The James Sisters



   What am I getting myself into?



   I woke up the next morning flat on my back, inside Jessie. She 

sat astride me, naked, her sun-kissed skin practically glowing in 

the dim morning light, and she was running her hands through her 

long blond hair as I opened my eyes. She rocked her hips back and 

forth, slowly. My cock, half-hard already, swelled within her, 

painfully so at the sudden look on her face as I pushed through 

the last folds of her. She sat there a moment, eyes downcast, 

breathing in little shallow pants as her warm wet lips kissed the 

base of my cock. Then she leaned forward, lifting off me a little, 

and she kissed my mouth, and our tongues tasted each other.



   "Morning," she said, rocking back, plunging me back inside her.



   "Jesus," I said.



   "No," she said, rocking forward again. A quick nip at my lips. 

"Jessie." And back. She picked up the pace slowly but surely, 

gently resisting my attempts to guide her hips, to adjust the 

rhythm. "Nope," she said, pushing my hands away, panting faster. 

"Sorry." Sweat slicked our skins, from between her knees, from 

where her thighs rested on my hips, on my palms and the bottoms of 

her feet, until we gleamed with it. I sat up, on my elbow, and 

caught her waist with one arm, and pulled her to me. Ducking my 

head I managed to get one small perfect breast to my mouth, to 

catch her nipple in my lips and worry at it. Her breath sharpened; 

she stopped rocking a moment and took my head in her hands, 

murmuring something I couldn't make out as I licked her nipple, 

her breast, kissed the sweat between her breasts, her collarbone, 

her throat. She pushed me down again with a deep chuckle, seizing 

my right hand in her left and forcing it back, over my head, 

pinning it there. She became relentless, merciless, sliding up and 

down, up and down, fast and hard, panting, and one of us said, 

"Oh, God" as the come leaped suddenly out of me and into her, and 

the breath barked from my lungs with the effort of pleasure.



   "Good morning," she said, again, kissing me. We kissed for a 

while. And then I had my first conscious thought of the day, and 

did the first thing I'd consciously meant to do.



   "How'd you get in?" I asked.



   She kissed my mouth, my cheek, my Adam's apple. "Same way you 

did," she whispered. "Nice and easy."



   "The doors are locked," I said. "Windows, too."



   "You're thinking about the wrong things," she said. She drew 

back from me, bracing herself on her arms, my wrist still in her 

grasp. "I still want to play." I was softening inside her, as the 

magic of sex leaked away. We were turning into pumpkins, becoming 

merely two sweaty human beings clutched too close together on a 

muggy summer's morning, our mingled come leaking from our joined 

sexes, tickling my balls, my inner thighs, and we were sticky, and 

chafed. I tried to shift my weight a little, get comfortable, and 

she clamped her thighs tightly about my waist. "No fair," she 

said, pouting prettily, and I was reminded of her age, or lack 

thereof. "I want to play."



   "Jessie," I said.



   "What," she said.



   "Tell me something."



   "What."



   "Just how old are you, anyway?"



   She stuck out her tongue. "As old as you want me to be."



   "Jessie." I tried to look stern, but I'm afraid my dignity was 

somewhat compromised.



   "Do you really care?" she said, gone suddenly all solemn -- 

though that imp that bedevils her face was still there, lurking in 

a corner of her mouth. "Would you stop fucking me if you found out 

for sure? Could you? Do you really think this," and she kissed me, 

a sweet and knowing kiss, a sure kiss that curled the toes and 

made me forget the sweat, the raw skin, the wet spot, the muggy 

heat, "that this could be wrong?"



   "Just chalk it up to curiosity," I said, "and leave it at 

that."



   "Curiosity killed the cat."



   "And satisfaction brought it back."



   She reared back, pale blue eyes widening in delighted, 

astonished shock. "Get out of here!" She shoved at my chest with 

one little, short-nailed hand. "Is that how it really goes? No 

way."



   "Yes," I said, bemused. "That's the way it goes."



   "But that's, like, totally different! It changes the whole 

meaning!"



   "Does it," I said, as drily as I could.



