All characters in this story are over 18 years of age. Names and places are purely coincidental.
Thanks to Don for editing.
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Just a Kiss Ch. 2
Part 1
I began to feel quite anxious. My twenty four year old sister Elisabeth, who i call Liz or Lizzy, has not called me or answered any of my calls over the last several days since our last Skype session which she had terminated suddenly. I am Lucas, but my sister calls me Luc, and I am twenty eight years old.
Mom called me to asked why Elizabeth was being so moody and irritable. I told her that perhaps she'd broke up with her girlfriend which seemed to satisfy her. I asked her to have Elizabeth call me. She said she would.
Then mom called back a couple of days later and the earth dropped out from under my feet and it felt as though I had the wind knocked out of me by a shovel to the chest.
"What did you say?" I asked my mother with staggered breath.
"It's Elizabeth. She's been in a car accident and she is in hospital on life support. She is at Belvedere Memorial." My mother's voice quavered.
I heard nothing more after that. My world went into a tailspin as I thought of Liz lying at death's door. I felt sick to my stomach and swallowed back the bile that rose up into my throat.
I rushed out and took a cab to the hospital across town. My heart raced as I sat in the back seat feeling emotionally and physically distressed.
I recalled what her last words to me were. She was very conflicted about our relationship. She could not reconcile the fact that we as brother and sister were deeply and unequivocally in love with each other, but least of all we carnally lusted for each other.
While we never had sex with each other we did have very intimate Skype sessions where we shared intimate images of our bodies or watched each other masturbate with thoughts of having sex with each other.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I hammered my knee in frustration and self-recrimination. From the rear view mirror the cab driver looked back nervously.
This was all my fault. Directly or indirectly I was always pushing her to have sex with me. As much as she wanted me carnally, she could not bring herself to break that taboo against incest.
It all started with just a kiss. For a laugh we kissed each other to see how far we had improved from that very first time when I attempted to teach her how to kiss so many years ago.
However that last kiss awoke within us an unexpected set of dormant emotions of which we were unprepared for. It awoke within us a strong attraction and deep personal attachment toward each other, as well as a raw concupiscence for each other that neither of us had expected or could have expected. We enjoyed each other's company. We had become deeply in love with each other.
I arrived at the hospital and paid the cab fare and rushed into emergency. I saw my mother and father standing outside the ICU looking very distressed. A grave looking priest had his hands on their shoulders in sympathy, and then walked away as I arrived.
"How is she?" I asked. My mother turned to me., her eyes red and puffy.
"Oh Lucas, she just received last rites." My mom sobbed and then wept pitifully as she put out her arms to me. "Elizabeth is not going make it, my baby, my sweet beautiful baby is not going to survive." She said near hysteria then wept inconsolably in my shoulder as I held her.
I looked at my father as I held my distraught mother. His face was grim.
"What happened?" I asked my dad. My legs shook. God I needed to piss bad.
"Elizabeth said she was upset about something," he began with a strained voice, while he clenched and unclenched his fists.
"She said she needed to be by herself to think and headed up to the cottage late last night against my advice." He swallowed hard.
"She apparently swerved to avoid a deer on the road and crashed through a guardrail and into a lake. A trucker who saw the incident called for help before going into the water and made numerous attempts before he was able to get her out of her submerged car." He paused to wipe his eyes.
"She was not breathing, her vital signs were absent. The trucker administered CPR until the paramedics arrived. She was taken to a local hospital and then airlifted here to Memorial. Were it not for that truck driver the outcome would have been very different. But it remains to be seen. She suffers from hypothermia and hypoxia " He told me shakily.
My mother let go of me and returned to my father and continued to sob in his shoulder as she clutched him tightly. They were ushered into a private waiting room for family members.
I went into Elizabeth's room and was unprepared at what I saw. She lay motionless, her face bruised and lacerated as were her arms. She had a endotracheal ventilator tube down her throat via her mouth and ECG electrodes attached to various parts of her chest. There was also an oxygen sensor on her finger, a saline drip and other bags of medication fixed into the back of her hand, and a blood pressure cuff around her arm which inflated automatically from time to time.
She looked pale, like luminous alabaster with a hint of blue. Her veins showed clearly through the skin of her neck. Her breathing was very shallow. The slow ping of the heart monitor, the sound of air flow and the chuffing sound of the respirator quietly imbued the room with a calmness of impending death. Tears ran down my face as I gripped the rails of her bed.
"I am so sorry Liz," I spoke softly. "I should never have pushed you. I should never have kissed you. Don't leave us Lizzy, please, please come back." I begged her.
I began to think that it was divine intervention. God had put a stop to our relationship by ending Elizabeth's life. But why Elizabeth? She was the one who resisted having sex with each other. I should have been the one to die. I was the sinful one. I was the one who continually enticed her. I was the one to kiss her. It was just a kiss.
