Woe

All Characters In This Story Are 18+ Years Old

Friday Evening, December 21, 1962

Phil Maxon's palms burned. Sandwiched between his young niece's hands and hips, only the merest layer of satin separated them from her otherwise bare skin. Standing before him in the champagne negligee he had bought her for their impromptu weather-forced overnight stay in The City, she had grabbed them without warning, forced them against her firm pert B-cup breasts, then pushed them down to their current resting place and sweetly asked, "Do you like it?"

Phil's cock and conscience had different answers to the question, but self-discipline prevailed. He heard himself reply, "I think it's very nice. And, that you should keep it. I don't think you should let Mom know you have it, though."

Patricia Maxon laughed a little liquid laugh and agreed, "No, you're right about that. She wouldn't even let me get a two-piece swimsuit this summer. She'd have a cow if she saw this sexy nightgown! But, I'm really glad you like it. I can hardly wait for bedtime!"

"Alright, then," Phil concluded as he backed up a step and withdrew his hands. "Get dressed again while I freshen up and smooth my face."

Hungry for another hug, Patricia lunged forward and innocently slammed herself into her stepdad's arms. As he reactively wrapped her up, she peppered his throat, chin and cheeks with lightning fast little kisses and bubbled, "Thank you Uncle Phil!" Bravely freeing himself, he escaped to the bathroom and closed the door.

When she received a bra and a pair of nylons for her twelfth birthday, Patricia had felt like a real grown-up. But that thrill was nothing compared to the euphoria the eighteen-year-old now experienced as she stood on the brink of womanhood. Her mind was awash with a wonderful new awareness. With her body tingling, she slipped off the sensuous satin sheath and folded it back into the open Bergdorf's box.

When Phil re-entered the main room, Patricia was dressed in the bulky gold cable-knit wool turtleneck sweater and brown-and-gold herringbone wool A-line skirt she had selected at home in Westport for their shopping trip to New York. Standing between the mammoth king size bed and the window overlooking 58th Street, she peered through the glass into the impenetrable white-out. "I'm sorry the weather spoils any skyline view, Trixie," he observed. "Are you ready to go claim our dinner reservation?"

As she stepped around the bed to the room's center, Patricia replied, "Oh, yes, I'm starved! But, Uncle Phil, do you think these boots and socks are too clunky for such a fancy place? I mean, I didn't think we would be doing anything but walking through stores."

Phil cast his eyes over his nubile niece. In her thick sweater and heavy skirt, with her light wool socks just peeking over her zip-up fleece-lined ankle-boots, she was both seasonally appropriate and casually stylish. "You look great," he said sincerely. "But, if you want to spoil part of your Christmas by opening two more gifts early, you can open these and make an adjustment, if you like." Reaching onto the bed's comforter, he retrieved a thin flat square box and a larger rectangular one.

Patricia's eyes widened as she took the packages and exclaimed, "Really? Okay!"

Phil consulted his watch and answered, "Yes, really. But, hurry, because they won't hold our table very long if we're late." Before he finished his sentence, his stepdaughter had the paper torn from the bigger box.

Patricia pulled the lid from the shoe box and squealed to see a pair mahogany-and-cream pumps with three-inch heels cuddled in tissue paper. "Oh, my gosh, Uncle Phil! These are beautiful!" She promptly sat in an armchair, yanked off her left boot and sock, then slipped her bare foot into its new home. The hard leather heel counter went on tight but finished into a comfortable snug fit. Repeating for her right foot, she stood and walked to the bathroom door without a wobble.

Phil was amazed. The bouncing girl he had ridden into The City with on the train, and skated with at Wollman Rink, had magically transformed into an alluring young lady. Patricia turned and exclaimed, "Oh, these are dreamy! And they are perfect with my outfit!" Parading back to him, she hugged her uncle and said softly, "Oh you are sneaky. When the saleslady at Bergdorf's asked me for my sizes, and then wanted to know if my mother was bigger or smaller, I thought she was helping you get stuff for Mom!"

Phil smiled and said, simply, "Well, since you like the high-heels, you'd better open the other box."

Patricia returned to the chair and clawed her nails through the holiday wrap. Lifting a pair of opaque beige pantyhose from the lingerie box, she acknowledged her discovery, "Of course! Bare legs in the evening won't do!" Without thought or hesitation, she pulled off her pumps, then rolled back on her hips in the deep chair while tucking up her legs and sticking both feet into the tights. When her wiggling toes found the leg holes, she rocked forward and stood once again.

