Steph and I (my name is Luther, but she calls me "Luce," for "Lucifer"-she always says I have the devil in me ) have always been close, closer than a lot of brothers and sisters. She's two years, almost to the day, older than I-Mother died giving birth to me, I don't quite know why, 'cause I wasn't a big baby, but then, Dad never explained.
He certainly did his best to raise us right, taking good care that we were buddies, did our share of work around the house, earned our allowances, and also made as certain as possible, on his fairly decent salary, that he put enough by to send us both to college if we wanted to go, and knew what we wanted when we got there. That's hard for a youngster, let alone a teenager, to decide, you know?
Well, when Sis and I got to be about fifteen and thirteen, she got an awful illness which put her back in school a year before she could recover. I had, meanwhile, been put ahead a grade in elementary school, so I had only been a year behind her in grade; now I was in her class I kidded her just a little bit about that, until I found that doing it made us both uncomfortable.
We each had various friends, not all the same by any means, and I had a few girl-friends, while she was mobbed with boy-friends. Steph had a hard time deciding who to go with and where, sometimes. She played it pretty smart, though, when she returned to school after her long illness. (Now, she'd been tutored- Dad saw to that -and she was nearly up to speed with our grade), and did not go with any "steady."
Neither did I, but we both had nice, companionable dates (good dancers, too) for Homecoming, the "Harvest Ball," it was called at our school. The rest of our senior year seemed to scoot by, what with SATs and ACTs, the Regency Exams-real bitches, those were-and getting all our applications and FAFSAs lined up. We both had decent SAT scores (1300s).
When it came time for the Junior-Senior Prom, we each pretty much had to get "last minute" dates, and neither of us did too badly. By that time, though, we were both looking more towards who we'd be with in college and no longer feeling much of anything for our classmates. Snobby, nasty, call it what you want, but that's honestly how we-and a lot of others-had begun to feel.
Except toward each other I don't know what it was, but as our graduation day got closer, and the prospect of going off to different colleges after the Summer drew closer, so did we. All through our high school years, and while Sis was convalescing at home, we'd done a lot of talking, about this, that and the other, but towards graduation-which was a month after the Prom-we began talking about how much we would miss each other after the all too short Summer. We had always been a bit demonstrative toward each other in private, so while we talked, sometimes, we would sit side by side and hold each other by the shoulder or the waist. We kissed each other goodnight, too, after we'd said goodnight to Dad-Stephanie kissed him, naturally-and went to bed usually feeling all the better for it.
Back before we began growing hair on our pubes-Steph naturally before I-we'd taken baths and showers together, too, and Dad never told us not to, he just said it would not be a good idea. He was right, 'cause at that time of our lives, we'd pinch and hit more than we'd do anything else, and Steph had a habit of grabbing my little weenie and twisting it so it hurt like hell Anyhow, after all that background, toward the end of Summer, what happened was this:
"Steph, you know I don't have a photo of you to take to college, don't you?"
"You don't? Judas, you're right, we've hardly ever taken pictures of each other since we were small and Dad took 'em all Have you a camera?"
"Yeah, but it's a digital. I'd kinda like to get a pin-up of you-maybe I'll brag about the good looking girlfriend I have with my roomies " I was kidding, but somehow the idea took root in Stephanie's mind and she gave me a real witchy smile.
"O K, brud I'll give you a couple a real good poses, how about?"
"Sure, when?"
"We-ell. Dad'll be pissed if we take pictures of each other and not of him, you know..."
"Yeah, but I've taken some of him already. I just need to take a couple...if that's O K...of you."
"Sure. You want me to take a couple of you?-I wouldn't mind having something to remember you by, either, Luce "
"S'all right by me, Sis. When'll you want me to take 'em?"
