Tarnished

by Erica Chilson

  Feeling suspicious, I ask, “You’re still enrolled in school, right?”

  “Yes, Dad. I might not know what I want to do as a career, but I do know I’m going to need a degree for whatever I decide. I’m not going to live off my trust fund– you don’t. You have more money now than what you initially started with, and I want to be like you.”

  “Don’t butter me up so I can’t reason out what’s actually going on.” I warn, but I’m blushing from my son’s praise.

  “Don’t even bother trying to figure it out,” Bren warns back. “The day you tell everyone the truth, is the same day I’ll tell you what’s going on. So be patient. But I’ll need that deposit in the next few days so I can secure an apartment.”

  “Fine. But I don’t know if I like this commanding side of you,” I mutter to Bren with my eyes narrowed.

  “You lie,” Kade taunts me. “You secretly love it.” He gets up from his seat, striding over to Bren. Kade grips Bren’s shoulders, laughing at some joke only he can hear. “Hot damn, my baby brother is acting like a man!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Penny and Willa leaning against the threshold between the kitchen area and where we’re sitting. I should have known better once their catfight ended. Acknowledged, they both step forward, looking perfectly content around one another after their confrontation.

  “My baby doesn’t know how to walk yet, so I figured he must be with you.” Penny approaches me cautiously– the only member in this fucked up family who sees me as an authority figure.

  “Copper loves his Uncle Royce,” I use baby-talk as I pick him up to hand him off to his momma. “But he loves you more.”

  “Uh-huh… he only loves me ‘cuz I’m the food source.” Walking toward the office, Penny controls Copper’s milk-seeking mouth and grasping hands before he gives us a show. “Time for some grub…” flows as she shuts the door behind her.

  Resting a hand on my shoulder, “My nephew is such a guy,” Willa teases. “Already going nuts over tits.”

  Chuckling, I want to show Willa what a guy I am. “Copper’ll never grow out of it. Hayden was a fat little fucker, always suckling. Arms flying everywhere, trying to knock his sister off your other boob.”

  “What started our bitch-fest in the kitchen is when I told Penny how she couldn’t complain about Copper biting down during a feeding because she didn’t have two of the leeches stuck to her tits at the same time.” Willa shrugs, completely unrepentant. “I might have insulted her… oh, well.”

  “I’ve got somewhere I need to be,” Bren mutters, fleeing the room in a mad dash to get away from all the woman talk.

  “Me too, I guess.” Kade shrugs at us, then stares at his closed office door with great longing. Sighing, “Well, my paperwork will have to wait. This gay man does not want to know what an enlarged nipple looks like, especially when it’s shoved in his godson’s mouth.” With a visible shudder rolling up his spine, Kade walks into the kitchen, no doubt with Wynn as his destination.

  “Now that that’s over…” Willa tugs me from my seat, and then wraps her arm around my waist. “Time to see a real therapist.”

  “Ugh,” I grunt, but then my voice twists up into a whine mimicking the kids. “Do we have to?”

  “We have less than a week before we have our family session,” Willa reminds me. “So I’d say we have to.”

  Being tugged out the front door, I mutter, “You’re so smart. I’m glad you chose me.”

  S. E. X.

  “You have a lot of new developments culminating at once, Royce. The Life Skills Center opening. The anniversary of your wife and father’s passing, as well as the anniversary of your attack. Your visit with Donny. The group session. Your sons going off to college, moving away from home. How are you coping with all of this?”

  “Dr. Cassidy, I–” leaning forward, I grab the pillow from behind my back, and the good doctor misses nothing. Hugging the pillow to my chest, I eye the teddy bears hanging out near her desk.

  Eyes twinkling behind her bifocals, “Not well, I take it,” she mutters wryly.

  “You are very sarcastic for a doctor,” I drawl, causing Willa to giggle into her hand next to me– she’s not hugging a pillow today. “Good actually. I’m hitting this shit head-on, knowing once it passes it’s done and over with. I’m actually thrilled that all of this happens in less than a week.”

  “You’ll feel a bit lost without all of this stress hanging over your head,” Dr. Cassidy predicts. “So you’ll need to find something else to draw your attention.”

