DISCLAIMER: This is included in the novel/novella category because of length. It is a mother/son incest story. There are also instances of abuse (two of them, which are not the focus of the story). As far as heat level, this story is quite tame, and if you are look for page after page of screaming sex, you might want to look elsewhere. If you want a STORY, please read on.
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The next evening they made the pizza together for their belated pizza night. Christie let him do most of the work, teaching him how to make a bread dough and how to make a pizza sauce.
"This sauce is best if it is done early in the day and allowed to cook," she explained, "but we were both a bit distracted the past two mornings. Here, put a half teaspoon of this in there."
While he stirred and added ingredients, she frequently looked up at him with so much love and desire, he had to stop and kiss her cheek before he could go on. He wanted her to himself, and even though he already hated Steve, his anger at the man who had raised him grew exponentially, a hot, hard knot in his chest.
"Why can't you leave Dad?" he asked.
The hand she raised to reach for the spices paused and then resumed pulling a jar of oregano from the shelf. "Maybe I should tell you," she said. "You're going to have to be very good at keeping secrets, especially from Steve." She handed him the jar. "Teaspoon," she said, "but crush it between your hands as you add it to the pot."
"I think we're both pretty good at that already."
"Sometimes I wonder. Not letting on about what he sees just adds information to Steve's arsenal, to be saved up and used later. Some things, though, like the thought of my infidelity, make him completely irrational, and he'll go off on extremes. I'm more worried about him finding out about that, but you knowing about the blackmail shifts the balance of power, although I'm not certain which direction."
"Power," he said.
"Steve wants control. He wants not only to possess me but to bend me to his will. But he wants mostly to do that by either coercion or force. It's not just that he succeeds in getting to me, but the method he uses to do it and how badly I don't want it." She held up another jar. "Last one. Put in a teaspoon."
"The night I saw you together, he said something about not using a professional because they wanted it."
"Right."
"So he likes to force women."
She froze. "I worry about it, sometimes. What other women might be out there."
"Do you think there are others?"
She bit her lip. "I can't tell. He leaves no clues. All I know is that when he comes back from his monthly trip, he is either cold and distant, like there is a simmering frustration that he's too controlled to show, or he's mellow and content and almost seems like a normal person. If he's cold, he starts beating me earlier in the month before the next trip, sometimes as soon as he comes back."
"He could be a rapist," Danny whispered. "I could easily see that."
Christie shrugged and spread her arms in frustration. Her voice pained, she said, "I know, and there's nothing I can do about it. I couldn't ask him. It would just antagonize him and make things worse for me, and he wouldn't tell me anyway. I've tried to find his stash for years and years, but no luck."
"Stash?"
"Where he's keeping his evidence, all his photographs. The man is so sickly meticulous and careful. I've followed him, but he's so paranoid, he sees me. I've put trackers on his car, but he discovers them before I learn anything useful. Obviously he's checking. I've gone to the extreme of lifting floorboards and crawling through the attic, and using a metal detector in the yard. I managed to get a key to his office and I took that apart. Twice. I need to find that stash."
"Do you think, maybe, you could tell me why?"
She looked down at the boiling pot of sauce. "Turn that down to simmer and put a cover on it. We'll talk." First taking glasses from the cabinet, she went to the refrigerator to get the pitcher of iced tea. "This is a long story," she said as she walked to the breakfast nook. "Sit."
When Danny was seated across from her, she began, "I first want you to understand that this is not my secret, but by keeping it I've implicated myself in a crime. I've sacrificed and suffered to keep your uncles safe, and I expect no less from you if I tell you this. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"Promise you will say not one word of this to a living soul."
"I promise."
"That includes the people I'm telling you about."
"Okay."
She nodded sharply. "Okay, then. From the beginning." She thought for a moment about where to start. "Andreas Fulton was a friend of your Uncle Mike from kindergarten. They were very close when they were younger, less so as they moved up in grade school, but still hung out together a lot all through high school."
"Wasn't Dad a friend, too?"
