Summer’s Secret Kin

# Summer of 1977 – A Story of Forbidden Love

The screen door slapped shut behind me and the kitchen hit me like a time capsule—Formica table, avocado-green fridge, the tick of the oven clock, and you. You were standing at the counter pouring coffee into one of Mom's harvest-gold mugs, wearing nothing but an oversized Michigan State T-shirt that hung to mid-thigh and a pair of panties so small they were more suggestion than fabric. Your brown hair was wrecked from sleep, tangled across your shoulders, and your nipples pressed against the thin cotton like two soft fists.

I stopped in the doorway. I couldn't help it.

"Morning," you said without turning around, and I watched the hem of that shirt ride up as you reached for the sugar, flashing the pale crescent of your ass where your panties didn't reach. You knew I was there. You knew exactly what I could see.

"Morning," I managed, moving past you to the fridge. I opened it and stared inside like the answers to every question I'd ever had were behind the milk. They weren't. My cock was already half-hard, pressing against my boxers, and I could feel the heat coming off your body as you leaned against the counter beside me.

You sipped your coffee and I watched your lips wrap around the rim of the mug, watched the steam curl against your face, and I thought about those lips constantly, obsessively, the way I'd been thinking about them since you came home from East Lansing three weeks ago. Three weeks of you padding around the house in almost nothing. Three weeks of me jerking off in the shower every morning thinking about the sounds you made through your bedroom wall at night when you thought the house was asleep.

"You're staring again," you said, and there was something in your voice—not accusation, not quite amusement. Something darker. Something that made my pulse kick.

"You're making it hard not to."

You laughed, low and quiet, and then you did the thing that ruined me. You lifted one knee and set your foot on the counter to adjust your ponytail, and the shirt rode up, and your legs parted, and I could see the soft cotton panel of your panties, the way it pressed against you, the dark spot right in the center where you were already wet. You held that pose for three seconds, maybe four, long enough for the image to brand itself into my brain permanently.

Then you dropped your leg and walked past me, trailing your fingers across my bare shoulder, and I stood there with a glass of orange juice I'd forgotten to pour, harder than I'd ever been in my life.

---

The Camaro was a '69, red with a black stripe, Dad's pride and joy that he barely drove anymore. You wanted to wash it on a Tuesday afternoon in late June, and I didn't question why. I came outside shirtless in cut-off jeans, and you were already there in frayed denim shorts that looked like they'd been attacked by scissors and a white halter top so thin I could see the color of your nipples through it.

"This is going to take forever," I said, picking up the hose.

"Then we'd better get started."

I turned the hose on you before you could react. The water hit your chest and the white cotton went transparent instantly, clinging to your breasts, outlining every detail—the full curve of them, the dark circles of your areolas, the hard peaks of your nipples. You screamed and lunged for the hose and I dodged, laughing, and you slipped on the wet grass and grabbed me around the waist and we went down together.

You landed on top of me. Your wet body pressed against my bare chest and your thighs straddled mine and I could feel the heat of you through our clothes, through the wet denim, a heat that had nothing to do with the July sun. You were breathing hard, your hair dripping, your breasts mashed against me, and you rolled your hips once—just once—and I felt my cock grind against you through the layers of fabric.

Your eyes went wide. Not surprised. Hungry.

"Mark—" you started, and I grabbed your ass with both hands, slid my fingers under the hem of your shorts, felt bare skin, warm and slick from the water, and you made a sound that went straight through me. You pressed your forehead against mine and your breath was hot on my lips and we were so close to kissing that I could taste the coffee you'd had that morning.

"We can't," you whispered.

"I know."

Your hips moved again, a slow grind, and I squeezed your ass and pulled you against me and you gasped against my mouth. Then you pushed yourself up, water dripping from your chin onto my chest, and you climbed off me and stood there with your transparent top clinging to your body, your chest heaving, your shorts riding low on your hips.

"We should finish the car," you said, and your voice was shaking.

