Romance: TOXIC (Forbidden, Pregnancy, Taboo Romance, Stepbrother Romance, New Adult Short Stories)

by Styles, Celia

  “What room are you in?” he asked.

  “Five-seventeen,” I said.

  “I’ll send them,” he said.

  There was a short silence. The doorman had his hand on the door, waiting for me to turn around and go in, but I didn’t want to leave him just yet, and he seemed in no hurry to start his engine, either. “I should go,” I said. “Can I--can we meet up again?”

  “I’d love to see you again,” he said, grinning. “Dinner tonight?”

  “Sure,” I said. Especially if the dessert is anything like it was last night.

  We kissed briefly--a polite, see-you-soon type kiss that nevertheless managed to transfer a spark of desire between us--and I went inside, feeling like a foolish fourteen-year-old, head-over-heels in love for the first time. In the elevator, memories of the things we did--the way he moved, the primal, basic desire I felt--kept replaying over and over again in my mind, and by the time I reached my room I was glad for the shower.

  ***

  On our last night together Blake and I didn’t go out to dinner. We drove around until we found a deserted beach and sat on the sand for a while, talking. “It feels weird to do this so early,” he said, as I nestled in his arms.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said. “I mean, I know it’s stupid and silly and totally unrealistic to think that we could be happy forever--”

  “Why is that?” he asked. “Aren’t you happy now?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But now it’s just great food and great sex. What happens when it turns into bills and babies and things get more complicated?”

  “Then we get more complicated,” Blake said, smiling. “We’ll find a way to make things work.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  “Well, look--my dad disowned me when I was seventeen because I told him I didn’t want to go to college. I said I wanted to become a professional surfer. I was in Mexico. I’d just won a major tournament in Baja. And I was completely penniless. So I worked my way back over the border, earning my keep through any under-the-table work I could get. It wasn’t glamorous, and a lot of it sucked. But I made it out of Mexico, and now I have the kind of life that lifestyle gurus call ‘enlightened’ or some other bullshit phrase like that. My point is, if you want it to work, we can make it work. The question is, do you want it to work?”

  I knew that if I said “no”, he’d be okay with it--maybe a bit bummed, but okay. He’d known from the first that we weren’t going to be here permanently. It would be easy for me to say “no”, just walk away from the obligations that come with a long-distance relationship. It was a fun and memorable week in Hawaii--that was how I would remember it.

  But that wasn’t how I wanted to remember it. There was something changing in me. The relationship--what we dared to have of one--felt deeper than anything I’d ever experienced with previous boyfriends. I’d told him more about me than I’d ever let anybody else, even my mother, know. This wasn’t just an infatuation--this was love.

  “I do,” I said. “I want this to work so badly, it scares me.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, kissing my hands. “We’ll find a way.”

  ***

  But before we could figure anything out, my mom first had to move in with Bryce. The house in Trenton had been sold already, so it was mostly a matter of moving boxes from storage into the lavish mansion house in Bryn Mawr. “I think this wing is bigger than the entire freshman dorms,” I said as I gawked. The lofty ceilings, French windows--it all smacked of too much money and not enough things to do with it. And I had six months to find a job that paid well enough to start repaying the $20,000 student loan.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” my mother said, absently.

  “It’s nice,” I agreed. “But--”

  There was no way to be discreet about the fact that her books were ratty Harlequin paperbacks in a house of leather-bound, gilt-edged classics; her clothes were made-in-China knockoffs of knockoffs when even the butler wore a designer tuxedo; the things she owned were used and battered and worn in a place where these things didn’t seem to exist.

  “Welcome to Waterhouse Manor,” Bryce said, from the top of the winding stairs. I didn’t want to know what rain forest had been felled to make the bannister. “Your mother and I want you to know that you can stay with us for as long as it takes to find a job.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Like hell.

