My father had a stroke or something and had been whisked off to the hospital for who knows how long; nobody ever tells me anything. My impression was that the old man would never be coming back home.

I was the only one Mom had to call long-distance. Barry and Sarah had each fled the nest but never bothered to leave town, so they already knew. Quickly I had to begin making unexpected travel plans. I definitely felt _inconvenienced_.

Mom was Mom, who, to my way of thinking, was better kept in the box of her house, safe and sound in a distant town. As for Barry, what can you say about a scarecrowy man up in his years who's like the Quiz Kid of the Halfway House? With Sarah there should have been that sister thing, but she was always too busy doing me evil for that to be nurtured.

If Barry made me wary of males near my age, it was Sarah who made me feel that us females weren't all that great either.

I booked a round-trip flight, staying over the weekend to get a slightly cheaper version of the exorbitant last-minute fare. There had been offers to pick me up--apparently there had been some roadwork around the airport guaranteed to doom all but the most experienced to a hell of circling, but never quite escaping, the airport. How my familials defied that designation I didn't ask. But knowing my family, accepting their suggestion would have entailed me sitting stewing at the airport for an hour until my ride bothered to show up. All my life I've been a fiercely independent person; I burdened the plastic with a rental car for the several days of my stay. Later, especially if the visit turned as sour as I anticipated, I could send them all copies of the credit card bill. Not that I'd expect repayment. I'd do it just to piss them off.

I had a fairly uneventful flight. The plane went up into the air when it was supposed to, and stayed up; it fell back to earth right on schedule. There was a bit of a scramble at the airport rental lot when it turned out they didn't really have the stock they thought. The attendants tried to bump me down--at a discount that merely reflected the standard charges, the generous pigs--to some micro-compact that didn't look to have room to seat a normal human being, much less an internal combustion engine. In reply, I put on a show until, with no more injury to my credit card, I secured a steed of plush mid-sized designation... let the plump businessman behind me stuff his corpulent ass into their fucking toy car!

The old town had changed a bit, though mostly in the Medusa-head of airport access roads, which I quickly navigated. I chortled thinking how now none of the locals ever left town except by bus.

Within fifteen minutes of getting behind the wheel, I was pulling into the drive of the shitty little brick bungalow I'd once known as home. I turned the car off and sat there in the silence as the engine quietly cooled down, staring at the front of the house through the tinted curve of windshield. Surely, I thought, the impulse to call what I saw home was some sort of implanted memory. A hypnotic suggestion.

Perhaps that was true, I considered, getting out and retrieving my bags, marveling at how the door and trunk closed with not much more than an _oomph_ of rushing air. But the memory was plump with detail. I recognized nearly every crack in the walk leading from the drive to the front stoop. And then there I stood before the entrance, considering my next course of action.

Of course I still had the key, but I didn't bother. Though the afternoon was draining, dusk was still far off. The door was never locked in the daytime. And as if I'd knock. Fuck the door chimes.

I made all the noise I conceivably could simply opening, entering, then closing the front door. Then I left the front hall for the livingroom. There was a sudden squeal as Sarah leapt from the sofa, soared across the room, then slapped a hug on me. My arms didn't know what to do. I tried to recall if I'd ever been hugged by Sarah. I was under the impression that she'd despised me every moment of my life.

"Brenda! Welcome _home_, little sister!" she gushed stepping back.

Mom stood way off in the doorway to the kitchen. She gave a feeble little wave. Barry, our older brother, as always, remained seated on the couch looking as he had all his life. Wearing his one expression-- the old _Barry sitting around with his shit-eating grin_ look. The man who could honestly state _All my life I've sat and ate shat_.

Me? I was the busted-rubber baby.

I looked around and thought _who are these people?_ It was just like being a child again--all those unanswered questions. Not that growing up had clarified much of it.

