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SIBLINGS Chapter 1 (ped)
[Birthdates: 6 Jan 1955 & 6 Jan 1956]
Prologue: Addressed to Grace.
Chapter 1: 1967 / me 12, her 11 -- [EARLY YEARS, part 1 General
background; street fight to rescue her.
Chapter 2: 1968 / me 13, her 12 -- [EARLY YEARS, part 2] She has her first
period.
Chapter 3: 1969 / me 14, her 13 -- [EARLY YEARS, part 3] First kiss &
realization of deep emotional commitment.
Chapter 4: 1970 / me 15, her 14 -- [EARLY YEARS, part 4 / OPENING
MOVES] First real sexual contact; mutual masturbation; oral sex.
Chapter 5: 1971 / me 16, her 15 -- [EARLY YEARS, part 5 / PATTY] Her bad
date & my revenge; her afternoon with Patty.
Chapter 6: 1972 / me 17, her 16 -- [FIRST TIME / DRIVE-IN / SHOWERS] Our
first fuck; sex shared with others; experimental water sports.
Chapter 7: 1973 / me 18, her 17 (my freshman year) -- [MARTA] Weekend with
Marta, Gary, & Alice.
Chapter 8: 1974 / me 19, her 18 (my sophomore year, her freshman year) --
[FAMILY] We set up housekeeping for outselves.
Chapter 9: 1975 / me 20, her 19 (my junior year, her sophomore year) --
[TRANSITIONS] Our parents are killed; we have only each other now.
Chapter 10: 1976 / me 21, her 20 (my senior year, her junior year) --
[CRISIS] Alex's personal crisis: She meets a guy and falls in love; I
decide to let her go if necessary, though the decision is very painful.
She discovers she'd rather have me than him. I graduate and we decide I
should do my M.A. the following year; perhaps my career is in teaching.
Chapter 11: 1977 / me 22, her 21 (my graduate work, her senior year) --
[CONNIE] First fateful meeting with Connie, out of town.
Chapter 12: 1978 / me 23, her 22 -- [EXTENDED FAMILY "Connie 2"] We go
out into the world, sort of, working in Berkeley; Connie makes it a
permanent three-way arrangement.
Chapter 13: 1979 / me 24, her 23 -- [SPRING WEDDING] Alex and Connie sit
me down to discuss the family situation; Connie explains that she can't
have children. They convince me that Connie and I should marry, for the
record and to cover outselves with the world. And Alex and I will have a
child; Connie will be the "second mother." Grace is conceived mid-April
1979.
Chapter 14: 1980 / me 25, her 24 -- [AND THEN WE WERE FOUR] Grace is
born, 10 Jan 1980.
[...segue...]
Chapter 15: 1991 / me 36, her 35, Grace 12 -- [...NO TITLE...] Background
of Grace's upbringing.
Chapter 16: 1992 / me 37, her 36, Grace 13 -- [...NO TITLE...] Grace's
first carefully considered sexual contact with us.
Chapter 17: 1993 / me 38, her 37, Grace 14 -- [CONSUMATION] Grace's first
sex with us; similarities and differences between that and my early
experiences with Alex. Some sobering decisions.
That's it, folks. That's the plan. Bracketed all-caps are working chapter
(or section) titles, under which completed chunks have been posted. BUT
NOT ALL CHAPTERS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED! So *please* don't email me to ask
"where's the rest of the novel?" What you've seen posted is what I've
completed. Or, "when are you going to finish it?" This is *my* story and
I'm writing it as I get it worked out. It may not be finished in this
decade -- hell, maybe not in this lifetime! -- but I'll post each section
when I think it's ready to be taken out in public. Keep in mind that this
particular piece of work is as much therapy as anything; where the
slightly-fictionalized fact tapers off and the pure fantasy- wish
fulfillment takes over is up to you to determine, but I have my reasons
for doing it this way. (And yes, my sister approves completely....)
From SIBLINGS -- a novel in progress
("The Early Days")
by Michael K. Smith
[NOTE: I've posted seven more or less complete sections (seldom complete
chapters) from this novel so far, under individual titles. Some readers
have gotten interested in the background of the main characters -- how
they came to be who they are and so on -- and have asked enough questions
to prompt me to post the following, which are key excerpts from the first
five chapters.
There are no sex scenes as such, but you'll find plenty of romance, a
dollop of amateur psychology,... and plenty of more subtle eroticism.
SIBLINGS is a full-dress novel and I've gone to some effort to make the
people and the situations four-dimensional, to provide motivation and
logical results, and to avoid 'deus ex machina' contrivances of the sort
that are rife in many of the stories posted in a.s.s. Comments,
criticism, and discussion are welcome,... but PLEASE post them in a.s.s.D!
If you haven't read the previously posted sections, please be aware that
the overriding theme throughout the novel is *consensual sibling incest*,
about which my basic feelings should be obvious by now. If the very idea
turns your stomach, you're more bent than most of the readers hereabouts,
and you should change the channel NOW....]
Chapter 1:
[...from chapter 1...]
My sister, Alexandra, and I had (and have) an unusual relationship, and
it was the direct result of birth order and our closeness in age. At
least, that's what I prefer to think -- that it was circumstances beyond
our control.
I was born in Mendocino County, California, at 3:45 a.m. on January 6,
1955. Alex was born at 3:52 a.m. on the same day in 1956. One year and
seven minutes difference. We looked very much alike: dark auburn hair,
gray-green eyes, lots of freckles, a certain sharp narrowness in the nose.
We were about the same size, too, especially as teenagers.
People frequently assumed we were twins, we were so similar. And
especially because there was only a single digit's difference when we had
to fill out bureaucratic forms that required a birth date. More than
once, some clerk increased Alex's age by a year or shaved a year off mine.
Before we were even in school, we had begun to think of ourselves as
twins, too, in all the important ways, identical twins who happened to be
of the opposite sex.
We weren't the only kids in our family. Jack was five years older than
me and Philip was eight years older -- post-World War II babies, both of
them. They had half a decade in which to become mutually supportive
before Alex and I showed up, and the difference in age between them and us
was large enough that we were almost like two separate families.
I don't mean they picked on either of us. I realized later that they
could have made our lives hell, but both of them behaved well enough
toward us. They were just too far ahead in age to have anything in common
with us. So they practiced benign neglect toward "the kids" and Alex and
I stuck more and more to each other's company.
More important, our parents naturally were more concerned with the
school activities and career plans of their two oldest boys. When I was
starting junior high, Philip was a year away from finishing his college
degree and was beginning to interview with company recruiters. Jack was
about to go off to a good college on a scholarship and had his own
ambitious plans. Nobody was much interested in what I was learning in
seventh grade. For whatever reason, I never developed any bitterness
about this casual disinterest. I didn't throw tantrums or break windows
to get my parents' attention. I was proud of my brothers and they did
give me their attention when I sought it out (which wasn't often). But
they could have been uncles instead of brothers.
