Will proposed me two weeks after we got back to Hawaii. He took me out to an expensive restaurant, got down on his hands and knees, whipped out the ring, the whole nine yards. Of course, I said yes without hesitation, and cried from happiness all through dessert.
"Actually," he told me later, "I was going to propose in Hawaii. I brought the ring along and everything. But it seemed a little awkward while we were having wild three-way sex with your best friend."
I called and told my Mom and Dad the news the very next day (about Will's proposal, not about the three-way.) Weddings being a big deal in my family, they insisted Will and I come down to their house in Tucson for a few days. When we arrived, we received a somewhat overwhelming surprise. The entire family had been called together to celebrate our engagement.
I was raised Mormon, so I have a big family. My brothers Jamie and Jerry flew in with their families from Alaska and Illinois, respectively. Brother Richard drove down from California; sister Jennifer from Utah. My youngest brother Jeremy still lived at home. The last one to arrive was my nineteen-year-old adopted sister Kim, home from college with a huge duffel bag full of laundry.
The entire Castle clan gathered together at once can be intimidating for anybody, and doubly so for someone naturally shy like Will. It was made worse by the fact that Will and I were the center of everyone's attention. Everybody had congratulations and a million questions. Will held up the best he could, but even I was getting tired of being under the family microscope. We were rescued by Kim, though, at the big dinner that first night. Turns out she had an announcement of her own.
"Excuse me, everybody," she said, standing up. "I have something I want to say, and with you all gathered together like this, it's easiest just to stand up and announce it here at dinner. You see, I discovered something about myself when I was away at college. I'm gay."
You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone was staring at Kim, jaws around their knees. These clichés became, in the moment, absolutely true.
Kim, uncertain now, cleared her throat and went on. "Yeah," she said. "I have a definite sexual preference for women. I know you will all be supportive of me as I move on this journey of self-discovery, and continue to love me for who I am."
Kim sat down to an immediate explosion of action. Mom flew into a rage, screaming about sin and immorality. She got right in Kim's face, pointing a crooked finger, hair wild and face red, spitting venomous reproaches and vowing that she would no longer pay for a college education if this was where it led. My father actually shed tears right there at the table, begging Kim to tell him where he had failed as parent. My brothers Jamie and Richard argued with one another, Jamie condemning Kim's "choice" and Richard feebly defending her. Will and my brother Jerry both just picked at their food, looking as if they'd rather be anywhere on earth but there at the dinner table in the middle of this firestorm. My sister Jennifer announced several times to whoever would listen that she knew of a counselor who could "cure" Kim of her "condition." My youngest brother Jeremy simply sat there smirking as he always did during family arguments, as if he found scenes like this very entertaining.
I was the only one to go to Kim. I put my arm around her shoulder and congratulated her for her bravery and stood beside her against the assaults of my family. It went on all the way through dessert (my Mom would never let any family crisis, no matter how dire, interfere with the serving of her famous peach cobbler ala mode.) Finally, everyone either retired to their rooms or joined the big game of gin rummy which would most likely go on for most of the night.
Will and I, still being technically pre-marital, were obliged to sleep in separate rooms; this was a firm house rule. Poor Will had to share a room with Jeremy, who would no doubt keep my fiancée up half the night watching skateboarding videos. I was to share my old bedroom with Kim, as we had done for years growing up.
"God," she said as soon as we had shut the door. "That was almost as bad as I thought it would be. Listen, do you want to share a joint with me? I really need it after that scene."
"Sure," I said, though it felt a little weird to burn one with my little sister.
She lit up and took a huge drag, then crossed the room to exhale out the window. "Jesus, Mom is uptight, isn't she?" Kim said, handing the joint to me. "And Dad is so whipped it isn't even funny."
"Well, you had to have known they'd have a hard time with this," I said, taking my puff.
"Yeah," Kim said, pulling off her shirt. "But the part that bugs me is I don't think they really care all that much. It's like they have to put on a big show of being all horrified and intolerant so they can sound good when they complain about me to all their friends at church. They're such hypocrites."
"This surprises you?" I said, trying not to stare at my sister's breasts, which had filled out quite a bit since the last time I'd seen her undressed two or three years ago. Somewhere in that time span she'd crossed the line between girl and woman. "That's how they've always been."
"I know, I know," Kim unzipped her jeans and peeled them off. She unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor. She stood before me dressed only in a very skimpy thong. "But I somehow thought maybe Mom and Dad might have entered the twenty-first century."
I just laughed at that and passed the joint back to her. There was no way not to check out my sister's bod now, as she was practically naked. She was gorgeous.
There has always been some doubt about Kim's ethnic heritage. We knew that her birth mother was of mixed Asian descent, Chinese and Korean. Of her biological father we knew absolutely nothing, but her skin had a definite brown cast to it. We had long speculated that her father had black, Hispanic or possibly Arabic blood. Kim herself wasn't too concerned about her ethnic background. She always checked the "mixed race" or "other" box on college registration or other official forms and among friends and family called herself "Heinz 57." Whatever it was, on her it worked. Smooth, flawless tan skin. Long black hair with just the slightest kink to it. Eyes as dark and mysterious as the ocean at night. Nipples the color of cinnamon, the size and shape of Hershey's Kisses.
She slipped into a very tight tank top and was dressed for bed. I had brought along long pajamas but, seeing Kim, elected now to just sleep in a t-shirt and panties. I pulled a "Flashdance" maneuver and finagled my way out of my bra without taking off my shirt. I dropped my pants and stripped down to a pair of French-cut black lace panties, Will's favorite.
"Those are cute," Kim said, eyeing me with slightly unnerving intensity.
"Thanks," I said, slipping into bed. "Will picked them out. He really likes panties."
"Really?" Kim said, intrigued.
Instead of lying down in her bed, she crawled beside me onto my narrow twin mattress. We had shared a bed countless times growing up, whispering and giggling to each other late into the night.
Kim snuggled in close. "So, what's Will like?"
I started to go on about how sweet and sensitive he was, how attentive to my needs and all that sort of thing. But Kim slapped my arm lightly.
"I don't care about all that," she laughed. "What's he like in bed?"
We giggled together, as we had a million times as girls when we had told each other everything. Primed for the confession and imbued with the truth serum marijuana, I spilled my guts. I told her everything about Will. His panty fetish, how he enjoyed anal play, his love of snowballs and cream pies. Well, almost everything. I left out the wild Hawaiian vacation and the three-way sex with Carrie. I wasn't ready to admit to that just yet.
"Oh, God, that's so wild. He eats his own come out of you?" Kim asked.
"Yeah," I laughed. "He slurps it up like chicken soup."
