I was almost twelve when Dad decided to divorce Mom. I remember so well the first time I stayed overnight at his new apartment. His bachelor pad, he wryly called it. His midlife-crisis-pad Mom sometimes called it. Other times, when her voice was louder, and scratchier, she called it his whorehouse.

We had a great time. We started out while it was still light at this bar around the corner from his apartment where it was apparently okay that I stood by Dad and sipped at my soda, then took more quarters back to the pinball machine. There were only a couple other older guys in the bar, and they kept congratulating my father on what a fine son he had. I blushed, but it was true--I was making the pinball machine cry.

Soon after that we went back to his place for the night. He got this really delicious pizza delivered, which came right as a great movie came on t.v. There was an equally great following movie, but I started getting sleepy. The couch where we were sitting-- in my case, curling up on--was to be my bed, so my father got up to start the transformation, despite my protestations. I was just resting my eyes.

He cleared the coffee table and carried the mess into the kitchen. He was in there forever, so long I started nodding out again. Dad came back smelling like fresh beer. He got me up to pee and brush teeth and get in jams, and when I got back he'd transformed the couch into my bed.

He got me settled in, and then explained, "I just want you to know, I didn't leave your mother for another woman. This is nothing like that. Your mother is a fine person. She just winds up having all sorts of crazy ideas. I got tired of her crazy ideas, that's all. I'll never say another negative word about your mother. Just, if she ever has an idea so crazy that it strikes you as too crazy, tell me about it right away."

I promised, because I was tired of smelling his stinky breath. And I didn't even know what he was talking about.

That took a couple more years. Dad found and married a great step-mother. Mom didn't even seem to really date. There were times when she'd get all getted up on a Friday evening, to go out with some friends, staggering home sometime Sunday.

There was that time when we made fun of how she was always scratching at her privates--after going to a doctor, she came home and made us scour the house.

I was the one to snoop and find the medicine. "Mom has crabs," I revealed to my sister. She instantly got excited and I knew things were steered in the wrong direction. Crab, that was like lobster and steak--what rich people got to eat. She always got excited when Mom announced dinner would be the Mrs. Paul's Buffet--she loved those gross pasty little crab meatballs.

She was in heaven the one time Dad had us and took us to the oriental buffet. She made him pay the premium price so she could eat all the claws she wanted.

"Not that kind of crabs," I whittled it down. "These crabs are like head lice, except they live in your pubes."

My sister made a face like a planet exploding. I cranked the volume. "You only get them from having sex with someone who is too stupid to figure out why they keep itching down there."

She looked so cute, about to vomit, as she declared, "Yuck!--I'm never gonna have sex."

I learned when my sister had grown into a woman because Mom announced it at dinner. There was something about how I needed to be gentle with my sister, now that she'd started her menses. My sister was of course blushed the color of menstrual blood.

A month or two after that, Mom had her worry that she'd gotten pregnant. We were giggling about the alleged upcoming virgin birth, when my sister admitted that Mom had started making her take the pill.

"That might be good for your future," I teased.

About a year later, it was! What I didn't hear from my sister, I heard replayed by mother. It was the same with me. She was open with us, and we replied in kind.

My sister had lost her virginity to this boy, and they'd done it again, but then his family had shipped them all to another state. She was ready for a new boyfriend.

Likewise, my sister knew that although we still fucked sometimes, my girlfriend and I were equally ready to shed one another.

That was when Mom started coming home from work ranting about STDs. Crabs were one thing, but herpes and resistant strains, not to mention HIV.

She declared she had a great idea, but got coy about what it actually was.

I learned a day the week after, when I came home from school and went to my room. First step into my bedroom, I saw my bed was missing. My room had been transformed into a small home office. All my stuff was gone! Just then, my sister came out of her room, wondering why all my stuff was stacked in her room.

Mom sat us down and explained. She'd had a great idea, and this was what she had decided. And it was decided. With a great big fat period at the end. She needed a home office anyway, she asserted. Not that she really did.

The thing was, she announced, that with all the diseases out there, we weren't allowed to date anymore. Because that led to too much casual sex, which was how such diseases were spread. "Once you go off to college, you're of course on your own, but as long as you live in my house, you have to follow my rules. I know you both have strong stirrings, urges, so that's why I want you to sleep in the same bed. You're both disease-free, so you should take care of one another, the way a brother and sister should. In these troubled times, anyway."

Neither of us knew what to say next. My sister and I kept glancing at one another shyly, and then immediately looking away. The world had suddenly become very awkward. What Mom was suggesting. Sure, no doubt, my sister was hot, but a boy's not supposed to think about his own sister that way.

Dinner couldn't come soon enough, but then dinner was late. Mom was a slow-poke in the kitchen, and wouldn't let us help. She left us to stew. I stayed in the livingroom while my sister fled to her room. Our room.

