Open Minds

Had I known the true cost of writing this story I would have never written it. This will be my last foray into the Incest category, so I've done the best I can with the doubts I had about this story. My thanks as always go to those who pointed and laughed at my stupidity. Please enjoy your read.

*******

I thought I saw her when I was in town. I stopped, paused and took a closer look at where she would have been standing. It wouldn't be the first time my mind had played tricks on me. It was just a glimpse, the back of the woman's head as she turned when some background noise piqued her interest, and the way she walked also reminded me of her. The body frame was exact, and yet, no. My mind dismissed the paranoia; hell, I could even hear her mocking laugh in my thoughts.

Paranoia was my buddy, the warmth that I kept close to me at night; even so, I took the dirt roads when I headed back to the cabin, just so that habit didn't sneak too far into my life. Of course, all this didn't stop me from checking the mirrors more often to see if anyone followed, just in case.

As I pulled alongside the cabin, my mind was already making a list of things to pack as I exited the truck. All the time I pulled clothes from drawers I cursed myself for getting careless, for being there too long, for daring to get attached to a place, and even having the gall to think I could settle down here.

The sound of a car interrupted my thoughts. Instinctively, my shoulders slumped. I was right; it wasn't my imagination. I had seen her. The vehicle came to a stop next to mine. It idled for a moment before she stopped it and got out. All I could do was lean against the door frame and watch as she took a step to the side and opened the rear passenger door to pull a bright pink suitcase out of the back and walk toward me.

"I left you alone for six months and you skipped around the country trying to hide. For all that time I figured you were going to come to your senses and come home. Well, I got bored with waiting."

She dropped the case on the porch; her arms came around my neck and we kissed. After a moment, she pulled her head away and looked at me rather quizzically.

"Oh, come on, I know you can do better than that. I haven't seen you in over six months. Show me you've missed me."

Instinctively I took a step back and looked at her.

"What are you doing here, Shauna?"

Her arms came away from my neck when I moved, the palms of her warm hands gently brushed my cheeks as they, too, moved away from my upper body. She took a step to the side, once again picked up her suitcase and walked into the cabin, her eyes looking around for a moment before dumping her case by the couch and heading to the open kitchen.

"I've given you six months to get this out of your system. Your inheritance, although vast, is shrinking by the day, since you seem to want to spend so much time running away from me. My inheritance is shrinking at the same rate, since I have to hire people to track you down. This has to stop, and since you won't come home, I'm staying with you until you get your head out of your ass and come home with me."

"Not going to happen, Shauna. There are reasons we are not together, and I want to keep it that way."

I watched as she got herself a glass of water and sat on the couch. She patted the seat right next to her. I sat across from her, the coffee table between us.

"You need to stop playing games; we have wasted so much time over this nonsense. Can't you get it through your thick skull that I love you and want you by my side, forever?"

My laughter wasn't what she expected.

"And can't you get it through your thick skull that I don't want what you are asking of me?" I sighed and used that moment to calm myself, pulling a deep breath within myself before I tried again.

"Shauna what you want is illegal and if our folks were still alive, I'm sure Dad would have his shotgun pointed at both of us for bringing down the family name."

She rolled her eyes at me. The damn bitch just couldn't help herself.

"Look, did either of us say stop? Did we cause anyone harm? Let's face it, Andy. It started out as a game and just got serious. I'm yours whether you like it or not."

This time it was my turn to look towards the heavens, trying to find the words that would at least make her understand.

"We were drunk, Shauna. We had just buried our folks and our minds and emotions were all over the place."

Her eyes narrowed into slits. Her attention turned fully towards me as she hissed with so much venom, "That's a fucking lie and we both know it."

Shauna looked as if she paused from what she originally wanted to say. She let out a sigh before taking an even deeper breath and started once again.

"Andy, you and I both know we were only drunk those first few nights. From then on, we were more sober and connected to one another than we have ever been. What we found out about Mom and Dad started all this, I will admit that."