   "Yeah! Everybody uses the first part of it to shut you up, to 

tell you to fuck off. And the whole time it really means just the 

opposite! 'Satisfaction brought it back.' Shit."



   "You're changing the subject."



   She leaned forward all in a rush, kissing my mouth, my cheek, 

and whispering into my ear, "I get my driver's license next week." 

The earliest one can be licensed hereabouts is, traditionally 

enough, sixteen. I swallowed and thought of this girl, ten years 

younger than myself, who seemed whole, complete, with a poise and 

confidence rare enough in someone my age (or in me), which she 

could throw away with a giggle, a flip of her hair, as the imp 

took possession of her mouth, shone forth from her eyes, and she 

became coltish, girlish; sixteen. Almost. Christ. My dastardly 

cock was swelling again within her. "Gemini," I said, swallowing, 

trying to distract her, myself.



   "Ooh," she purred. "You like that. I can be younger, if you 

like."



   "Jessie," I said, and I sighed, twisting my sore wrist out of 

her grasp and grabbing her hips, "I fancy myself a gentleman. I 

like to think I'd never tickle anyone, no matter the provocation. 

But you are beginning to try my patience."



   She froze in my grasp; her grin remained, but seemed uncertain, 

a little. "You wouldn't."



   "If you say so..."



   "I swear, I'm almost sixteen. Honest."



   "Which," I said, stroking her flank with my hand, pale and 

rough over her smooth, smooth skin, "is what I would have thought 

to be my limit." I looked up at her beasts, the same smooth color 

as the rest of her, tipped with perfect, pink nipples, like the 

color you see in a sudden glimpse inside a shell; the slight curve 

to her belly, leaning forward, sweat cooling in a faint line from 

the shadowed cave of her navel down and down to her pale blond 

pubic hair; up to her face, half-hidden suddenly behind her 

curtain of hair, the imp hiding in her small, slight smile. 

"Sixteen," I said. "In a fantasy, anyway. I never thought -- "



   "And is the reality so bad?" she said, mockingly petulant, 

leaning forward over me again, and her hair brushed my chest, and 

pooled there like spun gold, and spilled over my throat, the 

pillows, the sheets. Her breath brushed my cheeks, my eyes; her 

lips did not quite touch my lips. Her nipples brushed my skin. I 

reached for her with my mouth, but she drew back, and down; then 

leaned forward, lifting her hips, and I was sliding through the 

warm silken tunnel of her, almost out, almost to the end, then 

back, back inside, then forth again; back, and forth; back, and 

forth; and it hurt, I was swelling, growing inside her again, the 

head of my cock stroked like this, nerves rubbed raw, on fire, a 

red-hot spike driving through the center of it  --



   "It's just," I gasped, "it's dangerous. I don't, ah," and she 

paused, at the top of her stroke, perched on half-raised thighs. 

"I don't trust your mother. Step-mother. As far as I could, I 

could fuck her." She rocked back, suddenly. "Throw her. Ah."



   "And what," she said, "does that have to do with it?" Forth, 

slowly. Then back. "Hmm?"



   "Jessie," I said, "that hurts. Wait a minute. A man can only 

take so much."



   "Really." The imp crooked the corner of her mouth, cocked an 

eyebrow at me. Up and down; up and down.



   "Christ, Jessie -- " I grabbed her, stopped her, lifted my hips 

to catch her and keep her from coming back down. She kissed me as 

I gently eased us both down.



   "You're acting like I've never done this before," she said.



   "Jesus, Jessie," I said, maybe a tad more sharply than I ought.



   "What," she said, eyes going cold, imp retreating, as she sat 

up, tracing a line down the center of my chest with a finger, "is 

you concern with how old I am? What does it matter? I'm here. 

You're here. We're having sex. Sex is, like, the best thing ever. 

I adore it."



   "I don't mind it," I said. "It's just -- "



   "What about all those '50s songs? 'You're sixteen, you're 

beautiful, and you're mine...' What do you think that meant, 

anyway? So I got a head start. What's wrong with that?" She 

started to grin as she sang the oldie, and her eyes melted again. 

"People are always telling me I'm mature for my age."



   "How much of a head start?" I said.



