Shared Trauma

Author's Note:

A few content warnings: This story features sexual assault and suicide. Just letting everyone know in case those are sensitive subjects for the reader. It therefore follows that this is a bit of a slow burn. I hope the story is engaging enough to pull you through, but if you're looking for a quick wank, this may not be the story for you. When it does get to the sex, there's incest roleplay, incest itself, foot worship, light femdom, and impregnation. I fell in love with these characters myself, so I hope you enjoy!

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Al opened the door to his apartment to find his niece on his doorstep, soaking wet, bleeding, and barefoot. She was holding a pair of black stilettos in one hand and a soggy clutch in the other. Her face was smudged with blood, dirt, and makeup. Whatever he'd been doing when he heard a knock at the door fled his mind.

"Hi, Tío," she said, a weak smile on her face. "Can I come in?"

Al gave her a shocked nod and she collapsed against him, sobbing. He held her for a few moments, rubbing the part of her back left open by her drenched black party dress. Her head came up to his chin as she clung to him, and he pressed a few kisses into her dripping auburn hair.

Eventually she calmed down a bit, and he pushed her to arm's length. "Jesus, what the fuck happened to you, K?" he asked, as friendly as he could. She was his cousin's daughter, so not technically his niece, and they saw each other about once a month. They were close enough to get each other personalized birthday gifts, but not close enough that those gifts ever knocked the wind out of the recipient. He was trying to treat her the way he would treat any friend who showed up at his door in such obvious distress.

She almost broke down again while she struggled to answer. "Can we talk about it later?" she asked, looking up at him. "Oh my God," she said, realizing she had gotten some blood on his T-shirt. I ruined your shirt. Fuck me, Tío, I'm so sorry." She began to cry again. "I can't do anything right!"

Al shushed her and hugged her close again. "It's alright, K. It's a ratty-ass shirt anyway." As her sobs once again relented, he smelled a little alcohol on her breath. He decided not to say anything about it just yet. "Here, K. Why don't you stay right here and I'll get you a towel. We can move to the couch afterward if you'd like." At her nod he sped away to the bathroom.

Kate, shivering, dropped her heels and her clutch by the door and took the time to look around the apartment. It hadn't changed much since she'd last seen it. Seemed like your typical tiny Miami Beach two-bedroom. It was on the top floor of a two-story building, so you didn't get the views that ran people thousands of dollars a month. Instead you just looked down one of the very pretty streets in her favorite part of town. There was a park visible down the street, and you could almost make out the water behind the high-rises to the east. Though it was an inexpensive apartment, it had been renovated recently, and her uncle had enough money to furnish it well. The black leather couch looked comfortable, but not enough to sleep on, and Kate consoled herself with the fact that she could probably stay in the guest bedroom that night and not have to face her mother till the morning.

Al returned as quick as he could with the nicest, cleanest towel he owned and a first aid kit. He'd been a bachelor for a long time, and sometimes bought more underwear online to extend his laundry deadline, so he'd had to dig deep. But there was one very nice towel he'd gotten as a gift that he never really felt comfortable using, at the back of the tiny linen closet in his bathroom. He wrapped that towel around Kate and guided her to the couch.

After a bit of coaxing and a lot of holding, Al made Kate sit up so he could bandage the wound on her head. He finally brought it up: "So, K. Look, I'm not a rat. But do you want me to call Bridg— your mom?"

Kate's look of panic told him everything he needed to know. "I promise I won't," Al said quickly. "You can take care of that yourself." Kate nodded, unsure she wanted to do it on her own that after all. "So then," Al said, "can we talk about what happened? I can help with whatever it is, but I need to know."

Kate gulped. She closed her eyes and shivered a little. "I was in a car accident," she said, with the tone of someone who was going to continue speaking. But she stopped after that, shaking.

Al nodded. He finished cleaning the cut. Kate winced as he held the two sides of the wound together and applied a few small bandages. He leaned back to appreciate his work. The wound was all the way at the top of her forehead, and though it looked nasty, it wasn't deep at all. He patted her auburn hair down to cover the bandages. "It's not a big deal. Head wounds bleed a bunch. Hopefully it won't scar too bad. Even if it does, though, you can always cut your bangs hair to hide it." He offered her a smile, but she didn't take him up on it.

When Kate wouldn't offer any more information, he coaxed her with a question. "So, who was driving?"

"I was," Kate answered in a small voice.