Her attention was total when she said, "But don't you dare say it was all about the booze. You're a better man than that, Andrew Thomas White."

My sister always used my full name when she wanted to nail home an argument between us. I sometimes think she learned it from Mom. The only thing missing was the hands-on-hips gesture when she said it. As for me, I simply didn't have it in me to argue with her. I pointed to the spare room and told her I would make something for us to eat while she unpacked.

"So you're letting me stay?"

"Like I have a choice?"

Her silence made me turn to look at her. The sadness in her eyes almost made me want to apologize. "You gave me a choice once and I took it. Those turned out to be the best months of my life. I want you back, Andy; I want us back."

As I headed for the kitchen, Shauna headed to her room. The next thing I knew, another set of hands were in the kitchen helping me with dinner. We didn't speak; we never had a need for words. We had done this off and on since we were an age that Mom finally let us into the kitchen. It took a year of her watching over us when we picked up sharp knives. When I looked up from chopping, I nearly dropped the knife in my hand. Barefoot was a must for her within the confines of the house, a pair of shorts and a sports bra completed her attire.

Inwardly, I smiled: she hadn't changed. I did my best to ignore what she was wearing. Over dinner, Shauna kept the conversation to our childhood and our folks. We touched on the funeral, but the whole thing was still (even going on close to a year now) too raw in our minds to do more than touch on it. Knowing that my sister would attempt to talk more after dinner, we washed up and I watched her face harden as I wished Shauna good night.

Waking sometime in the middle of the night, I felt as if something about my bedroom had changed. My eyes searched the darkness, yet they revealed nothing. My ears picked up the sounds she made when she slept, and I instantly knew that when I turned, I would be nose to nose with her sleeping on top of the sheets. Being careful not to wake her, I got out, went around to her side of the bed and leaned down next to her sleeping form, lifted her up and close to me. The long drive must have exhausted her; any other time she would have awakened long before I had carried her back to her room.

As I held Shauna to me, she moved into what little space was left between us and a contented moan escaped her lips. I moved slowly and very deliberately to the guest room and placed her back into bed. When her form rested on her bed, she turned and curled into a loose fetal position. Instinct made me kiss the back of her head, and with a shake of my own head and a smile, I turned and went back to my room. I woke up again during the night and once again listened for a moment and tried hard not to smile to myself when, once again, I heard Shauna sleeping on, what had been, the empty half of my bed.

*******

Dad was an investment banker and Mom was the socialite, a match made in promotion- and-society-heaven most would say, but they did actually love each other. Shauna came first, two years into their marriage; I turned up a year later. As soon as we turned the right age, we were both sent to boarding school. We came home for the holidays, and to us, this was our version of normal. Our folks loved us and always kept us busy right up until it was time to return to school.

Shauna took after Mom: a brunette with eyes that left you feeling she knew all your secrets at first glance. It was her smile that always put you at ease while her eyes would dissect you. When we were children, we both knew Shauna could read people. Even before I asked her, she leaned into me one day and promised that she would never do it to me. I wasn't even going to ask her that, yet she looked as if she needed me to know.

It didn't bother me at the time, since I was twelve when she said it. Like I had secrets at twelve. We had each other at school, and to us, that's all that mattered. The only time we both became uneasy was when Shauna left boarding school and started college. The bonus, of course, was that by the time it was my turn she had oriented herself and gave me a rundown at home. Her grasp of who was who and what teacher was the best at any given subject was a fount of knowledge that I tapped into all through the summer holidays.

*******

Something changed about Shauna in her second year. We had only been back at college a few days, following a week's break for holidays. My sister pulled me aside and told me she was going back home, I was stunned; we had only been back at college a handful of days and now she was telling me that our folks insisted that I finish my first year, but she was returning home. We talked, or rather I talked as she packed, and it didn't matter how many times I broached the subject, Shauna didn't give me an explanation why she was heading home less than halfway into her second year. I saw her again when I got back on a short break, but even then, something about her had changed, and that bothered me.

