Chapter 2

She awakened at four in the morning. She was no longer drunk, and Nola immediately knew that she was lying on the front room rug with a blanket tossed over her. The house was dark, So he retained enough sense to turn off all the lights. She stirred, and her instant distress told her he had had her around the world, as he laughingly called it. Nola climbed to her feet and tip-toed to the bathroom between their rooms. His door was closed and she softly shot the bolt before she turned on the light. Idle precaution, he could smash the door with either of his huge fists.

She was covered with red welts. Belt marks. She sat on the toilet and wept with the agony of her rectum. Quietly, she washed her bottom and her crotch. There were several teeth marks on her inner thighs and what seemed to be a blood blister on the left labia of her cunt. The two monkey bites on her tits were below the most daring neckline she owned. Sometimes he showed such marvelous understanding. Nola daubed and massaged, finding many places that were sore if not marked. Finally, she turned off the light and entered her own bedroom. In bed, she relaxed gradually, finding comfort almost as painful as her bruises. She lay, staring up, her mind struggling to maintain its threatened sanity, her body trying to forget its abuse. She had to stay strong and sane because she was all Johnny had left in the world.

At first, it hadn't seemed that way. After months in an Army hospital, long letters and a few sterile reports from the medical staff, Nola had been surprised at how strong and handsome Johnny had been. He was still in a wheelchair and walked only with the help of a nurse and crutches. But he had been laughing and kidding and seemingly so very happy to see her that Nola began to doubt the medical reports.

The day she had gone to Letterman General Hospital to bring him home, her huge handsome brother had, in front of his buddies, checked the solidity of her thighs against the proposition that she'd have to push his wheelchair up and downhill, San Francisco being what it was. Nothing could have embarrassed her that day because she was taking Johnny to the only home they had, her three-room apartment on Divisadero Street. It was only two floors up, and there was an elevator. He would have the bedroom and, because she worked, she would use a sofa-bed in the front room. Later, when he was ambulatory, they would rent a larger apartment. They had planned to do a lot of things later.

The first week had been wonderful, unhandy, but wonderful. He had seemed content and only had one or two bad dreams. He drank a lot of beer, read three newspapers and watched color television. They had had a party, and he'd seemed quite fond of one of the girls who worked in the same legal office as Nola did. With her usual efficiency, Nola had absorbed the burden of a crippled brother without any conscious effort. She helped him exercise his slowly enlivening legs and she massaged his brutally scarred back with Army salve. It was during his first return to the hospital for an official checkup and new X rays that the Surgeon General had requested Nola to visit his office while Johnny was being checked out. He was a nice man, middle-aged and just short enough on formality to put her at complete ease.

"How has he been, Miss Banner?"

"Oh, fine, just fine! He's getting stronger and more able to help himself every day." Gleefully, Nola had reported the details of their first week together, ticking off her daily nursing aids as well as their delightful social progress. When she was through, the doctor looked away and put his fingertips together and almost frowned.

"Then it is time to explain to you, Miss Banner, exactly how your brother has been hurt. And perhaps forewarn you against any relapses which are bound to occur in cases like his."

"I don't understand, doctor. He seems so happy and so certain he is going to walk shortly and be as strong as he ever was."

"What he thinks is not the ultimate, Miss Banner. To be perfectly frank, I voted against releasing him to your care when the matter came before the board of review. I felt that the Army was much better prepared to handle his condition than an unmarried sister could be. However, I was outvoted. The fact that you seem to be managing all right is encouraging. But again, not the ultimate, Miss Banner."

"You frighten me, doctor. Is there something I don't know about my brother's disabilities?"

He nodded. "He was struck by an exploding mortar shell. He lay in the mud, fully exposed to all sorts of secondary bombardment for a day and a half. His back, when the medics picked him up, was shredded-Hamburger Johnny they called him in the Da Nang field hospital. He had serious concussion, though his helmet saved his skull from positive wounding. Nothing, Miss Banner, saved his genitals. Your brother is only half a man now. He can never become a father. In short, his testicles were destroyed, thereby ending his powers of reproduction. With this type of thing, a psychological upset is bound to occur sooner or later. The trauma is devastating to a man even far older and less virile than John had naturally been."

