Our lives seem to consist of two separate realities: that of our secret thoughts and desires; and that of our actions and experiences within the real world. Each reality affects the other, sometimes in dramatic fashion. I arrived at this belief because of what happened some time ago.
It began with the arrival in Tulsa of my niece Briana. She was to spend the summer with me as she took summer classes at Tulsa University, where I work as assistant to the Comptroller.
At the time I was a confirmed bachelor, sliding toward middle age. Although I always wanted children, I had none of my own. Briana was, in many ways, the daughter I never had. I had watched her grow up, certain that a sweeter child never drew breath. To know the girl was to love her. I could never have imagined how the affection I felt for Briana would change my life.
It was raining that afternoon she arrived, a steady drizzle that makes a house seem cozy and welcoming. I'd just come home and hung up my jacket when I saw my niece's bra lying on the sofa.
The bra intrigued me. Come take a look, and touch me as well, it seemed to say. Glancing around furtively, I walked over and gingerly picked it up: pink, cotton with silk lace and ample cups. Without thinking I held it to my nose, savoring the aroma of Coco Chanel perfume and a tantalizing womanly scent as well. Can this really be her bra, I thought. She's just a kid. But of course I knew different. Little Briana had grown up. And out, and all the ways that a girl grows to become a woman.
That bra changed everything. Up to then she was still, in my mind, a young girl I'd known since she was a toddler. But I realized, not without unease, that the person who'd come to live with me was in fact now a grown woman.
I peeked through a half-open door into the guest bedroom. Briana was asleep, lying on her back. The cover was down to her waist, and the thin T-shirt she wore told me that yes, she had indeed become a woman. I could see, ever so slightly, peaks formed by her nipples, and just a hint of dark areolas surrounding those peaks.
Suddenly her eyes opened, great blue orbs so mesmerizing that I jumped in surprise.
Briana gave me a sleepy smile. "Oh, hi Uncle Mark." She paused, and then went on, "I was really beat after the flight and taxi ride here. I decided to take a nap before you came home."
"Hello, Briana. Sorry I woke you. Look, go on with your nap if you like. I'll just make myself a drink before dinner." Maybe a drink will calm my nerves, I thought. A good stiff belt or three.
The girl rose up in the bed, supporting herself by her arms held behind her, which only accentuated her bosom. Then she shook her rich auburn hair, so that it framed her elfin face. There was both innocence and enticement in that face. Her features were, in perfect harmony, those of a young girl and a desirable woman.
"I'm awake now."
"I'll just fix that drink. Take your time getting dressed."
But getting dressed did not seem important to Briana. I was desperately mixing a tequila and tonic when she came into the living room, still wearing only the T-shirt that just covered her hips. Below were her long silky legs, which I knew without looking would be perfection.
"What, no welcoming hug for your favorite niece?" she asked ingenuously.
"Of course, honey," I replied, "welcome to my home." And just like that we were embracing, she pressing her soft mounds into me unabashedly.
"I'm so happy to be here, Uncle," she whispered.
I returned her embrace, relishing the feel of my niece's warm body against mine, the scent of her hair. She held her hips to mine, but I drew my own hips back, because at that moment my manhood was stirring. Briana's dear Uncle Mark was feeling in no way avuncular, but rather a man who is just seconds from losing control.
It was going to be a long summer. I knew it even then.
After we broke the hug, she held me, fixing me with those pure blue eyes you see only in those of Scandinavian descent.
"So," I asked, "did you have a good flight?"
"Sure, no problem except O'Hare was the usual mess. Dustin says hello."
"And your Dad and Mom?"
There was a long pause. "Same as always," Briana said, a trace of melancholy in her voice. "They're still together, for now at least."
I recalled Briana's childhood. My brother Adam and Briana's mother Julie had separated for a month when Briana was seven, and again when she was twelve. At the time I lived not far from them in St. Paul. Whenever I visited and could see that things were especially tense, I would invite Briana and her younger brother Dustin to stay with me overnight, sometimes even a weekend.
During those times I tried to give them the love and sympathy they needed but seldom got at home. It just broke my heart to see children like Briana and Dustin caught in the middle of a troubled marriage.