---

The drive-in was showing Smokey and the Bandie. Nancy and her boyfriend Rick were in the back seat making out before the previews finished. You and I were in the front, sitting close, the bench seat of your Nova giving us just enough room to pretend we weren't doing what we were doing.

Your hand started on my thigh. Casual. Innocent. Then it moved higher.

"Susan—" I hissed, glancing at the rearview mirror. Nancy's face was buried in Rick's neck. She couldn't see anything.

"Shut up," you whispered, and your fingers found my cock through my shorts, and I gripped the steering wheel and tried to breathe. You stroked me slowly, lazily, like you had all the time in the world, and I reached over and slid my hand between your thighs. You were wearing a skirt—some flimsy floral thing—and my fingers found the wet cotton of your panties and pressed.

You exhaled against my ear. "You make me so fucking wet," you said, and I almost came right there. "I've been wet all day thinking about you. About this."

I pushed your panties aside and slid my fingers through the slick heat of you, and you were soaked, dripping, your pussy slippery and swollen under my touch. I found your clit and circled it and your hand tightened on my cock and your mouth found mine and we kissed—slow, deep, your tongue sliding against mine, tasting like popcorn and Coca-Cola.

"I want you inside me so badly," you whispered against my lips, and I groaned and pushed two fingers into you and you bit down on my shoulder to keep from crying out.

We stayed like that for an hour, maybe longer—my fingers inside you, your hand stroking me, our mouths finding each other in the dark, never quite crossing the line, never quite giving either of us release. By the time the second feature started, my cock ached and your thighs were trembling and you were so wet that my fingers were drenched to the knuckle.

"This is insane," I said.

"I know." You pulled my hand out from under your skirt and brought my fingers to your lips and tasted yourself, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.

---

That night, alone in my room, I lay on my bed with my cock in my hand and replayed every moment—the wet halter top, the heat between your legs, the sound of your voice saying you wanted me inside you. I came so hard I saw stars, my cum hitting my chest, my stomach, my hand, and your name was on my lips when I did it.

*This is wrong,* I told myself. *She's your sister.*

*She's your stepsister,* something else answered. *You've only known her since you were twelve.*

It didn't matter. The guilt was there, heavy and hot in my chest, and I carried it with me to sleep.

I found out later you were doing the same thing in your room, two fingers deep inside yourself, imagining my cock, my mouth, my hands on your body. You came twice, biting your pillow, and the guilt hit you like a wave.

---

The next morning you were cold. James came over—tall, broad-shouldered, with his football-player confidence and his plans for your future—and you became someone else. Polite. Distant. You sat on the porch swing with him and let him put his arm around you and I watched from the kitchen window and felt something ugly and sharp twist in my gut.

I called Nancy that afternoon. She'd been my friend since high school, since before you came into our family, and she knew me better than almost anyone.

"You're hung up on her," Nancy said flatly. "I saw you two at the drive-in. I wasn't as distracted as you thought."

"Nancy—"

"Don't bullshit me. I've known you for six years. I know what that look means."

I didn't deny it. I couldn't.

That evening, I heard the argument through the open kitchen window. James's voice, loud and hard: "I'm not marrying someone who's going to put a classroom full of kids before her own family. I want a wife, Susan. I want children. Three, four, however many God gives us. I want you home."

"And I want to teach," you shot back. "I spent four years getting this degree. I'm not going to throw it away—"

He grabbed you. I heard the fabric tear before I saw it—your top ripping at the shoulder seam—and something in me snapped. I was out the back door and across the yard before I knew I was moving.

"Get your hands off her," I said, and my voice was a register lower than I'd ever heard it.

James looked at me with contempt. "Stay out of this, kid. This is between me and my fiancée."

"She said to stop," I said. "That makes it between us."

He left. He got in his Mustang and peeled out of the driveway and you stood there on the porch with your torn top hanging off one shoulder, your eyes red, your lip trembling, and I pulled you against me and held you while you shook.

"He's wrong," I said into your hair. "He's wrong about everything."

