Author's note: I'm aware that some readers may want to know what sexual themes a story contains before choosing to read it. If you want to know what to expect (in this case, what the sister's secret is), please scroll to the supplemental note at the end of the story (search the last page for "spoiler description"), or check the tags. If you prefer to be surprised and experience the story as the brother does, learning along the way, then read on from here. The choice is yours, dear reader.
Many, many thanks to kenjisato for the edits, indulging my pedantry in overly-specific grammatical discussion, and, most importantly, the support and confidence I needed to get to the point of posting my first story. I am truly grateful.
Richard Lane closed the door of his avocado green fridge, balancing a can of Coke in his other hand while holding the evening newspaper clamped under the arm, and made his way around the kitchen pass-through toward the brightly patterned living room sofa. Placing the can and paper gently on the coffee table, he walked over to the record player. A few moments were spent considering the collection on the shelf below it before he made his selection, sliding a contemporary classical album from its jacket, placing it on the turntable, and lowering the needle delicately onto it.
Moving back to the sofa, he sat down and settled in for his usual evening routine. Most people these days would get their news from the television or radio, but Rick had always been a bit more old fashioned, preferring the peace of some gentle music while reading the news, followed by a chapter or two from a novel.
He had just read the latest in the Senate hearings on Nixon's Watergate affair and was skimming through the finance section when he heard a key in the front lock. That could only be Helen, his older sister and the only other person with a key to his apartment. Glancing up at the clock, he saw that it was a little more than a quarter past eight, which was possibly the earliest she had ever dropped in with one of these visits.
Uh oh,
he thought, bracing himself to emotionally support his sister,
that can't be good
.
Although she was twenty-seven, not to mention two years Rick's senior, Helen still lived with their parents about an hour's drive outside the city. She had often voiced her growing dissatisfaction with feeling trapped in their house, yet despite having a successful career as an assistant at a law firm and making more than enough to support herself, she had so far been unwilling to defy their parents by moving out. They had always had what was, in Rick's opinion, the outdated and rather sexist belief that a woman's future husband should be the one to 'bring her out from her father's house into his own' and that grievous harm would somehow come to Helen if she were to set out into the world without 'a man to protect her'.
To that end, she often remained in the city after work to go on dates or try to pick someone up at the disco and would end up too tired or, much more often, too emotionally distraught to drive back home. After the fourth or fifth time she had shown up and ended up crashing on his couch, Rick had decided that it was just easier for her to have her own key.
He still remembered the first time he had opened the door to the sight of her tear-filled brown eyes and smeared makeup, dressed to kill and looking miserable.
"My god, Helen, what happened?" he had asked her.
"Nathan finally... took me out... on a date..." she had sobbed, collapsing onto Rick's shoulder. Nathan had been a paralegal at the firm where she worked and she had been trying to get him to ask her out for several months. "We were in his car and... and..."
Rick's mind had suddenly formulated some unwanted images of Nathan getting hot and heavy with his sister, and his protective side had gone into overdrive.
"What did he do to you?" Rick asked, while gently but firmly guiding her onto the sofa and into a sitting position, keeping his arm wrapped supportively around her shoulders. "Did he touch you? Did he try to force himself on you?" There were fear and anger in his voice.
"No... no, you don't understand," she said irritably, and though she hadn't pulled away entirely, she had turned away from him. He could sense that she was suddenly more closed off and distant, and that he had said exactly the wrong thing.
Releasing his own tension and speaking more gently again, he replied, "I'm sorry. I'd like to understand, if you want me to. Tell me what happened?"
He handed her the box of tissues from the side table, an unspoken gesture of renewed care and support. She took one gratefully and blew her nose, then used a second to dab at her eyes, drying the tears and taking most of the makeup with it.
"I... it just... when he found out about-- uh... I mean..." she stammered, clearly ashamed of something and seemingly trying to find the words to explain what had happened without making herself feel worse. "He just... well, he doesn't want to see me anymore."
"After half a date? Why not?"
"I... It's too hard to talk about," Helen said, pressing herself closer into his side. Again, her reaction told him that though she still appreciated her brother's attempts to be protective, his question hadn't been helpful. "Please just... just hug me and tell me that you, at least, love me."