I prayed to God for the first time in my life. I prayed that God would forgive her and spare her life. I prayed and asked God, no I begged God to take my life instead and send me to eternal damnation. I bent over her and softly kissed her cold blue lips at the corner of her mouth.
I pulled up a chair and sat watch over her. For the next few days and nights I neither ate nor slept as I held vigil over her. Facial hair now covered my face. I am sure by now I must have smelled. My parents became concerned with my health due to lack of food and sleep. They brought me black coffee and deli sandwiches. I drank the coffee but nibbled the food sparingly. Food nauseated me. I dropped the side rail of her bed, crossed my arms over the edge of her bed and laid my head on them. I felt exhausted but I could not sleep. I would doze for a few minutes before waking with a start.
"I had no idea Lucas had become so attached to Elizabeth." I heard my mother say to my father while they thought I was asleep.
"Yes, I had noticed how they looked at each other when Lucas came over for Sunday dinner." My father began.
"The way they would touch each other when they thought we were not looking. I had to wonder if they have been sleeping with each other. But there was never a night that she stayed at his place. But that doesn't mean they did not as they had plenty opportunity through the day. One night, as I passed her room, I thought I heard her call his name while she was pleasuring herself." He said just above a whisper.
"Do you think it's their relationship that's been bothering Elizabeth?" Mom asked.
"I simply don't know, Catherine." My dad answered thoughtfully and paused.
"It's perfectly natural for siblings to be close to each other. Even as kids they were close to each other. And now after such a long separation they have just renewed that relationship with each other. Perhaps we are reading too much into it." My dad said.
"I remember when Elizabeth was born, Lucas could not pronounce her name and called her Liz instead. He still calls her that." My mother said and let out a sob. I could hear them hold each other.
On the third day, with my parents consent, they removed the endotracheal tube from her throat, essentially removing her life support, and placed an oxygen feed under her nose and fitted her with a nasogastric tube to feed her. The doctor said it was now up to her and the grace of God. He said that because of the length of oxygen deprivation her memories may not be intact if she did survive. She had suffered from hypothermia and her brain had suffered a certain degree of hypoxia. They really did not know to what extent.
My parents again brought coffee and sandwiches to sustain me. My mother stood behind me and rubbed my shoulders as I continued to gaze upon my sister's face as I sat at her bedside. Those eyes, those fucking beautiful eyes, I may never see them again, I thought.
I could no longer contain myself. I felt brutally tired. My nerves were fried. I was an emotional mess. I suddenly burst into tears and turned my face to my mother.
"Her eyes, mom. Her eyes are amazingly beautiful. I could just get lost in them mom." I sobbed as she held the side of my head against her womb and slowly stroked my hair. I derived a level of maternal comfort from her.
I wanted to tell mom everything. I wanted to share with her how I truly felt about Elizabeth, how much we really loved each other, and how I really hurt inside.
I realize it was selfish of me. My mother must be hurting as much as me. How can a mother endure the impending loss of child.
I stood and held my mother tight. She too began to cry as she leaned her head into my shoulder. I caressed her back as I held her. I was unsure if she cried for my distress or for Elizabeth.
"She will come back to us, mom." I tried to reassure her. I suppose I was really trying to reassure myself. We just held each other for a time until we were composed.
I began to feel embarrassed and ashamed for bawling like a baby in my mother's arms. I angrily grabbed a tissue from the top of the chest of drawers beside the bed and dried my eyes and nose.
My mother pulled back gently and scanned my face before she looked into my eyes as she gently caressed my cheek with her fingers.
"Tell me truthfully Lucas. Are you and Elizabeth sleeping with each other?"
My heart hammered heavily in my chest. I knew my mother had the ability to see through me. Again I thought about telling her about us. 'The truth will set you free', I thought to myself.
"Mom, like you, Elizabeth is very beautiful and and I love you both, and if it were legal I would want both of you. But to answer your question, no we have not slept with each other."
"Lucas you are a rascal, but I love you. Thank you for being truthful." She said relieved and then gave me an intense lingering kiss on my mouth before she left the room.
I noticed that my mother had lost weight. Her jovial face had become gaunt looking and her body was losing those curves. My mother would be devastated if Elizabeth was to die. She would never be the same and neither would I.
Later a couple of nurses came in to change and clean Elizabeth, change her dressing and bedding. They closed her off with the privacy curtain. I went down the hall and got myself a coffee and returned to her room.
Believing that I was still out, I heard the nurses talking behind the privacy curtain.
"It's kinda strange to see a brother so attentive to his sister. It's almost obsessive, uncanny really." Said one of them.
"I wish I had a brother like him. My brother does not give a shit if I am alive or dead. He would step over my body and ignore me if I were lying sick on the ground." Said the other.
"She is getting her color back. The fact she is still alive without life support is a good thing. There is hope for her yet. Get ready, lift. Okay set her down." Said the first nurse.
