It had been a rotten day at school. The heat of the approaching summer didn't help my rotten disposition one little bit, either. Not only had my teachers been on my case for every little nit-picky thing that week, but my girlfriend was also being worse than her usual bitchy self. After almost two weeks of her current attitude, I was getting really tired of it. I wondered if Brianna had the faintest idea of how close we were to breaking up. For that matter, I wondered if she even cared.

Stepping through the front door, my ears were assailed by the sounds of screaming. It took me a second or two to identify the voice and its location. My sister, Linda, was upstairs with her boyfriend, Dwight Benson, and by the sounds of it, they were suffering through one hell of an orgasm. I knew they were in the middle of screwing each other blind, because those squeaky springs on her double bed were a really good hint. So were the moans, groans, and grunts as the two lovers took each other to whatever plateau of passion they sought.

This wasn't the first time I'd come home to the sounds of my sister and her boyfriend fucking. In fact, their alliance had been ongoing since the beginning of the year, just after Christmas break. At first, the thought of my sister having sex had gotten me turned on something fierce. I'd sneak upstairs into my room, close and lock the door, then strip all my clothes off and fantasize about it being me with Linda, instead of Dwight. For several weeks, it was their fucking that fuelled my over-active adolescent imagination. It made a great background to jack off to, as far as I was concerned. But after going through the same routine every day for months, the novelty wore off and got a little stale.

Dwight and Linda's fucking had another effect on me though. It made me feel a little bolder when it came to sexual intimacies between my own girlfriend, Brianna Hastings, and me. At first, she seemed to enjoy my hands roaming over her fifteen-year old body, as long as I was on the outside of her clothing. She'd let me feel her breasts, and even allow me to touch her pussy, but only if there were layers of cloth between us. The first time I slipped my hands under her shirt, I really thought she was going to break my arms with the strength she exhibited while stopping me dead in my tracks. One day, I'd decided that it was time to slip my hand down her pants. That manoeuvre was stopped by a good slap in the face that left a dark, red, splotchy hand print that I wore for days.

That was the first time that I felt like walking away from Brianna. The second was about two months later when she started to give me a blowjob, then decided that she couldn't be bothered to finish me. We were in the back yard of her parents' house that night, before they got home from some party they'd gone to. One minute I was standing there, watching this sexy girl sliding my cock in and out of her mouth, and the next, she stood up and headed for the back door. She'd literally left me standing in the dark. I'd tried to follow her, only to find the door locked with her on the other side. She even had the audacity to pull the curtain that covered the door's window aside to smile and wave at me before turning and walking in to the living room, acting as though I didn't even exist!

"I'm gonna cum!" I heard Dwight's voice scream, bringing me out of my trance and back to noisy reality. He was almost loud enough to be heard three or four counties away.

"No! Not in my cunt! I don't want to get pregnant!" Linda screamed right back.

"Linda, " I thought to myself, "you may be my sister, but when they passed out the brains, where the fuck were you hiding? This is the twenty-first Century, for chrissake! We have this modern-day miracle called birth control! Might want to think about researching it on your computer, instead of just watching porn all the time."

I had to give my head a shake at that understanding. Only my sister would consider unprotected sex with a dufus like Dwight Benson. This was a guy that needed to study for weeks on end just to take an IQ test, and he'd still probably fail the damned thing. But what was really scary was the fact that he seemed to be the brighter of the two of them! My sister could have given blondes an even worst reputation, except that she was only a blonde because of Clairol, or one of those other hair dye outfits. Her natural colour was a mousy brown, which would probably look a lot better than the electric yellow she currently wore.

I climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to my room, dropped my books on my desk, then headed back down to the kitchen. Usually I'd wait for supper before I had anything to eat, but for some reason, I was hungry as hell that afternoon. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Brianna had been behaving like she'd had permanent PMS for the last two weeks. Whatever the reason, I made myself a huge ham and cheese, and anything else that I could put my hands on, sandwich. Dagwood Bumstead would have been proud of me; Pepto-Bismol would be declaring an extra dividend after I finished that sandwich. Personally, I didn't give a shit one way or the other, about either Dagwood or about "The Pink Stuff". Going back upstairs had zero appeal to me, mostly because of the noise factor up there. Instead, I wandered into our family room, turned on the TV, muted the sound so that I wouldn't have to listen to umpteen thousand mindless commercials, and flipped through the channels. As usual, there was nothing worth watching. Still with the sound off, I let myself get lost in some stupid home renovation show. I don't even remember what it was they were trying to fix.

About fifteen minutes later, I heard the sound of Dwight and Linda sneaking down the stairs as she followed him to the front door. I guess I should have made my presence known, but I just couldn't be bothered. If Linda came into the family room, that was okay. If she didn't, that would be okay too. But she did, looking embarrassed that I was actually home.

"How long have you been here?" she enquired.

"I dunno. Maybe half an hour. Why?"

"Umm, were you listening in on Dwight and me?" Linda wanted to know, her naivety almost laughable.

"Wasn't hard, Kid," I informed her. "You two were loud enough to be heard all over the state of Kansas, and we live in western Washington. You guys might want to think about being a little more discreet when you have sex. What if it was Mom or Dad coming home early, instead of me? Dad would have your boobs for bookends, and Dwight would be singing high notes in the church choir. The old man would rip his nuts off, and we both know it."

I had to admit that for sixteen, going on seventeen, my sister's tree trunk definitely didn't go all the way up to the top branch. But to openly have sex in our parents' house? And then to make enough noise to wake the dead? Not smart, especially considering my father's temper if he ever found out.

Don't get me wrong. Our father wasn't a violent man by any means. Sure, he'd rant, rave, and scream a lot, but normally, he wouldn't hurt a fly. I'd learned at an early age that when he yelled at me, I'd survive unscathed. It was when he resorted to that soft, quiet voice while talking in an authoritative tone that I'd get really worried. It was a sign that he was no more than a second or two from erupting worse than Mount St. Helens. But Linda hadn't clued in to that. He'd come down on her like a ton of bricks, and Linda would be grounded for a week or more at a time. God help her if she tried to sneak out when she was. So far, it had cost her three boyfriends, who had dumped her when they couldn't even call her on the phone.

"Cory, what's it gonna take to get you to keep your mouth shut?" she asked, trying to buy my silence.

"Maybe for you to get a brain transplant? Look, Sis, if you and Dwight want to spend your afternoons fucking each others brains out, that's your business. I could care less. But if Dad ever catches you, I'm the one that's gonna catch hell as bad as you will. And if I do, I'm gonna be all over your ass like shit on toilet paper. So keep that in mind when you're telling everyone in New York City that you just got laid. Got it?"

Linda just sat on the arm of Dad's recliner with a blank look on her face. Except for the fact that I could see her chest moving as she breathed, I'd have almost wondered if she was dead or alive. But as it looked like any meaningful conversation between us was over, I went back to watching the silent renovation show on TV.

"Cory, if I sucked you off, would you keep this to yourself?" she blurted out.

"Linda, I wouldn't let you suck my cock if we were the last two people on the planet!" I snapped at her.

"Bullshit!" she exclaimed in retaliation. "All guys love to get sucked off, even the faggots that crank out the school newspaper! So what's it gonna take to get you to keep quiet?"

"All the guys on the newspaper, huh? What? Is that a rumour, or personal experience?"

Lord, I was playing with fire now. My sister had a bit of a reputation around the school, not that she knew anything about it. I got all the flak because my sister had round heels and an accommodating mouth, or so the story went. When I'd first started high school, I'd spent considerable time defending my older sibling's virtue. But when that many guys start saying the same thing about your sister, and that often, you start believing them. Her sexual activities over the last two years tended to confirm their allegations. In short, my sister would probably make the Happy Hooker look like a nun!

"What is it you want, then?" she came back at me.

