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Author's note
Part Eight picks up where Part Seven left off, in Spring. It is not necessary for you to have read the first six parts of the story, but this may be hard to follow if you haven't read Part Seven.
This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, many chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.
All sexual acts are consensual and involve parties who are at least eighteen years of age.
As ever, if you have questions feel free to email me or leave a comment. Either way, I'll try to respond in a timely manner.
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Chris almost didn't hear the doorbell over the coffee grinder. Only when he took his thumb off the button, allowing the blades to stop whirring, did he recognize the sound.
It was nearly eleven o'clock. At night.
"I'll get it," he called out.
Karen was in her home office, as usual. Whether she was actually working or simply procrastinating, he had no idea, but he'd hate to interrupt her if her muse was speaking to her. Especially after the voicemail her publisher had left just a few days ago reminding her that the manuscript was due in two weeks.
Actually, he'd hate to interrupt Karen even if her muse had taken the night off. Hell hath no fury like a writer behind on a deadline.
"Thanks, dear," his wife replied perfunctorily.
In that unique unhurried rush that only doorbells can induce, Chris swept across the kitchen and then shuffled across the living room to the front door. After fixing the few hairs that had been displaced by the process and smoothing away some imaginary wrinkles in his shirt, he slowly opened the door.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," the small man on the other side said.
The man stood a good five or six inches shorter than Chris, and probably weighed fifty or sixty pounds less. The stranger couldn't possibly have posed Chris any threat. But there was something about the guy that made his body tense up all the same.
Of course, that might just have been the fact that he was ringing their doorbell at such a strange hour. The only real possibilities Chris could see were that the man was in need of help or that he was a serial killer who was going to pretend he was.
But that wasn't it.
Chris had seen that pronounced widow's peak before. The thinning hairline and neatly trimmed goatee, more silver than brown, weren't ringing the same bells, but somewhere in the back of his mind, a face very much like this one lurked. It belonged to a different man. A taller man. One who was a little more handsome, with similar if rougher features. But there was a connection. Had to be.
Whoever it was that he was thinking of also had thicker muscles. The man before him was lean and wiry, undeniably fit yet so short and slender that he could probably fit in Karen's clothes. How could he let his back go stiff over such a harmless little guy?
He was being silly. The man on his front step simply had the misfortune of bearing a passing resemblance to someone Chris had all but forgotten.
"I know it's late," the man on his front step said. "But my car broke down-"
"Please, come in," Chris said, suddenly remembering his manners. "Do you need to use the phone? Call a tow-truck?"
"Already tried." The man held up his cell phone as he stepped inside. "No one's answering. Voicemail said they open at six."
"Well, we are a long ways from civilization," Chris replied. That's how most people would think of it, anyway. Himself, he couldn't imagine living in the city. Out here, surrounded by nature, he could breathe. He felt free and at peace. "If there were any hotels within fifty miles, I'd offer to take you to one, but I'm afraid you won't find any better accommodations until you hit Savannah. And that's some ways away yet."
"Don't I know it," the stranger said. "That's actually where I was headed."
Of course it was.
Chris enjoyed the occasional visit to Savannah. The thriving music scene alone more than justified its existence. And taking Karen in for a night on the town always made for a memorable evening. But the city never looked as good as when it was in his rearview mirror.
"Who's this?" his wife said, finally emerging from her office.
She forced a smile, but it was tight. Their guest might not have caught it, but Chris could almost feel her irritation emanating out from her like sound waves from a speaker.
It was hard to imagine her jumping with joy at the arrival of an unexpected guest so late at night under any circumstances, but the clack-clack-clack that had been coming from her keyboard a moment ago suggested that she'd been on a roll. That she even managed to curve her lips upward at all came as something of a surprise.
"Kevin," the man said, offering his hand.
She took it and gave him a polite handshake. "Karen."
Chris watched the two of them. He wasn't sure why, but he felt tense.
Transparently insincere it might be, but he knew his wife being gracious to their guest. Her behavior, unlike his, was always appropriate to the situation. Always.
Was he actually afraid that Kevin, who seemed perfectly polite, would somehow offend her? Or was he simply feeling possessive?
It would certainly have been understandable if he was. Sometimes, he let himself forget what a knockout his wife was. She was wearing baggy sweatpants and one of his band's concert T-shirts over a pair of long-sleeves, sure, but a cardboard box couldn't have hid the fact that she had a killer body. Her luscious lips, flawless complexion, cute little nose and high cheekbones needed no cosmetics. That face stopped hearts as often as it did traffic. Even pulled back and hidden from view by a vicious scrunchie, her glorious red hair took his breath away. And the thick black glasses she wore when typing made her look even better than usual. Sophisticated. Geek, but in the best possible way. Like Tina Fey.
Surely none of that escaped Kevin's notice. He didn't stare at her the way Chris himself surely would have if he were in the man's shoes, but there was no indication that he was blind. And he didn't strike Chris as gay.
"Did I hear you'll be spending the night with us?" she asked Kevin, with only the slightest "Really?
Really
?" subtext directed toward Chris.
"I don't want to put you out," Kevin replied.
"Nonsense," Chris added quickly, before those cold brown stones could drill into him.
Beautiful as his wife's eyes were, they could take all the heat out of a room when she got in one of her moods. Just as they could set his heart to beating so fast it would give
his doctor
a heart attack when she got in one of
those
moods. A more beautiful, more expressive, more magical pair of eyes the world had never seen.
For all that his wife was signaling her dissatisfaction with the arrival of their unwanted guest, turning him away would only earn Chris her disapproval. That this made no sense was of course irrelevant. Karen's evening had been disturbed, and she couldn't very well take it out on Kevin without looking like a bitch, so all of that frustration was going to be directed towards her loving husband. But that didn't mean she'd forgive him for turning them into the type of people who would refuse a helping hand for a stranger in need.
Rock, have you met hard place?
"Did you say you were headed to Savannah?" Karen asked.
Kevin nodded. "For the Saint Patrick's Day parade. I hear it's not to be missed."
"It's not," Chris agreed. "No better place for it."
The smile his wife gave him bordered on lukewarm.
"Some would say Boston," he added, "but what do yankees know anyway?"
Immediately after the words left his mouth, he felt ashamed of himself.
Confused as well.
The accent he hadn't quite noticed in Kevin's speech was hard to place. The man certainly was no native son of Georgia. Could he have been a northerner?
No. That wasn't it. Kevin might or might not have been born on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon, but Chris was feeling like he'd taken the Lord's name in vain for an entirely different reason. He suddenly knew for an absolute certainty that he had some sort of a connection to Boston. What that connection was, he hadn't the foggiest idea, but that didn't change the fact that there was one.