   "Seven months, one week, three days. And four -- no, five 

girls. And -- now -- " she raised herself up again, free from my 

relaxed hands, up, up, and then down again -- "two boys. I love 

sex. I love fucking. Christ." She chuckled deep in her throat 

again, like the rumbling purr of a big cat, and kissed me again, 

deeply, thoroughly.



   "Do those five girls count your mother?" I asked when she came 

up for air.



   "Step-mother."



   "Like that makes a difference. Ow. Mother fucker. Ow!"



   "Don't," she said, and she was suddenly serious. "Don't start. 

I don't want to talk about her, okay? So don't start, Carter." She 

shifted her hips a little, and I was suddenly settled deep within 

her. "Christ, I love fucking you. When you came up behind me like 

that yesterday, when you slipped up inside me like that. I have 

been jonesing for you so hard -- your eyes, your hair, I wanted 

your hands on me. I wanted your dick inside me. I love the sadness 

in your eyes, I love the little smile you have that isn't a smile. 

Something happened to you somewhere and I want to find out what it 

was. Somebody hurt you sometime and I'm going to make them pay. 

Because -- " she shifted her hips again -- "I love the way you 

feel when I do that. You're perfect. Not too big, not too small. 

It's like we're made for each other. We're made to fuck each 

other. And that's all I want to do to you all day." And she 

laughed, a delicate little peal that cracked the muggy air of the 

bedroom. "And I love the way you blush."



   I was looking away, and my face was, perhaps, a little heated. 

What was I getting myself into? I'm slow, sometimes; I wake up 

(literally, in this case) in the middle of something I could 

easily have avoided, had I been thinking. At all. I should have 

been asking this question the first day she showed up, or the 

second day, when she showed up again; hell, I should have asked 

myself yesterday, for sure, but it wasn't till now, with this 

fifteen-year-old girl sitting astride my hips, making me blush, 

laughing in my dim and silent bedroom -- then my conscience showed 

up, hands in pockets, whistling with feigned nonchalance, reacting 

with mock dismay to what it found. What am I getting myself into? 

There was no answer -- or, rather, I was too deep inside the 

answer already.



   I could, perhaps, have withdrawn then; gotten dressed; made 

some coffee; sent her on her way. I could, maybe, have gotten out 

then. I didn't. And that, of course, has made all the difference, 

as someone once said about a couple of paths in the woods.



   What I did was twist and roll over suddenly, levering her up 

and over with me, and managed it without slipping free from her. 

She grunted with surprise and not a little pleasure as my weight 

fell on her, and I gasped as my cock, nearly fully erect, plunged 

into her as far as it could, straining against the pressure of my 

pelvis against her spread thighs. "Almost," I muttered. "I have 

learned," I said, "not to take seriously any compliments uttered 

at the height of passion."



   She opened her eyes, gazing up at me, a dreamy look on her 

face. She stroked my arms with her hands, ran one along my side, 

down and around to cup my ass, pushing it. "I want you," she said, 

huskily. "I need you."



   "Almost," I said again. "Almost. Make me want to. Make me do 

it. Tell me something."



   "What?" she breathed. I held still, balancing on my hands and 

knees above her.



   "Tell me -- Virginia said I should meet your sisters."



   "She did? What did she say?"



   "She said you were gorgeous, you little step-mother fucker, but 

that I should see your sisters."



   "Really." She brushed some of her hair out of her face, made 

awkward by the proximity of our bodies; I didn't move. "Maybe I 

should tell you about Leah."



   "Leah?"



   "She's older than me, she just turned eighteen. So maybe you 

should be fucking her." I eased myself up and down, slowly, to 

leave no doubt as to who I was fucking. "Ooh," she said. "Maybe 

you don't need the story after all."



   Maybe I didn't by that point, but I wanted it. I wanted to draw 

things out, make it last. I wanted her to drive me over the edge 

that was looming before me; what I wanted, really, was to somehow 

be able to tell myself it had all been her fault. In the end. 

"Tell me about your sister, Jessie." I gave her the full force of 

my sad eyes and my smile that isn't a smile.



   "Mmm," she said. "Where should I start?"



