A Swiftly Changing World

"Jesus Christ!" I breathed. "Sam, she's your daughter! You're talking about her like she's some sort of... piece of meat or- or a bargaining chip. She's your fucking daughter!"

"Precisely," Sam calmly replied. "She's my FUCKING daughter and I'm not going to suffer her to be used or abused by anyone if I can help it. If she gets tired of fucking for the cameras and wants to get out of the industry, I'm not going to have her perpetually haunted by her career for years and years, like a bad ghost. Anyway... to answer your original question, yes, I've seen her work. I actually watched her on the set when I was out in L.A. that first time."

"You WATCHED her on the set?" I was almost beside myself now with disbelief. How much more absurd could this get? I didn't want to know, but at the same time, I did. "Fuck, Sam, I ACCIDENTALLY saw Emily screwing some kid today and I don't even know how to talk to her about it. How in the fucking hell can you stand there and WATCH your own daughter having sex in front of God-only-knows how many strangers? And you! You're in the CIA, for Christ's sake! Won't this affect your career in some way?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "Only if I go for political office. And, really, I don't have any intention of doing that. I'm happy where I am in the agency. You know that. I get to make a difference without having to get neck-deep in the bullshit. I do my job and as long as I'm doing my job, nobody really gives a shit about what my daughter is doing. Sure, I caught some hell for a few days, but once the novelty wore off and a bigger scandal involving someone else came along, nobody gave it a second thought. Didn't even hit the news services." He picked up one of the DVD's on his desk and held up for me to see. "I brought her into the world, Duncan. Me and Beth. And you know what? We're proud of her. She's NOT some Hollywood cliché. She's got her shit together and she's taking good care of herself, for the most part. Believe it or not, finding out about this has actually brought the entire family closer together. We didn't hide it from the twins and we've all seen her videos. To be honest, we've all been chomping at the bit to tell you about it, but we never could really figure out how to break it to you."

I held up my hands in surrender at that point. "Whoa! Hold on! Hold on! Wait a minute, for cryin' out loud! Let me process this, PLEASE!" Sam fell silent as I just sat there and thought about all of the information he'd just dropped on me. My mind was awhirl with all kinds of new and seemingly alien facts about my brother and his family. I couldn't seem to make heads or tails of it all. The twins, Becca and Bill, had been told? Beth knew? They wanted to tell ME?!? What the hell for? And why COULDN'T they tell me? And what was Polly doing with my daughter somewhere else in the house?

I stood up. "I just realized that Polly and Em went off together," I said as I rose to my feet. "Maybe I should go check-"

"Sit down, Duncan," Sam told me. The tone of his voice was stern, like he wasn't about to let me out of that room just yet. "She's fine. Polly is probably explaining the whole situation to her, just like I am with you. Let them be." For the life of me, he sounded just like Dad at that moment, and no longer my older brother. There was a sense of authority to his voice that made me stop in my tracks and really listen. "Sit down," he repeated from across the room. "It's okay."

I obeyed him and sat back down in the chair slowly, heavily, and tried to catch my breath. I had the feeling that things were moving too fast, that I'd somehow lost control of my world without noticing and that things had changed in some fundamental way that I couldn't understand. After a few seconds of breathing, I found myself laughing hollowly. "This is just too fucking surreal, man," I said to no one in particular. "Between New York and here I somehow crossed into the Twilight Zone. That's the only thing that makes any fucking sense. I'm in the Twilight Zone, right?" For some reason I found myself staring at my shoes, looking for signs of pixie dust or something other-worldly which might tell me just how I'd come to this point in my life.

"No, Dunk. The world is still the same place it ever was," Sam said evenly. "It's always been fucked up, confusing and absurd. And if you think what you've just heard is strange, my brother, you've only heard the half of it. I've seen and done shit that would make your hair stand on end. This is nothing, man. The tip of the iceberg."

At that I looked up and eyed my brother carefully. "You mean... there's more, don't you? What aren't you telling me, Sam?"

Sam took a deep breath and asked, "How much of the truth do you think you can handle? All of it? Just enough to keep you from going insane? None of it? Before we continue this conversation, Duncan, I've got to know just how far your mind can go."

