Chapter 13

New Year’s Eve of 1976 was celebrated much like it was anywhere else in the country. There were parties and gatherings that weren’t called parties, but which had a party atmosphere to them.

One such was at Tilly and Jake Johnson’s house. There were only four people there, the other two being Erica and Will, but it was still a celebration. The kids were in bed, and the TV was on, but turned down. They hadn’t so much eaten a meal as snacked all evening, having a sandwich here, or some chips there. Tilly was taking sips of white wine, which Will enjoyed too. Erica and Jake were drinking Dr. Pepper.

They were playing cards, which made it interesting, because it was spades and it was men against women. Both men only had one hand to play with, and a simple code had been developed so that the woman sitting next to each man could pluck a card from the man’s hand and put it on the table. The women were losing, and as the night progressed, they started plucking the wrong cards more and more often.

“Ohhh, Jake, I’m so sorry,” said Erica, as she pulled the ace of spades from his hand to play on a heart’s trick. “I thought you said you had a heart.”

“I DO have a heart, woman,” he growled. “Is there something about being in the women’s liberation movement that requires you to harass men?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” said Erica sweetly, as she put the ace back in his hand and pulled another wrong card, showing them he had the jack of diamonds. “Oops.”

“We may as well just let them have the game,” sighed Jake. The men were a hundred and fifty points ahead with a score of three hundred sixty.

“Don’t you let us win!” snapped Erica. She blushed as she realized what she’d said, and the tone of voice she’d said it in.

“Don’t have to let you win,” said Jake, unruffled. “You’re going to cheat to win anyway.”

“Jake!” said Tilly sharply. “These are our guests!”

“You’re no better,” he groused. “Both of you, preying on poor old crippled men. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” He tried to look hurt.

“I’m not old,” said Will. “And I think we can beat them even if they cheat.”

It went on like that, until Will’s prediction was proven.

Tilly packed up the cards as Erica tried to add the points incorrectly, so that the game wouldn’t officially be over.

“And they let you teach school?” asked Jake, grinning.

It was only fifteen minutes until midnight, at that point, so they didn’t start another game, sitting down in the living room to wait for the clock to strike, and for the new year to be official.

“So how is the play coming?” asked Tilly.

Erica smiled.

“It’s mostly okay,” she said. “Bobby and a cheerleader and I got all the sets finished, so that when the kids come back we can start doing full walkthroughs, with sets and props and all that. My real concern is that the kids will have forgotten their lines over Christmas, and that they won’t grasp the idea of the right kind of delivery.”

She went on to say that when the kids said their lines, it sounded like they were reading them, instead of speaking them.

“When they get in front of a real audience, I’m afraid they’ll forget everything, because they’re not thinking about what they’re saying. If they have the least bit of stage fright, I’m sure it will all just vanish from their heads completely.”

“Can’t you get some people in there to watch rehearsals?” asked Jake. “That would give them an audience to practice in front of.”

“I don’t think that would work,” said Erica. “It would have to be enough people to scare them ... you know, make them take notice?”

“Not if it was the right people,” said Jake.

“Like who?”

“Like me and Will.”

“What?” Erica goggled at him. Tilly leaned forward, interested.

“Most people are scared of men like me and Will in the first place,” said Jake. “They don’t know what to say. They forget common manners. If we were sitting there, say at the front of the stage, where they could see us, and we were watching them ... don’t you think that would make them as nervous as a whole crowd?”

“That’s insane,” said Tilly, smiling benignly at her husband. He’d made other decisions in the past that were more outrageous than this one, such as allowing Bobby to impregnate her twice, the good old fashioned way, so she wasn’t shocked. She just thought it was silly.

“No it’s not,” insisted Jake. “Us being there would throw them for a loop. At least you’d know whether they could concentrate or not.”

“I don’t know,” said Erica, frowning. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“Is putting them in front of a crowd when they’re not ready fair?” asked Jake.

“I wasn’t talking about them,” said Erica. “I don’t think it’s fair to you to put you in that situation. You have no idea what will happen, Jake.”

“Of course I do,” said Jake.

“He does,” said Will, who had hit the wine a little harder than anyone else. “I do too.”

“Okay,” admitted Erica. “But what if they scream and run away?”

“It’s not that bad,” said Jake. “Mostly people just try to ignore us, once they’ve stared a bit.”

“You know,” mused Erica. “I was reading a book on drama, and one of the things it said was that actors should behave as if the audience isn’t there. The hard part is getting them to do that, because they know the audience is there.”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking of letting them do this,” said Tilly, blinking.

“Maybe he’s got something,” said Erica. She turned to her brother. “What about you?”

“I’d be scared shitless,” he said, peering at her with owlish eyes. “I mean spitless,” he said, looking at Tilly.

“Not with me there with you,” said Jake. “We’re brothers, you and me.”

“I know,” said Will, concentrating hard to speak clearly. “That doesn’t mean they won’t puke all over the place when they see me, though.”

“I didn’t puke,” said Tilly. She flushed, as she realized she was actually supporting this really ridiculous idea. “I wanted to, but I didn’t,” she said, trying to turn it around.

“Tilly!” barked Jake.

“Okay, I lied. But this is crazy. You know it is. Neither of you needs to go parading around in public, having people stare at you. Jake, it took me years just to get you to go to a town celebration!”

“I was stupid,” said Jake. “I’ve been stupid about a lot of things over the years. But about eight years ago, my little filly, I started getting smart again.”

