Chapter 4

The next week, Alex and I sat and talked during lunch every other day. On Monday and Friday we went to the tables outside the library. On Wednesday, we walked close together in the rain under a big golf umbrella and had our box lunches in the cafeteria at the student center.

Monday we did a post mortem on the weekend and it wasn’t as much of a disaster as I had thought. She said her parents liked me and they trusted me to keep seeing her. She said Azee wanted Gianna to come back for another weekend soon and it was OK for her to bring me.

Wednesday, the student cafeteria was full and loud and we didn’t talk about anything but the assignment for our English Lit class. I told her not to bring a lunch on Friday because I was going to bring something for both of us.

Thursday night, I made chicken salad with grapes and walnuts and then some mint iced tea, sweetened with artificial stuff like she liked it. Friday morning, I put a box of chicken salad in my cooler lunch box, took some flat bread for wrappers and two plastic bottles filled with tea, and stuffed it all in my backpack. At lunch, I made flat bread wrapper sandwiches with chicken salad and put straws in our tea bottles. She ate what I made and said she liked my cooking. When I asked if she liked me she just smiled. Maybe that was answer enough.

In the peace and quiet under the trees at the library, we talked about us a little and where we were going with each other. I suppose neither of us knew but there was one thing we agreed on. We both wanted to keep seeing each other. Later I was at home when it dawned on me that maybe Alex meant something different when she said she wanted to keep seeing me.

Each day I parted with her to go to my afternoon class the same way. I held both her hands in mine. She pulled our hands to her breasts with my bent fingers pressed against their softness and held her head up. I leaned over and kissed her on her mouth, just a quick kiss, lips to lips. I wanted to kiss her with our mouths open but I knew we shouldn’t do that with other people around.

After dinner Friday night, I went looking for Dad. I knew he wasn’t upstairs. Before dinner, we’d replaced the washers in the bathtub and sink in the bathroom between my bedroom and Gianna’s and I had just gone upstairs and checked for drips and everything was good. He wasn’t watching TV in the living room. I knew where he probably was but sometimes after dinner he went for a walk by himself. I went in the kitchen.

“Mom, where’s Dad?”

“Outside, in his man-cave. Do you need something?”

“Naah, I just want to talk to him.”

He looked up when I walked in. The backyard tool house was his man cave. It had heating and air conditioning and a music system so he could listen to the classical music he loved. He smiled at me and I stood and watched him polishing the parts of the antique brass floor lamp he’d found at the thrift store. He loved to take old dirty things and bring them back to life. Our house was full of antiques and things he had refinished. He stopped the polisher and looked at the piece he was working on.

“Did you want something, Son?”

“Yeah, just to talk. About me and Alex.”

“OK. Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking about us. I know I like her and maybe I’m beginning to love her but I don’t know what to do sometimes. I know I don’t want to hurt her and sometimes I think maybe I should just back off and let it die. Then I see her and touch her and hear her talk to me and I want to go on with her for the rest of my life.”

“I’ve been there and done that, Mike.”

“Dad, I know your marriage certificate says you were married on June 25 and I know my birth certificate says I was born on January 27 the next year. Why?”

“Because I got her pregnant, Mike. You know that. Your mother and I have never hidden that.”

“Yeah but how did you feel about it?”

“Mike, I was a 21-year-old college student struggling to get by on a scholarship. Your mother was a 19-year-old student working part time as a hostess at a restaurant. I was smitten. I was a nerd in glasses and I wanted love just like you do. I let my little head talk me into something, and, damn, she was hot for it too. You were born about nine months later. Best thing that ... no, second best thing that ever happened to me.”

“So you did the right thing and married her?”

“Of course. I knew I wanted to marry her not long after we started seeing each other.”

“Yeah, and I know it was a struggle because neither of my grandparents were able to help you and Mom much and then you had me and this damned stain. I’m surprised you had Gianna after me.”

“Mike, we wanted another child. We spent about three years trying to decide what to do about your face. Treatment wasn’t nearly as advanced back then as it is now. Every doctor we saw had a different opinion. My mother gave us the best advice. She said just accept you as you are and love you more. We’ve tried to do that.”

