Rag Doll Ch. 07 - Ricky's Family 02

"Yasmin..." Shari began, and Yaz rounded on her.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" she screamed, rocking Shari back on her heels, before burying her face in my chest and crying great wracking sobs that made her whole body shudder. I wrapped my arms around her, patting her back and stroking her hair, trying to calm her down so I could leave with whatever little dignity I could muster. I tried to hand her off to Shari, but she grabbed hold of me even tighter, refusing to let me go.

"No, you're not going anywhere, I won't let you!" she sobbed, but I had to go. Now I knew how little I meant to this family, what Shari really thought of me, I couldn't stay, there was no place for me here. I managed to unhook Yasmin's arms from around my waist and handed her to Shari, who held her tightly as she struggled to get away, crying hysterically as she struggled.

"No Ricky, please don't go, don't leave us...!" she begged, her voice thick with emotion, while tears streamed down her cheeks.

I turned to leave, and Shari called out to me.

"Ricky..."

I turned around, and she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Ricky, please don't go, don't leave us..." she whispered, "I'm sorry, I...I'm sorry, please don't go, we need you..."

Yaz tore herself away from Shari and launched herself at me, cannoning into me and sending me into the wall, which I slid down with her kneeling on top of me, her arms locked around my neck.

"Never going anywhere, Ricky, not without me!" she moaned, while punching me in my arms, on my shoulders, drumming on my chest with her clenched fists, which didn't hurt, to be honest; being attacked by Yaz was kind of like being mauled by a kitten; lots of intent, no real ability.

"Don't you even think about leaving us again, ever, you understand? You frightened me, Ricky, don't ever do that again! This is your home, got it? This is your home, we are your family, and you're one of us, no if's, but's, or and's, got it?"

I hugged her close, feeling her relax and hug me back, and I was so glad Shari couldn't see her kissing my chest as she hugged me.

Shari knelt down next to us on the floor and took my hand.

"I'm so sorry, Ricky, I don't know...I had no right to say those terrible, hateful things to you, my head is so...you didn't do anything wrong, and I was such a bitch, and you didn't deserve any of it. Please forgive me, I was out of line, I'll understand if you want to call me names, give me back some of what I gave you. You ARE my little brother, this IS your family, this IS your home, I was so wrong when I said you didn't belong here, you do, you'll always be a part of us, you're our brother and your place is here, with us."

She paused to rub her streaming eyes with her fingertips, before reaching out to gently stroke my cheek.

"Please don't go; we need you to be here with us, it's going to be so hard from now on, we need to be a family to get through it. I need you, Yaz needs you, and you need both of us; it's what mummy wanted. When she brought you into this family she made you one of us, and we're not letting you go; mummy wanted us to be strong together, so that's what we're going to be, we'll get through this, and we'll still be a family when it's over. Can you ever forgive me, Ricky? Please Ricky? I'm so sorry..."

I took her hand and kissed her palm, making her smile through her tears.

"It's OK Shari, really. I won't leave my sisters alone now, not when they need me..." I murmured, still emotionally shattered by what had happened, at the things she'd said to me, but then I gasped as she hugged me as hard was Yaz was doing, squeezing the breath out of me.

"I'm so sorry, Ricky, I'll make it up to you somehow..." she smiled, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, her smile widening when I reached up and thumbed her eyes dry.

"Don't worry about it, Shari, I understand, I miss her too, she was the first..." But I couldn't finish, because the tears came and both my sisters hugged me as I cried like a baby, all the loss and guilt, and sheer horror at losing her in such a random way, the first person I'd ever loved, my brand-new mum, rising-up and slamming into me.

*****

Somehow, the three of us made it back to the sitting room, but I couldn't sit down anywhere, not the couch she'd passed away on, her last resting place, because when I looked at it all I could see was her lying there, and remember how I couldn't wake her and how scared I was for her, and how guilty I felt because I couldn't wake her, because I couldn't stop her leaving us. I couldn't sit in her favourite armchair, with her silver-headed cane still leaning against it, because when I looked at it, I saw her sitting there, her chin cupped in her hand, smiling at me; everywhere I looked were reminders of her. The three of us huddled together on the floor, hugging each other as we cried. I read a phrase somewhere once that mentioned people holding a 'crying together' to mourn lost loved ones, and that perfectly described what we did; we were holding a crying-together as we mourned our mother.

