Charlie and Mindy B. 04

This is the seventh chapter (of eight) in the fourth and final book of the

Charlie and Mindy

tetralogy. The books detail a story of forbidden love between a brother and a sister.

You can read this book on its own, but it refers to events that took place in Books 1, 2, and 3. If you want a better understanding of what is going on, read Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3 before reading this book.

I value your comments and your feedback, and I will respond to non-anonymous comments--usually within a week.

--CarlusMagnus

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

To say that that the revelation in Mom's diary that Mom's brother was my father took me by surprise would be like saying that molten lava is warm. I read, reread, and re-reread—again and yet again—the paragraph that Mindy had shown me. The shock that those words brought was beyond anything I had ever experienced—or have experienced since.

I sat in stunned silence, and, once again, as had happened a little over two months earlier in the dean's office, my head spun and I felt completely detached from the world.

How long I sat in that state on the floor of the master bedroom of the house we'd inherited, I can't say. But it couldn't have been very long, because Mindy embraced me and kissed me—bringing me back from wherever I'd been.

Sensing that I'd come back to her, at least partially, she looked up at me through her still-flowing tears and whispered, "Are you okay, Charlie?"

As she asked, she caressed my cheek. Through my daze, I sensed plainly that, in her need to help me with my distress, she'd nearly forgotten her own.

I returned her embrace and held my lover, my little sister, close. She had turned so that she could hold me, and she had put her arm around me. Her closeness, her touch, her love had restored me to myself. I didn't know until she told me, later, how much my own presence, my own touch, my own love had helped to restore her to herself, too.

I found that it had been a while since I'd breathed. I exhaled, inhaled deeply. "Yes," I said. "I'm all right—or at least I will be soon. I would never have suspected—not in a million years—that our father was Mom's brother. I didn't even know she had a brother!"

My little sister held me tightly. And quietly she said, "I didn't know that, either. Mom never talked about our father, or about her family." After a moment, she looked up at me and reached up to kiss me again.

When she'd finished, I spoke again. "But you don't need to cry because of me, Mindy. This doesn't change anything about either of us. You couldn't have known what's in this diary, and there's nothing for you to be sorry about."

Still crying, still looking up at me, she shook her head. And she said, "I am sorry we didn't find this out together. We should have. I should have waited. I needed you here, beside me, when I read this. But that's not why I'm crying. I'm crying for Mom, and what she went through. I think I know, now, why she never talked about her family."

She sniffled again.

"There's more. There's a lot more here. I've been poking around in Mom's diary for an hour or so. Mom's mother died shortly after I was born, and she'd meant what she said."

She paused and took a deep breath. Then she went on.

"She never saw or talked to Mom or Mom's brother David again. She didn't even see or talk to Mom when David died in Vietnam." She paused for a moment to let me absorb the import of what she'd just said.

And then she went on. "And you were right—David was my father, too. Mom was—well—like me with you. Or like Steph with Buck, except that she wasn't David's twin. Mom was very much in love with David. And from what she wrote in her diary, I think he was very much in love with her."

Slowly, looking all the while at my little sister, my beloved, I digested all of the information she had just delivered.

After a few moments, I looked into her eyes. "If he was like me," I said quietly, thinking of the way Mom had once told me how much I was like my father, "he

was

very much in love with her. Because I'm very much in love with you."

She smiled at me. "I know," she said simply. "And I'm even more in love with you." And in spite of the sadness that still gripped her on Mom's account, it was a 150-watt smile.

"Big Brother and Little Sister," she whispered.

"Best friends and lovers," I whispered back, a little louder.

"Now and always," we said together—almost in a normal tone of voice. I was smiling back at her now.

"I love you so much," she said.

"I love you even more," I replied.

She looked at me. Her deep blue eyes held a familiar glint. So I kissed her. It began as a closed-mouth kiss. But neither of us thought that did the job that needed to be done—so we soon transformed it into something more urgent. My tongue entered her mouth to tussle with hers—which chased the intruder back into my mouth for a scuffle there. We played the back-and-forth game for a while.

