The Neglected Son

Chapter 2: Chet and Paula

I swear, I never meant for things to go this far.

When Mindy had failed to recognize me, and then started flirting, I'd only intended to let her go on for a while before revealing my identity and embarrassing her.

But I got mad. I hated her for not remembering me. I wondered just how long it would take her to figure it out, and what she'd do in the meantime.

I kept telling myself there was time to stop before it got out of control. I kept telling myself that. Until I started telling myself instead that it would serve her – and Dad, and all of them – right.

So I gave in. It was the hottest, slickest, wildest fuck I'd experienced, all the dirtier because I knew, even if Mindy didn't, that I was her brother.

I should have ended it after that first night. I shouldn't have kept seeing her. But I couldn't stop. We went out again and again, and eventually she decided that I was her steady boyfriend.

That's how I ended up in the passenger seat of her snazzy little fire-engine red sports car, speeding along the bare but snow-lined highway to Pinewood. She had invited me home to spend the holidays with her family.

Hers, and mine as well. After the divorce, Dad had married my mom's sister. I hadn't seen any of them in almost seven years.

Mindy drove the same way she had sex – fast and furious. Her short dark hair was mussed around her impish face, her turquoise eyes gleamed, and she had dressed for the occasion in a white silky blouse with no bra underneath and a short pleated schoolgirl skirt that rode most of the way up her thighs. Her small but perky tits jiggled with the engine's vibration.

I sat next to her, my nerves humming like high-tension wires.

This was it. This would be the moment of vindication. I savored the imagined reactions of Dad and Aunt Paula when Mindy introduced me. And then the look on her face when they demanded to know what she thought she was doing, dating her brother. The wounded gasp, the horrified widening of the eyes, the recoiling as she thought about everything she'd done to me and let – no, encouraged, even demanded – me do to her.

Whatever happened after that, it would all be worth it.

Pinewood was one of those groaning old estates that seem out of place in modern America. It had been the Hollister ancestral home for generations. Technically, I guess it should have been mine. My real name was Winchester Sherman Hollister. The only son of my father. The last of the line.

I made sure I acted awed and impressed as the sleek little car roared up the long driveway toward the house. Mindy smiled smugly, but I thought there was something off-kilter in her smile.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Promise me that no matter what, you'll remember who you are."

That threw me, gave me a nasty jolt.

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you're

my

boyfriend," she said in sudden viciousness. Her free hand, which had been rubbing my leg, dug in with all five fingernails. "Got it?"

"Ouch, okay, hey, I got it," I said, wincing and trying to pry her claws out of my flesh. "What are you so worried about?"

I thought I knew, but I wanted to hear her say it.

Mindy slowed the car as it approached the covered turnaround in front of the massive main doors. "Nothing. I know that you love me. You're not going to run off with someone else the minute my back is turned." She gave my thigh an affectionate pat.

"Is that what this is about?" I asked. "You think I'm going to go nuts over your sister or something?"

"Renee?" Her laugh was brittle and scornful. "As if!"

"Well, what, then?"

"My mother thinks it's funny to flirt with my boyfriends."

I had a hard time keeping a straight face. "Hey, Mindy," I said. "Come on. Your mom's got to be, what, in her forties? Give me some credit."

"You haven't seen her yet," she muttered darkly. Her hand had left my lap, rejoining its mate on the steering wheel.

Oh, but I had seen her mom, and I knew exactly why she was in such a mood.

"I hardly think she's going to flirt with

me

," I said. That was the truth. She'd probably have me thrown in jail, disinherited, or shot.

Mindy didn't answer, only snarled again.

The arrival of the red car had attracted attention. A stiffly upright man in a black suit came out and descended the steps to open Mindy's door, while two other people emerged behind him.

Dad and Aunt Paula. Even after six years, I had no trouble recognizing them.

My father's auburn hair had gone silver, a full head of swept-back silver that would have served him well in politics. The well-bred good looks I had yearned for as a kid were still very much in evidence.

Aunt Paula hadn't changed a bit. She was tall and lithe in a clingy wool sweater over a long suede skirt and boots. Her hair, longer than Mindy's but the same ebony shade, was caught up in a French twist.

Time to ruin the holiday, and hopefully their lives as well.

