Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Title: Lost & Found Ch.  04
Summary: In the beginning, there was Frank and Caitlin...
Keywords: fic,inc
   Something was troubling Robbie, Casey was sure.  She couldn't put her
finger on it, but something was definitely bugging him.  Robbie had been a
little subdued since Sarah's wedding, and Casey understood that; he and
Joey had given her to someone else, so his mom had less time for him,
especially with little Caitlin to care for, but Casey sensed it was more
than that.  Maybe she'd ask Karen to have a quiet word with him; he'd open
up to his sister-in-law for sure; he was used to confiding in and talking
things out with Karen, something Casey entirely agreed with; everyone needs
a confidante, and Karen was hers as well.
   Their day had started well enough; she'd woken at first light,
automatically sliding out of bed to check on the baby, only to find
Robbie's hand on her arm.
   "Where are you going, young lady?" he grinned, and Casey smiled and slid
back under the covers, Robbie pulling her close as his hands roamed over
her.  She could feel his cock already hard and insistent, and grinned
minxily at him as she rubbed her mound against him.  Robbie responded by
sliding his hands down to her ass and squeezing her cheeks, pulling them
apart as he squeezed, simultaneously pulling her against his hardness,
making her groan softly.  He dipped down to nuzzle and nibble at her
rapidly erecting nipples, the tingle as they did so sending a warm flush of
anticipation through her, and she could feel her labia tingling as they
swelled in response to her growing arousal.
   Casey wriggled against him, her lips brushing his neck as she grazed
lightly on the clear skin of his neck and shoulder, and his cock twitched
against her as she got to him, as she knew she would.  She reached down
between them to squeeze and fondle his cock and balls, enjoying as always
the feel of his big velvety balls pouched together against the ivory
hardness of his insistent erection.  She knew what he wanted to do, but she
also knew what she wanted, and kissing her way down his chest, ruffling the
fine hairs beginning to shroud his chest and savouring the sensation of the
silky, not-yet wiry hair against her tongue, she moved steadily, slowly,
inexorably down to her target.
   When she licked the tip of his throbbing cock, Robbie gave a whispered
gasp at the sensation of her warm, wet tongue against the slick velvety
flesh of his cock head, groaning slightly as she slowly sucked him into her
hot mouth, savouring, as always, the first hot wetness he found there.
   Casey lightly squeezed and fondled his scrotum as she rhythmically
squeezed and pumped him as she sucked, wanting him to give her what she'd
craved from the instant she'd taken him into her mouth.  Her movements
became more insistent, her cheeks hollowed as she sucked in earnest, all
her skills working to bring him to orgasm, and she was rewarded in the way
she most craved.
   "Oh God, Case, oh God...!" he groaned, his cockhead swelling in her
mouth and ejaculating long, salty-sweet spurts that filled her hungry mouth
almost faster than she could swallow; pulse after pulse of hot semen
sprayed into her willing mouth, Casey thrilling to the taste and texture of
her man's tribute as he gave it up to her.  His cock pulsed and twitched
until there was no more to give, and with a satisfied sigh, Casey licked
him clean, before wriggling up alongside him, kissing him soundly.
   "Good morning darling, did you like your wake-up call?" she grinned.
   For answer, Robbie rolled her onto her back, her legs drifting apart as
he settled between her thighs, his unyielding erection gently butting
against her.  Casey smiled as she reached down to take hold of him and
adjust him so he was pointing directly as her swollen labia, then smiling
in assent as he leaned forward.
   He speared into her in one long, relentless glide, filling her the way
she liked, her head going back as she gasped out loud at the sudden
pleasurable invasion, her pussy tightening involuntarily around him,
pleasuring him as he pleasured her.  Their coupling continued, Robbie
insistently sliding himself in and out of her, thrilling her with every
thrust and withdrawal, the rhythmic clasping of her vagina around his cock
in time to his thrusts telling him how much she loved what he was doing to
her.
   Robbie began to speed up, his movements harder, more insistent, and
Casey began thrusting back against him, taking him all the way into her as
she pumped her tight pussy against him, and so they thrust and pumped,
racing toward the climax they both wanted so much now, the explosive
release they both needed.
   Casey orgasmed first, the feel of her man, her lover, her brother inside
her finally driving her over the edge as he powered into her, and as she
came, in rippling waves that sucked and squeezed him buried deep inside
her, Robbie cried out as he too reached climax, the hot sperm roaring out
of him to spray inside her in long, satisfying jets.
   The feel of him filling her with his rich, fertile spunk triggered a
blaze of sensations inside her, memories melding with fantasies about him
to merge into one, long satisfying comber that surged and crashed inside
her, blinding and deafening her with its intensity, her love for him
burning high and hot deep in the center of the tumult as her body shook and
shuddered with the strength and power of her orgasm.
   They lay in silence as their storm quietened and gradually faded,
content to touch, hold, lightly kiss, no longer trying to arouse or
stimulate, merely maintain contact.  It was this time that Casey most
appreciated with Robbie; he was never so close and accessible as when he
held her close and shyly whispered his love for her, and these moments
together were those she treasured the most, when only the two of them
existed, there was no world out there except the one they saw in each
other's eyes, and no possible life except the one they lived together.
   Eventually, reality intruded; the sound of young Robbie grizzling in the
other room reminded Casey that it was time for his morning bottle, and that
he probably needed a new diaper.  It was the start of another day.  She
started getting out of bed, to have Robbie pull her back for one last kiss,
before looking away.
   "Uh, Case, I'll have to go into work for a few hours; Steve called last
night about the new game, there's a few problems he wants me to look at,
it's kind of urgent; really, I should have gone back in, but, well...  you
know how it is; if I don't fix this soon, it'll just get worse; sorry,
babe, I knew you wanted today to ourselves.  I'll only be gone a few hours,
I promise, and I'll make it up to you tomorrow, okay?"
   He was looking at the ceiling, not at her as he spoke, which immediately
alerted her that something was up; Robbie always looked into her eyes when
he spoke to her, it was the only way he knew how to communicate; now she
knew he wasn't telling her everything; actually, he wasn't telling her
anything, he was holding something back, and, as had been happening all too
frequently recently, she could feel the shutters going up.
   Casey sighed; it troubled her that Robbie wasn't sharing whatever was
troubling him with her; she knew just how compulsively honest he was, and
the thought that he was holding something back troubled her deeply; it felt
almost as though he didn't trust her enough to tell her, and that hurt. 
This wasn't the first time she'd gotten the feeling he was hiding
something, or holding back, and it worried her that something was worrying
him and he couldn't, or wouldn't, share it with her.
   Maybe Karen could get to the bottom of all the finger-tapping and
drumming, all neck-scratching and channel-hopping he seemed to be doing
constantly these days, his concentration totally shot, nervous tics he'd
never had before.  Robbie was always so laid back he was totally immersed
in the moments he had alone, still and contemplative, but always ready with
a sweet grin or a brush with his fingertips as she passed.  Now that had
stopped, and instead he was jumpy, restless, almost nervous, if that were
possible.
   While he took a shower, Casey called Karen, and asked her to come over;
aside from Sarah, Karen was the closest he had to a female relative, and
was the one person who knew him better than Casey, perhaps she'd have an
insight into what was going on with her boy.
   She knew Angie would jump at the chance to connect with Robbie and dig
into what was troubling him, but her own family commitments kept her close
to home these days; her baby was due in a few weeks, and while 43 wasn't
too old or risky to be having a baby, Elio was taking no chances and had
decreed total rest for her.
   While she waited for Karen, Casey pottered around the apartment, playing
with and talking to little Robbie, and considered the ramifications of
having a little sister for herself, and a little aunt for young Robbie to
play with; it tickled her to think young Robbie, whose parents were brother
and sister, would be older than his aunt; and she had to laugh as she
thought: did that mean they were all now officially trailer-trash?
Grinning at the thought, she glanced out of the window to see Joey's
pride and joy, the Bentley Continental GT Robbie had given him as a wedding
present, pull-up outside.
   After all the family greeting and hugging, and obligatory nuzzling of
babies, Casey sat down with Joe Jr.  firmly in her arms, Joey in turn
walking around holding his nephew like some kind of precious object as he
gurgled baby-talk at him.  Casey leaned in to speak softly with Karen.
   "Kay, I need to confess; I had an ulterior motive for asking you to come
over.  It's Robbie, I'm really worried about him."
   Karen looked over at Joey, busily talking baby gibberish to little
Robbie, who was gurgling happily back at him.
   "Is something...?"
   Casey shook her head.
   "No, it's his father I'm worried about.  Something's really bugging him,
it's making him twitch and tic like crazy, and he won't talk to me; there's
something going on with him and he won't tell me about it; he just insists
I must be imagining things, but he goes all red when he says it.  I'm
worried, Kay, he's never been able to keep secrets, and whatever this is,
it's really troubling him, and it hurts so much to know he's keeping
secrets.  Talk to him, Kay, please, I know he'll tell you things he can't
tell me, find out what's wrong with my boy!"
   Karen looked into Casey's eyes, seeing the fear and anguish lurking
there, and noted the slight quiver of her bottom lip.  She quickly pulled
her up and took her into the bedroom.  Joey looked up, and Karen flashed
him a quick glance that told him to stay put.  Joey already had a good idea
why they were there, so he nodded in affirmation and went back to
entertaining young Robbie.
   Once the door was closed, Casey settled Joe on the bed in a nest of
pillows, and burst into tears.  Karen gathered her in, letting her cry all
her fears out as she soothed her.
   Eventually the storm abated as she calmed down, Karen still holding her
close, and Casey clung tight to her, taking comfort in her sister-in-law's
presence.
   While Casey cried, Karen had been having an internal debate over whether
to tell her what she already knew, and as she wiped her tears away she made
up her mind; this was a family matter, and Casey deserved to know.
   "Casey," she began, "I already know what's bugging Robbie; he and I had
this conversation at Sarah's wedding.  I'm just a little disturbed he
hasn't already had this out with you!"
   At Casey's look of alarm, she smiled.
   "Calm down, Case, it's nothing sinister, or dark and deadly!" she
smiled, watching her as she carefully picked her words.
   "Robbie's nervous, real nervous.  This whole 'getting married' thing has
really thrown him for a loop." She held up her hand to forestall any
comment from Casey.
   "No, it's not like that.  He talked to me all about this because he
didn't know how to tell you without sounding like he was trying to bail on
getting married.  He wants to marry you so bad it hurts him, but he's
afraid.  He's afraid he's not good enough, that he'll get it wrong, that
he's somehow going to mess up and you'll hate him for being his father's
son.  Robbie thinks the sun rises and sets on you and that little boy out
there, and he can't handle the thought of somehow not being enough for you,
or not being everything you wanted.  The truth is, he's frightened that
you'll think he trapped you into marrying him.  Robbie's scared that
marrying you will stop you loving him because you'll feel trapped!"
   Casey sat in open-mouthed shock; she'd never picked-up a single hint
from him that this whole situation had him so jittery, and for so little
reason.  Had she really somehow indicated to him that she might feel
trapped one day?  God forbid!  The one thing Casey wanted more than
anything in the world was Robbie, she knew that with a depth and profundity
impossible to plumb; he was an essential part of her now, his soul so
closely twined around hers that there was no way to separate them.
   She came to reality as she realised Karen hadn't finished speaking.
   "Joey knows, he and Robbie had a talk about this, and Joey gave him the
best advice he could; go see Frank.  When we were first engaged, after the
gloss wore off, Joey started getting the jitters, and for pretty much the
same reasons -- he and Robbie really are more alike than either one of them
realises.  Anyway, Sarah told him that he needed an older male perspective,
and sent him to talk to Frank; whatever Frank told him seemed to do the
trick because, well, you know the rest!"
   Casey thought over what Karen had told her.  Robbie was such a serious
young man, so committed to his family, she could see how the thought of
anything coming between them would make him jittery, but she still felt
dismayed that he'd not confided in her.  Weren't they partners now?  Didn't
young Robbie prove how much she loved him?  Her eyes filled again as she
thought of him grappling alone with his fears, unable to tell her because
he thought she'd reject him for not loving her enough.
   Karen saw the precursor to her tears, and held her close.
   "Casey, you know how much he loves you, but you have to understand, this
is something he has to work out himself; there's nothing we can do except
be there for him, especially you.  Remember when I first met you again,
back when Robbie first brought you from Sacramento?  I was scared for him
then, afraid you'd hurt him, and maybe damage him in some way that none of
us would be able to fix.  I was wrong then, thank God, but nothing about
Robbie's changed very much since then; he's still a very young boy inside
all that meat and muscle, and even with that incredible mind of his, there
are some areas he just doesn't know how to connect with, or even realise
that he needs to; this is one of them."
   Karen paused, marshalling her thoughts before continuing.
   "Someone is going to have to show him the way, and it has to be someone
who's already been there, done that, and come out okay.  That's why he
needs Frank now; Frank and Caitlin had to go through what you and Robbie
are going through now, they know the way through it, and only they can show
him how.  They did it for Joey, although we don't have the...complication
you and Robbie have, but other than that, it took the two of them to show
Joey what to do and how to be who he should be."
