Wilderwood Ch. 08

Author's Note: I'm currently working on a revision of the entire story. Before I finish that though I'd best finish the story, so here's the first of the three concluding chapters of Wilderwood. The others will follow over the next couple of weeks. For real this time.

Readers new to the series may want to start at chapter one. Alternately, the opening of chapter six also provides a bit of a story-so-far.

* * * * *

Chapter Eight: The Master of Wilderwood Hall

When we were younger Emma and I went to a lot of social events with our parents. As we got older our friends got better at avoiding going to these things but we were still dragged along to all of them. Our parents always wanted to present the picture of the ideal family, and by our teens we would often be the only people our age at some events.

It wasn't much fun for us. A lot of the other guests, especially when we were up at the Hall, were important people - doctors and lawyers, business owners and local and state politicians - but if our parents enjoyed socialising and networking with them we didn't, because at our age we just weren't interested in who they were or what they did or the things they talked about. I did talk to the chief of police once, but when I asked him what kind of gun he had he told me he didn't carry one and that was a big letdown.

He said it with a chuckle, like they always did. They didn't talk to us like we were people, they talked to us the same way guys talk to a hot girl's pet dog. They wanted to make a good impression on our parents, and especially on Uncle Nathan, and talking to us was one way they saw to do that.

So over time my sister and I started to sneak away from these gatherings when we could. We'd disappear for an hour or so and go look for something to do that was more interesting than being talked down to by people we didn't know. No one was paying that much attention to us to begin with so it was easy enough to get away, and we got really good at this and always managed to come back before we were missed.

I doubt we'll get the chance to do that tonight. This event at the hotel is supposed to be to launch the new construction project Dad is fronting, but really it's going to be all about us as a family and we're probably going to get a lot of attention. Still, we are adults now, so maybe we'll get talked to like we're actual people.

Things are different from how they used to be, but one thing is the same. I still can't tie a bow tie.

After fifteen minutes of twisting and pulling, and watching three separate step-by-step guides on YouTube, my tie hangs under my collar like a dead bat, and from the way it's twisted and folded in on itself it didn't die a peaceful death either. I can't even ask Dad to fix it liked I used to, since he and Mom are already up at the hotel making sure everything is set up and greeting the guests as they arrive. They're sending a car for us and that will be here soon. I guess they want to be sure that Emma doesn't roll up to the hotel on her motorcycle.

Not that there's any chance of that. We're still playing the part of the dutiful offspring, because we don't want our parents to make a fuss about the changes we're planning on making to our college plans. They've made it clear that they won't allow me to go upstate this year, and after talking it over (and over and over) my sister has decided that she's going to transfer back to Wilderwood College rather than go upstate again. Our parents don't know this yet and we figure it'll go easier if we can convince Mom that Emma isn't actually a depraved devil worshipper iredeemably corrupted by a year upstate immersed in sex, drugs and rock and roll.

After another gloomy look in the mirror I put my dinner jacket on to see if that will distract any from the tie. No, it doesn't. I'm just glad that Emma doesn't have any James Bond fantasies because this tux is not working for me. I don't know about stirred but I definitely look like I've been shaken.

"Hey, are you ready yet?"

I look up from the dead thing at my neck and in the bathroom mirror I see my sister sticking her head around the door. "You've been in here so long I was starting to wonder if you were jerking off."

"If I was I'd be thinking of you, Sis."

Emma laughs. "So romantic."

I flick the drooping edges of my tie resignedly. "I guess it'll have to do."

"Let me see."

I turn around as she comes into the room and just stare. My sister is wearing a short black latex dress that clings to her body like a high gloss second skin, and she has a studded leather collar around her neck. She looks fantastic, but...

"Holy shit. You're not wearing that tonight, are you?"

"Why not?" She walks up to me and reaches up to tug at my tie. She gives me a teasing smile. "Don't you like it?"

