Family Gatherings Pt. 04

Pt. 4 – Tuesday Morning

I opened my eyes slowly; both of my heads were pounding. One from the lack of sleep, the other from over use. I glanced at the clock and it was only 8:00, after the previous night's events I expected to wake up much later, like maybe Wednesday. Beth was still cuddled into me, which is unusual as she is usually up well before me. I was trying to figure out what woke me up when I heard voices coming from the kitchen area.

I slowly extracted myself from Beth's embrace and got up from bed. I might like to sleep late, but once I'm awake, I'm awake. The throbbing in my dick from overuse was being urgently replaced with the need to pee. I moved towards the door and for some reason decided to quietly open it, as opposed to just walking out to go to the bathroom. I'm glad I did.

"Dad, we're all adults now, you get no say in who we decide to have sex with!" That was Denise. I silently cursed and removed my hand from the door knob, leaving the bedroom door open just a crack.

"Really? I find out your fucking your sisters and now you want to include your aunt and uncle, and you think that's none of my business? If it affects the family then you better well believe it's my fucking business." David was very upset, yet he kept his voice very level and void of emotions. Probably a result of his years as a RCMP officer. The overall effect was far more chilling than if he was yelling. I heard Cathy say something but it was too soft for me to make out.

"Let me deal with this Cathy." Came David's curt reply.

"Dad, you're not being fair," Katie decided to jump in to back up her sister. God, even given the situation she sounded fucking sexy. "Do you think we haven't thought about the possible impact to the family? We talked it through as sisters many years ago and if anything it's only made us closer. Did you ever really think about why we've grown so close over the last few years? How we've been able to stay focused on school and other things without getting distracted by the normal romantic entanglements of young adults?"

I cringed a little, I knew what Katie was trying to do, a nice combination of logic (i.e. it makes perfect sense) and implying that David had to of known and has chosen to just ignore it until now. In some cases that might work, however, this was a very emotional topic and logic wasn't going to work. On the other side, I know that David has a huge set of blinders on when it comes to his little girls. I don't think he'd believe they could do anything so bad, even if he caught them in the act. And in this case it would seem that he did.

"Katie you may think you know what you're doing, but you have no clue as to the sort of risks you are taking. You're taking normal family relationships, which can be difficult enough as it is, and throwing romantic involvement into the mix. I agree that you ladies can choose whoever you want to be your lovers, and conversely, you can choose to no longer be with a lover if the time comes. You can't pick family though, and you can't just dump them if things go badly."

"Has Josh ever talked to you about his family?" David asked, Denise nodded and Katie and Melanie gave her a look. Obviously she hadn't shared that conversation with them yet. "Well at least one of you knows. Josh's chatted with me about it a few times but I got the full story from Beth. His family is full of loathing and contempt and god knows what else. I can't imagine how much that's affected him over the years. Did Josh tell you what caused his family to be like that?" Denise shook her head, I grimaced, not wanting to hear the story that I already knew so well.

"I won't go into all the details, but basically it all comes down to 10 fucking dollars. One family member lent another 10 dollars. Next thing you know, the family is broken into camps, people on each side, some in the middle, some staying out of it all together. That was not quite 30 years ago. 10 fucking dollars tore that family apart." David was giving a very short version of what happened, however; ultimately, it did come down to $10. "Now look at me and tell me you don't think what you are doing could have a greater impact on the family than $10? Tell me that and I will believe you. Tell me that and I will stay out of it, I'll let you do whatever the fuck you want!" David raised his voice and slapped the table.

The girls were silent. I heard Beth get out of bed behind me; I raised my finger to my lips, letting her know to be quiet. She stood next to me wrapped her arms around me, kissing me gently on the back of my neck.

"What's going on?" She whispered in my left ear. I shook my head and mouthed 'later' to her. The girls were still quiet, obviously thinking about what David said. It was Cathy that finally broke the silence.

