Family Secrets (5 page)

With that, he half-smiled and made his way
out of the room, promising himself he wouldn't dream of his
stepsister, but knowing he would anyway.

***

Luke got off work earlier on Thursdays,
Fridays and Saturdays now because of budget cuts that had recently
happened, but he wasn't worried about that since he'd already
landed another job working for a friend of his. Working for his
buddy was going to mean better pay, more benefits, and more
vacation days. You couldn't ask for a better deal than that
nowadays with the job market being what it was even for those who
were qualified in their fields.

Usually he got home at around seven in the
morning, but he was back in the house at a quarter to four now, and
he didn't know why, but he had a bad feeling that he couldn't
quell. He couldn't put his finger on it, and he had no idea what it
could have been about, and honestly, he was trying not to think
about it since he also knew it could have been anything.

He was worried that it had something to do
with his new job, but he didn't want to think that it could be in
peril before he'd even started.

Could it be something to do with Susan? He
shook the thought away just as soon as it had come. He and his wife
weren't exactly in what he called a happy marriage, but they were
still together after so many years and he doubted they'd get a
divorce. It wasn't just about the secrets they harbored in their
union, but they were tethered by other things: financial stability
being one of them. Luke had always made more money than Susan had,
but what she made picked up the slack when it came to their bills,
and he couldn’t deny that fact regardless of how much he would have
loved to.

In the beginning, things between him and
Susan had been nice. She'd been a listening ear for his problems,
and on top of that she'd seemed warm and as a bonus, she was of the
domestic variety. She wasn't a beauty queen, but that hadn't
mattered to him that much because he was looking for a mother for
his boy since Scott's mother had died when he was still just a
baby.

What Luke hadn't counted on was Brittney.
He'd nearly stopped dating Susan when he'd found out she'd had a
daughter, but after meeting the little girl, he'd been mesmerized
by her.

The problem with Susan already having a kid
was that he knew how territorial Scott was when it came to being an
only child and he really hadn't known what the boy's reaction was
going to be if he found out the woman his father was dating and had
gotten serious about already had a child of her own.

In short, it hadn't gone well, not at first,
but thankfully, Luke hadn't thought that Brittney recalled her
initial encounter with Scott which was a blessing.

After a year of dating, he and Susan
married.

It had never been hot and heavy between the
two of them, but their start had been pleasant. They were more
friends with benefits than anything romantic, but Luke had believed
it would improve over time.

Then Scott had started having his issues, and
suddenly his marriage had taken a backseat to his son's problems.
Then Luke had started visiting with a couple of the women at the
brothels right along with Scott and that hadn't improved things on
the home front. He'd found it jarring to come home from having sex
with a pretty woman that at least pretended to care about being
sexy for him to a somebody like Susan who had completely let
herself go and didn't seem to give a damn about him at all aside
from his paycheck.

In a way, he couldn't exactly blame Susan;
she hadn't had a good life even before they met, and he definitely
hadn't been a knight in shining armor that had swept her off her
feet. But still, he'd always told himself that if she'd put forth a
little more effort in some ways that he would be obliged to do the
same for her, but it had never worked out that way. And he never
truly knew if he would have made good on that promise in the first
place.

However, he and Susan had made it to a place
in their marriage where it was about money and just being with
somebody so they didn’t die alone, and that seemed to be enough for
her, and in a way it was enough for him too. They had a roof over
their heads and the dark financial times were behind them. No
problems there.

No, he wasn't sure where that niggling
feeling was coming from, but it was strong, although he couldn't
put his finger on what could have been wrong.

As far as he knew, on the job front all was
well, and as for his marriage, that institution wasn't flat lining
as flawed as it was, but it was still on the same old course it had
been for years.

Except…

Well, they'd hit a bit of a rough patch after
Susan found out Scott was having sex with Brittney. She'd acted
nonchalant about it, but she'd kept her distance from Luke in bed
for a few months until it got to the point where he had to visit
the girls at the brothel on occasion or risk losing his mind.

"She hasn't come to me and said a word about
it," Susan had told Luke with her back turned to him, her tone
placid. "I guess if she was bothered about it she'd come to me, but
I guess she likes it enough to keep her trap shut, so we should let
them be. Just so long as he doesn't get her pregnant and she
doesn't come to me saying he raped her—that's all I care
about."

Luke had felt half-relieved at her answer and
half-furious. He'd actually wanted Susan to be upset about Scott
having sex with Britt back then, but she hadn't seemed to be; or
maybe she was, but she had stuffed it down as she did with so many
other things.

Oh well, life goes on
, Luke thought to
himself and bounded the stairs at a much swifter pace than he
typically did after work. He was a big man—tall, broad shouldered
and muscular mostly from working on a job that required a lot of
manual labor—but he was surprisingly graceful on his feet. He had
an easygoing gait about him usually, but to look at him, you
wouldn't know he was as fast as he was or could be as quiet.

Scott had inherited his build from his
mother. He wasn't ever going to break six feet, nor was his boy
ever going to build muscle the way Luke could, but Scott had Luke's
agility and suaveness all the same, regardless of whatever other
physicality he lacked.

He nearly passed by Brittney's bedroom—the
first room after you made your way up the staircase—but thought
better of it. He slowly turned the knob and grimaced when the hinge
made a slight squeaking sound. He made a mental note to oil it a
bit when he woke up later; all he wanted to do right now was check
on his stepdaughter. He didn't know why, but he thought that
unsettled feeling had something to do with her.

Luke's eyes had already adjusted to the
darkness of the house, and the moonlight streaming through the
glass of Brittney's window that had venetian blinds hanging in
front of them, but allowed a little speckle of light to come
through the side to let him see more than just her silhouette in
the bed. Squinting, he told himself that what he was seeing
couldn't be what he thought he was seeing.