"Oh dear, the poor, poor darling!" Nola had gasped. "But of course I wouldn't have known-couldn't even have suspected. But I'm sure this isn't all there is to life, and he is very level-headed. Oh dear!"

The doctor had raised his hand. "Commendable attitude, but again, not the ultimate, Miss Banner. I said his testicles were gone. He suffered absolutely no damage to his penis, nor to the nerves and muscles of his penis. In short, he is capable of normal sexual intercourse, and the desire to do so without the capability of reproduction."

"But, I thought the testicles were the controlling factor-"

"A common misunderstanding, Miss Banner. Eunuchism, either deliberate or accidental, falls into two classifications. If the reproductive system is damaged after the individual arrives at manhood, with subsequent understanding, shall we say, of the sexual desire and the physical substantiation, the loss of the testicles does not, in most cases, affect the course of desire nor the fulfillment of that desire. In fact, desire and demand often increase, at least for an unpredictable period of time. If the male is rendered impotent at an early age, the psychological trauma is complete. I'm sure your brother does not fall into the latter classification. In short, he is still a man in every degree short of the ability to impregnate a female."

"Oh dear! I'm not sure I understand what all that means."

"I'll try to make it brief. Your brother has experienced physical injuries from the top of his head to his heels. We found some symptoms of battle fatigue, which in former, less sociological years, was termed shell shock. He seems sound or we wouldn't have released him from Army custody. However, he has suffered a massive trauma in the loss of his full manhood.

He now possesses the capability to desire and satisfy a woman, but not to fulfill man's surrogate immortality-the production of offspring. This is psychological dynamite, Miss Banner. This single failing can often upset a hundred other mental attitudes, and it certainly acts as a nucleus of thought. In other words, it seldom leaves the patient's mind and it acts as a springboard for nearly every required thought or action. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"N-no, doctor."

Patiently, he went through his analysis of her brother in the simplest terms possible. Her horror and pity had grown by leaps and bounds. Not quite, but almost, he told her that her brother could, with no particular warning, become unmanageable in many respects. His parting plea was that if Johnny showed even the slightest variation from his then pleasant and peaceful attitude, she was to notify the surgeon general without an instant's hesitation.

The variation had come a few days later; it had not been slight, nor had she an instant to notify anyone. They had had a small party. Carrie, the girl whom Johnny had liked so well; Frank, a delightful young man who Nola liked very much, and some beer and music and a few hands of canasta, at which Johnny could not be beaten. Carrie and Frank had left at eleven. Johnny had been sitting in his wheelchair, finishing his last beer while Nola cleaned the dishes in the kitchen.

The expensive, well-oiled wheelchair did not squeak. She hadn't even known he had wheeled into the kitchen until his parted knees locked her legs together and his big hands closed possessively around her hips. She couldn't even turn, though she twisted her head to peer back and down at her brother. His cock was out and stood straight up through his unzipped fly. His empty scrotum lay out, as if placed over the thick chestnut hair growing from his groin. Nola had gasped. She had felt a score of rigid pricks during her high school and college years, she had even seen two or three in the final moments of escape from making out that had gone too far for her moral upbringing, but as she stared at her brother's monstrous, blood-filled organ, her only emotion was pity and her only consolation was the surgeon general's warning. Johnny's face seemed unchanged except for a spot of flame in each blue eye. But he would not let her body turn in his hands.

"Johnny!" Again she tried to turn. "Let go of me!"

"That Frank," he said. "He ever fuck you, sis?"

"What? Of course not! Whatever is the matter with you?"

"He wants to. But he isn't going to make it because you belong to me! I'm hot for your ass, sis, and now's the time. Goddamn it, stand still or I'll belt you one!"