   She paused, smiling a little at the memory of how Joey had been after
his own crisis had been resolved.
   "Relax, it will all be fine; Robbie loves and trusts Frank and Caitlin,
and they love him, you, and that little boy out there like their own.  In a
very real sense Caitlin's as much his mom as Sarah is, she loves him
fiercely and unquestioningly, so she's not going to let any harm come to
him, to you, or your baby, I promise you!"
   Casey tried to push her misgivings down in the face of Karen's breezy
confidence that Robbie could handle this, and would, and managed a
tremulous smile.
   "There you go, that's better!" smiled Karen, "Now let's go rescue Robbie
Junior before Joey decides to see if he likes Five-Alarm Chilli as much as
his father!"
   Casey laughed and gently picked up her nephew, handing him to Karen and
patting her face to wipe away the signs of her recent tears.  As they
rejoined Joey, they found him stretched out on the carpet, young Robbie
lying on his chest and laughing as he tried to poke his fingers into Joey's
eyes, nose and mouth, and giggling as he avoided Joey's attempts to nip his
fingers between his lips.
   Every time she watched her bright, happy, inquisitive, affectionate
little boy as he explored his world, Casey was struck by the thought that
this was how Robbie might have been before his family decided to deny his
existence, and the thought was always accompanied by a wave of sadness for
his loss, and a stab of guilt for her part in that.
   "Look Robbie, it's mommy!  She's my sister!  Can you say sis-ter?"
   Robbie burbled happily, and Joey grinned.
   "Yes, I knew it, what a clever boy you are, you're definitely my nephew,
blood will tell!  Your mean Aunty Karen says you can't talk yet, she bet me
ten bucks it was just gas, she's a meanie, can you say 'meanie'?  Good boy,
now your meanie Aunty Karen owes me ten bucks!"
   Casey laughed and picked up Robbie, allowing Joey to clamber to his
feet.
   "All good now?" he asked, taking Joe Jr.  from Karen.
   "I think so," Said Casey, "but I still wish he'd confided in me a
little. At least I know what the trouble is, and he's got a way to sort it
out, so I'm at least a little reassured.  I'll make sure he goes and see's
Frank, he adores Robbie and hopefully he'll be able to make things right
for my boy!"
   Joey looked a little shamefaced, something Casey spotted immediately.
   "What, Joey, what are you not telling me?"
   Joey grinned.
   "Robbie called me last night, we had another talk about this; I think he
just wanted me to tell him again that Uncle Frank was the way to go with
this, and I made sure I let him know that he needs to sit down with both of
them, Uncle Frank and Aunt Kat, so I called them and kind of...pushed
Robbie into going there today; he's not "dealing with an emergency" at work
today, he's in Morgan Hill, getting the benefit.  I hope you don't mind?"
   Casey smiled at her older brother, both her smile and her eyes softening
as she considered how much he cared for his younger brother.  Casey pulled
his head down and kissed him gently on the cheek.
   "Thank you for still looking out for our boy!" she whispered, grinning
back at Joey's quick grin.
   ++++
   Robbie pulled into the driveway of his former home, Frank and Caitlin
Novak's residence in Morgan Hill, a suburb of San Jose, noting both Frank
and Caitlin's cars already parked there, so he swung off to the side and
parked across them.  He walked into the house confidently, not bothering to
knock; this had been his home for several years, and he was still a member
of this family.  As he walked through to the back, he heard the twins,
arguing as usual, Frank mediating, and Caitlin clattering in the kitchen,
and suddenly he was back; it was as though he'd never left.
   Morag looked up and spotted him, immediately giving a shriek and pelting
toward him, followed closely by Moira.  The red-headed identical twins
mobbed him every time, Frank suspecting that they just wanted to hit him up
for more cash or freebies, but the truth was the two girls adored Robbie
and wanted their brother back again, even though they loved Casey and
worshipped little Robbie, and every chance they had to have him to
themselves they took with both hands.
   Caitlin heard the commotion, and slipped up behind Robbie to slide her
hands around his waist and kiss him lightly on the neck.
   "Robbie, welcome home!  You should come down more often, we all miss
you!"
   Robbie spun round to hug his aunt in a bear hug, suddenly glad and
relieved to see her, opening his arms to gather in the twins as well so he
could hug them all at once.
   After squeezing them all soundly, Robbie released them, letting all
three of them breathe again.
   Caitlin took his hand, kissing him softly on the cheek, motherly and
concerned.
   "Joey tells us you need to talk, come on through to the den.  Girls,
your dad and I need to talk to Robbie, this is private, and I mean that, so
go find something to do, we're going to be a while."
   The twins finally left after all their protests were dismissed,
muttering darkly about how they weren't really members of this family, that
they got shoved out the door for the least little reason, and that no-one
ever told them anything about what was really going on.  Caitlin grinned as
she listened to them, feeling for them, but knowing full well that what she
and Frank were going to tell Robbie was definitely not for their ears, and
never could be.
   Frank ushered Robbie into the den, and waited for Caitlin to settle the
girls and ensure their privacy.  As he waited, his mind cast back to the
circumstances that led him here, to this moment, if truth be told, to help
him set out in his mind what and how he was going to tell Robbie about what
had happened, what the family was all about, and what he meant to all of
them.
   ****
   My name is Francis Xavier Novak; blame it on a Catholic upbringing, and
call me Frank, everyone else does except Caitlin; she, out of everyone,
always called me Frankie, and only she could get away with it; anyone else
who called me that would end up picking their face up off the sidewalk.  My
mom was Colleen Hennessey, and her parents were immigrants from the
depression-hit tenements of Chicago in the 1930's, her father lured here by
the promise of work.  It was hard work, too, back-breaking labor in the
factories owned by the Dolan family, long hours for pittance wages.  I know
my grandpa resented it, but the alternative was no money at all in Chicago,
so they stayed and sweated it out.
   Mom was born here in Springfield, and she could remember Grandpa working
long hours to put barely enough food on the table, while the Dolan's and
their relatives in Springfield and surrounding towns got rich, fat and
arrogant.  There were damned few Cadillac's to be seen in this part of the
world, but those that were belonged to that family and their myriad
offshoots.
   My dad was a first-generation Ukrainian immigrant named Marcin Novacek,
anglicised to Martin Novak.  He'd come to the USA as a small boy but he
never forgot his roots, and always pined for the chance to one day return
home to the old country.  It never happened; when I was less than a year
old, he was killed by a hit and run driver on Serramonte Avenue downtown.
Initially, all the eyewitnesses identified the car as a late-model black
Cadillac Coupe DeVille, which struck him so hard he was thrown 20 feet,
killing him instantly.  My sister Sarah was four years old when it
happened, and she remembers my father clearly, but I have only pictures mom
gave me; I don't remember him at all.
   Strangely, when the sheriff of our fair town investigated the accident,
all the eye-witnesses thronging the sidewalk at the time either had no
clear recollection of what had happened or claimed they hadn't really seen
what happened; these same people were also the recipients of some kind of
windfall, as they all somehow managed to afford new cars that week.  The
only black 1972 Coupe DeVille in town belonged to Jerry Dolan, son of the
owner of the factories that had made the Dolan family fortune, and a
notorious drunk driver.  As the sheriff was also his cousin, as was the
mayor, the investigation was pretty cursory and closed as 'Unsolved'.  It
was an interesting point that Jerry Dolan's DeVille was reported 'stolen'
that same day, and found burned out in a field behind Bad Indian Wood a
couple of days later.
   Just over a year later, mom married Michael Joseph Moran, the man who
brought me up, and who I thought of as 'dad'.  He was a huge man, with
hands like shovels, but the sweetest, mildest temperament you could hope to
find.  I was never wary of him, and he was never too tired to pick me up
and swing me on to his shoulders when I got tired or fed-up with walking. I
looked forward to when he'd tuck me in on a cold night, or hold me on his
lap with his huge arm around me, sitting in the big armchair in front of
the fire reading nursery rhymes to me, or Pooh, or his favorite, The Wizard
of Oz, until I fell asleep.
   I was almost three when mom brought a new baby home; her name was
Caitlin Roisian Colleen.  Mom told me that she made me promise I would look
after her, because I was her big brother, and that's what big brother's
did, and then she made me hold Caitlin's hand while I promised to always
take care of her, and she always swore Caitlin smiled at me as I promised
mom I would always look after and protect my little sister.
   I always loved my baby sister anyway, and I belonged to her for as long
as I could remember; all she ever had to do was want something and I'd get
it for her, or do it for her, or make it happen for her; she was my
responsibility, and she owned me outright from as early as I can remember.
   Growing up in the 1970's and 80's was the same for us as any other
family in the Midwest; we went to school, did family things, squabbled,
fought, fell-out, made-up, lived normal, everyday lives.  Sarah (known in
the family as 'Sally', probably because as a small child it was easier for
me to pronounce) was almost five years older than me, so growing up we
never played together a lot; I think she felt that age gap quite keenly;
when she was ten years old she was nearly twice as old as me, and more so
between her and Caitlin.  We all loved each other fiercely, but it was my
job to look out for Caitlin, and Sarah left me to it (unless someone
threatened one of us younger ones; then my big sister turned into an
avenging angel, a sight scary and awesome to see.  Every smart kid in town
(and a lot of the stupid ones, too) learned early-on just how much hell
would rain down on them if they messed with Sarah Novak's family...
   I progressed through school at pretty much a walking pace; there was
nothing much I was interested in, except sport, specifically boxing, but
the school didn't offer much in the way of coaching, concentrating as it
did on track & field, football, and wrestling.  Sarah tried to get me
interested in other things, even suggesting church activities, which should
have indicated how worried she was about me; she didn't like the idea of me
hitting people and getting hit back, and we had several almost-arguments
about it.
   The only one who didn't get on my case was Caitlin; she was only three
years younger than me, so I could talk to hear more easily and freely than
I could with Sarah.  Don't get me wrong, I loved and adored Sarah, but I
had a closer, more confidential-type relationship with Caitlin.
   Eventually I stumbled on the gym at the YMCA on Harvey Street, where I
discovered our parish priest, Father Bernardi, showing rights over lefts to
some of the kids training there.  I found out he was a fanatical follower
of the kings of the ring and a disciple of the squared-circle who could
quote statistics all the way back to the 1920's, a true boxing aficionado.
As I was a natural southpaw I had a distinct advantage in the ring,
something he saw immediately, and took it upon himself to coach me from age
12.
   So, on Saturday nights, while my friends were out getting into trouble,
learning how to smoke, or caged-up and locked-down indoors, I would be down
at the gym with him after Benediction, working the speed-bag, jump-rope and
weight-bench, circuit training, or sparring endless rounds with everyone
the good Father could dig up who'd climb into the ring with me.
   I soon developed a reputation as a snappy counter-puncher, with a tight,
close guard, a solid chin, a smoking short right jab and a blurring left
hook that caught many opponents completely unawares.  When not training,
the good Father would tell me blow-by-blow stories about the fights at
Madison Square Garden he'd watched, seeing undercard boxers eventually go
on to become world champions; he told me about hitching to Philadelphia to
watch Jersey Joe Walcott and Rocky Marciano, and 'the hardest punch ever
thrown', ditching school to watch Floyd Patterson fight Archie Moore, and
Ingemar Johansson, Sweden's first heavyweight world champion and take back
the title, and blowing off his studies at the seminary to see Patterson's
punishing matches against the immortal Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammad
Ali, and the notoriously brutal Mob puppet Sonny Liston, and as a boy way
back in 1951, slipping into the Polo Ground, New York, to share in the
magic of 'Sugar' Ray Robinson's famous fight against the English boxer
Randy Turpin to regain the world Middleweight title.  I knew all those
names, I'd been an avid reader of 'Ring' magazine ever since I discovered
the sport, and to be trained by a man who'd actually been there and watched
those legends fight was an enthralling experience for me.
   I was inspired by his stories, and I promised myself one day I'd be a
champion at whatever weight I found myself when my chance came.  In the
meantime, I trained, I worked the bags and the weight-bench, and I sparred
endlessly.  Mom and dad were concerned at my lack of interest and mediocre
progress in school, but they were also encouraging and supportive that I'd
found something I liked and could do well, and that kept me out of the
trouble all my friends seemed to find so easily.
   Oddly enough, my biggest fan was Caitlin, or Kat, as everyone called
her, although, with hindsight, maybe not so odd.  Also, as a side benefit,
almost no-one picked on me or my sister at school; when word got around
that I was the real thing, all the school bullies and wannabe tough-guys
avoided me, which was gratifying, but also disappointing; if only one of
them had tried something with me, just once...
   And so things progressed, until I was nearly sixteen.  Sarah was in
college over in Monte Vista, just a few miles away, and had a steady
boyfriend, Joe Anderson, who seemed like a nice guy.  Joe was always polite
and respectful to Sarah, and obviously into her, friendly and interested in
me without being condescending in any way, and effortlessly good with
Caitlin, who had her own not-so-secret crush on him, which amused Sarah and
tickled Joe pink.