Alex had it a little worse. She wasn't "planned," of course, being so
close to me in age, and she became aware early on that her conception had
been unexpected. When we were little, we both heard Dad making what had
obviously become a standard joke to friends and relatives -- that their
only daughter had arrived postage-due, "but we kept her anyway." And he
didn't mean it maliciously, which was almost worse. It was an
unconsciously hurtful thing to say, and Alex WAS hurt by it. That stupid
joke made me angry as well, and it bonded me even closer to my sister. I
was only eight or nine years old, so I could hardly say anything to my
father about his unfeeling jokes, but I comforted Alex when she cried in
her room. We began about that time to think of ourselves not even as
twins, but in some way as one person.
By the time I was twelve, Dad had reached a moderately successful level
as a regional sales manager in his company and he began to travel much
more extensively and frequently around his enlarged territory. He was
often gone two or three weeks at a time.
At about the same time, Mother's arthritis, from which she had first
begun to suffer at the age of 35, became increasingly severe in her legs.
Now, she was confined to walking only very short distances and was often
in a wheelchair. She chafed at the inactivity forced on her and
discovered new ways to do her shopping and cooking and laundry. She hated
it when people tried to do things for her that she could still manage to
do for herself, so she didn't demand our sympathy and constant attention.
Looking back, I admire her for that determination not to be a burden.
At the time, however, it had the principal benefit for us that she almost
never came Upstairs. It exhausted her and she showed up above the ground
floor less and less often. After Jack abandoned his room and went off to
college, Upstairs became *our* territory, Alex's and mine.
Dad usually came up for a few minutes when he returned from a trip, so
we kept our rooms as clean as anyone has a right to expect from active
adolescents. We hauled our laundry down to the washer and took turns
mopping out our bathroom once a week. We folded and put away our own
clothes and changed our own burned-out light bulbs. We made sure Dad was
satisfied with our attention to our living quarters and he pretty much
left us to manage the upper part of the house to suit ourselves, which
confirmed our territoriality. And it gave us an almost adult sense of
privacy.
Again, looking back, I realize Dad just wasn't much interested in the
two of us. Philip and Jack together formed the focus of his paternal
instinct. They were born in the lean years following Dad's discharge from
the Army, when he drove a cab and sold furniture while going to college on
the G.I. Bill. He and Mother lived in a tiny apartment and scraped along
through the tail end of the 1940s, first by themselves and then with a
son. In 1950, almost 30 years old, Dad finished college and landed a good
sales job with a company that wholesaled office machines. Jack was born
a
few months later.
By the mid-1950s, when I showed up almost as an afterthought, my older
brothers were in school, riding the forward curl of the Baby Boom wave.
Apparently, Mother and Dad had intended to stop at two children but took
a
chance on a third, and never expected a fourth at all. So our parents
weren't cruel or even deliberately unkind. Just not terribly involved
with their two youngest. As Alex and I outgrew clothes or toys, they
disappeared from the house, passed on or donated somewhere, with an air of
relief hanging over them.
When I went over to some friend's house to play, we usually did things
in his room -- especially if he also had brothers and sisters. Any
younger sibling who entered the room uninvited was pushed out and the door
shut behind him or her. I accepted this as natural and normal at the
time. It wasn't until I was entering adolescence that I realized that
very few of my friends or Alex's had ever seen the upper half of our
house. We had a large den and TV room downstairs where the family's
supply of games was stored (now used only by the two of us), and that was
where we usually played with our friends, whether separately or all in a
group. Since Alex and I were so close in age, we had several good friends
in common. Those few were the only ones ever invited Upstairs, and then
only rarely.
When children begin to enter puberty they become physically very
self-conscious. Bathroom doors are shut and even locked. Boys discovered
sorting their sisters' underwear out of the dryer are tongue-lashed by its
owner. One of my friends once playfully hid his younger sister's first
training bra, and she nearly had hysterics when she realized her brother
had actually touched it. Anyone who's not an "only" has had similar
experiences, I'm sure, especially in a brother/sister mix.
I mention these things only to say that Alex and I were different. When
Alex was standing in front of the hall linen closet in her first bra and
panties, digging out the fluffiest towel she could find, I didn't make
snide cracks. The first and only time I hooked a finger under the back
strap of her bra and snapped it (doesn't every brother do that?), she
ignored me ... until I turned and began to walk away. Then she snapped me
with a towel with such accuracy and finesse it felt like a needle had been
jabbed in my ass. I jumped, she giggled "Gotcha!," and that was all. We
were even-up and there was no escalation.
We usually helped each other make up both our beds simply because it
went much faster. The first time she noticed the stiff places on my
bottom sheet where I had had nocturnal emissions or had jerked off, and
asked me what *that* was, I flushed in embarrassment. She could have made
capital on that for weeks, but she chose discretion and shrugged.
So, we were normal kids in most respects. We simply never did anything
to hurt or upset each other. "I'm telling!" was not something either of
us ever said to the other. An enlightened and mature attitude, I suppose,
but I know neither of us ever reasoned it out. I can't remember a time we
weren't best friends. That was just the way it was between us.
We played pranks on each other, and we exchanged the usual teasing
insults, and we argued frequently. We even had occasional fights and got
angry at each other, but it was always over a serious and substantive
issue, not just because "siblings always fight." And we always made up in
a day or so and never carried grudges. It took us both awhile to realize,
from visiting friends' homes, that our relationship was not the norm.
* * * * *
We were protective of each other in the outside world, too. When Alex
was in fifth grade and I was in sixth, she chanced one spring week to get
on the wrong side on three boys in my class. For several days, they
pushed her around at recess and sabotaged her assignments in class. She
didn't know why they had singled her out but for awhile she was half in a
rage and half in tears most of the day. Typically, she kept her problem
to herself and when I finally asked her what was the matter she wouldn't
tell me.
I lagged behind her the next afternoon, however, and deliberately spied
on her. Our house was only four blocks from school, so we usually walked
home. The villainous sixth grade boys were on bikes, though, and they
charged out of an alley while she was crossing a street in the middle of
a
residential block. They circled her like Mongol raiders, knocking the
books out of her hands and jeering at her tears. Several other homebound
students witnessed the raid but most kids learn early not to draw
attention to themselves when one of their number becomes the focus of
unwanted malevolent attention.
I was in a different situation regarding the victim, of course. I was
not a fighter, not in any way. I never picked fights, preferring to use
my already sharp tongue. And if my tongue caused someone to chase me, I
ran. I may not have been physically courageous but I wasn't stupid
either.