Patricia may have been oblivious to the show she was putting on, but Phil certainly was not. During the curl-up, he got a brief, but significant, direct view of her cunt lips prominently pressed against the bright white cotton gusset in her underwear. Now, as she stood bent over, working the cling-y Spandex filaments up her calves and then under her skirt, her shaking breasts made his mouth water. Suddenly aware again that she was not alone in the room, she tipped her head back and grinned, "Turn around, please, Uncle Phil. I have to pull these up over my bottom and smooth my skirt and slip."

Phil blinked and about-faced to the closet. Putting on his suit jacket and tightening his necktie knot, he asked, without looking, "All clear, now, Trixie?"

Patricia chirped, "Yep! How do you like it?"

Closing the closet door, Phil turned and accepted the invitation to appraise his niece. He dared not say how he liked her, or worse, what he would like to do to show her, so he swallowed hard and finessed, "It's lovely." Reaching out his right arm, he reeled her into his side, kissed her lightly on her crown and then said, "C'mon, I'm hungry." As they rode the elevator from the fourteenth floor and crossed the Plaza Hotel lobby to the Palm Court, Patricia kept her left arm loosely hooked around Phil's right elbow. Each of them imagined, for their own different reasons, that other people who saw them were envious.

While they were finishing their entrees, Patricia said, "I'm curious. How did you and Dad meet Mom? It's a little weird that you both ended up marrying her. Did you always love Mom, or only after Dad died?" She struggled as she wondered whether and how her life might have been changed had events been different.

A strange look passed briefly over Phil's face as he considered his stepdaughter's questions. After a moment, he refilled his wine goblet and began, "In 1942, the Country Club decided, that despite the December attack on Pearl Harbor, they should still hold their annual Charity Sweetheart Ball on Valentine's day, but with contributions going to the United Services Organization, which had just been founded at the direct request of President Franklin Roosevelt. It was a double-win for the members: They got their big party while feeling good about themselves for chipping in to the war effort."

"Paul and I were high school seniors living at home. Your mom was a year behind us, but at an all-girls prep school in Vermont, so we only ran into her occasionally at the Club during summers." Taking a swallow of his burgundy, Phil went on, "At the Sweetheart Ball, we saw she had grown into a real knock-out and both of us wanted to dance with her."

Phil gave Patricia a winsome smile as he admitted, "Your dad was always more extroverted and bold than me." Then, chuckling, he said, "Before I could put any plan of my own into action, he was out on the floor swinging with her to 'Pennsylvania 6-5000'. After that the band played 'Mood Indigo' and, by the time the dance was over, she was smitten. It didn't matter what my aspirations might have been two hours earlier, your mom was Paul's girl now."

Phil could not suppress a small sigh, but hurried on, "Anyway, we turned eighteen on March sixth and registered for the draft, but were deferred because we were still in school. As it turned out, we weren't called up for over a year. Meanwhile, after graduation, Paul and your mom started seeing each other steadily and I hung around, but only as a brother and a friend."

Phil swirled his wine and concluded, "On May 17, 1943, we reported to Fort Devens, Massachusetts for basic training. That was immediately followed by two other training segments. It was thirty-eight weeks before we got three-day passes."

"Wow, thirty-eight weeks," Patricia repeated as she forked her final bite. Then she laughed, "That's long enough to have a baby!" Dismayed, she shook her head in disbelief and asked, "You didn't get home at all? Not even at Thanksgiving? Or Christmas?"

"No, not even then," Phil answered. "Paul arranged for your mom to join us in Ayer on Friday morning of Valentine's Day weekend, and let me tell you, your dad was really eager to see your mom!"

Excitedly, Patricia inquired, "Were they married already? When did that happen?" She delicately chewed her last filet mignon morsel while her sparkling eyes studied her uncle's handsome face.

"Nope," Phil replied. "But they got their blood tests and license that very afternoon while I arranged with a Justice of the Peace to do it on Saturday. If you've ever wondered why that little lovers' holiday is always extra special to your mom, now you know."

Phil sipped more wine and continued, "Anyway, we shipped out that Monday afternoon, so the newlyweds never really got a proper honeymoon." Winking broadly, he amended, "But apparently Sunday was enough to paint you into their picture. When we came marching home in November, 1945, you were just a year old and Paul got to see, for the first time, the daughter he had constantly read about in your mom's letters."

