Homelands Pt. 08 Ch. 01

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Author's note

Part Eight picks up where Part Seven left off, in Spring. It is not necessary for you to have read the first six parts of the story, but this may be hard to follow if you haven't read Part Seven.

This is primarily an incest story, but it is also sci-fi/fantasy, and supernatural elements are not incidental to the plot. Additionally, many chapters will feature elements of other categories, particularly group sex and anal.

All sexual acts are consensual and involve parties who are at least eighteen years of age.

As ever, if you have questions feel free to email me or leave a comment. Either way, I'll try to respond in a timely manner.

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Chris almost didn't hear the doorbell over the coffee grinder. Only when he took his thumb off the button, allowing the blades to stop whirring, did he recognize the sound.

It was nearly eleven o'clock. At night.

"I'll get it," he called out.

Karen was in her home office, as usual. Whether she was actually working or simply procrastinating, he had no idea, but he'd hate to interrupt her if her muse was speaking to her. Especially after the voicemail her publisher had left just a few days ago reminding her that the manuscript was due in two weeks.

Actually, he'd hate to interrupt Karen even if her muse had taken the night off. Hell hath no fury like a writer behind on a deadline.

"Thanks, dear," his wife replied perfunctorily.

In that unique unhurried rush that only doorbells can induce, Chris swept across the kitchen and then shuffled across the living room to the front door. After fixing the few hairs that had been displaced by the process and smoothing away some imaginary wrinkles in his shirt, he slowly opened the door.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," the small man on the other side said.

The man stood a good five or six inches shorter than Chris, and probably weighed fifty or sixty pounds less. The stranger couldn't possibly have posed Chris any threat. But there was something about the guy that made his body tense up all the same.

Of course, that might just have been the fact that he was ringing their doorbell at such a strange hour. The only real possibilities Chris could see were that the man was in need of help or that he was a serial killer who was going to pretend he was.

But that wasn't it.

Chris had seen that pronounced widow's peak before. The thinning hairline and neatly trimmed goatee, more silver than brown, weren't ringing the same bells, but somewhere in the back of his mind, a face very much like this one lurked. It belonged to a different man. A taller man. One who was a little more handsome, with similar if rougher features. But there was a connection. Had to be.

Whoever it was that he was thinking of also had thicker muscles. The man before him was lean and wiry, undeniably fit yet so short and slender that he could probably fit in Karen's clothes. How could he let his back go stiff over such a harmless little guy?

He was being silly. The man on his front step simply had the misfortune of bearing a passing resemblance to someone Chris had all but forgotten.

"I know it's late," the man on his front step said. "But my car broke down-"

"Please, come in," Chris said, suddenly remembering his manners. "Do you need to use the phone? Call a tow-truck?"

"Already tried." The man held up his cell phone as he stepped inside. "No one's answering. Voicemail said they open at six."

"Well, we are a long ways from civilization," Chris replied. That's how most people would think of it, anyway. Himself, he couldn't imagine living in the city. Out here, surrounded by nature, he could breathe. He felt free and at peace. "If there were any hotels within fifty miles, I'd offer to take you to one, but I'm afraid you won't find any better accommodations until you hit Savannah. And that's some ways away yet."

"Don't I know it," the stranger said. "That's actually where I was headed."

Of course it was.

Chris enjoyed the occasional visit to Savannah. The thriving music scene alone more than justified its existence. And taking Karen in for a night on the town always made for a memorable evening. But the city never looked as good as when it was in his rearview mirror.

"Who's this?" his wife said, finally emerging from her office.

She forced a smile, but it was tight. Their guest might not have caught it, but Chris could almost feel her irritation emanating out from her like sound waves from a speaker.

It was hard to imagine her jumping with joy at the arrival of an unexpected guest so late at night under any circumstances, but the clack-clack-clack that had been coming from her keyboard a moment ago suggested that she'd been on a roll. That she even managed to curve her lips upward at all came as something of a surprise.

"Kevin," the man said, offering his hand.

She took it and gave him a polite handshake. "Karen."

Chris watched the two of them. He wasn't sure why, but he felt tense.

