Author's Note
This story contains themes of incest. It is loosely based on events I experienced in the 1980s - things which I continue to benefit from today [and probably explains my sexually twisted nature]. Naturally, the names and some of the circumstances have been changed or altered for the sake of creativity and a sense of anonymity, while the Dallas area and businesses in that vicinity are factual. I hope you enjoy as we go back to a time of Ronald Reagan and the Cold War, Michael Jackson as the King of Pop, Yuppies, AIDS, and MTV! But first...
Prologue
The room was empty except for two sisters, seated together in the front row staring straight ahead at the coffin that contained their mother's body. Bobby took a deep breath, exhaled, then walked ahead to greet his siblings.
When they saw him, his stepsisters smiled and rose to meet him. While they had all been so close when they were younger, time and age had inevitably separated them in many ways. Yet, the connections they had made back then were strong ones, unique ones, and they knew nothing would ever permanently break the bonds of affection they each felt toward the other.
The older of his stepsisters, Sarah, embraced him in a tight squeeze, "Oh, Bobby..." Even at 55 years old she was a stunning specimen of beauty with straight, dark brown hair that hung just below her shoulders. A few streaks of grey had materialized since last he had seen her. Her eyes were also a deep brown, radiating warmth as well as an inner splendor coupled with a devious and mischievous nature.
He hugged her against his frame and tried to soothe her as best he could, "I know. I'm so sorry. At least she is out of pain now." Bobby let his hands caress Sarah's back in comfort as he whiffed the sweet, familiar fragrance of her body. "How are Brad and the kids?"
Sarah had married for the second time ten years ago and her new husband came with two boys, making an instant mother out of her, something she never quite took a liking to - similar to her own mother. "They're all fine. At home, of course. None of them had any desire to come and I can't say I blame them. Mom wasn't the most accepting or likable person was she?" They exchanged pained smiles while nodding their heads to acknowledge the obvious. "What about Diane?"
"Hmm...same, and for the same reasons," he answered with a huff and a smirk. Bobby, also 55 years old, had married his wife Diane thirty years prior and found it stunning, if not completely unbelievable, that they were still together. The passion had gone out of his marriage years before and he was all but certain his wife had been cheating on him for the past several years.
When they released, it was his younger stepsister's turn. "Hello, Ella. I'm so very sorry." She was 51 years old and possessed an equally alluring beauty, even at the half-century mark, although she was always more reserved and shy than her older sister. Ella stood a few inches taller than Sarah, and her cropped hair was the shade of caramel that matched wonderfully with her piercing green eyes.
"Thank you, Bobby," she answered, and reached out to take him in her arms to receive the same heart-felt consolation, which gave her some measure of relief and solace. Being in his arms always did that for her. "Chrissy sends her love."
Chrissy was Ella's partner, and had been ever since Ella's own brief marriage had failed years ago when she had married the only boyfriend she ever had right out of college. Unfortunately, their mother never approved of Ella's new lifestyle and, he assumed, Chrissy chose to absent herself from the immediate occasion like every other extended family member. It was the course of action Chrissy - and all the rest of them - had grown accustomed to over the years.
Bobby went to kneel in front of the casket to say a prayer as the other two resumed their seated vigil. As he knelt in front of the only person he had ever really known as mother, Bobby tried to keep his thoughts positive and offered up a genuine prayer for her spirit. When he felt satisfied, he whispered, "Amen," then joined his stepsisters to wait for the expected crowd of mourners who would dutifully file past them with expressions of sorrow and hollow words of condolence. None of them were looking forward to the next several hours.
As he sat in silence with his stepsisters, Bobby realized it was becoming increasingly hard to remember their childhood together. The older he got, the more distant the memories of the past became. Maybe that was a good thing. Then, unconsciously, a long-forgotten melody accompanied by a distinctive baritone voice came back to him from the deepest recesses of his mind and he spoke out loud, "Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives."
Seated next to him, his stepsisters grinned broadly, immediately recognizing that as the opening to
The Days of Our Lives
, a soap opera their mother used to watch religiously every afternoon while they were in school. Many times in their youth the three siblings remarked that their mother cared more about what happened in the fictional town of Salem, with the equally fictitious Horton family, than she cared about any of them. They still thought that was true.
Sarah chuckled, "Oh my God, Bobby. Whatever made you think of that?"
"I have absolutely no idea," he answered honestly, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. But his mind now accelerated into overdrive, taking him back - deep into the past - reflections he was powerless from stopping.
