A beautiful ruin - Three times knocking. Part 3

26 January, 2014

Hours after their mother had left, the only people that still remained in the house were her children; sitting at the table in silence, not yet able to grieve as there was no room for grieving yet. It would take some more months for the children to fully realize what had happened to them and what it meant. It would take some more years to fully accept it.

It had felt unreal to watch him bent over his mother’s face desperately eager to take in every little word she might still whisper into his ears; the final words imbued with the essential.  He had held on far too tightly to her bony wrinkly little hands that had left the power a long time ago. What could they tell him? What kind of power did that woman still hold over him?

Also the smell felt unreal. Crisp sheets, dazzlingly white, emanating the flowery odour of the newly born wrapped around a corpse that would - when the time was ripe - start giving off the stench of the dying. The body he had carried in his arms up the stairs, up into the bedroom would start to decompose, to disintegrate right before his eyes, and nothing would be left to remind him of the woman that he had sacrificed himself to. It had been a mutual act. This must be kept in mind, at all times.  The boundless love, but also the painful contempt, the sense of ownership she felt for him; everything would be gone. And he had no way yet to deal with it.

They were sitting at opposite ends of the huge antique wooden table in their living room, with a decent amount of distance between them. This is how things had finally worked out. It is not the way they had planned it. Instinctively, either had taken a seat just where it seemed most appropriate, which was at that time as far from each other as possible.

And the little baby was sleeping tightly in its crib.

He had kissed her when she stood in the open door. And what was supposed to be a fleeting peck turned out to be a full-blown kiss squarely on the lips. Only the two of them knew why that was an indecency. None of their relatives noticed anything. A painful expression started to appear on Alice’s face. She apologized awkwardly, ran into the house, up to her room and stayed there for some time. It was assumed by her relatives that it was the impact of the impending death of her mother, but both of them knew it was something else that always lingered with them uncomfortably, and would dig itself back to the surface in moments like these, earthy, beautiful and deadly, seeking liberation, seeking recognition.

And now they were facing each other again, as equals.

Fleetingly, Sam glanced over to his little niece, a mop of soft blond hair peeking out visibly from her crib. Such peace of mind, he thought. What would I give for that.

Sam knew his sister wasn’t in love with the guy she had married. She liked him well enough, for sure, but it was clear that Alice had chosen him in the first place because he lacked anything that would remind her of her brother.

He had already looked through their mother’s will. Nothing too surprising had come up. Everything had already been dealt with adequately when she was still alive. There were only a few passages left that Sam and Alice had to ponder over since it concerned items that their mother had bequeathed to both of their children, leaving the final decision up to them. A few days earlier, Sam thought that she didn’t know what she was doing, but now it was crystal clear that she had known exactly.

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13 January, 2014

“At least you love her,” the woman at the window mumbled barely audible. “That’s the only thing that matters.” 

Sam, sitting at the far end of the kitchen table, lost in thoughts, froze at his mother’s words and instantly looked over to her.

“What did you just say?” Sam managed, dreading the worst.

“I’m just glad that it happened with somebody that loves her....and cares for her”, she added staring into the distance with a peaceful expression already reconciled with her deadly fate. Part of her was not there anymore. She was in limbo.

His worst expectations had come true. She had known all along.

Sam went numb, a muffled scream rising from the inside, remaining there, suppressed.

He closed himself off to the outside world, and as a mere shell he went on from there.

He heard himself talk, felt the muscles in his mouth move, watched the scene through somebody’s eyes, but it was a stranger’s eyes, a stranger’s voice, a stranger’s senses. Once again he had surrendered control. And it evoked painful memories of past incidents in which he was forced to watch himself becoming the lowest of creatures ever to have roamed this earth.

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26 November, 2005

In the small hours

When Sam pulled out abruptly, gasping frantically, Alice erupted into hysterical giggling, very quickly shifting to the sort of desperate crying that sounded as if no one in this world could ever be happy again.