“I know. Listen, do you think we could get both families together and talk about me and Alex. If we go forward, we’re going to need the love and support of both families. I want to finish college and so does she. Maybe I want to marry her. I don’t know yet. We just can’t be totally responsible for our lives for a few years yet.”

He got up and hugged me close. “Mike, you don’t need to worry. That’s what families are for. You and Alex both have full scholarships since both sets of parents are university employees. You both can live here at home. Maybe you could live with Alex’s family. You don’t need to worry. Just see where your relationship with her goes. I know you. I know you’ll do the right thing with her.”

“Well, talk to Mom. I’ll get Alex to talk to her parents. One weekend, let’s get both families together and talk. I’ll cook.”

“OK. Listen. Don’t tell your mother what I was doing. It’s a surprise for her. It’s going to be a beautiful brass floor lamp when I get through.”

“OK.”

I started to walk away but then I turned back and just stood there.

“What else, Son?”

“I’ve been thinking about something else, maybe inviting her to go to Grandpa and Grandma Russo’s with us next month. I don’t know whether it’s too early. Should I invite her? May I invite her?”

He stood and thought for a minute.

“It’s not too early. You know there will be eight adults and nine children there, most of the kids in their teens. There might be more if some of the kids bring a girl friend or boy friend. It’ll be bedlam but we always enjoy it. May you invite her? Yeah, you have my permission. Should you? I don’t know. You need to talk to her and her parents. There’s a little problem though.”

“What?”

“Your mother has boxes and bags of clothes and stuff to take. You know how they swap stuff around when we get together. With that and some food, we can’t all go in one car. You could drive your mother’s car and take Alex, maybe take Gianna too.”

“I’ll call her and see what she says.”

“No, don’t just call her. Call her and ask if you can come over for a few minutes tonight. You’ve got something to ask her and you want her parents’ approval. It’s lots harder to say no when you’re face to face. You can use my car. Ask your mother where my keys are. Just don’t stay long. Don’t let her give you another hard-on.”

I couldn’t help it. I gave him another big hug and kissed him on the cheek.

I asked Alex first and she was eager to go. She held my hand and we asked her mother. When I told her how many would be there in my extended Italian family, she just smiled and said it sounded like Aiden’s Greek family and she approved.

Alex took me in her room afterwards and shut the door. She turned to me, held out her hands, lifted her face a little, and I knew what she wanted and it was what I wanted. I held her hands and she brought them up so the backs of my hands were against her breasts. When I leaned over, I saw her lips part slightly and I kissed her with closed lips first and then opened my mouth and our tongues met. I stood there, lost in kissing her and feeling her soft breasts.

She turned loose of my hands for a moment, pulled her knit shirt up above her breasts, caught my hands, and brought them back to her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I put my open hands on her breasts and my palms easily covered them. She put her hands on mine and pressed down gently. I felt her hard little nipples in the centers of my palms and I wanted them in my mouth.

I stooped down, awkwardly, couldn’t really reach them, and dropped down on my knees. Perfect. She immediately put both hands behind my head and pulled my mouth to her breasts. I tilted my head back, licked first one and then the other of the little pink protrusions, and then took one in my mouth and nursed at it. I gently pinched the other nipple with my thumb and one finger and she moaned. I swapped, put my mouth on the other breast and sucked on the little bump. She took a deep breath, moaned just a little, and pressed my head against her softness.

I could have nursed at her breasts for all eternity but I wanted to be held as well. I turned my face, my red left side, to her breasts, breathed deeply a couple of times, and relaxed. She held my head against her and I listened to her heart beating and felt her breathing.

When I finally stood up, she lifted her head again, open mouth, and I knew that was an invitation. I closed my eyes and kissed her and I wanted her, really wanted her. I pressed against her and she pressed back and I knew she could feel my penis trying to rip its way out of my shorts. I knew I had to stop. I knew I had to be careful and responsible but it was hard. I pulled away from her, wrapped my arms around her, tucked her head under my chin, and stood there simply holding her, wanting her, needing her.

“I like holding you, Alex.”