You pulled back and looked at me, and something broke between us—some last wall, some final pretense—and you kissed me. Not soft. Not hesitant. Desperate and hungry, your mouth open against mine, your hands fisting in my hair, and I kissed you back and tasted salt and need and everything we'd been denying for weeks.

---

Friday morning, Mom and Dad left for a weekend in Traverse City. The house was ours.

We stood in the kitchen after their station wagon pulled out of the driveway, and the silence was enormous.

"I've wanted you since I walked through the front door," you said. "I've wanted you longer than that. I've wanted you since Christmas, since the way you looked at me over the turkey, since I couldn't stop thinking about you back at school."

"I've wanted you since I understood what wanting meant," I said.

You reached for me and I reached for you and we collided in the hallway, your back against the wall, my mouth on your neck, your legs wrapping around my waist. I carried you upstairs—to your bedroom, the room with the yellow curtains and the twin bed and the posters of Fleetwood Mac—and I laid you down and we undressed each other with shaking hands.

Your body was everything I'd imagined. Your breasts heavy and soft in my hands, your nipples dark and tight, your waist narrow beneath the flare of your hips. When I pulled your panties down, I could see you—really see you—for the first time. The wet pink of your pussy, the neat strip of dark hair above it, the way you were already open and glistening.

"You're staring," you said, and I heard the echo of every charged morning, every loaded glance.

"I'm allowed now," I said, and you laughed and pulled me down.

I touched you slowly at first, my fingers sliding through the slick heat of you, circling your clit, watching your face as you responded. You were so wet that my fingers moved effortlessly, and you arched against my hand and your breath came in short gasps.

"Inside," you said. "Please. I need—"

I slid two fingers into you and your pussy clenched around them, hot and tight and impossibly wet. I fucked you with my hand while my thumb circled your clit and you came in less than a minute, your hips bucking, your voice breaking on a moan that I swallowed with my mouth.

"Your turn," you said, breathless, and you pushed me onto my back and took my cock in your hand. Your grip was firm, your thumb smearing the precum over the head, and you stroked me with a rhythm that was slow and deliberate and maddening. I was close in seconds, weeks of denial coiled in my gut, and you must have felt it because you stopped.

"Not yet," you said. "Not like that."

You swung your leg over me, facing away, and leaned forward and took my cock in your mouth. The sight of you—your ass in the air, your mouth around me, your pussy inches from my face—was almost enough to finish me. But then I pulled your hips down and buried my face between your thighs and tasted you for the first time.

You were incredible. Sweet and musky and so wet that I was drowning in you. I licked through your folds, found your clit, sucked it gently while I fucked you with my tongue, and you moaned around my cock and the vibration shot through me like electricity. We moved together—your mouth on me, my mouth on you—and the room filled with the sounds of it, wet and obscene and perfect.

You came again, harder this time, your thighs shaking against my ears, and I followed you over the edge, my cock pulsing in your mouth, your throat working as you swallowed. You didn't stop, though. You kept going, your mouth soft and relentless, and I stayed hard and you climbed on top of me and sank down onto my cock and I was inside you for the first time.

You were hot and tight and so wet that I slid in to the hilt and we both groaned. You braced your hands on my chest and rode me, slow at first, then faster, your breasts swaying, your head thrown back, and I held your hips and thrust up into you and watched your face as you came again, your mouth open, my name on your lips.

I flipped you over and fucked you from behind, your ass pressed against my hips, my cock sliding deep, and the sound of our bodies was loud in the empty house—skin on skin, the wet slap of your pussy, your moans muffled by the pillow. I reached around and rubbed your clit while I fucked you and you came again, clenching around me, and I pulled out and came on your back, my cum striping your skin, and we collapsed together, breathless, sweating, shaking.

We didn't leave the bed for hours. We talked and touched and fucked again, slower this time, face to face, my cock buried deep inside you while you wrapped your legs around me and pulled me closer and whispered against my mouth.