Tilly blushed, because she knew he was referring to him letting another man make a baby in her belly.

“And I think this is a good idea,” he added.

“At least talk to Bobby about it first,” Tilly pleaded.

“Bobby? Why would he need to talk to Bobby?” asked Erica.

Tilly blushed even more. “We respect his judgment on things,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Ha-ppy new year!” said Will suddenly. He tossed off the rest of the wine in his glass.

They all turned to the TV, where confetti was falling and people were laughing and smiling in the cold air.

She thought she’d be tired when they got home. It was almost one in the morning. But the thought that they could sleep in, and an underlying excitement had Erica wide awake. Will had a comfortable buzz on and was humming to himself when she opened the door, with his wheelchair ready to take him inside.

“I wish we could sleep together,” he said as he hopped to one foot, grabbing the arm of the chair expertly, despite the alcohol in his system.

As she pushed him up the ramp, it occurred to Erica that ... they could sleep together. Her bed was plenty big enough for two people. The idea of having someone else in the bed with her was foreign, but if it was Will ... well that didn’t seem so far out.

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” she asked, once they were in the house. “I never thought about that before, but my bed is big enough.”

He had a different look on his face when he lifted his head. There was something in his eyes that looked almost dangerous, somehow, as if he were angry.

“I’ve dreamed of sleeping with you almost since I can remember,” he said softly.

It may be understood, with a little reflection, that because Erica had pushed sexual thoughts and urges away from her all those years, it was only natural for her to think of “sleep with you” in a slightly different way than her brother did. To Erica, “sleep” meant exactly that ... slumber ... unconscious repose ... shuteye. Of course to Will, it meant the same thing as it means to the majority of people, most likely including you, the reader.

What saved Erica from losing her virginity that night was an almost bizarre combination of circumstances.

Once they were in her bed together, naked and breathing hard, had Will been whole, he would have rolled over and simply impaled her. He was not whole, however, and while the alcohol had reduced his inhibitions to the point he was willing to fuck his sister, it had done nothing to restore his physical capabilities. When he tried to roll on top of Erica, he just couldn’t make it work.

From Erica’s perspective, she didn’t quite understand what he was trying to do. Always before, he lay on his back, comfortable, while she stroked him. She had learned, by this time, how to bring him to completion without his help. In an ironic kind of way, she was proud of herself, in terms of her capability to sexually satisfy a man. She didn’t think of it as debasing herself. She did this out of love. And so, when he obviously tried to roll on top of her, she perceived it as an attempt to embrace, while lying down. That was something she could understand.

So, she rolled to embrace him, from the top position. She only went three quarters of the way, because that was all that was needed. In that position, she could press her breasts against his chest, and reach the good side of his face for kisses, while still being able to reach his stiff prick to do what she had always done. Since learning to masturbate in the shower, Erica no longer felt the overpowering urge to masturbate while she took care of her brother. She could do that any time now.

The bizarre part of this otherwise tender scene, was that her body covered his in almost the identical pattern that Josh Turner’s body had covered him, a few years earlier, as he lay mangled on a battlefield, waiting for napalm to turn his body to ash.

As his sister’s naked ... hot ... body pressed against his ... Will Bradford had a flashback.

His scream of agony was both completely unexpected and terrifying to Erica, who suddenly found herself on the floor. Will’s body had arched so violently that it had literally thrown her across the bed. She scrambled up, confused and flabbergasted, to see Will’s good hand slapping at the left side of his ruined body as he screamed over and over again. His heartrending screams turned her blood to ice, but her brain recognized his actions and she somehow knew what was happening.

Screaming back at him didn’t work. He was mindless as his brain overpowered reality. She did the only thing she could think of, which was to dash to the bathroom and wet a towel with cold water. She dashed back and pressed the cold, wet cloth against his left side, trying to spread it out and avoid being hit by his hand, which was still trying to beat out the imaginary flames.

That cold towel did the trick, and his mind jerked back to reality in an instant, mid gasp. His screams cut off as if his vocal chords had been severed, and no longer worked at all.

Then he sobbed.

It took her an hour to calm him down to the point that he fell into an exhausted sleep. She was afraid something else might happen, so she stayed there, eventually falling asleep herself.

The preservation of Erica’s virginity continued, the next morning, because alcohol and terror had robbed Will’s mind of the ability to recall all the events of the previous evening.

She woke him gently, worried that he might be frightened still. His eyes opened, clear and unconcerned.

“Hi,” he said.

“How do you feel?” she asked, carefully, putting one hand on his chest.

It was then he realized he was in bed ... his sister’s bed ... and that they were both naked, and that it was morning. His mind tried to supply information about what had happened the night before, but was only partially successful. He remembered wanting to fuck his sister, but that was it.

“What happened? Did we do it?” he asked, his voice almost dreamy.

“Do what?” asked Erica, confused.

“Did I put it in you?”

Understanding hit her like a medicine ball in the stomach. It was understanding of more than just his question. As she realized what he meant, other things made sense to her too, that had been troubling and frustrating feelings in the past. Erica had intentionally repressed the thought of having sex with any man, much less her brother. But she knew what it looked like, from that movie way back when, and from the descriptions of her friends.

Now, as the image of her, lying on the bed, legs apart, came into her mind, and the image of Will’s penis hanging over her sex, was added, the tingles she felt all over her body made much more sense. Her body had felt those tingles ... the urges she was feeling now ... and she just hadn’t understood what they meant.