Family Issues Ch. 09

"Is there anything in particular that drew your attention to my club?"

"Some financial statements that look a bit odd. I'll have to sit down with your accountant. I'm sure everything is in order, and we can sort everything out."

"Had I known that FBI agents were so handsome, I would have made my financial statements much odder much sooner."

"Thank you, ma'—Diana." He actually blushed. Cute. "But let me remind you that obstruction of justice is an offense."

"So now the FBI has joined the thought police? Since when is giving compliments a crime?"

"It's not."

"So it's okay to say that I think you're hot?"

His blush colored his cheeks and neck. Super cute. "Ma'am, I..." He showed her his ring.

"Do you carry the little wife in that ugly bag?"

"Certainly not." He laughed.

"I hope you don't mind. It's something about handsome men in suits that makes me a bit flirty."

"A bit?" He laughed.

The one thing Diana was confident about was her looks. She was a beautiful girl, and she grew up to be the kind of woman men were desperate to touch, even if they sometimes had a hard time admitting it.

"Well." She rose to her feet and circled her desk, leaning on it next to him. "I am a futanari, after all. Some people say that we're just women with an extra something, out of political correctness. Bullshit! God gave me both male and female parts and a libido greater than both combined."

He stared at her and gulped.

"You can't blame me for trying."

"I'm not." He took a deep breath. "But you see, like I said, I'm here about some financial statements that look a bit odd."

"Not odd at all, did you see the number of people on the floor? I've turned this place upside down."

"Yes, very impressive." He wasn't cynical. She doubted he could be.

"There is a line of people to the next block, begging the doormen to let them in, and whom I'm dying to let in, but I can't because of the fire department's strict regulations."

"That would explain things; still, I will have to review your records with your accountant."

"Ethan will be here soon, and you guys can have your fun. Kind of a shame."

"Why?"

"Financial records bore me to tears. I was hoping you'd swallow the bait so we could have some other kind of fun. I must be losing my touch."

"Ma'am." He coughed, and his hands clutched the bag for protection. ""I'm...It's not...I'm not... It's not. I'm straight, to start with."

"And getting some on the side with a futanari will make you what? Gay?"

"No."

"I never understood people's obsession with labels. Gay, bi, straight? Who gives a fuck if you're straight or heteroflexible? A ton of so-called straight guys would give a lot to find out what it's like to be a bottom bitch to a girl like me."

"I'm..." He wiped his forehead. "It's hot in here." He gave a short, embarrassed laugh. She could see in his eyes the struggle between duty, fidelity, and conventions on the one hand and his penis on the other.

"Because my records are good, but I can be as bad as you want me to be." Her finger brushed against the back of his hand, and he stared at it, his eyes wide behind the glasses. "Have you ever been one of these guys, Agent Brian? Have you ever fantasized about tasting the other meat?"

He gulped again. "I'm...the..."

She lowered her hand, sliding her open palm over his inner thigh, slowly until her hand brushed the intersection between his legs. He was harder than titanium. "I guess I know the answer to that."

Lust won.

----

"Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!"

― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

----

"Bowie."

"Who?"

Helen slipped into one of her grey tank tops and grey leggings and stepped out of the small room into the living room and kitchen area. She dragged the brush slowly through her glistening hair and scanned the room. "Bowie."

"Who?"

She followed the sound of the voice and found Kevin snuggled on the couch. He looked like he was ready to tuck himself in, though it was not even seven o'clock. "David Bowie, haven't you heard of him?" Helen searched the playlist on her smartphone and connected it with the cabin's sound system. The first guitar notes of "Space Oddity" danced between the walls of wooden house. "Ground control to Major Tom?"

Kevin shrugged and covered his lithe body with a blanket.

The honeymoon suite turned out to be a wooden cabin at the end of a sandy trail. It stood secluded, far from the fringes of the mountainous village of Ciginj. Below them, Helen could hear a river running, but it was too dark now to see anything. The rooms were new and painted white, with white drapes and soft, romantic illumination. It also included a king-size bed, a spacious bathroom, a walk-in closet, and a living area with a French window opening out onto a cozy portico. The spacious terrace just outside the room had a wet bar and a sizeable temperature-controlled plunge pool.

Excellent value for one hundred and forty euros, Helen thought. Except no one will be using the facilities.