But this was something else altogether. I didn't stop to think about
it. I just dropped my book bag and my gym shoes on the sidewalk and ran
the fifty yards to the marauders, becoming more angry with every stride.
My profanity wasn't very developed anyway, so I kept my mouth shut. I
also knew instinctively that taking on three boys my own size required
surprise tactics. I was heading directly toward Alex, though I had no
idea what I was going to do when I reached her.
As it happened, one of the bastards nearly intercepted my course without
yet noticing me, and I jumped in the air knee-high and kicked his bike
with my feet as my body hurtled into his. He never knew what hit him.
His bike and his head bounced off the asphalt simultaneously, with a
satisfying double-crash.
I scrambled up and saw a hand reaching for me with an unbelieving face
behind it as the next rider missed hitting me by inches. I grabbed the
hand and the wrist and hung on, and the boy yanked himself off his bike by
his own momentum. He landed on his knees and tried to grab my leg with
his other hand, so I kicked him hard in the face and let go of him.
Instinct again. Had I stopped to think about what I was doing, he would
have beaten the crap out of me. But he shrieked, went over on his back,
and clapped both hands over his nose and mouth.
The third boy had slewed his bike sideways in a frantic attempt not to
run into his buddy, and now had gotten the cuff of his jeans caught in the
chain. He had his back turned as he tried to extricate himself from his
machine. I yelled wordlessly and jumped on his back, grabbed his hair,
and began knocking his face against the horizontal bar of the bike. Kids
don't fight "fair" when it's a serious contest; they take any advantage
they can get.
He reached behind him, managed to grab my ear, and tried hard to pull it
off. I yelped at the sudden pain and tried to disengage, but he hung on
and twisted himself around where he could get both hands on me. I wasn't
going to get out of this unbruised; some of my anger began to be replaced
by fear.
But all this time, all two or three minutes of it, I'd forgotten about
Alex. She was angry, too. As the third boy cocked his free arm,
preparing to bury his fist in my eye, my sweet sister let him have it from
behind with her history textbook -- the thick, heavy one. I was focused
on that fist and heard three separate thudding sounds before I realized
what was happening. The repeated concussions made the third Mongol forget
all about me. He was crying and yelling and trying to get away. He
finally escaped by tearing his jeans, leaving part of the cuff wedged in
the chain, and falling over his bike. The pointed front of the bicycle
seat caught him square in the nuts and then he was rolling around in the
street, clutching his crotch and moaning.
The first boy was trying not very successfully to sit up. Blood was
running down his neck and across his head and he had managed to smear it
across his face. At first glance, he appeared to have been scalped.
The second one was still covering his lower face with his hands and
there was blood all down his shirt front and one tooth lying in the
street. He saw it too, and picked it up and stared at it. The only blood
on me belonged to the other three, though I had managed to rip two buttons
off my shirt.
As I said, I'm not a fighter, and I suddenly began to shake, sitting
there in the street. The thrill of victory was whooping somewhere in the
back of my mind, but it was mostly obscured by growing fear. Mother and
Dad were going to kill me. I'd probably be expelled. Maybe the police
would come to the house. Alex was alternately sobbing and laughing as she
hung onto my arm. When she felt me shaking, though, she came to her
senses more quickly than I did.
"C'mon," she said urgently. "Let's get outta here."
She pulled and pushed me to my feet and quickly gathered up her
scattered school books. We both looked around. Perhaps a dozen other
students of varying ages were standing, frozen, up and down the block,
some in the street and some on the sidewalk. I saw only one adult -- a
man who had been parking in front of his house ten yards away and was now
standing and leaning over his open car door with his mouth open. I paid
attention to him especially. The other kids were just kids, but adults
were a different species.
The man finally found his voice. "I saw it all, kid, it wasn't your
fault. You two get on home and I'll take care of these bullies." He
looked disgustedly at the three losers and I felt some relief.
Alex and I hurried back to where I had dropped my own stuff, noting the
nervousness or fright of the smaller children we passed. Those our own
age mostly grinned, though. The boys in the street were not popular.
Probably nobody here was going to volunteer evidence against me. We
walked quickly down the block and around the corner, making a two-block
detour to get home; I didn't want to have to walk again past the boys I
had beaten up.
That's when I realized, for the first time, that I *had* beaten them.
Three-to-one odds, and I had won. A satisfying thing for an adolescent
boy to discover about himself. But there was also the sobering knowledge
that I couldn't get away with that kind of surprise attack more than once.
The story would be all over school by the end of tomorrow's classes. And
I'd have to be careful or I was going to get my own self beaten up by kids
who had decided I had stepped out of the pecking order. Not to mention
the revenge these three losers would undoubtedly plan against me.
As usual, Alex was reading my mind. "Michael, don't worry." We were
both out of breath from our attempt to escape the scene. "That man was
Charlene Huff's father. He's a cop, a lieutenant or something. I don't
think he's going to bother us or he'd already have done it. Besides, he
said he saw the whole thing. Maybe those creeps will be in more trouble
than us." It was typical that she said "us" and not "you." She'd only
gotten in three blows and her school dress wasn't even mussed -- never
mind that she was the victim -- but it was still "us."
Then she squeezed my arm and smiled and said "My hero," without a trace
of irony. She made it sound lighthearted but she meant it. I was no
knight in shining armor and we both knew it. She also knew, now, that I
was willing to risk serious trouble on her behalf. I don't think it came
as a surprise to either of us.
We found out later that her estimation of the situation was pretty much
correct. Detective Lieutenant Huff apparently displayed his badge of
office to the three Mongols, which frightened them into giving their true
names and addresses. Then he made a point of going around to each set of
parents to explain how their sons had ended up in such a sorry condition
and why they hadn't better "assault a little girl" again. Charlene knew
the three, of course, and presumably filled in her father on their
previous terrorist activities. Nobody I knew had ever *seen* the inside
of Juvenile Detention and nobody wanted to. So I was a minor hero for a
few days, mostly to earlier victims of the gang. And Alex, without
telling me, made sure through her girlfriend network that the word went
out: Don't start on me or my brother, or Charlene Huff's father will hear
about it.
Chapter 2:
[...from chapter 2...]
I remember very clearly when I realized Alex was growing up, because it
momentarily frightened me. I went into the bathroom one morning when I
was thirteen and found several fresh drops of dark blood on the tile floor
in front of the toilet, by the simple method of stepping in it. There was
more blood in the bowl itself.
I looked wildly at the backs of my arms and legs and checked quickly in
the mirror to see if I had a nosebleed. There wasn't a mark on me. It
had to be my sister, the only other person who ever used the Upstairs
bathroom. So I hurried into her room.
"Alex!" I said too loudly. "Are you all right? Where'd the blood come
from?" She was sleeping on her stomach, but she awoke with a start,
raised her head, and stared at me in alarm.
"What blood?! Where?"
