Chapter 88

I think I saw tears in the corner of her eyes. She put her dainty fingertips over her lips.

“I mean, I’m jealous, yeah. But not angry, just envious.” Jeanie continued. “What you two have is beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone so in love, except maybe the profs, y’know? Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I know you think I’m a ditz and maybe I am, but I’m a good-hearted airhead.”

She looked at Alexa and sighed. “I spent all that time teasing you about fucking your nephew, just to be funny and hope you’d think I wasn’t a total waste of time. Guess the joke’s on me.”

I sort of expected my kind-hearted aunt to detach from me and give her friend a hug, but instead she held onto me a little more tightly. Whatever Jeanie meant to Alexa, it wasn’t a patch on what I meant to her.

“Just so y’know, I’m not gonna be messing around with your folks anymore,” our guest said, looking at me now. “It’d just not feel right, since I’ve been with Alli. And while I’m sure they enjoyed sharing me, I don’t think they’ll miss it if we stop fucking. Not a big deal to them.”

“How long were you watching, Jeanie?” Alexa asked, but her voice was not unkind.

Jeanie smiled weakly. “Long enough to not fool myself into thinking that my words made you want to fuck your nephew,” she said quietly. “Long enough to hear you talk about how in love you are. I really hope it works out for you. Because that’s not how my parents are and I don’t see that in my future. So I really want it to work out for someone.”

She looked at me again. “You’re a lucky fella. And if she’s in love with you, that must mean you’re awesome, so she’s a lucky girl. I… I don’t care how you do it, but… get married, please?”

Jeanie blew us a kiss, turned and walked quietly out of the room, closing the door behind her. We stared at the door for several seconds before Alexa sighed and pressed her forehead to my chest.

“What was she even doing here at this ungodly hour?” I asked. “During the summer?”

Alexa shook her head. “I sort of remember her telling me during a pause in our lesbian sex pretzel that she sometimes came late and wandered the campus, trying to find some purpose in being there. She… when people were around, she felt like a fake, like she didn’t belong there.”

“Maybe she doesn’t.” I shrugged.

“Maybe, but that’s not our judgement to make, Alex. Mike and Karen seem to believe in her, at least to some degree, and we know at least that’s she got some emotional depth to her, even if she’s a round-heeled bimbo. I… we need to remember to be kind to her. She wants us married, after all.”

I sighed heavily. Getting caught had definitely not been in my plan for the evening, but clearly it could have been a lot worse…

***

A few days had passed and we were sitting in one of the offices, going over papers and sorting them into piles that hopefully represented categories. We hadn’t been given too many instructions, so Alexa (probably rightly) surmised that what organization we gave the department was a welcome improvement to the no-system they seemed to run on.

Dad had been allowed back to work on a casual basis, as long as he was mostly sitting and did not exert himself. There was the option of a wheelchair, of course, which mom offered to push him around in, but he declined and bought himself a Segue, which he spent the next few weeks on, bombing around and annoying the faculty, who knew better than to complain. Dad was larger than most of the faculty put together, so nothing was said, unless he left skidmarks in the hallways.

“Lets count our blessings,” Alexa said as she sorted. “Some night we’re going to look out a window and see your mom and dad silently glide by in the moonlight, naked and fucking their way across the campus on the damn thing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “Thanks for the libidoectomy, I was getting rather horny.”

She giggled and she resumed her sorting. We were silent for some time before she spoke again, her voice tinged with regret. “I really wish I knew what to do, Alex. It’s so damn unfair that you’re my nephew. I wish we could get married, but we can’t. Not here. We’d have to move to France or Finland or something. And that would destroy my new family anyway. I feel so… trapped…”

I nodded. “I know a few places allow avuncular marriage over in Europe, you’re right. But if we’re married and in love, there’s a risk if we decide to have kids.”

She nodded. “I looked it up, could be as high as a thirteen percent chance of passing on congenital defects. Do you know of any in the de Bourne family?”

I shook my head. “No history of congenital diseases or cancers or anything. Mom always said one of the reasons she married dad was because of his impeccable good breeding stock.”

“None on the Gordon side either,” she added. “Same fantastic genetics. So if we did have kids, they might just be advanced and impossibly blond and blue-eyed.”

“Oh good, little Aryan children of the damned,” I laughed. “Inbred superhumans.”

She grimaced. “I’ve seen the size and your dad’s skull, and yours isn’t much smaller. I’d be frightened of pushing those kids out…”

I sighed and shook my head again. “It’s all just whimsy at this point. We can’t exactly break apart the family because we happened to fall in love.”

“I know…” she said quietly, trailing off as she looked at the papers in front of her. We continued sorting out papers related to Proto-Indo-European language theory when she just stood up and looked at me.

“Take me to the maze?” she asked, holding out her hand. “I’m feeling like some Dutch kissing.”

Without even blinking, I stood up and took her hand, leading her out of the office and onto the campus. It was late Saturday night and I knew we’d be alone.

***

I was sitting on the stone bench and Alexa was straddling me, her crystalline blue eyes looking down into mine. Tears glistened on her cheeks, but she wasn’t crying. She was sad, yes, because we loved one another so much, but she wouldn’t cry. I wiped some tears away with my thumb and she pressed her lips gently against mine, whispering about how much she loved me. My hands rested on her waist and I whispered back, the two of us enjoying the solitude of the hedge maze. Moonlight shone down on us and she looked beautiful as her golden hair caught the silvery rays. I wondered if this was what it was like to be in love with Galadriel or Indis of the Vanyar.

Forehead to forehead, we said nothing for some time, just comforted by each other’s presence and feelings. Her fingers caressed the back of my neck and her breasts pressed to my chest. Normally the feel of her body against mine turned me on, but right now, we just wanted solace in one another. Together and desperately in love.

“I want to marry you,” she whispered in my ear. “I don’t know if I can love anyone else. It sounds silly to say, since we’re so young, but I don’t understand how to love anyone else any more. If… if I went back to the other side of the world tomorrow, I could lose myself in sex, but be in love again? Even with Freja? No. I… oh, Alex…”

“I know how you feel,” I murmured back. “I don’t see how my life continues without you, except in an unsatisfying manner. There’d always be a big, nagging hole I couldn’t pretend wasn’t there.”

She got off my lap and pulled me to my feet, leading to a patch of soft, emerald grass and laid down. I settled myself gently on top of her and we kissed lovingly for several minutes, my aunt and I. Desperate to feel close, to feel one another’s heart, lost in the deep truth of our feelings and comforting one another because of the hopelessness of our predicament.

“I want to do silly things like marry you here and now, to commit myself to you, as if it were a real and legal thing. But I can’t just stay with you always and never marry you legally, can I? We can’t do that to our family.”

I shook my head. “I wish we could. Why does this have to be so difficult?”

She sighed and I stood up, pulling her gently to her feet. We walked silently around the center of the maze, her fingers tracing along the statue in the center. Finally, I pulled her to me and leaned back against the hedge wall, holding her tight. She snuggled into and sighed, wrapped in my arms.

There was a giggle and the rustle of movement on the other side of the wall and we froze, eyes wide and not daring to make a sound. What if we were discovered?

“I can’t believe we’re doing this!” whispered a familiar, giddy female voice. “What if we’re found?”