A Haunting Love

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

Chapter Nine

Ramona noticed the subdued demeanor of her children at supper. Gone was their carefree exuberance and the laughter that went with it. She started to ask them what was wrong, but decided not to. In some ways her children seemed like strangers lately, but she chalked that up to puberty and the inner turmoil that all teenagers faced sooner or later as they grew to adulthood.

She had been happy that they were so light-hearted, since she thought that would be a buffer to her announcement that she had some papers for Smith to sign and needed to take them to him that night. The result of her statement, made in passing, was not what she'd expected. She'd expected Debbie to make some snide comment about Smith, or object in some way. She'd expected Robby to just sit, silent, as he did so often when Smith was discussed.

Instead, Debbie turned red and shifted in her chair silently. It was Robby who spoke.

"I thought that was your job," he said, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. "Why didn't you take them to him today?" He, too, looked uncomfortable, but not angry.

Ramona hadn't thought she'd be questioned like that, and her mind scrabbled for a believable answer.

"Well ... um ... they weren't ready in time," she said.

Robby, of course, knew exactly why his mother wanted to go see Smith. And, while the sight of the man rutting into his beautiful mother turned him on, it was also distasteful in some way he couldn't understand. The image of his mother's milky white breasts shaking as the man slammed into her was burned into his memory, as was her assent to being impregnated. That just wasn't the woman who was sitting across the table from him now, and he didn't want her to go be that woman again.

"So, have him sign them tomorrow," he said, his voice tinged with surliness.

"I need to process them tomorrow," said his mother. "And I'm right here, next door. It'll save time if I take care of them tonight." She couldn't understand her children’s resistance to this, and it was a pivotal part of her plan to see her brother more often. She pushed that plan.

"In fact, I plan on seeing him a lot while I'm here at home. It's so much quicker than driving all the way over here during the day and wading through all those contractors." It sounded eminently reasonable to her, despite the fact that the bank was only six blocks from the manor.

"Yeah, right," said Robby heavily.

What was running through his mind was the fact that Smith knew the twins didn't like him, and that Smith had a piece of information that could ruin things even more than he had ruined things already. It was inevitable, based on what she had been doing with him, that she would see him again. It was also inevitable, in Robby's mind, that he would tell her what he had seen. At the same time, he hadn't seemed offended or outraged by what he'd caught them doing, and that seemed odd somehow too. His statement that he meant the siblings no harm also twisted in Robby's mind, because it didn't make sense either. Debbie had all but declared war on him, but he acted like nothing was wrong.

Ramona wanted to hear assent from her children ... to have their permission to go next door more or less regularly, and because of that, she heard Robby's comment as grudging acceptance that her plan did, in fact, make sense. She missed completely the ambivalence flashing across her son's face.

Ramona made herself wash the dishes before she went to see her brother. While she felt no shame or guilt for what they shared, she knew that her feelings were driving her and she didn't like the feeling of not being in control. There had been a lot of upheaval in her world of late, and "deciding" what to do and when to do it helped her cope with the sensation of being adrift on a sea with no rudder.

But, as soon as her hands were dry, she picked up her briefcase and sang out that she'd be back in a while. Not waiting for an answer she hurried out to the car. She could have walked, but she felt like driving up to the house would look better in case some passerby saw her enter the estate.

As she sat in the car her pussy was already getting wet.

Debbie had been keeping tabs on her mother, and as soon as she heard the car door slam she ran to her brother's room. He was lying on the bed, a book open, but his eyes were staring at the ceiling.

"Come on" she said, her voice hushed for some reason. "She's going over there."

"Why should we go?" he asked, his voice dull. "We know what she's going to do."

"He might tell her!" she snapped. "We have to know if he tells her! Now come on!"

Debbie grabbed his wrist and pulled as he sat up and rolled off the bed. When they got outside she kept pulling him as he tried to lag.

"Come on Robby!" she snarled. "You want me to go by myself?"

