots. I'm not sure why it amazed me as she lived in Yorkshire and probably walked in the countryside regularly, probably more than we did, but she had always declined to join us on our Christmas walk in the past and I think that more than anything I was a bit startled that she had chosen to do so this time. Something felt out of place, like something was happening that I was not aware of; there had been a shift in the nature of our family relationships and I wasn't sure why or even what it was.
Being a nice day, the Windsor Park was quite busy with strollers, dog-walkers and younger couples or grandparents pushing sprogs in buggies and within five minutes Mother and Cora had been hailed by various acquaintances. I hate just standing watching women talking and Aunt Julia obviously knew none of their friends so we walked on ahead just exchanging the odd word about things that were going on around us.
Suddenly she seemed to stagger and lurched towards me a frightened look flashing across her face. I caught her by the elbow and put my arm around her waist to support her. "What happened....are you OK?" I asked.
"Yes, yes...... I'm fine....I just tripped....." she muttered quietly, but continued to lean on me heavily. She glanced back at Mother and Cora still standing chatting to a couple that I recognised as living in the next road to us. "Is there somewhere we can sit down for a minute?
I pointed towards a bench about 50 metres away, "Come on, over there...take my arm...are you OK to walk?"
