A group of guys who were wearing biker clothing seemed to have gathered in a cluster around mom, Alexa and the Stevensons. One of them was standing close to Alexa, seeming to try and get her to open her legs so he could stand between them. Alexa was getting angry, as was my mother, while the Stevensons were pale with fright. There were maybe ten guys.
The one guy tried to use his hands to pull Alexa's legs apart when she rammed her knee into his crotch, causing him to grunt and double over. Another swore and raised his hand to slap her when mom's hand flashed out and her nails dug into his eyes. He screeched and reeled away but another made to hit her.
Dad was on them like a tiger.
If there is one rule I have ever learned in my life, it is to never enrage my father. Never threaten his family or the people he cares about.
I was only a heartbeat behind him, but dad was already in there like a maelstrom and the men harrassing my mom and aunt backed up quickly in shock. Dad punched one of them square in the face, knocking him backward and through a round wooden table that splintered under the impact. He grabbed another and rammed his knee into the man's chest before throwing him down onto his face. People were stampeding away from the scene in a panic.
It didn't take the bikers long to rally and start fighting back against us. One tried to get behind dad, but I grabbed his arm and wrenched it, hard. There was a wet popping sound as his wrist and elbow dislocated at the same moment. He cried out in pain and I shoved him aside, lunging in at another. I ducked under a punch that was so slow you could have preserved it in amber. My fist rammed into the guy's sternum and another cracked across his jaw before he went down.
Mom kept Alexa and the Stevensons back against the bar, knowing better than to interfere while dad and I fought to push the men away from them. Their numbers were starting to work against me, because while I'm very adept at the fighting styles I'd learned, I'm not a patch on the raging engine of destruction my father becomes when you threaten his woman.
Clearly they thought he was the bigger threat (literally), because they were converging on him, one of the injured ones having stood back up to join the fight. This allowed me to grab one who wasn't paying attention and ram my knee into his lower back, dropping him. Dad slammed his fist across the jaw of another and blood sprayed in a wide arc. He grabbed two more and rammed their skulls together, a loud crack echoing across the club. I threw another aside and he tumbled into the bar next to mom. She scowled at him and broke a beer bottle over his head. He slumped down and went to sleep.
I couldn't stop what happened next, I was tussling with a biker and not able to disengage. The injured biker who had stood up pulled a knife and lunged in, ramming it into my father's side. Dad grunted and grabbed the man by the wrist holding the knife, making sure he couldn't get away. Glaring down at the biker, he smashed his forhead right into the man's face, which dissolved in a welter of blood and bone before punching him, hard. His neck snapped backward like he'd received a Tyson uppercut and he collapsed to the floor.
In spite of the shouts of panic, feet running every which way and the cries of fright, the seeming silence that followed the brawl was deafening. Dad was towering over the carnage, his suit ripped, his chest heaving, teeth clenched and eyes blazing. I glanced over at Alexa, who had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with what might have been shock or fright.
It was then that I noticed the spreading red stain on my dad's shirt just above his belt.
Mom leapt out of her chair and rushed up to me while Alexa hustled the terrified Stevensons around behind the bar away from any harm before hurrying to join my mom at my side. Dad was still nearby, standing over the bikers, waiting to see if any were stupid enough to get up.Mom was fussing over me, checking me or injuries when Alexa came up. I assured her I was fine, they hadn't laid a finger on me. One she was confident I was telling the truth, she looked at Alexa and put my arm around my aunt's shoulder.
"Allie, take my son and sit him down and look after him. I need to be with my husband now."
And then she turned and walked up to my father quietly, standing on front of him. He may have been spattered in blood, both his own and the bikers', his muscles bulging and his tendons tighter than ships' cables, but the sight of his wife softened him instantly. He looked down at my mom and pulled her into his arms, hugging her close. She sighed and nuzzled her face into his shoulder, relieved.
Alexa dutifully walked me over to the bar and sat me down, doing her own mini examination of me to make sure mom had missed nothing. I absently let her do what she liked while I watched my parents in wonder- mom knelt and pulled his ragged shirt up, exposing the knife-wound. Her expression didn't betray anything about the severity of the injury. She then walked him over to one of the bar stools and sat him on it, standing between his legs and pressing her forehead to his, whispering to him. My father smiled and held her gently.
The bartender approached them and said the police and ambulances were on the way. Mom smiled to him and nodded before returning her attention to dad. We were just close enough to hear what they were saying to one another.
