Back To Normal Ch 15

The parents made the kids put their swimsuits on. The kids were more than happy to. It was a chance to escape Dad's shattered, sharp-edged gaze. Then Mom told them to go out on the dock and give her and Dad a minute to talk. Yes ma'am.

Dad, of course, was in shock. He scarcely shrugged when Mom said 'This should help,' and set two more special pills in front of him on the counter with a plastic cup of lukewarm tap water. He downed them distractedly. Chugged the water. Filled and chugged a second cup of water. Then sat down in the nearby dinette chair and stared out the window. The world outside was hard to look at.

"I know," Lacy nodded.

Dad looked at his wife. She was leaning on the edge of the counter, arms folded under her breasts. She had a look of serious concentration on her face. Dad was furious, and confused. Mom looked only concentrated. Dad felt the urge to yell, but suppressed it for fear of being heard by the children out on deck. He really, genuinely couldn't bear to be around them right now.

Mom, for her part, had a very strong sense that this was it. The make-or-break conversation that could change her family, for better or worse. In the time it had taken for Tracy and Seay to slink upstairs and change back into their suits, and then to send the kids out on deck, Mom had already rehearsed in her mind's ear a couple of different conversational flow-charts. She felt like she might realistically pull this off. All that was left now was to wait for her husband's next question. Then she would have a sense of how best to proceed.

"What are we going to do about them?"

Ah, so he's already thinking in terms of the long-term. He wants to know where we're going to take this. Mom was pleasantly unsurprised. Clark was a bit of a dope sometimes, but his heart had always been in the right place.

"Okay," Mom nodded. She sat down at the dinette opposite him, and took a breath before she began. "So, here's my take on the situation."

Dad waited.

"We have a very rare opportunity here."

Dad sighed frustratedly. Took a long beat. Then offered his hand as he asked, "How do you figure?"

Mom took it.

"We are being presented with a choice, Clark," she told him. She was trying very, very hard to keep herself from getting emotional. Feeling Dad's warm, safe hand in hers had triggered an unanticipated cascade of instinctual, disinhibitory responses. Her heart wanted to melt. But she willed it to cool down. They needed to maintain homeostasis for just a little bit longer. "It's a choice that I think we have a responsibility to get right."

"A choice?" Dad snorted in surprise.

"Clark. I know how it must feel. The first time you realize incest is more common than you thought. That it can even happen to you. Believe me. I know it's a lot."

"L-Lace, how can you -?! I don't even -"

"It's a lot," she repeated. "It feels like too much, at first."

"I - " Dad shook his head. "I guess. You clearly want to say your piece. Go ahead. Get it out."

"It is. A lot. But please. Just for a minute. Can you step back, and look at the big picture with me? From your perspective, and my perspective, AND their perspective?"

Mom actually did wait a beat for Dad to answer.

Dad shrugged stiffly. "I already said I'm listening, Lace."

"We do have a choice. We can condemn them, or we can not."

"That's the choice -?" Dad started to laugh. Mom's eyes grew sad, and he stopped himself. "Lace, come on. For real?"

"I'm not trying to make excuses for them. They crossed a very serious line. You're right. But before we can talk with them about that, I need to tell you, I think we might disagree about what line was crossed."

"Uh-huh. Right."

"Tell me. What line would you say they crossed?"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Well, forgive me for stating the obvious here," he waved his hand as if gesturing to something already very obviously sitting right next to them, "but for all I know, our son and daughter are having sex. Penetrative sex? I don't know. With protection? I don't know. Do they CARE if they get pregnant? I don't KNOW," Dad pounded the wimpy table, joggling its base, startling Mom, who was still holding his other hand. "Sorry," he muttered. "But. So. That's the line."

"I see. And so for you, the line is... incest."

"In-?! I-in a word," Dad falter-scoffed. "Sure."

"But, Clark," Mom whispered, and a subtle change came into her voice. She was Lacy again. "You might recall I have some experience in just this matter? And I can tell you, with total confidence in my heart, there is a safe, healthy way to make this work."

"You... did mention that," Dad squinted at her.

Mom looked out the family room windows, at the lake, the kids on the dock, and beyond. She could tell Dad was feeling impatient, defensive, very, very angry. But so was she, to be fair.

"We can choose to see our children for who and what they are, and accept that this is happening; or we can close our eyes, pretend we see whatever we want, and tell ourselves that this is not going to continue happening."

Dad frowned, but didn't interrupt.