"Nothing. I'm having enough trouble with Brianna. I sure as hell don't need any shit from you. All I'm asking, Linda, is that you and Dwight either learn to fuck quietly, or find some place else to go when you need cock and he wants pussy. That's it. Nothing more. I'm not asking you guys to become brain surgeons here, although a do-it-yourself frontal lobotomy might help. I can't make it any simpler than that. Okay?"

"What problems are you and Brianna having? She wants to fuck and you can't get it up? Is that it?"

"No! Brianna won't put out until she's married, I guess. I mean, I like her, but she's being a real bitch these days, and I'm getting fucking fed up with it! You have no idea how many times I've come home with blue balls. She's a fucking cock-tease! She almost goes out of her way to get me horny, then leaves me high and dry! Until a couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed being around her. I have no idea what's changed, because all she ever does these days is bitch and belly-ache, and I don't know how much longer I can take it," I confessed.

It felt good to get some of those frustrations off my chest. It was too bad that I'd told my tale of woe to a girl that I'd probably lost, intellectually, somewhere around the third or fourth word.

"You really don't like me, do you, Cory?" she threw at me. Where the hell that came from, I had no idea.

"No, I don't dislike you, Linda. If you really want to know, I think you're okay. Your my sister, and if you ever get your brain to work, you could actually be a real sweetheart. But there've been times, since you got boobs and a wet pussy, that I wonder if you've lost all those little grey cells that used to be inside your head. For the last couple of years, all you seem to think about is sex, sex, and more sex. Shit, I'm beginning to wonder if one of us wasn't adopted. But in spite of you acting like a brain-dead bimbo, I do care about you. So don't ever think I don't, because that's plain bullshit, and we both know it."

I should have been furious with her, and yet I wasn't even angry. A little upset at her stupidity maybe, but I really did care about my older sister. The few times she'd acted like an honest to goodness human being, she was fun to be around, and not just because of her gender. Unfortunately, those times were becoming rarer and rarer.

Linda got her delightful derriere off the recliner and came over to sit beside me on the sofa, pulling her legs up underneath her as she leaned her head on my shoulder. Almost instinctively, I put an arm around her and hugged her. It had been a long time since we'd allowed ourselves to be close to each other like this. She snuggled in tightly, and we just sat there silently commiserating the mess she'd made of her adolescence so far. It was a couple of minutes later that I realized she was sobbing, her tears beginning to run down her cheeks before falling onto my shirt.

"You okay, Sis?" I quietly asked her. She said nothing, letting her tears flow like a river instead. I hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, and I sure as hell didn't think I'd said anything that would make her cry like that. But something had set her off, and for reasons that I couldn't figure out, I really wanted to know what it was. Well, maybe I was more inclined to help her stop the blubbering, but the two concepts seemed to go hand in hand. Finally, she'd cried enough to gain back some self-control.

"Is that true, Cory? That you don't really hate me? That you care about me?" she murmured into my chest.

"Linda, have I ever lied to you before? Yes, it's true. I don't hate you. You're my sister, and despite the fact that you sometimes act like a brazen slut, I care about you. I think I always have. Why? Didn't you know that?"

"I ... I always thought you hated me, that you were ashamed of me. Ever since I went out with Bobby Hansen, and he took my cherry, I wondered if that made you not like me any more. We used to get along pretty good when we were kids, but after my first time, all that seemed to stop. And you know what, Cory? I miss that! I miss not having you tease and torment me like you used to do. Dammit, I miss you being my little brother! Am I that much of a slut that you don't want to have anything to do with me any more?"

"Well, you can be a bit of a sleaze sometimes, but I guess I miss being your little brother too. You're right though. We did get along a lot better when we were kids. I guess it was when you had sex the first time that things changed. Suddenly, all you seemed to think about were boys, boys, and boys. It felt like you didn't have time for me any more, and that hurt. I mean, I can understand it, but it still hurt, Sis. And yes, there are times when I hear things about you that embarrass the hell out of me. I used to get into fights over you when I first went to high school. The things some of the guys said had me seeing red. But it's not true that I don't want to have anything to do with you. Hell, if I didn't care, I wouldn't be worrying about what Mom and Dad would say if they knew what goes on around here when they're not home. Because after all is said and done, Linda, I do love you. Can you understand that?"

