Chapter 2

John was lying on the bed, his body still. His eyes were looking at the ceiling, but not really seeing anything.

Outside, the sound of the door opening and closing told him that he was now alone. Really alone.

Seconds later, he heard two cars leaving. He recognized his former wife’s Versa and his son’s old Subaru. “We always liked Japanese cars”, he thought. His own car was an Impreza. He vaguely wondered whose car Michelle was in, Mia’s or Mike’s.

How could this happen? Mia, the woman he had chosen to share his life with after losing his beloved first wife, had turned his children into incestuous perverts and convinced them to deceive him for years. What would their mother think?

He knew he wouldn’t get the answer to this question for a long time, if ever.

After what seemed to be hours, he stood up and opened the bedroom door. He walked to Michelle’s room and saw the open closet, empty. The drawers in her dresser stood opened and empty as well. Her laptop was missing, too. The same for the big plush bear that had adorned her headboard. She clearly gathered all her things in a hurry and had no time to tidy up before leaving. Then he inspected Mike’s room. The normal clutter of a young man’s bedroom was gone. No PC, no Xbox, no clothes. Just some old rags strewn on the floor.

Mia, on the other hand, had left without packing any clothes, since all of them were in the master bedroom. “Perhaps she borrowed some of Michelle’s”, he thought.

He saw his reflection in the living room mirror. Surprised, he realized that he was still nude. Like a robot, he entered the shower and opened the tap. He almost didn’t feel the blast of cold water, nor the bar of soap. His hands were moving on autopilot while his brain struggled to understand.

The water warmed quickly to the preset temperature, and he felt a bit more comfortable. Suddenly, he fell on his knees, lowered his head, and started to cry.

Mia was devastated. A couple of hours ago she was married to the most wonderful man in the world, she enjoyed a very special bond with her children, and she felt on top of the world. Now she had no husband, her future was uncertain, and she felt totally alone.

“Why did I wait so long?” she chastised herself. Her dream had been to have a loving family, making beautiful love to each other, sharing their bodies freely and happily, just like her own family had done. Her family ... they had all died in that horrible accident. She was adrift for a long time, just existing instead of living. Then she met John and his children. She had attached herself to them as if they were a lifesaver. She didn’t see those kids as her stepchildren, but as her own kids. Who cared if they didn’t share the same blood!? They were hers, and she loved them.

Her mom would have been especially disappointed. “You did it wrong, my child”, she would say. And she did it wrong, indeed. Her mother had inducted Mia first, so her Dad was happy to have two women loving him. Then they had included her brother. That’s what she should have done, but her impatience won, and she started to have sex with her son as soon as he turned eighteen instead of waiting for her daughter to come of age as well.

After leaving the house, she was so confused that she didn’t wait for her children to follow her. She wanted to be alone. She drove for hours, no actual destination in mind. Suddenly, the gaslight turned on, bringing her back from her musings. She saw a rest area, and the signs announced not only gas but also lodging. She decided to spend the night there.

Luckily, her credit card was accepted at the motel. She hadn’t even thought about John cutting her access to money, but she decided to use the ATM there to get as much cash as she could, just in case.

Closing the door of the room, she sat on the simple, sturdy bed. Fatigue overtook her, and she closed her eyes.

“What are we going to do?” sobbed Michelle.

What she thought would be the best day of her life had turned into a nightmare. Her eyes tried to focus on the road ahead, but she had to wipe her tears every few seconds. At first, she had tried to follow Mia’s car, but very soon she had lost her, and now she was just driving east.

“I don’t know,” answered her brother, from the passenger seat. The pain in his testicles was still severe enough to hinder the movement of his legs so he was unable to drive. But it didn’t prevent him from thinking about his situation.

Right now, he was a freshman in college, but he seriously doubted his father would keep paying for it. He remembered his discussions with Mia. At first, she had planned to include John as soon as possible. Mike had convinced her that they needed to wait because, never mind how you see it, no man would be happy to share his wife with his son and, to be honest, he feared his dad’s reaction. So, they decided to wait until Michelle came of age, and then Mom and Michelle would seduce Dad together, while Mike would act as if he had just found out himself and wanted to be included.

It was a good plan. But the first time he had Michelle, Mike realized that he didn’t want to share her with his dad. In fact, he didn’t want to share Michelle with any man. But he knew it was not possible, so he chose the next best thing: To delay the reveal for as long as he could. For this, he convinced the women that they should keep hiding their relationship while “grooming” his dad to accept them. The flaw in that plan was that Michelle really wanted to have her dad, so when she told them that she couldn’t wait anymore, he had agreed to Michelle’s plan and put on a brave face when he saw her sucking their father.

“What the hell was I thinking?” Nothing worked as he had expected. Instead of being happy to be included, his dad had deemed them traitors and himself as a cuckold. “Well, he wasn’t wrong,” Mike thought. We cuckolded him for two years, and now we are going to pay for it.” He looked at his sister’s tear-streaked face and sighed.

Michelle couldn’t stop the tears. Instead of her dad joining them, she had lost him. “My daughter died one year ago,” he had said. Perhaps, if they had explained it to him beforehand, he would have understood. “We waited because we wanted to get you ready, Dad,” she thought. But the wait had horribly backfired on them. She tried to focus on the road, but the tears didn’t stop. Finally, she decided to stop at a parking lot and spend the night there in their car.

John’s arm unconsciously felt for his wife’s body when he woke up, but he only touched an empty space on the bed. Startled, he opened his eyes and everything came back to him at once: His wife’s surprise. The actual surprise. The betrayal.

He tried to sit, but his strength left him mid-way and his head fell back on the pillow. He tried a second time, but he wasn’t able to move. He decided to stay in bed for a while. It was Sunday, and normally he prepared breakfast for the family on weekends.

“There’s nobody to cook breakfast for,” he bitterly thought.

“Two years,” said the voice in his head. “Two years they cuckolded you, and you never suspected. What a fool you were!”