The return of electricity was an extremely mixed blessing, at least for Neal. On the one hand, it meant they could get out of the kitchen, didn’t have to endure each other within a twenty by fifteen foot space. And the television was soon up and running again, the cable was back on. Josh, Nessa and Sherry soon got lost in front of it in the den, making up for the recent drought by vegging for hours with Fred Flintstone, Archie Bunker, Barney Miller, Johnny Fever . . .
On the other hand, the return of heat completely destroyed any possible excuse for sleeping with Vanessa that night. She couldn’t say to any unforeseen intruder that she was just trying to get warm. So anything that happened between them would have to happen very sneakily.
Not that Neal thought excuses would do much good anyway — not with his son. He was still puzzling over Josh’s remark from the other side of the bathroom door that afternoon. It made no sense, unlesshe knew Neal was inside.
Is Dad in there? — No — Okay, then tell him the power’s on.
What the hell? Why did he respond that way? Why would he think they were together in the bathroom in the first place? They never had been before. And how come they didn’t hear him come to the door? Granted, he had been greatly preoccupied with sucking Nessa’s tit — but they should have heard something . . . unless he snuck up to the door, in which case, what the hell did that mean?
Neither his son’s eyes, when he could catch them, nor his mannerisms told Neal anything. True, the boy had given him a few significant glances days ago — but that was well before anything happened with Vanessa. Had he seen them together somehow? Heard them last night? Neal tried to imagine his chronically lazy son rising at four in the morning to listen at the office door and couldn’t. Josh lived in his bed. He’d probably never even seen a sun rise, just thought someone switched it on. It was inconceivable that he should be spying on them, or at least, that he could catch on so soon. And Vanessa certainly wouldn’t have told him.
Still, why that loaded question? Why sneak up to the bathroom door? It seemed obvious he knew something — but what?
Neal rested his forehead against the cold windowpane in the living room, stared out at the eternal whiteness. Oh, this was awful, this was too much like cheating — always asking questions, wondering if Sherry was catching on. Maybe the snow would begin to melt soon — then he and Nessa could sneak away for a while. They could go into Fulmer, or even into Tampa perhaps, get a room . . . It seemed absurd, plotting such nefarious activities — which belonged in his mind to his Melanie phase — with his own daughter. But at some point during the day he had chosen quite consciously not to think too much about what he was doing. Their night together had been unbelievable, ecstatic — the most mind-blowing night he’d ever spent with a woman, any woman. Whether his excitement occurred in spite of their being father and daughter, or whether it stemmed from that very fact, he didn’t know. Maybe it would all catch up with him and his life would be ruined. Maybe he’d go crazy, unable to cope with his disgusting perversion. If there was a hell he was definitely going, he knew that. But even if he couldn’t adopt such a casual, devil-may-care attitude about their sex, as Nessa could, he knew he wanted more of it. Maybe with the thaw, they could find a way to fuck each other in more secure surroundings. The big house was suddenly shrinking in on him.
But even as he stood in the glow of the Christmas tree, watching and hoping, the little flakes began to flutter down again, damning them all to their confinement.
***
For the first time in days, Vanessa took Jasper out that evening without telling her brother. But he followed her out anyway, he’d been watching her. When she didn’t head for the barn he grabbed her ass, even though they were well within the view of the living room windows.
“Cut it out!’ she said, smacking his hand.
“Oh, so now I don’t get to touch you at all? Now that you’re Daddy’s little girl?”
“Just stop it. Someone’ll see, you asshole.”
“Oh boo hoo, someone might see. I really don’t give a fuck anymore, Ness. Let ’em see. I mean, you’re doing Dad and I’m doing Mom. Who’s gonna object?”
She looked at him hard through the cascading snowflakes.
“You’re not doing Mom,” she said. “You said you just touched her.”
“I put my fingers in her a little bit. She liked it, I think — her ass lifted off the bed and she moaned. Nice wet, fat, hairy pussy — looked good. Maybe I’ll have a little taste tonight . . . ”
“Josh!”
“By the way, I notice you didn’t dispute me about Dad. You really are fucking him now, aren’t you?”
“Fuck off!”
“Was it good, Ness? Was it everything you hoped for?”
“Leave me alone!”
Suddenly he had grabbed her wrist, was wrenching it painfully, thrusting her up against the barn. Jasper turned about and stared at them worriedly.
“I’m not gonna leave you alone, you little cunt!” he hissed into her face between his teeth. “You can fuck him and me if you want, but you’re not gonna fuck him instead of me. You got that?”
“Let me go, dammit! You’re hurting me!”
“Have you got that?” he snarled, his eyes flashing.
“Yes, okay! Okay! Let me go . . . ”
Jasper whined at the pain in her voice, growled suspiciously at Josh.
“Now let me tell you what you’re gonna do,” he said, releasing her wrist to unzip his pants. “You’re gonna go down on me right here, right now, and you’re gonna suck up all my cum and you’re gonna like it. Then you’re gonna come to my bed tonight. Understand?”
Vanessa nodded, watching his fingers pulling his erection out of his pants. She was cold and she was annoyed, and she was certainly in no mood to service her brother, least of all where someone might see them at it. But she was also a little afraid of him — he made a habit of being a rude asshole, but she had never seen him this angry, this forceful and mean.
When she dropped to her knees he gave her shoulder a shove and grunted masterfully — that was more than enough for Jasper.
