Chapter 7: Claimed by Both
The roar died in Rex’s throat, choked off by the sheer impossibility of what he was seeing, what he was being invited to do. His charge faltered two steps from the bench. His fists were clenched, his body trembling with a violence that had no outlet.
Walter didn’t flinch. His grip on Emmy’s hip tightened, a possessive claim. With his other hand, he shot out and grabbed Rex’s wrist. His grip was iron, born of decades of manual labor, and Rex, for all his athletic youth, was caught off guard by its finality.
“Look at her,” Walter growled, his voice low and compelling. He forced Rex’s hand down, pressing his son’s palm flat against the small of Emmy’s back. Her skin was fever-hot and slick with sweat. She flinched but didn’t pull away; a desperate, pleading moan escaped her. “You felt it at the cabin. You know what she is. This ain’t a betrayal, boy. It’s a revelation.”
Rex tried to yank his hand back, but Walter held it fast, dragging it lower. “Look,” he insisted, his voice dropping to a vicious whisper.
In the grim light, the sight was obscene and mesmerizing. Walter shifted slightly, using his body to emphasize the stretched, glistening evidence of their joining. “You started this,” Walter breathed, his eyes locked on his son’s horrified face. “With your big ideas. Your sharing. You unlocked the door, and she walked right through it. Now she’s hungry. So show her. Show her what she’s been missing since that night.”
Emmy’s face was turned to the side, pressed against the rough wood of the bench. Tears cut clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks, but her lips were parted, her breath coming in ragged, anticipation-laden hitches. Her eyes, wide and dark, found Rex’s. There was shame there, oceans of it, but beneath it, a helpless, wanting flicker he recognized. It was the same look she’d had in the cabin, in the heart of that chaotic, world-ending pleasure.
“Rex,” she whimpered. It was not a denial.
Something in him cracked. The fury bled out, leaving behind a hollow, aching confusion, and a terrible, rising echo of that night’s forbidden thrill. His father was right. He had started this. He had put the idea in the universe, and the universe had answered in the most perverse way possible.
His resistance seeped away. His hand, still under his father’s guidance, didn’t pull back.
Walter saw the change. A grim, triumphant smile touched his mouth. He released Rex’s wrist. “Go on,” he murmured, his tone almost conversational. “There’s room.”
It was a slow, surreal unraveling. Rex’s hands, which moments before had been meant for striking, fumbled with his own jeans. The sound of his zipper was obscenely loud. He moved like a man in a dream, stepping forward, his body aligning behind Emmy, alongside his father. The intimacy of the proximity—the heat of his dad’s body, the scent of sex and Emmy’s perfume—was dizzying.
He guided himself, his touch unsteady. The initial press was a tight, impossible burn. Then, with a shared, sharp gasp from all three of them, he slid in alongside his father.
The feeling was immediate and catastrophic. A fullness so profound it bordered on pain, a shocking completion that tore a shattered cry from Emmy’s throat. Her body convulsed around them, a sudden, soaking rush of release spilling hot over them, her legs buckling. The broken pallet beneath them groaned in protest.
For a long moment, no one moved. They were frozen in a blasphemous tableau, joined in a way that dissolved every boundary. Rex’s forehead dropped to Emmy’s shoulder, his breath hot and ragged. He was inside his girlfriend, alongside his own father. The reality of it was a tidal wave, drowning every principle he thought he owned.
Walter let out a slow, controlled breath. “See?” he said, his voice thick with exertion and power. He began to move, a slow, deep roll of his hips that forced Rex to move with him. “This is what she needed. What you both been chasing.”
And that was the truth that broke Rex completely. It was what he’d been chasing. The memory of the cabin had haunted him, a ghost of ultimate possession. Now the ghost was flesh, and it was his father sharing it with him. He began to thrust, tentatively at first, then with a growing, desperate hunger, matching Walter’s rhythm. The competing friction, the feel of another man moving in the same tight space, the animal sounds Emmy was making—it was a drug more potent than any anger.
The barn filled with the sound of it: the creak of wood, the slap of skin, the ragged symphony of their breathing. Walter was the conductor, controlling the pace, the depth. “That’s it,” he grunted. “She can take it. Built for it.”
Emmy was beyond words, lost in a sensation so overwhelming it felt like being unmade. Her earlier guilt was incinerated in the sheer physical furnace of them. This was the feeling she’d craved in secret, the missing piece that her nights with Rex alone had somehow hollowed out. She pushed back against them, a silent, fervent plea for more.
It didn’t last long. The intensity was too much. Rex came first with a torn, guttural shout, his body locking rigid. The violent pulses of his finish pushed Walter over the edge seconds later, his own release a silent, shuddering convulsion against Rex’s still-twitching flesh.
Silence fell, heavy and thick as the heat. They stayed locked together for a suspended moment, a tangled, sweating heap of aftermath. Then, slowly, they separated. The parting was wet, messy, profoundly intimate.
Rex stumbled back, hitting a support post. He stared at his father, then at Emmy, who slowly straightened up, her flannel shirt falling back down her thighs. Her face was a wreck of tears and bliss.
Walter calmly fastened his jeans. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands, his movements methodical. He looked at his son, not with shame, but with a chilling assessment.
“So,” Walter said, his voice returning to its usual, rough timbre. “We understand each other now.”
Rex could only stare, his chest heaving.
“She stays in your room at night,” Walter continued, as if laying out chores. “But she’s available. When it’s needed. We keep it in the family. No fuss, no mess.” He glanced at Emmy. “That work for you, darlin’?”
Emmy, her body still humming, her mind a storm of shame and satiation, nodded weakly. She looked at Rex, her eyes begging for him to make it okay.
Rex looked from her pleading face to his father’s implacable one. The path of least resistance was a yawning chasm, and he was already falling into it. He gave a single, curt nod, the motion costing him everything he thought he was.
Walter smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Good. Now, I’m for bed. You two clean up.” He turned and walked out of the barn, leaving them in the cooling dark with the wreckage of what they’d just done.
Rex finally pushed off the post. He didn’t look at Emmy. He zipped his jeans, his hands shaking. “Get dressed,” he said, his voice hollow.
“Rex…” she started, reaching for him.
He flinched away from her touch. “Just get dressed, Emmy.”
They walked back to the house separately, a hundred miles of silence stretching between them. In his room, Rex sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. The smell of her, of them, was still on his skin. Down the hall, he heard the quiet click of his father’s bedroom door closing.
Emmy slipped into bed beside him later, her body curling tentatively against his rigid back. He didn’t turn around. He lay there, eyes open, listening to the old house settle. The understanding was a living thing in the room with them. It had sharp teeth. And it was hungry.