Nate began his odyssey into his daughter's phone with the cold acknowledgement that she'd hidden from him what could only be viewed as a... campaign. Because of the sheer number of messages she'd been given from Aisha and Serilda--one of whom was her mother's sister as well as
once-and-maybe-future lover
--he could come to no other conclusion. That was even before the contents were exposed.
The fact that she had kept secret what was happening nearly closed the coffin lid on him, and the descent was only stopped by the realization that Claudia hadn't responded. Not once. All texts, all video clips, were incoming only. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but chose to take it as a shred of hope. It... helped in the minutes that followed. With the revelations he had to endure. With what was unfurled the second his trembling finger hit the button on the first video file that his daughter, his daddy's girl little princess, had received from her newfound family.
Day One
The scene being recorded by someone's phone was of a posh, expansive room; a drawing room, he guessed it was called, or maybe just a foyer? Didn't matter. Nate, knowing what he knew by that point, assumed that he was getting an inside view of the sprawling estate that Patty's family...
Cleo's
mother and sister... resided in. The one within which his wife had spent her childhood, but had barely ever wanted to speak of during their twenty-year marriage.
The view was of a big, ornate front door, and the anticipation in the person holding the phone was palpable. "I can see her coming, love. You should..." The unseen voice was laden with all sorts of emotions.
"On it, mom." From off screen, Aisha sauntered into view, wearing only a short, translucent, rose-colored robe loosely tied at the waist that set off her similarly-dyed hair entrancingly. So much so, that it was actually a close second to the great swaths of dusky skin revealed by the barely-there garment; from the graceful, bare legs to the inner swells of a pair of nearly-perfect breasts that Nate remembered all too well.
Aisha strode confidently and eagerly up to the front door and flung it wide open to reveal Nate's wife, looking exactly as she did in his memory of the minute she'd run off months ago, with her arm outstretched, hand hanging in the air foolishly, and bearing a look of surprise by the sudden action. "Oh! Aisha... uh, Bouncy..." She laughed lightly. "I know you said you'd be waiting, but I didn't think you meant--"
That was all Patty could get out before Aisha grabbed the lapels of her sister's jacket in both hands and pulled the other women in for a deep, long kiss. Patty's eyes opened wide for a heartbeat, but only until one of her sister's questing hands expertly found the bottom of her shirt and snaked up under it, where her fingers went to work. After that, her lids were squeezed very, very tightly shut.
The quality of the video was good, Nate had to acknowledge that. He could clearly make out the details of his wife's... making out. Aisha's fingers rippling under the thin cotton of Patty's shirt. The subtle sway of the sisters' forms pressed against each other. The fact that Patty wasn't wearing a bra... which was
not
the case when she'd left their home that same day. He had to shake his head in disbelief.
Hell, at some point she just... got rid of it. She knew what was going to happen and gave in ahead of time. Just like that.
"Girls... Girls!" The laughing exclamation came from the woman who was recording the reunion for... posterity? No. For part of an already established plan, Nate had to remind himself. The one who was still unseen, but whose identity was no mystery; Serilda, Patty and Aisha's cougar of a mother. "You have all time... all the lifetime... to celebrate properly." The matriarch couldn't stop her fond chortling, despite her words. "Right now is a moment for... clarity."
Both breathing heavy, the sisters looked at the camera--at their mother--and gave nearly identical, sheepish grins. With one hand, Aisha set about putting one of her jiggling tits back into her robe--freed when her sister's appetites had finally begun to match her own--and took Patty by the hand to the living room, where the videographer followed. Just before both plopped down next to each other on the huge sofa in the living room, Patty quirked a brow at her mother. "Mom, why are you recording this?"
"Because people need to know what true love is, my darling. That is has no borders. No walls. This is for more than just two randy siblings, trust me."
Patty just gave a confused chuckle, shrugged, and turned to her sister, who had taken her hands between her own palms. "Bouncy, you were pretty cryptic this morning with your text. You said you need me. I... don't know what that means, not completely, but, yesterday at the funeral, I felt... I
remembered...
"Who you really are." Aisha leaned forward and planted a light, tender kiss on Patty's open mouth. It didn't hold a candle next to the wet joust they'd engaged in only minutes before, but it was... worse somehow. Nakedly affectionate. When Aisha pulled back, it was with gushing eyes. "Do you remember, all those years ago, how you... awakened me? We were so in love, Speedy." The redhead's lips began trembling then. "Then you... you left me. Sometimes I fantasize about what the last two decades would have been like if--"
"If you hadn't fucked our uncle?" Patty's teeth were gritted and her eyes smoldered. Her passion of moments earlier apparently was a coin, and she'd just flipped it to the other face. "Gave yourself to our
father
to get knocked up? After he stole you from me... and stole Amber... then told me that he... he wanted to
train
me? Shit, the man looked me in the eye after he shattered my world, and told me that I was his fucking
favorite!
"
Uncle? Father? Jesus Christ.
Nate couldn't get the visions of the funeral he'd been to, the one that triggered his own life's coin flip, out of his mind and had to pause the video to process this new revelation. The man in the casket that Patty had identified only as her father, and reluctantly at that, was her uncle. Serilda's own brother. And... holy shit, he'd impregnated his own daughter... who was also his niece...
And Amber!
It was clear to him then. The trio of low-twenty-something kids Nate had seen at the casket, Aisha's and Amber's children... were that very man's. Vincenzo's.
Holy hell, it wasn't a family tree the letch had planted, it was a friggin' briar patch.
Nate ran a palm down his face, his mind whirling. No wonder his wife was so twisted up; she never had a goddamned chance with that cursed heritage. Now, that utterly lost, hopelessly distraught woman that had turned to him in desperation during their senior year of college was taking on a whole new light in his understanding. A revealing, blinding light.
How many times had Patty told him that he was the only person she knew who could begin to empathize with her? That had gotten a taste of what had happened to her? The irony, that
she'd
been the one to give him that taste, was no bar to the open and raw need she'd entrusted to him that night she'd shown up out of the blue at his off-campus apartment. Her honest yearning for someone to understand her and save her from her bottomless pit had made her desperate, reckless even.
The idea that, of everyone she knew, she'd turned to
him,
gambled on what little she knew about him
...
well, his heart had broken at the sight of those big, wet, achingly earnest... vulnerably honest... eyes--sloppy romantic that he was--and then swelled by the next morning, after their first night together. The first of a future life entwined.
Or so he'd thought.
His cheek twitching, Nate hit play again. He needed to know. He needed to understand.
On screen, Patty sprung back to her animated ire and was pointing an accusing finger at the camera. At Serilda. "...and
you
let it happen! You helped them betray me! Pushed them, even! My own mother!"
"Whom you yearned to have sex with. To conquer and claim as your own." The calm voice was loud coming from so close to the still-recording phone. "Come now, Cleopatra, don't be so hypocritical. You lusted after me, you seduced your sister, and all this
after