“I like it too, Mikey.”

“Alex, I’m not going to apologize for getting a hard-on.”

“You don’t need to, Mikey. I like feeling it. I liked seeing it too.”

“Did you like my mouth on your breasts?”

“Yes, dummy, why do you think I offered them to you?”

She dropped one hand down between us and pressed it against my penis. Even covered with a thin layer of cloth, her touch was almost too much to bear and I was afraid I’d come in my shorts, I caught her hand in mine and pulled it away. We stood there for a while longer, my arms around her, her arms around me.

She quietly let me out the front door and I drove all the way home with my penis asking me what had just happened and why I stopped. At home, I went upstairs to my bedroom and told it that it had acted irresponsibly and then I beat it for being so bad.

Saturday I needed to study all day. I had my first tests in two classes, Advanced Geometry and World History on Monday and Tuesday. I was OK in the geometry class but I needed to really study for the history one. I sat there at my desk in my antique oak office chair, the one I’d picked out of somebody’s garbage, sometimes sliding back and forth, sometimes spinning to the sides, and the old chair kept groaning and threatening to fall apart. About mid-afternoon, I took the chair out to our workshop in the back yard, knocked it apart some, cleaned the dried glue out of the holes, reglued it, and started putting it back together. That’s where Gianna found me.

“Here, hold this together,” I said. “I want to put a strap clamp around the legs, tighten it, and then let it sit overnight. I’ve already stripped it and after I reglue it I’m going to put a couple of coats of polyurethane on it. It’ll be good for another hundred years.”

She held the legs while I put a strap around them.

“Mikey, I want to go back to see Azee again,” she said. “I wish there was just one of them. I like them but I can’t like them both.”

“Get Carol to go with you. Tell her about Azee. Tell her the two of you can play spin the bottle with Azee and she won’t be able to tell which one she’s kissing.”

“Can you really tell them apart?”

“I think so, especially when they’re naked. Anthony’s dick is bigger than Zorba’s. Their voices aren’t quite the same either.”

“Mikey, please don’t tease me,” she said. “Are they as big as you?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them with a hard-on. You and Carol can give Azee one, I mean two, and Alex can give me one and then you girls can measure. Just get a yard stick.”

“You say I’m bad for teasing you. You’re just as bad.”

“Did you see them when they ran in the house naked on Sunday morning?”

“Yeah, for just a second. They ran past me and Alex in the hall. Mikey, they were both so beautiful, sexy and beautiful, grins all over their faces, all their stuff flopping around, their tight little butts. You’re beautiful too. Can I see you again tonight?”

“No, Gianna. We can’t start doing that.”

“Mikey, I know you’re my brother. I’m not going to spread my legs for you. I’m going to save it for some guy who probably won’t appreciate it. I just want to learn about guys with you. You’re safe.”

“Well, shit, don’t you think maybe I’d like to learn with you? I’m tired of looking at pictures of pussies and jacking off. You let me do you and I’ll let you do me.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Gianna, when we were at the Andreas’s house and you and Alex found me in the bathroom after I’d had a wet dream, I looked at my face in the mirror and I hated it. I really hated the way I look. Mr. Andreas said fate had not been kind to me and...”

She interrupted me. “No, Mikey, that’s not the way it is. Fate’s a woman and one day she said she was going to make the most beautiful man ever and she made you. She gave you the most beautiful face she could dream up and ... a tall slim hard body and a ... a big dick and when she got through she was afraid of what she’d made. She thought you’d be so conceited with your looks and you’d just fuck all the women and never learn to care about anybody else. She was afraid of you, Mikey, so she grabbed her paint brush and slapped a red streak on one side of your face and she stood back and looked and smiled and she was satisfied. That’s you, Mikey: the most beautiful man in the world but with a red patch on one side of your face. Fate put it there so you would be the most loving and caring man in the world. That’s you, Mikey.”

“Don’t be silly, Gianna. You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”

“I’m not, Mikey. I’m not silly. That’s what I see when I look at you. That’s the way Alex is going to see you when she really knows you. When she really sees you, she’s going to love you.”

“Thanks, Gianna, I love you too.”

