Chapter 2

Flu ... influenza ... is a very wide term. It covers everything from twelve hours inconvenience to death. The inoculation may protect someone from the particular strains it is designed for, but not others – and, of course, it can only do that if you've had the jab.

I got in from the shop one evening – a Tuesday – bearing pizza as I was feeling a little lazy and didn't want to cook. I ascended into the heavens – to the attic – to fetch Ellen downstairs to eat and found her staring listlessly at her computer screen.

"Come on, Sis. Supper. Meat feast pizza, salad, cheesecake."

"Don't feel hungry, bro. I think I'll pass, if you don't mind."

"You don't look too good, Sis. Are you okay?"

"Not really, Tom. I ache all over."

"Back in a tick." I trotted downstairs to find a thermometer. Having done so, I was on my way back up when I heard a thump from the landing and found Ellen in a heap at the foot of the attic stairs. "Oh, shit. You hurt, Sis?"

"Okay ... just stumbled on the last stair..." she was struggling to her feet as she was speaking and I helped her up. "Need toilet." She staggered to the bathroom and pushed the door to behind her.

When she emerged, I made her sit on the bottom stair as I checked her temperature, which was 37.9°C (just over 100°F). The normal oral temperature is about 36.9°C – a low-grade pyrexia like that indicates a viral, rather than bacterial infection. "Looks like you've got 'flu, Sis. You'd better lie down in my bed, or you'll be falling down the stairs." I helped her to my room, stripped off the duvet, got her to lay down and found a sheet to cover her.

"Help me undress," she slurred.

So I sat her up and peeled the roll-neck jumper she was wearing over her head. Took a deep breath and unhooked the bra, to release as pretty a pair of titties as I'd ever seen. "Can you sit up a mo?"

She nodded, but flopped back even as I was crossing the room to my tallboy for an old t-shirt. As I sat her up to help her put it on, she was sweating and shivering at the same time. I laid her back down and got her jeans off with some difficulty. There she was, in my bed, in my old t-shirt and a pair of skimpy knickers. Of course, while I was definitely aware of Ellen as a woman, I had transitioned into 'nurse' mode; I don't believe it's possible (at least for me) to be completely detached when nursing, but certainly one focuses on the person, rather than their sexual potential. That's what I told myself, frequently. For several days I lifted her up to drink fruit juice and take the effervescent pain-killers and antipyretics the doctor recommended, sponge-bathed her, helped her to the toilet, and changed the sheets when she soaked them with sweat. Tony told me not to show my face at the shop until I could honestly assure him she was okay on her own.

After a few days she was still weak as a kitten, but complaining of hunger so I was able to give her thick, home-made soups and bread as well as the liquids I'd been encouraging her to take throughout.

Where was I sleeping through all this? On an air-bed on the floor, of course. Insofar as I slept at all. When she could totter in a more or less straight line to the toilet on her own, I made up the spare bedroom single bed and put her in there so I could have my own bed back.

That lasted two nights.

The third night ... ten days after she fell ill ... I'd just got to sleep when I surfaced enough to realise Ellen was in bed with me. I was far too tired to argue the issue and in the morning I was alone again. In fact, I wasn't at all sure I hadn't dreamed the whole thing.

She was well enough, though weak, to look after herself, and she'd begun contacting her customers to apologise for her absence and pick up on her work. I was back at the shop. Tony popped round to mine, with his wife, to see Ellen and take her some flowers, which really touched her. I had several enquiries from customers as to how she was.

That night, I hadn't got to sleep when Ellen crept in behind me.

"What the hell are you doing, Sis?"

"Please ... I want to sleep here, Bro."

"Why?"

"Can't I just want to be near my dear brother?"

"Yeah, but ... dammit, Ellen ... sleeping with my sister?"

"Hush. Go to sleep." At that, she spooned up behind me, wrapped her arms round, and I could feel her forehead resting against the curve of my neck. It was sort of comforting but I lay there, puzzling and wondering, until sleep surprised me.

Looking back, I wonder if I could have turned the course of what happened. It was a gradual progression. From Ellen sharing my bed routinely, to waking up with her hand inside my t-shirt, stroking my chest. To waking up with Ellen laying half on me, her thigh pressing on my half-hard cock. Waking up spooned behind her, her hand holding mine under her t-shirt against her breast. Waking up with my hand clamped against her pussy by her thighs, aware of the damp patch in her panties my thumb was pressing against. Waking up from yet another erotic dream to find Ellen's head bobbing up and down, my cock enclosed in her warm, wet mouth, her naked body gleaming in the pale morning light.

