Chapter 4: Passion

Monday, May 06th, 1996, Sanford Maine

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Ugh,” I grunted, trying to reach over and smack off my alarm. At first, I was super confused; why couldn’t I roll over and get to my nightstand? I was perplexed for a few seconds. I will admit, I am not a morning person at all. That doesn’t mean that I am grumpy because I’m really not; my brain just doesn’t have any higher function capabilities before coffee. Okay, my sister and my parents would probably say that I had zero brain function before coffee, but hey, no one is perfect.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Davey ... can you turn that god awful alarm off, please!” Amber growled.

“S’okay, it’s just my alarm; it will be morning soon. I need to go wake up, Amber, for school.”

“I am Amber,” she snorted. “God, get up and get in the shower, you tackle dummy! You definitely need your coffee, it’s like someone puts your brains in a box when you’re sleeping, and we need to reinstall them before we catch the school bus!” a voice told me as I heard distinct female giggling ensue, and I felt a few sharp pokes in my side.

“OW, OW ... OUCH!” I jerked upright and looked down to see what evil creature the Devil had set upon me, tormenting me that early in the morning.

I saw a puff of long blonde hair poking out from under my blankets and a very cute (yet evil) looking doppelganger copy of my sister’s face. It had a Cheshire cat grin spread wide across its evil visage. Hmmm, yep, that definitely looked like a tongue being poked out at me.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Oh my god, Davey! If I am going to sleep in here with you, we are changing that obnoxious alarm tone! How do you not bash it up into little pieces every morning?” she grumped.

Having gathered a tiny amount of wits about me, I came to two conclusions. One. I needed to stop my alarm and get up for school, but the evil creature’s body was blocking me from my nightstand. I performed an amazing feat of gymnastics to reach over and smack my alarm off, which bleakly informed me that it was 7:03 while I started to think about conclusion number two.

Two. That’s not an evil copy of my bratty little sister, it’s her, and she looks adorable, not evil per se. So I did the polite thing; what I would want to do to any gorgeous girl who had decided to spend a night of fun debauchery with me. I grunted loudly in their general direction, furrowed my brows at them in confusion. Grunted again in earnest communication, and tried to stumble to my feet after scrambling to the edge of the bed.

My morning communication skills must have been up to snuff, and I must have said something particularly funny because it certainly had my sister in stitches as she burst out in uncontrolled laughter.

“You may be as dumb as a bag of bricks when you first wake up, Sweetie, but you’re adorable, and you’re MY dummy! Good morning, Baby! I love you!” she said, not just sweetly but brightly too.

I stretched for a few seconds, yawned like I was trying to catch some errant flies, and rubbed my bleary eyes with my fists. My brain’s first recognizable thought for the day was, <Hey, wasn’t adorable our word from conclusion number two?>.

Thought number two was much better, <Holy shit! Amber ... she slept next to us all night!>

Thought three was even smarter; I must have been on a roll. <She just said good morning and that she loves us, respond to her, stupid.>

“Mmmm, g’ morning, Sis. I love ya too,” I mumbled hoarsely.

More giggling, good thing she’s my sister and knows how I am in the mornings. She has had fifteen years of practice, after all. Well, to be fair, one day of practice when it involves waking up naked in my bed next to me. Hmmm, I am on a roll; that was a very pleasant thought.

“I’m going to hop in the shower now, Sis. I loved sleeping next to you, by the way,” that came out much better than my grunts.

“Whoa! He can talk!” she laughed mirthfully at my expense.

Throwing my blanket off, she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of my bed. Then she stretched her arms above her head while arching her back like a cat, yawning prettily. My morning wood just got another bundle of reasons to stay as hard as iron. Namely, that bundle was my sexy sister, Amber, as everything that I felt was bundled up in her anyway. God, she was hot. I don’t think that she knew what she was doing to me; I was about to hop on her instead of hopping into the shower. On second thought, I bet she knew exactly what she was doing to me. I figured that with her being a girl and girls being much smarter at that stuff than boys. Considering that I was the one frozen halfway to the washroom with drool hanging down my chin, yeah, she knew.