"And you'd had a bit to drink, right?" Al asked, remaining as calm as possible. He knew that if he panicked she would fall apart. But for all he knew, she had abandoned the scene of a crime, and for some reason he had promised to help her out of it.

Kate nodded.

"K," Al began, very slowly. "Was there anyone else in the car?"

Kate shook her head no.

"Please answer this one verbally, K." He put his hands on her shoulders. "I know it might be tough." Al took a deep breath. "What did you hit?"

Kate struggled for a moment, and though Al was trying to hide it, he knew she saw the look of fear in his eyes. It must have strengthened her resolve, though, because she got her words back. "A tree? Or a pole, or something. I didn't hit anyone, Tío. It was like, 2 AM, I think."

Al decided her sudden show of strength meant he might be able to lighten the mood. Plus, if no one was hurt, there wasn't a problem, right? Not a big one, anyway.

"K, this is the Beach. Everything's just getting started right about now," and he made a show of looking at the clock under his TV. "It's what, 3, now? I guess everyone was in the clubs and not on the streets."

Kate smiled a little, even though there wasn't really a joke there. She appreciated the effort, at least.

Al continued. "Look, if nobody was hurt, I don't think the cops will be looking for you. Your mom will be pissed you left your car on the street, but I bet it was totaled, huh?" Kate nodded. "How drunk were you, if you made it out of there with just a scratch?" Terror seized Al's heart for a moment as he looked her up and down. "Did you make it out with just a scratch?"

"I— I don't know. I think so?" she said, shrugging. "To be honest I didn't even know I was bleeding until I noticed the blood on your shirt." She grimaced. "Ugh. I must have been pretty drunk. I definitely shouldn't have been driving."

She looked sheepish, so Al tried to comfort her. "It's okay. You found your way here, somehow. You're safe. Just, no more drunk driving, okay?"

Kate nodded. "I just kind of walked here on my own. I guess I was in shock?"

"Sounds like it. I'm surprised you remembered where I live. It's been, what, three years since you were here?"

Kate laughed. "Yeah. Mom had a date on the Beach and dropped me off on the way. You just happen to live in my favorite part of town, though, so it made it a little easier to remember."

"I always thought a fifteen-year-old should be able to take care of herself. I don't know why your mom had me babysit!" Al heard what he was saying only as he said it. "Not that it was a problem!" he said quickly. "I'm always happy to see you. We had fun!" Al hung his head a little and withdrew his hands from her shoulders, chuckling nervously. "I didn't mean to offend you. Shit."

Kate laughed and put a hand on his arm to comfort him. "It's okay, Tío. I'm not offended. Though I guess I understand know why you're still single," she said, teasing him.

Al laughed. "I was trying to talk shit about your mom. I'm on your side here!" He cried, fake-desperately, just glad she was laughing. He changed the subject. "Flamingo-Lummus is your favorite part of Miami? Why on Earth? It's so quiet here."

Kate nodded, wrapping the towel around herself. "That's exactly why!" This is always where I imagined I would move once I had enough to move out of Mom's." She looked around. "I dunno. I guess I just don't think I need much more than a small, quiet apartment and a walk to the beach."

They talked a bit about the neighborhood. Kate was glad they had gotten the accident out of the way, and Al was just glad she seemed to be calming down. It came out that Bridget thought Kate would be spending the night at a friend's place, so she was good to call her in the morning. They spent some time catching up. Al had been busy with work, Kate was finishing up her senior year. She was still single, he was still single. Boys and girls her age were dumb, he just didn't get out much.

"Do you mind if I shower, Tío? I just feel soggy, and gross, and cold. I think a hot shower would do me good." Kate hugged her arms around herself under the towel.

"Of course! I can hang your dress up to dry if you'd like? Actually, one sec," Al said, and then raced off to the bathroom. He didn't really have time to clean, so he just moved stuff under the sink until it looked a little neater and put his last clean towel on the sink for her. Then he grabbed his excuse, a nice bathrobe, and walked back out, handing it to her. "If you just leave your clothes on the floor outside the bathroom, I'll take care of it while you shower."

She grabbed the bathrobe and reveled in its lushness for a moment. "Wait a sec," she said, a devilish smile coming to her face, "is this a hotel bathrobe?"

Al blinked for a sec. "Uh, no," he began, but she had found the monogram.

"It is! My tío, a thief!" she said.

