The Beach House Ch. 02

'You forgot these!' and she flung the panties towards her. They fluttered down and landed in a puddle of red silk on the polished tiles. 'I'd normally keep them,' she yelled, 'but yours stink,' and she laughed as the girl fled.

Lucy lit a cigarette and sat on the bed, thinking of Sarah. It had been nearly three months since their argument and other than commissioning the report she hadn't followed through on her threats. I suppose I expected her back, she thought. I thought she'd come knocking on my door.

But she hadn't, and Lucy found herself thinking of the girl more and more, almost to the point of obsession. She left me...she deserves punishing. She's had man sex and I don't want her back. She's a slut. The ugly thoughts rolled around in her head like a pinball hitting all of her emotional bumpers, but deep inside Lucy missed the raw sensuality that Sarah had brought to their bed, and in the convoluted folds of her brain she began to want the baby, too. We could be like a couple and bring the child up.

And after a while she decided what to do, and she dressed and left for her home feeling happier than she had for weeks.

*****

Sarah Ryan sat at the breakfast table in their family home and glanced at the letter lying on the crisp white tablecloth beside her plate. She recognised the handwriting and felt a lump of dread appear somewhere near the pit of her stomach.

Her mother sat at the head of the table reading a letter and absent-mindedly chewing on a piece of toast.

'Your father says he may be home next month,' she announced. 'Apparently he might finish early.'

'I don't know why he doesn't use email,' Michael remarked.

'He's in Mongolia,' her mother explained, 'they don't have email in those backward places.'

Michael thought the construction of the six billion dollar refinery would have more connectivity than Cape Canaveral and the lack of email was more about avoiding an electronic deluge from his mother every day. He nodded absently and glanced at his sister, noticing the dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes.

'Aren't you going to open your letter?' Olivia asked her daughter.

Sarah shook her head. 'Later.'

'Who is it from?'

'A friend.' Sarah tried to sound disinterested. 'She tends to go on a bit so I need to be in the right mood to read it.'

'A local friend?' Her mother was persistent.

'From Torbess.'

'I see.' She observed her daughter for a moment. 'So what are you doing today?'

'Mike and I are heading back to the Beach House.'

'You will be careful, won't you? We don't want any more accidents.'

'I will Mum.' She dabbed her lips with her napkin and stood up. 'Well, I suppose I'd better get ready.'

Her mother examined her critically. 'Are you putting on weight, Sarah? You've always been so thin, but now -'

The girl hurriedly covered her belly with her hands. 'Oh, no,' she said. 'It's just fat, that's all - nothing that a bit of exercise won't fix,' and with a single anguished glance at her brother she fled.

Olivia Ryan turned her eyes on her son. 'Do you know what's going on?' she asked.

'I'm not sure what you mean, Mum.'

'Your sister is hiding something.'

Michael shrugged. 'She's nineteen and entitled to run her life. Maybe she's in love with a secret guy, or something.' He touched his mother's hand in a comforting gesture. 'Look, we've been working together most days in the past few months and she's fine, as far as I can see.' He folded his napkin and rose to his feet. 'Well, I'd better get on too.'

'So how's your building project going?' his mother asked.

'Good. We should be finished in a month or two.' The thought brought a sudden pang of anxiety: when the Beach House was finished there would be nothing to keep Sarah near him and he could not imagine a life without her. 'Don't forget that we may be spending tonight on the island.'

Olivia looked up in surprise. 'Really? What will you sleep on?'

'I told you - we're nearly finished...there's beds and running water now, and a loo.'

She nodded. 'I'd forgotten about tonight, Mike. Ring me if you do sleep over - just so I know you're safe.'

'Right.' Michael leaned forward and kissed his mother on the forehead. 'I will. And don't worry about Sarah - she's fine.'

Olivia nodded absently and watched her son walk from the room with a feeling of foreboding. She thought he and his sister were the best she could have possibility hoped for, but all of her instincts told her something was not right.

*

'I need to tell you something,' Sarah said. They were at the little kitchen table in the Beach House and in the soft light of the candle he could see shadows under her eyes and the sense of desperation in them.

'You're expecting twins.'

'What?'

'You're expecting twins,' he joked, 'or even triplets.'