Not so long ago I'd be freaking out on multiple levels right about now, but I now know that Emma likes to fuck with me - metaphorically - and so I just slip my arm around her slender waist, my fingers playing over the corset lacing at the back, and pull her in for a kiss. The shiny black vinyl squeaks softly as our bodies press together, and I leave off from toying with the laces and slide my hand down to squeeze her glossy ass.

"I love it," I tell her, in between kisses, "but I can just imagine Mom's face if this is what you're wearing to the event tonight."

"I'll just tell her that I'm wearing it for my boyfriend."

We're brother and sister, as close as can be, but it still gives me a thrill when Emma refers to me as her boyfriend. My fingers slip and slide over her shiny rear as I pull her in for another kiss, her soft, dark lips parting as our tongues intertwine.

"Sometimes I think you want people to know about us."

"Sometimes I want to tell everyone." She leans back a little and tilts her gaze down to my neck. Her fingers move and my bow tie comes away in her hands. "There," she says. "Fixed it."

I sigh. "Great. Like it didn't just take me twenty minutes to get it on."

Emma smirks and leans up on her toes to kiss me again.

"You need to practice your knot tying skills, little brother," she murmurs against my lips. Emma pushes the tie into my hand and then slowly moves around me until she's leaning up against the sink. Then she twists in my arms, the sleek, smooth latex sliding under my fingers, and faces the mirror before very deliberately putting her hands behind her back.

Emma's new look involves a lot of leather and chains and other fetishy gear, and she's shown me some of her submissive side before now, but it's still new and exiciting for me to wrap the length of black silk arond her wrists and hear the soft moan my sister gives as I pull it into a knot. Emma leans forward, arching her back as I get into position behind her, and her dress squeaks softly as it stretches even tighter over her upturned ass.

"I'm yours, Bro," she says quietly.

"I know, Sis."

The slick, black latex clings to her like a second skin and I stroke my fingers across the curves of her perfect ass, enjoying the smooth feel of the high gloss before pushing the dress up around her waist. Emma is bare underneath and gives another little moan as she feels first my fingers and then the head of my cock brushing against her wet slit and tight behind. My fingers come away glistening.

"Fuck, Emma, you're so fucking wet."

She has her back to me but looking over her shoulder I can see her face reflected in the mirror. Her lips are slightly parted and I lift my hand up and drag it softly over her mouth. My sister shivers and closes her eyes and starts to suck on my wet fingers, tasting her own excitement.

I push up into her and she groans around my fingers before I slide my hand away, across her cheek and down her neck to the studded leather collar around her neck. My other hand takes hold of her bound wrists as I start to thrust into her, and she struggles in my grip, pulling at the silk and leather bonds.

The last thing she wants is to actually get free though, and she whimpers in rythym to my movements as I drive up into her with slow, hard thrusts. I look in the mirror and see her eyes are open now, her gaze hot and eager. Emma watches herself being fucked with a voyeuristic intensity, like her green eyes are cameras recording every detail.

Is she is looking for any trace of who she was a year ago - the blonde, popular, high school senior on her way to college with her boy-next-door boyfriend? Or is she looking at who she is now - the raven haired, fetish-clad gothic dream panting through dark lips as she takes her brother's cock inside her?

Emma twists in my grip and I pull harder on the silk around her wrists. The tight latex of her dress squeaks and squeals with her movements and her body shakes as I also tighten my grip on her collar. For a moment her eyes close again and she throws her head back and gives a little cry as she's overwhelmed by what she's feeling.

Then her eyes are open again and my sister rolls her shoulders and pulls against my hold on her as she looks back at herself in the mirror. She stares at herself for the entire time I'm in her and it's not until she feels the heat of my cum filling her that her gaze breaks fully from her reflection. Her eyes lose their focus and a series of short gasps escape her lips as she rides through another climax. "I'm yours," Emma moans softly, over and over again. "I'm yours."

* * * * *

It's not new to me that my sister gets off on being tied up, but it's definitely something we'll need to explore more. Everything we do together, even the softest kiss, is already so transgressive and taboo that for us a touch of bondage play hardly even registers on the kink scale.

