Things My Sister Had

This is a love story, and it unfolds slowly. If you're looking for slam, bam, thank you ma'am, you'll be disappointed.

If the dialogue seems rather formal, well that's the way my family speaks. Did I get beaten up as a kid? Early and often.

I do not now nor have I ever had a sister. There's no truth to this story whatsoever.

Karen, at the time of this story, had just turned 18; her brother Dave was 20.

*****

My sister had big breasts.

That's wasn't just my opinion. In fact, when this all started I didn't even

have

an opinion. I hadn't thought about it at all. I would have said I knew what she looked like, of course, but in my mind's eye she just looked like my sister. Oh, I could have told you she had auburn hair, and probably guessed that her eyes were sort-of green, that she was shorter than I, that she wasn't fat or skinny, that she had just turned 18; but that's about it. If you think about trying to describe a sibling to a sketch artist, you'll quickly realize that you would have a hard time being useful. Your internal picture of them is a muddle of all the time you spent growing up together. You'd have better luck describing a stranger.

Also, my sister didn't show herself off. Her clothes were neat and attractive, but they didn't call any particular attention to her shape. At home she wore sweats. If anything ever bulged, or jiggled, or whatever, it wasn't enough to notice. Besides, she was my sister.

We were friendly with each other, "You wanna get ice cream?" kind of friendly, but since I'm a couple of years older we didn't move in the same circles. She was finishing high school and choosing colleges; I was living at home, working part time, and going to a community college.

I hadn't excelled in school. I thought I was working my ass off, but it never seemed to do any good. I always heard "You just don't apply yourself." Everyone seemed to think I didn't care, that I was a classic underachiever, that I didn't have any drive. I just figured I didn't have the smarts.

Karen, on the other hand, had plenty of both: drive

and

smarts. She was a straight A student, had made up her mind to be an architect, and our parents had great hopes for her. For me, they had hopes that I'd someday move out of the house.

Let's return to where we started: my sister's breasts. One day my friends and I were hanging around, sort-of playing hoops but mostly gossiping. This was teen-aged guy gossip, hormone gossip, so of course we were talking about who we thought was hot: Jennifer Garner, Miley Cyrus (uh, she's a little young for you, Pete), Jessica Biel, Lindsay Lohan, the usual TMZ roster. Then it was on to who we thought looked the sluttiest: the Kardashians, hands down.

Finally we got around to girls we actually knew. This one had great legs, that one had an incredible rack, the other one had lips that were made for blow jobs. I told my buddy Fred that I thought his older sister had an ass that just begged you to take a bite, and I thought he was going to punch me out. I guess any other girl in town was fair game, but

his

sister was off limits even to my imagination.

That's when Pete (the one who drooled over Miley Cyrus) said "Your sister has great tits," and the others started hooting their agreement. Now it was my turn to go off — nobody talks about my sister that way! She's a wonderful, intelligent young lady who shouldn't be objectified in such a crude, sexual way and you troglodytes should all take sensitivity training.

Yeah, right — it wasn't that dramatic. None of us ever got really pissed, although you could tell some of the comments didn't go over too well when we were talking about each others' girlfriends, sisters, or moms. And my defense of my sister came out more like "You're full of shit, assholes" than the way I described it. But what Pete said did catch me off guard. He must have been seriously checking her out. As I said before, she doesn't show herself off.

No, I didn't start snooping around in her laundry, I didn't hide a camera in her room, I didn't peek in her window, I didn't do anything. I would have forgotten the whole thing, and almost had, when something happened to remind me.

I came home from work to shower and change before class, and my sister had some friends over. They might have been studying. It was all just girl noises to me, but as I was going upstairs to my bedroom I heard one of them call my sister "grapefruit tits." They all started laughing, and although it startled me a little (and I almost laughed myself) I went on my merry way and left them to it. They probably didn't even know I was there.

*****

A few days later I came downstairs for a drink and my sister was rummaging around in the refrigerator. I headed over there to get some OJ, and I must have been in a teasing mood because I said "You gonna be all day, grapefruit tits?"

She turned around and looked at me, her mouth open and her eyes wide, and charged up the stairs to her room — slam! I certainly didn't expect a reaction like that!

I said before that we were friendly, and I really did care about her. I figured I'd better try to fix things as fast as possible, so I went upstairs and stood outside her door. While I was thinking about what to say I could hear a kind of mumbly, snuffly noise like somebody was crying into a pillow; so I knocked softly on her door.

"Karen, can I talk to you?"

"Go away, donkey dick! I hate you!"

Donkey dick? What the fuck? If you want to get literal, I'm probably average; and how would she know, anyways?

In any case, the general intent was clear; so I backed away and left her alone.

*****

For the next few days Karen was pretty obviously avoiding me as much as possible; and when the weekend rolled around and we had to do some things as a family, her face froze whenever she looked in my direction and she tried not to talk to me. If our parents noticed, they didn't say anything. They probably figured that whatever it was, it would work itself out pretty quickly. It wasn't like the two of us had never had a fight before.

