TITLE    : Last Summer Ch. 02
STORYID  : last-summer-ch-02
SUMMARY  : There are consquences
AUTHOR   : blueboar@lit
DATE     : 2013-10-09
CATEGORY : taboo-sex-stories
FLAGS    : 
TAGS     : |mother/son|mature|


Prologue: This will make little sense without reading "Last Summer" first.

[***]

"I need to talk to you about something."

My sister Ellie walked into my room, without knocking. I ignored her. I was sitting on my bed, cross-legged wasting away the afternoon playing the latest Call of Duty. In fact, my plan was to waste away as many of the next 20 or so afternoons as I could before I returned to school in mid-January. My parents were scheduled to fly to Australia the day after Christmas and would be gone for almost three weeks. My sister spent most of her time at her friend's house and when she was around she rarely bothered me. It was a big house. It would be nice to unwind a little.

"Owen."

"Shouldn't you be in school?" I said, not looking at her. 

"We got out early today. Finals start tomorrow," she said. Ellie was a senior in high school. She usually had better manners. I made a mental note to keep my door locked and shut at all times now that I was back home.

"Turn off the game," Ellie said.

"As if. I just passed this stage and I'm--"

"Please, Owen," she said and I was startled. I looked up. The look on her face confirmed the sad, scared and very troubled tone of her voice.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing . . . no, everything is." She was crying.

I put my controller down. "Hey," I said. "What's wrong with you?"

She sat at the edge of my bed. "There's no way of saying it nicely, so I'll just say it."

"Say what?"

"Mom's having an affair."

I stared at her for a second, my mind scrambling to reboot. I'd just returned home two days ago, after several grueling finals and a couple of ghastly papers. I hadn't slept much, hadn't eaten well, and I still hadn't shaved the more than two weeks growth on my face. This was the last thing I expected or needed to hear.

"What are you talking about?" I asked hoping I was coming across as alarmed, but not furious, even thought I wanted to scream. 

"Don't be mad it at me. Dad told me last night. He thinks mom's having an affair."

"Dad said that?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Wow. Last night you say?"

"Yes."

"Did he say with who?"

"Who cares with who. Someone in her office probably. God, she's having an affair. Isn't that enough?"

"He said that, someone from her office?"

"Owen, what the hell? Why do you care about the details?"

"Because I can't believe this. Mom--"

"Aren't you sick to your stomach?" she asked, now a little annoyed herself. "I mean, I didn't sleep at all last night."

"Well, I'm sorry. You just sort of dropped this on me," I said, getting up to turning off the TV. I put away the video game. "I don't know what to think. I . . . I don't know. I just can't believe this."

"Neither can I. I wouldn't have ever believed it, but, I mean, Dad wouldn't just say it if it wasn't true."

"Yeah, that . . . God . . . He must know something. Okay."

She nodded. She was already looking better. She'd gotten it off her chest, had told someone, and somehow, for her, that made it better. Then I realized why she was telling me. Of course. The poor kid has finals this week and she didn't need wild and disturbing distractions like this. She wanted to do well. I couldn't believe my father had been so thoughtless. What a moron! I mean, she had acceptances from several great schools, all involving her playing on their basketball teams, but the school she really wanted to attend, Swarthmore, hadn't yet replied. She wanted a strong showing this semester to buttress her application there.

"Alright," I said. "Well, listen, obviously, you know, you've got to focus on your finals. I'll talk to Dad. I'll try to help him."

She got off the bed. She sighed, taking a deep breath. "Thank you. I mean, I really want to try to help, but . . . it's just this week. I can deal with it after finals. I'll help you. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, but you just don't worry about it. Go study. Don't worry about it."

"Thank you." And despite her obvious hesitation she reached forward and gave me a quick hug. "Eww," she said. "You're stinky. Shave and shower, you're disgusting."

She left, still holding her nose in her mock prissy sort of way. It was a pose she'd been favoring this past year, my mother had told me. It annoyed.

[***]

I was waiting in the kitchen pretty sure it would be my mother who returned home first. My father would probably arrive later. He was still at the University, either giving a last final or grading papers. He'd be all done after today, he'd said last night at dinner.

My mother walked in.

"Hey," I said.

My mother smiled at me. The smile was neither overly friendly nor overly hostile. It just wasn't genuine. It looked like a smile used by someone who had a lot of practice smiling for a living. She seemed distracted.

It hurt to see her smiling like that. I didn't wait for her to take off her coat. She had just taken one arm out.

"Dad knows you're having an affair," I said staring at her.

Her coat dropped to the floor.

[***]

My father came home half an hour or so later. His tired look turned to alarm when he saw my mother standing in the kitchen, all color drained from her face, just two awful red speckled splotches on each cheek.

"Hey," he said. "What's wrong with you?" He gave me a quick nod of acknowledgment, mixed with confusion.

"Why don't you tell me?" my mother said. "Why don't you and your son tell me, what's wrong with me?"

My father looked at me, but I tried to avoid his eyes, then he turned to my mother. 

"What are you talking about?" He said, unwrapping his scarf, taking off his ridiculous black fedora.

"I'm talking about this affair you've been telling everyone I'm having."

"Oh," my father said and put a hand out to the counter for support. "Where's Ellie?" he said.

"Ellie's at Jessica's," she said. "They're studying."

My father nodded. He turned to me. "Owen, could you please go upstairs, or I don't know, go for a drive or something."

I took a step to leave.

"You're going nowhere," my mother said turning to me. "Sit your ass at the table."

"Kirsten," my father said. "I don't want--"

"I don't give a shit what you want. I don't give a shit what either of you wants right now."

My father glared at me. "We're not going to talk about this in front of Owen. We're--"

"Why not? He knows everything. Ellie told him. He confronted me the second I got home. You know, he's watching out for the Hansen family honor." 

My mother sat down across from me at the table, but refused to even look at me.

My father rubbed his eyes with one hand. "This is ridiculous. Owen, would you--"

"Why do you think I'm having an affair?" my mother asked.

"Fine," my father said. "I'll tell you. Do you really want it like this? In front of your son? If you don't care--"

"Why do you think I'm having an affair?"

"Sheera Ackerman--"

"What!" my mother screamed. "Sheera Ackerman!"

"I saw her on campus yesterday--"

"On campus?" she asked.

"She was doing some research or something. I've no idea. Whatever. We bumped into each other and you know we just started talking."

"Right. You just started talking."

"I asked her how she was and she naturally asked how you were, how everything was going. I said you were doing great and that you were really busy, you know, setting up the new office in St. Louis, how you'd been away almost every weekend since you guys sold the company."

"And she said, 'What new office in St. Louis?'" my mother said, doing a very nice impression of Sheera.

"Yes. That's exactly what she said. She said she'd heard . . . she knew nothing about any expansion in St. Louis. She said that that sounded ludicrous to her."

"Ludicrous," my mother said, rolling the word around in her mouth. "Of course, 'ludicrous'. That would be the word she used. Why not? And the fact she's not with the company any more, hasn't stepped in for even one hello since August, that didn't enter the balance in your sudden realization that I must be a slut if Sheera Ackerman implies I am, right?"

"Of course, yes. Yes. I mean, of course, I thought about that. But she said she still talked to people at the company--"

"Which people?" my mother pounced. "Who's she talked to?"

"Kirsten, I can't . . . I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble. Sheera said this was confidential and--"

"Are you out of your fucking mind? You're accusing me of cheating and . . . who . . . did . . . Sheera . . . say . . . she . . . talked . . . to?"

"Kirsten--"

"I swear to God, Nick, I will divorce you tomorrow. I will call my lawyer tomorrow. Tell me right now!"

"It was your CFO, okay? Gavin your CFO."

"And?"

"And that's it. She didn't say anyone else."

"What did Gavin my shit-fuck CFO say to Sheera?"

"Well nothing. I mean, you know, Sheera said he'd never mentioned St. Louis, and he would have if there was anything happening there."

"That's it. That's why you think I'm having an affair?" she said.

"Kirsten--"

"Why didn't you talk to Owen? He's seen me when I've been down there. Why didn't you ask him if he thinks I'm having an affair?"

"This is ridiculous. Why would I want him to think about you that way?"

"Oh, but it's okay for Ellie to think of me that way?"

"I just needed someone to talk to. I didn't even intend to say anything. It just came out and . . . this is ridiculous."

"It is. It is. This is ridiculous. Do you want to come with me right now? To my office? Come with me, and do you want to see all the documents and leases and employment agreements having to do with St. Louis? Let's go, come on."

"Kirsten, oh, my God. Enough. I'm sorry, okay. I'm sorry, but--"

"Let's go. Obviously, Sheera Ackerman's word is a lot more important than mine. She can bullshit with you for a couple of minutes and you start seeing purple pigs flying. I--"

"Kirsten, it wasn't just Sheera. I mean, I've looked at your tablet, you know, and--"

"Oh, so now you're snooping around in my tablet. Why not? Why not? Did Sheera advice you to do that? Sheera's says so, so you've got no choice, right?"

"Just--"

"Have you been, you know, checking out my underwear in the hamper too? Looking through my perfume and makeup, double checking my credit card records?"

My father shook his head and quietly said, "There was nothing in your tablet about St. Louis. That's all I'm saying. I expected to see, you know, something, an e-mail or a document, some reference and there's nothing. It just seemed odd for something that's supposedly consumed you for months."

Mom stood rim-rod tall. She walked straight to her briefcase still on the kitchen counter. Swiftly and without a hint of nerves, she pulled out the tablet. She started tapping away at it.

"Nothing? You said you found nothing?" she said. She stuck it under my father's face. My father flinched. "Supposedly? Odd? Nothing?" she said.

My father glanced down. His eyes seemed to widen. "I didn't see any of this yesterday," he said even more quietly than before. She kept swiping away at the screen. She didn't stop. He looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

She pulled the tablet from under his face and held it to her chest as she crossed her arms, putting her weight back on one foot

She said, "Well, Nick, you know, in the real world, you know, outside of your beloved University, there's something called business secrets and strategy. I'm the head of the company and this tablet is important not only to me, but to Multi-State. I have files and e-mails in here, encrypted with encryptions and passwords you would have no clue about, lots of stuff competitors might be interested in if they got their hands on this. There's a world in this tablet you know nothing about except me and Mult-State's people. And I answer to the Multi-State CEO, not to Gavin, my CFO. That's not the way it works. He answers to me. I don't answer to a little twerp like Gavin. What he knows about the company could fit on my pinkie. We don't run that place like when Sheera and I owned it. Got it? Multi-State's public and . . . Why am I even telling you any of this?"

"I'm sorry," my father said, his voice quivering now. He tried to touch her shoulder. She jerked away. He said, his voice breaking, "Please forgive me, Kirsten. Truly, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. Please."

They looked at each other level now, my father just a bit shorter at 5'9", and I wanted to scream at my mother to do something, to touch his arm, to offer some consolation, anything to help the poor guy out. He was strangling in a tangle of rope of his own making, he'd obviously made a mistake. Accept his apology. You've won. Be gracious. 

But instead, my mother turned to me. "You," she said. "Mr. Beard Boy. Do you have any questions for me, anything you want to know while you two big tough guys have me here at your mercy?"

I shook my head.

"Get up," she said, still looking at me. "You're coming with me."

I stood and looked over to my father for guidance.

"Kirsten, where are you going? We haven't even had dinner." my father said.

"Fuck dinner," she spat. "I'm packing it in. That's it. I'm quitting."

"Kirsten--"

"Why the hell am I working?" she asked the kitchen walls. "I have enough money, more than the kids and I will ever need. Why am I spinning wheels like some idiot?"

"Kirsten, what do you want me to do here? Enough, please. Let's talk. I made a mistake, a terrible, awful mistake, but--"

"Come on," mom said to me. She put on her coat. "Get dressed. I have a lot of stuff in the office I need you to pack up. Make yourself useful for once."

"Kirsten--" but my mother was already at the door to the garage and out. I followed to the door. I grabbed a random coat hanging in the closet. 

My father was right behind me. I put on my boots.

"Owen," my father said, pleading, weakly grabbing my arm. "Please talk to her. Please. Talk some sense into her. Tell her I don't want her to quit her job. This is insane. She'll listen to you."

I sort of nodded, mumbled an "okay," went out the door. I found my mother in the passenger seat of her car. The garage door was already open. The car was already running. 

I got in the car. I shut the car door. We backed out of the driveway. I put the car in drive. We started down the hill leading us out of the cul-de-sac. 

My mother looked at me. 

She brought her trembling hands to her face as she burst into tears.

[***]

I thought we'd be driving, but at the last minute my mother said we'd fly to St. Louis to get me settled into my new apartment. I had to be in school the first week of August for football camp and I was already a couple of days late. The delay was prompted by my father's need to take over a late summer class at the University from a colleague whose wife had suffered a stroke. The plan had been for him and me to drive. After he was forced to back out, I'd insisted I could do the move on my own--the apartment was fully furnished, after all--but my mother told me to stop with the martyr act. She would accompany me. She said it would have to be just a couple of days later so that she could wrap up a couple of loose ends. The transition after the sale had gone really well--she'd been working twelve, fourteen hour days for more than a week, and now only little hiccups needed to be addressed.

The hour or so flight had been fine, and I was pretty sure my mother chose to fly rather than drive because she wanted to minimize time we'd be alone. Obviously, we hadn't talked about our night together--I'd barely seen her since--but it was all I could think about. It pervaded my every waking moment and it took weird turns and angles in my dreams, almost all of them nightmarish and bloody. I was absolutely miserable. Of course, she could see it--even my father had asked me more than once whether I was okay--but she refused to let herself or me be in any position or situation in which we could acknowledge, let alone discuss, what had happened. She would even be long gone in the morning when I'd try to catch her early at breakfast and she would go nightly to her bedroom directly upon coming home late from work. More than likely, I told myself, she was coming to St. Louis to clear the air and to talk about it, finally, to tell me she loved me and to make herself feel better that everything had returned to normal so that we could all get on with our lives.

"Return to normal." Can you return to normal after something like that, something so intense and personal and, of course, depraved? The fact that we'd broken every convention, moral precept and common decency, committed a sin so fundamental and obvious that even the religious texts hardly feel the need to address it in detail meant nothing to me. I didn't believe in God, had no desire to murder my father, and I thought it would be insane to want to impregnate my mother. 

In the abstract. 

I knew all this in my rationale mind. Who didn't know it? But I kept stumbling up against the specifics, what I'd actually experienced with her and wanted more than anything to experience again and again and again. It had been so fucking good. Even sitting next to her on the flight, I struggled mightily to keep my eyes off her neck and face. Anything more, like looking at her tits in her tee-shirt or legs in her jeans, I was sure would bring the plane crashing down in some form of cosmic corrective. That was the problem. I couldn't look at her without thinking of how her tits had melted into and tasted in my mouth that night. Couldn't think about her without an almost visceral reminder of the smooth texture of her skin and the unbelievable tightness of her pussy. Couldn't talk to her without the sound of her voice triggering the sounds and words she'd said as she gasped and screamed when she'd climaxed. Almost as much and probably more, she was so wonderful. I was fascinated with her. No one had ever engaged me like she had. It had been magical. I thought I'd known her, but it was clear I'd just barely scratched the surface. I was obsessed with her, and wanted more of her, and she obviously regretted it terribly, despite what her note had said.

We landed and soon I was grabbing my two heavy duffle bags from baggage at Lambert. Left with little more than cursory small talk, we walked out of the crisp coolness of the airport and seemed to hit a wall of suffocating air as we stepped into the steaming sauna of St. Louis in early August. 

We hailed a waiting cab, and the driver--some middle-eastern looking guy with a bushy mustache--took one of my duffle bags and stuffed it into the trunk while I handled the other one. I simply shook my head at my first impulse to shove the poor bastard to the ground for his obvious stares at my mother's legs and ass as she hurriedly took a seat in the back where I joined her just a few seconds later. Soon we were on 70, merged onto 170 and headed south. The conversation during the drive involved the driver's attempt, in a thick accent, to tell us about St. Louis--"It's nice city, just be careful. Some places dangerous"--and my mother's genuinely alarmed observations about the humidity and heat. 

Past the inner suburbs of St. Louis, and we were at my building a couple of blocks off campus in less than half-an-hour. I'd found the apartment last spring after I got sick of the high-school-like gossipy-gossipy world of the dorms. I'd just wanted to be alone, no more distractions, and despite Seth Ackerman's insinuations and assumptions I had no desire to join a frat. Guys my age made me laugh.

We got out of the cab, the driver eager to help with the duffle bags. He kept smiling at her, but my mother was already walking into the building. I paid the driver, he looked disappointment, and I left him. 

