It was late in the evening when the train pulled into the Morristown station. The family were the only people on the platform. Bob was the first to board the train, bounding along the aisle to sweep me up into his arms and kiss me with a loud smack. “Hi, sis!” he said, radiating college cheer for the sake of Dad, who came in hot on his heels. “How's my favorite sister doing!”
“Just fine. Hi, Daddy,” I said, kissing my father on the proffered cheek.
“Hello, Kathy. Help your sister with her bags, Bob, and let's get going. It's getting awfully late.”
That was Dad all over. People should be in bed by a certain hour. That was the law of nature. People shouldn't waste too much time on emotional displays. That was uncouth. If he wasn't my father I'd be inclined to describe him as a prig. Bob gave me a wink and grabbed my bags. Elaine and Nora stood outside with Mum and for a few moments I was surrounded by kissing, hugging relatives. Then it was over. Dad took charge of his clan and herded us into the station wagon.
At home Mum spent an inordinate amount of time bustling about in the kitchen. She emerged finally with cake and coffee, but I could tell she was very ill at ease. Dad, too, seemed to be preoccupied with something he didn't even want to think about. I knew what the problem was, of course. Finding Bob and me in bed together was the worst thing that had ever happened to them. Mum and Dad had led extremely regular lives. He was the vice- president; at a large insurance company, she was the dutiful wife, the kind who attends charity affairs with a zeal and acts as the hostess at a moment's notice.
It often seemed to me as though neither of them had ever explored life beyond the boundaries of convention. I could imagine Dad saying “Thank you” to Mum after he'd screwed her. Their sex life had to be conducted with the utmost of decorum. None of us kids had ever heard them at it, nor had we ever seen either of them wholly or partially naked.
Because they maintained such rigid standards, their children had led pretty sheltered lives-and reacted against this in their own fashion. Bob, I noticed, had let his hair grow well beyond Dad's standards of decency. At nineteen, Nora looked every inch the radical college student, with her hair long and straight, wearing only blue jeans and army shirts, and given to excessive smoking. Dad loathed her for this but deep in the back of his mind he figured she'd grow out of it one day and marry an insurance man just like himself. Elaine, on the other hand, was rapidly turning into a mystery woman. She dressed with a great deal of elegance and simplicity, choosing only those clothes that complemented her long, snaky body, keeping her hair close cropped to accentuate her long neck and small head, and saying very little to anyone.
And then there was Mum, the full-bosomed, ample-hipped one hundred percent woman who had never been taught the meaning of sex. I watched her as she moved around the room, fussing over her brood, serving Dad who occupied his throne with regal disdain, and I saw the emptiness in her life for the first time. She had all the equipment and it must be a perpetual puzzle to her why she had it. Those full breasts had never been sucked and handled like mine had. And those full, firm thighs had never been relished and ravaged. At the tender age of sixteen I felt as though I was already more experienced than my mother would ever be.
We managed to make small talk for the required length of time, long enough to make them feel as though I felt welcome. It was a strain on me to put up with it all. Bob sat just a few feet away from me and he attracted me more than ever. How handsome he was with his dark locks curling around his face! His swimmer's body was tanned and in peak condition. All he wore was a T-shirt and tight jeans, allowing me to check him out as thoroughly as I might have if he was naked. That thick bulge in his lap drew my eyes to itself over and over. I relived that brief moment of pleasure when that snake had risen and filled my gap. Would we get a chance to try it again? Was he still willing?
He certainly was. His eyes devoured me, — running over the contours of my body over and over. Quite often he lost the thread of the conversation and had to ask for someone to repeat a question when he was addressed. That bulge in his jeans kept waxing and waning. Did the others notice? Dad watched us tike an undercover agent, pretending not to have a care in the world but never going off-guard. I wanted to warn Bob to take it easy-but then I would make the same mistake myself by staring at his bulge for too long.
“Time for bed,” Dad announced. We rose dutifully, relieved that this family situation had come to an end.
“By the way,” he said as I headed for my old room, “we've made a small change in the sleeping arrangements here. You'll be in Elaine's bedroom for the time being.”
