Chapter 5: Learning About Our Background - and Ourselves

Tandra and I set out for our parent's place early on the Thursday before Christmas, with the weather being as co-operative as could be expected for that time of year. In many ways, I was glad that we'd left early, because as soon as we neared the lakes, it started to snow. In the name of safety, it took us three extra hours to do that trip from what it would normally. I spelled my sister behind the wheel for two of those hours, and that was about all my throbbing head would allow. It did give her a much-needed break though, and a chance for a short nap.

Driving up the street that we'd grown up on brought back memories of days gone by, both for me and for my sister. At every twist or turn along the curving roadway, one of us would refresh the others memory of many of those highlights. The park where I'd taught my sister to ride a bicycle, the swings where we'd hung out with our friends, a grove of sheltering trees where Cassie and I had made love several times in the dark, all seemed to warm the car a little more than the heater alone could. There were other memories, too, some of which elicited either a giggle or a change of facial expression that included several deeper shade of red than normal. Then finally, Tandra was turning into Mom and Dad's driveway. A quick toot on the horn had our parents almost running out the front door.

"It's so good to see you two again!" Mom gushed as she wrapped her arms around me. That nagging ache in my head immediately chose that moment to become a dull thudding.

"Easy, Mom," I begged her. "I've got a headache that just doesn't seem to want to quit."

"You'll have to forgive him, Mom," Tandra offered an excuse as our mother gave me a worried look. "Old twinkle-toes tripped on a bare floor and smacked his head on the floor. It didn't do any good, either. He's still the same idiot-brains he's always been."

Mom hustled us both inside, then began to fuss in the kitchen. I had visions of her feeding me chicken soup for the next week or so as her preferred home remedy, but she returned with aspirins and a large glass of water. As I began to drink, I realized that I'd forgotten just how good their bottled spring water tasted. Its sweetness had me drinking another full glass, and combined with all the coffee we'd guzzled on our trip, I was ready to struggle to the bathroom almost before the second glass was emptied.

Tandra must have spotted my stumbling as I stood to head for the bathroom, because she was right there to help out before I could even get a groan of pain past my lips. At the time, neither one of us gave it any thought. It was just one of those things that we'd started taking for granted. If one of us needed some kind of help, the other would be there as soon as they could. But that mutual co-operation factor wasn't lost on our parents, although neither one of them said anything at the time.

My sister had waited just outside the bathroom for me, just in case I needed her help getting back to the kitchen. That pounding in my skull had left me feeling dizzy, and we had unconsciously propped ourselves on each other, with Tandra putting her arm around my waist while I leaned on her shoulder, one arm draped around her. That, too, was something that our mother made a note of, but again said nothing.

That evening as we sat down to supper, I pulled out Tandra's chair for her, something I'd gotten into a habit of doing. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see our father raise an eyebrow as he made a mental note of the change in our behaviour, although when I looked again, his face was its usual stoic and masked self, leaving me to wonder if what I thought I'd seen had actually happened. But I was more concerned with my sister, and dismissed his show of interest.

During supper, Tandra kept giving me those looks of love that women have a propensity to exude when they're around someone they really care about. I caught Mom studying both of us every once in a while, and began to feel uncomfortable, but attributed it to our absence for the last four months. Things were different from the way they'd been when we left for college, in more ways than one. I tried to ignore our parents' growing curiosity, praying that they'd eventually just accept that this was the way my sister and I were, now that we'd become roommates. It was when Mom served dessert that some of our behaviour convinced them to start asking questions.

"I see you're wearing your grandmother's wedding ring," Mom directed to Tandra. My sister scrambled to make up a plausible excuse for the gold band on her left ring finger.

"That was Keith's idea, actually," she began to explain, "when some of the guys tried to hit on me. There were a couple of cute ones, but most of them struck me as being Neanderthals. It seems to have done the trick, though. I haven't had the problem since." Then she turned her head to look right into my eyes as she issued a silent thank-you as a part of her delivery. But that twinkle of real love was almost impossible to miss, and Dad's eyebrows once again started to lift.