“I know, Mikey, but our love is different. It’s brother-sister love. We both want the best for each other. We don’t want to live together and have babies. You’ve protected me and cared for me as long as I can remember. We tease about it but I’ll never let you fuck me and you wouldn’t if I let you. We couldn’t love each other like a brother and a sister anymore and I want that kind of love to last all our lives. Mom says I worship you too much but I don’t. I feel like I’ve got the best brother in the world.”

“Stop it, you’ll make me blush and then I’ll have a red face all over.”

“Yeah, and you’ll still be beautiful to me, Mikey.”

“Mom and Dad are going out to dinner tonight, Gianna. What do you want? Pizza OK?”

“You’ll make it? Pizza a la Rossi? One large size with anchovies and mushrooms on half and black olives and Italian sausage on the other.”

“Yeah. Light on mozzarella. Heavy on grated Romano.”

“That would be good. Will you let me have a beer with it?”

“Ask Mom.”

She started to leave again.

“Gianna, maybe we could do something after they leave. You know, I show you mine and you show me yours.”

She smiled and left. Why do women always do that, just leave a guy hanging without an answer?

After Mom and Dad left I went upstairs to my room and studied some more. Gianna came in my room and stood behind me. I glanced around and she was dressed like she usually is in the summer at home: knit shirt, no bra, shorts, and white socks. Just like me and I didn’t have a bra on either. And my shorts weren’t short shorts like hers. I wondered what she had decided.

“Would you rub my neck and shoulders?” I asked. I liked for her to give me a little massage and I knew she liked to do it. I really was stiff and knotted up in my neck and shoulders from studying so much.

“Yeah, take your shirt off.”

I took my shirt off and put my head down on my arms on my desk. She rubbed me the way I liked it, kind of hard and rough.

“Mikey, I’m going to take a shower before I go to bed.”

“OK, just don’t use all the hot water.”

“We could shower together and save hot water.”

“We could skip the shower altogether and save more hot water.”

“Mikey, I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of sex and guys and what I want them to do to me. If I let you do me, you know, like Alex and I did you, you won’t hurt me; will you?”

“Have I ever deliberately hurt you?

“Yeah, the time when I was fourteen and you spanked my butt.”

“Yeah, and I apologized but you should have stopped hitting me.”

“I know. Mikey, I’m not afraid of your dick because it’s so big. I just don’t want to hurt our relationship. If I let you fuck me, we can never go back to being the way we are now.”

“Gianna, I know that. That’s not going to happen. Trust me. I’ve never lied to you or hurt you except for spanking your little ass; have I?”

“No. When you’re through, I’ll be in my room. Let’s take a shower together, OK?”

“I’m through. You know, we haven’t showered together since we moved in here, since you were six and I was nine.”

“Yeah, ten years ago. I think we should do it all the time. Save water.”

She slapped me on the shoulder, her signal that she was through. I stood up and took her hands in mine. I knew we were about to do something we probably shouldn’t do but I wanted to. I pulled her shirt over her head and then stood there looking down at her beautiful breasts. I ran my finger around the nipple of one breast.

“Beautiful! You have beautiful breasts, Gianna.”

“Are they too little, Mikey?”

“Anything over a mouthful’s wasted.”

“Would you do that, put your mouth on them, I mean? I want you to.”

I nodded and then reached down to my shorts and unzipped and let them fall to the floor. I didn’t have on any underwear. My dick started to raise its head and look around for something to get into. I stood on one foot and took off one sock, repeated on the other leg, and I was naked in front of her. I spread my legs a little and let her look. My dick stood up and looked at her. My balls just hung there like they weren’t involved. I could hear her breathing.

She took off her socks first, then her shorts, and stood there for a moment with her thumbs hooked in her panties. She hesitated and I didn’t know why because I’d seen her naked before lots of times. Then she pulled down and shimmied and held her panties out to me. I took them, held them to my nose, sniffed loudly a few times, and grinned at her. She grinned back. I realized I had smelled something different so I held them to my nose and sniffed again. Was that what an aroused woman smelled like? Did she want me to smell her like that?