"David, I think you're being unfair to the girls. Or at least not entirely truthful. I don't disagree with what you said, not entirely, however, if you're going to slap them down that hard, you need to at least be completely honest with them. That's part of what makes us a strong family after all." Cathy's voice was soft, yet you could tell the tone was not one you messed with.

"Cathy, I don't think this is the time to get into that." David said quickly. I couldn't see what was happening but I could picture the look he was likely getting. There was several seconds of silence before we heard a soft, "fine, I'll tell them." I heard David sigh, the silence stretched for a couple of minutes before he finally spoke again.

"Around 19 years ago I cheated on your mother. I cheated on her with someone that she knows, someone that we both cared a great deal for. The person in question was going through a very rough time. Her marriage had just broken up, she was left alone with two young boys, she had health issues and she needed help. All three of you were very young at the time so I doubt you remember anything about it." David spoke softly, I could hear the shame and regret in his voice. Almost two decades later and it was obviously still hard for him to talk about. I looked at Beth and she had tears in her eyes. I raised an eyebrow questioningly and she shook her head slightly and mouthed 'later'.

"I went and stayed with this person for a month to help out, to look after her, to help with the boys, basically to do the things her husband should have been doing. One night, about two weeks in, after a late night of talking and crying and drinking (never a good combination by the way) we ended up in bed together. At the time it seemed natural and right, I didn't give any thought to the impact it might have on the family, or other consequences."

"We spent every night together after that until it was time for me to head home. That last night together was horrible; we had very physical, almost violent sex. It was as if we were taking out all of our frustrations and angst through the act of fucking. Afterwards we were both filled with shame. The ramifications of what we did finally crashing home. You see, there was no possibility of a happy ending for us."

"Anyway, I came home and your mother knew something was wrong, very wrong with me. It took a couple of weeks before I finally broke down and told her everything. It nearly cost me my family, I nearly lost you girls due to my own selfishness and stupidity. Thankfully your mother forgave me, not that she has ever really forgotten the betrayal. Nor would I expect her to. We thought we had survived the toughest test our marriage would ever face. Unfortunately I was wrong, that would come just over 8 months later in June of 1994" Something about that date seemed familiar to me, I couldn't quite put a finger on it though. Denise apparently is smarter than I am.

"Clarke." That was the only word she said. I heard Melanie and Katie gasp before they could control themselves. Beth stirred behind me; I barely managed to stifle my own surprise.

"Yes, Clarke. Your autistic cousin is also your half-brother. God, saying it out loud makes it seem like some kind of lame soap opera plot. It just seems so fucking unbelievable. Needless to say it was a very trying time for the family." Beth tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me back from the door at this point so I never heard anything else.

"We should give them some privacy, let them sort things out." She settled onto the bed and pulled me down to her. I laid on my back and she cuddled into my left side, my arm under her head, my hand moving automatically to caress and scratch her back. "Given the nature of the conversation when I joined you, I'm guessing David and Cathy found out about our late night with the girls?"

"Yes, I'm not sure what exactly they know or saw. The girls didn't try to deny anything; hell they were trying to defend it, telling David it was none of his business. Needless to say that didn't go over very well." Beth sighed and shook her head slightly.

"No, I don't imagine it did. I am surprised that David told them everything else though." Beth murmured softly. My hand stopped it's scratching.

"You knew? You knew about David and Trish and Clarke? You knew that it caused issues in the family? And yet you still wanted to go upstairs last night? Still wanted to get into things with the girls?" I was quiet but I think my anger was quite evident to Beth. "The single biggest worry I had with this entire thing was fucking things up with your family. And now I find out there's already history and that it's caused problems in the past? Jesus Beth, how could you let this progress? Why didn't you tell me, I could have stopped, the prospect of mind blowing sex pales in comparison to what I have with your family. Why? Tell me why?"

"Please, don't be angry with me. I let it progress because I wanted it to. Ever since Trish told me about her and David I've wonder about it. The way she described it, the sense of closeness she felt with our brother was beyond anything she'd ever experienced. I fantasized about doing things with David or Ron, or even Trish for that matter. I never acted on it and then I found you ten years ago. You drove the thoughts of anyone else clear from my head. I know I get horny whenever I'm excited about something, but I know you've noticed how much hornier I get when there's a family get together coming up. Well now you know why."

