Being A Jerk For Halloween

by Lubrican

Chapter : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Epilogue

Chapter One

I love my grandfather, but he's really old fashioned. He grew up in the fifties and I guess back then they had all these traditions and stuff. Like having supper together every night, all sitting around the table. At the same time! Get a life! You know? That was just one of the things he talked about them having to do all the time too.

Anyway, that was all just borderline interesting until my Mom got T-boned by this guy who ran a red light and it totaled the car and really fucked her up. What was worse was that it happened in St. Louis, where she was attending a conference. So Dad had to fly out there to be with her because she was too banged up to be transferred closer, and they were going to have to do surgery on her and stuff.

Which meant that my twin sister and I were given over to the tender care of Grandpa Bob, who we are both named after. My name is Robert, like him, but I got the nickname Bobby, 'cause he already had Bob sewed up, even though we call him "Gramps.". Roberta, my sister, is known by Robbie, unless she's in trouble. I haven't heard the whole story, but I know it has to do with the fact that my dad was off in Alaska at the Army's Northern Warfare Training Center when something went wrong and Mom went into labor way too soon. Gramps didn't wait for an ambulance and just took her to the hospital himself and somebody told her he probably saved all three of us. So we got named after him.

Some twins are inseparable and all that. Not us. I have no use for my sister, because all she's ever done is get me in trouble.

Well ... to be honest ... I had no use for her ... until something happened that we weren't planning on, and it kind of changed everything. That's what this story is all about.

It happened fast, so fast that I still have a hard time believing it. So I'll try to slow things down in the telling, because that way maybe I can grasp it better myself.

It all started when we got home from school and Gramps was there waiting for us. Dad had already gone. Gramps sat us down and told us what he knew about mom. He promised to keep us "in the loop," which is the way he talks. He was in the Army too, and he and dad both use language that's funny to most of our friends. We never lived on post, or went to Army schools. That was something Gramps recommended to our parents.

Anyway, he said Dad had asked him to look after us and then laid down some rules. He said they were non-negotiable, and that we didn't have to like them, but did have to follow them, or we wouldn't like the outcome. Grandma had been the same way before she got sick and died. Having spent lots of time at our grandparents' house, and having broken their rules before, we both knew what he was talking about.

One of the rules was that we had to be at the table every night for supper. No TV allowed. No phone calls accepted. We had to spend supper together, with no distractions.

That was the second week of October. The thing that happened that would change everything was on only the third or fourth night we'd sat down for the mandatory supper. Neither of us liked it. We had better things to do, you know? So we hadn't been very chatty, just eating as fast as we could get away with and then asking to be excused, which was another one of his old timey rules. Geesh!

So out of the blue Gramps suddenly asked what we were doing for Halloween.

"There's a dance," said Robbie. She went on eating, like she thought that would satisfy him.

"And where is this dance?" asked Gramps.

"At school, of course," said Robbie. She took another bite.

"Is it a costume party?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. She really thought she could get away with short answers. She's always been stubborn like that.

"And what are you going as?" he asked. He sounded really interested.

"I don't know," she said.

"I think you'd make a great Xena, Warrior Princess," he said.

We both stared at him. Xena was on one of the cable channels, but we both knew it was ancient history.

"I don't think so," said my sister, carefully. But he'd hooked her. "Why do you think that?"

"You've got the body for it," he said calmly.

She blushed. My sister actually blushed!

"I didn't mean it like that," he laughed. "I meant you have an athletic build. You could pull off looking dangerous."

"Oh," said Robbie. She sounded funny, like she was a little disappointed about something, but I couldn't tell for sure. We don't read each other's moods like a lot of twins, either.

Well ... we didn't used to anyway. Now ...

Anyway, he kept interrogating her until she said she wanted to go as Alice in Wonderland. He thought that was a great idea. Then he turned to me.

"And what are you going as?" he asked, assuming I was also going to the dance.

