Surprise Award

Prologue

An eighteen year old Charlie sat on the side of his bed holding his head in his hands. He was an emotional mess, crying and laughing in turn. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was alive. God, how could he go on. In the next room he could hear the racket the old bed made as his parents pounded each other with the violence of their love making. If, indeed, making love was what they were practicing.

He wasn't sure, most times, whether it was sex or two people using each other's bodies for small relief and lustful vengeance. If they weren't drunk they were fucking, and as soon as they finished fucking they started drinking. They couldn't get enough of each other if they were sober before sex, but after sex they hated each other. Talk about a fucked up life and here he was right in the middle. Of course, he was the reason they hated each other.

His parents were relatively short with brown hair and eyes, and had rather dark skin. He in contrast was 6' 5" in his stocking feet with the reddest hair anyone had ever seen and blue eyes. Yes, he also had that fair skin that burned so badly and the freckles. God, the freckles. All over his body and that included his cock. Since he had lived here his whole life, everyone knew him and his red hair. If his folks had only moved somewhere else so he could change his hair color, the teasing and name calling might not have been so bad.

Of course, the main problem was that nobody in town looked like him. Nobody knew where his genes had come from. His mother maintained it was recessive genes from an uncle on her father's side. His father was convinced that she had cheated with a 'carny' when the circus came to town and he'd been stuck raising some fucker's bastard kid.

Whether it was true or not, Charlie ended up as the object of scorn and derision and he became a target for his parent's endless emotional wars. They didn't know who he was, just what he represented in their pathetic lives.

Charlie had graduated from high school today and they hadn't shown up for the event. Big deal, they never showed up anywhere. He arrived home to find the ubiquitous brown bag with a few unopened bottles of booze still sitting on the table. Judging from the noise in the bedroom, they had been at it for quite a while. He wanted to get to his room before they finished. He hated that angry time between sexual satiation and the end of the first bottle. That's when the 'Ronald McDonald' comments started. They both hated him, their only son.

Most of the time they were still somewhat lucid during the first bottle, but once they started on the second bottle it eased up a little bit. They had trouble being coherent until they passed out. He didn't know who they hated more at that point, him or each other.

He came home tonight because it was necessary. Just another one of those things on his to do list. He'd really hoped they would be in a drunken stupor when he arrived. Well, he could wait a little longer. He was going to put a stop to all the misery, both theirs and his. He was leaving for school in Batesburg. He'd managed to get himself enrolled early without them knowing. He knew he was never coming back. His clothes and personal stuff that he wanted were at Benny's house. He'd been secretly moving them for the last month or so. He didn't take everything, it wouldn't look right if he did.

He noticed that the noise had peaked and had started to lessen. 'They must be finishing up,' he thought. 'Now it's my turn to finish them.' First he dressed in one of his mother's full aprons from the kitchen and tied it in the back. After pulling the latex gloves on, he stood up and retrieved a gun from under his pillow. It had been cleaned, loaded, and wiped down. He slipped off the safety and headed towards his parent's room.

He walked to the side of the bed and looked down on them laying there in their smelly body fluids. Surprisingly he didn't feel a thing. He felt emotionally numb and empty. He raised the gun and two shots rang out. First to go was his mother, one shot to the head. His dad recoiled from the noise and the splatter, but he didn't hear the next one. It went in his temple before he could react. When Charlie finished, he placed the gun in his dad's hand and wrapped his dad's fingers around the grip. He stepped back while taking off his gloves. Blood splattered the walls and soaked the bed. Not a lot of anything touched the white apron. Perfect. Dad shot mom, then turned the weapon on himself. The police would believe what they wanted to see.