"We can choose to help guide them through this - because yes, it will continue in some way or another, whether we ground them for life or not. Even if we do everything in our power to stop it - which may ultimately not just fail, but irrevocably sever them from us - the fact of the matter is, they have not finished their love story."

The tears were damnably close to pouring. She kept them back.

Dad did too. His throat worked a knot.

Mom, Lacy, reached across the table and laid a hand on his wrist. "Clark," she whispered, and then he looked up at her and his expression softened into a kind of desperate, tearful plea. "This is going to be okay. But you have to trust me. We have to do this together. We can do it, but only if you believe we can."

"Lacy, they were -"

"Being kids." Mom finished Dad's sentence for him. "Just two stupid, horny teenagers. Who happened to be siblings."

"But - " Dad's nostrils flared as his face clenched with revulsion. The memory kept hitting him in waves. "But - with... each other?!"

"Again, I'm not trying to excuse what they did. But it's not like we ever explicitly told them not to. I just want you to be open to the possibility that we can make this story a happy one. We choose to give them whatever consequences lead us to the happy ending."

"Happy ending," Dad snorted.

Mom's eyes glistened intensely at him. Her grip in his, on the center of the table, stayed firm.

Dad took some deep breaths and thought about it. "Uh-huh," he finally nodded. "Such as how?"

"Thank you."

"I'm not promising to agree."

"You're not, but I can hear it in your voice. You want to do this together. And so do I."

"Lace... okay. I do want that. But just..." Dad's eyes wandered away, toward the back door. He looked out at the lake. At the kids. He had a hard time even recognizing them right now. He felt as if he were looking at two perfect strangers, and not the children he and Lacy had raised together. He wanted to love them, to protect them. He had always wanted that. He had done everything in his power to ensure their safety, grow them up smart, teach them basic human decency. And they had somehow succumbed to a sick, sexual impulse that now threatened to undo all of it. The boat, the cabin, the dinette table. All of it had been rendered meaningless. Worthless. Wobbly.

And it hurt him to feel like he was failing to be a good parent. But it stopped him dead to see his wife's expression, her red-eyed dread, and the pain in her voice. And so he would be goddamned if he couldn't do this. For the sake of his wife. For the sake of his boy and girl. For the sake of the story.

But then he remembered what he and Mom had walked in on. Fresh stress seared into his veins.

"D-damn it," he winced. "I just can't stop thinking of that damn bread, Lace."

"You can."

"She was on her knees," Dad shuddered. "With a piece of bread in one hand, and - and - with her brother's DICK in the other."

"She was," Mom agreed. "Though I admit I'm a little bothered by your fixation on her behavior, when your son was equally inv-"

"She was going to eat it. Her own brother's sperm on a piece of bread. I mean, golly. Golly fucking Gee-damn WHIZ." The bread in question was now in the trash under the kitchen sink. Mom had tossed it in there unceremoniously the first chance she got. But the image, the thought, the smell of it, had stuck with both of them. "I smelled it, Lace. God help me. I smelled the confounded thing."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Mom rolled her eyes. "I smelled it too. It was not THAT bad."

He blinked at her.

"When it's your own kids, y'know?" she shrugged.

"When it's..?." Dad echoed blankly as he trailed off. His hands, too, gestured meaninglessly. Thet didn't know any better than he did what to say. Wasn't Mom supposed to be grossed out by the smell of her own kids' sexual fluids? Weren't all parents? Wasn't he?

Was he? There'd been a stirring amid the horror. Chalk it up to adrenaline, sure, but Dad could not deny - nor could his gobsmacked loins forget - the system shocking scents of fresh cum and hot pussy on white bread. His own two kids' -

"Being honest?" Mom blurted quietly, conspiratorially. "I actually found it a little exciting."

Dad blushed. He frowned. He blushed again.

"You," Dad said in a flustered murmur. "You really are used to this kind of thing, aren't you?" He wiped a fleck of spittle from his lip. "You really grew up in it."

"Well. Not 'grew up,' exactly," Mom corrected. "I was eighteen when my Mom first came onto me. (Erm, no pun intended.) And almost nineteen before Dad finally let me in close. And my brother was born after that, so he was waaay too young to participate. Granted, I extended the invitation later, once he turned eighteen - but, well ... it wasn't exactly well received."

"No?" Dad frowned. "NO," Dad gaped. "THAT's why you two aren't speaking?!"

Mom's shoulders slumped, embarrassed. This was a genuine sore spot for her. She nodded, just the once.