   Then it all seemed to go wrong for Sarah.  One night she went to a party
with some of her college friends; Joe wasn't with her, they'd had some kind
of argument in the car outside the house that afternoon, she'd gone to the
party without him, and she'd come back in a hell of a state, dishevelled,
in tears, mom ready to call the sheriff, and dad trying to calm everyone
down.  I admit it, I eavesdropped; no-one was going to tell me anything,
but it was obvious something had happened to Sarah, something bad,
something to do with whoever's house the party had been at.
   As I snooped further, I heard more than I wanted to, about what had
happened to my big sis, where it happened, and most of all, who did it.  I
knew what they were saying, and the sound of my big sis, who'd never been
anything but the best thing in my life, crying desperately as she told mom
and dad what had happened to her, made my blood boil.
   For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt someone real bad; in all
my bouts in the ring I'd never lost my temper, my opponents were just that,
opponents, not my enemies, not objects of hatred, and I'd respected them.
But now I wanted to grab that piece of shit and pound him until he was just
a lifeless red ruin for what he'd done to my beautiful big sister.
   The following afternoon I waited outside the campus until the man I
wanted to see came ambling out like he owned the place.  I walked next to
him along the sidewalk as he walked to his car, until we passed an
alleyway, then I pushed him as hard as I could, watching him sprawl full
length among the garbage and litter.  He may have had almost five years on
me, but I had 20 lbs and four inches on him, and he hit the ground with a
satisfying thud.
   "Hey, what the fuck...?" he bellowed, jumping to his feet, and that's
when I let him have it, a looping roundhouse left, powered by all my rage
and disgust, that spun him round and dumped him back in the garbage.
   As he climbed to his feet, he got a quick one-two that slammed him back
against the wall and as he came back off the wall, he got another left
hook, this one right into the bridge of his nose.  I heard the craacckk! 
as his nose broke.  Today I feel ashamed of it, but right there and then I
felt a huge burst of satisfaction watching him bleed like a stuck hog.
   To give him his due, he came back out swinging, but he had no chance; he
was used to having his teammates on the football field protect and defend
him, the star quarterback, and his half-wit gang of bullies and yes-men to
help him throw his weight around in the corridors in high school, but when
he was alone, he was easy meat, and every punch he threw missed, while
every punch I threw connected somewhere painful.  I battered him to his
knees, feeling immense satisfaction that this pig who had hurt my sister
was on his knees before me, asking, no begging me to stop, blood pouring
from his nose and mouth, his eyes bruised and blackening, large bruises all
over his face where I'd connected again and again.
   Eventually I decided I'd beaten him enough to get some answers out of
him; if I didn't get enough answers out of him, I was going to beat him
some more.  Right then I didn't care if he scuttled home to mommy and she
kissed his current trivial set of boo-boo's better, or he got carried into
the ER because I'd beaten the living shit out of him, but he was going to
tell me everything or the ER was going to be the least of his worries.
   I held him upright by his expensive bouffant hairstyle, which I guess
was supposed to make him look like someone out of Wham!  or something, but
just looked stupid surrounding his meaty thick-lipped face.
   As I questioned him, piece by piece I got the whole sordid story out of
him, how he'd decoyed Joe out to a motel on the town line with a message
supposedly from Sarah, that she wanted to meet him there and talk, and how
he'd paid Laurie Hollister, the school tramp, to tell Sarah that she was
Joe's new girl, that she and Joe had been doing the business, and how she
was going to be with him after the party in a room they had in an
out-of-town motel, and then how he'd lured Sarah up to the bluffs, and what
he'd done to her there.
   To this day I don't know how I didn't just chop him in the throat and
watch him choke to death there and then.  When he'd finished, I dragged him
to his feet and gave him another couple of vicious lefts and rights to the
face, just for spite, to make him fear me, and to hurt him some more for
what he'd done to my beautiful sister.  As I left him sitting there in the
garbage, slumped against a wall covered in dog-piss stains, bloody and
afraid, he looked up at me, his little weasel eyes darting around like rats
in a barrel.
   "Who are you?" he croaked, "what's Sarah Novak to you?"
   He flinched as I walked back toward him and reached down to haul him
closer by his collar so I could look him in his scared little eyes, now
puffed and bruised where I'd given him something to remember me by.
   "Sarah Novak's my sister, and for what you did, I should kill you; maybe
one day I will.  You should know one thing, you little dog's dick; I'm
fifteen right now, and I fucked you up good, imagine what I'll be able to
do to you in five years time.  Stay away from my sister, and from my
family, or I'll do this to you every chance I get, and every time it'll be
worse, you hear me, you little prick?  And while you're down there in the
dog-piss, think on this; you were lucky it was me; my mom wants to cut off
your balls, then shove a double-barrel up your quacker and pull both
triggers for what you did, and if you think it's just talk, then you don't
know my mother, so thank your lucky stars I got here first!"
   He nodded, unable to speak for nervously swallowing.  I left him there
minus his dignity, his bravado, and several of his teeth, surrounded by
garbage and dog urine, his expensive Michael Jackson 'Thriller' jacket and
trendy Lee Cooper jeans covered in smears from the rotting garbage and
nameless filth he'd spent so much time sprawled in.
   By the time I got home I was shaking in reaction and my hands were
burning, the skin of my knuckles split and bleeding in places.  As I came
in, Caitlin spotted me.
   "Frankie, have you seen...oh my God, Frankie, what happened to your
hands?  Frankie, honey, what is it?" she held my arms tightly, unnerved by
the sight of me shaking.
   She towed me into the kitchen and sat me down while she got a bowl of
water and dumped some ice into it.
   "Here, put them in here!" she ordered, taking my hands and pushing them
into the ice water.  It felt good, alleviating the stinging and allowing
them to unclench.  While my hands were soaking, she went and found some
gauze and some antiseptic, and spent the next 20 minutes drying, cleaning
and taping-up the worst of the cuts.  When she'd finished, she sat back and
looked at me appraisingly.  One of the things I'd always found most
appealing about Kat was her ability to look right into you and work out
what was going on inside; she had that in common with Sarah, which was why
I've never been able to sneak one past either one of them.
   "I...got into a fight, okay?" I lied, Kat looking me with one eyebrow
raised, a gesture she'd inherited or copied straight from mom.
   "Don't even bother trying to lie to me, Francis Xavier Novak!" she
gritted, leaning forward and poking me in the chest.  "I know no-one in
that school will touch you.  This is to do with whatever it was that
happened to Sally, isn't it?  What happened?  No-one will tell me anything,
Sally just stays in her room crying, and mom and dad look like they've been
fighting, now mom just sits there crying, so Don't.  You.  Start.  Lying.
To.  Me!"
   She emphasised each word with a prod in my chest, and I realised she was
furious, her eyes flashing like emeralds in firelight, and I was suddenly
just a little afraid of her.  She sensed this, and patted my knee, drawing
herself closer so she could rest her head on my shoulder.
   "Frankie, what happened to Sally?  Was it what I think?  Did someone
hurt her...you know...like that?"
   I looked at her, unable to bring myself to say it, to tell my kid sister
what I knew, why I'd done what I'd done.  I saw tears gather in her eyes,
concern and horror, anger, fear and outrage all flitting across her face.
   "No, Frankie, no, please say no, not...not Sally, oh God, who?  Who
could have done that to her?  Why?  She never hurt anyone..." she
whispered.
   Two big tears rolled down her cheeks, compassion for her big sister
flooding out of her.  Suddenly she looked up at me, her eyes sharp and
accusatory.
   "You know who did it, don't you?  That's what this is about, isn't it?"
she demanded, holding up my bandaged hand, "You know who did that to my
sister, don't you?"
   My look told her everything she needed to know, and she turned away, her
shoulders shaking.  I put my arm around her, and she collapsed against me,
crying as though her little heart was breaking.  I tended to forget that
for all her sharp wits and smart mouth, Kat was still only 13, still just a
little kid, and this was too much for her to try and deal with.  I let her
cry until she'd cried herself out, doing my best to mop her tears, finally
letting her blow her nose and calm herself down again.  When she'd finished
she looked closely at me.
   "Did you hurt him bad?" she asked, and I hedged, not wanting to admit
anything to her, but she asked me again.
   "I said, did you hurt him bad?  Answer me, Frankie, and you better say
'yes'!"
   I mumbled something about giving him a beating but he walked away, but
Kat wouldn't let it go.
   "Who was it, Frankie?  Who would do something like that to Sally?"
   She pinned me with her eyes, and I caved in, just like I always did when
it came to Kat, and I told her, seeing the shock and outrage and disgust
grow in her eyes, and wishing I'd kept my big mouth shut.  I made her
promise, on my life, that she'd never let Sarah know that we knew, making
sure she understood that Sarah felt soiled and ashamed enough, even though
it wasn't her fault, without having to know that we knew as well.
   Kat promised solemnly to keep it secret and between us to her dying day,
and as Kat had never broken a promise to me in her life, I was content
she'd do the same this time too.  As she stood up to clear away the
dressings and gauze, she kissed me on top of the head.
   I looked at her in surprise.
   "What was that for baby?  And she smiled back at me.
   "For being Sally's knight in shining armour and avenging her honor!  She
can't thank you, so I will!  Thank you Frankie, I'm so proud of you, it was
an honor to fix up your hands for you!"
   I had to grin; my baby sister was so funny sometimes!
   Next day the whole town was buzzing about how Steven Dolan, the richest
kid in town, had been jumped by 5 guys who'd tried to mug him, but he'd
bravely beaten them off, getting a little knocked about in the process, but
he'd handed them all a beating and run them off.  He was a hero, a genuine
example to the town, with battle-scars to prove it; there was even talk of
the college making a presentation to him, and how the Mayor was going to
give him a special Citizenship Award...
   Now you know what kind of town I grew up in.
   *
   A few weeks after all this, mom called Kat and me into the sitting room
and asked us to sit down; she had something she wanted to tell us.  We were
both mystified; mom looked solemn, and angry, and sad, a welter of emotions
flitting across her face.  I had a sudden premonition what this was all
about, and hoped it wasn't true.
   Mom dithered for a while, clearly looking for a way to begin, so I
helped her a little.
   "Mom, what's wrong?  Is this to do with Sally, with whatever it was that
happened last month?"
   Mom looked ready to cry, spooking Caitlin, who huddled closer to me, her
knuckles white with the way she was clutching my hand.
   She looked at me half gratefully and half in anger that I'd broached the
subject, but she nodded and turned away to look out the window.
   "Kids, Sally...your big sister Sarah is...she's...Sarah is going to have
a baby in the spring.  We know who the...father is, your father is going to
speak to him and find out what he's going...his plans...if he's going to
accept responsibility for his child, this baby Sarah's having...in the
spring..." she trailed off, looking off into the distance, her voice barely
more than a whisper.
   Kat looked at me in incomprehension, then suddenly she realised how this
must have come about, her eyes popping as she almost burst with the effort
of not blurting it out.  I slipped my hand over her mouth to quiet her, but
mom never even noticed, still staring vaguely off into the distance.  I
pulled Kat away, signalling that we should go talk somewhere, and as we
left the room, mom spoke.
   "Sally's going to need both of you to help her now, you know that don't
you?  She's in no condition to go back to college, and I need both of you
to be patient with her, help her, just be there when she needs you. 
The...boy who did this is no good; your father's wasting his time, that
whole family are no good, so Sally's going to be alone, and she's going to
be a mother, and there'll be times when she's going to be angry for what
happened, and she might snarl and snap and lash out at you; when she does,
just remember she's your big sister and she loves both of you more than
anything in the world, and she's only doing it you because she can't do it
to the one who deserves it, okay?"
   We both murmured assent, Kat doing so because I did, I think, not
because she understood what mom meant, but I got it.  Kat took me by the
arm and towed me upstairs to my room, where she sat down on my bed while I
paced around, digesting what mom had told us.  I only had a vague idea of
the implications of what mom had told us, the main fact, that Sarah was
pregnant, beating most insistently in my brain.  Now I wanted to find
Steven Dolan and rip his arms and legs off, beat him into an unrecognisable
mess, and show the town what their 'hero' was really made of.
   Kat watched me quizzically for a while as I paced around muttering and
cracking my knuckles, eventually calling out my name, and repeating it
until I broke out of my reverie to look at her in surprise; I'd forgotten
she was there.
   "Frankie, Frankie, FRANKIE!  Have you finished talking to yourself yet?"
she demanded, "Talk to me!"
   I sat on the floor next to the bed while she sprawled on her tummy on
the bed, her head level with mine.
   "Frankie, what's Sally gonna do now?  She wanted to graduate, now she's
gonna have to stay home and have a baby, is she having a baby because
of...what happened to her, you know...?"
   I leaned back, eyes closed, not really wanting to answer.  Caitlin
waited for a few seconds for my answer, then, growing impatient, clonked me
on the back of the head with her fist.
   "I said...!" she began, cocking her fist to give me another one, but I
grabbed her wrist.
   "If you do that again I'm going to shove your head in the toilet and
flush it!  Now quit that, you don't hit people!  Remember what dad's always
saying, Kat, and try and be a little lady once in a while!"
