Isabella Awakening Ch. 01

The lovers collapsed onto the now crumpled towels. Isabella closed her eyes as her own body continued to shake and spasm gently. After only a minute, Maria sat up, grabbed her clothes, kissed her brother firmly on the lips and scooted up the stairs to her apartment. Gustavo rose more slowly and washed himself at the basin, a dreamy, far-away look on his face the entire time. Isabella was dumbstruck by what she had seen. She extracted her hairbrush and, when Gustavo had retreated, made her own way slowly up the stairs to bed.

Just thinking about that scene made Isabella groan, but of course she now knew that the sin that Gustavo and Maria had committed was called incest and was punishable in both the worldly and spiritual realms. But there was worse to come.

Isabella gave up her spying ways immediately and sought to purge her soul by saying additional rosaries and praying to Mother Mary for forgiveness. All to no avail as each night she was visited by rich and lurid dreams in which not just Maria, but herself as well, satisfied their carnal desires on the body of their brother.

It was only four or five weeks after she had witnessed that sinful meeting in the bathroom that the Silverto household erupted. Isabella returned early one afternoon from her duties at the local convent school, where she assisted the reading lessons, to find the house in uproar. Mother was screaming in Maria's apartment and father was in his study, clearly reading the Riot Act to Gustavo. The servants hovered in the kitchen, not knowing where to go or what to do. As a normal Neapolitan household, raised voices were hardly unusual, but this had the character of war. Things were being thrown and expletives delivered between screams and anguished cries.

"What is happening?" asked Isabella of Maria-Gertruda, the ancient cook.

"Oh child!" said the old woman, seeing her for the first time. "You should not be here! Carlotta!" she yelled, addressing the pantry maid. "Take Isabella into town this minute."

And so Isabella was hurried out the back door and down the lanes to the town centre where Carlotta and she drank cordials in the piazza and talked of nothing until after seven, when another servant came to fetch them home.

The house was quiet and still when they returned. Isabella ate alone in the kitchen and went to her room, stopping to press her ear to the door of her sister's apartment. She heard gentle sobbing within and knocked gently.

"Go away!" Maria yelled.

"Maria, it is I, Isabel. What is wrong? What has happened?"

The weeping behind the door stopped and Maria opened it just an inch.

"Oh, my darling Isabel." She whispered. "Mama and Papa have forbidden me to leave my room or to speak to anyone – including you. You must forgive me. They have threatened to send me away. Please go!" and she closed and locked the door without another word.

Isabella was hurt and bewildered by her sister's apparent rejection and moved to her brother Gustav's doorway. The door was ajar and there was no one there, so she retreated to her own room and prepared for bed, concerned and afraid for her family.

Sleep did not come easily and around midnight she heard footsteps and someone, presumably Gustav, entered his room. The door closed and the place was silent again. Several minutes later footsteps again. Quieter this time. Gustav's door opened and closed again. Muffled voices, then silence. Squeaks and groans of the old flooring. Isabella wondered whether her sister and brother were brazen enough to meet in his room after such a ruckus. She instinctively knew that the uproar of this afternoon had something to do with Gustav's and Maria's sinful liaisons. Isabella could not contain her curiosity. She silently left her bed and crept to her own door. Trying the handle she realised that she was locked in! This had never happened before, but ever prepared, Isabella groped in the dark to her jewelry case where she kept the spare key. She founded it and quietly unlocked the door and slowly moved towards her brother's doorway. It was closed, of course, but not locked. Slowly she turned the handle and cracked the door open just an inch. That was enough for her to see that indeed there were two people in the bed, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in through Gustav's window.

The pair was moving slowly under the sheets and their breathing was laboured. Isabella now knew enough to assume they were joined and making love. She was appalled and excited once again. Maria seemed to be on top of Gustavo and her movements were becoming more violent. She rose up to sit astride him and the sheets fell away revealing not Maria, but their mother Marisa! Her hair curled into a tight bun and her wider hips distinguishing her even in the pale moonlight.

Isabella watched in awed silence as her mother rode Gustavo, rising then falling and grinding into him. Her pace quickened and her breathing became quick and shallow until she suddenly made a last violet plunge onto Gustavo's cock, arched her back and gave out a long guttural moan. At the same time, Gustavo thrust upwards and his legs shook. He too moaned softly.