'It's worse than that.' Her fingers plucked nervously at the chequered tablecloth. 'You'll hate me for it.'

'I could never hate you.' He reached forward and grasped her hand. 'You know I'm here for you, right?'

'I know,' she whispered, 'but this one -' her voice trailed off and she sat miserably, staring down at her lap in silence.

'Tell me,' he prompted gently. 'You know a problem shared is a problem halved.'

'Not this time,' she said, 'but I can't do it on my own any more.' She reached into her pocket and soundlessly thrust a piece of paper towards him.

Michael held it close to the candle. It was an information pamphlet from an obstetrics clinic entitled "Having Your Baby" and there were a few words scrawled in the corner.

Thruxton Café 1200 Saturday.

Michael read it in silence. "Is this what arrived in the post today?'

Sarah nodded soundlessly.

'And I assume it's not an appointment for your clinic?'

'No.'

'Who is it from?'

'A woman called Lucy.'

'The friend from Torbess?'

'Yes. Not a friend any more, though.'

He leaned back in his chair. 'The one you went to see before the storm...when we had the argument.'

'Yes.'

'So who is she to you?' It was a question he had longed to ask.

'I...we - well, we...' her eyes were stricken. 'We had an affair together.'

Michael stared at the piece of paper, his thoughts whirling. Lucy. So much of what had happened seemed to hinge around that name. He and Sarah had rebuilt the Beach House because of her: she to have a secret lesbian hideaway and he for the opportunity to watch. But the work had drawn them together, given the opportunity to really know the other for the first time. He remembered how his scorn for his sister had turned into an aching, hopeless obsession that he had thought could never, ever be consummated - and yet it had, in one impossible night of passion as the storm battered the little cottage. He'd thought that night would bring them together but she hadn't touched him since. He'd hoped the baby would cement their love for one another too, but now, in the very room where they had created it, she spoke that hated name again. Lucy.

'Will you see her?' he asked. The bitter bile of jealousy was thick upon his heart.

'It's more complicated than that.'

'Tell me why.'

And in the quiet of that little kitchen Sarah told him the story of a young girl swept off her feet by the glamour of a worldly woman, and the exhilaration of a forbidden love. She told him of the dizzy days when they were together, of the excitement and the pleasure and way they talked and laughed, and of the things they did.

'I could not wait to be with her,' she said simply, 'it was insane.'

Michael listened in silence, watching as she spoke. 'I would have done anything for her,' Sarah continued, 'and I did.' He saw the shame in her expression. 'I did things I would never have dreamed of...you know - with our hands and mouths -' her eyes flickered to the place on the floor where she had laid with Lucy in the rubble and the dirt, and the image of her naked body was razor sharp in her mind. 'I don't know how I could have done it,' she whispered, 'it was...madness, but I couldn't stop myself.' Her voice trailed away and she sat staring at the fire in misery.

'So what changed?' he prompted gently.

'Not long after we started working on the Beach House I went to see her and she was...different - aggressive. She made me do other things - things I didn't want to do, even worse than before, and she loved it.' Sarah's voice was barely more than a whisper. 'And then she tied me up and did them to me, and I hated it. I begged her to stop but she wouldn't.'

Michael reached forward and grasped his sister's arm in a gesture of support. 'Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped.'

She wiped her eyes on the back of one hand. 'How could I? You were the one person I could depend on in an ocean of crap. You would have despised me...I - I couldn't risk losing you.'

'And yet you are telling me now.'

'Because of that -' she gestured at the letter lying on the table.

'So she wants to see you again,' Michael shrugged. 'Tell her to get lost.'

'But don't you see,' Sarah whispered. 'She knows. Somehow she found out that I'm pregnant. It changes everything.'

'I don't see why. Girls get knocked up all the time, Sarah. There's no shame in it.' He squeezed her arm. 'Look - tell Mum you're pregnant. She'll do her nut for ten minutes and then tell you how happy she is to be a grandmother, and you've removed the only thing that Lucy could possibly have over you.'

The girl shook her head. 'You still don't get it, do you?'

'Get what?'

'If she knows I'm pregnant then maybe she knows who the father is, too.' The words fell from her lips like blocks of cold stone.

Michael stared at his sister. 'How could she know that?'

