The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
* * * * *
I sat naked on my bed with my tears drying on my face. I felt utterly miserable. My big evening to impress the new woman in my life had ended in humiliation and ridicule.
I looked around my bedroom that she had said was only suitable for a ten-year-old. Perhaps that criticism of all the ones she had recently hurled at me was justified. The Spiderman duvet cover; the model aircraft hanging from the ceiling; the half-completed aircraft kit – these did not give the impression of a sophisticated man of the world. Why should they? I was nineteen and still a virgin. I had hoped that tonight I would lose my virginity and Eve would be the right one...
Eve had said so many hurtful things as she had dressed hurriedly before slamming the door on the way out of the house.
"Giles!" she had spat out, "What MAN has pictures of his SISTER all over his bedroom?"
"What MAN gets his SISTER to cook the meal for the woman he's bringing home..."
"What MAN can't get it up when a real woman is standing naked before him?
"What MAN has a tool that shrinks when she handles it?"
Eve went on and on. Her angry questions still rang in my head. All I had done... was do nothing. I had badly hurt Eve by my total lack of physical response to her nude body.
I had such hopes for this evening. I had been talking to Eve for weeks. We had shared chats over the coffee break at the adult education classes. She was doing a beautician's course; I was studying for an examination in French I should have passed when I was at school. A week ago we had gone to the cinema together and fumbled in the back seats.
Thinking back to that evening at the cinema should have warned me. Eve was far more direct about the fumbling than I was. Actually she didn't fumble at all. Her hands pulled mine to her breasts. Her hand found my erection. Her hand drew mine to finger her pussy. Her lips silenced my panting as her hand made me come into my boxers.
This weekend my parents were away but my newly divorced big sister Lynn had come home. She wasn't baby-sitting me, but I think my parents trusted her to make sure I didn't have a wild party that wrecked the house. I looked at the two pictures of Lynn and I that Eve had been really scathing about.
Lynn is ten years older than I am. About a year after I was born my father was in a train wreck and hospitalised for six months and disabled for several years. The family income dropped drastically and my mother had to find a part-time job in the evenings. Lynn became my substitute mother and the bond between us became and remains very strong. Lynn is still my big sister. She is half a head taller than I am.
Those pictures show us at a cousin's wedding. Lynn was eighteen. I was eight. Lynn was a bridesmaid and wore a deep blue dress shimmering in the sunlight. I was standing in front of her in an unaccustomed suit. My head was leaning against her breasts. Lynn's arms were crossed over my chest and her full skirt was billowing in the wind. As the picture was taken my body was wrapped in her skirt to well above my waist. My head and shoulders emerged from her full sleeves. My head was turned to look up at her; she was looking down at me. The love between us was obvious. That made it one of my favourite pictures of us. It encapsulated my childhood, wrapped and protected by Lynn's love.
The other picture had been taken late in the evening at the reception. I was asleep on Lynn's lap with my head resting on her breast. Her arm held me against her. I was smiling in my sleep.
Eve had said that both pictures were indecent and unnatural. I had retorted something about loving my sister. Eve had replied that perhaps that is what I should do because I was no f***ing use to her. Then she left.
I was still sitting on my bed when Lynn returned. She looked round my bedroom door. She came slowly in the room, threw her long stole down, and sat on the bed beside me. Her arms opened. I rested against her bare shoulder and cried.
I hadn't noticed that she had left dressed in a low-cut ball gown with the stole wrapped round her shoulders. I hadn't really looked at Lynn earlier because I was so wound up about the prospect of spending an evening with Eve. I had thanked Lynn for preparing the meal for us. Lynn had left shortly before Eve arrived. Lynn had been going with some of her old friends to a Chamber of Commerce dinner dance. That explained the ball gown that was caressing my naked legs.
Lynn picked me up and placed me on her lap. I curled up against her, wrapped in her bare arms.
"What went wrong?" she asked quietly. "What did you do?"
"I didn't DO anything," I replied. "I couldn't. Eve stood naked before me and I didn't react. She tried to arouse me but couldn't. That made her angry and she stormed out."
Lynn's arms tightened around me in a hug. I buried my face in her hair.
"Why couldn't you?" she asked.
"I don't know. I was so excited before she came..."
"I know. You were up in the clouds when I left."
"...but after the meal she dragged me to the bedroom, stripped me and then herself and I couldn't..."
"You are still a virgin, aren't you, Giles?"
"Yes, Lynn. I hoped that tonight..."
"You expected too much. Did Eve know you were a virgin?"
"No. She might have guessed. I didn't tell her. It isn't the sort of thing you admit to at nineteen."
"Is she a virgin?"
I looked up at Lynn's face. She was serious.
"I shouldn't think so. She doesn't behave like a virgin. She's so direct, so impulsive. She dragged the clothes off me as if she wanted to get straight to business."
"That needn't mean that she's not a virgin. She might have been as nervous as you were. If she is a virgin and had intended to make love to you she will be really hurt."
"I know she's hurt, virgin or not. She said a lot of painful things before she left. I don't think she meant most of them, except... She suggested that my relationship with you was unnatural."
I felt Lynn flinch. There was a long silence. Then Lynn turned to kiss me on the forehead.
"She may have something in that, Giles. You have always been my baby brother, almost my baby. We don't have a relationship as adults and certainly not as an adult male and an adult female, do we?"
