Just Like In A Song

There are only so many ways to tell someone you love them, and music has explored every possibly way to say those three words.

"I love you."

Why is that so hard to say?

What is it about those three words that can turn your stomach into a butterfly convention? That can make your heart flutter till you're sure it's about to stop? Just three simple words and they have the power to make your hands shake and your knees tremble.

Do we fear to say them least the one we tell not say them back? Could that be it? We are afraid to say I love you to someone - simply because they might not say it back to us? How cowardly...but how incredibly brave are those that can?

The Fates are three fucking vicious cunts, and there are no other words for them. When they will pull some sick shit like this on a person they are the lowest of the low.

"Play the hand you're dealt"

Well, just how the hell do you play this hand of cards? Hell, what game is this even, because it's certainly no type of Poker I've ever heard of? It sure isn't Texas Hold'em when you realize you've fallen in love with a woman, but she a person you can't be in love with, not in that way. What do you do when the love you have is forbidden? Not only forbidden, but illegal! It's illegal for me to be in love with the woman I love. How fucked up is that? Hell, according to some it's even a sin against God himself that I love this woman the way I do.

I would have to be a fucking damn good poker player to make these cards win.

You see, I'm in love with my sister, Marcy.

Not in the normal

"Oh, I love you Sis."

sense of the word. No, more in the

"I want to make you to orgasm till you're human pudding>"

kind of way. And I'm too much of a coward to tell her how I feel.

How do I tell her that? And just what will it do to us if I tell her and she doesn't feel the same way? Just how badly will it wreck things between us? There's forty years of sibling relationship between us, which can be destroyed in a few moments, with a few words, simply because her younger brother finally found the balls to tell his older sister that he desires her. That I think she is the most beautiful woman to have ever walked the face of the earth. That I've has always thought of her as such.

And can I live with myself, if I tell her, and it tears us apart? Knowing that I have taken from her the

Comfort of Family

simply for my own greedy needs? What would that do to me? How could I look her in the face, for the rest of our lives, and see revulsion in those sexy blue eyes?

All for my horny greed?

But what if Marcy was to say yes? That she had felt that same way towards me. That was the fantasy that kept me awake at nights.

Of course the possibility of that happening was

slim and none

, and

slim

left town a long time ago. I mean she had done the whole "Married her college sweetheart, had the two-point-five children, the house with the honest-to-god white picket fence. She was like the worlds greatest mom, at least since the Partridge Family parked their bus. Marcy had lived the American Dream life and done all the normal things that come with that dream.

She was a Suzy Fuckin' Homemaker. Martha Fuckin' Steward in training.

Well, I guess someone should have told her that in that "normal" life, the husband often ends up banging the twenty-something year old secretarial assistant at the office. Yeah...someone really should have mentioned the whole male-midlife-crises to her. The, oh, I'm sorry I'm going to go run off and be a Sugar Daddy to little Miss "I suck cock like a hooker, while you-don't, so I'm stealing your husband."

Yep, the American Dream, it's a wonderful story till you get to those chapters near the end of the book. Then like all fairytales things can get a bit grim.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

As I pulled the rented U-Haul box-truck into the driveway of what had been my sister's perfectly normal, split-level ranch house...

As I turned at the perfectly manicured lawn edging, and backed the truck in to park next to her open, carriage-style garage doors...

As I shut off the grumbling motor of the truck and sat, with my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles were white...

...I pondered that question. Should I tell her?

I mean, how can I possibly let her know how I feel? She's single again! I want to cheer! I want to climb up on the roof of this truck here and scream it to the world. "The woman I love is single again...and you fuckers still won't let me have her. Well fuck all of you motherless sons of..."

Glancing up at my side mirror, I saw my niece Sandra come bouncing down the sidewalk from the front of the house. She waved at me, then came around to my side of the truck, leaned into my window, and placed a peck of a kiss on my cheek. I smiled as she did it. She was the very image of her mother, my sister, from when we were in high school. When I had first fallen in love with Marcy.

"Hey, glad you are here," she told me, leaning her chin on her hands resting on the door. "Mom has gone off the deep end. Not once, not twice - but five times today she has had a complete mental breakdown, I've had it. I've got to go, or I'm going to be late for my classes. I've already missed one whole day due to all this drama. Enough is enough!"

