It started when we were in high school. We were both too unsure about sex and never had the nerve to try dating. Boys seemed to be as much a source of confusion and uncertainty for Ellie as girls were for me. Ellie and I would se our friends on the weekend, see a movie or whatever, and then spend the rest of the week waiting for the weekend to come around again. Then as we all started driving, our friends started going on dates. One by one, the few friends we had started to be unavailable for the weekend. Dates. They were out doing what teenagers should do, and we were stuck at home. After a while we were the only ones left.
It was okay. We were friends as well as siblings. I was always comfortable just hanging out with Ellie. I mean, twins are supposed to be close.
But there was still something we were missing out on. Not that we let it show, but our eighteenth birthday was pretty depressing. When you spend your time in school watching others holding hands and stealing kisses between classes, it starts to eat away at your mind a little. The damnable thing about it for both of us was we weren't ugly, or odd, or anything else that would prohibit us from enjoying the company of a relationship. As with our parents we both had good bodies (still developing, but for our ages...), attractive faces - no more awkward than any other young adult. Ellie was tall, with a nice body. Long legs, good figure, nice breasts. She had flawless skin. It was smooth and just dark enough to avoid being pale. Her hair was silky with a quirky, alluring high hairline. It made her face look like she was always lost in thought. But we just never had much of a social life outside that of our own company.
Ever since we were kids, we'd always stayed up late on the weekend. Our own little reward for making it through the week at school. As we got older and our weekends became freer, we make this a major event. Stay up forever if we could. Maybe that was what let it all happen.
We lived in a nice, big house. It had a real second floor. It wasn't just a couple extra rooms, but the full deal. There was a modest rec. room, bedrooms, and a bathroom. What it really did was help us to hide away from the world when we were both feeling sorry for ourselves. Our parents left us to ourselves. Their room and den were on the first floor so on the weekends we barricaded ourselves in our own little world and didn't come out until we had too.
It was Friday again, and we were both in our TV room. Some movie was on the tube and neither of us was paying any attention to it. Ellie was feeling kind of down because she finally worked up the nerve to ask a boy to a movie, only to find that he was already going out with another girl. Not a big deal in the grand scheme, but to Ellie, it was the world. So, everyone was having fun, and we were settling in for another weekend alone.
It was after midnight, our parents were long asleep (by the end of the workweek they can barely stay awake until the late news), and we were both in a funk.
"Do you ever masturbate?" she asked. I nearly choked on my drink. It wasn't so much that she said it. It just took me by surprise. As I said, we were friends as much as we were siblings. We'd talked about sex before. What was it like? Would either of us actually get to have it? So, I answered her.
"Yeah, sometimes," I finally said. She was quiet.
"Does it make you feel better? After, I mean." She never even looked at me. She just sat, curled up in the big recliner, staring at the screen.
"I suppose. I don't know," I said dumbly.
"It just makes me wish it was the real thing," she said, almost more to herself than to me.
"Yeah. I guess for me too." She sat up quickly and turned to look at me. The T-shirt she wore twisted all around. The cartoon animal on it looked like it had been through a grinder. Her hair, so blonde it was almost white, brushed at her neck. With her legs all folded and bent as they were, you could see her plain white underwear as her shirt rode up a bit. I'd seen the same thing a thousand times, but I'd never paid it any attention before this. Everything just seemed more important.
"What's it like?" she asked with genuine curiosity. Her bright blue eyes were narrow with interest.
"What?"
"You know - when you jack off." Suddenly it was jacking-off.
"I don't know. I don't do it that often." It was true. I rarely did it. Made it that much better when I did.
"Oh, c'mon. You know what it's like. Tell me." I didn't say anything. "Come on - it's not like we don't talk about sex."
Fine. "It feels," I struggled for the word. "It feels, good." I really didn't know how to explain it to a girl. "I mean, it's hard to explain. It's like having a dream. You remember having it, you remember what it made you feel, but you don't remember anything specific. It's kind of like that." I gave up trying to explain. Besides, all the talk about masturbation and Ellie in practically nothing - well, it was a bit more than our usual conversations. She leaned forward on the arm of the big chair.
"Do you make funny faces?" she asked with a hint of a laugh. She inched forward a little more. She was hugging her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. "How long does it take?" She unfolded her long legs and dangled one over the arm and the other kept swinging slowly over the front. She wasn't kidding. She really wanted to know what it was like.