Part 2: Aunt Margaret Intercedes

The wail of a mortally wounded soul brought Maggie and I to a startled awakening. My mother's body bent double as she clutched her stomach. She cried out her sister's name as if cursing a demon out to possess her soul.

She moaned and collapsed to the floor unconscious. The pounding steps of my father beat a staccato rhythm on the stairs. Maggie didn't panic, but leaped out of bed, grabbed a robe and knelt by her prostrate sister.

My father roared, "What's happened to her?" He quickly scanned the room for danger as his body shielded his most important possession from more harm. When he saw me naked in my sister's bed and Maggie's partially open robe, he boomed at Maggie, "What is going on here?"

Maggie knelt over her softly breathing sister, and sobbed to my dad, "I've done something awful, Bob." Her tears rained on my mother's face as Maggie confessed her sins. "She caught Joe and I in bed together. That's why she screamed and fainted."

My father snapped his head up to me as I was pulling a sheet over myself. "Get the fuck out of here." I bolted and ran leaping over my mother, expecting my father to strike me as I went by. Never in his life had he swore at me or struck me, but I knew as I fled that I deserved both. I slammed my bedroom door behind me and crashed on the bed. Even a fifteen-year old boy knows having sex with his aunt is forbidden, but the effects of my sins' exposure were more than I could have imagined.

I heard my father and Maggie shouting as they passed my door. My father's booming voice asking her, "Why do you have to keep doing things like this to her? Get out of my way, I can't carry her down the stairs."

Maggie's voice wailed behind him that things just got out of control, and that she had been so lonely. My father's fading response was that she didn't have to pick the son of a woman who had already suffered so much from her actions. The pain in his voice cut into my soul.

My misery was total. I had ruined three lives today. My life didn't count, I was free to ruin my life if I chose, but to spread the disaster throughout my house was unforgivable.

I needed to know what was going on, so knowing everyone was downstairs; I crept from my bed to the door and pulled it open a crack. I couldn't hear any conversations, but I could hear the shouting. My mother had regained consciousness and kept screaming, "Why? Why?" Maggie kept crying that she was sorry. Was I sorry? Of course I was for all the shouting and distress, but down deep in my heart, I wasn't sorry about being with Maggie. As my sense of reason worked on the problem I knew that I still loved her and that in the end the only thing I felt I was sorry for was getting caught.

I was certain that Maggie wasn't sorry we fell in love. I was positive that her cries of apology downstairs were from her being caught up in a family scandal and trying to calm my mother.

My father's deep voice finally rose above the soprano screaming and told Maggie to leave. Loud sobbing followed his banishment. How could she leave, I thought? Her clothes were all still up in my sister's room. I pulled back from the door expecting one of the angry people below to come up for her things. I didn't want to face any of them now. A few seconds later Maggie and my father went by my door.

I heard him say, "I can't believe you would do this after all the effort I've made on your behalf. Now get your things."

My ear pressed to the door heard only shuffling and slamming. My father said, "Give me that," and I heard them pass by my door again.

I ran to the bathroom to look down on the street. My father was escorting Maggie to her car. He had her on one arm and her bag in the other. She was still wearing the robe she grabbed when she left our bed. Oh, I thought, our bed. Would we ever have another bed? Would I see her again? I watched her get into her car and drive rapidly away.

My numb body crossed the hall back to my room. I closed the door on what I thought was the best day of my life and sat on my bed awaiting my sentence.

Looking ahead to my trip down the Green Mile, I thought about what I had done. I had let my aunt open up to me, I had listened to her pain, and tried to comfort it. I had let her touch me in ways I had not dreamed possible. We pleasured each other. It was not one sided. Each of us could see into the other's soul and attempted to sooth the aches hidden there.

My punishment I knew would be severe. I decided to allow myself to be the lightning rod for my parent's wrath. Whatever sentence they handed out I would take quietly. I needed to get my parents calmed down so that they would go easier on my aunt. I had no idea what they could do to Maggie. Could they send her to jail for having sex with me? I would fall on their sword for Maggie's sake.