"Don't worry," dad was saying. "The knife didn't hit anything vital."
"Then why didn't he stab you in the head, you giant oaf?" mom whispered, teasing him. "I guess we have another sexy scar to add to the list of things that turn me on about you."
"I don't think this one's going to be too sexy."
"They're all sexy, Michael. Trust me on this."
Her hand was holding a folded cloth that she was pressing against the knife wound, even as she was keeping him occupied. Her free hand's index finger trailed down his massive chest beneath the unbuttoned shirt, heading toward his pants.
"Trying to give me a massive erection to keep the blood away from my boo-boo?" he asked, smiling.
"Whatever it takes, my love," mom said gently. "There's no one like you and I'm not complete without you."
Alexa and I watched silently from some distance away. Her hand reached over and squeezed mine.
"Wow," she said quietly. "Look at her. I hope I'm that desperately in love with you."
I nodded. "I hope I don't need to get stabbed for you to figure it out."
Alexa turned and looked at me and smiled, resuming examining me so that it looked like she was doing something practical. "You were very brave, Alex. Those were five-to-one odds."
"Yeah, that's some serious Henry the Fifth Agincourt shit right there," I sighed. "My dad had it handled, Godzilla would think twice about pissing him off."
"You're not worried about him?" she asked as she lifted my arm to check my ribs.
I shook my head. "I suppose I should be, I mean, he got stabbed and is bleeding out and all, but I'm not. Dad's had worse things happen to him, believe me."
"It was terrifying to watch him," Alexa breathed, shuddering as she thought of something she'd witnessed during the fight. "Mike's big and imposing, but I've never been frightened by him before. He's like a killing machine."
"Well, I doubt they're dead," I replied, shrugging. "Probably wish they were, though."
Alexa stopped what she was doing and pressed her face against my shoulder from the side and her hands clenching my shirt, almost shaking.
"Alex, what if it had been you that got stabbed?" she asked in a tiny voice. "I don't know what I'd do."
I put one of my hands over hers and squeezed it assuringly. "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure I can survive a knife wound."
"Only if they stabbed you in the head." Alexa muttered, echoing my mother's sentiments before finally composing herself. I think I was still too high on adrenaline to feel anything and I looked around almost in a daze- the club was pretty much obliterated in a large radius around us, the remains of tables and chairs everywhere, strewn through with biker bodies. Most of them were unmoving. Those that were could do little more than twitch. Most of the club's patrons had stampeded out soon after the fight began, those who were still there were spaced around the walls, gaping in shock.
Mom was still holding dad and whispering to him. The bartender was on the phone while the Stevensons had finally come back out from behind the bar and were standing nearby mom and dad, wondering if they should do anything.
The music had stopped. The silence was indeed deafening.
"Y'better let me up," I said, rising from my chair. "I'm gonna go stand near the bikers, make sure none of them get up."
Alexa nodded and came with me, holding a beer bottle in her hand just in case. I caught dad's eyes as I walked into the center of the room and he smiled and winked at me, plainly in good spirits despite bleeding out. I became aware of the wail of approaching sirens. Maybe a minute later, police and parameds rushed into the club, not knowing exactly what to expect.
Mom stepped aside dutifully but remained near dad as a two medics began examining him. Other checked the bikers while the police began handcuffing those not in need of serious attention. One officer approached Alexa and I and began asking us questions. He originally wanted us to come down to the station but once it was apparent that it was my father who had been stabbed, he agreed they could get all their answers from the hospital.
Since we'd been drinking, Alexa and I allowed the Stevensons to take us to the hospital, while mom rode in the ambulance with dad, who protested the need for one at all. A stern look from my mom told him to play nice with the good parameds and we were off. We sat in the back of the Stevenson's sedan, saying very little but just holding hands.
Arriving at the hospital, we found mom waiting outside the emergency ward, sitting by herself and staring off into nothingness. Alexa hugged her and asked how my dad was doing. Mom smiled and informed us that he was very conscious, very alert, and hadn't shut up or stopped telling jokes the whole way here. Doubtless the poor parameds stuck in the ambulance with them were considering tanquilizing him just to get him to shut up.
We were all laughing but mom's eyes were glistening as she fought back her tears. Alexa and I sat on each side of her and held her close. She took a deep breath to compose herself.
"I have to admit, Alex, I'm a little paranoid about having you this close," she said quietly. "This doesn't seem to have been a good week for being in proximity to me. First my little sister, now my husband..."
