Understanding Emmalyn

[NOTE: this is a story about lesbian incest play between sisters, but seen form a different perspective from the two who enjoy each other so intimately. This is a story seen from the eyes of their mother, who sees a change in her beautiful lovely daughters. It isn't full of sex, but I hope you enjoy it as a story anyway. Always happy to hear comments, even if I can't reply to all of them. Cassie xx]

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On reflection, I blame much of it myself. I had, like so many women of my generation, lived a selfish life; freed from the burdens of housework and poverty that my own mother or grandmother were burdened with. Free of the constant, never-ending, soul-destroying chores that were lifted by the invention of the refrigerator, the washing machine, and the vacuum cleaner, to name but three wonderful devices. I took advantage of freedoms not available to earlier generations. Sexual freedom to express myself before marriage. Moral freedom to vote for whoever the hell I liked. Employment freedom to have a career, earn money and do what I wanted.

And I had done so for many years; enjoying life to the full. Travelling the world, getting drunk, getting stoned, getting into trouble and getting laid too. And for many of those years, I had done so with Gerard, my beloved husband. I had met Gerard when I was a sixteen year old art student, and was smitten immediately. He was tall and handsome with a shock of bright ginger hair and a pair of workers hands like shovels. But he was an artist at heart, and those hands could create wonderful paintings and pictures with a talent I could never match. He and I fell in love at first sight, and I vowed never to look at another man as long as I had Gerard.

We married when I was nineteen, and I spent the next four years with him travelling the world and living the life I wanted, making a career of my work as a junior architect, and enjoying life in childless bliss.

And then came Emma and Carolyn. My beautiful twin girls, quite unexpected and unplanned, they changed our lives completely. We decided to settle down and Gerard got a job as a merchant seaman, following the career his father had taken, rather than his passion as an artist. Gerard was often away for very long periods, months at a time, and I became depressed and lonely raising my two girls on my own.

I was frustrated in my work, being limited to the home but, sad to say, I was more frustrated with my sex life the longer that Gerard stayed away. I had always enjoyed a very active sex life with Gerard; adventurous and open to lots of games and new ideas. And I knew deep down that it wasn't as a result of appeasing my man, but of my own wilful sexual freedom. I enjoyed sex. Enjoyed it a lot and missed it terribly when Gerard wasn't there. But I stuck to my vow of faithfulness. Almost.

I never once slept with another man but, when the opportunity arose one evening with a friend, I released my sexual tension for the first time with another woman. It was like a revelation. I had never before considered lesbian sex but, with my friend, was opened up to a whole new world of pleasure.

My friend was a single mother who had a son at the same school as my twin girls. Emma and Carolyn were both six years old; difficult and demanding, and my friend's son was the same. It was during one such difficult episode, near the school grounds, that we first traded words. My girls were arguing; fighting with each other as girls do, and I was trying to keep control of them. I remember lifting my voice to talk to them; hearing another woman doing the same. I stamped my foot and shouted out at Carolyn and, to my surprise, the woman near to me turned round and shouted back

"What?!"

We collapsed into a fit of giggles at that; learning she had the same name as my daughter, and struck up a fast friendship.

My friend (whose name was spelt Carolin, as I later found out), was a single mother who, like me, found raising her child difficult. We spent many long hours together talking and finding similarities. We went to the cinema together and dinner together, eager for each other's company. Carolin was a few years younger than me but we could have been sisters, for as much as we looked the same. Carolin, like me, had long blonde hair, a pretty face and was very much a girl's girl. She loved fashion and would drag me round the shops pining over the latest clothes. We both had trim figures, and ended up swapping clothes on a regular basis.

One evening, with Carolin's son staying round at my house and a baby-sitter employed for the evening, we went out clubbing. We had an outrageous time, getting drunk and acting like teenagers again. At one point during the evening, with some guys hitting on us and asking if we were sisters, we went into the ladies room and, giggling and laughing, swapped clothes in a shared cubicle. It was a close and confined space, and more than once I remember rubbing up against Carolin's well-toned body. But the atmosphere, and the alcohol, had knocked any silly inhibitions out of me. When we emerged, some minutes later, the poor confused guys did not know what to do or who to look at and we, of course, found it terribly funny.

