The White Rose Crisis

Happy Birthday to me...Friday the 24

th

was my four year anniversary of joining Literotica.com, so as a special treat, four new stories in one go!

Part 4: the Legacy of Love

---

I followed Auntie Ellie back around the side of the house, away from her daughter Lucy's bedroom window and the location of my shameful masturbation. Before we reached the front however she held her hand up to stop me.

"You wait here," she said sternly. "Stay hidden and stay quiet." She left and I heard her unlocking the front door, shutting it slowly behind her.

I waited quietly around the corner from the door, my stomach churning from stress, humiliation, and fear. So it was my aunt after all. It concerned me that she was so on top of the situation, but what concerned me even more was how this whole fiasco was affecting my state of mind. I dreamed of getting my little sister pregnant and I was jerking off while spying on my cousin having sex with another girl. Something had happened that day at my big sister's wedding; it was changing me, and I didn't like how out of control I was.

Until I accidently slept with a member of my family I was a normal person, no thoughts of incest whatsoever. Now I didn't know what I was, only that I was slowly going crazy, driven to the edge of paranoia, my obsession with finding out who owned the white rose I had picked up from my anonymous lover torturing me every second of every day. Now, however, it seemed my search was over, and I didn't know what to think.

So I waited. A few minutes passed and the silence of my thoughts was broken as I heard the front door open again. I shrank back into the shadows as my cousin Lucy left the house with Taylor, giggling as they got into Lucy's car and headed off to who knows where. Auntie Ellie had obviously told them to go have fun somewhere else, probably pretending not to know the kind of racy naked fun they had been having before we arrived. Thirty seconds after they left I heard footsteps and Auntie Ellie, now changed into a casual loose fitting top and skirt, came around the corner.

"Come in, Will. Lucy and Taylor will be out for a while. That way we can be alone." Knowing what the topic of discussion would be I felt a little apprehensive about being alone in a big comfortably warm house with just me and Auntie Ellie, but I followed her inside and tried to clear my head.

Auntie Ellie moved into the loungeroom and patted the seat of the couch, gesturing me to sit. I did, and she took the seat across the room from me, crossing her legs gently and resting her hands in her lap. I tried not to stare at her at all, not at her face, or her lips, or her chest or her legs, and definitely not at her lap.

"I know you must be feeling very...confused," she said.

"That's an understatement."

"I also know you probably haven't had anyone to confide in or talk to about your problem, which can destroy a person from the inside." She went on.

"How do you know?" I asked her.

I know all about incest, Will," she said matter-of-factly. "More than you probably will ever understand. I've had a long time to deal with it -- incest might be new to you, but it isn't to me." I was stunned at how well she seemed to be dealing with me. I had no words, so we just stared at each other across the room, one-time lovers, lifelong family members, mired in a place that most of the world didn't think should ever exist. Eventually I was able to ask one simple question.

"How?" Auntie Ellie smiled.

"You know that Lucy's father left me for good when she was still young."

"Yeah...just after Amy was born, Mum said...she never even met him."

"Well, it wasn't the first time he walked out on me. We had our problems earlier, and he left before Lucy turned one. Later on he came back and for her sake we tried again, eventually to no avail. I knew in my heart he wasn't the man I loved.

"You see, Will, there was a period after he left where I was completely on my own, raising a child at such a young age myself, lost, confused, and lonely. I needed support. I needed someone I loved, and someone who loved me. The truth is, well, when I didn't have Lucy's father...I had my brother."

---

I was only sixteen when I met first Lucy's father, Jordan. It was awkward and maybe it shouldn't have happened the way it did, and I won't go into all of the details, but when I turned eighteen we had Lucy. Please know, Will, that I loved Lucy, I never regretted her, even if her entry into this world was not ideal by any means. I also loved her father, or I thought I loved him, but I also knew there was something missing from my life, as well as our relationship, something we never found in each other. At the time, though, I had no idea what it was.

In the end, what drove us apart for good was as much about the things I did to fill that missing something as it was about the fact that we never found it in each other to begin with. What some people might call a mistake, a story of lost love and sadness, was actually what helped me realise what I was truly missing from myself.

