Swimming with Carrie

ONE

AN ILL-DEFINED QUALITY, something in her expression unsettled him. Despite the differences in their ages the girl was disturbing, made him feel distinctly uneasy. A hint of a smirk lifted the corner of her mouth while her pale-green, penetrating eyes bored into his and gave the impression of being able to recognise every dirty, sordid thought that had ever crossed his mind. He didn't know her well; they'd never been close while she was growing up. She was his brother's daughter.

"You OK, Uncle Pat?" she asked, breaking eye contact and flinging herself onto the sofa in a confident whirl of Barbie doll hair and flawless skin. She smiled brightly, innocence personified.

Patrick shifted uncomfortably in his seat, eyes moving from her legs to the apparently perfect tits in a clinging tee-shirt. Had he misinterpreted the intensity of Carrie's look a moment earlier? He couldn't help looking at her legs that were exposed to within a squeak of buttock in the fragile and faded membrane of Daisy Dukes.

Patrick closed his eyes to shut out the image of his niece. "Uh, yeah, just little warm, it's stifling out there today."

With a liquid and elegant rearrangement of limbs, reminiscent of Hollywood starlets of the 50s, Carrie unfolded then re-crossed her legs in an act that drew attention to the long muscles of her thighs in what seemed to Patrick to be languid and deliberate provocation.

"We could go for a swim," the girl proposed, flicking her long hair away from her face before settling her disconcerting eyes on Patrick again. "We could go up to the pond. It's quiet up there. Just the two of us ..." She left the suggestion hanging.

Patrick gulped and the girl smirked.

Sweat dribbled down Patrick's spine inside his tee-shirt.

The implication was obscene; he was her uncle, her father's brother, but deep down in some primordial, visceral place Patrick recognised just how desirable his niece was and a glutinous and reptilian yearning stirred.

A somnolent fly -- a huge meaty creature -- droned in the silence that enveloped the couple as, oblivious to the tension between Carrie and her uncle, it butted against a window pane with obtuse purpose, apparently intent upon breaking out into the open air to the burst of colour in the garden outside or braining itself in the attempt.

Shrugging off the discomfort, and pushing the carnal thoughts from his mind, Patrick harrumphed and cleared his throat. "I'm not sure about that, Carrie. I don't think a pond is too safe. There might be weeds ..." He grimaced internally, chagrined at his pompous tone and at how wimpy his words sounded. Weeds, he was waffling about weeds, and he was meant to be a Royal Marine officer, Special Forces ... OK, a

former

Royal marines officer, but still ...

The girl laughed, a great blurt of derision that guffawed out of her. Patrick reddened.

"You didn't want to take Dad's Porsche out because you're not insured to drive it," her fingers hooking the quotation marks as she spoke. "You're ten years younger than my father but you act like you're his

dad ..." The eyes rolled, but then, seeing her uncle's stricken face, Carrie realised her faux pas. "Sorry, Uncle P," she gabbled. "I didn't think ..." Her confident, overtly sexual façade slipped away.

Patrick sighed; saw an after image of the man sprawled in the gutter; legs bent at impossible angles; some kind of vital liquid seeping from his ear; head concave and shattered like the broken shell of a hard-boiled egg. Patrick knew about physical trauma, had seen it first hand, even inflicted gaping wounds upon the enemy; he'd known the bloke was dead the moment he'd seen the prostrate, limp puppet. The shattered headlight was proof of guilt. He recalled the breathalyser test by the side of the road as blue lights strobed against the impassive façades of Oxford Street and gawp-faced onlookers gathered. Next came the caution; an interview; a trial; the jury, and a judge passing sentence ...

"It isn't worth it, Carrie."

Apart from the rasp and thump of the insect at the window an elephantine silence grew between them.

The girl finally broke. "I ... I don't know what to say," she stuttered, eyes downcast towards her lap.

"There's nothing

to

say, Carrie.

The silence lengthened again. Eventually Carrie stirred and, looking directly at her uncle, smiled and said: "Well, I'm going swimming, weeds or no weeds."

Patrick said nothing as his niece uncurled from the settee. He heard her climb the stairs and listened to the muffled thuds as she banged about in search of sunglasses and a towel. He looked at the dog as the animal's brown eyes slowly blinked twice at him. "Jesus, Brillo, did you hear that? What do you make of that?" The dog's tail thumped twice at the mention of his name before the eyelids slowly closed and the beast settled back into a doze. Brillo clearly had no opinion on the morality; swim or don't swim, he didn't care. The fly, in its own little universe of dull-witted dipteran purpose, offered no comment either as it buzzed and thumped at the window pane.