  “I own a dozen businesses that I need to run, and I’m going to focus my energy on the center. My brother’s appeal is always on my mind. I also have two eight-year-old kids who might be pissed at me after our group session. So there is that… and I whole-heartedly plan on focusing on Willa.”

  Dr. Cassidy’s lips quirk up slightly at the corners, but it might as well be her version of beaming brightly. “How do you feel about cementing your relationship with your brother’s wife?” she baits me.

  “Ex-wife,” I snarl.

  “Ex-wife,” the doctor allows. “How do you feel about that?”

  “I feel nothing,” I get defensive. “If you’re wanting me to get down on my knees and grovel, that ain’t happening. I don’t feel any regret or shame when it comes to Donny over this– not anymore. Willa’s marriage to my brother meant nothing. I belonged to her, and Donny knew it.”

  “What changed? Why did you go from the loyal widower, who wanted nothing more than to protect his big brother, to the adulterer who was having sexual intercourse with his very young sister-in-law? What happened to that Royce?”

  “I’m still him. He’s still me. I was him then, just as I am now. Nothing changed. Nothing,” I bite out between gritted teeth. “Nothing.”

  9 years ago

  Donny begged me to visit this time. For obvious reasons– mainly my dick seeking my brother’s child-bride –I’ve avoided stepping foot on Kennedy land. For almost two months, he’s been visiting me, never bringing Willa with him. But tonight he begged knowing I’d fold and give in.

  I was going to bring the kid with me as a buffer, but Bren wandered off to a sleepover with his little friends, leaving me utterly defenseless against that innocent-looking, foul-mouthed succubus.

  Gripping my steering wheel tighter, my hands are sweating from the nerves. My heart is joining the party, beating a wicked tattoo inside my chest. I can’t put words to how I feel. Maybe this is that wild sensation teenagers go through when they meet someone who lights their asses on fire for the first time.

  I never experienced that as a kid. I met Annie when I was a little guy, and she befriended me– was my only friend. I wasn’t much of a joiner. Baseball came to me naturally, but I would have only played catch with my old man if he hadn’t forced T-ball all the way through varsity softball on me.

  Annie was my best friend, a few years ahead of me in school. She would come to my softball games because her daddy was the coach. Coach thought I was a hard-worker and going places. Reflecting back, that’s probably why shortly after I turned fourteen, in celebration for earning a write-up in Kentwood County’s newspaper, Annie said it was time to lose our virginity.

  My Annie trapped me, but I loved her like a best friend anyway. So through courting her, meeting my father-in-law’s demands, marriage, babies, and faulty ignition switches, I never got to be a young man. So, as I’m closing in on thirty years old, I don’t know why I feel a bit crazy as I park my truck on Kennedy land, just because a wildling is waiting inside the house.

  With a hitch in my step and a tune whistling between my lips, I act like I’m not freaking the fuck out. I take the front stairs two at a time, wishing my brother would have come to my house and sat around the bonfire with me instead.

  The door is swinging open just as my hand reaches to turn the knob. Donny’s hands are tugging me inside, like he can sense I’m about to bolt for my truck and hightail it out of here. “Ro
yce.” My brother’s voice holds pure pleasure for being in my company as he pulls me into a back-slapping hug.

  “You could have come to me,” I mutter begrudgingly as I pull away. “The guilt-trips involving Kennedy land don’t hold the same weight now that it’s just a prefab modular, not the house Granddaddy built.”

  “The land’s the same and I’m still standing on it.” Donny flashes me a bright grin, like he’s the luckiest bastard in the whole wide world because he has me. Guilt seeps in, twisting my guts over what happened during my last visit.

  “I’m glad to see Sean isn’t here.” My words seem innocent enough, but the tone accompanying them is pure rage. I step farther into the house, the sound of the game filtering from the television set.

  Donny ignores my Sean dig after refusing to explain himself last I asked. “C’mon, bud. Let’s watch the game, have a few beers, and eat the junk food Willa’s cooked up for us.”

  Self-preservation kicking in, “I best hold off on the beer.” As I settle onto the adultery couch, I ask about the booze-peddler herself. “How’s your bride of five months?”