Let me be clear: we were separated at the time, Jordan and I. It was so long ago...you would have been only around three, and Sarah four. Jordan was twenty five -- so several years difference between us, and I think it got to him a little. I became used to parenting fairly quickly, even at a young age, but Jordan just didn't manage it. As a parent he couldn't cope with the responsibility, as a partner he was never there for me when I needed him, and as for our sex life? Well, it hadn't started back up straight away, and when it did things were, I don't know...awkward, I guess. I had always had an appetite for sex, which is probably what got me in trouble with Lucy in the first place. But Jordan was stressed all the time, and one day it all got too much for him, and that's when everything started to change...

"Please don't do this, Jordan, I know it's been hard but we can make it work!"

"I can't do it, Ellie, I just can't okay! My father still won't talk to me, I'm in trouble again at work..."

"Surely they understand you're raising a child, and your father will have to come round, he just doesn't understand --"

"Don't talk about my father that way! He doesn't have to understand!"

What's that supposed to mean?? I thought we were in this together, I thought we were a team --"

"How can I expect you to get it? You spend all day at home or with your family while I --"

"That's not fair! This is just as hard on me as it is on you!"

"MY JOB KEEPS US ALIVE!"

"AND I KEEP OUR DAUGHTER ALIVE! Or did you forget why we're here in the first place! Jordan! JORDAN! Come back Jordan!" I watched in agony as the father of my child slammed the door to our tiny apartment and walked out of my life. I didn't know where he was going, nor that he wouldn't be coming back that night. But Lucy had begun to cry in her room and I busied myself tending to her. I was doing the best I could for an eighteen year old mother, but it was never enough. That night I cried myself to sleep, my tears streaming out silently as my baby, the most beautiful thing in my life, slept soundly in her crib.

The next morning I took Lucy to my mother's house, after waking up and finding no sign that Jordan had come home. Father was at work, but mother wasn't alone; my older brother Ben was there. Ben was twenty two, four years older than me. He was the exact same height as me and we had similar coloured hair, but where mine was far more red his was far more brown, and he had darker blue eyes. He wasn't a terribly large boy, but then he wasn't exactly what you would call scrawny either.

Ben had helped me through my pregnancy when Jordan wasn't sure what to do and had spent a lot of time with his niece Lucy since she had been born, helping with the babysitting whenever he could. He had always looked out for me when we were growing up, and now that our sister Mary had moved out of home, gotten married and was busy raising you and Sarah I didn't see her as much as Ben anymore.

"I'm sure he'll come around," Mum was saying about Jordan, as she sat with Lucy in her arms. She was obsessed with Lucy, and thrilled that I had decided to keep the baby even if I was a young mum. It seemed having only two grandkids from Mary wasn't enough for her!

"What if he doesn't, mum...what if he never comes back?"

"For all his faults Jordan doesn't seem like the kind of man to walk out completely," Mum scolded, gently tucking Lucy's wayward arms into a blanket. "The stress of becoming a parent in such a short span of time can be a little...overwhelming, shall we say. It's only been ten months or so, not counting the pregnancy, and that's a very short span of time for something so tiring. Your father -- as good as he is -- had his moments, and I wanted to leave a few times when we first started out. But we persevered, and eventually we found something we both needed in each other. Balance," she said quietly. "That is the key to happiness." She gave me a smile and stared down at her granddaughter, fast asleep in her arms.

I wanted to find balance so badly, but no matter what I did I couldn't see how Jordan and I could make it work. Feeling dejected, I walked out into the backyard where I had spent so many hours with my brother and sister and sat on the grass, wondering how I could ever be happy again. I felt like even if he came back and became everything I needed, there would still be something missing. Flopping onto my back on the grass I stared up at the clouds, calming myself down and trying to take comfort in knowledge that my family would always be there supporting me, even if Jordan wasn't.

"Daydreaming again?" came a voice. I looked up at my brother and gave him a half smile, hoping he wouldn't see the pain hidden behind the look. The problem with Ben is he always knew how I was really feeling.

"I thought I smelled trouble," I said to him. My brother Ben sat on the grass and lay down beside me, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the sky.