"So does this mean that you haven't found a special guy, Sweetheart?" Mom continued her inquisition.

"Not yet," Tandra answered, her tone as relaxed as she could make it. "I mean, there's lots of guys to chose from, but most of them seem to be interested in only one thing, and they're all as dumb as a post about going about it. I guess your idea of the two of us looking out for each other is working. My big brother seems to spend his time keeping the goons away, which leaves me lots of time to study."

"So how about you?" Mom redirected her questioning toward me. "No girlfriend yet? Or are you and Cassie back together?"

"No, Mom. No girlfriend. But Cassie and I still see each other around every once in a while. I think she's found someone else. She's happy enough, anyway, and I feel a little better that she could move on. We're still friends. But I'm not looking for another girlfriend, and your daughter sees to it that I don't stray off the straight and narrow too far."

"Well, you two seem to get along well," Dad finally joined the conversation. "I'm not sure if I can get used to you two not fighting like you always did. How long has this co-operation thing been happening?"

"Daddy! We never fought that much!" Tandra chided him. "But I guess that living under the same roof might have gotten us a little closer to each other. I've never really thought about it, though. Keith's actually a pretty good roommate, all considered. At least he cleans up after himself, and helps out if I need a hand. He even does the laundry sometimes!"

"Hmm," was our father's total reply as he went back to enjoying the end of our meal. It was more what he didn't say that raised my worries.

"Dad, ever consider that your daughter might have Mom's trait of trying to train me than you first suspected? She's actually pretty easy to live with, and sure a lot better than that clown I had for a roommate last year," I tried to defuse his curiosity. Dad just lifted his eyes to me, then wordlessly let his comments stay hidden as he returned to the last of his meal.

I thought the subject would be dropped right then and there, as neither Mom or Dad pursued any further questioning. There was a feeling of relief in me at the escape from their scrutiny, but wondered just how long the reprieve would last. It was our mother's next question that almost had me sweating bullets.

"Your Uncle Barry and Aunt Rose are coming in tomorrow, and they'll be staying until the new year. We'd decided to put them in the guest room, which is Tandra's old one. Unless you two can think of some other arrangement, we may have to ask you to double up in Keith's room. There's an extra bed down in the basement that we can bring up, but we've been wondering what you'd think of that idea. Are you two comfortable enough with each other to share a room?"

"And we trust you to be on your best behaviour," our father added. I could feel his eyes studying our reactions to this piece of news.

"Daddy! We're always behaved!" Tandra answered him in a mocked, hurtful tone. She might have pulled it off, too, except for that mischievous twinkle in her eye that neither one of our parents missed. Mom smiled to cover herself, while Dad displayed his best poker face, showing no signs of emotion or conviction one way or the other.

Right after we'd cleared the table after supper, my sister and I went out to the car and started to pack our suitcases upstairs. It seemed like ages since I'd used that bedroom, yet it was very much like returning to a favourite spot in a serene forest. The biggest difference would be sharing it with my sister, although the smile on her face and the gleam in her eye let me know that she had hopes of relieving the sexual frustrations that we'd worried about. But as enticing as that idea was, she had noticed the possible downside to this arrangement as much as I had.

"Keith, we're going to have to be really careful. I swear that Mom was fishing for something at the table tonight. All that stuff about boyfriends and girlfriends? Since when was she worried whether we had one of not? And Dad? Going on about us fighting? We may have had our differences, but I don't remember us fighting all that much. And now this, sharing a bedroom? Something's going on here, but damned if I can tell you what. It's almost like they're just itching to get us together."

"Tandra, let's just relax, go with the flow, and see if we can keep from giving them any more ammunition than we already have, okay? I must admit, though, that it's going to be tough keeping my hands off you through the night. If Dad brings that other single bed up, think we'd get away with pushing them together?"

"Keith! Forget it! Knowing you, you'll roll over in the night and they'll slide apart! How the hell are we going to explain how you banged your head falling between the beds, hmm? Sometimes, you come up with the dumbest ideas, I swear!" she angrily hissed at me, but I could see just how much she wanted to try that idea.

