Author's note.
All characters engaged in sexual activity in this story are at least 18 years old. This story contains incest and graphic sexual activity.
This is more of a slow burn story, if you don't refer longer narratives, this might not be for you. If, however, you enjoy a more dramatic and character focused tale I think you will enjoy this. It's fairly long and will contain several parts, I hope you enjoy it.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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I am 18. He is 19.
I am playing the piano. Poorly. A hand hits me up side the back of my head when my finger stumbles on a key.
'Concentrate!'
I pick my head up and adjust my posture, brushing my dark curly hair to one side, and begin again. 'Yes, mother.'
We are lucky. That's what Uncle Aaron says anyway.
When the incident happened, we were already too old, even though we were only 13 and 14 in a few months.
'That's older than what most couples generally look for.' We were the worst thing you can be when trying to find a new home, teenagers. Not to mention our unfortunate family background.
Few people were willing to take us in, less willing to keep us together. A simple condition. A simple, solitary, non-negotiable condition. We stay together, no matter what.
She was a nun, in the past at least. She still was in a way, though we weren't allowed to ask why she left the convent, or if she was kicked out. Uncle Aaron hinted that it had something to do with not being able to keep certain vows and that she might have wanted children. We were her chance, I suppose, also her penance.
She was a hard-faced and chastely dressed woman. With heavy set round breasts, she wore behind what looked like a military uniform that covered her neck and became a long dress at the bottom. Her midnight black hair pulled back so tight it looked like it hurt. She was tall, more so than most men, with almost golden brown skin.
She was cold and mean and strict. Every time we met with her, she was correcting our behavior, our posture, the way we spoke. She even slapped my brother Dante right across the face once for talking back, right in front of both the person for the adoption agency and uncle Aaron.
No one did anything though, no one even made a sound. It would have ruined our chances, she had only wanted me, and no one else was willing to take in both of us.
So somehow, we were adopted. She insists we call her 'mother'.
After the incident, Dante, my brother, had become a lot more protective of me. He almost never let me out of his sight, ever. I would tell him I'm fine, and that I felt safe, and that he didn't have to shadow my every step. He never listened, and if I was being truly honest, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
After piano I have to move on to cleaning the floors, once done with that I begin preparing food to cook for supper. While cutting vegetables I look out of the kitchen window and spot Dante doing yard work in the back yard.
Silently envious, it's too apt, me indoors, and Dante in the open air. Mother doesn't let me leave the house, ever. I ride the bus to school, I ride the bus home. I am not allowed any more movement than that.
After we've eaten dinner I take a shower before going to bed. I stand under the water, watching perversely as strings glide down between my legs. My fingers are drawn to the space and shut my eyes as they begin to work. In my mind's eye it's someone else hands forcing the quiet moans from my mouth.
The person in my imagination never really has a face to them, but I know they love me, I know they want me, and they can't keep their hands off me.
I lean one hand against the wall as my rhythm picks up, my breathing is so short I'm pretty much panting. I imagine the things I would do for him, the things he would do to me. I'm so close. The person in my dream is grabbing every part of me, bringing new and different sounds from between my lips, playing my whole body like a symphony.
My tongue feels heavy and mouth is wet, I lean my head against the wall so I can knead my breast and finally... finally... I'm—
'Caroline!' I yelp at the sound of my name from mother's voice on the other side of the bathroom door, 'I hope you instead to pay for all that water you're wasting.'
I hurriedly close the taps and wrap myself in a towel, rushing to open the door of the small bathroom with the tub shower combo a toilet and sink in a space not much bigger than a large closest.
'I'm sorry mother. I didn't realize.'
'No of course not. When ever do you,' Mother stands over me in her nightgown, 'now, off to bed with you. The hour is late.'
I walk past Dante's room to my own, mother shadowing my steps, the old carpeted wooden floor creaking heavily under our weight.
Once I'm in my room, mother says good night from the other side of my door. I press my ear against the door and listen to the sound of her steps creaking to her room at the end of the hall where she typically locks herself in and begins her nightly prayers before going to sleep.
After I'm dressed I move to the other side of the room and open wide the window, removing the mesh and begin to wait. I whisper Dante's name into the night. After a few moments, Dante opens his window and maneuvers in from the outside roof into my room.
'Hi.' I say once he's inside.
