Charles Wykes

Brothers And sisters

Chapter 1

I'm sorry.

That's what he had said. Those were his last words, at least as far as Melissa Mason was concerned. If her father had said anything else to anyone else, like to one of the doctors or nurses, Melissa didn't know about it.

I'm sorry.

He had then slipped off into a coma; and, less than three hours later, William James Davenport, pillar of his community, president of Davenport Electronic International, was dead at sixty-nine, his soul shoveling coal in the furnaces of hell.

Now, why did Melissa have to think that? It wasn't like her to think such vindictive things, was it? Her father probably was in heaven right that minute. If there was a heaven.

And, of course, there was a heaven. Melissa didn't like the way her mind was working. No, she didn't like it one damn bit. Of course her father's soul was now off somewhere in paradise playing a harp! Because if William Davenport had told his daughter he was sorry, there was little doubt but that he had told the church the same thing, given a couple hundred thousand dollars to the papal coffers, and been given forgiveness.

Well, Melissa wasn't all that sure she forgave her father as easily as God might have done. After all, a few mumbled words on his deathbed, when he knew he was shortly going off to meet his maker, certainly didn't make up for fifteen years of being an absolute bastard, did it?

Bastard? Was that how she had visualized her father? What's more, was that how she STILL visualized him, even though he was dead and buried?

Nonsense! She had to get hold of herself. She was simply in an emotional state, what with the death, and the funeral, and the people, and the countless amenities-and with seeing Creagon again.

Creagon Davenport, Melissa's brother, older by three years; tall, blond, blue-eyed, exceptionally handsome. Every time Melissa saw Creagon, she marveled at how he never seemed to change, never seemed to grow older. And, considering Melissa had only seen Creagon twice in the last fifteen years (twice since that one long-ago night William Davenport had eventually come to mutter "I'm sorry" for), she was surprised at how Creagon could manage to appear so ageless. Especially since it had obviously been no lark making it on his own out in the big wide world with neither his father's money nor name to back him.

The last time Melissa had seen Creagon was at her brother's wedding to Marne.

Marne Davenport nee Marne Mason: the wife of Melissa's brother; the sister of Melissa's husband.

And before Creagon and Marne's wedding, the only other time had been when her brother had attended Melissa's wedding to John. And, some time during those festivities, Creagon Davenport had met Marne Mason; and, love had blossomed.

At Melissa and John's wedding there had also been a fight between Creagon and his father. The first time those men had seen each other in ten years, and they'd been at each other's throat. Thank God William hadn't been invited to Creagon's marriage. Melissa had sneaked away to attend it-one of the few things she had ever done in her life to flaunt her father. And, William Davenport had been furious. He had raved on for days, dredging up old, best-forgotten skeletons and rattling them in front of Melissa's eyes until Melissa had collapsed and been under a doctor's care for four whole weeks.

And, so her father had died sorry. But, sorry for what? Maybe that was what was bothering Melissa. Because William Davenport had been so seemingly firm in his righteous indignation that he had, for the most part finally convinced Melissa that she wag the one who should have been sorry.

So, why hadn't Melissa been able to tell the dying man that she was sorry?

It had been Melissa's fault, hadn't it? What Melissa had done was wicked… wicked… wicked. If she could accept that now, then why hadn't she been able to tell her father she was sorry?

Yes, by God, she had been sinful… depraved… degenerate. She had done a forbidden thing; and, her father had had every reason to be angry because of it. He'd had every reason to send her away to those church schools where she could repent at leisure, contemplate her sins, promise herself she would never sin again.

Creagon now, he had been the lucky one! He had simply run away, not turning up again until he was past twenty-one and could thumb his nose in the old bastard's face.

Lucky? Melissa realized that was hardly the right adjective to use. She was obviously in such an emotional state that she was constantly putting wrong words in the wrong places. Because, how could Creagon be lucky? He'd had no good holy sisters, dressed in their starched black and white uniforms like penguins, telling him what was right and what was wrong, thereby insinuating that what Melissa and Creagon had done was certainly an abomination in the eyes of man and God.

And, had William Davenport told his son he was sorry; or, had he assumed he'd done enough in leaving his wayward son half of the estate?

"Melissa?"

It was her husband, calling from the bedroom. Melissa had hoped he was asleep. Why in the hell wasn't he?

"What is it, John?"

"What's taking you so fucking long?"

Melissa shuddered at her husband's vulgarity. God, but he had changed since he'd gotten back from the war-or, was Vietnam called a conflict? Whatever, John Mason had changed. Oh, God, had he changed!

"I'm brushing my hair, John," Melissa said, reaching for the brush on the dresser so as to make her statement only half a lie. "Why don't you just try and get some sleep while you're waiting?"