"Cory? Hold me?" she pleaded with real pain evident in her demeanour.

"I am holding you, Sis," I tried to explain our physical proximity. That's when I made the mistake of gazing into her eyes, and saw a lost, lonely, young woman staring back at me with real pain in her heart. For some reason, I couldn't help myself. I leaned down to kiss her forehead, and I swear I felt her pushing back againt my lips. It was a magical moment for me. I think it was the first time in entirely too long that Linda and I had comfortably allowed ourselves to be close again.

"Kiss me," she almost begged as I pulled back to look into those deep hazel eyes of hers.

"I just did, Linda. I'm your little brother, remember? Not Dwight Benson, trying to get laid every time I turn around. Believe it or not, there actually are guys my age that think of things besides sex. Your little brother happens to be one of them."

That was as far as I got before Linda shut me up with her own lips that she pressed against mine. At first, I was shocked and very uncomfortable with being kissed by my own sister. But the longer she held me captive, the less uncomfortable I became, and it caught me off-guard that after we'd kissed for over a full minute, I was beginning to actually enjoy it. By the two-minute mark, I no longer wanted it to end.

Linda finally pulled back after I don't know how long, and it took all my self-restraint not to seek those sensuous lips of hers immediately. My eyes opened to the sight of hers studying me, her gaze shifting from side to side as she took in every detail of what I really looked like. And once again, I made that fatal mistake of looking back, almost not recognizing who I saw.

There was a magical gleam in my sister's eyes that seemed to be trying to tell me something. At fifteen years old, I really didn't have too much experience with what went on inside a girl's head, and had no idea what those eyes were saying. Brianna was about the extent of my education, and she was as informative and responsive as a dead cow. I was about to ask myself why I still went out with her when it hit me between the eyes like a Mack truck.

I'd started to think that my sister had lost interest in me as a little brother as soon as she'd discovered sex. Therefore, my convoluted logic dictated, if I went steady with a girl that didn't like sex, she'd never desert me like Linda seemed to have. In short, Brianna was everything my sister hadn't been, and Linda was everything Brianna could never be. At that moment, I knew what I didn't want in a girlfriend. But what did I want?

"I'm ... Cory, I'm sorry, but I just had to kiss you. I've wanted to do that for years. Now, I want to kiss you again. Would you be offended if I did? Would you start to hate me again?"

"Linda, we just had that conversation. I told you then, and I'll tell you now. I don't hate you."

My eyes were still rivetted to hers, with that gleam calling me like the Pied Piper. Did I want her to kiss me again? Was I ready to be another notch on my sister's bedpost? Or was this a part of our becoming close to each other once more?

"And just so you know," I continued, right before I leaned forward to kiss her forehead while still holding her, "I seriously doubt I'd be overly offended."

Linda seemed to be lost in her stare. She searched my face for several long seconds as she tried to discern whether she was talking to her little brother or a two-legged conglomeration of raging, teenage hormones. I waited for her to decide, not pushing either one of us into a place where we might not want to go. She finally broke the stalemate by moving her lips back to mine and kissing me with a passion that I'd never experienced before.

I could feel her tongue drifting across my lips as it seemed to probe its way towards my own. At the same time, I felt her free hand slide up my chest, over the skin of my neck, and around the back of my head. She held me to her lips, and in that one moment, I just had to hold her, feel her in my arms while I returned as much of my own passion and desire as she shared with me. Our kiss became something much, much more than just an expression of our common sibling emotions. Those lips screamed to me that we were seconds away from an intimacy that I'd never comprehended could exist before.

We seemed to be completely immobilized like that for several minutes, and when Linda finally broke our lip-lock, I began to resent her departure. I wanted to feel her lips, her warmth, her closeness; all those feelings that we'd shared as kids, and a lot more. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was because of my teenaged hormones that I felt this way. Maybe it was, to an extent, but there was a deeper connection between us that had a lot to do with how we'd grown up together.

