Saturday, July 8, 2018

Caleb and Kaitlyn were twins. They’d turned 16 years old in March. Caleb was born 9 minutes earlier, and Kaitlyn reluctantly accepted being the younger sister. She liked being Caleb’s little sister sometimes.

“I can’t believe you found these. I can’t believe Daddy even has these.” She held up a pair of VHS tapes. “ ‘Cocksure Housewives, and ‘Everything Sue Wanted to Know About Sex’? Really?” She laughed, huskily, appalled and delighted. “Ew, Caleb! Ew-ew-ew!”

Caleb laughed, and then snickered. “I wonder if the VHS player works. It has a remote with it.” He pried off the back and inspected inside. “No batteries. Good thing, as they’d just be all corroded, anyway.”

Kaitlyn made another face, squeamish this time. “Ew-ew!” she repeated.

The twins could not be less alike. Caleb stood 5’11” tall, and weighed 165 pounds. Kaitlyn was a shrimp, barely 5’1” tall in her bare feet. Soaking wet, she weighed 86 pounds. Her sky blue eyes clashed with Caleb’s brown. Her corn silk hair laughed at his deep brunette. He wore glasses and looked studious in them; she just looked plain cute in hers. One thing in common was how attractive they were to the opposite sex.

“I wish you’d go put on a bra.”

“I wish you’d stop looking at my boobs.”

“I will if you put on a bra, dammit!”

“It’s sexist, looking at them, and also telling me to go put on a bra. I don’t tell you what to do.”

“I don’t have boobs.”

“Asshole.”

Turning on her heel, she left for the kitchen, grin on her face, right middle finger extended over her shoulder. She wasn’t bare chested, of course. Just distracting in a pullover knit shirt and tight black shorts. Not that Caleb noticed her legs. Nice or not, they didn’t distract like nipple pokes through her knit top.

“Get batteries!” he yelled.

“No!”

“Don’t you want to watch them?”

“No!” she yelled back, shivering. What 16-year-old grossed herself out watching 20 year old porno tapes? She got all the porno she wanted watching her iPad. “And I’m not putting on a bra!”

She grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge and a cinnamon raisin bagel from the Thomas’s bag. “Do you want a bagel?” she called.

“I want you to put on a bra!”

“Sit on that thought,” she muttered. “Do you want cream cheese?”

“Yeah. That would be great.”

It was Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad were gone, and wouldn’t be back until Sunday afternoon. A facetious coin toss had designated her babysitter for the day, which meant not wearing a bra if she chose not to. She really loved not wearing a bra, anyway. Especially if it distracted Caleb.

“Here.”

Caleb accepted the bagel and took a bite. He refused to look at her chest.

“I brought you a Diet Coke too.” She extended the can and he took it from her and popped it open.

The garage project was a spur of the moment thing. Dad promised both a used car for their 17th birthdays if they made room in the garage. Kaitlyn suggested it because today was forecast to be the last cool day before a monster high pressure system moved in from the south and heated everything up. By Monday, the temp would hit 92 degrees, and outside activity would cease. For her and Caleb, at least.

“Why would Dad keep these?” she asked seriously. They’d discovered his VHS deck and the dozen tapes in a box at the back of a shelf. He’d marked it Old X-mas Decorations with a Magic Marker. The only thing Christmassy about the contents was a cassette with red and green stripes on label. It was labeled: The Adventures of Santa Clause’s Elves.

“Is Santa Claus spelled with an ‘E’ at the end?” she asked. “It isn’t, is it?”

“How should I know.”

She dropped the tape in the box.

Kaitlyn was not a virgin. She’d been with one boy since her 14th birthday, and they’d screwed dozens of times in his or her bedroom after school. She needn’t worry about coming down pregnant without use of a condom now; Mom had her on birth control since her 16th birthday.

Caleb tossed her a roll of packing tape. “I’m not tossing it out. You can if you want to. I sure ain’t putting the tapes in the recycle bucket. I don’t even know it they recycle the kind of plastic in those cases. I’m bettin’ no.”

He flicked a thumb at her chest. “Sorry about ragging on you. You know what seeing you braless does to me.”

Kaitlyn rolled the tape in her hands. “I do it because it bugs you, Caleb.”

“I know,” he said, grinning along with her. “Do you know what Mom and Dad would do if they knew we fucked?”

Kaitlyn continued to roll the tape. “I know what she would do to me.”

Mom had fallen pregnant at 14. She had the twins on her 15th birthday. Mom was 31 in March.

“We can stop if you want,” he said.

“I don’t want to stop. I like being with you.”

“It’s really dangerous, you know. And for God’s sake, Katie ... it’s incest.”