“Goddamn, Amber, for as long as I live and as long as you’ll have me. I don’t think that I will ever get used to how beautiful you are or how you make me feel,” I said as I stared at her with love and lust in my eyes.

Yep definitely on a roll. Bouncing up, she crossed the space to me in two effortless bounds and grabbed me into a fierce hug.

“You’ll always have me, brother. Especially because you say the sweetest things,” she said as she kissed me with a peck on the lips. “Come on, bright eyes, let’s shower, or we will be late for school. Dad’s probably up, and he’ll start to worry if we don’t stumble downstairs in about twenty minutes.”

We hopped in the shower together, and I was actually impressed with myself that I didn’t delay us too badly while playing touchy-feely with her. We were only delayed by five minutes or so. That time I peed the right way—down the drain while Amber watched, fascinated. She didn’t carry through on her threat to piss on me in revenge and used the toilet like normal. I wasn’t sure if that disappointed me or not. We dried off, I got dressed, and headed downstairs while being informed that a certain sister of mine had to put her face on and pick out today’s outfit.

“Hi, Dad! Oh, thank’s pop, I see you made the coffee for me already,” I greeted our Dad, where he sat at the kitchen table reading the early edition paper.

“Good morning, son,” he replied without looking up from what he was reading. “Yeah, fresh pot, knew you would need some, although you seem more chipper than usual for this time of the day,” he said as he shifted his weight on the wooden kitchen chair, which as usual, creaked in protest.

One of these days, it’s going to fall apart in pieces and dump his butt on the floor. My Dad is a scarily big man, six foot five and two-hundred and sixty pounds of muscle, and even though he is forty-two, he still looks like he is around thirty. I was glad that we had always been close and that we had a great relationship. That thought brought my guilt flooding to the surface; he trusted me, respected me, and I had betrayed him. He will read it in my face, and he will see what his Princess and I have been doing. He’ll know, and he’ll kill me.

“Yeah, seems like the shower did what it was supposed to today,” that came out a bit forced; at least it sounded forced in my head. I was starting to feel a bit flushed.

I quickly made a coffee, three sugars, and two creams. I know, I know, my mother had said that I would make myself a diabetic too. Meh, I was too young to care about that; I liked the sweetness. Sipping a big gulp, I poured a big bowl of cereal and popped a couple of Eggo’s in the toaster as well. By the time I scarfed down my cereal, my Eggo’s had popped. I smothered them in syrup and wolfed them down too. Amber came skipping into the kitchen and hip-checked me; she had taken considerably more time to get dressed than I do. Girls pfft, they take forever to put on six pieces of clothes, go figure.

“G’ morning, Daddy!” my sister purred at him.

She glided up to him, pushed his paper down, and leaned in for a big hug and a smooch on the cheek. She really was a Daddy’s girl; she had him wrapped around her little finger, and everyone knew it. Even our Dad had stopped trying to pretend that she didn’t.

“Good morning, Princess! How’s my little girl this beautiful morning? Did you guys have a good night last night? Did you sleep well? I see you ordered pizza again?”

When our Dad asked about last night, I had a mini-brain freeze, and I panicked. I quickly spun towards the coffee pot and took my time making another one with my back turned. My heart was pounding. I felt like he knew what I had done to his little Princess; and that I had a date with the hangman at high noon coming up soon.

“I’m fantastic, Daddy! I had a great night last night with Davey, we had pizza, but I guess you know that from the box, and we cuddled up some and watched some TV. And I slept amazing, the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months, Daddy!” she purred all that to him while gliding around me to make herself a coffee; she threw me a wink when she knew that our Dad couldn’t see.

I had thought that I was the one with balls. Amber didn’t even have the grace to blush. Shit, we needed to talk; I was so tense, and I would blow our new relationship into the wide-open if I couldn’t get a handle on things better than that.

Gulping down the last of my coffee, I sprinted towards the stairs yelling out, “Getting my stuff and brushing my teeth; be back down in five.”

After grabbing what I needed, I brushed my teeth and rubbed a dab of gel into my wavy hair (I liked it to be a little spiky). I peeled off the soiled sheets from my bed, threw them in my hamper, and then headed back down to grab my lunch. Amber met me at the bottom of the stairs with it already in her hand while munching on an apple. She eats like a bird; I didn’t know where she got her strength from.