"I heard about Jordan," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Ellie." I didn't say anything back at first, more because I didn't know what I could even say about it. I just took his hand and he gave it a squeeze, and we lay in silence for a little while. Eventually I realised what I really cared about now that Jordan wasn't there.

"Lucy will ask about him," I said to Ben. "I don't know what I'll say if he isn't around for her. I don't know what to do." Against my will I started to tear up. The pressure of looking after Lucy on my own was really getting to me. Ben turned and looked at me, giving me a serious gaze.

"I don't know what he's thinking, leaving a girl like you," he said seriously. I looked back at him, surprised slightly by his tone. My brother always stood up for me, but now he seemed insulted by Jordan's actions.

"I'll be ok."

"That's not good enough, and you know it...I'll stay with you," he said suddenly. I raised my eyebrows and smiled at my brother.

"You really want to stay and help me raise a tiny poop machine?"

"If I have to, to make sure you're ok..." I laughed and gave him a big hug, wondering how I got such an amazing brother.

"Ben, I should warn you I look a mess in the mornings, even worse than when I was pregnant."

"You looked beautiful when you were pregnant." I glanced at Ben but my brother had gone red and turned away, and while I planned on teasing him about it later, I had no idea that was the first sign of things to come.

---

Two weeks went by, and Ben had been staying almost every day to help me with Lucy. He had a part-time job at a hardware supply store that paid relatively well, and when he wasn't there he was at my apartment, helping cook or clean and babysitting while I took care of other business. Lucy was able to have a combination of breastmilk and solid food, so Ben was able to manage on his own for a few hours until I got home and took over for him. There was something really special about coming home to him every day, or being there waiting for him to finish work. In fact, the only awkward detail was the sleeping arrangement.

Because we had a small place there was only one bedroom, and only one bed. Ben had been content to sleep on the small couch in the one living space we had on the nights he decided to stay over, but with winter setting in I wasn't happy about the temperature of that room at night, so after much arguing I convinced him to sleep in my room on the floor, where I could turn on the heater to keep us warm. Of course, there wasn't a lot of floor free in there because Lucy's cot took up a lot of space too, which made it a bit of a fuss in the mornings trying to get everyone changed and while maintaining some modesty. Still, I was happier having him there than freezing in the lounge room.

The only other slightly awkward bit was breastfeeding Lucy. I didn't have the largest chest, but they'd gotten much bigger after Lucy came out and weren't changing yet, but I think Ben felt a little odd when I blatantly lifted my shirt and took them out for a feed. For the most part he just averted his gaze, but it was a regularly occurring situation and it did make conversation harder when he was looking away from me. I told him it was just a breast, but he simply went red in the face when I said it. I had no idea why...not yet anyway.

One particularly cold night Ben came home after working late into the evening. He walked in half-frozen with a limp and was shaking like mad.

"My God!" I yelled when he came through the door. "What happened?"

"Nothing, some heavy items slipped off of a shelf, that's all, nothing broken, just some bruising." I helped pull his coat off and I could tell he was in pain.

"Well get in here and warm up will you??" I pushed him straight to the bathroom and started the shower, getting the hot water running for him. It was pretty much the only sure fire way of warming up in this place. I turned around saw him struggling to get his jumper up and off.

"You really got hit hard, didn't you?" I said sympathetically. I helped lift his jumper and shirt and saw dark purple bruising on his right side, across his ribcage and down to his hip, which explained his difficulty in moving.

"Oh Ben," I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. He winced but pulled the jumper away, tossing it on the floor and shrugging.

"It's just a bruise. I'll be fine."

"No you won't, this is awful!" But Ben pushed me away.

"Ellie I'll manage. Seriously."

"Ok...well if you need help you call me ok?" I left him alone and closed the bathroom door, tending to Lucy who was playing in her crib.

A few minutes later I heard the shower turn off, and got dinner ready to serve up, but fifteen minutes went by and Ben didn't come out of the bathroom. A little concerned, I softly knocked on the door.

"Ben?"

"Yeah...yeah Ellie, I'm here."

"Are you ok in there?"