Mom, the small soft-spoken bitch-in-disguise. Sarah the sort of Town Slut who winds up owning and running a phenomenally profitable boutique of expensive slut underwear while remaining the Town Slut. Employing a staff of sluts to keep the slut-clientele occupied. So that she could step out and knock some dick off their husbands while they shopped. And Big Brother Barry, half-step up from _savant_, math genius, one of those few people reputed to think in the Fourth Dimension, whatever _that_ was. Something that gave you a permanent shit-eating grin.

The only one missing was His Royal Highness King Nut himself. That omission being the very reason I was there. The old bastard had been carried to a very coma by the stroke. Live as you give; die as you lie. The maniac should have spent his life in a loony bin; there was a sort of justice in knowing he'd end his in the vegetable bin.

Sarah had once told me that Mom and Dad kept the ruptured condom that'd leaked me into the world in a safe deposit box, claiming that was to be my sole inheritance.

I clung to the belief that I was actually a foundling.

After the hugs and stuff I seemed to revert to some invisible substratum. Once I'd entered the house, my existence was relegated to the enjoyment of just myself. It was easy to slip away, and go down the hall to put my stuff away in my room.

When I went to put my luggage in my old room, I found an overnight bag already spilling out its contents onto the bedspread. I actually saw a pair of crotchless panties, so I assumed the whole was my sister's. There was no way I wanted to even know about any possible interest on Barry's part in wearing such apparel.

I vaguely remembered mention--something about flooding a few years back, the spring the rains were so bad. But I really hadn't connected it. That, or it seemed a damp mildewy subterranean hole was just the place for Barry. His personal cave. Moss growing on the sheets.

Our parents were part of a class-action suit that'd been bickering with the insurance companies for the years since. Barry's old bedroom--along with the rest of the basement--remained ruined. Which meant, apparently--I gave a glance in and saw a nasty old duffel on the bed--he got his old upstairs bedroom back, that bumping Sarah back into my room, our old room, sharing the same old bed.

Finally I couldn't keep being quiet about the oddity of the situation. "Why don't you two guys, like, go home to sleep? Neither of you lives more than fifteen minutes away."

"But I have to swing way over to Barry's," Sarah sort of wailed, "so it's nearly half an hour for me."

What that had to do with anything, I didn't know. I had forgotten my brother didn't drive--for some logical reason that made no sense to me.

"So? Half an hour. Big deal."

"Thirty-five minutes, to be precise," she gloated.

"Can't he just take the bus or something?" I cast my hands in the air.

"Don't have exact change," Barry grinned shit-eatingly.

"Besides," our mother snapped, "it's like in times like these that family must gather close, must draw together."

Christ, and I'd nearly forgotten about her. Spouting shit like it had the imprimatur of scripture.

Immediately after that they all began goading me to _go get dressed up_ so we could _go out to dinner_. I balked at first, then relented to _go with the flow_. Even Sarah came along to change. Frilly undies for a family restaurant? I didn't even comment.

I went along without asking the destination. Ooh, for this special occasion, will it be _Denny's_ or will it be _Shoney's_?

The funny thing was that while we were two sisters in their room goofing around getting dressed, we did indeed become that. And suddenly I had an understanding of my sister like never before. While our parents remained the monsters-held-in-common, a base unifying force, I came to understand my siblings in a different light. The only thing that separated me from them was a bit of distance. With Barry, that distance would probably remain insurmountable. While Sarah and I moved around our room in just our skivvies, trying on various outfits for dinner out. Sarah had me laughing, and marveling that--in all but superfluous sense- -I had a big sister for the first time I could remember. Somehow we'd moved into the same tribe.

Throughout the evening I held a nice glow, knowing I had an older sister, even if she'd always struck me as a pretty slutty older sister. Which she proved as we got ready for sleep. I turned my back, stripping to my panties, then slipping into my nightgown before I slid my panties down. Sarah flung off all her clothes and came to bed naked.

"Aren't you wearing pajamas or s-s-something?" I sputtered in astonishment.

"Oh, you know me," she laughed, "nothing comes between the softness of my skin and the sheets, except a good _hard_ man. Take a look at you, wearing that dowdy old flannel thing."

"I've always hated waking up cold in the middle of the night," I almost whined.

