The Evil And The Pure (15 page)

Fresh fear when Fr Sebastian replaced Fr Andrew earlier in the year
— new man, perhaps new rules. He begged Tulip not to confess to the incoming priest but she ignored him. Fr Sebastian wasn’t as reserved as Fr Andrew had been. Whereas the previous priest had simply subjected Kevin to the cold shoulder and dirty looks, Fr Sebastian stormed over to him after hearing Tulip’s confession, dragged him outside and throttled him, crying, “You demon! Demon! Demon!”

Fr Sebastian
told Kevin never to return, vowed to kill him if he did. Kevin stumbled home, shaken, followed by a bemused Tulip. He said they weren’t going back, the priest was a lunatic. She said he could abstain if he wished, but she wouldn’t. He offered to take her to a different church but she said Sacred Martyrs had been their mother’s church and it was now hers and she had no wish to change.

In the end Tulip got her way. Kevin
avoided the church for many weeks, until Fr Sebastian issued him with a summons — the priest wanted to see him one evening on his own, not to tell Tulip. Kevin went, trembling, half-afraid the priest was planning to execute him. But Fr Sebastian only wanted to talk, hopeful of convincing Kevin to stop doing this to his sister. A long conversation, the first of many, in which the priest beseeched Kevin to confess to God and the police, to seek professional help and divine forgiveness. When his pleas fell on deaf ears, he asked Kevin to explain how he had come to this terrible place.

“It’s not the money,” Kevin insisted. “I couldn’t care less about th
at. It’s the thrill and the sexual release. I’m addicted.”

H
e told the priest about his father’s death two and a half years earlier, moving back into the family apartment to look after Tulip, nothing but her best interests at heart. For six months just brotherly love, helping her cope with her grief, caring for her, providing. Some time after her fourteenth birthday he began noticing her as a young woman, her body changing, maturing, developing. Tulip wasn’t prudish around the apartment, Kevin often catching sight of her naked coming out of the bathroom, or of her breasts as she walked about in a loose robe. Nothing provocative in Tulip’s flashes of flesh. She still thought of herself as a girl, Kevin her harmless brother, sexual attraction between them an impossibility.

Over the coming months
Kevin would sometimes fantasize about his sister, but only hazily, the way he’d fix on any woman’s face when he was masturbating. He harboured no dark desires, had no wish to interfere with her, didn’t believe himself capable of genuine lust for Tulip.

“I’d
had a few girlfriends before,” he explained, “but sex never thrilled me the way it did other people. I was starting to think that maybe celibacy was more my line. Then I caught Tulip making love.”

He’d r
eturned home early one day with a headache, expecting Tulip to be at school. Entering their apartment, he heard the sounds of sex in her bedroom. Shocked, the first thing that crossed his mind was that she was being raped. The door was half-open. He almost barged in, but stopped when he realised her moans of pleasure meant she was a willing participant. He stood by the door uncertainly, worried about her, wondering if he should break it up. While he was debating what to do, he caught a whiff of marijuana. With a frown he leant forward and spotted the sexually engaged teenagers in Tulip’s dressing table mirror.

A
nd everything changed.

“The sight of her fucking…” Kevin’s voice and eyes filled with wicked
wonder. Fr Sebastian clocked the wonder and knew in that moment that Kevin Tyne was beyond salvation, his vice born of a genuinely twisted urge, no mere bad man, but one who was lost to his inner demons, truly warped.

Kevin said nothing to Tulip but obsessed about her for the next few weeks, mast
urbating frequently, feeding on the image of her with her boyfriend. Then the power of the image faded and needed to be refreshed. He started coming home early regularly, making up all manner of excuses, or telling Tulip that he would be working late then sneaking home at the normal time. But he didn’t catch her at it again. Frustrated, he took a week off work and shadowed her when she was at school or hanging out with her friends. No joy, Tulip not even kissing or petting.

But she wasn’t entirely clean. He saw her smoking pot a few times and found a stash in her room. He remembered the smell in the air
that
day. Maybe the hash had lowered her inhibitions. Maybe drugs were his way in.

