Chapter 7

Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door,
Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow.
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow.

- Bob Dylan

"MARK OH GOD NO"

Mark was dead. I sat straight up in bed and threw the sheets off me. There was just so much blood, both in the nightmare that had waken me and my memories of that morning four months ago. It would take time for my heartbeat to return to normal, for me to calm down enough to realize Mark was asleep beside me. I had to listen for the sound of him breathing to be certain. Mark was alive.

Mark had been in the hospital for four weeks before coming out of his coma, and would spend another two there for observations, just to make sure the cerebral contusion caused in the fall didn't leave him with any permanent brain damage. The doctors had told me it was a close call, besides the bruising the skull fracture had caused a minor hemorrhage in the epidural layer, the outermost tissue surrounding the brain. If I hadn't dialed 911 when I did he probably wouldn't have made it.

Luckily the paramedics were only a few minutes away but it wasn't until after the ambulance arrived that I realized how things would look, there was just as much blood on me as there was on Mark. I only had time to throw on my robe but if they took notice they didn't say.

I stayed with Mark as much as possible, as much as the doctors would let me. I had even refused to leave the waiting room till after the surgery and it would be a full day before I returned home and cleaned myself up. I ate little, slept hardly at all, my own health beginning to degrade so after two weeks when I started to get sick in the mornings, dizzy, nauseous, I didn't recognize the symptoms for what they meant. Or possibly I did and simply ignored what my body was telling me, my attention focused primarily on Mark. I even think subconsciously I wanted it to be true, to know a part of Mark was growing inside me, the very real possibility he was going to die still present.

When Mark awoke for the first time since the accident I was asleep in the chair beside his bed. I opened my eyes to find him smiling at me and if it weren't for the nurse who walked in just then I would have climbed right in with him.

I figured when Mark was well enough I would tell him but I didn't have to, he either guessed or somehow he knew. Possibly something in my appearance or my attitude told him, either way it wouldn't be until we got home that he asked me for sure.

Since coming home Mark had been very quiet and he didn't seem fully himself. He slept in his room, and would look at me, stare, his eyes wide open, watching as if afraid, my belly just beginning to show with the baby growing within me, our baby. He gave me space but I needed just the opposite, I needed him.

In truth we both felt much of the same fear. Multiple trips to the clinic, a place Beth recommended when we called her would alleviate some of that. Amniocentesis, chromosome testing, and something called a Multiple Marker Test had shown our baby, a boy, to be perfectly healthy, free of defects and my spirits soared. We were still under twenty-eight weeks, the cut off time that you can legally have an abortion, but Mark and I together decided against it, we would take our chances.

I had raised the abortion issue, and regretted it the second the words came out of my mouth. Dropping to his knees in front of me, his face against my stomach, Mark started crying and begging for me to forgive him. I immediately started crying myself, my heart breaking, I suddenly felt dizzy and would have fallen if Mark hadn't caught me. Even in his weakened state he was still able to lift me up and carry me to my bedroom. He would stay with me that night, and every night there after, but always at a distance.

I would dream two dreams. One where Mark would make love to me on my bed, our bed. His weight on top of me, our lips together, my only wish that time would just come to an end and like a snapshot from a camera come to rest on this one particular moment. I would be quite content to lay there forever. The other dream I had just awaken from and in it Mark was dead and unfortunately it was the most common of the two.

Looking over at Mark's sleeping form I wished he was holding me right now, but he was asleep, facing away from me and probably wouldn't if I asked so I started to lay back down.

"Is that you Jennie?'

"I'm sorry Mark I didn't mean to wake you, just go back to..."

"Bad dream again?"

"Yes."

Silence, there had been a lot of that lately. The moon was high in the sky, shining faintly over everything in the room. I heard Mark take a deep breath and release it before he turned over, now facing me.

"I'm going to be okay, we both are, so stop worrying. Besides, it's not good for the baby."

"I'll try."

"Uh huh."

"I will I promise, go back to sleep Mark."

The room was again silent. I left the sheets off me as I laid back down, it seemed very warm, the baggy shirt I was wearing was almost too much in itself but Mark probably wouldn't want me removing it. Temperature fluctuations weren't the only thing I was having to go through as I seemed to be undergoing puberty again, pimples appearing at random over my face and forehead, I looked like I did when I was thirteen.

My breasts constantly ache and have dramatically swelled in the past month with my milk producing glands increasing in number and coming on line. Luckily the nausea was fading, the doctor had been right when telling me that the morning sickness I was experiencing should be gone by this time in my pregnancy, now two weeks into my second trimester.

Lifting my head I could just make out my new appearance. Running my hand over the very noticeable mound in what use to be a flat stomach made me feel warm inside, maternal yes but something more, something I was quite familiar with feeling so I let my hand continue on down between my legs and into my panties.

My cheeks burned with old sensations, I hadn't pleasured myself since before the accident, and why I was suddenly feeling the urge to do so now I wasn't sure. But I couldn't continue with Mark asleep beside me, still facing me, what little light there was showing me his facial features, and now telling me his eyes were still in fact open.

"What are you looking at?"