We had almost been joined at the hip all our lives, and yet she was now keeping secrets from me. Then Mom broke the news to me that Shauna was going abroad to study at Oxford University, in England. Of the few occasions I managed to corner her back home, she eased herself out or made some totally crap excuse. I had figured something was up, but not even I saw that sort of attitude coming from her.

The feeling of betrayal from my sister was hard enough, but to be told by Mother, rather than my sister, just added salt to the wound. Mom must have let her know the mood I was in at the news and the fact I heard it from Mom and not her. Shauna kept away from me for a week while I cooled down. She was visiting friends, or so Mom said. I waited until a day before she was due home and returned the favor; a friend and I went hiking. I left my cell in my bedroom. She, no doubt, figured out why really quickly.

When I came back, Dad took me aside and reminded me I was due to start at my new college in five weeks. It was a conversation that saw Dad totally confused. I came to his office and asked to change colleges. He sat me down and asked why, and my reply was quick in coming. I was just didn't want to deal with being asked by Shauna's friends at college when, or even if, she was coming back, since she left so suddenly.

The fact that I could add nothing more to my statement about my sister's thoughts brought a look from my father. He clearly wondered what I wasn't saying. When you add the fact that my grades had dipped for a few weeks while I wondered where the hell my sister was, and on occasions when my feelings of loss over my sister were at its lowest, the defense mechanism in my head even felt like I was about to see her come around the next corner.

Why should it be up to me to explain my sister's actions, when I couldn't grasp the logic of them myself? Rather than let this continue, I wanted out and as far away from all this as geographically possible. Dad just stared at me for a while, and after shrugging his shoulders, he asked where I wanted to go, since I was now the one leading this conversation. At first, he balked, but after an hour in his office, he simply nodded and told me to leave it to him.

Whatever strings he pulled to get me into my new college I will never know, and I doubt Dad would have told me if I tried to ask him. He was my go-to guy through my youth, just as Mom was Shauna's. I knew almost the minute Dad had told Mom by the pain in her eyes. Her lip quivered and she just walked right past me, I had to wonder if she was blaming me for the drama within this family at the moment. She found me out by the pool later that day and I got a hug, but even I would have exchanged that rare closeness for one moment with my mother for an explanation as to why Shauna was behaving like she was.

I left the next day and joined my friend for another week before driving to Western Falls, officially, to get used to the area. Unofficially, to mourn the loss of my best friend and sister. She mailed my cell back to me; I had left it by my bedside. In my anger and total frustration at the situation I found myself in, I busted it up and sent her back the bits. A few days later, UPS delivered a new phone to me.

It was actually ringing in the box as I was signing for it, much to the guy's amusement. As I stood on the porch of the boarding house and opened the box, the door to the car parked across the street opened and my sister walked towards me. We met on the sidewalk and hugged.

"Please don't be angry with me, but we both need to do this, Andy. Mom sat me down and explained it to me. She opened my eyes and I had to agree with her, I love you, Andy, honest to God I do, but we need time apart. We could have had the holidays, Andy, but pride and an overindulgence of stupidity got in our way. I will be back every holiday until they throw us out of college."

With that, my sister simply kissed my cheek, turned and walked back to her car. I watched as it traveled all the way to the end of the street and then turning right, heading back towards the freeway. The feeling of loss made my fingers relax and the box that the phone was in dropped to the floor. A tear or two followed it.

*******

She told me later what had led to the whole distancing, and what she was feeling...

The walk back to the car for Shauna was born of willpower and sadness, she couldn't let her brother see her tears, only holding it together just long enough to get back to the car. As the lights changed and Shauna turned right, she thought back to the conversation that had lit the touch-paper and she felt like she had once again died just a little inside.

Mother had been on edge for most of the day around her daughter. Both she and Andrew were due back to school in a just over a week and now was the perfect opportunity. Dad was in town for a meeting and Andy was visiting friends. Shauna had heard the knock on the door, and instinctively called for her mother to come in. It took Mom a few moments to get to the point, and when she did Shauna's whole world imploded.

