The stage lights came on, and the cast walked out and took their bows. My sister and I stood and clapped with everyone else. I already knew how she felt about the performance.
I was the brother of my fraternal twin sister Savannah, and we were in a special dual major program at the Kentucky School of Fine Arts taught exclusively by professors from two royal academies, RAD and CSSD. The curriculum was designed for theater and dance with several deviations from a traditional dual major. One of those deviations was attending and critiquing theater productions that included substantial choreography. Invariably, all the students picked up a British English twan, not an accent, but word choice. This was touted as a feature, not a bug, because it produced more skillful theater students. After all, we continually lived a role during the school year.'
Neither of us was interested in ballet, so we had to work to find productions to suit our tastes and traveled more than most of our peers. Travel was limited to whatever was available by car. We had modest scholarships and college funds to live on, but we had to be frugal. We were 20 years old and lived with our parents. They adored having us around. We always shared expenses when traveling, including getting a single hotel room.
I'd heard about sibling incest from students who absolutely wanted to hear about Thomas and Savannah screwing each other on a school travel assignment. Savannah and I never understood that. There was nothing erotic about one another that made sense. Our bodies were extensions of each other. We performed stage roles where we kissed, and it felt like I was kissing myself.
Being category platonic was a sidebar compared to how identically we thought. When one of us had the urge to masturbate, the other invariably needed to go somewhere for a bit. We finished one another's sentences, conveyed volumes from a glance or a word, and had absolute trust in one another.
"You want to tell me how the second act was forced, or can we get a drink." She asked.
"We're dressed for it." I said, "Let's go to some place classy before I get out of this monkey suit."
"You look dashing you should dress up more often."
"And you look exquisite." I said, "Is that right, exquisite, or ravishing?"
"They both work."
We entered the crowded club and headed to the bar. Savannah ordered her drink before I stepped up. We did this when we were dressed well. Pretending to be a couple, we could get alcohol without getting carded. The bartender looked at her and asked for her ID. Normally, we didn't carry the charade too far. This time, she put on a character she played.
"You can take it up with my husband."
I waited for the man to burst into laughter at how absurd that sounded, but I followed her lead with a glare and cowed the man. Her drink was on the house. We found a bar table to ourselves and enjoyed our drinks.
"You never did that before, and why did he give you a free drink?"
She was past that, thinking about taking the ruse further.
"We have the same last name and address on our IDs."
"Wedding bands, too?" I said.
"You saw how he acted. We're always dressing up to get alcohol." Savannah said, "Maybe the costume needs to be more ephemeral."
"I'm curious how hard we'd have to try."
"There might be a mixup with our parents if we get mail for Mister or Misses--"
It had already happened with Savannah when she opened a letter addressed to Miss Linda Holloway in a letter for Mom. I'd almost done the same thing when the J was smeared to look like Mr. Tohn Holloway.
"Not likely, but giving it a kink when we say it will help."
"More Haellow-way than Hollow-way?
"
"
We need to practice that."
That was the beginning of the month-long campaign to roleplay being a married couple and observe how our interactions changed in public. We didn't have to dress up to buy alcohol. That wasn't such a shock as how other married couples interacted with us. It's like we joined a club, and everyone wanted to meet the new members. It turned to our advantage on many occasions. We had to practice all kinds of dance. Finding venues with other partners became trivial, and a married couple. It was a fantastic learning experience. We turned 21, and there was no good reason to give up the charade.
We had the good fortune of finding cheap tickets to an out-of-town music festival. The problem was accommodations because all of the hotels were sold out, or the prices were insane.
"Can we find a discount rate? There's gotta be something going on in town," Savannah said.
My parents were planning a trip the same weekend, and I asked my dad if there was a trick to finding lower hotel rates.
"Look for a convention rate. You may have to sign up for a newsletter or pay a fee so you can legitimately use the discount."
I did exactly that and found a dancing convention for married couples only. We'd been playing the married couple for so long, and the downside hadn't reared its ugly head yet.
"Did you look for a dancing convention? That seems too perfect." Savannah said.
"It was Dad's idea, but we had to book for the whole conference to get the rate."
"If we can do homework at a nice hotel, I'm not complaining."
We said goodbye to our parents before we left. They were packed up as well and leaving later the same day. I got the impression this was going to be a romantic trip for them since they hadn't taken time for each other for some time.
We had to check in at the hotel immediately and head to the concert. Mr. Bristol, the hotel manager, immediately took issue with us being there for the conference. Savannah and I shared a glance. It wasn't that he didn't believe we were married, and that's what perplexed us. We didn't give him the time of day.
I took our bags to the room, and we set out for the concert. Three top-notch bands playing back-to-back was exhilarating. We'd been going nonstop since this morning and returned to the hotel around midnight. We showered and planned for tomorrow.
"Are we going back to the music festival, or do you want to try dancing?" She asked.
"I'm with you. We hit the music festival first and then went back and stretched our legs. I'm pretty sure it's an older crowd for this convention. We can sharpen our ballroom dancing skills."