Going back to the other room, he took a full bottle of scotch from the bag and, after opening it, took it in and set it on the nightstand. Then he put the apron and gloves into the bag with the other bottles of booze and walked out the door. He stayed in the alleys on the way to Benny's house. He opened various garbage cans and disposed of the gloves and apron first, then started disrobing and disposing of his clothes. Never more than one piece of clothing in a can and never two cans together. He wanted the evidence dispersed as widely as possible. He arrived at the back of Benny's house and deposited his boxers in the can. He slipped into the house naked and headed to the shower. He knew he wouldn't be able to get the gunpowder residue completely off his hands, but he still tried to wash the stink off of his body. He would never be able to wash the stain from his soul.

Eventually the authorities would find him at Benny's house and inform him of their recent demise. Then he just had to go to a double funeral and leave town. It would be different in the future, and he was never coming back.

Chapter 1

Two years later Charlie had managed to maintain a 3.4 GPA while taking some pretty tough classes. He'd been lucky when he found a nice two-bedroom apartment about a mile from the school in a relatively quiet neighborhood. He saved his money instead of spending it on a car and insurance. Walking to school was also some good exercise for him. He managed to separate his school life from his home life and had a relatively easy time staying away from most of the other students. He considered most of them assholes, anyway.

At the start of the third year at school, Charlie was in a couple of classes with a woman named Helen. She was a semester or two behind him. He was fascinated by her quick wit and her relatively easy grasp of the material. He asked around and found out she was in a study group, so he decided to join it one evening. A couple of the other students knew him and his high GPA, so they asked him to stay. He wouldn't say that working in the study group was a real fun time for him since he turned out to be more of a tutor for the others, but he did get to hang around with Helen.

It was after about a month after he joined the group that he was working on one of his papers. The rest of the group had packed up to go home, but he was tweaking this paper a bit. Since the topic was one of the few easy ones available, he thought he'd push it extra hard to pull in the easy grade. He finished up and put the paper in his bag while looking around. The only one left was Helen and she was just sitting there, watching him.

"Hey you."

"Hey yourself."

"I thought you'd be gone with the others," he said.

"I was, but I went back over my paper. I have to get those easy grades when I'm able to, you know?" she replied.

"Yeah, sure. I figured you would be gone by now, seeing as how you are a married woman and have a long trip home," he stated. He was watching her eyes while he talked. She just looked steadily back at him. 'Was this a dare of some sort?' he wondered. "Well, if you don't have to go home right now, how about giving a needy student a lift home? It is only a few blocks from here and not out of your way."

"Sure. Get your stuff and let's go."

The drive was quiet except for Charlie telling her where to turn and then pointed out his building. Charlie could feel some tension in the air, so he thought he'd take a chance.

"Want to come in for a minute?" he queried.

She sat for a moment, not answering. Then she turned the engine off and smiled at him. That said it all. He walked her up to his door, unlocked it and ushered her inside. He dropped his coat on the chair, his backpack on the floor next to it and motioned for her to sit down.

He went towards the bathroom and said, "I'll be right back. Put your stuff anywhere."

She slipped off her coat and her backpack. Her stomach was full of butterflies and her mind was in turmoil. 'What the hell am I doing?' she thought. 'Marty is waiting for me to come home and I'm in some man's apartment. For what? Why?'

Just then Charlie reentered the room. "Would you like something to drink?" he offered. "I have some sodas or some water if you like."

"A glass of water I think," she replied. "I seem to have a dry throat and I wouldn't want to get sick. It would be a waste to learn how to prevent disease and then get sick because I didn't use the information they gave me."

He nodded and returned with two glasses of water. They sat across from each other, saying nothing and taking the occasional sip. He was sitting in the easy chair and she was sitting on one end of the couch. Abruptly, as though he had made a decision, he drank down the rest of his water. He set the glass on the table, stood up, and walked over to the couch. She hadn't said a word, but set her glass down when he moved. He held his hand out to her. She looked at it for a moment, then took it and stood up. He put his arms around her and kissed her gently on the lips. She kissed back, at first tentatively, and then harder as the passion kicked in for both of them. At the end of the kiss, he leaned back from her a bit.