Mom had figured it out, only to be confirmed when she studied Shauna's eyes as they followed her brother around the house, or whenever they were in close proximity, be it with her eyes or physically. Shauna had no secrets from her mother, but she sure hid a huge one from her brother. She loved him and not just as a brother. He was regular masturbation material for her, even more so since their return from France.

Shauna would still secretly smile over the memories of the holiday in France, mom and I had been conspiratorial even before we got the plane tickets, we were even worse on the plane over and at the hotel. Our plan came into effect after breakfast the next morning.

After breakfast the second morning, we were on the hotel's private beach. They looked at each other, smiled and took off their wraps. The bikinis were identical, so were the quick release bikini tops that landed on the sun-loungers at the same time. All the men around us just stared. a few of the women did, as well, while Dad and Andrew had to lie face down on the loungers for the next couple of hours. After they got over the original shock, it became the norm for the rest of the holiday.

Both Mom and I sure had limited suntan lines for the three weeks we were there. By the end of our holiday, even the eyes and mind of a hormone-filled nineteen-year-old knew both his mother's and sister's size and breast shape so well that it was more a case of, yes, they have breasts, and the daughter did get many of her characteristics from mother, including almost identically shaped breasts, along with her dark and thick nipples.

With both Mom and Shauna going to the beach and spending the day topless, she had seen how big her brother was through his swim shorts and had soaked her own bikini bottoms more than once. Ever thankful that either the hotel pool or the sea was always nearby, not only did they hide her damp patch, but she was sure that her pheromones were soaked out of her panties and crotch by the salt water or chlorine.

Shauna watched as Mom sat on the edge of her bed; her smile matched Mom's. To Shauna, they were more than mother and daughter. They had reached an area that few mothers and daughters could reach, more so when puberty pulled at both her body and mind. Mom was there for her throughout, forewarning her of what was to come almost days before it happened. Caroline White was as much her big sister as her mother.

"I need to ask you something, I want you to promise me that you will think on your answer before you go on the defensive and waste both our time. Now I know I'm sounding cryptic, but it's the best way I can think of doing this without you going all bitch on me first."

Shauna sat watching in mild amusement at the hesitancy that Mom was showing. It was foreign ground for her mother. The anticipation of what she might say made her wonder if she would freak out, especially remembering some of the close-to-the-bone conversations they've had over the years.

Shauna still had a smile on her lips when she nodded her head. Her face dropped when her mom said, "Have you made love to your brother yet?"

The smile froze to Shauna's lips. Her next breath caught in her throat and her eyes watered. Her mind screamed; she could hear it in her thoughts. The scream of knowing she had been found out, of the disgust her own mother was going to show her if she ever admitted to loving her brother, even if she was fighting daily the need and the wanton lust she had for him, not to mention the almost overwhelming urge to jump on his body and take it further.

"You knew?" Shauna's words were but a whisper.

Caroline's hand came away from her own thigh and came to rest on her daughter's ankle; a reassuring squeeze kept Shauna's own fears at bay, for now.

"I've known for a few weeks; I just want to apologize for not realizing it sooner. I've taught you through the years that you can come to me with any problem that you have, and yet I feel that I've failed you because you just couldn't trust me enough to think I wouldn't understand that you love Andrew."

Shauna's voice still hovered at a whisper when something her mother had said pushed past her panic and rested on her tongue.

"You said made love to him?"

For the first time since this conversation started, Mother's relaxing smile returned and slowly nodded her head. "I know you both too well. You can't have sex with Andrew; you love him too much to do that. No, when you two finally get intimate, you will make love to him, and I assure you, he will do the same, such are the feelings between you two."

The screaming in Shauna's head had subsided for the moment, but her body was still in revolt. No matter how hard she tried, Shauna just couldn't stop her body from shaking, almost as though in fear that her own mother was setting a trap for her.