She hadn't screamed. She had gripped his wrist and tried unsuccessfully to release their vise-like clamp on her hips. She had kinked and pushed, and the wheelchair had moved back, causing her to stumble because his hands pulled her so hard. She had swayed, stepped, then gone to her knees, and to her horror, Johnny had come out of the chair and fallen over her back. She felt his cock jab at her bended bottom she had hurt her knees on the linoleum, and her breath came out in sudden spurts of wordless terror.

Her first sane thought was that she hadn't known how really strong he was. One hand and forearm, looped under her belly, held her, the other ripped her skirt up and her panties down. She felt the cool air, twisted, and in so doing, positioned her ass exactly so his jutting cock slipped between the undercurve of her nates and plunged brutally into her virgin vagina. The pain was instant the shock one she did not expect to survive. She felt the huge intrusion as a battering ram, plowing up her un-trammeled sex, spreading, distending and filling her with furious fire.

"Johnny, Johnny!" she had cried, but his rushing breath was her only answer. She could not, dared not, move. His cock was in so tight she could feel the hair of his groin tickling her numbed buttocks. He held her with both arms, his cock merely churned, the head seeming to grow to cantalope size against her cervix.

Her tears were instant, her senses scattered under the ruthless attack. She smelled her cunt, opened wide after twenty-five years of careful closure. She felt his fingers, pressing and exploring her crotch, flipping the lips, roughing the clitoris. She bucked and writhed, and the cock began to move, nearly out, painfully in, and as her strength began to wane, the sensation altered. She had stared at the pattern of the linoleum with eyes so wide they burned. She had tried to kink and turn herself to stop the sensations, but this seemed only to intensify them. Then he had begun to feel her tits, and she was horrified at how he tore at her blouse and jerked her brassiere up. She was even more terrified at the undeniable pleasure of his ungentle fingers on her throbbing tits.

He had suddenly changed his attack, and Nola had not understood. His stroking had speeded; his force had increased, and with every thrust her knees had skidded forward on the linoleum. A dull ache beat back after each of these new plungings, and somehow, the ache and the sensations mixed so that Nola was hard pressed to keep from groaning. She then had no way of knowing why he suddenly relaxed, lying on her back like a ponderous animal. She could feel the whole length of his cock throbbing in her scraped and stinging cunt. His hand had ceased to worry her clitoris, and her bared tits hung in loose weight. Then he released her entirely and struggled back and up. Cold, completely stunned and shocked beyond her weirdest nightmares, she had fallen sideways to the floor, and the last thing she remembered was the deep chuckle Johnny expended.

Remembering was hard to stop. Nola fluffed her pillow more from nervousness than discomfort and stared into the night. She could hear the strong purr from Johnny's throat; Vodka and the unrecountably many times he had used her body had put her soundly to sleep. That night, too, though there had been only beer and the single rape of her maidenhead. That night, as tonight, he had left her on the floor when his lust was done.

She had crawled to her feet and felt blindly for a paper towel to blot the unblottable blood from her agonized sex. She had staggered to the telephone bench in the hallway and put a shaking, finger-jerking hand to the receiver. Call the police-my brother has raped me. Call the surgeon general-my brother has gone crazy. Call God-what have you done to me?

"Easy, Nola Banner. I exploded a Viet Cong mortar shell behind his back. I cracked his brains, shredded his back and nipped his balls off at the roots. I sent him home to you a sick man with the goodness stripped off his mind and his eyes wild for the shape of you. Quit bitching, woman, I dm God, and because he's your brother, and you're all he's got. He can never have a son, never stand too straight, never think whole again. If you believe you're hurt, remember my Son. He gave His life for deliberate sinners. Stand up, woman, and tell me Johnny Banner is a sinner, an evil man, a rapist, a despoiler of sisters. Startd up and condemn him to a Hell he can not understand.

Oh, God, I'm sorry, sorry. But I hurt so badly" here. And what about tomorrow? How will he be tomorrow?

He was fine. He kissed her cheek and patted her ass and had asked her how she'd slept.