Transparently insincere it might be, but he knew his wife being gracious to their guest. Her behavior, unlike his, was always appropriate to the situation. Always.

Was he actually afraid that Kevin, who seemed perfectly polite, would somehow offend her? Or was he simply feeling possessive?

It would certainly have been understandable if he was. Sometimes, he let himself forget what a knockout his wife was. She was wearing baggy sweatpants and one of his band's concert T-shirts over a pair of long-sleeves, sure, but a cardboard box couldn't have hid the fact that she had a killer body. Her luscious lips, flawless complexion, cute little nose and high cheekbones needed no cosmetics. That face stopped hearts as often as it did traffic. Even pulled back and hidden from view by a vicious scrunchie, her glorious red hair took his breath away. And the thick black glasses she wore when typing made her look even better than usual. Sophisticated. Geek, but in the best possible way. Like Tina Fey.

Surely none of that escaped Kevin's notice. He didn't stare at her the way Chris himself surely would have if he were in the man's shoes, but there was no indication that he was blind. And he didn't strike Chris as gay.

"Did I hear you'll be spending the night with us?" she asked Kevin, with only the slightest "Really? Really?" subtext directed toward Chris.

"I don't want to put you out," Kevin replied.

"Nonsense," Chris added quickly, before those cold brown stones could drill into him.

Beautiful as his wife's eyes were, they could take all the heat out of a room when she got in one of her moods. Just as they could set his heart to beating so fast it would give his doctor a heart attack when she got in one of those moods. A more beautiful, more expressive, more magical pair of eyes the world had never seen.

For all that his wife was signaling her dissatisfaction with the arrival of their unwanted guest, turning him away would only earn Chris her disapproval. That this made no sense was of course irrelevant. Karen's evening had been disturbed, and she couldn't very well take it out on Kevin without looking like a bitch, so all of that frustration was going to be directed towards her loving husband. But that didn't mean she'd forgive him for turning them into the type of people who would refuse a helping hand for a stranger in need.

Rock, have you met hard place?

"Did you say you were headed to Savannah?" Karen asked.

Kevin nodded. "For the Saint Patrick's Day parade. I hear it's not to be missed."

"It's not," Chris agreed. "No better place for it."

The smile his wife gave him bordered on lukewarm.

"Some would say Boston," he added, "but what do yankees know anyway?"

Immediately after the words left his mouth, he felt ashamed of himself.

Confused as well.

The accent he hadn't quite noticed in Kevin's speech was hard to place. The man certainly was no native son of Georgia. Could he have been a northerner?

No. That wasn't it. Kevin might or might not have been born on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon, but Chris was feeling like he'd taken the Lord's name in vain for an entirely different reason. He suddenly knew for an absolute certainty that he had some sort of a connection to Boston. What that connection was, he hadn't the foggiest idea, but that didn't change the fact that there was one.

Kevin smiled faintly at the joke.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, sure. That would be great," their guest said. "Got any whiskey?"

"Woodford Reserve," Chris said. "Or Knob Creek."

Kevin frowned. "I meant whiskey."

"Ah, you're a Scotch man," Chris said. Most yankees were.

A disgusted look passed over Kevin's face. "Nevermind."

"Just bourbon, I'm afraid," Chris said, feeling more insulted by the man's response than he perhaps should have.

Could he be Irish? Certainly not Canadian.

Chris still couldn't quite place the accent, but the kind of person who'd drive down to Savannah for the Saint Patrick's Day parade just might have been the type of person who'd expect Bushmill's or Jameson when they asked for whiskey. He couldn't fault the man for that. In fact, even as he was busy taking offense at the implication that good bourbon wasn't worthy of the name "whiskey," some other part of him felt inclined to agree with Kevin. And not just because he respected a man who felt some loyalty to his roots.

He himself shared those roots. Didn't he?

The thought vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"We've got beer too," he added. "And wine."

"Speaking of which," his wife said. "I think I'll have a red."

So much for the pot of coffee he'd been about to brew. Of course, she wasn't likely to be putting in much time at the keyboard now.

"That'll do," Kevin said. "Thank you."

"Guess that's three," Chris said.