She stopped rolling the tape. “Do you want to stop?”

Caleb shook his head. “I think that would God damn kill me. I just feel bad, ‘cause it feels like I’m using you,” he said.

“You are,” she said, grinning wryly. “Boys always use girls.”

He tossed an empty box at her; she dodged.

An hour later, they called it quits and lowered the garage door. Four big lawn bags sat against one wall, ready to go to the curb Monday morning. Both were tired, sweaty, and marred by dust and grime. Kaitlyn wished that she had changed into something more appropriate for cleaning the garage. Her knit top might be unsalvageable. She had snagged it twice in the front. Her shorts were probably okay, though.

“Let’s watch one,” she said.

Caleb blinked at her, confused.

“The tapes.” She indicated the shelf with the box of Old X-mas Decorations.

“Which one?” he said, grinning.

Katie actually blushed a little. “The one about the bother and sister?”

Caleb hadn’t seen that tape. “I need to shower first. Wanna take it with me?”

Katie colored a little deeper. “Sure.” They showered together after sex, so this was no big deal.

After dropping the VHS player off in the den along with the tape entitled ‘Stephen’s Sizzling Sister’—it would embarrass Katie later when she discovered that Stephen’s sizzling sister was named Katie, also—Mom called, putting the shower on hold. Once it became obvious the conversation would become a semi-marathon, Katie waved Caleb on, and you miss a nice scene where Caleb helps her undress in the bathroom, and then shampoos her hair and wash’s her body while her hair soaks up conditioner. Maybe you’ll luck out later, though. The story could cycle back to another shower if they have sex.

Caleb showered, and discovered Katie still on the phone when he finished. Chagrined, he gave her a ‘What Gives’ gesture, and shook his head when she shrugged helplessly and mouthed: “I don’t know!”

Pointing at the floor, she made it clear that he should go downstairs and hook up the VHS. Disgusted, he left her sitting fully dressed on the edge of her mattress.

The VHS had an AV port on the back that allowed a direct hookup to the Panasonic TV. The tape player was also a Panasonic model. It wasn’t as old as he’d originally thought. Popping in the tape, he made sure it worked, and then went to the kitchen for batteries.

In her bedroom, Katie finally got mom off the phone and threw her iPhone on the bed in disgust. She’d missed a shower with Caleb, which she really had wanted to share. It wasn’t that often they got to shower together, anymore. Sex in the afternoon had dried up recently, as each responded to peer pressure, and after-school activities. They weren’t 14 years old, anymore. They both drove, and both had responsibilities. It would only get worse in the future.

Katie stripped the top off over her head and threw it on the floor. She had forgotten to use Sure this morning and smelled herself. The garage was hot and had no airflow to speak of. Her underarms and chest felt yucky.

Katie was small, with small breasts. She wore a size 32A bra, but her nicely shaped specimens filled the cups as nicely as small breasts could fill a bra. Only three boys besides Caleb—four, really, if you wanted to count Marissa’s brother Jeremiah—had ever seen her bare chested. Jeremiah was outside at the pool as she and Marissa sunbathed topless one day after school. It freaked her out a bit, but Marissa was perfectly fine with it. She taunted Jeremiah with her bare boobs all the time. Jeremiah was two years younger.

Katie scratched under her left arm and hoped a rash wasn’t coming. Knit tops did that to her sometimes when she perspired heavily. She also hadn’t shaved, and she ought to remedy that in the shower. It was almost a given that she and Caleb would have sex later. She wanted herself perfect as possible, because boys didn’t like stubble beneath a girl’s arms, or feeling it on her legs. Caleb was no different in that respect from other boys.

Like every girl on earth, Katie had slightly mismatched breasts. If examined closely, the right proved just discernibly bigger. Katie was right-handed. Ditto her nipples, which were small and pink, surrounded by half-dollar size pink areola. Her right areola was marginally larger. She also evinced a condition for, and about which, Caleb call her a ‘puffy’. Braless, her nipples stuck out there in a knit shirt. It’s what perturbed him so badly today; hence, his ‘go put on a bra’ fit.

Katie tuned sideways to the mirror. It bothered her also, the way guys reacted to seeing her braless. She didn’t go braless very often. Her brother loved her puffy nipples, and so had the three other boys she’d bared them for. Correction: had them bared by. You know how that goes. Jeremiah had stared at her small boobs the entire time she lay sunbathing on the chaise lounge. Marissa pretended not to notice.

Pushing down and wiggling free of her panties and black shorts, Katie kicked them aside and inspected herself nude. Like all girls her age (and absolutely in the summer months), Katie kept her pubic hair rigorously trimmed. She bore just a slender, decorative triangle of hair above her apex, popular with 11th grade girls. She’d be a junior this coming semester at JHHS. She turned sideways, then viewed her backside over her shoulder.