Sam sank down on his calves, very slowly, watching his sister in front of him, watching the merest amount of dark blood run across her thighs in few very thin pearly rivulets, and then looking at his own sex gradually shrinking down to its normal size. He moved his hand to his face wiping away the sweat and tears. He had wept, but he hadn’t noticed, and he couldn’t feel any of it. It was all the same. Nothing mattered. 

Suddenly his head began to feel very heavy, as if it had been blown up to double its size, and he covered his face with both his hands, slowly bending his head towards the ground.

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26 July, 1996

In the early morning hours

Alice was milling around mindlessly in a state of utter confusion and lunacy; in a district she had never been before. What she was looking for, she did not know exactly.

No, she did know.

She had only forgotten; for the time being at least.

But when the drugstore appeared in front of her, she remembered again; the pure madness that had inevitably led her here. Where she could erase the last night, burn it down to the ground in her body and mind until only the cinders were left.

It would be easy.

Purposefully like a madman she stumbled down the empty dimly lit aisle, her eyes sharp and focussed scouring for those pills that would prevent the worst.

When she had gotten hold of them, she put them in her shaking hands covering them like frail eggs, and then returned to the check-out where she put the packet on the conveyor.

The bleary-eyed cashier paid her no mind.

“29,90,” she said.

Alice handed her the money, put the pills in her bag and wanted to leave when the cashier suddenly looked up and smiled weakly.

“Back to bed now, isn’t it?”

Alice stared at the woman as if she was mad, turned on her heel and exited wordlessly.

“Obviously....,” she still heard the woman mumble in an indifferent tone when she was already standing on the sidewalk.

Before her eyes, the image of Sam lying in bed, naked and warm-limbed, appeared, and Alice started to shiver involuntarily.

She wrapped herself more tightly into her jacket and looked east where one could already see the pale light of the rising morning sun. It would be a beautiful clear day.

There had been no talk. Just his arms tightly embracing her from behind as well as that peculiar smell all around her, bodily fluids mingled, his soft breathing against her ear, and kisses on her nape that still burned like blisters. His lips seemed to be glued to her body, and Alice could not yet imagine that this feeling would ever leave her again.

Alice rummaged in her bag for the pills, took one, swallowed it and then emptied her water bottle.

It’s all over now, baby blues.

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13 January, 2014

“I don’t know what you’re talking about mother. What are you talking about?” Sam whispered.

His mother did not reply. Not immediately. Her eyes still fixed on the only window in the room, she indicated Sam to come nearer.

He did.

“You must promise me one thing, son,” she said, “Promise me that you’ll take care of her. That you’ll take good care of her. You owe that to me. And to yourself.”

Sam couldn’t have told in retrospect if she had said that last sentence herself or if he had added it in his mind.

“It’s boundaries. I always knew. You would have needed some boundaries. I didn’t set any,” his mother added thoughtfully in a voice hardly audible. “I was too selfish, irresponsible. I don’t blame you.” And that’s when she turned her head and looked at her son somewhat sad, but also with affection.

He was standing there, slightly confused at her last words, locking eyes with his mother, slowly passing away, and couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge what didn’t need any acknowledgment anymore.

“You must be tired,” he muttered, “you need to rest. Why don’t you sleep for a while?”

“So much time to sleep; an eternity in fact,” his mother laughed croakily.

 Sam stepped back, strangely appalled at the grim sense of humour.

Of course, the grim reaper at her back, there was no other time, when it would be more fitting.

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26 July, 1996

In the early morning hours

When Sam opened his eyes, his head aching from unsettling dreams that had visited him the night before, she was not there anymore. And it was still dark outside.

The moment he consciously inhaled, his senses were immediately met with a sweet, yet somewhat pungent smell freely unfolding in his bedroom. And that’s when guilt and shame at once occupied his body and seemed to swallow him whole.

Oh, no. No. No. No.

But it didn’t need his acknowledgement anymore. The facts were all out in the open, stinging his nostrils.

It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok.