As an answer to the problem of the beds shifting, I was ready to sneak down into Dad's workshop for a piece of rope that would secure the bed's legs together. There were a few other logistical problems to deal with as well, although I had faith in my sister's abilities to cover our backsides with some excuse born of feminine logic.

Dad hauled the extra bed up and I helped him set it up, making up a story about the lack of room with two beds spread that far apart. He gave me a quizzical look when I suggested that we push them both together, but he had to admit that the arrangement worked a little better. In actuality, either way would have worked, although I wasn't about to tell him that. Mom brought sheets and blankets in, and her eye questioned the furniture's arrangement, but like our father, she kept her opinions to herself.

My sister had been watching them from the relative safety of the doorway, stepping in to make the beds up with me as she shooed our parents back out the door, then closing it after them.

"God, Keith, talk about thin ice!" she murmured conspiratorially. "They suspect, you know. You know how you wanted to tell them? Be bloody careful, because you just might get your wish, and I'm not ready to have our parents throw us out in the middle of Christmas vacation. I don't need that kind of shit, and neither do you. I'm beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea."

"We could have stayed home, and spent just as much time and energy fighting the rumour mill," I pointed out. "Wasn't that one of the reasons we came home in the first place?"

Once we'd gotten settled in, the four of us sat in the living room and reminisced of Christmases past, and of some of the times we'd spent together as a closely-knit family. I had to admit that we were probably closer than a lot of the other kids I'd grown up with, and that was a tribute to our mother's insistences, although our father was just as adamant on the subject as she was.

"Your aunt and uncle will be arriving tomorrow morning," Dad shifted the topic. "Why don't you two come along with me to the airport to pick them up? I know Barry would love to see you again, and Rose has done nothing but ask about you two every time I call them."

"Won't it be a little crowded on the way home, Daddy?" Tandra posed the only objection we might have had.

"Cozy, Honey. It's called being cozy," Dad teased her, until he saw my sister's glance in my direction. I was expecting him to say something — anything — about all those knowing looks we shared, but he held his tongue. I was beginning to wish he hadn't. While the prospect of letting them know about the changes in the relationship between us hung in my mind, the suspense of waiting for the other shoe to drop when they found out was killing me.

The grandfather clock in the hallway rang out nine chimes as I excused myself, complaining of my headache's return as the reason for heading to bed so early. In reality, I wanted to be away from their prying enquiries for a while. Tandra added her own reasons, then helped me up the stairs.

"Dammit, Keith, this isn't going to work!" she hissed insistently as she stripped down to her bra and panties, then pulled a "granny gown" nightshirt on.

"Sure it will. We just have to be really careful, that's all," I tried to calm her down.

"Careful? Forget that crap! Do you have any idea how long it's been since we made love last? The last time, you knocked about half your brains out on our foyer floor, and if you thought I was horny then, I'm at least twice as horny now! If it gets any worse, I'm going to jump you, and to hell with our parents! By the time we get home again, I'm going to go crazy with wanting you. I don't know if I can wait that long."

I felt the same way, and told her so, but I couldn't see any way to relieve the burning desires inside us without alerting our parents to our activities. Tandra added to the dilemma by reminding me that she couldn't keep her screams to herself when she climaxed, then confessed that when it was the two of us making love, she didn't even want to try. Again I had to agree with her, knowing that I had a compelling desire to yell of our love to the whole world. However, if we indulged our wanton passions, our parents would be pouring through the door long before we were able to separate our bodies from each other.

"So, what do we do, Sis?" I was at a complete loss for either ideas or solutions. She sat on the edge of her side of the beds and stared at me, that look of desperate resignation slowly sweeping over her composure.

"Fuck it!" she finally declared. "We have to tell them, Keith, and that's all there is to it. Like you said, they're going to find out eventually, so what's the difference of when we let them know? I just hope we don't have to go through that part where it says, 'til death do us part'. Shit, we haven't even been married a week yet! I'm too young to die, or to become a widow, either!"