   "What does she look like?" Our voices had dropped, we were 

murmuring now, almost whispering, through the foot or so of muggy 

air between our mouths, as if we were sharing secrets, as if 

someone might hear.



   "A little taller than me. Her tits are a little bigger. She's a 

blonde, too."



   "Natural?"



   "She shaves."



   "Oh."



   "She keeps her hair cut short, like, shoulder length. And it's 

straighter than mine. And she has the most amazing blue green 

eyes, like a warm tropical sea. Like Jamaica. Jamaica eyes." Her 

hands, fluttering, stroking over my back, my sides, my ass. "Mmm," 

she said again. "She's so smart. She wants to be a poet, like the 

old poets, like really old. She's always quoting stuff at me. 

Sappho and shit."



   "And shit."



   She laughed, low, quiet, just between the two of us. "She's so 

fucking sexy. Her legs, her tits, her mouth. Some days when 

Virginia's gone on business we never get out of bed, just lie 

there, kissing all day long. Touching. Feeling."



   "Fucking," I said.



   "Such language. I love my sister. I mean, we're practically all 

we've got left these days. We were so close when we were kids, 

people sometimes thought we were twins."



   "Twins?" Her mouth had twisted for a moment, her eyes rolled, 

as if the word had tasted sour to her.



   "Nothing. When I turned thirteen, though, we went through a 

bad, bad time. But about half a year ago -- "



   "Seven months, one week, and whatever?"



   "Hey. I'm telling this story. Ooh, do that again."



   "No. Tell it, already."



   "Spoil-sport. Ow. Okay, okay. So. I'm coming home from a 

basketball game, it's late at night, there's a wind storm blowing 

up. No rain or anything, but the trees are tossing, losing the 

last of their leaves, it sounds like ocean waves rolling and 

rolling everywhere. So I come home, and it's pretty much dark. 

Virginia's gone, the girls were asleep, and Leah wasn't anywhere 

downstairs.



   "And, I don't know. I was feeling scared, okay? I was still 

wearing my cheerleader outfit -- it's like this pair of tight 

shorts, like cycling shorts, and a cut-off top, right, in team 

colors?" She chuckled at my small smile. "I was wearing a jacket, 

but I was thinking, like, slasher movie stuff. If the phone rang I 

would've screamed.



   "So I go looking for Leah. Which is weird, because we still 

hate each other, okay? Then, I mean. She was accusing me of -- 

nah, never mind about that. Hey!"



   I had withdrawn, until the head of my cock rested on the edges 

of her labia, hovering there. "Tell the story," I said.



   "It's nothing, okay? We -- I -- I just went upstairs, 

basically, and her room was dark, which was weird, because she 

never goes anywhere. And the girls were asleep, it was, like, 

eleven o'clock, and anyway, they weren't any good against, well, 

slasher stuff. So I go back downstairs, and I'm in the kitchen, I 

think I was raiding Virginia's liquor cabinet, when I hear a 

noise, and it's coming from Virginia's room.



   "Now, we aren't supposed to go back there, right? I mean, we 

did, we knew why, but we weren't supposed to. But I went back 

there, and I knew Leah did too, even if the girls never did."



   "Who are these girls?" I asked, relenting a little, sinking a 

little deeper into her.



   "Ohh," she said, wiggling her hips, trying to draw me in 

deeper. I pulled back. "Dammit!" she said.



   "The girls," I said.



   "They're Virginia's kids," she said. "Kat and Tina. Twins. 

About six months younger than me. My half-sisters."



   I sank deeper into her, a complex shape forming in the back of 

my head, this tangled family snarling itself into depraved, 

tantalizing knots. Twins. "Sounds complicated." She was warm, and 

soft, wet and inviting, and I was hard again, and ready, more than 

ready, but not yet. Not yet.



   "You don't know the half of it," she was saying. "See, Virginia 

has this -- well, you'll see.



   "So I snuck back there. I mean, I knew Virginia was gone, she'd 

be gone for a day or two at least, and so it had to be Leah back 

there. And there was only one thing Leah could be doing back 

there, and I wanted to catch her at it. Embarrass her. Totally."