"Oh, that's sweet. But, it's a little bit sad, too," Patricia said into her napkin. Of course, she knew all about the birds and the bees, from parental talks as well as from her high school health education classes, but she had somehow never applied the lessons to her own family. Suddenly, she mused, "Uncle Phil and Mom must be doing it, too!" The epiphany struck like a sledge; not only in her mind, but in her abdomen. Pushing back her chair, she asked, "Um, will you excuse me, Uncle Phil? I need to find the Ladies' Room."

"Sure, honey. When you get back, we can decide on dessert," Phil answered.

Drawing stares from several men, and glares from their wives, Patricia walked toward the restaurant's exit into the hotel lobby. She noticed none of them. Her mind was consumed with the novel concept that her mother was a sexual being. It was strangely thrilling.

Alone in the Women's Lounge, Patricia closed herself in a stall and leaned back against its bolted door. She covered the butterflies in her tummy with her right hand while she forked her left palm under her chin and around her constricted throat. The door's brass coat hook felt refreshingly cool against her temple. Even after several deep breaths, her heart pounded as if she had just completed a figure-skating dance routine.

Thinking about her stepdad's touch, first when he accidentally grazed her breast on the MTA, then later when, with her help, he cruised her new satin nightie from chest to hips, Patricia moved her right hand under her sweater to cup her left boob through her slip and bra. Her thumping pulse resounded in her head. Dropping her left hand, she inserted it through her skirt's wrap-around fold and pinched her pussy, hard. As the sharp pain vanquished her building turbulence, she exhaled a long breath and lamented, "Oh, Mom! Does Uncle Phil make you feel like this? How do you stand it?"

Patricia pushed off from the door and exited the stall. At a washbasin, she dabbed light cold water splashes on her cheeks, then re-applied her Coty Precious Pink lipstick and returned to the Palm Court. Phil stood from the table and held her chair as she approached, but was surprised to hear her softly plead, "Can we skip dessert? I'd like to just go up the room and relax."

Recovering quickly and graciously, Phil discreetly bowed his head and quietly assured, "Certainly, honey. Are you okay?" Patricia nodded silently, moved behind her chair and tucked her right arm around his waist.

Long-practiced in reading his patrons, the waiter appeared from nowhere and anticipated, "A change of plans, sir? Would you like your check, now?"

"Yes, please," Phil replied. In less time than he expected, he signed the tab to append to his hotel bill and escorted his niece past the gala Christmas tree in the lobby to the elevators. At their floor, the young carman speculated on the age difference between his passengers and silently wished that the chestnut-haired fox was leaning on his arm instead of on the geezer's.

Closing their room door, Phil then headed for the closet and hung his suit jacket. Casually keeping the topic at a low profile, he asked, with his back to the bed, "So, Trixie, did the food disagree with you?"

"Oh, no, Uncle Phil," the teen answered. "I feel fine. But, we have had a long day." She moved to the window and continued, "Plus, the snow hasn't let up. Look how it's piled on the sill. And we're fourteen stories up!"

Phil left the closet and stood beside his stepdaughter. Draping his left hand over her shoulders, he side-hugged her and said, "That's true, but we're snug as bugs in a rug here."

Patricia smiled at him and presciently said, "I hope Mom will be, too." Suddenly, her eyebrows arched as she exclaimed, "Hey! It's Friday, isn't it? Mom may be in Westport while we're here in Manhattan, but we can still watch TV together like we do! I bet she's got a bowl of popcorn and a Rob Roy on a tray right now. Can we get some popcorn and Seven-Up from room service?"

Patricia looked at the gold Timex Roberta and Phil had given her for her eighteenth birthday and noted, "Rawhide is about half over, but there's Route 66 and 77 Sunset Strip! You know I think Kookie is the ginchiest!" Laughing, she turned three-quarters and buried her nose in Phil's shirt. As she inhaled its tangy all-day sweat scent, she closed her eyes and begged, "Please?"

Phil felt Patricia's lungs inflate and he instinctively pulled her closer. Her softness pressed warmly to his muscular torso and heated him throughout. Kissing her upturned forehead, he answered, "Why not?" With a light departing pat on her back, he picked up the phone on the ornate writing desk.

