Notes [Last revised September 18, 2015]:
– This story contains some darker themes and is not representative of the majority of our writing.
– Unfortunately stories are listed in alphabetical order therefore this one is near the top.
– All characters are made up and over 18.
– The characters have rationalized cheating along with their incest.
– Tags included: brother/sister, brother-sister, brother, sister, love, romance, adultery, cheating, cousin, anal, three-way, half-siblings, lesbian.
* * * * *
I was surprised with a call on Tuesday from my sister. She was pretty upset while telling me our aunt Nan had passed. I found her mood a little out of character as our aunt was relatively old. She was in her late 80’s. The news wasn’t really hitting me the same way as Beth but I chalked it up to me not being as close to Nan as she’d been. She gave me some details about the funeral but much of it went right through me. I was paying more attention to the tone and timber of how Beth was taking to the news. Beth’s husband couldn’t get off work for the death of a spouse’s aunt. She was saying how she couldn’t do it alone and I agreed immediately that I would be there. To me it was to give her my support more than any feeling of closure. I advised Beth that my very pregnant wife couldn’t make the trip since she was on bed rest; so it’d just be Beth and myself going to the funeral.
When I got off the phone with Beth, I booked a flight as soon as I could. I got a discounted fair; but more importantly a timely flight. I also reserved a couple rooms for us to stay in while we were there. When I called Beth back with my flight information, we agreed it’d be more economical and fun if she picked me up at the airport. I had to fly from San Francisco California. She was going to drive from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. The funeral was in a small town outside of Pilot Virginia. The plan was for her to meet me towards the end of her drive at a small airport in Roanoke. There was no decent hotel in Pilot, so I told her I’d booked two rooms in Christianburg. She reminded me the funeral was to be after the church service on Sunday. She was well aware I never retained any of the timing details; so she made sure I’d booked all three days Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
My flight arrived in Roanoke shortly after noon Friday. I always pack light, so I was out front within a couple of minutes after landing. I called her when I reached the parking lot. She was on her way but was running a little behind schedule and my plane had been just a tad early. By the time she got there I’d taken off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Even though it was late fall, it was Indian Summer in the south this year. I’d expected it to be warm, but it was even warmer than I’d thought.
Putting my small overnight bag and suit roll in the back seat, I said, “Hey, Sis, this weather is crazy”.
She nodded agreement and said, “My A/C is out, but we’ve been using the heat at home.”
“So, was it a bad drive?” I asked.
“No, I don’t mind driving and it’ll be good to have some time away from Tony for a while,” she said.
I never liked him, but I didn’t say so at that moment. Instead, I tried to remain upbeat. There is going to be enough grieving later, I thought. “It is awesome to see you. It has been like five years”.
“Yeah, well you moved out to California when you took that research position,” she seemed upset.
“We both moved away Beth; I just moved farther and into a better climate.” Smiling all the while I changed the subject. “You look great, you must have kept up with your swimming.”
“Bert, what are you buttering me up for, this is a funeral we’re going to you know?” her demeanor was unchanging.
“I love you and wish things were better in your life.” I just couldn’t understand the semi-hostile attitude I was getting. I started to suspect things were worse than what little I had heard. We were really the only two of our side of the family left. Our mother had passed when we were teens and our dad died about five years after that. Our aunt had taken care of us off and on as we grew up. Nan was the one that had caught us playing doctor in fact. “How are your kids doing? That Brian was sharp as a tack when I was up there.” Brian was her oldest son, he was born just as I started in Medical School. “What is he, sixteen now?”
“He is the bright spot in my life, Bert. He is getting A’s and B’s in all his classes. I think he’s going to college with all the extra stuff he does in the community helping folks. He reminds me of you in a lot of ways.”
I had gone to see her and the new baby Brian just after he’d been born. I’d been to see them off and on over the years, but after my taking the position at the research hospital, I had neglected them. The work was demanding but I was also busy with my daughter and wife. We were expecting our son next month. “I am sorry I haven’t been back to see y’all,” I finally said.
“I’m sorry too. I have missed bursa suriyeli escort escort being able to talk. You always used to cheer me up, big brother.”
