Chapter 3: Summer 1995

It was mid-June and already the temperatures during the day were reaching the 90s. Even though Reno was in a desert, it's a city nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, and it is known for getting strong winds off those mountains which cooled the city down at nights. Even in the deadest of summers there, it was nowhere near as hot and dry as it was in Idaho.

I was earning so much money working for Ray; I really didn't mind the heat. My favorite tasks were the ones that oddly enough, Ray and Joe didn't like doing at all ... washing the equipment and the shops. I loved the work. I'd almost always end up soaking wet and cooled off. And there was something very satisfying seeing your work have an instant effect. The work in the fields was not always so immediate.

I'd learned from Joe how to set water, as the farm ran on irrigation. We used metal irrigation tubes that were each about three to four feet long and curved so they drew water up from the concrete irrigation ditches and into the field to run down between the rows of crops. It was something that had me up at the crack of dawn every morning, helping Joe set water. This was one of the first things I'd learned to do on the weekends when school was just about finished. Once I had the hang of it, Joe would just tell me in the afternoon what fields needed to be set the next morning and with which size tubes to set them.

Mostly, it was work I did on my own and I liked that. I could just do the work and be left to my own thoughts. It was the same with washing the equipment. In fact, most of the tasks I'd learned to do were solitary tasks. Rarely was I actually working with Ray or Joe unless one of them was teaching me how to do something. Suddenly I had a huge chunk of time with just my own head to keep me company.

It was during this time that I set upon the task of unlocking the mystery of my sister's sudden obsession with sleeping in my bed at night. When it started up again, I thought it must just be that she was anxious about finals and the end of term so she was having problems sleeping. Then, I realized that her grades were better than mine and she didn't seem to fret a lot over studying, so it couldn't be that.

My second thought was that she might be crushing on a boy who didn't even notice her and I was just being used as a shoulder to cry on, as she often showed up crying or sniffling. Whatever it was, crawling into bed with me seemed to stop the tears quite quickly. I had asked a couple of times, but when I asked, she always said, "Nothing. I just had a bad dream."

One day I came in from my afternoon rounds of checking the water, something I'd also taken over from Joe's normal tasks so he could do other things, and I found my mother and my sister screaming at each other on the patio outside the back door.

"Why do I need new clothes!?" I heard my sister scream at her. I'd never heard her so upset.

My mother yelled back, "You don't NEED new clothes. I just thought that you might want to go down to your father's with some new outfits!"

Seeing me, my sister took a few deep breaths and tried to calmly, yet firmly say, "Well, thank you mother. But no thank you. I'm perfectly happy with my clothes." Then she stormed into the house.

My mother sat down in a patio chair and looked at me with a perplexed look on her face, "I really don't know what's going on with your sister. I mean what normal girl doesn't want to go get some new clothes!?"

"I don't know Mom," I said, sitting down next to her and popping open the soda I'd grabbed from the fridge in the shop. "Maybe she just doesn't want to go shopping with her 'mother'."

My mother shook her head, "No, that's not it either."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, at first, I asked her, 'Do you want to go shopping with me?' and she asked, 'For what?'. So I told her, 'Clothes shopping. I thought maybe we could pick out some outfits for each other.' She actually smiled at me and said, 'That sounds like fun.'"

I sipped at the soda, but paused to say, "I don't understand. How'd you get to screaming at each other?"

My mother threw up her hands, "I don't know. I left the room and went to change. As I was leaving, I said something like, 'It will be nice to have some new clothes when you see your old friends in Reno.' So I went into my room and changed to leave, then I came back in and your sister was sitting in her room reading a book. I said, 'Ready to go?' and she said, 'I'm not going.' ... and then before I could think about it, I was arguing with her and she stormed out here and screamed. Then we were screaming at each other. I don't get it."

I gulped down the rest of the soda and burped. "Well. I'll talk to her Mom. Sometimes she tells me things that she wouldn't tell you. Maybe she's upset about something totally different and she just took it out on you. I'm sure she'll apologize before you know it."