"A jerkoff!" blurted Robbie, laughing at her oh, so funny joke.

"Oh really?" Gramps attention was back on her as she stopped laughing. "And do you know what a jerkoff really is?"

She blinked. "Well sure," she said, but she didn't sound too convinced. Gramps had this way of asking questions that kind of told you there was something wrong. Usually you didn't know what it was. But he always made sure you got educated.

"Why don't you tell me," he said.

She looked at me, but I just sat there. "You know," she said. “A pain in the butt."

Gramps shook his head like he was sad. "That's a jerk. You said a jerk-off. That's not what jerk-off means, Robbie."

She blushed again. "I know that,” she said hurriedly. “It was just a slip of the tongue. I meant he's going as a jerk ... because that's what he is ..." She kind of tapered off to nothing, because her cutsie little joke hadn't worked out very well.

"That was mean," said Gramps.

"It was just a joke!" moaned Robbie. "Gees, Gramps."

"Would it be a joke if he said you were going as a slut?"

She looked shocked. Don't ask me why, but I got a false sense of security.

"No, she's not a slut," I said. "That would be her best friend Tiffany." I thought I was pretty clever. "She could go as a skank, though." I grinned.

He looked first at me, and then at Robbie, and then back and forth a couple of times.

"You two aren't very nice to each other. That makes me sad."

We just sat there, wondering what was going to happen.

"I suppose you both have dates to the dance," he said suddenly. He stared at Robbie first.

"Yeah," she said uncertainly. Then he turned to stare at me.

"I'm going to ask this girl I know," I said carefully. I had to be careful, because if Robbie knew who I was going to ask, she'd sabotage it for me if she could.

"Hmmmmm," said Gramps. "I'll have to think about this."

"What do you mean?" asked Robbie, suddenly alert.

"I mean I'm disappointed that you two, who have a chance to forge a friendship that can last a lifetime, are turning your backs on each other. You have all the comforts life has to offer, but are cruel to each other. You're wasting something precious, and that's not acceptable. I'm not sure you should be allowed to do fun things like going to this dance, until you learn how to behave towards each other."

"You're not our parents, Gramps!" said Robbie, suddenly tense. "We have rights!"

"The first part is true," he said, smiling a smile that made a chill go down my spine. "But I am responsible for you until your parents get back. And as sad as it may seem to you, living in this great country, which has given you advantages most of the world could only dream about, minors have very few rights. I have a power of attorney, signed by your father, that says I get to make the decisions, whether you like it or not."

"Come on, Gramps," moaned Robbie. "We were just fooling around."

"First you're jerking off, and now you're fooling around?" Gramps could make his eyebrows go up an inch.

"Gees, Gramps," moaned Robbie, blushing again.

"So, when you go out on dates do you fool around?" he asked interestedly.

"Gees, Gramps!" she whined.

"Well that kind of thing seems to be on your mind a lot," said Gramps, looking innocent.

He looked at me. "So ... are you still a virgin too?"

I was right in the middle of swallowing, and started to choke.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said calmly. "Good. I approve."

Having managed to finish supper and get away from the table, we were both headed to our rooms.

"What the hell was all that about?" asked Robbie from behind me.

"I was just joking," I said. "You're not a skank. I was just getting even."

"Not that," she said. "Gramps! Can you believe he said that?"

"Believe what? He said a lot of things."

"About him asking us if we were virgins. Can you believe that?"

"He only asked me," I said.

She punched me. "You know what I mean. He assumed I'm one and then actually asked you!"

I looked over at her. "So are you?"

She stared at me, and her mouth looked like Fluffy, who was a goldfish we had one time. We only kept him alive for three weeks, so he was our last fish.

"Of course I am!" she spluttered. "Not that it's any more your business than it is Gramps'!" She stopped and her eyebrows rose. "Was he right? Are you really a virgin?"

I almost laughed. "Who would I get it on with? You make sure I can't even get a girl to go out with me once!"

"I do not," she said, looking guilty.