"I love you, Cory," I heard my sister's voice drift into my consciousness. And for some unexplainable reason, I knew exactly what she meant. To her, I wasn't just another fuck, because I was still her brother. But by the same token, I was now more than just her younger sibling. In that same second, I found that Linda was more than just my sister, too. She was everything that Brianna wasn't, yet nothing like the girl that had walked into the room not more than fifteen minutes ago, either. This girl in my arms was the epitome of that one special woman my heart had been looking for since I'd turned thirteen.

"I know," I murmured back to her, "and I love you too, Linda. I think I just got my big sister back, and a whole lot more."

"You're not ashamed of me, of what we're doing?" she softly enquired.

"No, I'm not ashamed of you. I told you that. And as for what we're doing, I think I want more. Maybe it's wrong, but I've never felt like this before. Not since ... I can't remember when. I really need you to be my big sister, more now than ever before, and yet, I want you," I replied to her.

"Cory? Would you make love to me? Please?"

"I told you before, Sis. I'm not looking for a quick fuck."

"Neither am I, Cory. I don't want to just fuck. I want to make love to you, to pleasure you, to give myself to you. Not just my body, but my heart and soul as well. There's only been four guys that I've fucked, and I've never made love to any of them."

"Linda, the way I heard it, there were more than four. I don't want to know the real number, but I don't need to be lied to, either," I challenged her claim.

"There were only four, I promise. But there's also a lot of guys that wish they'd been one of the four. I've heard the rumours, too, Cory. In many ways, you're a first for me. I don't know if I could have ever fallen in love with any of those guys. But my little brother? Him I want to make love to. He's ... special to me."

"That's stepping over a pretty solid line, Sis. They have a name for that kind of thing, and society isn't too keen on people doing what you're suggesting. You sure you want to go there? Cross that line?" I needed to know what her true feelings were.

"Do you?" she dodged my question.

I had to think about it for a minute, but in all honesty? For some perverse reason, I couldn't think of one good reason not to cross it, and a whole lot of reasons why I wanted to. Only one of them had to do with being a horny teenager, and I didn't give it too much weight. I answered her question with the full convictions of my heart.

"I think so, if what you're saying and I'm feeling are close to the truth."

"My room, or yours?" she tried to rush us to that precipice from which there was no turning back.

"Not yours. I refuse to feel like I've sunk to the same level as Dwight Benson, and that's exactly how I'd feel if we went to your room. Mine's out, too, because of ... let's just say there are memories in my room that I don't want tagging along. Besides, Mom and Dad will be home soon. If they caught us, we'd both be so screwed that neither of us would have to worry about them having grandchildren," I gave some of my reasons.

"Cory! Are you backing out on me?" Linda almost threatened me.

"No, but I think I have an idea. You know the boathouse down at Hopkins Landing?"

"Sure, I know it, but that's about as romantic as being in the middle of the freeway. Nice try, though," she chastised me.

"Yeah, I know, but there's an old, deserted summer cottage right behind it that you can't see until you're standing right there. No one's vandalized it that I know of. The doors are all locked, but I know where the key is. We'd be all alone."

"How do you know about this place?" her scepticism started to come out.

"I was going to ... oh, never mind. Just trust me, it's about the only place that isn't known by every horny teenager in town. In fact, I doubt any of them know."

"So when do you want to go? Tonight? Now? When?"

I could quite easily detect just how much Linda wanted our little conspiracy to happen with a minimum of delay. All we had to do was make sure our parents were as far out of the loop as possible.

"After supper," I told her. "I'll make up some excuse to get us both out of here, and we'll go. I know. While we're eating, you make up some kind of story that will have us both going to the library. Maybe something like you asking me to help you with your algebra homework. Might even be able to get Mom to lend you her car, and there's no way they're going to go down to check. You know how much they both hate helping us with school work. Besides, I have to go over to the drug store anyway, if we're going to do this."