My mother grinned, "She better if she knows what's good for her. Are you done for the day?"

"No, just taking a break. I just got done checking the water. I'm headed back out for a few hours more. I've got to cultivate a field over by the highway."

My mother smiled at me, "This plan of mine seems to be working. You and Ray aren't fighting nearly as much as you used to. Though, I don't like the idea of you running the cultivator. Now that I know WHAT that is, it seems pretty dangerous."

"Oh Mom, it's not dangerous. You just keep thinking of that movie that Alice and Georgia like... 'The Man in the Moon'. First off, I'm not going to be doing anything stupid like showing off for some girl by acting like a moron on a tractor. Secondly, in the film, he's disking, not cultivating. And finally, I'm going to be using one of the tractors with a cab. It's too damned hot to be in an open air tractor right now. I want one of the tractors with air conditioning."

My mother laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. Then she stopped and grabbed my arm. "Oooh! My little boy is putting on some muscle. All this work definitely has some benefits. I'm not sure I like you working so much though."

When the job had been offered, my mother's exact words from Ray were that I could work as much as I wanted, and so I was. Alice and Georgia's hints about Idaho in the summer time were no joke. It was pretty dead out here in the middle of nowhere. So I quickly filled my days with anything Ray and Joe could find for me to do. I know some of it was just busywork that they invented, but at $15 an hour, I was finding about 50 hours a week to work, and I loved it. Plus, my mother was right, I was putting on some muscle, and somehow all the sweaty work meant my pores were clearing up and my acne problems were all but gone.

I smiled at my mother and said, "Would you rather I was lying around the house doing nothing like the lionesses?"

My mother grinned at my nickname for my step sisters, though she loved them like her own daughters by now, "Stop it. It's not like they do nothing. Alice is spending quite a few hours studying to retake the SATs. You know she wasn't happy with her score, though it's perfectly good if you ask me, and I'm a college professor." She wasn't yet, but I didn't say so. Her teaching didn't start until the fall semester, though she'd already been given an office and started planning her curriculum for the classes she'd be teaching. "And Georgia is spending a lot of time painting. It's not like they're in here watching daytime soap operas every day. And you know your sister ... she's got her nose stuck in a book basically 24/7 these days. I can't seem to interest her in anything else, or so it seems."

"Mom, just give Natalie a break for once. She likes to read, it lets her escape and visit other places without ever leaving. You know how active her imagination is."

My mother smiled, "You're right, I know. I just wish she'd get interested in a hobby of some kind. She's so different when she's got friends and school going on. That's why I figured she'd be excited about going down to Reno. I'm sure she misses her old friends. But every time I mention it, she seems to tense and freak out."

Suddenly, the gears in my fifteen year old brain started creaking. Yes, I forgot to mention that—my sister and I had celebrated our birthday last month. A year older, but not too much brighter ... that's me. These new thoughts had me lurching to my feet. "Uh ... I better get to work Mom. I'll see you later."

After mindlessly walking away from my mother and getting the cultivator attached to the tractor, I drove it out to the field and started the mind-numbingly boring task of driving back and forth for hours on end. It really wasn't a hard task. You just had to drive the tractor from one end of the field to the other, keeping a careful eye on where the metal implements were in relation to the rows of sprouting crops so that you didn't tear out the crops themselves, only churning the dirt between the rows to kill any pesky weeds that had grown there. Then at the end of the row, you'd raise the implements out of the dirt so they didn't snap when you turned the tractor.

Of all the tasks I'd learned so far, this was the most complicated one, simply because if you strayed on the path down the field, you could take out thousands of dollars worth of crops if you weren't careful. Luckily, Joe and Ray were impressed with how well I could drive. And I liked it. This particular tractor was the newest they owned. It had air conditioning and an AM/FM radio. The other enclosed cab tractor also had air condition, but it didn't work as well, and it only came with an AM radio. This was, by far, the ultimate ride on the farm.