I
It was March of 1985, on a night like any other. Ronald Reagan was in his second term of office - it was Morning in America. Yet, the country was still in the throes of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. The AIDS epidemic was a growing national concern. Both of those issues - one domestic and one international - created a latent sense of anxiety in the country, especially with respect to AIDS as there was just so much that was still unknown about it at the time.
This unknown entity regarding AIDS had a profound impact on the sexual activity - and sexual promiscuity - of teenagers back then. The hallmark of any teenager's maturity - the lifeblood of an adolescent's experience during a very important and formative time - was hampered by a disease nobody seemed to understand. As a result, adolescents in the mid-80s were less sexually active and, even worse, less willing to take any unnecessary risks concerning sex than any group of kids in history. To put it bluntly, AIDS scared people shitless, especially teenagers, as it was even suspected at the time that you could get it just from swapping saliva during a kiss.
It wasn't as though sex didn't exist because of course it did. It was an ever-present topic of conversation and curiosity for teens, and there certainly were those who participated it in. Still - by and large - kids were anxious and, as a result, very cautious.
Consequently, despite Bobby and Sarah both being 18 years old and seniors at Highland Park High School in suburban Dallas, they were each supremely naïve in the ways of sex. Their relative sexual knowledge at this point in their lives was minimal at best - reserved for quiet conversations with their friends or the occasional titty magazine that made its way into Bobby's hands, usually courtesy of one of his friends after they were done with it.
As Bobby lay on his bed, he listened to the increasing volume of an argument his parents were having downstairs. It seemed that's all they ever did anymore, day or night. He stopped caring long ago why they were arguing or what they were arguing about. Bobby just wanted them to stop. He wanted the shouting and yelling, the name-calling and insults, to just melt away and disappear.
Bobby's real mother had passed away ten years previously, when he had been only eight, and for a few years he and his father were on their own. It hadn't been perfect but, up to that point, those had been the best years of his life. Memories of his real mom were growing fainter now and he came to the realization that she had already been gone for over half of his short life.
But, it was during nights like this that he missed his mother the most. He couldn't remember if his real mom and dad had ever fought. He had no recollection of that, but he sincerely doubted they had ever had an argument like the one he was listening to now. It was as if his dad and stepmom actually hated one another and, as he lay on his bed waiting for the shouting to end, Bobby wondered why the hell they had ever married in the first place.
Along with a new mother came two new sisters, and the only thing they had ever done was annoy the shit out of him since the day they all moved in together six years ago. The oldest was Sarah, who by sheer coincidence was only separated in age from Bobby by forty-three days. She had just turned eighteen the previous month and her only interest at home was bothering him about stupid shit or hogging the bathroom. Then there was Ella who was fourteen. For the most part Bobby liked her, except when she barged into his room without permission, which seemed to be happening more and more lately.
To the outside world, the Peterson family was the absolute quintessence of perfection. In reality, they were anything but that. It always made Bobby mad when they went to church and people would talk about how wonderful his parent were, and what a blessed home they must have. All bullshit - complete and utter bullshit. But his parents exceled in deception and keeping up appearances. In Highland Park, that was an absolute necessity of life. He wished the people from church could hear what was happening inside their house this night. It would probably shock some of them to death.
The only place in the entire house that was completely Bobby's was his room. It was a spacious bedroom located on the second floor and down the hall to the right. His parent's room took up one side of the upstairs while the three kids shared the other half, along with a gigantic bathroom that was a battleground every morning as they prepared for school.
As he grew older, Bobby had become extremely protective of this space as well as his privacy, especially the last few years when his penis became his best friend. This bedroom was his own personal, private haven.
There was a momentary lull in shouting from downstairs, and Bobby picked his head up off the pillow hoping that maybe his parents had gotten tired of fighting and decided to call it a night. Then, all too quickly, the yelling commenced again. In a fit of anger himself, Bobby pounded on the bedroom wall with all his might. As his bed was conveniently positioned right next to the wall, the booming sound he made reverberated loudly around the house.
Momentarily startled, an eerie silence descended as his parents stopped arguing - caught mid-sentence between insults. In that brief interlude, Bobby heard his father coming up the stairs and approaching his room. The bedroom door opened and his father's head poked in.
"Was that you that banged? Everything ok?" his father asked rather casually, as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place that night.
Angry and irritable, and with more than a hint of sarcasm, Bobby sat straight up in his bed and shouted, "No Dad, I'm not alright! Can y'all just shut up! I'm sick and tired of the fighting. Every night. All night. Jesus Christ, just get divorced already!"