“Bye, Dad,” we both yelled in unison as we headed out the door to catch our school bus.

Man, I couldn’t wait until I had my license; we’d be driving to school next year. I was about to finish grade ten in a few weeks. I’d have two years of taking us to school like the seniors starting in September. Amber was only in grade nine, so she had an extra year to go after me. Hmmm, I was supposed to be going to college by then; what would happen to us? I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to stomach a year apart. I pushed that thought out of my mind; we had two years before we needed to deal with that. I might not live out the next couple of weeks, let alone the next couple of years.

“Hey, Amb, can we talk somewhere quiet at lunch? Just the two of us?” I asked quietly so she could just barely hear me.

“Umm yeah, but what’s up? Why are you talking so quietly? I can barely hear you, Bro?” she asked in a completely normal tone and volume.

“Uh, I dunno, Sis. ‘Cause I’m an idiot?” I grinned ruefully.

“Well, I won’t argue with you on that, Davey, but you’re MY idiot,” she replied with a smirk. “So what gives, are you alright?”

“Well, to be honest, I am just a bit freaked out,” I sighed.

“Freaked out! About what? About us? Davey, you’re scaring me! Did I do something wrong?” she pleaded while clutching my forearm, her eyes starting to water a bit.

“No, No! You haven’t done anything, Sis. I still feel the same about you; it’s not that!” I whispered urgently in her ear while squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her. “I am just terrified that Dad knows or that Mom will see right through me, and well ... that would be the end of life for me. I just wanted to ask you later about how you handled things so cool and calm with Dad. Don’t you get paranoid too?”

“God, Davey, don’t you ever do that to me again! You scared the shit out of me! I ... I thought that you were going to tell me it was over. My heart almost stopped; you gotta speak differently ... please ... Whew ... my heart is racing now. When you said you were freaked, I was sure that you meant about what we’ve been doing!” she whispered fiercely, while constantly rotating the bracelet on her wrist that I had given her.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, Sweetheart. I really am an idiot, but as you said, I am YOUR idiot. That’s never going to change. I just need to learn to deal, ya know? Gimme a quick hug, Babe. I love you so much it hurts,” I whispered back to her.

We wrapped our arms around each other and hugged tightly. Longer than we normally would in public, but no one was around that we noticed, and we needed it. A few minutes later, the bus pulled up, and we joined the raucous morning crowd as we headed to Sanford high.

We both took our usual seats on the bus. Amber sat with CC right behind where I sat with Josh. The twins Andy and Stewart sat on the bench across the aisle from me. Our other friends either got dropped off by their folks or took another bus with a different route. One of our friends, Martin, lived within walking distance of the school. We always laughed and claimed that that was because his parents had planned ahead for all the school he would miss. It seemed as if he was constantly getting sent home to serve out of school suspensions.

Seriously, I think he was one suspension away from being expelled; he would need to repeat the whole year if that happened. I was planning on trying to help him stay out of trouble until we could get through our exams. It would really suck if he was held back, and I had two reasons to make sure that didn’t happen; the other one was sitting right behind me. I sure as hell didn’t want him in her grade. I know that she had said that she didn’t like him as she had pretended to, but I also knew that he had the hots for her. I didn’t like that.

She had already told me that CC thought he was going to ask her out that week, and that tells me that that part was probably true. Then there was the t-shirt he got her for her birthday that said ‘foxy’ on it. As if that wasn’t a subtle hint to what he thought. I couldn’t even really be mad at him either. First of all, he was my bud, I liked him, and we always had a blast goofing around together. Second, he hadn’t done anything wrong. I mean, Amber was as much his friend as I was, and she WAS a fox just like he thinks. Under normal circumstances, by being her big brother, I wouldn’t have these crazy feelings for her in the first place.

“DUDE!” Josh practically screamed in my face. “Like Earth to David, what the fuck, man? I’ve been trying to talk to you for like three minutes! You alright? Hey Amber, did the big dope here have his morning coffee or what?” he sounded part amused and part exasperated.

“Sorry, man, I just have a lot on my mind. I didn’t mean to ignore you, bud. What were you saying?” I asked him.