"Mom, Dad, this is Chet Christopher," Mindy said, curling her arm possessively through mine and pressing her breast against me. The chill in the air had made her nipples poke up in points, clearly visible through the white silk.

I held my breath. Here it came... Armageddon at Pinewood.

"Chet, hello," my father said, stepping forward and offering a hand. "Mindy's told us all about you."

Flabbergasted, I shook his hand. My head, though, was spinning. He wasn't playing with me. His gaze was as direct and appraising as his handshake.

He didn't know me.

His son, his own flesh and blood, and he didn't know me.

"It's a pleasure to be here, sir," I heard myself say.

Aunt Paula glided over. "Although I must add," she said, her every word as smooth and cultured as a pearl on a string, "Mindy neglected to tell us just what a handsome young man you are."

Beside me, Mindy glared daggers at her mother, which Paula affected not to notice.

She didn't know me, either.

I mean, she hadn't bothered with me very much when I was a kid, and I knew I didn't resemble Dad in very many ways, but didn't she see her own sister in me? Didn't I ring even the faintest bell in either of their minds?

Unbelievable. Unbe-fucking-lievable.

"Mrs. Hollister," I said. "Mindy's told me a lot about you, too."

"Has she, now?" Paula's lips quirked as if we shared a private joke. "Nothing too shocking, I hope."

"Oh, Mother," said Mindy with exaggerated sweetness. "Of course not."

"Well," Dad said, clapping his hands heartily. "Let's get in out of the cold. Parks will bring in your bags. We've got an hour or two until dinner, and we can use that time to have a hot drink and get acquainted."

I noticed that he only barely glanced at Mindy, his eyes skittering to the erect, silk-draped peaks of her nipples and then away. He cleared his throat, his breath puffing in the frosty air.

As Parks went around to the trunk to lift out our luggage, Paula took my other arm to escort me inside. I could feel Mindy tense. Her nails dug in again. One, two, three, four, five precise little dagger-jabs. At the same time, Paula's fingertips tickled along my inner arm as if she was playing the piano, and I sensed the spark of challenge snapping in the air between the two of them.

We went to the front parlor, where Dad passed around hot rum toddies and promptly got into an argument with Mindy over the issue of the sleeping arrangements. He maintained that unless we were engaged, it was separate rooms. She insisted that she wasn't a child, and that he should respect her maturity.

Parks came in as if on cue. He reported crisply that he'd placed Miss Mindy's things in her room, and mine in the Red Suite.

Mindy bristled. I sat there not sure what to do as they argued. In one way, it was good, because now there could be no doubt in her parents' minds that I was nailing their daughter.

Paula gave me a commiserating, conspiratorial smile. It drove Mindy crazy, and Paula ate it up.

Dad stayed resolute on the room thing. So, after the pre-dinner drinks were consumed, I went to the Red Suite to freshen up. My windows overlooked the side yard and the detached dance studio where Renee used to spend all of her time.

As if thinking her name had summoned her, the studio door opened and out came my other half-sister. Renee took after Aunt Paula in shape, being tall and graceful, but her coloring was Dad's. Auburn hair with gold highlights, dark eyes. Tights and legwarmers beneath a coat and galoshes. Still into ballet, then.

I finished unpacking and changed clothes. As I was putting my suitcase in the closet, Aunt Paula tapped on the half-open door and came in.

"Settling in all right, Chet?" she asked. "The room's to your liking?"

"Yes, thank you."

"I'm sorry about that scene with Mindy. Sometimes I don't know what we're going to do with that girl. But she seems very fond of you."

"I'm glad," I said, and I was, because it would rip her to pieces all the more when she found out the truth.

Paula drifted closer. "I can see why she is. She's got excellent taste. I like to think she learned that from me."

"Well, it's certainly where she gets her beauty," I said. "Mr. Hollister is a lucky man."

"You flatter me." Her eyes brightened. It was just what she wanted to hear, just what she hoped for.

She was very close now, and gazing smokily up at me. I could smell her expensive, understated perfume. She had changed into a simple black velvet dress, strapless. The heart-shaped bodice was low but not trashy, and what I could see of her breasts were flawless. She disdained tanning, and her skin was a warm, unblemished peaches-and-cream.