"I um...I'm just having a bit of trouble drying off, I'll be ok..."

"What do you mean? Is it the bruising?"

"It's fine, I'll just drip dry."

"Nonsense, dinner's getting cold and if you're just standing there you'll freeze to death before you're even close to dry. I'm coming in."

No wait Ellie don't -- " but I pushed open the door and poked into the bathroom. Ben was standing there with the towel draped over one shoulder, hanging down to cover his extremities. All down the right hand side of his body were big purple bruises, from his ribs to his knee.

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "No wonder you're having trouble!" Ben shrugged, then winced when the movement tweaked his muscles.

"I'll get it, this is already more than a little embarrassing Ellie, just let me deal with it."

"No...that's not fair. You take care of me everyday," I said firmly. "Now let me take care of you." I grabbed my own towel and started wiping his shoulders, giving his hair a rub since he obviously couldn't lift his arms properly to do it himself. I turned him around and rubbed down his back, trying not to stare at my brother's bare butt as my hands got lower. I turned him back around again, and now I started to feel a little embarrassed.

"Ok, now your legs," I said, kneeling down and trying not to blush too red. I towelled his feet and shins, completely wet still since he clearly couldn't lean over right, then up to his knees on both legs while he tried to hold his own towel over his midsection to maintain his modesty. Unfortunately, he was still quite wet and needed to be properly dried.

"Ben...I need to do your hips and upper legs," I said sheepishly. Ben groaned.

"I'm sure I can do it, I'm already fairly dry there," he said, feebly trying to manoeuvre the towel across his body, but his right side twitched and he closed his eyes, hissing in pain. I was beginning to wonder how his ribs weren't broken.

"Come on, it has to be done," I said quietly. With delicate hands I used the towel to try his thighs, moving very slowly from outside to inside on one leg, then the other as he moved his own towel around. Eventually I moved up higher and, with a very apologetic look, glanced up at him. Ben groaned, turning red, and stubbornly refused to move his towel.

"Come on, Ben...let's just get it done ok?" I said. "Just...turn your head and cough, you know? I won't look." Ben looked off into space with bright red cheeks, and grudgingly allowed my hand to move his towel aside. I turned away so I could only see his thigh in my peripheral, then gingerly moved the towel up to dry off his groin.

I couldn't see what I was doing, but I knew enough about male anatomy to figure it out. First I felt something soft, small, and very delicate, so I lightly dabbed with the towel and tried not to squeeze, and then my hand touched something that was long and definitely hard. Blushing madly, I rubbed the towel extremely quickly over him and moved to his hips and the top of his thighs, drying around his clearly erect cock without paying it any attention.

"There," I said, dropping the towel and keeping my eyes averted. "Not so bad right?"

I saw Ben's head turn back down to look at me out of the corner of my eye, heard him mutter "shit" under his breath and he quickly turned away with his towel back in place, covering his hard-on. I picked up his underpants and held them out to him.

"I'll need to help with these too, I imagine," I said quietly. With another groan Ben moved forward to step into them and I pulled them up, trying again to avoid contact with his extremities as much as feasible and blushing as my hand brushed his butt cheeks. Then I grabbed his pants and did the same thing, which was far less uncomfortable by comparison, followed by his top. When he was dressed I looked him in the eye, both of us blushing red, and he grinned sheepishly.

"Thanks," he said. I smiled back.

"It's ok Ben," I replied, giving him a hug that avoided his damaged side.

The next problem came at bedtime. As we ate dinner I realised that on such a cold night and with such bad bruising Ben couldn't possibly rest properly on his lame mattress on the floor or the bad pillows on the couch, and that left only one place for him to go. As I predicted, Ben was not happy about this.

"It's just a bed," I said exasperatedly. "We'll both be rugged up in pj's and as soon as you're able you can go back to the floor, I promise." Ben didn't seem happy about it, but he finally climbed into the double bed and I pulled the blankets up over us both. I normally slept in the middle but I left a sizeable gap for his sake as he tried to get comfortable on his back, stretching his body out.

"Are you going to be ok?" I asked him. Ben sighed and looked over at me.