Footsteps banging on the stairs indicated Carrie's descent.

Her blonde head appeared around the door. "Sure I can't tempt you?" she offered.

"I ... No, thanks Carrie, but ..."

His niece stared at him, again regarding her uncle with those green eyes. Her tongue moved wetly over her lips --

Was that deliberate?

Patrick wondered. "That's such a shame," the girl murmured, holding Patrick's gaze for a few more suggestive seconds. Then she broke the spell. "C'mon, Brillo," she called brightly. At the sound of his name the scruffy lurcher uncurled from the cool shady spot under the window. Stretching, he yawned hugely before following the girl with his springing, tip-toed walk.

Patrick winced as the front door slammed closed.

He was alone, just like that, with only the fly for company.

After a few minutes of staring at the wall he sighed and, unable to take the tireless drone and thunk any longer, opened the window and scooped the grape-sized insect outside. The thing buzzed away, dark and heavy as an Apache helicopter, leaving Patrick to wipe the sweat from his face, dwell on the recent past, and obsess on his coquettish niece.

***

Patrick had no recollection of getting up, climbing the stairs, or walking along the corridor to Carrie's bedroom door. Outside, through the open window he could hear the sounds of the countryside; a chittering squabble of starlings while a pair of nesting wood-pigeons cooed and courted from the guttering as the afternoon advanced towards evening. A breath of wind stirred the yellow curtains, but inside the house all was conspiratorial silence. Looking into the room he saw a typically chaotic array of cosmetics on the chest of drawers; an unmade and rumpled double bed; jodhpurs and riding boots flung in a corner ...

Patrick hesitated, admonishing himself for what he knew he was about to do. "Shouldn't be here," he muttered. "What do you think you're doing? Stop it, stop it now." Nevertheless, in spite of the internal wrangling, powerless to resist, he still took the final, irrevocable trespasser's step. Breathing in the lingering scent of his niece his eyes fixed on a wisp of fabric, a febrile tissue that passed for underwear and, unthinking, he picked up the scrap and held it to his nose. The primeval slug that lurked in the murk of dark urges slithered to the surface as lust ballooned hot and overwhelming. His cock stiffened instantly in a burst of longing that caused him to gasp out loud. The urge to snoop into the girl's private places was irresistible and, without knowing what he was actually looking for, a demented and lust crazed thief, he opened drawers one after the other in a desperate scrabble.

"Oh ... fuck," he moaned at the discovery.

A pornographic magazine featuring lurid and explicit pictures of grey-haired men and pixie-faced totty stared up at Patrick from a nest of underwear. Next to the lewd publication lay an obscenely long and thick rubber penis. In his mind Patrick pictured his niece, naked and thrashing on the bed masturbating with the faux phallus as she stared goggle-eyed at the pictures, licking the tip of an index finger as she leafed through the pages. He pictured her flat and flawless stomach tensing with the effort to reach a climax as she fucked herself, and he saw her face contorted with ecstasy, eyes clamped tightly shut while groans and moans of pleasure bubbled from her throat. Patrick licked his lips and swallowed heavily and imagined Carrie's labia clinging to the girth of the thing in his hand. Tentatively he sniffed the dildo and then, with shame burning his cheeks and lust bubbling in the pit of his stomach, unable to stop himself, he licked the bulging dome and imagined he could taste the girl's essence.

What would the reality be like? How would she taste between her legs with her sex pouting and dribbling desire? What would her skin feel like under his fingers? Would she moan and sigh and exhort him to lick her; her uncle ...

A huge grunt accompanied Patrick's ejaculation. Moans sobbed from him while his seed pumped from his cock and he attempted, in a futile struggle as it happened, to staunch the seething outpouring with Carrie's thong.

Oh, God, the divine release! ... Yes!

The reptilian urge, temporarily sated, slid back into the filth while guilty anxiety soured Patrick's stomach and threatened a vomit-swell into his throat. He had to get out of her room, had to pack everything just as it was, had to make it right again and leave. He could never allow himself to do this again. It was just wrong, so wrong ...Then, to his gut-wrenching dismay he saw a long splash of semen spattered across a page of Carrie's magazine. He dabbed at the smear frantically with the girl's now sodden underwear he still clutched in one hand. It was useless, a wasted effort, the page was wrinkled and obviously damaged -- A mark of his shameful transgression.