Sarah shrugged. 'How did she find out I was up the duff? I haven't told anyone and I'm sure the hell you didn't.'

'Maybe she doesn't know anything.' He gestured at the piece of paper lying between them. 'Maybe this is a bluff.'

'Really?' She laughed cynically. 'Of all of the pieces of paper she could have used, you think using a pamphlet about pregnancy was a coincidence? I don't think so.'

'So she found out you're expecting. Maybe someone in the clinic talked, or she went to the pharmacy and found out you'd bought a testing kit. But there's no way she could know that I -' his voice trailed off, leaving the last words unsaid. Fucked my sister.

'That's a lot of maybes, Mike. Do you want to take the risk? Can you imagine what Mum would say if she found out it was you? Can you imagine what everyone would say? We'd be outcasts.'

'So what does Lucy want from you?'

The girl shrugged. 'We had an argument...I told her I was leaving.'

'When?'

'A couple of months ago...before I knew I was pregnant.' She laughed briefly, a dry little sound without humour. 'It would seem she's been busy spying on me since then, which tells me she's not given up. She'll never give up.'

'So what does she want?' he asked again.

'She wants me,' Sarah said simply.

*

Later that evening Michael Ryan lay in his bed and remembered the night when he and his sister became lovers. He recalled how he had watched her peel off the wet clothes and how the firelight had painted her body a golden orange shrouded with valleys of flickering shadow, and how he'd thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

They had stared at each other across the corridor of that little house, and each had recognised the desperate need of the other. He remembered her words when he went to her: 'Tonight we are just you and me, Michael, as friends, not siblings,' and her fingertips had traced the line of his lips before she uttered those fateful words that changed everything. 'Take me,' she had said, 'just for tonight. Take me now and then never again,' and she had put her mouth on his and kissed him.

He remembered the expression in her eyes as she felt the long slide of his flesh into her body for the first time. He had fucked her hard, driven by a desperate need to possess her - to take her; to feel the grip of her velvet cunt on his rampant cock, to fill her with his burning seed. He recalled her little whimpers of pain and pleasure and the long, trembling moans as her orgasm swept her to ecstasy.

It had been a primeval coupling fuelled by their demons, and had it been the only one he could have accepted there would never be another. But though that long night she had taken him again and again, and the urgency had given way to something far deeper. They had forged an unbreakable bond sealed by love and complicity, and the notion that he could never be with her again suddenly seemed absurd.

And so Michael rose on silent feet and went to her. A full moon hung low over the bay, painting the room in silver and in its light he saw she was awake and watching as he crept towards her bed. For a moment he thought she would reject him, but she raised the blankets so he could slide in beside her.

'I need you, Michael,' she whispered. She rested her head on his chest and he touched her hair, his fingers moving languorously over the glossy strands. 'Will you stay with me?' she asked softly.

'God yes.'

'Not just tonight. I mean...when things get tough.'

'Of course I will.'

She was silent for a while, luxuriating in the warmth of his embrace and the touch of his fingers. 'I'm ashamed of what I did with Lucy,' she whispered, 'but don't feel guilty about you.' She pushed herself up on one elbow and stared into his face. 'What we did was so wrong, but I don't feel guilty - not even a little bit. Why is that?'

'Because we are as one. It was always going to happen.'

Sarah shook her head. 'No. Before the Beach House we hardly knew each other.' She looked around at the whitewashed walls and the patterned rug on the slate floor, its colours muted in the moonlight. 'It's this place,' she said. 'It seduced Lucy and me and now its captured us. I don't know what it is but I...I can't resist it.' Her gaze returned to her brother, observing the marvelous planes of his face and the steady gaze of his dark eyes and in a sudden surge of emotion she understood how much she needed him, and she leaned forward and kissed him.

The kisses they had exchanged before were hard and urgent, but this one was filled with tenderness. The first touch was feather light, nothing more than a tentative brush of her lips against his, withdrawn almost at once as if she were testing him - and then a second touch, longer than the first, her lips warm and pliant. He felt the tip of her tongue nudge into his mouth, warm and slippery, and he touched it with his own, each responding with growing passion until she broke free with a little gasp of breath.

'I thought I could be strong,' she whispered, 'but I can't, not any more,' and she pressed her mouth to his again.