For some reason the idea of Debbie being in the house alone ... with Smith there ... didn't sit well with Robby. He increased his pace. Soon they were slipping through the woods behind the house. It wasn't dark yet, and they had to wait while they surveyed the back of the house. Even more had changed since the last time they'd been there. The house was beginning to look like a house, rather than the wreck it had been ever since they'd put their eyes on it. Eventually they felt safe in going out into the open to reach the cellar steps.

They darted down into the cellar and stopped only long enough to let their eyes adapt a little bit to the darkness. Then it was through the secret door and down the tunnel to the thick door with the ring on it. They eased it open to minimize the squeal of the hinges. Robby made a mental note for possibly the fifth or sixth time to bring oil with him the next time he came.

At the top of the stairs they stopped, unconsciously trying to get their breathing under control before going further. Debbie stepped forward first. She felt the slight tug as her ankle hit something, but the sensation went away almost immediately as the thread that had been stretched across the narrow hallway snapped. There was the sound of a dull thud up ahead of them somewhere, but no other noises, and they crept forward.

They heard voices in the dining room and stopped to see their mother standing, her briefcase hanging from one hand, her arm straight as Smith, without his disguise this time, kissed her firmly. His right hand cupped her left breast through her blouse.

When the kiss was over she sighed.

"I told the kids there were papers to be signed. I told them I'd have to do that a lot."

"Much has changed, dear Rami" said the man. "Things may not need to be kept secret much longer. I have much to tell you."

Both teens took in panicked breaths of air at that, but they had no chance to do more.

"Then tell me in the bedroom," said their mother salaciously, "as we do what I love most in the world."

She set down the briefcase and pulled her lover toward the stairs, much like Debbie had pulled her own brother out of the house and toward the manor only moments before. There was more talk, but the kids were already moving toward the staircase that would lead them to the bedroom where they had witnessed what was about to happen again to their mother. They pressed their faces against the peep holes as their mother and Smith entered the room. Debbie's gut tightened as she saw that her mother's blouse was already unbuttoned, and that she had worn no bra to go "have papers signed." Another lie. She'd known it, of course, but the sight of her mother's real intentions made a knot in her stomach.

Smith, though, was not looking at his lover. Instead, his head swiveled around the room, his eyes low.

"Oh look" he said calmly. "A picture has fallen from the wall."

"Never mind that Bobby, I need you now," demanded Ramona, shrugging her blouse off and draping it across a chair. "Wouldn't you rather look at me than some old picture?" she asked coquettishly.

Now Smith's eyes went to his sister.

"Most assuredly" he said, smiling. He went to her and leaned over to suckle at an exposed and stiff nipple, his hand smoothing across the buttocks of her slacks. He kissed his way up to Ramona's lips as her fingers went to the buttons of his own shirt and began undoing them.

Robby, his gut tight too, couldn't, for some reason, watch his mother being ravished again. He hadn't yet analyzed the emotions associated with watching his beautiful mother be made love to. He hadn't yet realized that the twisting in his guts was because some part of him wanted to be the man rutting into her soft, white body. He pushed back from the wall as emotions raced through him and suddenly realized his prick was stone hard. His eyes went to his sister and he automatically retreated into something that brought them both pleasure ... something that made the world feel right. He stepped behind her, reaching around to cup her breasts and press his erection into her buttocks, which were jutted out as she leaned forward to peer through the peep holes.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"I don't want to watch them," he said. "I'd rather do this to you."

His hands slid to her waist and up under her shirt to her own unfettered breasts, feeling for and squeezing her nipples slightly.

"Not here," she moaned. "Not now."

She was trying to listen, though, and Smith was saying something. She didn't have the time to make her brother stop. And the feelings coursing through her loins at what she was witnessing made what he was doing feel wonderful too.

"Shhh," she said to the wall, even though it was she who was making the most noise. "They're saying something."

Robby let his hands play across his sister's breasts, squeezing them and flicking the nipples, which stood up proudly to be squeezed and flicked. He pulled her shirt up to give his hands room to move without catching in the cloth and bunched it under her arm pits. She ground her buttocks against his hardon and he let his hands slide down her flat stomach to the fastening of her jeans shorts.

"Nooo," she whined.