As best he could, and with rising dread, Patrick hurriedly made good the evidence of his visit. He pocketed Carrie's underwear, not as a souvenir but because it was damp and sticky with his residue and would only serve as further sign of trespass if he left it. He stuffed the rubber cock and magazine back into their hiding place among the diaphanous lace and frills. Shamefaced and torn with foreboding he crept away from Carrie's room and the scene of his intrusion.

***

Evening eased cooler and shadows lengthened. With a tumbler of his brother's whisky in hand Patrick sat in the same chair as earlier and considered options. Discovery was certain, there was no way Carrie wouldn't recognise the damage. She would guess at the culprit for there could be only one suspect, but would she tell? Would she want her father to know about the private things she kept in her drawer? Patrick didn't think so, there were some things a girl wouldn't want her old man to know about; she might be nineteen but the ignominy of her dad knowing about that stuff ...? No, Patrick was fairly certain that his brother would never find out. If Anthony did discover what he'd done, then what? Where would Patrick go? He couldn't stay in the cottage, he'd have to leave despite the debt Anthony owed him; the shame of it would drive a wedge in their relationship, some things, some crimes couldn't be returned from. Guilt twisted Patrick's watery guts. Anthony had already been more than generous by opening his house to his brother following Patrick's release from prison; and how had he repaid the kindness?

Patrick jumped when the door slammed behind him.

"You shoulda come up, Uncle Patrick," Carrie beamed. "There were no evil weeds to drag me under," she continued, teasing her uncle. "The pond was divine."

A bedraggled Brillo, with his matted beard and straggly fur resembling a well-used, gun-metal grey scouring pad, a likeness for which he was named, sauntered off into the kitchen, ever optimistic, in search of scraps.

Carrie's long hair hung in damp rats' tails over her shoulders; her teeth flashed brightly as she grinned at her uncle. The sight of his niece's breasts spilling over the top of her bikini bra elicited and internal groan from Patrick. He closed his eyes against the temptation to stare at her body, lush with the fecundity of youth, although, with his eyes closed, Patrick was then tortured by fantasy images of Carrie masturbating with a rubber cock.

"Another time, Carrie," Patrick mumbled before taking a deep slug of whisky. "Maybe tomorrow." He gulped at the drink again.

"I'll hold you to that," the girl said in a low, throaty voice before, with swaying hips that had Patrick staring after her, a barefoot Carrie padded from the room.

Patrick stared at the empty door frame with the after image of his niece's narrow waist and pendulum hips branded on his mind.

The door slammed behind Patrick again, he turned to see Anthony, his brother, looking weary, sweaty and rumpled after the commute home to Oxford from his office in the City of London.

"Didn't hear the car," Patrick said. "Drink?" he offered.

Anthony laughed and ruffled Brillo's short damp fur when the hound bounded in from the kitchen to greet his master. "Any whisky left?" he asked when the dog's whipping tail finally slowed to a swish. "The train was heaving, a fucking cattle truck ..." Anthony ran his fingers through his hair, hair that was only a shade darker than his daughter's but which was also greying at the temples.

Patrick, remorse goading his bright response, jumped to his feet.

Anthony threw the drink down in one and proffered the glass again. "Top me up, old chap." Patrick obligingly replenished the glass. Following a second swallow, Anthony said, "Off for a shower. I'll get freshened up and we can fire up the barbecue, sink a few beers. Good idea?"

Fingers of dread tickled Patrick when the floorboards in the old cottage creaked overhead and he heard muffled voices. Despite his earlier certainty that Carrie wouldn't want her father knowing, Patrick was worried. Was Carrie telling her father about his illicit visit to her bedroom? Had she even discovered the evidence herself? Unlikely, but...

It was only a matter of time.

In a quest to quiet his nerves Patrick went out to the vast back garden and trundled the barbecue from its place of customary hibernation in the shed; a graveyard for cast-off domestic appliances, redundant clothes that never quite made it to the charity shop and toys from Carrie's long distant childhood. He parked the thing, which seemed to be the size and complexity of the space shuttle, on the paving slabs at one edge of the acreage of green that served as a lawn for his wealthy brother. Patrick twisted the dial to turn on the gas and then pressed the button of the ignition. The hotplate warmed quickly after a single metallic click and a whoosh of flame. Once the hot plate had warmed Patrick scraped the charred residue of previous usage from its surface. Having cleaned the griddle, he turned the thing off and went back into the cottage.