"He moved into the neighborhood when I was ten and he was twelve. Your dad and Andy, they really became fast friends. They were always together. Mike was sort of a third wheel when he was with them, although they seemed to get along fine. Mike once told me that Steve and Andy went off and did things together that they wouldn't tell him about, things he wasn't included in. It made him feel a little hurt, and I think he wasn't any more immune to Andy's charisma than I was - or Sean, or my mom and dad. Steve was..." She smiled a little ruefully. "He was just so easy to overlook. But Andy was charming to the core, and so handsome. God, I had a crush on Andy. At the time I thought he was just my type. He charmed everybody. We'd go to the crazy lady next door for cookies or granola bars, and he'd always coax an extra one out of her. His own mother spoiled him terribly. But the thing was, if you really watched them, particularly when they thought you weren't looking, there was something sly and manipulative about both of them. It was as if the coaxing and the charming was very deliberate, planned. Once I was at Andy's house and was watching his mother get him a snack that he asked for, and for a moment I thought she looked afraid. Then I just brushed the idea off. I was totally bamboozled like everyone else. I was crazy about Andy. He was exactly what I wanted in a boy. When I finally had my eyes opened, it was too late to protect me."
She bit her lower lip. How much pain could have been prevented if she had only seen them for the predators they really were? She remembered Andy coming into the house after playing basketball on the driveway, his skin glowing. He was huge and dark and handsome, and full of smiles that seemed to be just for her. When she was younger, he would pinch her cheek and call her pumpkin. As she got older, his smiles really were just for her, or so she believed. She now vehemently wished they hadn't been.
"The three of them were all in the same year at school. The year they were seniors, I was a sophomore. Christmas of that school year, the apartment complex where Andy lived burned to the ground. Novena candles, they think. Andy's mom died. They didn't know who his father was, and there were no surviving records to find his other relatives. He only knew he had some people in Jamaica that his mother didn't like to talk about. You know how kind and generous your grandparents are. They took in Andy without hesitation."
Christie picked up her iced tea and drank half of it. She sat and stared at the glass. Danny didn't know if he should say something or not, so he kept quiet.
"Everything was great for a month or so. I was in heaven, having THE Andreas Fulton living in my house. All the girls at school were incredibly jealous. Then one day... It was February and the weather was unusually warm. I had this crazy idea of playing croquet on the back lawn. I hadn't done it for years. We kept the gear in the loft of the garage. You know that wooden ladder that leads up to where old crud is stored?"
"I remember cousin Teresa daring me to go up there when I was five, and then when I did, telling me there were black widow spiders."
"Right," she said and laughed. "I think there were. You were so frozen with fear Steve had to carry you down the ladder." She sobered. "Anyway, I was up there, and I got distracted by an old box of Grandma's sewing magazines. I was very quiet when Steve and Andy came in. I was also hidden behind a pile of boxes, so they neither saw or heard me. And they were obviously trying to be quiet. Talking in hushed voices. I peeked, and saw they had beer and some magazines. I decided to stay where I was until they left. I was curious about why they were trying to be so secretive and wanted to spy on them. They started drinking, and to my virginal fifteen-year-old horror, I saw the magazines were porn."
Danny laughed. "Seniors in high school who like looking at porn. I can't imagine that."
"You never have, of course."
"No, of course not," he said.
Christie narrowed her eyes at him, but said only, "Hush now. This is the important part." She paused to get her bearings. "They were looking at the magazines, and then Andy held one up to show Steve, and said, 'Dude, I would love to tie this bitch up.' I was still trying to wrap my brain around this while Steve looked at the picture and said, 'I like it better when they can fight back.' Then Andy said, 'You do like to fuck a bitch up.' I actually gasped, and then clapped my hand over my mouth. I think the beer must have been working by then, because fortunately, neither heard me." She thought about it. "Maybe not fortunately. Maybe nothing would ever have happened if they knew I had heard. Anyway, what Steve said next killed every last fond feeling I had for either of them. He said, 'I know who you want to fuck up. Christie.' And Andy made Steve admit that he wanted me, too. They talked about it. How I was too good and would never go with either of them. They agreed that they would have to force me in some way. The last thing they said on the subject was Steve making Andy promise that if he ever forced me to have sex, Steve would get to be the one to hold me down."
Christie placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. Even to this day, she could remember the shock of betrayal in a visceral way. She could see the dim, dusty loft, the two boys furtively adjusting themselves through their pants as their cocks grew hard. The smell of the beer. She had cried silently, dizzy and lightheaded from the effort to breath without making a noise while choking on sobs. With that conversation, Andy and Steve had ripped away a piece of her innocence.
"Did they find you?" Danny asked as her silence drew on.
"No. They finished their beer and jerked off to the magazines. They must have done it before, because they seemed perfectly comfortable in doing it in front of each other." She shook her head. "Things they shared that did not include Uncle Mike. Thank god.
"I remained up there for a long time after they left, trying to figure out what to do. I finally decided to tell Mike. Andy was living in our house and wanted to force me to have sex with him. Someone needed to know. I told Mike what they said - God that was an awkward conversation - and bless his heart, he believed me. There had been rumors."
