Author: Michael K. Smith SIBLINGS -- Chapter Outline [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) -- [to be called *FAMILY*] We set up housekeeping for ourselves. Chapter 9: 1975 / me 20, her 19 (my junior year, her sophomore year) -- [to be called *TRANSITIONS*] Our parents are killed; we have only each other now. Chapter 10: 1976 / me 21, her 20 (my senior year, her junior year) -- [to be called *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 -- [to be called *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 ourselves with the world. And Alex and I will have a child, to be explained publicly as an adopted niece; Connie will be the "second mother." Grace is conceived mid-April 1979. Chapter 14: 1980 / me 25, her 24 -- [to be called *AND THEN WE WERE FOUR*] Grace is born, 10 Jan 1980. [...segue...] Chapter 15: 1991 / me 36, her 35, Grace 12 -- [...NO TITLE YET... {grace1}] Background of Grace's upbringing. Chapter 16: 1992 / me 37, her 36, Grace 13 -- [...NO TITLE YET... {grace2}] Grace's first carefully considered sexual contact with us. Chapter 17: 1993 / me 38, her 37, Grace 14 -- [to be called *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! Anything listed as "to be called" exists only in outline form or rough first draft! 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....) Michael K. Smith Copyright (c) 1998, Michael K. Smith. ALL Rights Reserved This story may not be reproduced in any form for profit or on another website without the written permission of the author. This story may be freely distributed with this entire notice attached (headers & footers intact). SIBLINGS PROLOGUE My Dearest Grace: I've written this book, but your mother has continually read and blue-penciled my efforts, and I hope the result is what we intended -- an accurate and full account of our relationship. Much of what I have to say I know you're already aware of, at least in a general way, but I'm afraid you'll have to deal with several major shocks. I say this not to frighten you but to warn you that they're coming. We've tried our best to prepare you to handle them and ultimately to accept them; that's also why I've written all this down instead of explaining it to you in person. Face-to-face discussions are our custom and they have always worked well among the four of us, but I wanted to be certain that this narrative was complete and correct, with as few omissions as I could manage. You've been raised in such a way that I doubt you'll be embarrassed by the more explicit descriptive passages you will find here. They couldn't be glossed over because they're so significant in the story of how we got to this point in our lives. They're also episodes of great moment and joy, both for me and for the woman I love, and I hope you will be able to experience them vicariously to some extent. Still, unembarrassed or not, I think you'll prefer reading this and thinking about it in the quiet and privacy of your room and at your own pace. I do ask you to pause at intervals and reflect on what you read. Because -- how well I know you, Darling Daughter! -- you won't be able to interrupt my careful recitation of events and motives with impatient questions! It bears repeating: Read through the entire account first, and then consider our life together, your mother's and mine, and what it has meant to us, and what it may mean to you. And *then* come to either of us, or to both of us together, however you feel least uncomfortable, and we will try as best we can to explain further how and why certain things happened. There are, indeed, some things that come across differently on paper than when spoken by someone who loves you. You learned very early that the only real RULE amongst the four of us is a very simple one: We always tell each other the truth. You also know by now that that's sometimes easier in the intention than in the execution. The truth isn't always what one wishes to hear, and all of us have suffered temporarily injured feelings, but the truth has always turned out to be the best thing in the long run, at least for us. We've already told you many things parents don't often confide to their children in our culture -- how my wife became so much a part of this family, for instance. She's also a very close, very dear friend of long standing -- perhaps more so than you realize -- but you've never heard all the details even from her, and by the time you finish this volume you'll understand why. As our daughter, you're entitled to know. I think you'll believe me when I say we've never lied to you about anything, Grace. You've been told about the "adoption," when we thought you were old enough not to hate us because of it. But there are wheels within wheels, as you will see. I'm also sure that you've noticed by now that on certain subjects we haven't volunteered much information, either. You simply didn't know at the time that there were further questions that *could* be asked, and we didn't enlighten you. That is an omission for which we apologize and ask your forgiveness. There were reasons, of course, and you're about to discover what they are. We've attempted to guide you along what we thought were the smoothest paths to understanding and being part of us-two, which evolved into us-three, and finally into us-four. We wanted neither to bury you in information you were not yet equipped to interpret, nor to blind your good sense with revelations you weren't old enough or wise enough to understand. This record is not my first attempt. Originally, I meant to address myself directly to you. I was even going to title this work "Letter to Grace." But I confess I found it difficult to say certain things as if I were sitting across the kitchen table from you -- not from guilt or embarrassment, but because I kept seeing your earnest face before me, reacting to what I was trying to say, and I found myself continually sliding off the track I had set out on. So I've attempted the novelist's device of addressing an unseen, unknown reader who must have everything explained and described in detail, with no assumptions made of previous knowledge. You will find yourself referred to here in the Third Person, one participant among several. Events that you lived through, you'll find described and interpreted from a different perspective than you experienced. A sculpture can appear very different, depending which side of it you're standing on. And it may surprise you, Grace, to find that I really do understand you so well, so often. But you're the product of both a special set of biological circumstances and of a consciously and carefully molded environment. And, to our pride, you've turned out beautifully *and* beautiful. For you are intelligent, a leader and opinion-maker among your peers, and an unstinting truth-teller. You've had to grow up without siblings -- a key difference between your childhood and mine, and your mother's, which you don't fully realize yet. You've been brought up "sensually aware," in all the meanings of that phrase -- sensitive to the world you live on and in, to the people you move among, aware of your own gifts but not made nearsighted by them. And also unafraid of sexuality, able to enjoy your body alone or to share it with someone else. Even a stranger would have to be blind not to see that the boys you know admire and desire you, that the girls admire and quietly envy you, and that all of them respect you and expect great things from you in the future. Already they listen closely to what you have to say -- which places more responsibility on you, perhaps, than you would wish. Finally, you have a deep sense of loyalty in you, both to your friends and to your family, and all of us therefore return that loyalty to you. There's also a deeply private core to you that even I would not attempt to penetrate, a door that only you can open, to a room that only you may enter. Everyone has such a private place within themselves to some extent, though many people never recognize its presence. Of those who do, some keep that door shut tight, some open it to only a few special guests, and some happy souls throw a party and invite the world. To continue the metaphor, your mother and I exchanged doorkeys long ago. At sixteen, even you are not yet sure whom you can trust in your private place... though you invited us in without hesitation as soon as you discovered you possessed the key. And for that trust and openness we love you all the more. So give what follows here your full attention, Daughter-Whom-We-Love. These are the events and emotions and accidents of timing behind the dynamics that shaped our lives, and now your life. You can't escape them. Nor do I believe you will want to. Your Most Loving and Devoted Father 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