After saying good morning to her daughter, Megan had a quick conversation with her husband when he came on the line. She reassured him that all was going well and that she would be able to return home in another day or so. When George offered to come over for a while—they lived only just across town—Megan told him that it really wasn't necessary, adding with a quick fib that they were going to be having movers coming to pick up a bunch of antique furniture that would go up for auction. The plan
was
to eventually auction off the furniture, but it actually had to remain in the house so it could be displayed as a furnished model until it sold.
She let out a sigh when she hung up. Other than once trying to arrange a surprise birthday party for him a few years back, Megan had never deliberately lied to her husband. She knew that she had just committed adultery as well as incest. Had it been just some other guy she'd picked up, or a stealthy affair with a coworker, she knew she would have been wracked with guilt even if she could bring herself to pull off such a thing. But what she had just done with her brother seemed so natural, as if they'd
always
been lovers, yet had never actually consummated the fact until now. It was just weird all around, but she refused to try and define it further until she could have a serious talk with Jason.
She decided to give him time to get cleaned up on his own and maybe call his own wife, so she didn't call out for him or go find him after she hung up. She got up and stripped the bed. She gave in to the temptation to bring the new wet spot up to her nose. She'd never gushed like that before, and she hoped it wasn't too pungent. It wasn't; her fluid seemed somewhat neutral, though she could detect a layer of the slight bitterness of Jason's semen. After throwing the soiled sheets into the hamper, she had a quick shower, fixed her blow-dried hair into a pony-tail, and brushed her teeth. She paused when she approached her open suitcase. She was still naked, and she dwelt on the naughty temptation to stroll through the house in the nude until she found her brother. Ultimately she compromised: another pair of short-shorts, simple t-shirt, but no panties or bra. She padded barefoot out into the hallway, and smiled at the distant smell of bacon.
Jason, glad in shorts and a t-shirt himself, was just setting out a classic breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, when his sister walked in. They smiled and exchanged good mornings, as innocently as if absolutely no sexual activity had happened last night or this morning. It was as if a switch had been flipped back, and Jason found it surprisingly easy to fall back into his purely platonic sibling role. He knew that there was still the proverbial elephant in the room, but it gave him hope that there would be no overriding awkwardness between them.
Megan decided to enjoy a nice breakfast with her brother before they had The Talk. She admired him for being so easy going and otherwise "normal" when they returned to something as ordinary as breakfast. But, being a little hungover, and practically chugging the orange juice to bring fluids back into her body, she was reminded at how intense and amazing the last several hours had been.
"How is Julie?" Jason asked as he poured her another glass of OJ.
"Misses her mommy," Megan replied, crunching into some crispy bacon. She noted that Jason did not ask about George, so she didn't bother asking if he'd called Theresa. He did have his cell phone with him, and he glanced at it, but she could see he had his calendar up, not a text screen. She chastised herself for the pang of jealousy that he might be texting his wife.
Jason said, "Looks like all we have on the books today is a lunch meeting with Mom's attorney. We have to resolve the issue around setting up one of her annuities so that we can apply it toward a trust fund for Julie."
"Is that Horowitz or Rosembaum?"
"Horowitz."
"Good. I like him. He always buys us a nice lunch."
Jason grimaced. "That's because he bills us for the time. I think he's coming out ahead."
They laughed and maintained eye contact. It got quiet. The moment was here.
Jason cleared his throat and stood. "I'll take care of the dishes."
"No," Megan said. "Just throw them in the sink for now. I'll be in the living room."
Jason joined here there a few minutes later, holding two fresh mugs of coffee. Megan was on one of the couches, a leg tucked under her. Jason handed her one of the mugs and sat next to her. They each took an absent-minded sip of coffee, then turned toward one another.
"Listen—"
"I just want to—"
They laughed again. Jason nodded. "You go."
Megan smiled nervously, looking down into her mug, gathering her thoughts. It gave Jason a moment to regard her beauty once more. Of course he'd always known how beautiful she was, even sexy. But now he looked at her through a lover's prism, and whereas a platonic brother would see his cute sister in shorts and a t-shirt, he was now taking in the detail of her breasts, hanging pertly despite a lack of bra, her nipples just barely visible through the thin fabric of her shirt. He took in the generous amount of thigh and even the lower part of her bottom in her incredibly short shorts. He felt his penis twitch, but he knew she was about to get serious, so he managed to glance up at her eyes again before she looked at him again.
She said, "I just want to put it out there first and foremost that don't regret anything—
anything
—that we have done. We are adults, and we made our choices."
He was relieved to hear this. "The same goes for me."
Megan let out a breath. "Good, that's good. Thank you. But," she paused to sip coffee, probably trying to figure out how to form her next words, "we should really try to figure out what we're going to do moving forward. We have the luxury of this little time-out from our families and regular lives, but that window is eventually going to close."
Jason liked how she put that. A "little time-out." It suggested that, although they did the deed more than once—and he hoped he could do a little more—there was the option of reverting to their normal brother-sister status when it was time to go back to their families.
She went on. "We have to consider what we are doing to George and Theresa. We have now both just cheated on them." She saw Jason wince. "I'm sorry to be blunt, but there is no reason why we shouldn't be explicitly clear with each other."
"I know," he said. "I understand."