"To be perfectly honest, Sis, I think we're underestimating our parents. They might get a little pissed off at us for a while, but they'll forgive us, eventually. Who knows. They might even see our side of this, if we give them half a chance," I tried to convince both her and myself.

"You sure that bang on the head didn't jar something loose in there?" she growled back at me. "You know how Mom is about these moral issues, and I doubt Dad feels any less strongly about them. If they even accept that we're living together like this, I'll be shocked. The idea that they'll let us stay together is even more foreign. Do you realize that this might be the last Christmas we spend together as a family? And at the rate things are going, I'm starting to wonder if we'll last as long as Christmas itself!"

"Mom and Dad have never said a thing about incest, and you know it," I tried to argue. For all the good it did me, I might as well have asked the sun to come up from the west, because Tandra gave me a hostile look that I'd never seen on her before, and hoped never to see again, either. She looked like she could have quite easily strangled me out of fear, rage, and frustration.

"Look," I steered us away from this ongoing war zone, "I'm tired, you're tired, and it's been a long day. Let's just get into bed and get some sleep. Maybe things will look a little brighter in the morning."

She wasn't buying it any more than I was, but we crawled under the covers, although with the way the beds were made up, there was no way that I could cuddle her, or could she move into that customary position that we'd gotten so used to. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, and really missing my sister's love. Tandra tried to let her frustrations subside, then began tossing and turning in an effort to find a comfortable position.

"Keith? I can't sleep like this. I'm too used to the way we normally sleep ... and I'm angry. Not at you, or Mom and Dad. Maybe I'm angry at myself for not having the guts to tell them. I don't know. But we promised each other that we'd never go to bed angry, and now I can't help it. I'm ... I'm bloody-well furious!"

"Mrs. Hayes, get your pretty little ass over here under these covers so your husband can hold you the way he's supposed to," I ordered her. That must have been exactly what she wanted to hear, because she was curled up on my chest in seconds flat. I would have been proud of myself for making that suggestion, except that I found myself sound asleep with in minutes, accompanied by the soft sounds of my sister's rhythmic breathing as she finally dropped off in my arms.

I woke about two in the morning to the sensations of Tandra's hand in my shorts, slowly stroking my hard cock while she remained perched on my chest.

"What do you think you're doing, young lady?" I quietly whispered a tease int her ear.

"I don't think what I'm doing," she murmured back to me, " I know. At the moment, I'm pleasuring my husband, and thoroughly enjoying his hardness in my hand. And if he doesn't quieten down, I'm going to suck him off."

"What about the noise, though?" I tried to divert our sexual exercising, although I was reluctant to stop what she was doing.

What noise?" she wanted to know. "Your cock doesn't make a sound when you cum."

"No, it might not. But I sure do, and if you think you're going to get away without me plundering your precious, pretty little pussy, you're a good candidate for being a true, dumb blonde."

Tandra groaned at the awful alliteration, then reminded me that she already was a blonde. I teased her that it was her hair colour that helped me find her in the dark. Her hand moved to my sac as she threatened to do me some real damage if I didn't shut the hell up. "Maybe we'll luck out, and Mom and Dad will be dead to the world when we go off, because you've got me so damned horny, little sister, that there's no way I'm going back to sleep until I make you cum for me.'

As if she'd thought of the idea herself, Tandra crawled off my chest and kissed her way down to my groin, then lavished her attentions on my straining manhood. At the same time, she'd swivelled around and straddled my head so that I was now overcome by the aroma of her own arousal, even if it was still hidden beneath the protective panels of her panties. By pulling the leg opening aside, I was soon licking and lapping her sex, tasting the heavy flow of her juices, and loving the feeling of her lips sliding up and down on my shaft as she sucked me.

That flavour of her sex had me eventually dipping my tongue into Tandra's pussy as I sampled the heated moisture inside her. And as soon as I did, she almost howled out loud, managing to muffle her delighted shock by ramming my cock half-way down her throat, then gagging and choking on it.