"Try hurrying, will you?" John said in reply.

And, what exactly did that imply? Melissa suspected she knew; and, that knowledge did nothing more than send goose bumps up and down her spine.

Just where had her husband disappeared to? Just what kind of black magic had sent a docile, mild, well-mannered college graduate off to some distant pest hole to be metamorphosed into a rutting animal?

Or, had Vietnam had anything at all to do with it? Had the beast always been there, beneath the surface, waiting to jump out at the first opportunity? That was certainly possible when considering how that "other" John Mason had been so opposite his sister Marne. How could any one as meek and mild as John had seemed at the time of his marriage have popped from the same womb as Marne?

Not that Melissa didn't like Marne. Because she did. Actually, when Melissa was up to admitting it to herself, she even envied Marne, to a certain extent. On the other hand, there was too much of everything about Marne which made Melissa a little uneasy.

Marne was simply too beautiful. Her breasts were a trifle too large. Her figure was a bit too sensuous. Her walk was a mite too sexy. Her voice was too sultry. Her eyes were too seductive. Her lips were too inviting.

Marne, in short, reeked a kind of sexuality that Melissa found disturbing. Why she found it disturbing, she couldn't quite say.

"Melissa!" John called again, bringing his wife back once again to the reality.

Surely, surely, John wasn't thinking of doing any of his disgusting sexual gymnastics tonight! Sweet Jesus, but they hadn't gotten back from the graveyard but a few short hours before. But, then, that would hardly matter to John, would it? He had lived with death in Nam, hadn't he? He had seen death all around him every day of the week. So, what did it matter to John Mason that William Davenport was dead?

"Melissa, for Christ's sake, you brush your hair so much, it's a fucking wonder it doesn't all fall out by its roots!" John yelled loudly from the bedroom where he would be naked and probably lying on top of the bed, his huge penis hard and laid out along his belly like some Army missile ready for launching.

Disgusting! Her husband was disgusting! Far too disgusting to be endured. Did John know that as soon as the estate was settled, Melissa was planning on divorcing him?

Yes, she would divorce him. He wasn't, after all, the man she had originally married, was he? He had gone off to war (to conflict? to whatever?), to fight for his country like his daddy, and granddaddy, and great-granddaddy, ad infinitum, had done. He had gone off and changed from a man to an animal.

Well, by God, Melissa was having very little of it! And if John wouldn't grant her a divorce under some civilized guise like incompatibility or irreconcilable differences, then Melissa was quite prepared to label John an adulterer and name the correspondents. Oh, yes, Melissa was quite aware that her husband had been out fucking on the side. And, she was glad of it, too. Let someone else go through the horror of John's pants, and grunts, and groans, and gasps, and… oh, but it was disgusting!

Melissa drew the brush through her long mane of tawny blonde hair, enjoying the pull against her scalp and the resulting tingle.

Reflected back from the vanity table mirror, although Melissa wouldn't have been likely to admit it, was a very beautiful young woman. Her hair, of course, was her best feature. It was honey-colored, lush, and had been cut to give a tousled, fly-away look that was exceptionally attractive. Her eyes were blue, set a trifle too far apart. Her eyelashes were long, almost brown now that they'd been cleared of blackening mascara. Her eyebrows were fine, evenly plucked lines. She had a good but quite ordinary nose; full, cupid's-bow mouth. She had high cheekbones.

Her long neck curved downward, opening up into the deep cleavage displayed by her robe-covered breasts.

Yes, Melissa was quite attractive. However, she had so long been made to look ugly in stiff unattractive school uniforms, in short-cropped hair, in ungainly shoes, And in virtually no makeup that she couldn't quite imagine she had blossomed into quite the woman she had.

As a matter of fact, it was very seldom that Melissa ever consciously paid attention to what was reflected back to her in any mirror. Mirrors at the convent school were an anathema-spawners of sinful vanity. And, old habits were had to die.

Even now, Melissa wasn't much concerned with whether or not she was pretty, or any had new wrinkles, or was getting bags under her eyes, or was losing her peaches-and-cream complexion. Her constant stroking of her hair with the silver-handled pig-bristle bush had become an unconscious rhythm honed by constant routine.

Melissa's mind had first wandered back to that day in this very house when she and Creagon had been caught "playing with each other" (actually having long since progressed beyond that minor stage of the relationship, not that Melissa blamed Creagon, having long since put all of the blame on her own shapely shoulders). Then, finding those thoughts as disturbing as she had always found them (why had that silly bastard of a father told her he was sorry?), she let her mind drift elsewhere.

Back to John. Back to dear, sweet John, as he had once been. Back to John, the vulgarity he had become.