"In the bathroom, on the floor! Did you hurt yourself?" She stared
blankly at me for a moment before her eyes registered comprehension. She
let her head fall back on the pillow.
"No, dummy. I just started my period during the night. Sorry I made a
mess. I'll clean it up when I get up...." She began to drowse off again.
Her period. Oh. Yes, that WAS pretty stupid of me. The boys' Health
classes in school covered the physical development of both sexes, so I
knew, in theory, what menstruation was. I just hadn't put my foot in it
before now. I slipped out of my sister's room, embarrassed and sheepish.
Then I returned to the bathroom and mopped up the blood, now smeared by my
foot, and then went back to lie, wide awake, in my own bed for the two
hours before we had to get up for school.
When the alarm went off, I climbed out of bed again and wandered back to
the bathroom. Alex was already there, in her ubiquitous sleeping
tee-shirt, brushing her teeth. She turned when I came in, her mouth full
of toothpaste.
"I said I'd clean it up, Michael."
"What? Oh. Well, I stepped in it and smeared it, and I didn't want it
to dry there. Besides, I woke you up at five o'clock." I was still
embarrassed, not because she had begun having periods but because she
hadn't mentioned it to me.
My sister could read my expressions as fluently as I could read hers.
"Michael? I didn't mean to embarrass you; I was still asleep. I started
having periods a couple months ago, and I'm just not used to it yet. It
makes me feel pretty weird." She continued to look at me.
I patted her on the back. "That's okay, Alex. You just caught me by
surprise. I thought you had hurt yourself somehow. This is a new
experience for me, too."
Now I was succumbing to curiosity. "Uh, are you using a-- a Kotex, or
what? I mean, I don't want to pry...."
She replied with her tinkly, high amusement laugh. "No, they're too
bulky, you can see the outline right through your slacks. I'm using a
tampon."
I must have looked blank this time. "Isn't that the same thing?"
She laughed again and raised the front of her tee-shirt above her
panties. "No, it's not! I'm using one now and it doesn't show at all."
She saw my puzzled expression. "In fact, I need to change it before we go
to school. You can watch if you want to...."
"Really? We didn't get this kind of detail in Health class.
Obviously." I had no idea what this was going to involve but I suspected
it might make me a little sick. Maybe I had better skip breakfast this
morning.
Alex motioned for me to sit on the closed toilet seat while she got down
a cardboard box from the bathroom closet and dug from it a paper-wrapped
cylinder. Then she pushed her panties down and put one foot up on the
seat of the old wooden chair we kept in the bathroom.
This was also something new. I noted with interest that she was
developing a sizable patch of auburn pubic hair, almost exactly the same
shade as the hair on her head,... and on my head, for that matter. Then
I
saw a white string dangling from her crotch.
Holding a folded-over pad of toilet paper between her legs, she tugged
on the string and extracted a bright red something the size and shape of
a
hot dog, which glistened wetly. She wrapped it up carefully in the toilet
paper and dropped it in the wastebasket. There was a strange new aroma
about her, very different but not exactly unpleasant. Just strange.
She dabbed between her legs with another wad of toilet paper, moistened
this time to clean off any blood that had trickled around the Tampax.
Then she quickly unwrapped the fresh pack, revealing two telescoped
cardboard tubes, like a large toy hypodermic. Spreading her labia with
the fingers of one hand, she pushed the tube up into herself with the
other, depressed the "plunger," and withdrew the tube, which was now
tinged with red. A new string dangled from her crotch.
"See?" she said calmly. "Nothing to worry about. And I just gave you
a
free shot at my pussy, too," she added with a grin. She pulled her
panties up and turned back to the sink to wash her hands.
I sat there another few seconds, thinking about what I had just seen.
Neither of us was particularly body-conscious, so nudity was not a big
thing. I had seen my sister naked a number of times and vice versa. But
this was the first time I had actually been shown what lay hidden between
her legs ... and she had volunteered it. Was she just teasing me? Or was
there a message here I didn't yet understand? I was pretty sure none of
my friends at school who had sisters had had such an experience, or we all
would have heard about it. I, on the other hand, wouldn't tell them, or
anyone else, a thing. And Alex knew it.
Maybe that's why she did it, I thought. Starting her periods means
she's growing up and who else can she show that off to? And she knows she
can trust me not to gossip about it at school.
I reached over to my sister, now standing only a foot away at the sink,
and moved my hand lightly down the back of her thigh and the inside of her
knee. I knew she liked that caress, and she did indeed look over at me
with a wide smile.
"You have a very nice...," I began and then couldn't think of an
appropriate word.
"Pussy? I know. Thank you, Michael." Her smile was warm and candid.
We were an odd couple, even at that age.
Chapter 3:
[...from chapter 3...]
I was working on my third model Zero, being careful to use only the
minimum amount of plastic cement. The two halves of each wing were drying
in their network of rubber bands, and I was just about ready to insert the
wings into the slots in the fuselage. The first two models had come out
okay and were lined up on the shelf before me where I could visually check
the wing angles. I painted a thin bead of cement along the wing slots,
inserted the wings, checked the angles, and prepared to hold my hands
steady for five minutes. I intended to have a flight of three Japanese
fighters arranged in a diving formation over my study desk, properly
detailed and painted and each with its own individual markings.
Alex's head poked in the door, dark red ponytail askew. She watched in
silence for a few seconds as I sat unmoving.
"What are you doing?"
I looked at my sister, then back at the model, then patiently back at my
sister. She saw my expression and held up a hand. "Okay, I know: You're
working on a model. But what are you DOING?"
"I'm holding the wings steady until the cement dries, so they won't
sag."
She nodded as if her worst fears for my sanity had been realized. I
raised an eyebrow. "Hey, do I make fun of the stuffed animals on your
pillow?"
She smiled and continued into my room in cutoffs and a tee-shirt,
collapsing on my bed, arms out, with a loud, dramatic sigh. "I'm bored."
I didn't even look up. "It's 10:30 Saturday morning, Alex. How can you
be bored?" I kind of knew what she meant, though. I mean, here I was
with nothing better to do than build model planes.
"I bet you could think of something to do if you worked at it. What
about the Coven?" My name for the four or five girls she ran around with,
doing "girl things" together.
"Oh, they're all out of town for the weekend, or they have afternoon
dates, or something." She sounded faintly disgusted. "Michael, could WE
do something together?"
"Like what?" The wings were setting up perfectly.
"I dunno -- go to a show maybe? Just go downtown and walk around and
window-shop?"
I looked over at the bed and grinned. "Well, I could take you to the
playground and hold your hand while you go down the *big* slide...."
She stuck out her tongue and then grinned back. I liked the way her
nose wrinkled when she did that.