"Of course I love you, HeeHee," he said, using the infantile mispronunciation of her name that had persisted as a family joke even after he had been old enough to say it properly. "I'm here for you. Whatever it is."
This, at least, had elicited a sniffle and a slight smile from Helen. "Thanks. I don't know if or when I'll be able to talk about it, Ricky. It's just... so hard feeling like everything about me is... wrong."
He didn't know exactly what she'd meant by that, but he had come to the conclusion that, at that moment, his place was to provide comfort rather than ask more questions. They continued to hold each other for a long while as she sobbed into his shoulder. A gently whispered "It's okay, it's okay" or "I got you" or pat on the back occasionally broke the silence. Eventually, her sobs faded and were replaced by gentle breathing, and he realized she had fallen asleep.
Carefully extracting himself from their embrace and gently lowering her head onto one of the throw pillows, he retrieved a spare blanket from the linen closet and lovingly draped it over her. Pausing for a moment to consider his sister's peacefully sleeping form, he wondered how Nathan could possibly have rejected her. While she was by no means a supermodel, the usual sparkle in her currently closed brown eyes, lightly freckled heart-shaped face, shoulder-length brown hair, and narrow, five-foot-four-inch frame all comprised a delicate beauty that he had always admired... in a purely aesthetic sense, of course.
Shaking his head as if to prevent his thoughts from wandering where he didn't want them to, he had whispered one more "I love you, HeeHee" before heading off to get ready for bed himself.
That had been a year and a half ago. In the interim, she had shown up at least two dozen more times, almost always after a disastrous date and never saying much about what happened beyond more references to 'feeling wrong'. He had no idea what it was that troubled her so and seemed to cause all her attempts at romance to fail.
On rare occasion, usually just after he said something that would make her laugh, or smile, or in some other way perk up, she would open her mouth in a way that seemed as though she was on the verge of talking about it. Then, just as quickly, an odd, faraway expression would cross her face, she would swallow nervously, her eyes would harden and look away, and the moment would be gone.
Something about that expression made him suspect two things. Firstly, he suspected that whatever the problem was, it had been the source of all her trouble with boys even as far back as high school. Secondly, he had the strong feeling that part of what was holding her back from talking about it was that it had something to do with sex.
This second suspicion made him somewhat uncomfortable. Oh, if it had been the usual 'problem that has something to do with sex', where all the guys were just thinking with their dicks and moving too fast, he could safely maintain his image of her as the chaste, proper sister. That first interaction, though, as well as several other sobbing, half-started-and-then-broken sentences since then, had given him the strong impression that the problem
wasn't
that she was unprepared for sex.
In fact, when he thought about the expression she had at those moments, the only word that came close to feeling like it fit was 'longing'. No, even though he wasn't really comfortable thinking about her that way, there was no doubt that his sister was a sexual being with strong desires and some kind of problem standing between her and fulfilling them.
That was the part he couldn't understand. She had beauty and natural charm and he saw how other guys looked at her. If she wanted sex, and it seemed clear that she did, then he couldn't fathom how she could possibly be having any problems getting it.
And yet despite that, time after time, she would somehow end up at his apartment instead, seeking support and then sleeping on his sofa. She had admitted that she was more comfortable coming to him than going home on those nights, knowing that he was there for her, instead of arriving home to a sleeping house and an empty room. Their parents were early-to-bed folks and, in any case, even if she did come home some night to find them awake, she didn't think she could bear their reactions to seeing her like that.
At first, she had been worried that her visits were an imposition, but Rick had assured her with complete sincerity that she was not imposing in any way and that he was, in fact, proud and grateful that his sister trusted him so much to be the one who she came to. He had even repeatedly offered to take the couch himself and give her the bed in the bedroom, but she had insisted that that would feel even more lonely somehow.
Eventually, she had put together an emergency overnight bag to be left at his apartment and he had made a copy of his key for her with the caveat that if he ever did truly need privacy, he would close the chain lock on the door. So far, it hadn't been an issue; he didn't often have women over, and he couldn't think of any other situation where his beloved sister's presence would be unwelcome, regardless of her emotional state. Even if the rare occasion to have a woman over did present itself, he and Helen spoke regularly on the telephone and had dinner together at least once every week or two, so they usually ended up informed when the other was expecting to have a date.
