The Wounded Hawthorne Family

Julie picked up my boxers which were lying uncharacteristically on the floor near the bed and held them up like a piece of evidence, "Is that all that happened?"

"No"

"What else?"

At this moment, I noticed a strange light in Julie's eyes.

"I....uh...I...masturbated her ....uh... I.... I brought her off with my fingers --- only."

"But she did touch you." Julie said again holding up my shorts.

"Yes. She wanted to."

"She had an orgasm? You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." I could see now that with each answer, Julie was becoming increasingly shaken

"Was ... was she wet?" Julie nearly whispered

"Yes Julie, she was. -- Very wet -- incredibly wet."

My incredulous wife reached out for my hand then. She lifted it, then looked at it for a long moment, swallowing hard, before bringing it hesitantly up to her face. Her eyes closed as she sniffed at my fingers detecting Lizzie's fresh presence.

"Oh my God." Julie cried, immediately dropping my hand. Her breathing became labored and she actually had to steady herself with the bedpost.

"Julie? Are you ok?" She suddenly looked pale and terror stricken

"I....Oh my God.....I'm nauseous."

My wife rushed to the bathroom with me close on her heels. She hovered unsteadily near the toilet with a hand over her mouth. My heart was pounding. I was worried about Julie, but was also considering what Elizabeth and I had done. Was this the end of our marriage?

My wife suddenly turned quickly into my arms and began to cry. She was nearly hysterical. She began to beat on my chest with her fists and I searched my mind for some sort of apology or words that might stop her from leaving me. But Julie looked up into my eyes intensely and as if she were searching for a way to tell me something.

"What? What is it Julie?" I held her close as her tears fell on my chest and shoulders

"Oh Paul," She sobbed, "What kind of mother am I?"

"What is it? Tell me."

In a moment she stopped crying, but she seemed lost "I don't . . . I don't know what to feel. I don't know what I'm feeling. I should hate you. I should hate one of you... BOTH of you." She began to sob again, "But...but I love you. Of course I love you and ... and " She stopped and tried to move away from me but I wouldn't let her. " Oh my God, I'm sick. I should want to hang you upside down by your balls. I should want to throw her out of our house, something, but I don't. Instead, the idea of Lizzie ... OUR LIZZIE ... cumming on your fingers or . . . or on your tongue ....or even ... even .....Oh God it excited me...... it ALL excites me. What is WRONG with me??"

My wife began to sob heavily once more as I tried to think of something to say. We had always had a wonderful sex life, filled with variety and spice, even a good amount of kink, but always devoid of guilt. I tried to rationalize it. "Nothing is wrong with you Julie. Look, it excited me and Lizzie too. It's just fantasy."

"It's not fantasy, Paul. Not anymore. You two crossed the line. You had sex with her. I've crossed the line too. I'm AROUSED by ... by something that REALLY happened.

"Oh Julie, we didn't have sex ....uh.......well I guess we did. But... but it isn't as though I molested her or something. We were just fooling around a little. I mean she came on pretty strong Julie. Besides, she is eighteen. She's old enough to make her own decisions."

I realized even as I said this that I was trying to rationalize my own actions. My wife saw this immediately as well. She wiped the tears from her eyes and was suddenly serious.

"Did you know what you wanted at eighteen?"

Now she had me almost as frantic as she was.

"No, but then I'm not sure anybody ever really knows what they want. Oh Julie, you've got to know that I'd kill myself before I'd hurt Lizzie."

"I know. I know." She said more slowly now. "But we have to talk about this. I have to talk with Elizabeth too. Paul, promise me you won't go any further with this. I just know I couldn't handle anymore right now."

"Ok...ok, of course. I promise."

The rest of the day past without incident, although I did find myself turning the events over again in my mind. Then, perhaps unlike toady's ordinary families, we proceeded to have dinner around the kitchen table. It was nice to have my whole family in one place with all the kids home for the summer. Gwendolyn talked about how the research on her master's thesis was going. Chris was happy about a microbiology project that he was sure would blow his professors away in the fall, and Lizzie went on about the recent scholarship that she had won for music.

I looked over my children. I had every reason to be proud. They were all good. They had always done exceptionally well in school. They were all very attractive and fit and our family was close and happy. Yet, even as I looked at them with pride in my heart, something glared back at me that I had never really noticed before. Now memories swirled in my head and began to bother me.