"I'm serious! It's a nice day -- we could just go out and do something
and have fun together, couldn't we? Unless you're embarrassed to be seen
with your little sister, of course."
"No, I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you, and you're not so little
anymore, anyway." I thought about discovering her menstruation a few
months before; I tried to think of her as a "woman" now, but it often
wasn't easy.
The Zero's wings had set enough that I could let go of them, but I
slipped a paperback book under each wing, just in case. I turned sideways
in my chair. Alex had her hands behind her head and was idly kicking one
bare foot over her cocked knee. I thought about things I needed to do,
projects I ought to work on. Nothing. I was caught up on my schoolwork
and so, probably, was Alex. No pressing errands. No place I really had
to be today. God, it WAS going to be a boring day! On the other hand,
though Alex and I teased each other without mercy, I really did like her
company and I knew the feeling was reciprocated. We had become very
comfortable just hanging out together.
"You know what we both need?" I said. "Exercise. EASY exercise. You
feel like hiking around Fremont Park for a couple of hours?"
Fremont was a large, semi-wild area on the eastern edge of town that
combined lawns and softball fields and cycling paths with rocky trails and
not-too-difficult ravines. High school students went there with their
steadies, to lie in the sun or to sit up amongst the boulder-strewn
hillsides and make out. Young mothers strolled their infants, older kids
climbed trees and tossed frisbees. In the summer, the park was pretty
busy on weekends, but this was a surprisingly mild day in March and most
families would be stoking up their charcoal for the first cook-out of the
year, or attacking the winter's accumulation of yard work.
Alex considered the suggestion for perhaps half a second before bouncing
up with a broad, sparkling smile. "That's a great idea! Wait'll I get my
Keds!" She hurried out, toes curled for traction as she angled across the
hall.
We frequently rode our bikes over to Fremont, but the idea today was to
hike, and if we parked the bikes someplace -- even locked -- the odds were
slim that they would be there when we came back. But it was only a
fifteen-minute bus ride from the end of our block to the park, so it was
still well before noon when we arrived. There were a few athletic types
around, but the families wouldn't begin to appear before late lunch.
"Wanna head for anyplace special?" Alex asked as we got off the bus.
"No place special," I replied. "In fact, let's just go wherever we
happen to go. There's no hurry; we can just stroll, okay?"
Alex nodded agreement and we set off at an easy pace along the
tree-edged path that separated the open, nearly empty lawns on our left
from the rolling, rocky hillsides on the right. We ambled along and I
hooked my thumbs in my front pockets. Alex looped her arm through mine.
She was only a inch or so shorter than me and we fit together quite well.
"This is nice," she said lazily and squeezed my arm.
A few minutes later, we witnessed one of those otherwise minor
incidents, those little public dramas, that can unexpectedly make a real
change in your life. Three boys about ten years old came tearing down the
path on their bikes and swerved around us. Several lengths behind them
was a girl a year or two younger, wearing jeans and a plaid blouse,
peddling as hard as she could.
"Keith!" she yelled angrily. "Mom said not to go off and leave me!
Wait up!"
One of the boys threw up his hands in dramatic frustration and coasted
to a stop while the girl hurried to catch up. The other two boys began
cruising in a circle on the grass off to one side, laughing at their
buddy's encumbrance. The girl skidded to a halt just behind her brother.
She was nearly in tears.
"Why don't you just go home, kid?" Keith looked very disgusted.
"Sisters aren't good for anything!" He glared a challenge at her.
"I just want to play...," the girl replied, looking down at her shoes.
"Well, we don't want you playing with us! Get away from me! Just leave
me alone!" And he did a wheelie on his bike as he raced off to join his
friends. They all headed for the beginning of one of the park's network
of hill trails.
The girl watched them go, then slowly turned her bike around and headed
back the other way. She wasn't crying aloud, but the misery of rejection
was plain in her eyes. There were tears on her cheeks and she was biting
her lower lip. As she passed us, I realized that Alex was about to say
something to her.
Bad idea, I knew it instinctively. I trapped the hand that had begun to
slip off my arm and said, softly but firmly, "No."
Alex looked at me, startled, and then the girl had passed and so had the
opportunity to intervene.
"Why did you stop me?" She looked surprised. "I was just going to tell
her to keep her chin up -- that not all brothers are like that. Didn't
you see the way he treated that poor kid?"
I raised my eyebrows; she really didn't understand. "In other words,
you were going to point out to her how much luckier YOU were. And how
would that have made her feel?"
Alex opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. She looked for
a
moment at the snubbed girl, who was peddling slowly into the distance with
her head down, then looked back at me and nodded unhappily.
"You're right; I didn't think. Sorry." She took my arm again and we
went on. She was thinking, and I thought I knew what about, but I kept my
mouth shut.
My sister looked over and stared at my profile for several seconds
before asking, "Michael,... why aren't we like that?"
My thoughts had been running along the same lines. "You mean, why don't
we detest each other, the way everyone else we know does?" She smiled
slightly and nodded. "Alex, I don't know. But I'm glad it's different
with us."
"Me, too." She squeezed my arm, just a little.
"Maybe," I continued, "maybe we're just different from everyone else,
period. I mean, how many people do we know who would even be talking
about this? We've always gotten along pretty well -- haven't we? Is that
abnormal for brothers and sisters? Or maybe we just left that stuff
behind quicker than most people."
Alex was nodding her head. She looked at me again and smiled. "Maybe
we're emotional geniuses...."
I snorted and we went on. After awhile we found ourselves stepping from
ledge to ledge up a hillside trail. There was a series of broad slate
shelves to one side near the top of the hill, screened from above by scrub
and juniper, which had obviously been left as a bench for climbers. You
could see most of the park from there, as well as the trail we had
climbed. It seemed like a good place to sit and talk, which I think we
both unconsciously wanted to do.
I sat and stuck my legs out, flexing my knees. I needed to get this
kind of exercise more often; except for swimming, maybe I was becoming too
"bookish." My sister stepped up on the ledge just behind mine, sat down,
and leaned her chin on my shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture and I
liked it. But her question wasn't what I had expected.
"Michael, how do you feel about me?"
I considered for a moment, but I wasn't sure what she was really asking.
"You mean, do I like you more than that kid likes *his* sister? Sure."
"Well,... no -- not exactly."
Her voice had an odd tone. I started to turn to look at her but she
quickly laid her hand atop my head and prevented it.
"Don't look at me!" she added, so I didn't. "I mean, uh,... um,...
Michael, do you love me?" It came out in a rush.
I hadn't had a chance to thing of a good answer so I said the first
thing that came into my head. "Of course, I love you, Alex. You're my
sister and I care about you a lot."