Sarah snorted. "Hell, if I get cold, I just warm myself right back up."

Later that night, we lay in the same bed, taking turns disturbing one another with our nestling rustlings. Caution: Blanket Stealers Will Be Shot.

Though I was exhausted, I was miles away from sleep. I settled in on my side, my breathing regularized and all. I did drift on little skips, but I was mostly aware of the sensations of night, the sight in darkness, the sounds resounding from the darkness, the very noises of the house as it settled into the slumber of darkness. The false dark bred of windows and streetlights.

Sarah's aspirations as she sank away. The turgid sounds of her lungs working on autopilot. Or so it seemed. Until a small continuous motion began resonating through the mattress. The creation of a slurpy stirring noise. Sarah was gasping with orgasm before I understood she'd been lying next to me diddling herself.

While I continued to pretend to be asleep. Except I was so tired my mind kept going off on tangents until I did fall into the deep drift of sleep.

At some point in the middle of the night I was nudged awake. I couldn't remember having had much to drink, but from the pressure on my bladder I had apparently been guzzling whole rivers.

What I noticed next was that I was alone in the bed. _Great!_ my bladder sang as I crossed my legs, waiting for Sarah to return and free- up the bathroom. But it was ages! I nearly fell asleep again. Finally, I decided to slip down the hall to the bathroom. I had to turn on the light. Sarah wasn't there. I peed, then really spread out when I lay back down. Next I knew I was waking up when I didn't want to be woken. The room was flush with the light of morning, and Sarah was thrashing around as she rose to greet the new day. Me, I could have slept for _hours_ more.

And then, my sister Sarah, groggy as I, began to attempt to clamber out of bed. She was, of course, as naked as the day before, when she'd gone to bed. Sarah's movements were not graceful, though she did have a strange sway of satisfaction about her. She was thick with the stench of cunt, happy pussy; every time she moved the skin at the top of her thighs made a smacking noise from the stickiness up there. Sarah was so well-fucked, I swear I thought I smelled semen.

Sarah barely put on a robe before padding down the hall to the shower. The bitch didn't even shut the bedroom door.

I lay there, wishing so much to just drop back to sleep. But I was far too aroused for any of that. Though I couldn't account for why I'd become so excited. I did give it a brief consideration. It really wasn't my naked sister. Sarah wasn't the turn on. Nor really the sight of her well-fingered cunt. Maybe it was something primitive, subliminal, Pavlovian. The smell of pussy juice associated with one great pleasure in my backbrain. And _damn!_ but I wish my pussy was that way.

The way Sarah was feeling--gee, I wanted to be just like that!

I allowed my hand to innocently creep down to the hem of the nightgown, then slowly start the sweep up my bare thighs, but from there I lurched fast forward, slamming my hand up against my crotch. Shamelessly rubbing myself, while my other hand tweaked my nipples through the flannel. When my index finger first slipped between my fat dripping lips, it was rather like splitting a peach--I was _that_ juicy.

Normally when bringing myself off, it's the _bringing_ of myself off that's the greatest luxury. Take your time then come like a rocket! But I didn't need any of that right now. I doubted I could endure it. If I'd had a man in the bed, I would have creamed my brains out just from having him slide it in me. My hands managed to delay that a little bit, but soon enough I was eating my pillow to keep from being heard. I came _that_ hard.

I'd need to wring out my nightgown, but if I hadn't been wearing it, I'd've left a puddle on the bed.

Even in my goofy glow I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I lifted the covers to swing my legs over the side of the bed and was nearly bowled over by the smell of myself. I sat up on the edge of the bed. I was sort of hoping Sarah had a change of clothes with her in the bathroom. And then I was sort of thinking that when she walked back in to our pussy-reeking room, she'd assume the aroma was all of her own making.

Sarah entered, sniffed, cocked a brow at me, but then went about her business. I slunk off to the shower.

Once I was fresh and dressed and ready for the rest, I began wondering why any of us had bothered waking up. For breakfast we all grazed independently, randomly, asynchronously. Then we all came to gather in the livingroom.