I rarely got to use it though, as Ray and Joe also preferred it. But today, Ray was in town dealing with a seed company, and Joe was back at the shop tearing apart the ten-year old combine and trying to figure out why it had died on him during last year's harvest. According to Ray, Joe always drove the combine during the wheat harvesting season, and it nearly always died on him about half-way through the task. But most people don't drive cars that are ten years old, so that's where Ray thought the problem lay. Joe was convinced there was some flaw that was causing problems year after year in different areas.

But I really wasn't thinking about any of that as I cultivated this field of corn, the short stalks only about a foot high. I was thinking about what my mother said. About how Natalie was so upset every time she mentioned going to Reno for the summer. It had taken me months, but I'd finally made the connection in my head. The first time Natalie had snuck into my room, and found me in bed naked, was the same day Natalie had found out she'd be going to Reno without me.

"But she can't still be feeling guilty about me not going too?" I said to myself out loud. I often found myself talking to myself when I drove a tractor. Not that I could really hear myself over the noise of the diesel engine and the blaring radio pumping out Metallica. At least they had a good heavy metal station here in 'hickville.'

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Natalie never felt guilty about leaving me behind. That meant that something else was bothering her about going down to Reno. But there had to be something more to it. We'd known since we moved to Idaho that we were going to spend a month at our father's during the summer. That's when it struck me.

WE! We were going to spend the month there. Now it would just be her!

But I still didn't get why she was so upset I wouldn't be going with her.

The more I went around and around on that tractor, the more my mind kept going in circles as well. Finally, I realized ... I'd just have to ask her.

That night, when Natalie crept into my bed, I was wide awake and waiting for her. She was crying, but I could tell she was also stopping. As she lifted the sheet and climbed into bed, I wrapped her in my arms and she turned away, spooning into me. It may sound silly, and I know all the movies and TV shows joked about how men didn't like to cuddle, but I really did like it with Natalie. It was comforting when she held me, or when I held her. It just felt right. There was nothing sexual about it. It felt like becoming whole again.

If you've never been truly in love with a soul mate, you can't really understand what it's like to have a twin, especially if you're the kind of twins who are basically telepathic. Most of the time, Natalie and I weren't telepathic, but we were definitely empathetic. We knew each other's moods and feelings like they were our own. And now that I really intellectually understood how upset she'd been for months, I started to truly feel her quieting sobs as I held her.

"Natalie?" I spoke.

"Yeah?" she whispered.

"We need to talk."

She tensed up, but said nothing.

"Mom told me about your argument today."

She seemed to relax a little bit, "It was stupid. I already apologized."

"It's not that. Mom said something that really clicked in my mind about..." as I trailed off trying to find the right words, I felt her tense again. I'd definitely struck on the right track without even saying anything. I knew I'd have to really force her into this to get anywhere.

"Natalie," I said forcefully. "I know you're upset about going to Reno for the summer without me. When you first showed some apprehension about it, I thought it was because you were going alone and I wouldn't get to spend the time with Dad that you did. But I realize now that's not why you're upset."

I paused, waiting for her to say anything, but she stayed silent, and I could feel her breathing was increased. Her heart was pounding so hard I could feel it through her back against my chest. I spoke slowly and calmly, "Natalie. You've got to tell me what is going on. The night after Mom mentioned going down to Dad's you crawled into my bed and you've been steadily sneaking in here since then. You've got to tell me what's going on!"

I felt her take a deep breath. Then she spoke, "Do you love me?"

"Natalie, of course I do. You know we're inseparable. You're my best friend and I can't imagine my life without you in it." I recited while rubbing her arms and trying my best to comfort her tension.

Then she whispered and I didn't hear it. I couldn't hear it. I was on fire. Inside me there was a desire to rip out my own heart and stomp on it until the fire stopped. I'd never felt such anger inside me before. My mind was white with flames of hatred and my eyes must have been shooting out jets of bright flames because I couldn't see anything but blackness.

The only thing that broke through was Natalie's cries of pain. I was squeezing her so hard she couldn't breathe. I took a deep breath and released her. She spun to look at me, her eyes filled with tears, "Nathan? Are you alright?"

"When!?" I demanded through gritted teeth.

