The Family Tree

by John Everson

  “I really think that…” he started to say, and Rocky laughed. She reached into the front pocket of her shorts, and pulled out a glass flask, topped with a silver cap. “I got a little extra from Ellen tonight,” Rocky said. “Have a sip and you’ll be just fine.”

  As soon as he took the flask from her, she didn’t hesitate, but proceeded to take her clothes off, tossing them on the floor near the bed.

  “Rocky, seriously. I mean, what about Jerry, and…”

  “Fuck Jerry,” she said. “He’s a great guy, but he doesn’t have what I need. I’m betting you do.” She stood up, now wearing nothing but a pair of pink bikini briefs. She put her hand on his wrist and pushed the flask to his mouth.

  “Drink. I need you. Now.”

  She sat back down on the bed, and spread her legs provocatively as he tilted the flask up. When the liquid hit his tongue, he realized that this was the hard stuff, not the Family Ale. His tongue burned where it touched his taste buds, and it disappeared down his throat like honeyed fire.

  “Seriously, now,” she said, and began to peel off her panties.

  Scott shook his head and sparks seemed to ignite on the fringes of his vision. There was a naked woman in his bed, with a face that could stop traffic and a tight little body that could probably give him a heart attack if she tried. He could see the muscles play on her abdomen as she shifted on the bed, beckoning him to come closer.

  He did, and instantly her hands were on him, coaxing the T-shirt over his head. “I don’t think…” he started to say, but then her lips were on his and her tongue was blocking his words and his chest was feeling the soft brush of her skin, and there was a swarm of horny bees somehow buzzing around his eyes and ears, making his cock grow and his hands grab, and after a minute more of trying to protest, Scott gave in and began to earnestly suck and fuck Rochelle “Rocky” Arnell.

  She expressed her appreciation in wet and warm and very athletic ways. While Caroline had enjoyed moving her body across his, smothering him in the sensuality of her young, ripe flesh, Rocky seemed to want to own him with her strength. She straddled and rode him cowgirl style until she was huffing with exertion. Then she pushed herself off and got on her hands and knees, offering herself to him. When he didn’t instantly “take the position” she slapped his thigh and demanded that he give her what she wanted. With a barrage of four-letter words.

  He never even thought to suggest safe sex. His brain was filled with the haze and horniness that the house liquor instilled, and after the workout she’d given him, all he wanted to do was slam into her and taste her…all of her. She was spicy and wild, where Caroline was sweet and erotic, but still somehow almost innocent. Angel and devil.

  She moved with him aggressively, and then slid away, rolling to her back and offering herself to him missionary style. Her lips were full; swollen with excitement and he kissed her hard as he fell back into her. She sucked his tongue hard, and then he arched away, gasping with the heat that moved up his spine.

  When Rocky opened her mouth to cry out, he thought she was going to wake the entire inn. He pressed his hand to her mouth to quiet her and she bit him, so he bent down and bit her back, on the shoulder. Her fingernails raked along his back, drawing blood, he thought, and she growled an animal noise before crying out even louder than before.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “Yes!” she answered.

  When Scott woke up, there was black hair on his pillow. Thick rings of it. They were connected to a head…he shifted and saw that Rocky slept quietly next to him, nude and peaceful. The rosy tip of a nipple peeked out from a fold in the sheets. There were pink marks on her neck and shoulder, and he knew that he had left them there. He didn’t want to see what he’d done to other parts of her slim but nasty little body. Just the thought of it, and of what they’d done last night, made his cock grow. It also made him realize how sore he was.

  Then a thought occurred to him.

  What if Caroline unlocked the door right now?

  His cock shriveled.

  “Rocky,” he said, and rubbed her shoulder until she stirred.

  “It’s morning,” he said when her eyes flickered open. “You need to go home before Jerry comes looking for you.”

  She snickered. “I told you. Jerry does what I tell him to do,” she said. “And I told him to go to bed. He’ll be there until I tell him to get up. Trust me on this, you don’t need to worry about Jerry.”