I merely lifted an eyebrow in the face of this sudden verbal onslaught.

Sandra sighed, "I get it okay, I understand! Dad ran off with some skank only two years older than me and now Mom is all 'Oh, I'll never know a moment's happiness ever again. I might as well throw myself of Ferguson Bridge.' Well, I've had it!" My niece shook her head. "I did three early college study programs just so I could get away from this kind of high school level drama, crap! This is the same type of shit Belinda used to pull!"

I nodded, remembering all too well her older sister the drama queen. Marcy, a couple of years back, would call me at least once a week just to tell me what trouble Belinda had gotten into this time. I had sat for hours on the phone and listened attentively to my sister, bemoaning that her daughter was such a pain in the posterior, for no other reason than I got to hear the voice of the woman I loved.

"I'll go talk to your mother. And don't worry about her jumping off a bridge; your mom is terrified of heights. She can't even cross that bridge without her hands about to break the steering wheel she's gripping it so hard." I pulled out the keys.

My niece moved back, while I opened the truck door, but her blather rolled on. "I know, right, but that has been all she's been talking about all morning. How terribly unlivable life will be without my father here." Sandra huffed and stomped her foot, a gesture so much her mom's I had to smile "I'm completely sick of it! I've got to go!"

"Well, shoo." I urged her away with the backs of my fingers. "I've got this."

I watched her walk to her little car, wake up the hamster that lived under the SmartCar's hood, and peddle it away down the street. Walking through the garage, I saw the leaning towers of boxes, all with their double-taped corners, and labeled with her label maker for what was in each. Even in the face of a desired suicidal plunge off a hundred foot bridge she was carefully packing and marking things.

With a shake of my head, I went up the short, carpeted stairs into my sister's house, but grinned as I heard her rant before I opened the door.

"I swear that this world will just be better off without the likes of me using up the excess air. I know when I've been told it's time for me to move on. See if I'll let grass grow under my feet on the way out this life. That will show him-'sniffle'- him and his little cotton tailed slut!"

I moved my head, as a small picture frame hit the wall right by the door frame I was leaning on with my arms folded. Marcy's eye went to the size of teacup saucers as she saw that she had nearly hit me with the thrown picture.

"Cotton tailed?" I asked with a bemused smile.

After a moment Marcy explained. "She went to the company Christmas party dressed a mix between an elf and a playboy bunny. All green velvet and white fur, red fishnet stockings and a stupid wad of cotton stuck to her ass. It was all that she was wearing when I walked in on them in our bed."

"Ah. I see."

Bending down, I picked up the bent, metal, picture frame, walked it over to the large trashcan and dropped it in without giving it a look see. I figured it was Rodger and I had already seen enough of that man to last two lifetimes. Just knowing that he had been given years of making love to this woman, that I wanted so badly, and to then find out he had cheated on her? Yeah, he was not on my top people in the world list.

"Now what's this about you doing a Greg Louganis off Ferguson bridge?" I asked her when I turned back around. "I told you to keep me up to date on what's going on in your life. Do you have any idea how many tickets I could sell to something like that? Here I am, just scrapping by, and you want to orchestrate something that major and leave me out in the cold? I swear! Ungrateful woman! Did I not let you spend four months out of your life trying to teach me calculus? Did I not have the good grace to call you two times to come bail me out of jail?"

Marcy began to shake her head and smile, her light gray curls brushing the sides of her neck.

"How many nights, through my college years, did I have to call you to come get me from a bar when I was too drunk to tell you were it was at? That you had to get directions from the bartender to find me! How many?" I asked.

"That number cannot be counted without the calculus I taught you," she said, her lips smirked. "Remember any of it?"

"Not the first bit!" Walking over to her I fished out my glasses, plopped them on my nose and pulled them down till they rested on my nostrils and I was looking over the top of the rim. "Now young woman would you care to explain yourself, or shall I call your mother?"

She chuckled at my impersonation of our father. Then she sniffled again and her face went very sad. "I miss him."