"Come on," he whispered in her ear. "It'll feel good. What are they saying?"

What Smith was saying was: "Slow down, my sweet. As I said I have much to tell you."

Ramona wasn't interested in talk. She wanted her pussy stuffed, and her clitty abused.

"I can't stay long," she moaned. "Can't it wait?"

"I don't think so," he said, cupping her breasts, unable himself to keep his hands off her. "I think your children know more than they have admitted."

That caught Debbie's full attention and she froze as Robby got her shorts unbuttoned and started to slide his hand into her panties. Her automatic, completely unthinking response was to step to one side with each foot, giving his fingers room to play. But her attention was all on Smith.

"What?" her mood interrupted by mention of her children, Ramona's passion eased a bit. "What do you mean?"

"I told you someone had been in this house. Now I have reason to believe it's your children," he said flatly.

"What?!" asked Ramona, astonished. "That's impossible!" she said automatically.

Robby, not knowing what was being said, let his middle finger slip between his sister's slick labia and felt for her joy button while his other hand went back to cup a breast. Debbie, too enraptured by what she was hearing to pass the words along to her brother, held her breath.

"I saw them by the fence this afternoon," he said.

Debbie felt terror so great that what her brother was doing to her didn't penetrate her consciousness at all.

"That doesn't mean they've come in this house," said Ramona. "They've played in the woods since they were children."

"Played ..." said Smith. "An interesting word, that." He looked directly at the bookcase, behind which Debbie and Robby were standing, as if he somehow knew she was there and watching.

Debbie pushed off the wall, against her brother's unyielding body. His back hit the opposite wall because there was nowhere else for him to go.

"He's going to tell her," said Debbie, her voice choked.

"What?" asked Robby, thinking so intently about where his hand were, and how good if felt to feel her butt pressing against him, that he couldn't concentrate fully on what she'd just said.

Because Debbie had backed up, she didn't hear what Smith said next. It probably wouldn't have made any difference anyway, based on what happened next. There wouldn't have been time to do anything about it.

"Rami, darling, don't you remember the passages? The secret ways?"

Ramona's head snapped backward as if she had been slapped. Her last memory of the house was stepping quietly through the secret hallway between the walls, as her parents screamed. They had hidden there as the screams turned to gurgling moans and then stopped. They had waited in the dark until they had heard no noises for a long time. Robert had just barely been able to reach the release that let them through the wall into their parents' bedroom. There had been bright red spatters everywhere, but they hadn't understood it was blood. Blood came in small drops, from the prick of a thorn, not in amounts so much that it looked like paint. She remembered her mother's eyes, open and staring, but her mother wouldn't say anything. That's what had frightened Ramona, and when she had started crying.

She shook her head. She hadn't thought of the secret places in the house for a long long time. She watched as Robert suddenly stepped toward the bookcase and reached for the hidden latch.

Debbie, horrified by what she was sure was about to be told to her mother, leaned forward again just in time to see Smith, facing her, his body only a foot away. There was a loud snap, and then a creak, and the wall in front of her moved away from her face. She fell forward as the support she had been depending on disappeared. Only her brother's hands, one cupping her naked breast, and the other with its finger buried in her pussy, saved her from falling forward.

She squinted as she was suddenly bathed in light.

“Ahhhh, said Smith in his disguised gravelly voice. “The rabbits have returned.”

Ramona looked unbelievingly at what was exposed when the bookcase swung open on creaking hinges. There, to her astonished gaze, was revealed her daughter, whose shirt was up around her neck. Her arms were out in front of her like she had pushed the bookcase open. Ramona’s mind did a little dancing twist. Something wasn’t right here. She was finally able to process the information that, despite the fact that both of Debbie’s hands were in plain sight, there was a hand cupping one of her naked breasts and another hand that was down in the opening of her shorts, which were unbuttoned and unzipped!

