Grief, Lust, and Consequences Ch. 01

Jeff sighed and replied,"Katy, it's not that simple. You might be right... god knows you probably are, but this whole thing is not simple at all. No matter how much either of us wants it, there will be consequences that we can't even think of."

Katy was retreating into embarrassment over having brought up her wishful dreams of their potential life together at all. She felt hot tears begin to build up around her eyes and pointed them down to her cup of coffee.

Jeff went on, "Besides, you need to be thinking about getting back into university anyway."

Katy lost composure at that statement and snapped back at him.

"Oh come off it. It's my business whether I go to university or not. You're not dad!"

At that quip they both got cold and silent. Katy was a tumultuous mix of emotions and didn't want to unload anything further in that fragile moment. She regretted the remark about Jeff not being her dad. She knew that he was just trying to look out for her, even though at that moment she wished he wouldn't. As silly as it was, she just wished he would stop being her caring big brother and run off with her as his lover. But the reality of the situation soured her stomach and she felt utterly foolish.

"Sorry," she began, "I'm afraid I've made quite a fool of myself and I'm going to take a shower."

Jeff's eyes stayed fixed on her out of concern. "Katy, wait... are you okay?"

She didn't answer him but retreated to the bathroom and turned on the shower head and sat on the toilet while the tears she had been holding back began to stream down her cheeks. A moment later she heard a knock on the door.

"Katy, are you okay?" his voice echoed in her mind and began to make her dizzy.

"Yes.... I'm just having a girl moment. I'll be fine, please just go." She got out while trying to suppress the urge to sob.

Using the term "girl moment" had been a kind of code that she had developed when she was younger and Jeff was still at home. It wasn't always easy being the only girl in the household and she had used the term as the most polite way possible to say 'fuck off'.

"Please be okay Shortcake... I love you. I'll call you in a bit."

Even as she listened to his footsteps down the hall and out the door, Katy's heart didn't want him to go. Everything in her wanted to jump up and chase him down and beg him to stay there with her forever. But the burning desires inside her started to give way to the shame and foolishness of the scene that was just made. When she heard the front door shut behind her brother, she was beside herself.

Down in the depths of her inner thoughts, she scolded herself harshly for allowing any of it to happen. She had known better. Even on the drive back from the cabin she knew that to think their affair would end in happiness was foolhardy at best. Although at that time she was more worried about being caught by Bethany or someone they knew rather than falling in love with her brother and pushing the issue too far. As silly as the whole idea sounded in her mind, her heart ached and stomach turned over this defacto rejection all the same. She was still madly in love with her brother and didn't know how to turn those feelings away.

She removed her robe and stepped into the hot water. The steamy shower temperature matched that of the tears streaming from her eyes. She reached down between her legs and felt the remnants of Jeff's cum still seeping out of her. Remembering that not long ago, he was inside her and telling her that he had feelings for her made her burst out into sobs.

Katy lashed out and hit the shower wall with her first and swore at herself.

"How could I be so fucking stupid? Of all the guys in the world I fuck and fall in love with my married brother!!"

She was beating herself up hard over the events of today. It seemed as if all the progress she had made in processing her grief had evaporated instantly and been replaced with something worse than what came before it.

She stood under the streams of water and lamented, "Why him?"

She knew that answer as well. The same reasons that swept over her earlier that morning. No one loved her like he did, no one cared about her like he did. But she couldn't have him in the way that she wanted and now she would be tormented by both the future that she was seemingly losing, and by the shame of her decision to engage in the taboo tryst in the first place.

Katy stood in the shower until the water ran cold, then toweled off and got into pyjamas. She had a missed call from Jeff and decided not to answer. She was in no state to continue their conversation just yet.

The day melted into the evening and Katy sat in her father's armchair across from the sofa and listlessly watched films and shows to fill out the day. By the time she summoned the emotional strength to call her brother back, she knew what she had to do.

She picked up the phone as if it weighed ten pounds and dialed her brother's number.

"Hey you," his customary greeting was weighted with tones of concern.

"Hey," she replied to him.

"Give me a sec, just going into the kitchen," her brother stated.

In the background she picked out Bethany's shrill voice. Hearing her sister-in-law at such a time was nearly enough to send her into a blind rage, but she held it back for no other reason than her brother's well-being.

"You good?" Katy asked.

"Yeah, I'm in the clear. Are you okay?"

Katy took a deep breath before continuing.

"Yeah... and no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to catch feelings like that and then spill them out all over the place."

"You're not the only one who caught feelings..." Jeff replied somberly.

"Maybe, but you were at least smart enough to not try and talk your kid sister into running away with you..."

"Katy, don't be hard on yourself. You've done nothing wrong!"

"I fucked my own brother and fell for him. If that's not wrong then I'm not sure what is."

There was a palpable moment of silence on the phone before her brother spoke up.

"I don't regret anything. And I feel like I'm letting you down in a way."

"Jeff, you're not letting me down. I brought this on myself and it's mine to deal with. I..." she began to stammer before continuing. "I don't want to put you in any situation that could cost you anything." She paused while trying to gather the strength to say what her brother was being too nice to say himself. "Maybe we should cool it off a bit."

Those words ripped out Katy's heart as they left her lips. She wasn't even quite sure why she was saying them other than trying to look after what was best for her brother just as he had done for her for so long.

Jeff let out a long sigh. "You know I don't want that," he paused before continuing with a waver in his voice. "But maybe that's what's best..."

His words hung in the air like a suffocating fog. It took all of Katy's inner constitution to not scream out "NO!" but she remained silent.

Jeff again broke the silence. "You know I love you and I'll always be here for you."