"Some of them have told me you ... um ... explained things to them," I said. "Shawna Weaver even said she doesn't go out with boys who are classified as perverts by their own sister."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think they'd all listen to me."

"Well they do," I said. "Which is why I'm not telling you who I'm asking to the dance." I frowned. "If we even get to go, that is."

"He can't do that," she said.

"He can do anything he wants to. Just ask him," I said back.

"I'm calling Daddy!" she said.

I followed her to her room and watched her pick up her cell phone. She flipped it open and punched the speed dial for Dad's phone. She looked mad, which I should have been used to seeing, but her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was kind of messed up. She has pure black hair, but it's fine, not heavy like most black hair, and it flies this way and that. She was breathing faster than usual too, and I caught myself watching the front of her shirt expanding and contracting. She was my sister, but she was a girl too, you know?

Anyway, he answered and she complained to him about Gramps and made it sound like he was Hitler or something. Then she stopped talking and listened and went kind of pale.

"Okay," she said. Then "I promise. I love you too."

She flipped the phone closed.

"He's worried about Mom," she said. "He didn't yell at me, but I know he wanted to."

"No slack with Gramps, huh?" I said.

"None at all," she sighed. "We are to do whatever he says and bite the bullet, period."

"Shit," I said.

"If Gramps hears you say that he'll probably wash your mouth out with soap," she warned.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

She looked at me.

"We're going to get along until mom and dad get home," she said.

It all sounded good, you know. Like "I'm going to get more exercise and eat right and get in shape." It's easy to say, but the doing of it doesn't come that simply.

We did make an effort to be civil to each other, at least in front of Gramps. One of his other rules was that he wasn't our housekeeper, which meant we had to pick up the slack when it came to the routine things mom and dad did around the house. Who would have thought they had all that to do? It was like all we had time for when we got home from school were chores, supper and homework!

Before this we had tried to get each other to do everything. We tried to make deals, or get Gramps to award some chore to the other by making some complaint. But now we decided we'd just do everything together, so it got done quick and both of us did the same amount of work. It wasn't bad, actually, because things did go more quickly.

But her little comments to me didn't change. She had been calling me "jerkoff" for so long that I think it was just ingrained in her brain, and she kept doing that. Except when Gramps was around. Now that I look back on it, I realize she was thinking about it, because she could control it when Gramps might hear her.

But it was a source of friction. I never had a nickname for her for some reason. Don't ask me why. But when she pretended to be all sweetness and light in front of Gramps, but kept calling me "Jerkoff" in private, it called for some kind of response. You know?

So I nicknamed her "Titless."

I know, it was stupid. I mean she did have tits. And she had pretty good ones too, from what I could see, which wasn't much. But I knew that Tiffany and Ashley, her two best friends, were bigger than her in the chest department, and I had already learned that that seemed to matter to girls. And it did get to her too. It got to her from the very first time I said it.

I don't remember what we were doing, but I do remember her stopping and turning to stare at me. "What did you say?"

"I called you titless," I said, smiling confidently. "You call me jerkoff, so I get to call you something too."

"That's just plain stupid," she said pushing her chest out at me. "I have tits!"

"Yeah," I said confidently. "But they're tiny compared to Ashley's."

"You're a prick!" she hissed at me.

"Hence my propensity to jerk off ... hence your nickname for me ... hence the validity of my nickname for you!" I grinned.

Her eyes narrowed. "You know something? Ashley said she hoped you'd ask her to the dance. I told her I'd think about it, but now I'm going to tell her it would be a huge mistake and to stay as far away from you as possible!"

"Where do you come off "allowing" a girl to go out with me?" I gasped. "Who do you think you are?"

"I'm the girl who's going to make sure you're still a virgin when you're thirty!" she yelled.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," came a voice from the end of the hall.

We both turned to see Gramps standing there, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. He'd obviously been standing there a while.

We just didn't know how long, or how much he'd heard.