Then she told me. She was sobbing. I took her chin in my hand and brought her eyes to mine. I knew I must look frighteningly angry, but I knew she needed to see that. I said very clearly, trying to control my anger, "Never ... Again."

She looked blankly at me as I stood up and threw on a T-shirt. "Where are you going?" she cried.

I turned to her as I opened my bedroom door and said, "Never again."

I walked down the hall and knocked loudly on my mother and Ray's bedroom door. I heard a muffled "Wha?" from Ray, and then my mother said sleepily, "Who is it?"

I said loudly, "It's Nathan. I need to talk to you both. It's important. We'll be waiting in the den."

I turned back to my room, grabbed my bathrobe off the hook by the door and wrapped the confused and crying Natalie in it. She sobbed and tried to ask me what I was doing, but I just led her into the den and onto the loveseat so I could hold her shoulders as she cried.

A minute later, my mother appeared in her own robe and a half-step behind her was Ray, yawning and looking none-too-pleased at the midnight awakening. "This better be good Nate," he said. He was the only one who ever called me "Nate", and only when he wasn't pleased with me. He knew I didn't like the nickname. I preferred Nathan, or even Nathaniel.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to prompt Natalie to tell them, so I knew I had to tell them myself. So I said, "Sit down. This will take a few minutes to explain and you'd better be sitting down anyway. This isn't good news."

So, worried, they both sat down in two of the nice leather chairs and looked at me as I held Natalie who looked absolutely terrified.

"For the past two months, Natalie has been sneaking into my bed at night. At first it was just once or twice a week, but this last month, it's basically every night. Now, I know you are going to immediately think that something bad was going on between us, but it wasn't. It was mostly just like when we were little. We were just sleeping and talking.

"When I did ask, Natalie told me it was because she was having bad dreams. So I really didn't think you needed to know. I figured once she stopped having the dreams, she'd go back to sleeping in her own bed. But then it kept getting worse, and I was getting worried.

"Then you had that argument today Mom. And something you said really stuck with me. She wanted to go shopping right up until you mentioned Reno."

My mother nodded, upset now, but still quietly listening.

"Well, the first night Natalie crawled into bed with me a few months back was the same night you told me about working for Ray and about her going to see Dad alone."

My mother immediately tensed. She'd made the connection in two seconds while it took me two months. She looked immediately at Natalie, "Oh honey. Why don't you want to go to see your friends and your father? Is it Stephanie?" Stephanie was our stepmother, my father's former secretary, and actually she was a really nice lady, though, of course, my mother despised her.

I shook my head, "No mother. It's not Stephanie." I was growling.

Ray growled back at me, "Watch your tone, boy!"

I shot a glare at him, "Sorry." I turned to Natalie and pulled her away from me, "Nat. You've GOT to tell them. I know you're afraid, but you've got to tell them what you told me."

She looked up at me, her eyes pleading with me to take away the pain. A pain that had been there and I hadn't seen. The anger inside me melted away and all I could feel was that I'd let her down, I hadn't stopped it from happening. What kind of brother am I that I couldn't keep her safe!?

But suddenly she nodded to me and bawled to my mother, "He raped me."

I remembered in that moment that Ray immediately looked shocked and for a half-second, he looked like he was ready to murder me, but he also realized in that half-second that my sister wouldn't be holding on to her rapist for dear life. I think my mother made the realization even faster than a normal human brain response can, because suddenly she'd jumped across the room and scooped up my sister like a mama bear protecting her cub.

She wasn't protecting her from me though; she was trying to protect Natalie from the world, from evil, from everything. Natalie was sobbing into my mother's chest uncontrollably, and I didn't even realize that I was crying until she pulled me into her hug as well.

When I heard more sobbing, I realized that Ray was across the room holding onto Alice and Georgia who were looking at the three of us and they were also crying tears of sympathy for Natalie. When I saw this, the white fire inside me suddenly reared up again.

I couldn't control it this time. I was furious. I stood up and ran out of the house. I was still only wearing a T-shirt and my boxers. I don't even know how it happened, but suddenly I was being tackled to the ground and I felt sharp pain as my knees hit the rocks on the ground.

