Much as I hated the thought of leaving, I knew she was right; the Dolan family was widespread through the state, in positions of power and influence at all levels; Steve’s arrogance and sense of entitlement was a common trait shared by all of them, and when circumstances dictated, they’d band together, just like the pack of hyenas they were. Sarah was right; we had to go, and the sooner the better.
Max caught my eye, and I nodded at him, letting him know I was ready. He leaned over and gently disengaged Kat from Sarah, his arm around her like dad used to do.
“Caitlin, your daddy and Frank’s daddy were my oldest and best friends, and I love you both like my own kidsr; it pains me and Aunt Mary to let you go like this, but you know I wouldn’t lie to you. This is the best way, baby-girl, this is how you protect yourself, and how you protect Frank, and Sally and Joey too, so I’m asking you to be strong for your family. I need you to be strong for Frank, to take care of him, to be his family and his friend, will you do that for me?”
Kat stared at him, her lip trembling, then squared her shoulders and smiled tremulously, nodding her agreement.
“I will, Uncle Max, I promise!”
*
We left two days later; Kat and I packed what we could of our own stuff, and as many mementoes and reminders of Mom and dad as we could, and in a frenzy of picture-taking, captured Joey and Sarah in a whole series of frozen moments, something for us to look at when we were so far away. Sarah helped us pack, although, to be honest, I did most of the packing; Sarah and Kat spent most of their remaining time together hugging and crying, and cuddling little Joey, who seemed to pick up on our sadness. I tried not to watch them together, otherwise I’d have pushed my way into the middle of that and spent all my time crying with them too.
At last the car was filled with our indispensable things; everything else would be packed by Max and his boys, and on the advice of Max, we arranged for shippers based in Phoenix to collect it all for transhipment to Reno, and then another shipper to collect and deliver it all to us once we had a place of our own; we daren’t use any of the local movers, they all had some kind of connection to the Dolan clan and we couldn’t afford to have any hint of where we’d gone leak back to that den of jackals.
Max would handle the sale of the house; we gave him power of attorney, and that, more than anything else, signified the end of our lives here and the breaking of our ties to Springfield; this was my father’s house, my sole remaining link with both my real father and the man who took his place in my life and in my heart, my mom, Joe, all the family we’d loved and lost. Now we were truly fragmented. Kat felt it even more keenly; she adamantly refused to look at the house as we drove away, knowing full well her last link too with Dad and Mom was gone now.
**********
Part 2:
The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death – Proverbs 14:32
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The drive took two days; we only ever stopped for gas, food, or sleep, anxious to get it over with; Kat was silent for the first day, her head turned away from me, and her eyes hooded behind sunglasses; I thought she was asleep most of the time, and then I finally saw the wetness on her cheeks. Stopping to comfort her only burst the dam as she sobbed uncontrollably. She wasn’t excited in the slightest to be moving to California, she was going into exile with me, or so she felt, only doing this to protect her family, and several times as she cried she almost asked me if we could turn around, go home, go back to how we’d been before we caused such an upheaval in our family.
For her, I would have; the sight of her so obviously heartbroken was doing all kinds of things to me, none of them good. I would have let her go in an instant if it would have healed her wounded heart, no matter what it cost my own, taken her home and tried my best to forget what we’d meant to each other, but when I wavered, Kat rallied back, refusing to let me go, reminding me that we’d promised ourselves to each other, and she’d promised to be there for me no matter what.
My company had secured a furnished, 2nd floor two-bed, one bath apartment for us in Santa Clara, not far from the office; if I felt like it, I could walk there in ten minutes, which suited me; it meant Kat was only ten minutes away at most if she needed me; as an added bonus, and something good for a change, Max’s younger sister Shelley, her husband Marty, and their three young teenage daughters lived in Sunnyvale, close to El Camino, and had been told by Max we were on our way, so they were waiting to welcome us to the Bay Area.
Shelley remembered my real father clearly, and she commented how much I looked like him; it was nice to have something from our home so far away , but Kat was a little overwhelmed, especially as she’d been dreading the loneliness and isolation of being new arrivals in a strange town, and
Shelley’s motherly concern caught her off-guard.
Shelley hugged her as she started crying, and she and the girls disappeared into one of the bedrooms to commiserate and generally make her feel better, while Marty and I waited for them in the living room.
For my part, I was feeling a little better; at least we weren’t completely alone all the way out here on the west coast; I’d been afraid for Kat, wondering how being alone out here would affect her while I was at work, but at least now she’d have someone to pass the time with, go shopping with and talk with on the phone, someone motherly who understood how it was for young girls (and Kat was still that, just a little past eighteen) and take her around and show her the Bay Area.
