My Brother's Wife

I'm writing this with a sense of guilt; a sense of guilt at what some might think of as a betrayal, something no-one should ever do, a boundary crossed.

I need to come to terms with what's happened - to come to terms with everything. Not only with what happened last night but what happened before. But I wonder if what happened last night was so terrible, so wrong?

Well, what was it that could be so bad? Ok let me say it. Last night I made love with my brother's wife.

My brother. Carl.

Carl always had great taste in everything; all the way from his shoes right up to his hair. Everything about him said he made the right choices. And he had make the right choices - in everything; career, home ... and wife. My brother's wife. God he was lucky he met her first. If it had been me she'd met, he wouldn't have stood a chance.

Had. The past tense. Because my brother Carl had been killed three months ago in a car accident. A terrible tragedy. A tragedy for him, for me, for our parents, for Kathy, for the un-born baby he would never get to know.

Poor Carl. The inquest had ruled he'd fallen asleep at the wheel. Accident.

But what happened last night was no accident. And it wasn't a tragedy either. That's how I feel. How I truly feel.

I'd arrived at Carl's place early evening. It had been three months since I'd last seen Kathy, Carl's wife, and she'd prepared a nice dinner and we'd eaten and talked and held each other close. Carl wasn't there of course, except in our conversation - and our hearts.

Kathy looked beautiful, as she always did. Such a great girl. Everything a man could dream of; fine temperament, wonderful looks and as we sat at the table catching up on the last three months since the funeral I couldn't help remember the time about a year before when I'd almost made a fool of myself over her in what had been a case of mistaken identity out on the street. Yep, I'd seen someone who turned my head completely, someone I thought I just had to talk to, the perfect girl, and strode as fast as I could without actually losing my cool by breaking into a run and caught up with her only to realize at the last moment who it was - my brother's wife!

'Oh, hi Jake ...' she'd said, like anyone would, and I made light of the whole thing.

But that was then, before the awful events of three months ago.

And last night? Last night wasn't meant to happen either. But it did. And I'm not ashamed of it.

All had gone as you'd expect from a supportive call-in on your dead brother's wife. We finished the meal, talked, cried. Then we'd gone to bed. Kathy in her room, me on the couch. And then the silence of the dark descended and I couldn't sleep. There were too many feelings to deal with; being in my brother's house, being with my brother's wife.

I shifted from side to side, uncomfortable and feeling strange. And then not much later she called out to me, wanting to know if I was sleeping. Maybe she'd sensed me shifting to and fro. Or maybe she was as unsettled as I was by being here.

Whatever, we conversed in the dark across rooms for twenty minutes or so before I heard the words I so wanted to hear - but also dreaded.

'Would you hold me Jake?'

That sorrowful voice. Warm but alone. It echoed through the stillness of the night, danced through my mind like the light shadows that flickered in from the starry sky.

I got up wearing nothing but my boxers and walked slowly, quietly into her room, Karl's room, into her arms, into the marital bed. Kathy's tear filled grey-green eyes looked up at me as she pulled open the summer duvet and I caught a glimpse of her nakedness and tried not to look; to look at the 4-month pregnant stomach that turned me on, at her succulent swelling breasts and swollen dark nipples, to look at the widening hips that held the utmost sexual appeal - and of course not to look at the tuft of dark pubic hair that filled my peripheral vision as I clambered in beside her and snaked a comforting arm around her, allowing her to nestle her head into my neck. There was no intention on my part, none whatsoever. But we are only human.

Kathy's the most attractive woman I've ever met, a real woman with a real connection to my heart. And as we held each other close, in mutual comfort at a mutual loss, we slowly and naturally stroked and caressed away our pain in the wan light of a full moon that shone down on us as if heaven itself gave us it's blessing, and we made love, gently with soft caresses and eskimo kisses, my hand protectively across her belly, spooned in emotional release. But it was later, while we made love again, that it became something else, something more. Kathy rode me, hips bucking, my hands roaming every nuance of her torso and she came silently, open mouthed whispering 'I love you, I love you ... oh Carl I love you' and then for an eternal moment our eyes locked in a deep understanding. Then I needed her badly, wanted her urgently, not just for her emotional comfort, or mine, but for other reasons, and I held her firmly rooted to me until another, final explosive climax shivered through us both. Only then did she call me by my own name ' Aaaagh Jake ... I love you, I love you.'

Not once did I say a thing. There was nothing for me to say - nothing whatsoever. In the morning I would be leaving. We lay together in silence, the moon shone it's pale light across our bodies and we fell asleep as one.