"He's barely older than the twins," Dad snorted.

"He is nearly six years older."

"You - you were prepared to - your own kid BROTHER?!"

"So what if I was?" Mom glared at Dad. "I loved him! He loved me! Sex can ENHANCE that love, if you let it. Can you even imagine? And Clark, I truly want you to try. Imagine it. I know for a fact you like when I suck YOU off. So what's not to love about letting me share that very special pleasure with the precious few others I also love most?"

"Wait. Wait," Dad held up a hand, shaking his head as another wild realization dawned. "You told me all of this today - about you, about your parents, and now you coming onto your brother - TODAY? Of ALL days?"

"It is... an unfortunate coincidence," Mom frowned. She didn't like having to hide the truth. But she had sworn her secrecy to the children. Until they were all three ready for Dad to know, Mom would have to deny having known any more than he did prior to walking in on them. Ugh, and inevitably they'd have to fess up to all the nonsense they'd gotten up to beside the lake yesterday. (Maybe they could leave out the part where Mom drank a full pint of Tracy's piss. That had been kind of a heat-of-the-moment thing.)

Dad squinted at her. He asked for her hand from across the table. When had she withdrawn it, anyhow? Mom calmly gave it to him. Too calmly. He clasped it tight. He stared hard into her steely eyes.

"Did you?" he whispered grimly. "Know? About them? About this? Did you do all this on purpose, somehow?"

"Do what, Clark? On purpose, as in somehow force our children to fall in love? Or do you think I asked them to desecrate a piece of bread?" Mom put her other hand on Dad's holding hers, and now clasped him just as tightly as he had her. "Or is that really what you want to ask?"

"I don't - " Dad's mind reeled. He tried to imagine what kind of secret signals, secret communications, Lacy would've had to've exchanged - and with whom? Maybe she'd conspired with Rob and Kris, somehow. Gotten those sleazy city kids in on it. It wasn't impossible. Except, of course, he'd never once known Lacy to connive or scheme when she was already superhumanly collegial and could get her way through straightforward collaboration - much less could he ever imagine his wife exerting such underhanded effort in service of a wild, unhinged, unlawful outcome. Dad looked at Lacy again.

Golly, but all he could see was Mom. And the cabin. And out the kitchenette window, a great blue heron's perfectly circular yellow eyeball, peering in at them. Dad met the creature's ancient, pale gaze. Its pupil changed size. It tilted its head slightly. Dad tilted his, too.

Then it lumbered away, out of the windowframe, in the direction of the dock. Maybe it would visit the twins next. Strange. Herons were typically wary of humans.

Dad's attention returned to the table. Mom was frowning and inspecting a freckle on the back of Dad's hand. She looked quietly heartbroken.

Dad took a deep breath, and he shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You think this is the end of everything," Mom murmured bitterly. Her voice wavered a little. She shook her head. "But it could be the beginning."

"The beginning?" Dad said. "The beginning of what, dear? Of Seay and Tracy's... what exactly? Relationship together? Sexual partnership?"

"What can we do if they already love each other?" Mom asked, her lilting voice intoning helplessness even as her hands balled into fists.

"I ... I don't follow, Lace."

"We could do worse, is what I'm saying to you, CLARK, than to let our children be fucking happy together."

"'Fucking happy' indeed," Dad laughed. Mom didn't. He reined it in. "I mean, what?"

Mom shook her head at him, sadly. "You're so scared, aren't you?"

"... No?"

"Of what, Clark? This isn't a Greek tragedy. This isn't the Jerry Springer show. This is us. Just: us. You and me, and our kids. Let's agree we don't know what happens next. But something we do know, now, beyond the shadow of a doubt? Our kids fucking love each other. So, again. I ask you. Why can't they simply be together?"

"They're siblings."

"So?"

Dad leaned back, away from her.

"You knew," he pointed accusingly at her. And yet, he was losing that anger in his belly. It was useless against Mom anyway. "When did you find out, eh? How long've you been keeping this from me?"

"If we accept them," Mom repeated in a measured, laser-focused tone, "we stay a family. If we invalidate them, punish them, separate them, we LOSE them. Forever. We lose, Clark. And that kind of loss? I am not prepared to handle. Nor are you. That kind of loss is a non-starter. Okay?" Mom clenched her teeth. "Do you read me, Dad?"

"I hear you saying you would leave me."