“Why?” I said. “Don't you trust me anymore?”
“If I don't you have only yourself to blame, young lady,” said Dad, and a small tic appeared in his left eye. “Now let's not talk about this. It'll only upset your mother.”
And indeed, Mum looked very nervous. I nodded and followed Elaine up the stairs. Bob sighed deeply and shuffled off to his room. Only Nora remained behind. Since she was the oldest, and the most assertive, she didn't take orders from Dad anymore.
When the door closed behind Elaine and I, a strange and unsettling experience took place. For a moment I failed to recognize her as my sister! Perhaps it was the year we'd spent apart or some dysfunction in my mind-but for that moment she looked like an immensely desirable young girl to me. Of course that's exactly what she was, but sisters aren't supposed to feel that way about each other. Then again, brothers and sisters aren't either.
I shook my head and sat on my bed, which had been placed at the other side of the room against the wall facing the window. That was probably to keep Bob from sneaking in to see me. Elaine didn't see fit to make any comments on this situation and I didn't want to talk about it. She undressed in silence before walking over to the wardrobe to find her nightie. It was during that minute of nudity that I experienced the same difficulty in keeping my feelings sisterly. She was so sleek, so elegant, that she was almost other-worldly. Elaine had no tits. Just big nipples. Her cheeks were hard and round, and moved minimally when she walked. Long legs, beautifully shaped, suddenly stopped and her ass began. The curve of her back excited me, too. There was something coltish about her, though she was without awkwardness. And when she walked towards the wardrobe I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach-hers was a beauty that had no consciousness of itself. It just existed like a random, brutal force. I wanted her with every fibre of my body for that moment. The trouble was that I didn't know her as a person. The mystery woman in the making, that was Elaine. She could be super-straight, or a red-hot mama, there was no way of telling. I undressed and watched her to see if she reacted. But she remained inscrutable, getting into bed and yawning as she wished me goodnight.
When the lights went out my troubles really started. In this house and in the dark I was surrounded by memories and physical presences. There was Bob, lying on the other side of the wall. And there was Elaine, in the bed so close to mine. All that coupled With the vivid recollections of a year's lovemaking with Ann and the club members-and no way to deal with my rising lust except manually.
I waited for half an hour to give Elaine a chance to fall asleep. When her breathing was regular and relaxed, I turned on the small TV at the foot of my bed, taking care to keep the volume down low. Now the blue light of the set spread across the room and showed me Elaine's slender form as she lay half under her sheets. She was on her side facing away from me, her bare shoulders all the more enticing in the strangely cold light. There was a movie on TV, a beach party film starring all sorts of teenage idols destined to become insurance salesmen in later life. I watched them absently as my hands began the familiar preamble. Already the anticipation of a private, secretive climax was tingling through me. Masturbation was a singular pleasure, one that couldn't be compared to “real” sex. It occupied a position somewhere between sex and life. And there were moments when I could turn myself on just thinking about the next time in bed, alone with my nimble fingers.
Silently my fingers ran down my chest and stomach, stirring up the first burst of tiny impulses under my skin. Nerves became alert, a knot of tension raveled together in my chest, and the sweat broke out on my temples. I stopped for a moment to prop the pillows up under my head, then fixed my half-closed eyes on the TV screen and began the long, intimate process in all seriousness.
The TV showed a group of boys and girls on the beach doing a peculiar, inhibited dance to the strains of an unknown rock group. I'd seen so many of those films already and they were all the same. But I had never watched one while masturbating. Suddenly I began to look at the protagonists more closely, noting the virile swell in the boys' swim suits and the curvaceous-ness of the girls' bikinis. I imagined myself among them, doing the same twist, bumping up against them, seeing the boys close up, and my fantasy lent a little impact to my masturbation. My hands closed around my tits, kneading them rhythmically, and that clammy sensation sprang up between my legs. What did they do once the cameras had had their fill? Did all the boys and girls go home to eat apple pie? Or did bikinis fly and cocks rear? I could just see them off camera, laughing at their own play at innocence and decency,