“Mom off the phone yet?” Caleb called upstairs. Katie jumped, embarrassed to be caught dawdling, as her dad called it.

“Just got off!” she lied. “I’m getting in the shower, now!” She hoped Caleb wouldn’t choose to join her, not the way she smelled. Grabbing fresh panties and a bra from her underwear drawer, she scurried cross-hall to the bathroom.

Downstairs, Caleb made a sandwich for them both, and carried hers upstairs into the bathroom. “Here,” he said, yanking aside the shower curtain. “Take a bite!”

“Caleb!”

He laughed as she spastically covered up and yanked the shower curtain closed.

“Have some decency, dammit!” Another of her father’s favorite sayings. Caleb laughed and slid the curtain aside a few inches.

“Here. Eat. I brought you up a Diet Coke, too.”

Eyeing him truculently, Katie rinsed her underarms and opened her mouth for a bite of ham and cheese with mustard. Caleb always did crazy stuff like this. Anything to embarrass her ass. He’d even wiped her behind once, after she went poo. The boy was a pest. The boy was a menace.

“The VHS works,” he said.

She chewed and swallowed her mouthful, then took another. She was hungry.

“Can I get a little privacy? Please?” Self-defeating as always, she took another bite and chewed it greedily. She was hungrier that she thought.

“You know, I haven’t seen you naked in a month.”

“Yes, you have,” she scoffed. “Don’t be dramatic.” She batted his hand away as he reached inside for a grope. “I need to get finished. Get out of here, please.”

He placed the plate on the sink and smacked the shower curtain, making her jump and squeak. The shower curtain was cold and clingy and gross feeling. “Get out of here!” she squealed, laughing, batting it from the inside. She expected him the pull the curtain aside and step in. Instead, he offered the sandwich again. She dutifully took a bite.

“You take advantage of me, you know. For real. I wouldn’t stand outside while you showered, tormenting you.”

“Being fed is a torment?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, taking another bite. “I’d call you an asshole, but I’m a nice girl.”

Caleb snickered, then held up his hand. “Seriously. I wouldn’t know how else to treat you. We’ve been like this our whole lives. You really want me to treat you like a sister?”

She looked at him, mock-aghast. “Can you please get out?” Reaching out, she grasped the remainder of the sandwich and jammed it in her mouth and chewed.

—-//—-

Truth was, she didn’t want to be treated any different. She and Caleb had been close as any two siblings could be, more so than actual twins. Identical’s couldn’t have sex. Not boy-girl sex. She couldn’t imagine sex with an identical twin; it would like kissing your reflection in the mirror. And a twin couldn’t put an erection between her legs and make her cum mad-crazy like Caleb did.

She shaved her legs and conditioned her hair. Peeking out, she spotted the can of Diet Coke he’d left. She could easily eat another ham and cheese sandwich. She reached out for the can and took a sip. She couldn’t imagine a more bizarre shower scene in a movie or book than this one with Caleb. A ham and cheese sandwich in the shower. The absurdity of it made her giggle.

What Caleb said was true: their intimate relationship went back far as she could remember, and he’d always been a remorseless torment. The weird thing was that she had initiated the sex, not him. He’d been too uptight; to guilt-ridden to initiate her, as she thought of it. She’d let him take her, instead. That happened one day after her 14th birthday.

Fully dressed, she grabbed her Diet Coke and went downstairs. She’d not dried her hair and it lay limp on her shoulders. Her ‘puffies’ lay safely hidden inside her slightly padded bra. Her boobs jounced lightly as she bounded down the stairs.

“Thank you for the sandwich. I’m sorry I grouched at you.”

He grinned, amused. ‘Grouched’ was another of Dad’s sayings. Katie used it between them all the time. He offered his cheek, which she kissed primly. Another inside joke.

“Everything works. I think the VHS is newer than we thought. It has an AV port on the back.”

Katie had no idea what that was. “You mean he’s watched the tapes recently?”

“Not that recently. Panasonic made the last VHS player in 2012. The box had at least five years of dust on the top.”

Katie wrinkled her nose. “You blew the dust at me and set off a sneezing fit.” She rubbed her nose in memory, and then gave him the finger, grinning. He grinned back.

“It turns me on so much when you do that.” He obscenely grabbed his crotch and made Katie grimace.

“You are so gross. I can’t believe I ever had sex with you.” As normal, when speaking the truth aloud, she glanced around nervously, afraid to be overheard. The first few weeks following her and Caleb’s first time in his bed, she’d been like a spooked kitten.

“You ready to watch?”