So when my mother and father, covered in storm clouds entered my room, I was wearing my mackintosh-ready for the gale.

My mother started, "Joe, your aunt has done a terrible thing to you." I nodded. What had she done? I couldn't identify anything my aunt had done to hurt me. Can teaching me about love hurt me? Can sharing her pain over Uncle Frank hurt me? I thought not, but I still nodded.

She went on. "What we're about to do is not to hurt or punish you. We simply need to protect you from her if she tries to see you again."

I looked at my father and got a cold stare. His job here was to be the bailiff to my mother's judge. His job was control of the accused if he got out of hand. The sentence came from my mother. She had decided my fate and was now handing it down.

"Please realize, Joe, that you can't see her again. Not just for your sake, but if we find that you have seen her again we will have her arrested for molesting you."

I tensed at this. My mother was directly threatening my lover, but I held back and listened for the rest.

"First, you, for the next two months, can go no where without being accompanied by your father or I. When school starts we will take you to school and pick you up. You will not be allowed to leave school during the day. We will escort you everywhere."

Only my love for Maggie let me sit there and not scream about the unfairness of it all. If I was to see her again their attention had to be on me. So I calmly said, "Yes, Mom."

My mother and father exchanged startled looks. I know they expected a fight over my restrictions. Relieved as to not being in a heated battle, my mother went on. "You can not answer the phone. You cannot make any out going calls. We will answer the phone for you and will call your friends for you."

I ground my teeth and said, "Yes, Mom."

My attitude was making them very uneasy. I steeled myself from their confusion that the course I had settled on would work.

My mother almost relaxed as she laid on the last bar to my cell. "No using the computer for two months unless your father and I are sitting by you."

I was in the state of euphoria created when great pain requires the mind to escape it. My eyes gleamed with peace as I said, "Yes, Mom."

My father stood and removed my phone and took my laptop computer. I watched him and could see that my attitude troubled him, but I had given him no reason to rebuke me for any infraction of the rules, either the old or the new repressive ones, nor would I.

My mother was the cause of my pain and my aunt's. If she could only realize that we were in love, but she had always disliked my aunt. My mother had taken her sister's transgression and used it to separate her from me.

So I started my time behind the bars of my room.

The wedding that afternoon went off without a problem. My mother quickly learned the way life in prison was going to be when all I would say to her was "yes, mother" and "no, mother." I tried to keep up my normal cheeriness to everyone, including my father, but to mom I only made replies any prisoner had to make to their jailer.

My mother thought it would pass. Experience had taught her that teenagers had short memories, that in a day or two I would get over my anger. After four days of my sentence we were riding to the mall, since she couldn't leave me home alone I had to accompany her everywhere. I knew she resented dad for using work to escape carting and guarding me.

"Joe, this cold treatment of me has to stop." She looked over at me as she drove.

"Yes, Mom."

"You don't really mean that do you?" She wasn't stupid.

"No, Mom."

"Then stop it. We have to get over this. You're not seeing your Aunt Margaret again, so get over it."

"Yes, Mom."

"Damn it, Joe, you can't treat me like this. We have always been so close." She started to cry as she drove wiping the tears away to see the traffic. I would have scooped up Maggie and comforted her, but I left my mother to sit behind the steering wheel suffering from my inflicted pain. Knowing that my actions were causing her pain increased my resolve to continue.

I said nothing. Shortly the tears stopped, she parked the car, and we did the rest of her shopping in silence.

The days passed slowly. School started halfway through my punishment, and I each time my mother dropped me off at school was rough sandpaper over my temperament.

My mother, after the first month cold treatment, began to try to make my sentence lighter. I found cookies in my room at odd times, but the presents only earned her a frosty, "Thank you." My resentment toward her festered and changed our relationship. The quick hugs she was accustomed to bestowing stopped receiving a returning embrace. She wrapped her arms around a mummy who had no life in it; the hugs soon stopped.

