Brother Sister

"Shit it's all risky."

"It'll be OK. I need a drink, do you?"

"A beer from the fridge would be good."

"Fi?"

"Yes."

"You do know I love you don't you."

"Yes, you tell me all the time."

"I wouldn't be marrying Caris, if I could marry you."

"You can't think like that Douglas you will destroy yourself. I don't love you, at least not like that. When we were kids I used to follow you round. You were my hero. I would do anything for you. I still do too much, I guess. In our teens it was us against our parents, our own little secret society of two. The sex thing when I started Uni though.....that changed everything. But now it is Mark I love. It is him that makes my tits tingle and toes curl. We cannot go on with a sexual relationship."

"Then why did you do what you did? What were you trying to prove with the wild childs. You may have fucked up everything including Caris and me; why!!?"

"I know, I know I still don't know, I guess I was reliving the lost excitement from when I escaped home."

"That's not the root cause, Fi. Let's face it, when it gets down to it you can't control yourself."

"Dad really likes Mark you know. They are as thick as thieves and he and Mum are starting to stifle our lives. If I have this baby she will be interfering all the time. I really hate them for what they did to us in our teens. We couldn't go anywhere or do anything we wanted except stupid church dances and things. I am starting to hate them again. I so wanted that night out."

"I see what you mean."

"How do you get on with Mark at work?"

"I don't see him much. I am at headquarters; he manages the design studio the other side of town. I am technically his boss though."

"Are you jealous of Mark.............you know, me and dad and all?

"No, that's what fucking you makes so satisfying."

"What, if I didn't let you fuck me; are you saying you might get jealous, and then what?"

"Might get awkward at work?"

"Is that a threat?"

"I wouldn't call it a threat. It would be nice to continue. If you haven't got a bun in the oven from last night's episode I would put my hand up for first dibs on your next fertile period."

"In your dreams buster, we are likely in the shit and you're planning the next episode. Well there ain't going to be a next episode. You will be doing Caris right and me, I'll be with Mark."

"I'm optimistic. You've always been a push over, Fi............Oh Forget it; C'mon let's have a beer."

There is the creaking sound of them getting off the couch and their discussion moving into the kitchen next door.

"Here's to the anaconda!" A clinking of glass.

*************

I take the opportunity to retrieve the phone.

I then quietly return up the stairs.

I am trying not to alert them but in my mind I don't really care.

I have a plan. I had been listening in suspended animation. I had been numb; the conversation did not seem real. Now that I was back upstairs a wave of anger was enveloping me as I realized the enormity of the situation.

The incestuous relationship had been going on since Uni. Her relationship with Douglas was just business as usual.

The risk that Fi had been taking in the last 12 hours was beyond belief. What was she thinking and why? I really do not think, thinking was part of it. The hen party was a huge mistake. She was trying to relive the past but she got pissed and carried away with the excitement.

There was now a whole house of cards about to crash down. Caris was a celebrity; Graeme was a major industrialist. He and his wife were public benefactors in their own right.

I may have been rash, it may have been irrational but I am one to be decisive. I had to quickly decide on my plan.

Fi and I were finished there was no option but divorce. Douglas and Caris cannot marry; it was inevitable that Douglas would eventually be exposed. Worst of all Graeme had to be warned. He had to be in a position to make his own plan.

May be I was chicken. Divorce was a simple solution for me but when the shit hits the fan, with all hell breaking loose, I wanted to be as far away as possible.

I grabbed my laptop and immediately messaged Graeme, Caris and Fi. I followed up by electronically dropping them the video.

To Graeme I wrote, 'It is my dreadful duty to inform you that my wife has not only been a willing part of a reprehensible moral and degrading activity this evening but she has been having an on-going incestuous relationship with your son.

The proof is in the video attached to this E-mail. I have also passed it on to Caris and to Fi. I regret having to do this but I cannot morally let Caris and Douglas be married and my marriage to Fi really cannot continue.

I leave it to you how you deal with the situation. I will not distribute the video anywhere else and will endeavour to be discrete about what has occurred. I am now left utterly devastated and I need to leave for some retreat to think through my life and future. On return I will cooperate with you in any way you wish. I will obviously have no choice but to tender my resignation.'

A similar message went to Caris expressing my regret and horror and my apologies for having to send such a disgusting video.

She would hate me as the messenger but I did not feel that there was any other way.

The one to Fi just said that, 'everything I needed to know is on the video. I will be proceeding with the divorce and there will be no point in discussion. The whole thing was so beyond disgusting and your apologies would not cut it. I said I would be away two weeks and I will take calls on my phone but don't expect me to answer straight away.'

I then repacked my suitcase. I silently descended the stairs. I could still hear them talking. I did note the door to the living room was now closed. I quietly made my way to the car which was parked on the street. I loaded the car and left. Maybe they heard me go, maybe not.

It was a week later that Graeme called me with a proposition.

************

Epilogue

Here I am attending my would-be son's funeral. I say would be son because the DNA results were irrefutable. Sam was not mine. As the service proceeds I reflect on the weird quirk of fate that brought me here sitting next to my ex-wife Fi. My second wife Melanie has died a couple of years previously of liver cancer.

I suppose part of the reason that I am here is the residual guilt I feel in the part I played in the destruction of Fi's family. It was never my intention to destroy them and many would say that I have nothing to feel bad about.

After all it was Fi and her brother Daniel's own doing. But I can't help thinking that I could have played it differently without the devastating results.

Sam was not Fi 's brother Douglas's son; that dubious distinction belongs to one of three male strippers that Fi chose to thoughtlessly cavort with on that wild night. Despite the fact that we had known the three strippers at university they were never pursued by the family. I feel that Fi's deeply conservative family would have wanted to diminish any possible connection between them and a group of male strippers.

