Homelands Pt 1 Ch 01 free porn video

I leaned against the rail of the hotel balcony, rubbing my forehead as I stared down at Mom and Aunt Liz. As had been happening to me all day, for a moment, I was sure that I'd seen something that couldn't be there. Then, in the blink of an eye, everything was back to normal. Which was itself, of course, anything but normal.

At the moment, I looked down at two ordinary middle class white women in their late forties. Each of them carried a little extra weight. In my mother's case, to be fair, it was more than a little extra. She'd have to be half her weight before most men would consider her attractive. Aunt Liz, on the other hand, might have been losing the battle to keep her figure, but she was putting up a hell of a fight. They each had once had raven-black hair, but now their locks were streaked through with silver, and even where it was still dark, it had lost its glossy sheen. All in all, the two of them presented a decidedly unappealing sight.

If not for whatever was happening to me, I wouldn't even have thought to use that word. To say that they were physically unappealing was like saying that water was wet.

But the thing was, entirely different visages flickered in and out of view, messing with my hold on reality. And much else besides.

When their appearances changed, they became hyper-sexualized fantasy versions of themselves. My mother still had oversized breasts, if not quite like before, and the swell of her hips and thighs was still anything but modest. But most of her bulk had vanished, particularly from places where it would not have been desirable. Her extreme hourglass figure was almost cartoonish. I'd once read that men were most attracted to women with a waist-to-hip ratio of about 0.7. If this version of my mother had one much above 0.5, it would shock me. There were women with thinner waists, to be sure, but not any with curves like that.

Aunt Liz's best features were similarly exaggerated. While her breasts were considerably smaller than my mother's, that was not saying much. They were nonetheless quite generous. And her legs were thickly muscled, well toned, and impossibly long. If the fantasy version of mother was the very picture of voluptuous beauty, Liz had become a cross between that and the idealization of the athletic female form.

The women that had taken the place of my mother and my aunt had the kind of hair that you saw in shampoo commercials. Long, shiny, full of volume. All those cliches. Mom's had acquired nice red highlights, while Liz's was more uniformly black.

I couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like they suddenly had makeup on too. Which neither of them ever wore save on the rarest of occasions. Like celebrating anniversaries, or graduations, or when attending fund-raising events. Certainly not to lie by the pool.

Granted, we'd all been partying pretty hard. Maybe my cousin, Brianna, had brought some special party favors. She often did. Would that explain hallucinations the next day? I didn't even know. I tended to stick to alcohol and, sometimes, weed. I'd experimented a little with harder drugs, but if I'd ever taken anything that made me see sex goddesses when I looked at my mother and her sister, I certainly couldn't remember it.

Speaking of what I could remember, there was a big gap between the end of the semester at school and these last few days here at the resort. As it was now mid-May, there a good week or so for which I couldn't even begin to account.

And when was the last time the whole extended family went on vacation together?

Speak of the devil, Brianna stepped up beside me on the balcony.

"Oh, hey, Brie. I didn't even hear the door slide open," I said.

She smiled. "I'm like a ninja." Then, with a playful punch against my arm, she added, "Totally should have dropped your pants and snapped a pic with my camera phone. Maybe thrown it up on Facebook. Then make you pay me to take it down."

"Ha," I said.

The wind picked up, and I caught a hint of her perfume. Enticing, but not overpowering.

Had I really just said my cousin smelled enticing? What was wrong with me?

"Where's Dom?" I asked. I hadn't seen my older brother more than a few feet away from Brianna since we'd got here.

She twirled a finger around a red-brown ringlet. Her hair, like that of the living fantasies that had replaced my mother and my aunt, was absolutely perfect. Brianna had kind of red hair no one would ever associate with ginger or carrots. In the right light, you might even think her a brunette. It cascaded about her shoulders in gentle curls.

"Dunno," she said, in answer to a question I'd almost forgot asking.

Right. Dom. I doubted that she really had no idea where he was. But apparently she didn't care to tell me, and I didn't care enough to press her on it.