My mother insisting, we took the elevators to the third floor--"no way in hell am I walking up those stairs in this heat." Three doors down from the elevator I held the door open for my mother and she stepped in.
<hr pg="2" />"Oh, my God," she said. "Turn on the air-conditioning. It's death in here. This is unbearable. You have air-conditioning, don't you?"

"Yes," I said and walked to the thermostat. She wasn't kidding. I was already sweating. The temperature read 94. I turned it on, set it for 68. The air soon kicked in.

"Room 303. Not bad," she said nodding as she slowly walked around. "Not bad at all." 

I watched her. She was wearing a red v-neck ribbed tee-shirt with the Wash U. crest on it, and rather faded Levis, one hand in her back pocket, and very comfortable, worn tennis shoes. Her carry-on bag hung lightly on her shoulder. The tee-shirt and jeans both fit her really well, especially the jeans, and I had no idea how old they were. They might have been as old as I. If someone had walked in, they could easily have assumed that she was the student moving in or that we were a couple . . . The idea made me feel giddy. The idea of her and I living here together this year. Hanging out, just she and I, experiencing dinner together nightly, going to bed and waking up together. It was a gorgeous idea, but she wasn't twenty or even twenty-five and some girl I'd met and fallen in love with last year in my history seminar. She was my mother.

"God, you sure you turned on the air-conditioning?" she said.

"Yes."

"Well," she said turning to me. "I like the place. I'm a little surprised." She smiled and said, "Good choice." Our eyes locked for a split second and we both seemed to know exactly what the other was thinking and wanting. 

She quickly motioned to the duffle bags on the floor. "Take those to the bedroom. Let's get you unpacked before I pass out." 

She put down her bag on the kitchen counter and wiped her forehead. She walked to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door. I grabbed my duffle bags and turned once more to watch her as she stood in front of the refrigerator. Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed a black elastic and put her hair up in a short pony-tail. 

Without once looking over at me, she said. "Go on, Owen. You've seen enough. I don't have all day."

[***]

When she saw me just standing at the doorway a few minutes later watching her as she unpacked, folded and filled my closet and dresser with the contents of my duffle bags, she shoo-shooed me away again. 

"Just go do something," she said, real annoyance in her voice now. "I hate it when people just watch me when I'm doing something. Don't you have to set up your laptop? Go report to your coach or your captain or whatever."

"I already texted the coach and told him I was in town."

"God, I can't believe you'll have to practice in heat like that tomorrow. I can't believe I'm doing this in this heat."

I wanted so much to joke, "Well just take off your clothes," but I knew that would destroy whatever residue of unmotherly feeling she might have, if she had any--it was too soon, she was still too wound-up. Maybe later. Maybe never, something inside me screamed.

"I can help, if you want," I said.

"I'll be done in less than an hour. Just go." She looked up at me, her face quite red and softly said. "Please, Owen."

Her "please" pleased me. The softness in her voice even more. It was the first time since our night she'd hinted at feelings between us. It was an acknowledgement. She was asking me for a favor not as her son, but as something else. 

Feeling a little better, I left her, plopped on the couch, turned on the TV, flipped through some channels and stopped at a "Survivorman" rerun on the Science Channel. I watched as Les Stroud suffered through his own heat stroke in a jeep while trekking through the Kalahari Desert and wondered whether I should get up to see if my mother was okay. But I could hear her humming along, singing some sappy song. She did not want my company. That couldn't have been made more obvious.

About 45 minutes later--just as she'd said--I heard her walking out of the bedroom behind me. I turned on the couch and watched as she went to the kitchen counter and grabbed her bag. She heaved a deep sigh. Face red and puffy, hair pulled back, in those tight-fitting jeans, she looked so full of life, so earthy, so fuckable.

"Well," she said looking at her watch. "I've got about two and a half hours before my flight. I need to shower. Think of somewhere to catch a quick bite to eat before I leave."

I nodded and she went into the bathroom without a second glance. 

I felt a burning in my face and I had to blink rapidly for several seconds. Forget fuckable. It was obvious she had no desire to even talk. She wanted away from me as quickly as possible. Not only had I lost a great friend, and an incredible lover, it was looking more and more as if I'd lost my mother.

[***]

I vowed to confront her as soon as she got out of the bathroom. It was totally unfair for her to be treating me like this, as if I was a little kid and worse a burden she had to unload before she could get on with the important things in her life: her husband, her daughter and her work. But then I knew, deep down, that I'd always been an outsider in the family, the odd man out. She was treating me the same as she'd treated me all my life. Our night together had been an aberration. Nothing more. A strange, odd catastrophe had befallen her, but she was resilient. She would recover. The woman had never been comfortable around me. Maybe I was a little too much like her, too prone to being sullen, too cynical about others. 

Screw it, I thought. Am I crazy? Why am I doing this to myself? Go get something to eat with her, see her off in her taxi and it would be done. Why would I want some ridiculous confrontation? See her safely off and that was that. I would never think about her again. Such bullshit. But then why had she written the note if what had happened that night meant so little to her? I was sure it had meant something. Maybe it had, maybe that night had opened some fissure in her life, but it was obvious now she'd ruthlessly shut that fissure and would never let it open again.

The door to the bathroom opened and she stepped out, rubbing dry her hair with a big towel.

My breath caught. 

Un-fucking-believable.

She was wearing a blue and white striped mid-drift tank top and light gray, almost bluish yoga pants. Both very tight, hugging and gripping to her every curve, the yoga pants clearly sheer and clearly leaving little to the imagination. They were indented into her pussy with what had to be nothing less than determination as if they had been pulled up real tight to show off. 

I tried hard to be silent, but I must have spluttered or made a noise. "What?" my mother asked looking up from under her towel.

"Nothing," I said and swallowed.

Maybe my mother was schizo, maybe she just liked playing games with me, maybe this sort of flaunting turned her on and she needed it to launch her to the next stage. I had no idea, and I didn't care. I simply looked at her. It was all I could do not to run to her and grab her. That's not what she wanted to now. She wanted to make me look at her. I did and nothing more. I simply looked at her.

"Decided what to eat?" she asked.

"Pizza, sandwiches, Afghan, Mexican" I said not knowing, really, what the hell I was saying. "I don't know. There are plenty of places nearby."

"That's a good idea," she said. "Order something up and have them deliver or, better, go pick it up. I feel so cool and refreshed. I don't want to go outside in that death out there. Get me a salad. You know, whatever." She waved her hand flippantly towards me at the "whatever".

She turned lightly, her pants ridiculously pasted like a second skin into the crevice and onto the mounds of her full, luscious ass. She stood there like that for long seconds. Then she returned to the bathroom with her towel. 

This time I didn't hesitate. 

I got up, walked to the bathroom and stepped in. It was still steamy from her shower.

She looked up from the mirror and seemed surprised. "You ordered already?" she said.

I shook my head and licked my dry lips.

"Well, go and do that, if you don't mind, dear. I'm hungry."

"Later," I said.

"Later?" she said, and God damn me if she wasn't teasing.

"Oh, mother," I groaned and she shrieked as I pulled her to me. 

"Owen," she said, protesting and tried to twist away. "Go order, baby."

I kissed her neck, grabbed one of her tits, reached down between her legs and she squirmed.

"Owen," she gasped.

I had to feel her pussy. She hadn't let me that night and I'd regretted it terribly. My hand skirted under her pants, stretching the delicate fabric. She had nothing underneath! No wonder her pussy had seemed to be winking at me. She was bare and shaved. Completely and freshly shaved. Incredible! She'd just shaved! Right now, in the shower, not fifteen minutes ago. Oh, God. This was all premeditated, I thought. She's known exactly what she's been doing. Oh, I loved her so much. 

I pushed my hand lower. Her thick, fleshy vulva quickly enveloped my middle finger. I massaged for just a second, gently getting the feel of her, gently nudging at what I hoped was her clit, before shoving my finger inside.

"Oh," she moaned.

I needed to fuck her. I needed to fuck this strange phantom-like creature before she decided it was time for her to go, before she changed her mind, and--poof!--dematerialized. 

With my free hand, I pulled and ripped at my buckle, my shorts, my underwear. Everything fell to my feet. My cock sprang up. 

I could hear myself breathing, could hear her whimpering as my finger plugged into her sopping, sucking wetness again and again. 

I tugged, and pushed down her yoga pants. Her beautiful ass shimmied and twisted to help me. They simply peeled away down, trapping her knees together. 

I grabbed my cock, pushed it between her ass cheeks and then lower. 

She gasped as I pulled my hand away from her pussy. 

I shoved where my finger had been, and we both screamed as I could feel her being turned outside in as my cock stretched her open.

Groaning, she slapped one hand against the mirror for support. 

I pulled almost all the way out before shoving it back in, even harder, this time much deeper. She screamed even louder. I stopped. 

I held still for a good half minute to keep from coming right away. The shock of it, yet again. Never in my life. So fucking tight. She turned and pushed against me, but I held her firm. 

Just the sound of our breathing.

"Oh, mom," I moaned.

Slick now with her juices, I started fucking her, each stroke getting smoother and smoother, deeper and deeper.

"Owen, Owen," she groaned, fucking back, shoving and twisting her bubble ass blatantly against me. 

"Oh, I missed you," I moaned. "I missed you, I missed you. God, I love you."

"I know," she said. "I know. Me too. How I missed you. Oh, I missed you."

I held her sweaty, full hips as best I could and I fucked wildly into her, and realized one of my hands, the middle finger, was still slick with her juices. I pushed my middle finger into her mouth, pulling her head back to me as if I'd hooked her.

"Ow-nnn," she mumbled.

"Now you know," I babbled. "It's so good. Now you know what I know."

"Now, I know," she gasped, licking round and round my finger. "So good, baby. So good."

"Oh, fuck," I yelled.

I was going to come. It just couldn't be helped.

"Fuck me, baby," she mumbled, licking and pulling at my finger, trying to tear it off my hand. "Fuck me till I die. Oh, Owen, fuck me."

"Ahhhhhhh," I groaned and slammed into her one last time, and she squealed as I pushed violently into her and jammed into what felt like very little room to jam. 

Frozen against her, I pulsed and gushed and pulsed and gushed. I never wanted it to end.

"I love you," she cried out as her pussy clamped and convulsed all around and about, squeezing and massaging from the gorged head all the way down. 

I thought I would collapse. 

"I love you. Oh, Owen, I love you. I love you," she kept saying as she shook and trembled, and I knew it was true.

I stepped away from her and she gasped as my cock plopped out, bringing with it a torrent of my come. 

I turned her around and kissed her full on her trembling mouth, pushing her back higher onto the sink. I knelt and peeled away the yoga pants completely. Rising, I pushed her legs open and she moaned, "Oh" when she looked down and saw my semen still dripping out. 

I shoved into her oozing pussy and she screamed my name. 

I lifted, carried her out of the bathroom, her arms and legs wrapped powerfully around me, her head draped like a sleeping child's on my shoulder.

She missed her flight and saw me off early the next morning to football practice, where I surprisingly didn't die in the horrible heat and from dehydration--the sixth, final time, I'd come practically dry inside her, I was utterly spent. I felt tired, really sore, and a bit out of shape, but I held out just fine, probably better than most of the guys there. But then they weren't still going on strong with the high of having fucked their mother all the night before. 

I had hoped she'd still be at the apartment waiting for me when I returned two hours later from practice--she'd said she wouldn't be, but I'm a hopeless optimist in that way--and when I realized she had, indeed, left I started panicking. In fear and dread, I searched my bedroom for another good-bye note or any indication of the sort she'd left after our first night. There was none. 

There was nothing from her, no hint, no call, no text, no e-mail, nothing until three nights later, on Friday night, when she called and asked whether I was home, did I have any plans. I was confused and asked her what she was talking about. Look out your window she said. 

And there she was. Outside my building in a taxi waving up at me. 

She said she would love to come up, but didn't want to disturb me if I was busy. And the tone, the teasing.

I buzzed her up.

I opened the door and there she was in a light, flimsy summer dress, her hair like some sexy 60s dancer and held up by a matching green head band. I grabbed her, pulled her in, planted my mouth on hers just as she began to yell and walked her back and back and back into my bedroom, all the while caressing and grabbing at her tits, her ass, her pussy, anything I could get my hands on. 

Searching behind me, I sat on the bed and hugged and caressed her ass, pulling her to my face as I pulled up the hem of her dress. She had underwear on this time, but barely, the thong just covering her puffy pussy. She screamed, genuinely alarmed, and tried to push me away when I dug my mouth onto her mound.

"No, Owen," she moaned. "No, baby, not that, please. It's just--"

But I was already lapping away at her, had already pulled her thong aside, and was dragging my tongue between the full, pulpiness of her lips and gently nibbling. Soon she was writhing in my hands, her ass clenching and trembling, and helplessly pushing her pussy against my mouth. After a particularly harsh shove of my tongue and a high-pitched squeal from her she grabbed my head and pulled at my hair. She was pulling hard. It hurt, but she was desperate.

"Just fuck me," she gasped. "Use my pussy, baby. Just fuck me hard. That's why I'm here." 

I pushed her onto the bed, struggled and tugged at my shorts and turned to top her. She was more than ready, her legs open wide and her eyes looking wildly up at me in anticipation, tits and bodice of her dress, head band and thong and all, everything askew and slutty. 

I shoved it into her and moaned as I watched the baby blue of her eyes roll up into her skull.

She visited the next weekend and the one after that, almost every weekend that semester. If I could, I'd borrow someone's car and pick her up at Lambert, otherwise she just took a taxi to the apartment. As soon as we got in, or I greeted her at the door, we'd tear at each other's clothes, quickly undress and then take and give pleasure, sometimes brutally, but mostly softly and lovingly. 

I fucked her on the couch, on the floor, against the refrigerator, in the shower and more than once on the balcony outside. We marked that apartment marvelously. I found that she loved her pussy licked--she resisted like crazy as she had the first time I'd pressed her, thought it was just a little too perverse for me to be doing that to her, but she soon relented and towards the end we'd sometimes spend half-an hour or more in a 69 moaning embrace. It was about then too that she introduced me to what she called tantric sex, where we'd be coupled and hardly moving, simply listening to music, her music, surrounded by candles, kissing softly and looking into each other for an hour at a time before the sensations and licks became too much and we'd erupt into a violent, throbbing finish. 

It goes without saying, of course, that it wasn't all just sex, although most it was. We'd go out to eat, even go out to prospective office space for her company, take wonderful walks, and simply kiss in the park, totally anonymous, totally together, totally at ease. 

I was in love.

[***]

"What have I done?" my mother kept moaning.

I was just driving down the semi-rural road, no destination in mind. My mother had stopped crying about a minute ago, but that part had been easy. She'd gotten it all out, the anxiety and tension she'd been feeling since I'd accosted her in the kitchen when she'd just arrived home from work. Her interrogation of me after that, again and again, for precisely what Ellie had said my father had told her. Her ruthless calculations and inferences. I was left awe-struck by the speed and power of her mind under such stressful conditions. But it was obvious she had it all worked out before my poor father got home, knew exactly what she'd say and how she'd say it. She'd probably anticipated his every word and action. It was a brilliant and frightening ambush.

I couldn't help it. It turned me on. I would have given anything to fuck her right now.

There were bright gold Christmas lights and decorations draped tastefully on all the big houses as we reached a more residential area. A light snow was falling. 

There would be no fucking tonight. Probably never again. Now the hard part would begin. 

"Dad believes you, you know, that you're not having an affair," I said. "He feels like shit." 

"Oh, my God. Are you listening to yourself? Believes me? Affair? This is a million times worse than any affair. I'm fucking his son, our son."

"It's not worse than an affair. I mean, you still love him right? You're not going to divorce him, are you?"

She turned and studied me for a long moment. "You sit there and you tell me you don't feel any guilt about us? You don't feel bad at all for your father? What sort of monster are you?"

"I don't think of it like that."

"You don't."

I shook my head.

"Well, of course, you wouldn't," she said. "Oh . . . What do you think about it then? How do you not feel any remorse?"

"I just don't see how it has anything to do with him, you know."

"You're fucking his wife and your mother, asshole! What else can have anything more to do with him than that?"

I stopped at a light. I turned to her. "You're still having sex with him, aren't you?" I asked.

"What?"

"Well, it's all out in the open now, I mean just what I said. Are you still having sex with dad?"

"Owen, shut up," she said dismissively.

"It's a simple question. Are you having sex with dad?"

"Go," she said motioning to the light. It had turned green.

"Mom, I'm not trying to be prurient. I'm--"

"'Prurient'. Is that a word you learned from your SAT prep way back? You just keeping it in reserve to spring on people you want to impress?"