In the pale silvery light Sarah's skin appeared dark against the crisp white sheets, her limbs spread-eagled and her body acquiescent. He could see the glint of her eyes and the whiteness of her teeth and the darker shadow of her hair spread over the pillow; and above the muted sound of the sea he heard the soft panting of her breath as she waited. He felt her guiding hands as he mounted her; and then the silken touch of her burning flesh against the very tip of his cock.

Slowly, and with infinite care, Michael Ryan penetrated his sister. He felt the initial tightness as his knob engaged her narrow opening and heard the hiss of her breath as she struggled to take him; and then her flesh surrendered and his shaft slid smoothly inside her. She lifted her legs to better accommodate him and he felt the angle of her body change - her hips rotating and her vulva thrusting forward to swallow his cock, until he could go no further.

For a long time they were motionless, each transfixed by the sensations that engulfed them. Sarah could feel his length embedded inside her, levering apart the tight walls of her sex and stretching its narrow opening. She could feel its heat too, and the little movements it made as it twitched; and she could feel her pussy pulsing, as if to draw him deeper. The knowledge that she was fucking her brother filled her with conflicting emotions: a sense of foreboding because they would forever be condemned to hide their secret in the shadows; and reckless exhilaration at the excitement of this forbidden union.

Michael begin to move, his shaft sliding back and forth within her, and Sarah heard little sounds they made - the soft sighs and groans of pleasure, the squeak of the mattress and the soft wet slurp of her sex. Under her fingers she felt the muscles of his back tensing and releasing and his strength and vitality filled her with a deep sense of comfort because he was with her: a rock on which she could depend. She felt her own body responding: her hands clasping his body, her hips rolling languorously in tune with his thrusts - back and forth, in and out. Each stroke of his cock seemed deeper, more primeval, as if he were skewering her with a great piston that filled every corner of her cunt. She felt her juices flowing, mingling with his, smearing over her inner thighs and trickling over the tight eye of her anus, and it was as if his flesh and hers were as one.

'Jesus...,' she whispered. 'Ah, fuck, fuck...that's so good.' Her lips sought his, desperate to taste him, to unite further. Their kisses hard and urgent and interspersed with whispered words of love and lust in the dappled shadows of her room.

'God, Sarah...ah, you're tight!'

'Yes, yes, stretch me open. Take me, take me.'

'I will, I will.'

His eyes were on her face, watching the expressions flit across it: guilt and pleasure and lust. 'How can this be wrong, Michael?' she murmured. 'How can anything this good be so wrong?'

Michael stared down at her face, her words resonating in his brain. It was wrong. He was fucking his little sister, his own flesh and blood, and he had impregnated her. His child was growing only inches from where his rampant cock was now embedded - a child to be born in shame and secrecy. For a moment the enormity of what they were doing overwhelmed him; but the warm, pliant body that writhed beneath him was irresistible, and that was part of the delight.

He remembered reading an article once where people who had committed incest spoke of their feelings. What was it one of them had said? 'Sex with your sister is like no sex you will ever experience again,' and as his cock slid in and out of Sarah he knew that was right.

Within the cortex of his brain the first seeds of his orgasm grew, and he whispered to her as it expanded like a great silver bubble rising from the surface of the ocean.

'I'm going to cum,' he gasped. 'I'm going to spurt into you again.'

Her hands fluttered on his back. 'Yes...do it!'

'I'm going to fill your hungry little cunt...splatter it with my seed.'

The words spurred Sarah on, and she lifted her legs further still so her body was bent almost double. The movement tightened her vaginal canal and Michal groaned as he felt the velvet grip on his shaft intensify. 'It's coming, Sarah,' he groaned. 'Ah, Jesus...yes...yes. Fuck, yes!'

With a hoarse cry Michael spurted into his sister. He felt the long ribbons of his sperm entering her body to paint the grasping, greedy walls of her sex. Through the grainy half-light of his consciousness he counted the burning jets - five, six... seven, each one more intense than the last. He heard her shrill shriek as the feeling of his seed triggered her own climax too - her limbs jolting and twitching beneath him. On and on and on it went, their trembling flesh united: his cock jerking as it emptied and her cunt grasping...milking him in tight, undulating contractions to draw every drop of his essence into her writhing body.