"Drug store? For what?" she seemed to have completely forget about protection.

"To get some rubbers, silly girl. Maybe Dwight can pull out in time, but I'm not sure I can, and we're both way too young to be parents."

"Cory, I'm on the pill. I have been for the last three years. Did you really think your sister was stupid enough to play Russian roulette when it comes to pregnancy?"

I was going to ask about her escapade with Dwight earlier, and her screams to pull out, but that would have tipped her off that I'd been listening in. Mind you, with the volume that she'd used, about the only place I could think of that might have missed her message was Key West, Florida, on the diagonally opposite corner of the country.

"Okay, Sis. If you say so, I guess I have to believe you. I just wanted to be safe, rather than sorry, that's all. Making love to my sister is one thing. Getting her knocked up is something else again."

Linda leaned in again and kissed my lips softly and tenderly, holding herself there for several long, delicious moments.

"Thanks, Cory. Not many guys would think about something like that. It means a lot to me that you did."

We gave ourselves some time to cool down from the lustful heat that we'd generated, which turned out to be a good idea. Both our parents arrived home early and at the same time. Linda and I had to almost work at being our usual combative selves, but we must have pulled it off, because Dad threatened to send us both to our rooms until supper was ready. I couldn't help but see that sly smirk of knowing on Linda's face. I wondered if I had one too. We did manage to hide our inner feelings from our parents until the moment passed.

Mom had supper on the table soon enough, and as I sat across from my sister, she gave me one of those knowing smiles that only a girl with a smitten heart can generate. As much as it produced a warm spot inside me, I wanted to dissuade her before our parents realized that things between us had changed. The last thing I needed was my mother's inquisitive grilling over why we weren't fighting like cats and dogs. Explaining why I'd suddenly abandoned my goal of being an only child was more than I really wanted to tackle.

"Cory, you're good at math," Linda opened the subject of school. "Would you help me with algebra some time soon? I can't figure this stuff out."

"You mean that you're actually going to try and graduate?" I tried to fall into the same patterns that we usually used. "I thought you'd decided to make twelfth grade your life's work. What are you working on?"

There had always been a certain tension that we'd generated until now, and it had been relatively easy for me to engage in some kind of sarcastic banter. But that night, I had to work hard at it, and making those comments sound real took everything inside of me. I wanted to reach out and embrace her spirit, not advertise that I thought she was the dumbest person in the world. Understanding that I felt something warm and loving for her took no time at all. Covering those feelings up seemed like the ultimate sacrifice, all of a sudden. If we were going to keep our parents in the dark, that sibling conflict had to be maintained. Somehow I pulled it off, but it hurt like hell to go back to somewhere neither of us wanted to visit again.

"I think it's called tri-something-or-other," Linda responded, adopting her best "dumb blonde" attitude.

"Trinomials?" I suggested to her. "Three unknowns, right?"

"I guess," was all she needed to add to make her illusion complete. In actuality, my sister knew as much about algebra as I did, but she had worked hard at giving the impression that she didn't have an IQ as big as her bra size. Yet all through high school, she'd managed to get a passing grade in every subject. It was only now that I saw just how well she'd manipulated the system to her own advantage. If she'd applied herself at all, Linda could have been a straight A student. But in order to project this alternate persona, she'd probably expended as much energy looking stupid as I put in getting decent grades. It took every ounce of restraint I had in me to keep from calling her a few names that would have gotten me grounded from now until my Golden Years started.

"Yeah, okay. I've got some analytical geometry I've got to do anyway. I'm heading for the library after supper, if you want to tag along," I advanced our plotted dalliance another notch.

"Thanks, Cory," she expressed her relief, maybe a little too sincerely for the mood we were trying to create. I had to quickly look at both our parents' faces to see if they'd made note of Linda's unusual tone. Dad's next comment implied that we'd gotten away with it so far.

"You mean you're actually going to pass up on a hot date tonight in favour of school work?" he sarcastically growled at her.