"Mom--"

"Who the fuck says 'prurient', anyway?" she said, with a bitter laugh. "Why not say 'pervert' or 'sicko'?"
<hr pg="3" />"Fine. Fine, I'm not trying to be a pervert. Is that better?"

"Yes, much better.

"Well?"

"Pervert son of mine, I'm having sex with your father. Satisfied?"

"Even after us?"

"Yes, even after our filth."

I let the insult ride even though it hurt terribly. Filth. I had a feeling there would be many insults coming my way during this drive. That's how my mother got when she was deeply upset. She simply lashed out. Almost blind. And I couldn't blame her. We were both responsible, me just as much as her. In fact, it was deeply satisfying and I took some pride that she wasn't blaming herself, entirely, that she saw me as an equal co-conspirator, just as guilty as her. It made what we'd done a lot more intimate and meaningful. There was nothing one-off about us. 

I asked, after a minute or so of silence, "Well, then, if you're still having sex with him, how does that change his life? I mean, as a practical matter. I mean, like I said, you still love him, don't you?"

"Yes, Owen, I love him."

"And you don't plan to leave him, do you? You know, divorce him or anything?"

"No, I don't intend to divorce him."

"Well, then, how is our being together worse than you having an affair with someone you might wind up falling in love with or leave him for? That's an affair. That's not us."

"Owen. I'm your mother, that's why it's worse. That's why it's the most awful thing I could have done to him. Didn't you hear me in there? Didn't you listen to all my lies? Did you not see how cruel I was to him?"

"What lies? You're not having an affair and you are setting up an office in St. Louis. So far as it mattered, you told the truth."

"I've barely touched St. Louis. I've spent all my time with you down there--Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. For you, us, you and me together, it really doesn't matter all that much to you, does it?"

"How can you say that?"

"I'm not saying it, you are."

"I didn't say anything of the sort. I said, so far as it affects dad's life, as long as he never knows, you and I are not an issue."

"Just park somewhere," she said. "You're starting to swerve. You're going to get us killed. That might be the answer."

I took a right off a main road and I parked the car in a quiet little road leading to a half-finished subdivision. 

My mother's eyes were shut and her head was leaning heavily against the headrest. I turned off the headlights.

"How many girls have you slept with?" she asked, her eyes still shut.

"I don't know. I mean--"

She slapped her forehead, laughing bitterly again. "That's all I am to you. I'm just some older broad you're banging."

"No, no, no. What are you talking about? Since this summer, since us, is that what you're saying, you're the only person I've been with. The only one."

"But you--" She was looking at me, probably trying to see whether I was telling the truth.

"You asked how many girls I slept with in my life, not whether I've been cheating on you."

"Owen, it just can't continue. It just can't. It's so wrong. I feel so dirty. I can't believe we're even debating it. It's got to stop."

"I don't feel dirty and I don't want it to stop."

"Owen, we have to both agree to this. You have to promise me. I have to have you agree with me."

"You do what you want, I'm not agreeing to that."

"But--"

"I'm just not."

"Okay," she said leaning forward. "Let's just talk practicalities. You're in some practicality phase in your life, now, it seems, right? That's all you've said to me. Practical this, practical that. Okay?"

"Fine. Tell me what's wrong with us together, as a practical matter?"

"Well, for one, that you're talking about "cheating" on me. Don't you know how crazy that is?"

"Why is that crazy?"

"Because you're not even twenty, kid. You need to be with girls your own age."

"Why?"

"This is insane. How do I get through to you?"

"Mom, I'm not looking to marry you or something. We're not going to start a family."

"No, we're not," she said. "I have a family."

"But--" 

"But that's just it, though, what if your soul mate is out there just waiting for you and you miss her because of me. Don't you see how awful that would be, as a 'practical matter'?"

"Mom, if you're saying you're keeping me from finding the woman who will have my children, that's crazy. Like you said, I'm not even twenty. I want to go to medical school. I probably won't get married until I'm, I don't know, at the earliest 27 or 28."

"You're going to be a very bad man, Owen Hansen. Very bad. You can rationalize anything. I can't believe you think like that. I can't believe you're my son. You're lucky you're my son. I can't believe I was fucking such an asshole."

"Yeah, yeah, that's great. I'm an asshole. I'm dirty. I'm filthy. I'm a fucking pervert."

"Owen . . ."

I turned to her. "I'm being realistic. You want to know practicalities. I'll give you practicalities. I did better, much better, this semester than I did last year. I played better football. I was more focused. Just a 3.6 last semester, but straight A's this. Everything's clicked like crazy."

"Because of me?"

"Absolutely, because of you."

"No--"

"You bring out the best in me."

She started crying again, much more softly. "Owen," she moaned.

"And I didn't waste any time this semester fooling around, you know, chasing this girl or having to play head games with that one. I've never felt so focused."

"Owen."

"It's simply the truth."

"You did great without me before, baby. I have nothing to do with it."

"You have everything to do with it."

"You want us to continue, then?" she asked, sounding exhausted and frightened. "Even after seeing your father like that today. Seeing what this is doing to me. You want to continue?"

"No, I don't want to continue, not if you're going to be miserable. I don't want that."

"We need to both agree to this Owen. I love you too much to just . . . God, listen to me. I can't believe we're even talking like this."

"Mom, I--"

She turned to me. "You have to know something, Owen."

"What's that?" I asked, a little unsettled by the look on her face.

"Your dad left his first wife because she was cheating on him."

I was lost for a few seconds. "I didn't know that." I said. "I thought--"

"No, we never told you or Ellie because we didn't want you guys to feel negatively about your half-siblings."

"Well, that didn't work too well. The bobbsey twins despise us."

She winced. She hated when we called dad's twins "the bobbsey twins" even though she'd started it. 

She said, "They think your dad just left their mother for a younger woman, you know, that he was fooling around with one of his students and knocked her up, that I stole him from them, you know. I doubt they know that your dad and their mother were more or less separated when your dad and I met. The twins had just turned five at the time."

"Why didn't dad ever say anything? I mean--"

"Because we didn't want there to be more bad blood than there already was. You know, your poor dad worked his ass off to get tenure here. They only took him on as an assistant professor even though he'd just gotten tenure in Minnesota. They had him on probation even after he got tenured here. My God, he just stopped wearing suits and ties to his classes a year ago, he was so scared the school would think he was slacking or maybe taking advantage of students, who knows? Just about everything he made went to pay child support for years and years and . . . believe me, it wasn't easy. I'm sure we would have had more kids, but it was impossible."

"Well, obviously, you helped him."

"Sure, I did. I did everything I could at the start. That's why it was so hard starting the company with Sheera. It took a good five year for that to get off the ground. We were just nothing secretaries with a couple of stupid contacts and well you know the rest. I mean, I transcribed medical records for years on the side to help pay for everything."

"I remember that, all those little cassettes lying around the house all over."

"Yes, you slobbered over more than one little cassette."

"I wonder what those medical records looked like after I got through mauling them."

She smiled and touched my face. "Just listen," she said. "Okay? Just listen. It would kill your father if he knew I was cheating on him, too. It's already happened to him once. And if he found out I was cheating with you, it would be . . . I feel sick just thinking about it."

"I don't see him finding out."

"One way or another, if we keep this up, he will. He just will. Look how crazy he got just on Sheera's stupid speculation and not finding anything on my tablet. Imagine, if he saw you looking at me weird, or caught us . . . I don't know, kissing. He's never stopped feeling guilty about being with me. He's always known it was crazy, with us fifteen years apart. You think he doesn't feel bad how people look at us sometimes. And then his son . . ."

"I get it. I understand."

"Do you? Do you know how what you and I are doing could destroy everything? Not just your father, not just me. Not just even you. Think about poor Ellie. It's just too . . . I mean, how can we rationalize it when so much is at stake? How can we be that cruel, so selfish to people we say we love?"

"We're careful. I mean, we haven't, you know, been together in the house since the first time. I mean . . . I don't know why things can't go on just like they've been going this semester. I mean, not as frequently, obviously, but, you know. . ."

She shook her head and leaned back against the seat again. I watched the snow fall. We'd been out here now for almost an hour maybe. I could hear my ears ringing, could feel my heavy breathing, the sudden sharp cold of the sweat on my back and under my armpits. My forehead felt clammy and I noticed now too that my hands were trembling. 

It hit me. My body had known long before I did. I was losing her. The person I made happier and who made me happier than anyone had, anyone I could ever imagine would. She was lost.

My mother asked somewhat absently, it seemed, just to fill the silence, "How many girls have you slept with?"

"You mean, in my life?"

"Yes, in all of your almost twenty years. How many?"

"About eight, maybe."

"About? Maybe? You've forgotten some of them?"

"There might be one or two times I might forget. It was no big deal, believe me."

She turned to me. "I can't understand how you're so casual about it."

"That's just the way things are now. It's rare to get serious about someone. You just get stoned or drunk and hook-up. The girls seem to want it that way even more than the guys."

"Right. I've heard about that. All the 'Hook-ups.' 'Booty Calls.'"

"Yeah, something like that. How about you, were you a virgin when you met dad?"

"No."

"Who was your first?"

"Some creep from high school. He sort of took advantage of me--"

"You were raped?"

"I was stupid."

"He raped you?"

"No, what did I just say? I thought he cared about me when it should have been the most obvious thing that he didn't. No one else had ever paid attention to me, so I just sort of--"

"But you were a great basketball player."

"Girls basketball. Do you think anyone cared then about girls basketball? Do you think anyone cares now?"

I saw her point, but said nothing.

She continued, "I was just too big and we were too poor, so it wasn't like I was anything special. No one really asked me out. I was pretty anonymous and so this loser must have seen that, asked me out, took my virginity on the fourth date, and never talked to me again."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course, I am."

"Do you and dad, you know, I mean, so you guys have sex a lot?"

"Owen, please."

"No--"

"It's none of your business."

"Well, like what, once or twice a week?"

"No, Owen, not once or twice a week."

"Well, I mean--"

"Once a month, maybe. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? I cannot believe you're comparing yourself to some 57 year-old guy. You're quite the stud there. It's just . . ."

"Well, I just don't get it then."

"Get what?"

"Our having sex is even less relevant to him than I first supposed. He's not with you for sex. He's way past that, it sounds like. He's with you for your love and affection, right?"

"Owen, will you just stop? I can hardly think here."

"Mom, what really matters to him is that he knows that you'll be with him for the rest of his life. Will our being together change that? How does it change that? It probably makes that stronger. Are you going to abandon him and run off with me if he had a stroke tomorrow?"

"I cannot believe you. Who the hell did you take after?"

"You know I'm right."

"You're not, Owen. You have been and will never be more wrong in your life."

"So how many guys have you slept with, then?" I asked turning on the headlights and getting into an empty drive-way before I put the car into reverse. I straightened it out and took a left at the main road. The snow was coming down more heavily. I accelerated carefully. 

"Mom?" I wanted my question answered. I needed to know.

"God help me," she said, "You're my third."

"Just three guys? That's it?"

"That's one too many . . . Slow down."

[***]

I could see my father's relief when my mother and I returned home empty-handed. No boxes from her office, no nothing. If my mother hadn't been next to me I'm sure he would have given me a high five for having done such a good job of talking her off from the ledge. 

It seemed the poor guy had gone out himself while we were gone and gotten sushi and rolls for dinner, piles and piles of it, my mother's favorite. When we walked in he was setting the soy sauce and pickled ginger on the table. He looked up, swallowed, and continued, setting the plates and napkins and opening our bottles of Sapporo.

Watching him, seeing everything he'd done already, my mother started crying again.

"I'm sorry," she said to him. "I'm so sorry for being so hysterical." 

She reached for him.

He joined her and held her tightly to him. He was now crying too. "No. No. I don't know what got over me. I just . . . I feel awful. Please forgive me, Kirsten. I'm the one who's sorry."

They kissed hard and held each other just as Ellie walked in the door. Seeing them, she dropped her backpack and she ran sobbing to join them, coat still on, snowflakes still clinging to it. The three held each other as they shook and heaved.

I turned to the sushi and started dividing it, poured out the miso soup and reached for the rice.

In bed that night, I didn't sleep. My parents, I was sure, had long ago finished their make-up session of love-making, and I was happy for them, and disgusted with myself for even thinking about it, that it even registered, for feeling jealous, for feeling sick and so fucking exhausted. 

I was grateful that the two would be leaving in a few days for the other side of the world.

[***]

Ellie and I dropped off my parents at the airport and were returning home. Traffic was ridiculous coming down here and it looked even more horrible now.

"You didn't have to come," Ellie said. "I would have been fine by myself."

She would not have. Like my mother, she wasn't a very good driver, got really anxious in heavy traffic. Sometimes , the two were so absent-minded, so anxious, their driving bordered on reckless. Red lights and stop signs took on relative terms. I knew my parents had been relieved I'd be driving today.

Ellie continued, "But thank you for doing it. It really made mom and dad happy."

I nodded, looking in the rearview mirror to change into the left lane. I took a quick glance over my shoulder and made the lane change. Several cars honked.

"That was scary, though, wasn't it?" she asked.

"Nah, just push on in. You just can't hesitate. Once you commit, just go."

"Mom and dad, dummy. I mean, you know . . . that was scary."

"Oh, right. Well, I was never as convinced as you, if you remember," I said and turned on the radio.

She turned it off.

"Come on, Ellie, give me break. I really don't want to talk about this, okay? Everything's fine now, you know. It was just a big misunderstanding. They're happy. You're happy. We're all happy. We're a big happy family."

"You don't sound very happy."

"That's right Ellie, I was dying for mom and dad to divorce."

"No, no. Not that. Why aren't you happy?"

"About mom and dad?"

She shook her head. "About anything. Lately, you're always so . . . I don't know . . . pissed off."

"Not enough sex, I guess," I said.

She laughed. "Yeah, right. I mean, God, in high school . . . whatever. I'm sure you have plenty of sex."

"I'm sure I do." I turned on the radio again.

She didn't turn it off this time, but she did turn down the volume. 

She said, "No. Really. I mean, if I were you I'd be the happiest person in the world."

"Why is that, Ellie?"

"Well, you're a guy for one thing. The whole world is tailored for your pleasure. You do what you want, when you want, and no one can say a thing to you. That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, that's right, Ellie, you're living some Victorian nightmare, poor girl. Mom and dad have Heathcliff waiting around in the wings for your arranged marriage after I get everything when they die."

"Oh, you know what I mean. Don't be so cheesy. It's different, you know. Girls and boys."

"Not really Ellie. Maybe through the spectrum of high school, it seems like that, but believe me there are plenty of girls just like you out there who are doing anything and everything they like and no one thinks less of them."

"Bullshit. A slut is a slut is a slut. That's true now, 200 years ago and 200 years from now."

"You want to be a slut?" I asked smiling.

"Of course not, asshole. I . . . I don't know."

"What don't you know?"

"Never mind," she said and looked out her window before facing forward again.

"You started this crap." I said.

She turned to me. "I'm just saying, you shouldn't be so unhappy. You're smart and handsome and every girl I know would kill to be with you."

"Don't change the subject to me. Let's talk about you. What's troubling you?"

"That you're so unhappy."

"Ahhh, nice. You and mom, that's right. You guys have sure perfected the turn-around retort."

"Ha! Ha! Well, mom's pretty cool. I'm leaning at the feet of a master, right?"

I nodded.

"I can't help it you've never gotten along with her."

I nodded again. "No, you're right. That's not your fault or hers or anyone's. It's mine."

"She just wants to be taken seriously, and I don't think she thinks you respect her."

"Please--"

"Owen--"

"Is that right? She doesn't think I respect her?" I said, pretty annoyed.

"Yes."

"Well, I respect her a lot. I think she's brilliant and wonderful."

"Well, why don't you tell her that?" she said pointing a finger at me. "You never tell her how much you love her."

"I'll have to do that. You're right."

"I bet you it changes everything," she said.

"It might."

"No, I'm serious, it will. It will change everything. You have no idea how much mom admires you. I just think she's intimidated by you. I think you intimidate her more than anyone."

"Give me a break, Ellie."

"I'm serious. You're cool and we're all just so nice. You're popular and mom, dad and I are just geeks."

"You're popular, Ellie."

"People like me, sure," she said brightly. "But I'm hardly popular. I mean, look at me. I'm smart and geeky and tall. Not a great combination for a popular girl."

Ellie wasn't exactly pretty, but she was hardly unattractive. Where I looked a lot like my mother, Ellie's face combined features from both our parents, but mostly from my father. She had brown hair and brown eyes. She had a more smudgy, less defined look. She just seemed to have no chin and a lot of teeth, the poor kid and her lips lacked that full pulpiness you like to see in a girl. Her body . . . looked fine, just not very defined. She just looked really young still. 
<hr pg="4" />"You're beautiful," I said at last.