Fi has quietly told me that she thinks that Sam was the anaconda's baby. She didn't say how she knew but I can guess. Despite the fact that the three strippers were all apparently known to me as friends from Uni, Fi did not know their names. (Or would admit to knowing them.) I was never aware that any of my friends had become strippers.

When we entered the chapel we were approached by a young attractive woman with a baby and a toddler. She claimed to be Sam's partner although no one in the family had met her before. She was dressed bizarrely as a goth with deathly white skin, piercings, tattoos and brightly coloured hair.

Fi seemed to be excited by her and the possibility of two grandchildren. I was simply appalled. I remained slightly sceptical but promised I would investigate. A DNA test would settle paternity.

Sam had a tragic life. Fi could never cope with him. P addicted, he finally died of an AIDs related illness. As we stood there at the funeral Fi quietly sobbed. It would be grief mixed with regret. What happened just happened and there was no erasing it. I put my arm around her to comfort her.

We never thought of remarrying after Melanie died and we never would but we do share a home.

After divorcing Fi, I married Melanie and had two children, Brad Graeme and Emily Pamela, who are now grown and are well educated. They are happily married and have children of their own.

Fi's father Graeme handed me a proposition at the time of the divorce which eventually made me in charge of his businesses when he retired. He died of a heart condition some years ago followed by Pam. So I became by proxy the inheritor of the family fortune.

Melanie happened to be a maternal cousin of Fi's. It was Fi's mother, Pam who introduced me to Melanie. Melanie looks a lot like Fi. Call it rebound if you like but I think Pam was quite astute in matching us. Melanie shared my morals and interests and was never a wild child like Fi. She occasionally went to church as an Anglican but was not overtly religious, right to the end.

Melanie was a serious person and although not totally humourless was intense and focussed on what she turned her mind to. She saw life as a series of projects. Melanie also had a law degree and an MBA, and fully engaged herself with the administration and running of the company.

When the shit hit the fan, Douglas disappeared. I don't know if he ever communicated with his family but I never saw him again. He left Fi to suffer the consequences of the exposure of their incestuous relationship. She was charged, and pleaded guilty. It was actually Pam who insisted in going to the law.

She did not get jail but spent a year in a prison bracelet on home detention. There was name suppression so the affair did not impact on Caris's career. In fact it enhanced it to some degree when she granted an exclusive interview to a woman's magazine. Of course the story did not expose the incest; there was simply an allusion to infidelity with some nameless woman and they were supposed to have absconded together.

Whatever rumours there were connecting Fi there was nothing publically exposed. I did a search on the internet and nothing appeared. I thought that this in itself was curious. There were many actors who could have exposed what had happened for their own gain. Perhaps they tried. There were powerful forces connected to Caris who would protect her.

Surprisingly Fi Kept the baby, I expect from insistence of her mother. She spent her bracelet time with her parents supporting the baby but their relationship was not sustainable and she disappeared off the radar for over 20 years.

It was one day when Melanie was volunteering and serving food at the city Mission, she recognized one of the homeless and destitute as Fi.

Melanie being Melanie immediately made Fi's rehabilitation her project. It was an enormous task. Fi was in poor shape. She had suffered a P addiction, she was scarred, emaciated and tattooed. There was one particularly lewd tattoo above her pussy which we had removed by laser treatment. Her teeth were yellowed and poor and we spent thousands correcting them.

We organised for her counselling and psychiatric treatment. Melanie even went as far and arranged for vaginaplasty for her abused pussy. She had separated from her own son and we never found him until we were tracked down after his death.

We always respected her privacy with regards to her years in the wilderness. She gave us little idea what happened in that time and that history was a matter between her and her psychiatrist.

Melanie employed her for a while as a house keeper to help her develop a regular regime. I know what you are thinking. Although there remained some residual love for her and I am certain, she toward me, our relationship was one of compassion. Melanie exercised absolute trust in us and we never abused it. Eventually Fi was to move into an apartment of her own and to take a position in the family firm. She was accepted into our family as a loving Aunt Fi by Brad and Emily.

Tragically Melanie died before her time of liver cancer. Her will came with a letter requesting that Fi look after me after her death. We discussed this with the children and they were happy to accept her as a new Mum and Fi moved in but we never revived a sexual relationship.

A day or two before the funeral I was reading a book. Fi and I were sitting in the warmth and comfort of our lounge. I was stretched out on a recliner when I became aware of some quiet sobbing. I looked up. Fi was perched at the front of a chair. Her hair now grey but impeccably cut. Her eyes were sparkling with her tears. Despite the ravages of her wilderness years she was still a beautiful woman.

I had long since forgiven her, in fact my affection for her was restored in quite a different way from the love we once had. It was that of an older couple devoted to one another and completely at ease in each other's care and company. We were comfortable together. Neither of us suffered from the crankiness of some in their advancing years.

I remarked, "Is something wrong?"

Fi replied, "Nothing could be less wrong. You know that I once dreamed and fantasized about us growing old together. The dream never left me and despite all the drama, my betrayal of you, the tragedies and suffering, my dream is now actually real and I am the most happiest that I have ever been."

My mind drifted back over all those years and I thought about all those events and all the possible regrets I could have and for some inexplicable reason there was only one tangible and nagging regret that came to mind. I smiled at Fi and she responded broadly.

I began to silently mouth the question to her but I could not bring myself to actually verbalize it. I was thinking of all my old Uni friends, who I have seen from time to time in the intervening years and I just could not help myself wondering, "Which fucking one was the anaconda?"

************