Brie leaned back against the stucco wall and glanced down at the pool. "Nice view."

Her tone had sounded a bit just too knowing. I refused to take the bait. "What did we do last night? I think I'm seeing things lately."

"I don't know. Pretty tame, really. Drank some beer, smoked a few joints. Nothing hallucinogenic, if that's what you're getting at."

I rubbed my forehead again. "What about you? Are you feeling okay?"

A slow smile formed on her ruby red lips. They were nice and full, and there was a pronounced swell in the middle of the upper one. Moaning softly, my cousin arched her back and trailed a hand down her exceptionally narrow waist, over the swell of her hip, and let it come to rest atop a lean thigh. Eventually, she replied, "Never better."

Someone seemed to have forgotten to tell her that she didn't have much of a figure. As perfect as the other version of my mother would be in the eyes of men who preferred their women voluptuous, Brianna had to be a dream come for those who preferred their women petite. I was most decidedly one of the former, but just at the moment, I was having enough doubts that I could almost see myself converting.

I forced a cough. What the fuck was wrong with me?

"Should take it easier tonight."

"You say that now," she said.

I chuckled. "You know me too well."

"Besides, we're here to have fun, aren't we?" she asked.

"Well, I'm not sure a family vacation can really be described as fun. You know, after, say, puberty. But yeah, it's nice. Quiet. The hotel is pretty damn luxurious, that's for sure."

"Oh, you don't enjoy being with your family? Am I not as fun as those college girls?"

"Well, there's something of an apples to oranges problem there," I said. "Wouldn't exactly expect you to compete with them in the ways that matter most. And if you can, kudos to you, but I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to know that," I lied. Then I added, "But what I really had in mind was the whole parental supervision thing."

She waved away the comment. "Do you see anyone playing chaperon?"

I grunted by way of response.

"Besides, no one told us we had to volunteer to stay in the suite with all the old people in it," she continued. "Besides, at least the cool cousin is staying with you."

I snorted. But perhaps that only revealed what a nerd I was, as if there had ever been any doubt, because I knew Dom agreed with her. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember how we'd decided that Dom would stay in the suite with Jack and Mark and I would stay in the same one as Brianna.

Maybe because Dom didn't want to be in the same suite as our parents?

"Come on, I bet Jack and Mark are trying to convince your brothers to play video games or something as we speak, when they should be down at the pool, trying to meet chicks. Your father's side is hopeless, and you know it."

I shook my head. "Girls just don't get video games."

She frowned and batted her ridiculously long and full eyelashes. The brown eye-shadow with red highlights was a nice touch. It went with her green eyes and red-brown hair perfectly.

Shit. I shouldn't be noticing these things.

"You do think I'm no fun. I knew it."

"Right. I'm sure that's a complaint you get all the time, too."

She looked away, but I caught a hint of a grin. "Well, apples and oranges, right?"

"How about you prove how fun you are." I cleared my throat. "Go get us a few beers."

She laughed. "So much for taking it easy tonight." She glanced down at the pool again. "Or are you just trying to get rid of me so you can enjoy the view in private?"

My pulse quickened. She wasn't really accusing me of...was she?

Not that she'd be wrong to do so. But had I been so obvious about it?

"Course not," I said without so much as glancing down at our mothers.

Brianna leaned in closer, dropped her voice. "Good. I keep telling Dom you're not as lame as he says you are." She stretched a manicured finger towards me. It was of course, red. The finger stopped just short of my bare chest. "Some day soon you're going to prove me right, aren't you?" Without waiting for an answer, my unfairly attractive cousin left. Her hips somehow managed to do a fair share of swaying, narrow though they were. And I couldn't help but notice how surprisingly round her relatively small ass looked in her tight shorts. It wasn't as big as I might like, but it was well-shaped, and those little cheeks were cleanly separated from her thighs. I hated how with most really skinny chicks, you couldn't quite tell where her legs ended and her ass began.

I cursed at myself as she disappeared into the suite.

She was my cousin, for fuck's sake!

