I was meandering through my personal record collection as us avid collectors tend to do - checking that the labels were all the right way up; that the sleeves hadn't got crumpled and that everything was as if should be when I found one of my old 45s back to front!
Audacious! How could it happen? A felony, no less!
I pulled the record out and checked it for damage, wondering all the time how it came to be reversed - but coming up with no answers, I made sure the record was still pristine clean, upright and that it slotted into its space...and that was that little drama over and done, although there was still a bit of me left wondering how it had happened.
What was the record title - ah yes, I knew it well; an old Adam Faith pop favourite of mine - "What Do You Want?" backed by "From Now Until Forever" from October 1959 It was in my personal collection because this was a virtually mint record; hopefully highly collectable.
But how come that I could still clearly remember the song from all those years ago? I could remember it with such clarity that it started playing in my head - and on my lips as I began singing quietly to myself...
"What do you want if you don't want money?
What do you want if you don't want gold?
Say what you want and I'll give it you darling,
Wish you wanted my love baby."
Lovely memories of years gone by; years way before I was even a twinkle in my father's eye - but it still sounded good to me. Trouble was that it had now stuck in my brain and kept repeating over and over again...
I left the room where I kept my own collection and moved through to the stockroom of my little record shop, still finding the words to be embedded in my brain.
"What do you want if you don't want money...," I intoned and I'd got to the "I'll give it you darling" bit when another voice joined in..., "Wish you wanted my love baby."
I snatched myself out of my reverie and looked around and there was my sister raising her voice to accompany me. We locked eyes and laughed at each other while both of us sang the song again...
Now at this point, before you get too confused, I'd better tell you a bit more of the background; about why she was there with me.
A few years back I came up with a lottery win - top prize in the British Thunderball draw - half a million UK pounds! Riches beyond my wildest dreams - even if I hadn't become a millionaire!
As a single guy, my home needs were comparatively few but, as Lily didn't want the place, I bought out her half of our parents' home - they'd both died young - giving Lily a generous payout.
Then I invested a fair amount of the remainder in buying a suburban shop (the house was out in the country) - a handy-sized shop with a decent bit of storage...and with a nice little flat above it.
And there below the flat, which I occasionally stayed in overnight, I set up my business; a record collector's shop - something I'd long dreamed of doing and soon it was up and running. Before very long I was online too and suddenly I was very busy; the business was a real success from the start and it soon started expanding into record players and such - I was glad I had plenty of storage space.
Part of the reason for my success was possibly because I already had a truly massive collection of old records and possibly because I could tell you the name and many of the details of pretty well every single record ever to hit the pop charts since they began - I'm some kind of nerd with things like that.
Whatever, soon I needed someone to help me out and my sister came to work for me and before long she became an 'old hand' at helping my business thrive.
So who are we? Well, I'm Chris; I'm just coming up on 27 and my sister is Lily. Apparently our parents chose her name because they liked the song "Pictures of Lily" from 1987 - and because they said they thought (wrongly) that the name couldn't really be shortened a whole lot.
Anyway, she's 23 this year; she's a tall brunette, well naturally auburn actually, with a very modern figure; big up top, nice bottom and slim waist; the most beautiful heart shaped face, deep blue eyes and oh so kissable lips. She was going to enter our local beauty contest but they barred her because she's divorced. What a feeble reason, but so what; she's still beautiful and they can stuff their moth-eaten sash.
(Yeah - I know - divorced at 23...but that's modern life for you)
She shares a house just out of town with two other girls - I don't think she's too deeply into domestic matters at the moment.
Me - I'm fair to middling, I reckon; a little over six feet tall, I weigh 170 pounds steady and I keep fit every other day at the gym. But unlike Lily, I'm blond with dark green eyes; the result I guess of us having two very parents with very different looks. Whatever, it seems to make me rather desirable and I've always been something of a ladies man; I can't help it - I know I'm good in bed. Mind you, it helps to have an eight inch cock...and I know how to turn my women on and how to satisfy them. But despite that, given the chance, I tend to keep away from the girls on the whole - my record business is my real baby and I'm really almost as happy poring over record catalogues as I am pouring myself over some female. Having said that, the ladies do have some interesting advantages - I'm not that tightly tied to my work!
And so it came about that Lily and I worked together, happily doing everything; going around the country searching for old records; finding buyers for the records; buying stock, doing research, packing and despatching things, etc, etc and Lily was as much a part of my business as I was.
But we lived separate lives - me at my home and her with her 'house-mates' some 30 miles apart and except from work, we seldom if ever met.
At work we made a good team and somehow I'd almost come to think of us as being "a couple" since we got on so well and spent so much time doing the same things together although in reality I had no emotional attachment to Lily apart from the usual familial feelings.
But all this was about to come to an end...
With the song still echoing through my mind, Lily and I were both walking down through the stock room when Lily turned and looked at me.
"Chris," she began using a voice that said that she wanted something, "I wish we got on better."
"Eh?" I said, having always thought that we got on really well.
"What I mean is that although we're together so much of the time, we never get really friendly," Lily continued, "You're always just the boss and I'm always just the worker - and that's that even though we're brother and sister."
"Yeah, well..." I began, "What's the matter - aren't I paying you enough or something? Do you want an official job title?"
"No - no - it's not that, nothing to do with the money; it's our relationship," replied Lily, "Why...oh, I don't know how to explain it..."