She eventually whipped together a simple meal which she decided to serve on tray tables in the livingroom while watching t.v. We rarely did that. It was great, eating and yelling at the dumb shows and stupid commercials. But then a movie coming on got previewed we all wanted to see, so we finished up, cleaned up, and put our tray tables up.

It was an old movie where the characters didn't need to take off their clothes to create sexual tension. Mom was in her chair while my sister and I claimed opposite ends of the couch. I kept giving her micro-glances, seeing how truly cute she looked curled up down there. And then she shifted a leg, opening more.

I felt like such a fucking pervert. There was enough in the movie to already have me feeling uncomfortable in my pants. And then my ankle happened to cross hers--the jolt to both of us was like touching live wire.

As the movie ended, Mom declared it was time for everyone to go to bed. I felt weird and nervous as we walked up the hall. I passed what had been my bedroom, deciding to duck into the bathroom to sort things out. I brushed my teeth and peed and washed my hands. I blew the time-out; I'd figured nothing out. There was nothing left to do but walk down the hall to my sister's bedroom.

The door was wide open so I walked in; even so my sister startled at my arrival.

"Umm," I said, "I'm done with the bathroom, so, I don't know, it's all yours, so maybe you could change for bed in there while I do it in here."

"Sounds like a plan," she chirped. I turned to move a box of my stuff out of the way, and heard the sound of a drawer pulled open, then shut. I looked up and my sister was waving, dancing out of the room.

Back when I had my own bedroom, I usually slept naked. I pulled through my jumbled drawers, settling on a sleeveless t-shirt and an old pair of gym trunks. I clambered into the bed, on her side, by the lamp and clock. I puffed the pillows and sat up, waiting for what would happen next.

I'd nodded out once for a couple minutes waiting for my sister to return; when she did, I was instantly wide awake. She was wearing almost lingerie. A slinky silky grey bustier that barely hung low enough to cover the matching panties. She came in the room casually, like she owned the runway.

"Is that what you always wear to bed?"

"Sometimes," she smiled, coming closer. "It's so soft, here, feel." She grabbed one of my hands and ran it across her tummy. It did indeed feel soft, so soft that I started getting hard.

Then she smacked at my head. "Okay, buster, scoot over. You're on my side of the bed."

"I know, I know," I waved her off giggling. "Geez, I was just warming it up for you."

"What a considerate brother," she smiled, getting under the covers as I moved away. We shared out the pillows, and then there we sat, up in bed. We sat there for a couple minutes in utter silences. Finally my sister piped up, "So what do you think we should do?"

I just sort of shrugged.

"I understand," she said, "if you want to disobey Mom. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. She can force us into one room, but my bed is plenty big enough for us both to just sleep." She sort of turned her head down and away. "I know I'm not nearly as pretty as any of your girlfriends."

I couldn't believe what she was saying. I couldn't stop myself from reaching over to cup her chin and yank her eyes back to mine. "What are you talking about? You're a gorgeous girl. With a really hot body. Brothers are supposed to keep quiet about that, but we notice it."

My sister's eyes sparkled into mine as she held my hand. In a little mouse voice she squeaked, "Do you think I'm sexy?"

With my free hand I pulled the upper covers away so that when my other hand pulled hers over to the middle, it was so she could feel my stiffness through just a sheet and my faded shorts.

My sister's eyes went wide. "Is that because of me?" She sort of squirmed. "I'm getting excited because of you."

I moved our hands to a more neutral location. My sister gave her head a tilt. "So should we just do it and see how it goes? Decide what we think afterwards?"

I reached up to my sister's face, touching her temple, and then tracing a finger down her jaw line. "It starts with a touch," I announced, hypnotizing my sister. My hand reached around lightly to the back of her neck, pulling her towards me. "A touch and then a kiss," her lips meeting mine.

There will never be anything so sexy as when we first started kissing, tongues just touching. Our hands got involved, clasping and clutching as we started rolling against one another. My hands found my sister's breasts, nestled in the soft grey fabric. I felt up my sister until I exclaimed, in a desperate gasp, "I want to see them."

She pulled away from me with a big smile, raising her arms up in the air. "I surrender to my big brother." The invitation was for me to do as I did, pulling her silky top off up over her head.

My sister had breasts that made you just want to come in your pants. Luckily I didn't. I saw them and touched them and even got to suck them, all without making an early mess. They were like some obscure Victorian serving dish. Two delicate dishes, in a milky glaze, like upturned bowls, each elaborate dish serving up a single strawberry. They looked like porcelain, but were so soft to the touch.

I feasted for a little while, but then my lips were wanting her lips. We were kissing again as I held her against me like a cocoon. "Mmm," she whispered, "I love your big strong arms, wrapped around me, holding me tight, making me feel so safe, making me feel so good. Letting me know that I'm all yours."