As a writer I'd heard and seen some pretty weird shit, too. Maybe not as much as my brother, but I wasn't some spring chick, either. But everything I'd seen and heard in the past, in the pursuit of research for my stories, had involved other people, people I didn't intimately know or care about. There was always a sense of separation from it, so that I could always go, "Wow. That's fucked up" without feeling personally involved. But now I was in one of those fucked up stories, locked into a situation where top was bottom and left was right. But I had enough mental discipline to be able to keep that barrier in place, to maintain my center balance, no matter how fucked up my life had now become. Besides, what was I going to do? Flinch at the truth? What kind of writer would I be if I did that?

I took a long, deep breath and nodded slowly. "Okay. Hit me. Tell me everything. It's your show now."

A wisp of a smile formed on my brother's lips, almost wolf-like but not quite, like he was sure that I meant what I'd said but was still doubtful that I could prepare myself for what I was about to hear. Nevertheless, though, he let it rip. "Not only have I had sex with Polly, but the whole family is into it, Duncan. My daughter's career opened all of us up to a whole new life. Beth's in on it, too. All of us, you hear me? When you called earlier, wanna take a wild guess where Polly was? She was posting on my lap, bro. And Beth was licking us where we were joined. She actually sucked my cum out of our daughter's cunt when we were through."

Those words just hung in the air like a nuclear weapon which had been launched from my brother's desk directly at my forehead. And, as you might guess, they had the same effect as a nuclear missile, too. I just stared dumbly at my brother as though he'd grown a second head right in front of me, my mouth once again hanging open in a perfect "O" while my mind feebly tried to assimilate what I'd just heard. After several long seconds of silence, I finally managed to find my voice and said the first thing that came to mind: "You're fucking kidding me."

Sam cocked an eyebrow at me and smiled even more wolfishly. "You think?"

"Yes, I think!" I said quickly. "It's a joke. A sick, twisted, humorless joke, but it's still a joke. There is no fucking way you'd do that. None. Fuck your daughters? Beth go along with it? I'll fucking believe it when I see it!"

Sam quietly pulled open a drawer of his desk and withdrew a remote control. He tapped a few buttons on it and a panel of the east wall of his office slid away to reveal a large flat-screen television. "I thought you'd never ask," he said archly, like he was expecting it. "Take a look."

The TV screen immediately came to life in the middle of what was obviously a sex scene. Obviously because the people on the screen were naked as jay-birds. Sam was fucking Becca from behind, her sizeable breasts swaying with the force of each of her father's powerful thrusts. Becca had her mouth stuffed with her twin brother's cock while his head leaned back and his mouth hung open in ecstasy. Beth and Polly were next to the trio, twisted into a position remotely resembling a sixty-nine, hungrily sucking away at each others' pussies. The camera didn't move, it was probably on a tripod, but it captured all the action clearly. The tawdry, incestuous sex scene went on for several seconds, moans and groans and words of encouragement well recorded for posterity, until Sam turned the TV off again and the panel slid back into place.

"Convinced?" he asked.

"Holy shit," I breathed. "Holy fucking shit. You... they... she... holy fucking hell, Sam, what the fuck have you DONE?"

Sam shrugged. "Aside from enjoying the best sex of my life? Not much else but work. You?"

I stood up then and pointed at the false wall panel which hid the TV. "Why the fuck would you show me something like that? Jesus Christ, Sam! It's... it's... it's against the fucking LAW! You're in the CIA, for fuck's sake, Sam! You can't fucking DO that!"

Sam slanted his head to one side in disagreement. "Actually, Duncan, that's where you're wrong. Y'see, in the state of Rhode Island there is NO legal punishment for incest. None. Not a single law against it, no consequence. It isn't even legally defined. In this state it might as well not even exist. So, no, I'm not breaking the law. And why would I show you something like that? Well, to be perfectly honest, Duncan, Polly's had the hots for you for years. Tonight, after I got off the phone with you, she damn near squealed like a stuck pig when I told her you were coming over and why."

"But she said that you hadn't told her we were coming over-" I protested.

He cut me off. "Duncan. She's an actress, remember?"

"Oh," I said stupidly.

My brother and I sat in his office for another few seconds of silence while I gave some serious thought to a lot of things. Finally, I blurted out, "Sam, really, I can't. Okay? First, it's just... this is too much for me right now. It's all coming at me WAY too fast. Secondly, I'm married and I love my wife and... I've never cheated on her and I never will. Polly... well, Polly would be... well, I just can't do that. Not to my wife, not with Polly."