We had got a taxi back to my place and, sitting down with a final glass of wine to round the evening off, Carolin had exclaimed that she absolutely had to give me back my red dress before she went to bed. I told her just to drop it in the washing basket near to the spare room where her son was sleeping, but she insisted that I should have the dress back there and then, and had stood up in front of me and slipped it off her shoulders.

She really did have a wonderful body; toned and well proportioned, and I felt a little envious as she stood there in front of me, flaunting her physique, and the lingerie that framed it. Blue satin panties, riding high up onto her hips exposing her long legs, with just a tracing edge of lace. Full bra squeezing together her wonderful breasts. I could not help but stare a little. She dropped the dress onto my lap and sat down next to me.

"You know why I'm single, don't you?" she said to me, still smiling. I had made some half-funny reply about how it must have been the clothes she wore, but she ignored it and kept smiling at me.

"You know why I don't have a boyfriend, don't you?" she said, repeating "Don't you?" through her sassy smile and half-closed eye lashes.

It was at that moment that I realised what she was hinting at, and where I was.

"I want my dress back." she had said to me. "Can you give it back to me?"

And I knew what she was asking. In that moment; drunk and (although I didn't realise it until much much later) very horny, I stood up and unclipped her dress, letting it fall to my feet. I sat back down, feeling self-conscious in my own ordinary underwear, leaving her dress on the floor.

"There" I had said to her, not looking up. "Happy now?"

Carolin had said "Very." Then she leaned across and touched my knee. I shivered, but did not flinch. And I didn't say anything when she leaned across the sofa toward me. I didn't say anything when I felt her breath on my cheek, or her lips on my skin. Then I didn't say anything at all after that. I wasn't able to as her lips covered my own and I kissed another woman for the very first time.

Carolin took me on my first few steps to Sapphic love that night, and what a road it was! She led me to my own bedroom, laid me on my own bed, and made love to me with a sensuousness and gentleness that I had never known or previously imagined. I tingled at her touch and loved every soft curve of her body, every smooth touch of her fingertips, every kiss she planted on me. And when, after a time I could not begin to estimate, she lowered her mouth between my legs and took me with her tongue, I felt an ecstasy I could barely contain. I shoved my fingers into my mouth, for fear of crying out at the intense pleasure her exploring tongue was giving to me. I remember looking down my own body, staring oddly at the sight of another woman taking me so intimately as I lay naked with my legs spread wide open.

Carolin used her fingers as deftly as her tongue; exploring the landscape of my body with her fingertips, then reaching inside me to pleasure me manually. When she kissed me, lips and mouth covered in the scent and taste of my own sex, I felt another illicit thrill. And when she guided be between her own long, lithe legs to the tufted mound between, I hesitated only a moment before I took the sex of another woman into my mouth. The taste, the touch, the feeling and the emotions were heavenly.

We made love all night, sleeping lightly, touching each other frequently. And, close to dawn, Carolin left me with a kiss. By breakfast, with my two girls teasing Carolin's son, there was only the faintest hint that we had been so passionate during the night.

Carolin and I acted impeccably in public, and passionately behind closed doors. For five months we shared a love affair that had my heart beating every time I thought of her. Those five months even included a short spell where Gerard, my beloved Gerard, came home from see and loved me as only he could. That was when I felt the first true pangs of guilt; not that I'd shared such intimate moments with Carolin, but that I would still think of her, want her, while Gerard was with me.

And, almost five months to the day after she first made love to me, Carolin took me to my bedroom and made love to me again; slowly, passionately, with great skill and dexterity, holding back no passion, showing no inhibition. I had my head thrown back, enjoying the skill and ecstasy of her oral passion, when I heard the door creak open. I looked over and saw my beautiful little girl Emma staring at us; her teddy bear hanging limply from one hand.