Isabella couldn't move. It was as if she was transfixed by the spectacle before her. Marisa slumped onto Gustavo chest, her legs still astride him and his cock still inside her, pulsing slowly. After a brief pause, Isabella heard her mother whimpering and Gustavo comforting her with a soft "It's alright Mama, its alright" as he stroked her face. Marisa shook and raised a clenched fist, hitting Gustavo on the arm and chest.

"You have ruined everything!" she said in voice that carried both anger and self-pity. "We are finished! How could you let this happen?"

"Mama, please", said Gustavo "It was not my doing, and I could not have known that Papa would find out. We were very secretive".

"He must never know about us, my darling". Said Marisa. "He would kill me if he knew. He could never understand."

"I know that mama. And he will never know. I will leave tomorrow as he has ordered." Gustavo stroked his mother's arms and kissed her gently on the cheek.

"And what of Maria? What if she carries your child? How could we live with that?" said Marisa, her sobs now waning.

"It cannot happen, mama," replied Gustavo. "I was careful to withdraw every time as you showed me."

Isabella listened intently and realised that several minutes had passed since she had crept to her brother's door. She quietly returned to her own room, remembering to lock her door as she returned.

Sleep was now out of the question as she pieced together the events of the day and those of the preceding months. Father had obviously found out about Maria and Gustavo's secret love and had exploded, Mother going along with his rage in an effort to hide her own complicity in this sordid nest. Isabella felt such sorrow for her poor cheated father but could not in her heart of hearts condemn her Mother or siblings for giving vent to the passions that she herself shared. Such confusion, such sadness.

Thinking back on all that happened at that time, the thirty-four year-old Isabella was again overwhelmed by the same mixed emotions. She remembered Gustavo's hurried departure the next morning, whisked away by Papa's coach to the port where he was to board a trading ship bound for Africa. The farewells were brief and constrained by the tense atmosphere. Gustavo kissed his sister's dutifully, not betraying with Maria the slightest connection beyond their filial relationship. Father did not even shake Gustavo's hand. He just grunted as the boy made his way out of the family home for what could have been forever.

Maria's fate was sealed soon after when Mama arranged a hasty marriage to Guillermo, an occasional suitor of Maria's and the son of a minor noble with connections to the new regime. The bans were posted in the church a week after Gustavo's departure and only the minimum time was allowed to complete the union. Whispering relatives assumed that Maria was pregnant to Guillermo, but her first progeny did not arrive until over a year after the wedding. It was something of a miracle, to Isabella at least, that Maria's marriage turned out, in appearances at least, to be a happy one. A second child had arrived two years after the first and she and Guillermo and their two boys appeared to live a happy and idyllic life in the countryside near to Naples. Isabella had little contact with Maria during those years, only seeing each other at family gatherings and the occasional social event. They had certainly not spoken of the events of the day that the family fell apart so suddenly and never mentioned Gustavo in each other's presence.

Even now, working together with Maria on the funeral preparations, their conversations were brief and they never found themselves alone. In fact, Isabella had never shared her of knowledge of her family's carnal secrets with anyone and none in the family gave the least hint that there was anything dark in their recent history. To Isabella, it sometimes seemed like a dream – one of the many erotic fantasies she continued to indulge in – and she sometimes wished she could broach the matter with Maria.

The Funeral of Donna Elvira went, as all Italian funerals do, chaotically. Women howled, children laughed and the requisite number of dropped plates, drunken stubbles and arguments was reached by early afternoon. The family dog even consented to chase an alley cat through the house as the Mayor of Naples was paying his last respects at the open coffin. Isabella and Maria and their mother were kept frantically busy serving food and wine to the more than 100 guests. Isabella briefly ran into Gustavo as she emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of hot food. They would have collided in a hail of veal dumplings were it not for Gustavo's clever foot work and Isabella's many years of practice balancing plates. As it was, she found herself pressed against the wall of the narrow scullery corridor holding a steaming plate in each hand high above her and Gustavo's heads.

"Excellent work sister. And now that I have you at my mercy, there is something I have always wanted to do." He grinned wickedly.

