Maryon Swelt
He seduced his little sister
TEN YEARS OLD
Maryon had always adored her brother Michael, five years her senior. Almost as soon as she'd been able to toddle she'd taken to following him around, a habit about which he'd had mixed feelings, finding her devotion flattering on the one hand and a pain in the ass on the other. The Swelts were not a very close family at any time – Burt had long since found Lois, his wife of an early-aged marriage, something of a bore, and she, him, a boor. Their attitudes, carefully unvoiced in front of the children, nonetheless were sensed by them, so that Mike and his sister unconsciously drew more companionship and the sustenance of reassurance from each other than might ordinarily have been the case.
Burt spent more and more time as the years sped by in 'afterhours' development of his sales. He worked on commission for the Metropolis' Lincoln dealer, often working through Saturdays to demonstrate an auto to one of his special customers, one of those who regularly traded-in each model year. The fact that most of his clients seemed to be middle-aged women of means had once perturbed Lois and been the source of considerable friction between them, but by now she had accepted the position with – the rationalization that he was successful, and did provide a good enough income for his family. Lois had invented her own romantic notions of the world, using her medieval fantasy to explain to herself why she had no right nor business to go poking her nose into the 'man's world' which existed merely to provide 'ladies' with the means for their ease, comfort, and sustainment. Lots of Lois' words, written, uttered or merely thought, were set within 'quotes', or italicized.
While Burt equally dwelt in a world of unreality and insubstantiality, his mind a constant fabrication of half-truths, flatteries, and flimsy sales-pitches, their worlds were far apart. In the matter of the children's names he had compromised with her in the case of his son, her artistic Michael being easily convertible to plain, mannish Mike, but by the time his daughter arrived he'd thrown up his hands and let Lois decide on the artsy-chintzy Maryon Alysun.
Lois tended to be off in another land altogether when it came to dealing with her offspring, and though Burt tried hard, awkwardly and unsuccessfully, to be pals with his son, he fussed over Maryon whenever the opportunity arose, as though guilty, or perhaps trying to make her over into a different girl than the one he'd married.
The youngster looked forward with delight to the infrequent occasions when he was home and she out of bed, but in his absence turned her attentions to her brother, making him an extension of his father, though, of course, she didn't realize this, then.
Most of the Swelts' neighbors in the tract-home suburb of Glenville were younger, more keenly upward-mobile, childless to be free of restraints while the men climbed and their women pushed. Michael, at fifteen, spent much of his time at his friends' homes in close-by areas, free as a bird on his bike, but Maryon, who by nature seemed to be introspective, and a lone wolf even at ten, spent most of her time dutifully around the house, amusing herself with her dolls and her books, half-ignoring the fluttery flow of words her mother trailed behind her at such times as she wasn't being hypnotized by the tube's view of the world as illustrated by the soaps.
Reaction to her mother's constant reiterations for her to 'act like a little lady' and 'mind her manners' and 'not act the tomboy' came through in the way she treated her own dolls, admonishing them in the same phrases on the one hand, and on the other taking a devilish enjoyment in acting out for them the unladylike, unmannerly and tomboyish that earned them their reprimands. Despite the fantasy worlds of her own she was able to create with her imagination, her family of mannequin actors, and the spaces between the words of her books, she secretly envied the toys – as she considered them – of her brother, and it was chiefly this repressed longing that involved her for the first time in the strange, fascinating-and-frightening, mind-molding magic of sex.
It happened on a Saturday morning, a couple of weeks before Christmas, 1961. Dad was out at work, intent on getting as many sales commissions as possible before the holiday season, and Lois had swept out to do some Christmas shopping. Michael had left early on his bicycle for parts unknown and Maryon had been left to her own resources for a few hours.
She was restless, and some demon in her urged her to explore the house, poking into corners and closets in the hope that she might discover the hiding place of the presents that would be hers in such a short time. But children's lives are half-made up by the drives of curiosity and impatience, and so she made her tour, clad in her pajamas. Ten minutes of keen searching netted her nothing, but some excitement still gripped her, making her feel reluctant to resort to her reading or her dolls… and television completely bored her.
In her parents' bedroom she idly stood before the mirror and looked at herself. Her long and curly blonde hair hung in straggled ringlets and without thinking she reached for her mother's hairbrush and began smoothing out the snarls. Before long it had fluffed out prettily and she put back the brush, sitting tall on the dressing table stool. Her clear blue eyes speculated as she tilted her head to one side, then her fingers reached for a lipstick and, filigreed gold top off, applied the crimson pencil to her chubby, full lips, imitating her mother's often-seen gestures, pushing out her lips, drawing them tight against her pearly teeth. The result, after a few minutes of concentration, didn't seem at all bad to her, and a wisp of tissue soon cleared away the slight smudge at one comer of her shining, rosebud lips. She looked at the other paraphernalia on the glassed table-top, and decided that to attempt to touch up her eyes would be too difficult. A thrilling spirit of excitement sparkled those clear blue eyes now, and brought pink color to her smooth, fair cheeks. She slipped off her stool and stepped quickly to the clothes closet, intent on dressing up in the silent, secret house. A bright red satin sheath, a cocktail dress, not often worn, caught her attention and she reached up to slip it off its hanger, then hurried back to the mirror. She pulled the cord of her pajama bottom and then slipped off the buttoned top before impatiently tugging the pants down her long, slim, coltish legs where she kicked them from her ankles. Her body only just beginning to fill out with roundness, her blonde hair hanging full about her bare shoulders so that it tickled, small pink lips, bare of hair, shadowed between her smooth round thighs, she stood naked in front of the mirror and stepped into the dress. The touch of the silk on her bare skin put goosebumps of pleasure on her warm flesh as it slid up her slender frame. She struggled to put her arms into the straps and awkwardly reached behind her for the zipper, tugging the back of the dress around in its fullness.