In a few moments, I was moved to say something.

"Um ... I was just noticing something," I said when there was a lull. "You guys don't have a lot of ...friends... do you?"

There was a sudden, sharp silence around the table, almost as if the family had been stunned by the question. I simply couldn't remember any of my kids having deep, lasting friendships. Oh they were fine kids, just not very social and I wondered why.

"We have friends Daddy." offered Gwendolyn.

"Yeah Dad I've got friends at school" said Chris.

"Maybe I'm wrong then," I responded, "Maybe I just don't remember. Gwen, who did you take to your senior prom?" I didn't want to put my kids on the spot, but I really felt that I needed to ask these questions.

"You know that Jon took me Dad."

Jonathan was our first child. He was senselessly murdered during his third year of college four years ago. A man became enraged after Jonathan cut him off in traffic, pulled a gun and shot him. I tried my best to shield my family from this event and the trial that followed, but it was hard. Thankfully, the whole thing happened in another state. In the years that followed, my family had recovered well.

Or so I thought.

"How did it feel to have your older brother as your prom date. Weren't you embarrassed?"

"No. It felt fine. I loved Jon with all my heart. I ... I still do."

"How about you Chris? Who did you take to your prom?"

"Lizzie." Chris said, smiling at his little sister, then reaching over to take her hand into his own.

"...And Lizzie, you went with Chris again to your senior prom didn't you?"

"What are you getting at Dad?" Gwendolyn asked, now a little defensive.

"Well, I don't know. It just seems to me that none of you guys have ever dated much or had a whole lot of friends. I mean, I know we live way out here in the boondocks and I know that Lambert wasn't the biggest high school in the world, but I can't really remember you guys bringing friends over here. I know I've always been pretty busy, but I can't seem to remember you girls bringing home guys for me to meet and Chris, I can't remember you bringing home any girls either. I'm just wondering about it."

"That's not true Dad," objected Chris. "Remember that Stephanie ...um ... what's her name I used to date?"

"Oh Chris, you mean that girl you went out with for three weeks when you were like fifteen?"

My wife jumped in, "You know it's true, I don't remember any slumber parties or anything at all after ... well ... after Jonathan...."

Now Gwendolyn really was on the defensive "Alright, alright so were not the biggest social butterflies. What's the big deal? The kids over at Lambert were either idiots or jerks. We didn't like them and they didn't like us. OK?!"

"Yeah," agreed Lizzie, "We were just brains or geeks or goody-two-shoes to them. Besides, we've always been happy with each others company." She said looking at Chris, squeezing his hand once more.

"You and Mom aren't the king and queen of popularity either Dad." Gwendolyn sneered. She was angry and clearly close to tears now.

"No we're not Gwen -- I know. I'm sorry. I was just .... What's is it honey?"

"I miss Jon!" she cried and ran from the room.

Julie followed after her as my other two children stared at me in silence.

"I'm sorry." I said to them.

"We know Dad," said Lizzie. "She just really misses Jon. Sometimes Chris and I just aren't enough."

"Aren't enough? What does that mean?"

Elizabeth sighed heavily, "God Daddy, why does everybody have to be so uptight? Why can't we all just let it out and relax?" My daughter then rose from the table and began to pull at her brother's hand. "C'mon Chris, let's go have some fun."

Chris coughed and laughed a sudden nervous laugh, his eyes darting to me. "Uh .... That's ok Lizzie. I uh......I gottta work on my project"

"Fine." Lizzie sighed heavily once more. She dropped her brother's hand and grabbed mine. "C'mon Daddy, let's go snuggle."

Now Chris was suddenly angry. "No Lizzie!" He got up from the table and started pulling Elizabeth away. "Let's go."

"Noooo." Elizabeth whined, "I wanna snuggle with Daddy."

"What's going on here?" I demanded.

"Nothing Dad," Chris replied quickly, pulling his sister away and starting her down the hallway. "I just need to talk to Lizzie."

I was left alone at the kitchen table to consider the things I had just witnessed. On the surface, they seemed totally innocent, but when viewed in the context of the last twenty-four hours, these things seemed to overflow with unspeakable possibility. It all made me question what I ordinarily might have seen as normal.