  Jesus, could I sound any guiltier?

  I should have asked where Willa was, so I could keep an eye out for her. She might pop out of nowhere asking for my dick… and I’d probably put it in her hand.

  I’m going to Hell.

  My brother drops into his recliner with a deep sigh of contentment. “Good. She’s prettying herself up.”

  Suspicious, I grunt, “Why?”

  For me?

  “Willa’s a woman… they don’t need a reason for anything they do.” Donny hits the volume up on the remote, filling the living room with the echo of commentators and riotous fans. He reaches forward, grabbing his beer off the coffee table. His behavior is the usual, but there’s an odd air floating about that I don’t like one bit. Something’s off.

  “What’s up?” I try to be heard over the TV, which I can only assume was the point of jacking it up so high in the first place. “You’re gonna need hearing aids if you don’t turn it down.”

  “Huh? What’d you say?” Donny goes back to ignoring me on purpose.

  “Exactly,” I mutter sarcastically. My eyes flick about, noting how the house appears to be the same as last I was here. Only now, Willa’s books are spread across the top of Donny’s desk on the far wall. At least she’s still studying.

  Knowledge in that woman’s mind is a scary thing. She’s already too smart and cunning for my own good. I ought to stop giving her textbooks, or maybe I ought to get her more advanced books.

  Pretending to watch the game, cheering when Donny does, I can’t tell which teams are playing against one another because I don’t even know what sport is on TV. That’s how insane Willa is making me feel.

  Where in tarnation is that dang woman? I need to see Willa so I’ll calm down.

  “What the hell, Roy?” Donny calls me out. “Why would you cheer when the ref made a piss-poor call?” I blush bright red, thankful for the darkened living room. When I don’t answer, my brother stares me down with eyes crinkling at the corners, laughing. “Boo! The right response is boo.”

  “Boo…” I rumble lamely, and Donny chuckles at me.

  Antsy, I can’t sit still. “Dude, if you wipe your hands on your jeans one more time…” Donny warns me, flashing me an odd look. “Go get a fucking dishtowel and hit the thermostat if you’re so hot. What is your malfunction tonight?”

  “Shit!” I jack-rabbit off the couch cushion, head toward the kitchen, and when I get there I forget why I went there in the first place. I end up back on the adultery couch, rubbing my sweaty palms on my thighs. “I-I-I I–”

  “You look like you could use this,” Willa’s raspy voice has me shrieking in surprise. I’m so off my game that I take the beer from her hand and drain the bitch in a few swallows. “Thought so.”

  Willa’s in yet another virginal white sundress, even though it’s autumn now, and it’s so transparent I can tell that she’s not wearing a lick of clothing beneath. I can even see the soft fuzz between her thighs and the points of her nipples.

  I’m using an express pass to Hell.

  After passing her smirking husband another beer, Willa settles on cushion next to me, offering me another cold one. “Are you trying to get me drunk again?” I meep when I realize what I implied. “Not that you ever got me drunk before.” I eye my brother, but he looks like he could give two shits about anything but the game.

  “Calm down, Royce-baby,” Willa breathes into my ear. Then the minx wraps herself around my arm, cuddling into my side like I’m her husband, and my brother doesn’t say a goddamned word.

  Frozen stock-still, I stare straight ahead at nothing. My heart is beating out of my chest, supplying the blood flow to my greedy dick. Every nerve in my skin is alive and quivering to get closer to Willa, and I don’t understand what’s going on with them or with me.

  “Jesus! Really?” Willa shouts at the TV, sounding like a surly pirate. “Making bad calls against one team is rotten… making them against both teams? Get a new job, asshole!”

  “Where do they find these morons?” Donny and Willa engage in a referee bashing session, both of them looking at each other, the game, and directly at me, and neither acknowledging the fact that Willa is wrapped around me like an afghan.

  “What the hell?” lunging to my feet, I jump off the couch, tumbling Willa to the side. “Did I enter the Twilight Zone?” I charge out of the room, down the hallway, and straight into the safety of the bathroom.

