139

But she never had to make the choice, because her mother appeared in the doorway . . .
. . . Sherry awoke from a startling, violent dream to find that the violence was real — it was going on in her own home. She spilled out of her bed the best she could, head shaky, vision skewed. While she struggled to wrap her heavy robe around her naked body she heard another sickening thud through the wall, followed by grunts and curses.
Halfway down the hall to her son’s room she heard voices:
“You fucking . . . fucking prick! You broke my fucking tooth!”
Josh’s voice?
“How dare you? How dare you touch her, you bastard?”
Neal’s voice, definitely. But what . . .?
“You fucked her! You fucked her too, old man!”
The picture framed by her son’s doorway burned itself into her mind in the space of a second. It was surreal, incredible — it made no sense. It could only be a drug-induced dream, a black fantasy — she couldn’t be awake, not really.
Her husband of twenty years, naked, flushed, leaning against the wall for support. His eyes turned to hers in slow motion . . .
Her son, her beautiful son, also naked, on his knees before his desk, his accusing finger hanging in the air . . .
Her daughter, naked but for the corner of a blanket hastily tugged around her, on the bed, in the shadows . . .
And the words emblazoned in her mind, like the dialogue in that bizarre silent movie.
How dare you touch her?
You fucked her too, old man!
In time they all turned to her, their eyes blazing anger, passion, guilt. They stood there, stupidly, like actors in a play awaiting applause.
She ran.
Dimly she heard her husband curse and call out her name. The sounds of thumping footfalls behind her as her chest heaved, her eyes blurred with tears. A grotesque nightmare image as she slammed the door — of her husband’s naked form racing after her, his penis flopping wildly, her naked son limping-lurching behind. She pressed herself against the door as though Satan himself were in pursuit . . .
Neal threw his whole body against the door in wild, frantic blows, hearing his own panting, his heart thudding in his ears. He didn’t know what he could say, how he could remove the crazed look from his wife’s feral eyes. He only knew it was time to put a stop to it all, one way or another.
“Josh!” he screamed.
His son understood. Seconds before they had been grappling and spitting at each other; now they were allies with one common, unspoken goal. His daughter was yelling frenziedly in his face, clawing at his chest. He ignored her, slammed against the door in time with his son.
. . . It could be no dream — no nightmare, though she’d had nightmares like this before. She only wanted to wake up, to leave it all behind. But it was real — she knew it, through all her confusion and shock, from the details her subconscious could not possibly have conjured. The blood on Josh’s cheek. The scent of weed lingering in the room. Vanessa clutching a trophy in her hand, like she was accepting some honor (for what — Most Likely To Fuck Her Father?).
She heard wood splintering — the door lurched against her. She leapt away, blind with panic, and snatched the brass candlestick from her bureau . . .
When Neal got through the door, emerging into his old bedroom for the first time in a week, he was greeted by a swift, savage blow across the face. For a moment he staggered from the blow, the dull taste of blood filling his mouth, before moving steadily forward into the darkness to where his wife was crying and shrinking away from him.
She was half doubled over by the big bed, her hair a long tangled mess that framed a puckered, hysterical face. Sobbing, shrieks, inarticulate words filled the room as he closed in on her, grabbing her wrists, shaking the weapon from her hand to clunk onto the floor. As he shook her, trying to speak over her babbling, her old mouse-colored robe opened wide — he took in her jerking muscles, her bounding tits, her soft belly, the dark triangle of her bush, all in an instant. He twisted her forearms, bringing them to her side, his fists pressing against the warm, pliable skin of her waist.
He was hard — rock solid hard, stretched tight, throbbing.
He blocked her knees with his own, his fingers digging deeper into her arms, forcing her back. She had nowhere to go, she fell backward onto the bed — he pressed his weight against her. He tried to pin both of her wrists above her head with one hand, causing her tits to thrust upward at him — but she was strong, she pressed back, determined. He stared into her eyes as she whimpered, and hissed, and sobbed in his face.
A thousand scenes rushed through his mind — some old, some new. Fabulous sex with her while staying at a friend’s house. The cup she smashed against the wall when she found out about Melanie, the names she hurled at him. Her dazed expression at the kitchen table, the way she studied his gushing cum with a half-smile, her big tits bouncing in the moonlight while she rode him, her face lit only by the black-and-white flicker of an old movie.
He loved her — he knew that, had never doubted it for an instant. He was not going to lose her, not now. Not ever. He would save her from herself. He would give her everything she needed. He would devote his life to her, all over again.
“Josh!” he yelled again.
His son was behind him. In the distance, Vanessa cried and pleaded.
“Hold her arms,” he ordered, his mouth suddenly dry and parched.
The boy bounded onto the bed behind his mother; he wrestled her wrists to the mattress easily, a blank expression on his bleeding face.
Neal wrenched open his wife’s heavy thighs and grabbed onto her ankles, lifting her legs high into the air — she kicked and cried impotently, but he was not letting go. He moved forward slowly, cautiously, wary of her every move.
No, Dad . . . no, please — rang his daughter’s voice in his ear.
“Vanessa, shut up or get out!” he blared, ignoring his son’s nervous snicker.
In the shadows he could just see the pale column of his solid flesh, nestling into the dark curls of Sherry’s motte. Just rubbing against the hairs, digging into the curls . . . my god, she had a hairy pussy: savage, bushy, unruly, like a wild garden. He had always loved it, ever since they were kids. When they shaved her for birthing, he remembered how impatient he was for it to grow back, lush and full. He ran his cock across the entire length of it, again and again, loving the coarse, mossy feel, before he finally dragged his prick down and guided it between her swollen lips.
He nudged forward, experimentally — though his raging erection begged him to plunge ahead with all his might. She was dry, unyielding inside, a sensation he had never experienced. He prodded her anyway, trying to ignore her winces, her grimaces and cries. His son was grinning bigger than ever, but it was a joyless grin, a grimace-grin composed of pure nerves.
“Nessa,” he said. “Nessa! Are you still here?”
“Oh god . . . yes.”
She sounded miserable. He licked his lips, tried to calm his voice.
“Now listen to me . . . Are you listening?”
“Y-yes.”
“Now I don’t want to hurt her — I just want to . . .”
“Okay,” she said, breathing hard. “Okay, what? What?”
“Okay. In the drawer of the table — if you’ll look in there, you’ll find some Vaseline, or KY or something. I need you to slick me up. Do you understand?”
She said nothing. He could hear her crying behind him.
“Nessa, do you understand?”
Again she said nothing, but he heard the snick of the bedside lamp, could hear her rummaging through the drawer. He looked down into his wife’s tear-streaked face while he waited. She had stopped her noise, but her dull eyes crept crazily around: looking at her son, at him, at Vanessa behind him. She bore the look of a trapped, drugged animal; he doubted there was one conscious thought in her mind, she was totally on instinct.