  She flipped the sheets away from her, exposing the taut muscles of her belly. “What you do have to worry about, is me wearing you out.”

  With that, she rolled over and tackled him, flattening him to the bed, eyes flashing with lust as she bent down to kiss him fast and deep. Scott worried that his “morning mouth” tasted like the bottom of a shoe but then her tongue was all over inside his lips and he was somehow between her thighs and inside her again, and he didn’t worry anymore as the sheets bunched and tangled around them.

  Eventually, she got up and dressed in her discarded clothes. She didn’t bother to put on her bra, but instead stuffed it loosely in her back pocket. The clasp hung out provocatively.

  “That was all right,” she said in her too-quiet voice, planting a quick nip of a kiss on his mouth before she exited the room.

  Scott lay back on the bed and let out a long breath. “All right,” his ass. What the hell had just happened? For the past twelve hours?

  Chapter Eight

  Breakfast was weird. After he showered and changed, Scott walked down to the Family Table, and half of the usual crowd was there this morning…including both Caroline and Rocky. This, in particular, made him very uncomfortable.

  Especially when he sat down and they both got up and switched seats to move closer to him. Caroline sat to his left, and Rocky slid into the chair to his right. As if they were each trying to stake a claim.

  When he lifted his mug of coffee to his lips, he almost spilled it, because suddenly there were hands running up the insides of both his thighs. He actually spread his legs farther apart so that those hands wouldn’t accidentally touch. What would Caroline think if she knew that Rocky was touching him? And vice versa?

  This was not good.

  “Did you sleep okay,” Caroline asked.

  He looked at her face and saw what she was really asking.. “Did you find your way from where I abandoned you on the roof back to your bed?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Eventually.”

  “Good,” she said. “I know I slept like a log. I always sleep well when Mama makes her stew.”

  Scott nodded. “It was amazing.”

  It felt bizarre to be talking about sleeping well because of “stew” after what had happened the night before, but he was saved from saying anything further by the entrance of the Thornes. They looked as if they hadn’t slept well at all last night; her hair was a mess, twisted and tufted around her cheeks, and she’d pulled on a loose T-shirt over a pair of sweat shorts. It was obvious that she hadn’t bothered to put on a bra. Her husband wasn’t much better. Despite having just walked from their room to the breakfast area, he still had a Viagra log lolling about in his sweatpants that wouldn’t be denied.

  They both headed straight for the coffeepot before sitting down at the table with a couple of muffins.

  Caroline whispered in Scott’s ear, “Sometimes the Blood of the Tree really messes people up a little. Like…they can’t stop.”

  Scott thought of his second tryst last night and third this morning and raised a silent eyebrow. He had a less than vague feeling of what that was like.

  “We’re going for a hike again this morning,” Rocky announced, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to come with us?”

  He was starting to beg off when Caroline interrupted.

  “You should go,” Caroline urged. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do for Mama this morning.”r />
  Scott wondered if she’d be encouraging that if she knew what Rocky had been doing to him an hour ago.

  “I don’t know,” Scott said. “I’ve got a lot of things I should take care of for work on the computer.”

  He did have some things he needed to get done, but that wasn’t his real reason. He was scared of what might happen in front of Jerry if Rocky got him out in the hills alone.

  But the decision wasn’t open for discussion.

  “We’re going now,” Rock announced, and pulled Scott by the hand. “You’re coming with us, and we won’t take no for an answer, right, Jerry?”

  Her husband looked a little glazed, but he shook his head.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” Caroline promised, and left the room, seemingly happy that he was going to be occupied for the day.

  A half hour later, Scott was dripping sweat from every pore as they slogged up a zig-zag trail amid a forest that climbed the mountain beside him. The trail was steep but beautiful. The trees had created a canopy over the entire thing, but every now and then, they’d reach a point where you could look out over the hills below. The sight took Scott’s breath away the first time he saw it.

  “I’m not really a hiker,” he warned at one point, gasping for breath behind Rocky, who easily took the lead ahead of both men.

