"Oh, Creagon, you startled me!" Melissa said, recognizing her brother standing just to one side of the moss-covered tree trunk.
"Sorry," Creagon said, flashing his sister an attractive and apologetic smile. "You looked so lost in thought I was just beginning to wonder if I shouldn't just slip away and not disturb you."
"No, that's all right," Melissa said, wondering if it were really all right at all. She had somehow successfully managed to keep away from any one-to-one confrontations with her brother up until now. And, she felt inexplicably nervous about being here alone with him. Not that she had anything to fear.
"I was glancing out the window this beautiful morning, and I happened to see you heading into the edge of the wood. I somehow suspected you'd be coming to this very spot."
So, he remembered how she used to come here when she wanted to be alone, did he? How many other things did he remember? Melissa felt herself helplessly blushing.
"It hasn't really changed all that much here, has it?" Melissa asked, giving a sweeping motion of one hand to encompass the small area surrounded by trees on three sides and a dribbling waterfall on the other. "Oh, the trees have gotten a little bigger, the bushes have sprouted a little thicker, but nothing is too far removed from how I remember it."
Melissa sat down on the same dead log she had recently jumped up from when she had realized there was someone in the shadows. Now that she realized it was her brother, her original fear hadn't completely dissipated. And, why exactly was that?
Creagon kept to the tree trunk but walked around it so that he could capture a bit of the slashing of sunlight that penetrated through the thick canopy of interlocking tree limbs above them. He leaned back against the trunk, folding his arms across his chest and eyeing his sister with a look Melissa wasn't quite able to decipher.
Melissa quit looking at her brother – not sure just why she preferred the trickling water over the rocks to the superbly handsome form her brother cut, his blond hair made almost white by the ray of sunlight that struck it. Creagon's highlighted hair gave his head a kind of nimbus effect that made Melissa think of those holy pictures that portrayed some angel or religious personage.
But, wasn't that a deceptive trick of lighting! Because, Creagon was no more an angel or holy personage than Melissa was the Virgin Mary.
"I thought we might talk," Creagon said finally, deciding his sister had been made prettier over the years. She had filled out, taking on a woman's voluptuousness without losing a certain little-girl quality. "It has been a long time since we both talked alone, hasn't it?"
"Fifteen years," Melissa said, wishing she hadn't said it. She didn't want Creagon to think she had been counting the days.
Why was she so nervous? Why was she feeling all hot and sticky when the shading made by the forest trees was actually quite chilly?
"He was a bastard, you know that, don't you?" Creagon said, having no doubt whatsoever but that Melissa would know just who "he" was. "His attempt at deathbed repentance didn't make him any less a bastard, either."
"He was our father!" Melissa said defensively, wondering why she was defending William Davenport now when Creagon's words only echoed what Melissa had been thinking all along. "He's dead; and, he's left us everything."
"Everything isn't enough – at least as far as I'm concerned," Creagon said. "He waited a little too long to clean up his house as properly as it should have been cleaned."
"Oh, well, he's dead and gone, now, isn't he?" Melissa sighed, wishing she weren't here, now, alone, with her brother.
"But will the harm he caused ever be dead and gone?" Creagon asked her.
"Harm?" Melissa asked as if she really didn't comprehend the insinuation. She still didn't look at her brother; although, she knew he hadn't taken his eyes off her. Melissa could feel Creagon's blue eyes driving into her like warm knives into soft butter.
"You know if there had been any way of taking you with me, I would have done it, don't you?" Creagon asked, moving slowly away from the tree, approaching Melissa slowly, like someone might approach a frightened animal.
"Why must we bring this all up now?" Melissa asked, hearing her voice come out strangely hoarse.
"Because Satan has gone, and it's best to try and exorcise as many of the demons he's left behind."
"It will do more harm than good to bring out the can of worms," Melissa said. Why did she want to get up and run… run… run until she was safely locked in her room at the house? "Some things are better left unsaid. Some things are better left buried."
"You actually believe that?"
"Yes," she said, looking at him only for a split second before turning away. God, but he was handsome! And, how could anything as attractive and as angelic be evil personified?
There was a pregnant pause, disturbed only by the creak of rotting wood as Creagon sat down on the dead log beside his sister.
"Marne told me last night that you and John were having marital problems."
"Yes, problems," Melissa muttered, hardly surprised that the secret wasn't a secret. Melissa doubted if Creagon had really needed Marne to tell him anything.
"John loves you, you know that, of course?"
"Yes, I know that," Melissa said. But, did Creagon have any idea just how disgustingly perverted that love had become? Yes, maybe he did! Maybe Creagon didn't even consider it perverted love, as Melissa somehow suspected Creagon had never really come to admit that other abomination was perverted either.
"But, you no longer love him?" Creagon asked wondering why his sister wouldn't look at him. Was she afraid?
"I'm going to divorce him," Melissa said, "as soon as the estate goes through probate. I'll, of course, see that he's given a substantial monetary settlement. He should have no trouble finding himself someone more suitable. He, after all, is quite attractive; and, money will make him totally irresistible."
"There is no hope for a reconciliation, then?"
"He's not the man I married, Creagon," Melissa said breaking a piece of rotten bark off the log.
"What you mean is, he's more a man than what you married, don't you?"
Melissa looked up quickly, locking her blue eyes momentarily with the gaze directed at her from Creagon's blue eyes. Did Creagon know, then? Did he know? But, then, know what? What could Creagon possibly know? John and she had simply drifted apart, gone separate ways. It happened sometimes in the best of marriages.
Melissa broke the eye-to-eye contact first, glancing back toward the water.
"I shall hate our father until my dying breath for what he's done to you, Melissa," Creagon said.
"Just what exactly has he done to me?" Melissa asked, not knowing whether or not she really wanted to hear Creagon's answer.
