Chapter 11

Early autumn drifted onto Cape Cod like an ocean mist.

With autumn the appearance of things did not much change, apart from a slight muting of colors; the weather varied only by a damp chilly overtone to the breezes -- the breezes themselves hinting the same forces which produced them would soon bring the storms. It was a time that said "Go indoors," though there was still no need; it was a time when a living room was a pleasant place, and a fire welcomed to take away the chill.

Accordingly, the Johnston family was indoors.

Roger sat contentedly next to Cynthia on the sofa, and, if one looked closely, one might even see him holding Cynthia's hand which lay on the couch between them like a couple in courtship. The two people looked at the crackling, blazing fire before them. They did not read, nor did they stare at the TN.; all they needed at this moment for enjoyment was the snapping fire and each other.

Roger got up and poked at the fire: he liked to make fires again, he liked to tend them. This was just as symbolic of his new life as was the smoothness between him and Cynthia.

Across the room -- sitting on the piano bench with her knees drawn up and her arms locked around them -- was little Ellen, absorbed in the book of Bertrand Russell which nestled between her knees. Ellen looked a bit quieter these days -- she still dressed in tight shortish clothes, and she still had a certain springiness about her; yet she did not seem the imp she had been. She could find contentment now in things besides the very unusual. In short, she'd settled down -- even matured.

The final member of the family had never really changed very much in appearance. Louise always looked like Louise -- trustworthy, lethargic, attractive -- even when she had been traipsing off to the evening orgies. But this was not the case anymore, and the reality now fitted the appearance. The thing that most charmed Cynthia was that Louise again occupied the room again, in the corner designed for her, with her desk and chair and the comfortable old plush reading chair next to it. She sat now in that chair doing some sewing -- in fact, it was needlepoint. Cynthia had just taught her how to do it, both women charmed by finding some new base of contact. They just liked being around each other; part of the glow which could these days be seen in Cynthia's face was caused by the new respect between her and her daughters.

Roger Johnston no longer had his business papers scattered about the room for easy diversion from his family. He needed -- and wanted -- no diversion. The papers stayed in his office -- to be honest there were also a few in his study -- where they belonged. Since things were going so well at home it seemed they'd correspondingly perked-up at work. The lawsuits were still there, but they would, by God, have a tiger to reckon with -- Roger Johnston.

Roger sat next to Cynthia musing on his newfound happiness. The incest was a thing of the past, already seeming decades away, though the final orgy had taken place only a few weeks ago. Just to prove to himself how distant he now was from that past, and how totally severed the incestuous connections with his daughters were, he now returned in his mind to that final evening, and how suddenly it had ended.

He had been on the couch, that night, Ellen on top of him, still joined to him by his deflated penis stuck up her rectum; beside them was Louise's boy friend Harold, who had just withdrawn from Ellen's debauched vagina. On the floor lay Louise on her stomach, collapsed, half-unconscious, from the sodomy she had just received, with young Mark Green sitting some feet away contemplating the obscene thing he had just done, indeed the lewdness of everyone in the room, including him.

It was a sort of natural pause, this moment after everyone had had his climax. Yet Roger still felt a twitching in his loins, as did Ellen. And the unshown erotic films were still stacked up by the projector. Things would have begun again, and quite soon. Would have.

In the silence of this lull, a noise was heard that caused everyone -- even the prostrate Louise -- to perk up in terror. They heard Cynthia pulling in the driveway. They all knew that soon she would be in the house and she would expect to find it inhabited. And she would -- the naked daughters sprawled out in the basement after being debauched by the three naked men nearby... one of whom was... their father...

The thought of this discovery was too horrible!

In utter terror, hoping against hope, everyone sprang up and scrambling around the room finding their clothes, pulled them on, in some cases skipping the underwear and stuffing it in pockets to save time. Roger shouted out quick directions -- "Louise and Harold, you stay in the basement. We've got to split up and make everything look reasonable." The couple went to the couch and sat next to each other, opening up a copy of Time -- upside down in their haste -- which they held between them. From the look of the room nothing had happened -- even the stains on the floor had been ground into disappearance by shoes.