Isabella was caught by surprise and was about to remonstrate with Gustavo when he cackled, kissed her quickly on the lips and escaped through the kitchen door.

Recovering quickly, Isabella completed her serving duties. Late in the proceedings she caught site of the tall grey figure of Anton Domani, her favorite "uncle" and first lover. Uncle Anton was now nearly seventy but he remained an elegant figure, though now slightly stooped and frail. He spotted Isabella and standing a little taller he waved and blew her a friendly kiss. Isabella made her way to him through the now thinning crown of mourners. He bent to kiss her cheek and she responded with a whispered "Bed me tonight, Anton, you stallion" and a peck on his cheek.

Anton stayed bent at her ear and said "You are insatiable Isabel, but I'm afraid you will get no joy from this old man. My heart is yours as you well know, but it is now too feeble to maintain both my love for you and the blood flow to my member at the same time."

"Then you must forget the love, uncle and plunder me one last time just for fun," teased Isabella, always forward and provocative with Anton.

"You will kill me you little slut," whispered Anton, rising to his full height and then, in conversational tone and raising his wine glass as in a toast to Isabella "but I would die a happy man indeed!"

Isabella curtseyed to Anton and soon found herself farewelling the last of the guests on the doorstep. Marisa, Maria and Isabella looked bedraggled, their usually perfectly kept black hair spilling in strands, wisps and sweaty ringlets from their brows. Even Papa and Gustavo, who only had to keep the conversation flowing and break up the worst of the arguments, looked worn out. The servants, bless them, hurried the family indoors and insisted that they retire. The mess would be gone by morning, they promised. Papa and Mama thanked them for their tireless efforts and told them all to take tomorrow off and rest.

Isabella found herself feeling so leaden and weak that she could barely push open the heavy bathroom door to wash before crawling into bed. She was pouring warm water into the washbowl at the mirror when the door opened again and Gustavo walk in.

"Sorry brother, I was here first" she said.

"Yes, I know Isabel." He replied, approaching her, staggering ever so slightly and smelling of the wine he been consuming all day. "I am only here to revisit the scene of the crime."

Isabella was momentarily unsure how to respond but quickly decided that naivety was the best approach.

"Did someone commit a crime here, brother? I had no idea."

"Really, Isabel?" Gustavo walked across the room to where Isabella's secret cabinet hiding place still stood after all these years. He opened the door and made a pretense of looking in every corner as if searching for something.

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew. But then, spies are likely to be hung if captured, are they not? And your neck is far too pretty for a rope." He bent to place his lips on her throat.

Isabella almost swooned, so long had she wished that it was she that Gustavo had taken here, on this cold stone floor. Her heart thumped wildly but she suddenly thrust him away.

She held her hand up to ward off a renewed attack and she held him with a piercing gaze that she now knew could freeze men where they stood.

"Gustavo," she said, "If a crime was committed here it is well that we should reflect on its consequences. I do not judge or condemn any person, least of all a member of my beloved family. In fact, I regard each with equal affection whatever their mistakes. But I will not be party to another such offence in my parent's home. You should regard any outstanding wishes you have with regard to me as now finished." She watched Gustavo taking in her meaning, and then added, in a more gentle tone "As I shall now put aside mine as they relate to you."

Gustavo's demeanor changed to one of contrition. Head bowed and visibly deflated he said.

"Darling sister Isabella, as ever you speak with a wisdom denied your wicked elder brother. Forgive my rashness and ...." Isabella cut him short.

"There is nothing to forgive, Gus. But it really is time we all got over this dark matter from our past. We are adults now and, while I am genuinely complimented by your attraction to me, I cannot allow the child I was to ruin my life – or yours. Go now. Let us not speak of this again."

Gustavo left while Isabella returned to the washbasin. She studied herself in the mirror for a minute, looking into the reflection of her eyes. "Welcome back, old friend," she said. "I do wish you would give some warning before you have me act for you. That came as a complete surprise. Where did that speech come from? What happened to my lust for Gustavo? Thanks all the same, it was masterful." She winked at her own reflection, washed her face and climbed the familiar stairway to her room.

Coming Soon

Chapter 2: In which Isabella learns more of her own family history, remembers an earlier dawn and is told of her father's current plans for her.