Beauty in the Dissonance

It had been a good decade since 34 year old Kyle Doran set foot in his parent's backyard.

Closing his eyes as he inhaled the crisp, early morning air, he was instantly met with the overwhelmingly nostalgic scent of honeysuckle. The longer he stood there with his eyes closed, Kyle could almost feel himself being transported back to his youth. From the metallic rumble of the old central heating unit that was somehow still working, to the shrill echo of the train whistle from the tracks that crossed Main Street four blocks away, he may as well have been 15 years old all over again.

By the time he opened his eyes again however, the cruel grip of reality had settled back in. His shoes getting wet from the heavy dew in the grass as he walked towards the now dilapidated basketball hoop still nailed to the oak tree at the far end of the property, the methodical planner Kyle had grown into went through the mental checklist of everything that had to be done if he was going to be able to sell the family home.

Having made note of the half dozen or so 'For Sale' signs in the neighborhood as he drove over that morning, Kyle tossed several of the small rocks he'd picked up against the rickety old backboard, watching each fall through the netless rim and back to his feet. Selling the house, given the market, would prove to be difficult, and even if they did, the cost of the necessary upgrades and repairs would surely cut deep into any profit they'd make.

Kyle knew they could leave it be until the housing market improved, or perhaps they could touch up enough things to possibly rent the place out for a year or two.

"Then there's the other option," Kyle cringed as he kicked at the wet ground.

He then felt the terrible taste of bile suddenly rise in his throat when he turned to look towards the back porch after hearing the rusty screen door swing open.

"You don't have a cigarette on you, do you?" Kyle's younger sister, Nina, asked in her own uniquely dreadful hung-over voice.

"No..quit two years ago," Kyle replied dryly across the yard.

"Can I borrow a couple of bucks then so I can run to the store?" Nina absently shot back.

Kyle was really happy now he didn't bring his wife or young son down for the chore he had to do. When he'd left the town of Gresham just after turning 18 to go off to college, he'd made a pact with himself never to have to move back to the tiny hamlet just east of Portland. There were a myriad of reasons for that, but one was standing in the form of his younger sister, begging for a few bucks so she could get a pack of smokes.

He'd landed a job with a IT company in Eugene after school and was now doing a ton of freelance work. While not exactly fulfilled, he had carved out a somewhat decent existence, and coming home to see just how little had changed reminded him that he could have had it much worse if he'd stayed and fallen into the same traps Nina had.

"Yeah..hold on a second..I'll be right back up there," Kyle called back to the disheveled 29 year old woman standing pensively against the loose railing.

Kyle gave her a $10 bill and told her to keep the change, knowing she probably wouldn't bring it back anyway. At least the Ten wasn't enough for her to go out and buy 'anything else' with, he was just content for the time being to get her out of the house so he could have some peace and quiet to think out the next few days and weeks.

Kyle's dad died 12 years earlier, a victim of a drunk driver. It wasn't the most sympathetic thing however considering Ted Doran was also intoxicated the night of the accident, sadly as he was most evenings. Living with a woman like Fern Doran wasn't the easiest thing to do sober.

Kyle didn't have to search far for all the reasons Nina had turned out the way she had, the only thing he truly couldn't grasp was how he got off lucky and dodged many of the same maddening demons so many of the other people in his gene pool hadn't.

Fern had struggled mightily since Ted died, no doubt wallowing frequently in her own guilt about how she treated her husband and kids all those years ago. Perhaps it was also why she hadn't come down as hard on Nina since Ted died as she probably should have considering the litany of poor and immature decisions the girl continued to make up to the day Fern Dolan had a stroke a week earlier.

Up from Eugene to try and get the family's affairs in order, Kyle had thankfully found a rehabilitation home for his mother, but there were no guarantees she'd ever walk out of the place. There was enough in his mother's savings to pay for things for awhile, but Kyle knew eventually it might have to come down to selling the house to keep up her care.

And now Nina was left to fend for herself, which shouldn't have been a problem for a girl in her late 20's. Unfortunately with the way she'd been babied and coddled, not to mention the decrepit circle of friends she'd surrounded herself with, there were serious doubts she was ever going to be able to pay the bills, and run the household without anyone looking over her shoulder. And the last thing Kyle had the stomach for was babysitting his 29 year old sister.