She'd unfolded her legs and extended them while she was comforting me, so my arm now supported much of the weight of her upper body—which leaned across me as I sat on the floor. But my other arm was free, and that hand wandered over her body, touching here, stroking there, feeling elsewhere. She moaned into my mouth, and I moaned back into hers.

When we broke for air, she looked up at me with her naughty, impish smile. She wriggled against my growing boner. "What," she asked, "do I feel poking me in the side?"

"I think," I said as I brought my right hand to the uppermost button of her shirt and began to unfasten it, "that you're going to find out pretty quickly. And I think it's going to poke you somewhere else."

She looked down to where I had finished undoing her top button. She watched as I moved my hand on downward to undo the second. And, looking back up at me, she smiled approvingly and said, "Oh, I hope so. I sure do hope so." And she reached up for another kiss.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Forty-five minutes later, when we'd finished what those kisses had started and then lain naked in each other's arms for a while, we got back out of the bed and put our clothes back on. We spent most of that evening—all but the time it took us to go to a fast food place and get some supper—examining Mom's diary. In that single evening, we could do little more than scratch the surface. As Mindy had said, there was a lot there. Mom had recorded in those books most of the details of her adult life. The diary ended only at the point when she and Dad had left for South America. (And we found several sheets of notes about that trip when we later opened her suitcase.)

This isn't the place to dig into Mom's diary or her life, because neither is part of the story of the love my little sister and I share. So, for now, I'd like to leave it at the things I've already reported that Mindy said. The diary bears out everything Mindy had told me.

But I should record one more thing here. We learned that evening that Dad had known about Mom's history with her brother, as well as about her children's origins—Mindy's origin, and mine, that is. And he had known those things before he married her. Mindy and I owe him an eternal debt, and I acknowledge it here: Never, by word or deed, had he given us any indication that he thought of us as anything other than his own beloved children.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We went to bed at about 10:30 that evening. We had made love only a few hours earlier, and we didn't feel the need at bedtime. Nevertheless, we did feel the need to lie together, naked, in our bed, snuggling in each other's arms, for a while.

We'd been lying there quietly, each of us simply enjoying the touch of the other's body, when Mindy spoke. Softly, she said, "It explains so much. Do you remember? When she found out about us she said that people don't get to choose who they love? …or how? …or how much?"

"Yes, I remember," I replied. "And when I thanked her for trying to understand about us, she told me that she thought she did understand."

"She probably understood about us better than we do," Mindy said, almost in awe.

"But the thing that makes me happiest," I said, "is that she was determined not to repeat her own mother's mistake. We caused Mom so much pain, and she found her way through it to forgive us."

"She said it was the ultimate test of love," Mindy said, "and she passed that test in spite of her own mother's example. She loved us, and she refused to turn her back on us. She was a remarkable woman."

We lay there a while, holding each other, relaxing in each other's arms. I felt Mindy beginning to slip off to sleep, and, before she could leave me for the night, I whispered to her, "You're a remarkable woman, too, Mindy. You're

my

remarkable woman."

From somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, Mindy moaned a delicate little sigh. She squeezed me, just perceptibly, and I knew that in that simple sigh, accompanied by that little squeeze, she had thanked me for the compliment, affirmed that she is mine, and told me what a remarkable man she thought I am.

And then she was asleep. I don't think she got quite as far as telling me that I'm

her

man.

But I already knew that.

I lay there, in the darkness, enjoying once again the feel of her soft warm body against me and the scents that rose from her. Our hearts' rhythms joined with the rhythms of our breathing in the symphony that lovers know so well. Under their hypnotic effect, I was soon asleep myself.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We spent the next ten days or so doing little. Mostly, we loved and lounged. Generally speaking, we'd sleep until eight or nine, when one of our bladders insisted that its owner awake to empty it. The victim would snuggle the other one awake, and then we'd each head for a bathroom. Having taken care of that, we'd both head back for the bed. If I wasn't hard again by the time I got there, Mindy would soon remedy that situation. Then we'd enjoy what passed, in the heat of our impetuous youthful desire, as slow love-making.

