September 4th 2005

"So whadaya think of them sand niggers done moved in next door to you," Billy Joe Cooper asked, as he, Sam Rowland and I sat smoking in the stands of the baseball field. Or at least the other two were smoking; I'd finally kicked the habit during my five weeks up north.

"Sand niggers?" I asked, totally confused by Billy Joe's comment.

"They moved in last week. Into old man Drake's house."

"Who did?"

"The camel jockeys! Ehhhrabbb terrorists," he giggled, making me wonder if he was smoking something besides tobacco.

"It's true Rod," Sam said as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Next door to us?"

Sis, Mom and I had just returned from our annual five week vacation on Cape Cod to visit Mom's family and so were way behind on local news. At least Sis and I were.

"What's this about Arab terrorists moving in next door Dad?" I asked as I burst into the family TV room an hour later.

"They're invading fucking Georgia now son."

"Johnnie!" Mom hissed at Dad.

"It's true honey. Why can't they stay where they belong? Stay up north and blow up Jew York."

Dad had to have had a couple of beers before he dared say that in front of Mom, I thought. We all saw the steam building up behind mom's eyes and all of us knew better than to stay and wait for the explosion.

"Just kidding hon, got to get over to Al's, see you later," Dad backtracked as he fled from the room, Sissy and I hard on his heels.

"Roddy, Sissy, get back in here," she ordered.

"Yes mum," we both agreed meekly.

"An Arab family has moved in next door Sissy," she started, "as your father and brother have so effectively pointed out." We were both holding our breath, knowing from long experience that no response was expected or allowed.

"Strangely enough Arabs are still considered as members of the human race in most areas of the world."

Mom, nee Sophie Von Scouries, was raised in Boston, the daughter of what Dad's brother, Uncle Teddy, called 'damn commie intellectuals', although never in front of Mom.

She, an eighteen year old Duke freshman, eager to study Philosophy, Art History and French at the South's most respected university, had somehow ended up in Dad's bed her third day in Durham. Dad had been a senior at N.C. State, an agriculture major from a well known farming family, the Malloys, of eastern Georgia.

Ma was pregnant before the school year was up. And then, against all odds, and the active opposition of both their families, they got married and then had me. Eleven months later they'd had my sister Rebecca. It was the sex that got them together and had kept them together. The rest of the relationship had been much tougher.

"And notwithstanding your father's remarks, or others you two children will likely hear in the coming days from our enlightened friends and neighbors, I expect the two of you to act accordingly."

"Yes ma," we both responded meekly, our only possible answer given ma's anger.

"But who are they," I ventured timidly.

"Their name is Mahmoud, and they have two children, Ali 7 and Fatima 5."

"You've already met them?" I asked.

"Yes Roderick," the Roderick a further sign of Mom's displeasure, "and in spite of all the rumors I'm sure are being spread all over Hinesville, Georgia, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Mahmoud are members of Hezbollah or the Moslem Brotherhood. Nor is their seven year old son a suicide bomber."

"What are they doing here mom?" sis asked tentatively.

"Well Rebecca, like a million other northerners, they've decided to move to the south and just happened to choose our lovely town."

"But where are they from?"

"I believe Brooklyn."

"But... before that..."

"Well, current science now seems to believe we all can trace back our roots to an area in Central Africa," Mom said in a tight controlled voice.

"But," Sissy started again, but then stopped as mom stared daggers at her.

Mr. Mahmoud, it turned out in the days that followed, was actually the front man for his great-uncle, an Egyptian-American man who turned out to be the largest Dollar Store operator in the northeast.

"Claims he's here to open a hundred of them stores in Georgia and the Carolinas, every small town from here to Tennessee," Dad told us a couple of days later as we sat out at the farm with the whole clan for our Sunday afternoon BBQ.

Mom, who herself had been hard at work finding out about the Mahmouds, interjected, "apparently he has an M.B.A. from Cairo University."

"What's that?" Uncle Ted asked snickering, "Master of Blowing up Americans."

"No my dear Edward," Mom hissed as the rest of the family burst out in guffaws at Uncle Ted's words.

Sis and I were always caught in the middle of the continuing family drama, in love with mom and accepting of most of her liberal views, while at the same time surrounded most of the year by a more southern and redneck approach to life.