Was the only thing that he had whispered when it was all over and she silently wept and he had to think of summer rain softly pattering against the window panes. Stroking her hair, somewhat absent-mindedly, somewhat frantically not wanting to let her go. Not wanting to let reality inside. The reality of what they had done.

He was wide awake now, his head pounding.

He sat up in his bed and was painfully aware of his nakedness, an indecency; Adam fallen from grace, belched out of paradise.

He pressed his right hand against his chest where he could still feel her fingers imprinted like scorch marks.

There was no way any longer to distinguish hers from his.

 It was all the same.

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26 January, 2014

After midnight

“Do you want some coffee?” Sam asked casually.

It was late at night when they were finally finished.

Alice had not laid any claim to anything, and they had agreed that there was no need to determine exactly what would belong to whom. If there were any discords they were sure to be able to set them amicably.

The truth was: They were both incredibly tired, and neither wanted to discuss matters of comparatively little importance. Now that their mother was gone, it all seemed so banal; trifles really.

Without lifting her eyes Alice replied. “Yeah, that would be nice. I need something warm in my belly.”

She stood up and went over to her baby’s crib; not a screaming issue, this one.

Sam also stood up and went over to the kitchen starting the coffee machine.

It was well after midnight.

When he came back, the coffee machine sputtering weakly in the background, Alice was still standing at the crib watching her daughter sleeping.

“She looks like you”, Sam said.

Instantly he could have slapped himself.

“She looks beautiful,” he added quickly. But the damage was done. There was no way to mend it. And Alice did not reply.

“I wasn’t myself,” he suddenly burst out. “You know that, don’t you?”

He could have slapped himself again; harder this time.

The harm could not be undone. He knew. But still he kept talking, against better knowledge.

Alice didn’t move, but she listened.

And when Sam was finished blaming himself for everything, Alice finally turned painfully slowly and looked her brother straight in the eyes, an expression on her face that was devoid of any pretence.

“I wanted it too. You know that, don’t you,” she said under her breath, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “Both of us are to blame, if it was about blame, but it’s not!”

Alice had not moved an inch. She was just staring at Sam accusingly. The half-healed wound was starting to crack again.

“Why did you have to bring it up again? What’s the use?” Alice whispered in a highly strung voice.

With one hand she held on to the crib, her knuckles white from gripping so tightly. Her eyes were wide open, her dark pupils filling the void.

“You cannot do anything about it! Just stop and never mention it again!” Alice had raised her voice now, and behind her the little baby in the crib started moving uneasily.

“I’m sorry. I love you, no matter what has......,” Sam said his voice fading, knowing it would only make matters worse. But he just couldn’t bear the thought that things between them would never be good again. And he had to try at least, try anything, at all.

Alice’s eyes seemed to dissolve in tears when she finally spoke.

“I know,” she simply said swallowing the tears, her voice surprisingly steady.

“I love you too. But you have to stop and leave it be.”

He felt the need to walk over to her, be close to her, do whatever he could, as little as that was, but she stopped him. “Don’t,” she warned, raising her hands in front of her chest in a desperate gesture of defence although he had not taken one single step in her direction. “Don’t!” she repeated firmly as if her life was under serious threat.

Sam had always wanted to make it up to her since that fateful day nearly 20 years ago. He knew he couldn’t. He had taken something away from her that was not his to take. And he had given her something that was not his to give.  There was still a glimmer of hope in the years to come where it seemed that things between them could work out again, but after that second act of indecency when the siblings got reunited in the vilest way, all hope was gone.

Alice’s breathing was shallow and strained, the carotid protruding sharply on her neck, and Sam thought he could hear her heart pounding all around him. His head was reverberating with the steady beating, and the ground underneath him seemed to be vibrating with the constant hammering of a vital organ.  

She had still not moved.

And he didn’t know what to do.

In the background the coffee machine was still sputtering softly. It was broken.

The baby seemed to be sleeping again. There was no sound coming from the crib.

Suddenly Alice slumped to the ground, exhaling with desperation, as if all the air had been sucked out of her at once, and she buried her head in her arms.

