Family Secrets (11 page)

He came hard, his hips bucking only slightly
as he grunted like an animal, filling her third hole, draining his
balls as the hot liquid spewed and then dripped inside of her third
crevice. If someone had called him a beast at that moment, he
doubted that he would have disagreed with them; he'd felt as much
like a beast as he'd exhibited the beast-like behavior.

Eventually, he pulled his cock out of her
ass, and as he did, it made a barely audible plop sound that he
barely heard, and didn't care about. He was always afraid when it
came to using the belt as Brittney hit her climax during an orgasm,
but every single time she emerged okay, only coughing and
sputtering a bit in the aftermath, which is what he was watching
now. Between the redness of her ass cheeks and the thick, angry red
belt print around her neck, all crossed with the tears she'd shed
and the sounds she was making, Luke found himself feeling more than
a little guilty.

He always reminded himself that the belt had
been Britt's suggestion about a year ago, but that had never
quelled the feelings of remorse he had afterward. He'd visited a
couple of websites where some men said feeling guilty, or not
feeling guilty but satisfied, were the most common emotions after
rough/S&M sex, and those emotions were usually due to the
person's emotions concerning their partners. The person who felt
indifferent after rough sex with a partner who wasn't a paid
profession were the ones whose feelings—or rather lack of
feelings—one should be worried about.

Luke collapsed alongside Brittney, his anger
momentarily forgotten because she had the ability to make him
forget everything else about his life. Sometimes, it felt as if it
were just the two of them, but once those moments let up some, he
felt frightened, because they weren't the only two people, and it
would hit him like a brick that what he was doing was essentially
wrong. What he was doing was, to its core, fucked up. Beyond fucked
up.

I wonder how many of those men who were
discussing rough sex online were talking about fucking their
stepdaughters
, the sneering snake-voice asked him, rearing its
ugly head.

Luke immediately shushed the snake-voice that
he didn't like, yet he was used to hearing every now and again, and
when he wasn't deep in his anger, he was able to control and
tighten its leash so to speak. Instead, he focused his attention on
Brittney and her tear-streaked face, and her reddened skin that he
knew would turn a raucous shade of purple in due time that would be
tinged with blue. They'd been through the same rigmarole when it
came to hiding her bruises and getting rid of them before too many
people asked questions, but things always came out all right.

But what if one day things didn't turn out
so pleasantly for either of you?
It wasn't the snake-like voice
that time, but his voice of logic, that sane part of him that spoke
up and tried to reason with him every now and then. It was always
the voice that tried to make him see where he was going wrong so he
could choose a better path.

He shushed that voice, too, as he ran his
fingers through Brittney's hair. For just a little while longer it
was just the two of them. The two of them floating in a world of
uncertainty. He liked the thought of people having pointless
existences that added up to nothing in the end, and that anything
anybody did was circumstantial and there would be nothing to hold
against someone after their death. Luke liked the thought that
death would be the end, instead of what he heard by some people
that told him death was only the beginning. The latter thought made
him wince; the former thought granted him solace.

He kissed Brittney's temple. "You do remember
the safe word, don't you?" he asked her. He couldn't resist asking
her that question; it had been troubling him off and on during the
act and he knew there was no way he was going to get away with not
asking her.

She gave a dry laugh before she said, "Yeah,
I remember, Luke." She raised up just a little and kissed him
against his neck before she fell back against her pillow.

When they were in the throes of passion, or
getting there, she called him "Daddy", but when it was just regular
conversation between the two of them, he became Luke again. He
found points of their dynamic odd, yet comforting.

Without thinking about what he was doing, he
lifted one of her butt cheeks a little and told her to bend her
knees. She did it without questioning him and Luke watched,
fascinated, as some of his cum leaked out on the opposite bum cheek
he was holding in his hand.

Then it all came flooding back to him, the
reason for his anger, the reason Brittney's skin was bruised, and
he felt that old madness rising in him again. It wasn't as thick as
before, he knew that much before it descended upon him, but it was
coming all the same. It definitely wasn't rage, and it wasn't the
same anger that had engulfed him earlier, but it was something that
electrified his nerves and set him on edge. It made him want to
take some action—more action, a different type of action—other than
anything he'd done before.

He opened his mouth to say something, but
shut it again as another idea occurred to him, something he should
have noticed, yet he hadn't noticed before.

Brittney hadn't tried to coax him to slow
down or not be so rough by using their safe word, nor had she toned
down her voice or her screams even though she knew Scott would be
able to hear them having sex in the same house. It would have been
impossible for Scott not to have heard the two of them unless he'd
had on some sort of super strong headphones that prevented any and
all sound from penetrating his ears, and as far as Luke knew, Scott
didn't have any such things lying around.

She'd wanted him to hear
, Luke thought
to himself.
But why, exactly, had she wanted him to?

The answer wasn't so simple as far as Luke
could tell. Everyone knew Scott used to have a hard time
controlling his temper when he'd been younger, but over the years,
that had changed, and they all knew it. But Scott had also had his
"flare-ups" as Susan called them. He would get angry, he would
sometimes be violent (though sometimes not) but usually destructive
at some point, and when it was all said and done, at least one room
in the house—or somewhere—would be in shambles.

Had she wanted him to come in here and for
the two of us to fight?
Luke asked himself. He asked these
questions silently, without any of the added nuisance of the other
voices that sometimes rose in his head to offer their own opinions.
Had she wanted Scott to come in here and claim her? Had she
wanted me to choose her over my son by knocking him out and telling
him that she was mine? Or had she wanted a fight between me and
Scott to be the end of everything that had ever gone on between any
of us in this house?

Luke tried to shake the questions off, but
there was one more he felt he had to ask himself.

Had she wanted him to know that it was
finally over between the two of them? Was that it? Was that the
reason she'd had sex with him? Was it the last time for the two of
them?