His wife gave him a sweet smile and gently pressed her hand against his shoulder as he turned towards the kitchen. The brief contact sent waves of electricity through him. The tension he'd felt a moment ago faded away, taking some of the venom that had coursed through his wife's veins along with it.

For just a moment, it was almost impossible not to grab his wife and pres his lips to hers. To tear her clothes off and have his way with her right there, while Kevin watched.

"Nice place you've got here," their guest said as Karen led her to the sofas by the fireplace.

"Thank you," she replied.

"What do you and your husband do? If I may ask?"

"Chris is a musician," Karen said. "I'm a novelist."

As he fished through the drawer for a bottle opener, Chris grimaced to himself. His wife wrote children's books, but that wasn't how she described her work. Apparently, anyone who put it that way was effectively telling her that they didn't really respect her. That they thought she got paid to do something anyone could do.

"Really?" Kevin said. "Anything I might have read?"

Thunderclouds gathered.

"Probably not," Karen said, her tone a bit icy. "Do you have children?"

Kevin didn't reply at first. Eventually, he said, "Oh, you write kid's books?"

And there it was.

Were he alone, he'd probably be amused. People always responded that way. Like they couldn't decide whether to think that he and his wife were too immature to get real jobs or to be embarrassed for never having heard of them. As if their career choices could only be considered respectable if he was Justin Bieber and she was J. K. Rowling. It was absurd.

His wife, however, did not find that all-too-predictable reaction especially charming.

"What about you?" Chris called as he walked back into the living room with the open bottle in one hand and three stemmed glasses dangling from between the fingers of the other.

"9-to-5-er, I'm afraid," Kevin said. "Insurance."

"Sales?" Chris asked.

"Claims investigation."

Karen gave a polite smile, but to Chris it seemed nothing short of miraculous that their guest's chest was still intact.

After pouring for each of them and passing the glasses out, Chris joined his wife on the couch opposite their guest. She sat close enough to to him to make his heartbeat accelerate, though not so close as to make poor Kevin uncomfortable with their PDA.

Apparently, he was back to being a member of the same team instead of the man who was responsible for her evening being ruined. That was something, at least.

More than something, in fact. The passive-aggressive vibes she'd been directing towards him were forgiven and forgotten the moment he felt her soft body against his. One whiff of her hair and he was smiling uncontrollably. When she patted his thigh, the heavens opened and choirs of angels sang.

They fought. A lot. About stupid shit and not-so-stupid shit. Mostly finances, but other things as well. Old lovers of hers that she remained friends with, who undoubtedly hoped to get between her legs one more time. The women who threw themselves at him when he was on tour. The fact that he planned to go on tour again after releasing a new album.

But no matter how bad it got, it never took more than the simplest little touch to remind him of how fortunate he was to have found her.

She was the one. It was as simple as that.

Kevin seemed to notice the way tension bled out from both their bodies once they pressed up against each other. He smiled awkwardly and stared into his glass.

"So. How long have you two been together?" he asked.

"Four years on the nineteenth," Chris replied straight away.

Karen looked at him as though she were impressed.

"What? You thought I forgot?"

"Didn't say a thing," she replied.

"Spring wedding?" Kevin asked.

Looking not at his guest but his beautiful wife, Chris said, "It's our favorite time of year. Meant fewer of our guests could make it, but we never wanted a big ceremony anyway."

"Besides, summer's so cliche," Karen said, smiling back at him.

It all sounded so rehearsed. For just a moment, Chris himself doubted their story. All of it. He almost questioned his own name. But the moment passed and he almost laughed at himself for even having the thought.

"What about you, Kevin?" his wife asked, denying him the pleasure of gazing into her big, dark eyes. "Are you married?"

"I was," he said. "But we've been separated for some time."

"Sorry to hear that," Karen said.

He shrugged. "My family thinks it's for the best. They're probably right. Usually are."

Their wine glasses slowly emptied. A second round was poured. The conversation grew more and more casual, and Chris found it harder and harder to shake the sense that Kevin wasn't who he seemed to be. And more and more sure that it wasn't his irritation with the situation that made him think that. With Karen sitting next to him, making eyes at him, the tension had long since left his body anyway. No, he was simply convinced that their guest was not who he claimed to be.