"I didn't sleep at all, Johnny," she had murmured, cracking breakfast eggs in the pan.

"Ass hurt? I didn't really think you were a virgin, sis. Going to tell the Letterman sawbones I hung it in you?"

"N-no, Johnny."

He had chuckled. "They sure as hell tried, but they didn't knock old Johnny out of the box, did they? You going to work today?"

She had slowly shaken her head. "I don't feel well, Johnny."

"Come in! It will stretch a mile before it will tear an inch!"

"It isn't that. I just feel bad ... about you and about me."

"Incest, huh? Horseshit. Everybody is somebody's sister. I just happen to have a good-looking sister with undeveloped talents. Hey,I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about! You want to see the hair of the dog that bit you? Come on, take a look, sis. The sooner you get acquainted with it, the sooner you'll like it."

"No, Johnny!!"

He had reached so quickly she hadn't been able to evade his hand. She had fallen half across his lap, the wheelchair skidded back to the wall, and it stopped with a lurch. He had hunched his rigid cock up between her tits and fondled the cheeks of her ass through her robe and underpants. When she turned her face up to his, he seemed to be staring clear through her at some memory buried beneath the floor. "Johnny?"

He had slapped her then, his massive hand nearly knocking her across the kitchen. She had crouched, face in her hands, weeping with agony that far surpassed the pain of her face. She heard him slot the toast and start the toaster. She smelled the odor of burning eggs, and the coffee pot was boiling furiously. With great effort she had climbed to her feet and moved about, preparing breakfast in a stunned lethargy.

She wasn't really convinced until noon of that terrible day. She tried to talk about what he had done, but he answered her questions with obscene words and leering laughter. His mind seemed unattached to reality, as if unable to understand her concern. She mentioned God and morals and respectability.

"God is a silly old joker, sis. Morals are the bullshit the politicians prate about right before they ship you to a rice paddy in Vietnam. Respectability is the name of the game that keeps the whorehouse rent paid, and what's with all this crap, anyway? I told you last night that you belong to me, and that's the end of it! Come here!"

"No, Johnny, n-no!"

He had flown into a rage. His wheelchair had sailed across to where she huddled in a chair, and he had jerked her out and hurled her to the floor, kicking her ribs with his right foot. Then he had leaned down and ripped her blouse away. While she lay stunned, her tits lolling out in pulsing bulbs, he had opened his zipper and taken out his cock. After a minute, she could not stand the sight of the rigid monster, so she had turned her face away. She couldn't believe how she felt. Had he been ugly or deformed or physically helpless, she might have hated him. But he sat there, her handsome brother, recovering from the frightful mauling he had suffered, stroking his prick at her and leering. He was sick, she knew, terribly sick, and she was his sister. What use, she had asked herself, to send him back to the Army hospitals? They had had him for nearly nine months and sent him out like a frightened, confused animal. If his wounds were healing, then it stood to reason that love and patience and constancy would heal his mind. Psychologies, traumas and isms were words for uncaring people. She cared, and the more she pitied him, the more she loved him. Nola had been positive that once Johnny was sure somebody in the world loved him, for his deficiencies as well as his magnificence, he would change.

Lying now in the cold loneliness of predawn, Nola realized that everything had changed except Johnny. The first month had been the worst. He met her at the door nightly when she returned from work, and the variety of his attack depended entirely upon his mood. Sometimes, he was gay and laughing, and she could stall his lust by being gay and merry and drinking a beer with him. At other times he was surly and cruel and ripped at her clothes the moment she entered the apartment. It seemed to Nola that he spent his days planning new degradations, new gymnastics. He had fucked her in the hall, bent over every piece of furniture in the house, in her sofa-bed and on his double bed. He had hurt her several times by sitting in a tub of hot water and bouncing her on his cock until her vagina was pumped so full she could hardly stand the strain. Before and after these weird sessions, he demanded that she fondle his cock, kiss it and take it in her mouth. Within three weeks he had discarded the wheelchair, largely she had been sure, because of the exercise he got wrestling and fucking her.