We had learned to love both worlds, knew that behind the crudity, small mindedness and racism of our town lay another reality; friendly cookouts, Fourth of July parades, neighbor helping neighbor, little league baseball, patriotism...

Every family in our corner of Georgia had a brother, or a son, or a cousin, or a father who'd proudly worn the uniform of our country. And when my northern cousins pontificated about the loss of civil liberties, I could never forget that Hinesville blood had been spilled in the dusty fields and fetid towns of Afghanistan and Iraq.

I was eighteen, a tall, rangy boy/man who'd lost my virginity to my second cousin Joanne, a twenty-four year old, just divorced nurse, just weeks before on a beach up in Cape Cod.

I was lucky; I'd been ready and she'd made it easy. An experienced lover, she been both gentle and demanding, teaching me in ten days more than most men learn in a lifetime.

She'd been understanding when my cock had spurted before I'd even got it in, told me it was a compliment.

"I'm sorry... ," I'd started to stammer.

"Just shows you like me," she'd laughed as her fingers caressed my still hard, sticky shaft. "You're so big Roddy," she'd whispered as she slid to her knees and took me into her mouth.

"Oh fuck, fuck Jo, I'm going to come again," I cried as her tongue and lips worked me, wanting to pull out and fuck her but unwilling to leave her moist mouth. I bucked again and again between her lips, watched as she milked my shaft, swallowing hungrily.

"You taste good honey," she said grinning, a strand of cum hanging from her lower lip.

"I do?"

"Here," she offered as her lips sought out mine. Unsure, I met her lips, felt her tongue push into my mouth, tasted my sperm, reveled in the feel of our tongues dueling.

"You're hard again," she laughed as her fingers found my straining cock, and then pulled me down to the blanket on the sand.

I went crazy when I finally thrust into my first pussy, simply banged away like a wild man, unconcerned about anything but my pleasure. Jo was screaming when I finally exploded.

"God, I've never had anyone like you," she whispered as we lay gasping on our backs on the sand. "You're the biggest, the best," she said adoringly as her hand lightly held my softening snake. Her compliments, whether true or simply to encourage me, were the nicest things she could have done to give confidence to such an unsure lover.

Every virgin needs someone like Jo to school them in the art of love. For ten days she taught me, teaching me how to both please a woman and myself. We both cried when I had to leave and go back to Georgia.

"You be gentle with all those Georgia girls Rod," she'd ordered. "I don't want you breaking every heart in Hinesville." Christ, I'd wanted to quit school and move in with her in Boston.

Of course, once a teenage boy gets laid for the first time, he doesn't think of a fuck of a lot else besides sex in the succeeding days and weeks and months. 'How can I get someone else in bed' becomes the overriding priority in life.

I was no different and so it happened that the continuing simmering anger at our new Arab neighbor's presence in our community was largely ignored by me. I was trying to figure out how to get Bobbie Anne Gilliam's panties off and my dick inside her... or Bonnie Smith...

or Jenny... or, or...

That is until I happened to take a period off at eleven one morning and decided to go home and have lunch with Mom.

A young, beautiful, olive skinned woman was sitting casually at the kitchen table talking with mom, sipping tea, when I barged through the back door.

"Roddy, what are you doing home?"

I stammered as I explained about a cancelled class, my attention totally on the gorgeous, dark haired woman in front of me.

"Am I that strange?" Mrs. Mahmoud asked throatily, the sound of her voice the sexiest thing I'd ever heard.

"ROD! Don't stare."

"Oh sorry mom," I finally answered, my eyes moving to meet hers for a second before darting back to Mrs. Mahmoud.

"Rod, I'd like you to meet our new neighbor, Mrs. Mahmoud. Miriam," she said turning, "this bumbling idiot is my son."

"You're young," I babbled, "I mean younger than I thought... and you speak English..."

"As you can see Miriam, my son has extraordinary powers of observation. Strange, he's never realized that people who come to America from foreign lands often master the English language..."

"Don't tease him Sophie," Mrs. Mahmoud instructed mom, smiling happily at me as she spoke.

I fell in love! Or lust. Who knows exactly what happens in your brain at that moment when someone captivates you totally. Bobbie Anne and the rest of the females in my senior class were instantly forgotten. I was going to fuck Mrs. Mahmoud or die trying. She was my destiny.