And that's exactly what we did. I didn't even see an itinerary for the conference, but if it was about dancing, I expected there would be a dance band. Those were always great because you could ask them to play pretty much anything. They might even have competitions, and that sparked my interest. Savannah and I had performed as a team for several complicated dance routines like the Argentine Tango. Those who knew we were twins had a lot of questions about incest after seeing our performance.
As much as Savannah and I were good at what we did, many retired couples with poor health or uninterested in traveling went ballroom dancing seven days a week at different venues around even the smallest of towns. If there was a competition, it would not be easy.
We cleaned up before joining the convention downstairs. There was a band playing music for a waltz. The crowd was more my parent's age than retirees. I felt underdressed as most of the men had sportscoats, but Savannah had a nice floral dress that paired well with the rest of the wives because of the straps with no sleeves.
"I didn't think of you as a boob man until now."
"I feel like there's more cleavage on display than normal." I said, "Is it me, or are we more popular than usual?"
"It does feel that way, doesn't it?" She said, "I know, I know, let's have a seat and see what these people are all about."
Dancing was a social activity that drew people together to talk and communicate nonverbally with and during the dance. We hadn't sat for more than two minutes before Savannah made a happy noise at the tall gentleman, and a bubbly brunette woman wearing a strapless dress perilously containing her breasts was on a collision course with us. She was younger than the man but not a replacement wife.
A man was a head taller than most of the men at the convention. That was the only universal trait women found attractive, and I could recognize. Lacking an eye for man-judging, aside from his height, he looked like every other gentleman at the convention. I glanced at my sister, who told me that was not the case. I watched her watch as a couple maneuvered through the crowd. He turned ladies' heads like his presence warped the space around him.
Once I was sensitized to the cues Savannah was reading, I noticed other couples trying to engage us, stopping to give him deference. It wasn't a conscious decision, more like seeing a famous person and pausing to make sure your eyes weren't deceiving you. The two things I knew for certain were his eyes were only for Savannah every other woman in the line of sight was jealous of her. He made no bones about introductions.
"My name is Barron, and this is my wife Cecilia,"
I'd never seen Savannah so smitten. I had no room to talk. Cecilia was a curvy delight. Her breasts begged to be touched, and I could see her nipples were erect through her dress.
"Savannah," My sister said, "This is my husband Thomas."
He looked me in the eyes and asked Savannah for a dance. She took his hand and looked back at me, biting her lower lip. She couldn't pull away. Cecilia took Savannah's spot to my right, her left hip pressed against mine with her back to the dance floor, deliberately giving me all of her attention.
"Thomas, is this your first conference as a couple?"
"Yes. We had tickets to the music festival and decided to sign up for this conference and stay the weekend because we thought it would be fun."
Cecilia showed me a brilliant smile and engaged me with fervor. She asked all kinds of questions. Who had performed, and who were our favorites. What style of music we liked? I told her we were both students studying theater and dance and were looking for different partners to help broaden our spectrum.
It never occurred to me to have such a lively conversation with someone twice my age. Such were the thoughts going through my head as my brain urged me to lean closer and peek down her dress. She noticed my juvenile peeping and smiled. I realize she'd been tempting me, flirting.
"Thomas, do you find me attractive?"
Her question touched a raw nerve that I didn't know existed. I'd been dying to compliment her but couldn't envision a polite way to articulate my pornographic thoughts.
"A-Attractive? Cecilia, I've spent the last 30 minutes entranced by your velvety voice, intoxicated by your scent, and given my thoughts license to fantasize about your ravishing beauty,'' I said, "I can scarcely believe a woman of refinement would take the time to indulge someone half her age with the willpower of someone half again."
Cecilia unexpectedly pounced on me with unsurprising celerity and poise. She grabbed my crotch with her right hand, and her left hand hooked the back of my head and pulled me into a seductive kiss. If she had done more than grab my crotch, I would've ejaculated in my pants.
I glanced over her shoulder, still kissing her, when my twin sense clicked. Savannah had her arms draped around Barron's neck, looking into his eyes, moving to a romantic slow waltz. Baron whispered into her ear, and she blushed and accepted his invitation to kiss.
Cecilia's kiss didn't disappoint, but my sister and Barron hadn't stopped. I've never felt her so content and satisfied at the same time. I stared too long, and Cecilia turned around and saw them.
"Thomas, if you don't give me equal attention, I will be insanely jealous."
"If you promise to hide my enthusiasm, I would be honored to have the next dance."
Cecilia and I dance to waltz. It was a little brisk for flirting, but she slowed our beat enough to remain pressed against my crotch the entire dance.
"I don't mean to pry," She said, "But it's unusual to see attractive young couples like you and Savannah at a swingers convention. Is there a story there?"
"!"
Well, that makes sense. Couples only, the hotel manager being a jerk, people twice my age actively engaging us in conversation--not to mention swinging is not always dancing.
What silly fellow would mix that up?
"I guess there is a story. My parent's marriage was falling apart. They took a leap of faith and tried an alternate lifestyle. It worked, of course,e I didn't know this at the time, and they didn't feel comfortable telling me." I said, "My mom confided a few years ago, saying her only regret was not doing it sooner."
Cecilia filled in the gaps in my fictional tale on her own.
"Thomas, that is so romantic."
"Romantic?"