"Every time we're all getting together, the fantasies would start again. As the nieces and nephews got older, well, they started to get incorporated into the fantasies as well. I've seen you look at the other women in the family and I know you've had less than proper thoughts about them. So when we got here, the way things started with the girls, the fact the neither Clarke, Kyle nor Candice are here, my mind started racing with possibilities. I started to think; maybe it doesn't have to just be a fantasy anymore"

"Really? Then why the hell were you giving me grief Sunday night? For spying on the girls? Why not just tell me the truth?" My anger was subsiding a little, replaced more with a general anxiety about what was going to happen.

"That was me just trying to hide what I was thinking. I was afraid that you would be repulsed if I said I'd fantasized about fucking my family." When she put it that bluntly I realized that my first reaction if she had told me then wouldn't have been to say great, let's go invite everyone over for an orgy, it probably would have been, at the very least mild disgust.

I grimaced at the hypocritical thought. Here I was lusting after her family and I was going to be disgusted over her having similar thoughts. Yeah, they're her blood relatives, but at that stage you're only getting into degrees of inappropriate.

"I'm sorry." I said softly and Beth gave me a questioning look.

"I'm sorry because you would have been right. I would have been a hypocrite, but you would have been right. Here's the question though, where do we go from here?" I asked.

"I think that depends on the girls, and what they agree too with David and Cathy. I'm not going to pursue things any further if it's going to cause problems with David. I suppose I always knew I'd have to talk to him about what's going on. Besides, I think we all know that if this is actually going to work, and not seriously fuck up the family, we all need to be open and honest." Beth was right; however there was one other thing digging at the back of my head. I wasn't really sure how to bring it up. Thankfully (this time at least), my wife is a mind reader.

"You're not sure how you would handle it if I have sex with one of my brothers, or nephews for that matter?" Beth asked as if in response to the thoughts running through my head.

"I don't know how you do that, it's kind of scary. You're right of course, but it's still kind of scary. I'm feeling horrible because there is a part of me that sees no issue with me having sex with our nieces, with you joining in of course, yet is jealous at the thought of some other guy, family or not, having sex with you. If we are going to do this, it's got to be equal. Yet I cringe at the thought of you slipping away with one of your brothers for a tryst."

"Well, I think there is really only one way to handle that. Neither of us does anything with another person without the other present. Whether they are participating, watching or with someone else, doesn't matter. Honestly, I can't say the prospect of you sneaking off with one of our very sexy young nieces appeals to me. Fuck, it scares the hell out of me. I know Denise has feelings for you, that's evident, given that you're only related by marriage, it wouldn't take much for you to actually be with her." Beth's voice caught and I could tell she was fighting back tears.

"My love, I couldn't imagine life without you. Losing you would be the only thing that would hurt more than damaging this family. I'll admit that I have strong feelings for Denise, probably because she reminds me so much of you. That being said, those feelings pale in comparison to how I feel about you. I think we are strong enough to survive anything, together. I agree to the conditions, no playing around unless the other person is present. I'll add no jealousy to that. There's not a person here that could pull me away from you." I hugged Beth tight and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

"That said I need to tell you about something's that have happened. If we are going to do this, we need to make sure we start with a clean slate." I paused before I told Beth about everything that has happened so far. Me and Katie while we were setting up the games, Melanie giving me the hand job in the shower, my encounter with Denise shortly after that. Beth took it all in, quietly.

"Thank-you for telling me. I'll forgive the delay in telling me, given everything that's been going on. I love you Josh. Anyway, depending on what gets sorted out, we may not have anything to worry about anyway." Beth hugged me back and kissed me lightly on my chest. We lay together for another ten minutes or so before we heard a soft knock at the door.

"Are you guys awake?" We heard Denise ask softly from the doorway.