   "One thing?" I asked. That burning itch of pleasure, that need 

to be scratched, was tickling up the base of my cock, and it felt 

delicious, sliding along her warm, warm lips, pulling out halfway, 

holding there, not moving.



   "She was watching a tape." And Jessie smirked up at me, rolling 

her hips a little beneath me, and I almost went with it, catching 

myself at the last moment, denying us both a release. Not yet.



   "A video nasty," I said.



   "X-rated. I sneak around the corner, so I can see where 

Virginia's TV is, and the bed. And on the screen there's a couple 

of girls, and one of them is naked, and she's pulling the skirt 

off the other one, and she's kneeling in front of her, and she's 

going down on her, wham bam thank you ma'am. But the volume was 

turned down, right? There's none of that cheesy music or anything. 

The sound I heard was Leah.



   "She's lying on the bed, on her stomach, and she's wearing a T-

shirt, and just a T-shirt. And she was whimpering and moaning, and 

the shirt was rolled up over her ass, about the small of her back, 

and her feet are in the air, her toes are curling, and her calves 

are tensed up and shaking, and one hand is gripping the edge of 

the bed for dear life, and the other is jammed under her stomach, 

and from where I'm standing I can just see the fingers wiggling 

there in her pussy. And her eyes are glued to the girls on the TV 

and she's got the horniest look on her face and she's coming, 

right there, and Christ, fuck me, please, fuck me, I'm getting so 

hot and bothered just thinking about her, fuck me!" She grabbed my 

shoulders and tried to pull me down to her; I resisted, pushing 

her back with one hand.



   "Fuck you," she said.



   "In due time."



   "Oh, God," she said, "oh, God. So. Leah -- how do you expect me 

to be coherent under these conditions?" She ran a hand along my 

chest, touched my face. "God, you're so beautiful."



   "You're changing the subject." I tried to set my face in stone, 

but my dignity was, again, somewhat compromised.



   "Leah -- she's just so goddamn beautiful, okay? You'd have to 

see her. And that was the first time I saw her, really. Not like 

this enemy, not like my stupid-ass big sister, not like some five-

foot-six monster with my hair and almost my eyes who liked making 

me look like a fucking idiot, okay? I saw her as somebody else. 

Another girl, a girl who made me wet. Makes me wet. And it never 

crossed my mind, like, she's my sister, this is wrong, right? It 

was just clean and pure. She was coming right there in front of me 

and I wanted it to go on, I wanted her to keep coming, I wanted to 

be the reason she was coming. I wanted her to make me come. I 

wanted that with her like I'd never wanted it before."



   She was rocking beneath me again, and I was rolling with her, 

and I forced myself to stop, though it felt good, too good.



   "You're getting off on this," she said.



   "So are you," I said.



   "Mm-hmm," she said. "So I'm about to walk in on my sister and, 

I don't know, kiss her, rape her, fuck her, do something. I had no 

idea what but it had to be done. And that's when..." And she 

trailed off, grinning impishly.



   "What?"



   "Give me something and I tell you."



   I leaned down and kissed her, quickly, on the lips.



   "Na-ah," she said.



   I kissed her more thoroughly.



   "Getting warmer," she said.



   I knew what she wanted, but I wasn't going to give it to her. I 

licked her breast, nipped at her nipple with my lips.



   "Ooh, nice. But."



   "Jessie."



   "Who's got the stronger will, huh?"



   I locked eyes with her, small smile that isn't quite a smile 

staring down her mischievous imp, half in her, half out of her, 

her legs wrapped around mine, her hair asprawl on the pillow, her 

arms back over her head, her finger twining in her hair. And at 

some point in there I plunged into her, quick, hard, and pulled 

back out again, a sudden thrust, there! She gasped. "Oh, Christ."



   "There," I said, panting. A little.



   "Well," she said, swallowing, looking up at me, "the power went 

out."



   "The power?"