From the moment he'd walked through the door, things had changed. The world had collided with another reality. One in which he had some tie to Boston, possibly was of Irish ancestry, and apparently felt some deep animosity towards a dark-haired man with a widow's peak. One in which he was someone other than who he claimed to be.

Karen sensed it too.

She hadn't said anything, but the way she was looking at Kevin made it clear. If he didn't know better, he could almost think his wife was checking the guy out. But that didn't make sense. He wasn't remotely her type. Too old, for one. Some women went for the whole silver fox thing, but Karen wasn't one of them. Too small, for another. Too fine-featured. No, his wife was staring intently at him because she too felt that this stranger had brought a world of trouble in with him.

That, or maybe she'd had a bit too much wine. But he thought it was more likely the former, crazy as that sounded.

"Anyway, I don't want to keep the two of you up," Kevin said after he finished his second glass wine. "I've been too much of an imposition already."

"Oh, it's nowhere near our bedtime," Chris said.

"Right, I forgot. No cubicles waiting for you in the morning." The smile that accompanied his words was almost mocking, but not quite. "Well, it's just about mine. And I've got to get up early to call that mechanic again."

"Let me fix up the couch for you," Karen said.

And so, just a few minutes later, they were wishing their guest goodnight. "If you need anything, we're right upstairs," his wife said before they left Kevin to himself.

"He seems nice," Chris said once they were in their room.

"Hmmm," Karen said by way of response.

"A bit odd, maybe, but nice," he went on as he slipped into the bathroom and prepared to brush his teeth.

"Yeah," his wife agreed.

"Did you notice...did he look familiar to you?"

"Not really, no," she said. "Well...now that you mention it, I guess he looks a little bit like the guy who used to book your gigs, back before you signed with the record label."

"Yes!" Chris said, though that wasn't it at all.

There was a resemblance there, but they both knew that something more was going on. At least, he thought they both did. Were they not allowed to admit it aloud, for fear that the other one would think them crazy?

Or for fear that they'd think themselves crazy.

Either way, their guest was not of this world. And he'd brought a little something of the other side over with him.

For fuck's sake. It was as if he was the one who made a living writing about faeries and fantasies and faraway worlds.

In his wife's stories, these sorts of things never happened to grown-ups. Only kids.

What was wrong with him? Was he really losing his hold on reality?

He spat out his toothpaste and vacated the bathroom, ceding it to Karen. While he waited for her to finish getting ready for bed, he lay under the covers and wondered where his sanity had gone. Of course their guest wasn't from another world. Just somewhere up north, which wasn't quite the same thing. If he was having trouble with his memory, with his sanity, that was no fault of Kevin's.

"Handsome fellow. For his age," Chris said when she slipped back into the bedroom.

Karen stared at him quietly, eyebrows raised.

"At least, I thought so."

And he had, truth be told. But they both knew that wasn't why he'd said as much.

"I'm sorry," she said, apparently declining his invitation to argue. The wine must have worked its magic. She didn't normally pass up such opportunities. "Didn't mean to stare."

"No, I'm sorry. You weren't staring. It's just...don't think there was something strange about him? Like he was giving of this...vibe? Or something?"

"Go to sleep, dear," she said as she slipped into bed beside him.

Her cute little feet wrapped around his leg, seeking warmth. No matter what time of year it was, her feet were always cold. It was, strangely, one of his favorite things about her, if only because it meant that she always wanted to be close to him, even if they'd gone to bed in the middle of an argument.

"He's okay," she mumbled after closing her eyes. "Kinda scrawny. And old. Bet he looks like a rotten banana and two dried up little raisins down there."

Chris laughed. "You're the best."

"Don't you forget it."

"Lovely image, by the way."

"Go to sleep," she repeated.

He sighed, kissed her on the top of her head, and did his best to comply with her order.

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His little girl looked so beautiful. So grown up. Her green prom dress was modest enough to earn a father's approval, but even he recognized that it drew attention to all the right places. He shouldn't have noticed such things, but he'd have to have been blind not to.

Fuck, when had his daughter grown such big breasts?