   Kat pouted, looking cute as all get out, and I had to grin; even at that
age I couldn't stay mad at her, no matter how much she deserved a good
swift kick in the pants.
   "Look, Kat, Sally needs us now; that piece of crap and his dirt-bag
family are gonna walk away from this, because people like them don't think
people like us matter.  Mom's right; dad's wasting his time, Sally's never
gonna get any kind of help from them.  We just have to make sure we're
there when she needs us; we're all she's got.  I think I can safely say
Joe's gonna run a million miles when he finds out about this, he's not
gonna want anything to do with Sally, and I think that's gonna hurt her the
most.  So this is your heads-up, okay?  No more talking about Joe, no more
mooning over him, or blushing when his name gets mentioned, okay?  Sally
feels alone enough without us rubbing it in, so just leave it alone, got
that?"
   Kat's eyes had been getting progressively larger as I talked, and she
just nodded, the seriousness of my tone getting through to her immediately.
She really was too quick on the uptake sometimes, more so than I would
expect from a 13 year old girl, but this was our sister, the one person in
the world we adored more than any other, and all we wanted to do was make
the hurt go away, or at least not let her hurt alone.
   I got up and headed for the door.
   "Where you going, Frankie?" she asked, and I paused to look at her.
   "I need to talk to dad, and no, you can't come, just give mom some story
or the other if she asks where I am, I don't care what, okay?  You got
that?"
   Kat looked rebellious, obviously wanting to come with me, but knowing I
wasn't kidding this time, so she let it drop; like I said, she was a smart
kid...
   *
   When dad came out of the factory gates, he saw me waiting on the
sidewalk, so he pulled over and wound down his window.
   "Frank, what are you doing here, son?  You can't catch a ride, I'm not
going home yet, just go home and I'll see you later.  Go on now!"
   I opened the door and climbed in, turning to face him.
   "I know where you're going, I'm coming with you.  Sally's my family too,
and I want to see what those scum Dolan's are going to do about what
happened to her!"
   Dad's expression changed, his face going very still.
   "You...know?  About Sally ...and...?
   I nodded.
   "Everything, everything that creep did, how he set her up, the whole
story.  Where do you think our 'Town Hero' got his brand-new face?"
   Dad looked down, shaking his head.
   "That was you?  Oh Frankie, didn't I tell you enough times to think with
your head and not your fists?  You shouldn't have done that."
   He leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his eyebrows, something he did
when he was thinking.
   "Okay, what's done is done, but next time you want to pound someone,
walk away and count to fifty, then, if you still need to do it, do it, but
at least you've taken the time to think why you're doing it;
spur-of-the-moment revenge is a poor excuse for rearranging someone's
face!"
   He started the car again and looked at me, at my expression.
   "Okay Frankie, you know where we're going, just two things; keep your
mouth shut while we're there, and I mean that, and you're going to hear
some stuff you will never, ever repeat to anyone, you hear me?"
   I was more than a little intimidated by his manner; he'd never enjoined
that kind of silence from me before, believing as he did in openness and
honesty, and I nodded, wary of him for the first time in my life.  He
looked at my face for a little longer, then reached out and ruffled my hair
lightly.
   "Good man, I knew I could rely on you; you're just like your father,
there's more of Martin in you than you know.  Now, let's get this over with
and go home!"
   We drove to the suburb the Dolan's lived in, owned, really,
pretentiously named 'Beverley Hills', no doubt another boost for their
already bloated ego's and overwhelming sense of their own importance. 
Jerry Dolan and his family lived in a moderately palatial ranch-style home
surrounded by a high wall and imposing gates, the gateposts adorned with
crowned lions; obviously they thought of themselves as the leaders of the
pack around here.  Dad grinned and pointed with his chin at them, and I had
to grin back.  He pressed the call-button and spoke to someone inside, and
the gates slowly swung open, closing again after we drove through.  When we
got out of the car, there was Jerry, looking his usual puffy, pouchy self,
his drink-ravaged features bleary and indistinct, and his face glowing with
large areas of broken veins, making him look red-faced, bruised, and
unhealthy.  As he stood up he swayed, and I realised he was drunk, not even
6 o'clock and he'd obviously been communing steadily with the bottle long
before we set out to see him.
   He lurched to the front of the porch, leaning on the upright to support
himself.
   "What d'you wan' here, Moran?" he slurred, his eyes piggy and hostile,
and as I looked at him I realised I was looking at his son 30 years down
the road; the same meaty features, the same thick-lipped, self-indulgent
sneer, the same air of entitlement.  Like his son, Jerry Dolan believed he
walked three spans above the earth.
   Dad looked at him with barely concealed contempt.
   "You know why I'm here, Dolan, and I want to know what you're going to
do about your pissant little son.  I know you think you can do anything,
well, not this time, not to my daughter, so I'll repeat myself; what are
you going to do?"
   Jerry swayed so much I really thought he was going to collapse.
   "I don't have to do anything, Moran!  If your slut daughter wants to
open her legs..."
   He got no further before dad's huge hand grabbed him around the throat
and yanked him close like he weighed nothing.
   "Be careful what you say about my girl, Dolan, you may be someone in
this town, but right now you feel like nothing to me.  Watch your mouth!"
   With a contemptuous surge of his shoulder, dad flung him to the ground
by his throat, where he bounced once and lay still.  I thought he'd
actually killed him, he'd hit the ground so hard, then came a loud snore.
Dad looked at me and grinned.
   "He's too drunk to notice, but don't worry, in the morning he's going to
hurt good, believe me!"
   I looked up, to spot Steve Dolan fading inside the house, a look of sick
fear on his face as he realised his protector-daddy was out cold and there
was nothing stopping my dad going in there, dragging him out, and beating
seven types of shit out of him.
   There was a clapping sound, and someone moved up out of the shadows into
the early evening sunlight, and I gasped; it was a woman, and she looked
exactly like Kat, or how Kat would probably look in 25 years time.
   "Hello Mikey, how are you?" she said in a soft contralto, and dad
grinned at her.
   "Rosie, damn you look more like mom every time I see you!  It's been too
long, baby-girl, you're looking good!"
   The woman smiled again, looking exactly like Kat, even the slight tilt
in her eyebrow when she smiled, and gave a little curtsey, and I couldn't
help but gawp.  Dad looked at me and smiled.
   "Frankie, let me introduce my sister; Roisian Shelagh Caitlin
Moran...Dolan.  Rosie, my stepson, Frank, but you knew that!"
   She stepped down from the porch to take my hand, and look closely at me,
her fingertips gently brushing my cheek for an instant.
   "He looks so much like poor Martin, doesn't he?  I know Sarah does.  How
about little Caitlin, does she know?"
   Dad shook his head.
   "I don't think that would be such a good idea, especially now, after all
this...mess."
   Roisian grimaced.
   "You know I'd do something if I could; I have no illusions about my son,
I know what he did, and what he's capable of; in so many ways he's his
father's son.  I suppose I have you to thank for handing him his ass?" she
asked me, and I could only nod a little apprehensively.
   "It's alright, Frank, it was a long time coming, and I thought it might
teach him a lesson, but his father sees it differently.  This family
abounds with lies and secrets, one more lie to make the Dolan myth even
more powerful is just another brick in the wall they've built around
themselves.  I'm truly sorry about what he did to Sarah; she was such a
pretty, happy little girl, and Martin adored her, as did I."
   She smiled wistfully.
   "Your father was in my class in school, Mikey and he used to hang out
together, they were best friends, and I used to tag along, hoping he'd
notice me; fat chance!"
   She grinned at me, looking younger and even more like my little sister.
   "To my bad luck, he only ever had eyes for Colleen Hennessy, but we
remained friends.  Then Jerry came on the scene, and I married him when I
finally realised Martin was never going to look twice at me; Jerry was
already a drinker then, but he was a sweet guy too, and I foolishly thought
I could turn him off he booze.  When your father died I was heartbroken,
and yes, I know the stories about that, and I also think there was more to
it than a simple hit-and-run, but I can't prove anything.  I still miss him
terribly, though; he was such a sweet boy in school, such a gentle man, as
well as a true gentleman, and so young when he was killed, such a tragic
waste!  If things had been different, I might even have been your mom! 
Every time I see you in town, my heart skips a beat, you're so much like
your father, and I do miss him so!"
   Dad reached out and stroked her hair.
   "Poor little Rosie!  You could leave him, you know; there's nothing left
here for you, and I have room in my home for one more family member, it's
your home too, if you want it!"
   Roisian grimaced.
   "Thank you, big brother, but this is the bed I made, I did it with my
eyes wide open, so I'll have to lie in it a while longer; Jerry would never
give me a divorce, but I think it won't be too long now; his cirrhosis is
becoming critical, but he won't stop drinking, so he's going to solve my
problem for me, one way or another!  Once an alcoholic, always an
alcoholic, and it's killed him, he just doesn't know it yet."
   Dad put his hand on my shoulder, time for us to leave.  He looked one
last time at Roisian.
   "Do you need a hand getting him back...?" and she shook her head.
   "Leave him there; he's used to it!  He'll wake up in a few hours and go
find a bottle of bourbon to clear his head, and he won't even remember this
tomorrow.  I'm sorry I can't do anything for Sarah, if only for Martin's
sake, I know what my son's capable of, and I don't believe a word of his
story; lying comes as easy to him a breathing, a trait he inherited in full
from his father.  I'm sorry, Mikey; please hug Sarah and Caitlin for me,
just don't tell her about me, she doesn't need to know, not yet."
   Dad hugged his sister, and she hugged me, and all I could do was feel
sorry for this beautiful, sad lady, my sister's aunt, who looked so much
like her.
   We drove home in silence, dad only saying one thing to me.
   "Remember, Frank, Caitlin can't know that the man who hurt her sister
like that is her own first cousin; my sister made me promise I'd never tell
her, and I want the same promise from you; Caitlin's going to have enough
to deal with without dealing with that as well."
   Of course I promised; I didn't want Sally finding out that Steve Dolan
was her kid sister's cousin either, that was something she really didn't
need to know.
   As the days passed, I gradually found it easier to put it from my mind.
It wasn't such a deep, dark secret to keep, merely an unpleasant one, and
if I didn't think about it, it didn't affect me, or so I thought; what I
hadn't counted on was just how perceptive and smart Caitlin really was. 
She began to suspect that there was something up almost from the outset, as
the knowledge I had gained imperceptibly colored my interaction with her;
imperceptible to me, perhaps, but glaringly obvious to her.
   It all came to a head about a week later.  Joe Anderson had found out
about Sarah' condition, and, instead of lighting out of town at a dead run,
had asked Sarah to marry him, surprising nearly everyone, including his own
family, who wanted nothing to do with it, nor did they want Joe bringing-up
someone else's child, but he was over 21, in love with Sarah, and, best of
all, he was one of the honest to God good guys, a true White Hat, the guy
who rode into town and saved the day.  Mom was nearly fainting with relief,
dad was walking around with a grin like a pumpkin, and Joe looked like he'd
just scored the jackpot on 'Jeopardy', while Sarah was living in a dream
world, plotting and planning her dream life with Joe.  In the middle of
this, early one morning, there was a knock on my bedroom door.  I looked at
my watch and it was seven o'clock; far too early for visitors, so I ignored
it and rolled over to go back to sleep.
   Next thing I knew, Caitlin was sitting on my back, waking me up by
repeatedly bouncing on me, the way she did when she was six years old; only
now she wasn't six, and she weighed a ton, if the bend she put in my spine
was anything to go by.
   "What, what do you want, do you know what time it is?  Get lost Kat, I'm
trying to sleep!" I hissed, but she kept it up until she was sure I was
fully awake.
   "What's going on, Frankie?" she demanded, her voice no louder than mine.
   "With what, Caitlin, anything specific, or in general?" I hedged, only
for her to bounce on my back again, making me groan in pain; she was really
hurting me!
   "Talk Frankie, or I'm gonna keep doing this.  You know exactly what I'm
talking about; ever since you and dad came back from seeing the Dolan's
you've both been acting like the spies in 'Mad' magazine.  What gives?"
   I groaned again, this time in chagrin; there was no way I was going to
tell her what I knew, she didn't need to know, not with Sarah's wedding so
close.  The truth was, I didn't want Sarah finding out just before her
happy day, and Caitlin just might let slip something.
   Kat took my groan as a sign that she was wearing me down, so she bounced
again.
   "Look, will you quit that!?" I hissed again, getting ready to dump her
on the floor, because she was starting to piss me off, something she'd
never managed before.
   "Talk, Frankie, or I'm gonna use my knees, I mean it!" she hissed back,
dodging my flailing arm as I tried to swat her off me.
   I knew that at some point I wa going to tell her, I just didn't want to,
but I had already lost the battle; Kat was a very persuasive young lady.  I
turned over sharply, dumping her on the floor on her butt with a squeak of
surprise.
   "Serves you right, Kat!" I grinned, "Now shut your mouth and listen,
this is not to go out of this room, and Sally is never, and I mean never,
to hear this from you, from me, no-one, got it?"