After this we still only traded sentences of two or three words. To me she stopped being my mother, and I transformed her into a house servant, who cooked, cleaned and required only instructions for her duties; affection was not a job requirement her employer needed to supply.

A shortly after school started, past the half-way point of my sentence, my father picked me up at school one day. As he pulled away from the curb and started driving home, I knew I was in for some fatherly lecture I didn't want to hear. I renewed my resolve before he got a chance to start.

"Joe, you're hurting your mother."

"Yes, sir." My fallback response seemed to irritate him.

"Stop saying that."

"Yes, sir."

He glared at me and caught himself from a stronger response. I think he wanted to show he had more self-control than me. "Son, she's very unhappy at the way you've been treating her. I think you're not being fair to her."

"No, sir."

He gave me another hard look, and then relaxed. "Joe, your mother has a problem with her sister. I don't know what it is as it started before we were married. She's never been willing to tell me what it is. Then after we were married Margaret did something your mother found unforgivable. "

I stared directly at my father and said, "What, did you sleep with her too."

He almost struck me. I could see in his eyes the discipline my father has always displayed rise up and suppress his strong urge to wipe my mouth of my vile question."

He took a deep breath and quietly said, "No,... never ask me a question like that again."

I needed to change the subject. "Why did mom let her stay at our house?"

"I don't know, two weeks before you sister's wedding they started talking on the phone. Then about four days before the wedding Margaret came over and your mother and she talked for a long time on the patio. I think they came to some sort of accommodation to whatever disagreement they had. As a sign of peace she invited your aunt to the wedding."

"You have no idea, Dad, of what caused this problem between them?"

I know it pleased him that I was being pulled into a conversation rather than continuing with blank responses.

"No, I don't, but your little affair with her ended any hope of the two ever reconciling. Joe, you can't know the damage this has caused to her mother to have lost her sister again and also to seem to be losing you."

I turned and looked out the passenger side window; my soul, gripped on the right by my love for Margaret and on the left by my love for my mother, twisted and stretched to breaking. I spoke to the window to keep my father from seeing the tears rolling down my face. "Dad, what can I do?" my choking voice revealed my torture.

He steered the car through a left turn and then said to me, "Joe, one of the lessons of growing up is that you learn that the happiness of others is more important than your own. This is what we call love. Your mother loves you deeply and this emotional silence of yours is killing her."

"I'm sorry, Dad." I couldn't say more as I trembled with the strain of loving two women.

"You are quite a boy, son, and are carrying a burden that would crush older men. You have to resolve this conflict. You have to bring these forces in your life, your mother and your love for Margaret, into balance."

"How do I do that, Dad?"

"Forgive your mother, there's more involved here then you understand, or even I. Please, forgive her."

I nodded, not letting him know if I had nodded to agree to forgive my mother or to just signifying I understood what he was trying to say to me.

I got home and didn't forgive my mother. The days until my emancipation slid by in a dreary flow. My day of freedom didn't release me from my pain so I decided my mother should continue in her suffering. She approached me that evening and tried to engage me in conversation, but I rebuffed her and wallowed in my own misery. What good is freedom when the spark that gives it life is dying? My memories of Maggie faded into a mass of love that had lost its sharp definition.

On Friday I left school for home very unhappy. I had a letter in my back pack addressed to my parents about holding a conference with my counselor to talk about my recent "mood swings." I realized it had become too much of a burden to separate my depression with my mother and my normalcy at school. I had given up trying to act happy at school. The few friends I had noticed this and turned me in to a counselor.

I was about two blocks from home when a black Mercedes pulled over to park in front of me. I saw the right window slide down. Then I heard her voice say, "Joe!"

Maggie! I stopped dead and saw her face framed by her blonde hair for the first time in two months. Her smile pulled me to the window of the black car. I refreshed my memories of her face. She offered me a box in her out stretched hand. "Take it, hurry." I reached out and took a small box about three inches wide and six inches long without thinking.

The car lurched forward. "Maggie, wait!" The car tires squealed, and the car pulled away from the curb and disappeared around the next corner.