I thought of my mother, Paula's sister, who couldn't afford the spa treatments, top-line cosmetics, face lifts, or whatever else Paula used to keep herself so gorgeous, and spite colored my admiration. I wanted to hurt her.

Snubbing her would do that much. She was so surely confident of herself right now that all I'd have to do would be to say one wrong thing, and she'd be crushed. But that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as getting my revenge some other way.

"In fact," I said in a husky whisper, letting my lips almost brush her cheek, "I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"More than Mindy?" she asked, matching my whisper. There was a teasing lilt in her words, but beneath it, I knew, was a very real need for affirmation.

"She's got nothing on you," I said. Then, acting like I was coming to my senses, I stood back from her and steadied myself. "Mrs. Hollister, I'm sorry."

"Oh, Chet," she purred, and ran her finger along my lips. "You have no reason to apologize. And do call me Paula."

"Paula," I said. "Please don't tell Mindy I said that. The way she was talking in the car, I... I think she's pretty jealous of you."

"You dear young man." She kissed me, a kiss quick and light as a butterfly's wing so as not to smear her lipstick, and she went to the door with her eyes sparkling invitingly at me over her shoulder. "I'll see you at dinner."

She left, and I couldn't help wondering if Dad knew about this. He had to have seen the rivalry between his wife and his oldest daughter. He had to be aware of the way Paula flirted. It was only to be expected, some amount of flirting, in high society. I knew that much. It was an art. But flirting with Mindy's boyfriends?

Flirting... and what else?

As before, the question in my mind. How far would she go? Not knowing who I was, only wanting to outplay her daughter... would she stop at kissing, or did I really stand a chance of getting her into bed?

Mindy burst in half a minute after her mother had gone. Red spots of anger stood out in her cheeks. I had a moment's panic thinking they were for me.

"Well? What did she want?"

"Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Chet Christopher. My mother. I saw her leaving your room. What did she want?"

"She just stopped by to see if I was settling in okay," I said.

"I just

bet

she did!" hissed Mindy. "What else?"

"Nothing!" I protested, and had to refrain from either licking my lips or looking in the mirror for telltale lipstick marks. That careful, butterfly kiss... it shouldn't have left any. But if it did, or if Mindy caught me checking... either way, it would mean trouble. "Well, I guess I understand now what you said about her. She's a little... flirty."

"I knew it. I knew she would try something."

"Take it easy," I said. "What do you think I'm going to do? Mess around with your mother? Why would I want to? I mean, Mindy, look at you."

She had changed for dinner, too, and she

did

look hot. Not as classy as Paula, no way in hell, but her shiny spaghetti-strap cocktail dress was the same shade as her eyes and gave her tanned skin a golden glow.

"You look fantastic," I told her.

Mindy closed my door and shot the bolt.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Making sure you don't forget it," she said. With that, she rushed to me and smothered me with a kiss. Her tongue burrowed into my mouth, needy and probing.

"Like I'd forget," I gasped when she gave me a chance to breathe.

"I won't let you," she said. She slithered down my body, rubbing her tits against me the whole way, and ended up kneeling at my feet. Her hands were at my belt, then my fly, before I fully understood what she planned.

"Uh, Mindy... aren't we going to be late for dinner?" I tried to sound casual, but she had an immediate effect on me. The surroundings added to it. Here, in the family home, with Dad and Aunt Paula right downstairs...

She ignored my question and yanked my pants and underwear to my knees. My dick sprang out, already almost fully erect. I thought of the generations of Hollisters who'd lived in this house, imagined them spinning in their graves as my sister wrapped both hands around me and slid me between her red, wet lips.

"God, Mindy!" I staggered on my feet. Would have fallen, if she hadn't reached around with one arm to grab my ass and hold me steady.

Her dark head bobbed back and forth as she sucked me with slurping noises and urgent back-of-the-throat sounds of encouragement. She wasn't wasting any time, and my blood was already near a boil from the combined excitement of being in this house, having my aunt make a pass at me, and the dirty thrill of what I was getting away with.

I seized the sides of her head and pumped my hips, watching the scene in the gilt-edged mirror over the dressing table. Seconds later, she was swallowing in quick convulsions, not spilling a drop.

My knees let go and I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, breathing heavily. Mindy daintily wiped her lips, then licked the back of her hand while her eyes met and held mine.

"That should remind you," she said.

