The Beach House Ch. 02

She sped up Bridge's Hill, driving the car through the tight, twisting corners, delighting in its power and balance. The sunlight flickered green and gold through the canopy of trees and the roar of the engine was invigorating: it was like a living creature beneath her hands - a thing of power and beauty to be controlled, just like Amanda would be. She's big too, Lucy thought, big and sleek and glossy like a panther, and I'll tame her tonight with my tongue and fingers and the little toys I have in my closet.

There were road works on Thirlmere Plains but the lights were green and she raced to clear them before they changed, roaring past a red-faced workman holding a slow sign. Lucy laughed at the expression of alarm on his face and watched in the mirror as he shook his fist at the speeding car. Thirty minutes.

The truck was turning into the road just over the crest of the low hill. It was filled with earth and it lumbered onto the single lane, belching smoke from the exhaust and grinding through its gears, and when Lucy appeared over the crest there was nowhere for her to go. She stamped on the brake, feeling the ABS kicking in, holding the road as the traction control took charge and watching in those last few seconds as the distance between them closed.

Another few feet and she would have made it, but the front of the car struck the tailgate and was forced under the massive axle like a toy car struck by a hammer. The inertia lifted the back of the car, twisting it upwards so it folded like crumpled newspaper around her.

The truck stopped suddenly and for a few seconds there was silence except for the ticking of cooling metal. The car's windscreen had popped free and Lucy could see the tailgate just above her, its pitted metal streaked with rust and mud. She tried to move but her legs were held tight and the door beside her was twisted inwards, pressing hard against her arm. There was no pain: only a sensation of pressure, and a feeling of immense relief surged through her. I'm all right. I'm not hurt. They'll get me out.

There were men around the wreckage now and two ran forward to wrestle with the door but it was hopelessly twisted. 'Through the windscreen,' she shouted. 'You can get to me there.'

A bearded man wriggled under the truck and over the crumpled bonnet.

'Are you hurt?' He peered anxiously into the shattered interior of the car.

'I don't think so...I can't free my legs, though. I think it's the steering wheel pressing down on them.'

The man nodded. 'We'd better get you out,' he said. 'One of the others says there's petrol leaking from the tank. He's gone to find an extinguisher.' He seized her arms and began to pull. 'Tell me if I hurt you.'

He pulled hard but there was no movement, and he slithered forward a little to get better purchase, his face close to hers. For a moment they stared at one another, and then she saw his expression shift from concern to shock.

'You!' he said. 'Jesus. It's you...the bitch!' He released her arms and drew back, his eyes on her face. 'Do you remember me?'

'I've never seen you before.'

The man laughed briefly. 'Yes you have...Pete, in the pub - six years ago. You told the cops I'd raped you.'

Lucy shook her head. 'No, no! You're mistaken...it wasn't me. Pull me out - please.'

'I had five years in that festering goal...five years of hell, and I thought of you every single one of them. Do you think I'd forget what you look like?' She saw his eyes shift suddenly to the back of the vehicle before returning to her face. 'And now, here you are again - just you and me.' He examined her for a few seconds. 'So what am I to do with you?'

'Get me out. We can talk later.'

The man ignored her. 'I've never forgotten your last words to me,' he said. His voice was flat, measured, almost conversational, and he was smiling into her face. 'Do you remember, in the back of the van after you'd kicked me in the balls? You said 'see how you like being fucked'... and I was, night after night in that poxy little goal cell with those faggots holding me down...and it was all your fault.' He slithered backwards over the bonnet before turning to her for the last time. 'I could have helped you, you bitch, but it's your turn now - the car's on fire, and you're fucked.'

Lucy turned her head and glanced into the cabin behind her. Tendrils of smoke were seeping from the carpet in sinister wraiths and she was seized by terror. She turned to where the man had been.

'Don't go!' she screamed. 'Come back! Help me...for God's sake help me!' She seized the twisted frame of the windscreen and tried to pull herself clear, but her arms lacked the strength. A smell of burning rubber filled her nostrils.

