"Who do you think is hotter, me or my mom?"
Rob's hands froze on the game controller. He looked over at his cousin Brandi. She was still focused intently on the screen, her fingers flying. He'd pretty much blown the game already.
Rob put down the controller. "That was a dirty trick," he said.
Brandi paused the game. "I just wanted to catch you off-balance."
"Well, it worked." He gestured at the screen. "You're sure to win now."
"Not off-balance for the stupid game, for the question."
It had started out as a typical Saturday afternoon. Rob and Brandi were the same age, and ever since they were kids in school together, he had spent countless hours every weekend hanging out at her house, with her and her unmarried mother, Emily.
Brandi turned sideways to face him, and leaned back on the arm of the couch. "So who's hotter, me or my mom?" she repeated.
"Uh... I think you're both very attractive," he said warily. And he meant it, although Brandi and Emily were very different. Brandi was small, lithe and cute, while the word for her forty-something mother would have to be voluptuous.
"That's a nice answer, even if it's a cop-out. Which of us have you jerked off fantasizing about?"
"You can't ask me a question like that!"
"All right, to make it fair, you can ask me something."
Rob was puzzled. Brandi was always blunt, and liked to talk raunchy sometimes, but it usually wasn't so personal. He decided to try the first sex question that popped into his head. "How many guys have you had sex with?"
"None," she answered quickly. "Now your turn. How many people have you had sex with?"
He sighed. "None. Are you surprised? We're both introverts with practically no social life."
"Sure, but you never know. You could have a secret side I don't know about." She really seemed to be enjoying this. "You still didn't answer the question about who you've fantasized about, me or my mom."
What the hell, he thought. If she wants to be raunchy, let's see how she likes it. "Would you believe, both?" he said.
"Of course I believe it. We're 'both very attractive,'" she said mockingly. But she actually looked pleased. "Next question. Do you believe incest is always wrong?"
Incest? he thought. Is this because we're cousins? "Brandi, are you flirting with me?"
"Yeah. I'm not very good at it, am I?"
Of course Rob had been attracted to Brandi -- as he'd just rather explicitly admitted. But he'd been too timid to make the first move. Apparently this was her clumsy attempt at it.
A question occurred to him and he blurted it out before he had time to think better of it. "What if I had said I thought your mom was hotter?"
"I could work with that. Anyway, you'd never say that to me. You're too diplomatic."
Rob took a deep breath and tried to get a grip on the situation. "Brandi, I know we're distant cousins, but we're really not very closely related, so that shouldn't be any..."
"Oh, you thought I meant between you and me? Don't be silly. We're only third cousins. Do you know what that means?"
"Uh, I can never keep that stuff straight."
"It means we're practically not even related, so I certainly wouldn't call it incest."
"Then why..."
"What about incest between a mother and daughter?" Brandi asked.
Rob's head was still spinning. "Brandi... are you trying to tell me you want to have sex with your mother?"
"Have had. Still having. I was trying to lead up to it."
"Wow. Holy shit." Rob tried to get all these new revelations arranged in his mind. "But wait, didn't you just say you've never had sex with..."
"You asked how many guys I'd had sex with. The answer to that was none."
"Oh. Sorry, I shouldn't have made assumptions. But with your mother? When did this happen?"
"The first time was less than a year ago. I was already 19, if that's what you're worried about."
"Okay, but still... Well, I guess the first question is how do you feel about it?"
"I feel great about it," she said firmly. "Look, I'll try to explain. For years my mom had no relationships and was really sexually repressed. I mean, she didn't even masturbate."
"You talk to your mom about masturbation?"
"Sure, why not? When you're in bed together these things come out. Anyway, then there's me. I was really awkward, and pretty uncertain about my sexual orientation and relationships in general."
"I never knew any of this was going on."
"I know, all those conversations around the kitchen table with you and me and Mom -- Well, there are some subjects we just naturally avoided. I was too embarrassed to talk about it with you. But with Mom it was different. I pestered her with questions. Of course I could read all kinds of stuff online, but she was my only source for first-hand knowledge. Eventually she even bought me a sex toy and showed me how to use it."
"Wow."
"It was right about then that something snapped for my mom. She had this kind of sexual re-awakening. And this was at the same time that she was trying to help me figure out what I wanted, sexually. So... We ended up helping each other."
"In bed."
"What are you, a fortune cookie? Yeah, in bed. I know it wouldn't be good for most people, but it did wonders for us."
"But can it really be a healthy relationship?"
"Up to a point. We both know this isn't a permanent thing, especially since we're both attracted to men, too. We've even started talking to each other about guys we'd like to have sex with. So we're ready to explore our hetero sides, so to speak." She grinned at him. "And that's where you come in! At least, that's what we hope."
"'We'?"
"Yes! We both think you're super cute."