“Well, first, I was reminding you that it’s Martin’s birthday this coming weekend. I wanted to make sure that you didn’t forget, you know ... about his secret party plans and all. You and Amber are still going to go, right?” his voice went down a few notches like it always did when he was in conspiracy mode.

“Yeah, man, we’re still coming. We wouldn’t dream of missing it. I can’t wait to crush some cans.” (Crush some cans was the teenage lingo at the time for chugging beers)

“Sorry Josh, I was in the middle of some important girl talk with CC. What were you saying about my brother’s coffee addiction? ‘Cause I can tell you everything, you want to know! It’s a seriously sad, sad tale. The poor guy! Well, his brains, you see, they fall right out of his big ol’ head at night, every night. Always at ten o’clock precisely, they go splat right wherever he is, no matter what he’s doing. Out! Bam! Splat! It makes one hell of a mess. Then it takes at least two coffees in the morning to make him smart again, or at least not as stupid! Right lovely brother o’ mine!?” she asked with a laugh as she yucked it up good for her audience, which by then was at least half the rows of seats around us.

I chuckled with the others; she was pretty funny, pretty and funny, a most decidedly deadly combination.

“Yeah, what she said, just don’t ask me to count to one before at least two coffees,” I smirked.

“Haha, I wouldn’t ask you to count to one if you had an I.V. drip with coffee running through your veins and had been awake for hours, ‘cause you would still be wrong,” said CC laughing.

“Love you too, CC.” I quipped with a grin. “At least we know that you can count to two,” I said while pointedly turning around to look directly at her large chest.

“Pfft, every boy I know can count to two when it comes to the girls!” CC grinned right back at me and shimmied her ‘girls’ in her shirt.

After a few more minutes of good-natured ribbing going back and forth between all of us, the bus pulled up at the school and let us out. We all scrambled to our respective lockers, put our bags away, and grabbed the stuff we needed for our first classes. Just another day in a high school student’s life, even for a sister loving incestuous brother like me. The morning classes went by fast and smooth.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, I shot like a rocket to my locker. I just might have sent one poor student sprawling I had rushed so fast. I grabbed my food and just as quickly bolted to my sister’s locker. That, unfortunately, was on the other side of the school. My school seemed to think that putting all of the grade nine girls lockers in a secluded area separated from the rest of us that they wouldn’t get hit on somehow. Yeah, right. I guess at some point in history, a ‘concerned’ parent had been worried about their daughter getting laid or something.

Sliding up around the corner, I skidded to a stop at her locker, but I guessed that I had beat her there, as I was alone. Settling back to wait, my mind jumped back to my earlier thoughts about Martin liking my sister. I was feeling a bit confused over the whole thing. Well, that wasn’t true; I wasn’t confused about a couple of things. There was no confusion that I was in love with Amber, and there was no confusion that I was feeling a little bit of jealousy over Martin, even though nothing had ever happened between them.

Was I that pathetic that I could feel jealous over something in my imagination? Over something that hasn’t even happened? I mean, it’s not like he had asked my sister out yet, and even if he did, that didn’t mean anything if she simply said no, right? So why in the hell was my stomach getting itself all tied up in knots for? My sister was definitely right about one thing, I was a fucking idiot.

I had to play it cool; otherwise, the feelings I had for my sister were going to be as easy to read on my face as the teacher’s lessons were up on the chalkboard. So even if Martin made a play, I couldn’t blow up at him or do anything retarded. I better try really hard to not blow it. That is a huge part of why I needed to talk to my baby, Sis. She’d be able to set me straight. I figured she’d say a few somethings, she’d make me feel silly, and I’d feel as right as rain again.

God, I loved her. I felt like a puppy waiting at the door for his master to arrive home. I was sure that I got a big goofy grin all over my face as I pictured my sister scratching me behind my ear. With her saying, ‘Who wants a belly rub? Were you a good boy today? Does the good boy want a belly rub?’ While I flopped onto my back nude with my cock sticking up. Man, I certainly didn’t lack for being able to amuse myself—that’s for sure.

“Hey, there’s my favorite brother in the whole world!” my sister’s sexy voice whispered in my ear.