She stared back, rather hungrily he thought. Taking her hand again, he turned and walked to the bedroom. She didn't resist. They stopped next to his unmade bed and both began taking off their clothes as fast as they could. She beat him but just barely and they fell together onto the bed, legs, arms and tongues entwined. There wasn't a lot of foreplay, just a quick grope to check out each others body and then a fast coupling. It wasn't so much passion as basic lust. Woman needs man, and vice versa. Less than half an hour later, Helen got back into her car and started home.

They didn't have sex often. They didn't try to rationalize the affair or even try to put it into words. They would see each other on campus and would just know that they would fuck each other after class. And that is all it ever was, just sex.

Charlie graduated a semester ahead of Helen. Luckily he found a job at the local hospital so he wouldn't have to move. Things were going all right and they continued the same routine as if he were still in school.

Then the routine changed when Helen called him at work. She asked him if he was in a private area, then whispered in his ear, "Hi, daddy. Boy, I'm glad to talk to you. You'll never guess what happened to us."

Charlie felt the floor coming up to meet him as a nervous knot grabbed his guts and squeezed tight. 'Shit, now what's going to happen to me?'

"Daddy, huh," he said back. "You sure it's mine? After all, you do have a husband who presumably is capable of the same accomplishment as I am. Or is there something else going on that I'm not in on?"

"Oh, yeah, it's yours all right," she confirmed.

"Ok, spill it," he said, "How are you positive that it is mine? Not that I'm not happy for you, but this is an unplanned occurrence for me. Sorry, I'm not good at responding well to such news. As a matter of fact, that's the first time I've ever heard that."

"Well, I'm sure it's yours because Marty was sick in bed that whole week and we didn't make love for another week after he got well. The only one during that time was you," she laughingly replied. "I didn't tell you because I didn't think you'd care that Marty was sick. We've been trying for about three or four months now, so this is great!"

"Yeah, well, um… yes, it is great news. I'm happy for you both. Of course if it is mine, how are you going to explain away my obvious characteristics if they show up in your child? I mean, Marty and I don't look anything alike. Have you thought about that?"

"Of course I have, Charlie. I had an uncle with the red hair and he was really tall. Don't worry about Marty. Everything will be just fine," she said back at Charlie. He could almost see her smile. "Now, lighten up a little bit. I've got to get back to work. I just wanted you to be the first to know the good news."

He started dating a girl he met at work soon after Helen gave him the news. Brenda was about six feet tall and had blond hair with the deepest dark blue eyes he'd ever seen. She had a nice figure, but was a little on the large size.

About the third week they were dating he finally let her see his apartment. He popped her cherry on a Friday night, so she stayed the entire weekend with him. It wasn't real love for him, of course. He knew that he would never be able to love anyone. He kept his inner self closed off from everyone. He bought an engagement ring for her at a pawn shop and proposed at a neighborhood restaurant.

In due course, Helen gave birth. A boy, David, with red hair and blue eyes. Brenda became pregnant almost immediately and Denny was born at the usual time and about eight months after David. Yes, he had red hair and blue eyes.

When David was about a year old, Charlie called Helen and asked her to meet him. They had some things to talk over and would prefer to do it face to face. Yep. Right back into the sack they went. They both had unaware spouses they were cheating on and both had babies at home, but that didn't matter. At least she never gave Charlie the line that 'he completed her'. That would have been just too much since they were both in it for the sex.

A short time later, she was pregnant again. About six months later, Brenda became pregnant also. It wasn't as though Charlie planned the kids that way, it just happened. He fucked them, planted his seed, and children were born. Isn't that the way things are supposed to happen? It was a little strange that the first kids were boys and the second were girls, but hey, serendipity was fortuitous or something like that.

After the girls were born, they were both too busy with their own families to get together very often. Just as marriages become comfortable, so did the affair. It didn't totally fade away, but they got together maybe two or three times a year. Neither one could explain why they kept things going for so long. It just happened to turn out that way.

