Author's note: Welcome to my latest story. I've gone down a very different path from my prior efforts with this one. Naturally I hope you enjoy it. It begins slowly and builds along the way, so if you're looking for a quick stroke, you should skip ahead to the next chapters (you won't have any trouble catching up with the narrative if you do). On the other hand, like any good fuck, it starts slow and has lots of climaxes along the way.
And, as usual, please offer constructive comments; I do this to improve my writing skills and offer some small bit of pleasure to readers of erotica.
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Her house, Emily knew was called a "pile," a name that always made her giggle. It sounded slightly dirty, like a turd. But the house was not a turd, she scolded herself. It was...embracing...and...welcoming. Its roofs and dormers, some in shadow some brightly lit in the early morning sun, brought back the rush of childhood memories, warm and loving...and more recently, deeper and darker.
From the street it looked low and squat, but she knew that was a trick. When you compared it to the gangly Victorian next door it was roughly the same height. But where the neighboring house was thin and tall, its porch columns painted with contrasting colors on their inset panels, her house was broad shouldered, wide and white.
She'd grown up in this house. It was the only place she'd lived until this past year. She had been looking forward to coming back, expecting her homesickness to evaporate as soon as she pulled up. But the feeling lingered, as if simply being here wasn't enough. Sitting in the car, the silent movie of her life played across the stage of the house: The front porch where she spilled lemonade and the swarm of ants that followed. The writhing black mass wasn't one of the pleasant memories. She shivered at the fading image. The driveway, straight in front of her, an arch framing its path as it led deeper into the property. It hadn't always been like that, she remembered: the garage used to be up front. But after one of her mother's remodels (the memory of the construction, the warnings, the mystery, the danger her 10 year old self believed so intensely) it was now set far back from the street. And the driveway itself, once asphalt, until that crew discovered the original brickwork. The cobbled surface kept her transfixed, dull orange and brown, black and gold, lit dramatically by bright sun and deep shadow. That memory was more pleasant.
Grabbing her bags from the back, she paused again to look at the front of her house. Nothing had changed since she left, but now she looked at it with different eyes. This face of the house was a mask, the thought suddenly occurred to her, hiding her personal memories behind its neutral façade. The important parts of the house couldn't be seen from where she was standing. Important to her. Important because of what she had learned last year about the house, about herself. Important because of how she had changed; both the house and herself. The house held her secrets. So far as she knew, it remained a trusted guardian. Today, now that she was back, she would let go of those secrets, and by letting go of them, release their power over her, letting her be who she was meant to be.
Secrets. Bright, intense, dark, intense. In spite of all the evidence last summer, she wasn't in control of what had happened. She'd deceived herself. And, she reminded herself, she wasn't in control of what will happen. The memories of The Study washed over her, the room itself hidden in the far back, buried behind the bulk of the pile. She stopped to take a breath, her eyes glancing at her mother's garden: the scarlet germaniums, the jonquils, the spears of gladiolas. So many emotions, bright and dark, just like the sunlight and shadow across the flower beds. Her eyes rested on the cluster of rosemary that framed the steps leading up to the front porch. They teared up with the rush of memories, and with them, another wave of emotions.
Her eyes glanced at the peach tree, almost in blossom, a wave of emotion from that day exactly one year ago! She had to stop and catch her breath. She hadn't realized the coincidence. As if! And then her eyes cast down to the tree's well, awash in red carnations, her thoughts returning to earlier summers' sweet innocence. Sweet and melancholy, when she ran through the house without a care in the world. And the more recent memories, more ambiguous, intense soaring highs when she'd gotten more than she'd bargained for, and the panic and anxiety when she'd gotten more than she'd bargained for. Just glancing at the driveway stirred up how she'd felt when she'd left for school: guilt, liberation, self-incrimination, victory. She knew now, after being away, that she'd never been in control of her destiny, that The Study had entangled her long before the summer began. She looked across to the bed of daisies and saw that her mother must have removed them. How much really was of her making and how much was...Was it only last summer? It felt like a lifetime. She turned her head as her eye caught a movement at the front door.
"Hey stranger!"
"Hey Boopsie!"
Her parents were already half-way off the porch, smiling and shouting their greeting. She wiped her eyes, sniffled and returned a smile, dragging the suitcase for two steps before her father grabbed the handle in one hand, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders. Her mother crushing her head in a tight embrace as if Emily were the only thing between her and drowning.
Emily let them drag her into the house, unconsciously fending off the offers of food and drink, focusing her attention instead on re-entering this place that had meant so much to her her whole life.
"Let me go pee!" She said with a laugh and peeled off to the half-bathroom in the hall. Even here, a room her mother redecorated with regularity, she couldn't escape the sense of homesickness. An odd feeling, she thought. I am home. Can I be homesick for my home because of my home? She wiped, crinkling her nose at the odor, flushed and washed her hands. "Nice to see the soap hasn't changed," smiling at her reflection. And then she saw the hand towels and remembered how it had all started, that first time in the kitchen. Her eyes darted to the soap triggering earlier memories, from her childhood, momentarily washing last summer's away.
The small pillows of soap; her mother kept them stocked just for this bathroom. None of the others, she stopped to test herself, mentally counting all of the bathrooms in the house. Seven. Seven? Is that right? Wiping her hands, she visualized all of the bathrooms starting in the basement. One, no two! she realized, the new one off the bar from last summer's remodel, although it barely met her definition of a bathroom, three for the main bedrooms, plus hers, the master, this one and...and...one off the kitchen. Eight. Nope. The one in the garage. Nine. Nine bathrooms! None of the others had this soap in them. Or at least they hadn't when she was growing up. As a little kid, she'd never given much thought to how many bathrooms they had. Only when she'd reached high school did she realize it was unusual. Still, even then it was just quirky. But by the time she started university she understood that this house, her upbringing, and the events of last summer were anything but normal. Nine bathrooms was the least of it.
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"You'll be okay, Em?"
Her mother looked up from the picnic basket she was packing in the kitchen. Emily had just come down. It was the Saturday her parents were leaving, and she'd slept in. Yawning, she opened the fridge to grab some O.J. "Yes, mom. For the tenthteenth time. I'll be fine. I know how to reach you, and Mrs. Meyer will be looking out for me like an owl."
"Em!" But her mother smiled primly, nesting and stacking containers into the basket.
The food. The yearly ritual of the food.
As if reading her mind, her mother looked up and laughed. "You know I hate to cook the first day. This should get us through until I sort out the larder."
Emily scratched her bottom while she watched the process, a process she'd witnessed every summer of her 18 years. This was the first time she wasn't joining them on their northern trek to the country house aka "the cabin" in Maine. She had a pang of misgivings, quickly replaced by a tiny cramping in her gut...excitement at the prospects of having the house to herself all summer.
"No parties, Em," they had both laid down the rules earlier in the week when she confirmed she was staying. "Seriously. A few friends are fine, but please don't take advantage of the situation."
That was code: nothing illegal, at all, and if you do something illegal you better not get caught, so don't be stupid.
Stupid was one thing Emily Bronson wasn't. Fourth daughter of a regionally famous artist (Mother: Jen Wafton Bronson, heiress to old money) and a corporate attorney (Father: James Jeremy Bronson, very much not from old money, but top of class and youngest partner in one of the oldest white shoe firms in the city), Emily Anne Wafton Bronson was smart, headstrong and a little too sure of herself.
She had been working out how to take a vacation from her parents since Easter, when they usually started making plans. She didn't say anything at the time, but when her friends had suggested they were hanging out this last summer before college, the whisper of the idea drifted into her consciousness. And the first thing she thought was how