Katy choked out, "Yeah I know, I love you back."

"Are we okay, Shortcake?" Her brother asked sincerely.

"Of course, always," she managed to reply.

Again, Bethany's voice rose in the background and turned Katy's stomach.

"I'd better go," her brother interjected. "Talk soon?"

"Yeah, chat soon," she responded before ending the call.

Katy spent that night and many following in a constant state of restlessness. The comfort that she had grown to rely on was seemingly ripped from her. Often she was tormented by thoughts that if she had just let the fun be what it was, then she would still be enjoying Jeff's arms wrapped around her. Countless times she picked up the phone to call or text to see if he wanted to stop by, but gave up at the last minute. She could not bring herself to remove the picture of their wedding dance from the mantle, and put the smaller pictures of Jeff holding her as a baby along with the photo of them over the mint chip ice cream into small frames she kept at her bedside table.

She kept her admin job down the street from her brother's office but the lunchtime rendezvous halted. Jeff still called to check in on her, but was reserved and tread carefully knowing that she was in a fragile state over everything. He kept assuring her that "everything would be fine," and even though Katy didn't feel it, she knew it would be eventually.

Though the feelings of loss and grief returned, Katy was not apt to chase them away with sexual encounters as she had been before the holiday trip. She hoped that perhaps one day she could get past the feelings she had for her brother and move on, but that day seemed to be far off.

At the same time she wondered how Jeff was managing it on his end. He was a bit more difficult to read and tried to reign in his emotions like their father had. As much as she dreamed he would come back to her, she did want what was best for him in the end.

The weeks continued to roll on and Katy was beginning to come out of the fog that both her father's passing and her affair with her brother had left her in. She arose one Friday morning, silenced her alarm for work and sleepily got out of her childhood bed and walked into the bathroom. She autonomously reached out and flipped on the lights. A yawn spread across her face while she squinted into the mirror to inspect all the wayward strands of hair that jutted here and there. Her eyes darted wide open as her stomach suddenly churned and then, with no warning, violently vomited into the sink.

She wiped the mess from her chin and looked at herself perplexed. She hadn't been drinking the night before and couldn't remember eating anything that would have turned her stomach like that. She frankly didn't feel queasy at all until she was emptying the contents of her stomach into the sink.

Katy was suddenly overcome by a sinking sensation. Trembling with apprehension, she walked back to her bedroom and called in sick to work. After cleaning herself up and showering, she drove her little car to the nearest pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test. Her stomach remained in knots on the drive home and she didn't even shut the front door completely as she marched into the bathroom and removed the test from its packaging. Several intense minutes later she spied the obviously positive test sitting on the sink and erupted into tears.

She, of course, knew it had to be her brother's. He had been her only partner in the previous six months. It had been about 6 weeks since their ill-fated romp in the living room and now she was pregnant with his baby.

The stress of what was happening had her in a catatonic state for most of the remainder of the day until she was brought back to reality by her phone buzzing on the kitchen table. She glanced at it and saw it was none other than her brother and reached to pick up the phone with a shaky hand.

"Hey..." she offered weakly.

"Katy, hey! Listen, is it okay if I come over? I'm leaving the office and I need to speak with you." Her brother sounded animated and determined.

"Um... yeah. I... uh... actually need to speak with you too," she responded.

"Okay, I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

He didn't give her a chance to respond before hanging up and Katy was suddenly left to her thoughts again. What would she tell him? The fact that she was pregnant by her brother and how to tell him was not a situation that she thought she would ever need to deal with. How did this happen? She had been so careful. How would he react?

The twenty minutes seemed to drag on for an eternity and several times she was sure she would vomit again before she heard Jeff's truck pull into the drive. Her heart was both in her throat and her stomach at the same time when she heard his key slip into the lock and open the door.

"Shortcake? Where are you?" He asked upon finding an empty living room.

"Back here, in the kitchen," she replied.

Jeff scurried around through the entryway and scrambled over to her in a way that was both anxious and excited. He walked over to the floor in front of her and swung her chair around so she was facing him, crouched down and launched into talking right away.

"Katy, I've been fighting this conversation for the last month and I just can't anymore."

Katy was perplexed on top of the anxiety she felt over her own news. Jeff placed his hands on the top of her thighs and continued.

"Since the last time we were together, I've been absolutely miserable missing you. I know this whole thing is absolutely mental, but I see you and me in my dreams and everywhere I look. Everything without you is just so... sad."

Katy's eyes looked up at her brother's for the first time since he arrived. She could see that desperate lover's look in them. The same look she had at that very house not 6 weeks prior. She felt her own eyes moisten as he continued.

"I don't know how this is going to work out, and I don't know what it will cost us, but I can't go another minute without having you as mine. I thought I could, but I can't. You were right... it doesn't make sense but you were right all along."

His hands reached up and stroked the sides of her face and brushed her hair back behind her ears.

"Jeff, I..." Katy croaked out but Jeff jumped back in.

"Katy, I love you, I'm in love with you, and I want you more than I want anything else in the world."

Katy started weeping at this potent cocktail of emotions. Her brother wiped the tears from her cheeks as they flowed freely from her eyes down the sides of her face.

"Jeff... there's still something I need to tell you!" she said determinedly between sobs.

"Oh no... please don't tell me that I'm too late?" he responded with a shake in his voice that matched hers.

Katy took Jeff's hand in her left, and with her trembling right hand placed the pregnancy test onto his open palm.

"Jeff, I'm pregnant...."

They both froze in place, seemingly holding their breath in unison. When Katy exhaled she sobbed and threw her arms over her brother and rested her tear-soaked face on his shoulder.

"It's yours..."