  “Marcy is the head housekeeper, in charge of Bridget and Mia, the two maids,” Bryce said, as he came down the stairs. A woman, dressed in slacks and a button-down, stepped forward, with two women who were dressed as, well, maids. “Bertrand is the butler,” and at this point the man stepped forward, saying, “We’ve already made our acquaintances, sir, but it is always a pleasure.”

  Is this guy for real?

  I shook hands with Bryce, trying to think of something to say besides, “You’ve got a really big house.” Fortunately, I was spared any lingering awkwardness when he caught sight of something behind me. “Ah, there they are! Anne, come here, my sweet. And you too, Lila. It’s time to introduce you to the family.”

  The barbeque that evening was lovely. Everything was lovely--his children, Isadora and her husband Frank, Dorian and his wife Germaine, and their eight children. The food was lovely, prepared as it was by the French chef who had somehow managed to live in the house for thirty years and still have no idea how to speak English. My mother was lovely, smiling graciously, cooing at her step-grandchildren. I realized, watching her, that while she might not have the right things, she did belong here. Not like me. I had to actively guard my tongue to keep from saying anything that wasn’t lovely.

  “No, you can’t--Master--”

  From the depths of the house, we heard Bertrand arguing with someone, and then a man said, “I’m part of this family too, am I not?”

  The voice was familiar to me, but I was so excited to see Blake that the implications didn’t register in my mind at first.

  “Dad,” Blake said, storming out onto the patio where we were all seated. “You trying to blackmail me into going to law school is one thing. But I have a right to know who’s in--” we caught each other’s eye at that moment “--in my family.” He managed to finish the sentence, which was more than I could’ve done.

  “You are no son of mine,” Bryce said. “Bertrand, please call Jeremy and have this man escorted off the premises.”

  “Oh Bryce,” my mother said. “Let him stay. Just this once. For my sake. I mean, he came to see us, and it’s not really that much of an imposition to let him have a little supper, is it?”

  In the argument that ensued, Blake edged back into the shadows of the house. Bryce’s other grown children were watching the first marital spat with contemptuous amusement. I knew I should back my mom, but the horror of finding out that the man I was madly in love with was my step-brother drove me into the house, after him.

  I caught him at the front door. “Blake,” I called.

  “Did you know?” he asked, angrier than I’d ever seen him.

  “No,” I said. “I swear. You said your last name was Bellafonte--”

  “I took my mother’s maiden name after he disowned me,” he said, blankly, as if he couldn’t believe that this decision actually came back to bite him.

  “--so I never suspected, and my mom only ever mentioned Isadora to me.”

  “Come on, outside,” he said. “The walls have ears, here.”

  I went with him. His car--a rental--was still in the driveway. The groundskeeper, who was still deciding whether to take it to the garage, saw us come out, and he gave the keys back to Blake.

  We got in. “We need to figure out what to do,” he said, as he gunned the car down the driveway.

  I wanted to take his hand, but he’d gotten a car with a stick-shift, so all I could do was lightly rest my fingertips on the tops of his knuckles. What do you say when you find out that the man of your dreams is your step-brother?

  “Maybe it’s not so bad,” I
said. “I mean, your dad doesn’t like you, so he probably wouldn’t oppose us--”

  “It is that bad,” he said. “Izzy and Dorian and I are all still really close. They were the ones who told me that Dad was finally letting them meet his new wife and step-daughter. I just--I can’t believe I didn’t see him--”

  “He and my mother got whisked into the car,” I said. “The rest of us plebes had to walk back to the hotel by the time you came along.”

  For the first time that night, he laughed. It was a bitter laugh. “What a difference five minutes would’ve made,” he said.

  “Do you still love me?” I asked, hesitantly.

  “Yes,” he said. “I mean, it felt right, didn’t it?”

  “It still does,” I said. “I mean, it’s not as if we’re blood relations.”

  We drove in silence for a little while, while we both mulled this over. Maybe this wasn’t quite as disgusting as we’d been led to believe. After all, the attraction had been there, first. And, as I’d said, we were only relatives by marriage.

