***I am conscious of the fact that most of my stories so far, have tended to be a little on the
long
side. I don't really make any apologies for that, I like a tale that has a little meat on its bones, but variety is the spice of life.
Incest Hotel
is intended to be an anthology series. It will be a collection of shorter, self-contained stories, featuring a myriad of different characters. But all of them will be indulging in glorious, glorious incest. Certain individuals may reappear in different stories, but you will be able to read each tale in isolation. At least that's the plan.
As always, any character involved in any sexual activity is at least eighteen years old.***
1
If Vernon Copeland was a monster – and all the available evidence suggests he was – he couldn't be held
entirely
responsible for that fact. His father – Jefferson Copeland – had been a monster too.
He
was a bully, a drunkard, a womaniser and a source of unending terror and fear for his family. Vernon had regularly witnessed him beat his mother and his older sister. He had been on the receiving end of various whippings too, throughout his childhood and early teens.
Perhaps, if he had been a stronger man – a
better
man – Vernon would have reacted to his father's unrelenting abuse with greater moral clarity. He would have been determined to learn and grow. He would have treated men and women with respect and compassion. He would have endeavoured to be all the things his father was not.
But Vernon was not a strong man. He was weak. And he was to become, in so many ways, his father's son. He was victim to the same vices. He was guilty of the same sins. Vernon shared his taste for liquor. Vernon shared his taste for easy women.
When he was seventeen years old, his father suddenly dropped dead. It happened in church, of all places. Jefferson Copeland was nothing if not a man who understood the importance of keeping up appearances. If he had ever believed in the Good Lord above, he had abandoned his faith many years earlier; but each week, the Copeland family would be found in the pews of their local church. All in their Sunday best, the very model of piety and sobriety.
Appearances can certainly be deceptive.
The Reverend Elijah B Havelock was right in the middle of a particularly fiery sermon about the vital importance of resisting the weakness of the flesh, when the weakness of Jefferson Copeland's flesh finally caught up with him. He suddenly stood up, muttered a few words of quiet apology, and then promptly collapsed. He was dead before his body hit the ground. A rudimentary autopsy revealed almost as many arterial blockages as there were months in the year. His heart, what there was of it, had practically exploded.
Vernon was suitably shocked by his father's sudden – and very
public
– demise, but he wasn't remotely upset. By this stage in his life, he hated the man who had sired him with a finely honed passion, and was delighted to no longer have his metaphorical – and sometimes,
literal
– shadow hanging over him. No one in the Copeland family really grieved for this man – his death was nothing but a relief – but they made sure to put on a good show for any interested parties.
As his only son and heir, Vernon duly inherited his father's estate and business interests. And, somewhat to the surprise of everyone who knew him, he made a reasonable fist of running – and even
expanding
– those interests. It was under Vernon that the company his father had established, originally specialising in the trade of dry goods, diversified by moving into the world of hotels. He started off by investing a small amount of money in a couple of guest houses; but by the end of the Great War, he was running a regional chain of ever larger hostelries.
If his professional life was advancing, even thriving, so too was his private life. At the age of 23 he married. His wife was quite the catch. She was a creature of rare beauty called Rose Dufresne. If Vernon was well on his way to becoming a monster, she was more akin to an
angel
, both in looks and temperament.
The Dufresne family had once been rather
grand
, much grander than the Copelands, who had worked their way up from relative poverty. Pierre Dufresne was rumoured to be related to French royalty. But he was a gambler and, much like Jefferson Copeland, rather too fond of the sauce. By the time he had reached his mid 40s, his wealth had been frittered away on the racecourses and roulette tables of the county; while his looks had been sacrificed on the altar of hard liquor. The only asset he really possessed was his daughter.
But she was quite the asset.
Even from the earliest days of her childhood, it was patently obvious that Rose Dufresne was going to be something
special
. She was the most stunning of children, with her long blonde hair, her big blue eyes and her cherubic face. She was a southern belle
par excellence.
