Note to readers: This is meant to be a slightly more plot driven story, so if you're looking for hard and fast, try one of my other attempts. If you enjoy this story, please send me feedback, if only for the sake of my ego and remember to vote 5 before you leave. And remember folks: Do try this at home.
This story is dedicated to Holly, Ian and Carl. If Holly's reading this, then apologies for the reference, but thanks for the accidental inspiration you provided. If Ian and Carl are reading this, this is the story I was writing. Enjoy.
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Twenty minutes before I was going to leave, the phone rang. It was Grace, my girlfriend, and she was phoning to have one of 'those' conversations. I knew what was coming before she'd even finished the first sentence.
"I think you're a really great guy, I just don't think we really connect, d'you know what I mean? It's nothing to do with you, it's me."
Yeah, like fuck it is. There's no surer way to crush a guy's heart than to fob him off with those kinds of weak excuses. Especially 20 minutes before a date. I hung up sullenly when she'd finished and stalked off down the hall.
"Who was that?" My sister Annie popped her head out of the living room. Seeing the look on my face, she realised. "Shit sorry Chris. Was that Grace?"
I nodded dumbly, still apoplectic. She pulled her head back in, recognising from experience that I'd appreciate some time alone. I continued down the hall to my bedroom and slammed the door. Sinking down on the bed, I squeezed by eyes shut to block out the tears of frustration and fury and started to beat the shit out of a pillow.
This was about the fourth or fifth time a relationship had ended this way. I was always "really sweet" and a "really nice guy," but "we never really connected, you know?" Yes I did know, but couldn't work out what I was doing that repelled women after 3 or 4 weeks in my company.
I'd resigned myself to a depressing evening trying to work out where I'd gone wrong, but there was a knock on my bedroom door before I could start properly wallowing in my self-pity.
"I'm going to rent a video in a couple of minutes. You wanna help choose?" Annie's voice floated through the door.
I considered for a second and the picked myself up off the bed. "Yeah, okay. I'll be there in just a sec."
Annie was my twin sister and we'd always had a kind of psychic connection. When we were younger, we used to finish each other's sentences and predict each other's moods. The bond had got weaker as we'd grown older, but we were still very good friends. Our parents had moved around a lot before Mum died, but we'd always have each other to talk to, wherever we went.
We'd decided to accompany the film with generous amounts of alcohol and so stopped at an off-license on the way back. Annie said it'd do me good to drown my sorrows for a night, "if only so I can see you smile for once."
Armed only with a couple of bottles of Smirnoff and under the influence of a god-awful film, we decided to have a Brother-Sister discussion about Life, the Universe and Everything, before we broached the discussion of relationships.
"So what happened with you and Grace then?"
I downed my shot of vodka before responding, partly to get it over with, but mostly in a vain attempt to put off answering. I hated vodka, but it was the easiest way to get drunk. "Nothing much. We just had a state-of-the-relationship conversation and decided it was best to break it off."
"Bollocks. Was it really that bad?"
"Pretty much." I shot her a rueful grin and she returned it with a flash of teeth. "Let's move on shall we?"
After a while we got onto the subject of first crushes. I'd admitted to Pamela Andersen (being a true child of the80s, Baywatch and a red swimming costume were the primary reasons behind that) and Annie'd confessed to Gianluca Vialli (God only knows the reasoning), before we got onto first crushes on 'real' people. I'm still a bit confused as to why I told the truth. Maybe it was the fact that I subliminally knew it was the right thing to do. Or maybe it was the vodka.
"Me?"
"Well attractive girl like you, impressionable sheltered lad like me. You'd been my best friend for years. If we weren't related, odds were we'd have got it on eventually."
I looked up from my shot glass to see Annie blushing furiously and realised the faux pas that I wouldn't have dreamed of making in sober conversation.
"Look Ann, I erm...look, I didn't mean anything serious by it, I just..."
I was saved from digging a deeper hole by her leaning over and kissing me. The shock rendered me speechless for a good few seconds afterwards, with a fizzing nerve recollection of her lips on mine hampering rational thought. Annie was watching me to gauge my reaction, chewing her lip and playing with a strand of her hair. My confusion extended to not knowing what to do next, so we sat there looking at each other for a minute, before I took the initiative, leaned over and kissed her.
It was incredible; twenty times better than it had ever been with any of my exes. Our mouths meshed, tongues tentatively exploring each other with the slight first kiss awkwardness enhancing the experience. My hands started off on either side of her face before working their way through her hair, down to her hips and then sliding up to caress her breasts, reveling in the warmth underneath her blouse, the alcoholic fuzz evaporating in an instant to leave every microsecond crystal clear.
After an eternity, we separated and my brain switched back on to deliver an unwelcome message: That was your sister you just kissed. From the look in her eyes the same thought was circulating in her head. Conversation openers, apologies, jokes and more flitted briefly through my mind as I searched desperately for something to say, before eventually coming out with the hideously inadequate "Goodnight then" and fleeing to my room, hands still burning from the illicit caress.
Breakfast was a stilted affair. Dad was still away on his 'business weekend' (long ago discovered as a euphemism for 'shagging his secretary'), so it was just the three of us, me, Annie and an uncomfortable silence that was growing harder to break with every further second that it persisted. Finally Annie broached the subject we were both thinking about.
"Did you mean what you said last night? About fancying me?"