By Sunday afternoon nothing much had changed, and I decided to try to make up with her. Since the parents were going out to play cards with friends or something, I went to the video store and picked out a fairly new chick flick, one that I knew Karen hadn't seen. I figured perhaps I could lure her out of her room and maybe out of her bad mood. I might even get a chance to apologize.

When I got home I left the video on the kitchen table where she was sure to see it if she came downstairs. I went up to my own room and checked my e-mail, played some games, and waited. I felt like some kind of fisherman, waiting for the bait to be taken. I heard her go downstairs a couple of times to get a soda out of the fridge, so I knew she had to have seen the movie.

Around eight o'clock I went downstairs and turned the TV on loud enough so that she would be sure to hear it. Then I fussed with the DVD player for a minute or two, to give her time to make up her mind. Sure enough, by the time I got the movie ready she had slunk down the stairs and curled up in a side chair with her back to me as much as it could get.

We watched the movie in silence. When it was over, she turned and looked at me — not in a friendly way, but at least not in a "I'm going to eat your liver now" way.

"Dave, did you get that movie for me?"

"Well, I knew you wanted to watch it and the reviews sounded pretty good. Besides, I figured I owed you a peace offering or something."

"Why'd you say such a shitty thing to me?"

"I don't know, I heard your friends call you that and I just felt like teasing you a little. I didn't know you'd get so upset, or I wouldn't have said it."

Karen looked at me for a moment, pensively, as if she were trying to figure out if I were sincere; and then she said "Do you think I like being called that?"

"I thought it was just some stupid thing like when guys call each other dickhead or ass-wipe."

Again, she looked at me for a moment; and I could swear her eyes were getting moist. "I hate it when they call me that. I pretend it's funny, but it really hurts; and I think they know it."

"Then why do they do it? I thought they were your friends."

"They are, but a couple of them can get mean sometimes. Right now it's my turn to get picked on, I guess."

"And they decided to call you that?"

"Yeah. It's bad enough that my breasts are too big, then they have to go and tease me about it."

I thought back to what Pete had said a couple of weeks ago. I guess he's a pretty observant guy after all.

"A lot of guys like big breasts, you know. I do."

Karen gave me a weak smile and said "That's a stupid thing to say, but thanks for trying. I know a lot of guys slobber over big boobs, but just because

they're

obsessed doesn't make

me

feel any better. It just creeps me out when I see them staring at all the girls joking about the size of our tits — and if we'll put out. They think that any girl with big boobs is an easy fuck."

"Shit, you've been paying too much attention to assholes! I mean, my friends and I talk about tits and fucking; but we all want someone to spend time with, to talk to, as well as fuck.

Inspiration struck: "Someone more like you.

You're

always fun to talk to. You're really smart, but you don't hit people over the head with it. You're interested in other people, too, so you listen as well as talk."

Karen was really smiling, now, and even blushing a bit. She has the fair skin to go with the auburn hair, so sometimes she and a fire engine look like twins.

"So you didn't mean it when you called me grapefruit tits?"

"Of course not! You're my sister, it's not like I'm always checking you out."

"So you only check me out sometimes?" She was starting to laugh, so I did too.

"Seriously though, Dave, do my boobs show much? I try to keep things under control, if you know what I mean."

Oops, this was dangerous territory. Choosing my words very carefully, I said "Well, you always dress nice. You look very pretty, but I wouldn't say that your boobs look bigger than average. I don't think anyone" — (except Pete, I thought to myself) — "notices anything, um, out of the ordinary."

"Thanks, Dave — I think."

She seemed completely relaxed, at this point, so I decided to ask about her something that had been bothering

me

. "Since we're clearing the air, here, why'd you call me donkey dick?"

"I don't know, I was upset and I said the first thing that popped into my head. I got it from some old movie, I think."

I remembered that movie from the oldy, moldy section of the video store. It was "Boogie Nights", and the porn-star "hero" was trying to masturbate in front of some guy to earn some money. His dick was huge, but it was limp, and the guy called him "donkey dick" and pushed him out of the car.

That wasn't the important part of the movie, though. The important part was seeing Julianne Moore naked. That kept me going for months, let me tell you.

"Yeah, I remember it. Hearing that from a guy would be an insult, I guess, or just plain weird. Getting it from a girl could be a good thing."

"Oh!" She was really blushing now, and giggling, as she thought about what she'd said.

I got up and walked over to where she was sitting. "Well, I have to work tomorrow so I'm going to turn in. Are we good?"

Karen stood up and met me half way. "We're good. You're a really nice guy, Dave, even if you are my brother. I should have known you wouldn't hurt me on purpose."

We gave each other a good hug, smiling at each other, and then I headed up to bed. While we were hugging I learned some things about my sister:

My sister had very beautiful, very green eyes.

My sister wore a sports bra, even under her sweats, to "keep things under control."

My sister had big breasts.