They let me sit at the table with them as they talked and laughed together. I was oblivious to most of the conversation, captivated solely by Miriam's beauty. The only contribution I made was glazed eyed nods to questions I didn't hear and one totally dumb question.

Her scarf, her head covering thing, was nowhere to be seen, and I asked, "Where's your bandana thing?... You know... for your head," I stammered as both looked at me in surprise.

"ROD!"

"It's alright Sophie. How will people learn if they don't ask? I just have a scarf today Rod, not my hijab," she said turning to me and taking a crimson silk scarf from her purse. "I don't always wear it when I'm among women."

"What about in front of me?" I asked eagerly, interested to learn her beliefs.

"I should be covered in front of you... in fact I shouldn't even be in the same room as such a handsome young man," she teased.

"Do you want him to go?" Mom asked.

"Of course not," Miriam replied with a shake of her head, causing her long, black, silky strands to dance and float around her head and shoulders.

"When I was a girl in Beirut we were freer... less strict than my husband's family... my sisters and I... we were able to talk and live more openly."

"How old are you Mrs. Mahmoud," I asked, rudely interrupting.

"Rod!" mom warned.

"It's okay," she said, shaking off mom's interruption. "I'm twenty-five, and its Miriam... I was married at seventeen..."

"Seventeen! That's younger than me," I exclaimed, and then realized Miriam was only seven years older than me, that she was closer in age to me than to mom.

"I wanted to go to the university... but then the troubles started," she said with a sigh. "One of my father's distant cousins in Egypt had a son who had gone to America, who needed an Arab wife."

"What? It was arranged? You didn't know him?"

"Sometimes it's done that way... an older man, who is doing well... who can afford a wife..." she said trailing off wistfully.

"But how old is Mr. Mahmoud," I asked.

"ROD!" Mom barked, clearly pissed off at my nosy questions.

"Gamal's forty-nine and he's a wonderful husband and father... Now I better get going Sophie. Ali and Fatima will be home for lunch any second."

"I hope this lummox isn't chasing you away," Mom asked, her arm on my shoulder.

"No, not at all," she said smiling. "In fact I love the getting the chance to talk to other people once in a while. We're not exactly getting invited to meet many of the neighbors."

"They're idiots," Ma groused.

"Thanks Sophie, and thank you Rod," she said and just for a second touched my cheek with her soft fingers. "Don't you ignore me now that you've met me."

"I won't, I promise," I said as she left.

"She's nice, different than I thought she'd be," I started after Miriam had left.

"Did you think every Arab had horns? Haven't I taught you better than that? Bandanas? You speak English? Duh? God, Roddy, you sounded like an idiot," she complained.

"Don't! That's not fair," I protested, bristling at her suggestion, "you know I don't believe all that crap. Don't blame me if you're mad."

She looked at me for long seconds before, with tears all of a sudden pouring from her eyes, she suddenly leaned into me and said, "I know honey, I know. I'm just so mad at everyone... their fucking attitudes..."

Jesus, I was stunned. Mother had never sworn in my presence before. She said fuck? "It's okay Mom," I whispered in her ear as my arms engulfed her, and then waited silently as she stood trembling against me for minute after minute, her tears wet against my cheek.

God, my mom's always been the strong one. The one who knows everything!

I was suddenly aware of Mom's full, firm breasts pushing into my chest.

"I'm so sorry sweetie, I shouldn't take it out on you," she said as she wiped her sleeve over her leaking eyes and moved back from my embrace. "I'm just so effing pee-ed off with these small minded..."

"I know ma," I stammered, confused and excited at my body's reaction to having mom's nipples pressed into my chest.

"... So what did you really think of our neighbor anyway? Was she what you expected?"

"God ma, she is soooo hot."

"Mrs. Mahmoud?"

"Yes."

"Hot! She's a married woman Roderick!"

"I know," I groaned.

I couldn't help blushing as she looked at me, couldn't stop wondering if she could see the sexual turmoil that was rampaging through my body and brain.

"You know young man, you and I haven't discussed girls and boys in quite a while... maybe"

"Oh Ma," I interrupted, my face feeling hotter and hotter.

"You haven't... You are still a virgin aren't you?"