The thick, aromatic stench of cigarette smoke permeated every room of the house. His mom had been a pack and a half a day smoker for as long as Kyle could remember. Add in everything Nina, and God knows who else had contributed, and for a reformed smoker like Kyle, it felt as if his head was going to explode unless he got some fresh air. Surveying one room after another before ducking back outside, the dull throb in his temples only worsened as he added up the potential costs of just making the house rentable.

Kicking at a pile of Nina's discarded clothes that blocked the entrance to her upstairs bedroom, it didn't take Kyle long to see her organizational skills hadn't improved since they were kids.

"Girl's in her late 20's and she has a half dozen thongs strewn across the room," Kyle noted with wry amusement, thanking his lucky stars his wife had bore him a son instead of a daughter.

The brief moment of internal levity was quashed when he inhaled the unique scent in the room and saw the matching paraphernalia scattered across Nina's dresser. Once again, Kyle patted himself on the back for not giving his younger sister more than a $10 to run to the store.

The potential costs of upgrades and touch-ups to get the house presentable rolling over like the national debt inside Kyle's head as he continued to tour through the house, the sound of the front door opening downstairs stirred him from his financial malaise. Heading back towards the steps, Nina wasn't going to be hard to find from the trail of exhaled Newports billowing out behind her as she headed towards the back porch. Deciding he needed some fresh air, and hoping to nail down some decisions about the future while Nina was both awake and somewhat sober, Kyle followed her outside.

_____________________________

Nina's response, while predictable, left Kyle ears and skin feeling singed. The mere mention that they might have to put the house up for sale engendered a profanity laced diatribe of bitterness and hurt.

The logical reasoning that they may need to money from the house to pay for their Mother's medical care, not to mention keeping up with the monthly pile of other bills that were scattered randomly throughout the house, certainly quieted Nina down slightly, leaving her fidgety as she chain-smoked the pack she just bought.

Still, she continued with the occasional snipe, leaving Kyle with no choice but to ask, "Do you think you can keep the lights on each month..do you think you can pay the insurance and the taxes....do you think you can keep any food in the fridge if all of Mom's retirement is going to pay for the rehab center?"

Now Nina just stood there silently, looking barely half her age as she stared dumbstruck off into the distance.

"You just want to take all the money from the house and leave me out on the street," she finally bowed up and growled across the porch to her older brother. A growl that quickly turned into a primal scream of a lifetime's worth of frustration.

The neighbors to each side would have most likely been stirred to the window to see what was going on if they all hadn't already left for work.

"You're Twenty-Nine fucking years old, Nina..and you still act like you're Five," Kyle shoved his fingers through his hair as he scolded his younger sister, immediately hating himself for being so harsh.

"You don't think mom's ever coming home, do you?" she asked, her voice on the verge of breaking.

"I don't know," Kyle sighed, the swirling emotions causing both to stand in silence for quite awhile, like two boxers in their opposite corners on the porch waiting for the next round.

The rabid glaze of adolescent entitlement that had been so prominent, for so long, on Nina's face was disappearing before Kyle's eyes, replaced by the fear of having to fend for herself that had been behind the curtain all along.

"You think you had mom and dad fooled..that you were always the good kid," Nina suddenly spoke up in a voice that startled Kyle in it's resounding resoluteness, as if she had been saving what she was about to say for a very long time.

Before Nina could continue on however, the crush of everything bearing down on her overwhelmed her meager emotional defenses. Sensing the exasperation fade from Kyle's watering eyes, Nina instinctively rushed across the slick, wooden planks of the porch and disappeared into her older brother's open arms. For the next several minutes the two shared a good long cry as the Sun slowly rose to the east.

The chill between them cracked somewhat, once Nina and Kyle pulled away from one another a load seemed to be lifted from both their shoulders.

Walking down the steps as she wiped away her salty sobs with the back of her right forearm, Nina made her way over to the same old swing set in the corner of the yard where she always went as a little girl when the world became too much to handle.