I fought back against my attacker and I could hear the mystery man grunting as my fifteen year old fists made contact with his face, his chest and his stomach. But he held onto me with powerful arms. Then I heard his voice, "Shhh. Shhhh. It's OK. Calm down, Nathaniel."

I realized then that it was Ray. I stopped fighting and I sobbed. I'd never really let myself cry in front of Ray before, but tonight was definitely a night of firsts. Not only was I crying in front of him, but he was crying too. I'd never felt such anger and sadness all at once in all my life, and I hope you never have to feel it either.

When he pulled me to my feet, I winced, my feet felt like I'd walked through glass. When I looked around, I realized why. Somehow, I'd managed to run all the way down our mile-long gravel driveway in the middle of the night, barefoot. My anger-fueled run had only been stopped by Ray, in his tennis shoes and bathrobe, following me in the truck.

Ray pulled me into the truck and drove us back to the house. I gingerly stepped inside the kitchen from the garage and found I had cut my feet as there was now blood on the kitchen floor. Ray patted the kitchen counter and said, "Hop up. We better get your feet cleaned up and bandaged."

That moment, Alice and Georgia came in to the kitchen. They were wearing nothing but long T-shirts and I could tell even in my emotionally wracked state that they weren't wearing bras and the T-shirts weren't long enough to hide their incredible legs. I wasn't getting turned on, but somewhere in my mind, the images were being stored away for future masturbatory fantasy.

Alice took my feet and swung them into the kitchen sink where she proceeded to very carefully clean them with antibacterial soap and a warm washcloth. Meanwhile, Georgia had grabbed several paper towels and was wiping up the blood from the floor. After a few painful moments under Alice's careful ministrations, Ray returned holding a roll of gauze and white medical tape.

Alice took the gauze and wrapped my feet and taped it. She said, "Wait here. You really shouldn't walk on those feet at all, but I've got a set of crutches from when I broke my leg a few years ago. I think if we adjust them, you can stay off them quite a bit. It's not perfect, but we don't have a wheelchair handy. Some of those cuts probably should have stitches though if you ask me."

I shrugged, "I'll be fine. Where is Natalie?"

"She's still in the den with Mom." I'd never heard Alice or Georgia call my mother 'Mom'. They always called her Alice or 'your mother'. "Let me go get the crutches, then you can go back in there. Ok?"

I nodded and Alice left Georgia and me alone in the kitchen. Ray had disappeared.

When I looked at Georgia, she burst into tears as if she were Hoover Dam and suddenly burst. She grabbed onto me and said, "You're such a good brother."

I was flabbergasted. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. In my own mind, I felt like the worst brother imaginable. "What the hell are you talking about!? I am the worst! I LET my sister get raped and molested! I didn't stop it. I didn't even realize it had happened! What the fuck kind of brother is that!" I was screaming at her, loudly.

When I looked past her terrified face, I saw that Natalie was behind her at the kitchen doorway. From the other direction, Alice was standing at the other door with the crutches in her hands and behind her was Ray, his face ashen. My mother was standing behind Natalie, her face a mirror's image of Ray's expression.

No one spoke for a moment, but then Natalie gently pushed Georgia aside to stand in front of me. "It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known it happened. And you DID stop it from happening."

I looked at her, confused. "What?"

She whimpered, "Remember, every time we went to visit Dad at his apartment or after he and Stephanie moved in together, I slept in your bed. Every night. Dad never would have tried to do anything to me with you there."

She hugged me hard, "You WERE the perfect brother. I can't imagine my life without you."

Suddenly I felt so relieved, and yet, I also felt so stupid. I looked up at Georgia and said softly, "Sorry I yelled at you."

Georgia smiled and waved me off like it was nothing.

I held onto Natalie and said, "I'm still sorry I wasn't there to stop it from happening at all."

"I know." She sighed against me. "That's why I love you so much."

My mother spoke up, "Alright. I don't think anyone here can actually sleep. But we should really try to get some sleep. Tomorrow is coming whether we like it or not."