Melissa knew what John was doing out there in the bedroom at that moment. Oh, yes, she knew. He would have his large hand wrapped around his big, huge cock, and he would be pumping his prick languidly, just waiting for Melissa to step from the dressing room and see him. John would want to shock her, as if his own pleasure was somehow fed by his wife's continual embarrassment at his perverted antics.

To describe Melissa's feelings that first night in bed after John had returned home from Vietnam would have made a book-size volume of horror stories. To describe her feelings these years later, when John still refused to revert to his civilized state, would have been to describe frustrations, humiliations, and mortifications in the extreme.

John obviously had, somewhere along the line, forgotten the difference between a civilized woman and one of those primitive gook women he had balled while in Nam. While some Oriental women, used to nothing better than rape and ravagement, might eventually find enjoyment in the vile sexual techniques John had brought back to Melissa's bedroom, Melissa had been nothing but disgusted to the point of nausea. Thank God, he had since decided that prostitutes were more accepting of his animalistic behavior than his wife was. At least, John spent a lot of time with several call girls. And, he'd fucked several women at the club, some of whom had actually come back for seconds, which just went to show how degraded some civilized women were becoming.

"Melissa!"

"In… a… minute, John! In… a… minute!"

John had been rather on display these last few days, hadn't he? He hadn't been able to get away for as much on-the-side rutting as he was used to. He obviously was expecting to try his wife once again. Well, he would find Melissa no more receptive this time than she had been the last time. In truth, Melissa even found the idea of a plain, old-fashion, missionary-style fuck beneath her husband physically revolting. She wondered if it were too late to dissolve the facade of happily married couple and get separate rooms. That's what they had at home, anyway. And, it was far… far… far more convenient.

"Melissa!"

Melissa heard her husband's feet hit the floor. She kept on brushing her hair. She heard her husband stomping in her direction. She kept on brushing. She saw his revolting naked reflection in the mirror. She kept on brushing. John stepped up behind her, his grotesquely huge and hard cock almost touching Melissa's creamy neck.

"If you so much as lay a hand on me, I'll let out a scream that will bring every servant and relative in this house right down on our doorstep," Melissa threatened, not missing a brush stroke.

"What in the fuck has gotten into you?" John asked.

Goddamn, she was beautiful! Did she know how fucking hot he was for her body? She knew! Sure, damn right she did! So, why was she always colder than an iceberg? She'd been that way ever since he'd been discharged.

"Nothing has gotten into me lately," Melissa said, "And you're not getting into me tonight. So, I suggest you either beat that thing off, or go take a cold shower. The choice is yours."

"You are my goddamn wife!" John said angrily, clamping his right hand into Melissa's right shoulder.

John's claw-like fingers were hurting her, but Melissa refused to make a grimace. She did not stop brushing her hair, however. She then gave John a look in the mirror that she hoped displayed just a touch of the utter revulsion she was feeling as a direct result of his hand on her body.

"You have one second to turn loose before I bring this house down," Melissa said. She knew she had the advantage here; and, she refused to surrender it.

"Goddamn frigid bitch!" John spat. He turned on his heels and went back to the bedroom. He flopped down on his bed. Twin beds for shit's sake! How in the hell had she managed that? She had undoubtedly called ahead. Not separate rooms. Hell, no, since that would have caused talk. But, twin beds. She could have whispered something to her father's housekeeper about how "it was her time of the month," and there would have been no questions asked not that there would have ever been any overt questions from the servants in any case.

John hesitated in fisting his meat and jerking it off. Why in the hell should he beat off his own cock? Hell, he was a married man, wasn't he? He had a wife. A husband was supposed to screw his wife, not his hand.

John was confused as ever by Melissa's coolness. She had changed. Or had she? Melissa had never been all that excited over sex, had she? John had thought it was merely his fault, mainly his ineptitude. Now, he wondered it had been his fault, ever. He'd, after all, learned a lot in Nam, sexual things not being the least of his acquired knowledge. He had come back confident that Melissa would be pleased to find her husband miraculously converted from bumbling kid to experienced lover. He had thought she'd been hoping he would improve when she had written a reply to his first guilty confession of infidelity.

"Don't worry about it, John. War makes strange bedfellows, after all; and, I certainly never expected you to remain celibate during your whole term of service. You've gone off to battle, not to a monastery. Do anything you think necessary to relieve the tensions of that mess over there, knowing that I'm not going to be here, ready to stamp a scarlet 'A' on your chest the minute you step off your plane…"

But, as time progressed, it became more and more apparent that Melissa didn't want a competent lover or a humbling one. She obviously didn't want any lover at all.