Ramona reeled as the body behind her daughter moved and a head appeared over Debbie’s shoulder she recognized as Robby. The concept that her son was standing behind her daughter, and that he was feeling her breast and had his hand stuck down her pants was strange enough. The fact that they were in the secret passageway of the Nettleton Mansion made it all surreal. Then, the fact that she was standing topless in the same house, and that her children could see that, flipped some switch in her brain that suggested a light nap might be in order. Consciousness left her, her vision fading into black as she crumpled to the floor.

At first Debbie couldn’t see anything because the sudden light made her pupils slam closed. She knew, though, that Smith and her mother could see her and she was suddenly aware of exactly where Robby’s hands were. She gave a little shriek and slapped at the hand holding her breast, hitting the breast instead, which hurt. Robby’s hand jerked away, though, and she pulled at his other hand, dragging it out of her pants. Her vision began to sharpen about the time her mother’s collapsing body came into focus.

“Mommy!” she screamed, and lurched forward into the room, brushing past Smith as if he didn’t exist.

Robby stumbled forward too as the pressure pushing his back against the wall vanished and he found himself face to face with Smith. Well, perhaps face to face wasn’t the best term, since Smith’s face was turned toward Robby’s mother, who was lying in an boneless pile on the floor. Both men surged as one toward the fallen woman.

By the time they got there Debbie was already kneeling, hovering over her mother’s body, her fingertips touching Ramona’s face as she cried “Mommy! Mommy! What's wrong?”

Smith knelt beside her, moving Ramona’s arms around to a more comfortable position, laying her out on her back.

“I think she has only fainted. Seeing you two was more than she could deal with.” he said, his face beside Debbie’s.

“She looks dead!” wailed Debbie.

“No” said Smith forcefully. “See, she breathes.” He placed his hand flat on their mother’s naked chest, between her breasts. Ramona moaned and her head rolled to one side.

Debbie slapped at Smith’s arm forcefully.

“Get your hands off her!” she yelled. “This is all your fault!”

Smith rocked back on his calves. “Everything is my fault, eh little rabbit?”

“And stop calling me that!” yelled Debbie, turning her pale face up with a horrible grimace.

“What then should I call you?” he asked, not at all disturbed by her anger.

“Help my mother!” demanded Debbie.

“Perhaps you should close your pants before she awakens.” suggested Smith. “I think perhaps seeing your brother’s hands on your beautiful body may have been part of why she is like this.”

The shock of his words hit Debbie as if he’d slapped her. She jumped to her feet and fumbled frantically with her shorts, re-fastening what Robby had undone. Then she tugged at her shirt, pulling it back down to cover her breasts. She was about to shout at the man again when her mother’s hazel eyes opened.

“Debbie?” she said, as if she wasn’t sure it really was her daughter. Then her eyes went to the man beside her. “Bobby?”

“I’m here my sweet.” he said soothingly.

Ramona smiled, still not back to the present completely. A face appeared over her brother’s shoulder, peering down at her anxiously.

“Robby?” she said, her voice dreamlike. Then: “Bobby, why are my children here?”

“I think they’ve been spying on us my darling,” said Smith, as if he were only saying that perhaps it would be good to have tomatoes with supper.

“Spying?” came Ramona’s plaintive reply. Her eyes cleared suddenly. The transition was stark and obvious and astonishing.

“Spying?!” she gasped. She lifted her head and saw her own naked breasts. The magnitude of what was happening penetrated and she rolled over, covering her head with her arms. She began sobbing, her naked shoulders shaking as if she were a rat in a terrier’s jaws.

Debbie’s primary concern, up to that point, had been that she and Robby had been caught, and that her mother would suddenly hate her for what they’d done. That self-centeredness was normal for a teenager, for a human at almost any stage of development. And, when her mother began sobbing, she naturally believed that it was from the disappointment she had just been exposed to. Her mother’s emotion dislodged all her own, and she began to sniffle and cry too. Her anguish grew as she realized that all her secrets were about to be made bare, exposed to the mother she loved. She couldn’t bear keeping them any longer though and she collapsed on top of her mother, sobbing herself and begging for forgiveness. She was crying so hard that she couldn’t make her words intelligible, but she confessed to everything she could think of that she had done to disappoint her mother, begging for forgiveness.