Now she writhed in bed, remembering with helpless shame the moment of her total defeat. She had come home tired and frightened and tense with the certainty that this night would be no different than all the others. He had been in one of his gender moods. He kissed her warmly and his hands on her tits and buttocks were caressing. He had even asked her something about her work, an interest she should have suspected, for he had given up concern about everything outside the apartment except what he could view on the television.

Always seeking the slightest sign of softening in Johnny, she had joined him with a glass of vodka. There were to be steak, mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts for dinner. He had suggested that she take a hot shower and change into something more comfortable, and Nola had been so tentatively elated, she had agreed. She had hardly lathered her lithe body before he came through the shower curtain, naked, his cock at its usual upright angle and his hands groping for her sleek, succulent body. Still hopeful, at least for tenderness and some sign from him that he knew she was a woman, she had soaped his scarred body and tolerated his prick slapping her wet and lathered body.

Then he had made her stand on the shower sill and bend forward while he rammed his cock up between her thighs. She had felt his slippery prick slide high and hard, and his body slapped to hers as he rutted, one hand to the curtain rod for bracing. She was wet and warm, and for some reason not as terrified as she usually was when he fucked her. And suddenly his cock seemed bigger, longer, hotter than ever before, and Nola had an orgasm, the first she had ever experienced from her brother's lust. It so shocked her she nearly collapsed.

"Hey now!" Johnny had grunted.

Oh God, no, no!" she had wailed. "I didn't mean-"

To her surprise it had angered him. His hands closed on her tits, jerking them painfully. His cock, rammed hard in her quaking cunt, thrust even deeper as he cursed her senselessly. Then with no warning he reared back, dragging his prick clear of her tingling quim. Before she could protest or twist away, he had sent it up her rectum, wedging, ripping, plunging. She had screamed, and together they had fallen to the shower floor. There, with the water beating down on them, he had fucked her in the ass, not in passion, but cruelty. And she had cried and moaned and suffered so terribly, she had nearly fainted. She had been sure the fury of his cum had ripped her bowel, and after he had left her, she lay under the shower, panting, squirming and weeping. The thing he had done to her bottom was unspeakable; she was very sure she would never forgive herself for the orgasm still burning in her cunt.

But she had forgiven herself that relaxation, because it happened again and again, as if the broken barrier released a flood of sensation she could not control. She tried not to let him know, but orgasm made it easier to tolerate his insatiable lust. There was always that one bright and ecstatic moment amid the terror, the agony, the shame. It was never anything she anticipated, it merely happened.

Nervous, half-sick, confused, she had lost her job in the lawyer's office. There was money because she had saved some, and Johnny's check from the Government was steady. They had no friends because of his unpredictable temper and her fear. And when the Army doctors, pleased at his remarkable recovery, released him from weekly checkups, Nola had suggested they move from San Francisco to some small town. He had merely shrugged, and they had moved to Cranden, a thousand miles from San Francisco. His case had been transferred to another military hospital, and Nola found another job. Not only did the extra money help, but it kept her out of Johnny's hands for at least eight hours a day.

No, she thought, weeping softly in the dark, Johnny had not changed. He was still cruel, still ruthless and always insatiable. He had gained ten pounds, and his legs were stronger. He drank constantly, cursed her vilely and laughed at her tears. She was his housemaid, his cook, his nurse and his whore.

About herself, she did not know. Somehow, her love for Johnny had trapped her in a hell too hideous to describe, but every time she contemplated some drastic, freeing action, her heart refused to succumb to logic or escape. There were countless times she hated him with all her will, then she would see his brutally scarred back, and he would show her his empty scrotum. She always realized that what she had started, she had to finish. Nothing he could do to her was one tenth as terrible as what had been done to him, and she was all he had. And inside her misery was the faintest glow of hope; someday something would snap, and he would be her brother, Johnny Banner, once again. To survive, she simply did not think too much.