She had snuck up on me as I was lost in my thoughts, and her sultry breath on my ear startled me out of my reverie. I should have smelled the peaches in the air before she got that close.

“Hey, Amb, sorry. I was just in deep thought. Since I had my two coffees this morning, I figured that I might as well use my brain before it fell out again,” I quipped quietly.

“Seriously though, are you okay, Bro? The big bad ninja is getting snuck up on and startled? Earlier on the bus, you couldn’t even pay attention to your buddy when he was practically sitting in your lap,” she grabbed my hand and gently tugged on my arm so that I would move to let her get into her locker. “It’s okay, Davey. Lemme grab my lunch, and we’ll head to Ms. Jenner’s classroom near where the labs are. No one will be there so we can talk, okay?”

“Yeah, that sounds great, Amber. Sorry, I’m just feeling overwhelmed right now, but don’t worry. I meant what I said right before we got on the bus this morning one-hundred-and-ten percent,” I said quietly as I tried to tell her with my eyes what I really wanted to say, but there were too many other kids around.

“Okay, come on, spunky,” she said, tugging at me by the hand.

We got to Ms. Jenner’s classroom, and indeed, it was empty. Grabbing a couple of seats in the back corner, we sat facing each other. We both started eating our lunch (I was starving by that point). I made it a habit to never miss a meal, or extra meals, or snacks, or even snacks with meals. My Mom liked to say that I was her walking grocery bill and that all her pay went to keep me fed—just like the farmers’ horses. Sometimes she threatened to just get me a supply of animal feed because it would have been cheaper.

“So tell me, big Bro, what’s eating you, huh? Are you really truly sure that it’s not us that’s bothering you? And that you’re just not saying it, ‘cause you don’t wanna hurt me? Just please tell me if it is. Okay, Davey? The way you’re acting today is really scaring me! You’re not anything like yourself since we woke up.

“I ... I was so happy to wake up next to you ... Weren’t you happy, Davey? You seemed so weird with me in the kitchen earlier. Plus, outside, plus on the bus—you were so out of it for the most part. Please, please tell me that you’re not regretting us,” a tear formed and fell out of her eye, quickly followed by many more as she pleaded with me.

(I had no clue—being a typical teenage male—that my sister would be feeling insecure after having what was essentially her first real sexual experience).

“Amber! No, Baby, no! It is nothing like that! In fact, it’s the complete opposite, my love,” I dropped my sandwich and dropped out of my chair too.

Kneeling at her side, I grabbed both of her hands in one of mine; my other hand, I curled up around her back.

“Sweetheart, I swear to you, on my life, on all I hold dear, that I am head over heels in love with you. I want you, and I need you like a fish needs water or a bird needs air. We are made for each other, Honey, and I truly believe that, especially after these past few days. I am just going crazy, not over what we did, Baby, but over getting caught.

“I don’t know how you dealt with Dad like that, so casual like. You were as cool as a cucumber. When Dad asked how you slept and how your night was, my heart stopped in my chest. I seriously thought that he knew what I had done to you and that I was a dead man. The worst part of that would never be seeing you again. My life would be better off dead than that. I can’t lose you, Amber, I can’t,” I told her passionately.

As she listened to my tirade, she kept crying. I gently raised my hand to wipe the tears away with my thumb, but they trickled down too fast for me to catch. Her liquid green eyes brimmed as she stared at me, which caused my heart to hitch. By the time that I spit out my last words, I had shed a couple of tears too. The emotions that I had been dealing with since April had caught up with me; I felt like a pressure cooker about to blow. I was not used to feeling that way.

I was usually so calm and collected, maybe because I had never felt a huge weight of guilt like that before. The most guilt I had ever felt previously seemed mundane in comparison. Guilt over sneaking a few beers or some hard liquor was not even in the same ballpark as the guilt felt over eating out your sister’s pussy and letting her blow you while swallowing your cum. Add in my irrational jealousy, and I knew that I needed help and in a major way, or I might explode and unintentionally hurt everyone by mistake.

“Oh, Davey. I am so sorry, Baby,” she reached out her arms to me and pulled me into a tight hug. “I didn’t realize how stressed out all this would be for you. I just thought—you know—I thought that it would be easy for you to act normal. To act like we always have. And to only be our true selves when we were alone. I know you’ve always prided yourself on being honest, Davey, which makes me very happy because I know you’re a good man. A good man that I want to be with always.