The men watched as the firestorm of emotion swept through the women. Robby felt twinges of guilt, but not anything even close to what his sister was going through. Some of that was because, while he had been caught with his hands in his sister’s pants, he had also caught this other man having sex with his mother. Robby, as the man of the family, acknowledged or not, felt quite a bit of ownership over his mother and had no problem whatsoever interceding for her if he perceived she was in some kind of danger or stress.

On the other hand, he recognized that their mother, being caught as she had been, must feel like she had let her children down. He agreed with that, though he couldn’t articulate why, but he loved her, and his forgiveness for that aspect of things was both sincere and immediate.

The only person present who was not in a Gordian knot of emotional turmoil was Robert Ellsworth Nettleton, who among all of them, was the only person who knew that sooner or later, when all this was sorted out, there would be many more smiles and many fewer tears.

Or so he hoped.

He turned to look at Robby, whose attention was on his mother. This was the first chance Robert had had to really examine the boy. He was a strapping lad, that much was plain, with strong features ... Nettleton features. There were old photographs put away in this house somewhere that, he thought, would look a lot like this boy. The dress in those pictures would be different, of course, but there would be no doubt that this boy was a Nettleton.

He couldn't see much of the girl, hunched over her mother as she was. He had looked at her closely when he had been to their home for that one disastrous meal. She bore some resemblance to her mother, enough that one would guess they were related, but she didn't really look much like Ramona had when she had been that age. Ramona, in those days, had maintained a hunched, banal appearance. She had wanted to blend in, to be overlooked. This girl could not be overlooked. She was fresh and vibrant and beautiful in a way that made a man's pants feel tight. And what a temper she had. Her flashing eyes could cut deep if she wanted them to.

He turned to the boy. "See to your mother," he commanded.

Robby jerked at the tone of command, and flashed a dagger-like look at the man.

"She needs to know you still love her," added Robert.

Robby's eyes widened. "Of course I still love her," he said. "But she probably doesn't love me any more."

"I suspect you are quite wrong in that assumption," said Robert. "That we will see soon enough. But now she needs you."

Robby went and knelt by his mother and sister, placing a hand on Debbie's back and his mother's naked shoulder. Her skin felt warm and smooth, like his sister's.

Robert went to the discarded blouse and picked it up, taking it to stand beside the three members of the Franklin family. He handed it to Robby.

Ramona felt her daughter's body pressing on her back, and her daughter's tears falling on her naked skin. Debbie's litany of, "I'm so sorry, Mommy", said over and over again penetrated her consciousness. She felt surprise, and welcomed it as it displaced a measure of her own shame. That helped her think a bit more clearly, and it suddenly popped into her mind that her daughter ... her children ... were here ... in the mansion ... in the secret passageway she hadn't thought of since that horrible night when her brother had led her through it to hide from the screams.

Her head twisted to the side and she tried to look through her hair, which was stuck to her face by her tears.

"What are you doing here?" she moaned between sobs.

Debbie wasn't in much better shape. She was experiencing a wide range of emotions. There was the anger at Smith, the remnants of the hormones the lust her brother's hand had caused to flood through her as he had stroked her behind the wall, the shame of being caught peeking, the shame of being caught with her brother's hands on her body, the surprise and shock of being exposed in general, and the fear that her mother wouldn't love her any more. They all added up to a condition that almost left her paralyzed, and she couldn't speak clearly. Instead she just clung to her mother.

Robby felt a lot of those emotions too, but they didn't affect him quite as strongly as they did his sister. What bubbled to the surface of his mind was Smith's insistence that his mother needed him. He held out her blouse, dangling it over the pair of women on the floor, but didn't know what to do next.

It was Robert who brought a measure of organization to the chaos that was immobilizing the three Franklins in the room.

"Here!" he said forcefully. "Rami, sit up." His hand went gently to Debbie's shoulder and put pressure on it to get her off her mother's body. She was so upset that she didn't even think to slap at that hated hand, or demand that he remove it. She rose to her knees, exposing her mother's naked back.

"Rami!" said Robert, again, forcefully. "Your son has your blouse."