We were both sitting on the couch. Gramps was standing in front of us, looking as huge as he did when we were little. He's a muscular guy.

"You have two choices," he said firmly. "You can go to the dance as each other's date, or you can elect to invite some friends to do some public service, after which you can have a get together of some kind here."

"That's not fair!" wailed Robbie.

"I didn't say you had two fair choices," said Gramps. "I'll add in a third, though. You can do nothing that night ... just treat it like any other night and stay home. That's fair, I think."

I think Robbie and I both thought of the fourth possibility at the same time; that Gramps would arrange something for us to do. That might even be more disastrous than what was already on the table. We sat there, afraid to say anything. I finally hazarded a question.

"What do you mean by public service?"

"I was thinking of the haunted houses that civic clubs put on, or one of those safe, alternative events for little kids they have at the YMCA or at churches around town."

"You mean volunteer to work at one of these things?" asked Robbie. "How are we supposed to get our friends to do that, instead of going to the dance?"

"I didn't say your friends had to do it. I said you'd have to invite them to do it. Only the two of you would have to do it. I suppose you could still have a party afterwards, but it would be a lot more fun if everybody volunteered and then had the party. That's what I think anyway. It's just one of your options." He looked at us for a few seconds. "Or you could go to the dance together. I'll let you two negotiate for a while," he said, and got up and went into the kitchen.

"Look what you did now!" growled my sister.

"Me? What did I do?"

"You called me titless!" she hissed.

"You called me jerkoff!" I shot back.

"Shhhhh! He'll hear us and who knows what he'll do then," she warned.

We sat there for a while.

"I'm not going to the dance with you as my date," she said, finally.

"Duh," I replied.

"Dave Moss asked me to the dance," she said. "There's no way he'll come to a party here, at our house. Not when he finds out it will be chaperoned by a geezer with a zillion rules."

"Would Ashley come?" I asked.

She turned on me with murder in her eye, and I backed up.

"I was just asking," I said, trying to hide a smile.

"Why do you do these things to me?" she asked, looking like she was actually going to cry.

"I don't do anything to you," I argued. "Things just happen between us, that's all."

"You're ruining my life," she said dramatically.

"Oh, give me a break," I said. "You're seventeen. Your life has barely started. A year from now you'll be off at college doing what you want, when you want, with whoever you want. I'll be off at some other college doing the same thing and you'll never have to see me again in your whole life!"

She blinked, and stared at me for so long I thought she was thinking about something else completely. Then she frowned.

"Gramps!" she called out.

He came back into the living room with ice cream cones for us both. His own was half eaten, and ours were beginning to drip down the sides. He sat down.

"Before you tell me your decision, I feel it's only fair to tell you that, if you go to the dance as each other's date, I'll volunteer to chaperone the dance ... just to make sure you actually spend time together."

Robbie acted like she hadn't even heard him. "We'd like to do the volunteer thing and have a party here," she said.

"Wait a minute!" I said.

Robbie turned to me and put her hand on my thigh. "Please, Bobby," she said. It actually sounded like she meant it. That "please," I mean.

"Whatever," I said. After all, I hadn't asked anybody yet, and the girls I was really interested in were her friends, not that that would ever work out. But there it was. It didn't really matter to me.

"You two have to plan it, and get everything ready," said Gramps.

"We know," said Robbie. I stared at her. It was like she had done a complete one-eighty.

What was going on here?

We were smart enough to go into Robbie's room this time, so he couldn't sneak up on us.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Language," she chided.

"What the fuck, then!" I snapped.

"Come on, Bobby, we have to work together on this."

"Because you decided we would?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And who made you boss again?"

"Nobody," she said. "Nobody is boss. We got into this mess together, and we're going to get out together. That's all. Do you really want people to see us come to the dance together and dance together while Gramps stands with the teachers and watches us?"

"No," I admitted. "But it sounded like you were going to go the other way anyway."

"I was," she said.