   "All the lights go out, the girls flicker away in mid-come, 

Leah gasps and I shriek, and then Leah shrieks when she realizes I 

was there, and maybe there for a long time. And we're yelling at 

each other, what are you doing spying on me, what are you doing in 

Virginia's room, what's it to you, I'm gonna tell, that sort of 

shit. But we calm down pretty quickly. I wasn't going to tell, we 

both knew that. But we have to get the power back on. Lights. And 

we have to get that tape out of the VCR.



   "So we head into the kitchen, and we find a flashlight, and we 

head down to the basement first. Maybe the wind blew something 

over, and we'd have to call the power company, but maybe it was 

the circuit breaker, right?



   "Now, the breaker box is up kind of high, near the stairs, so I 

get a chair for Leah to stand on, and she climbs up on it, and I'm 

holding it to steady her.



   "Up until then, we'd been in panic mode, running around, get 

this, get that. But she was standing there on the chair in front 

of me, reaching up, and the shirt was riding up, mmm, oh, that's 

nice, so I could just see the lips of her pussy, and you like 

that, don't you, and they were red and puffy, and a little wet 

still, and I could smell her, and it all comes rushing back to me, 

in a wave so big it sucks me down and leaves me dizzy and I don't 

have any idea what I'm doing, right?



   "And she turns a little, saying, 'I think it's this one,' and 

her back is to the wall behind her, she's resting against it, I 

don't really need to be holding the chair but there I am anyway, 

oh God, and the shirt's riding up some more, I can see her lips 

there, bare and smooth, nestled in that little vee of bare flesh 

between her thighs, and it's right there in front of my nose, my 

mouth, like she's taunting me, like she knows, oh fuck, just what 

she's doing, oh, God, Carter, keep going, and then, click, the 

lights come back on, and she says, oh, fuck, she says, 'That's 

it,' oh, you feel so good, and I'm moving, I gotta do it, I spread 

her thighs, pushing her back against the wall, and I'm kissing her 

there, and I feel her open up under me like a mouth and the taste 

which is, like, a hundred, oh fuck, a hundred times, oh, oh, oh my 

God! and it comes rushing in to me, and I'm, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, 

oh fuck! I'm eating my sister like I've always done it, like, oh, 

God, Carter, like I always knew what to do, and her hands are on 

my head, and she's holding me there, holding my mouth there, 

muttering, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh my God, I'm gonna come, I'm so 

close, I'm so wet, I'm so freaking close, fuck me, fuck, fuck me, 

please God, oh please, holy Christ -- "



   She clawed my back, her hips spasming under me, breaking our 

rhythm; I halted, hanging above her, as she threw her head back, 

eyes squeezed shut, clutching at the sheets, heaving the orgasm 

from her by sheer force of will. And when the storm had passed we 

kissed, and kissed some more, as I resumed my long, steady 

strokes, pulling all the way out, almost, and then rocking home, 

and as my speed slowly increased again it was hard enough to slap 

against her. She was whimpering as our mouths crushed together, 

and when we broke the kiss my breath came in harsh pants, and I 

felt the come pooling in me again like sluggish quicksilver, 

feeling the buzz of it building like a red-hot coal again in my 

cock, and it hurt again, but I couldn't stop, the other feeling 

was, it was the feeling of it suddenly spurting through me, and 

there was no conscious realization that I was about to come, no 

thought that I had been about to come; no past, no future, just an 

eternal now I almost but didn't quite make it to, a peak my 

fingers slipped from as I was dragged back down into the world.



   And afterwards, as we lay, side by side, our fingertips 

touching, our feet, her nose an inch from mine, her hair brushing 

my forehead, I said, "So?"



   "So?" she said.



   "So?" I said, a little more expectantly. She wasn't smiling.



   "What."



   "What happened next?"



   "Is that," she said, and she stopped. "I swear," she said. Her 

hand found my chest, slipped down to my stomach.  "Here I am, 

ready and more than willing, and all you want to hear about is my 

sister." She slapped my ass suddenly, then stroked it. "Worse. You 

want to hear about me and my sister together. Typical het boy." 

Her voice was petulant, a thwarted little girl's, but when I 

looked down at her face, her eyes cast away from me, she was 

smiling. "A little perverse, maybe, but still typical."



   "You started a story," I said. "You didn't finish it."



   "How do you know? Maybe that was the end."