The thoughts I'd been having when she showed up were bad enough. But there, we were only talking about fleeting glimpses of what I knew wasn't really my mother or my aunt. In a sense, I wasn't ogling them, so much as fantasies made flesh that were only relatively loosely based upon them to begin with.

Yet, here I was, getting worked up over my cousin, and I wasn't even sure how different the alternate version of her was. If I'd even just been staring at a fantasy version. There was no conceivable way that I could tell myself that I hadn't been checking out my cousin because I'd been checking out some other woman, some woman that didn't really exist.

Had I always been aware that her skin was so fair, her hair so thick and shiny? That she had what was probably the most beautiful face I'd ever seen, with its perfect inverted teardrop shape, exquisite cheekbones, and oversized green eyes? Had I ever noticed the way she moved, like she knew that every guy who laid eyes on her would instantly ache with desire? Not just knew it, but took it for granted?

Yeah, I had. Maybe I had tried to ignore it, but looking back, I had to admit that I'd always been aware that Brianna was freaking hot. However much I might wish that she had a shapelier figure, it was hard for me to even imagine what it would take for my cousin to look better from the neck up. And I couldn't pretend that the rest of her was entirely failing to impress either. In fact, I was having trouble getting over how good her ass looked. I'd never have guessed she was carrying a treasure like that around with her. Maybe that was enhanced by whatever had affected her mother and mine, even if the rest of her appearance was as it had always been.

The realization of how intensely I was lusting after my cousin filled me with guilt.

But it excited me all the same.

The way my first toke of a joint and first sip of beer had. However much I might have come to enjoy those things later, when I'd first tried them, I'd thought them pretty disgusting, truth be told. But they were forbidden, and that alone made them irresistible.

And what could be more forbidden than sex with a member of your own family?

Time slipped by, and she didn't return. I slid open the glass door, peaked my head into the living room of the four bedroom suite she and I shared with her parents and mine.

"Brie? We out of beer?"

No reply came.

I shrugged. She'd probably found Dom after all.

Which was just as well.

I felt the sudden need to be alone for at least a few minutes.

I grabbed a beer from the fridge and left the suite. Our floor had its own lobby, complete with a bar, pool tables, electronic dart boards, and foosball. Right next door to it, there was a small fitness center. There was also a reasonably well-equipped office.

I was about to start a solo game of darts when I noticed Todd walk in. "Hey. Care for a game?" I asked, twirling a plastic dart in my hand.

"Sure. Just let me get a drink. Thirsty as all hell," he said.

My younger brother also now seemed to have another version, I realized.

As did I. How had I not noticed that before?

He was a good looking guy to begin with, standing several inches taller than his two older brothers and having a frame that would have suited him well had he ever wanted to play football. Not that he ever had. He didn't seem to have a problem making the time to work out, but other than that, you couldn't get him away from his video games. The other version of him was, well, more of the same. I'd never even been curious in that sense, but you didn't need to be to know he looked damned good.

The same went for me. I was a few inches shy of average height. Still taller than most women, but not by as much as either I or they would like. I was what you'd politely call stocky. Plenty of upper body strength, but not particularly toned. Only now, somehow, I was. I still didn't have a particularly narrow waist or my brother's pronounced V-shaped torso, but every part of me was rock solid. I tapped myself where my slight beer gut should be and found chiseled abs with deep grooves between the mounds of muscle.

Todd headed back over with a water that was already half empty in one hand and a vodka-tonic in the other. "What've you been up to all day?"

I handed him a fistful of darts. I'd thrown a bad round. Not that it mattered. I never beat Todd. Never. "All day? I woke up maybe two hours ago."

He shrugged. "Same here, but I figured Captain Responsible would've been up a long ass time ago. Some night last night, though."

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?" I said.

"Brie really brought her A-game. Damn."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You know any girls that can drink like that?" he asked. "Good thing you didn't accept her challenge to a drinking contest. I'm at least half certain that she'd have won, despite being, what, seventy pounds lighter than you?"

I guess he was seeing the new me, though it apparently didn't phase him. Otherwise, unless he really sucked at math, he'd have guessed more like a hundred.