The car arrives a little later, which gives Emma time to change into another little black dress. She was never intending to wear the other one to the event, and this one didn't come from a fetish store. I'm not sure I can say the same about the corset belt of soft black leather she fastens around her waist, but it's subtle and, along with her velvet choker and some snug little ankle boots with a low heel, she looks ready to face town society.

My tie, on the other hand, is now totally beyond saving after being pulled and stretched and twisted by my sister when it was tied around her wrists. When we get to the hotel and I see the other guests walking in I find myself reflexively tugging at my open collar, feeling very self conscious.

Emma notices, and as we walk up the steps and into the foyer of the hotel she leans in and whispers to me, "Relax. You look so much better without it."

I'm not really looking forward to tonight. I don't enjoy these kind of social events and I'm not very good at them, but Emma's words, and her presence at my side, leave me feeling fearlessly confident. It's surely her intent. She's my big sister and always looks out for me.

The sign by the entrance to the ballroom reads THE MAGIC OF WILDERWOOD, over the now familiar image of the smiling family and the dark haired woman who looks a lot like Dad's PA, Morgan. The smile on the face of the black cat she is holding is as uncanny as ever. This project is set to make inroads into the Wilderwood, the densest, most untouched stretch of the forest that lies to the north of the town, and that our great-uncle has agreed to go into partnership with our dad to make this happen is being taken as a sign by everyone that we're now back in the line of inheritance. It's kind of a big deal.

Cody Shay, the photographer for the Wilderwood Gazette, is prowling the foyer, taking shots of the guests as they arrive, and she gets her camera onto us before we go inside. Cody isn't from Wilderwood, but came out here a few years ago to do a story for a New York magazine and just stayed. She's in her late twenties, very slim, with short dark hair shot through with streaks of pink and green, and is wearing a tuxedo with, I can't help but notice, a perfectly knotted bow tie.

Emma plays up to the camera, looping her arm around mine and tilting her head so her hair brushes against my shoulder.

"Finally, someone with style," Cody grins over the top of her camera before taking a couple more shots. "You know, you two would make a great looking couple."

From anyone else a comment like that would instantly put me on my guard, but I know it's just Cody being Cody. She's either severely lacking in social skills - I mean she is from New York - or just has fun tweaking the small town attitudes she so often encounters here. She gets away with it because the Gazette knows that Cody is ridiculously over-qualified for a small town newspaper, and even the stuffiest of the old money families in this town will put up with anything rather than lose the chance of having their photo taken by someone who's had photo credits in Vogue.

"We've definitely got a connection," Emma says. She can never resist having fun with these kinds of conversations.

"Oh for sure," Cody agrees. "No dates tonight? Penny Knight is going to die of excitement when she finds out you're both single and looking."

"Who?"

"Okay, so you don't read the Gazette's society column."

I shrug. "I didn't even know it had one."

"Penny writes it, and she'll be totally destroyed that you didn't know that. Don't tell her. I couldn't take the drama." Cody takes a final shot and then steps aside, waving us toward the doors of the ballroom. "Now get in there and strut your sexy stuff."

"Single and looking, huh?" murmurs Emma as we go inside.

I look over to my sister. Her green eyes shine in the lights of the ballroom. "I know what you mean, about wanting to tell everyone."

She nods and, slowly, reluctantly, slips her arm out from mine, and then we distract ourselves from each others eyes by taking in the view. There must be a couple of hundred people in here tonight, all dressed up in their formal best, and for once the hotel's art deco grandeur doesn't look out of place. It's like we're seeing it how it was meant to be seen, back in the '20s and '30s when the hotel was new and my great grandfather was here, mingling with gangsters and movie stars and his smart out-of-town society friends.

There's still so much we don't know about our family history. We've been doing some research recently, but there's a lot of gaps. More than we'd expect for a family as prominent in the history of the town as ours.

This also feels a bit like it used to in that we're still at the younger end of the age range in here. I see a couple of people I know - like Chris Lake and his girlfriend, Haley - but other than that most of the people in here who are close to our age are waiting staff in white jackets and the band sitting to the side of the stage and playing the kind of old time music that always gets played in the background at these things.