"You."

"Well, stop it, go to sleep Mark."

"Can't."

"Well try."

"I'm just not tired."

"Well try anyway."

"Jennie, can you take your shirt off?"

"What?"

"Please."

"Why?"

"I wanna see."

"You've seen my breasts lots of times, okay so they're a little bigger so what?"

"That's not what I want to see Jennie."

"Well what did you want... oh."

"Yeah, please."

I wasn't sure where this would lead but I had wanted to anyway so I sat up again and pulled the shirt off. The moon seemed to be even brighter now, casting a light that reflected off everything.

"God Jennie you're glowing, I heard pregnant women do that but I didn't really believe it."

"It's the moonlight Mark."

"Maybe... maybe not, lay back down, please."

As I did Mark stretched out his right arm and placed his open palm on my naked belly. I felt even warmer with his gentle touch, his hand following and exploring my new contours, going up and over the small hill that three months before wasn't there.

"You're so beautiful Jennie."

"You mean I'm so fat."

"Well that too."

"Look you, why don't you go back to your own bed."

"No I'm sorry, it'll be cold over there, I'll be good."

Mark's hand stopped but remained where it was. With just the mention of it I now felt cold and so reached down and pulled the sheets back over me.

"Do you want me to take my hand off you?"

"No"

"Do you need another blanket?"

"No"

"Do you want anything in the kitchen cause I can make you a sandwich or maybe..."

"No, I'm fine Mark."

"Well just ask if you do. Jennie you're shivering are you sure you don't want another blanket?"

"Well, maybe you can get the one at the foot of the bed for me."

Mark retrieved the extra blanket and laid it out before crawling back in and right up along my side.

"Whoa, what brought this on Mark?"

"I don't know, I can't explain it. Maybe almost dying did something to me, but I don't think so. It could be because you're pregnant and I just find you extremely sexy."

"Oh you do not."

"No I do, Jennie you are so beautiful, you always have been but there's just something... I don't know, you must think I'm really sick maybe I should go back to my own..."

"Don't you dare, you stay right where you are."

"You have to believe me Jennie I never wanted to hurt you but I just can't bare to be away from you anymore, God was I stupid. It's almost like I have to be with you, beside you all the time. I think it's how I've always felt but I just never recognized it until now, oh I don't know am I making any sense?"

"Mark we shared a womb together, for nine months we slept beside one another, we awoke together, and we were born together, well, I was first therefore I'm older, but there's always been a bond between us so yes I know what you're talking about because I feel it too. I think because I'm pregnant our feelings are just stronger than they've ever been, old memories maybe."

"We only had each other most of the time, Mom and Dad were hardly ever there, and you're only three minutes older so shut up."

"Older and wiser, they still loved us Mark."

"I know that, you can tell by all the pictures they took of us when we were little, the albums full of them. I could hardly find any of Mom and Dad, just a few in the old car they had, they seemed to be traveling somewhere, holy shit your breasts are huge Jenny."

"Oh you can tell can you?"

"Well they're practically in my face, do they hurt?"

"A little, sometimes, not too bad."

"So what were you doing a few minutes ago anyway Jennie when you thought I was asleep?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Oh, I think I already do."

"I guess it would be too much to ask you to do it."

"Is it safe, for the baby I mean?"

"I asked the doctor, he says I can have sex into the seventh month, as long as it's not too rough, and since I only use my fingers then it doesn't really matter anyway."

"Would you like me to do it?"

"I didn't honestly think you would want to, you're just full of surprises Mark."

"What if I didn't want to use my fingers?"

"What the fuck else would you use... oh my God."

"What if I want to use... , what if I'm ready?"

"You better not be fucking with me Mark."

"I'm not, oh wait, well actually that's exactly what I had in mind, unless you don't want to I mean maybe you're sore or tired or something and you just want to sleep and..."

"Mark"

"Yes Jennie?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

"Yes Jennie."

I started spreading my legs even before I remembered to pull off my panties, I was just so ready. However Mark noticed and took care of this little matter for me, quickly removing his own, his erection massive in the faint light. Tears began to roll down my face and in the dark I could hear Mark sniffling as well, neither of us able to control our emotions as we both wanted this so badly. Positioning above me Mark stopped and refused to bring his full weight down.

"Mark it's okay, you wont hurt the baby."

"You're sure, maybe you should be on top."

"Oh whatever, just hurry up and roll over then."

We were soon trading places though I had to move slowly, still getting use to the extra weight I was carrying up front, my belly distending outward.

Lifting my leg over my brother's body made me wide open, my inner lips now exposed and suddenly cold. My inner corridor suddenly felt empty and longed to be filled. Taking a hold of Mark I placed him at my door, my slit, running his penis up and down the length of my pussy lips, trying to stimulate myself, to get my juices flowing so it would be easier on both of us. Only a little wet I pressed my brother's engorged cock into the appropriate hole and prepared myself to move, to force Mark into the center of my body, making us as one. It would be tight but we already knew we could fit together. Slowly I started to sink down, my labia giving way as the head of Mark's penis entered my tunnel, my cervix, but not very willingly.