Finally, David reached graduation day and Charlie was torn inside. He really wanted to attend the ceremony and see David graduate. After all David was his son and he was really proud of him for completing the journey. He told Helen that he wanted to go and about his plans. She tried to dissuade him, but she knew how he felt about his kids. He had decided to be off on the side where he wouldn't be noticed and arrive just in time. He thought he could pull it off without being spotted.

He went to the graduation at the football field, showing up just as they finished being seated. He watched in pride as David accepted his diploma. The end of the ceremony came upon him and he wasn't quite expecting it. He knew he had to get out of there fast and made it to his car without anyone spying him. The butterflies in his stomach slowly settled down in proportion to the distance he put between him and them. He felt really proud of David and his accomplishments, even though he hadn't been the one to parent him.

Helen had told him that David would be attending school in Batesburg, but not to worry because he would be driving back and forth. He also didn't worry about it because the school was on the opposite side of town from us. The next year, Charlie and Brenda attended Denny's graduation. He felt just as proud of Denny as he had been with David, but this time he got to sit in the bleachers. He did become a somewhat worried when Denny announced his intention to attend school in town. Charlie wondered that Denny would see David and then, somehow, put things together.

It was during that first semester that Denny came home one Friday afternoon with a strange look on his face. "Dad," he started, "I have someone here I'd like you to meet."

He stepped to one side and David walked through the door. I felt the blood rush from my face as the implications hit me. I sat there feeling numb for a moment, then jumped up and sticking out my hand I said, "Hello David. I'm glad to meet you. Please come in and sit down."

David looked at me oddly, then reached out to take my hand. I looked at them both for a moment then asked, "What's the matter, boys? Come on in and sit down."

Denny just stood there for a moment and then said, "Dad, I told you I had someone I wanted you to meet. I didn't give a name. How do you know him?"

"Because I know his mother Denny," I quickly replied. "We were in school at the same time just as you are. She and I have kept in touch over the years and I knew she had two kids and their names." I decided to shut up because I was rambling. The boys nodded their heads at me and I thought that I had convinced them, and then Janey walked into the room.

'Damn,' I thought, 'now it hits the fan.' But no, I was lucky. Denny introduced David to Janey and they went to Denny's room to use his computer. I sat back down and tried to watch the game, but the only thing I could think about was my close call and thank god that Brenda wasn't home. That would have been really nasty. I really wanted to call Helen right then, but knew I couldn't. I would have to wait until everyone was gone.

I didn't get an opportunity to talk to Brenda alone until the middle of the following week. By that time, I had managed to stuff my concerns back down inside and I really felt that I had managed to sidestep that little problem. Of course, that's what I told myself. Denny didn't bring David back to the house or even mention his name. Janey never said anything about David either.

The following year was hectic because both girls graduated. Charlie and Brenda proudly watched Janey graduate. She was the class valedictorian and gave a really nice speech.

A week later, Charlie was in Moorgate to watch Darla graduate. Bad luck, it rained so the ceremony was held in the school gym. He was able to get in without being spotted and stood by the doors. He was beaming when Darla accepted her diploma.

Just as he had previously, he was one of the first people out the doors and felt that he hadn't been spotted. It looked as though he'd gotten away with attending both graduations. He would have to tell Helen that her fears had been totally unfounded. He hummed to himself all the way home.

Janey started at college that fall. Brenda and I had told them that they could still live at home while they were in college. They had an old car for transportation that Denny had fixed up while he was in high school. It wasn't great, but it got them back and forth across town to school.

Sometime in there, Helen and I got back together on Saturdays. The kids did their thing, Brenda was working, and I was off fucking around again. Brenda was off on Sunday while I worked. Helen told me that she was volunteering on Saturdays, so she could meet me anytime. Marty 'knew' she was at her volunteer place, usually all day, so we could fit whatever time we needed into that schedule. I always called a nice hotel in Moorgate and made a reservation. I always paid cash and was careful to destroy the receipt. The hotel had an indoor pool and a Jacuzzi area for guest use that we used occasionally. More than once we fucked in the Jacuzzi too for a little bit of spice.