"Why?" I asked. "Why not just blow off the night completely? He'd let us, you know."

"That's the problem," she said. "If we did that we'd just be screwing up each other's night, just like always. He's right. We are mean to each other."

"So?"

She looked at me.

"So maybe he's right. Maybe we need to grow out of that."

I'm a follower. There's nothing wrong with that. The world needs followers. So what if it isn't as glamorous as being a leader. Somebody has to do it, right? Robbie, on the other hand, is a leader. Which is why she did all the research to find out what was available, and figured out how to sell it to our friends. She's the one who went to the Y and asked them if they needed any help. They had two things going, one for little kids and one for teens and young adults. When she offered to try to find some other kids to help with their haunted house, they were overjoyed about it. And she's the one who decided that the volunteers would work three nights, instead of just one, because then Mr. Jackson, the Civics teacher, would give extra credit to the participants if they put in at least eight hours. And she even figured out that all this could be done the three nights before the dance, so that everybody could still go do that. Well, all the others could go. That didn't get her and me off the hook, except that we still got to have what Robbie called an "after dance party." But she thought about all this, which was how she figured out ways to make people want to do it, because it got them something and didn't cost anything except some time. Plus they got to do it together, which was the whole point, you know?

So that's how it came to be that Ashley, Tiffany, Gretchen and my sister, along with my best friend John and two other guys we both know named Chris and Larry, all ended up dressed up as zombies and working inside the YMCA haunted house. Robbie assigned partners. I think she threw me a bone because I ended up with Ashley. We operated this air puff thing, where there was compressed air in a tank, and you pulled this lever which sent a blast of air into the people walking through the place.

Robbie chose Chris to do this thing where he had a rubber knife and stabbed her in the chest and they had a tube that splattered heated water onto the people watching this happen, so the observers thought it was her blood splashing on them. They got a lot of screams, while Ashley and I got more cuss words. She put Gretchen and John together to jump out at people from a dark corner, which was funny because John got punched once. Larry and Tiffany were supposed to be outside, urging people passing by to go in and be scared. I found out later they were supposed to give the rest of us breaks, but hid and made out instead. It was fun, though, and the ones of us working didn't know the difference. But the teams worked so well that we decided to keep them the second night.

Which is how I got to kiss Ashley, and even cop a feel, because we were in complete darkness, and nobody could see us.

The first night we had done a lot of giggling and bumping into each other. One of us would keep watch, holding the other's hand, and squeeze when it was time to pull the lever. So the second night we just started off again the same way. Then there was this long pause, during which nobody came through. She said she was going to get us something to drink and took off. Now remember. It was really dark. I mean where I was, back by the tank and handle, all I could see was her outline when she got back. I saw her extend her hand, and I reached to take the drink she'd brought me. Then she took my other hand, like she was ready to warn me the next time somebody came along. Her hand felt colder than it had, but I just chalked it up to her carrying the drink. We had a run of people, and then another bit of slack time, but she kept holding my hand anyway.

Then, for no reason at all, she backed up against me and put my hands around her, on top of her stomach, with her hands on top of mine, and leaned her head back on my shoulder. Her hair smelled wonderful and I kind of nuzzled it a little bit, I guess, just trying to smell it some more. I started getting a boner, but there wasn't anything I could do about it because she was pressed against me, and I had a wall behind me.

We heard somebody coming, and she moved forward, holding my hand again. She squeezed and I blasted and we got three shrieks from some girls, who ran on. Ashley backed up against me again and this time my hands went around her waist without her help. She turned her face toward me and I guess I got brave, or stupid or something, because I felt for her lips with my own, finally finding them. They were hot and soft and suddenly my zombie jeans were way too tight. And then I got even more stupid and slid my hands up onto her tits, which were just as fabulous as I dreamed they would feel. She murmured into my mouth and I about came right then and there, because not only did she not stop me, she pushed her titties into my hands.

The kiss broke and I kind of sighed "Damn!"