Patrick stood at the kitchen counter with a chopping board and an array of vegetables in front of him. He turned at the sound of Carrie's voice. "Can I help?" she asked. Carrie wore a light cotton dress, yellow which emphasised her tanned legs and arms and which brought out the sun-bleached highlights of her hair. Her huge green eyes regarded him with something akin to amusement while her mouth twitched in that sly, vulpine way she had. "What did you get up to this afternoon?" she asked.

Patrick's stomach flipped at the question, bitter gorge rising in his throat. Did she know already? Was it a loaded question or innocent? There was no way to tell with Carrie. She'd always been the same, impossible to read, precocious and somewhat clandestine, a midnight opener of Christmas presents well before the big day. It was characteristic of Carrie to ask such question. Patrick felt the heat radiating from her close proximity; he found it impossible to ignore Carrie's lithe body as she took the knife from his hand as, with a nudge of a hip, she pushed her uncle aside and sliced a tomato with sharp, efficient chops. Stepping back, Patrick shrugged with feigned indifference. "Nothing much, just mooched around." To mask his discomfit he buried his head in the huge refrigerator and asked, "I don't suppose you're on the beer?"

"Mmm'no," the girl replied. "Voddy and coke for me." She chopped and diced and sliced while Patrick popped two cans of lager and poured his niece a drink. "So," Carrie persisted, "what did 'mooching about' find you doing?" After scooping up handfuls of salad into a bowl Carrie turned her concentration and unsettling stare on her uncle.

Patrick, firmly on the spot under the searchlight gaze of his niece, unable to formulate any credible answer, gaped like a fish. The arrival of Anthony, freshly showered and wearing shorts and an old ragged tee-shirt, saved him.

"One of those for me?" he asked, taking a beer from his brother's insensate fingers. After swigging heavily, Anthony gave an enthusiastic gasp of satisfaction and announced: "Just what the doctor ordered. Now, steaks, burgers ... Anyone want a sausage?" he added as he rummaged in the freezer.

Carrie held her uncle's eyes with sharp-eyed intensity. "I'd love a sausage, Dad," she replied. After another long, cool and disquieting stare, like a fox eyeing a chicken coop, Carrie turned away from Patrick with a grin widening on her face.

The evening sky turned indigo as the sun, after bleeding spectacularly into the horizon, slid from view. A detritus of empty beer cans and plates littered the top of the table while rivulets of condensed water ran from Carrie's sweating glass and stained the wood. A breeze sighed through the leaves of the ancient oak that nestled in the crook of the dry stone wall bordering the property. Birds settled down to roost while bats flitted erratically around the gable-end of the cottage and Brillo, stuffed on hand-outs, lay curled under the table. The world was at peace; except for Patrick and the demon of torment perched upon his sagging shoulder.

"Well, that's me." Anthony placed the empty can on the table top, stood and stretched. "Half-ten, time for bed. Some of us have work tomorrow."

"I'll clear up the mess, Dad." Carrie smiled at her father who, after kissing her cheek goodnight, walked a touch unsteadily into the house.

"Nighty night all." His fingers waggled and he was gone.

Patrick jumped to his feet and then gripped the table, non-too stable himself. "I'll take the stuff into the kitchen," he slurred.

It was on his second trip that he saw her. She'd left the door open and was squatting on the toilet in full view. Patrick halted, arms laden with empty cans. All he could do was gape slack-jawed while his niece tinkled into the bowl. Then with no ambiguity whatsoever -- this was no accident -- the girl opened her legs and exposed her smooth sex to her uncle. Reaching for the toilet paper with deliberate slowness she tore a sheet or two from the roll and, holding her uncle's gaze, wiped herself dry and dropped the used tissue between her thighs and into the water. Carrie stood to flush the toilet while still holding the hem of her dress against her stomach. Her exposed pudenda looked plump and inviting, positively edible ...

The dog leapt from his basket with fright and Carrie laughed at her uncle's clumsiness when Patrick, forgetting the armful of empty cans, dropped the lot in a clattering of aluminium that shocked him back to reality. Pushing past her poleaxed uncle, Carrie bade a cheery goodnight: "Sleep tight, Uncle Pat," she grinned with not a care in the world as she pressed the frontage of her body against his in the narrow hall as she passed. "I left you a present on your pillow." Carrie ruffled the grey-furred head. "Night, Brillo."