Chapter 6

Evenings -- normal evenings, that is -- were quite predictable in the Johnston house. There would be a brief period during which Roger and Cynthia would sit across from each other in the living room, Cynthia generally on a corner of the sofa nearest the wall of books, Roger halfway across the room in his very plush, adjustable leather chair, about which were cluttered magazines and newspapers and also still more of his business documents.

From Roger's side, he saw Cynthia framed into the scene of books, sofa, three paintings -- one of Cynthia -- and a window which showed the ocean approximately half, a mile in distance. He liked this view and he could easily -- in fact he often did -- become sentimental over the picture of Cynthia it presented to him. A trust worthy, loyal, attractive wife is what Roger saw.

And from the opposite side of the room, Cynthia saw her husband slouching -- he nearly always slouched when he sat -- in that leather dentist's chair she'd never wanted him to buy, with a background of the fireplace she loved but which hardly ever got used simply because Roger seldom thought of it, of an enormous picture window which looked out on nothing more than several other identical picture windows, and of the half-dozen chairs and the other couch which were never touched because they never had any guests. Most negatively she noted the business papers at her husband's side. Those papers never left him; or rather, he had alternate configurations of them for wherever he went -- one for his study upstairs, one for here, one for the car, and, of course, one for the office. She begrudged him none except the set he kept here -- the one place she and her husband might have had some chance for personal contact.

There was another aspect of Cynthia's view. If she ignored or looked beyond her husband, she saw the piano which in a happier age she herself had played sometimes while her little daughter Ellen danced. These last weeks Ellen seemed to have matured over night and, in fact, was becoming rather wild, even unmanageable. Just as Cynthia was not at the piano, Ellen was not to be seen in the living room. They did manage to keep the girl in the house, but Ellen spent the time in her room, or in the basement, or anywhere but in the scene of this large, empty deathly still living room.

And with the older girl, Louise, it was the same; or at least her absence from this room was the same. Over in the far corner was the little desk and chair, and the comfortable old plush reading chair next to it which they'd moved there five years before when the pitch of school had become more intense. Louise had always needed contact with, and guidance from, others a bit more than Ellen, and she'd been lonely studying in her room. So they'd made an ideal spot for her here, a spot where she could still be at least in sight of others while doing necessary work. It had been a happy arrangement, but now, Louise was also absent, having taken to spending her time in the basement, or in her room, or away with her boy friend -- she was allowed to spend unsupervised time with her boy friend. She did not, apparently, find necessary anymore the companionship and parental guidance she had once sought in this room.

Which was the sadder for Cynthia? Seeing her husband slouched in his chair escaping from his own wife in his damnable business papers? Or the ghostly absence of her children who had once formed so large a part of her life? Whichever, Cynthia was a disturbed woman, and her response was exactly that of her daughters. She wanted to escape this room, to simply get the hell out.

"Good-bye, Roger."

Having broke the silence with that, Cynthia went straight to the hall to get her coat, and in a moment was driving away in her car. She would be on time for her pottery course, but now the room she had left was even stiller, with just the sound of the clock ticking to slice the silence.

Roger was conscious that his wife had left, and he got up, crossed the room to the little antique liquor cabinet, and retrieved a bottle and a glass. Then he sat again in the chair and began methodically to drink, his reason for drinking -- the thing that was currently bugging him -- the fact that several days before he'd fucked his thirteen-year- old daughter, Ellen. The effects on him of this were extremely complicated and had brought him into something of a daze -- the daze which his wife had so happily just fled from. Yes, Roger had fucked Ellen, taken her virginity, sunk his cock all the way up to the balls into the formerly chaste pussy of his own young little daughter. And was he now consumed in guilt? Did he now regret the obscene act, did he search the depths of his soul to wonder how he could possibly set it right?

No! He did not feel a bit guilty! In fact, right now he was remembering the crazy suction of his daughter's hotly clasping little vagina, as his penis had rocked maddeningly in and out. He was trying to remember every detail of the time he had spent locked in lust with her naked young body.

Roger drank now because he did not feel guilty, and this worried him, this worried him very much. A simpler man than Roger might have felt guilt to such an extent that he would expect God to hurl a lightning bolt at him from heaven for his forbidden act. Roger was more realistic and knew that the union of one cock with one cunt did not upset the balance of the universe. But he also knew in his case that it was wrong, and that he should feel guilt. He wanted to feel guilt, he thought as he poured himself another drink, the splash of the liquid in the glass breaking the room's silence. Guilt! Guilt! Guilt, damn it, give me guilt! he thought, and emptied the glass very quickly.

Still, no guilt.

Roger started in his chair from the sudden knowledge that the room was not empty. Was he going mad? No, no... it was just that so seldom did anyone join him in here. He twisted his head and saw Ellen walking across the room behind him to a cabinet. She opened it, retrieved something, closed it, and walked nonchalantly all the way across the room and out again, neither glancing at her father nor away from him.

Maybe things were not so bad after all. Yes, maybe the little event could be tucked into the past and forgotten since Ellen hadn't seemed to be affected by it just then. Scar tissue did, after all, grow over wounds; there must be some analogous process... Roger left the thought unfinished as his mind, more relaxed now, began to forget the whole thing. He leaned back still farther in the chair in a welcome comfort, deciding that things were not so bad after all. No, things... were not so bad... after...

Blonde stark naked Ellen appeared reflected to him in the living room mirror as she descended the hall staircase.

She was not looking at her father. Did she know he saw her? Those rose-tipped young titties swaying as she went down the stairs, nipples bobbing around, pointing up toward the ceiling! Christ, now she was facing him full as she reached the bottom of the circular staircase, the blonde curling triangle of her sparse young pubic hair reproduced in perfect detail in the mirror for a moment. Then she was in voluptuous profile -- she was walking through the hall, thank God! -- her long blonde hair swirling about her shoulders, the tight yet jelly-like flesh of her untanned buttocks swinging into view as her steps began to angle away from the mirror now toward the basement door. Up, down, up, down; so fluid and yet so solid, so tempting, that gorgeous ass of hers -- to think he had caressed it, crushed it, in his own hands!