The tape was just gross. 3rd graders would do a better job than the brother and sister depicted in the video, she thought. Five minutes into the tape, Katie was flushed with embarrassment, and not from the sex, which hadn’t even begun. “Caleb ... God!” she complained. “Please turn if off!”

Laughing, he’d just picked up the remote to eject the tape when the impossible happened.

“Caleb... ?” Katie sat up with a jolt. “Is that... ?”

Caleb was on his feet, peering at the screen with his mouth open. “Jesus Christ!” He threw a horrified glance back at his sister. “Is that... ?” he repeated.

“No! No, it can’t be!”

The video had cut suddenly to the den. Katie lay on the floor with her chin propped on her palms, Caleb sat cross-legged beside her, remote in his hand. Katie wore a white tank top and jean shorts. Caleb wore what he he had on now, t-shirt and cargo shorts, but in different colors: the t-shirt was light blue, the cargo shorts a neutral light grey. They appeared the same age as now.

“Caleb ... what’s going on?”

Onscreen, Katie teased: “This giving Caleb a little wedgie?”

Video-Caleb snickered. “This movie could freeze a Siberian’s popsicle.” He patted her rear end. “Wanna melt mine in your mouth?”

Katie and Caleb stared at each other, perplexed. Caleb hit the pause button as Video-Katie laughed and batted Caleb’s hand off her butt.

“That can’t be us!”

Katie shook her head vehemently. “Who are they?” she croaked, befuddled. The den onscreen looked identical to their own. The girl stretched out on the floor wore a tank and shorts identical to ones Katie had upstairs in her bedroom. She recognized Caleb’s t-shirt and cargo shorts onscreen.

““I don’t know. I’d swear they were us.”

Katie grabbed the remote from his hand and hit Eject.

“Heh!”

Crossing to the TV on her knees, Katie grabbed the tape and examined it feverishly, turning and twisting the box this way, and that. It appeared untampered with, the garish label depicting the fake brother and sister perfectly adhered to the rectangle atop the cassette. It didn’t look like anyone had removed it from another cassette and stuck it on this one. More importantly, the reflective metalized stickers either end were intact; the box didn’t appear to have been opened. The anti-record tab on the back was in place.

“What are you doing?”

She stared at the cassette, blinking.

“Katie... ?”

She threw up her hand, exasperated. “I don’t know! I thought...”

“Thought what?”

She handed him the tape. “I don’t want to watch any more of this.”

Caleb looked relieved. “Should we get rid of it, or put it back in the box?”

Katie blurted: “Get rid of it, of course! You think I ever want Dad to watch that again? Anybody?”

“Calm down,” he cautioned.

“You calm down!” she screeched. “That can’t be us on the video!” She stormed away, heading toward the kitchen.

—-//—-

Caleb found her with a Diet Coke in her hand. She leaned against the counter, ankles crossed, arms over her chest, trembling. She refused to look at him.

“That box hadn’t been opened in five years, at least.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Caleb.”

“I checked, just now, and there was dust embedded under the clear tape we resealed it with. Which is a dead giveaway, that we looked inside, but hey...” He shrugged.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she repeated.

Caleb got a can of Diet Coke for himself and popped the lid. “The point I’m making—”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” she said shrilly.

“—is that no one had been in that box in at least 5 years, and we’re our present age on that tape.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she said more calmly, brushing past.

“Katie... ?”

“Leave me alone!”

Rather than stomp upstairs as expected, Katie returned to the den and sat on the end of the couch, arms tightly folded across her chest, knees locked. Caleb stood in the doorway, cassette tapping lightly against his thigh.

“What do you think is going on?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Some kind of elaborate prank.”

He pointed at the blank screen. “That was you. I recognized your voice. Was the guy me?”

She regarded him questioningly, brow furrowed.

“His voice was all wrong,” he said.

“No it wasn’t,” she objected, shaking her head. “He sounded exactly like you. She didn’t sound like me at all.”

Caleb crossed and sat beside her on the couch, a foot between them. “I want to watch more.”

“No.” She tightened her arms and shifted uncomfortably.

“It’s crazy. That was you and me, Kate!”

“No.”

Caleb frowned. “Then go upstairs, and I’ll tell you what happens later.”

She wiggled away and stared at him defiantly. “No!”

He sighed in exasperation. “I wanna know what’s going on.”

“No!”

Caleb clasped the cassette in his lap and stared at the blank screen. As expected, Katie fussed and fumed beside him for a long minute, before finally hissing: “Fine! Put it back in! But I’m warning you Caleb—!” She crossed her arms in a snit as he jumped up and stuck the cassette in the player. He always got his way with her. She was so predictable.