"Mum!" I said as I retreated out the door.

""You're not? Who was it," were the last words I heard as I fled.

Mr. Mahmoud arrived at the front door a week later, insisted to first Sissy, then mom, that he'd speak to dad only.

"What an asshole," Dad snorted when he joined us after our neighbor had left.

"John, please," Mom chided.

"Shit, he wouldn't even talk to you and you're defending him."

"He is different," Ma conceded.

"He'll never be a salesman, I'll tell you that. Long beard. Strange clothes. Straight out rude. Wouldn't even drink a beer with me."

"They don't drink alcohol Daddy," Sissy told him.

"Don't you be fooled honey," Dad admonished his daughter, "if they think they can get away with it, they'll drink. And smoke that hashie stuff. And violate young Christian virgins. That's before they decide to blow up America."

"C'mon Dad, he just runs Dollar Stores for god's sake; what'd he want anyway?" I asked.

"Apparently your mother told Mrs. Mahmoud that you'd be willing to cut their lawn and take care of their yard for a reasonable price. He couldn't just ask you like a normal person would, he had to negotiate with yours truly only. Had more instructions for me to give you than you'd believe."

"What instructions?" Mom asked.

"Shit honey, who cares? The boys only cutting his goddam lawn. We're not talking rocket science here. How much do you think this desert Eh-rab knows about grass anyway? Imagine, this clown giving me, an American farmer, worked the goddam soil my whole life, instructions on how to cut his lawn."

"So, does he want me to do it?" I asked, elated at the prospect of having an excuse to hang around Miriam's house.

"Yeah, of course you're hired. As long as you wear one of those jimijabi things," he finished, chuckling at his little joke.

Even ma, still a little sore at Mr. Mahmoud's refusal to talk to her, grinned at Dad.

"Johnnie, we also have to talk to Rod," Mom told dad.

"About what?"

"Could you leave us for a minute Sissy?"

"Why?"

"This is between just Roddy and us young lady," Mom answered as she escorted sis to the door.

"Well?" Dad demanded, "What is it, the ballgame's starting in five minutes."

"I think it's time we discussed sex with your son John."

"Hell, I explained the whole darn thing to the boy years ago."

"You did?" Mom asked. "But..."

I had to laugh to myself at Dad's description of our talk. What he'd actually done one afternoon years ago was to take me out to the farm on a day our stallion was covering three mares. Dad and Uncle Ted had then proceeded to give me a graphic blow by blow description on what was going on.

"Remember Rod," Uncle Ted said as Dad and I were getting ready to leave, "it's just the same with people. You just grab yourself a little girlie, bend her over and then fuck her like that big stallion did."

Dad was pretty vague when I peppered him with specific questions on the way home, simply telling me, "You'll figure it all out Roddy, don't worry."

And finally, years later, mainly due to my pretty cousin, I had done figured it out.

"But Johnnie, we have to discuss AIDS, and safe sex and pregnancy and a man's responsibilities," Mom insisted.

"Hang on, I know what he needs."

"Where are you going? Johnny?"

"Here boy, just make sure you use these," he said when returned a minute later, as he tossed a pack of condoms in my lap. "I don't want Bobbie Anne's pa coming over here with no shotgun in his hand. Your ma will explain all that other fancy stuff."

"Johnny?" Mom sighed in exasperation.

"Games starting honey, gotta go."

"JOHNNY!" Mom yelled as the door closed behind Dad.

Sissy came into the room just as I was absent mindedly opening a condom.

"What's that? A candy? Can I have one," my sister asked when she saw the colored wrapping in my hand.

"Oh crikey," Ma groaned as I slipped the cock cover out of its package.

"How do these work anyway ma," I asked grinning, pushing my finger against the red plastic ring.

"Let me see?" Sissy demanded as mom ground her teeth in exasperation.

"It's a what?" she asked when I told her it was a condom. "How does it work?"

"Ask ma."

And ma actually made us sit down and listen to her give a long discourse on AIDs, safe sex, condoms, STD's... for I minute I was afraid she was going to use my penis to demonstrate for Sissy how a condom should be rolled on.

Fortunately she used two of Sissy's fingers.

"That was gross," Sissy told me when we finally escaped.

