By the author.
The success of my "Chelsea Rising" series has been measured by the number of comments I have had and by the scores I have received, and based on that I've written a fourth chapter, which I present for your enjoyment. I need to say a couple of things, though.
Firstly, this story contains descriptions of non-consensual sex. I don't condone such acts for a second, but it is a necessary part of the story and I hope that you will take it as such...and it turns out well in the end, at least from that person's perspective.
Secondly, all of the characters in this story, as for all of my work, are fictitious. They bear no resemblance to persons living or dead. Which brings me onto the third point: this is an act of fiction, so please don't abuse me if you think that someone might have acted in a different way, or that some aspect of the story is unrealistic. It is what it is!
Anyone who publishes stories on this site will tell you that we live for feedback. In my case, it decides whether or not I will continue to write, and what. If you like my work (or even if you don't), please leave a comment and a score...it really will make the difference between my moving on to other hobbies, or continuing to write what I hope are vibrant and enjoyable stories.
Finally, I hope that you enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed putting it together, which is to say, a lot!
HotSister. Jan11.
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PROLOGUE: JUNE 2008
"Mum! We're going to be late!"
Melanie Phillips regarded her son Dirk in the rear-view mirror and tried to console him. "He's coming now, honey. We've plenty of time." She tooted the car horn again, more impatiently, her eyes on the front door as if to will her husband out quicker. She glanced at her watch - five to ten. It was at least a thirty-minute drive, and then they had to find parking and walk to the audition room. It was cutting things very fine. She could feel the rising level of stress and she tooted again.
"Here he comes," Dirk said, a note of hysteria in his voice. "Can we get there on time, Mum? I can't be late."
Bruce Phillips hurried to the passenger side and slid into the seat. "Sorry, sorry....I had a client on the phone - a big job." He leaned over and looked at his son. "We'll be fine, Dirk, if we hurry."
Melanie revved the car and shot out of the driveway, turning left towards the town. Dirk had been working for this day for months, and she knew that the auditioning team were very strict on people who turned up late. She spun the steering wheel, negotiating her way around an SUV that was loitering, and accelerated hard. She thought that the coastal road was probably quicker and she entered the left hand lane, filtering at the green arrow and then accelerating out of town.
Bruce turned to her. "Take it easy, Mel. We've plenty of time."
She glanced at him, and her voice was hard. "No, we haven't Bruce. We've got to be there five minutes ago, but I don't suppose you thought of that while you were chatting on the phone."
"That's not fair, Mel. I told you it was important."
Her voice was scornful. "More important than your son's future?"
"As it happens, yes. It's bread and butter on the table."
"It could have waited a day or two!"
He looked at her angrily. "It couldn't. Peter wants the draft contract tomorrow."
Dirk sat in the back seat listening to his parents fighting, his own heart hammering in his chest. He could see their faces set in anger, and he heard the shrillness of their voices. He watched his mother turning to respond, her eyes on her husband and her lips pulled back in fury, and then a movement ahead drew his focus forward, out of the car to the narrow road ahead, and he saw the tractor turning, its heavy trailer slewing across the road into their path.
"Look out!" He screamed.
Dirk watched it all happen, as if in slow motion. His mother, turning her head back, seeing the obstruction and reacting. The squeal of tyres locking up on the road, the back of the car fishtailing, losing control; the farmer's face looking down, his mouth open in fear and dismay and the trailer's steel side filling the windscreen, so close he could see the dribbles of rust and the stains of ordure on the dark, pitted metal.
His brain registered the impact - not the crunch of metal he expected, but a single blow that reverberated in the morning air like a giant hammer on an anvil as the two ton car was suddenly halted. The horizon dipped as the back wheels reared up, and the cabin around him was instantly filled with dust and debris flung upwards with the deceleration. He felt the sudden crush of his seatbelt expelling the breath from his chest in an explosive whoosh! and he saw the airbag deploy, his mother cascading into it with her head lolling like a broken puppet. With horrified eyes he saw his father exit from the vehicle, plucked through the windscreen in an instant of time, his body bent and his limbs disjointed, the glass exploding around his head in a shower of glittering fragments like a bucketful of diamonds flung into the crisp morning air.
The vehicle fell back onto its wheels with a thump and there was the tinkle of falling debris and then the tick of cooling metal in the sudden silence. For a long time there was no other sound or movement and Dirk thought they must all be dead, and then he heard the shouts of the men running from the fields nearby.
Dirk stood by the grave as the coffin was lowered. He regarded his mother and elder sister Cielle, clinging together by the graveside, their faces grey and pinched and their eyes red from weeping. His younger sister Sarah was next to them, watching the leaves blowing around the grave with empty eyes - her lack of awareness a blessing for once. Behind them were other mourners - family and friends, the greys and blacks of their clothing reflected in the low winter sky, and beyond them the hearse that had brought his father on the final journey. He saw the priest, his white cassock stark against the raw earth as he leaned over the grave, his voice thin against the sigh of the wind. "We commit the body of our dearly departed son, Bruce Arthur Phillips, to be buried..."