In a flash he was all over Josh, growling like a demon from hell, flailing about with his claws, snapping with bared fangs while Josh rolled to get away from him. It took her almost a full minute to get him under control again, and by that time Josh had scratches all over his hands and forearms, a gash on his cheek, and a shroud of snow all over his dick.
She laughed while he cursed and fumed and threatened. But it wasn’t a laughing matter. She got back inside as quickly as she could.
***
“Oh my God!” cried Sherry, rising from the couch. “Joshua Lawrence, what the hell did you do?”
Her snowy son, wiping blood from his cheek with a scratched-up hand, shrugged sheepishly. “Aw, I fell down outside, taking Jasper out. Slipped. In the snow. And I, uh, fell in some brambles.”
“Well, crap, just look at you! You shouldn’t be outside anyway — Vanessa, why didn’t you take him out? He’s your dog.”
“I did take him out,” her daughter replied, with what was perhaps the ghost of a smile playing around her lips. “He wanted to tag along.”
Sherry clicked her tongue and shook her head, which was throbbing.
“Well, go up and put some peroxide on it. Honestly, you’re sick, Josh. Don’t go outside anymore till you’re better.”
While he trudged up the stairs, Sherry surveyed her daughter, who was definitely laughing at something, yet who also looked a bit worried, a bit troubled.
“What’s up?” she asked her frankly, not inclined to mince words. That was one very good thing about alcohol; it made a person bold.
“Nothing,” claimed Vanessa.
“No, I saw you laughing at your brother. You think it’s funny he hurt himself?”
Vanessa pushed her hair back with a scowl.
“He deserved it. He was . . . picking on Jasper.”
“Picking on him how?”
“Mom, I don’t know. Antagonizing him.”
Surely it proved something, she thought, that she could tell Vanessa was lying. Surely that demonstrated that she was in no drug-induced haze, the way her husband wanted her to believe. She was sharp enough to smell something up between her two children, though she couldn’t tell what.
If only you could talk, she thought, stroking Jasper’s cold head.
Watching the whole conversation from his chair, Neal tried to transmit his own messages to Vanessa unsuccessfully:What’s going on between you and Josh? Why did he follow you outside? Why does he always follow you outside? The dog quite obviously attacked the boy — that was a claw mark on his cheek. But why?
But his daughter, who had spoken so much about trust the night before, refused to meet his eyes, and left him to stew in his own speculations. A little later, when he caught her alone in the den, he leaned across the coffee table to whisper to her.
“What happened? Outside, with Josh?”
Nessa looked confused and evasive for an instant, then shook her head.
“Nothing. He just slipped, that’s all,” she lied.
Neal watched her trying to ignore him for a while, pretending to focus on the TV.
“Are you going to come see me tonight?” he asked in a low voice.
Again she appeared unsure, evasive. “I’m gonna try. It might not be easy.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, glancing furtively down the hallway.
“With the power back on, I mean. I can’t just say I was cold now.”
He nodded to himself; so she had thought of that too. Of course, this was the same girl that had led him into his office only the night before to fuck him for hours. No amount of cold could have explained a locked door and the raucous sounds of sex behind it if Sherry had stumbled upon them.
She was worried, all right — but not about the power being back on. There was something going on between her and Josh. Neal suspected he knew what.
Somehow, God only knew, the boy had found out about them, just that quick. Perhaps he had been outside that office door, after all. Was he threatening to tell Sherry? Maybe he was trying blackmail Nessa in some way? Something ugly had passed between them outside, something that put that fearful look in his daughter’s eyes, and, he supposed, caused Jasper to rip into the boy. Old Jasper was not the best watchdog in the world, but he was fiercely protective of Nessa. All Josh might have to do was raise his voice to put himself in dutch with the mutt.
That was assuredly the scenario, or some close variation of it. Neal decided not to pressure Nessa quite so much; she was probably as scared shitless of Sherry finding out as he was. God damn that son of his!
“Just find some way to come down for a little while, as early as you can,” he whispered. “We need to talk.”
***
Sherry retired at about ten, toyed with the idea of lying awake to watch TV, wrote it off as pointless. Whether she was becoming some kind of junkie or not, she recognized that, despite a brief lift in her spirits, she had now settled into a whole new category of despair. Oddly enough, it may have had as much to do with the big rubber dick Vanessa had given her as anything else. She wasn’t Vanessa. She couldn’t get used to sticking some foreign object into her for pleasure, no matter how nice it felt. She also couldn’t reconcile herself to cheating on her husband — not that there was anyone to cheat with, anyhow. So, there it was. Neal had his fun; she had only despondency and gloom.
The only thing she was determined not to do was eat her head off, tempting as that was. She hadn’t developed her skimpy eating habits and worked for what was left of her figure to throw it all away over Neal. Besides, it was her mind, not her body, that she wished to escape. So drink and painkillers were the way to go for now, no matter how much her smug husband might disapprove.
At ten thirty Vanessa knocked on her mother’s door and was beckoned in. Her mother looked absolutely awful: haggard, tired, spent and anxious all in one. Vanessa sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand, chatting with her for a time. She felt like she was visiting in a hospital, so fundamentally unwell did her mother look. They talked about trifles, since Sherry’s state of mind was touch and go at best (there was an empty Scotch bottle on the bedside table, Vanessa noted). When they had exhausted every relatively harmless subject, she kissed her mother and rose to leave.