"Yeah, so do I. Him and Mom. I want you to think about that while you're here talking about killing yourself in front of your daughter." I pushed my glasses back up my nose hard, something else our dad had often done to make a point. "Think about how it must feel to be her, hearing that kind of crap."

"She knows I don't mean it." Marcy hung her head a bit then turned to put something in a box she had setting on the coffee table.

I caught her arm and made her turn back to look at me. She saw then how serous I was.

"Does she?" I asked.

"Of course! She knows I wouldn't do something that crazy." She pulled at my grip, but I held on. Not saying a word I turned her wrist and slid back the silver charm bracelet she never took off. The scar, which after twenty five years to heal, was hardly noticeable. Unless you knew it was there.

"Does she?" I asked again.

Marcy pulled her arm away from my fingers and pushed back down the bracelet. "Neither of the girls knows about that. In fact, since Mom passed, you and I are the only ones that know, I told Rodger I cut myself in the kitchen when I was in my teens."

She went to turn back to the box, but again I did not let her.

Catching her wrist again, I gentle pulled her arm to me, pushed back the bracelet again and placed a soft kiss on her delicate wrist, a gesture I made all those years ago while she was lying in a hospital bed. I had been just a kid, but had cried myself sick to know that my big sister had nearly killed herself. Over a stupid boy, an idiot boy that hadn't given a moment's thought to breaking her heart, by cheating on her.

When my lips left her wrist, I wrapped her hand up in both of mine and pulled her close. As always when she was this close to me the smell of her was intoxicating. Her face was beautiful as always, despite the effects of time and tears to attack that beauty. With a soft smile, I kissed her ring-less finger. A gesture that, for me held far more meaning, but she got a smile from the kiss.

"So, you here to help your big sister move away from this den of inequity?" She asked, giving her house a disgusted look.

I reluctantly turned her hand lose.

"Hell, no!" I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. "If I came here to help you move I would have brought a U-Haul truck, furniture dolly, moving blankets, tie down straps, packing tape and crap like that. Nope, not here to help you move at all. What kinda brother would I be if I did that, kinda crap?"

"A loving one. Well, if you're not here to help me move, then what are you here for?" she asked with a smile.

"I'm here to help my big sister get tore-off-her-tits drunk, at her new place tonight. That's what I'm here for and you can't talk me into anything else. Not even with promises of your famous cheese steak sandwiches, will you tempt me to lift a single box."

"How about if I make some peanut butter fudge for dessert?"

"Well, that's a monkey's ass of a different color, let's get these boxes in the truck and get out of this place. It smells like cotton tail pussy in here." I grabbed a box and headed down the stairs.

"Hey!" she called down to me before I was halfway.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

I smiled up at her. "You're very welcome."

** ** ** ** ** ** **

"So anyway, there I was so drunk I could not tell you what month it was let alone what day, and I had somehow wandered into a Walmart. Maybe I was hungry, I don't know...but I was trying to find the grocery section-or automotive, whichever came first. I somehow ended up in the bra and panties section of the store. And as I'm trying to negotiate my way out of that satin filled hell of unfulfilled promises, who should I come across-but, Mrs. Hardling. Yeah!" Laughing, I took a sip of my drink and leaned back against the sofa cushion I have propped against the wall. "There she was, miss face like a prune, in her Sunday finest, looking down her nose at me, because of the inebriated state I was in, and probably because of where I was. Well..."

"What did you say?" Marcy asked, her face a huge grin of anticipation.

"I looked over at this frilly bright red bra on the rack, and then I looked at her tits. You know how ginormous her breasts are right? And I gave her my best drunken smile..."

"Yes?"

"And I said, if you're looking for something to help lift

those

you're in the wrong place. Car jacks are in automotive." I shook my head "Then I took a few steps over to where that phone hangs on the post by the fitting room, took it down, hit intercom and began yelling "Watermelon smuggler in aisle ten! Can I get a forklift and security to aisle ten?"

"That was just cruel!" My sister threw a pretzel at me.