  He eventually parked the car on the far side of Kelly Drive, so that we could see the boathouses on the other side of the Schuylkill. “So do we want to tell them?” he asked.

  “I think they’ll have figured it out by now,” I said. “It’s been--almost forty minutes, right?”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “I guess. It is a big house, though. First-timers could very easily get lost.”

  “It’s big, but not that confusing,” I said.

  “I dunno, I kept getting the blue and yellow hallways mixed up for the longest time--and I was born there.”

  “They both have pictures of some glowering ancestor, right?”

  He snorted. “Yeah. You could put it that way.”

  “Well, as long as they’re glowering, we may as well have done something to earn it,” I said.

  And it was strange, how knowing that this was not supposed to be made it all that much more. His put his hand on my thigh--a proposition. I looked back at him. Fuck 'em, I wanted to say. Fuck 'em by fucking me. I reached across the seat, and found his cock, already bulging against his jeans. We didn't need to talk.

  I hadn’t realized how much I longed for his hands on me until his fingers were flicking away at my clitoris, while I straddled his lap, nibbling at his lips, feeling his cock pulse against the inside of my thigh in time with my mouth. Any man could touch a woman the way he touched me, but I wanted him, precisely because I wasn't supposed to have him. I licked his ear, feeling him shudder beneath me. His hips pressed against mine, working like a slow bass, and I could feel his body tremble with desire. Slowly, as we kissed, as my pussy got slick and wet and as I felt him get harder and more insistent, I also began to tremble. If this was wrong, why did it feel so good, why did we need each other so badly?

  He reclined the seat, and while I stripped off my dress he worked himself out of his pants. “Turn around,” he said hoarsely. "I want the world to see you when we do this. I want the world to be jealous of how beautiful you are."

  I straddled him and he took me from the back, thrusting upwards. The idea that someone walking by could see all of me excited me, and I reached behind me, grabbing onto his forearms so that every thrust could expose me more. I felt that familiar ache as he slid deeper inside me, the spasm of pleasure arching my back, driving him ever deeper, while his hand continued to fondle between my legs, teasing the urge for more to ever higher levels.

  The sex we’d had in Hawaii was tender, gentle, born of love. This was different--it was born out of defiance, and in the final moments, the hardness emerged--he pinched my nipples until they tingled with pain, and in that pain I found and ecstasy that welcomed the pounding he gave me. For the first time in my life, I realized that I was feeling the raw power of pure lust. It touched something deep inside, a little spark of electric desire that grew stronger with each thrust, and I shivered to my soul when he came inside me.

  ***

  There wasn’t anything to do afterwards--by which I mean two in the morning, because after that we both fell asleep in each other’s arms--but put on our clothes and drive back. We considered stopping at a 24-hour diner for breakfast on the way back, but we decided that my mother was probably having apoplectic fits by now, and it would be a kindness to get back as soon as possible.

  When he pulled into the driveway, though, we immediately realized that there was something far worse happening than "just" step-siblings-banging-each-other. All of the lights were on. A quick look at the garage revealed that Isadora and Dorian had both left. Altogether, none of it boded well for either of us.

  He left the car parked in front of the house and together we went in, clutching each other's hands--me to support him in his stand against his father, him to support me for defying taboo and loving him as someone other than a brother.

  It seemed as if nobody was home at first, but then Bryce emerged from one of the hallways. He pretended not to see Blake. "You owe your mother an apology," he said. "She's frantic."

  "You owe him one, first," I said, forcing the words out even though my body was quivering.

  He shook his head. "Do you know what the last words he said to me were?"

  "That doesn't matter," I said, but he spoke over me, saying, "'I don't need you or your money or your love.' Mark my words, girl--he'll spit those words at you someday."

  Blake's jaw was clenched, as he fought his temper to keep from rising to his father's bait. "I'm not that boy anymore," he said, as evenly as he could manage. "Hard work makes a man--"

  "Hard work, my ass. Tell me, how many men did you have to whore yourself to in order to get back on the right side of the border?"