Alexa pulled her head back and frowned at mom. "You can't be that retarded, Karen, to think you're somehow cursed or a smite magnet. Even your big-foreheaded husband's quantum math skills couldn't prove you cause disasters."
"You so sure?" mom asked, her eyes glassy. This had been a very emotional two weeks for her all around.
"If they were, he wouldn't have been stabbed by that dinky little knife," Alexa said, smiling and caressing my mom's cheek. "Alex already allayed my fears and told me he's been through worse, so there's nothing to worry about."
Mom sighed and leaned her head on Alexa's shoulder while my aunt kissed her older sister's cheek, consoling her. I stayed right beside mom, regardless of what she thought, and held her hand. Within half an hour, a doctor came out of the emergency rooms and removed his mask to speak to us.
"Well, the good news is, he's perfectly fine. The knife hit no vital organs and what blood he has lost we are already replacing. Stitching him up once we were sure there were no internal injuries was a breeze."
"Can we see him?" I asked.
"That's the bad part," the doctor admitted. "He refused to be put under while we were examining him and stitching him up, he just kept talking. So, we might have knocked him out for a while, just so that he was quiet."
Mom shook her head and sighed while Alexa burst into fits of giggles. The Stevensons, sitting across from us, also began to laugh. The doctor grinned and told us he'd be awake and available to visit in a few hours. The stay would be a short one, no doubt.
"I need to stay the night, at least the first one," mom said, her tone brooking no argument. "I can sleep in a chair, but I need to be with him, doctor. This is not up for discussion."
He smiled and nodded. "That won't be a problem. I've heard the police are waiting to talk to you all, so you might want to take care of that before he wakes up."
We did indeed give our statements to the police, fully corroborated by the bartender's account as well as other witnesses. They'd talk to dad when he woke up, but they eventually determined that the principal grievance actually belonged to Alexa, whom the bikers had first harrassed.
"They may have been taught a lesson, ma'am, but the law does provide you with recourse to press charges, up to and including aggravated assault, possibly. Would you like to press charges?"
Alexa lowered her head and thought deeply for several seconds. "I don't know," she murmured. "I've come back so recently, I don't want to complicate my residency with legal proceedings like this. Karen?"
Mom took Alexa's hand and squeezed it. "I'll be honest, Allie, I'm of two minds. Chances are if Mike was here, he'd say they've suffered enough, you know what he's like."
They both looked at me now. "Alex?" mom asked softly. "You get a say too."
Thinking like dad was probably the right thing to do. But my memory of the event was seen through a black filter of boiling fury. I could have lost Alexa.
"They tried to hurt my aunt, mom." I growled, the look in my eyes apparently dangerous enough to give even her pause. "Your sister, my aunt. They tried to hurt her. Let them rot in jail, even if they're crippled."
Mom considered and nodded before looking at the officers. "We'll be pressing charges to the fullest extent of the law, officer. Since Alexa is the principal victim and complainant, my husband will doubtless agree when he wakes up. You have our answer."
The cop nodded and walked away. Mom turned and looked at me, her eyes uncharacteristically soft.
"Alex, I know how you feel. They might have killed my husband. You are right to be enraged, your wonderful aunt only just came into our lives and we're blessed for it. But don't let this fury colour your judgement from hereon out, you'll hate it down the road when it brings you no satisfaction or peace. Don't lose sight of everything your father and I have taught you when the going gets tough."
I looked at Alexa and nodded, a silent understanding passing between us. She had deferred her own decision to my anger and I would never lose sight of that again. I couldn't. I owed her that.
***
"Rather amusing that your father was put in the same room Alexa was in just a few days ago, wouldn't you say?" Mr Stevenson mused as we drove back downtown to retrieve the vehicles. The cops had determined I was sober enough to drive, so I would take my car home while The Stevensons brought my father's vehicle back.
"And you could see the look in Karen's eyes, the wheels turning in her head when she saw the size of the shower stall," Mrs Stevenson added, laughing. "If Mike's stitches are strong enough, I've no doubt he'll be getting lucky in there before he's discharged."
Alexa and I said nothing, but she squeezed my hand.
"The university is going to have a stroke," Mr Stevenson sighed. "First Karen's in a potentially fatal car accident and less than a full week later, Mike is stabbed in a bar brawl. Good thing they already got their raises in writing. I don't think you two will need to worry about coming in to do any of the university work, at least until he is discharged."