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I never thought you'd let me do that," I whispered back.

Then we heard somebody else coming and had to blast them.

It was like that for another hour and a half. Every chance we got we were kissing and groping each other. It evolved to the point that she was running her hand over the lump in my jeans, and when she did that, she'd tongue me. It's a wonder I didn't cum in my pants. And I kept squeezing her tits. I got brave enough to touch her ass, but I never tried to get between her legs. I was having too much fun to chance that she'd stop me and back off.

I figured it was almost time for our shift to end. I had a button on my watch I could press and it lit up so I could see what time it was.

Then she whispered that she'd be right back and fumbled off through the black curtains that cordoned everything off from everything else. I had to guess at when to blast people, but it didn't seem to matter, because everybody screamed, whether I got them full on or not. Finally she came back.

"Where have you been?" I asked, my voice low.

"I had to go to the bathroom," whispered Ashley. "Anyway, it's time to go. Come on."

"One more kiss," I said.

"One more," she agreed.

But it was different.

She smelled different. She felt different. She was a good kisser ... but she wasn't the girl I had been kissing all that time before this.

I was a little confused as we left. That's because, while I was groping Ashley, I realized that the girl I had been groping wasn't Ashley, but that Ashley was letting me grope her.

See what I mean about being confused? It's confusing to even describe it. And Ashley even moaned into my mouth. Her titties were just as soft and squishy as the ones I'd been fondling for an hour before that. And she gave me tongue too! I mean I should have been delirious. Two girls had let me make out with them!

But all I could think about was who the first one was. And the fact that Ashley had been in on that. She had started the night with me. I knew that. Then, when she went to get a drink, the mystery girl had taken her place. She had to have known that. And, up to that point in time, Ashley had neither kissed me nor let me grop her. The mystery girl had made out with me in spades, and then gone off and switched with Ashley again, who then came back and, voluntarily, kissed me and let me grope her too. Which meant that she had talked to the mystery girl, who had told her about being kissed and groped. So who was the mystery girl? She had to be one of the girls doing the work. And, to me, that meant it had to be either Tiffany or Gretchen. But that didn't make sense. Tiffany was just as mean to me as my sister, and I hardly knew Gretchen. She was in Astronomy Club with Robbie, but didn't hang out at our house much. And Tiffany was a slut. She was hanging all over Larry as we went out of the Y. But then Ashley was still holding my hand too. It was very confusing.

We had school the next day, so we all went home. Robbie was driving our car.

"Something weird happened tonight," I said.

"Oh?"

"Ashley let me make out with her."

"Really?"

I knew something was up then, because she didn't sound like my sister at all. The Robbie I knew would have had some scathing comeback about how I was a pervert and should leave her friends alone.

"She let me touch her tits," I said, pushing the envelope for some reason.

"I can't believe that," she said, looking straight ahead.

I got this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't Ashley. That first girl, I mean. Because Ashley had been different than the first girl. I knew that down deep inside. And I just couldn't believe Gretchen would let me do all that, never having even spent more than ten minutes with me. And Tiffany is taller than any of the rest of them, and she was all over Larry.

And all that left was Robbie.

Which was just insane on more levels than I could even begin to count.

"It was you!" I blurted, too full of whatever was inside me to keep it in.

She looked over at me, real quick like, and then back at the road.

"Don't freak out," she said, a little breathlessly.

"Don't freak out?" I barely had enough air to say that myself. There was a lot of breathlessness in the car.

"I can explain," she said.

This was just too weird for me. She was being so calm about it! It was like my twin sister had turned out to be a little green man ... or woman ... from Mars all this time, and had climbed out of my sister's body, all green and glowing or something, and said "Hey, no problem. I can explain."

"Stop!" I shouted.

"No, Bobby!" she yelled back.

"I can't breathe!" I gasped.

"You can't hate me!" she squealed.