"He's turned a loving little girl into a frigid woman who prefers eunuchs to real honest-to-God men."
"That is a spiteful thing for you to say!" Melissa said, her voice cracking as it issued loudly from her throat. She stood up, facing her brother, genuine anger darting out of her eyes to pinion him to the log he'd remained sitting on.
"It's true, though, isn't it?" Creagon asked, not to be deterred by his sister's theatrics. "John went off to war and came back too much of a man for you to handle, didn't he?"
"I should have known you'd find a way to defend him," Melissa said, disappointed that her brother wasn't siding with her like he once most assuredly would have done.
"There was a time I very well remember when you exulted with a real man's cock buried to its cum-filled balls up your cunt. So, what happened, Melissa? What for Christ's sake happened?"
The vulgarity! A real man's cock? And, Melissa very well knew to whose cock Creagon was referring, didn't she? The perverted, egotistical sonofabitch! She had been a fool to shoulder the guilt all of these years when it was obvious Creagon was more to blame than she had been.
"I think this conversation has gone far enough," Melissa said, turning to head back to the house. She let out a startled scream when she felt Creagon's restraining hand clamp hard into her right arm and spin her back to face him.
"Don't be a fool, Melissa," Creagon said.
God, he was handsome. God, he was handsome. God, he was handsome.
"My private life is my own personal affair," Melissa told him, wincing with the pain where his fingers had squeezed her arm. She wondered vaguely if she would have a bruise.
"Listen, Melissa, the old man is dead now. He's gone and buried. You've no longer got him standing over your shoulder, ready to shake his head in disgust and send you off to convent school because of every little harmless thing you decide to do."
Ah ha! Harmless? So, he actually did look on what they had done as harmless! Melissa had known that he would. But, she didn't think of it as harmless, did she? And if she once had, then that time was long gone and forgotten. Because, they had both sinned. Oh, yes, they had both sinned. Against man. Against God. And, here Creagon came again, after fifteen long years, like the Devil to give temptation, to tell Melissa it was all right, that it had all been innocent after all. But, it was too late to fool her now. Because, she knew better. Creagon was wrong; because, how could Melissa have been punished for so long for having done something that was innocent and harmless?
"Husbands and wives grow apart; and so, obviously, do brothers and sister," Melissa said, mustering up all of her effort to retain control of her mounting fear.
And, what exactly was she afraid of?
"Don't let him control your life even from the grave," Creagon pleaded with her.
Did he really think they had been innocent in that bed, doing what they had been doing? If he did, Melissa could envy him his ignorance.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Melissa said. "I'm not a child that I don't control my own life. Nor have I been a child for a good many years. Actually, father liked John. He didn't even know that I was planning to…"
Creagon grabbed her, pulled her surprised body hard against his. His chest mashed against her breasts, his belly against her stomach, his crotch in between her legs.
And his cock was hard! The perverted bastard's cock was hard!
"Let me go!" Melissa screamed. Her surprise over, she was now overcome by the unadulterated horror of what was happening.
"Our father was a bastard!" Creagon said, his face so close to Melissa's that the young woman could smell the peppermint on his breath. "Even he saw that in the end, didn't he?"
"Let me go, Creagon!" Melissa said, struggling. "Damn it, let me go!"
But, he didn't let her go. He had somehow managed to bring her arms around and up into her back in a double hammerlock. His arms held her body squeezed in an immovable vise. Melissa felt the hard muscle of him down along the whole length of her body.
Why wasn't she able to break free? Surely, no man could have held her quite so securely if Melissa HAD WANTED to be free.
And, why was she finding it difficult to breathe? Because he had her crushed so tightly against him? And, why was her heart beating so fast? From fear alone? And, why were her legs gone weak, almost like jelly? If Creagon released her right then and there, could she have even stood on her own efforts?
"Don't fight the real you, Melissa," Creagon said. "Don't keep her pent up inside of you, just because she has been forced undercover all of these years. Let her come out now before it's too late. You can't tell me that she doesn't want to come out, because I know differently. I can feel her inside of you as surely as I feel your flesh responding now against my own."
Sick! Jesus, he was sick! What in the hell was he talking about? What real self? What responding flesh?
And, he kissed her. He pressed his lips against hers, forcing them open. He literally sucked her breath away.
"Ohhhhhhhhhh," Melissa moaned, her senses so confused that she didn't know what was happening. Or, did she indeed know? Was she only rationalizing her having let this obscenity happen?
His tongue was on her gums, her teeth, her tongue. His spit was tainting her saliva with a faintly minty sweetness.
It all conjured memories, sucked them back from the corners of her mind where they had been conveniently filed away. Hints of how it had once been – and had never been again – began to play throughout Melissa's body.
Creagon's hands released Melissa's wrists, gliding down to take cupping holds of Melissa's ass cheeks. Creagon used his holds to nudge Melissa's pelvis even closer into his lower body. Creagon's hard cock rubbed its concealed belly against the mound of Melissa's sex.
That hardness was his cock! That hardness was her own brother's cock! Jesus… Holy… Jesus… Mary… Mother… of… God help me… help me… help…
"Baaaaaaaaaastard!" Melissa screamed, wrenching her lips away from those of her brother. She brought her flattened palms to his chest and pushed with a reserve of strength she couldn't possibly have known she possessed.
She came free, sprung from the trap like a frightened bird from its cage.
She turned and ran, into the forest, into the trees, toward the house and its safety.
Creagon didn't follow. He stood right where he was, watching as his sister disappeared into the woods.
And, Creagon was smiling. Because, he had felt the response of that long-ago sister lurking there within Melissa's frigid facade. He had felt the way that other Melissa had momentarily surrendered to his embrace, momentarily responded to his kissing.
By God, there was yet hope for his sister!