A long refreshing wave of reflective silence washed over the two as they scanned the back yard, each remembering some of the good times that took place there along with some of the bad, knowing there was a chance it might not be theirs much longer if they had to put the house up for sale.

Lazily pinching at the chipped paint of the railing as Nina swung slowly on the swing set 50 or so feet away, Kyle finally broke the silence.

"You're gonna break that, you know," he chided.

"I weight the same thing I did in high school," Nina shot back, although she did grip subtlety tighter to the chains to each side of her as she dragged her feet back and forth through the thick, dew soaked grass.

"So what were you hinting at a few minutes ago when you said you weren't the only fuck up in the house while we were growing up?" Kyle's curiosity finally got the best of him.

Nina rolled her eyes and stifled a slight giggle, obviously not wanting now to ruin the detente that had settled between them.

"Are you talking about the time I stole that money from mom's purse to buy that baseball bat," Kyle inquired with a wry laugh.

"No," Nina chuckled, twisting her head to the side as she began to blush. "I did that plenty of times myself."

"Had to be the time I blew up the Kimball's mailbox down the street with those firecrackers," Kyle continued to offer suggestions.

"No," Nina once again replied. "I always wondered who did that..SHIT....and now mom's too incapacitated to ground you and the statute of limitations have probably run out...WOW!"

Kyle was really at a loss now as he stared incredulously at his sister.

"Then what!?" he animatedly put his hands out.

"Wendie Shulman," Nina sort of batted her eyes and growled under her breath as she rocked a little harder on the swing.

Kyle didn't need long to percolate over the name of one of his girlfriends from high school.

"What about her?" he asked, somewhat apprehensively.

Kyle still didn't know what Nina was hinting at until he caught her stealing a couple of peeks towards the utility shed on the opposite side of the yard. Then the starch started to dissolve in his legs.

The aforementioned Ms. Shulman had been quite the experimental freak back in the day. She also happened to be the daughter of the family's preacher at the time. Kyle had grown up with Wendie and once they'd got to high school with its on again/off again relationships, they'd taken their turn 'dating' for a few weeks during his senior year of high school.

The longer he kept that mental file of Wendie opened in his brain, the more Kyle cringed.

"I skipped school one morning..ducked out after a test I had first period and snuck home after I knew mom had left for work," Nina began.

"I thought I'd have the house to myself all day but when I got home and the front door was unlocked, I knew something was up. I walked inside and instantly smelt perfume I knew wasn't mom's. I couldn't hear anything upstairs so I walked into the kitchen. That's when I looked out the window and could hear something going on over there," she continued, nodding in the direction of the shed.

Now it was Kyle's face that had devolved into several shades of red.

"Do you want me to go on?" Nina jabbed.

"No..No...I don't think you have to," Kyle sighed, his head swimming as the sensory imprint from that day 16 years earlier suddenly overtook him.

______________________________

Nina Doran hadn't been the only one to play hooky from school that particular morning.

Kyle had never been the type to cut class. Being the clean-cut, All American personification of every mother's son, Kyle had also taken the mantle of being the 'man of the house' since his father had died. Thus, he generally minded his P's and Q's. For a boy of his age, and burgeoning hormones however, to have an opportunity to date a girl like Wendie would have clouded most any guy's good judgment.

Considering she was the daughter of the family pastor created quite the taboo for Kyle, and add that to the fact that he'd always seen Wendie as untouchable growing up just added to the allure of actually having a chance with her.

Wendie Shulamn epitomized the old saying about butterflies to a tee, part of the reason she had one tattooed on her lower back. As the old saw went, 'she went where she pleased and pleased where she went.'

Actually, from what Kyle had heard recently from one of his old school chums, Wendie currently had five kids and was working on her second divorce, but back in high school, she was about the most prime piece of ass on the market, and for three weeks or so, Kyle lived in a constant state of disbelief that she was his 'steady'.

If the inner boy-scout had any qualms about skipping out of school on that day in question a decade and a half earlier, the way Wendie Shulman's pussy felt gripping his unfathomably rigid teenage that morning, as she suspended herself from the rafters of the family shed, alleviated any concerns.