When our parts had finished exercising our wholes, we'd snuggle some more. We would lie there in bed, with the covers over us. Always, I'd lie on my back, and she'd lie on her side—as I've described many times before—with her soft, warm, little body naked against my own naked body. Generally, our hands moved to touch and stroke the other gently. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes not. Always, I felt her love during those times of quiet touching; and she behaved as though she felt mine.

I found those times of easy sharing, when our bodies' needs for each other were satisfied for the moment, as rewarding in their own way as our making love had been moments earlier. I was learning what she already seemed to know—that Doing It is just one way of sharing our loves and our bodies, and that other ways, though less obvious and less demanding, are every bit as important.

Eventually, hunger would force us out of bed. Usually, we showered (together, of course) before going downstairs, fully clothed, and getting something to eat. But, on several occasions, we simply went downstairs naked. Those breakfasts were almost as interesting as the showers that followed them—especially before we realized that the spatters from frying bacon have implications for naked skin—implications we hadn't anticipated.

As we ate, we generally talked about what we were going to do that day. It was a leisurely break in our lives, and, most days, we just hung out—reading and watching nonsense on TV. We spent a fair amount of time digging into Mom's diary during that period, but, as I've already said, I'm not going to go any further into what we found—at least, not here. We also spent the better part of one afternoon in Quent's office signing the documents he'd mentioned on our earlier visit.

We spent a couple of days canvassing outdoor stores, both in Fort Collins and in Denver, to get equipment that Mindy would need for her MOLS course later that summer. She could have used some of the stuff I'd acquired, but we thought that we'd get similar items for her so that we wouldn't have to do it later when we traveled in the backcountry together. And we thought we'd delay getting her some of the more expensive items until she'd finished her course and had better ideas about what she needed and what she wanted—and what the difference is.

She could barely contain herself those two days, as the reality of her upcoming trip came home to her. Again and again, she bubbled over and squeezed me or kissed me in her excitement. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself bubbling over, too.

Mindy's period arrived, right on time, on June 1. We both breathed our usual sighs of relief.

As May faded into June, we found that we missed the twins even more than we had expected. Being with them, we agreed was the thing we now thought most important—after being with each other. So, on Wednesday of that week, I called one of the property management companies that Quent had listed.

On Thursday, they sent someone out to look things over. Mindy and I went over the property with him, figured out what needed to be done, and came to an agreement. We provided him with keys to the house, and we set that coming Sunday as the day we were going to leave. We didn't know when we might be back, and we made arrangements to give the company notice whenever we did decide to return—so they wouldn't try to have us arrested as trespassers if they happened to find us in the house.

We arranged with the Post Office to have all the mail to that house forwarded to the address we shared with Buck and Steph; we'd had enough of having mail turn up in different places.

We also talked about what to do with Dad's car. After some discussion, we decided that it wouldn't hurt to have two cars at school. There were, after all, four of us to take into consideration, and one car for four people seemed to us a little light. Buck and Steph had always acted as though everything of theirs was ours, and we saw no reason at all why we shouldn't act as though our possessions were theirs, too. The only catch was that we couldn't let them know how much we now possessed. We didn't want to offend their pride, and that significant catch was one we had yet to find a way around.

We decided that we'd bring the car back to school. We thought about each driving a car, but Mindy didn't like to drive—especially that far. And we really enjoyed being together, in the same car, when we were on the road.