"Feel free to remind me any time you like," I panted.

She fixed her hair, then vanished to her room to repair her makeup. I got dressed again, still feeling weak and shaky in the legs, and met her at the top of the stairs to go down for dinner.

Now, as we entered the dining room and I saw the shimmering copper fall of Renee's hair, I was hoping fervently that

she

wouldn't recognize me either. I had gone from anticipating the explosion to wanting to postpone it.

And, I have to admit, there was a slinking bastard in the back of my mind that wondered if I could add Renee to the list. How perfect it would be to get back at Dad for the way he'd ignored me and mistreated Mom.

Renee not only didn't know me, she barely acknowledged me or any of us. She seemed lost in her own world, head tilted and eyes vague, as if listening to music only she could hear. She hardly spoke, and absented herself as soon as the meal was over.

The food was up to Pinewood's usual standards, but it could have tasted like cardboard for all I'd have noticed. My head was too busy with thoughts of what might happen later.

That night, though, I was doomed to disappointment.

More or less, anyway. Mindy sneaked into my room once the rest of the household was abed, and rode me like a pony until I couldn't get it up anymore if my life depended on it. She was determined, with a manic sweaty intensity, to show me that I didn't need to look at any other woman. Least of all and especially not her mother.

Really, if I had been a genuine boyfriend, I would have wanted out. In a hurry. This was a side of Mindy I hadn't seen before, and one that I didn't much like. Any guy on the receiving end of that kind of neediness would have been well excused for running in the opposite direction.

But, since I was here on false pretenses, I didn't do the sensible thing and dump her. I endured her persistent attentions and repeated again and again that she was the sexiest thing alive, that no man in his right mind could possibly think otherwise.

This went on for three days, by the end of which I was sure that Mindy would have worn my poor dick down to the nub. If she wasn't impaling herself on it, she was sucking it, and if she wasn't sucking it, she was rubbing it. Twice at breakfast and once at high tea, she would have given me a hand job under the table if I hadn't been flat-out exhausted.

On the fourth day of our stay at Pinewood, I got a reprieve. Mindy and Renee wanted to do some shopping in the city, and Dad volunteered to drive them. Paula begged off at the last minute with a headache. Mindy couldn't back out too without Paula knowing why, so after giving me a warning scowl, off she went.

With Aunt Paula resting in her suite, I had the house pretty much to myself except for the servants. I prowled, peeking into the room that had been mine as a kid and strolling a long hall under the painted stares of generations of Hollisters. I fancied I saw dark and stormy disapproval on the faces of my ancestors.

And I waited.

She came down a little past one in the afternoon, when I had just finished a light lunch and was relaxing in the library.

"Are you feeling better, Mrs. Hollister?" I asked.

"I thought we'd agreed on Paula," she said.

"Sorry. Paula."

"And yes, I'm much improved. It gets so hectic at this time of year, you know. The parties, the shopping, the social obligations. And having Mindy home is always a trial. She can be so energetic."

"I know," I said dryly. I had the marks to prove it. She could probably see some of them on my neck, scarlet and purple hickies.

Paula laughed. "I take it that the separate-room restriction hasn't been very effective."

I stammered and did my best to blush.

"It's my husband's concern, of course. He seems to think that if he doesn't admit they're grown up, they'll be his little darlings forever."

She folded herself delicately onto the couch beside me. For her supposed 'recuperation,' she had donned a simple robe of ivory-colored satin. The lack of lines marring the fabric assured me that she was bare beneath. I could smell powder and lilac fragrance.

I shifted the book in my lap, making it look like I was trying to seem nonchalant, thereby guaranteeing that she noticed my discomfiture. She glanced down, as I pretended to look elsewhere, and I saw her sly smile as she detected the none-too-subtle swelling at my groin.

"So, Chet," she said companionably, extending her arm along the back of the couch so that it just brushed my shoulder. "How are you enjoying your stay?"

"Very much, Paula," I said. "It's a wonderful house, and the company... well, you're all... very nice."

She slid closer. "What are you reading?"

I acted as though I was torn between hiding the book and relying on its concealment of my embarrassingly aroused state. With an abashed look, I showed her the title.

"

Confessions of a French Maid

," she read. "Oh, my. Did I interrupt something?"

"I just saw it on the shelf, and..."