 “I’m tired, I’m just so tired of fighting it,” Alice mumbled unintelligibly talking to herself. “How long do I have to pay? One should think I’ve already paid enough,” Alice said bitterly.  “How mad I’ve been, how grotesquely sick! I even wanted to keep it. Can you believe it? Can you believe how dumb I was? Thank God this decision was not left up to me.”

Alice laughed mirthlessly and darkly. Like people laugh at very evil jokes. It felt like a knife cutting through thin air. And Sam began to feel weak in the knees coming to a horrible conclusion. It must have happened that night when she didn’t want him to drive her to hospital. The thought had crossed his mind, but it was too horrible an idea to conceive. So he had left it in the dark. But some things have a wonderfully inventive if cruel way of slithering back into consciousness.

“I just want it to stop,” Alice suddenly said in a mere whisper, mouth dry, looking at Sam beseechingly and wearily. “Make it stop, Sam!”

“You wanted to keep it......,” Sam said, his voice on the edge of cracking, and despite himself started to walk over to his sister in a futile attempt to mend things.

But some things are beyond mending.

“Stay where you are,” she hissed threateningly and he stopped in his tracks; not knowing what to do with his hands uselessly, limply hanging down.

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February 2005

A freezing winter night

Sam’s distorted face above hers pumping mindlessly, she was lying underneath him eyes closed, imagining blue skies and other galaxies full of wonder and void.

“You wanted it too,” he had choked out when he shoved his cock inside her relentlessly. “You can’t take it away from me now sweetie.” He pinned her down to the ground, empty eyes fixed on her, and started to thrust furiously.

“It’s not love,” he whispered in her ears, keeping up the maddening pace. “Keep that in mind at all times, honey. It’s not love.” And everything dissolved in scarlet shades when Alice startled from sleep, waking up in a cold sweat, her abdomen aching excruciatingly. Instantly she reached between her thighs only to find that they were all sticky and wet. And she did find something else there which put her in a state of terrible trepidation.

It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, she whispered to herself trying to stay calm, trying not to wake anybody, but cold fear filled her body and mind, and when she got up grasping her stomach, she could not help but groan with pain.

As silently as she managed, she made her way over to the bathroom, provisionally cleaning herself in the shower. As soon as she had wrapped herself in a towel, she wanted to go back to her room where she had left her clothes. But when she opened the bathroom door, she noticed a faint light coming from the kitchen, the room she would have to pass on her way back. But when she tried to slink past, the door unexpectedly flew open, and it was her brother standing there at the fridge in the darkness of the kitchen. He was just about to close it when his watchful gaze fell upon Alice.

“What are you doing here?” she spat out watching Sam warily.

“I woke up from the shower,” he said sleepily wiping over his mouth still glistening with juice.

“What happened? Can I help you with anything? ”, he asked slightly concerned, gradually realizing that she was highly anxious. 

“I need to go to hospital. I’m going to call the ambulance,” Alice said evading Sam’s gaze.

“I can drive you,” Sam offered not asking any further questions. “Just put on some clothes, and I’ll be back in no time.” He wanted to get the keys when Alice hastened to assure that it was probably nothing serious and he didn’t need to drive her. She would just call the ambulance, and they would take her to hospital. Sam should go back to bed and sleep. Alice managed a smile and picked up the phone, but Sam insisted. “This is ridiculous. I’ll drive you. Why don’t you want me to drive you?” He reached for the receiver in order to wrench it out of his sister’s hand. But when that happened, Alice gave her brother an icy look. “I said no. Leave me alone.”

He gave up wanting to help her then, but he didn’t leave her until the ambulance was there, ensuring that she didn’t get worse although she glared at him the whole time, and it made him uncomfortable for more reasons than one.

He never asked her about the incident again. She claimed that her appendix had been inflamed, and Sam wanted to believe it, desperately.

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26 January, 2014

After midnight

“I cannot let it go.” Sam said almost sternly, and he walked across the room in order to take his sister in his arms at last.