I thought we were on the brink of some big family discussion, but then Barry turned on the t.v.

We sat just like that, even I, for several hours until it was lunchtime. Mom insisted that she was going to make us all lunch, that we'd all eat together at the kitchen table; she'd call us to the table when lunch was ready.

When it was, we all sat down to our empty plates. Gathered in the middle of the table was the tableau of lunch. Half a loaf of sliced white bread, the twist-tie at the neck of its bag coyly undone, the first few slices fallen flat in invitation. Jars of peanut butter and jam and mayonnaise and mustard, one knife on the table, a package of bologna with the plastic back peeled back and half the slices already missing. Towering above the whole was a virgin bag of a particular off- brand of potato chips we'd all spent our childhoods begging her to forsake. The _Value!_-sized bag of _Soggy Crumbs_ "World-Famous" potato chips.

We gummed our lunch in silence. Then we filed back into the livingroom to resume our communion with the t.v. But after barely five minutes, Mom grabbed the remote and pushed the mute.

"It's time to go see Dad," she announced sharply.

The answering silence just didn't stop. I was thinking that she should just turn the damn thing off, but then I realized Sarah and Barry would probably continue staring at the screen.

"Who's going to drive?" Mom continued.

Barry broke up. "Reckon not me," his shit-eating grin in a super nova explosion. "Though you might ask Brenda. She might be able to give you some quarters for the bus, hah hah."

Sarah turned to me, stating matter-of-factly, "It's your car blocking the drive."

Barry grabbed back the remote and removed the mute. "Have fun, you two," he waved, "say _Hi!_ to Dad for me."

I couldn't believe it, leaving the house with the two of them remaining glued to the tube, while ushering our mother to our father's deathbed. Why me? Why couldn't I be home in my own apartment doing all _my_ usual sort of stuff?

One look told me Dad was dying. But taking his grand time of it, the rotter. Mom settled into the one chair, regally, as though it was a throne she'd be occupying for some weeks to come. I stood around in the room for an hour, the conversation between us quite dodgy. _Look at the way his chest rises when the machine helps him to breath!_

Finally Mom announced that she'd be staying through dinner, and might try to finagle her way into an overnight stay. Why, I didn't bother to question. All I knew was that I was let free at just about the point where I would have had to flee anyway.

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do, anywhere I wanted to go in the old town, so I steered down the streets back to the house. Not that I particularly wanted that as my destination either, but at least it didn't involve any decision.

I pulled up in the drive, got out, and shut the door. Looking at my little rental car fondly, I thought about how wonderful it would be to own a car that was always new. That rode the roads as if potholes didn't exist. Run by an engine that just ran without making a big noise about it. I realized then that what had me thinking all of this was that the huge sheet of steel and glass that was the door had slammed shut with barely a sound.

Not that there was any point in buying a new car. Another year or two and that lovely rental would be as big a piece of shit as the car I already drove, which I owned clear.

I turned, shaking my head, and went up the walk. That my mind was worrying itself over such concerns was a sure sign that I needed a little nap. I stepped into the vestibule, amazed at how silently the front door opened. My front door was my doorbell. But then it'd be just like the old bastard to oil all the door hinges on a regular schedule--every three months, whether they need it or not. And then I was immediately thinking are you supposed to oil your car door hinges as well? If you do secret stuff like that all the time, will your car stay like new forever?

No. Go have your nap you little twit!

As I stood there in the little front hall, debating whether to turn into the livingroom, or proceed to the kitchen, I became aware of two oddities. The house had a faint fusty odor that I'd never noticed. And--thank god--Sarah and Barry weren't still on the couch watching the t.v. up too loud; an observation that gave way to its corollary that the house was indeed absolutely quiet. As houses get, for all their hummings and creakings and gurglings.

I took a few steps into the livingroom, but then I froze. I started making out a human noise. It was a series of grunty whines so familiar I thought I had to be listening to a tape made in my own bedroom. Drawn like a dreamer I waltzed through the livingroom and proceeded down the back hall. To my room, of course, to take a nap.

