94 - The Case of the Brother's Gift

"This final case," Roberta said, as she secured one of the final candles. "Is more personal than the others. It involves my brothers, August and Winter, and the unexpected consequences of a well-meant gesture. I call it

THE CASE OF THE BROTHER'S GIFT

They were twins, August and Winter. Grew up together, inseparable, and joined the Marine Corps together, the better to leave Dagon's Hollow. Yet the military split them up. Different units, different postings. Winter was stationed in Iraq as a combat medic when the IED caught him. He learned to walk again, in time; and the nurse who cared for him became my sister-in-law Helen.

It was a marriage with considerable love, but childless. The explosive had torn off his penis and testes. An inadvertent imbalance of hormones also caused Winter considerable distress.

August, by comparison, remained single. We all knew which way his appetites ran, and never really imagined any children coming from his liaisons. Then tragedy hit our family again. A car accident, a coma. I remember how the three of us gathered by his body, hearing the doctor's report about irreversible brain damage, the decision we had to make about whether or not to take him off life support.

Then came the gift.

A lawyer had written up the papers. Organ donation, and sperm donation. August, apparently, had been researching our brother's problem and discovered that doctors had surgically transplanted penises before. Medically, there was no reason that the testes could not be transplanted as well—it was only a legal and ethical issue, as that would countenance sperm donation as well. August, in his foresight, had seen to that.

So after some deliberation, they performed the operation. The life support was stopped. All that was left of Winter lived on between August's legs.

The time of healing passed, and I was unsurprised when August and Helen sent me a notice announcing her pregnancy. They kept the news just to family—basically just myself and Aunt Ethel—for the first trimester, not wanting to risk wider dissemination. A bit of superstition, fearing a miscarriage. Yet when my sister-in-law called on me, four months in, her stomach was swelling nicely beneath her dress, and everything seemed well.

Except that there was something in her eyes. A tiredness, a strain I thought at first had to do with the pregnancy. She is tall, as tall as I am, but her hair is blonde and straight, and she favors pants and suits. Before her pregnancy she was rather flat-chested, and with little excess flesh; her gravidity stuck out on her tall, spare frame. It was as we sat down for tea that it came out.

"It's Augie," she said, her voice low, even though we were alone. "He's been...different, lately. Talking to himself. In that way he and Win used to."

Twintalk. August and Winter's own private language. Even I had been left out of it. The two had been so close growing up they could finish each other's sentences.

"And?" I said, because I sensed it a sound.

Helen's hands rubbed against each other. Her eyes didn't want to meet mine.

"He was doing it while we were having sex," she said. "Before the operation, we'd...we'd made do, you know? Augie would put on a strap on. He couldn't feel it, but he could see me. Learned what I liked. Not just pounding me as hard as he could, but stimulating me. My nipples, my buttocks, my clit. I think it helped him, when he could watch me cum. Made him feel like he was still a man."

She blushed, ashamed to tell me this, but I suspect she had a good reason to tell me and not Aunt Ethel.

"After the operation—I expected changes. It felt different, for both of us. The first time he could take a piss that wasn't through a tube, he cried so hard I had to hold him up. I gave him his first blowjob since Iraq. A real, warm, hot, throbbing cock in my mouth," she licked her lips, as if she could still taste it. "You know Augie had offered to let me fuck other men? He knew I wanted children. But I didn't want to betray him. It's not just that I want babies, I want his babies. This was—it was out miracle."

"We wanted to try for a baby right away. I was tracking my cycle again. We went slow at first. Yet that moment his cock pushed into me, it was like—" Helen fumbled for words. "—he was rough. Uncontrolled. His eyes fixed on me, and they were cold and hard. It wasn't ****, but it was close to it. He—hurt me."

"And he was talking to himself when it happened?" I asked.

Helen nodded.

"What about after?" I asked.

Helen's mouth became a tight line.

