Saturday, July 31, 2010

Ramaswami/McDermott Random Legacy ch. 17: Kissing Cousins

She showed up at the Landgraab estate unexpectedly, a between the end of his office hours and the start of her shift at the bistro. Yes, she knows he has a 'date' that evening, but she doesn't care, she wanted to see him.

"You'll make me late," Donovan sighs. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"



Is she deliberately trying to undermine his schemes against her aunt? No, she isn't thinking clearly enough to be so devious. She just came over because she wanted him,and damn the consequences.


"I'm definitely late now," he says, "Kamala will be pissed. I really have to go now. Can I see you tomorrow?"

"I have to work," she answers, "I have the dinner shift."

"Come to my office, then. A lunch date," he suggests. By 'date' of course, he means sex on his desk, which is perfectly fine with Regan, so she agrees to his plan.



When she gets home, she gets a stern lecture from her father. "You are out at all hours when you should be spending time with your child!" he says, and carries on about her parental responsibilities. Through her whole childhood and teen years, her father has never spoken a harsh word to her, so his angry outburst comes as a total surprise.

His anger spent, Harlan ends with a sad sigh,"Regan, my dear child, I love you more than anything. But you must learn, your mother and I won't be here forever to take care of things for you." It's not a lesson Regan is particularly interested in learning.



She has a new bedroom, a new dresser, but she still keeps her photos of Gustave where she can see them every morning when she wakes. She doesn't have any photos of Donovan, none that she can put on display, anyway.


"I'm so glad you came by, I'm about to burst," Regina greets Regan at the Goth mansion. "I just found out I'm pregnant. I could just about die."

"Wade or Kent?" Regan asks. Regina has recently, finally, broken up with Wade Alto, and started dating Kent Wainwright, so both the former and current boyfriends are likely suspects.

"Neither! Which is probably a good thing. At least, I'm glad it's not Wade. I don't want an evil slob spawn coming out of me," Regina answers. "You won't believe this, but I'm having Donovan Landgraab's baby. God, I hope it doesn't end up all blond and Landgraaby, I'd be shaming my Goth ancestors."


"You slept with Donovan?' Regan tries to only sound surprised and not completely enraged in jealous. The bastard! It was bad enough he's screwing her aunt, but her cousin, too? Regina doesn't know about Regan's affair with Donovan, so the fault lies entirely on his side.

"Well, obviously. I didn't get his baby through osmosis from my mother. Oh, eww, I can't believe I just said that. I have no idea what I'm going to tell her."

"Have you been, uh, seeing him very long?"

"No, we just had sex once. No romance involved," Regina sighs. "He had an 'appointment' with my mother, but before he showed up she got a page from the hospital, she needed to do an emergency appendectomy. This was right after I broke up with Wade, so I was feeling all mushy and maudlin, cried on Donovan's shoulder when he got here. And of course he jumped my bones. He's smooth, I'll give him that, he had me on my back before I knew what I was doing. Oh, God, he probably impregnated me on purpose. He's got to have figured out by now my mother isn't going to marry him and hand over a big chunk of the estate just because he's cute and a good lay. So he came after me. What a skank."


"And you know what else, you won't believe this, or maybe you will," Regina continues, giving Regan a funny look, "He called out your name when he came. Is there something going on between you two?"

Since Regina has figured out Donovan's schemes on her own, Regan sees no point in denying her own relationship with him anymore, "Yeah, we've been lovers for awhile now. Please, don't tell your mother." She tries not to be smug about the fact that he called her name rather than anyone else's.

"As if," Regina rolls her eyes. "I'm going to have a hard enough time explaining this baby to her. And to Kent! I haven't even put out for him yet, and now I'm having some Landgraab baby after a sleazy one night stand. But you have got to be careful with this one, cousin. He's gorgeous, and charming, and one heck of a lay, but he's a snake. That's fine if all you want is sex, but don't get yourself all wrapped up around him."

"Have you told Donovan yet?" Regan asks.

Regina shakes her head, "No, he's not really my priority right now. I'm not expecting or wanting him to be all involved in my life, his kid or no. Though it would be funny as hell to hit him up for child support. Teach him a lesson. But I don't want his money, not that he has any, or his help, or anything to do with his skanky ass. Feel free to tell him yourself. I'm sure you'd like to slap him silly right about now."


Regan wastes no time confronting Donovan. "You slept with Regina! How could you?"

"Just once..."

"Once is more than enough. She's pregnant, you know, you bastard. Lucky for you she's so rich she doesn't want your help with it. But then that's why you slept with her, isn't it? Hoping to knock her up and get her to marry you? Damn it, Donovan, what about us? Do you ever think of me when you're screwing my aunt or seducing my cousin?"

"Yes, I do think of you, Regan," he answers,"I think about you all the time."



And that was all it took for him to get her to back down, get her back in his bed, just one softly spoken sentence. Whatever he's done, whoever he betrays her with, she's in too deep to resist him.

4 comments:

  1. Okay, I'm starting to feel a little less sorry for Regan. I mean, at this point, she's kind of walking right into it.

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  2. I do tend to write characters that create their own problems rather than just being innocent victims. I like to spread the guilt out evenly, lol.

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  3. I hope you start a new hood after you finish this challenge - they're all gonna be each others' half brothers and sisters in a few generations :D

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  4. LOL, Inge! My neighborhood is already full of Wolff descendants. My second generation spare, Liam, had three sons who have each had two or three children, who are all now grown up and breeding. My third generation spares, Kamala and Sundari, have had two kids each.
    But the good news is, once they get as distant as second cousin, they aren't considered too family to breed with, and Sims don't have issues with inbreeding. Recently two Wollfs from different branches of the family married each other through story progression.
    Also, there are actually still families in the neighborhood that no one in my family has bred into yet. You just don't hear about them in the story.
    It is hard sometimes to keep track of all the cousins, and I get a real kick out of looking at family trees of fourth generation Sims. (Twallan's master controller lets you look at anyone's family tree.) It's great to trace people back to the original inhabitants.

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