You know those primal screams you hear about? They're supposed to be good for you, and they allow catharsis and all that stuff? Well, it turns out they're right, because I let out a doozy of one and Robbie about had a heart attack and pulled over so fast she got up on Mrs. Finch's lawn. Well it was the part between the sidewalk and the street, but Dennis Finch, her son, has to mow it, so it's theirs.

Anyway Robbie started bawling and babbling about how she'd fucked everything up and how I fucking hated her and how I would always fucking hate her, and what a stupid fuck she was. I mean every third word out of her mouth was the F bomb, which is what got my attention after that primal scream kind of cleaned my head out a little bit. That's because I had never heard Robbie even say "damn" much less use the F word. So that's when I knew she was freaked out, which made me feel better about being freaked out.

I know that doesn't make sense, but that's what happened.

Anyway, eventually she ran out of ways to work "fuck" into the sentence, and it got really quiet inside the car. But we were both so freaked out that we just sat there, parked halfway on the street and halfway into the Finch's yard. I heard a thump as her foot slipped off the brake and the car started forward again. Then we jerked to a stop as she put her foot back on the brake. I expected faces to start peering into the car any second, and that cops would come swarming in with lights whirling and sirens wailing, and I was suddenly almost overwhelmed by embarrassment.

"Go park somewhere!" I yelled.

"Okay!" she yelled back, like I was half a mile away.

She farmed the Finch's yard with the rear wheel that was on the grass before we thumped down onto the pavement again, whereupon there was a screech of tires I'd have been proud of if it had been under other circumstances. She drove a couple of blocks to a Kwick Stop and pulled into a parking space on one side, away from the gas pumps. She put the car in park, but didn't turn it off. She was shaking like a leaf, and tears were running down her cheeks.

For some reason, seeing her that worked up made me scared. I had this feeling that we were right on the edge of some cliff, and that if we stepped the wrong way, we would be as good as dead, because something that connected us would be forever broken. I remembered how she was crying that I would hate her forever.

"I don't hate you!" I blurted out.

She looked over at me, misery all over her face.

"Yeah, right," she said, sounding hopeless.

We had argued about things for years. Why would that suddenly change?

"I don't!" I insisted.

"Yes you do," she said, but she didn't sound so hopeless any more.

"Robbie, I don't fucking hate you!" I yelled.

"Language," she said automatically.

"Like you have any room to talk," I said.

Trying to explain how I felt during this whole thing is almost impossible. I think that's because I don't think I knew how to feel ... or what to think ... or something. But I do know that when I started arguing with her about whether I hated her or not, and she started acting more like the Robbie I knew so well, I felt better somehow, like we were edging away from that cliff. And I think that's why I kept on going in the same sort of way.

"You said fuck so many times back there I couldn't count them all," I accused.

Robbie was always the more practical of the two of us. Maybe that's why she was the leader. She ignored my attack and turned in her seat to face me with one knee drawn up on the seat.

"What are we going to do, Bobby?" she asked, getting right to the nitty gritty of the situation.

My embarrassment was back.

"About what?" I hedged.

She snorted. "You know about what," she insisted.

My sister has always been able to drag me, kicking and screaming, onto the practical side of things when she really wants to. I knew we were going to talk about this, whether I wanted to or not. So I got practical too.

"You said you could explain," I said, knocking the ball squarely into her court.

A sudden thought occurred to me. What if, in the dark, she didn't know it was me either? Then I thought of all the times I'd talked. She had never said anything in a voice above a whisper, but I had talked out loud several times. She had to have known it was me.

"I was curious," she said, tentatively.

"If you were curious, John's been chasing you for years. And I'm sure that either Chris or Larry would have been happy to help you out."

"No, not that. What I meant was I was curious about what you'd do."

"Huh? What does that mean?" I was confused, and I think it sounded that way.

"If you'll just shut up for a minute and let me talk, I'll tell you!" she said.

"Okay, okay," I said, leaning back against the seat.