   "Very bad form," I said. "With your half-naked sister coming on 

a chair in the basement like that? That's not an ending. No story 

ever ends at the top like that. No good story. You've got to have 

the follow-through, the coming down, the aftermath. The epilogue. 

What happened next?"



   "Didn't somebody once say that all happy endings are just where 

the story stopped too soon?"



   "This one doesn't have a happy ending?"



   She looked up at me, and then stretched suddenly to kiss me, 

quickly. "It's not over yet." We kissed some more.



   Cuddled together, running her hand through my hair, she said, 

"She got off the chair, and we looked at each other, and it was 

like this huge thing of emotions, like electricity, snapping 

between us. She was trembling. And then she suddenly just took off 

up the stairs, running.



   "After a minute, I followed her. I wasn't thinking, it was more 

like instinct. It was, it just kept being something I had to do."



   "It was love," I said.



   "Ain't it a bitch?" she said. "She heads to her room, and I 

found her there, and she's crying. She's crying. She looks up at 

me when I walk in, and I say, 'Oh, Leah,' and she's got tears 

coming out her eyes, and her hair's a mess, and one of her hands 

is tugging at the hem of her T-shirt, and it's pulled tight 

against her tits, and I ought to be thinking about what's upset 

her, and maybe I should have tried to comfort her, but all I could 

think of was how fucking gorgeous she suddenly was to me, her 

tits, her long, long legs, her face, her hair. Her distress. And I 

wanted to comfort her, all right. I wanted to keep comforting 

her." She chuckled. "And I said, 'Leah, what's wrong?'



   "And she says, 'Oh, Jessie.' And for a minute there, my heart 

dropped to my feet. Something in the tone of her voice, I don't 

know, I was convinced she was going to yell at me, call me a 

freak, order me out, tell Virginia. All I knew was that something 

I never knew I had was about to be taken away, and I was about to, 

I don't know, slap her or something, to keep her from saying what 

I thought she was going to say.



   "But then she laughs, this little half-laugh like a hitch in 

her breathing, like a gasp, and she says, 'God, sis, I'm so,' and 

she laughs again, 'I'm so fucking horny,' she says, 'and you're so 

fucking beautiful.'



   "And I ran to her, and tackled her on her bed, and she's 

ripping off my shorts, and her hands are on me, all over me, and 

mine are on her, and we cover each other with kisses." She kissed 

me, then, and again, and again. "The end," she said, and suddenly 

she got up, and was crawling out of my bed.



   "Wait," I said.



   "Really," she said, "I've got to go. It's almost ten. Don't you 

have work to do?"



   "What happened with the tape?"



   "Oh," she said, picking up a dress from the floor, and I 

watched her body move and tighten, watched her breasts flatten as 

she lifted it above her head, and she let it fall about her. It 

went down to her mid-calf, it had thin straps, it was a lovely 

deep blue-green. "The tape. We forgot about the tape. In our 

mutual lust. And Virginia found it. But that's another story."



   "For another time?"



   "Maybe." She'd grabbed a pair of espadrilles and was about to 

put them on when she stopped, and climbed up onto the foot of the 

bed, kneeling there. "Come here," she said.



   I sat up, cross-legged. "Why?"



   "Come here." She beckoned with a crooked finger.



   I shuffled down to the end of the bed, and she leaned forward 

to kiss me, on my lips, on the tip of my nose, on my cheek. "I 

love your hair," she said, "Carter Seamus Macleod, and your eyes, 

and your mouth. I love your body. You're so slim and tight. I love 

fucking you. I'm very glad that you live just behind us, and that 

you came out to see me sunbathe that day, and that you didn't send 

me away. I'm glad that you treat me the way you do. And I want to 

keep fucking you."



   "I see," I said.



   "There. That wasn't at the height of passion. What did you 

think?"



   "I think I can trust it," I said.



   "But do you think you can trust me?"



   "Yes," I said, after a deep breath, "I think I can."



   "Because I think I'm falling in love with you." And she kissed 

me. After a moment, I kissed her back.



   "It is my experience," I said, between kisses, "that sixteen-

year-olds have a very different idea of love than the rest of us."