She was standing there again in front of her baby’s crib, shaking fiercely. As he had reached her trying to embrace her tense body, she pushed him away and, between gritted teeth, choked out, “Don’t pretend, Sam! Don’t act as if we can innocently love each other again. I cannot!! There is no way!”

Sam stared at his sister, and knew she was right. There was no way.

“I cannot love you as my brother anymore, I can only love you as a...............as a man now,” she said tonelessly after struggling to get the words out, biting her lips until they drew blood. Red-spotted embarrassment started to creep up her neck and unfolded on her face. “There is just no way back,” she repeated, scratching her neck nervously, fixing her eyes on a spot next to Sam’s face that she never looked at directly.

And Sam noticed the fabric over her blouse tighten as her chest was heaving up and down, and her nipples hardening underneath.

What a twisted mind that God must have, Sam thought; what a twisted sense of humour to put people in hopeless situations like those and leave them there for your own entertainment.

It’s not me, son, it’s you. I gave you a free will. Have you already forgotten that? a wicked God seemed to ask. You can do whatever you want, choose whatever you want. I’m off the hook. I’ve been for a long time. Why are you still talking to me, stupid?? And the creator laughed a long drawn-out mean-spirited laugh echoing in Sam’s brain for what appeared to be an eternity. Sam would have laughed as well, and maybe he should have, but he couldn’t and his head started to ache.

“I cannot pretend, I just cannot,” Alice repeated sinking down onto the floor again, the baby in the crib whimpering softly. “Can you?” Alice asked looking up at Sam.

He couldn’t either, but he had really tried to, nobody could deny that.

“No,” he pressed out and felt his penis grow hard.

“Then love me,” Alice said soundlessly. “Love me like any man would love any woman.”

Sam had to admit, he was less surprised about her offer than he felt he should be. There had been no point when they would have been able to go back to the days of their youth when their relationship was still unburdened and innocent. If he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that there had been many incidents within the last couple of years that should have made it perfectly clear to him that theirs was not a “normal” relationship between siblings.  But he had shrugged it off every time.

The endless awkward encounters in the bathroom that nobody ever seemed to lock.

The hugs, kisses, and physical nearness in general that felt much more serious than it should have.

And in Alice’s case the fact that she compared every man that she ever got involved with to her brother. In intimate moments she had caught herself thinking how different it had felt to have Sam inside of her. And then horrified at her thoughts, she had invariably banished them to the deepest recesses of her mind.

Now she had put all her cards on the table.

And Sam was more than willing to play his judging from the bulge in his trousers.

“If you really want me to, I will.”

“I want you to,” she assured him, and it was as if a heavy pressure had already lifted a bit, just from admitting what they wanted and maybe needed.

Sam bent his knees and threw her a look, scared and eager. Alice opened the buttons on his shirt with trembling fingers, smiling when Sam tried to do the same with her blouse, failing as her arms got in the way. “You’re too impatient!” she scolded him softly although she could hardly wait herself to feel his naked body close to hers again. “Sorry,” he whispered, “I’ll be careful this time. I promise.” And she knew he still felt incredibly guilty about how rough and loveless their last sexual encounter had been; especially about the loveless part.

He just watched her then, his eyes glued to her fingers opening the last couple of buttons. And when she was finished, he reached over to unbutton her blouse, and when he did, his face was so close to hers that she could see the thick dark stubble on his face that was already growing again although he had shaved in the morning. Half consciously he licked over his dry lips and she inadvertently opened hers a bit wanting him in there. But he held it in a little longer. All the time she was observing him closely. Compared to hers, his hands were much bigger, his fingers long and elegant. She could still remember that moment when he had put two of them inside of her for the first time, so that she could get used to the feeling.

“Tell me if it’s painful,” he had muttered when he had entered her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He had not. The only thing Alice could feel was the constant rush of blood to her neither regions. “No, go on, it’s good,” she had said encouragingly. And so he had continued moving his fingers, his gaze never leaving her face. Alice had never forgotten that look he had given her all throughout. In a strange way she had felt as if she was part of the universe for the first time; as if she was everyone and everything at once. And this knowledge had been reflected in her brother’s eyes.