She laughed. "Ha! Ha! Boy, thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You are. I'm serious."

"Of course, you are."

"Ellie--"

"Oh, I don't care. I know I'm no supermodel. I'm sure that's why mom is soft on me. I probably remind her a lot of herself when she was young."

"I suppose, Ellie."

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. I don't really care if I'm popular. That's not as important now as it was, I suppose, in mom's time."

"Plenty of guys have asked you out, Ellie," I said, and I knew I'd put my foot in the moment I'd said it.

She laughed. "Oh, yeah, name one."

My mind scrambled. "Um, David Halbrook, the wrestler kid. Didn't he ask you out?"

"You're such an ass, Owen. God, you don't know the first thing about me or my life, and I know every detail about you. See what I mean when I say you've got nothing to be unhappy about? You can afford to be totally ignorant and aloof about everyone around you because you know they'll want to be around you, whatever you do."

"You've had dates, Ellie."

"I've never had a boyfriend, Owen. I've gone out, but it's always been in groups. I've never had a "date" date."

"Well, I'm sure that will change at Swarthmore."

"If I get in."

"You will."

"We'll see."

Traffic now ground to a halt. This was going to be much worse than I'd feared. I tapped lightly on the wheel to the song on the radio. I was been hoping Ellie might just put on her headphones and leave me in peace for the rest of the drive. She was fidgeting with her phone now. But I could see her looking at me and I knew she had a lot more she wanted to talk about.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Ellie, I can see you have something you want to say to me. Don't worry about Swarthmore. Brown wants you and so does Amherst. Those are both great schools. They're both better ranked probably. Just because dad went to Swarthmore--"

"Oh, I'm not worried about that." She plugged in the phone to the radio and MGMT's "Time to Pretend" came on. She turned to me. "You don't mind that, do you?"

"No, that's fine." 

"I love it," she said, almost gushing. "I loved when you used to play this all the time when you were in high school, especially when you put it on after you guys won in sectionals your sophomore year. That was so cool."

I nodded.

"Do you remember that drive home, after the game, with you and Darren and Alex? You guys had just showered and you guys were these big moppy heads and mom and I were just laughing our asses off when you guys were in the back seat dancing and singing to this song."

I kept nodding, barely remembering that drive, and certainly not remembering this song during the drive. The song embarrassed me a little now. "Yeah, I remember," I said. "That was cool."

She stopped grinning. She yawned. She turned to me.

"Owen, can I tell you something, but you've got to promise, please promise that you'll never say anything to mom and dad or to anyone."

"Sure . . . I guess."

"Not I guess. Promise."

"Okay, fine."

"Promise."

"Look," I said turning to her. "So long as it's nothing like you're thinking about taking meth or you're a heroin addict, you know, something crazy like that, sure."

"Just promise, okay?"

"Alright, fine. I promise."

She took a deep breath. "I'm a lesbian."

I almost groaned, but stopped myself. I'd expected something a lot more interesting from Ellie. This was so clich&#xfffd; and cheesy. Girls basketball. Lesbian. God, what a joke. I felt terrible for her. I looked at her. She was fine. Couldn't she see that? In a year or two, once she really filled in, she'd be spectacularly hot, her face would lose its scrawny appearance and . . . look at my mother . . . Ellie needed to do something with that drippy hair. My mother should have been taking a greater interest . . . I stopped, almost groaned again. 

I said, "Why do you think that, that you're a lesbian?"

"Because I think I'm in love with someone."

"Jessica," I said and again had to really compose myself from laughing in disgust when she nodded. Jessica, an only child, lived in our cul-de-sac with her anesthesiologist father and pediatrician mother, played basketball with Ellie and . . . well, she was a ridiculous person, changing her identity and hair-style and appearance every month or two. She was the least grounded girl I knew. The idiot kid was the epitome of teenage girl angst and self-indulgence gone amok. I couldn't believe Ellie was being so stupid. I wish she hadn't told me.

Ellie was still watching me.

I quickly said, "Ellie, I mean, that's fine, you know, no big deal, but I think you're being a little premature. I mean, you've never even really had sex with a guy, right?"

"I've never had sex with anyone. I mean, you know, Jess and I have kissed, but, you know, nothing more."

"She doesn't want to?"

"No! No! I don't want to. I'm scared."

"But she wants to," I said.

"She says she does."

"Ellie, hasn't Jess had boyfriends? I thought--"

"Sure. She's had sex with guys, two of them, but you know, she wants to be with me."

I was sure it was more than two guys. No way hadn't someone with as little self-esteem and as much brass and confusion as Jess been taken advantage of many times over. 

I said, "Ellie, that's fine, I just don't want you to get hurt. Okay?"

Ellie looked annoyed at that.

"Just listen for a second," I said. "I don't think Jess is as much a lesbian as either she or you might imagine. I think she wants maybe to experiment and--"

"I'm not saying we're going to get married or anything. I don't want to have children with her."

I couldn't help smiling, actually bit my lip.

"Why are you smiling?" Ellie asked.

"I'm not. I'm just . . ."

"You're not taking this seriously at all, are you?" she said, crossing her arms.

"Ellie, all I want is for you to be happy, okay? That's all. If you say you're a lesbian, I've got no problem with that. And I think you truly believe you are, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this. And I think you're sincere in that belief. Okay? I just don't' want you to be getting hurt. If kids at school start think you're a lesbian, well, I don't think you'd like that. Kissing a girl is a lot different than having sex."

"Oh, I know that," she said. "And you're right about school. I just don't know. How old were you when you first had sex?"

"With a girl or a guy?"

"Very funny. How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"Okay, well, Jess and I are both eighteen now, so I mean, I don't know, what do you think?"

"I think if you love her, go for it, but if you think she's--"

"Did you love the first girl you slept with or any of the girls, for that matter?"

"No, not that first girl. None of them, actually . . . except this last one."

"Oh, who was she?" Ellie leaned in closer. "I never heard about her."

"It doesn't matter. She dumped me. It's over."

"Ahhh. Now I see why you've been so down since you returned from St. Louis. Now I get it. And she actually dumped you?"

"Yes."

"Wow--"

"Ellie, please enough with the cool Owen crap. My life is just as messed up and as weird as anyone's, okay? I'm sure a lot more than most people's. I'm hardly cool or whatever you might think. I'm pretty ordinary and pretty pathetic. That's the fucking truth."

"Sure," she said and she turned away from me and looked out her window. She unplugged her phone from the radio and was putting on her headphones.

"I am," I said.

[***]

During the winter break, while my parents were in Australia, I didn't fuck my sister and take her virginity to "cure" her of her lesbianism. I was sure that would take care of itself down the road. I didn't fuck Jessica to prove to Ellie that she was just a tramp and hardly worthy of a long-term relationship. The idiot friend was over plenty at the house and I'm sure more than willing, but the very idea made me sick. 

No, the problem was my half-sister Belinda, the female half of the bobbsey twins, who visited town for a couple of days shortly after New Year's. Neither Ellie nor I had a clue what the hell the "bobbsey twins" meant or who they were when we started using it to refer to my father's first two children. Despite my mother's endless efforts to stop us, the name had simply stuck when my mother had called them that under her breath the minute the twins had gotten in the car with my father to return home to their mother after spending two weeks with us during summer vacation when I was ten. 

At first, I told Ellie to go see Belinda alone--the creep was apparently in town on business, she worked in financing for a large retailer and lived in Boston with her snotty husband, and was staying at a hotel downtown--but Ellie would have none of that. She said she feared for her safety and wanted me around for protection. That was another of our little family inside jokes--that dad's first family's one goal in life was to kill off my mother, Ellie and me via poison, unfortunate or unforeseen accident or some other less devious method.

"But it's you she wants to see," I said to Ellie. "If she wanted to see me, she'd have texted me."

"She doesn't like you, you know that . . . so . . ."

"You're thinking my being with you will make the visit a lot shorter."

Ellie nodded, giggling like crazy.

A few hours later we were driving downtown to meet her.

Belinda's fake plastic smile tightened when she saw I was with Ellie as we turned the corner of the reception desk in the lobby of her hotel and walked to her. Belinda got up from a plush seat. She was only five years older than I, but she acted and looked as if she was from a different generation entirely. More than that, much more, she looked nothing like Ellie and me. Belinda was what you'd be compelled to call exotic-looking and stuck out in a crowd. She combined my father's pretty dull Scandinavian features with her mother's Chinese ethnicity to create something really original. From one angle, you'd say she was just another cute little brunette, perhaps Hispanic, but straight on, her half-Asian features were much more prominent and you wanted to stare at her for long periods, she was that captivating and doll-like. If only she was just as loveable inside as she looked outside, 

"Ellen," she said. "Oh, my God." Reaching up on her toes in her high heels, she lightly hugged my much taller sister and Ellie bending low returned the hug, trying not to pull Belinda in too close.

Belinda turned to me, still holding Ellie's hand. The last time we'd seen her had been at her wedding last summer in Minneapolis. It was there that we'd met her asshole now husband, Ben, and he seemed to have been delegated by the bobbsey twins and their mother with the task of making my mother, Ellie and me feel unwelcome. He tried to the most obvious path first, by trying to pin us down as Midwestern yokels, but my mother had spent way too much time with Sheera Ackerman's biting compliments to be daunted by some frumpy, little dweeb's backhanded and badly executed insults. Then he started saying "Wharton" whenever we were within ear-shot. Belinda and he had met at the business school, and he wanted to make sure we appreciated why that particular business school mattered, but I was just a few weeks from heading down to Wash U and when I found out he'd been to Bucknell for his undergraduate I made sure to ask him as many questions as I could about it. Often and loudly I asked about Bucknell, while Ellie kept saying things like "Bucknell is a pretty great basketball school, isn't it? Weren't they in the final four a few years ago?" He didn't like that. At the end, he just ignored us, blatantly and rudely ignored us. Soon his whole family from out East joined him in a whole range of ridiculous and open snubs. Neither Ellie nor I gave a shit, but it bothered my mother and it got so awkward that my poor father was compelled to take Belinda and Tommy (the male half of the boppsey twins) to the side and tell them to behave. They rolled their eyes at him.

"You look like some jihadi terrorist," Belinda said finally after she'd taken in my scruffy beard and my hulking hooded presence.

"Hey sis," I said in as syrupy a voice as I could muster and stepped forward to touch her shoulder. Normally, I never stooped to cheap shots like calling her "sis" when I knew she hated it, but telling me I belonged on some FBI watch list wasn't very nice either. 

Belinda started leading us to the bar in the lobby when she suddenly "realized" we were underage. She chuckled at this lame, little opoening skit and she turned around, put on her coat, and the three of us went to the car in the parking structure across the street. 

"Oh, whatever you like," she said about where to have dinner. "How about TGIF's or Outback, you know, something fun for you two too? Maybe Hooters for Osama back there," she said motioning to me in the back seat. 

Texting away dirty messages to some girl from New Jersey I knew from the dorms my freshman year, I told Ellie to go to a little caf&#xfffd; my father liked near the University. 

We ate dinner, Belinda ostentatiously ordering a glass of wine, saying she was really tempted to order a full bottle of California Merlot, but who could she share it with, and the girls caught up with this past year's highlights--Belinda's career was going great, Ben had already been pegged for partner track at his investment bank, and Tommy had just missed editor and chief on his law review at Penn--"It's just politics. All that affirmative action, you know. It's crazy because the guy is Asian, you know. Some black girl got it, instead". 

Half-listening, chomping down on my steak, my admiration for my father grew. The old man knew his cafes--this place served better beef than most steak houses I'd been to. 

As I cut and chomped with growing enthusiasm, the queer feeling of being watched descended, and I looked up and saw that the two girls were staring at me, Belinda with a mischievous grin, and Ellie blushing wildly, almost as if she was in a panic.

"Is that right?" Belinda asked.

"Is what right?" I said, still chomping.

Before Belinda could continue, Ellie said, "It's nothing, really. I just sort of mentioned you were kind of down recently because, you know, you'd broken up with a girl you really liked a lot."

"No, Ellen, I believe you said, 'first love'," Belinda said, smiling. "Is that right, Owen?"

I nodded, taking a deep breath, avoiding poor Ellie's pathetic pleading eyes. Let her sweat a little, I thought, the moron.

"Yeah, she, uh, dumped me," I said, drinking some Coke.

"Well," Belinda said. "Why'd she do that? I wonder."

I put my glass down and I gave her all the ammunition she needed. It made me feel good to know that she despised me so much. 

"It's just what you think," I said casually. "I was stupid. I cheated on her with her best friend." I shrugged, as if to say, one can't really be blamed for taking advantage of that sort of opportunity, could one? 

Both girls gasped at that, looked at me in horror. It was nice to see Belinda actually showing a genuine emotion.

"Owen--" Ellie said sadly.

Belinda's head was bobbing, almost violently. "You're so predictable," she snapped. "Just so damned predictable."

"Would it have been better if I'd said she cheated on me with my best friend?"

"Oh, Owen, please. Don't . . ." Ellie said looking down at her plate.

"He's hopeless," Belinda said turning to Ellie. "He's always been the most arrogant prick I've known. Well, I'm glad the poor girl was smart enough to just move on. I'm so glad she dumped your ass."

"No, no," I said taking another bite. "She'll take me back, I'm pretty sure, but I doubt, you know, it will be the same. She won't be the same. I don't know, we'll see this semester how it works out."

Ellie smiled. "Oh, I hope it works out. She sounds great. Do you have a picture?"

I shook my head, swallowing a nice hunk of porterhouse.

"Oh, show me a picture," Ellie said.

"I don't have one," I said a little too firmly. Ellie blushed and I felt bad.

"I hope she doesn't take you back," Belinda said bitterly. "She'd be a fool to. You're never going to learn." And then turning to Ellie she said, "Ellen, don't indulge him. That's just the way he is. Don't encourage him like that. He's just selfish like that." She was back at me. "And . . . I can't believe you. And you're all depressed about this even thought it was totally your fault?"

"I'm not depressed. I'm--"

Out of the blue, Belinda was weeping. I put down my knife and fork. This was too much.

"Belinda," Ellie said shocked, putting her arm around her. "It's . . ."

"No, no," Belinda said reaching for Ellie's draped arm. "I'm sorry. It's nothing. It's just when I see people like Owen just using and throwing away people as if it all means nothing . . . it's just so sad."

"But--" I started.

"I had a miscarriage last month!" Belinda mumbled miserably. "Do you want to know reality and not taking things for granted? Well, ask me, okay? Ask me."

"Oh, Belinda," Ellie said and held her sister more closely, even stroked her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. So sorry."

I didn't believe her. It was possible, but it could all just be an act. How convenient! What a great thing to have happened to her to make me look like an even bigger asshole. Pictures? Ellie was suddenly so interested in pictures? I wanted to ask Ellie to ask Belinda whether she'd taken a picture of the fetus floating in the toilet, but I kept quiet.

"Do you see?" Belinda said to me. "You better start growing up and start taking life seriously before it slaps you so hard you'll never be able to get up."

I picked up my knife and fork. "I'm sorry," I said slicing carefully into the red, bloody meat. "You're right. I'll try to be better."

[***]

The next night up in my room, I had just sat down and started playing "Borderlands II" when Belinda's name chimed up on my phone. I ignored it. I didn't need the aggravation. I was sure she wanted to say good-bye before her flight bright and early tomorrow morning and to say how great it was to see me. That would have been fine, but of course she'd be offering a little more sisterly advice about life's hardships before closing with some really uncensored insights into what she thought of my personality and character. She could tell it all to my voicemail. I would never listen to it. And, of course, I would be getting the color commentary from Ellie later when she returned from hanging out at Jessica's--no doubt, Belinda had called and talked to her right before her call to me. Checking things off today's to-do list, no doubt.

A few minutes later, my phone rang again and again Belinda's miserable name materialized. For fuck's sake. I answered the phone.

"Hey," I said.

"Oh, thank God," my half-sister was saying. "I'm lost. Ellen didn't answer. And then you didn't. You have to help me."

"Okay," I said, trying to get back into the action of the video game. We had just derailed a train and some robot type thing named Wilhelm was entering the battle. Wilhelm. I mean, really? Cool.

"Are you there?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes, I'm here. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I said I'm lost. I'm returning to the hotel. These fucking rentals. My GPS won't work. It's just died. Why the hell did it take me here? This neighborhood looks absolutely awful. Totally ghetto. I'm just driving around here in circles and it's getting scarier and scarier."

"Well just use the GPS on your phone," I said.

"Like I know how the hell to do that."

"It's easy--"

"I said I need your help, asshole," she said. "Come get me."

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm lost in the middle of the ghetto. Come get me."