By unspoken agreement we didn't talk about her; the loss was too huge, too raw, too recent; instead, the everyday took over; hot drinks, breakfast, small talk, the displacement trivia people do when the elephant in the room is too big to ignore but you still can't bring yourself to see it. I couldn't bear to stay upstairs with so much of her all around me, the girls obviously felt the same, and by unspoken agreement we gravitated downstairs and the safe anonymity of the Rec room, where we held each other in silence, lost in our memories.

I only had a few months worth, but all the more precious to me because of that, but my beautiful sisters had a whole lifetime to remember and relive, and it occurred to me that their loss was so much greater than mine. They'd survived what my father had done to them, they'd rebuilt their lives and succeeded, they had been happy as a family at last, and now it was gone and all they had was me.

The day wore on, and when darkness fell, Shari made some snacks, we were too overwrought to cook any kind of real meal, and retired to bed to nurse our thoughts and wonder what came next. The sound of knocking at my door woke me up. It was after 2 AM according to my watch, and when I called out, Yaz stepped into my room. She looked haggard, exhausted, wrung-out, and totally lost. One look at her expression wrung my heart.

"I can't sleep, baby, I keep dreaming about...about mummy, help me Ricky, please..." she quavered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

I held out my arms and she collapsed against me, crying piteously, and I guess I still wasn't tied too tightly because I started too, and that's how Shari found us, sitting in the dark on my bed, sobbing with anguish. Our big sister tried to comfort us, but she succumbed too, and so we huddled together, three broken hearts trying to get some comfort from each other.

*****

I woke first with the sun in my eyes, slightly thick-headed, wondering who was with me, before seeing two masses of curls on the pillow, bright copper-bronze in the morning sunshine, and then the night came flooding back; my sisters were huddled against me, they'd stayed the night with me. They looked so peaceful, poor things, I felt thankful they'd come to me for comfort, it told me we were still OK, and a huge billow of love for them; they were my family, I was their family, we were together, and we'd get through this somehow.

We tried to make the days as normal as possible; we couldn't get the death certificate (and you have no idea how much it hurt to say those two words even in the privacy of my own head...) until the Coroner had ruled on the post-mortem at an inquest, and we couldn't arrange mum's funeral until we had the death certificate, so we just stumbled along, filling the days and trying to not brood on what we knew was coming. Yaz found herself working through mum's insurance paperwork, while Shari stepped back into the office to keep the ball rolling until we knew what was going to happen next, and I just made myself useful anywhere I could.

Keeping busy was better than moping around, and I needed to be near the girls; being alone at home meant only thoughts of her, echoes of her voice everywhere I stepped, the imagined scent of her perfume in a thousand places, trinkets and mementoes she'd handled a thousand times a day now still, never again to feel the touch of her hands on them, her favourite tea-glass forlorn on the counter, one I'd made countless glasses of Oolong tea for her to enjoy late at night, now she'd never use it again, and I couldn't bring myself to touch it, to put it away; there were too many ghosts in that house for me to ever be there by myself ever again.

We bumbled along like this for almost three weeks, with no word from the Coroner's Court, nothing, until finally, one morning, Shari came into the dining room looking more upset that she had in a long while.

"Guys, I just had a call, they're holding the inquest today, they have the results of the post-mortem, and they need a family member to attend. I'm the eldest, but if you guys...?

Of course we were both going with her; this was our family. The coroner's court is in Walthamstow, not far from the house in Dalston, and we got there early. The court was a pretty straightforward; the results of the autopsy were read into the record, I understood maybe one word in ten, but what it boiled down to was that, even though there was ample historical evidence of repeated trauma (remodelled fractures in several of the major bones of her skeleton) actual cause of death was not directly attributable to foul play or external influence. They noted that she had a depressed skull fracture, it was several years old, and that could have been the cause of the migraines, but there was no evidence strong enough to suggest the violence done to her over her life was the actual cause of her death.