   Kat nodded, her eyes big as she realised how deadly serious I was.
   "When dad and I went to see the Dolan's, I met Steve's mom.  She's a
really nice lady, sad, with hair just like yours; exactly like yours, in
fact.  There's a good reason for that; her name is Roisian Dolan, but her
maiden name was...Moran."
   Kat listened in puzzlement, then suddenly her eyes opened wide, looking
like two bright emerald marbles.
   "Oh no, Frankie, no, d'you mean...?"
   I nodded slowly.
   "She's dad's little sister, your aunt, which means that little piss-rag
Steve Dolan...is your first cousin.  Now you know why Sally must never
know, I need you to swear you'll never tell her, this is something she
can't ever know, you got that?"
   Kat promised me, her lip trembling and her eyes brimming as she absorbed
the fact that she was closely related to the boy who'd done that terrible
thing to our beautiful sister.  She promised me, and she never broke that
promise.
   *
   The wedding went off without a hitch (no pun intended) and Sarah and Joe
temporarily moved into her room while dad and Joe (and with a little help
from me!) did some basic renovations on the old Moran house on Bixby, to
give Joe and Sarah their own home.  Joe still had a year before he
graduated, so mom and dad helped them out.  Sarah couldn't work as she
began to show, so she spent most of her time with mom, with Kat buzzing
around her.
   Joey was born when I was 16, and just a few weeks before Kat's 14th
birthday, and he was the spitting image of Sarah, the same golden brown
eyes, the same dark gold hair, the same quirky smile.  Mom was in love with
him, as was dad, and Kat spent her every waking moment carrying him, to the
point where Sarah had to literally prise him away from her so she could
nurse him.  Kat was infatuated with her baby nephew, although she once
confessed she couldn't get straight in her head whether he was her nephew
or her cousin.  I warned her to only think of him as her nephew, anything
else was just too dangerous, and too hurtful to Sarah; that pulled her up
short.
   And so life went on; Joe graduated and got a job with an insurance firm
headquartered in Roseville, two towns over and just across the state line,
and he, Sarah and Joey were the typical young, mid-western family.  Then
when Joey was almost a year old, we heard the news; Joe was ill; he had
cancer; it was aggressive and incredibly painful, and it was terminal. 
Sarah was devastated, as were we all, and poor Kat, with her everlasting
crush on him, she was almost destroyed by the news.  When we lost Joe, Kat
nearly went out of her mind with grief, she and Sarah constantly together
as they tried to come to terms with the loss to our family.
   The funeral was a small, family affair, just immediate family, and a few
of Joe's closest friends, and one lady with dark glasses and bright copper
hair, who slipped in during the service, sat quietly at the back, and
slipped out before the end, leaving a single white rose on the seat she'd
vacated.
   Sarah decided to stay on in the home she and Joe had built together,
surrounding himself with his memory as she brought up little Joey, making
sure the little boy knew all about his father, constantly reinforcing the
love Joe had for that little boy.  I also knew Steve Dolan had married
Angel Rayne, his high-school squeeze, and had had a little boy a few months
after Joey was born.  Kat was even more confused and conflicted; her adored
little nephew/cousin now had a little brother, was she supposed to hate
him? Love him?  Pretend he didn't exist?  She came to me for answers, and I
didn't have any, and I wasn't going to tell Kat how to think.
   Around about this time, Kat was starting to develop an interest in boys,
and now dad and I were both on tenterhooks; she was only 14 and wise beyond
her years, but still naive, unsophisticated, and devastatingly pretty, her
pale skin, flaming red hair and bright emerald eyes immediately setting her
apart from the other girls her age, none of whom was as eye-catching as
her. I had my work cut out trying to make sure boys her age, all urges and
hormones (and I should know, I used to be one, hell, still was...) kept
their hands in sight at all times, having to get pretty persuasive with
some of the more persistent ones, if you count bouncing them down the
school steps on their chins as being 'persuasive'.  The word got around
quickly; Caitlin Moran's older brother was bad news, steer clear of her,
which made my life easier, and made for some high-tension slanging matches
between her and me.  I always won, by the simple expedient of hustling her
into her room and slamming the door on her, then sitting outside, so every
time she opened her door, I'd cock an eyebrow at her and say "Where are you
going?"
   After a while, she calmed down as she realised she didn't have to prove
how grown-up she was, and life normalised around us.  Boys still buzzed and
hovered around her, but at a respectful distance; we were both in the same
building in school, the junior high school sharing space with the high
school proper, so she never knew if I was just around a corner, ditto for
the boys her age (and some of the older ones) which kept them all
well-behaved and reduced the likelihood of, and opportunities for, any
mutual explorations.
   Of more concern to me, and Sarah, if truth be told, although she tried
to hide it, were the disturbing stories we were beginning to hear about how
Steve Dolan and that worthless trull he'd married were treating their son.
Stories were circulating that the little boy was...different, that there
was something wrong with him, and so he was being neglected, virtually
abandoned.  Nothing was being done, because the Dolan's had family members
in positions of power and influence in virtually every state, county and
municipal office, from Law Enforcement to Sanitation, and any complaints
would have just become lost in a tangle of paperwork; a family as adept at
keeping secrets as the Dolan clan knew only too well how to protect their
nasty little secrets and treasure-troves of lies.
   These stories eventually got to Kat, and bless her, they outraged her;
the thought that her beloved nephew's little brother was being neglected by
the two people in the whole world he was supposed to rely on the most lit a
fire in her that nearly blew up into incandescence.  I almost had to
physically restrain her from going up to Beverley Hills and punching-out
Angel (and what a misnomer that was!) Dolan for doing what she was doing to
her little boy; I had to remind her that it was none of our business, and
we were not supposed to get involved, because we were not supposed to have
any reason to get involved.  Eventually Sarah did, but that's a whole other
story.  I had wondered why Steve's mother wasn't doing something about it,
and when I asked dad, he told me she'd moved back east after Jerry Dolan's
death and cut all ties with Steve and his wife.  Dad seemed sad about it,
so I didn't press the point.
   When I was 17, the worst thing happened.  Dad collapsed at work, and was
rushed to hospital in Roseville, but died on the way there.  His heart, his
big, generous, compassionate heart had given out on him, the curse of the
Moran men, the same thing that had killed his father and both his brothers.
   Mom was inconsolable, but Kat was nearly hysterical with grief, so much
so that Sarah and I honestly worried for her sanity; dad had been the
center of her world, her rock, the one person other than me that she knew
she could 100% rely on to be there for her, and he'd been taken away from
her when she needed him most.  I was in almost as bad a shape; I never knew
my biological father, Michael Moran was my dad, the only father I'd ever
known, and losing him was like losing a big part of me.  So much of what I
was, and what I stood for, what I believed in, came from him.  His
willingness to listen, his reluctance to criticise, his ability to make the
worst days seem that little bit better, all that was gone, taken from us,
from me.  He was gone, and I had lost another father.
   The funeral was almost an event; dad had been a popular foreman and then
manager, and was well-known in the town; virtually everyone had either gone
to school with him or worked with, or for him, and I could feel the
heartfelt tributes as, one after another, people said good things about him
that I knew, but apparently so did everyone else.  Kat and Sarah sat pale
and uncommunicative; their grief for dad contained but not diminished in a
little well of deeper sadness on that sad day.  As we were leaving the
church, I saw on one of the rear seats a single white rose, and I knew that
all the family had been there, one way or another.
   Life soon settled back into normality, although Kat was no longer the
fizzy, exuberant, precocious, brash teenage girl she been before; losing
dad had taken something out of her, and I grieved for that loss as well,
for the loss of my little sister and that special innocence she'd
possessed. Now she was even more attached to me, sneaking into my room at
night to sleep on my couch, staying in my room to do her homework or watch
TV, or just sitting silently, watching me, usually with her comforter
tented around her like Sitting Bull outside his tepee, usually wearing one
of my Tee-shirts.
   Mom got it, and asked me to leave her to do that until she'd gotten over
the worst of the loss, and of course I agreed.  I didn't mind having her
there; even if her conversation was usually monosyllabic, she was still
company for me; if she was silent and uncommunicative, at least I still had
the sound of her breathing at night, especially if I woke up to find her
huddled up against me, her cheeks wet where she'd been crying in her sleep.
   My heart was breaking for my baby sister, I didn't know how to help her,
and I couldn't give her back what she needed most in the world, so we
ambled along, silently communicating, or not, living in silences that we
didn't know how to break.
   Eventually she began to come back, to take notice when I commented on a
show we were watching, to maybe give a wan smile when I made a joke, and to
spend more time in her room or with mom rather than hiding-out in my room.
I breathed a sigh of relief as she recovered from the paralysing grief that
had almost overwhelmed her, and sometimes now I caught her looking oddly at
me, then grinning mysteriously before looking away.
   She still snuck into my room now and again, though, and I'd wake up to
find her curled up fast asleep on my couch, with her favorite quilt wrapped
around her, her face relaxed and angelic, the face of a little girl at
peace with the world.
   I started college in the fall, studying for an MBA, as dad had always
felt I had the mind and discipline for business; to my surprise, I found I
had a natural aptitude and an actual interest in the world of finance and
management.  I lived at home, as the college was only in Monte Vista, five
miles away, an easy commute.  While I studied, I also kept a close eye on
Kat, and took an interest in her school life and interests.  She'd tried
out for the cheerleading squad, but inexplicably ditched the final try-out,
even though she was one of the top three picks, and during one of our
evening sessions watching TV in my room I asked her why.
   She grinned, suddenly looking 12 years old again.
   "I realised I didn't want to be lumped in with the rest of those bimbos
and tramps, okay?  I looked at who was in the squad, and who was trying
out, and asked myself if I'd allow any of those sluts anywhere near
Frankie, and the answer was a definite no!  I don't want to be labelled as
one of 'those' of girls!"
   She leaned over and kissed me once, lightly, on the cheek.
   "My Frankie is a special guy, and there's a special girl waiting for
him, you wait and see!"
   I laughed, delighted that she'd followed dad's advice long ago, to do
what you want to do, not what people think you should do, or want you to
do. My baby sister was getting to be a feisty little miss again.  I think
dad would have been proud of her, I know I was.
   And so started a new type of closeness between Kat and me.  While we
were both there 100% for Sarah if she needed us, I realised Kat needed me
too; with no father, and no Joe anymore, I was the only older male
influence she had, even if it was only by a couple of years; I became her
friend again, but also her confidante, her support-system, her conscience,
and her confessor, even though I was only a couple of years older than her;
I think it was because I never questioned her judgement.  I knew she had a
good head on her shoulders, really all she needed me for was to confirm
decisions she'd already made.  As she got older, this became more and more
the way things were.  It didn't help that she was also blossoming into a
lovely young woman; I began to have nightmares about her, boys, and the
multitude of things that teenagers could get up to that ended badly,
especially when the boys were loaded hormone-guns with hair-triggers, just
waiting to go off, and Kat was just about the prettiest girl in the whole
damn town!
   I didn't realise it at first, but I was actually becoming jealous of the
boys who'd call her, or walk her to school, or walk her home, or talked to
her outside the school, and those who had the nerve to call the house,
well, I gave them short-shrift if I got to the phone before she did.  It
was an uneasy time for me; I was feeling more like her father than a
slightly over-protective older brother; I was finding it hard to define
inside what it was I was protecting her from, and why, although the easy
answer was, 'take a walk down Bixby, see if you can spot Sarah, all alone
there with that little boy, is that what you want for her?'
   When I thought of it that way, my resolve stiffened, although the
feelings of jealousy and resentment when boys called asking her for a date
never quite went away; deep down inside I knew it was more than that, but I
could never dredge down deep enough to properly examine those reasons for
my attitude toward her and boys, perhaps because I knew subconsciously that
I'd find something there that I shouldn't.
   A few weeks before Kat's 18th birthday, yet another hammer-blow landed
on this family.  I got a call one afternoon, just after I'd come in from
classes, it was Sarah, wanting me to collect Kat and take her over to Bixby
Street, Sarah wanted to see us both.  She wouldn't elaborate over the
phone, but I thought her voice sounded strained, like she was restraining
herself.  To tell the truth, I was a little alarmed; my first thought was
that there was a problem with little Joey, but Sarah wouldn't say anything
more, just repeated her instruction to go get Kat and bring her over, and
then she hung up.
   I drove to the high school, intercepting Kat as she was climbing into a
car with a group of girls and boys, and fought down the sudden surge of
possessive jealousy, feeling strange that I should be feeling that for her.
Kat was surprised to see me, and no less apprehensive when I told her what
Sarah had told me, but she got in the car, making no conversation all the
way to Sarah's home, about 3 miles away.
   When we got there, Sarah answered the door, and I was shocked at her
appearance; she looked pale and drawn, and her eyes were puffed and red
from crying.  My heart leaped into my throat; something was wrong with
Joey, oh my God!  Kat jumped to the same conclusion, pushing past Sarah to
grab up the toddler and hold him close, nuzzling and baby-talking to him as
tears started in her eyes.