He wanted to ask her those questions that
felt so poignant to him, but when he looked into her eyes, all of
them fell away, mainly because it dawned on him that they were
irrelevant. It also dawned on him that he couldn't ask her any of
those questions—at least not now, or any time soon. A part of him
knew that it wasn't his place to ask her anything of the sort. He
and Scott had done enough to her. He and Scott had taken what
they'd wanted from her for too long, and he knew that the best
thing he could do for her would be to let her go.

Let her go
,
Luke
, his staid
voice of reason said to him.
Compared to her, you're an old man.
You've lived long enough. You've made enough mistakes and you've
piled enough skeletons in your closet to last two lifetimes. Be the
good man that you know you have the ability to be and let her go.
She's just starting her life, really; you should let her live her
life without your shadow looming over it.

She should be with boys her own age. She
should be able to pick up the pieces of what's left of her sex life
and start anew if she wants. She can still be a decent young woman
without any taboo hanging over her head, and you can be a somewhat
decent man and put this taboo behind you, but you have to do one
little thing. You have to let her go. Let her be free
.

Luke listened peevishly to that voice, and in
truth, he hated that reasonable voice almost as much as he hated
the snake-like voice. They both told the truth, though different
versions of it. They both made him feel like shit when they spoke
up from the depths of his mind.

But they could say whatever they wanted. It
didn't mean he ever had to listen to them.

I won't let her go. I can't
. The words
seemed to echo in his mind, traveling down an abyss that he didn't
want to think about, because down that abyss in his head were
things he didn't want to dwell on whether they were words, stills
in his mind, or emotions he wanted buried.

"Luke, Luke, come back to me," Brittney said
to him as her quick little fingers soothed the skin of his cheek
and over to his ear; she went from one to the other without
stopping. "What are you thinking about?"

Luke took a deep breath, but he didn't say
anything for a minute, he only looked into her eyes, and as the
seconds ticked by, he took in the rest of her face. He'd been
staring right at her, yet he'd been so far away in his mind. It was
both amazing and scary.

When he opened his mouth again to say
something, he finally managed to get the words out in which he
intended. "It's just you and me, now, right? Nobody else? Just
me…and you. Right?"

Without hesitation, Brittney nodded, and cast
across her lips was a smile that Luke knew in his heart of hearts,
was genuine.

***

The snake-voice had kept its distance as the
voice of reason had had its moment to speak with Luke right before
Brittney had brought him back from his mental journey, but that
didn't mean Luke hadn't heard the snake-voice tittering in the
background as the reasonable voice had lectured him.

You're such a dickhead, Luke! You're such a
slimy asshole, and you should know it, too! You're a selfish prick
that only thinks about his dick! You'll never let her go! You won't
let her go until she drops you—and she will, eventually, drop kiss
your ass, trust me! You shithead, you dick, you rotten
motherfucker! That's exactly what you are—

Luke cut the snake-voice off from its rant
midday as he leaned toward Brittney and gave her a kiss on the
lips. He'd decided a while back that he would hold onto Brittney so
long as she would have him, because truth be told, as far as he
could see it, she was the best thing in his life. She always had
been if he allowed himself to admit it outright.

Then the other thoughts started up again. He
didn't like these thoughts because they always ended up in
disappointment.

They were thoughts of the future. They were
bright thoughts that stretched from days to months, and from months
to years, and he they were beautiful thoughts and wishes that Luke
knew were bullshit and would never happen.

He wanted to run away with her. He wanted the
two of them to start over somewhere else and not be stepfather and
stepdaughter, but just a couple. They could have kids and they
could do it right. They could have it all. Couldn't they? They
weren't such horrible people that they didn't deserve a chance at
happiness regardless of how their relationship started—were they?
Was that how life worked? Was that the way life ever worked?

Luke pushed those thoughts to the back of his
mind as he and Brittney lay side by side, dozing off into their own
separate dreamlands. He was sure Susan wouldn't be back that night,
that she was staying the night at her girlfriend's. He was also
sure that Scott wouldn't tiptoe back into Brittney's room since
he'd already done it earlier; and even if he had heard the two of
them in here, he'd probably thought it had only been a dream since
he was probably knocked out a long time ago. But an even bigger
part of him didn't care one way or the other if they were caught in
the same bed.

Luke only thought a little more about
Brittney and himself riding off into the sunset together before he
dozed off completely, but he already knew how that story ended.

Britt was going to school to be a doctor, and
he'd already agreed to help finance it. Susan had been saving for
Brittney's education for years, and she had no reservations about
using thousands of dollars later on for when her daughter needed
it. In a way, Luke thought that maybe Susan had been glad that
Britt had come along and taken him off her hands so that she could
lead her own life, husband free. With Britt boning her stepfather,
Susan was able to have her girlfriend on the side and not have to
deal with the guilt, in a way. Paying for her college education was
her recompense it seemed—from both of them—as sick as it could be
for some others to hear.

Britt also didn't need her stepfather marring
her reputation, and everyone knew that eventually a story such as
theirs would get out. It was such a dirty story with so many secret
corridors; it was the type of story that had the potential of
becoming a national headline because people loved dirt, and what
they had between them was as dirty as it got.

Where would they go? Luke was a middle-aged
man now, and it didn’t matter if he looked good for thirty-nine or
forty. The point was, the good jobs went to the younger men, not
the older ones; the older men had to settle for whatever they could
get. He'd landed a good job with one of his friends right now, and
aside from the good pay and decent benefits, it was a better
commute than he'd ever had with any job in the past or present.
There was no guarantee that he could get another job anywhere else,
let alone the type of job he was about to start in just a matter of
days. He knew he had to hang onto whatever he had at this point and
not screw anything up.