The air smelled of a storm, and blue lightning zigzagged on the northern horizon. "Looks like it's going to rain." She tried to smile.

"I think I'll hit the sack now. We've got a long ride tomorrow."

"No, no. You slept on the couch for the last two days. My turn," Helen pulled the blanket playfully off his body. "You should take the bed."

Kevin shrugged, and Helen felt like crying. The shower had washed away some of her depression, but she panicked when she realized that her grief was pushing him away, and she might lose whatever was left of their friendship. She'd tried to change that for the past hour, but now Kevin appeared uninterested.

"You hungry?" Making food would pull him out of his indifference. "I saw a little grocery down the road. I can try to make ravioli if you want, I mean if you'll guide me through the steps?"

His phone started ringing "Sure, whatever. Hi, Dad.

"Yeah, still on vacation.

"In Europe now. Slovenia. Yeah, with Helen.

"Yeah, super fun.

I'm just tired, Dad. I'll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it. Bye, Dad. Love you too."

"It's really inspiring." Now it was her turn to feel like she was scaling a mountain that didn't want to be climbed. Helen gave another faint smile.

"What's so inspiring?"

"You and your father. You have this special bond."

"Yeah, special," he said dryly.

"I mean, the fact that you went through so much just to help his business stay afloat. I think it's beautiful. You two have been through a terrible tragedy, and still, you're like...unbreakable."

"My father and I?" Kevin gave a short laugh that was dried out of any trace of humor.

"What?"

"Nothing." Kevin sat down at the kitchen's table and rubbed his face. "You're so clueless, Helen. Sometimes I wonder how come you even work with people. It's like you don't understand other human beings at all."

"Did I do anything to you?"

"My father and I, Jesus Christ. My father and I, we're like a big fucking dark hole that keeps growing and growing. Sometimes I think you're just stupid, Helen, then I remember how smart you are."

"Thanks. That was kind." Helen's lower lip trembled. "What was your mother's motto? 'Kindness before everything else?' I bet you've just made her proud with so much kindness."

"My mom married at eighteen a thirty-five-year-old man she didn't love because her parents kicked her out when she got herself pregnant, and she needed a provider. So she wore his ring, slept under his roof, and fucked him. They even had a sweet boy together. My little brother, Ben. But she hated every fucking minute of it. The fact that she wasn't with the man she loved ate her up from the inside. She ended up loathing him for not being the person she wanted him to be. Do you have any idea what it's like growing up in a house where your mother hates your dad?"

Helen stared at him, her mouth open, her heart struck by freezing northern wind. She'd never seen Kevin angry or cruel. "I'm...so sorry."

"What about, Helen? She ran over to the douche who knocked her up, every chance she had. Just so she could fuck him. It's not like he was going to divorce his wife, because my real father was a respectable man of the cloth, a pastor." Kevin's face contorted to a snarl, and he spat the word 'pastor' with disgust. "Every chance she got, Helen. And my dad knew she was putting horns on him day in and day out. He did nothing."

"Wh...why?"

"Because he worshipped the ground that she walked on. That's love for you. Totally fucked up. I told you that the car accident wasn't anyone's fault, didn't I? That's a big lie too. She picked up my little brother from the special daycare, then she drove over just so she could fuck him, even though a storm raged outside. She couldn't help herself. When my mother and brother died, she was on her way to see her lover. And the most fucked up part about it was that I could have stopped her myself. Dad asked me where she went, and I lied. I could have told him, and he would have stopped her. But I covered up for her, like I always did because she taught me to hate him too. The man who raised me even though I wasn't his."

"Kevin..."

"So that's my dad and me, Helen, and our special, unbreakable bond." The last three days were torture for him, seeing the woman he loved drifting away. Now it all burst with a bang. His aching heart started dripping through his purple eyes.

"I have a big hand in the death of the woman he loved and his real son. That's on me. I owe him a debt, Helen, that I'll never be able to repay even if I have to be the boyfriend of twenty fucked-up monsters like your little sister. Oh, yeah, Diana and I, the lovebirds? I hate her guts. Diana is a spoilt, lazy, insanely self-centered, cruel little monster, and I hate her sometimes like you wouldn't believe, even if I pretend that I don't." He rose up from the table, wiped his tears on his sleeve, and without saying another word went into the bedroom.