   Sarah wordlessly took Joey from her, Kat reluctantly letting go of him,
and sat down, motioning for both of us to sit.  Kat reached out to her, her
hand trembling.
   "Sally, what...what's wrong, oh dear God, it's Joey isn't it?  Please
say it's not, please!"
   Sarah wiped her eyes and kissed the squirming infant on her lap.
   "No, baby, it's not Joey, he's fine, I promise you!"
   We both breathed again, relief shedding off us like autumn leaves.
   Kat looked at Sarah again.
   "Sally, if it's not Joey, what is it, what's wrong?"
   Sarah lifted Joey to look into his clear tawny-brown eyes, so much like
hers, a single tear escaping her own and running down her cheek.
   "It's mom.  She asked me to tell you, she can't, she doesn't know how
to."
   Kat and I sat perfectly still, until I broke the silence.
   "Tell us what, Sally, what does mom want you to tell us?"
   Sarah looked away over my shoulder, not meeting my eyes.
   "Kids, mom's...ill, she's been sick for a while now, they never found
out, and now..."
   Sarah stopped to swallow, tears flowing freely now.  I hadn't even
noticed that Kat had taken my hand, her knuckles white as she squeezed me
tightly.
   "Mom has ovarian cancer, they found it too late, it's too late to stop
it, she's dying, my mom's dying..."
   I was stunned; mom hadn't looked sick this morning when she chided me
for not eating a proper breakfast before heading off to college, she'd
laughed at the cartoons Kat was watching at the counter while she washed
up, she'd been normal, ordinary, just mom.
   Kat sat in stunned immobility, her mouth working as she fought to say
something, two big tears welling up in her luminescent green eyes.  She
turned to me, the one who'd always made everything right for her, her mouth
working soundlessly, and then she slumped against me as she fainted,
overcome by the emotion she was trying to deal with.
   I caught her and slid her onto the couch, sliding a cushion under her
head until Sarah stopped me.
   "No Frankie, leave her lie, lift up her feet, higher than her head,
she'll be okay in a little while."
   I slid back down to the ground, staring at Sarah, trying not to cry
myself, my heart thudding as I absorbed what she'd told us.
   "How long, Sally?" I whispered, and she ducked her head down, absorbing
herself in Joey as she cried.
   "Three months, maybe six, but that's all; mom's been sick for a long
time; she wanted to keep it quiet until after Kat graduated, but now she
knows she won't even make it that far.  She's started making arrangements,
you know...for...for the funeral, the house, where Kat's going to live
after...after....I thought she could stay with me, both of you, it will be
good to have all the family in...in one place, together again, what do you
think?"
   I stared back at her, confused but resolute.
   "Kat and me, we've got a home, why don't you came and live there with
us, it's bigger, there's more room, you could --"
   Sarah shook her head sadly.
   "No, Frankie, Joe's everywhere here, all his things, the feel of him, I
can't leave here and lose the last part of him, please don't ask me to do
that!"
   I nodded, understanding completely; it seemed to me that all this family
ever did was say goodbye to its loved ones, I couldn't ask her to do that
now, not again.
   "Kat and me, we'll stay on in the house; it's her home, it's where dad
is for her, she won't leave, I guarantee you, and I'll be there to look
after her.  She'll be fine, don't worry about her.  Where's mom now?"
   Sarah swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
   "Mom's waiting at home for you.  Please don't make this difficult for
her, she doesn't want all that crying and sobbing around her.  She's going
to need your help, and Kat's too, be the man of the family, that's what you
are, Frankie, so please, take care of business, promise me?"
   I promised her, fighting back tears.  I was frightened; I didn't know
how to be the man of the family, I'd never needed to; mom was strong, and I
relied on her to tell me what was what, what was I going to do when she was
gone?  I didn't know how to bring up Kat; she may have been nearly
eighteen, but she was still the youngest, barely out of childhood, there
was so much more she need to learn from mom, how was I going to show her
what to do and who to be?
   I had to get out of there, just for a few minutes; I had to think, I had
to work out what I was going to do next.  Kat's graduation was just a
couple of months away, but mom wasn't going to be there for it, how was she
going to face graduation when all the most important people in her life
would be missing?  Only Kat and I would be there for her, no other family,
just gaps in the photograph that would tear at her forever.  And what about
college?  I know Kat had applied to State U, and a couple of colleges in
the south-west, but would she even want to go to college now?  I didn't
want to be her parent, I wasn't ready, I wasn't even three years older than
her, still just a kid myself.
   I left Sally waiting for Kat to come round, took my keys and just drove
around the block aimlessly, letting my autopilot do the driving while I
tried to come to terms with what was going on in my family, the loss of yet
another loved one, and the loneliness to come.  Kat was going to be a mess,
I knew that; she'd just barely gotten over dad, after a long, long journey
back from her despair, and now she had to do it again; I was frightened for
her; could she do this again, could she take that kind of battering again
and level-off one more time?  I doubted it, and I despaired over what would
happen to her.  Mom had made me her protector, fate had made me her
father-figure, and now life was taking mom from her just when she needed
her most.  I couldn't be her mom as well; I could barely function as an
adult myself, and the future loomed black and frightening.
   I found myself back at Sarah's door, no wiser, no less frightened, and
wishing this day had never started; somehow I had to go home, somehow I had
to face mom, I just didn't know how, nor did I want to, I just wanted to
run and hide, and make it all go away, make it not be true.
   When I went back inside, Kat was awake, sobbing against Sarah, who was
in almost as bad a state.  As soon as she saw me, Kat tore herself away
from Sarah and flew into my arms, locking her arms around my neck while a
storm of sobs wracked her.  I put my arms around her to steady her, and she
pulled herself even tighter, her face buried in the hollow of my neck and
shoulder.  I comforted her, but I couldn't, not when I wanted to cry as
hard as she was right now; I wanted my mom, I wanted her to be well, I
wanted her to be there when I graduated, when I married, when my first baby
was born, I wanted her to be there forever.  But it wasn't going to happen.
   Somehow, I managed to calm her down and convince her to come home with
me; we needed to see mom, there were things I know mom wanted to say,
things we needed to hear, and right now, every minute with mom was going to
be a precious thing, a memory to take with us when she was gone.
   Mom was waiting silently for us; her face tense and worried, perhaps
thinking the same thing about Kat that I had; how was she going to handle
this new hammer-blow?
   Kat surprised me by being calm, rational even, but i could see what it
was costing her, the tension in her as she fought not to collapse.  I
always knew she had inner strength, that day was when it started to assert
itself, the day she learned of our mother's death sentence.
   Mom was surprisingly calm and resigned; she'd known for a long time, but
had chosen to hide it from us, hoping that it would progress slowly enough
that we'd be safely ensconced in college, our career's mapping out before
us, before she had to go.  But it had quickened its pace, and she had run
out of time.
   I don't know where I got the strength to sit there as she calmly told us
about the arrangements she'd made, the provisions she'd made for Kat, and
for me, where she wanted to be buried, every last detail taken care of.
   The days fled by, mom gradually weakening as the disease took its final
toll on her, Kat and I constantly by her bedside, until it was time for her
to move to the hospital in Roseville.  She didn't want to die at home, she
wanted us to remember her living there, not dying here, and so elected to
spend her last days in hospital.  Her doctors agreed, she could receive
better care there than we could give, and it was what she wanted.  Kat and
I were at her bedside that last terrible day, Sarah in the corridor
outside, her strength finally abandoning her; she'd made her last goodbye
and fled the room, her soft sobs just audible through the closed door.
   At the end, mom went silently, slipping away so gently I didn't even
realise she'd gone, Kat's sudden intake of breath, and then her sob as mom
passed away suddenly alerting me that she was gone.  Kat crept into the
shelter of my arm as I cried with her, Sarah suddenly there too, all three
of us and little Joey now all we had in the world, all our parents and
loved ones gone long before their time.
   The arrangements mom had made included her funeral, and a Wake to
follow. There were a lot of mourners; mom had been well-known and well
liked in the community, and her friends gave good and heartfelt tributes.
Kat sat through it all like a ghost, pale, drawn, silent and
uncommunicative, Sarah no better, and it fell to me, as "the man of the
house" to make sure the mourners were properly thanked, that all
condolences were properly and graciously accepted, and that all the little
bequests and tokens of friendship and remembrance she'd set aside for her
friends were properly distributed.
   The Wake afterwards back at our house was pretty much as we'd expected;
there were no feuding relatives to get drunk and fight, no distant
relatives to sing songs and tell us of the old days, no elderly aunts to
sit and discuss past Wake's and family necrology, no boozy uncles to drink
Guinness and give long, rambling toasts before starting fights with their
sons; the only family Kat had was here, and it was only strangers, friends,
for the most part, but strangers nevertheless, to hold the wake with us.
   It was a solemn, almost morbid affair, no-one prepared to introduce even
the slightest note of jollity, which, after all, was the whole point of the
Wake; to celebrate the deceased, and toast their passing, American mid-West
Protestantism at a loss when it came to Irish Catholic ritual, so
retreating into stiff, solemn politeness.  After a decent interval, with
all the food eaten and the obligatory drink to toast mom, people began
drifting away, and the last of her life and presence here went with them.
Some of my friends from college helped me clear up, and then left with
toasts of "Air Do Shlainte!" to the girls and me.
   After the trauma of the funeral and the interment, there was nothing to
do but get back to our lives.  Mom had left all of us a substantial amount
of money in the form of her various life insurance policies, plus Kat had
her own money from dad's insurance, easily enough to pay all her college
fees, so bills and suchlike were not a problem.  But I was worried about
Kat; she'd been silent and calm the whole time since mom had died, eerily
so, almost like she'd detached herself from her emotions, but now she
seemed to come alive again, her expression returning from the dull-eyed,
haunted look that she'd worn since that day in the hospital to something
like her normal self again, almost like she'd flipped a switch inside and
turned-off all the sadness and loss.
   I didn't know if it was a good thing, but it was certainly better than
the ghost I'd been living with for the past couple of weeks.  She began
talking and socialising with me almost immediately, unlike the silent
recluse she'd become after dad's death, and one evening I even found her
stretched out on my bed, dressed in just a long baggy tee-shirt and
panties, with a huge bowl of potato chips, watching a rerun of 'Saturday
Night Live' and smiling at the gags and snappy one-liners.
   My own grief had been mitigated and pushed back down to some extent by
my worries about her, but now I began to breathe a little easier; somehow,
she'd found a way to get past it, and now she seemed to be on her way back.
She'd even remembered to thank me with a little kiss on top of my head for
the gift I'd given her for her 18th birthday that had come and gone without
us even marking it, coming as it did in the middle of everything else that
was happening around us.
   I'd given her a voucher for her to buy her prom dress, hoping to get her
back out there with her friends and peer-group, and get back into school
life and get excited about the promise of a new adventure in college.
   She'd taken me at my word and bought herself something I knew mom would
have disapproved of (I certainly did!), and one of her large and varied
group of admirer's had asked her to the prom, she'd accepted, and again I
felt the irrational surge of jealousy, which I pushed back down; get a
grip, I told myself, she's an adult now, not a little girl, leave her to
choose who she goes out with!
   When Cody Pietersen, her date came to collect her, I forced myself to be
polite, friendly, as non-threatening as possible, while still signalling
that any taking of liberties with her would find me knocking on his door; I
knew his older brother, the very definition of the phrase 'pussy-hound',
and if young Cody had taken after him in any way, I was quite prepared to
commit mayhem on his body.
   I think he got that; the name 'Frank Novak' was still one to conjure
with when it came to getting your ass comprehensively kicked (although the
only ass I'd ever kicked had been that little rat-fuck Steve Dolan...)
   And then she came down the stairs, and my heart nearly stopped; I always
knew she was a beautiful girl, but now she was stunning!  Her hair shone
like burnished copper, piled-up in gleaming scarlet curls on her head and
cascading down over her milky shoulder like a river of flame, red and
vibrant, shimmering in the light.  The short dress revealed her lithe,
slinky figure, her long slender legs and milky-white shoulders, the daring
décolleté showing just how much of a woman she was.  Her milky skin glowed
against the teal-green metallic fabric of her sheath dress, the exact same
color as her eyes, and which clung to her like a second skin.  I was
literally open-mouthed in shocked amazement; my little sister was a
sensuously beautiful, desirable woman, and I couldn't look at her enough. I
actually felt my heart falter as I stared at her in open-mouthed amazement.
   "Well, Frankie, will I do?" she smiled, and I could only nod as words
failed me.  I'd brought my camera, like any proud father would to take the
picture of his daughter on her prom night, but it hung by its strap from my
wrist, completely forgotten as I drank in the 8th Wonder of The World that
was Caitlin Novak.
   "Don't wait up for me, Frankie, I'm a big girl now!" she smiled, an
injunction I fully intended to ignore; nothing in this world would keep me
from staying up all night if it meant I got to see her looking like that
again, a reaction that puzzled me a little; this was my kid sister!  It
didn't make any difference, though; I was going to wait until she was
safely back home before I even thought about going to bed.
