People say that I was too young to understand; but I understood. I understood clearly. Church started at 9am every Sunday morning. My father and I would go…religiously (Ahem!). He’d take me by the hand and walk slowly passed those white picket fences on Cherry Blossom Avenue, and at each new lawn he’d meet someone from the village. ‘Morning Rob,’ he’d wave across the road and give a hearty call, ‘those tomatoes getting on alright now?’ The general talk that followed wasn’t very interesting; just random banter and talk about gardening. While they went on, I would innocently play with butterflies and dandelions. They’d talk for ages before we finally got to the sermon, and by the time we did eventually get there the priest would stop his sermon and preaching dead, just to make a point that we were late. I always loved that about Dad. He had a wicked sense of humour. Although one day, after another boring sermon, we went home as usual. Dad made me some lunch and took me to bed with him. We laid under his blankets for an hour or so until he gently lifted my hand from my belly and edged it towards his, until slowly he slid it down his underwear to his pulsing…‘manhood’. It throbbed and pulsated in my tiny hands, and now after 15 years I can still feel it between my clammy palms. He hoisted me up with his huge arms and placed me on his stomach just above his penis. He whispered to me the sincere sounds of the sinking moon, ushered by the waves, ‘I love you, Leigh. More than you, or anyone, knows.’ And I believed him. There was no doubt about it that he loved me, despite his incestuous feelings. And, to tell the truth, I loved him because Mam was gone and my brother was away in Iraq. Then, after a brief embrace I sat down on him and we had wonderful sex. The angels looked down upon us with gleaming eyes and felt the love of what Jesus meant. After all, love is infinite; love is just no matter the person. He took me gently, like before Church. He meant no harm; just the physical feeling of love that he felt was disallowed to him because of how society had put it. Eventually society took it. Society took that feeling from us, and cast it among the taboos of the nation. They killed Dad with a hammer straight to the back of the skull. He was out one night to get a paper. They jumped him on his way and he died breathing those bubbles of blood. I was 16 at the time, and people say I was too young to understand. I understood, and yet I still love him and wish for his sweet embrace.
Assuming this is fiction, it's very dark. The narrator feels fine about the relationship and doesn't feel the least bit guilty about the incest. I have a feeling that in real life, the younger of the two partners (the son in this case) usually feels like a victim and is emotionally damaged. A vigilante murder in this situation is quite believable. Then again, I'm not very knowledgeable (fortunately) about the subject.
Incidentally, in my short stories on this forum, I put in a fiction/nonfiction subtitle for the benefit of the reader. In the short story 'Marathon', I clarified by describing it as '95% fact, 5% fiction', which means it's fiction if someone wants to get technical about it. The conversation with the girlfriend is fictional, the conversation with a first aid attendant at km 35 is fictional, and the rest is fact. So, any fiction in the work means labelling it fiction as a whole.
fahkin shit! That really came out of nowhere there, though something about the intro made me ready for something to twist out of nowhere. This does a really good job at setting the whole thing up and delivering all the dark "icky" thoughts that go with reading it. Pretty courageous subect matter. Nice work.