"Look— just wait till you put it on. There was no way I was leaving that behind!" Al was blushing a bit.

Kate didn't say anything else, just laughed her way to the bathroom. She left her clothes in a pile in the hallway between the two bedrooms, and once Al heard the shower running, he grabbed them and went to the tiny laundry room/pantry. He hung the dress up on a hanger next to the rice. It wasn't until he left the room that he realized she hadn't been wearing any underwear.

# # #

Kate took a long shower. She left the water on as she stepped out and dried herself. She pressed the bathrobe to her face and luxuriated in it while she tried to sob as silently as she could. She looked at herself in the mirror. She had a sizable cut that probably still didn't need stitches on her head. The bandages had come off in the shower; she would have to get Al to put new ones on so she didn't bleed all over the guest bed. Otherwise, she was unblemished anywhere anyone could see, even in a tiny dress like the one she had on that night. But in the places hidden by that dress, she looked a mess. There were bruises on her small, perky breasts, and when she turned to look, on her ass cheeks. Big purple spots marred her taught brown stomach. More bruises went up and down her muscular dancer's thighs. She knew those didn't come from the car crash, but she also knew she had to lie and say they did. Nobody would believe her otherwise.

# # #

As Kate took her long shower, Al didn't know what to do with himself. He changed into a different ratty T-shirt and some basketball shorts, then lounged around for a bit, aimless, before he decided he might as well put this restlessness to good use. He went into the other bedroom, which he had recently converted to a study, and began to write in his journal.

Shared trauma is a known phenomenon. The stoner and the prep hate each other at the beginning of the slasher flick, but as the final boy and girl, they overcome the insane sexual tension between them to defeat the horror and escape with their lives. A hero saves a woman from certain death they fall madly in love. The thing about shared trauma, though, is that it never seems to last. In the sequel, the couple has serious trouble or has broken up. Why is that? Is it that shared trauma isn't a wide enough foundation on which to build a lasting connection? Or is it just the necessities and vagaries of plot? Stories need tension. And sometimes that tension must be familiar. Very few of us have had to face down a masked murderer, but who hasn't had a tough relationship? So perhaps the shared trauma relationship isn't doomed to fail, it's just sacrificed for the sake of plot.

A knock at the door. "Come in," Al called.

Kate walked into his study, gently rubbing her hair dry in a towel, dressed only in the bathrobe he'd handed her. He was too preoccupied when she first arrived, but as he turned his chair to look at her, he had to struggle to look her in the eye. Her long, brown legs were like magnets for his gaze, and it took all his effort not to stare. He hoped she didn't notice.

"I thought this was going to be my room tonight, she said, looking around the study in disappointment. There were bookshelves lining the walls and a huge, messy wooden desk under the window. There was a couch in one corner, but it looked less comfortable than the one in the living room.

Al rubbed the back of his head. "I don't get many visitors, so a year ago I converted it." At the look of dismay on her face he recovered. "Of course you can stay here. Obviously. You can sleep in my bed. I've spent a lot of nights on that couch over there already." He smiled. "One more won't kill me."

Kate eyed the couch suspiciously. "That does not look comfortable to sleep in. At all. It's too short, even for me!"

"That's where you're wrong, my dear," Al said, in his best villain voice. "That couch is what I like to call an antique. It's followed me everywhere for as long as I've been living on my own. And it is extremely broken-in. Go on, lay on it." As she walked to the couch, Al tried his hardest not to associate the view he was appreciating now with the memories he had experienced on that couch. He wasn't imagining those legs spread on that couch, no sir. He wasn't swapping his niece for his ex-girlfriends in his wank bank, not at all. He was dick-deep in her ass with his hands tangled in her thick auburn hair in his head. His wires were not crossed. These are the things he thought to himself as he tried desperately not to stare at his niece's ass before she turned around and planted it on the couch.

She moaned a little immediately, to both their embarrassments. It was just so comfortable. Whatever Al had done to it, he'd done right. The cushions under its green fabric were soft enough to conform to her body but not enough to support it. It wasn't eating her alive, nor was it repelling her weight. It was cloud-like. She laid out on it and threw an arm over her eyes and sighed, giving Al a moment of reprieve, wherein he could stare at her legs without worrying about being caught.

"Yeah, I could sleep here," she said, turning to face him. Al smiled a little bit.

"Well, I've still got some work to do, so unfortunately you get the bed this time. Maybe next time you can have the couch."