My heart sank. Sank so low I cannot to this day remember what words I spoke to my little girl, or what look I gave her in the face of my sapphic shame. In the morning, Carolin and I had thought the moment past us, but when Emma started telling her sister that Gabriel's mummy had been playing nurses with me, and had hurt me, I got angry and shouted at her. Emma had cried, and only her sister's consolation had quietened her down. Carolyn and Emma were wonderful like that; oh they would fight like kittens, sometimes incessantly, but if either of them were truly hurt or upset, the other would always be able to calm them down.

I felt a new shame then; the shame that I had upset my little girl, and could not console her. It was that, more than anything, that led me to end the affair with Carolin. There were some rocky patches between us after that, but Carolin eventually moved town, and removed both the difficulty and the temptation.

I was glad to have put the episode behind me, and was looking forward to Gerard's next return; clearer in my head than I had been for many months. It was in this lightness of moods that I received the news.

It came in the form of a letter; handwritten to me from a man I had never heard of before. His name was Henry Norton. Captain Henry Norton. He was the captain of the boat - Unaha's Clasp, a small freighter working the Mediterranean - where Gerard was working his latest contract. I remember reading through the letter at least twice, looking for the part of it that made sense to me, or the part I had missed. There must have been something, surely, that explained the odd words the captain used. Surely 'lost at sea' meant that Gerard was alone somewhere; frightened and waiting for someone to collect him. I got angry at the letter, tried to ring the number written underneath the captain's spidery signature. If Gerard was lost, shouldn't someone be out there looking for him? But the letter said nothing of a search party, or a rescue attempt.

Of course, looking back, I think I realized straight away what the letter was telling me, but refused to accept it. Christmas was only a few weeks away, and the girls were looking forward to having Gerard home as much as I. Everything had been prepared for a lovely stay at home.

But Gerard was 'lost at sea'. He had been taken from me, from us. And it broke my heart.

I stumbled through life after that; lost and alone but for the love and need of my two beautiful daughters. I resigned myself to my solitude, making pledge after pledge not to be so selfish; sure that Gerard's death was some kind of punishment for the unfaithful Sapphic affair I'd had with Carolin.

I devoted myself to my daughters; watched them and loved them as they grew into beautiful girls, tenacious teenagers, and wonderfully independent young women.

The two, despite conscious efforts to find their own independence through clothes and make-up, remained identical. Both grew into tall young girls; lithe and athletic, with a love of sports and outdoor activities. Both had this wonderful long cascade of fiery red hair; streaked with blonde locks that looked for all the world like tinted highlights. Carolyn proved to be the artist; talented with a brush or a pencil, a natural ear for music, and a great lover of books. Emma was more the mathematician; absorbed and fascinated by numbers and, from about the age of twelve, besotted with the mysteries of the universe. But so obvious was their shared sameness that, by the time they were twelve or thirteen, they had picked up the shared nickname of "Emmalyn", combining their two first names into one. At first it was a teasing name (as so many are), but it seemed to strike a chord with both my girls, and they stuck with it. Not to me, of course, but I would hear other girls refer to "Emmalyn" as if either of the two would suffice for their enquiry.

In many ways, Emma and Carolyn were as different as chalk and cheese; as unlike each other as any of their many friends. But I had encouraged the girls to always be there for each other, and their bond was something magical, intuitive and special. They would finish each other's sentences, feed each other bits of food without thinking or asking for it. They would jealously guard each other's wardrobe, but were able to share and enjoy anything the other had. It was a wonderful time to watch over these two girls; and only a little sad to see them grow out of being my two little girls, and into two strong, intelligence and independent young women.

I spoke occasionally to Carolin, who kept in touch as the years went by. She had married, eventually, to a man who I suspected was as open about love as she was. She sent messages from time to time, but I didn't always answer them. I had moved on in my life, and was content with my lot.

I thought about that as I tidied away the washed and dried clothes from the airing room. More than ten years had passed since Gerard had died without me saying goodbye to him, or sorry to him. And in that time I had wasted years in my own depression. Wasted years and the chance (maybe) to have a career all of my own. Instead of the MD I could have been, I spent three days in the week at the local library; working long hours during the day and into the evening to earn our family's keep. And yet now, as I watched with resignation rather than horror as more and more of my once-lustrous blonde hair turned to grey, and as my once-envious figure struggled to pretend I was still young, I realized I was content. Not quite happy, but content. And for the blessing of my two lovely daughters, that was enough.

