Chapter 5

That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. It convinced me to call a halt to things before something bad happened, and I flatly refused to do anything else while I was home on break. Unfortunately, as I was to discover in the not-so-distant future, it convinced both girls to take other actions they’d discussed.

Lori begged for a while, to the point that I told Mom and Dad I needed to go back to school a couple of days early to “get ready for my next semester.” That was actually true, to a degree. I planned on getting the textbooks I knew I’d need for a couple of classes I had to have to graduate. I’d read ahead in them in the library so that, when the time came, I could just do a quick review and spend time on other classes.

I didn’t know what to do once I was back in the comfortable confines of my little house. I lived in an old two story house that must have been eighty years old if it was a day. It was styled like old farm houses I’ve seen, where the walls of the upstairs rooms are slanted because they are actually part of the roof. These days it had three bedrooms and a common living room and kitchen that everybody shared. It was only six blocks from campus and had been a rental house for students for decades. One of my former roommates had graduated in December and the other had transferred to another school, so I had the place to myself for a few days.

I did go get the textbooks I’d intended to buy, getting second hand ones, of course. My student loans paid for things well enough that I didn’t have to work a regular job. I worked part time in the library to get spending money. That was convenient, since I spent so much time there anyway.

Eventually I got my laptop out to check email and, when I booted it, there was the Skype icon, sitting on the desktop. A promise is a promise so, it being about eight at night, I got Cassie’s number out of my billfold and typed it in. I thought nobody was going to answer until her voice suddenly came through the tinny speaker on my machine.

“Hello?”

“It’s Bob,” I said. “I promised to call and here I am calling.”

“I thought you were mad at us,” she said as her image appeared on the screen.

“I don’t know what I am,” I admitted.

“Please don’t be mad,” she begged. “Wait a minute. Let me go to my room.”

The picture went crazy as she carried her laptop to her room. When her image came back on her hair was messed up as if she’d been taking a nap when I called. She was, thankfully, fully clothed.

“Okay. Now we can talk,” she said.

“It’s just that this is all kind of crazy,” I said. “You guys are so young, not to mention the fact that we’re related.”

“I know,” she said, softly. “I don’t feel so young,” she said. “I mean sometimes.”

“That’s my point,” I said. “You don’t know how to feel so you’re trying to feel anything you can. That’s not the greatest plan. You need a few years so you can figure out who you are before you sally forth into the part of life you’re so interested in.”

“I can’t help feeling what I feel,” she said, a little truculently.

“I understand that,” I said. “I’m just saying you need to take your time. Things were kind of accelerating... you know?”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “I about died when Lori told me you’d agreed to do... you know.”

“That was a foolish thing for me to do,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it was awesome. I mean you trusted us and let yourself be vulnerable and... it was just great!”

“Guys aren’t so happy being vulnerable,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “That’s what made it so... I don’t know... sexy, I guess.”

“Anyway, I’m not mad and I’ll call you again, probably not as often as Lori calls you, but I’ll call when I can.”

“Okay,” she said. “You need to call Lori, too.”

“You can tell her I’m not mad,” I said.

“That’s not what I meant. Things have changed between you. You’re not the brother you used to be.”

“That’s not a great thing, Cassie,” I said.

“For her it is. She’s never had a brother she can talk to about... important things. She needs you in her life, Bob.”

“As long as she understands I can only be there for her in normal ways,” I said.

“That’s fine. Just don’t cut her out of your life. She hated the fact that she could never get close to you and now she feels like that problem has gone away.”

“I’ll call her.”

“Good. Thanks. I’m really glad you called.”

“Get a boyfriend,” I said, gruffly.

She laughed.

“Why would I want to do that? I have you!”

And then she pushed the button to disconnect.

I didn’t call Lori until the next day. I had no idea if she was on her computer or not, so I just used the phone. She started bawling and I heard Mom ask what was wrong. The next thing I knew my mother was on the phone. I had to assure her I hadn’t been in an accident and was fine. I suggested that maybe Lori had PMS and my mom barked at me for being rude.

Lori got the phone back but I could tell she was trying to talk in code, a code I had no key to understanding. I figured Mom was hovering so I just told her I’d Skype her later that night.

When I did, my sister answered wearing a bra and panties.

“I was so worried you were mad,” she said.

“So was Cassie.”

“I know. She called me. I’m sorry, Bobby. I didn’t mean to push you.”

“I get it,” I said. “Let’s chalk it up to experience and move on.”

“Okay. Thank you. I feel so much better.”

And that was it. As tumultuous as my life had been for a couple of weeks, it looked like everything was going to settle back down and be normal again.

Things were normal after that, taking into account that I Skyped frequently with two girls four years younger than me, who didn’t mind appearing on camera dressed, half dressed, or mostly naked. Their lack of concern about modesty while they talked to me grew to seem oddly normal, somehow. I figured they were still exploring the world of adult-ness, or what they thought was the world of adult-ness.