By the time she was a teenager, her body had matured and grown. She was slim and slender, but had all the curves any young woman might aspire to. Her disposition was as fair and as sweet as her appearance. Her kindness and her consideration for others was noted by all who knew her. She was much admired and much loved.
Not long after her eighteenth birthday, she was introduced to a young man called Vernon. Her father told her
he
was to be her husband. This revelation both surprised and excited her. She was, in so many ways, still a child; but it was not that unusual for girls her age to be married off. Not then. Not in the South. If she had her doubts, she hid them well. She was an obedient and biddable creature. And in truth, she was rather taken with the dashing Vernon Copeland. Although, in the years that were to follow, his looks would fade, as his waistline expanded and his hairline receded; as a younger man he was really quite handsome.
She was seduced too by the
idea
of marriage. She wanted to be the beautiful princess, dressed all in white, a tall dark prince by her side. So, she readily agreed to the pairing, and, a few months later they were wed in the very same church where Jefferson Copeland breathed his last.
If Rose Dufresne – now Rose Copeland – had been in possession of any illusions about the institute of marriage and the man who was now her husband; those illusions were shattered faster than the discarded glassware of her wedding reception. On their first night together as a married couple, Vernon basically raped her. He was not an attentive or compassionate lover, he cared only for his
base
needs, and he took little time to cater to the concerns of a young woman being forced into adulthood far sooner than was wise or advisable.
As she lay there weeping on the marital bed, her wedding dress torn, her skin bruised and scratched, her husband's seed mixing with the blood of her torn maidenhead, Rose prayed to her Lord and Saviour for the strength and resilience to survive this bitter and harsh trial. She wanted to love her husband. She wanted to obey him. And she was determined to be as good a wife as she could be.
Like so many women of her generation and her background, she
endured
. She learned to live with her burden. She learned to live with her cold, distant – and sometimes violent – husband. She learned to live with the harsh reality that was her life, rather than the juvenile fantasy she had hoped for as an innocent youth. She did this in the way many women in her situation might do, through the love and adoration she had for her children.
Rose became a mother three weeks before her nineteenth birthday, giving birth to twins. A baby girl they named Esther, and a little boy who was never going to be called anything other than Vernon Junior. They were the only children she would ever have. She got pregnant again a couple of years later, but after a particularly savage beating that Vernon administered one night, when he was steaming drunk, she miscarried. She thought perhaps she would no longer be able to carry a baby, the damage her husband had wrought had been too severe, but she would discover some years later, to her surprise and joy, that this was not the case.
If you were to witness Rose and her children together, you would have seen a young mother who seemingly doted on her babies. This was true, without a doubt. She loved them both. But she loved one of them just that little bit more. Vernon Junior – known by almost everyone as
Little Vern
– was the apple of Rose's eye. He was a handsome boy, a sweet child, and he worshipped his mother.
His twin sister Esther, however, was always a little more difficult to love. She had been rather sickly as a baby, forever afflicted by ailments and maladies. Her sleep was often punctuated by coughing fits and howling tears. Rose was regularly kept up late into the night, trying to soothe her. Little Vern meanwhile slept right through, almost from the start.
There was a connection between mother and son that Esther could never hope to emulate, or ever be part of. She was always somewhat akin to the fifth wheel, a little unwanted, a little unloved. It's not as if she was particularly close to her father, either. Vernon – or
Big Vern
as he increasingly became known – was almost entirely disinterested in his children. They were little more than an irritation, as far as he was concerned. They steered clear of him most of the time; both of them had been the victim of one of his beatings. They knew of his temper.
Esther, by virtue of necessity more than anything else, became a somewhat solitary child. She was self sufficient and often played alone. If she resented the favouritism her mother showed towards her brother, she never displayed that emotion. She was really rather fond of him, to be honest. It was almost impossible not to like Vernon Junior. Everyone adored him, and she was no different.
So, this was their life. An angry, bitter father and husband. A frightened, neglected wife and mother. And two children who knew of no other existence than their own. For some in this family, there were occasional moments of happiness and even joy. For others, there was nothing but misery and despair. Everything depended on the
mood