   After she'd left, Cody bowing her into the rented Limo like a proper
gentleman, my baleful glare no doubt imprinted into his memory, I tried to
relax, watch TV, read, nothing seemed to work; I clock-watched almost
incessantly, watch TV for an hour without taking anything in at all, then
look at the clock only to discover less than 20 minutes had gone by.  I
paced, fretted, tried to eat a sandwich, have a glass of buttermilk,
anything to try and relax and quit stressing, but nothing worked.
   I remembered what my own prom night had been like, what I'd gotten up to
with Missy Schiller, and promised myself that if Cody Pietersen tried even
half that stuff, they were going to find his body nailed upside down to a
tree beside the interstate with his dick stuffed in his mouth; and before
you start talking about double--standards, I know, but this was my baby
sister, and different rules applied...
   Just as I'd decided they were gone forever, she'd eloped and run off
with him to live in a trailer park in Duluth, the phone rang.  It was Kat!
It took me a little while to work out what she was saying, she was crying,
and babbling so much, about all I got was that she was at the Dew Drop Inn,
a sleazy fleabag over on the turnpike.  I managed to get the room number,
then hung up and bolted out the door, driving over there as fast as I could
without getting caught by our scabrous sheriff or any of his equally
morally bankrupt deputies.
   I found Kat in the room in a state of high agitation; as soon as she
answered to my knock, she jumped into my arms, holding my neck almost hard
enough to break it, crying hysterically and babbling about how she was
sorry.  I tried to calm her down and find out what she was sorry about, and
what she was doing in this rat ranch in the first place.  I managed to get
the crying stopped, and tried to find out what had happened, and where Cody
was in all this.  Eventually I got the whole story; it turns out Cody was
pretty much the latest edition of his brother, so he and I would be having
a conversation presently...
   As I understood it, he'd booked the room here as his reward for taking
Kat to the prom; he was hoping for a little post-prom magic, and had
decoyed Kat here by telling her that some of the guys and their dates would
be having a party here; apparently no-one else knew about the party,
because when he and Kat turned up there was no-one there, just a great,
big, inviting-looking bed.  Kat got it immediately and tried to leave, but
Cody tried to get insistent, telling her he put out for the limo, now she
was supposed to be properly grateful.  She kneed him, hard, in that special
place that all men have, the one that will make you make squeaky noises
that only bats can hear if you get smacked hard enough there, Cody went
cross-eyed and made his escape, hobbling away at high-speed before Kat
removed parts of him that he was going to need in later life.
   When she'd finished, Kat looked at me fearfully, obviously expecting a
dressing-down for falling for such a dumb ploy, and for not being worldly
enough to avoid the situation in the first place, but hey, she was a kid,
it was her prom, and these things happen; she got out of it unscathed; a
lot of girls aren't so lucky...
   "I'm sorry Frankie, he seemed so nice!  I've known Cody all my life, I
never guessed he'd try something like this!  I feel so stupid!"
   She started to cry again, and I instinctively gathered her in, like I'd
been doing her entire life, letting her cry against me.  I wasn't going to
have a fit at her, not after the scare she'd had, all I wanted to do was
stop her tears, something I'd been good at all her life too.
   Kat hugged me as she sobbed, her sobs gradually dying away until she was
quiet against me.  I made to move so we could get out of that flea-trap and
she murmured discontentedly and hugged me harder.  I grinned over her
shoulder and held her close, trying to forget what a luscious young woman I
was cuddling and concentrate on the fact that she was my little sister, and
I'd come over here to rescue her, not think about her like...that.  After a
while, she stirred and looked up, fixing me with her stunning emerald eyes.
   "Frankie, do you like me?  Still I mean, after what...happened here, do
you hate me?"
   I hugged her, grateful for the conversation.
   "Baby-girl, I always like you; even when I'm mad at you I still like
you! What happened here tonight wasn't your fault, so let's just go home,
okay?
   Again she murmured, hugging me tightly again, while I held her until
whatever was going on in her mind had run its course.
   "Do you like my dress, Frankie?" she asked in a small voice, and I began
to wonder where this was going.
   "I like your dress just fine, baby, it's kind of short, but it's a very
pretty dress, and it suits you; it's your color..."
   She buried her face in my chest.
   "I'm glad you like it, Frankie," she whispered, "I wore it just for
you!"
   For a second I didn't register what she'd said, and then I froze.
   "Say that again, please, Kat, I don't think I heard you properly.  Did
you say you wore it for me?  What do you mean?"
   She looked back up at me, her eyes huge and luminous in the sickly glow
from the bedside lamp in that grimy flea-trap motel miles from anywhere.
   "I wore it just for you; everything tonight was for you; the dress, my
hair and makeup, everything.  I wanted you to tell me how beautiful I was,
to tell me not to go, to keep me for yourself.  I love you Frankie, and I
want you to love me!"
   I was confused.
   "I do love you, baby, I'll always love you, I promised mom when you were
born that I'd always love you and look after you and I always will!"
   She looked away impatiently.
   "No, Frankie, I love, you, as in 'I am in love with you', and I want to
know if you feel the same way for me; everything tonight was for you, don't
you have anything for me?"
   I could hear the tears in her voice, and I realised she was serious.
   I was floundering, puzzlement shot with confusion and a growing feeling
that she was touching on a part of me I didn't want to acknowledge. 
Without warning, she sat up and moved astride me, taking my face in both
hands and kissing me, hard, her tongue snaking between my lips to rub
against my tongue.  Automatically, my arms tightened about her, and I
kissed her back, aware at some level that this had been cooking inside me
for a long time now, and I have to say, sister or not, I enjoyed every
nuance of her kiss; her soft lips, her darting tongue, the sweet smell of
her perfume, mingled with the scent of her hair, her skin, her warm breath,
and under it all, the subtle scent of her need.  As we kissed, the
inevitable reaction happened.  Kat felt it; she actually ground against me,
writhing on my lap as she leaned into the kiss, making me even harder and
more obvious.
   I groaned and pulled away from her, drawing a shuddering breath as the
enormity of what we'd just done intruded into my enjoyment of her kiss. 
Kat was a hot, beautiful girl, but she was still my sister, and I had to
make her see that, even if a large part of me clamoured for more of her. 
She looked back at me with a small smile on her face, a corner of her lower
lip caught between her teeth; Christ, she looked sexy when she did that! 
She knew exactly what she was doing to me, and God help me, I wanted more;
but we were crossing a line here, and I didn't know how to pick my way back
across it if we went too far.
   "Kat, baby, don't, we shouldn't, we can't, this is wrong...!" I
floundered, my arms relaxing their hold on her waist, but not completely
letting go my hold on her, holding instead her upper arms, much safer
territory, partly to prevent her falling (even now, I still held her up
when she needed me!), and partly to hold her at a safe distance from me,
her dangerously alluring lips safely out of range of mine.
   Kat looked at me with a knowing grin, then her face relaxed and one
eyebrow slowly arched as she smiled properly.
   "Frankie, I want to do this, with you, and only you; don't you get it?
Why do you think I never really dated anyone from High School, or even had
a boyfriend?  I know how you felt just now, I could feel it too, why don't
you want me?  I'm not THAT repulsive, am I?"
   She had me there; in that dress, with her milk-pale skin and her glossy
red hair glinting like polished copper, she was an absolute dream, and her
body was easily a match for her beautiful face, a tiny waist over trim
flared hips and a cute derriere, and what looked like delectable breasts
revealed by the daringly-cut neckline of the dress she'd chosen to wear; if
she'd been any girl other than my sister, I'd have pursued her to the ends
of the earth.  There was no denying it; Kat Moran was one
perfectly-packaged girl; the only fly in the ointment was that she was my
sister.
   Kat shrugged my hands off her arms and put her hands on my shoulders,
her deep-green eyes sparkling like the best quality emeralds, lustrous,
smoky, and brilliant as she stared into mine, her gaze serene and loving.
   "Frankie, I already told you I loved you, and it's true, I always have.
You and me, we fit together, I know what you're thinking, you always know
what I want; we were meant to be together, and that's all I want, why can't
you tell me the same thing?  Don't you love me too?"
   I didn't know what to say; I couldn't even look into her huge, brilliant
eyes; to gaze into them was to drown forever in them, and I wasn't ready
for that, not yet.  As much as I tried to avoid her eyes, she kept trapping
me with her gaze, until eventually she took my face between her hands again
and forced me to look into her eyes.
   "Frankie, tell me you don't love me, that you won't love me, and that
you can never be with me.  Tell me now, I want to hear you say it!"
   I gave up.
   As I looked into her eyes, I was lost, and she knew it, and the gentle
kiss she gave me was freighted with more meaning than anything she could
have said or asked of me right then.  It was all I needed to confirm that
our life together had changed forever, that our relationship had changed
shape and direction so radically that there was no way to go back to the
way things had been; nor did I want them to.
   We had been falling toward this moment for the longest time, and now
just one kiss from Kat had arrested my fall, bewitching me, weaving a net
of magic around me that I had no wish to break free of.  Nor did I have any
will left in the matter.  Kat had always been the most important thing in
my life, now she was the only thing.
   She hugged me gently, her breath warm against my cheek, her heart
beating against mine as she snuggled-up close to me, the way she used to do
when she was very small.
   "Take me home, Frankie, I don't want us to do...anything here, not in
this horrible place; take me back to our home, and let me show you what you
mean to me!"
   I stared over her shoulder as her words sank into my spinning brain.
   Sex.  She was talking about sex, sex with me.  This was all wrong,
surely?  Wasn't prom night when every girl was supposed to have that
special 'magic moment' with the boy of her dreams?  Another part of me
entirely was baying and begging for her, thoughts of what she'd look like
naked already beginning to seep into my conscious mind, setting me up for
when she and I finally shared our own moment of magic together.
   "All right, let's go home..." I managed to whisper, wanting this now, my
flip-change surprising me, but a deeper part of me recognising the truth of
what she'd said, and planning how to make this work for us in a town where
everyone knew us and would comment immediately on any change in us.  The
legalities of what I suspected we were about to do was a little hazy, but I
knew that it couldn't possibly be legal, and the thought of our lazy,
corrupt, moronic Dolan-puppet of a sheriff coming after us was entirely
unappetizing.
   "Before we go, Frankie, there's just one more thing...!" said Kat,
standing up and backing away from me.  I looked questioningly at her as she
smiled, then, in one swift movement she unzipped that tight green sparkly
dress and dropped it to the floor.  I gasped, and tried not to look, then
couldn't stop looking at her perfect, lithe, beautiful body.  She was
bra-less, her body a perfectly sculpted white marble statue, round pert
breasts tipped with points of dark rose, turned to fiery-red in the dim
yellow glow of the lamp, her stomach smooth and flat with just a hint of
rounded 'double-dome' curvature about her jewel-like navel.  Her panties
were little more than a wide lace ribbon, dipping down at the front to
barely cup the secret place between her long, smooth legs, and swooping up
to curve round her rounded hips, the whole confection little more than a
G-string.  Her legs were encased in sheer white stockings, the Lycra lace
tops holding them up securely around her round, elegant thighs.
   She was everything I'd seen in my mind's eye, and more, and I could only
stare in open-mouthed wonder at this beautiful young woman who, for some
reason, had set her cap at me.  My cock had also taken notice, and my jeans
were painfully tight as I rose to the occasion, the sight of this beautiful
semi-naked girl flicking all sorts of switches inside me.  I wanted her so
badly I could almost taste it,; when she'd sat and wriggled on my lap
earlier, I thought my cock was fully erect; now it was, and it was because
of my baby sister, now turned into this beautiful woman posing in front of
me.
   "Tell me you don't want me, Frankie!" she whispered, slowly turning
around to give me the full view of her entire body, and I could only shake
my head in negation; I wanted her, oh how I wanted her, but not here; not
like this.  As she turned back to face me, I pulled her close, her lips
suddenly closing on mine as my hands slid over her back and down to cup and
squeeze her delectable ass.
   As I held her close by these delightful, firm little globes, her tongue
roamed and squirmed inside my mouth, my own tongue rubbing and fencing with
hers as we kissed properly for the first time.  I was no longer troubled by
thoughts of right or wrong, only by thoughts of Kat, of the fact that she
was here, in my arms, naked and apparently willing.
   Kat broke our kiss, stepping away from me and into her dress.  She bent
and lifted her dress off the ground, pulling it back up and settling it in
place before spinning around.
   "Do me up, Frankie, let's get out of his dump, I have plans for you,
Francis Xavier Novak!"
   My groin tightening in anticipation of what those 'plans' entailed, I
grabbed her coat and escorted her to the car, bowing her in and receiving a
stellar smile and a quick kiss on the end of my nose.
   "There's more waiting for you, Frankie, let's go!" she grinned, and so,
grinning like an idiot and exchanging sizzling glances with her, I flogged
the horses to get us home, pleasant thoughts and fantasies of what was
coming churning in me as we headed home.  Kat wound her arm through mine
the whole way there, a secret smile on her lips, her eyes shining in the
reflected glare of the streetlamps.