So I spoiled them. We went to the movies; to the shopping malls; and to the Minnesota Twins games. I tried to be the kind of father that Adam should have been but too often was not. At home we played Monopoly and watched whatever they chose on TV. Anything to remind them that there was more to life than two constantly bickering parents.
Briana, I knew, had been only too happy to move out of home and into the dorm at the University of Minnesota when she began college. This summer was to be another escape of sorts. She was far away from the suppressed anger and tension in her parents' house.
I shook my head, becoming lost in Briana's sparkling blue eyes.
"What?" she finally asked with a quick laugh.
"Briana, it's just, you're so different from the girl I remember."
"More like a woman?"
"Yes. When did you, .. I mean?"
"C'mon, Uncle Mark. It's not like I'm a long lost relative. You still come visit us in St. Paul. We saw each other Christmas a year ago."
"Yes, but then you always wear bulky sweaters and what not. You seem so .. adult now. I didn't realize that you were .."
"Well, I am," she smiled. "Your little kitten is all grown up."
As a child and now a woman, Briana was what I call ultra feminine: delicate wrists and ankles; narrow, slightly receding chin; expressive blue eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. Her dark auburn hair was parted just off center, with a wide strand over her forehead that she had dyed copper red.
Her skin was lustrous, as smooth as cream. She had a button nose and full lips on a petite mouth. The girl often had an inquisitive look on her face, as if she were waiting for you to say something she wanted to hear. Or do something she wanted you to do.
Briana was not voluptuous, rather slim and lithe. Seen from a distance, you might pass her without a second glance. Only up close would you see how alluring and utterly feminine she was, like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel.
Through Briana's childhood I had never once looked at her in a sexual way. But now this woman who still held me in a loose embrace was leading my thoughts to places they were not supposed to go.
"Well, look," I said, trying to think of something else, "are you hungry? We can go out if you like, or I've some home-made spaghetti sauce. We could have spaghetti with wine."
"Mm, I like that. Especially on a rainy night like this. Let's just eat in."
During dinner I showed Briana the course catalog for the university, where she would be taking courses in economics and math. Later that evening we watched the movie Perfect Stranger on DVD, but I could not concentrate. Briana made popcorn and came to the sofa wearing her T-shirt and a thin pair of girl's boxer shorts. I was sitting on one end of the sofa. "If you scoot over we can share the popcorn," she said.
I moved to the center of the sofa. Briana settled in, placing her willowy thighs across my lap as she ate popcorn. "Um, now this is nice," she murmured in a soft breathy voice that was quite different from the child's voice I remembered.
Somehow I survived the movie and went to bed. I was reading by the light of my bedside lamp when Briana came in and sat on the bed beside me. She planted a kiss on my forehead; then, smiled and looked around, saying, "Goodnight room, goodnight moon."
I smiled as well. I had read that children's book to Briana a dozen times; had been there the day she learned to ride a bicycle; had watched over her, in sickness and in health as if she were my own.
Could she now guess the thoughts now dancing through my mind? Did she know that my manhood was fully hard? Making it worse, she drew her hand through my russet hair that was just beginning to gray along the sides. "My favorite uncle," she said, "you're so easy to be with."
"Thank you."
"Remember when you still lived in St. Paul? All the places you took Dustin and me? That week you stayed with us when Mom and Dad went to the Caribbean to try to patch things up? That was so much fun."
"It was, wasn't it."
"The thing is, you weren't always measuring us against some impossible standard like Dad. You just let us be ourselves. I don't know if we could have gotten through it all without you, Uncle Mark. You meant so much to us."
She smiled warmly, gave me another kiss, this one on the cheek. "Goodnight, Uncle," she murmured as she rose up and walked from the bedroom. I watched her womanly derriere as she went, again marveling at how the child I knew had become such a beguiling creature. With a sigh I turned off the light.
But of course sleep did not come, nor would it for hours. When it did come, I slept fitfully. Briana danced through my feverish dreams: her voice, the feel of her embrace, the aroma of her perfume and her body. More exhausted than when I had gone to bed, I rose at dawn and made coffee, sitting on the patio with my first cup. How will I get through this summer, I thought. She's irresistible; sooner or later she'll see the desire in my eyes, and it will ruin everything. Where will I get the strength?
******