Is she naked?
He thought to himself,
moving closer towards the bed even though he didn't realize he was
doing it.

With closer inspection, he realized that not
only was she naked, but there was an odor in the room.

After sex
, he thought, and shook the
words from his mind. But the words surfaced again, accompanied by a
few other ideas.
She fucked somebody else even though she
promised she wouldn't. She fucked the person right here in the bed
that
YOU
fucked her in. Isn't there some poetic justice in
that Luke-y boy?
The sneering voice inside of his head wasn't
only talking now, it had begun to laugh, and Luke felt heat rise
from his chest all the way to his head.

For a moment, he stood motionless, looking
down at Brittney's sleeping form that was only partially underneath
the bed sheet that Scott had pulled over her body before he'd left
the room. She'd actually turned her body more than slightly as
she'd slept, and the sheet was no longer where Scott had pulled it
over her. Her back was exposed all the way down to the end of her
tailbone, and since the sheet had been pulled askew from her left
side, he noticed that there had been some "spillage" from whoever
had been in the bed with her.

Then it dawned on him that Scott was back and
that made the territorial male inside of him rear its ugly
domineering head just beneath the surface of Luke's exterior face,
a face that had gone scarlet in splotches.

Whenever Scott visited, he always drove his
car around the side of the house and parked it around back, out of
view of any passersby, but also for the main purpose of not getting
in Luke or Susan's way in the driveway. Luke had always appreciated
it since it allowed him not to be inconvenienced and he could enter
in through the garage as per his usual course. But right now, he
wasn't so appreciative of the gesture.

Brittney always parked on the side of the
garage, in view of anyone, and he knew she'd already been back
anyway. It had actually slipped Luke's mind as to the exact day
when Scott was meant to be home, but he knew it was supposed to be
either today or the next.

What kind of excuse is that, Luke?
The
sneering voice in Luke's head asked him. It was a nasty voice, one
that sounded not quite like him, but was more like a version of him
that he hadn't ever known existed until a couple of years ago. The
sneering in the voice was snake-like, and vicious even in its
truth.
Just because Scott-y boy showed up didn't mean she had to
fuck him again, did she? She promised you—remember? She promised
you she wouldn’t fuck anybody else. She promised she promised she
promised she promised she promised…

Luke shut his eyes against the voice, and
even though he was somehow able to push it further back in his mind
to stop the incessant taunting, the words continued to echo,
because the reality of the situation was that Brittney
had
promised him something and she had broken that promise.

But wasn't it an absurd promise, Luke-y? I
mean, she
is
your wife's daughter. And a long time ago
before you started letting your son fuck her brains out nearly
every night, little Britt-Britt was your little princess. Wasn't
she? Are you gonna deny it Luke-y?

Luke clenched his fists to his sides. Yes,
once upon a time Brittney had been an innocent, and he had to admit
that he had let Scott do things to her that he should've put a stop
to, and maybe she was still an innocent in some ways, but Luke
couldn't help his feelings. Too much time had passed and too many
things had been done that couldn't be taken back and couldn't be
made right.

Besides, she's
yours
now, though,
isn't she Luke-y?
The sneering voice was now both sneering and
eerily soothing, which would have made Luke's skin crawl under
other circumstances, but at the same time, he listened to it
because he knew it would never lie to him.

Let me ask you a question
, the voice
said, still in that sickeningly soothing tone.
Deep down inside,
didn't you always want a little taste? Deep down, didn't you think
about it even when…

"No!" Luke whispered through trembling lips
and he shut his eyes again, fists still clenched at his sides, his
heart beating a million miles a minute. Though the one word had
come out breathless and barely audible in the room, in his head
he'd screamed it, and at once the sneering voice had gone
completely silent.

That voice had gone too far. Regardless of
what had happened between him and Britt later, he hadn't fantasized
about her as a child—ever. Nor had he ever wanted to. He thought
that every man had at least a little bit of perversion in him, but
most men drew the line somewhere, even in their private thoughts,
and he was one of those men.

Still, he knew that didn't excuse what he'd
done and what he continued to do after Scott had started the whole
merry-go-round of madness…

For Luke, it had started exactly one week
after the three of them—Luke, Susan, and Brittney—had seen Scott
off to the beginning of his freshman year of college.

Luke had been at home, up during the day, and
just relaxing in front of the TV without a thought about work since
he'd had a few days off when Brittney had come prancing in the room
with him, only wearing a tiny t-shirt on and a pair of panties. For
a few seconds, he'd gaped at her, wondering what in the world she
could have been thinking. Part of him said to leave well enough
alone and pretend that he couldn't see and didn't care. But another
part of him felt uneasy with her being around him half-naked.

So, with his eyes still on the TV, he'd
cleared his throat loudly and had said, "Britt, don't you think you
should go to your room and maybe put on a pair of shorts or
something? And probably a bra…or a bigger top at the very
least."

"Why?" she'd asked him sulkily, looking at
him from the corners of her eyes as she'd lain on her side with her
thumb jammed in her mouth.

Luke had noticed that Brittney had started
sucking her thumb when she was relaxing in front of the TV right
after he'd found out about what was going on between her and Scott,
and his heart had dropped when he'd seen it, but he'd pretended not
to notice. The last time he'd recalled her sucking her thumb before
that had been when she was around six.

But when she'd looked at him that time,
posing the question to him with her thumb in her mouth from one
hand while the other hand playfully twirled the locks of her hair,
he couldn't make up his mind whether he was seeing a little girl
anymore or a woman who hadn't realized she'd already become a
woman.