The undertone of what she’d said spoke volumes. Used to cheer me up. It’d always been like that when we were young, I had always cheered her up. We played all the time. There were days spent time doing things I liked, trucks in the sand pile or climbing trees. Other days we’d play with dolls or have tea parties. We just did what ever made the other happy at the time. As we grew, it didn’t change much really, we just supported each other in whatever the other one was doing. The five year age difference never seemed to be a factor. When I got old enough to drive, I took her with me most places I went. I also made sure she got to all her swim meets and ferried around some of her few friends. All of that changed shortly after our mother got sick.
She continued driving down I-81. We sat in near silence for a while. I was looking out the window and trying to remember the area, but that old saying is very true; you can never really go home again. Beth looked kind of distant too, so I let the peace continue unabated. There would be time to talk at the hotel and there was some kind of tension. We were always best friends. I figured our time apart may have changed all that. Although, I’m a total social misfit, so that could have been it as well.
When we came to the hotel, I got out and went inside to see where the rooms were. They had put us in adjoining rooms on the second floor. I couldn’t remember if I’d asked for that, but it was nice. The lady at the front desk looked familiar and I kept trying to put a name to that face. After scanning my credit card, she handed me the card-keys for each room and told me it would be best to park at the end and the keys will get us in to the building. Finally, looking at her name tag, I said, “Thanks, Alice.” Having the name didn’t do my memory any better, so I just chalked it up to the familiar yet different surroundings.
Back out at the car, I noticed Beth looked tired. I couldn’t quite tell but she might have been crying. In any case I told her, “The nice lady, Alice, at the front desk told me we should park down at the end.” So we pulled out of the arrival area and down to the end of the building. I got my jacket, travel bag and suit roll. She had several items in the hatch of her Escape.
“Do you want me to get some of those?” I asked.
“Sure, you can take this one,” she said, hoisting out her big roller bag. She gathered a couple smaller bags and a large garment bag. We went to the door at the end of the building and I scanned the key-card. The door lock clicked and in we went. I have a thing about not using elevators, so I headed straight for the stairs, which were right next to this exit. Beth frowned saying, “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired so I’m going to take the elevator,” sounding a little put off.
I said, “Okay, I’ll meet you up there it’s 287 and 289. You can pick which one you prefer.” I took the stairs two at a time. The rooms were near the end and I opened each up placing a bag in the door to keep them open. The rooms were fairly new and were nice condition. One had a king and the other had two doubles. While I waited for her to come up, I went ahead and opened the adjoining doors.
I was standing there in the double room as she arrived. She was pushing into the door that had her bag propping it open. But she poutily said, “Hey you, don’t I get to have any privacy?” She dropped her other bags and placed her hands on her hips.
I wasn’t sure how to read this and defensively said, “I was just opening them up so we could chat freely during the visit. I’ll close them back.” There was clearly something going on in Beth’s life which I was still oblivious. Another attempt, “Which room do you prefer, the king or the two doubles?”
“I think I’d like the king if you don’t mind,” she said. Then she stopped me as I was closing the adjoining doors. “I don’t know why I’m being such a bitch, Bert. Please leave them open. I’m just in such a mood. I would love to catch up. You just clammed up after I picked you up from the airport. I really miss talking like we used to do.” She gave me a small hug.
“You’re not a bitch. I love you and you know you can talk to me about anything. Anything really, okay?”
“You just faded away in the car. You started talking about Brian, but then you just went into your own world. I asked you how Trina was, but you didn’t even reply.”
“Wow, I am so sorry, Beth. I didn’t hear you. I guess I was in my own world. I will make every attempt to give you my full attention for the rest of the stay.”
For the record Beth isn’t her name and Bert isn’t mine. Our parents had named us both E names Elizabeth and Elbert. We both hated our names. Luckily in the south, any two/three syllable name gets truncated to its roots. I was very careful when picking bursa ucuz escort names for our child and our child to be.
“What were you thinking about in the car?” she asked.
“Just how different everything is here now. Also, how long ago it was we were actually here. I guess I’m going to miss aunt Nan, but I think you were much closer to her than I. You know, she was always more strict with me?”