In his lucid moments, Kyle could still feel Wendie's ankles locked around his lower back as she hung from the rafters, working her pussy in a savage rhythm around his prick until he had no choice but to spew his searing lust.

Thankfully, he'd taken the time to slap on some protection before he'd penetrated Wendie, but Kyle's already quivering knees basically turned to jelly when the object of his affection unhooked her legs and dropped down from her perch. Before Kyle could even clear his head, Wendie had lowered herself down on her knees at his feet and worked the cum-soaked condom off his jock. Looking down through the haze of the dimly lit shed, Kyle watched as Wendie orally cleansed his cock to a glorious spit-shine until it was fully aroused and ready for another go-around.

Their teenage libidos stoked, the two would spend the better part of the late morning and early afternoon christening several rooms of the Doran house, completely unaware they weren't alone.

_____________________________________

There was one lone window to the shed, and even back then between the cobwebs and dusty build-up, it was nearly impossible to get a good look in or out of it. Despite the sounds coming from the shed that morning years earlier, Nina still felt compelled to ease out the back door and down the porch steps to investigate.

Even with the limited visibility, one quick peek inside that clouded pane of glass was all she needed to see. Retreating quickly back inside the house, Nina grabbed her bookbag and made her way upstairs to her room where she would spend the rest of the day hiding out.

Hearing Kyle and Wendie enter the house a half hour or so later, Nina huddled behind her locked door like a prisoner in solitary confinement as her older brother and his trampy teenage lover went from room to room through the house over the backdrop of the gameshows and soap operas playing on the tv downstairs.

"Hearing my own brother fucking a girl in the room across the hall while Bob Barker told someone 'they just won a new car' scarred me for life," Nina would later deadpan.

Kyle's antenna wasn't exactly tuned towards the frequency of humor as Nina's secret admission bounced like rubber balls around his head. He was numb at how matter of factly she relayed the story, of course she'd had the past 16 years to absorb and process the memory of that day.

"So..you heard..everything...?" Kyle grimaced, unable now to meet his sister's taunting gaze.

"Most of it I guess..the tv was up kind of loud....I know mom would have burned the sheets if she knew what you and that slut did on her bed," Nina replied.

She watched as her brother turned with an incredulous groan and disappeared inside the house.

Kyle suddenly needed a drink, and something stiffer than the glass of water from the sink that he was going to settle for at that moment. His hand noticeably shaking as the glass filled, Kyle even dribbled some of it off his chin when he tried raising the water to his mouth.

Swallowing two full glasses, against his better judgment Kyle then walked back outside, the rising Sun to the east suddenly feeling like a spotlight in his face as he stepped back out on the porch. What had been the most joyously perverse day of his life now tainted by the knowledge that his own flesh and blood was there to take in the whole thing.

Ever fancying himself the social tactician, Kyle was at a complete loss over what course to take with this surreal interaction.

"Just ignore it..just let it go," his inner rationale tried suggesting but Nina continued to prod.

"From the sound of things downstairs, its lucky we still had a dinner table to eat off of," Nina piled on, seizing on the moment as her brother's face turned a glaring shade of hibiscus.

"That Shulman girl was such a slut..seems like a lot of preacher's daughters go in that direction..most of the boys in my middle school even knew about her reputation back then..I sure as hell hope you wore a rubber when you were with her!!"

"From what I remember, I did," Kyle half laughed and cringed. "Can we change the subject...its a lot more fun talking about all your shit, Nina!"

Raising her hands higher on the support chain of the swing, Nina rocked back and forth a little harder as her brother stewed in his juices.

"Did you ever think about bringing her into my room..fucking her on my bed?" she asked just when Kyle thought she was about to drop the topic for good.

The stunningly blunt query left his already slack jaw completely unhinged.

All the eloquence and condescension she'd grown to both love and loathe about her brother had suddenly been muted. On a conscious level, Nina truly had no clue the road she was going down, merely flying on some sort of primal autopilot as she slowed her swinging motions and stood up in the tall grass that had years earlier overtaken the bare spot below.