"That's the thing—afterward, when his cock gets soft, his eyes change. He becomes loving again. He'll cuddle with me, play with me, but...but whenever he gets hard—" she sucked in her breath. "I can't tell you how many mornings I've woken up and he was already in me. Sometimes in my ass. Just pounding away, not matter how it hurt me. Yet the reason I came to you is—the last time it happened, he was still asleep."

I did my best to reassure her. Told her I would talk to August. Gave her the spare key to the house and assured her that if she ever needed to, she could come over here, day or night, just let herself in.

It was four o'clock when I met with August, at his office. He was already sipping a coke and bourbon. We smiled, hugged. Then I asked him what the problem was. My brother eyed me for a long moment, and then his chin hit his chest.

"I've been experiencing...missing time," he said. "Wake up in the morning and Helen is crying, my cum oozing out of her ass. Sometimes I'm browsing porn on my phone, and the next thing I know, it's hours later, and I'm in the bathroom of a strip club, my cock wet and covered with three colors of lipstick. Credit card charges for things I don't remember buying—you know what Win was into, right?"

I gave a short, sharp nod. We had all known, growing up, though none of us had said anything about it. There was a reason that Winter could never keep a girlfriend—or boyfriend—for long. Mother had tried to send him to therapy for it, and he's almost been thrown out of the Marine Corps at least twice for—well, I knew. Leave it at that.

"Helen and I started sleeping in different beds," he said. "After the last time. I didn't want to hurt her again. Except it happened again. I woke up and she was fighting me, and there was fear in her eyes, and my pearl necklace spattered across her neck—but there was a bruise on her stomach. I punched a pregnant woman in the stomach! My own wife! My own baby!"

"Yours," I said. "Or Win's?"

The shot hit home. Augie winced. It was terrible, fantastic, but Helen and August both knew about my interest in the paranormal. They must have suspected what was going on.

"I have an idea," I said.

We met at Helen and August's house. He was dressed in just his shirt and boxers. Didn't flinch as we tied him to the chair. Helen put the viagra in his mouth, and then brought up the glass of water to help him swallow the little blue pill.

"Go to your bedroom, and lock the door," I told her. She cast one last, lingering look at her husband, and he tried to offer her a smile. Her hand rested on her stomach. Then it was just the two of us.

I could see when August began to grow hard. His underwear tented, but it was more than that. A subtle change came over his face. A kind of leer of recognition in his eyes. I sighed.

"Hello, Winter," I said.

"Bobbie. Good to see you. Come to play?" he said, and waggled his hips. The tip of his cock popped out of the folds of his boxers. "Like we used to?"

It was lonely growing up with two brothers, and one was a pervert. We all ended up doing things we later chose not to talk about. Young men and women of an age to experiment, and not enough parental oversight after mom died to tell us no. After that, I went to college, and they joined the Marines.

Now here we were.

"You're hurting Helen, Win," I said, in the same tone of voice mom would use when he was a bad boy. "You're going to hurt the baby."

"And what are you going to do about it?" He sneered.

There was a time when Winter could be sweet. He had his highs and lows, and times he couldn't control himself. I'd never seen him like this. So intense. Straining against the ropes. Cock an angry red.

"You don't understand," he said, eyes bulging. "I need it. I need to feel, I—"

I wish I could say I could sprinkle him with holy water or say a prayer and it all came out well. In truth, I had brought certain supplies. Yet fate had other plans.

He shook. Face turning purple. I saw for a moment his features contort, distort...and then his whole body went slack. Immediately, I was at his side, I checked his pulse.

I called 911.

Officially, it was a series of devastating strokes. High blood pressure, stress. The viagra might have sent him over the edge. I held Helen as she cried into my shoulder. Once again, I saw one of my brothers on life support, effectively brain dead.

Augie, however, had forseen this potentiality. He had written it into his own will. Just as Winter had.

Roberta stood. She lifted her skirt. Everyone could see the scars, where the cock and balls had been attached. So too, they could see the pentagram etched into the silver chastity cage.

"When I got my bottom surgery, I never imagined I would have a dick again," Roberta said. "But it was August's last wish—and Helen, she still wanted a big family. We make it work."

She let her skirt fall, and blew out the candle.