“But you need to realize; they can’t read your mind, Sweetie. They would only ever know something if we told them so directly or if they caught us red-handed. Come on, Bro, you need to think better. Mom and Dad would never even suspect us of doing sex stuff with each other; it’s not even a blip on their radar. Look at me, in my eyes. I promise you, my love, we won’t get caught. Trust me, just follow my lead, act the same way we always do around our parents and friends. Okay, Baby? Can you do that for me, David?” her eyes had stopped crying, and all I saw in them was love.

I blew out a long breath; it felt like I had been holding it in all day, ever since I had seen our Dad. The guilt eased back a little, it wasn’t gone, but it was reduced somewhat. It gave me a sense of relief. Amber loved me; I loved Amber, and that was all that mattered. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents very, very much, even my friends. But nothing compared to Amber, and I realized that more every day.

I realized that even before the past few months had exposed my deeper feelings, that had always been the case. She had always been, and always would be, my Amber. (I had never heard of the term panic attack back then, but I do believe that I had been on the verge of one at that point).

“Thanks, Sis, I really needed that. Really, I think I just needed you. Of course, I trust you. I will do my best to stop freaking out about our parents. What you said makes sense. I think ... I think that a big part of the reason that I am feeling this way is because I have always considered being your protective big brother as something serious. Dad and Mom encouraged that big time.

“So knowing how our relationship just ... well ... changed and knowing how Mom and especially Dad are always telling me to protect you from boys. Well, I felt, and still feel a bit, honestly like ... well, like I am supposed to be protecting you from myself now, I guess. I feel as if I have become what I was supposed to protect you from. I ... I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but that is what has been flying around my head since April. I...”

“Shhh, Baby, shhh, lemme say something first. What you’re saying makes perfect sense; now I understand it. See, and by you talking to me and letting it out, I can help you deal with it, okay? So don’t bottle stuff up. That’s how relationships get wrecked. First of all, you are still my protector. What would you do if Jason, that shithead ex of CC’s, attacked me? Or...”

“I would kill him; it would be the last thing that he ever did on this planet,” I said with such instant and fiercely cold conviction that I knew that she knew that it was a simple fact; there was no boasting.

“See, I know, Baby, you’ll always take care of me. Well, I’m sure that Mom and Dad wouldn’t agree with us being a couple. But in a sense, though, who better for me to be with than my protector? Who better to fall in love with than my very own built-in Prince Charming? Would it be better if I had found another boy? And then what, would he become my new protector? What if I got married, and he became abusive? How could you protect me then? How could you protect me if I was with someone else? You couldn’t be there one-hundred percent of the time, Davey.

“Plus, boyfriends expect a certain amount of alone time with their girl. What Mom and Dad really want is for you to help me pick good boyfriends. They trust you, and you know the boys our age in a way that they never can. Well, I superseded everyone, and I picked the best boy that I could possibly ever have. You,” she said as she poked me in the chest, right where my heart was.

“You’ve really thought a lot about this, haven’t you, Amb?” I asked.

“Yes, Davey, I have. Since I was seven, I have thought about you as my man, my lover, and my boyfriend. I didn’t even know what it meant. I didn’t even know that picking you as my ‘husband’ as I thought back then, even meant anything to do with sex. I thought it was just living together forever like Mom and Dad and sharing a bedroom. We napped together all the time anyway,” she chuckled softly at that.

“Well, now we can share that bedroom, Babe. That is one good thing about Mom and Dad, we have our bedrooms and washroom to ourselves. They never bother us, and we can always lock our doors, too,” I said with a small smile, the first to cross my face in a while.

“This is how much I have thought about this, Davey. I got Mom’s permission to date, starting when I turned fifteen. I am now officially allowed to get a boyfriend. So ... You know how I told you that I was going to get on the pill, right? Well, I am getting Mom to take me for the pill next weekend,” she said with a sexy grin, which was quite a feat to pull off when you had red puffy eyes.

“What! Mom’s actually going to get you the pill! Holy shit, I never would have thought that she would go for that!” I said, shocked.