"Just use the navigation app on your phone, Belinda. It's easy--"

"Fine, I'm just going to call Ellen."
<hr pg="5" />"No, you're not. Don't do that. Don't you dare. Where the hell are you?"

"North and 32nd, or something, I think . . . Yeah, that's what I just passed."

"Oh, that's nothing. The freeway's just a couple of miles east of there. All you--"

"I'm calling Ellen."

"I said you're not doing that."

"Oh, it's okay if I get car-jacked and raped, but precious Ellen--"

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

"Are you coming to get me?"

"Yes. Just keep driving around. I'll be there in half an hour so."

"Hurry!"

"I said I'll be there."

"You'd better."

Half an hour later I found her, after many more phone calls and double-checks and increasingly hysterical call backs. I drove up beside her at a red light and had to admit that her shiny, new car was pretty conspicuous in the immediate neighborhood, but hardly grounds for all this evening's histrionics. It was much too cold for one thing. Not a lot of scum-bags ply their trade in freezing weather. She could easily have stopped at a gas station or fast food place and they would have told her to turn around, keep going straight and the freeway will be on your right. 

I was still on the phone with her. She was looking at me and was saying, "I see you. There you are."

"Okay, follow me I said." I saw her nod. I turned off the phone.

The light turned green and I drove up a block before I turned around in an empty lot, her car dutifully following, and we started down the street in the opposite direction. I turned on the radio and wondered whether I should grab some carry-out for dinner. Do they do carry out for Soul Food? Maybe a Chinese restaurant? Or should I go full-blown junk food and hit McDonalds? I debated whether to call Ellie to tell her what was happening, but decided to leave her alone. She was a pretty good cook and I'd bring some extra for her just in case. But she'd take care of herself. She'd just assume I was out with friends. I was expecting a text from her any second. She would die when I told her about this nonsense.

We neared the freeway entrance. I called Belinda. "Okay," I said. "You'll be going east onto the freeway. I'll keep going. I'll be heading west to go home. Take the on-ramp to the freeway going east and don't follow me anymore."

"Just drive me to the fucking hotel," she moaned. "Why is this so hard for you? What do you have planned tonight that's so important you can't just drive me where I need to be?"

Because it's utterly unnecessary I wanted to say to her. Because the hotel is right off the freeway, just a few blocks north of the exit. Because . . . "No problem," I said. "I'll take you to the hotel."

"God," she said as we headed onto the freeway. "I hate this city. I never liked it, but now I just despise it. Fucking hate it."

I could not have cared less her opinion about the city, about me, about Ellie, my mother. I couldn't care less. I turned up the radio. "Yeah, it takes a while to get used to," I said and yawned loudly.

"Are you yawning?"

I finished my yawn.

"You're just a kid," she said. "You shouldn't be yawning like that."

"I think I've got another growth spurt coming this year," I said, yawning again for affect.

"You're a riot . . . slow down, okay? Do you still see me behind you?"

"Sure, sure," I lied. I didn't look back. If she lost me, I would personally direct every unsavory character I knew to her last known location. Of course, it wouldn't have been big list of characters, but I was sure I could muster just enough to make her visit here memorable. 

"Our exit is coming up, the next one," I said.

"Okay."

I took a left at the end of the off-ramp. "I'm turning around. You just go down the street," I said. "Your hotel is on your left. Okay?"

"Just drive me there," she said. "In fact, just walk me to my room. I'm like totally freaked out here."

"Oh, come on, I've--"

"Just shut-up!" she yelled. "You don't understand. You're a guy. I'm all creeped out. You should pretend to care just a little, you stupid ass. We do have the same father."

"Because you really give a shit about me," I blurted out without thinking. I groaned.

She was silent for a good while before speaking. "Do you think that? Is that what you think?"

"I don't need to think it, sis, I know it."

"Well, you're wrong. It's you. It's not me. I get along great with Ellen."

"Oh, please. For one thing stop calling her Ellen. Her family calls her Ellie."

"Fuck you! What do you know? She hates people calling her Ellie. You guys are the only ones she lets do it. Did you even know that? Huh?"

I drove into the parking structure. Her car was right behind.

"Did you know that?" she demanded.

"Well--"

"Well, my ass!" she screamed.

I shut off the phone.

[***]

Belinda was taking out her room card. She opened the door.

"May I leave now?" I said, finally breaking the silence that had been building between starting when we got out of our cars, continuing as we walked across the street to the hotel in the freezing cold, growing ridiculous as we got in the elevator and she punched her floor number "8", and buzzing with an almost electric palpability as we stepped off the elevator and walked down this salmon colored corridor side-by-side.

She didn't even look at me. She stepped into her room and pushed the door shut in my face. Hotel doors, and especially at a nice place like this, are rather solid. The sound of the metallic crash was sharp, made me flinch. The fucking bitch! After everything she'd put me through, and to shut the door like that.

Furious, I knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again. Harder. I wanted to kick it down. 

After a moment and just as I was about to scream "fuck you!" the door opened. 

As casual as if she was confronting an inconvenient room service call, she stood there with her arms crossed and I was at loss for second. It was obvious she was expecting me to apologize and was ready to slam the door shut once again, probably even more violently.

"I want to tell you something," I said, seething, but keeping my voice bland. This would be it. I didn't care what my father would say when she complained to him. I had every intention of giving it to her, telling her exactly what I thought.

She rolled her eyes at me.

"Your . . ." I started, and then saw it would do no good. She'd be gone tomorrow. Why would I subject my poor father to crap like that? Hadn't I harmed him enough? It was stupid and selfish. There was no point. 

I took a deep breath and trying to sound sincere, said, "I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry for what I said earlier."

She looked up at me. 

"It's the way you feel," she said. "You can't change that. It's just very sad. I am your sister. Tommy is your brother. I mean . . ."

"Well, I don't want to leave you thinking I hate you. Okay?"

"That's fine," she said.

"Okay," I said, thanking God it had been so easy. I could leave. She'd be gone. We'd see each other again in a decade or two, maybe at my father's funeral.

She said, "Just wait. This is ridiculous. Come in, you moron."

I really didn't want to, but she'd already turned around and was taking off her coat, putting things away. Why was this happening? I walked in. I'd play this through to its ridiculous end. I'd pay my penance like a good son. I would listen to her superiority-act and complaints for a few minutes and that would be that. I would leave her with nothing she could use to bother my poor father.

She turned to me. "Do you . . . of course, you do. What do you want to drink?"

"I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be stupid. It's on my company. I'm having a gin and tonic. I doubt you want that."

"Whatever whiskey's there's fine."

"No scotch?"

"Sure, anything, that's fine."

"Of course," she said with just the hint of a smile. "I knew it would be scotch."

She got out the little bottles and a can of tonic from the mini-bar, poured them into plastic cups and handed the scotch to me. She fished in an ice bucket sitting on the mini-bar and dropped some watery cubes into her cup. She sat on the seat near the bed. I took the one near the TV. She took a couple of big gulps from her drink. No "cheers", no anything. She just drank.

"We can't go on like this," she said, leaning forward and holding the drink in both hands.

I nodded, not knowing what the hell she was talking about.

"You're going to get married, Tommy will, Ellen. We're going to have our own children. It's just too stupid to act like little kids all the time. We're adults. We have a choice, you know."

Okay, reconciliation time. No big deal. I tried my best. "It's . . . I don't know," I said. "Like you said, we kind of grew up really wary of each other."

"Good word. 'Wary'. Exactly." 

She finished her drink, got up, and poured another. Getting lost must have really unsettled her or she liked her booze. I was really surprised. I sipped on my scotch. 

Still standing she drank, just a little more measured this time. Whatever edge had been there from this evening's traumas must be dulling nicely by now, I thought. This was no beefy corn-fed girl brought up on college drinking games.

"Have you guys at least forgiven dad?" I asked and wanted to stab myself in the eye for starting like that.

"Wow," she said and sat back down. She raised her plastic cup to me. "Right to the heart of it. I didn't know you and dad were that close."

"We're fine. He's fine. I mean . . . but, I mean, that's the issue, isn't it. I mean, we hardly know each other. There's no real basis for animosity between us, other than that, right? How you guys feel about dad."

She studied me for a second and shrugged. She took another healthy gulp. 

She said, "I shouldn't even tell you this. There's nothing to forgive him for."

"I don't believe you guys feel that way. I think you guys still resent him."

"You're wrong. My mother left him for another guy," she said taking another big gulp. "Or at least she was cheating on him."

It was my turn to finish my drink. It burned, whatever brand it was didn't matter, it warmed and expanded inside the way booze was meant to do. 

"Your mom told you that?" I said.

"She didn't need to. I just know. I remember. I saw stuff. We weren't in diapers. I mean, I know what happened."

"And dad's never said anything to you?"

"God, no! I mean . . . you don't seem very surprised," she said cautiously.

"I am. I am. I--"

"Did you know? Did your mom tell you?" Her eyebrows were raised.

"No. Not that. I'm just . . . I just don't know what to say. It's just gotten a lot more confusing now that it was."

"You mean, why Tommy and I always treated you guys so mean when you guys were kids?" she said smiling.

"Well, yeah, that and--"

"My wedding?" She rolled her eyes. She emptied her drink.

I nodded. 

"We were just kids ourselves," she said. "We just took out our frustrations on you guys. You know, you guys were kids, and you were easy targets and we had to blame someone for our dad not living with us and our mom. We couldn't blame her. It was obvious who to blame."

"I guess," I said, vowing now to keep my responses, questions, answers, everything short and to the point. I must have been insane to open with whether they'd forgiven my father. Really a bad move.

"I've been trying, Owen. Honestly, I have. Just ask Ellen. I mean, I know she doesn't trust me, but I really hope one day . . . And, well, Tommy's . . . well, Tommy's Tommy. Guys I think find it a lot harder to move on, you know."

"Yeah, I think you're right."

"Plus, I mean, just look at us. We hardly look like brother and sister. I think that my mother was Chinese played role."

"Not for us."

"Maybe not, but it did for us. We had to be a lot more defensive, you know. And dad didn't go and marry . . . I mean, he went all blonde and . . . you know, like some complete and utter rejection of my mother, like he'd made some huge mistake with her. It was awful. Because it was a rejection of us too, you know." 

She dabbled with her drink a little, tilting it back, seeking a few stranded drops. This was going to take awhile. 

I took her cup, opened the mini-bar, grabbed two small bottles and poured. I filled her cup with tonic, grabbed a few sad little cubes of ice floating in the water in the bucket.

She was watching me. She said, "And my wedding . . . well, come on, you guys were awful--"

"We were awful?"

She laughed, getting up and taking her drink. I returned to my seat and sat. I didn't want to be near her. She made me nervous. 

She looked down at me. "Oh, come on. You and Ellen were like tied to your mom's skirt, like you guys were little babies. The moment you arrived. It was embarrassing. It was ridiculous, like you wanted nothing to do with us."

"I don't remember it that way."

"Well, of course, you wouldn't, but did you know your mom said at first she didn't even want to come?"

"I didn't know."

"It's true."

"No, I believe you," I said.

"Well--"

"I'm sure, she just wanted to--"

"No. No. It was all about her. I mean, it was so passive-aggressive bullshit, something how she didn't want to upset me, or distract from my day, or something like that."

"Well, yeah."

Belinda took another big gulp. She was becoming animated. It was obvious she'd wanted to say these things for a long time. I couldn't believe my bad luck. 

She waived the cup as she talked, "Oh, come on, it's the oldest tactic in the boat. Play the martyr, and by doing so gain more attention and admiration. She knew dad would never permit that. He would demand that she be by his side, but by even posing like that she made sure dad couldn't just relax and enjoy himself. No, he had to be on guard that his precious wife wasn't uncomfortable."

"I'm not sure I agree with that."

She sat down, and sighed. "I'm not sure either, and I'm not sure that she didn't think, you know, she wasn't doing the right thing making that gesture. But it was just so stupid and immature. She should have just kept quiet. She should've come up with you guys without a word. Why didn't she just smile when she needed to smile, look pretty, and at least pretend to be happy for me?"

"But she was," I said. "She was excited for you. I know that."

"She may have been, but her high and mighty, "I'm in the real world, kid. Don't give me any lip" attitude towards Ben was awful and then she goes and gets you and Ellen to act like you're these two academic prodigies to try to embarrass him."

"We did that on our own. She had nothing to do with that."

"Oh, she ate it up. I was there. I didn't see her getting up and telling you guys to chill, did she?"

"You've got to give us a little lee-way on that, Belinda. I mean, Ben is kind of an easy target."

She tried to suppress her smile, but was failing. I leaned forward and tapped my cup against hers. We drained our drinks. Good one, I thought. That would win me points.

The girl could drink, you had to give her that. No reaction or discomfort, she was putting away the gin and tonics with something approaching relish. I put my cup down on the table and waived her off when she reached to grab it.

"That's plenty," I said.

She nodded, and after a bit of hesitation put her cup down too, but must have reconsidered because before I could say anything, she was up and filling up another.

Still standing, and just sipping at her drink now, she said, "Well whatever." Then as if to herself, she said, "No, it was awful, unleashing all that ridicule and tension, from both sides. You guys were wrong. Don't you get it? The day wasn't about you guys or even about Ben, it was about me."

"That's a fair point," I said, hoping to bring the night to an end. This girl-babble was exhausting. Simply exhausting.

"That's just it," she was saying. "They're not points. I'm not trying to belittle or attack anyone or score points. I mean, we can't keep doing that and we can't change what happened, right? We can't relive that day. I mean, I can't make my dad be there when I was growing up."

"No." I said. 

She motioned to the bar.

I shook my head.

"Yeah, one is enough for you," she said. 

I nodded, didn't want to correct her that I'd had two drinks.

She was talking to herself again. "I don't have to drive, but my headache tomorrow . . ." 

She tapped at my knee, hoping to get my attention, even though I was studying her pretty closely. 

"Look," she said, somewhat cross-eyed, "your mom is going to be who she is. My mother isn't going to change, and poor dad is stuck in the middle. If we want to have relationships, then it's up to us young people to make that happen."

"Tommy--"

"Well, I can't talk for Tommy. I'm just talking about myself. I mean . . . you're going to laugh, but tonight really taught me something, okay?"

I nodded, glancing at the clock on her night table. I'd been here more than an hour. I couldn't think of anything to say. I wanted to go home.

But she was looking at me, her eyes tearing up.

Oh, no, I moaned inside. The crying, sad drunk is going to make an appearance.

She said, her eyes, narrow and unfocused, "I mean, I was terrified and having these awful panic attacks, and I was like, "Holy shit, if something were to happen to me tonight, would anyone even give a shit? I can't count on anyone here, even though my dad lives in this city and I have like a brother and a sister here. You know. I mean, that's what I kept thinking, like, I can't even count on the two people I should always be able to count on."

"I'm sorry I was so mean when you called."

"No. No. I was so relieved when I heard your voice," she said excitedly and sniffing hard. "It calmed me immediately. I mean, like, I'm not crazy, I didn't call Ellie. I just said that to make sure you came to help me, but when you finally answered, it was like, "Okay, everything's going to work out, everything's going to be fine. It was a huge relief."

I nodded, but I knew she was lying about calling Ellie. I'm sure she had. Where the hell was Ellie? She hadn't texted me, hadn't called. Christ, she wouldn't be . . . I'd deal with it later.

Belinda was on a roll. She was saying, "But let me tell you. When I called the first time and you didn't answer, that was it. I hated you so much. I was like, "motherfucker." I was like . . . I really started hating not just you, but even Ellie too. I mean, really wanted nothing good for you. I wanted you dead. I thought, if I get killed here tonight or die of a heart attack, he won't even think twice. He'll be like, "Oh, that's pretty awful," and go on with his jerk-jock life of fucking sorority girls and I'll be dead and two people who should be mourning me, won't be." 

She was crying harder now, almost sobbing. 

Between halting breaths and sniffs and sobs, she said, "Ben will just remarry in a year or two. Tommy will double his anti-depressants and my mother will just think that the stars were never really lined up for her and her twins from the start. The only person I knew would feel horrible was dad."

"Belinda--"

"And that hurt so bad, knowing how awful he'd be feeling, but being afraid to express it because he wouldn't want you guys to think he was betraying you. He'd have to bury it deep inside and try to move on. Thinking all of that, Owen, that's an awful place to be."

She was holding herself, sobbing steadily now.

I had no choice. The night was a total loss. I couldn't comfort her, really. There was nothing I could say. Everything she said was pretty much reasonable, but she was drunk, who knew how much she meant by any of it . . . Fuck. I got up, took her drink from her hand, and knelt by her. 

I held her. She started sobbing even harder.

"Shhh. Shhh," I kept saying. "You're okay and you're right. Everything you said is true. Do you want me to get you anything?"