It was normal that Gwen should have run from the table in a sudden surge of grief over her older brother, who had tragically died so early in his life. His senseless death had hit us all pretty hard, especially his mother. It's a bitter thing to lose one of your own children. But even Julie's reaction to Jonathan's death paled when compared to Gwendolyn's. She had been nearly inconsolable for almost a full year afterward and we were often really quite concerned that she may try to take her own life. Gwen and Jon were as close as a brother and sister could be. But as I looked back, I began to wonder about the limitations of that closeness. I remembered Jon then.

My oldest son Jonathan had not only been a good and fit and kind young man, he was also brilliant. He was by far the brightest of my children, all of whom are very bright. His abilities in chemistry and mathematics astounded his teachers. As a mere sophomore in high school he wrote a paper on polymers that gained him high praise from more than a few important people the world of chemistry and assured his place at the most highly regarded universities in the world.

Jonathan was also a loner. He was a very driven young man. His mind was consumed with math and chemical equations. He was attractive and I saw to it that he developed his body as well as his mind, but Jon, it seemed, had always had real problems with his kids his own age. As time went by, he simply ignored the kids around him and concentrated almost entirely on his science projects and the equations that swirled in his head.

Then there was Gwendolyn.

My oldest daughter was a year younger than Jonathan and for as far back as I could remember, idolized him. Like her brother, Gwen could be a little too serious at times, but they adored each other. I was just now beginning to see how deeply Jon felt for Gwen and vice versa. If they were at home, She was always with him. In fact, Julie and I used to call Gwendolyn "Jon's lab assistant". If they weren't helping each other with schoolwork, or in the makeshift chemistry lab Jonathan had built, Gwen would be in Jon's room just talking or playing.

As I looked back, I began to wonder if we should have done things differently as parents. My wife and I were always very dedicated to our careers. We've both worked very hard to provide our children with anything they might need. Then, during the eighties we made a few good investments so that now, any dream they might have was within their reach. But even with all our success, it was beginning to become clear to me that our work habits may have left us out of touch with our home life. I could see now that there were definite gaps in what I knew about my own children.

I got up from the table and began to clean up the kitchen. I was putting the butter back into the fridge when I heard the mumbling nearby. I walked over to the intercom unit and stared down at the little red diode below the label that read "Chris' Room".

When the kids were younger, I wanted the ability to call or communicate with them without wrecking my throat or forming a search party; ours is a very large country house surrounded by acres of woodland. I had a system of intercoms installed throughout the house. All I had to do now was push a button and my kids would hear me calling. I even had a couple of loud speakers installed outside so that I could call them if they were by the pond or out in the woods near our home. These intercoms operated both ways and if one was left on, anybody who had another one on could hear the conversations from that room.

Chris and Lizzie must not have realized that the intercom was on. The mumbling on the intercom was barely intelligible. I looked at the volume knob for just a moment. Usually I respect my children's privacy and ordinarily I would have just turned the thing off, but at that moment I thought it was imperative to know about everything that was happening in my house. Hesitantly, I turned up the volume to listen in on my son and daughter.

"Come on ... I haven't done it in like a week." Lizzie said. It sounded like a plea. "I had a pretty good one this morning, but you and Mom came home before..." Her words were garbled and I heard rustling.

Then I heard Chris's voice. It was almost a whisper. "Damn Lizzie..... they're right there in the other room ...Quit....Please Lizzie, it hasn't been a week, it's only been like two days. C'mon Lizzie, you know we have rules about this. Come to my room later on tonight. Gwen and I will give you all that you can handle."

My heart was in my throat. Was it possible that my children were talking about what I imagined?

"Please .... Just a quick one. No one'll come."

"Alright...alright...Ok .... But you've got to be quiet this time alright?"

"Ok, I'll try" Elizabeth giggled

There was a rustling, a shuffling, an unzipping, then a hand was on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"What's up?" Julie asked, coming back from her talk with Gwen.

"Nothing." I replied immediately. For a moment, my mind raced and I looked back at the intercom unit, wondering if I could turn it down or off without her noticing. But just as quickly, I concluded that I couldn't protect her, that I shouldn't protect her. She had to know. If this was really happening, she had to know. It had to come out into the open.