  "I never had to scrape that low," Blake said. "Which you'd know if you ever did a lick of work in your life."

  "Stop it!" I shouted. "Please. Where is my mother?"

  Bryce stood to one side to let us pass him. As we passed him, though, I could sense that Blake was spoiling for a fight. This wasn't the last of it, not by a long shot. But it would have to wait. I could hear the sounds of someone sobbing down the hall. I ran to what they called the parlor--it was too big, in my opinion, to be anything other than a living room, so why they insisted on calling it a parlor was beyond me--where I found my mother, sitting on the couch, weeping. "Mom," I said, giving her a hug.

  "Lila, oh thank God," she said. "I was trying to convince Bryce to let his son stay--"

  "That doesn't matter now," I said.

  "Did he change his mind?" she asked. "Hello, Blake. Where are my manners? I'm sorry that we had to meet the way we did--"

  Blake managed a half-hearted smile.

  "Mom, I have something to tell you," I said, taking her hand and guiding her back to the sofa. "Please don't be alarmed."

  She took the news a lot better than I thought she would--I had to give her that much--listening in silence as I explained how we'd met and that we loved each other. "Physically?" It was her only question at the end of my retelling of our Hawaiian escapade.

  I took a deep breath. We'd never had "The Talk"--she'd left sex-ed up to the health class of my public school system. She was one of those old-fashioned people who think that a girl should save herself for marriage, that getting to know someone sexually was tantamount to getting gang-banged. I never told her that I used to let Tom Whittaker (high school) touch my breasts, or that I gave blow jobs to Shawn Abrams. "Yes," I said, finally.

  "Oh. So. What now, then?" she asked. "Surely you're going to get married soon, right?"

  I looked at Blake. "Well ma'am," he said. "It's a little too early to say for sure, but I, for one, would like to marry your daughter. With your blessing, of course."

  "But I can't," she said, and she began sobbing again. "You're brother and sister now! I know you're not related, but you are now. Don't you see how wrong it is?"

  There was nothing we could say, or do. Bryce, who had been watching from the entrance, hissed at me, "Go get your things, you hussy. Leave."


  "That's not what she said," I retorted.

  "My house, my rules."

  "Fuck your rules."

  I was on the floor before I even registered that he'd slapped me. Even Blake had been caught off guard. He helped me up, his fists clenching in futile rage. He wouldn't hit his father, no matter what Bryce did, and they both knew it. Even as terrible as Bryce was, he was still Blake's father. "Come on, Lila," he said, leading me back down the passage. "We should go."

  "I can't leave my mom like this," I said. "She's still crying."

  "You still don't get it, do you?" he asked.

  "Get what?"

  "She's not your mom anymore. She's his wife."

  ***

  The next few days passed in a dissociative fugue for me. The back-and-forth, between having everything and nothing, being someone and nobody, was too much and the only way I could cope with it was by becoming numb to everyone and everything. We ended up staying with Isadora for the time. Isadora lived in the middle part of Pennsylvania, in Amish country, though she and her family weren't Amish. But they had a lot of visitors, and the Amish children and her children played with each other quite happily. "I like the simple life," Isadora confided to me, "but not enough to give up Orange is the New Black!"

  It was a bit of a shock to Isadora and Dorian--more to him than to her--to realize that we were step-brother and step-sister, but after a little gentle arguing from Blake, they came around. "If I'd met her under any other circumstances you guys would be cheering us on," Blake said, and they had to agree that he was right.

  I suppose we had sex, too, but if we did it was because he had to and not because I wanted to. I couldn't want to. My mother, who'd been my constant companion and friend growing up, had been torn from my life. We were as good as dead to each other, for all the communication that Bryce would allow--and I had been completely unprepared to let her go. It's not fair, I wanted to whine, but Blake had been disowned at seventeen--he'd had years to get used to the ache. I couldn't expect him to understand.