I didn’t mind them flaunting things a bit, to be honest. I came to think that if they got it out of their systems with me, then they wouldn’t be tempted to flaunt anything with the boys they dated. It was a sort of Victor clan tradition for the parents of girls to require that they date multiple boys in high school and refrain from getting too serious with one. Part of any reunion was to gather the kids of dating age and make them listen to stories about how Aunt So and So got divorced because she rushed into a relationship with (former) Uncle Thus and Such and got serious before she realized what a dud he was. Dire warnings about moving too fast were issued and young heads nodded their obligatory confirmation that wisdom had been dispensed and received.

Of course kids are kids so all that good advice got mostly ignored, but the parents kept a tight rein on the Victor kids. Maybe that’s one reason why we didn’t have any teen pregnancies in our family history.

Anyway, the Skype sessions were all normal and slightly boring, other than the fact that I got a shot of cute girl now and then. I still thought about them when I jerked off. That fantasy was too easy to just toss aside. Not that I could just toss it aside.

That should have been a warning to me.

If I couldn’t toss the fantasy aside, why did I think the girls could?

Then, as Spring Break approached, my mother called me one evening. She asked how I was and all that, and then told me why she called.

“Your sister and cousin Cassie wanted to go to Cancun for Spring Break,” she said.

I laughed. She didn’t think it was funny.

“We aren’t going to let them, of course. It was actually June’s idea, but we wondered if we could send them to visit you in Lawrence over Spring Break. Lori is excited about college and that might get her head back in the game, being around campus. June doesn’t know what to do about Cassie. They had to make her apply to some colleges and she doesn’t seem all that eager to get any acceptance letters. We hope she’ll get energized as well if she can see the campus and be around some people like you.”

“You want me to babysit my sister and cousin over Spring Break?” My voice expressed how unimpressed I was.

“Not babysit, Bob. Just show them around. Take them to some buildings. Show them the library. Are there any labs you can get them into? Could they see any experiments or something like that?”

“That’s not how it works,” I said. “The only thing like that I know about is the team I’m on that’s building a solar-powered go cart we’re going to enter into a race in May.”

“That’s perfect!” squealed my mother. “Show them how they can do fun things at college and still get an education.”

“Come on, Mom,” I groaned.

“You don’t have to watch them every second,” she chided. “They’re big girls. They can go off on their own while you do what you need to. Just keep them away from frat houses and that sort of thing.”

My mother hadn’t gone to college. She met my father, who was in college, when he went into a coffee shop and she waited on him. I think they dated three months before they got married. All that Victor advice on not hurrying into relationships was mostly for the tender young girls in the family. I guess it didn’t apply to the men. Anyway, what she knew about college campuses was from living in a town with one, as opposed to being on one very much.

“Where will they sleep?” I asked, perking up because I’d just thought of a deal breaker. “I have new roommates.”

“They can stay in your bedroom and you can sleep on the couch. That won’t kill you for a few days.”

“I can’t afford to feed two growing girls for a week,” I tried.

“We’re sending grocery money with them, Bob. Stop trying to be difficult. This is for the success of their future.”

Long story short, my mother expected me to do this for her (and Cassie’s mother), and she wasn’t about to let a mere twenty-two year old boy obstruct their desires.

Which is why, on a brisk day in March, two very excited high school seniors descended on my house, arriving in Lori’s car, which she was unimaginably excited about being allowed to drive there without a parent in it.

There might have been a parent in it, had any of them known that both my roommates had left town for Spring Break. Their darling little girls would be alone in the house with me for a week.

Of course they didn’t know, because Lori didn’t tell them. I’d spilled to her on the solemn promise that she not tell Cassie about it until they were in the car and on the way there. Don’t ask me why. I guess the stark truth is that I did want them to come.

Even thought I had a premonition that things might get... sticky... no pun intended.

So Cassie did know the house was empty except for me when they got there and she was out of the car and running before Lori even got the engine shut off. She didn’t knock, and she came in more or less screaming.

When she found me you’d have thought she was trying to eat me. Her arms went around me and her hello kiss made it crystal clear that things were already... sticky.

No pun intended.

While she kissed me she straddled my leg and I swear she tried to rub out a little cum or something. She might have, too, had not Lori followed her in and attacked me as well.

“Don’t hog him,” complained my sister.

Then she kissed me, too. On the lips. Like a lover... not a sister.

Damned if I didn’t find my hands gripping her ass when that kiss was over.

I am sure to this day that the only reason their virginity stayed intact during the next few hours was because both of them had to pee, having been unwilling to stop for the last three hours in their excitement to get there.

So, while they were in the bathroom... I left to go get pizza.

“You think you’re so smart,” said my sister, smugly, when I got back with two family sized pies from Mamma Biondi’s Pizza Emporium. “While you snuck off like a coward, though, that left your room undefended.”

Cassie, it seemed, had invaded my room and, for some unfathomable reason, thought the crush she had on me allowed her to rifle through my belongings with abandon. I found her sitting on my bed, going through the photo album my mother had given me when I went off to become a man. Of course it was filled with pictures of me as a little boy.