"Yes honey, we've been awake for a while now." Beth responded, her message quite clear to Denise. Denise entered the room and closed the door quietly. Beth and I were still nude, lying on top of the sheets. Beth patted the bed next to us and Denise came and sat down. None of us paid attention to our nudity.

"Ok, I guess I don't need to give the long explanation then. Apparently Dad heard noises coming from upstairs last night and came up to investigate. Needless to say he was a little surprised by what he saw. He chose not to interrupt and instead told Mom. That led to the conversation this morning. What did you guys hear?"

"Well, I picked it up, I'm guessing near the start, you had just finished telling David it was none of his business who you had sex with. Beth joined me just as David started telling you about other things. We went back to bed just after he told you about Clarke." I said quietly, not sure what went down after that, not sure how sensitive things were.

"Ok, well, much to Dad's surprise I told him that I already knew. Which pissed the girls off as I never told them." Beth nodded next to me and Denise gave a little smile. "I gather that you knew as well Beth?"

"Ron knows as well." Beth said. I looked at Beth and she gave me a tiny shake of her head.

"Ok, I figured as much. Anyway, I told Dad that it was ok. In fact I told him the issue was less about him cheating on Mom or Trish getting pregnant by him, than it was the fact that they've tried to hide it. It's the secrets and the lies that tear families apart. That's far more damaging than any other act." Like I said before, Denise is very smart and wise for a 22 year-old.

"Anyway, we all told Dad that it didn't change anything. We told him that we're comfortable with what's happening here, this week. There was no reason for it to cause problems for the family as long as we are all walking into it with our eyes open. No secrets, no lies, just family having fun and getting closer. If that's something you are still interested in." Denise turned to us, an uncertain look on her face. I could see the doubt; she wasn't entirely convinced this could work. Beth spoke up before I had a chance.

"That's very similar to the conversation that Josh and I had while you guys were still sorting through things. I'll be honest with you Denise, ever since I found out about David and Trish, I've had fantasies about the family. Just David and Ron at first, then Trish, then all of us. Eventually, as you all got older, I started thinking about the boys and you girls as well. I would like to see where things go this week. Maybe I'll get the chance to fulfill some of those fantasies." Beth reached a hand over and caressed Denise's back.

"One thing that Josh and I did agree on though, neither of us will indulge in something unless the other is present. They don't have to participate, but they at least need to be in the room. That way no secrets, no lies, no need to be jealous. I have just one question for you though Denise, what is it you expect to get out of this week? Josh's told me everything that has happened, and I know you're the driving force behind most of it." Beth gave Denise a questioning look; I know what she was worried about. To be honest, it worried me a little too.

"It's that obvious is it? Ultimately I want to have what you have with Josh. I know there's nothing I could do to actually pull Josh away from you, he's far too loyal and in love for that. I've been thinking about how to take advantage of this week for a while and when I walked in on Sunday and saw Josh nude and glowing, it kind of crystalized my plans. If I can't have it all, maybe I could at least share in one aspect of what the two of you have. It's a very selfish reason really, especially given what's at stake." Denise seemed to be near tears.

My hand joined Beth's on Denise's back and we pulled her down onto the bed. She cuddled into my right side. I hugged both women to me.

"It's okay honey. It's normal to want that. You'll find that person eventually. Hell, I gave up when I turned 29, thinking I'd never find that person. Next thing you know, I'm 30 and happier than I've ever been." Beth said, her hand caressing Denise's bare arm. Denise started to cry.

"You thought you'd already found it didn't you? That's what had you upset yesterday in the bathroom. I'm so sorry honey." I said and hugged Denise close as Beth gently wiped her tears away. "Did you want to talk about it?" I asked softly.

Denise didn't say anything for a few minutes; her hand began to move up and down my body. It seemed more of an idle distraction than a serious attempt to tease or entice me. I could tell she was trying to make up her mind, unfortunately her caresses were having an effect and it didn't take long for my dick to swell to full size. Denise lifted her head and looked at me, a slight smile on her face.