   Her mouth twisted a little, and the imp flashed in her eyes. 

"Then it's a good thing I'm not a sixteen-year-old. Yet." She got 

up off the bed. "You shouldn't patronize," she said, slipping on 

the espadrilles. "I'm not like most girls."



   "True enough," I said.



   "By the way," she said, standing in the bedroom door, the 

sunlight pouring through the almost-closed blinds making the air 

between us hazy and troubled, "what I told you? About me and my 

sister?" She paused, waiting for me to say something.



   "Yes?" I said.



   "It was all a lie. That isn't how it happened at all."



   And she was gone, laughing.



   "Jessie," I said, falling back against the bed.







   I went for a walk that afternoon, around the block. Counting 

houses, I found the one that had to be hers.



   It was a big house, as big as the old Queen Anne my uncle had 

left me, but of a later vintage, a blocky grey brick thing from 

the 1930s. Black shutters and a big round semi-circular porch with 

white Georgian columns going up two stories. A Range Rover and an 

Accura and one of those new BMW roadsters were parked in the 

driveway. I noticed I could see through the trees one of my own 

attic dormer windows, on the side of my house, from where I stood.



   I had tied my hair back, and put on sunglasses, and I didn't 

linger in front of the house, just kept to my own meandering pace. 

But I had the unpleasant feeling of being watched, nonetheless.



   Nerves.



   Back at my house, I once more ignored the boxes untouched now 

for two or three days, didn't turn on the computer which still 

wasn't even fully hooked up, and headed up to the attic. I 

rummaged around on the second floor, finding a pair of binoculars. 

I was justifying this to myself, reasoning that a situation this 

odd, this fraught with unpredictable outcomes, deserved a little 

spying; that forewarned is forearmed; that this wasn't just an 

aggravated outbreak of the novelist's sin, voyeurism. Know thine 

enemy, I was muttering to myself, a little wryly, when the 

realization washed over me like a cold wave. She'd known my name. 

My whole name. I hadn't told her.



   I took the steps up to the attic two at a time.



   I could indeed see the back of their house from that dormer 

window. The back yard was mostly grass, dry and yellowing already 

under the early summer heat. I could see the side door, the cars, 

the back porch, a little thing, its shade pathetically small, a 

dog bowl beside the back door, the tall line of windows opening on 

the dining room. Leaning against one of the windows was Virginia; 

her face was turned to the side, and I could make out her profile. 

Someone was kneeling between her legs. She wore a dark suit dress 

of some kind, with a short skirt; the skirt was hiked up, showing 

the scalloped, lacy tops of her black stockings, her bare ass, the 

person's fingers and mouth busy in her cunt. And in a chair close 

by was Jessie, still wearing her blue-green sun dress; she lifted 

it up over her hips, and was playing with herself, lazily, licking 

her lips at the sight before her.



   Who was eating Virginia? I couldn't make it out, and for a 

minute, I thought it must have been Leah. Virginia came, throwing 

her head forward, then back, shivering the glass in the window, 

staggering away for a moment, unsteady on shaky legs and high 

heels. The woman who'd been kneeling stood: a tall woman with a 

fabulous mane of red hair, wearing a long green sleeveless dress 

unbuttoned down the front. She wore a small white bra and no 

underwear, and her pubic hair was dark and thick, and she was 

barefoot.



   Not Leah.



   Virginia, catching herself, drew herself up, smoothing her 

skirt down over her thighs, her ass, running a hand through her 

skewed hair. She stepped over to Jessie, drew back her hand, and 

slapped her, once, quite hard, then grabbed the hem of Jessie's 

dress and yanked it down. She said something sharply, and Jessie, 

shocked, stood and walked, a little uncertain, to the windows.



   She looked up, and though she couldn't have seen me, she looked 

right at me. Her face was blank, her cheek reddened where Virginia 

had slapped it. She raised a hand, slowly, to touch her cheek 

lightly with her fingertips, and then her lips.



   And then, one by one, she pulled the shades.



   I stepped away from the window, and after a moment I threw the 

binoculars away from me, across the attic.



   What was I getting myself into?