H
e confronted her one evening, said he’d been cleaning her room and had found the pot. Tulip wept, said all her friends were doing it, begged him not to tell anyone. He waved her worries away, said it was no big thing, he’d smoked when he was younger, still had the occasional spliff when he was feeling low. In fact, would she mind sharing a joint with him now?

Tulip was delighted that he wasn’t judging her,
even more delighted to share. They had an amazing night, smoking, talking, more honest with one another than they’d ever been. Kevin cried for the first time since they’d buried their father. Tulip held him and did what she could to comfort him.

The pot became a regular part of their evening
s together, Kevin buying it now, feeding it to Tulip, laughing away her concerns when she worried about becoming addicted. Eventually he brought back some coke, giggled when she was shocked, told her not to be a square, made a joke of it. Careful not to use much himself, pretending to snort, pressing most of it on her.

A prolonged, determined campaign to addict her, making light of Tulip’s fears when she voiced them, treating her like a grown-up, saying this brought them closer together, writing
sicknotes for her when she was too stoned to go to school, leaving her alone in the flat with grass and coke.

One night, when she was properly hooked and flying high, he told her that he’d caught her
making love. She laughed and called him a voyeur. He smiled and asked her to tell him about her sexual history. There wasn’t much to tell. She’d only had sex with one boy, four times. She regretted giving up her virginity, but it was too late to go back. She’d confessed the sin in church and had agreed with Fr Andrew that she wouldn’t have sex again until she was married.

Over the next week
Kevin raised the issue frequently when she was high and he was pretending to be, saying it was good to experiment, she should feel free to try it again. Tulip said she didn’t want to. Kevin said she was letting her beliefs blind her to her true desires, that she secretly wished to have sex again, and should — it was wrong to suppress one’s natural urges. One night, when her head was spinning and he was going on at her about doing what she pleased, Tulip laughed and said it was as if he actively wanted her to have sex. Kevin stared at her solemnly, heart thumping, then took the gamble and told her softly that he did, and more than that, he wanted to watch. “That night when you called me a voyeur — you were right.”

Tulip incredulous
. She thought he was joking, a sick joke, not funny, even when she was high. Distraught and disgusted when she realised he was earnest. Tears, screams, locking her door, wanting to leave, thinking he meant to rape her. Kevin was calm, soft, kept on talking, finding words instinctively, discovering eloquence in his unnatural lust. He convinced her that he would never touch her, he had no desire to have sex with her, she should pack her bags and leave if she ever thought that he did. Made her feel safe, talked most of her fears away, got her to open he door and sit down with him and discuss it rationally.

Tulip tried to reject the drugs the next night and the night after. She wanted to clear her head, think about the situation clearly. But she had the hunger now. She needed her fix. Kevin played on that. Came back from work with heroin, said that was all he’d been able to score. A lie – he’d had the heroin for weeks, had got his dealer to teach him how to
use it – but Tulip believed him. Not knowing any better, she gave it a try, figuring it was OK to try anything once. Thought it was odd the next night when Kevin returned with the same story and more heroin. Stopped thinking after that. Hooked on a whole new world, carefully led into it by her artful, deceptive brother.

Once he had her
trapped, Kevin admitted to fantasizing about her all the time. He faked tears, said he was vile, threatened to kill himself. Tulip was aghast — he mustn’t think such things, suicide the greatest sin. But he was weak, he moaned, a fragile man, prey to the sickness. He’d go mad if they continued as they were, unable to stop dreaming about her. But if she had sex again – not with him! never with him! – but with her boyfriend, the same as before, and let Kevin watch… maybe that would cure him.

Tulip begged Kevin to seek help, God’s or a counse
llor’s, but he wouldn’t, he swore that he couldn’t. Tulip was too young, too naïve and too high to see him for the liar that he was. When he grabbed a knife and cut into a wrist (not deeply, making it look worse than it was), her heart went out to him and she agreed to give him what he wanted, hoping and praying that it would satisfy him.