  “Neither am I,” Jerry said behind him. “I just try to keep up with Rocky.”

  Somehow, that was the most depressing statement Scott thought he had ever heard. He flashed to the scene in his bedroom about eight hours ago, and knew that while Jerry might try to keep up, Rocky didn’t wait for him.

  They were about two hours into the hike when Rocky announced that she was dying of heat. Not missing a beat, she stripped her sodden T-shirt off.

  “Um, honey, we’re not alone, you know,” Jerry said.

  Rocky turned to face both of them, flashing her bare breasts without concern. They were visibly damp with perspiration. “I’m hot,” she said. “You guys can take your shirts off too if you want.”

  Scott shrugged, and did just that, and soon Jerry had done the same.

  A few minutes later, Rocky called over her shoulder, “Does anyone have a deck of cards?”

  Jerry asked why, and her response sent a dart of both excitement and fear into Scott’s heart.

  “So we can play strip poker, of course!”

  “You’re not serious,” Jerry said, and Rocky turned around. The sweat was trickling down her bare chest and belly. Her face and neck were flushed.

  “What do you think,” she asked.

  Jerry didn’t say a word, and she laughed. “That’s what I thought. Come on, boys, I think we’re close to the edge.”

  Scott wasn’t sure if she was being metaphorical or geographical, but he also didn’t know if he could walk another step, edge or not. And he didn’t like the vibe that Rocky was spitting out at her husband. She seemed to enjoy humiliating the man, and Jerry seemed content to take it. That said, Scott didn’t really want to be the cause.

  A sudden spring breeze iced the sweat on his back, and Scott slowed. They had to be near the edge of something. While his skin was still hot, he shivered. The breeze was strong.

  “Look at this!” Rocky called from just ahead.

  Scott walked off the trail to where she had disappeared through the brush, and found himself standing on a thick rocky ledge that extended out from the hill they were on. All around the edges, a yellow-green lichen grew, but in the center, it was dark as slate, and empty of any plants.

  “I want you to keep a lookout,” she instructed, pointing at her husband. “Watch the trail behind us in case someone comes.”

  Jerry turned around and walked back down the way they had come. Meanwhile, Rocky unbuttoned her shorts and let them drop to the ground. Then, wearing nothing but a pair of pink panties and hiking boots, she stepped up to Scott and slipped her hands around his neck.

  “I need a little trail break,” she said.

  Scott’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

  “Your husband is standing right over there. What will he do to me if he sees this?”

  “Nothing at all,” she said. “He knows why I sent him away. I have him well trained. Now take off your jeans.”

  Scott looked at Jerry’s back several yards away. Then he looked at Rocky. A black ringlet hooked around her left eye, which he thought was intolerably sexy. He also thought this was the most ridiculous situation he’d ever been in in his life…and he suddenly wanted out.

  “I…can’t,” he said, and lifted Rocky’s hands from his shoulders. She’d easily gotten past his reserve last night, but this just felt too weird. “I’m going back to the inn.”

  But Rocky wouldn’t let go. She grabbed his arm and pulled. In a heartbeat, she had wrapped both arms around his neck and slipped one leg around the back of his, stopping him from stepping away.

  “Rocky, no,” he said, “I don’t want to do this.”

  “But I do,” she said. As if that made his own feeling completely irrelevant. While he felt himself rise at her closeness, at the smell of her, at the soft feel of her naked skin against his, her attitude made him angry. The flash of fury broke any erotic hold she had on him, and he yanked her arms off his neck and pushed her away, hard. She fell back on her ass on the dirt of the trail as Scott staggered backwards into the brush.

  “Don’t let him go, Jerry,” Rocky demanded, starting to rise.

  Jerry moved to intercept him, and Scott panicked. He did not want to be caught. He turned and shoved a branch out of his face and stepped around a bush. He stood on the very edge of a steep hill that dipped into a ravine. He couldn’t go that way. There was no way to go but down. He turned to go back to the trail, but as he turned, his foot slipped into a hole where the dirt had eroded around a tree root. His shoe caught against rock and part of his body went one way, while his leg didn’t move at all. Something snapped. Scott yelped in surprise and pain.