"You went to the wrong school, man," I said. Which was almost certainly wrong, since he went to a party school and I'd gone to a top research university. But it sounded good. Or better than admitting that I hadn't been sure whether he'd talking about sex or not.

The damn punk threw two bulls-eyes in a row. "If you say so, dude. At any rate, ain't this the best vacation ever?"

"Yeah, man," I said. After a brief moment of hesitation, heart aflutter, I added, "Seems like it's bringing out the best in everyone."

"For real," he said without hesitation.

Or elaboration.

"What's Dom up to?" I asked.

"Hooked up with Brianna. Probably getting high without us. But whatever. I'm going to take it a little slower today."

I never could figure out what that phrase meant. These days, it seemed to have an almost exclusively sexual connotation. Almost. But once upon a time, when people said that someone had "hooked up with" their cousin, they'd have meant "met up with" and nothing more. Which was all it would mean to this day, if my parents said it.

This was Todd though. He very seldom was unaware of such things.

I put the comment aside for now, focused on the last part of what he'd said. "Sure you are, Mr. Vodka-Tonic for breakfast," I said.

He shrugged. "Fuck it. It's vacation."

I threw a total of forty points. This wasn't getting any prettier.

He laughed. "Are you even going to make me work for this win?"

I offered a faint snicker. Then, without dignifying the question with any further response, I asked, "What about Jack and Mark? Where are they?"

"Hanging out in the living room of our suite. I think Aunt Cindy wanted to talk to them or some shit. She just came in as I was leaving, and I didn't really pay attention to what she said. I'd gotten tired of kicking their sorry asses anyway."

"Like you're doing to me now, you mean?" I asked.

"I can't help it if I'm a god among, well, losers."

"Fuck you," I said. Both for the comment, and the bulls-eye he'd just thrown.

"Suck my veiny dick, sweet-lips."

I finished my beer and went to the bar for another. Todd and Brianna had the right attitude. This was vacation after all. If I found myself on my third or fourth beer before beer o'clock officially arrived at five, so what?

When I came back, I asked Todd, "Have you been seeing things?"

He jerked his head back, stared hard at me from under a furrowed brow. "You flipping out? We didn't even do any real shit last night."

"Nah, man, I just.... Yeah, you're right. I'll stick with alcohol tonight."

I wasn't even sure why I'd asked. When he'd guessed that I was only seventy pounds heavier than our tiny little cousin, he'd as good as told me he was seeing what I was seeing. No need for explicit confirmation, really.

"Pussy," he said as he threw another damn bulls-eye.

Figures. I'm not sure I could beat him at darts if he did his best to let me.

Which he most certainly wasn't.

Afterwards, Todd asked if I wanted to go find Dom and Brianna. I declined, told him I was going to go for a quick swim.

When I got the pool, I was pleased to find Mom and Aunt Liz were still there. They waved hi, but didn't call me over. That was as much a sign of how much they'd had to drink as the small army of empty glasses clustered on the table between their lounge chairs. Ordinarily my mother would want a brief report on what everyone was up to, some assurance that no one was getting into trouble.

And by someone, she'd mean Dom. But she wouldn't say it. You'd never get Mom to admit that she had precisely one son who'd spent a night in jail, who'd withdrawn from college for the semester no less than three times, and who was no longer welcome in any of the bars within twenty minutes of my parents' house.

I swam a dozen quick laps then camped out the edge of the pool, pretending I needed to catch my breath. The two of them weren't sitting very close to the edge of the pool, but they had enough to drink that they weren't thinking to keep their voices down.

"...know how she did it," Aunt Liz said. "No way I could have, when I was as new to it all as she still is. She just might do it. Not that it will be bad to see the court pass back into Orwin hands. But it just seems early for her. I'm not sure she's mature enough."

Who were the Orwins? Uncle Jim's last name was Lohman, and Liz's maiden name, like my mother's, was Adams. And what court was she referring to?

"I know," Mom said. "I'd figured we'd have another year before...."