Ray added, "And I'm down a worker for tomorrow and probably for a week or so."

I chuckled, "Sorry. I don't know why I got so angry."

Everyone looked at me, and Alice said sharply, "Yes you do. We all know. It's just you were stupid enough to think you could run barefoot to Nevada to rip his balls off and strangle him with his own penis. If you were smarter, you would have stolen the truck."

Surprisingly, Natalie was the one who laughed—for the first time in months, I realized. I think everyone realized it as well. My mother smiled at Natalie and added, "Yeah. I guess we're lucky Nathan is so stupid. Otherwise we'd be visiting him in a Nevada state prison tomorrow."

Ray said, "Alright. Enough. We really should try to sleep. Natalie, why don't you take your brother to his room and you two try to sleep. The rest of us will be here in the morning. No one is going ANYWHERE this summer."

The one thing I really hated about Ray was suddenly the one thing I admired most about him. When he made up his mind, there was no changing it. If my father had come to the door that summer and demanded to see Natalie, he would have gotten a shotgun shell in the face from Ray before blinking once.

In the end, Natalie followed me into my bedroom and climbed right back into my bed. I left my door open so to show the rest of our family that nothing funny was going on, and then I climbed into bed with her. I felt Natalie snuggle up into my arms, take a single calming breath and surrender to exhaustion.

Before ten minutes had passed, I finally was starting to feel the edges of sleep overtake me, but I heard my door creak a little bit followed by a whisper, "Angela, come to bed. She's alright with him. And he'll be fine." It was Ray's voice.

My mother sighed, "I know. Sometimes I wish they weren't brother and sister. They look so perfect together like that."

"I know. But maybe it's better this way. Look at our lives—we've each been married twice. The people we thought we'd spend the rest of our lives with both ended up long gone. At least this way, Nathan and Natalie will always have each other. Brothers and sisters don't get divorced or break-up. Blood lasts forever."

My mother sighed again. And then I heard them move further down the hall. I'd actually heard my mother say similar things before, but it was usually as a joke to other family or friends. She'd laugh and say, "Sometimes I wish Nathan weren't my son so someday he'd be my son-in-law."

And then, as if on cue in our mother-son comedy act, I would say, "Eww. Mom, gross!" Then family and friends would laugh. We'd gotten quite good at the act. But now I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one performing.

As I lay there, holding my sister's sleeping body, I was beginning to think the idea wasn't so "gross". I mean, Natalie had a nice body for a girl her age. She wasn't as developed as Georgia, nor not nearly as much as Alice, but her hips had begun to widen and she'd grown a pair of small breasts. They weren't round and full, but they were perky enough that I'd noticed them.

It wasn't that I hadn't noticed them before; it was just that it was my best friend, not some girl from school or a chick from some movie or television show that I might fantasize about. She was my sister. I loved her, but I didn't really lust after her ... at least, I hadn't lusted after her ever before.

The more I thought about it, the more my cock began to assert its' own feelings on the subject. Luckily, though Natalie was spooned against me, there was some space between my crotch and her beautiful ass... "Oh God! Stop that!" I suddenly thought.

I couldn't help it now. Suddenly, everything about her was turning me on. It was as if her entire body was somehow designed to enflame my own, but I'd never let myself see it before. And now that the floodgates had opened, thousands of thoughts were rushing through my mind, each one dirtier than the one before it. But with each new thought a twinge of guilt came with it, along with a twinge in my cock.

Though my body longed for me to pull her closer and I desperately felt a need to put my lips on her, I knew that I could never do that, especially not tonight. Not only was I her brother, her best friend, but I could never break her trust and become like him. I was not my father and I would never be like him.

So, with much difficulty, I finally drifted to sleep, focusing on the throbbing pain in my feet instead of the throbbing need in my groin.

I felt a warm contentment and extreme arousal as I drifted from the dream world into consciousness. I reluctantly left the dream where I'd been chasing a naked girl through a grassy meadow, laughing and playfully growling like a sex-crazed animal.