"Ellen..."

She didn't look up, merely increasing her suction until I was right on the edge.

"Ellen!"

At which point she pulled off with an audible 'pop', straddled me on her knees and, with her hands each side of my chest, looked intently into my eyes.

"Tom – tell me you love me?"

"You know I do, Sis, but..."

"Tell me!"

I took a deep breath, still transfixed by her eyes. "I love you, Sis."

She nodded. "Tom, I've loved you for as long as I can remember. I've never found a man who touches my soul the way you do." She adjusted her position and I could feel the head of my cock slipping along the moisture in her slit. I felt it nestle at her opening. She pushed against it and I felt her pussy enclosing me in slick, tight, warmth. She pushed until she could go no further and stopped, resting most of her weight on our joining. "If this is the only time I feel you like this, I ... I'll be devastated."

For the first time, I knowingly traced the curve of her body with my hands, briefly cupping her breasts and pinching her nipples gently before continuing up to hold her head between my hands. "I don't think that'll be necessary," I murmured, pulling her down to kiss her.

Ellen is tall enough that we could kiss without separating. Indeed, by drawing my feet up and lifting my hips I could almost maintain full penetration as we kissed, Ellen almost frantically probing my mouth with her tongue. I don't think the small movements of her hips were deliberate, nor were her tears, wetting my face. I wrapped my arms round her...

Her movements became more urgent and I couldn't stop myself matching them until I came in her. Her response was to join me as I continued to thrust. When our involuntary, spasmodic movements ceased, she lowered herself to rest on me, kissed me and hooked her right leg behind my left one and her arm behind my head. That done, as she rolled off I had to follow and we lay on our sides, face to face.

"I love you, Bro," she whispered.

"I love you, Sis," I whispered back.

"I wish I could marry you," she sighed.

"Uh huh," I had to agree.

"Good night."

"Sleep tight, Sweetheart."

When I woke, Ellen was still laid against me. I was on my back, but she was laid against my right side. Her breasts pressed against my chest, her leg hooked over mine. Her eyes were open.

"Do you hate me?"

"Never! I couldn't hate you, Sis."

"Good. I want you to make love to me again, but you really need to get up and go to the shop."

"Make love to you again? I thought you were making love to me."

"Well, if you're going to be petty about it..."

"Oh, no. Not at all. This evening, though, I'll make love to you for the first time."

"Oh, you will, will you?"

"Absolutely. After we go out for a nice meal, so I can show off my gorgeous lover."

"You think I'm gorgeous?"

"Always have, Sis."

She kissed me and rolled, throwing her legs off the bed to help her lever herself upright. She stood and sashayed across the room, displaying her delightful derrière for my visual delectation. I got hard again, just watching.

She rummaged in my tallboy drawers and found an old t-shirt of mine. When she put it on it didn't quite reach her mons, so I watched her rear undulate out of the room.

I showered and went downstairs to the kitchen where she was frying sausages. "I need to keep your strength up, Lover," she said with a cheeky grin, pouring coffee into a mug and placing it in front of me.

Tony was already at the shop when I arrived. Not surprising really, as I hadn't been available much for some time. "Ellen's about back to herself," I told him, "just needs to gain a little weight back."

"Good. Tell her we'd like to see her when she's ready. Tom..." he paused, clearly uncomfortable. "You two ... you're fond of each other..."

"Yes, we are," I agreed.

"She's a special woman."

"She is. Very special."

"Um ... I have a friend..." I just raised an enquiring eyebrow, "She works in a genetics lab. She's really interesting; they do analyses of people's origins and of genetic problems – you know, dystrophias, that sort of thing. You might be interested in getting your DNA tested – it's not cheap, but it won't break the bank either."

I was pretty sure of what he wasn't saying. "Yeah. Might be interesting at that. I've often wondered if I was Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, or what. Perhaps you'd have a word with her."

When I got home, Ellen was obviously freshly showered, but dressed only in panties and one of my t-shirts – one that was longer than the old one she'd grabbed in the morning, so I only knew she was wearing panties when she bent over. "Come on, Tom. You're going to take me out, feed me and romance me. Go and shower and change ... I want to eat at François' before you bring me back here and have your wicked way with me."