They say you never know what goes on behind closed doors. My aunt Hedda has the most pristine house on the street; the best tended garden; the tidiest home.
She also has a secret.
She likes her lovers young and innocent and teachable. So fucking teachable.
Smooth bodies. Faces that were only just ready to shave. Hard cocks.
Hedda was every school boy’s wet dream with her thick, long hair and big tits. Lips that curved and flirted and by the age of fifteen the few friends I was bothered with would flock to my house not for the games consoles or the range of sports channels, but because they wanted to see Hedda.
I saw too much of Hedda.
I felt too much of her.
And now I don’t feel anything because the way I found to get away from shame was to become numb.
I knock on the door and wait, knowing for sure she’ll be in because it’s four-thirty and she won’t go anywhere after three.
She answers wearing a tight pair of sweatpants and t-shirt that doesn’t hide anything. Hair the colour of hay drops to her shoulders and a face that’s been too frozen smiles at me.
“Long time, no see, Benny boy.” Hedda folds her arms under her tits, pushing them up and I can’t stop the nausea from almost making me choke.
“Can I come in?”
She stands aside. “Anytime. This is still your home, you know.”
“We both know it was never my home.”
She looks upset. Hedda never understood why I didn’t want her. I never understood why my body reacted when she’d touch me. She wasn’t my aunt by blood: Hedda and my mother were step-sisters and grew up together, the same age. But it never made what she forced me to do any less repulsive.
“I tried, Ben.”
I ignore her plea. Not today. Not ever. “I need to talk to you about Majjie.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s mixed up in a load of political shit.” I sit down on the sofa that looks new.
“With the Wray boy? The one who’s still alive?”
Hedda leans to the side of Scotland joining Norway, mainly because she’s a Norwegian living in Scotland. She would agree with Majjie on politics later on, encourage her to get involved. Encouraged her to bring home the boys she found.
When I was old enough to refuse what she wanted me to do, she switched her attention over to other young men, flaunting them in front of me, not that it worked.
I left.
Only there was nothing to leave.
“With him.”
“What do you need from me, Ben? I haven’t seen you for years. I only hear what you’re up to through your sister.”
Not my dad. I suspected he had an idea about what happened to me and that was why his contact with Hedda ceased over time.
“I want you to be careful.”
“Why would you want me to be careful. You hate me.”
“Are you surprised?”
