I take a bus from Chicago to Iowa. I get picked up by an uncle, his daughter and a grandmother. The uncle and grandmother are tense, like me. The cousin is relaxed and talkative, which makes the trip in the car a bit easier.
We arrive at a white, wooden house and I walk up the three steps to the porch and follow inside. It's the kitchen. A young woman turns around, looks at me, looks away and hurries off. I turn left, into the dining and living room. There's a large dining table with people seated all around. Some see me and start to get up, but a middle-aged lady is quicker: she stands in front of me, puts an arm around me and asks,
-How about a beer, honey? (Hic.)
A few members of the crowd cover their eyes.
Well, the ice is broken. Welcome to your biological family after 27 years of adopted life.
I take a seat at the table. The drunk lady turns out to be an aunt. She's not the only one who's been drinking. The surprised young woman from the kitchen is Lara, my half-sister. Damn, she looks a lot like me, and I'm not used to that. I get to hear that my biological mother passed away 10 years ago, from cancer. An uncle plays grumpy old man until I pull out a pack of unfiltered Camels and offer him one. He brightens up. Apparently it's his brand, too. I drink a beer. Everybody lightens up. I get accepted.
That evening we go out to eat, family style, and the grown-ups fight about who gets to pay the bill.
We come home late to Grandma's house. Lara is down from Minnesota and staying at Gram's. I'm from overseas and staying there too. Grandma, aged 80, helps me make up a bed in her attic and shows me where everything is.
-Good night, she says.
-Good night.
Grandma goes back downstairs. When I finish making up my bed, laying clean clothes out and brushing my teeth, I too go downstairs, in t-shirt and underpants, to say goodnight to Lara. She's propped up on the sofa bed, in something like a nighty, with her two sleeping (fatherless) kids to one side, watching TV in the dark with the sound down low.
-Hey, good night, I say.
And I lean over and give her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
-Wait. Stay down here and watch TV with us.
-No. I should really go to bed.
Pauze.
-I always wanted a big brother...
We catch each other's eyes in the TV darkness. I feel myself falling into her gaze. I lean over one more time and give her another kiss smack on the lips. Time stands still while daemons in my head hit the buttons red alert!, dive!, battle stations! and abandon ship! Her tongue is in my mouth and she puts an arm around my neck.
I stand there a while, bent over, kissing her until my back tells me I need to change position.
I kneel on the sofa bed and then lay down beside her with one thigh over her legs. She puts a hand on my ass. That hand wanders around my thigh, finds my dick and starts squeezing it. When I'm good and hard, she slips her hand down my shorts and holds my dick, like a prize.