Marty had just recently started working for the same company I did, in a different section, and we chatted about the company, my role, and made tentative plans to get together the following weekend for a barbeque at their place.
I soon settled into my job; sure, there were the occasional pangs of homesickness, even more so for Kat, but she was a bright, gregarious girl, and she’d soon charmed the neighbors, the local stores, even the drivers on the bus route into San Jose, her favorite shopping spot, especially the Eastridge Mall, with her three favorite stores in the whole world, Macy’s, J C Penney, and Sears, and, of course, Victoria’s Secret for me!
Kat soon adapted to the Californian laid-back lifestyle, the anonymity and freedom of living in a town where no-one knew you or cared about your business, and the sophisticated, bohemian exuberance of the Bay Area. The first time we went sightseeing in San Francisco, Kat was awestruck by the sights and sounds of San Francisco, Union Square, the gingerbread houses, riding the cable cars for hours on end just for the sheer enjoyment of it, poking into every little shop and boutique on Market Street, and walking across The Golden Gate Bridge, the iconic symbol of California, to view the city from the Marin Headlands, ending the day by pigging-out on the buffalo menu meatball sandwiches in Tommy’s Joynt at Van Ness & Geary.
We kept in close contact with Sarah; though we’d made friends, some very good friends, especially Shelley and Marty and their girls, Sarah was still uppermost in our thoughts at all times. For the first year or so, Kat was plagued by bouts of almost crippling homesickness, and though they died away somewhat, they never really went away.
On her 21st birthday, I gave her the present she wanted most of all; a return airline ticket to Springfield. We’d been gone almost three years, so it was time she went home and connected with Sally again. I couldn’t go because of work pressure; the company was going through a period of restructuring and I was snowed-under re-organizing my department, so there was too much to do for me to take a vacation, but Kat went home to see Sally, and her beloved little Joey, although he wasn’t so little anymore. Joey was almost eight years old now, and the image of my father (and me at the same age), no trace of his worthless father in him, rather a Novak through and through, and already a Little-League and Pee-Wee football star, a taste of things to come.
Kat was away for three weeks, and by the time I collected her from San Francisco International, I was nursing an unfeasibly stiff and quite unbelievable erection, not helped by the sight of her slinking through ‘Arrivals’ looking like a vampy, trampy, femme-fatale, complete with Hermes scarf knotted elegantly around her neck, Pilot sunglasses, “Fuck-Me” ankle boots with teetering stiletto heels, skin-tight black leather mini-skirt, and a designer black leather jacket with a bandeau top on underneath, with her glorious, vivid copper hair cascading over her shoulder; heads were turning as this vision glided through the Arrivals lounge, pulled off her sunglasses, and glued her face to mine, the nearness and smell of her taking my already throbbing cock to new heights of arousal, something she noticed right away.
“Oh my, Frankie, I do believe you’ve got a present for me!” she grinned impishly, grinding herself against me for emphasis, watching as my eyes briefly crossed. With that she laughed, kissed me again and took my hand to lead me to the parking lot.
Getting home seemed to take forever; the traffic in Millbrae seemed to be going out of its way to prevent me getting to I-280 for the Lawrence Expressway and downtown Santa Clara. At last, however, we managed to get clear of the snarl of traffic in Millbrae and made good time home. Kat insisted I hand her out of the car, her sunglasses back on and her lips startlingly red against the porcelain whiteness of her skin, her scarf once more carelessly tied around her white throat, and her hair a cascading riot of scarlet; the sight of her taut ass quivering as she shook her hair out sent shockwaves up and down my surging cock.
I don’t think I ushered her indoors with unseemly haste, but my hands were under her skirt and squeezing her ass before I’d even got the door closed! Kat was just as hungry, her leg wrapping around mine as she ground her panty-clad pussy against my giant economy-size erection, both of us panting into each other’s mouths as we kissed so hard I thought we’d split our lips; we’d never been apart more than two days in the last three years, and it showed!
“Bedroom…!” she groaned between feverish kisses, and I obliged, lifting her so her legs were wrapped around my waist, but never once breaking our lip-lock, and carried her into the bedroom and collapsing onto our Queen-sized bed, my hands holding her delicious little buttocks as Kat continued to rain kisses on my lips, my face, my throat, everywhere she could reach. I hooked her panties and began to slide them down, intending to do what I always did as a prelude to fucking my sister; I wanted to taste her, I wanted to soak her pussy with my tongue, I wanted to make her scream as she orgasmed on my tongue, but Kat was in no mood for foreplay.