She shook her head and sort of moaned. "No."
<hr pg="6" />"I want you to be happy and obviously you and Ell--Ellen are pretty good friends already. I think it's going to be just fine for all of us. So that's a start, right?"

"No, it's not," she cried. "It's awful. It sucks. Everything sucks."

"Hey," I said. I tilted her head up. "Look at me. I love you. You get it. I love you. I won't let anything bad happen to you. I'm your brother. You can count on me, okay?"

She looked at me, listening, sort of nodding, and her pretty face was smeared and snotty. God, I hated drunks, especially sad, indulgent ones. 

She kissed me. 

Very briefly.

That shouldn't have happened. 

We looked at each other again and she was flushed. She swallowed. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's okay. It's fine. You--"

She kissed me again, but this time it wasn't so brief. 

She held my face. "I hate this beard," she said.

I nodded. Was this part of the brother-sister reconciliation? What the hell was this? Oh, my God. Too ridiculous.

"I think I should go," I said.

She nodded, still holding my face.

"You going to be okay?" I said, half questioning, half proclaiming.

She kissed me, harder, her tongue trying to work against my lips. 

I broke the kiss. How insane we are, I thought. How fucking insane people are! I could feel my cock lengthening. Fucking insane!

"Just stay," she said.

"But--"

"It's okay. Just stay. I'm not crazy. I'm just . . ."

She kissed me again and this time there was little to do but open my mouth to hers. Her tongue rolled with mine, the tips touching.

"Nice," she said breathing into my face. "You're a great kisser."

"Yeah, you are too, but . . . I'm going to go Belinda."

She blinked a couple of times and nodded rather stupidly. Maybe she'd fall asleep.

"This isn't what you want, I know. You know it, too. You're drunk. I'm going to go before we do something really stupid."

"What's that? What do you want to do?" she said and kissed me again. She was not falling asleep.

I reached for her waist. My God, so narrow and taut. I was fully erect. How long? Almost a month since my mother's last visit. Almost a month without sex. And here was this hot little tart . . . This tart is your sister, fuckhead.

"Huh?" she moaned into my mouth, everything smelling of alcohol. "Tell me what you want."

"Not that," I moaned back, my mouth and tongue on her slender neck. My hand was now working behind her, grabbing at her little ass. What a gorgeous little package!

She pulled my face up and looked at me, slurring and saying, "You want to fuck me, don't you, Owen? Tell me, that's what you want, right? That's why you came up here. You want to fuck me."

I grabbed one of her tits and she squealed. "Oh, your hand's so big."

I searched for her mouth with mine, but she twisted away and pushed my face lower down to her tits.

"Just tell me what you want," she said. "And it's yours." She tilted my head up and looked at me. "Tell me what you want."

I studied her face. Was she as drunk as she looked? She'd certainly had enough to floor her, had probably not even had dinner, all of this on an empty stomach, but was this an act? Was she setting me up?

I could feel her nipples hardening under palm as I continued massaging. My hand kneading her ass wanted to get in her pants, but she reached back and held it in place.

"Tell me," she said.

"We can't."

"We won't. Just tell me. I just want to hear you say it. Nothing will happen. I'm not crazy."

"I want to fuck you," I said.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"You sure? Your own sister?"

I nodded, reaching now under her blouse, under her bra and cupping one of her small, warm tits.

"Say it."

"I want to fuck my sister."

"Oh, Owen," she groaned. "That's so hot."

We kissed some more. She broke away.

"Tell me how long. How long have you wanted to fuck your big sister? Huh? How long?"

"Since I can remember," I said, knowing that was the right answer.

"I know," she said. "You were always a little pervert. You couldn't keep your eyes off me. Even when you were a little kid. Trying to act all cool, but I knew what you were looking at."

I nodded.

"Aren't you? You're just a little pervert."

I grabbed between her legs and she squealed again, twisted away.

"No," she said laughing, mocking, in a little girl voice. "Not that. You can't have that. That's Ben's. Not Owen's." She slapped my hand. "Owen can't have that." 

"Let me borrow it for a little," I said, somewhat breathless.

She giggled, smiling. "Do you want it?"

"I do."

"Tell me what you want?"

"Your cunt."

"Oh, you little sick fucker," she groaned real loud now. "You really would fuck me, wouldn't you? Oh, you're such a perv. I knew it, I just knew it."

She pushed me back and I watched as she unbuttoned her pants and stood. She wasn't going to really do this? But she was. The pants were coming down. Still kneeling, I helped her out of them, pulling and tugging here and there. Immediately, her arousal wafted into the air. I leaned forward to press my face against her white panties, but she hopped onto the bed before I could get hold of her.

"Come on," she said, unbuttoning her blouse. "Come get me, you fucking pervert."

I stood, took off my sweater and the tee-shirt underneath in one smooth motion.

"Oh," she moaned, looking me up and down. "So fucking hot. Those shoulders."

My pants were off. She kept watching as I kicked them away, pushed down my underwear and my cock, wet and red at the tip and gorged, stood rigid and vertical and strong against my stomach.

"It's beautiful," she said, biting her lip. "Oh, my God." 

She unclasped her bra, peeled off her panties in little, precise, darting movements.

I put one knee on the bed and grabbed at her legs. She kicked my hands away.

"No, no," she said. "Just come here, big boy. I'm ready and you're . . . oh, nice. I don't have all night. Just come here." 

She spread her legs wide open almost pinning her knees back to her ears, marvelous flexibility. She must be double-jointed. I hurried between her toned thighs, spit in my hand, rubbed my cock slick with my saliva, looking down at her shaved dark pussy lips, open and showing blood red and so wet.

"Ready?" I said down to her.

She nodded.

"You sure?"

"Just fuck me!"

I shoved. Instantly, half my cock buried into her.

She screamed.

I pulled back slowly, and shoved in again, this time very slowly, retreated and shoved again, retreated and again and again.

Her eyes were tightly shut and she grunted with each thrust, gasped with each retreat.

I rested a second wanted to feel her now, soak her in, all of her. I was just about fully seated and she felt fantastic, sticky and hot. I couldn't believe her small body was taking almost all of it. 

"Oh, you fuckin' horse," she moaned as I pushed in the last remaining half-inch.

We stayed like that joined for a minute. She was so small, her head at my shoulder, her thin legs sharply splayed and her small feet resting on my hips. I wanted to suck on her little tits, but couldn't from this angle. I'd save that for later. They'd looked lovely, with dark little cherry tips for nipples. This was going to be good.

She put her hands on my chest and pushed back against me. 

"Okay, okay," she said gasping. "Just stop. Just wait."

"Sure," I said thinking she wanted a little more time to adjust and get comfortable.

"Put on condom," she said reaching up to stroke my face. "I wanted to feel you raw, I just had to for a little, but that's enough. Put on a condom."

I was confused. I felt her pulling away from me, her body grudgingly releasing inch after inch of my cock. 

"Where is it?" I asked.

"What?"

"The condom's in your purse?"

She pushed harder against me, sharply, and quickly scrambled out from under, my cock completely unsheathed. She wasn't quite sitting up but her face was level with mine as she rested on her elbows. 

"You idiot!" she yelled. "Don't you have a condom?"

I shook my head. "No."

"But every guy carries a rubber in his wallet."

"This guy doesn't."

"You don't have one?"

"No, I don't."

"Oh, my God," she said looking down at my cock still poised and pulsing calmly at her waist. "We can't . . ."

"Is there one in the bathroom?" I asked hopefully.

"What kind of hotel do you think this is?"

"I don't know. Some hotels do."

"Yeah, the sort of dives you fuck your cheerleaders."

"You're not on the pill?" I asked.

"I'm trying to get pregnant, idiot."

I moaned. 

"Yeah, dumbass. Oh, my God, I can't believe you don't have a rubber."

"I'll pull out," I said, stroking her cheek.

She slapped me away. "What?"

"I'll pull out."

"Are we Catholics suddenly?"

"Well, when was your period? I mean, are you safe?"

"Holy shit, we're back in the middle ages."

I rolled over and was on my back next to her, my cock flopping with a heavy, wet plop against my thigh.

"It's a simple question," I said. "You're not going to get pregnant just willy-nilly."

"Oh, just shut up." She got under the covers, tugging hard.

"When did your last period end?" I asked again. "It's a pretty simple calculation after that."

"Are you some gynecologist or something?"

"You have to have pretty good timing to get pregnant. You've got to be pretty lucky. It just doesn't happen. If you're safe, we'll be okay."

"I can't believe I'm even entertaining this," she was telling herself.

"I'll go."

"No, just wait. Just wait. Let me think."

I let her think, slowly stroking my cock to help her.

"I don't know, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm safe, but . . . okay, but you pull out, right?" she said, watching my hand going up and down.

"Of course."

"I mean, I'm trusting you know what the fuck you're doing. I don't want some two-headed baby, for fuck's sake."

"I know what I'm doing."

"God," she groaned. "I'm like back in high school."

"I will pull out."

"You'd better."

I got under the covers to join her and pulled her on top of me. She nodded, shutting her eyes. I grabbed her tiny ass with one hand, held my cock upright and steered briefly with the other.

My now drooling head was mashed and then was barely able to lodge into her, a much different sensation than just a few minutes ago. She was tense. She was uncertain. She sighed. I immediately grew into full rigidity.

She moaned, growing louder and closing her eyes, as I firmly held her ass in place and pushed my way, up and down, slowly just fractions, up and down, as I carefully snaked my way up into her clenching cunt. It was an excruciatingly slow journey, much better than the first. 

"God, you'd better know what you're doing," she said, getting her breath back, but still panting as she started rising and falling, her eyes shut, her black hair seeming to float and cover and uncover her face as if in a dream. 

"This thing in me feels lethal, Owen."

[***]

We had just finished a bong between us and I held Hanna Knopf's thighs pressed tightly against her big, floppy tits as I pounded into her sloppy pussy in the same bed my mother and I had shared and loved in many weekends last semester. Hanna's juices were splattering against my pubic hair with each harsh thrust, but my condom covered cock felt just sleek warmth deep inside her, safe and protected.

"Oh, Owen, fuck me! Fuck me, you fucking prick! Fuck me!" Hanna groaned, shimmying and moving her chunky hips with terrific speed. The soft layer of fat on her stomach rippled and seemed to shiver nonstop as she moved. She was in full sport-fucking mode. It was the only fucking she knew. I could have been any cock.

Hanna was my fuckbuddy from last year. She wasn't the only one, but she was the least demanding and by far the most giving. We'd been on the same dorm floor and she told me before I even knew her name on the first day of college that she was granting me access "24/7" to her body. That she'd then granted access to at least two other guys in the hall, and been very public about it, didn't bother me and she never tired of reminding me that I was the special one, I really did it for her. I had full, unconditional access, the others didn't, she insisted.

It was the end of the first week of second semester, but I'd been on campus for almost three weeks already. I'd fled home a few days after fucking Belinda. I'd been desperate, going so far as to take a bus to St. Louis, and leaving Ellie alone for eleven days before my parents returned from Australia. I didn't trust myself anymore. Not with Ellie, not with Ellie's lesbian lover or not Jessica, not with the neighbor's teenie bopper daughter with a seven figure trust fund who was showing up at the house way too frequently for comfort--did I look like the kind of guy who needed a cute little rich brunette brat with braces to shovel my snow? But it was really about Ellie and I knew it. Being around her made me nervous suddenly. I'd fucked enough of my father's girls to last me a lifetime. I didn't think I'd fuck Ellie, couldn't imagine it happening, but I just didn't trust myself. My latest atrocity against the poor guy of bedding his oldest daughter had unhinged me. I wasn't going to go three-for-three. I needed to be far away. I was losing control.

My cock was on automatic as I kept pumping away at Hanna. She was loving it, doing everything but spitting at me to encourage even higher levels of velocity and violence. I gave her of my best, but my mind was hundreds of miles away.

Fucking Belinda. I still couldn't get over it. I'd pulled out just as I'd promised, but I had to literally throw her off me right before I spewed huge gobs into the air, she was so lost in fucking me on top and so desperate for a second, even more shattering orgasm. Then the idiot got greedy. She sucked my cock clean, lavished every bit, back and forth, up and down, making sure any little bit of "naughty Owen sperm" was cleansed away as a threat, and then got on me again, riding me easily into another erection. I was nuts with lust at that point and rolled us around and got her on her back. I really wanted to fuck her hard. Whatever reservations I'd felt, held, were long gone. I pinned her hands above her head and really started enjoying her. She squealed and whimpered and was totally under my control. We were building for a big finish.

And that's where I made my mistake. I said down to her in a fake rasping voice, as if I was out of my mind, "I'm not going to pull out, this time, baby."

Belinda groaned, "No! Owen! You got to."

"I'm going to fuck a baby into you, sis." 

In my defense, every girl I knew loved this sort of talk. It really turned them on. They can be on the pill, a patch stuck on their waist, a sponge and a diaphragm plugged up in there with an implant to boot, and still get all loopy when you talk about giving them your baby.

Belinda seemed to be no different. Gasping, almost crying, she moaned, "No. No. Please don't."

"A big, beautiful blue eyed baby in you, sis. My fucking baby," I growled.

She was shaking her head. "Please, Owen. I can't. It's so wrong."

I should have shut up right there. Her tone was ambiguous, or she was a much better actor than I'd given her credit for.

But I couldn't help myself. I was steel inside her now. So fucking hard. "Your brother's baby. Just think of it. Oh, Belinda, I love fucking you."

We grunted and groaned. She twisted and turned. My sister named by her mother after Belinda Carlisle of some 80s band called the Go-Gos could fuck.

"Go," she heaved. "Go."

"Oh, baby," I moaned.

"Give me a baby," she screamed.

"I'm going to do it," I moaned, half threatening, half scared, half wanting to more than anything.

I pulled her up from underneath, held her whole ass in my hand, really started grinding into her.

She squealed with this new angle, scratched my back viciously with her nails.

"So good," I moaned down at her. "So fucking good."

I could feel her convulsing, feel her contracting and coming so hard.

She screamed, "Give your baby to me!"

"Belinda," I said gasping.

"Go ahead."

"Oh, my God," I bellowed and before I could do anything I was coming inside her.

She felt it, and it drove her to a new level of hysteria. She pressed up against me just as hard if not harder than I was pressing into her and we kissed and sucked on each other's tongues as our bodies seemed to pulse and contract together for long agonizing seconds. 

Trying to catch our breaths, dazed and recovering, it was more than obvious, as some of my come started to leak out of her, soaking my balls and pubic hair, that our copulation had been consummated in the most obscene sense of the word.

I left a few minutes later, Belinda fast asleep and glowing and gently tucked in.

Fucking Belinda. I couldn't do anything for her, whatever happened. I hadn't heard from her, probably never would. At least that was my prayer. Just stupid.

The recollections were driving me even faster into Belinda . . . I mean, Hanna. I wouldn't last much longer with Hanna. I slowed down. I pulled my cock out of her cunt and she wailed with disappointment, but I wanted to test whether my access to her body was still full and unconditional. I pressed the condom-covered tip against her crinkly little dark asshole.

"Oh, yes! Go for it, you dirty fucker. Fuck my dirty asshole. Fuck."

All systems go. I kept pushing. She reached underneath and spread her cheeks to help me. My head popped in and I worked it into her with tiny little movements, letting more and more of it squeeze in. She was groaning and shifting her head from side to side. I kept feeding her more cock. She started thrusting back and soon I was shoving deeply into her ass, my pubic hair mashing against her wet, sloppy, fat cunt with each thrust.

"Feels good," she said, her face red now with straining as I really started going at her, her ass nice and lubed and stretching beautifully around my cock. "So good. I love it! Love! It!"

Fifteen minutes later, Hanna was falling asleep next to me, the used condom somewhere seeping onto the tangle of us, and she was murmuring how she'd missed me, asking who the bitches were I'd been fucking all last semester while ignoring her, what an asshole I was for doing that, and tantalizing me with a tale about a threesome she'd had during winter break with a black guy and his Arab girlfriend she'd met at an illegal rave in New Jersey. It was the ecstasy they'd dropped that made it so great she explained--"a foursome with them, me and you and them, we'd need an ambulance to carry us out"--and she mumbled a few more incoherencies before starting to snore. 

I wasn't paying attention by then and pulled away from her hand resting on my waist when I saw a text from Ellie. 

The text simply said, "Hey. What U up to".

I replied, "study"

A few seconds later, from Ellie, "friday? lol"

I typed, "really, ima study"

She replied "?"

I typed my "?"

Almost immediately, from Ellie, "Don't U luv mums tan?"

"?"

"mums tan"

"?"

"isnt mum w U?"