Her cheek was next to my ear and I could feel her smile. Then she
surprised me again: She kissed me on the cheek and quickly sat back. She
had kissed me before, when I gave her a birthday present or did her some
kind of favor, but somehow this was different. I motioned for her to move
down beside me, which she did. Then I put my arm around her neck, my hand
dangling loose over her shoulder, and I studied her.
"So? Are you going to tell me what that was all about?"
She shrugged, a bit embarrassed, and reached up to lace her fingers
through mine. "I don't know,... I just wondered...." I continued to look
at her expectantly so she went on.
"Well, that girl looked so unhappy awhile ago, and I was thinking that
I'm usually *happy* around you, and,... well, I just wondered."
Then I surprised myself. I leaned over and kissed her at the corner of
her eye. She was startled and put her other hand up to touch the spot.
I
knew that most guys my age would rather eat dirt than kiss their sisters,
but it felt like something I wanted to do, and I realized immediately that
I had enjoyed it.
Alex was my sister, yes -- but she was also a very pretty girl, and I
definitely liked girls. Also, she was my very best friend, barring no
one. I had warm feelings toward her on all accounts, and I had reason to
think she felt much the same way about me. How long had I felt this way?
For as long as I could remember. Looking back, I can see that we were
unusually mature emotionally, and I can offer no explanation for that.
Because Alex was right: We had never fought, the way most siblings did.
We argued, often heatedly, but we never sank to name-calling. If we
stomped off in opposite directions after a spat, we always felt guilty
soon afterward and sought each other out to be the first to apologize.
I'm not sure our parents were aware of any of this, either. As I've
said, we were the objects of benign neglect in most matters, and we made
up our own social and psychological norms. We played together when we
were little, we shared our toys with almost no arguments, we took each
other's part automatically in dealings with other kids (like the famous
incident with the Three Bullies) -- we cooperated to what was undoubtedly
an unnatural degree. It wasn't an attitude or a relationship we arrived
at by forethought; it just seemed to be a part of our emotional makeup.
All our lives we had been close, but now we were both growing up. I was
becoming acutely aware that there was a female body under the jeans and
sweatshirts and -- also unusual -- I didn't feel guilty or even strange
about the realization.
In retrospect, I believe my sister also had a crush on me. I was
beginning to catch her watching me unobtrusively with an expression of
vague longing. At the time, I just thought she was acting a little oddly.
Certainly, I had a matching crush on her; I simply didn't recognize it.
I know I wondered at the time if our relaxed companionability was a
"phase" that would end, if we would soon be at each other's throats like
everyone else. I hoped that wouldn't happen. I was really beginning to
consciously enjoy and appreciate my sister's friendly presence, taken so
long for granted. I liked living with someone so similar in appearance,
style, and tastes to myself, someone I could talk to about absolutely
anything without being jeered. Someone so cute, too. And I didn't think
of any of this as "wrong." It was just the way we were, and the fact that
we recognized so early that we were different seemed to isolate us even
more from our friends and classmates. It drew us more closely together.
I had my friends, Alex had her friends, and we shared a few friends.
But then there was "Alex-and-me," and that was like a third person in
which each of us shared half the responsibility.
We sat there on the rock ledge by the trail, thinking much the same
thoughts and reaching the same conclusions. Alex snuggled a little closer
and leaned against me, and I replied by putting my arm around her and
squeezing her in a soft hug.
"Michael," she said softly without looking up, "I'm lucky to have you
for a brother, aren't I?" She paused and the tenor of her voice saddened.
"This probably can't go on, you know that, don't you? What's going to
happen to us?"
"It'll go on as long as both of us want it to, Alex." It was what I
hoped, not what I knew. We were still very young and hope comes easy at
that age.
Alex turned sideways to face me. "Would it be too strange if I kissed
you? I mean, on the mouth?"
"Not to me it wouldn't be."
She reached up to my cheek as I spoke and I put my hand on the back of
her neck. I felt warm and tender toward her at that moment, but it wasn't
exactly "romantic." Neither was it consciously sexual. More like a
deliberate emotional bonding.
Our lips met hesitantly. Neither of us had really done this before with
anyone -- in cold blood, so to speak. But we gained confidence quickly.
That first real kiss between us lasted maybe thirty seconds and it was
careful and gentle and exploratory, and it felt so very, very nice. And
so entirely natural, as if it were destined. Neither of us had second
thoughts.
When our lips parted we simply sat and gazed at each other, our hands
still in place. It certainly felt like a "magic moment" but neither of us
was quite sure why.
I date my love for Alex, for my beautiful and perfect sister, from that
moment. I wasn't aware of any kind of emotional watershed at the time, of
course. But, looking back, that kiss was when our attitudes and feelings
toward each other began slowly to crystalize. When I told that to Alex,
years later, she simply nodded in agreement. Our first deliberate kiss,
she said, was like being thirsty and "taking a long drink from a cool
well." She felt the unexplainable difference, too. And things were never
the same for us again.
* * * * *
Without having to think about it, I knew I had more access to Alex's
body than was ordinarily the case. A guy in gym was bragging one day
about having caught a glimpse of his older sister's "snatch" (a word I
never cared for) and I remember disapproving of his leering description
and of the snickering reaction of his listeners.
I was as perpetually horny as any other adolescent male, and I was both
appreciative of and aroused by the large areas of skin Alex casually
revealed to me more and more frequently. But I certainly wasn't going to
describe my sister's many luscious attributes with these lowlifes. The
braggart had actually gone on recon, hanging out around his house at
locations where he would have the best opportunity to steal a peek at his
sister's naked body.
Alex showed me what she was willing for me to see -- which was virtually
all of her -- and there was no sneaking involved. She was proud of her
body and she enjoyed showing it off to an audience she could trust. She
never said "Don't tell anyone," nor did she even imply it, because she
knew it wasn't necessary. I had the usual doubts about my own developing
sexual equipment, but Alex watched with interest when I changed clothes or
took a leak -- and that never embarrassed me, either. How many penises
could she compare with mine at the age of thirteen?
After our walk in the park and our first real kiss, there was a subtle
change in our behavior toward each other, especially at home. Previously,
if my door was shut, Alex would knock and wait for me to invite her in.
I
gave her the same courtesy. But now our personal privacy began to
disappear, entirely by mutual consent. I'd knock at her door and then go
in, without waiting for permission; Alex did the same. If she was in her
underwear, she didn't make a big deal of it, so neither did I. Then our
doors were only half-closed, not shut. Then only occasionally closed at
all.
The same was true of the bathroom: If one of us was on the toilet, the
other ignored the fact. We still were pretty private, but now it was a
*shared* privacy directed toward the outside world. It was as if that
kiss had sealed a pact of trust between us.
We also spent more and more time together, just occupying adjacent
space. Instead of each of us studying in our own rooms, Alex took to
occupying my bed, sprawled out with books and papers scattered around her,
while I studied at my desk (which was actually a large, old oak library
table).