John had thought there was someone else. He had laid traps, listened in on Melissa's phone conversations, interrupted his schedule to drop in unexpectedly on Melissa's tennis lessons at the club, on her lunches with Geraldine Pinkton or one of the other girls, on her visits to see her ailing father. John had never found his wife anywhere but where she had said she would be. He had found no studs, waiting off in secluded nooks, waiting to service his wife while he didn't. He had found no women, with closets full of dildos, waiting to eat his wife's cunt or bump pussies.

John looked up as Melissa entered the bedroom and switched off the lights in the dressing room behind her.

Damn it, John wished Melissa didn't affect him the way she did. He would have done anything to be able to shrug his shoulders and care less that his wife was more happy with John out of her bed than in it.

So, what happened the minute Melissa made her entrance, gliding by amid a flutter of gossamer negligee? John's damned cock jerked so heartily that the slap of John's cock meat striking against John's belly muscles was readily audible in the room.

And if Melissa heard, she gave no notice. Without even giving John a glance, she skirted his bed, preparing to enter her own from a spot the furthest from John as she could possibly get.

As Melissa prepared to enter the sheets, her unbound breasts jiggled seductively. Could John actually see her dollar-size nipples beneath the clinging material?

Melissa's tawny mane of hair flowed down and over her shoulders. John caught a peek of his wife's milky white leg as she crawled in bed and quickly pulled the blankets over her.

"Do you want me to turn out the light, or will you?" Melissa asked, her hands crossed over her breasts like some queen laid out on a regal funeral pyre.

"Leave it on," John said. "I'm going to be using it for awhile."

"Suit yourself," Melissa said. Her eyes were shut, her lashes looked like brown butterflies against her checks.

Shit, shit, shit! John couldn't believe it. He simply couldn't believe it. If he had been an ugly sonofabitch, he might have understood. But, goddamn it, John wasn't ugly He wasn't so stunning that his looks sent every girl he met into convulsions of faster heartbeats; but, he was no dog by a long ways. Granted, he'd been a late bloomer, a bit ungainly through his early adolescence before his torso grew into proportion with his head, arms, and legs. In fact, his early awkwardness had given him the shyness which he'd retained up and beyond his marriage with Melissa.

However, by the time John had married Melissa, all outward awkwardness was long gone. Physically, his body had looked in great shape and, in fact, was in good shape. His complexion, once plagued by the biggest zits John had thought imaginable, had cleared with no noticeable scarring. His brown hair, brown eyes, full lips, dimpled cheeks, and cleft chin had all come together in a pleasantly attractive combination.

And since then, John's looks had improved, if anything. His military training had solidified a physique which had never had any excess fat. His pectorals, covered with a fine matting of brown hair, were rectangular etchings on his chest. His belly was a washboarding design of rippled abdominals.

His cock was big without being too big. It certainly could hold its own in any comparison in any locker room; but, it certainly wasn't one of those monstrous cocks that had women squealing protest that it was too big-and really meaning that it was.

In fact, John, who could see his body reflected to him by the mirrored doors of the clothes closet by the side of his bed, saw nothing whatsoever about him that should turn off his wife.

So, what did turn Melissa off about him? And, there as little doubt in John's mind that Melissa was turned off. Melissa wasn't faking her present disinterest. Any minute, John expected Melissa to start snoring.

Hell, John had tried to do everything he could to please her. He had even gotten within licking distance of her blonde-haired cunt on occasion, having learned that no woman could resist getting herself off on a guy's tongue. But Melissa would have none of that! Christ no! You would have thought John's tongue was acid the way Melissa had crawled out from under him. And, she hadn't been putting up any token struggle just to increase her own enjoyment. She had been dead serious!

"You disgusting pervert!" That was just what she had called him. Disgusting. Pervert. John had been dumbfounded.

Actually, John had been more than just dumbfounded. He had been made just a little insecure. His ego had been definitely deflated. For almost a year he had wondered if maybe he hadn't known as much about fucking as be had come to think he knew. Melissa had made him so fucking paranoid, John had resisted all come-ons from the women at the club for fear he'd get the same negative reaction from them that he had gotten from Melissa.

Thank God, though, that John had been too attractive for some of those women to give up without a battle. Finally-albeit reluctantly-he had succumbed to Margaret Riley, Jim Riley's wife, in a linen closet off the club dining area. There, amid tablecloths, napkins, dish towels, and aprons, John had finally discovered that it just wasn't Oriental women who liked to get their cunts tongued, or their asses fucked. And he'd since learned, on more than one occasion, that it just wasn't Oriental women who got a charge out of swinging on John's big cock.

John had plenty of women ready to take him on, anyway he wanted to ride them. However, his own wife was not one of them. And, for some perverse reason John couldn't explain, the fact that Melissa so obviously didn't want him only seemed to make John want her all the more.

She was a bitch! That's what she was: a bitch! And, it wouldn't have been so fucking bad if John hadn't loved her now even more than he had ever loved her.