Helen wanted to run away and hide. To lock herself in her penthouse's study or to drown herself in work. Any place she felt safe. But that was the old Helen from five months ago, and she was fighting a rearguard battle. Kevin had changed her.

The new Helen stood on shaky legs and followed him. She found Kevin sitting on the bed, his face buried in his hands, so she sat beside him and wrapped her hand around his shoulder. Just like that time he stayed with her in the kitchen after her terrible date. She held his shaking body close while he silently sobbed, rubbing his shoulder and giving comfort.

Lightning flashed close by, followed by the screech of thunder. Rain started knocking on the bedroom's window.

"You know, Helen, I had this puppy love for a girl in my school. Laura. I didn't know it, but she was my half-sister, the pastor's daughter. She hated me. Only years later it dawned on me that she knew about my mom's infidelity with her dad. She hated us because my mother was tearing Laura's family apart just as she was tearing ours."

"I'm so sorry." She wiped the tears from his eyes with her palm. "But why...? I mean, your mother, why?"

"Why do I always pretend that she was a saint?"

"Yes."

"I told you once that I'm a total phony. What else have I got, other than pretense, Helen? A father who hates me? A dead brother? A fucked-up family? A whore of a mother? A little monster for a girlfriend? I've got pretense, Helen, nothing else. Better the memory of an imaginary mother than the real one I had. Sometimes I hate her so much."

"Don't."

"She was a horrible person."

"She was only human. Not a saint, only human." Helen kissed his head and wiped his tears again. "Why are you and Diana together, Kev?"

"She used someone to get hold of my dad's debt. She threatened to sell his business and sue him unless I came back to her. If she takes his shitty electronics store, then he doesn't have anything left. I can't let my dad take another hit. He already had a heart attack after Mom and Ben died. I just can't."

"You can't be with someone you hate either. That's insane."

"I'll fucking marry her if I have to."

"Christ. The..." She closed her eye. "Why? Why didn't you say anything?"

"You seriously gonna pretend that you didn't know, Helen?"

"Of course I didn't. I would have never let Diana treat you like—" She choked because she remembered doing precisely that on the first day they met.

"Wouldn't you? No, you didn't know the details, I'm sure you didn't. But you suspected that something wasn't right; you're not stupid. You're just like me, Helen. You're a liar, lying mainly to yourself."

"I..."

"Be a real Valkyrie, just this once."

"You'll hate me too if I tell you the truth."

"Please. I've got to know, Helen."

She nodded and blew air out. "I was...this is tough. Okay. I was afraid that if I knew the truth, I'd have to force Diana to give you up, and you'd be gone in a second from my life too. Those two weeks you went away were the longest two weeks I had to endure. So when I lay in the hospital, I...well you said it. I pretended. I didn't want to lose you."

"I don't want to be your friend anymore, Helen."

She hugged him tighter. "It was selfish, and I was the opposite of a good friend, but I'm human too, Kevin. I promise I'll make everything right."

"Shit, that didn't come out right. I can't be just your friend anymore. I'm in love with you," he said.

"What?"

"I am."

"W...what?" Another flash of lightning struck outside, and she felt it had hit her core. "You, you, you what?"

"You heard me," he said quietly.

"I, I heard words, but they didn't make any sense."

"Yes, they did."

Kevin pulled back, and his purple eyes were like every fantasy she'd ever had of him, every moment she had wished could exist between them. She had run this scenario a million times, inventing little stories. Sometimes Helen was Brienne in Game of Thrones, and he Jamie Lannister. Sometimes she was a shy Librarian in New York's Lincoln Center and Kevin a student. The story always ended with a kiss and lovemaking. Now that it actually was happening, she froze, totally lost.

Say something, Helen screamed at herself inside her head. "But Diana..." No, you idiot. Say something else.

"Don't look so guilty," Kevin said. "None of that is your fault."

"Not my fault?"

"Not your fault that Diana grew up to be a little monster. Not your fault that I hate her. Not your fault that I love you. I just do, and I'm tired of lying all the time and pretending." He swept her wet hair aside and kissed her tenderly over the collarbone.

"I don't understand."

"Yes, you do. It's not that complicated. I love you, Helen."