She took a deep breath and my eyes were drawn to her breasts as they pushed the T shirt out. I couldn't believe I had mauled those breasts. My mind provided an almost electric memory of how they felt, and I suddenly felt like I was trying to get away with something I knew I'd get in trouble for.

"Remember when you said you were a virgin?" she asked, apparently forgetting that she'd just told me to shut up. I nodded. "I didn't get that," she said. "I mean you've always been so good with the girls. All the girls like you. It used to make me mad, because I thought my friends were only my friends because they wanted to be around you, so they made friends with me. You know what I mean?"

I wanted to laugh at that one. I'd tried all kinds of things with her friends, and gotten slapped down every time. True, the girls didn't stop talking to me, but they just never let me get away with copping a feel, or make out with me. I always blamed it on Robbie. It turned out that was true, but not for the reasons I was thinking about.

"You didn't need to worry about that," I said. “Other than tonight, none of them has ever let me touch them."

"I know," she said. "They promised they wouldn't."

"Thanks a lot," I said.

"You think I told them not to," she said.

"Well sure."

"That wasn't it at all," she said. “We just all knew that if any of them went with you, you'd break up eventually and then things would get awkward. So we all agreed you were off limits, because our friendship was more important." She shrugged her shoulders and my eyes caught the bounce of those breasts. "Besides," she went on, "you were always talking to girls and flirting with them. I thought you were doing all kinds of things with them until you told me you were a virgin."

"OK, so what?" I said.

"So I never fooled around with any guys. I was always scared I'd do something wrong, or act stupid or say the wrong thing and they'd laugh at me. Besides, a girl can get a reputation if she lets guys go too far. And I was disgusted that you got to mess around and have all that fun."

"I still don't get why you ... you know," I said, unable to say out loud what she'd let me do.

"I wanted to see what you'd do. I wanted to know if you were telling the truth about being a virgin. And I wanted to see what it was like to do some of those things. I only meant to let you cop a feel and maybe kiss me a couple of times, and then I was going to go to the bathroom and send Ashley back in my place. She's always talked about how cute you are and all that stuff. And I figured that once I figured out whether you were telling the truth or not, then she could have her fun and you'd owe me. Or something like that." She sounded confused.

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard," I said, without thinking.

"I knoooooow," she moaned, covering her face with both hands.

We sat there in silence for a minute or so.

"So what did you decide?" I asked. "About whether or not I'm a virgin, I mean."

"I don't know," she said softly. "I got all confused."

"How could you get confused?" I asked. "All we did was fool around." I slapped my forehead with one palm. "I can't believe I just said that. My sister and I fooled around! This is crazy!"

"That's what I mean," she said. "At first it was scary. But you didn't act like I thought you would. You didn't just grab me. You were gentle. It was like you cared how I felt." She frowned. "How Ashley felt, I mean. I've seen you look at her. I've seen you look at all my friends. Sometimes you look like some kind of wolf or something. And I figured you'd start grabbing me and all that, and I was going to yell at you for trying to abuse one of my friends." She slumped. "Or something. I don't know what I was thinking. Except you didn't act like an animal at all. It felt nice. It felt better than nice. I liked it!"

Now you guys out there will understand this. I don't know about the women. But when a man pays attention to a woman ... intimate attention ... and she says she liked it ... that twangs something deep in the brain that you can't really concentrate on. It just makes you feel like a man or something, like you're on top of the heap. Even if it's your sister who says it. And you want more validation for what you want to think of as your sexual skills. Which explains why I asked the next question.

"Which part?"

"All of it, Bobby! That's why I didn't leave when I was supposed to!"

"Oh," I said. I had been validated. I felt great. I was attractive to women. Then I realized I had been validated by and was attractive to the one woman in the world I couldn't have. So it didn't mean anything. And you guys will understand this too: You try to salvage what you can from a tough situation. "So," I went on. "Did Ashley say anything about liking what we did too?"

How the heck was I supposed to know that would hurt Robbie's feelings?

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