Alexa opted to ride with me, not surprisingly, once we had retrieved the cars and begun heading home. She seemed somewhat quiet and pensive, not that I blamed her.
"Should we have insisted on staying longer, after he woke up?" she asked, looking at me, hoping she didn't need to feel guilty.
I shook my head. "Nope. That was definitely mom and dad personal time, nobody in their right mind would interfere. I feel bad for the nurses and so on who will keep interrupting them."
She leaned her head back against the passenger chair and sighed, looking at the ceiling. It was getting on toward dawn now that we'd left the hospital. It had been such a fantastic evening up until that fight in the bar. I couldn't remember any of us being happier or more excited.
"I think you and I have some serious competition for 'greatest romance of the age'," she mused. "I don't know when I've ever seen two people so desperately in love before."
"I think you and I are the upstart challengers for that title," I replied. "If I'm as in love with you as dad is with mom, then I'm pretty damned amazing."
Alexa giggled and caressed my arm, looking over at me. "Karen won't leave his side, will she?"
I shook my head. "Not unless you and I are suddenly taken hostage by terrorists, not a chance. The house is ours for two nights, guaranteed. Hell, mom'll be so focused on dad she'll probably forget to call or text me except minimally. She'll simply expect us to show up and then get lost when they want alone time."
"I'll be happy for our uninterrupted alone time," she purred, smiling at me. "Unless, of course, you have another date on your itinerary."
I laughed. "You are the only thing on my itinerary. I want to spend as much of the next two days as possible making love to my aunt, who I am so crazy about."
And what a pleasure it would be to prove that to her.
***
Alexa moaned and panted loudly as she ground her hips down onto me in eager circles, my cock deep inside her pussy. I was squeezing her breasts and pinching her nipples while I fucked her, pumping in and out of her tight wetness. I shuddered as she squeezed me with her slippery, clenching walls, her sticky desire glistening all over our groins.
"Gnnnnnn, Alex..." she gasped, her golden locks spilling around her shoulders as she rode me. "Alex, you're so deep, God, I can't take it!"
"Let me cum in you Alexa," I groaned, squeezing her tits harder and tilting my hips up to reach even deeper inside her. "Please, let me cum in you!"
She pressed her hips down with all her might, arching her back and neck before crying out my name. She pinned me to her bed and screamed, bucking furiously as she came. I growled as I felt my cock pulsing and releasing torrents of my pearly cum deep inside her greedy pussy. We thrashed and writhed like animals in heat, locked to one another. Her fingernails dug into my chest and I was squeezing her breasts so tight I was leaving red welts.
She collapsed on top of me, chest heaving, exhausted. I wrapped my arms around her tiredly, also overcome by waves of pleasure and a delicious, gratifying fatigue. Her sweet breath on my cheek imbued me with a great sense of serenity, like my life was complete as long as we were together like this. There was no way this was wrong.
"Alex," she finally said in a tiny voice. "I'll keep dating girls and you need to keep doing the same, but I'm certain now, I can never be without you. I don't care if I have to change my name legally or sit on top of the microwave until the radiation changes my genome so we're no longer related, but I can't live without you. We need to find a way to be married. I need you for my husband."
I held her tight and kissed her, knowing the truth of her words. "I know. We'll keep up the facade until we figure it out. We'll figure out how to be husband and wife without destroying our family and our future. You have my word from this moment on, Alexa. I plan to make you my wife."
There was a certainty to my tone and in my conviction that defied all logic, I know this. Historical evidence and societal traditions made our desire to marry next to impossible, not just for legal reasons, but out of consideration for our family. How would my parents' peers view Alexa's and my relationship when it became public?
Because it would.
My parents were incredibly popular professors, but as a result they also had their petty, jealous detractors. It would be selfish to damage their careers, after everything they'd ever done for me and most recently for Alexa. Maybe other countries had laws, it's the sort of thing I could look into, but it changed very little realistically about what we were considering and the impact it would have. Prejudices about being married to a blood-relative, legal or not, could affect your employment or applications for employment. You couldn't magically make people not discriminate. The stigma of incestuous marriage aside, what would it mean about children?
I think the truly scary part was that I saw these issues now as obstacles, rather than sound arguments to re-examine my course of action. I was madly in love with my aunt and behind my rational thought, this was all that actually mattered to me.
Damn the rest of it.
We'd just have to find a way.