Author's note: This is a work of fiction. All characters involved in sexual activities are eighteen years or older. This is intended as the first part of a longer story, more chapters may be added based on how the first ones are received. As always, don't expect realism, and you won't be disappointed when you don't find it! Enjoy!
*****
As I drove through the familiar suburban neighborhood, I felt good. Really good. Excited, even. If I had learned one thing for sure during my first year of college, my very first time on my own away from home, it was that nothing compared to what I had here.
It had been a reasonably good year, apart from the frequent moments of agonizing loneliness and some insomnia issues. My grades were good, I had established a decent enough relationship with my roommates, I had learned how to deal with food and laundry and other 'grown-up' things. I had even enjoyed the debatable thrills of being a nineteen year old guy on the loose on campus, meaning that months before I had somehow managed to lose my virginity to a girl three years my senior who most likely didn't remember my face already, let alone my name. That's perfectly fine by me. If I could, I'd gladly forget all about her too, but I'm cursed with a very good memory.
We 'dated' for a couple of nights after we hooked up, Ally and I, just long enough for me to get acceptably acquainted with the female body. Then she broke it off with a grin and a peck on my nose, telling me to go back to my real girlfriend and make a woman out of her. I just nodded and thanked her. She laughed at that, telling me I was a funny one. I was actually serious, though. A bit confused and more than a little guilty, but serious.
Ally's parting grin had a sort of naughty pride to it, and rightfully so, since she had taught me, a sexually clueless freshman, how to passably please a woman. With intrigued patience, Ally had given me a crash course in how to stimulate a girl's erogenous zones, how to locate her g-spot (or at least search for it), how to lick pussy, how to fuck in some positions, and, essentially, how not to be so clueless about sex outside of porn and masturbation anymore.
The reference to my 'real girlfriend' was Ally's way to let me know that she was perfectly aware that I was involved with somebody already. Well, no wonder. My frequent texting and my sudden need to drop everything and go have my mysterious videochat call each night were an obvious giveaway that there was someone else in my life. Someone permanent and important to me.
And of course there was. She assumed it was my girlfriend. It was my little sister, Deirdre. My Didi.
*****
Didi and I were still in middle school when our Dad died, run over by a drunk son of a bitch. It was devastating. So sudden, absurd and unfair. Mom was never the same again after Dad's death. She threw herself in her work as a doctor, taking on more and more responsibility at the clinic. She did her best to put up a brave face with us kids, but her grief was always right beneath the surface, her former spontaneous cheerfulness dead and gone with the love of her life.
Me and Didi still shared a bedroom back then. For quite some time, my little sister had the most awful nightmares, so bad in fact that she'd wake up crying in the middle of the night, sobbing desperately into her pillow. I was having trouble sleeping myself after Dad's death, so I heard Didi cry in her sleep almost every night. Other times, I would wake up to the desolate sound of her sighs. I always shuddered with horror hearing that. Knowing that Didi was so sad in the dark was unbearable to me. Her pain seemed to hurt me even more that my own.
In retrospect, I think she felt guilty because she had got in a minor fight with Dad the day he died. It was something totally irrelevant about her homework, the kind of absurd thing that only a kid would feel guilty about in such a situation. But back then I was a kid too. I didn't have all the smart-ass answers I have now. I couldn't rationalize her sorrow to make her feel better, but I desperately wanted to do all I could to help my little sis. I guess it's somehow logical that I should choose to act as I did to help Didi overcome her night terrors. Truth is, I simply did the only thing I could think about doing.
Dad was a professional writer. Since an early age, he had instilled in me and Didi a reverential admiration for the written word, teaching us to appreciate the subtle magic hidden behind an ink mark on a piece of paper. Being a kid faced with what seemed like an unsolvable puzzle, I instinctively appealed to that very magic.
Every time I heard Didi cry at night, I'd get up and walk to her bed. I'd turn on her bedside lamp, sit beside her and gently wipe her tears away with the sleeve of my pajamas. Then I'd pick up whatever book was lying on her nightstand and I'd start reading it. As I read, I could hear her sniffling less and less, slowly calming down, the remains of her bad dreams gradually fading away as my words reached her. I'd just keep reading to her, feeling very big brotherly, until Didi's breath was deep and steady and she finally fell asleep. I always felt better myself by the time I turned off Didi's light and climbed back into my bed. Listening to my sister's regular breaths across the room, my own anxiety gradually evaporated, until I was sound asleep too.
For years, even after we moved to our current house and we each got our own bedroom, me and Didi spent every night chilling in my room before we went to sleep. We would watch tv or listen to music and talk, but mostly we would read. It would be either me reading out loud to her, or my favorite, Didi reading while I listening to her clear, soothing voice with my eyes closed and a smile on my face. Reading to each other during our own private story time each night became our most cherished ritual. We grew to love the sound of one another's voice and the fact that through books we could drift away to other places and live adventures together. Most of all though we just liked to be close and relax, enjoying each other's company before we said goodnight.
Often enough, especially when it was me reading to her, Didi would fall asleep on my bed, snuggled into my side. Usually I would gently pick her up and carry her to her room, tucking her in for the night. Sometimes though, especially if I was tired or it was late, I didn't even bother. I just put down the book and drifted off too, the both of us snoring contentedly till morning.
Mom was well aware that me and my sister fell asleep in the same bed from time to time. She was neutral about it and she never openly discouraged it until we entered puberty. Both me and Didi were baffled. We were just hanging around together at night, reading, and so what if we dozed off on my bed sometimes. We really could not see the harm in any of it.
Still, we didn't want to make Mom mad. So we dutifully forced ourselves to stay awake while the other read. We usually made it, but not always. Didi was reluctant at best when it was time for her to leave my bedroom and shuffle back to hers. She regularly passed out when it got late and it was my turn to read. On those occasions, I had a hard time resisting the urge to just close my eyes and drift off while Didi slowly breathed in and out by my side. And yet, I stoically stayed awake. Yawning, I'd cradle my sister's small frame in my arms and carry her to her bed. I'd lightly brush her raven hair away from her face before returning to my room, where I instantly fell asleep smelling Didi's scent on my pillow.
*****
It was only after I had parked in the driveway and made my way into the house that my excitement and joy began getting soured by sudden pangs of guilt. I had missed Didi's graduation days before. I had not been home for months, since Christmas. I had missed Didi's eighteen's birthday. And I had not been there for her some weeks after that, when she 'sort of had a fight' with 'a guy from school'.
