Chapter 5: Confessions and Revelations

Mom and Dad were of course, still at work. Allison was sunbathing out back but came in when she heard me inside. After yesterday's adventures with Shannon I couldn't help but notice that my little sister had grown up quite a bit while I wasn't looking too. Wearing a two-piece bathing suit held together with string made it easy to notice. It was her usual sun worshipping attire so I should have noticed sooner. I guess the last twenty-four hours had really opened my eyes. When she got it the little triangles that were the bottoms actually met on the sides. Now they pretty much only covered the really interesting parts. While the same was not entirely true for the top, there was definite evidence that they were trying to hide something.

She must have caught me looking because she smiled and said, "Boys. Trying to get even for this morning? Just be glad I didn't have my camera." I think she was kidding. The vision of hundreds of little prints of me in my birthday suit making the rounds of the local bubble gum society was not a pretty picture. "Just kidding, thanks for noticing though. See anything you like?"

I was speechless. I had a déjà vu flashback to last night's dream. No, couldn't be. I must have heard it wrong.

"Jimmy, we need to talk," she said, suddenly more serious. "Do you want to just stand here in the hallway or do you want to sit down somewhere. I started to head back outside, but she stopped me. "I think we need to stay inside for this. I don't think it's anything we want to take the chance of anyone over-hearing."

Okay, now I was totally confused. It must have shown because she took my hand and said, "How about your room? I'll take the chair and you can sit on your bed."

Once we were settled she seemed a little less sure of herself. "Gosh, this is harder than I thought. Okay, let's start simple. You had a dream last night didn't you?"

Could she know? Hoping to cover my shock I jumped right in, "Of course I had a dream. I have dreams every night, pretty much everyone does."

She gave that her best 'boys are so stupid' look. "You know what I mean. A dream. Not a make believe dream like most people have, a 'Jimmy dream.' You may as well admit it because I already talked to Shannon and she told me all about it. Now, before you freak out, she doesn't have any idea what really happened. But she told me about the water fight with you and Mark yesterday and how you 'finally' noticed that she's not a little kid anymore. About time too, by the way. Then she told me about this dream she had last night. She said it started out almost the same, but without Mark, and then her mother left to go to the store, so then it was just the two of you soaking wet in the garage. Does any of this sound familiar?"

I didn't have a clue what to say. So I did the typical guy thing, "She told you all this? And you believed her?"

She cut me off, "Don't play games with me, Jimmy." I could tell she was getting angry. "I'm not a little kid and this is serious. She told me what happened. She told me she kissed you just like in other dreams but that this time it changed when she did. She said it was different, how at first it surprised her but she was having too much fun. She just figured she had had this fantasy so many times that it was just getting better. Jimmy, she has wanted to kiss you and play 'boy-girl' games with you for so long that I think you could have grown a third eye and she wouldn't have cared."

She reached out and took my hand, "Oh Jimmy, I'm so proud of you for being sweet with her. For not being a typical boy and trying to push to far, for being gentle and caring with her and only going as far as she wanted you to. She said you were a better kisser than she ever imagined, and that your hands were soft but that she could tell it was all new to you. But that you were a quick learner and touched her just the way she wanted you to. She couldn't believe you got her off just by sucking on her boobs. It was very sexy to listen to her tell it. You really impressed her, but I have to warn you. She will probably be turning the charm way up now. As far as she knows it was all just a runaway fantasy. She doesn't know it was real and that you were really there. That's why we have to talk about this. Now that she's let the fantasy run that far she is going to be seriously after the real thing. So you have to be really careful."

I was in shock. For one thing, have you ever tried to keep up with an excited seventh grader speed-talking? As if that wasn't hard enough, how could Allison know about any of this? I just started figuring it out myself. I fell back on rule one, 'when in doubt, stall for time.'

"What are you talking about? I wasn't anywhere last night but in bed, in my bed, alone. I couldn't have been with Shannon. You said it yourself, she was dreaming. I mean I'm flattered. I had no idea that she had a crush on me. Actually I'm dead, if Mark finds out."

"Oh come off it, Jimmy." She was moving from irritated to 'openly hostile' now. "You've been popping in and out of my dreams for years. We both know it. Surely you must have figured it out before now? I mean come on, tea with a pink dragon? Like that was your idea? Sure, you were there, but it was my dream."

So much for denial. Now what?

When all else fails, try the truth, "Okay. Actually I just figured it out last night. I mean the clues were there but I never really put it together until last night. All that stuff with Shannon just couldn't happen. There was no factual basis. No experience to base it on. I mean, you know, I'm sure she told you, she could tell that she was the first girl I had ever been 'with.' There were too many things that just didn't fit my pattern, and then there were some inconsistencies. Things that only made sense because they didn't make sense, things that were missing. Like when I realize that I could feel her breast but not taste it. Oh, sorry. You probably didn't need to hear that."

"Oh no, that's okay. I heard it all before from Shannon. Not the taste part but all the rest. I still get tingly thinking about it. You really couldn't taste anything?"