I stood in shock at the curb whispering, "Maggie?"

I looked around like a spy picking up state secrets from a blind drop. I didn't see any KGB so I stuffed the box into my backpack and started to run toward home buoyed by seeing Maggie and depressed about her driving off.

My mother said, "Hi, Joe," as I raced for the stairs. I threw a fabulously happy, "Hi, mom," back at her. I didn't miss the broad smile that lit up her face. I slowed and realized this had been the first smile I had seen on her face in weeks.

The box in my backpack carried me up the stairs when I should have stopped to talk to her. I dashed into the bathroom and locked the door. Sitting on the toilet, I set my backpack between my legs and unzipped the side pocket where I had stashed the box.

The black box was tied with a white ribbon. I sniffed it to see if it held any scent of her. Nothing! My trembling fingers tugged on the bow. I ignored it as it fluttered to the floor. My hands shook as I opened the box. A cell phone! I took the chrome Samsung phone out. I flipped it open. The display showed it had one unread text message. I punched a button and the message read "8 am, Saturday." I knew Maggie still loved me now. The phone was evidence of her love. She was trying to get in touch with me without my parents finding out.

I had used my patents' cell phones enough to know how to poke around in the settings. The ringer, I found, was set to vibrate. The phone had received one call. Everything else was blank. Could the number that called the phone be Maggie's? I was tempted to call it, but I didn't. My duty was to follow instructions, so I would wait until morning.

I put the phone under my mattress and then took it back out. Under the bed is the first place a boy hides anything. I needed someplace more secure. I looked at my bookcase and pulled down a Guinness Book of World Records from three years before. The phone was smaller than the book so, I spent the next twenty minutes using a exacto knife to carve a hole the shape of the phone into the book's pages. I put the phone inside and set it up on my bookshelf on the side closest to the wall on the top shelf. Mom was too short to reach it, and dad never came into my room. With my paranoia turned up on high, I pulled out the book and doubled checked that the phone was off. Maggie didn't give me a battery charger so I didn't want to have a dead phone when she called, if she called.

The night drug out to an eternity, I stayed in my room and watched television, surfed the Internet on my newly returned computer, and dreamed of my Aunt Margaret.

Finally, I was sleepy enough to think about going to bed. I set my clock radio for seven-forty five and put it under my pillow.

The clock drove sharp pulses through my pillow as the alarm sounded seven-forty five. I quickly dug under the foam for the clock radio to silence it. Questions from already distrusting parents about alarm clocks on a Saturday morning I didn't need.

I tossed the sheet off my naked body. Sleeping nude started the day my mother discovered me in bed with my Aunt Margaret. I opened my door and walked across the hall to rid myself of my piss hard on. I never wore clothes to cross the hallway anymore. My sister, Carol, once opened her door to spot me crossing with a morning hard on. I caught a whispered, "Oh, shit," and heard the door shut. I didn't draw any grief from the parents over the sighting so I figure she kept it to herself. She never mentioned it to me.

While I pissed I thought about what the day might bring. My Maggie would call me at eight and I would be in her arms at eight-fifteen, I was sure of it. We would spend the day in bed making love. I would get to hold my love in my arms and hold whispered conversations of our future under a clean white sheet.

After crossing the hall back to my room, I pulled down my Guinness Book of World Records and pulled out Maggie's cell phone and sat in the middle of my bed. I created a cave under the covers and slipped under my makeshift soundproofed room. At eight o'clock the phone buzzed. I punched the Send button and whispered, "Hello! Maggie!"

She didn't respond. "Maggie!" I whispered louder. No response. I looked at the phone display and it indicated I had a text message. I fumbled to press the right button and soon the display read, "RAMADA INN 223 NOW."

I lived six blocks from a Ramada Inn. The street in front of my house ran by it. Throwing off the covers I rushed to get dressed. I had already contrived a cover story, so picking up my baseball mitt, and the note I had already written about an early game at the park, I softly crept down the stairs to the first floor. Leaving the note on the counter I let myself out of the house. It took five minutes to cover the distance to the Ramada Inn. Finding room 223 was a simple dash up the stairs and five doors down.