  Secure in the bathroom, I turn the taps on full-bore to block out the noise of the game. Toed up to the toilet, I unzip my jeans. Hand wrapped around cock, I try to take a piss with a hard-on. “Go down, you dumb bastard. What is wrong with you?” I stare down at my dick, getting angry with it. I choke it a bit, causing me to wince. “Go down!”

  Stepping side-to-side, hoping that will help, I reason with my penis. “Why won’t you go down, you perverted sister-in-law fucker? If you don’t, I’ma cut you clean off at the nutsack. Eh? That doesn’t sound fun, does it?” Through gritted teeth, I hiss, “Go down!” while squeezing my dick out of frustration.

  “Yer doing it wrong if yer trying to jerk off.” Willa has me jumping so far out of my skin, I almost tear my own dick off at the root. “Unless yer into hurting yer willy.”

  Wrapping herself around my back, nestling her tiny breasts against me, both of Willa’s hands latch onto my dick and start stroking.

  “Stop it!” I whisper-shout at her, yet I can’t seem to get my hands to yank her off of me. “Donny will wonder what the fuck is up!”

  “Don’t you wonder what’s up?” Willa sounds incredulous, even as she’s giving me a handy jay. Fist squeezing so tight my cockhead almost pops off… “’Cuz I know what’s up.”

  “You have to stop,” I plead. My thighs start to give out from the pleasure of it, body sagging forward. Automatically my arms reach out to the back of the toilet tank to hold myself upright. “This is so wrong. Bad, Willa. Bad. No. Naughty.”

  “Depraved?” Willa whispers against my ear in the seductive voice of the devil. “I’ve missed you, Royce. You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I wonder why, you succubus,” I gasp out, panting like I’m running a marathon. My traitorous hips start weaving back and forth, causing my cock to slide in Willa’s tiny palms.

  The friction feels so fucking good… or maybe it’s the sin that’s wrecking me.

  “Please,” I beg… to come.

  My eyes snap shut against the need to marvel over how huge my cock looks in her tiny hands, and to pretend I’m not so into it that I’m drenching her skin in my pre-cum.

  “Please lie to me and say I’m hallucinating.”

  “Yer not.” Willa’s as blunt as ever. “We’re standing in my bathroom, while yer brother is in the living room, and I’m jerking ya off… and yer lovin’ it.”

  “Something is wrong with me. Very wrong with me.” My hips jerk forwar
d like I’m thrusting home. All it takes is the pinprick of a fingernail digging into my cockhead to set me off.

  Forehead resting against the bathroom wall, hands clenching the back of the toilet tank, teeth drawing blood to keep the scream at bay, I ejaculate a lifetime worth of seed. “My God…” My neck arches from the pleasurable pain. “Forgive me.” Quivering, it hurts so good I fear my nuts shoot out the tip of my dick.

  Exhausted, I just fought a battle– with myself –and lost. My eyes slip shut, only to pop back open at the sound of Willa’s voice. “Now you can take yer piss.”

  Head whipping to the side, “What? Is your head cracked?” I take one look at Willa and go ballistic, not caring if my brother overhears me. “Oh! No, you fucking didn’t! Say you didn’t?”

  Willa runs around the small bathroom, avoiding my reaching hand. She hops into the shower and I follow, and the little minx hops right back out. “Oh, fuck no… no…. no… no. no. no. no.” In denial, I mutter on repeat as I try to grab at Willa’s moving parts. “You get back here! Get your hand out from beneath your dress. WILLAMINA KENNEDY!”

  “Like you didn’t know it was coming,” Willa taunts me, looking flushed from evading my swinging arms. “I only promised not to do it the first time, and I waited until you were sober. Fair’s fair.”

  “Fair?” A high-pitched shriek spills from my throat like I’m a teenage girl. “Fair?” I manage to grab ahold of her wrist. Hauling her up against my chest so I can get a better grip on her, “You stole my seed, you thieving hillbilly bitch!”

  I toss Willa onto the vanity top, none too kindly, and then wrench her legs apart. “You didn’t, did you? You’re just playing with me? I mean, nobody would ever do this to someone. Would they?”

  Acting like I’m the one in the wrong, Willa turns surly. “I don’t know what fantasy land yer living in, buddy boy. But it ain’t mine…”