Finally, we decided that I should fly back to Colorado while she was off in the backcountry. Then I would drive Dad's car back to school. That way, I'd have something to occupy at least part of my time while Mindy was gone. And it saved her a drive she wouldn't have enjoyed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We got an earlier start—about eight that Sunday morning—than the previous time we'd left Fort Collins, (Although, I should carefully note, we didn't skip our morning workouts—the one in the bed and the one in the shower. There were some compromises we wouldn't make.) And we made a point of traveling quickly this time, so it was a little before suppertime when we reached the house we shared with our friends. The sun was still two or three hours above the horizon, almost as if it knew that this was a happy homecoming, unlike the last time we'd come back to school.

Steph and Buck saw us pull up at the curb, and they were waiting for us at the door. Once again, Steph greeted me, and Buck greeted Mindy, with open arms. Once again, I held Steph's profoundly female body pressed up against mine, and Mindy pressed herself against Buck, as each pair of us kissed how-nice-to-see-you-again. Once again, Steph ground herself against the growing bulge in my Levis as I kissed her; I ground back. When our mouths separated, she grinned naughtily up at me, still grinding—and I presumed that Mindy and Buck were treating each other to something similar.

As I held her in my arms there in the foyer, I looked into her eyes and I smiled back at her. "It's good to be home," I said.

Still smiling up at me, Steph said, "We're glad you're home. And we're even happier that you've started to think of this as home," as we parted from each other.

We'd spoken loudly enough that Buck and Mindy had heard us. Mindy said, " I hadn't thought about that. It really does feel like we've come home."

Buck gave her another squeeze and a quick kiss before he released her. Then he shook my hand. "We're glad to see you both. Welcome home!" he said.

Steph hadn't gotten a good start on supper, yet, so we took them to Arlene's. (Arlene's food wasn't all that bad—provided you steered clear of the greasy home-fries.)

Over supper, they filled us in on what had been going on in their lives since we'd left. That hadn't been much, aside, maybe, from the fact that their grades had been a shade better than ever before this semester. When they finished bringing us up to the present, we reciprocated. But there were a lot of other ears in the restaurant, so we saved the part about Mom and her brother until we were back home. That was something we didn't want to broadcast.

Once back home, we got out a couple of bottles of wine—the usual white for the women and red for the men—and went to work on them in the twins' living room. While we drank, we talked.

We told them about Mom's diary, and the important things we'd learned from it. We told them that Dad had known everything before he died—some of it even before he'd married Mom. And we could tell them that he had accepted, not only our own pairing, but also our mother's history and ours.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wasn't late when we went upstairs to go to bed that evening—around half-past ten. We'd gotten up early in order to hit the road, and we were fairly tired from the trip itself.

We weren't too tired for each other, though. In fact, as soon as we'd entered the bedroom together and I'd turned the light on, Mindy turned, stopped me in my tracks, and flowed into my arms. She reached up and around my neck as she stood on tiptoe against me—reaching for a kiss.

I held her little body close, and as our tongues played with each other, I savored the feel of her little boobs. She wiggled against me, and the bulge in my Levis grew again and pressed against her.

As our kiss extended, I brought my hands to her ass, where they cupped and squeezed. She moaned into my mouth. Releasing the firm rounded flesh, I stroked her little body up from her waist to her arms and then back down to her hips. She moaned again. Her arms remained about my neck—and she held me close against herself.

I reached down to her hips and pulled her against me, driving my stiffening cock to press against her through our clothes. She wiggled against me, and our tongues continued to play hide-and-seek.

At length, she broke our kiss and, although her arms remained around my neck, she loosened her grip enough that we could part our heads and look at each other without going cross-eyed. Her love burned in her deep blue eyes, and she whispered, "I've got the best man in the world, and now I'm going to screw him goofy."

"You can try," I said. I continued to stroke my little sister's lovely little body, and I smiled at her. She smiled back and continued to look into my eyes. I placed my hands to either side of her little waist, and gently pushed her away, not much, but just enough that I could now reach between our bodies to cup her tits through her shirt. Her smile deepened as I kneaded those lovely mounds of firm flesh. Another, longer, moan escaped from her lips as she closed her eyes. And I watched, spellbound, as the sensations that my hands gave her swallowed up that smile.