We might not say a word for an hour or more, the silence broken only by
the rustle of paper and the scratching of pencils, but just being near
each other as we worked made the homework easier. And I discovered the
pleasures of reading a novel while lying on my back with my head cushioned
in a girl's lap. Sometimes I would look up from whatever I was doing to
find Alex simply watching me and smiling. Then I discovered I was doing
the same thing.
We began going for walks regularly, but almost always outside our own
part of town. We knew instinctively that our friends and acquaintances
would hassle us, and we didn't want to start any rumors, either. Because
when we went window-shopping downtown or climbing in the hills, we
frequently held hands. I'm sure strangers, if they noticed us at all,
assumed I was Alex's boyfriend, not her brother, even though we looked so
much alike.
We also went to the shows at the old-style theaters downtown, the ones
with balconies. We would find ourselves surrounded in an upper loge by a
dozen scattered couples passionately making out, and we would look around,
grin, and squeeze our clasped hands. I could put my arm around my sister
in a dark theater, too, and she could snuggle up against me unobserved.
I
began to long for a driver's license, but that was still two years away.
Oddly enough, after that first experience on the hillside, we seldom
kissed, except for a perfunctory "thank you" on the cheek. Perhaps we
regarded it as too valuable and special an experience and we wanted to
preserve its rarity. Or maybe we were just fearful of the implications.
We recognized that out affection for each other was growing with every
passing month, but that didn't mean we understood it. There were
occasions, however....
* * * * *
Alex played flute in the junior high band for two years; it later became
one activity too many, and she dropped band so she could stay on the swim
team. And the flute section, as every band-survivor knows, is on the very
front row. When the Spring Concert -- the biggest musical event of the
year -- came around, my little sister discovered she had outgrown last
year's "special" dress; as slender as she was, she had still added an inch
or more around the bust. Had she been a couple of rows back, mostly
hidden from view, she might have tried to fake it by letting out a few
seams, but for the front row she knew she'd have to have a new dress.
The rule in our family had always been that Mother and Dad kept us
respectably clothed -- which they certainly did -- but that fancy
non-necessaries, like jewelry, and party dresses, and leather jackets,
either came at the usual gift times or were paid for with money we earned
ourselves.
Alex had a conference downstairs with Mother and came away from it with
a $20 contribution. She had another $15 stashed away from babysitting and
typing term papers, I knew, but from what I heard her say, the perfect
dress, the one she really, really wanted, cost $49.95.
Cokes were still a dime then and I could buy a new pair of Hush Puppies
for under $10, so what she had in mind was a significant target. And Alex
was $15 short. I asked her if she had actually counted up her savings and
she replied morosely that she *knew* how much was in the old stationary
box in her bottom drawer.
I thought about it for at least thirty minutes. I had my own savings,
of course, in a battered tobacco tin wedged up in my bed springs, and I
had vague plans for it. But it really made me unhappy to see my sister so
unhappy. I dug out the tin and counted nearly $40; I took out fifteen
singles and stuck them in my pocket. I could always mow more lawns.
While Alex was out on an errand later that afternoon, I opened her
bottom drawer and dug out her money box. She had twelve singles, the four
fives Mother had given her, and a double fistful of quarters. The bills
were neatly paperclipped together, and I smoothed out my contribution and
added it to the clip.
Alex wandered in and plopped down on my bed an hour later. When I asked
her if she had come up with any ideas for the dress she wanted, she shook
her head slowly and continued to stare at the ceiling.
"Look," I said, "why don't you go and actually count your savings? When
was the last time you did that? You probably don't have any idea how much
you have!"
"I counted it a month ago and it was less than $20, I know."
"Would you PLEASE just go and count it again?"
She was becoming a bit annoyed. "Okay, okay, I'll count it again! But
it's not enough!" And off she went. I heard her dresser drawer open and
shut. Her bed squeaked as she dumped the box out on her comforter. I
could barely make out her voice.
"...four, five, six,..."
When she finished, there was a pause of several seconds and then she
re-counted, a little louder. Another pause, and she went through the
bills a third time. Then there was a much longer pause and I grinned to
myself as I pictured her bewilderment. Then I heard her bed squeak again
and her bare feet slowly crossed the hall. I had to struggle to keep a
straight face as she came through the door, bills clutched in both hands,
and a look of mixed puzzlement and suspicion on her face.
"I *couldn't* have had this much!"
"I always knew you couldn't count above three," I replied, raising my
eyebrows.
"Michael -- did *you* put more money in there? From your savings?"
"Who, me?" I tried to look innocent. "Why would I do that?"
But I was like a pane of window glass to Alex. She walked over to my
desk chair. "I KNOW why you did it. Now, stand up."
I must have looked a bit puzzled myself as I pushed the chair back and
got up.
She put her arms around my neck and stared me square in the eye, her
nose an inch from mine. "You did it because you're absolutely wonderful,
and I don't deserve you for a brother," she said softly with tears in her
lashes. Then she kissed me, slowly, lingeringly, in a way that sent
muscle spasms through my toes. I held her by the shoulders because I was,
frankly, afraid to put my arms around her waist. I wasn't sure I would be
able to let go. That kiss seemed to go on and on, though it probably
lasted only a minute or two.
She hugged me, her cheek damp against mine. "Why do you do things like
this for me? I'll pay you back before school's out, I promise."
"You'll do no such thing," I replied firmly. I had already thought
about this, too, and I knew how I wanted it to be. "That's not a loan;
it's a gift. More than that: It's yours because you need it more right
now than I do. Alex, you're my sister and I want you to be happy.
Anything I have -- anything I *ever* have -- is yours. Always."
She pulled her head back and stared at me, and then her expression
shifted and the look on her face held such wonder and happiness that I got
tingly feelings in all my nerve endings. And there was something else in
her face that I couldn't identify at the time, and which she may not even
have realized was there.
But I've seen it many times since when she looks at me. It was the
first dawn of real love. It was more than just affection -- and it struck
me like the sun rising on a summer day. Then she hugged me again and her
arms trembled as she tried not to burst into tears. And this time I put
my arms around her and hugged back. Like Alex, I wasn't sure what had
just happened -- was still happening -- but I felt, again, as I had after
our very first kiss, an almost physical change in my feeling for my
sister, a change I was certain she had experienced, too.
Chapter 4:
[...from chapter 4...]
I began going out on real dates when I was fifteen. These days, I
suppose, kids of both sexes are old hands at dating by the time they're
twelve, but parents weren't so progressive in the middle America of my
adolescence. I was always perfectly at ease with Alex but I often seemed
to be afflicted with stupidity around other girls. Before and after
school and during gym, the boys would gather and pool their intelligence
on the girls, liberally salting their accounts with exaggeration, complete
lies, and inept psychological analysis.