'Hey.' He pulls me into a hug and I sink into him, the tension I did not know I was carrying ebbs away, and I feel his embrace tighten. His strong arms closing around me. I breathe in his scent.
This is our little ritual for some time now. Whenever mother, goes to bed, I will open my window and Dante walks on the roof outside our bedroom windows on the side of the house and comes to see me.
If we use the hallway mother hears the creaking of the floor and the last time she found us spending time together she kicked Dante out because she assumed we were doing something terrible, something awful.
We were playing cards.
I had cried and begged her to let him back in. I don't know why she seems to have always cared nothing for Dante and made me out to be something of more when really the opposite is true.
It took Uncle Aaron driving here in the middle of the night to talk some sense into her before she let him back in.
When Dante is in my room, we hug and tell each other about our day without letting go, and frankly, this is the only thing that keeps me sane.`
'How you doing?' He asks without letting me go. His voice is heavy and sounds tired.
'Good. How are you?' I ask, trying to move closer to him.
I haven't seen him since morning and I have missed him, so much. Sometimes we might not see each other for a whole day.
Between our chores, practice and his part-time job, we are always busy and it slowly kills me. It feels like lately there's something unsaid, like a wedge that's keeping us from being as close as we used to be. I don't what it is, but I can sense it, and a part of me just hopes it's that we haven't spent that much time with each other lately.
He's here now, I remind myself, and that's what matters.
I move my arms across his back and close my eyes, I don't want to ever let him go. He is safe, here in my arms, as much as I am safe in his. I pull away, touching his face with both hands.
He's finally just gone and shaved his hair with a buzz cut, it looks good. He looks good. I count the tiny scars that disappear down his shirt. His brown eyes look so bright, even against our shared light brown skin tone. My big brother.
'Hi.' He says softly.
I'm smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. 'Hi.'
We spend the night like we have countless others, lying on my bed and cuddled enough to keep warm, it is innocent and pleasant.
Dante groans as he stretches. 'Fuck, I'm tired.'
'Language,' I scold him, 'if mother ever hears you talk like that she'll kick you out. Again.'
'What should I say instead?'
'Hmm, how about... shoot.'
'Okay, shoot mother,' Dante says and I bury my head in his chest to hide my laughing, 'shoot her right in the shooting face.'
I'm laughing so hard my whole body shakes. 'Stop it.'
We talk about everything and nothing, about his work, about mother, about piano practice and chores, about school—our final year is starting this week. We talk about how he is thinking about asking for captain this season because it's sure to look good to scouts.
We have only limited options for schools, our hopes lie almost entirely on Dante getting recruited for soccer and me being granted a scholarship to the same school, or we go to a small community college nearby, whose first year Dante can afford with his savings and then I could maybe get a job to help, but if that happens, we'd have to continue staying with mother.
No matter what though, we stay together.
We talk about how he will probably have to quit his job at the garage because there's no way he'll be able to go to school, train, work and have time to do his chores all in one day.
We talk about how Tori Andrews, of all people, asked one of Dante's friends for his phone number, not knowing that neither of us can afford one.
'Oh god, my big brother friends with Tori Andrews.'
'What's so wrong about that?'
'No, no nothing, just like there isn't anything wrong with selling sex in a church,' I answer, 'or Tori Andrews in a church.' Dante laughs and the sounds warms my whole body.
We joke and laugh together, and all at once, my soul is at peace.
He falls asleep in my arms. I know he'll be upset with me in the morning for letting it happen again, but I can see how tired he is. I set my alarm clock and fall asleep by his side.
In what feels like half a second after I close my eyes the alarm goes off, and I gently stir Dante from his slumber. He is slightly cross at me for risking letting him sleep in my bed. He forgives me in his next breath.
We both get up and hug for as long as we can. I don't want to let him go. He kisses the top of my head, and breaks our embrace, then climbs out my window to get back into his room.
For a while I am unable to move, I am left vacant, and so alone it hurts. A few minutes later, mother unlocks my door and opens it as wide as it will go, finding me sitting up in my bed.
"Get up. It's time to start the day."
* * *
Dante walks me to the bus stop where other kids from our area are already waiting. Dante waits with me up until his friend Bradley pulls up in his car to pick Dante up. The fancy silver SUV which likely costs more than a house is packed with two more of Dante's friends from the soccer team, including Uncle Aaron's son, Shane.