“Well, she favored her youngest daughter and she took me under her wing like a daughter after mom died.”
“I remember how close you were. Can I ask; had you been crying before I came back out to the car?”
“You can and I had been. It’s all just so much. I have a lot of memories of this place and her,” she said shifting around… “We should swap the bags around and unpack.”
Taking her lead, I got my bag from the door which happened to be the one with the king. The door closed loudly. Then we brushed past one another as we passed going through the adjoining door. Her firm chest met my back. Blushingly I said, “Sorry, I should have let you go first.”
She shot me a grin, “You are such a perv.”
“I had my back to you. Also, those are significantly larger than when we fooled around all those years ago.”
“Okay, look the topic is bound to come up. I have never felt anything but love and affection for you. You’re my big brother. I never felt any pressure from you to do any of that stuff. We were just kids. Kids do what kids do. They explore.”
Clearly I had inadvertently cracked the barrier, but she’d rushed through with that. It felt like an honest attempt to clear that tension and communicate clearly. Thinking back to the car ride and my silence, I had my own clearing to own. “Sis, I love you and have always felt some serious guilt over that stuff. I was five years older than you and should have known better. I’ve just always been such an introvert and you were always there to play with me.”
“Perv.”
“I didn’t mean play with me like that. You played the games I liked. You were a regular tom boy sometimes.”
“Gee thanks. I seem to remember little Elbert getting laughed at for playing dolls with his sister.”
“Yeah, well I liked playing what you wanted to play too. I am pretty sure it was a mutual thing. It just took a different turn as we got older.”
“Well aunt Nan put an end to that. She had Uncle Henry switch the daylights out of your bare bottom.”
“Yeah well, it that hurt more than my hind end.” I thought back to that moment. Henry had not been a huge man, maybe six foot, but he had that military type cut to him. I don’t remember if he was military, but it seemed like he was. “He made me get my own switch.”
“I remember crying for you that night. I saw you running butt naked away after he’d given you what must have been ten.”
“I remember swearing off ever looking in your direction with what Henry had called ‘My lusty eyes.'” He had whipped my ass raw in ten licks and I had bolted before he could get in the last two. “It was not all that long after that, that I met someone in my senior biology that I fell for too hard. She broke my heart right before sophomore semester in college. She turned out to be such a slut.”
“I don’t remember ever thinking Tammy was a slut, but you were definitely heart broken when she left you. That summer was a tough one for you.”
“I guess you might remember it differently,” I said remembering. “Anyway, I was just so thankful that Henry didn’t tell our dad his son was playing doctor with his daughter. The switching was a blessing.”
“Well, like I said what we did; we did in exploration. Besides, look at you now; you’re a doctor.”
“Well I don’t work on people, I work on little devices for people.”
She tilted her head and looked at me crosswise, “I still see that nice boy that gave me attention.”
“Okay, so enough of that. We should change the subject. What else is going on with you? You said all this is too much. Was there something else besides our aunt passing and me being an off in my own world?”
“Yes, you know things have been rough for me and Tony. Let’s just leave it alone for now.”
“Okay, well how about I take my favorite sister to a nice dinner?”
“Was just waiting for you to ask. What do you want to eat?” she asked.
“I’m up for just about anything, my treat of course. Pick something you don’t get often. Trina has a list of things she won’t eat, so I don’t get them much. I’m sure it is the same with you and Tony.”
“I don’t know what there is near her anymore. What is in the hotel brochure?” she said, as she walked over to the desk. Lazily leafing through the notebook, she clearly spotted something she wanted. “How about a nice seafood place?”
“That would be perfect. Is it a walk or a drive?” I asked her.
“Well, we could walk, but I told you earlier… I’m just so tired.”
“What is that all about?” I asked. “You’re always perky and you look bursa üniversiteli escort like you are in great shape.”
“It has just been a rough week. Let’s leave it at that.”
She was clearly willing to reveal that there was a problem, she just didn’t appear to want to discuss it with me at this time. So I left it alone. “How about I drive us there then?”