   Once home, I opened the door and ushered her in, and as I turned back
after locking the door, her arms were about my neck, and her lips were on
mine.  My hands automatically went around her waist as I enjoyed the feel
of her slender shapeliness against me, her small waist and warm, smooth
back a delight to hold.  Kat wriggled against me, and released my neck to
take my hands and push them down until I was cupping her lovely peach ass,
my hands kneading and squeezing the firm flesh as our tongues tasted and
fenced with each other.  Caitlin in turn ground and rubbed herself against
my fully erect cock, and there was no doubt she could feel it, pressing as
it was against her most sensitive parts, and driving me mad with need for
her.
   Kat broke away from me, retreating and taking my hand, pulling me toward
the stairs, before letting go of my hand and starting up the stair.  She'd
ascended a few steps when she turned and looked at me, smiling gently,
unzipping and pulling down her dress in one move, and turning to walk up
the stairs in just her miniscule panties and white stocking, her succulent
butt cheeks twinkling as she walked up.  I watched, enthralled, as the most
beautiful girl I had ever known ascended the stairs, her long legs and
perfect behind the sexiest, most alluring thing I had ever seen.  At the
top of the stairs she turned, her hands over her breasts in a deliberately
coy gesture, to smile down at me, her lips startlingly red in the light
from the landing light above her.
   "I'm waiting for you, Frankie!" she called down softly, before turning
and walking into my bedroom.  I think I broke all records getting up those
stairs, flying into my room behind her, to find her standing there, her
legs straddled and her hands on her hips, smiling at me with her
spectacular hair tumbled down over one shoulder.  I closed with her and
once again pulled her close, our lips glued together as my hands roamed
over her, eventually sliding down to cup and fondle her superb ass,
squeezing the taut globes as my tongue once again explored her mouth.
   Kat moaned as she ground against me, fumbling with my belt as I pulled
her panties down to the tops of her thighs, freeing that lovely ass from
its restraints and allowing those firm butt cheeks to bounce in my hands as
I fondled and squeezed them.  Kat broke our kiss to push my jeans down,
yanking them down so I could kick them off.
   "Get naked, Frankie, I want you naked...!" she muttered, and I complied
as fast as I could, pulling off my sweatshirt and Tee underneath, while Kat
slid her hand into the waistband of my shorts, her eyes widening as her
fingers closed around the shaft of my cock.
   "Whoa, Frankie, I never guessed...!" she breathed, taking hold of me
more firmly and squeezing gently, making me groan.
   I pulled away from her to sit on the bed and kick off my shoes and pull
off my socks, leaving me in just my shorts.  Kat had me stand up, and,
grinning, yanked them down in one move, allowing my cock to spring free. 
Now I don't have one of those unfeasibly big, floor-dragging porn-star
cocks, but I'm not exactly under-powered in that department either, I would
guess at full stretch it's about seven inches or so, so not intimidating
and huge, but not exactly Mr.  Stubby either, and with some real girth...
   Kat took my hand, her eyes fixed on my cock, and climbed onto the bed,
lying down in the center and holding her arms out in invitation.  I needed
no prompting, shuffling up and over her, to take her in my arms and sink
down, absorbed into her lips and eyes in an instant.
   We kissed tenderly, no hurried fumbling or groping necessary; we both
knew what we wanted, there was no likelihood of us being disturbed, so we
took our time, exploring each other, touching, kissing, licking and
sucking. I discovered that she liked her nipples licked lightly, and sucked
hard while I squeezed her ass, she discovered I liked to have my balls
lightly squeezed while she pumped my shaft with her other hand.  When I
slid down her and kissed her inner thighs, she sighed and lay back, her
fingers twining in my hair as I licked all around her swollen labia, until
at last I licked and rubbed my tongue through the soft puff of short copper
curls adorning the entrance to her womanhood, enjoying immensely the feel
of the silky curls against my tongue, the hair soft and delicate, like
finest silk threads, not at all wiry or coarse, a delicate delight to tease
and tickle my tongue.  Her scent rose, a delightful, heady scent, fresh and
feminine, strong and alluring, making me want her even more as it wafted
over me, tickling and teasing my senses with the promise she held..
   When I ran my tongue over the crease in the delicate pink folds of flesh
concealing her slit, those lips flushing red as I continued to lick and
tease, Kat groaned, her hands forcing my head down to keep doing just that.
I slid my hands under her soft, taut cheeks, lifting her up to my mouth as
my tongue slid and roamed around her vulva, slowly sliding between her
labia to taste the delicate flesh concealed inside, and sliding up her slit
to tease and coax her hooded clitoris, the hard little nub coming out to
play as my tongue-tip woke it up, to a chorus of muttered sighs from Kat.
   When her clitoris was fully engorged and slick with her juices, I sucked
it into my mouth as I flicked and teased it with my tongue, making her
writhe and moan, until with a scream, Kat orgasmed, her juices flooding
into my mouth as she convulsed against my lips, her pussy pulsing as waves
of pleasure surged and ebbed inside her.
   I pulled away, to look into her incredible smoky green eyes.
   "Frankie, baby that was...it was incredible!  I've never been so...It's
never...oh my God, Frankie, that was so good, please keep doing that to me
forever!" she smiled, tears in the corner of her eyes.  There was something
I wanted to do now, and she saw it in my eyes, her own eyes widening in
anticipation as I moved back up the bed, kissing her from her flat stomach
to the valley between her firm breasts.  I flicked my tongue over her
strainingly erect nipples, alternating between them as I licked and suckled
on those tempting peaks of puckered coral flesh, stiff little bullets
crowning her superb, feminine breasts, womanly and not at all girlish, yet
young, firm, and tempting beyond my ability to describe.
   I broke away from nibbling and sucking her nipples to continue kissing
my way up her, planting soft kisses on her throat, the sides of her neck,
her beautiful, elegant shoulders, until I came to her lips, where she
trapped me, those soft, sweet lips locking me in chains I couldn't, or
wouldn't, ever break free from.
   As we kissed, Kat's hands roamed over me, touching, stroking, holding,
until she came to my cock.  As she gently squeezed and massaged my balls,
her other hand slowly fisted me, the clear lubricant oozing from the tip
forming a slick glaze along my length as she spread it with her hand
wrapped around me.
   My fingers were also exploring, trailing through the delicate fluff of
her pubic hair to lightly rub and touch her secret place, the lips swelling
and parting as I rubbed.  Kat gasped into my mouth, her eyes flicking open
in apprehension as my finger slipped inside her to touch and gently rub in
and out, feeling her juices flow as she became even more aroused.
   At last, Kat broke our kiss to look me in the eyes, her own gaze clear
and accepting.
   "Frank, please, I want to do this, please, now...!"
   I nodded, and slid between her open thighs, taking my weight above her
on my elbows and forearms.  Kat looked at me, with that adorable little
smile with the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth as she took hold
of me and fumbled me to her soaking wet entrance.
   "Please Frankie, slowly, please, don't hurt me...!" she babbled, and I
pulled back in concern; she wasn't ready for this, perhaps we were pushing
it, this could wait, there were other ways...
   Her eyes widened in hurt rejection.
   "No, Frankie, don't, I want to do this, p-please, don't leave me like
this Frankie, I want you...!"
   I leaned down and kissed her, feeling her lips quivering against mine.
   "It's okay, baby, there's no rush, I don't want to hurt you or scare
you, we can do this some other time; it doesn't mean I don't love you, just
that I don't want to hurt you!"
   She smiled back at me, her eyes sparkling.
   "Frankie, make love to me, I want you now, tonight, this is how it has
to be, I love you, and I know you won't hurt me.  Make love to me, baby!"
   I nodded, smiling, and once again she took hold of me, guiding me to her
wet pussy.  She gasped as the head of my cock slid between her lips, her
muttered "so big..." the only comment before her lips formed an 'O' as I
slowly pushed into her.  Her forehead creased and her eyes squeezed tight
shut, the only sign she was feeling any pain at what we were doing, until I
was buried in her up to the hilt.  I stopped, waiting for her to get used
to me being embedded in her.  I could see the pulse fluttering in the
hollow of her throat and her throat working as she swallowed a couple of
times, before her eyes fluttered open.
   "I...I did it!  It all went in, oh God, it feels so big!  Don't...don't
do anything yet, let me get used to this thing!"
   I grinned and obliged.  To be honest, the feel of being inside her was
incredible, her sheath was hot and tight, and incredibly soft, her warmth
enveloping me as tremors ran through her pussy as it gently clasped and
released me.
   After a long few seconds, Kat reached up to hold my face between her
hands.
   "Make love to me, Frankie!"
   So I obliged, slowly withdrawing, her face contorting, and then sliding
back into her, this time her smile reappearing.
   "Oh God, Frankie, that feels so good, keep doing that!"
   I did just that, watching her eyes as her face began to flush.  Her hips
began to push back against mine as she discovered the pleasure she was
capable of drawing from what we were doing here, and as I began to speed up
my thrusting, so she began to push back harder against me, her hips lifting
into mine with every thrust I made into her.
   The feel of her was incredible; hot, tight, moist, her pussy rippling
and squeezing me as she humped back against me, until we were pounding at
each other, Kat giving as good as she got as we fucked hard, my cock
pistoning into her, and he pussy clenching and squeezing like a firm hot
fist wrapped tightly around my cock.
   She began to moan, her moans becoming louder as she approached orgasm,
her movements more frenzied, and her breathing harsher.
   "Oh, oh, ooohhh, ooohhh, ooohhh, oh God, oh Yes, Oh YES Oh MY GOD YESS,
FUCK, OH FUCK, OOHH FUUCCKK!" she screamed, her pussy clamping down tight
around my cock.  It was too much for me; all my self-control evaporated and
I came in a huge surge, spunk jetting out of me to splash inside her,
painting her womb with my seed.  I should probably have wondered if it was
safe, but I was too far gone; I was making love to the woman I loved, and
all I wanted to do was keep hammering my cock into her wonderfully tight
pussy as I sprayed my seed inside her, claiming her for myself.  At the
feel of my heat bursting into her, Kat screamed as her orgasm erupted all
over again, the wave of orgasmic pleasure crashing over and through her. 
Her eyes rolled up in their sockets with the intensity of her climax, and
she shook and shuddered under me as her climax worked its way through her
before ebbing away.
   Kat lay almost motionless, as I slipped from her and slumped down next
to her, almost completely wrung out from the emotional and sexual high I'd
just come down from.  As I rolled on my side to look at her, her eyes
opened and she smiled that sweet, liquid smile she has.
   "That was wonderful, baby, thank you.  Now I know you love me as much as
I love you; I want you inside me every possible minute of the day, do you
know that, Francis Xavier Novak?"
   Inside her.  Suddenly I was horror-struck; I'd come inside her,
copiously, shit, the last thing we needed right now was the complication of
a baby, much as I wanted to make babies with her.  I took her hands in
mine.
   "Kat, I'm sorry, I should have pulled out, or worn a rubber, I'm so, so
sorry...what, what's so funny?"
   Kat was grinning at me.
   "Don't worry, Frankie, I'm safe!" she giggled, "Mom put me on birth
control when I was sixteen; after what happened to Sally, she wasn't taking
any chances!"
   I sagged with relief, and Kat giggled again, touching the tip of my nose
with her pink fingertip.
   "I wish you'd seen your face!  You looked like your puppy'd just died!
Oh Frankie, you are so cute!"
   I've been called a lot of things, but 'cute' wasn't even in the top
20...
   Kat rolled up against my, sliding her hand over my side and down to pat
me on the ass.
   "I like this room; this is our bedroom from now on, okay Frankie?"
   Of course, I agreed; by now I was so besotted with her, if she'd asked
me to stroll naked down Serramonte with a bandana tied round my balls and
my wing-wang swinging, I'd have done it.
   She pulled herself even closer, snuggling down against me, giving a
happy little yawn.
   "Frankie, you know I love you more than anything, right?" I nodded, and
she continued.
   "I just want you to know, life doesn't get any better than this for me;
I've got a home, with the man I love, who loves me as much as I love him;
how could anything possibly be better than this?"
   I kissed her the best way I knew how, pulling out all the stops, Kat
savouring every second and nuance of our kiss.
   "It doesn't get any better, baby; I love you so much it hurts, I have
for the longest time, and I still can't believe we're here now!"
   Kat smiled, and reached out to get the bedside lamp.
   "Hold me all night, Frankie, and make love to me in the morning, okay?"
and I grinned and nodded; I had every intention of doing just that!
   I woke up early, wondering at the vivid dream I'd had about Kat,
wondering what kind of sicko I was, when someone murmured softly.  I spun
round to see a milky white bare shoulder and a mass of copper curls, and
the events of the night before came flooding back.  I must have woken her
with my sudden start, because she turned around, the covers slipping down
to reveal her perfect breasts, her coral pink nipples blazing against the
milky-white perfection of her skin.
   "Good morning Frankie, I dreamed about you, baby!" she smiled sleepily,
"You owe me, baby, come here and pay it off!"
   pics---->> http://bit.ly/1D1q3qp 
  
LostnFoundCh04