'Help!' she screamed, 'Yes, yes - it was me! I'm sorry...Jesus, I'm sorry!' In the shattered glass of the mirror she saw a flame lick through the broken floor behind her and the car began to fill with smoke. 'God Jesus, help me...' she shrieked. 'Please - for mercy's sake! Get me out!' She saw him appear beside the car, waving the others back and she screeched in rage and horror.

'Fuck you!' The bitter bile of her hatred filled her head like a hot wind to sweep aside her reason. 'Fucking men! Look at you - you cowards...you cunts!' Her mouth was twisted, spittle dribbling down her chin as she babbled. 'I hate you! I hate all men!' She saw them looking, saw their bovine expressions and their shifting eyes as they watched her madness, watched as the flames took hold. 'You fucking shithead cowards,' she screeched, 'you bastards -'

A long tongue of flame licked over the cabin roof. It touched her head and Lucy began to burn. Her hair ignited in a puff of acrid smoke and she shrieked in agony, her back arching and her hands beating at the flames. Her scalp was blistering, the skin sloughing off in crisp black flakes, and her screams filled the ears of the men watching, battering at their senses. The tendrils of fire licked over her face and her nose and ears burned away and the flesh of her cheeks bubbled like crisping pork on a spit, and her screams grew shriller until a tongue of flame was drawn into her lungs and the awful sound stopped. But she was still alive and they watched her writhing like a skewered fish, her clothes in smoking rags and her skin blackened and crusty until at last the petrol tank exploded and she was consumed.

The fire brigade arrived thirty minutes later, but by then the flames had devoured everything there was to burn. What was left of Lucy's body lay in the smoking frame of the seat, her charred skull peering upwards at the pale blue sky. The eyes were gone and the soot stained teeth in the blackened head seemed to be grinning at the men who surrounded her, as if mocking them from the grave.

***

Michael Ryan sat on the bench in front of the Beach House and gazed over the bay before him. It was early morning and the water was a pale slate grey, stretching like a sheet of glass to the headland beyond. Somewhere behind that dark spit of land was his mother's house and he spared her a few moments of thought, now living alone with empty rooms surrounding her. Her rage at what her children had done had been as jagged as shards of glass and it would take a long time for her to ever forgive.

His eyes picked the spot where the boat had floundered six months before, and he pictured for the thousandth time that infinitesimal moment that changed his life. He remembered the thud of the concussion, the pain in his ears and the hammer blow as he struck the water. His first thought had been for Sarah and he tried in vain to find her, but his face was so swollen from the impact he could not see. He remembered the sound of voices and the hands that pulled him from the water and the pain from his shattered shoulder; he'd begged them to let him stay on deck to help find her - but they had taken him below, despite his desperate pleas.

Not far below where he sat was the little harbour and he ran his eyes over the new jetty, finished just last week. The heavy work had been beyond him for his shoulder was still weak, but a generous endowment from his father and a settlement under the Victims of Crime Act had paid for a contractor and a new boat. This would be the fourth vessel he had used: the first two had been lost in the storm last year and the third - or what was left of it - lay under the waters of the bay. Michael had decided on the name for the new boat the moment he clapped eyes on it, and had spent an emotional hour painting it in tricky capitals on the prow. Sarah.

To the right of the little harbour he could see the top of the memorial he had fashioned: a simple white cross set in stone, looking out over the bay. It was shaded by one of the weathered Alder trees that grew on the island and it was a nice place to sit and remember what might have been.

A faint sound disturbed his train of thought and he listened for a moment before rising to his feet and making his way carefully up the path to the Beach House. The outside walls were freshly whitewashed now, contrasting nicely with the green roof and shutters, and the flower beds surrounding it were filled in a glorious array of colours that tumbled over the stone edging: red and yellow and blue; and the new trees to one side were just turning orange. He remembered how the cottage had looked two years ago - a derelict shell surrounded by weeds and rubbish. Sarah had had the vision to transform it, and nobody but her had ever imagined how beautiful it would look. Sarah.

He entered the narrow hallway and carefully wiped his feet on the mat before turning into the bedroom on the right. The girl on the bed looked up, her head turned away in the mannerism she had developed.

'Wow, I'm an old Noddy!' she said. 'Look at me - almost seven o'clock and I'm still not up.'