He made
Tulip ring the boy that night, while she was stoned, and invite him over, knowing he had to strike while she was open to the idea. The boy came running, as any horny teenage boy would. Kevin hid, waited for them to start fucking, snuck back to the open bedroom door, watched as he had before, even better than the first time, his heart pounding, his cock hard, but not masturbating, saving that pleasure for the future.

Tulip had woken disgusted, ashamed, sobbing. He’d taken the day off work, wept with her, thanked her for saving him, fed her heroin and coke, convinced her to invite the boy
back again that night.

A few days later
the boy wasn’t enough. He needed new flesh, a fresh thrill. He asked her to seduce one of her other friends. Tulip broke down, refused the drugs, told him this couldn’t continue, it was immoral and ungodly. He’d expected this. Sat her down, brewed tea, wiped her tears away, kissed her demurely. When she recovered he produced a folder packed with documents, bank accounts, legal details. “Everything you’ll need is here,” he said evenly. “The lawyers will sort it out for you. There should be enough to live on for a long time. You’ll have to go into care for a while, but –”

“What do you mean?” Tulip gasped. “What are you going to do?”

Kevin smiled softly. “I’m going to cure myself the only way I know how. You won’t have to worry about me any more. I’m setting you free.”

“
No
!” She believed he truly meant to kill himself. Offered to bring a boy back like he wanted, but he shook his head, said it was wrong of him to have asked, easier to let go, for her to get on with life, not to worry about him any longer. Tulip got hysterical, clung to him, begged him to let her try. In the end Kevin
relented reluctantly
. Tulip went on the addle-headed prowl once he’d doped her up, found a boy from school, brought him home and let him fuck her while Kevin watched and masturbated. The seediness of it, the fact that this wasn’t her boyfriend, that she was offering herself to someone she had no real attraction to, purely to sate her brother’s inhuman appetites…

That excited him. Even before he came – harder than ever, so hard that he had
to jam a hand into his mouth to stifle his gasps – he began to wonder what it would be like if he told her to bring back a stranger, some random guy from the street.

Tulip stepped out of the confessional, walked to a pew near the front of the church, genuflected, knelt, said her prayers. Fr Andrew used to make her say dozens of
them – she’d be praying for hours after each confession – but Fr Sebastian limited Tulip’s penance to a few Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s. The priest often pleaded with her to tell the police or social workers about her brother’s abuse, or to come to him outside of the confessional, so that he could act on what she said. He was a broken, pitiful, weak man in most ways, but he had yet to break the sacred seal of the confessional and hoped that he never would — it was the last good thing in his life that he had to be proud of.

But Tulip refused to
rat on her brother. To a large extent it was fear for his life — she knew he was an addict (if he hadn’t been in the beginning, he certainly was now) and was sure he’d kill himself rather than be parted from her. Regardless of what he’d done to her, he was her brother and she wanted him to live. But shame was also a factor. Though she didn’t mind admitting every act of indecency to Fr Sebastian and God – who forgave all sins – she cringed at the thought of confessing to anyone else.

Kevin s
tudied Tulip as she prayed. He felt wretched, but passion was never far from the surface. Recalling the early months when watching had been enough, Tulip bringing home boys from school, having sex with them, quick and cold, Kevin getting off on the scene. He still fantasized about her bringing back a stranger but was worried that he couldn’t control the situation. If a teenager caught him outside the room, trousers around his ankles, Kevin could threaten the boy —
you were doing wrong too
. An adult couldn’t be so easily manipulated. A man could hurt or expose them. Kevin might never have moved up from friends of Tulip’s if he hadn’t been called in by her headmistress one day for a heart-to-heart.

The headmistress
was concerned — vicious rumours were sweeping the school that Tulip was having intimate relations with a variety of boys. Not unheard of – girls sometimes went wild when puberty hit – but disturbing in Tulip, in all other respects a model student, a lovely girl, very quiet. Could this be a delayed reaction to her father’s death and did Kevin want to avail of a psychiatrist who had assisted other pupils with similar problems?