Kate pouted a bit and then got up and stretched. Al took this as an opportunity to turn around so his growing erection wouldn't be obvious. She draped herself over his shoulder and gave him a hug.

"Just make sure you get some sleep Tío," she said, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."

"Of course. Good night," he said, without turning around as she left and closed the door behind her.

He willed his erection down and went back to work.

But what about shared trauma that isn't experienced by both parties. Trauma that is just that: shared, from one party to the next. A PI who collects evidence of domestic abuse for a woman who wants out. A friend comforting another after a difficult breakup. Is that a foundation for love? No, it can't be. That's not a foundation for anything. It's nothing more than a breach of trust. The woman went to the PI for a professional relationship. The bad breakup happened, and she went to her friend. Her

friend

. Seeking nothing more than incontrovertible evidence for divorce, or a shoulder to cry on. It is a betrayal of that trust to seek anything more in those circumstances.

Al wrote for a while before he heard another knock at the door. "What is it, K?" he said, turning around. "Can't sleep?"

Kate shook her head, staying in the door this time. She tried a few times to speak but nothing came out. Al went to her.

"What's wrong? You can tell me," he said, unsure if he should reach out, but sure his presence was needed at the moment.

She shook her head again. "That's just it. I can't." She began to cry and Al pulled her into a hug. "I can't tell anyone!"

Al shushed her and placed a few more kisses on the top of her head. He ignored the messages his body was sending him about this girl in his arms, half his age, who needed his help. He willed his mind to focus on the problem.

"Okay, okay. You can't tell me. But you can tell me what you need, right?" he said, rubbing her back through the robe. He was painfully aware of a few things: this girl was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, this girl had come into his apartment without underwear, and he was doing exactly what he had done when he first saw her. He hoped she didn't notice.

Kate nodded against his chest. "It's embarrassing. You have to promise not to laugh." She looked up at him. "Promise, Tío?" He gulped and nodded. "I just need someone to hold me."

Al sighed.

"Is that a no?" she asked, terrified that she had overstepped. She had shown up soaked and bloody and drunk on his doorstep, basically invited herself to stay the night, and now she was demanding he sleep with her? She began to panic. "I'm sorry. I just can't sleep. I'm too scared. I'm still shaking. Please," she said, beginning to beg. "Just until I go to sleep? You can leave after that."

Al had tried to stop her halfway through but she wouldn't stop. So he squeezed her arm with one hand, hard, and gently put a finger on her lips. "It's okay," he said. "Just let me get ready for bed, okay? I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Kate smiled and turned to leave. She paused in the doorway and turned her head to him, leaning it on the door. "One last thing, Tío. I sleep naked. Please don't look?"

Al tried his best not to look as weak in the knees as he felt. "Scout's honor," he said, raising his hand in a mock swear. "I'll be right there."

She practically skipped down the hall. He followed her halfway, turning to enter the bathroom. Immediately he turned the water on as cold as he could handle and stripped out of his clothes. His underwear was soaked with precum, but all his other underwear was in the dresser in his room. So he would drop the wet underwear in the laundry room before he went to bed, and he'd have to sleep commando. The thought of only one layer of fabric between his body and his niece's drove him into the shower. As he stood shivering, he could not stop thinking about her. He had hoped the shock of the cold water would be enough to kill his throbbing erection, but his cock remained as hard as it had ever been. He could have sworn it was thicker than he had been in a while. He wrapped his hand around it, just to check. Yup, he was hard. The head was purple and swollen, and the seam on the underside of his cock was full. The shower wasn't helping at all. His balls felt tight as he dried off.

He looked at himself in the mirror, trying to think of anything other than the naked eighteen-year-old he'd be sharing a bed with that night. He tried to shame himself out of it. There was no way, right? Ignore the fact that you're related. She's eighteen, long-legged. A dancer, a long, wavy head of dark red hair. Tanned and tight, if her legs were anything to go by. What was he? He was thirty-six. He was around five foot ten. He wore his blonde-streaked brown hair long, past his shoulders, and it was receding, just a little bit. It had migrated to his chest and back. He hadn't shaved in weeks. He swam every morning, so his shoulders were broad and his stomach didn't hang or anything, but still. He looked like a surfer burnout. Even to another thirty-six year old he wasn't the most attractive fish in the sea, let alone to a gorgeous teenager.