I couldn't make out the rest of my mother's sentence. But it had sounded like she'd said "she makes a play for the throne."

What throne?

I swam a few more laps, trying to piece together the snippets I'd overheard. And also wondering how it was that my aunt had only the slightest bit of color to her, and my mother's skin was like pure ivory. With all the time they spent in the sun, it made no sense at all.

I stopped for a rest at the edge again.

"...I know, I know. You're totally right. I told you about that one time, right? I honestly wish I felt the same. But I don't know. There's just. When I think about...," once more, I couldn't tell what Mom said for a few moments, "...he wants, like he couldn't resist the urge even if he wanted to. You know?"

She continued on, but I couldn't hear. Whatever she was talking about, she was almost short of breath, she was so excited.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. And I think you're right. But honestly, that's what turns me off. I just can't see him being responsive to what his partner wants, and when she does or doesn't want it," Aunt Liz said.

My heart sped up. So that was what they were talking about.

"Well, listen, if you don't want to, I just may have to," Liz continued.

My mother half-shrieked, half-laughed. "I didn't say I relinquish my claim to him. All I'm saying is that I might not start with him. I mean, he is good. And a fast learner. In a few years, or maybe even a few months, he's going to be unbelievable. But we only just...."

Yet again, I couldn't tell what she was saying. Only just initiated who? Into what?

"Well, I'm not promising I'm going to wait until you're ready for him. I'm taking this conversation as you having exercised your right of first refusal." The two broke into another round of girlish giggling. Then Aunt Liz added, "But seriously. I promise to share with you when you're ready for him. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Well, it sure as hell made for a nice mental image.

Fuck. I should not, not, not be reacting this way.

They both laughed yet again. "Okay, we'll call that a deal," Mom said. "Oh, god, can you believe what we're talking about? We're so horrible!"

"Are we?" Liz said.

"If so, I'm not sure I care!" Mom practically squealed.

"To a glorious family vacation," Liz said, holding her glass up.

"You said it, sister," my mother said.

I kicked off for a few more laps, needing to let my blood flow to other parts.

I chatted with them for a few minutes before heading back up to the suite so that I wouldn't feel like it was obvious that I was spying on them. Maybe it worked. Maybe it wasn't a concern to begin with. But it made me feel a little better.

I heard voices from the living room of the suite as I approached. I stopped, listening at the door. The hotel air conditioning pebbled my still wet skin, but I didn't want to waste the opportunity to get a better sense of what other people knew.

The voices belonged to my father and Uncle Jim.

"...serious? No, I don't feel guilty. You think our wives aren't having the same thoughts right now? Have you seen how Ellen looks at...," my father said.

It was hard to make out, what with the door between us, but I thought he said, "Dom." And then shame filled me for being jealous, of all things, that I thought my father had just suggested that Mom wanted to fuck my older brother.

Uncle Jim laughed. "Well, I'll tell you what, that was the best lay of my life."

"We made some beautiful children, what can I say," my father said.

Oh, god. Fuck. I think he was talking about Natalie. My kid sister. Well, she wasn't a kid anymore. Not by any means. But still.

"That you did. And god damn, but can she suck a fucking dick. Doesn't have the grace my Brie has, but she sure has enthusiasm," Uncle Jim said.

My knees trembled. So it was both of them.

I couldn't take anymore. I'd confirmed what I suspected. Whatever it was, it had affected all of us. And it was more or less what I thought it was. What caused it, how it made our appearances change, I couldn't have said. But I didn't need to hear more details in order to hate myself still more for not being completely revolted.

I waited a few seconds after my key card caused the lock to beep and the bolt to click as it slid out of the lock. Then I pushed the door open slowly and walked into the suite, holding the towel a few inches out in front of me so as to hide the wholly inappropriate reaction I'd had to picturing first Brie then Nat getting double-teamed by Dad and Uncle Jim.

After some obligatory chit-chat with the two distinguished older gentlemen whose bodies belonged to much younger men, I rushed into my room. My head was spinning.

God help me, I liked that this was happening.