"M-m-m-r-ph!" was all I heard, but those vibrations from her exclamation shot through my entire groin, sending me half way to the edge of an orgasm.

"Jeezuz, Keith!" she hissed loudly as soon as she'd released me from between her lips. "What the hell are you trying to do, choke me!?" To accentuate her accusation, she stuck her tongue out at me as she looked back over her shoulder.

"Two can play that game, Tandra Hayes!" I thought to myself. "If you can stick your tongue out, I can stick mine in!", and I pushed it as deep inside her as I could, then wiggled the tip back and forth against her satiny walls.

"M-m-m-r-ph!" she howled once more as she took the full length of me into her mouth in an effort to muffle the screams of delight that we both knew wanted to reverberate with the pleasure she'd received. I felt her teeth scraping the sensitive skin of my shaft as she slowly slid her lips up from the base of me to the tip, then released me just enough to tickle my most sensitive spot with the tip of her tongue.

"Gentle, Precious!" I hissed at her as the combination of pleasure and pain left me feeling uncomfortable. "If my wife finds out that you've damaged me, she'll ... she'll ... and she will, too."

"Listen, if you're going to eat me, do it! But don't be so damned rough!" she softly growled.

"Aw, you love it, and I know it, Sis. Here, want me to prove it?"

Before she could answer, I sunk back into her scalding depths one more time as deeply as I could, and Tandra reacted by pushing her pussy tight enough against my mouth to cause some real concerns for my dental work! I was becoming worried that I'd leave teeth marks where no woman wants to be bitten!

"M-m-m-r-ph!" I groaned in a bid to have some of the pressure released. Tandra wiggled her hips and swiped her sex across my face as the flat of my tongue slapped back and forth over her clit. She'd taken my cock back between her lips again, and was now sucking furiously, almost to the point of it being painful.

"What the hell is this, a massacre?" I managed to squeak out. "All I wanted was to love my wife, not engage in a sexual wrestling match! Take it easy, would you?"

"You started it," she spat out, although her words were still muffled, and for the same reasons as before. "If I didn't want to feel you cum for me, so bad, I'd give up on you for the night. But if it's the last thing I do before sunrise, I'm going to taste you, and have you all for myself. So quit trying to get up to my tongue through my stomach! Got it?"

I really had a burning desire to jamb my tongue almost into her womb at that moment, but somehow managed to keep myself restrained a bit. But I did snake back inside her before lifting her hips a bit, then flicking over her clit several times. She inhaled sharply, then began to convulse as a climax began to run through her body.

"Oh god! Here it comes!" she moaned loudly in an effort to tell me what I already knew, then went back to sucking on me while bobbing up and down some more. I eased off just enough to keep her on the edge, not wanting her to go over it until I was there too. A few minutes more, and we were both right on the doorstep of that point of commitment. As Tandra sucked on me one last time, I almost attacked her clit with a vengeance. She began to almost vibrate as she struggled to breathe with my cock still buried against her tonsils. For a second or two, I wondered why she didn't ease off of me, but remembered what she was using to muffle the sounds of her passionate release. We both exploded simultaneously, her flooding me with more of her juices than I could possibly lick, lap or swallow, and me spewing as much of my essence into her belly as she could handle. By licking each other slowly and sensuously, we prolonged our pleasure for several minutes more.

"I needed to feel you do that," Tandra whispered in my ear as she returned to curl up on my chest. "If I live to be two hundred, Keith, I don't think I'll ever get enough of feeling you cum for me. That has got to be one of the sexiest things I've ever experienced."

"You should feel it when my little sister climaxes for me. Now that has to be the sexiest thing going. And when she does, I can feel the love in her coming out. God, but I love you, Tandra," I opened my heart to her.

"I know, big brother. I can feel it every time you're close to me. I love you so much..." She kissed me with a loving warmth that only my sister could show me. Even Cassandra hadn't been able to do that to the extent that Tandra could.

Once again settling into her favourite position on my chest, Tandra was asleep in minutes, and I wasn't too many seconds behind her. For a minute or two, the problem of informing our parents tried to rear its ugly head, but never managed to successfully capture my attention soon enough to keep me awake.