I knocked on the door, much too loudly, and waited. It opened and she was there. She wore a printed tee shirt and shorts. Her figure still matched my memories of her. I moved to embrace her and received a palm in the middle of my chest pushing me back into the door I had shut behind me. My head banged on the wood.

"Wait, Joe. We need to talk." She had a wild look in her eye. The love of my life had shoved me backward into a door!

"Talk?" Why did we need to talk? My dick had been hard since I got on my bike. "Why?"

"Because you've been behaving badly, and you have to stop." She had a fire in her eyes, but not a fire ignited from her lust for me. She was simply pissed, and pissed at me. I wilted faster than a tulip in a dry pot.

"Me? What have I done?" I was clueless as to my offense.

"You've been treating your mother as if our discovery was her fault, and as if her punishment for our discovery was wrong."

"How do you know this?"

"Joe, I have ways. Let's just say I found out."

"Maggie, she's kept us apart! My mother and father watched my every move for two months. They answered the phone for me; they dialed the phone for me." I was pleading my case with passion and some anger. My expectation was that I would quickly be inside my lover bringing her to the first of many orgasms of the day. Instead she was repeatedly poking her finger into my chest.

"Joe, understand that from their point of view we did something very wrong. You're my nephew. Aunts are not supposed to be found naked and entwined with a nephew in bed."

"But,..."

She planted her finger on my mouth. "Shush."

Instead of my expected rising of passion I was becoming angry. I pulled back and said, "No. I won't shut up. I love you Maggie, and I need you desperately."

My aunt gazed into my angry eyes and sat down on the edge of the bed. She bent over and clutched her stomach and begin crying soft shuddering sobs. My anger vanished washed down a drain by her tears. I cursed my stupid outburst and knelt at her feet. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry,... Maggie, please, don't cry, I am a stupid kid who doesn't know what to do... Help me, Maggie, tell me what I need to do to make this right."

Her arms flew around my neck, and she pulled me close into her familiar cloud of perfume. She planted soft kisses under my ear, and I could feel the warm tears smeared over my neck.

She whispered into my ear, "You have to make peace with your mother. You can't torture her like this."

"How do you know this?"

"Are you doing this? Are you freezing your mother out of your life to punish her over us?" Her eyes glistened with the tears and her cheeks had wet lines running down them. "Tell me." She commanded me.

"... Yes, I am." I had to tell her the truth. Lying was impossible.

"Then fix this, and fix it now."

"Now?"

"Yes, go back home and fix it. Tell her you are sorry and apologize."

"Now?"

"Yes, now!"

"But, I thought that we..." My eyes went to the bed.

She stood up instantly and glared down at me. "Do you think I would just jump into bed with you after how you've treated your mother? My sister and I have our issues, but I can't allow your behavior toward her to continue." She walked to the other bed in the room and gestured toward it. "You thought we were going to just jump into bed and fuck our brains out, didn't you?"

I lamely nodded.

She knelt down on the floor with me and took my hand, "Joe, the reason that I fell in love with you is that you had a pure love in your heart. I could see it all over your face and in how you treated me. You have tarnished that love and must repair it." She pulled me upright by the hand and hugged me.

Her voice in my ear said, "Go home now, and fix this. Then you can come back here, and make love with both of us in harmony with that love."

I knew she was right. Lust had overcome my mind, and I needed the slap she provided. I kissed her cheek softly. "You're right. I am so sorry for what I've done to her." I brushed her cheek with my hand.

"Oh, there's the Joe I left that day. You're back." She kissed me hard and pulled me into a tight embrace. After our lips parted she wiped the tears from her eyes. "Hurry, back. We still have a date at the beach to make."

I smiled and said, "I hope you have plenty of suntan lotion."

She laughed the laugh I remembered so well, the musical tones that played a concerto on my soul. I kissed her cheek and left.

