Mom It's Your Fault (dad's Too)

A work of fiction

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Since this is an imaginary conversation between imaginary me and my imaginary mom regarding imaginary sex with my imaginary brother, and since he and I are in excess of 18 imaginary years of age, I would imagine mom and imaginary dad are as well.

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No good deed ever goes unpunished. -Anonymous

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. -Anonymous

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Mom was absolutely livid when I got home. She was sitting on the edge of my, our, the only bed. The sheets from this morning where we had left them. In a damp pile on the floor nearby. She had figured out what was going on between us, my brother an I, in the little house seven blocks from campus. I had a few minutes until my father arrived, she told me, I had better come up with an explanation. Think about what I was going to say to him, to both of them.

Was she asking me to lie? I certainly could have and a popular vote on the matter would probably say that I should have lied. I had a good many 'good daughter' points banked. My, our parents would have wanted to believe a semi-plausible lie. It was the only time that I was ever in our house that I was glad that Harry was not.

I decided not to go that way. Maybe its because I really value the truth. Certainly part of it is my faith, "This above all else, to thine own self be true," the Bard summarizing several verses of Philippians. Partly because I know in my own heart. I 'know' I do not 'merely think,' that there is nothing 'wrong' as in immoral about my relationship with Harry. People hide lies, things that they are ashamed of or know to be wrong. But mostly it was because I love Harry. Harry was too important for me to me to deny it.

It was not bull shit. It really was mom's fault. Not the discovery. A psychologist would tell me that I had wanted to get caught, or that we had wanted to get caught. We both knew that the 'parental units' had a key. They lived less than an hour away. It was their house having been great-grandma's before she went to meet Jesus two years ago. Either or both of us could have made it appear that we slept in separate beds, separate rooms. Neither of us did. Maybe it was us growing up and not being willing to hide our love for each other anymore.

What was in my admittedly highly biased opinion mom's and to a degree dad's fault was something they should truly be proud of. She had raised a boy to be as close to perfect a man as anyone human might hope to. Harry. Harry was sweet and thoughtful, kind and considerate. He put my needs first, he took care of me. He was strong and reliable, driven and buff. He wasn't unaware, a fool or a patsy. Nor was he arrogant or snooty, a jerk or an ass. He was... Harry.

I loved Harry and mom raised him. Dad did too, but while mom taught us dad was working. Staying late to earn all of those Benjamins to fund our privileged life style. I know that's a real 'first world problem.' I missed him and he missed a significant part of our growing up.

I get that while half of the sophomore girls at Texas Tech are schtooping... My film-making professor taught us that word, I love it. Carol is schtooping Harry. This morning we schtooped in the shower before classes. Last night we schtooped in our bed. Once we schtooped on the kitchen counter, but the formica was really, really uncomfortable.

So while a lot of girls here are schtooping, fucking, sucking, sleeping with and even living with Senior boys, I just may be the only one schtooping her brother.

But mom hear me out on this. Harry is a catch. This is life not some sponsored on-air radio contest. Why should relatives and employees be prohibited from participating. Why should Harry be off-limits to me? Why should I, Carol your daughter whom you love have to settle for second, fifth or thirty-fifth best? Am I not worth the very best?

Why should Karen or Shelia be able to fuck Harry but not me? Mom, you can't expect to raise a wonderful boy to become a terrific man, the perfect mate and potential husband, perfect partner and ideal prospect for a lifetime of happiness, then say that that dish is for another. Someone you don't know and may not even like, and if you like her you may despise her parents. Like Michelle.

Mom you do not know Shelia or Karen like I do. I could tell you stories about them. But rather than drag them down I will just repeat a few things that you have said over the years about me. Nice things, kind things, true things. I don't have to do I. I don't have to tell you how wonderful Harry is. Well, maybe just a little. A little bit about how Harry is with me when we are together.

Harry pays attention to me. When we are together I am the center of his universe. I rarely have to ask him for anything because he just knows me so well. He pays attention to me and then he remembers, isn't that exactly what every girl wants. Is that not exactly what you taught me to look for?

Mom, do you really want Monica or Michelle as a daughter in law? Do you really want Dave as a son in law? Really. If I married Dave do you honestly figure that at some point I would not be on my knees in the bathroom with his penis down my throat with me playing with his balls as he pushes on the back of my head. Me sticking my finger in his ass to find his prostate and pushing causing him to shoot his load down into your baby girl.

If Harry were not the one bending me over in our bed my face buried in a pillow. Harry sliding his wonderous penis wet from its recent fortay into my vagina. His penis wet coated in my fragrant lubricating pussy secretions. Harry slowly pushing himself into my ass, if he wasn't the one pumping, grunting, slapping, pushing and finally coming. Squirting his hot essence into me, what would he and I be doing?

Don't you really think we would just be doing the same things with other people who were less suitable matches. Or do you think I would be praying the rosary at a nun's convent. A convent that I converted to Catholicism just to enter. Do you think Harry would be living in a cave. A sexless hermit. Is that what you would want for the two of us.

You said that picturing us together made you ill. Was it really us, or was it anyone? Does picturing Johnny fucking me make you less ill. Johnny who does not love me, who is unconcerned with giving me pleasure. Someone selfish who does not care about my needs. Is that who you want for me? Someone whom unlike Harry would never carefully unfold my labia, sucking, licking, nibbling. Unlike Harry who drinks my juices as if they were superior to dad's single malt scotch. Someone who would never find my pearl and entice it to come out, and then make me come just because he wants me to feel like... Like... That. Someone who selflessly just wants me to be happy.