I must have slept in, because when I woke, my sister wasn't there where I usually found her. That left me feeling almost panicky, and I hopped out of bed fully prepared to scour the entire house until I found her. It was only my state of dress, or lack of it, that stopped me from running out the bedroom door and down the hall. I'd gotten the door part way opened before I halted, and in that brief moment in time, the hiss of the shower answered my question as to Tandra's whereabouts. Grabbing some clothes, I slipped through the bathroom door and joined her in the shower.

"Brave this morning, aren't you?" she giggled before becoming serious again. "If Mom or Dad catch us, there'll be hell to pay. Let me out of here, then finish up. I'll meet you down in the kitchen." Then she kissed me soundly as though to take the sting out of her rebuke. It almost worked.

"Dammit, Keith, even showering together is something I miss. If we get a chance, I think I want to talk to you some more about letting Mom and Dad know. I'm getting tired of hiding this from everyone. There are days when I just want to shout from a rooftop that I love you, and that you love me."

In frustration, Tandra stepped out of the shower, dried herself off, and got dressed. I watched her every movement through the clear glass of the enclosure, becoming almost intoxicated with the sight of her curvaceous figure, the swell of her breasts, the firm roundness of her backside, the magical juncture of her thighs, the ... well, the list goes on and on. Suffice to say that there wasn't a square inch of that girl that didn't excite me in some way. But it was that loving smile that she left with me that threatened to turn me into Jell-O.

I was in and out of the shower in five minutes, then downstairs and into the kitchen. Mom was busy bustling around, having heard the noises upstairs, and making us something for breakfast. I stood in front of the fridge, looking for some orange juice, and felt her eyes staring at me. Looking back at her, she wore an curious expression on her face that I didn't remember seeing for a lot of years, as though I was being physically assessed.

"Is everything okay, Mom?" I tried to snap her out of that lost-looking trance.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, everything's fine, Keith. I was just realizing that you've grown up so fast, both of you. My little boy's a man now, and my little girl a woman. Pretty soon, you'll both get married, and move away to start your own lives." I could see a tear hanging on in the corner of her eye, threatening to overcome whatever kept it there and run down her cheek.

"Mom, we'll be around here for a while yet. Besides, there's nothing on the horizon for me that says I'm about to get married, and I don't think there is for Tandra, either. Neither one of us is ready to move that far away from you and Dad. But I do love you. We might just have the world's greatest Mom."

She groaned, then gave me a hard smile, full of that maternal disapproval that I'd grown up with, the one that says that whatever I did wrong, she'd find out and punish me for, later. Remembering that I'd mentioned temporarily avoiding marriage, I really hoped that wasn't something that she planned on lecturing me on.

Tandra had moved over to the stove and was dishing out a meal for each of us. Before she finished, she asked our mother if she'd eaten yet.

"Yes, Sweetheart," Mom replied in that sickly-sweet tone reserved for mothers, "some of us get up at a reasonable hour, instead of lounging in bed all day."

Tandra detoured on her way to the table, planting a heart-felt kiss on Mom's cheek before adding, "and some of us are on vacation, so we get to do things like that. Just wait until we leave, and you'll be back to sleeping in, too. I know you, Mother-dearest, so don't try to pull a guilt trip on your loving daughter, okay?" Then giving Mom another kiss, she added, "I do love you, though, Mom. I just can't flower it up like a certain brother of mine," and she returned to bringing our breakfasts to the table.

"Geez, I thought that tone was reserved for mothers," I teased my sister. "Are you a mother-in-hiding or something?"

"Keith," she started in one of those sweetly sarcastic voices of hers, "I know I promised not to beat the crap out of you until after the New Year, but don't push it!"

"I love you too, Sis," I shot back at her, then dove into my food before she could add more fuel to the fire.

"Gee, and we thought you two were getting along so well, too," Mom sniped in as her support for my sister's comment. "Better eat up, because your Dad wants to leave for the airport soon. He said that you two were going with him. Is that true?"