I sorted out some of Emma's underwear as I thought wistfully of the years that had passed. I was still in that kind of daydream when I opened her underwear drawer and put away her fresh clothes. I suppose that's why, when my hand brushed against something unusual, that I took hold of it and drew it out of the drawer without a second thought. With a little shock, I stared at the long, slim, bright red vibrator that had been hiding in my daughter's underwear drawer. I stare at it dumbly for a few moments, just trying to accept the knowledge that my beautiful little Emma was sexually active. Of course was is! I chided myself. She's very nearly a grown woman. But still a part of me was sad to see my little girl lose one more string to her childhood. I turned the vibrator in my hands, noticing a long, jagged scratch along one curve near the base, and wondered what had made it.

Then, quite self-consciously, I put the toy back into her drawer and went about the rest of the washing. I went to the other side of the room and put away Carolyn's clothes, but found nothing there. After the washing, I got on with the rest of the business of the day. I had some plans to send off for a small building contract I had won, and was keen to get some more housework finished before the girls got back home.

I got a call just after lunch from Carolyn, who told me that her and Emma would be staying at a friend's house that night for a party. I was immediately concerned (as every mother would be), and wanted to know who the friend was, where they were staying, and what kind of party it would be.

"It's an orgy, mom." said Carolyn. "At the house of some guy who makes porn films. He's inviting all his axe-murdering friends over and there'll be loads of drugs there."

"Carolyyyyn...."

"Mom, it's a party. Me and Ems are going together. We'll be fine. We'll look out for each other. You know we do."

And it was true. I knew they would look out for each other. I told her it would be okay, but one of them should ring me in the evening to let me know they were okay.

I heard back from them some time later. It was very noisy in the background, but Carolyn was shouting at me that she and her sister were fine. I went to bed, content, and dreamed of nothing in particular.

The girls got home some time in the early afternoon, and both looked very much the worse for the wear. I was prepared to give them both a talking to, but ended up feeling sorry for them; making them some light lunch and hot drinks. The two stayed up in their room and closed the door.

Carolyn and Emma had lived in different rooms for only a short period during their lives. When they were both thirteen, I converted the spare room into a bedroom for Carolyn, and urged her to enjoy her own space there. Carolyn was reluctant at first to leave her sister to go to a much smaller room, and complained bitterly. I told her over and over that it would be good for her to find her own space, and that she would thank me for it in no time. But she neither thanked me, nor enjoyed her own space. I would often find them crammed together in one or other's room. On some occasions, they would end up sleeping together in the same room; curled up like spoons in one or other's single beds.

Eventually, I decided that I would accept the defeat of all the hard work I had put into decorating the room, and move Carolyn back into the double room with Emma. I was convinced, for many months afterwards, that Carolyn would cry out for her own space again, or Emma would complain that her sister was being too greedy on her return, but again I was wrong. Neither girl complained in even the slightest tones about sharing their room once more. And it had stayed that way ever since. Lord knows how they managed to find time and space to entertain each other's friends.

The day after the girls' return from their party, they both went to college and went back to the usual house routine. I tidied and cleaned and washed and paid the bills and, when I was putting away more of the girl's clothes, I nothing other on my mind than the dinner I would be making for my daughters that evening. I was even thinking about getting some lasagne sheets from the supermarket when I felt something hard at the back of Carolyn's top drawer and pulled it out.

It was a long, slim red vibrator, just like her sister's. I giggled a bit and held the toy up to look at it. Ah well, I thought. It's just like my girls to get active at the same age, and just like twins to get the same toy. Or almost. This one had a sticky feel to it as I held it. I turned it round in my fingers and noticed a jagged scratch near the bottom of the toy. That seemed odd to me, but I couldn't figure out why. I put the toy away and, on an impulse, brought my fingers up to my mouth. I wanted to get the sticky feeling off my fingers but didn't want to rub my hands onto my clothes or the clean washing. My fingers tasted earthy and sweet at the same time, and it was only later on that I felt some kind of shock, or embarrassment, at what I had done.