Michael sat on the edge of the bed beside her and smoothed back a comma of her hair. There were streaks of grey in it now, even though she was barely twenty one. They had appeared almost overnight after the accident. He smiled wryly - The Accident. Both of them knew it wasn't, but it was a way of trying to move on.

'You deserve it, Sarah,' he said gently. 'You've driven yourself so hard.'

'I had to keep busy -' She paused and he could see her thinking, wondering if she should continue. In the quiet of the room he could hear the metal roof ticking as the morning sun warmed it and the cries of the seagulls at the water's edge.

'Coming back to the Island has given me time to think,' she said at length. 'It sounds funny, I know - it's not like I had to go to work or anything, but with Mum and all, and losing the baby -' she broke off abruptly and although Michael knew the little memorial wasn't visible from her window he knew that she was thinking of it and the simple engraving on its face: Samantha Jane Ryan. Never born but always loved.

'I was worried about coming back here,' she said. 'I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do.' Her eyes moved over the wall beside her, with its rough whitewash and the bright picture upon it. 'It all started here, you see...with Lucy...and then you, and of course Sam. Everything that's been the very worst and the very best in my life started right here, in this little cottage, and I wasn't sure which of the ghosts would win.'

'They're just memories, Sarah,' he said gently, 'and you can only ever dwell on the good ones. What do they say about the past? If it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger.'

'But it killed Sam, Michael, and it nearly killed us.'

He shook his head. 'Lucy killed her, Sarah. It wasn't your fault and it wasn't mine, and it certainly wasn't anything to do with the Beach House.'

'I know,' she sighed. Her eyes were on the floor again but he could see she was thinking of somewhere else, of another time. 'I think what hurts the most is that I never had the chance to hold our daughter, to tell her she was loved...to teach her, watch her grow up. All of that was taken away from me.' She shook her head. 'And I was lying in my bed this morning thinking that you could be taken, too.'

'Lucy's dead, Sarah,' Michael said gently. 'She can't ever hurt us again.'

'I don't mean by her. I mean that life itself is fragile, and we need to live it while we can.' She smiled for the first time, one corner of her mouth lifting slightly. 'And I know you've been vexed with me about that.'

He shook his head in denial. 'I have not.'

Sarah squeezed his hand and the smile faded. 'You have, and you hid it well for the most part. But I know you think I'm spending too long looking backwards and not enough to the future.' Her fingers picked at a thread of cotton on the edge of the bedspread and he suddenly realised how nervous she was. 'And you were right, Michael, but each time I thought things were getting better something else came along to thump me.'

Michael nodded. He remembered the intensive care ward with her head heavily bandaged and the dreadful spectre of being permanently blind. The bandages came off after a week and her joy at being able to see had been tempered by the awful news she'd lost the baby, and then the shock of looking into a mirror. And then, just as she was coming to terms with it, her mother had the meltdown. No wonder she felt as if fate was waiting in the corner with a lead pipe in its hand. She'd come out of hospital and hardly said a word for weeks, until he finally managed to get her to the cottage, away from the shrill venom of their mother's rage.

'But I've made a decision,' she said.

'Which is?' her fingers were warm in his hand.

'That we don't need anyone else.'

'So what does that mean?' he wanted to be sure.

Sarah sighed. 'I never told you the last thought I had when the...accident happened,' she said. 'It was of you. I thought I'd never see you again...that you'd gone and I wouldn't even have the chance to say goodbye. It was...almost unbearable. I've thought about it a lot and I realize now that we've been given a second chance - to be together, to pick up the pieces and try and start again. Just you and me. We don't need anybody else.'

'So why did it take so long -'

She smiled at the earnestness of the question. 'I know... it's a fair question. I'll try and explain.' She gathered her thoughts. 'Little Sam was ours, Michael - the love child of a brother and sister, and she would have carried the mark of Cain for her whole life if our secret had ever been discovered.' She could not meet his gaze and her voice was full of emotion. 'Don't get me wrong,' she continued. 'I loved her...would have loved her through thick and thin, but it was a huge burden to place on any child - and on us, too. Can you imagine how her life would have been if people had found out about us? She would have been ostracized, shunned - an outcast. And we would have been, too.' Her fingers were intertwined, clutching each other as she spoke, and her voice was breaking. 'Losing Sam lifted that burden, Michael. We could have walked away from each other and nobody would ever have known. It was a chance to start again, to look for a normal relationship. I - I had to think about that.'