I did everything in my power to see and interact with Mrs. Mahmoud in the weeks and months that followed. It wasn't that easy. It's not like you can just go talk to her in the cafeteria or walk her home from school.

I mined mom for info, I cut their grass way more often than I needed to, I'd go out and play with her young boy if I saw him in the yard...

The weeks passed... I wasn't getting very far. Oh, I got a chance to say hello once in a while and actually got a couple of chances to talk to her for five minutes or so, but I definitely wasn't making much progress in getting laid.

Then opportunity knocked.

"I can't come with you guys when you go to Atlanta next weekend," I started as we sat eating dinner.

"How come son," Dad asked as he ate.

Every year over Thanksgiving, the Hinesville Swimming Club went to Atlanta for a meet that brought clubs from around the state to the Georgia fall championships. Our whole family had been going together since Sissy had started swimming seriously at age ten. It had become a real family holiday.

I'd always played baseball, Sissy was the swimmer. And she had a roomful of trophies to prove she was the best high school swimmer in Georgia. We'd both been trying to decide that fall what university we should go to, and whether we'd both go to the same one or not.

"We always go Rod," Mom argued. "It may be our last chance to go somewhere together before you two go away to university next year."

I couldn't tell them that I'd just found out that the Mahmoud children were going to New York to visit their grandparents for the holiday, or explain that I'd found out that Mr. Mahmoud was planning a week long business trip to North Carolina.

Didn't tell them I was hoping against hope to somehow seduce our married neighbor.

"It's not fair. I hate you," I heard from the doorway and looking up saw Sissy watching me.

"No you don't," I laughed, "you love me, I'm your favorite brother."

"That's because you're the only one I have."

"I help you with your home work."

"Yeah right," she answered sarcastically, both of us knowing it was I who relied on her for notes and assignments.

We'd been born just eleven months apart, Mom and Dad apparently so happy with my arrival that they got right to work on Sissy. And it had so happened that I missed the cutoff date for starting school by two weeks and Sissy just made it. We'd ended up in the same grade.

Which can be good or can be bad. We could have grown up hating each other, but somehow, maybe due to the summers we'd spent up north when we had to stick together defending the south (and our accents), we had become best friends.

We didn't really hang out at school, and we had enough different classes that we weren't continually falling over each other, but it was impossible not to know what the other was doing. We didn't have many secrets from each other.

"And you're supposed to knock before entering, remember," I reminded her as she stood looking at my near naked body. "I don't have any pants on."

"You got your boxers on... and don't try to change the subject. Why aren't you coming, you always do," she pouted as she sat on the edge of my bed. "I swim faster when you're there, I'll miss you."

"Sissy, it's like I said, I'm busy. Anyway, you always win."

"That's not the point... its probably because of that Arab woman, isn't it?" she accused accurately.

"What are you talking about? What Arab woman?"

"Ha, ha, ha! How many Arab women do you know Roddy? Maybe I should ask Dad if he knows the name of the terrorist woman his son's got a crush on," she teased, knowing she had the upper hand. "How you've become the plaything of some evil..."

"Sissy," I threatened.

"I don't like Sissy anymore, call me by my name."

"What? What are you talking about? Everyone's always called you that."

"I hate it."

"You do? Since when? Why haven't you ever said anything?"

I'm a woman now, I want to be called Rebecca... or Becky if you like."

"Are you serious? Really? " Seeing her nod I went on, "Okay my darling sister Rebecca, that's who you'll be from now on. Now, about Dad..."

"Don't worry; you know I'd never tell on you."

"Because I'm your favorite brother," I teased.

"You know I love you."

"Thanks Becky," I said, and saying it realized I liked the sound of her name, wondered why we'd never used it.

"I might discuss it with mom though," she teased.

"Becky!"

"She's sure to know more than me anyway."

"What?"

"Who do you think you're fooling?... Bye Rod," she said as she stood to go. "But remember you still owe me one for this weekend. Oh, and brother dear, you look very sexy in your boxers, very, very sexy... I wonder what cousin Joanne would do if she saw you like that? Or Bobbie Anne Gilliam," she said with a smirk as she flounced out.

How the hell does she know about Joanne, I groused to myself.

I called her Becky at dinner the next night to everyone's surprise. "Becky?" Dad asked, "what happened to Sissy."