Ramona brushed her hair away from her face and saw Robby then, the blouse dangling from his hand as he knelt beside her. That blouse would cover her nakedness, and her brain suggested she should get it quickly. She pushed herself off the floor, sitting and exposing her nakedness to her son as she snatched at the garment. He took it back and spread it behind her, as if he were helping her put on a coat and she shrugged into it, pulling it closed across her breasts. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons. She kept her head down, unable to look at either of her children.

"I don't understand," she moaned.

"Things are not as they seem," said Robert. "Things are not as bad as they seem," he restated.

That was such an odd statement that all three of the others turned their faces to stare at him.

"Come" he said. "All of you. We have much to discuss. Then, perhaps you will understand."

He moved toward the door, to lead them out of the bedroom. They hesitated, but, unable to make their own decisions about what to do next, they began to follow him. He led them to the dining room, which had enough chairs for them all and pulled one out for Ramona.

"Sit down," he suggested, and she sank into the chair.

He pulled another one out for Debbie, who balked and stepped away from him.

"Sit!" he commanded.

Debbie looked at Robby, whose face was slack, as if he weren't all there.

"Sit!" thundered Robert.

Debbie sank quickly into the chair and sighed with relief as Smith stepped away from her.

"You too young man" he said. "Sit, and we'll talk."

Finally Debbie's voice was under her control.

"Talk?!" she yelled. "All this has happened and you just want to talk?"

"You wish to know who I am, correct? You wish to know why your mother and I love each other, yes? You have many questions. I think talking is a good thing at this time," he said simply.

Debbie was speechless. It was true that she wanted to know all those things. But his clear offer to answer them was so unsuspected, that she was unprepared to actually ask a question.

"And," he went on smiling. "I think your mother should understand what she just saw, and what I saw earlier today." It was clear, at least to the children, that he was referring to the unconventional relationship Debbie had with Robby.

Debbie slumped, and the fear that had abated returned full force.

Ramona listened to her brother's words, and she was reminded of what she had seen ... her son's hands ... on her daughter's body ... touching her sexually. What had he said about earlier?

"What?" she asked. Her head felt like there was a hive of bees inside it, and she couldn't think because of all the buzzing thoughts that caromed around in her brain. "What happened earlier?"

"I told you I saw them by the fence this afternoon."

Ramona nodded, straining to remember what else he had said.

"They were embracing," he said, and then paused, almost as if he were teasing. "They were kissing."

Debbie's head went down. Robby looked around wildly, as if he were looking for a good place to hide.

The effect this had on Ramona was startling. Her head came up sharply and she brushed her hair from her eyes, which were wide with comprehension, at last.

"Kissing?" she said, almost in a whisper.

"Yes ... kissing," said Robert. "I found it most interesting, my sweet."

"But that means ..." Ramona said.

"That means they are like us," said Robert gently.

That statement didn't make any sense to either of the teens, but there was something in Smith's voice that caused both of them to turn their eyes to him. They said nothing, but just stared.

"I thought about the signs that someone had been in the mansion. The only way they could have gotten in was through the secret ways, so I examined them and found many footprints in the dust. I thought that, if it was your children, they might have used the secret ways to try to spy ... and that they might have seen things they do not understand."

Everyone was still staring at him, captivated by his words.

"And so I set a trap, suspending that picture," he pointed back toward the room they had left, "by a thread that would be broken if anyone used the secret ways. When I saw that you were here, and that the picture had fallen, I suspected I would find the spies behind the wall." He grinned. "It appears I was correct."

Then he quit smiling.

"I think it is time they learned who I am," said the man called Smith.

Even though he was the one talking, both children's eyes went immediately to their mother, who was sitting upright, and looking much less unhappy than they expected her to. While she was not smiling, she was at least composed, and her crying had vanished as if it had never been there except for a slight darkness to her eyes and the shine of tears on her cheeks.

Ramona wiped at that dampness, her eyes going from her son's eyes to her daughter's. She took a breath.

"Children, I'd like to introduce you to my brother ... your uncle ... Robert Nettleton."

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