I rode back to my house with the same intensity as my previous trip, but I had a different reason. Lust spurred my trip to the hotel, but love rode with me on the trip home. I rode around the house and leaned my bike on the garage. I didn't want to frighten my parents or sister on my entry, so I slowed down to a walk as I reached the back door.

My mother was alone in the kitchen making coffee when I entered. I stood at the door and looked at her. I wanted the pain I had caused her to be sharpened to a point and stabbed through my heart to make me bleed for my sins.

I launched into my confession in a clear voice. "Mom, I am so sorry for the way I've treated you the past two months."

She started, turned toward me, and dropped the coffee carafe full of cold water to the floor. It smashed, throwing glass and water in a wide circle. She stepped through the water and glass fragments as I rushed to her. As I hugged her I could hear the crunching under our feet. It sounded as if we were treading on the remains of our broken hears.

I cried into the neck of her terry cloth robe, my tears vanishing into the soft white cotton. Her arms squeezed the breath out of me. I picked her up and swung her out of the watery mess and set her by the door.

"I am sorry. My behavior was wrong, and I want to make up for it."

She took my face in her hands like she hadn't since I was a child that needed reassurance after a fright. Her thumbs brushed away my tears, and she glowed with a happiness she should have never been denied.

She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me, and then she pushed back and in a voice of joy said, "Help me clean up this mess."

I pulled the mop from the pantry and she got the broom. We worked together cleaning up the glass and water. We chatted about all the subjects that had been avoided for the past two months.

I talked about school and she listened and offered advice and comment. She insisted on making me my favorite breakfast: eggs, sausage and pancakes, and they tasted better than I ever remembered.

I sat at the table afterward just enjoying her company. My father came downstairs looking for fresh brewed coffee, and didn't mind instant when he saw us chattering away. Just like dad, he didn't comment, he just accepted our reconnection.

He asked me to help him in the garage. Before I could walk out of the kitchen mom kissed me on the cheek. It felt like she was saying welcome home as I went to the garage. I smiled at her and followed my father.

"What's up, Dad?"

"Aren't you forgetting that some one is waiting for you?"

"Oh, my God, Maggie." Opps! Wait a minute! "How did you know about her?" I was scared and amazed.

He picked up a broom and began sweeping the floor. "Son, who do you think told her to come and see you? That she wouldn't go to jail if she met with you?"

I was stunned. "Why, Dad?"

He leaned on his broom. "Because, son, the happiness of the woman you love is the paramount thing in a man's life. Your mother has been miserable the past two months. I had to bring it to a stop, and I knew the only person who could really end this was Margaret."

"You told her to say the things she did?" My anger was growing for being manipulated into this.

He laughed as he resumed sweeping, "Joe, do you think anyone could tell Margaret what to do?"

I relaxed as I agreed.

He asked, "What did she tell you to do?"

"She said to do the right thing. That I had done something terrible that I had to right before I could be happy again."

He pulled a dustpan from a nail. "She's a smart lady." He swept nothing up into the pan.

I watched my father play out his charade by emptying an empty dustpan into an empty trashcan. "Dad, I think you are pretty smart too."

He chuckled as he hung up his dustpan. "Joe, be careful. You're playing with two of the most powerful forces in the universe, sex and love. It's easy to get to much of one or the other. They need to be in balance. People get hurt, son, when one side becomes too much greater than the other."

"I think I understand." I really did. This just wasn't one of those "Sure Dad, I get it" type of remarks I made.

He set his broom in the corner and turned back to me. "Joe, if it was anyone but Margaret you would be in military school right now and she would be in jail. I've known your aunt for many years and, despite what her own family thinks; she's a wise and good woman who just at times has a moment of weakness. Listen to her son. She can teach you much more than you think you're learning from her."

"I will, Dad."

"She did me a favor by talking to you."

"She's like that, Dad. She can't stand to see people hurt."

"I know, but she asked for something in return for her intercession."

"What?" I felt afraid. I was in a very adult territory here where what seemed logical to me often ran afoul of knowledge gained through an elder's experience.