"Sissy is for little girls Dad," I said in a fake, deep, serious adult voice, "and now that Rebecca has grown into a such a lovely young woman, I think we should put away her childish names. You may not have noticed Dad but Miss Malloy's chest has sprouted quite considerable protrusions."

Mom, trying to stay serious, was giggling behind her hand, and Becky was blushing as Dad, a kidder at heart, gave his daughter the once over. "I believe you're right Rod. Stand up and let me get a good look at ya honey."

"Daddy," Becky cried.

"C'mon, get up girl," Dad ordered

Giving me a quick, venomous look that promised revenge, my blushing sister shyly stood.

Giving a quick whistle Dad announced to the table, "You'll be borrowing your momma's bras soon sweetie."

"Johnny!" Mom warned but couldn't keep the smile out of her voice.

"It's true honey. Rrrebbbeccccca," and he said it slowly, emphasizing her new name, "has a right fine little set of titties on her. What do you think Rod? C'mon here honey, let us get a good look at them."

Ignoring her father and feigning anger, Becky sat. But you couldn't help notice the way she pulled her shoulders back and arched her back, pushing her firm tits even further outward, proud we'd finally noticed that the tomboy was quickly becoming a woman.

Fuck, my sister has nipples, hard, long nipples, I thought as her erect buds pushed against her shirt. I think even both Daddy and Mommy were momentarily surprised.

"Have you sat down with your daughter and explained, you know, about the birds and bees honey?" Dad teasingly asked mom.

"Daddy. Stop it!"

I couldn't help adding my two cents worth and interjected, "it's okay Dad, Ma taught her all about condoms."

"Ya did what," Dad demanded, and then turning to me warned, "And you better bloody well make sure none of your buddies get within condom distance of your sister mister."

Later that night, I was laying in bed, reading, just in a pair of gray, cotton gym shorts, when I heard Becky's knock on our connecting door from the bathroom.

The two of us had the upstairs to ourselves. It was our domain, and it had two large bedrooms separated by a connected bathroom, plus a big playroom/TV room.

"You're mean!" Becky complained as she sat on the edge of my bed, dressed in just a cut-off tank top and short, tight, swimming club shorts.

"Ha, you loved it," I teased. "Showing Daddy and me your little boobies."

"I did not. Take that back!" she yelled as she jumped on me and sat straddling my stomach as she grabbed for my hands.

We wrestled, giggling, much as we'd done since we were little kids, and for minutes I let her have the upper hand before I finally pushed her down and pinned her with my body. She was panting as I held her arms above her head, her breasts rising and falling against my bare chest.

"Say uncle."

"Never," she answered as her body thrashed under me.

Holding both her hands in one of mine I lowered my other hand to her side. Gently slid my fingers across her stomach, tickled, and then slowly moved them upwards.

"Roddddy!" she warned nervously.

"Seeing everyone's talking about them, I figure I might as well take a look," I said grinning, as I slipped a finger under her top and touched the underside of her left breast.

"UNCLE... UNCLE," she yelled.

"Ya sure you don't want me to see them," I leered as she shuffled backward from me on the bed.

"Pervert!"

"I like the way they jiggle," I teased. "Are you cold," I added as her extraordinary nipples pushed through the thin top.

"What about you?" she demanded after she'd jumped out of the bed and onto the floor. "Something seems to have got someone excited," she said as she stared at the huge bulge in my groin.

"That's not"

"Night Roddy," she said as she flounced through the door, but then turned, and looking me right in the eye, lifted her top and flashed me her tits before turning and going.

Fuck! I dreamed of my sister's body all night. She had the prettiest little set of knockers I'd ever seen. High, firm, pink tipped beauties.

It turned out to be so easy. For all my weeks of planning, for all my harebrained schemes, for all my lusty thoughts, getting into Mrs. Mahmoud's bedroom turned out to be a piece of cake. Or more accurately, a piece of a toy one of her children had left lying on the garage floor.

Mrs. Mahmoud, Miriam, slipped, on a toy her daughter had dropped sometime previously, as she got out of her car after a morning shopping expedition three hours after Mom, Dad and Becky had sped away towards Atlanta.

I was cutting her grass, my mind still awash with a thousand mad ideas, when I saw her sprawl wildly.