"no"

"weird"

"why"

"i thought she cya"

"moms here?"

"yup"

"ok"

"maybe later she cya"

"yup"

"havin fun?"

"gotta go cya"

"cya say hi to mum"

I put my phone away and gently shook Hanna's shoulder. Her freckled, floppy tits jiggled.

"Hey," I whispered.

"Um," she moaned, licking her chapped lips.

"You gotta go."

"Um."

"Hanna, you've gotta go."

She turned her back to me and wrapped herself more tightly with the blanket.

"Do me this favor, okay. Come on. I'm sorry."

"What have I been doing this last hour, asshole? What more do you want from me?"

"You gotta go, baby," I said.

"No," she moaned and flapped the blanket over her head.

"I'm sorry, but my mother's coming for a visit."

"Your mother?"
<hr pg="7" />"Yeah, my sister just told me she's in St. Louis and is planning on a surprise visit."

Hanna laughed. I mean, really laughed. She popped her moppy wild head of curly raven hair from under the covers and looked up at me. "Well, if she's gonna do something so cheesy, I'll be your surprise back to her. How about that? You can tell her we're engaged. I'm carrying your baby. Shotgun wedding. Give her a heart-attack. The Ozark's aren't too far away. I always wanted to meet someone's mom."

"You gotta go."

"Are you fucking crazy? It's freezing out there," she said.

"I feel terrible, but . . . "

"Oh, my God. You smoke my best pot, you fuck my ass sore and now you dump me in the street like . . . I'm not one of your sorority bimbos, asshole."

I shook my head. Why always from these "cool" chicks these accusations and insults about my supposed proclivities for sororities and cheerleaders? Just once, a cheerleader in high school. That was it. Just that once. And yet . . . I had to get her out of here. The apartment was a catastrophe, bordering on a post-nuclear wasteland. The smell of pot everywhere. Empty boxes of carry-out tipping over in every room, unwashed dishes, dirty clothes. 

What a wonderful reception for my poor mother it would be.

"Come on, Hanna, she could show up any second."

"Oh, my God," she groaned. "When do my nightmares end?"

Mine ends tonight, I wanted to laugh at her, but kept quiet, hoping to hide my exhilaration.

A half annoyed Hanna left half an hour later and the only reason she wasn't leaving in a murderous rage was that she had the pleasure and entertainment value of watching me rushing around the place like a three ringed circus trying my best to clean up. She stood at the door laughing, informed me in the most undiplomatic of terms that she was revoking her grant to me of access to her body, but made sure, nonetheless, to squeeze my cock hard before she walked to the elevator and waved good-bye. I stepped back in the apartment and shut the door and had to stop before getting on with the cleaning. The shakes were hitting me thinking what would happen here tonight with my mother, but I knew I had no time to indulge. Fucking pot.

An hour after that, the apartment bore some resemblance to a livable mammalian habitat. I'd dumped three bag-loads of crap in the dumpsters out back in the alley. The place still smelled vaguely of pot, but that couldn't be helped. My mother would understand. I'm sure she smoked pot at some point in her life. And who cares if she hadn't. She would understand.

And so I waited. 

And waited.

And my mother never showed. 

Nor did she show two weeks later on another visit to St. Louis, which again I only found out about from Ellie. It seemed she was visiting almost every week, just as she had last semester. Only I was not welcome or privy to her visits. She had other plans, whatever they were.

I called her the next Friday afternoon, almost sure she'd be in town again.

"Owen, sweetheart," she said and I stifled all the emotion welling inside at the sound of her voice. It was her voice! It had been almost two months since I'd heard her voice. I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against the cold wall. 

"Hi mom," I said.

"How are you darling?" she asked pleasantly.

"Are you in town?" I asked.

"I sure am. We're heading back to the airport right now."

"You're going home," I said.

"Going home."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Darling, I really can't talk now. I'm wrapping up a couple of things here."

"I need to see you."

"I love you too darling. We'll talk tonight, okay, when I get home." 

And she hung up.

And she never called that night.

Days without meaningful sleep, the next Thursday afternoon, dressed in my suit, I surprised her by simply showing up at her new offices. It was nothing like her sprawling, very nice offices back home, but there was no getting around that it seemed to be thriving quite well. At least she'd been productive during all these visits she'd been ignoring me.

"Congratulations," I said when she walked to the reception area. I'd not told the receptionist who I was, just that I needed to see Ms. Kirsten Hansen about a substantial contract involving AB. We'd just learned they were operating in the city, I said to the receptionist. The receptionist looked at me doubtfully, but rang up my mother, regardless, probably to see if there was anything interesting going on here.

My mother had on the blue business suit she'd modeled for me in her bedroom last summer and Ellie had been right. Amazingly, she still retained her Australian tan, rather deep and a beautiful contrast with her blonde-hair and blue eyes. She was radiant, more stunning than ever. 

She looked at me, her tan seeming to fade, and the receptionist simply watched us.

"This place," I said. "Wow, just great."

My mother turned to the receptionist. "Debbie," she said. "This is my son, Owen. He goes to college here. He has a very immature sense of humor. Please forgive him."

The receptionist blushed, no doubt, reproaching herself for assuming anything unsavory about her brilliant, if somewhat severe, boss. The receptionist quickly got to her feet and we shook hands. "Of course," she said. "Duh. You guys look almost like brother and sister."

"Yeah," I said. "Or father and daughter."

The receptionist laughed loudly with that one.

"Wait here," my mother said to me not laughing. "I'll get my coat."

I smiled at the receptionist as my mother walked back to her office. "Sometimes Mahomet must go to the mountain, right?"

The receptionist smiled nervously.

[***]

It was a gray day with just a hint of moisture and warmth as we walked through the streets near her office. We quickly caught up and I let her tell me about all that had been happening here, in St. Louis, without me. She told me a few tidbits about Ellie and dad and we both smiled talking about Ellie at Swarthmore next year. She asked, as if in after-thought, how school was going for me, but I didn't care anymore.

"Why are you upset with me?" I said.

"Owen--"

"No, tell me. I . . . what the hell is this?"

"You abandoned your sister last month, without telling us, without--"

"That's it? Seriously. She's eighteen."

"She was your responsibility."

"I talked to her before I left. She was fine with it. She had no problem with it. What was going to happen to her in our little cul-de-sac with million dollar houses?"

"That's not the point. We went to Australia with the understanding you'd be watching over your sister. You betrayed that promise."

"You're serious? This is why you've been giving me the silent treatment. It's insane. You've been here every week for a month, maybe more and . . ."

"Owen, honestly, I've been busy. This has been a big project. I--"

"Not even a hello. I would have come down to see you. You didn't--"

"Your first responsibility is school. Why--"

"School. I told you, I'm doing fine, not as fine as last semester, but . . . "

"Why did you leave home like that?"

"I was going stir-crazy. I just couldn't take being there."

"It had nothing to do with you helping Belinda that night?"

"No," I said in shock that she'd think that was relevant in any way.

"No? Ellie said you didn't get home until very late that night."

"I had to find her and she insisted I take her back to her hotel. She was having some sort of mental and physical collapse. It was ridiculous."

"And?"

"And I took her back to her hotel. I brought her up to her room."

"Owen, what did she do to unsettle you so much that you abandoned your responsibilities to your sister, your dad and me?"

"Nothing. She was babbling how she was sad Ellie and I were not close with her and Tommy."

"She didn't say anything about me or your dad?"

"Well, she knew her mom had cheated on dad--"

"Oh."

"Yeah, she's known all this time."

"Wow. Well."

"She just wanted us closer."

"Closer."

"The families. She wanted us to get along. It could have been a cheesy sit-com. What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say nothing happened between you and her that night."

"What!"

"Owen, just tell me nothing happened. I'm really afraid something did. You're not the kind of guy to jump ship like that. Something upset you terribly."

"Nothing happened. She was crying and upset and I held her for a minute or so. That's it."

"You held her?"

"Yes. I comforted her."

"And nothing more?"

"Nothing more."

"You'd better be telling the truth, kid. I don't trust her. I can see her taking advantage and using it to hurt your father. If something happened, just tell me. I want to be prepared. That's all. I won't be upset."

"Nothing happened."

She looked at me. Was it relief? Disbelief, doubt. I couldn't tell. I never could read her.

"Okay," she said looking around. "I should be heading back."

"But you believe me, don't you? Nothing happened."

"Yes," she said. "I believe you."

"What about us?"

"Oh, Owen, please."

"Mom, I'm miserable. I miss you terribly." I said, fighting like crazy to keep the tears from gushing out.

People were walking around and about us, to our right, to our left, but nothing else existed as we stood together on the sidewalk. Not the tall buildings, the smell of brewing yeast in the air, the people shuffling past, the cars in the street. Nothing.

She saw my face, twisting, straining to regain composure. "Baby, no," she said.

"I am. I think I'm going crazy."

"No, baby. You're--"

"I am. I don't know why you hate me."

"Enough Owen. You're being ridiculous. Stop now."

I heaved in a deep breath.

"Owen, I don't want to have another conversation about us. Do you understand? We did that. That's done. I cannot do that again."

"I'm not asking for a conversation."

"Yes, you are. That's what this is all about. You know it. I know it. I just can't do that."

"I'm not asking for that."

"Of course, you are. Look, I've got to get back--"

"I want us to go back mom, like we were before. I want to be part of your life."

"I do too, baby, but we can't right now. Too much has happened too recently."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

She shook her head, her own eyes moist now. She shook her head some more. "I really don't know what we're supposed to do."

"Mom--"

"Owen, when you look at me, you're not looking at me like I'm your mother. When you think about me, you're not thinking about your mother. I just can't deal with that. I can't see you looking at me like that, or always knowing you're thinking about me like that."

"And you look and think about me as if I'm just your son?" I said.

"Not entirely. But that's the difference. Listen to me. At least, I'm trying. I'm trying really hard. Are you?"

"Just one more time."

"What?"

"Just once more, please."

"Oh, my God." She started walking away.

I grabbed her by the arm and stopped her in place.

"Please . . . please, just listen," I said. "It ended so badly and that's what's been killing me. Do you understand?"

She looked at my hand still holding her, looked at me. 

She said, quietly, "Owen, let go."

I released her arm.

"You said you felt dirty," I said.

"Owen--"

"You said you regretted me, even more than some scum-bag nothing in high school."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't--"

"But it's how you felt. How you still feel. I can't stand that. You and I--"

"Baby, you and I were the most wonderful, the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me."

I looked away and watched the traffic, started to cry.

"It's the truth. That's the truth. That's why it had to stop."

She was softly crying now too. 

She said, "Don't you get it? How can I live that way and still think of myself as anything but a monster? We were just never meant to be, baby. That's the tragedy, and that's what we need to get past. We're both burned very badly, but that's it. I'm trying to move on, even though I feel like I'm about to die sometimes. But I've got no choice. I have your dad and your sister and you, as my son, I need to think about."

I stopped crying. As her son. That's right. I was her son. And she owed me. As her son, first and always. I stood my full height and looked down at her. Enough was enough.

I said quietly, "I'll be in my apartment tonight. I want you there. I'll never ask for anything from you again."

[***]

Six weeks after that, to the day, in a voice of such anguish and terror that I stumbled and had to sit on the wet, muddy grounds of the Quad surrounded by cherry blossoms suddenly in full bloom, my father called me and told me my mother had been killed in a car accident. She had run a red light, or it looked like a drunk driver might have been involved. Nothing was sure.

I needed to come home.

I threw the phone against a tree, dead center, shattering it into pieces. 

My head dropped to my knees and I screamed. I continued screaming. My pants were wet and dirtied at the seat as if I were some wayward child. 

Security soon came and helped me up and took me away. 

[***]

At the closed-casket wake for her, I decided rather quickly that atheism sucks because it gives no dignity to the dead. It does little for the living, too, but it really screws over the dead. Religion exists for that ceremony and what other justification does it need? It gives us irrational monkeys with unusually large genitalia a little dignity. Just a little fucking dignity, for God's sake. 

My mother and Ellie deserved better than poem readings from Robert Frost and recitations from native American wisdom, and my father's list of what he imagined were my mother's favorite songs. 

I was sure she would have hated it all.

Belinda was there without her husband. Tommy couldn't get away from law school. Their mother wanted to be there, but she just couldn't do it, didn't want to intrude on such a personal tragedy. I saluted her. She'd made the right decision. There was no place for her here to see off the corpse of her rival. 

As I was about to leave Belinda to talk to my still stunned grandfather from Michigan, my mother's father, Belinda whispered to me. "I'm pregnant. In my second tri. Four months and counting."

I looked at her for a long few seconds. I was about to say, "Why are you telling me this now" but, defeated, I settled for a pathetic, cautious "Congratulations." 

"I didn't want you to worry," she said. "At least don't worry about that, you know. It's fine. I've been to the doctor a lot and so far so good, tests and everything. The baby's perfectly healthy."

"Okay."

"Dad's going to be a grandfather," she said.

"That's great, Belinda."

"You're going to be an uncle," she said.

I smiled, making myself be relieved, like a scared little animal that's finally found a piece of driftwood by the side of the river under which to hide from its pervasive predators. The party line was the party line and Belinda had just instructed me. I was a good soldier that way. What worked for her, worked for me. 

And, disgusted with myself, I was relieved despite all the emptiness and horror inside me. 

Sheera Ackerman's grief was genuine and heart-breaking in its intensity. There were no large declarations or demonstrations from her, nothing off-setting at all. She saved that for the living, obviously. She had a different approach to the dead. The right approach. In her tearful, quiet way, the poor women just seemed stricken raw as if she'd just lost her best friend, which she had, who else did she have, really, and that made it all the more painful to see her in black and alone bent over my mother's casket, pawing and patting it helplessly, as she whispered her farewells and regrets.

Wiping her eyes, but tears still streaming, she asked me to walk her out of the funeral home.

"I need to talk to you," she said. "Was there anything wrong with your mom?"

We stepped outside.

"Like what?"

"I don't know, Owen. I need to know. Was there anything wrong with her? Did she get bad news? Did something bad happen to her recently?"

"I don't think so."

"Owen, no one knows, but I have to tell you. I have to tell someone." She was still crying, but more softly.

"What is it?"

"I was on the phone with her right before this happened."

"When the car hit her?"

"No. No. But I'm almost certain like maybe five minutes before. I think. She was heading home when we talked."

"Okay."

"And she was hysterical. She'd just called to tell me she really wanted me to help with this St. Louis office thing and we talked about that, and I agreed, and she seemed so happy at first, but then she started talking all crazy."

"What did she say?"

"That's just it. She didn't say anything. She just kept telling me what an awful person she was, how sorry she was for everything, how she had hurt everyone, how she was terrible and she just wanted to die."

I waited.

"What was she talking about Owen? I don't want to bother your dad about this. I really don't And Ellie . . . I just can't. Do you know what she could have been talking about? It's killing me. I just think I could have done something or said something, you know. Anything. I'd never seen her like that before, and I've known her for almost twenty years. It was awful and she apologized and said she was going to be okay before we said bye, but . . . I mean, why was she so sad?"

"I really don't know."

[***]

My mother showed up at my apartment just as I'd told her to do a couple of hours earlier on the street by her office. I'm sure a part of her wanted to, but most of her was probably just too tired and miserable to resist my pleas. But I was too selfish, in the cruelest and most twisted of ways. Even though I knew I would be getting a sympathy fuck at best, and probably more likely a couple of good deserving slaps to the face, that was good enough for me. More than enough. It was least a start. At least she was with me, alone. If only I could get her to experience again what we'd shared in the fall. 

She took off her coat and folded it over a kitchen stool and couldn't help smiling at the bouquet of white roses on the kitchen counter and in the living room.

"Are these wild?" she said.

"Some of them. I couldn't--"

She leaned down smelling the ones in the kitchen. "They smell wonderful."

"There are more," I said.

"We'll see." she said.

"You hungry?" I said, as I handed her a glass of wine.

"No, baby, I'm not."

"You modeled that for me last summer," I said motioning to her suit.

She nodded and smiled. "I know. You rejected it."

"I'm glad I did." 

She sipped some of her wine. "You've lost weight. I didn't want to say anything earlier, but . . ."

"Yeah, about fifteen pounds."

"It looks good on you. You look older."

"The tan," I laughed, nodding to her.

She laughed too. "Oh, I'm just being stupid. I've gone to a tanning bed twice since we got back from Australia. I don't know. It's just . . ."

"It looks fantastic."

"Thank you." She sipped more of her wine.

"Are you nervous?"

She nodded.

"Why?"

"Because a sex-crazed maniac won't leave me alone."

We smiled.

"This has nothing to do with sex," I said.

"Oh," she laughed. "This has everything to do with sex, buddy."

"That's it? That's all?"