It was a relief to discover, through Alex, that the girls were following
much the same procedure. For my sister was my secret weapon in that
first, tentative confrontation between the sexes, and I was hers.
"One of the guys claims Liz Nowotny almost never wears panties to
school," I might remark hopefully.
Alex would giggle in delight. "Well, she must change in her hall locker
then! She wears fake satin underwear in gym class!" Sometimes there
would be a bonus: "She also pads her bra with tissues!" Which I would
then report back to the trenches on the boys' side of the field, adopting
a knowing smirk if someone demanded documentation.
Within a few months, Alex was also enrolled in the dating game. If a
boy asked her out whom she was uncertain of, she often came to me for a
background check. I don't believe I was ever really jealous of the fact
that my little sister was out at night, holding hands in a movie or making
out in the back seat of a car. She was all mine at home, after all.
She seemed to have much the same attitude. We were unnatural allies in
the genetic competition. We teased each other remorselessly about our
dates, but we also were willing to betray our same-sex friends to spare
each other social disaster and personal humiliation.
"Tommy Thatcher?! Alex, don't you know that every girl he even manages
to hold hands with, three hours later he's bragging he screwed her or at
least felt her up? And he tells every guy in school!"
Or, "Why would you even *think* of asking Eileen Zimmer to a pool
party?! Nobody's ever even seen her knees in the locker room, she's such
a prude. If she even *owns* a swim suit, I'll bet it has long legs and
sleeves and a full skirt!"
And so we managed to save ourselves from most situations of potential
public embarrassment. There was a positive side to our information
exchange, too. If my sister told me that a girl I was planning to ask out
loved to collect hickeys in unusual places to show off to her friends,
then I would make an effort to be creative.
And when Alex went out on a tennis date with Brian, a reasonably
intelligent jock I knew from math class, I informed her in advance of his
admiration for girls who weren't afraid to compete with him; he abhorred
simpering "lil' ol' me" types. So she played the game hard and worked up
a real sweat, and although Brian won the match, it wasn't by much. He
stopped me in the hall the next day, grinning and shaking his head.
"That's some sister you got, man! Really a neat girl!" I could only
agree with him.
Since Alex and I had tacitly agreed long before that we could tell or
ask each other anything, our dating experiences led to more intimate
dialogue. We began to relate our discoveries and blunders to each other
in detail and to compare interpretations and perspectives.
* * * * *
One Sunday night when it was uncomfortably warm and humid, we spread a
comforter on the floor in my room and lay on our backs in front of the
laboring window air conditioning unit, I in my briefs, she in her red
rayon bikini panties -- a recent acquisition which demonstrated her
growing confidence about herself. We lay like starfish, limbs
outstretched and overlapping, trying to stay cool.
Alex was absently trailing her fingernails lightly over my chest and
shoulders, creating a delightfully shivery sensation. When we were alone
together these days, the need for physical contact was almost
overwhelming.
I needed to tell her about my date the night before, which had not been
a notable success; I wanted to understand why. And, as usual, Alex made
it easy for me.
"So, how was your date with Susie Ellis?"
"Awful! She'll never go out with me again."
I regretted it, too. Susie was not only a very cute little blonde, she
was also bright and articulate. I valued intelligent conversation on a
date, along with the kissing and groping.
"When I put my arm around her in the theater, she liked it; she even
leaned over toward me on the arm rest. But when I took her home and tried
to put my arm around her so I could kiss her goodnight, she went stiff as
a board and practically shoved me away! I see her in class every day, and
she's friendly enough then. What did I do?!"
Alex chuckled sympathetically. "I think in the movie she felt safe
because there were a lot of other people around; in the car, she was all
alone with you." Alex glanced over and saw that I wasn't getting her
point.
"You probably don't know this," she continued, "but last year Susie was
attacked by some creep, an older man, in the parking lot at Sears. He
pushed her into a car and started grabbing her tits and stuff before she
could scream. Artie and a couple other guys heard her and ran over to
help, but the creep took off and they couldn't catch him. Anyway, Susie's
still afraid of being alone with a guy, I think. So it wasn't anything
you did -- really, it wasn't."
The next Friday night, I ran into Susie at the football game and we sat
together in the stands and rah-rah'ed together and laughed together ...
and I was careful not to touch her.
Making our way slowly out of the packed stadium afterward, I invited her
for a coke and offered to include a ride home. She glanced over her
shoulder at me and hesitated a moment, but then she smiled and accepted.
We gossiped and chattered about inconsequential things over our fountain
drinks for half an hour, and Susie relaxed in my company. And I still
kept my hands to myself.
When we arrived in front of her house, though, her smile suddenly seemed
frozen with tension. I set the hand brake and immediately hopped out and
went around to open her door for her. She looked surprised and relieved,
and as I walked her slowly up the winding flagstones to her door I kept my
fingers hooked in my back belt loops.
"'Night, Susie; I really enjoyed it. See you in Math tomorrow, okay?"
I turned to go but she reached out and touched my arm.
"Michael, wait..." I turned to face her again. Now her eyes and her
lips said she thought she was willing to be kissed, but I still waited.
It had to be her own decision.
"You're really a nice guy..." She twisted her hands together and bit
her lip for a moment, undecided about how to proceed. Then she looked up
at me from under her lashes and said in a soft almost-whisper, "Would you
kiss me...?"
I smiled my most trustworthy smile and held her chin still with one
finger laid carefully along her jaw line. Do it slowly, don't grab, I
told myself. I leaned forward and pressed my lips firmly against hers.
No tongue, no nibbling. Her eyes fluttered shut and she sighed a little
as she leaned into the kiss.
She was basically a friendly person; she wanted to like people. I knew
she was relieved to discover she could overcome her lingering fright, to
find that she could again enjoy this wonderful human contact. And that
was what I intended her to feel. Susie was a very nice girl and it really
bothered me that the assault she had undergone also had separated her from
boys who liked her and who meant her no harm at all. We broke contact
slowly and before I straightened, I brushed away the tears shining on her
lower lashes.
"It's okay, Susie," I said softly. "I know you always have to be
careful, but not every guy is a son of a bitch."
She swallowed and nodded, quickly kissed me once more on the cheek,
squeezed my hand, and slipped through the door. I walked back to the car,
hands in my pockets, feeling pleased with myself and pleased for Susie.
It hadn't been a completely unselfish act, I knew that well enough, but it
was still the right thing to have done.
[NOTE: From Chap 4 of the "Siblings" novel; set 1970; he's 15, she's 14.
Some minor correcting and rewriting for continuity has been done since
this section was first posted....]
OPENING MOVES
by Michael K. Smith
Alex made the freshman swimming team when she was fourteen. So had I,
the previous year, and now I was on the 10th Grade boy's team; I was proud
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