She closed her eye and took a deep breath. Tell him you love him, tell him you love him, tell him you love him. "I..." Say it, goddammit!

She felt a hot breath on her neck, then the tender brush of lips. Burning as they made contact. Kevin's hand ran through her hair, and the kiss became harder and more urgent. A wave of pure pleasure ran through her body. The lips left her neck, and she gulped, aching for their return.

Another bolt of lightning brightened the room, and the nearby roar of the thunder made her jump.

"Do you want me?"

Helen nodded quickly.

"I'm down here."

Helen opened her eye. Kevin was lying on his back, watching her. She gently laid her long form beside him. "I don't understand. You're really in love with me, Kev?"

He looked at her with those violet orbs of his that stole her heart long ago and the rest of her with it. His lips felt soft on hers.

Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him! Helen screamed at herself, so she leaned forward, lips tightly shut, and with her teeth clenched, she pressed against his lips.

Kevin laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"You kiss like a little girl."

"Hey!"

"I'll teach you. Open your mouth, no, no, too much. That's right. Tongue out, just a little." His hand caressed her shoulder, and his other went to her face and raked a tingling trail from her brow down to her chin. Helen shuddered. His lips hovered, a millimeter from her, almost touching but not entirely, his hot breath caressing. His thumb brushed her lower lip.

Kevin pulled his head back, smiling. Then he repeated the process, like slow, sweet torture. She tried to claim his lips with hers, her head rising from the bed after him, but Kevin pulled back, smiling. Helen learned the true meaning of yearning.

"Please..." she whispered.

He leaned forward, eased his lips into hers, and Helen lunged, desperate. A second later she growled her frustration as he pulled up again.

Kevin shook his head, smiling. "Not like that. Slower."

"Slower?"

"Much slower. It's not a race, we've got time."

Her round chest was heaving up and down under her tank top. Kevin caressed her cheek, and she kissed his fingers. It had a calming effect, and she stopped breathing so hard. "I've wanted you for so long," she said.

"How long?"

"Remember the night we met?"

Kevin laughed. "I'm crazy about you, Helen Brion."

His words ran down her neck all the way to the hot area between her legs.

"Slowly," Kevin warned.

She nodded and let out little whimpers of anticipation. Slowly was the keyword, easing into every kiss. Nadine, the twins, Sin, and even Diana had left him small pieces of themselves. From Nadine, the warrior queen, he learned that lovemaking wasn't a war.

His tongue touched hers. Helen tasted Kevin on her taste buds for the very first time and wasn't satiated even a little. His tongue lightly caressed hers as he held her head with both hands. She moaned and pressed forward again, but this time she kept herself in check. When she pressed too much, he gently pushed her back.

His hand caressed her shoulder, traced down to explore her chest. She was eager to show some initiative and grasped his palm in hers, their fingers intertwined, dancing a little jig of their own. Their palms pressed into each other.

His tongue was inside her mouth. Not intruding but knocking gently, asking politely to come in. It was slow and soft, and it flooded her with want.

Helen was lost in the kiss and the sensations flowing through her as two gentle hands played with her breasts. Kevin coaxed her tongue out to play, his thumbs flicking and brushing her nipples under her tank top. Another crash of thunder exploded nearby, but she barely even heard it.

He pulled back, smiling and teasing again, but this time she was having none of it. She pulled his head back to hers, and covered his mouth with hers, hungrily.

His hand traveled farther south, and his fingers caressed the bulge between her legs. Helen gave a sharp intake of breath. He slowly pulled his fingers across her length, and Helen exploded. She didn't even know she was on the cliff's edge. But his body's sweet fragrance, the Kevin scent that sometimes made her hard in the mornings, was all around her. His tongue was in her mouth, and before she knew it, her body arched and the betrayer between her legs ended everything way faster than she was willing to give it up. She exploded inside her pants, drenching everything with lust.

After she climbed down from ecstasy, Kevin hugged her head to his chest and nibbled her forehead while she huffed, whispering into her ear sweet nothings. That felt amazing too.

"I still don't understand, Kevin. How is it even possible?"

"You were excited?"

"No, silly. You? Me? When did it happen? How, how did it even happen?" She placed her soft lips against his neck and quietly lingered there.