The coroner recorded a verdict of 'Natural Causes' in mum's death, and just like that her traumatic life and everything my bastard father had done to her was glossed over.

When we left the courtroom, Shari saw the Forensic Pathologist who'd carried out the post-mortem and given evidence, and collared him to ask him some questions. He seemed quite happy to talk to us now that a verdict had been recorded.

"Miss Shahida, there's really nothing I can add to the report I gave to the court; your mother had very obviously been subjected to a catalogue of historical injuries stretching back several years, but none of her injuries were of sufficient severity to be provably causative factors in her death. I'm very sorry. While I believe that the cumulative effect of her injuries over the years may have been a major contributory factor in her eventual death, I just don't have any definitive, medically justified evidence that they did; the fact is, any one of a number of things may have caused or aggravated the causes of the cerebral haemorrhage that was ultimately the cause of death, but nothing I found points definitively to any one injury, if I had, I would have testified to that effect."

He gently patted Shari's hand, his expression sombre.

"Your mother had a long history of battery and abuse-related injuries, and I'm sorry, I wish I could have helped jail the bastard who did all that to her, but I just don't have any real evidence that it was the actual cause of death, not enough to meet the burden of proof, anyway. Maybe one day we can gather enough evidence to re-convene the inquest and lay criminal charges, I hope we can, but right now that's just not possible. I'm very sorry."

*****

The reading of the will was pretty much as expected, the house was in a family trust, and Shari and Yaz were the sole trustees; what shocked me was that mum split the business, all the properties, and the goodwill equally, a three-way split between the three of us, making us all equal co-owners; hearing the solicitor read out that she'd explicitly referred to me as 'her son, Richard Brian Davies' broke my heart all over again. That was the easy part; mum had also sworn-out and deposited an affidavit to be opened in the event of her death, probably that time I'd seen her with all the suits in her office, detailing what my father had done to her, the murder of Barbara, his boasts about what he'd done to Nicky, everything. It was a sickening document, made all the more dreadful because we knew it was true; her final words to us were that she hoped one day we would be able to use that document to finally bring my father to justice; little did we know just how far-reaching and prophetic her words would turn out to be.

*****

The funeral was a quiet affair; none of mum's family showed up, mostly because of what my father did to them, so apart from the three of us, everyone else attending was a business friend or associate. Mum was cremated and Shari, Yaz, and I took her ashes to Dover, on the Kent coast, mum's favourite holiday spot when she was a girl, and scattered her ashes from atop the famous white cliffs, something she'd once confided to Shari she'd want done. The breeze was blowing out to sea, and it took mum's ashes with it, scattering her last remains over the sea as she had wished. I'm not religious, I don't understand that impulse at all, but something made me pray to whatever or whomever was listening that mum, my mum, would be at peace, and would hear my pledge to keep my family safe for her.

When we arrived back at the house that evening, Shari immediately retired to her room, she wanted to be alone, while Yaz and I drifted around the house, doing nothing much except fiddle with things, and make inconsequential small-talk. I looked in on Shari and she was asleep, the tracks on her cheeks told me she'd cried herself to sleep. I thought sleep was a good idea, so I took Yaz to her room and made her get into bed. I was still wide awake, thoughts and memories of mum chasing around and around in my head and by the time midnight rolled around I was woolly-headed with exhaustion, but still too wrung-out to sleep. My door edging open clicked me back to wide awake, and Yaz slipped into my room dressed in her sleepwear, one of my 'Metallica' tee-shirts, which was long enough to reach almost to her knees. I looked my question at her, and she shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks

"I can't sleep, Ricky, today...she's all gone now, everything...please, Ricky...I need you..."

She held out her arms so I called her to me, pulling her down to lie next to me, hugging me as hard as she could while sobs wracked her body; all I could do was hold her while she grieved. I was feeling pretty rotten myself, but I had to be strong for her, for all of us; the funeral had shown me the stark reality of our situation; all we had was each other, we were our entire family, there truly was no-one else out there for us, thanks to my bastard father. I don't know when she finally fell asleep, but she was warm against me, and her slow, steady breathing finally lulled me to sleep.