This was not what I expected to be hearing from, or more to the point, talking about with my kid sister. Okay maybe she wasn't really a 'kid' anymore, but still. I pushed on anyway, "Yeah, I think it's because I had no actually experience to base a taste on. I mean, I hadn't even fantasized about it. Eventually I figured out that it had to be her dream and that somehow I was in it, and that made me wonder if anything like that had happened before. Well, not exactly like that but you know what I mean. Then I flashed on the same one you remember, tea with the dragon, and suddenly I knew. I knew that somehow I had been sharing your dreams. Does this mean you do it too?"

"No. Actually I don't think I can. I don't think I have ever been 'in' one of your dreams, but I always know when it's really you in one of mine. Not just the dream you, but the real you in the dream. I know you've been doing some reading on the subject. Have you found anything to suggest what might be going on?"

"No, nothing. I haven't found anything even remotely like this. That's why I wanted to get into Psychology, to see if I could learn more. Maybe see if I could find someone I could talk to about it."

"Wrong. Don't do it. Jimmy, if you need to talk, talk to me, but not to anyone else unless you are really, really sure about them. You've seen those shows and how people react to anyone that even hints at any kind of 'psychic' abilities, and that's just the surface stuff. If anyone knew that you could just pop into their dreams, discover their deepest darkest secrets. They would lock you up in some psychiatric 'research' center and you'd never see anyone again. Don't Jimmy. Maybe I'm exaggerating but maybe just a few of those stories are true or there wouldn't be so many of them. If you need to talk to someone, talk to me. Promise me!"

"Okay! Gosh sis, chill. Like I'm going to advertise something like this, I don't even want Mark to find out. You don't think she would tell him do you?"

She lost it, "Ah-hahahaha, Ah-hahahahaha. Tell Mark! Believe me, no chance! For one thing, you're right, Mark would freak. He's not ready for the idea of boys lusting after his baby sister, least of all his best friend doing it. No, Mark won't find out from Shannon. So unless you do something really stupid, your secret is safe. Besides, it's her that has had the crush on you, not the other way around. The little brat just got lucky and got to you first, and we need to start to keep better track of what is going on with your dreams. I'm guessing this is the first time that you know of that you've been with someone besides just the two of us?"

"Yeah, I couldn't think of any other times. There are a couple of other things that happened that you may not know about. Like the fire. Do you know about the fire?"

"What about it? Okay, that's a no. You can tell me about it later. We're going to have to work on all of this later. But it's like somehow you have jumped to a new level and the rules have changed. Only we don't know what they are."

"And what did you mean, she 'got to me first'?"

"I'll explain later. It's getting late and the 'rents will be home any time now. So I have to shower off the rest of this oil and change before mom catches me on the furniture." She headed for the door, but called back over her shoulder, "Pop in later tonight and we'll 'talk' some more."

She gave me wink over her shoulder and slowly walked out the door. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like there was a lot more movement in her walk than usual.

Meanwhile, all I could think was, huh? What the heck was all that about? What did she mean Shannon 'got to me first?' Was there someone else stalking me? This was just too much. She was right about one thing though. I was going to have to be very careful who I talked to and how much I told them. I suddenly felt like I was the little brother. She had obviously been giving this a lot more thought than I had. Could this really be dangerous? I mean, nothing bad had ever happened before. Yeah, but you never left the house before either. If this really was what was happening, then it was like she said, the rules had most certainly changed and we didn't get a copy.

Dinner was a re-run of the night before. How was school? Blah, blah, bl-bl-blah-blah. After dinner I kept watching for a chance to talk to Allison again. But before I knew it, it was time for bed. Crap, how were we going to talk about the situation with Shannon and the sudden changes if we couldn't... DUH! Hello. 'Pop' in, and talk to me. Jimmy some times you are so dense. But now I was nervous. Note to self, talk to Bob about some relaxation tapes. I needed something boring and innocuous. I closed my eyes and started replaying Social Studies in my head. Oh yeah! That did the trick.

I drifted randomly for a while, just sort of re-living the events of the last twenty four hours. Then somehow I knew it was time. I concentrated on talking to Allison. The scene went blank and suddenly we were sitting in a tent with a flashlight as our only source of light. I was in running shorts and a tank top, Allison had on her standard long tee and panties. We're not really into pajamas.

"This was the best you could come up with?" Allison just looked at me with her 'you are so lame' expression. "What, you were expecting company? Spies maybe? Didn't occur to you that if someone wanted to listen all they have to do is stand outside in the dark?" She shook her head. "Never mind, I'll do it."

The scene shifted and we were sitting on a blanket, under a tree, by a stream, in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere on an absolutely perfect day. There was a picnic basket off to one side and when I turned I saw the two horses we had apparently ridden here on cropping grass not far away.

"Wow! You're good at this!" I said. And I meant it too. "Did you just whip this up or have you been here before?

She turned a really pretty shade of pink and said in a small voice, "I made it a while back. I've been waiting for the chance to bring you here. Sorry it had to be like this. I come here to relax. It started as a daydream. Some place to think about when I was stressed and needed to go to sleep. Don't you have a place like this? You know, a place you think about to relax?

"Not really. I never really thought about it. I don't have that much stress in my life. Until tonight I never even thought about it. Then I tried to get to sleep and was too wound up and decided I better do some work on relaxation exercises. You say you've been doing this for a while?"