Emma nudges me. "There's your ex."

I follow her gaze and see Jennifer Danforth, who's the daughter of a family friend, and our family lawyer. Jennifer was in my year in high school and for a very short time a few months ago there was a story going around that we were dating. I have to admit she's looking good tonight, with her long black hair falling over the shoulders of her red dress and her full, very kissable, lips.

"We didn't exactly date."

"That's not what I heard."

What actually happened was that at my 18th birthday we'd been chatting and somehow this had turned into a make out session. Jennifer basically pounced on me. Not that I was going to say no, but we were interrupted by one of her friends before it got any further than that. This started a rumor that we were dating, which Jennifer responded to by freezing me out completely. Why she did that I don't know. It's not like it was me that started the rumor.

I could also never quite work out if she'd really been into me or if it had been her idea of a birthday treat, or a dare from her friends that she didn't want to follow through on. I did dwell on that for a while, but two weeks later Emma came home from college and after that I had other things on my mind.

I smile at my sister. "You're not jealous, are you, Sis?"

"Should I be?"

She smiles back and I don't even have to say it. If she's mine then I'm just as much hers, and neither of us want it any other way.

A woman of around the same age as our mom detaches herself from the group she was part of and comes over to us. She's tall and blonde and so skinny that she is all angles, and her smile looks wider than her face. Emma actually flinches slightly as one red taloned hand locks onto her shoulder.

"Emma, darling! Don't you look just adorable! And who's this handsome young swain on your arm this evening?"

While we were talking Emma had rested her hand on my arm again without really thinking about it. We're maybe a bit too comfortable around each other now to not think about this sort of thing in these surroundings. My sister lifts her hand quickly, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair to disguise the gesture.

"Oh, this is my brother. Uh -"

"Of course it is!" She gives me a brief glance before her eyes lock back onto Emma. "Penny Knight. I write for the Gazette but then you knew that already of course. He probably didn't." She gives a high pitched laugh that makes me think of birds circling something dead in a desert. "I'm quite sure he won't mind if I borrow you for a moment. There are some people here that you just have to meet."

The society columnist - I still can't believe a town this size has a society column - drags my sister away toward the group of women of Mom's age that she just came from. "You know your mother said something to me about the way you've been wearing your hair recently and really I don't know what she's talking about. I think it looks wonderful. I just love that retro look. It's so now, don't you think?"

Emma looks back over her shoulder to give me a brief, helpless look before being sucked into the circle. Clearly I'm not invited, and I can't say I'm sorry about that. All the same I walk a bit further into the crowd in case Penny changes her mind and comes back to snatch me up as well.

I never know what to do at these things. This isn't Hog Wild so I'll probably get asked for ID if I go to the bar, and I can't see myself just walking into any of the groups of people standing talking and just joining in with the conversation. It's not that I don't know these people - I've seen most of them before at holidays, birthdays, weddings, funerals and other events like this one, but when you're a kid they're mostly just interchangeable adult shapes that talk down to you. I know who they are, but I don't know them.

I'm looking around for a friendly face like Chris or Jennifer, or even my parents, when I hear someone calling my name.

It's a voice I haven't heard for five years, but I recognise it immediately. It's coming from an all male group standing nearby and as I look over they spread out and I see the man they're gathered around. At first I think he's shorter than I remember, before I realise that it's just that I'm taller now. He stands straight, leaning only very slightly a black cane, and extends his hand to me as I walk up to him.

"Hi, Uncle Nathan."

"Gentlemen," he says to the group as we shake hands, "this is my great-nephew, Jamie Wilderwood."

* * * * *

I was called James, after my dad, who was also called James, after his dad. My grandfather was Uncle Nathan's older brother, though up until recently I'd thought it was the other way around, seeing as it was Uncle Nathan who inherited the Hall and everything else. They never spoke after that, and it wasn't until after my grandfather died that we started to visit Uncle Nathan up at the Hall. That was about ten years ago, and five years after that he fell out with my Dad and we haven't seen him since.