I brought my arm around her shoulder. "This is Chris' Room," I announced, "He's in there with Elizabeth." I turned up the volume a little more and was silent as we listened to the intercom together.

For a minute or so, there was nothing, just the rustle of cloth and an occasional smack sounding like a kiss. My wife looked up at me. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders as if to say 'So?'. Then we began to hear it; the unmistakable sighs, light moans, and deep breathing of sex. Julie's gaze shot back to the intercom unit and she stared at it for a moment, listening closely, defining it's reality.

"Oooo that's good." Elizabeth sighed. "Yeah, right there."

There was more smacking.

"Oh ...oh....oh ... oh yeah...yeah lick me ...so good."

Julie jumped up and moved towards the hallway and the bedrooms, her eyes were wide, her face blushing red. "We've got to stop them!" she cried

"Wait Julie, hold on." I said holding her, trying to calm her.

Julie tried to tear herself away from my grasp, "Let me go! We have to stop them! We can't let this happen this time."

"I agree Julie. Look." I pressed the button on the intercom below Chris's label and spoke to them from the kitchen.

"Chris? Lizzie?" I said calmly, "Stop what you're doing, put your clothes on and come to the kitchen. We need to talk."

On the intercom, there was dead silence for about 20 seconds. I was about to push the button again when Chris's voice was heard, "Uh ... ok Dad ... be right there."

I turned the intercom off and looked at my wife. Her expression was just as grave as mine must have been.

"What are we going to do Paul? Punish them?"

"We have to be calm Julie. I've been half suspecting something like this. Let's just see what they say."

"You knew about this?" She asked quickly, "How long?"

"No, I suspected, but only since this morning when Lizzie ... and I..."

My wife looked down, blushing deeply once more.

Chris and Lizzie came into the kitchen and stood silently before the table. Chris looked worried, while Lizzie just seemed angry. I was surprised to see Gwendolyn behind them. She took her place in front of them, with a serious expression on her face.

"Gwen, why don't you go to your room sweetie." said Julie, "Your father and I need to talk to Chris and Lizzie."

"No Mom, this is all kind of my fault."

My eyes widened at this response.

Everything was silent for a moment, while I tried to think of a way to begin asking my children about their incestuous sex lives. I took a deep breath and was about to begin, when Gwen took control, rendering her mother and me temporarily speechless.

"Ok," she said seriously, "You two must have a lot of questions. Let's all go into the den. I think you should sit down for all this"

Somewhat dazed by the events of the last five minutes, Julie and I allowed our eldest daughter to lead us into the den where everyone but Gwen took a seat.

Almost immediately Gwen began. "Well let me start off by saying that both Lizzie and I are on the pill, and we are both very careful, so you shouldn't worry about pregnancy, I don't think it will ever be a problem. You must also be wondering how long this has been going on. Well I'll tell you now. Actually, I'm glad this is coming out. I've been trying to come up with a way to tell you guys for a while."

Julie opened her mouth to say something, but Gwendolyn raised her hand.

"Please mom, I can imagine how you must feel right now, but let me tell you everything first ok?"

Julie sat silently once more.

"Ok. Your first question would be how long has this been going on. Well the answer is six years.

Good God, Six years, that would mean that Elizabeth was .... Oh my God.

"When Jon was in elementary school, he had a terrible time. He did great in school, but he never fit in with anyone."

I could see my wife nodding slowly in agreement as she remembered the enormous difficulty Jonathan had as an exceptional child.

"Being only a grade behind him, I always saw what Jon was going through first hand. Over time, I became his best and only friend and by the time we reached junior high, I began to see the other children as.... Well ...as unworthy of Jon and me. If they wanted to reject Jon out of hand, so be it, I wouldn't be their friend either. Well that was just fine with the other kids and soon Jon and I were seen as a kind of ... odd pair. Now, I don't believe that we were really all that different from the other kids around us, but after a while, I just wanted to be with Jon more than just about anybody. I was just more comfortable that way. I saw the side of him that the other kids didn't. He was sweet and funny and tender and...."

Julie moved to console Gwen, but again our daughter raised her hand.

"No Mom, please. I have to tell you." Gwen took a deep breath and began again.