“That’d be great. The drive really took it out of me for some reason,” she smiled.
We were down the stairs and getting into the car when she piped up. “So you never did say how things with you and Trina.”
“As well as they might be, I guess. She is due in December, so there hasn’t been much going on. She’s on bed rest and her blood pressure is too high. I think this boy will be our last child even though I’d always wanted to have a baseball team. It is all good, she’s turning 40 this winter. If I really wanted that baseball team, I should have married a younger woman at a much earlier age.” Truth was that Trina had been completely different with this pregnancy. Sex stopped almost instantly. Also, she’d been much more moody than when she’d been carrying Sara.
“Yeah, well you try popping out one of the big headed babies our family seems to produce,” she teased.
“Sara was only 8 pounds,” I said defensively. “This boy who we’ll probably name David after Trina’s dad will probably be a little larger, but they’ll both like to have been by C-section.”
“I had my first, Brian, natural; we were poor and I didn’t want the extra expense. Emma, came second and about a month too early, so she was smaller. The OB didn’t even have time to think about it. I am so thankful that I did it with the last one. Tyler was 9 pounds and I had them fix all that while they were in there.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you’d had that done. You’re only twenty-seven, right?” I thought about how quickly she’d had them all.
“Yes Bert, you know my age, because I saw you do the math 32-5. In any case I had it done, three is enough and you know mom died from uterine cancer, so I had them take it all out. I just didn’t want to take any chances.”
“That was a brave thing for you to do sis. I’m a doctor and I have never been under the knife.”
“You ‘doctors’ are all so hippocratical.”
“I see what you did there, smarty.” I didn’t finish the thought and started to zone out thinking about how her life had gone so differently from mine. She got married to the first boy that showed her any affection. Their three kids were barely a year apart. I eventually got married right after taking a position at UC Berkley. Trina was eight years older but we just hit it off for some reason. I could picture her auburn hair now. It started turning gray shortly after she got pregnant this time. Maybe that was part of the issue she was having.
“Are you going to turn in here?!” Beth was asking loudly (probably for the second time).
“Oh, I just didn’t see it. You sure you want to eat at this chain place, it’s not all that fancy a seafood restaurant,” I said, pulling into the parking lot sharply.
“It’s fancy enough for me ‘doctor’ snoBert.”
“Sorry Sis. I don’t always think before I blurt things out.” I don’t make that much as a research doctor, but I probably make five times what Tony makes. I didn’t tell her that, because I had already struck a nerve. I have never been very good with interpersonal communications… I just say what is true and let things fall where they may. When we were kids it got me in trouble. Now it seemed to engender respect in my field of work, but still didn’t work socially.
We walked into the restaurant right around 5 pm there was no dinner rush yet. The hostess (who also looked very familiar) smiled and asked, “Will it just be you and your wife tonight?”
Beth smiled broadly and said, “Yes”.
I poked her and she giggled, but pushed my hand off as the hostess led us to the table.
“The waitress will be right with you. My name is Kimberly. If you need anything, just ask.” No recognition of this name either. Just another face that looked familiar here.
Beth looked up and seemed to recognize Kimberly, but didn’t say anything. As Kimberly walked away, Beth said, “Didn’t you date a Kimberly?”
“That was much later. I was in medical school and she wasn’t from around here. I thought I recognized her though. I thought maybe she was one of your friends, but that name didn’t ring any bells.”
“Bert, you’re just being nice; you know I didn’t have many friends. Fewer when you went off to school.”
“You were always my best friend too, Beth. I just thought I knew that lady for a brief second. Of course I thought I recognized Alice, the lady at the front desk of our hotel too. So maybe I’m just expecting to see people I know.”
“Could be your silly over active imagination. You never really did say where you were in the car.”
“I guess I was thinking about how things might have been different if…” I trailed off and looked away. I didn’t know how to phrase what I was feeling. The guilt I felt, the longing I still had, the endless battle to leave it in the past.
“If what, Bert?”
“If I hadn’t bolted from your life when we got caught. I always had more guilt about leaving you without a protector than anything we’d done. It was really all pretty innocent,” I blurted out.