"Yes. Where do you think all those fantasy castles we used to play in came from? I wonder. Do you think that because you have spent so much time playing in my fantasies that you never developed your own? Do you consider yourself, oh, imaginative?"

"Well, no, not particularly. Now that I think of it most of my dreams have been in settings that I have seen before. Like television, movies, or maybe comic book stuff. I think most of the others must have been yours. You could be onto something there."

"Well, it's something to think about. And it may be important later, but we have more important problems right now. So where do you want to start?"

"I'm not really sure where to start. There is just so much going on."

"Jimmy, how did you make it all the way to high school? It's okay, I made a list." She reached into the picnic basket and pulled out one of those new computers that works like a notepad. You know the ones you can write on. "Give me just a minute; I have to make a note to work on your organizational skills. Probably should spend some time on set design and landscaping as well." She wrote some stuff on the screen before continuing.

"Okay, here's what I have so far. We have to try to figure out what triggered the new changes. That's a big one. I think to do that we have to catch up on what we already know. Then we need to figure out who we can talk to and just what we can talk about without putting ourselves, yourself in particular, at risk. Let's start with what we already know. You mentioned the fire?"

"That was one point that stuck in my head. It was different. Looking back, it was really different. I remember hearing you coughing and I got up to check on you. But I don't remember actually going to your room. I was just suddenly there, looking at you and wondering what was making you cough. I couldn't smell the smoke; it wasn't bothering me at all. But then I saw it and ran to Mom's room. But when I tried to open the door, my hand went right through it. It was like I was a ghost or something. I guess seeing my hand go through the door made me realize that it was a dream. But it wasn't really a dream. I mean, the scene jump to your room fit, and I've done ghost stuff in dreams before, but when I 'woke up' I didn't even have to smell the smoke, I already knew the house was on fire and just jumped up and ran for Mom and Dad's room."

Allison had been sitting quietly, playing with a flower stem and listening carefully, "You're right, that doesn't sound like normal dream stuff. I mean, even the part about coming to my room, while it may be normal for dreams, it doesn't follow the previous patterns. Before, you didn't have to 'hear' that something was wrong; you just came to my room. And you came physically. Mom kept finding you on the floor or asleep in the chair. That or you would just pop into my dream and it would be 'Rapunzel in the Tower' or whatever was playing at the time. By the way, I've been meaning to do this for a long time." She sat up and took my face in her hands, then kissed me very tenderly on the lips. Not like Shannon had but definitely not your normal brother-sister kiss either. When she pulled back and looked me the eye and said, "Thank you Jimmy, for watching over me." She kissed me again. "For playing with me." Again. "And for being my best friend."

I was shocked. What do you say to that? I don't know what happened, but for a second I forgot she was my sister. I reached my hand behind her head and pulled her lips back to mine. I didn't go any farther than she had but I put everything I felt into that kiss. "I love you, Allison. I will always love you." A shorter kiss. "Thank you, for letting me come over and play." Another. "Thank you for being my best friend." Another. "For looking out for me and keeping me from making some really big mistakes, and for caring enough to know me better than I sometimes know myself." <<I may burn in hell>> I slipped my tongue out and caressed her lips; she parted them slowly and met me in the middle. Still not the same as Shannon but there was just a sense of warmth and caring and affection that flowed over us. I felt her arms come up around my neck and we sort of fell over onto the blanket. One small corner of my brain asked where the pillow came from and I broke the kiss with a giggle. "Damn you're good."

"You have no idea," she said as she pulled me back down and attacked my mouth with her tongue. I was really starting to heat up when the reality of what I was doing came rushing back in.

"Allison?" I said, then kissed her on the cheek and hugged her close, "Is this a good idea? You're my sister and I love you like air, but I'm not sure this is a good idea."

I felt her breath against my ear as she whispered, "I am. I told you I've wanted to bring you here for a long time." She gently bit my earlobe before going on, "I meant it. And this is exactly what I wanted to do with you when I got you here." She pulled back and smiled. "Except for worrying about things getting out of hand and whether or not some guys in black are going to try and steal you away forever." She returned to kissing me but something was different. "Oh." She sighed. "That pretty much blew the whole mood. I guess we should get back to work."

She was right. The feeling was gone. She picked up the portable again from where she had set it down. "So the fire triggered something new. Have you ever done anything like that again since?" Right back to business like nothing had happened.

"No. I went through everything I could remember and all the stuff that I suddenly recognized and there has never been anything like that again. After the fire everything pretty much went back to the way it had been."

She made a couple of notes on the screen. "Okay. Distance doesn't seem to be a big factor either. Not that we have had a lot of practice with it. Let me make a note of that. We need to watch for opportunities to study the impact of distance. So far you have gone from our house to Shannon's and also, from there back here the night I had my nightmare and you were 'camping' with Mark. We'll have to wait and see if being further apart," she looked up at me, "not that I want to ever be far away from you, makes any difference." She looked back down at the pad, "Now, we know what brought you back to me. You have always been able to feel when I was having a bad night." She gave me a peck on the cheek.