He nodded without speaking, knowing there was more, waiting for her to say the words that he knew she needed to utter, waiting whilst she gathered the strength.

At last she turned to face him full on for the first time, her eyes filled with uncertainty. 'And then there's me,' she said softly. 'Can you still love me with...this?' and she raised her hand and touched the side of her face.

Michael leaned forward and gently lifted her fingers aside. The one side of her face was untouched and flawless but the other was still scarred from the impact of the spar, the eyelid drooping and thin furrow tracking to the perfect curve of her lips, the scar tissue still red and livid.

She was watching him with those clear grey eyes and they were filled with fear at what he might say. 'Tell me,' he said softly, 'do you think that has made you a different person?'

'I feel the same inside,' she whispered, 'but you - you must think -'

'That you are amazing,' he interrupted, 'that you have been through a kind of hell and have come out stronger; that you are the most precious thing in my life and always will be - and I will always be proud and humbled to stand by your side.' He lifted her hand and held it, smiling into her face. 'And I think that you have borne the burden of all that has happened: of Lucy's manipulation and her hatred, the dreadful agony of loss and the pain of your injuries - and I have suffered nothing in comparison. You have an inner strength and grace, Sarah, and although I loved you before it was nothing to what I feel now.'

She stared upwards into his face and tried to speak, to find words to say that she felt the same about him, but there were none. Her lips moved silently and her eyes filled with tears, and she raised her arms and hugged him, rocking back and forth and basking in the strength of his embrace. 'Then let's start again, Michael,' she whispered, 'let's be together. Come to bed now.'

She lifted the bedclothes aside and he stared down at her, lying quietly before him. The scar on her face somehow emphasised the perfection of her body: the creamy skin, the full breasts capped with hard pink nipples; the flat plain of her belly and the fluffy triangle between her perfect thighs. He climbed over her, his cock thickening rapidly, and he felt her legs lifting, opening wider, her calves resting under his arms. He looked down and saw that she was open to him, submissive, waiting to be penetrated, and he saw those clear grey eyes watching his face.

She grunted once as he slid into her: a single exhalation of air as if all the breath was being driven from her body by the piston of his cock, and he felt her shift under him to better accommodate the length of his cock. She was very tight - almost painfully so - and he paused to let her adjust to his thickness. Her cunt was pulsing around him, gripping and releasing him spasmodically to the rhythm of her heart, and she lifted her head and kissed him.

For a long time Michael Ryan lay quiescent on his sister, luxuriating in the tightness of her body, in the soft wet kisses they shared, in the probing of her tongue and the scent of her skin. He felt the rigidity of her cunt relaxing, her juices oozing to ease his way, and his cock burrowed deeper towards her belly. Her posture had thrust her pudenda forward and at last he felt his own pubic bone touch it, and he understood that he was as deep within her as he had ever been. He imagined his foreskin drawn back and the great purple helmet of his cock embedded in her centre, gripped by the tightness of that still throbbing tube, and he heard the soft panting of her breath as she absorbed the full length of his shaft

'Jesus, Michael,' she whispered, 'you're touching something inside me.'

'I am, I am.' He envisaged the head pressed against her cervix, far inside her body.

'I love it,' she said. 'I love having you inside me.'

'I love you,' he responded simply, and it was true. He could not imagine doing this to anyone else.

She began to roll her hips forward and back, the mattress protesting softly, and he heard the wet suck of her vulva as it slid back and forth on his shaft. He thrust with her - small strokes at first but then growing longer until he was pumping back and forth into her grasping body. The head of his cock seemed huge: he could feel it rubbing, rubbing: an exquisite sensation that seemed to get more intense with every stroke, and her gasps of breath filled his ears.

'Ah, fuck, fuck,' she murmured. 'Fuck me, Michael...that's it! Right inside me...my big brother. Ah! That's so good!'

'I can feel your ring gripping me.'