  And then he was falling back into space towards the ravine.

  Scott tumbled over the edge. He saw a blur of long grass and branches whip past and then cracked his head against an outcropping of red stone. Something ripped into his already injured leg and he screamed. And then he tumbled head over heels until suddenly there was a white explosion in his vision. The white turned to black.

  “Will he be okay, Mama?” a girlish voice asked from somewhere far away.

  “He’s pretty beat up,” an older woman answered. Ellen? It seemed like they were speaking from a cloud somewhere. Scott tried to open his eyes, but it didn’t seem to have an impact; all he could see was blackness.

  “He fell pretty far,” another woman said. Her voice was a whisper. But strong. Rocky. He recognized her voice. The events on the hill came back to him in a flash, and Scott groaned. This was all her fault.

  “He’s got some of the blood in him already,” Ellen said. “We’ll just keep giving him more. That’s all we can do.”

  “I think he’s coming to,” the girlish voice said. Caroline.

  Something pressed against his lips. “Drink,” Ellen demanded.

  Scott tried to open his mouth, and something cool slipped down his throat. His chest instantly felt warm as the liquid spread within him, and suddenly his whole body seemed to jolt back to life.

  And his body found that it wasn’t happy.

  Scott groaned again, louder this time. The cobwebs began to clear. The room swam from a dark haze into dim focus and he could see Ellen and Caroline and Rocky and Jerry standing nearby. He was in his bed back at the inn.

  “Yer awake!” Ellen said. Her smile was extensive. “This ’un’s gonna hurt awhile, I won’t lie ta ya,” she told him. “There’s not a spot on ya that ain’t bruised, scratched or broken. Doc Wellington came out this mornin’ and set your leg. All’s you can do now is lay here and get bett
er.”

  Scott lifted his arm and saw the angry red scratches up and down his skin. He struggled to look down, and saw that his leg had two staffs of wood bound to it on either side. Some cast.

  “Drink some more,” Ellen urged, holding a glass to his lips. “This is the best thing for ya right now.”

  Scott drank and soon, drifted back into a fuzzy mash of dream and waking. He spent much of the next three days zoning in and out. Sometimes he woke to feel the warmth of Caroline at his side. One of those times, she smiled when his eyes fluttered open and whispered, “You gotta get well, you know. I ain’t seen Chicago yet.”

  On the fifth day, Scott was awoken by Ellen moving about his room.

  “I think you’ve lain around here long enough,” she said, fussing about with the curtains. “Time to get up and walk around before everything turns to jelly.”

  The sun shone bright through his windows, and she helped him sit up in the bed. Other than feeling fuzzy—like the distant, disconnected feeling of a hangover (though without the headache)—he felt filled with an unnatural energy.

  “I feel like I’ve slept for a week.” He grinned.

  Ellen nodded. “You have. And the Blood of the Tree has done its work while you were away.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Look at your arms,” she said.

  Scott looked for the angry red gashes and scrapes. They were virtually gone. Nothing remained but some pink lines to show for his scratches.

  “That’s impossible,” he said.

  “Remember the story I told you about your great-great-grandfather,” she said. “He was nearly dead when they fed him the sap of the tree. And should have died.”

  “But to do this…?” he said, feeling the skin on his head where there had been a deep gash. There was not even a scab left. “What about my leg?”

  “I think you’ll be limping for a while,” she said. “But I’m sure it’s well on the way to setting. We’ll keep the splint on a while. But you’d best start walking around on it.”

  She put his arm around her shoulders and helped him stand up from the bed. Dizziness overtook him for a moment, but he stood still a minute until it cleared. He stepped forward then, hesitantly. There was a twinge in the leg, but not a stab as he’d expected. He realized too late that he’d been naked beneath the sheets.