Don't you remember telling me to be careful whom I gave myself to? I was. Really careful. I had a checklist in my head. It was your checklist, because I paid attention to you. You, mom. Each boy I went out with had an honest chance to check all of the boxes and thus win the prize. Me. I really wanted to give the prize away. Waiting was not easy. But I heard your words. To only give myself to someone worthy of me, none made the cut. Several got downright mad when I decided they were not for me. Proof that you were right mom.

One hit me, and you know what happened next, it was not much of a fight. It was the only one Harry got into in high school, and you mom, you told him that as much as you abhor violence you were so proud of him. Nobody told Harry to make Jimmy pay for hitting me, he just knew it was what he had to do.

If I had to pinpoint it that was the day that I fell in romantic love, not just sibling love with Harry. Although we didn't consummate the relationship for years, not until I was here and going to Tech. We are careful mom. Very careful. I know the statistics, first cousins are ten times as likely to have genetic issues than the general population, full siblings like Harry and me ten times that. But we talked about it, when the time is right we will get donated sperm for me. We won't deprive ourselves of children, or you of grandchildren.

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THE DECISION

As I listened to their response I suddenly understood that my parents were delusional. I loved them but they lived in a world that did not exist. Their minds were already made up, they were not listening. They did not see us as rational adults. The 'broken record' works on twenty month olds, not on twenty year olds. Endlessly repeating incorrect assertations is not refuting an argument, and citing the ignorant beliefs of others does not make them true. My parents and I had switched roles, when did this happen?

Sadly they imagined themselves to be living in a fantasy world filled with parents just like them who had raised children just like Harry and me. Had they been asleep while I was in high school? They imagined this world filled with good decent loving potential spouses. My head spun. Mom, have you seen the statistics? Half of all marriages out there don't last, and half of those that do are not happy ones. You and dad are the outlier. For all intents and purposes Harry and I dated for eighteen years before we fucked each other for the very first time. There is nothing that we do not know or accept about each other.

Logic only gets you so far, it was not enough to prevail, I lost the argument. How exactly I asked could fucking my brother be considered immoral. Every Christian and every Jew traces his heritage back to Abraham. Abraham, who fucked his sister Sarah. The patriarch had sex with his sister the matriarch and so 'begot' Isaac. Isaac whose son Jacob was the 'father of nations.' Jacob grandchild of a brother and sister who then married two of his cousins, Leah and Rachel the granddaughters of Abraham and Sarah's brother. So, the progenitors of all twelve tribes, our ancestors whom we revere were the children of first and simultaneously second cousins and the great-grandchildren of a brother-sister union.

She, they could not accept it because they did not like it. Because other people would talk. Dad sat there silent in disbelief, just shaking his head and at times holding it in his hands. Going in I did not imagine their response to be them giving us great-grandma's cottage as a wedding gift. I knew it was going to be tough, tough on all four of us. But this time it was I that was delusional, I thought that they would listen to reason, I had no idea just how hard this would be on them, and on us.

Maybe if we had ever given them a warning shot. If we had ever been 'bad," it would have been easier for them to accept. I had absolutely no desire to hurt them, either one of them. But somehow I had managed to hurt them worse than anyone ever did or ever could have.

"I expect you, and I mean both of you, to have your things out of here by morning. Please leave your keys on the kitchen counter when you go." Those were the last words my father spoke to me. He turned to my mother and said, "I will call Janice (a realtor) in the morning and have her list this place for sale, I can't ever come back here knowing what I know." Then he walked out to his car and drove away without waiting for mom.

Mom was just crying, and I was crying, she said, "you just don't understand do you..."

"No mom, I love you, you and dad... And I do understand... I understand that I have really disappointed you... But that and that alone is my sin... I did nothing wrong here in this house... I fell in love... With your son... With Harry... The man I am going to spend the rest of my life with... That was not wrong..."

Rising to leave mom said between her sobs, "nothing... Wrong... Nothing... Wrong," as she walked out the door and got into her car and drove away.

I now knew what it was to be cast out of the garden. Like Eve I had sampled forbidden fruit, but darn it that apple was good, the best one that had ever been grown. So we went to live in the land of Nod, somewhere east of Eden.

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EPILOGUE

OK, that was just a tad melodramatic. It wasn't like we killed anybody or anything, it was my brother's semen not blood that was a mark upon me. Harry and I moved into our own place just east of Indiana Avenue south of campus. We will get a nicer place one day but for now this place is ours. Harry was a top student in his degree program and did two summer internships at large firms, both of whom have offered him a job when he graduates. He has a choice of two good jobs waiting for him just as soon as this semester is over. I have two more years but I won't ever hide again. With difficulty I accepted the concept of telling a small lie to further a much greater truth.

Harry introduces me to everyone new that we meet as "and this is my wife, Carol." He bought me a beautiful gold wedding ring telling me that we needed a 'prop' to sell our story. But I know that he just wanted to give it to me, it is my most prized possession. I bought a Polaroid camera and I am making Harry a little scrapbook of our first sex in each room of our place.

Maybe someday mom and dad will forgive us and speak to us again. Grandma says that all will be forgiven when she can tell mom that I am pregnant, but I hope that it is sooner than that. It was a heavy price to pay, but nothing worthwhile in life is without cost.

Lisa Ann