While listening to the sound of myself huff my horny little way to a mind-bending orgasm. But then it wasn't me after all. The door was open, the view quite clear. In Barry's room on Barry's bed some pussy was pounding itself up and down on a big hard cock. I never doubted-- however impossible it seemed--that it was Barry and Sarah fucking, but all I could identify at first were the genders of the genitals, verify their positions.

As I watched I realized the evidence was clear that Barry had a second talent in life. His shaft was fat, and it took ages for Sarah to draw herself up the full length of it. Barry was, in a word, _endowed_. Sarah might have had some experiences in all her adventures, but I'd never been to bed with anything that big.

All I could do was stand there and stare, fascinated, as rooted to my spot as Sarah was rooted to Barry's cock. My vision telescoped to just that point, seeing only that thick glistening salami sliding up into that pouty little hole. Barry's big cock flame red and visibly pulsating, Sarah's cuntlips full and stretched, lewdly sucking him inside her. Sarah began pounding herself up and down his shaft, her pussy making all sorts of obscene slurps and smacks, like a greedy person feeding. Like a greedy cunt grabbing what it wants.

I stood there as if hypnotized--up and down, in and out, up and down, in and out. Listening to the sounds of their sex, the private murmurings of a dialogue between them. I couldn't understand any of it, but the context was clear.

Whatever it was they were whispering, the words were not spoken in the language of siblings. Then Sarah whimpered in such a way as to stir me, the timbre of her cry resonating within me. I was unfrozen, able to stop staring, free to turn and quietly walk back out the front door. I nearly didn't, but then I did.

Leaving the confines of rooms for the open space of the outdoors, where I hoped my absolute shock at how I'd found Barry and Sarah might somehow dissipate. I was too shaky to trust myself driving; I wanted to get away as quietly as possible anyway. I wandered off down the sidewalk, turning on whim at the intersections, with no preordained route walking the streets of the old neighborhood. It was very soothing, everything I saw so familiar. The houses had shrunk and the trees had grown, or been cut down, but nothing was so different as to stunt the flood of memories.

Fortunately, however, time had torn away all the families I'd grown up around. I didn't have to worry about someone stepping out on their porch and hollering out, "Great to see you, Brenda! Where are your brother and sister?"

"Oh, back at the house balling their brains out."

I was obviously horrified by what I'd witnessed, but in a bewildering way that left me red in the face, slightly short of breath, and more than a little wet between the legs. All sorts of thoughts started lashing out at me. The selfishness of them, forcing me to take Mom to the hospital, leaving me to hang out there with her. While they were on each other the moment the front door closed. They had to have been going at it that long, rutting like wild animals for hours--the room's stench of sex was _that_ thick. The whole unfairness of growing up with them nearly had me in tears. I was always left out. They never included me in anything. They shared nothing with me.

Of course the ramification in the immediate context was wholly unnatural and naturally repulsive. My brother and sister were having sex. It

wasn't just immoral, it was icky.

After what seemed to be several hours, I found myself back where I'd started. Surely the two of them had to be finished. I took the chance and headed up the walk. Opening the door I'd opened several hours before, the same doorway I'd stridden through almost exactly 24 hours before. But I wasn't walking into the same house. Not that that was apparent at first glance.

Barry and Sarah were as I'd left them that morning, on the couch in the livingroom with the t.v. turned up to headache level. Barry glanced up and graced me with that shit-eating grin. When Sarah noticed me, she grabbed up the remote, hit mute, and immediately began shrieking to compensate for the quiet.

"Where have you been, Brenda?! We've been worried sick about you."

Barry's grin became even shit-eatinger; conveying his worry, no doubt.

"At the hospital," I retorted, not caring that my tone was ultra-snippy. "Remember? Our mother wanted to go to the hospital to be with our dying father, so not all of us could sit on our butts and watch t.v."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Gimme a break. Mom called hours ago to say they'd hunted up a cot so she could spend the night with Dad. She said then that you'd already left. Which I'd guessed because I'd seen that your car was back in the drive."