"I would not just leave you. I would leave the world as we know it. I would see no reason to live without you and the kids - without THIS," Mom jabbed a finger into the dinette, into the essential THIS-ness of the present moment, which cheap piece of furniture was probably unprepared to carry such symbolic significance but was doing its slightly off-level best, "would be an empty, meaningless, bitter hell. And between that and death? Easy. Not even a choice."

"So, what then?" Dad asked, grimacing and choosing to ignore Mom's suicide threat for now. "How do you propose we let our kids 'navigate' this?"

"Simple," Mom shrugged defiantly. "We just do."

"And ... we trust them? Not to get caught? Not to get pregnant? Not to completely ruin their lives?"

"We can help," Mom stated the obvious, "just like we already do."

"Right," Dad frowned. "Yes. Great idea. We can teach them safe incest."

"You joke. But I mean it," Mom said. "There is a right way and a wrong way."

"Golly," Dad snorted, sardonically amused, "maybe if we ask nicely, they'll let us join them!"

"Again, you joke," Mom narrowed her eyes at him, unphased by his discomfort, "but there is a right way and a wrong way."

"Of... joining them?" Dad blinked.

"Yes."

" ... We can't. We can't put that on them."

"Put what?" Mom tilted her head quizzically. Then she smirked. (Even Mom could smirk when she wanted to.)"There's nothing we could 'put on them' a quick shower wouldn't rinse right off."

"Lace," Dad blinked again and shook his head. He almost laughed. But it wasn't... funny. Was it? "Listen. You're the person I trust most on this whole godforsaken planet. But this? Talking about... doing stuff, with our kids? This is insanity. You are talking about - not just letting our kids touch each other - but turning our whole FAMILY into -! I feel like I shouldn't even have to say this, but: No? We obviously can't. How can you even talk like this?"

"Just let me show you," Mom slapped the table. Dad's turn to startle. "Let me prove it to you." Mom's toe touched Dad's leg. Wiggled on it. Caressed it. "You can trust me."

"P-prove... what?" Dad's forehead crinkled.

"All you need to do," Mom smiled, "is be your big, dumb, handsome, hunky self. And let us handle the rest."

"Us? Lace ..." Dad's shoulders slumped. His head dropped. He looked down at the matte red-orange surface of the kitchenette table, and sighed. "Golly," Dad sighed.

And then he felt the first real wave of the new dose. The one he'd almost forgotten he'd taken. He looked back out the sliding glass back door, down the pier, at the faraway backs of the twins. They were seated shoulder to shoulder, holding hands, at the end of the dock. The midday sun shone brightly, warmly, nonjudgmentally on their matching shimmery blonde heads. The great blue heron was nowhere to be seen. Had he actually even seen a great blue heron? It was the right time of year. They weren't strangers to this lake. But to the kitchen window? ... Or had he hallucinated it?

What the hell did this drug even do, again?

"Sweetie?" Mom said, gently squeezing Dad's sweaty hand.

"Golly," Dad sighed again.

"Golly," Mom smiled, and gave his hand a soft, sure pat. "And just, before it even comes up, let me get this out of the way. You have my permission. Okay? To look at them however you wish. Feel about them however. Because ... I will too, yes?"

"Because you'll ... what?" Dad cocked his head.

Mom gave him an almost exasperated look. This was a little embarrassing.

"I'll look at them, hon. I'll feel things about them. I'll fantasize, even, about whatever my demented animal mind dreams up. Because my heart, my body, my LOVE urges me to. And yours will, too. I promise, if you listen to your own heart, your own body, you'll hear it, you'll feel it. There is a way to learn to love that feeling."

"Right," Dad winced. "And if the kids don't want their parents ogling them?"

"Ah? Well. Don't tell them I told you this, ..."Mom's voice went nearly inaudible, and she made Dad lean way in to hear her, "but I happen to know they don't mind us looking."

Dad had no response to this. This was particularly arresting piece of gossip. His mouth hung open. Then it shut. Then it frowned. Then it relaxed again. And finally it spoke in a strange, croaky rasp: "They don't?"

Mom smiled, and shook her head.

"Gol'," Dad gulped.

"Anywho! Shall we invite them back in? I think they've been on timeout long enough. And it will be helpful to have them present for the next part."

"W-what?" Dad muttered. "Next part?"

Mom was already pushing her chair back and standing up. Dad was only just now realizing she'd let go of his hand on the table. The ghost-warmth of her hands faded rapidly as he looked at his own big, dumb, handsome, hunky hand, limply sitting there wondering without a clue what to do next. And then she was at the back door, sliding it open, and cupping her hands around her mouth.