"Hey, no...No! That-cunt-spent five years trying to turn our mother against me, every Sunday at church! And for what? For what? All because she walked in on me getting a blow job from her daughter. It was not my fault that she didn't knock on the door of an adult's bedroom before entering. Her daughter was nineteen, I was eighteen so we were breaking no laws. And I mean it isn't like Mrs. Hardling had never seen a dick before! That woman had six kids, god bless their poor little hearts, I know that she had to have at least seen one, once or twice."

"So what happened at the Walmart?" Marcy asked, taking a large sip from her wine glass.

"Oh, I got escorted out and locked up for public drunkenness." I smiled, and then shook my head. "They held me overnight. Dad came and bailed me out, took me home and then Mom read me the riot act about being a foul mouth to the Deacon's wife. She had, it seems, also been at Dad all night long about how could he have raised so ill-mannered a child? Because apparently, my being drunk and telling off the biggest cow in the whole congregation, was his entire fault. How Mom figured that I'll never know." Shaking my head, I rubbed at my temples, where it seemed I was still nursing that hangover from when I was twenty four. "So Mom is letting me have it, and firing shots at Dad at the same time, throwing in every few minutes about how, my getting arrested, had somehow ruined your wedding, even though by that time you were on a plane to Hawaii." I shrugged to show I still haven't figured that one out. "And then in the middle of this...the doorbell rang. It's Mr. Hardling, with his wife standing right behind him. Now Dad doesn't even get in a word before Mr. Hardling cuts loose on how I am the worst person to walk the face of the earth since Judas of Iscariot."

"Oh, my lord." Marcy covered her mouth to hide the giggles.

"Yeah. That pious church Deacon called me everything but a son of God. I was a hoodlum," I began counting off on my fingers. "A juvenile delinquent and how the hell that worked since I was twenty four at that time I don't know, I was a drunk, a malcontent, a troublemaker and a dozen other things. Now never once did he swear but he was about to run out of thesaurus...when Dad held up his hand. Our dear, sweet, church-going father, who never said a harsh word in his life to anyone, held up his hand. Looked Mr. Hardling in the eyes."

"Yes?"

"And our father told the Head Deacon of the church he had been going to for half his life...to go take a flying fuck at the moon and to get that Hindenburg tittied woman the hell off his porch. That her breasts were exceeding the weight limit of the pine boards!"

Marcy, fell over to lay on the floor laughing. She was soon clutching at her sides.

"And that would be the story of just why Mom and Dad changed churches while you were off on your honeymoon," I said after I had waited till it looked like she could breathe again. Picking up the wine bottle I leaned over and refilled her glass, then poured the last of it into mine. "And why Mom didn't really speak to Dad for about six months. That would also be why I moved back out, so soon, after I got back from college."

"I thought that was because you got the job you wanted?" My sister's eyebrows lowered. "Didn't you get hired on right about then?"

I shook my head. "It was about six weeks of ramen noodles dinners before that happened. I was working night shift at the B.P. down on 119, just making rent money for a shitty apartment. Then putting in applications all day at everywhere that my S&M degree would help land a job. Finally, Tramlines Inc. decided they need a new piece of marketing-meat to feed to the corporate wolves up in Chicago."

Marcy absently dipped her finger into her glass and sucked wine off the tip, something that drove me wild every time I have seen her do it. "Well, at least you managed to land a great job. I wasted my degree. I had such dreams of traveling to Paris and learning to paint in the schools where the great masters learned. I wanted so badly to be remembered as a great artist...and instead I became a Tupperware distributor. Amway. Mary Kay cosmetics. Hell, you name it; anything that you can do off your kitchen table to make money I worked it."

"Home prostitute?" I chimed in.

"What!"

"Well, you said anything you can do off your kitchen table to make money."

"I am...Oh, you are such an asshole. Pervert!"

"Yes? What, you expect me to deny that one? Ha! I'm as perverted as it gets, big sister. I'll have you know, I once went on a sorority house's laundry room on a 'dirty' panty raid. We raised over five hundred dollars for charity auctioning them off."

"What?" My sister looked at me like I had grown two heads.

I explained. "We raided their laundry room for dirty underwear. When we got back to the our place, we sealed them up in plastic bags, put name tags on them so we knew who's underwear it was and put them up for sale on the college's underground website-with pictures of the girls, next to a picture of their underwear."