"Who's asking you to?" he asked pointedly. "Frankly, I don't think it'd be a good idea, either. I'm just telling you why I've decided to let you in on the truth. The way I figure it, the more you know about what's going on, the easier it'll be for you to ignore any advances my daughter might make towards you."

"Huh?" Okay. The idiot within still had the reins.

"Duncan, what me and my family are doing is what WE are doing. You're my brother and you deserve to know the truth, but that doesn't mean I'm at all gung-ho about the idea of you getting in on our action here. You wanna partake in incest? Fine. You've got your own family. Do with them as you wish. But you ARE my brother and I love you and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable around us in the future, okay? So I'm coming clean with you. Yes, my family and I fuck each other. Often and well. But aside from Polly, whose business it is to fuck other people, we don't let anyone else into our little circle. The twins aren't seeing anyone and Beth and me... well... the way we see it is, having sex with our children, who are all of legal age, is kinda like having sex with each other, since we both created them and I won't mince words: sex with just me and Beth had gotten kinda stale over the years. This, believe me, has definitely spiced up our relationship in ways we never imagined. So we don't qualify it as cheating on one another, and more often than not, it's a family event when we do it. Oh, there've been a few times when I've had one of my daughters bent over the kitchen or bathroom counter, and I'm sure Bill's fucked his mother and sisters by himself more than a few dozen times, but we usually have our fun together and enjoy each other as a whole family- except when Polly's in LA, of course."

"Of course," I repeated stupidly. I shook my head to let the dust inside rattle around a little more and then came to my senses. "So, what? Is that it? I came all the way out here so you could tell me how fun it's been fucking your family? Okay, Sam. Fine, good. Thanks for the 411. I hope you have fun and don't knock any of the girls up. So why did you ask me to bring Emily, too, anyway?"

"A couple reasons, actually," Sam answered calmly. "First, I doubt you'd be willing to leave her home alone, after the stunt she just pulled. Secondly, just what, exactly, do you think she and Polly are talking about right now, hmm? Sports? Boys?"

At that point I told the idiot within to go take a fucking hike and the lights started to turn on in my head. "Oh, shit! You mean... Jesus, Sam! Your daughter is telling Em... EVERYTHING??? What the fuck, man? You didn't even clear it with me first, you fucking asshole! She's my fucking daughter!"

"I'm sorry, Duncan. I couldn't think of any other, easier way to do this. Fact of the matter is, we didn't want Emily armed with only half the truth. A teenage girl armed with only half the truth is a disaster waiting to happen. Who knows what she might or might not say to the right or wrong person? Nevermind the fact that, like you, she IS family and deserves to know the truth. The WHOLE truth. So, while I'm telling you, Polly is telling her. And that's all. No seduction, no practical hands-on training, just talking. I made it very clear to Polly that she is not to touch Em in any way, just talk to her and tell her the truth, answer any and all questions with complete honesty."

"Well, fucking great, bro! Thanks a lot!" I shot out. "While you're at it, here-" I dug into my jeans pocket and fished out the piece of paper which had my wife's hotel phone number on it. "-why don't you call my wife and tell her, too? I'm sure she'd just love to hear all the little details."

"Actually, Jess already knows," Sam said blandly.

At that I totally lost it. "WHAT?!? HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?!?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "Pretty much the same way I found out. Somebody at her hospital had seen one of Polly's videos, recognized her from the family pictures that Jess has pasted on her locker... she called me almost as soon as she found out and I told her everything."

"When?"

"About a month ago."

"Why didn't she tell ME?"

"She really didn't know how. We talked about it a lot, but couldn't figure out a safe way to tell you. We even thought of engineering a way for you to find out on your own, but... well, Life is what happens when you're making plans, right?"

I narrowed my eyes at my brother coldly, not at all impressed with the cavalier attitude he had about all of this. It didn't even cross my mind that while I was just now learning about all of it, Sam and his family had the benefit of almost half a year to get used to it. But my mind was still playing catch-up and logic wasn't a top priority right then. "If I find that you've fucked my wife, Sam, brother or not, CIA A.D. or not, I'll fucking kill you."