"I'm starting to think so."

"And that's not all bad, is it?"

"No, it's not."

I took a step to her.

"Let me see your tan-lines," I said quietly. "It's driving me crazy."

"What if I don't have any?" she said leaning back against the wall.

"Even better."

She smiled.

I reached my hand out to her. She took it.

"I love your hands," she said.

"I love yours too."

"That's because our hands are almost identical in shape and proportion."

She held my hand flat against her not much smaller one.

<hr pg="8" />"See?" she said.

"We fit together well," I said, and pulled her hand to my mouth and kissed it.

"Owen," she said. "How about this? I've been thinking about it."

She must have seen the worried look on my face. "Boy, you need a girlfriend," she said laughing. "A guy with your looks should not be this hard up."

"What have you thinking about?" I asked, stroking her hand.

"Once a year."

"You mean--"

"Yes, just once a hear until you get tired of me or I get so decrepit and old you'll start retching at the very thought."

"I'll never do that."

"Oh, yes, you will," she said laughing. "You'll see."

"Never."

"Good, I'll remember this when I'm the one chasing you in ten years or twenty years."

"Okay."

"Once a year?"

"Yes."

"And the rest of the year, you have to be good. You have to try really hard to see me as your mom. Start acting . . . No, you have to be my son in everything. My son. Can you do that?"

I nodded.

"You sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

She nodded.

"You drive a hard bargain," I said.

She smiled again.

"It will be your on birthday," she said. "Is that okay? Or around then. I mean, if you have a date or a better offer--"

"On my birthday."

"Good. That's settled," she said.

"It's settled."

"What?" she said when she saw my puzzled expression.

"Today's not my birthday."

"Today's an exception." She gently pulled me to her. "Come here, let me show you all about these mysterious tan lines and you can show me where you've hidden all these lovely roses." 

She closed her arms around my waist. 

[***]

I cover my mouth in shock and joy, overwhelmed, trying hard not to cry. I expected another bouquet or two, but the entire bedroom is filled with white roses, dozens. It's as if I've stepped onto a fragrant cloud. He must have cleaned out every flower shop in the city. The fragrance. Such intensity. It's almost too much. It's magical. I feel him behind me. I turn and touch his face.

[***]

"Oh, Owen," I moan as I settle fully on my son's thick cock.

I feel his heartbeat inside me. He is pulsing with each beat of his heart. Long ago, my heartbeat drummed into his body and sustained him, now his heartbeat is drumming into mine. 

He's following the strange lines, lines of pink, pale skin sharply contrasting with the golden hue of my abdomen. He reaches for my tits and there too he follows the contrasting lines like some infant touching and feeling a new curiosity. His touch sends even more shivers up and down.

I wonder if he guesses I've saved the tan-lines just for him, actually went to that ridiculous tanning bed hoping to preserve them, even if a little, for him. Probably not. 

The secret is that our desire has to be rationed and used gingerly like some precious potion of life saving poison, wondrous and mortal at the same time. Will it ever fade? I hope not.

Nothing divides us now.

It's a sexy game in my head. Play with a little forbidden fruit. This once.

As if reading my thoughts, I feel him twitching inside and I slow down. "So soon," I croon down at him.

He shakes his head, his beautiful blue eyes, my eyes, looking straight up into me. "It's so good, mom. I can't help it. I'm helpless with you. You're beautiful."

It's too much. Much too much. My tears are running.

"Mom."

"Fuck me, baby. Just fuck me," I gasp between tears.

I want it very physical and naughty tonight, but I can't. It's not how I feel. Maybe is all of the white of roses, that beautiful smell. Maybe I'm in a little heaven and I shouldn't complain. It's just so much easier when he's rough with me, just fucking me, like that first time in the bathroom, the first time in this apartment. And he likes to do that and it's great when he does. Then I just enjoy it without thinking too much. I can keep the whole crazy jumble separated into different compartments and it all seems to make a little sense, but when he calls me mom like that, when he looks at me like that with those eyes, I face the chilling, awful truth. Because the truth is I am with the one man I can truly say I love, will die without. It's his cock, his energy, his everything, but there's something here that's just meant to be. Somewhere from a very dark place, a cruel demon is playing a cruel joke. 

He is thrusting up harder into me. He's grabbing my ass and using it to get every inch into me. That's right, use me. Fuck me. Good boy, such a good boy. I hear myself grunt loudly in appreciation.

I lean forward and I can't help it. I kiss him. I love his mouth, but I need to deny it. Kissing him like that, soft lips touching, is just too much. I suck his tongue. That's better. Make it about sex. His freshly shaved chin. Kiss it, lick it. It's just so unfair.

His thighs are slapping against my ass. Big, powerful thighs, lifting me up off the bed as if I am a little rag-doll thing he's playing rough with. 

"Owen, baby," I groan. "Oh, Owen."

"I love you, I love you."

I know I'll feel different tomorrow, but how will I go a year without this? Why is it so hard?

"Oh, fuck me, Owen. Fuck my pussy, baby. Just fuck it. Take it. It's yours, Owen. All of me is yours."

He is suddenly pushing harder and as if in flight the world seems to be turned upside down. He's flipped me over, the brute. I'm on my back. Oh, sweetness. He's shoved it all inside. 

I am screaming.

"On top," he groans. "On top when I come."

"Yes, baby, on top, on top, on top."

"Oh, mom," he starts moaning.

"Yes, Owen, yes."

I'm losing it, my body's disconnecting from something really deep inside me, at my core. I might just faint. I might just die. Who cares? Who cares? I hear my voice calling out to him, making gasping, guttural sounds, and my body is moving in ways it has no right to move, spread open and completely receptive. I am starving for him again. My body wants what it wants, but I'm not here anymore. Far away, and yet I've never felt more secure. I know that, no matter what happens, I'm safe in my son's beautiful arms and he'll bring me back from the very depths. His love always has. 

I feel him inside coming, powerful life pouring into me, hear his cries, and I'm flying away. 

I stream into the sky waiting to be retrieved with one tiny little thread of thought keeping me from simply disappearing into nothing.

That first night, when the head of his cock forced its way into me, in where it never, ever, ever should have been, just popped in after my vain struggle to deny it, the shock of it, the horror and realization of what had just happened. I was all his. It was all his from that moment on. 

All and everything, is his.

[***]

"You fucker!" Ellie screamed at me. "You stupid, stupid motherfucker!"

I had just returned home from my first week of my summer internship at the lab, almost two months after my mother had died.

She punched wildly with all her might, hitting my shoulder, almost knocking me from my feet. She may have been aiming for my head. I grabbed her hands as she readied to strike again.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I said, but I knew exactly what was wrong with her. There was no question about that.

"With me? With me?" Her face was puffed red, ugly, snotty and streaked, her hair a terrible mess as if she'd been pulling at it, trying to tear it out. She pulled her hands away. 

"Let go of me! Don't ever touch me!" she screamed.

"Ellie--"

"It was you! Mom was fucking you!"

Much too fast. Things were happening too fast. I couldn't think. "Ellie, are you--"

"Stop lying. Just stop it. I hope you're happy."

"You're crazy. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Stop lying. I know everything."

"You know shit."

"I know you were fucking mom."

"Are you insane?"

"It could have been no one else, Owen. It was you. You stupid son of a bitch."

"Ellie--"

"You got her pregnant, did you know that? Your own fucking mother."

"Ellie--"

"Mom was pregnant, just over a month, when she was killed. She found out the day she died."

"Are you . . . What does that have to do with me?"

"Dad had a vasectomy after I was born. He didn't want more children."

"What?"

"Oh, you don't know anything you dumb, stupid fucker."

"How do you know about dad?"

"Because he told me. I asked him once, why he and mom had no more kids and he told me. It was a secret. He didn't even want mom to know about it. He didn't want her to feel bad. She was always saying they should have another kid, but to wait until the company was in better shape. He didn't want to take that hope away from her."

"What the fuck are you--"

"Oh, she wanted a kid, well you gave her one, you sick fuck."

"Ellie, why would--"

"Don't call me that, asshole. You're not my brother anymore. You're a fucking monster."

"How do you know mom was pregnant?"

"Yes, with your baby, you fuck."

"You have no idea. There was no autopsy."

"I have the same doctor, idiot. I went there today, for getting on birth control. You know, starting off college being all responsible. Oh, my God. Responsible."

"And your doctor told you this?"

"They confused our records. Some new nurse walked in and asked whether everything was going well, looking me over and said I should be putting on more weight. When she saw I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, she realized she had the wrong Hansen. She made a big joke about it. I played along. She even said I should remind mom to stop in when I saw her. My, God!"

"Oh,"

"Yeah, oh, you dumb fuck. You didn't even know."

"Why the hell . . . why do you think it's me?"

"Owen, you get one chance here. Just one. Keep playing dumb and I swear I will tell dad even if it kills him. Right when he gets back from his conference Wednesday, I'm going to tell him. I don't give a shit anymore."

"Tell dad what?"

"Tell dad you were fucking his wife and your mother, you sick fuck."

"Go fuck yourself, Ellie."

I walked out of the kitchen and to the living room, my feet wobbly. I needed to escape. I needed to breathe. I needed to sit.

She was following me.

"You don't give a shit, do you, what you did?" she said.

"You're nuts. I didn't do anything," I said looking up at her from the couch.

"You killed mom."

"Get the fuck away from me. You're fucking insane."

"You'd rather I think that she was just whoring around than admit the truth, is that it?"

"Ellie, you've absolutely lost your mind."

"You know I suspected from the first time back in Christmas when this blew up, but I just couldn't believe mom would have an affair. But I suspected. I swear, something didn't seem right. And then you with all your questions, and wanting details. Do you remember that? It was ridiculous. And when mom came and saw us in Boston last summer, she was like a different person. That was the first time, wasn't it? Just say it."

I shook my head. "No, Ellie."

But Ellie continued, "And she was crazy. At first I thought it was just because she'd sold the company, but it was more than that. She just looked and acted so guilty, like she wanted forgiveness, like she'd done something really bad."

"What did she look and act like, you psycho?"

"Like she'd just fucked up, bad."

"Oh, and you know all about fucking, Ellie, right? You and Jessica, right?"

"I know when someone feels really guilty, when someone won't even look you in the eye because they're so ashamed. The way you looked when you returned from Belinda's hotel room, for example."

"Oh, give me a break. Now I'm fucking Belinda, too, is that it?"

"I'm sure you did. Is her baby yours, too--the dates seem ridiculously coincidental? Have you even asked her, you dirtball?"

"That's right, Ellie, don't get too close to me. You could be next. That's me. Hillbilly Bob here, fucking and knocking up all the relatives."

Ellie sat down across from me.

"Don't . . . fucking . . . joke . . . about . . . this," she said. "I want to die, you motherfucker. Don't joke."

"That's it. That's all you've got."

"It all came together today in a flash, when I found out she was pregnant."

"Ellie--"

"You want more? You need more, asshole, I've got dirty underwear, thongs and lacy bras when I returned from Boston. Oh, mom tried to hide that shit, and I'm sure dad's clueless, but I live in this house too."

"Dirty underwear, great."

"And then the weekly trips, except not every week, to St. Louis in the fall."

"She had a business she was starting up there, you piece of shit."

"Except, except, guess what? How convenient? She never went during her periods. And your bullshit talk about getting dumped by some girl you loved. That was mom, wasn't it? Wasn't' it?"

"Oh, my God, Ellie, are you listening to yourself?"

"But you couldn't leave her alone, could you, you sick fucker."

"Ellie--"

"Shithead, mom's got a whole drawer full of racy shit upstairs she'd hidden in one of the spare bedrooms. Tons of shit. Yoga pants, all sorts of shit, she certainly wasn't trying to impress dad with it, was she? Do you know that? I found it this afternoon, as soon as I got back from the doctor. You want to come up and see it? I'm sure it would all be very familiar to you, asshole."

"Why couldn't it have been for dad? Why wouldn't she want to hide things from a snoopy retard like you? But, no, it was all for me."

"Who else?"

"I don't know, Ellie."

"She was pregnant--"

"Vasectomies fail, people do things. I don't know."

"Would mom have a secret love life? Would she let some guy just knock her up? Just answer that."

"No."

"Exactly, except with you. I don't think mom would've dirtied herself with anyone else. She wasn't that sort of person. She was way too scared, way too squeamish. I know more about her than . . . But you. The guy she admired, the handsome guy she never had, Mr. Cool Quarterback, well, you . . ."

I looked at her now. I was composed again. It all made sense. I knew what to do.

I said, "I'm going to pretend we never hand this conversation, Ellie. You're obviously upset you found out mom was pregnant. I am too. Believe me. I have no idea if she had an affair, if this was dad, or what. Maybe dad lied to you about the vasectomy. I have no idea. Who knows? I don't want to know. I don't want to remember her that way. She was a great mom and the most important person in our lives. She loved us. You keep digging for dirt."

"Owen--"

"I will say this, both our brains have been fried since she passed. I'm just going to pretend we never talked about this. You should too, but you do what you want. You're my sister and I love you. This never happened. "

"Just like you pretend you never fucked mom, I bet. Huh? That's how you live with yourself, I'm sure."

"Just go to hell, Ellie. You're lucky you're my sister."

I got up, started to the hallway to go upstairs to me room. I was still unsteady. I needed to be alone.

"You're a terrible human being, Owen," my sister called out to me.

[***]

Later that night, Ellie knocked on my door and walked into my room.

She was crying and looked as if she might collapse from her feet. Neither of us had had dinner. Neither of us had left our rooms.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "I'm so sorry about everything. I don't know anything anymore. I just don't know."

"I don't either."

"Just tell me, please," she said sitting on my bed. "Just tell me the truth."

"Ellie, I already did."

"No, look me in the eye, and just tell me. I'll probably even forgive you. Mom should have known better. It was ultimately her fault. You were her child."

"Ellie--"

"Was it you? Just tell me. I'll never say a word about this again, but I've got to know, Owen."

I looked her in the eye, steadily and calmly, knowing exactly what my mother would have wanted me to say, knowing exactly how much she would have anguished knowing she and I were on the cusp of destroying everything she loved, wiping her legacy clean, as if she'd never existed. Some things you to take to the grave.

"No."

She looked at me. She probably didn't believe me, but it's what she wanted, needed, to hear. 

"Oh, thank God," Ellie said and broke down. "Thank God."

I held her bony, sobbing frame in my arms.

"That's okay," I said. This was a start. I could work with this, reinforce it from now till I died. It wouldn't be easy, but what worth doing is?

"Owen," she cried.

"I know."

"She's gone."

"I know."

"What are we going to do?" she moaned.

"What she always wanted for us. Live a good life."

"I can't. I just can't."

"Sure, you can."

"I don't want to"

"You will."

"Oh, Owen, it's so awful. It's so black."

"You'll get married. You'll work. You'll raise good kids. You'll make mom and dad proud. What else is there?"

"You're never going to leave me?"

"Never. Never, Ellie."

We said nothing for a good five minutes and we cried together, holding each other. So frail.

The room was fading, almost hazy, as the summer sun set west. 

She untangled from me finally, clasping her trembling hands in her lap. 

She looked at me with tired eyes. "I'm hungry," she said softly, her voice so raspy and thin and childish it nearly finished me for good.

"Let's get something to eat," I said trying to breathe.

[***]

My mother was pre-diabetic, it turned out. I had a short talk with her doctor who hesitated at first, but immediately understood when I explained how we'd just found out my mother had been pregnant and how difficult that was given my father's vasectomy. "Ah, well that answers a lot," he said, really embarrassed. "I was shocked when she turned up here pregnant, given her age, your dad's age." 

After almost twenty years on the pill, the doctor told her it was time to get off. She'd be fine, really, without anything, but obviously . . . And at her age, women paid tens of thousands to get pregnant. But just to be cautious, he wanted to fit her for a diaphragm, quite easy. That's why she'd come to see him the day she died and found out she was pregnant. These things happened. He was truly sorry.

[***]

Ellie just finished her first month at Swarthmore. She loves it, is almost herself. It will take a long time. My father is teaching, going back and forth and living alone in that big house. I told Belinda to tell her mom to visit him more often.

Before I returned to St. Louis for my Junior year, I went alone to my mother's grave. I had gone on her birthday once with Ellie and my father a few weeks earlier. It had been awkward. I stood by as my father and Ellie held hands and then each other. I joined them, pulling them both to me, when I saw Ellie crying and searching for me.

On my knees, alone, I told my mother I missed her. I told her she had done well. I told her she was right and I was wrong. None of it was her fault. I apologized for everything and promised I'd try to do better. 

I left a single white rose.

I turned around and walked away, the whole world a torrent of water before my eyes under the bright blue, burning August sky.