I should be trying to figure out a way to undo it. Shouldn't I?

It was like the world that I took for granted was just a really convincing but ultimately paper-thin illusion, under which lay a thoroughly perverse reality.

This was the oldest, strongest taboo. An act so unnatural, so depraved, that virtually every society in the world prohibited it.

Yet, incest was all I could think about.

With my eyes closed, I tried to picture my mother naked. Not my mother as she really looked, which would be a disturbing sight. But the sexpot that had taken her place lately. The woman with the impossibly extreme curves. The woman with a relatively narrow waist yet breasts just this side of too big. Breasts that, for many men, probably were already well into the territory of too big, to be honest. But to me, while Liz's were very nice, Mom's were absolutely amazing. Coupled with her ultra fair skin, full red lips, big brown eyes, thick lashes, lush eyebrows, and raven-black hair, she was so fucking hot that it hurt.

My heart raced. Just the thought of it was driving me crazy.

I stood in front of the mirrored closet door. I could control this. We all could, I was sure. And perhaps that also meant we could stop it, or at least opt out. But I dismissed that thought. Entertaining it meant I had to feel guilty for not doing so.

I pulled off the fresh pair of pants and boxers I'd put on as soon as I got in my room. It took a great deal of effort, but after a fashion, I produced the desired response.

My dick, average sized on a good day with a short ruler, was growing rapidly. I must have added at least two inches to my length, and a fair amount of girth.

There had to be limits. But I kept trying, pouring more and more energy into the effort, and eventually it got to half again as big as it normally was

Between grabbing a few beers not long after waking up, a few laps in the pool, and whatever it was I'd done to augment my manhood, I was just about ready for a nap. But I was afraid that if I took one, I'd miss out on too much. So I decided to take a good, long, hot shower and hope that would help wake me up.

And it did help, some. And at least I didn't smell like chlorine anymore. But I could still use a bit of a jolt. So I slipped out of my bedroom, intent on getting a cup of coffee.

"Hey, sweetie," Mom called from the sofa. She put her book down and pushed her reading glasses to the tip of her nose. But I wasn't looking at my mother, who actually needed reading glasses. This was the otherworldly temptress, who despite having a few hints of maturity here and there, could have passed for a woman in her twenties if you didn't look too closely. The one with curves that no human woman could possibly have.

Damn, the glasses looked good on her. And would look better coated in....

The rest of what she was wearing wasn't hurting anything either. Mostly because there was so damned little of it. She wore a white terry cloth robe that barely came past her waist and that was it. As far as I could tell anyway. The robe was entirely too small for a woman of her endowment though, and there was a very titillating expanse of flesh on display. If she was wearing a bra, her breasts would be sitting higher, would be pressed more tightly together. But I suppose she could have been wearing underwear, if it was a thong. Pretty much anything else, I'd have been able to see, so much of her was on full display.

"You still running around by yourself? What are your brothers up to? Your cousins?"

I shrugged. "I'm about to go see what everyone is up to. Just need some coffee first."

She nodded. "That's good. Just hate the thought of you feeling left out. I know your sister has felt that way at times. But it's not like there are no boys your age around."

I was tempted to tell my mother that I thought Nat was keeping herself plenty entertained, but I kept that one to myself. "What about you? Where's your playmate?"

A faint smile. "I'm going to wake her up in a half hour or so and we're going to go have some drinks. Cindy might be joining us. Mommy Happy Hour, I guess."

"Good for you. Must be nice to finally get to spend some time with your sister without having to worry about cleaning up after everyone, making a big holiday dinner, and all."

Mom shrugged. "Yeah. It's nice."

"Oh, come on. You're not having any more fun than at Thanksgiving or Christmas?"

She waved the question away. "Of course I am. It's great to get to relax. I just meant that Liz and I were never as close as you and your brothers."

It took some effort to keep from snickering at that. Todd and I got along well, sure. And Dom and I had started to make amends now that we were older. But our relationship had its ups and downs. To put it mildly.

Of course, Mom had always refused to see it. Just as she refused to believe anything that didn't cast Dom in a flattering light.