I don't know what woke me, but I snapped awake, instantly going from fast asleep to wide awake. I looked at Yaz and she was awake too, her eyes large and bright in the dim light coming through the curtains from the streetlight across the road.

"What's the matter, babe, go back to sleep, it's OK, I'm here..." I whispered, but she shook her head.

"I can't sleep..." she murmured, snuggling closer to me and turning around, pulling my arm around her and clasping my hand between hers. "Hold me, Ricky, please..."

So I held her closer, spooning her and enjoying the feeling of warm closeness, comforting her on this day of all days, or so I thought, but this was Yasmin, my hot girl, and the inevitable happened. It was involuntary, I wasn't feeling horny, and I thought it was highly inappropriate, given what the day had been for, but my body didn't care, and Yaz could feel it too, because I squirmed away from her, trying to not press against her, and I guess she wasn't that offended, because she squirmed right back against me.

"What are you doing...?" I whispered, "This is not...right, not now Yaz, not today..." I murmured in her ear, but she ignored me, instead turning so we were face to face, literally plastered together.

"I know, Ricky, God, do I know, but life goes on, sweetie; mummy's gone, but we're still here, and we still love each other, right?"

Of course," I whispered, "but there's a time and a place..."

Yaz slid her hands up inside the back of my sleep T-shirt, her warm little hands gently rubbing up and down my spine.

"Mummy knew, sweetie, she knew about us, but she knew you and I, we were serious, and she knew you'd always take care of me, of all of us; she wouldn't want us to lose what we have, and I know she loved you as much as you loved her, more, maybe, so I don't think she'd object if you and me, we celebrate our life today of all days, and go on as we mean to. Life does go on, baby, and I love you so much, and here and now? Mummy had to leave us, but she hasn't gone, she'll always be part of us, and she wants us to be happy. Make love to me, baby, I need you so much right now, and you need me."

Her soft lips on mine ended any further argument and destroyed any lingering resistance on my part. My hands slid down to cup her taut little bottom, grinding her against me as we kissed increasingly wildly. Yaz was the first to break that epic kiss, gasping for breath as she sat up to whip off her top and help me shrug my t-shirt off. She wriggled out of her panties and tugged at the waist of my shorts, so I slid them off, and now we were both naked. I hesitated, even though we'd come this far, and she kissed me gently.

"Don't worry, Rick, we're not disrespecting mummy; you love me, and I love you, and I can't think of a thing I'd rather be doing right now than being with you right now. Life goes on, and we're still here, let's live it the way mummy would have wanted us to. No more hesitation, OK? This is about us now, baby."

Yaz pulled me in for a closer kiss, and I went with it; she made a lot of sense, she 'd obviously been giving this as much thought as I had, and made her choice, and she was sticking with it.

As we kissed, she squeezed my cock, pumping me firmly, making me ready; she obviously was ready for me, her scent was strong and enticing and just the breath of her was enough to stiffen me to aching readiness.

"Oh Ricky, is that for me?" she teased, fondling my scrotum and making me gasp with need. I slid down the bed, kissing between her breasts, her flat stomach, moving lower with every kiss.

"No Ricky, no need!" she gasped, "I'm ready for you, please baby, you know what I like!"

She slid onto her front and knelt-up, I reared-up behind her and slid my hands around her waist, reaching higher to cup her firm little breasts and gently pinch her stiff nipples. Yaz gasped and pushed back harder against me, letting me know what she wanted me to do to her. I slid into her moist, hot little pussy, hearing her groan of satisfaction as I pushed into her to the hilt.

"That's...like that, baby, yes, oh yes, oh God yes..." she chanted as I pumped into her, desperately trying not to come as what we were doing threatened to overload my mind and tip me over the edge. I don't know how long we hammered each other, Yaz was coming almost continuously, and I was literally clenching my teeth as I tried to hold back, all I know is we were drenched with sweat, her body slick against mine as I loved my sweet, beautiful girl the best way I could.

The end, when it came, was as explosive as we could have wished for; Yaz stiffened, clamping tight around me as she groaned out loud, and that was it for me; I came hard, spunk bursting out of me like a firehose, long, endless spurts draining me and filling her.