Sam held up a calming hand and said with absolute deference. "I promise you, Duncan, I've never touched Jess inappropriately. None of us has. She's as devoted to you as you are to her, and for that you're one hell of a lucky man. All the more reason I'm glad that you married her. At first she was more than a little surprised, but she's a nurse and has seen worse. Ultimately she respects our decision and has agreed to keep it a secret. Polly's career, yes, does make things a tiny bit more difficult for us, but not so much so that we feel the need to stop. Jessica hasn't told anyone, not even you, because, well... we couldn't all agree on how to tell you. But if we were able to figure out a way to do it without pushing you away, we'd have given her the green light a long time ago."

Looking into my brother's eyes I could tell that he was being honest with me. That, at least, helped to calm me down some. For the briefest of moments I was actually worried that he and his family had somehow seduced Jess away from me. Perhaps it was an irrational fear, but considering the news I'd gotten that day, I figured that anything remotely rational was subject to closer scrutiny. Having gone from discovering my teenaged daughter fucking her friend in my office to learning that my brother's family was steeped knee-deep in incest... well, it had taken one hell of a toll on my Believe-O-Meter.

A knock at Sam's office door interrupted us. "Daddy?" Polly's voice said from the other side of it.

Sam tapped a button on his desk and the door unlocked itself and slid open. "Yes, honey?"

Polly came into the room with my daughter closely on her heels. Emily looked... well... she looked the way I probably did, like the world had been suddenly turned upside down and she didn't quite know what to make of it just yet. Em glanced at me, her eyebrows high on her forehead, as if to silently say, "Can you fucking believe this?!?"

Polly stopped in front of her father's desk, her hands clasped behind her back. "I told Em everything, like you told me to. Are you and Uncle Duncan through, too?"

Sam looked at me for a moment, seemingly appraising me in some way that only a CIA-trained operative can. "Yeah, I think so, honey. Thank you." Then he addressed his niece. "Emily, do you fully understand everything that Polly told you?"

Emily looked from her uncle to me and back again. "I... I think so, yeah. I just... I just can't believe it. It's so... amazing."

"What, precisely, did she tell you? Just so that I know that we're all on the same page here."

Emily blushed bright red, but stood her ground. "Well, basically, she told me that you and Aunt Beth, Becca, Bill and Polly are... uhm... fucking each other, that you commit incest. Lots."

Sam nodded sagely. "And how do you feel about that, Emily?" Em glanced at me again, I presume doubtful if she'd have permission to fully speak her mind. Sam noticed the look and added, "Don't worry about your dad, sweetheart. At this point, obfuscating the truth is a lost cause. Speak your mind. How do you feel about the fact that your cousins, aunt and uncle have sex with each other?"

"Honestly?" my daughter said slowly. "Well... it's..." And suddenly the dam broke within her. "It's fucking hot! I can't believe it! Dad," she said to me, her words spilling out in a blur, "Polly showed me some videos of her and her family and, ohmigod, it's SO fucking cool! I mean, holy shit, Dad, they do it ALL! It's, like, the hottest thing I've ever seen in my life. Dad, I'm sorry, but I almost lost it when I saw Uncle Sam cum inside Becca. She's, like, so TINY, almost as small as I am, and he's so... WOW. Dad, you have GOT to see some of the stuff they do! It's incredible!"

Sam held up a silencing hand. "That'll do, Emily, thank you. Suffice it to say, you approve. Thanks." Then he regarded me. "Bro, I don't expect you to give your seal of approval. And, frankly, I'm not asking for it, even though it'd be nice. But I AM asking for your respect. Respect for our privacy and respect for our choices. We aren't hurting anyone and we aren't fooling ourselves. And we aren't imposing our lifestyle on anyone else. This is us and we're happy. Please respect that and don't... don't hate us for it. But I have to ask you, man to man, how do you feel about this?"

I looked down at my feet again and took several long seconds to think it through. Finally, I nodded my head slowly. "It's fucked up, confusing and weird as shit, Sam, but... well... it's your family and if you feel that you know what you're doing, I won't get in your way. For now, that's the best I can come up with. Sorry if it isn't what you'd hoped for, it's not a ringing endorsement, but I can't really tell you how I feel about it just yet. Lots of things, really. Jealousy, doubt, anger, surprise... and, yeah, just a tiny bit of temptation. At this point, I can't decide if what you're doing is right or wrong, but... well, it definitely seems like you're happier for it, so I guess I can't really knock it, can I?"