Had Mom and Liz been the same as Dom and I had been?

Somehow, I couldn't see Mom knocking some of Liz's teeth loose one day only to beat the crap out of a bully who'd been bothering her at school the next.

But maybe Mom, like her oldest son, had slept with some of the people her younger siblings dated. I suppose that wasn't impossible to believe.

"Well, you know, Liz was something of a goody-two shoes." Mom blushed, held up her hands in protest, though I hadn't said anything. "I don't mean that to sound judgmental. It wasn't like I didn't invite her to hang out with me and my friends. Just that she never wanted to. Probably thought I was a bad influence."

Right. Because the first thought I had when thinking about Mom was "bad influence."

Mom laughed, blushed, and looked away. "Oh, Frank. You should have seen me when I was younger. You wouldn't believe it was the same person."

Well, it wasn't as hard as it had once been to imagine her young, that was for sure.

"We all smoked, and she didn't. We drank, and she didn't really. Heck, my fiance rode a motorcycle. I think Liz thought he was in Hell's Angels," she laughed, gazed off into the distance wistfully. "I just thought the bike was cool."

"Wait, you were engaged before Dad?"

She nodded. "I thought I told you that before."

Probably had. Who listened to such things?

Only, now, I was finding the details of her love life to be quite compelling.

"Maybe. I guess I forgot. So what happened?"

"He died a month after we got engaged. Car accident."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," my mother said with a sigh. "If he hadn't, you'd never have been born."

True enough. But that seemed like a sick way of looking at it. And the hint of a tear in my mother's eye told me she didn't see it that way either.

"Anyway, if it wasn't bad enough that I hung out with people who smoked and drank and, if you can believe it, sometimes swore, I started dating again a week after Lenny died. In retrospect, I was obviously rebounding. But I thought I was really ready to move on. And Liz just didn't approve of that at all. Made sure I knew it too."

I'm not sure I entirely disagreed with Aunt Liz. "I didn't know that," I said, wishing I'd had something cleverer to say instead.

"Yeah. She's very traditional in a lot of ways. You know Jim was her first boyfriend? Not quite only, because they broke up for a while and she went on a few dates with guys she had absolutely no interest in just to make Jim jealous. But besides that, they've been together since they were sixteen."

I was pretty sure that this, at least, was something she had told me before. But I'm not sure it had ever occurred to me just how much more I had in common with my aunt than I did my mother. Maybe only because I'd had an image of my mother that didn't seem to fit reality so well, whereas it sounded like Liz had always been mature and responsible.

"That explains it then," I said.

"Of course...," Mom said. She hesitated, fretting at her delicious lower lip. Her brown eyes looked away, then back. "Well, I shouldn't tell you this, but we're all adults here."

I nodded and gestured for her to continue.

My mother lowered her voice to a rather more conspiratorial tone, "It is ironic that Miss Traditional Family Values with the Perfect Marriage to her High School Sweetheart hasn't exactly been monogamous for a long, long time."

I raised an eyebrow.

On a certain level, it was anything but surprising, given the extracurricular activities of which we were all, apparently, taking ample advantage. But at the same time, I hadn't yet figured out whether that was a longstanding family tradition of which I'd somehow remained previously unaware or a one time thing, brought about by some supernatural intervention. But whatever the story behind our family's involvement with incest, Liz had apparently been leading a rather adventurous love life since long before this vacation.

"I know. You'd never have guessed," Mom said. She gesticulated emphatically as she continued, slapping her knee here, raising her hands up high in exasperation there, and so on. "Women as often as men, and more for her than for Jim. In fact, I think she only lets Jim participate some of the time. Seems she's as into cuckoldry as anything."

"Wow," I said, trying to hide my arousal at the revelation. I forced a laugh. "That's certainly a bit more risque than starting to date a bit too soon after your fiance dies."

"Isn't it?" Mom exclaimed. "Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying your father and I never experiment. But I've never pretended to be...," she didn't finish theTo continue reading this story you must be a member. Join for FREE here.