Several minutes later, a porter arrived with a trolley laden with a chilled lidded silver ice bucket, a six-pack of green seven-ounce Seven-Up bottles, a pint of Seagram's Seven Crown whiskey, and a huge glass salad bowl piled high with lightly buttered seasoned popped corn. Phil tipped the server, then wheeled the refreshments to the arm chairs centered at the bed's foot facing the room's twenty-four-inch Magnavox television. Patricia, already ensconced in the armchair to his left, look up and crowed, "Goody! Poor me a pop, Pop! And a bowl of pop-pop!" She giggled at her witticism, then said seriously, "Hurry! There's Tod in his Corvette!"

Phil fixed himself a light Seven-and-Seven, delivered Patricia her popcorn and soda, then settled into the chair nearest the door. Try as he might, however, he could not pretend things were just like they usually were on a Westport Friday night. His mind wandered into bad territory, and worse, his eyes wandered, as well. He could not keep from looking left and down to check out his niece as she intently watched the episode. Luckily, she did not seem to notice him noticing her.

Phil may have thought he was not caught, but several times Patricia's peripheral senses served her well. She knew her uncle was peeping on her and, to her own consternation, she not only did not mind, she reacted almost as if his eyeballs were fingers. Her pussy dampened, her halos puffed and her tummy started flip-flopping just as it had at other times during this crazy day when he hugged or kissed her. She felt increasingly frazzled and, near the program's end, decided to do something about it.

Standing up, Patricia turned to the room's window side, then crawled across the massive king bed. As she passed, she gathered her new negligee and hid it beneath her bulky knit sweater. On the closet side, standing behind him, she explained, "Got to go, Uncle Phil. But I'll be back in time for 77 Sunset Strip. Go ahead and change the channel." Then she hurried into the bathroom and shut the door.

When Patricia emerged again, she still wore her big sweater, but it was over her nightgown. Padding forward on bare feet, she wheeled the cart away from the chairs and chirped, "Mom's not here, but if she was, she'd be in her old velour robe and sitting on your lap for this show. I think I should do that, too, so you'll feel more like we're home."

"What? No! Trixie! Oomph!" Phil barked his protest to no avail.

The laughing teen juggernaut pirouetted, dumped her hundred-and-eighteen pounds fully on top of her stepdad's thighs, then slid her slick satin-clad bottom over his worsted wool suit pants as she squirmed herself into a stable position. Continuing her rotation, she parked her right arm along the chair back. With her butt wedged, and her legs hooked behind his knees, she tousled his medium brown wavy short haircut into disorder while she bubbled, "There! Isn't that lots better?"

The chair had lurched with Patricia's momentum, but, mercifully, did not topple. Phil reactively counterbalanced and squeezed himself as much as possible against its right side armrest. The fit was uncomfortably tight and remained precarious. He croaked hoarsely, "Yes! I mean, no! I mean..." His voice trailed to nothing as his niece planted a light kiss on his lips while her tugging left hand loosened his tie's knot. From the Magnavox, a blared trumpet and muted chorus announced, "77 Sunset Strip!"

"Yay! Just in time," Patricia breathed into Phil's shocked countenance. "But these chairs aren't like your recliner at home. They're small!" Pushing herself off him, she clambered onto the bed and scrambled to its headboard. As she busily plumped and arranged the big pillows, she called out, "C'mon, Uncle Phil! Take off your shoes and come up here! While we watch, we can snuggle like we're on that pretend date like you suggested. Don't be an old fuddy-duddy!" She laughed as she intentionally prodded him with his own words and pre-emptively attacked any rebuttal.

In the tumult, Phil's prick had thickened considerably and now asserted itself. Desperate to stay in-bounds, he ignored Patricia's jab and tested a compromise. Standing, he replied, "Okay, Trixie, but the 'date' ended when we left the restaurant. Now we're back to being family; enjoying doing family things." He kept his back turned to her as he adjusted his erection to be less obvious while he toed off his black oxfords.

As Phil stepped around the service cart, he poured a quick shot of fresh whisky into his melting old drink, then gulped it down in a single quaff. "Courage, Buddy," he said to himself before climbing up on the bed and settling beside the eighteen-year-old temptation.

It was not long before Patricia lost interest in the TV crime drama. It was mostly night scenes with difficult-to-see details, not to mention that right beside her was a real live man as handsome as Roger Smith and inexplicably 'ginchier' than Edd Byrnes. For his part, Phil cared not at all that the television was even on. His world at the moment was embroiled in an existential battle between what he wanted to do and propriety.