When he was done, he also opened her nursing bra. Alice looked at her swelling breasts, then at Sam and absent-mindedly said to him as if the thought had just popped in her head, “I need to feed her afterwards; they’ve started to hurt a little.” Sam was still watching her intently, his face inches apart from his sister’s.

“I want to fuck you,” he stated in a low, flat voice, looking at her with a desire that could have been any man’s in that very moment.

And before Alice fully realized, Sam had already yanked off his trousers revealing a throbbing erection. He gripped his sister’s thighs and swiftly pulled her towards him so that she came lying on the kitchen floor. He then reached beneath her skirt and inside of her panties sliding his fingers along the wet folds of her vagina.

Her face already flushed, Alice started to pant heavily, rubbing over her hard nipples with some exasperation, waiting for her brother to fill her.

The desire being overwhelming, Sam wanted nothing more than to shove his hard cock inside her, but he also knew that he wouldn’t last long if he continued like that, so he tried to hold back a few moments longer, and instead of fucking his sister, he took one of her nipples in his mouth and started to suck at it and then carefully bite it, which made Alice gasp in welcome surprise.  “Please do the other one!” Alice begged in a state of heightened arousal where guilt or shame had little room anymore. And so Sam did. After a while he moved upwards and opened Alice’s red swollen lips with this tongue, and they melted effortlessly with each other. And he could feel how his sister spread her thighs wider and pulled them closer to her body, so that Sam could easily penetrate her from a good angle and go deep inside.

“Fuck me,” she demanded, her eyes glazed and her lips soft and wet. “Do you really want me to?” Sam grinned mischievously at his sister and teased her by flicking his tongue along one of her nipples. “How much do you want me to?” he asked seductively and moved close to her face again.

Alice drank it all in, every bit of male trait she was presented with. The hard edged jaw line that was probably the most masculine part of his face apart from the thickly growing facial hair; the prominent Adam’s apple that was moving up and down as Sam kept swallowing repeatedly and the dark curly hair on his chest glistening with sweat. His sensual red lips opened again and Alice didn’t listen to what he said, she just took it in, that wonderfully mellow slightly raspy deep voice of his that made her urge to be fucked by him increase ever  more in dimension. And then he didn’t say anything anymore, he just looked at her with his bright hazel eyes in slight wonderment, as any man would probably have.

And then he moved away from her face, reached under her skirt again, shoved the knickers up to her knees in one quick pull, and positioned himself at Alice’s entrance, pushing his cock inside impatiently, opening his mouth, closing his eyes and moaning in deep satisfaction. He felt he had to keep himself in check so as not to spill his semen at once.

It was particularly hard this time.

So he didn’t move for a few moments just lingering over her, savouring the feeling of being inside her, taking in her naked form, the hard nipples, the bewildered expression on her face, the flushed cheeks. And then after a while he slowly started again never taking his eyes off of her face while he was thrusting steadily and firmly, every time pulling his cock out halfway and quickly shoving it back inside never letting her accommodate completely.  He knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer, but she couldn’t either. Her arousal must have been huge since after just a few thrusts Sam could feel Alice’s vagina convulse in violent contractions around his cock, and she let out long animalistic wails, digging her fingers into his back and crying helplessly, but also relieved. After a few more short vigorous thrusts Sam reached completion as well, sinking down on his sister’s upper body, gasping heavily.

“Can you stay inside of me for a bit longer, Sam?” Alice asked almost shyly after they had both calmed down a bit.

“Sure, I will,” Sam instantly said, exhausted and then amazed when he realized that he had almost forgotten how old they both already were. At the moment his sister looked as if she was 20 again, not 35.

A peculiar warmth was spreading through his body, when he was lying there merged with his sister. 

And a strange thing happened.

He saw himself crossing that border and never looking back again.

Making things easy, making them better, and finally leaving the guilt behind.