"I love you," you said. "I know it's wrong. I know what people would say. But I love you."

"I love you too," I said. "I've loved you since before I had the words for it."

We lay tangled together as the afternoon light shifted through the yellow curtains. Your head was on my chest, your fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin, my arm around your shoulders holding you close. We talked about the drive-in, about James, about the way jealousy had felt like a knife in my chest. You told me about the guilt, the masturbation, the way you'd whispered my name into your pillow. I told you about mine.

"I'm not going back to him," you said. "I'm calling off the wedding."

"Susan—"

"I'm not. He wanted to own me. You—" You looked up at me. "You see me."

---

It was late Saturday afternoon. We'd been naked for almost twenty-four hours, emerging only for food and water and the occasional shower that always turned into something more. We were lying in your bed, my cock soft against your thigh, your pussy still swollen and tender from the afternoon, when we heard the front door open.

Nancy had a spare key. She'd had one since high school, since the summers she used to come over to swim in our pool, since she and you had become friends at Michigan State. We heard her footsteps in the hallway, heard her call your name, and then she was at the bedroom door.

It was ajar. She pushed it open.

I saw her face change. The casual greeting died on her lips. Her eyes moved over us—my bare body, your bare body, the way I held you, the possessive curl of my arm around your waist, the sheets tangled at our feet, the unmistakable smell of sex that filled the room.

Silence. Long and heavy.

"Susan?" Nancy's voice was quiet. Careful.

You pulled the sheet up to your chest, an instinctive gesture that felt almost absurd given everything. "Nancy, I—this isn't—"

"Don't," I said. I wasn't going to let you lie. Not to her, not to anyone. "Don't do that."

Nancy looked at me. Then back at you. "How long?"

"Awhile," you said. "It's been building for—God, Nancy, since before I came home. Maybe longer."

"And you're—" She gestured vaguely at us, at the bed, at the obvious. "You're together? Like, together together?"

"Yes," I said.

Another silence. Nancy leaned against the doorframe. She didn't leave. She didn't scream or cry or call us names. She stood there, processing, and I watched her face cycle through shock and confusion and something I couldn't quite read.

"Are you—" She stopped. Started again. "Are you happy? Both of you?"

"Yes," we said, almost in unison, and you reached for my hand under the sheet and I took it.

Nancy exhaled. She ran her fingers through her red hair and looked at the ceiling and then back at us.

"Well," she said. "Fuck."

She stood in the doorway a moment longer, and I couldn't tell if she was going to stay or go, if she was going to tell the world or keep our secret, if she was our friend or our judge. Then she walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, and you pulled the sheet up to cover yourself more fully and I sat up beside you.

"You're not going to tell anyone?" you asked.

"Who the hell would I tell?" Nancy said. "And what would I say? 'Hey, Mrs. Patterson, your son is banging his stepsister and they seem really into it'? That's not a conversation I'm equipped for."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. She looked at me with something that was almost a smile and shook her head.

"You're an idiot," she said. Then, to you: "You're an idiot too. But I've seen the way you look at him. I've seen it since the drive-in. I just didn't want to believe it."

You reached out and took Nancy's hand. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"Yeah, you should have." She squeezed your hand. "So what now? He's leaving for college in August. You're calling off a wedding. You're—what, exactly?"

You looked at me. I looked at you. There wasn't a clean answer, and we both knew it.

"We're figuring it out," I said.

Nancy was quiet for a long moment. Then she looked at you with an expression that was complicated and layered and something I couldn't fully decode.

"Okay," she said. "Then we figure it out. All of us." She paused, and something shifted in her eyes—something that made you glance at her sharply, something that carried a weight I didn't understand yet. "But Susan, you should probably know—he's not going to be the only one who's all in on this."

You frowned. "What do you mean?"

Nancy didn't answer right away. She looked at me, then at you, then at our joined hands, and her smile was small and crooked and full of things she wasn't saying.

"I mean we should talk," she said. "The three of us. About what 'figuring it out' actually looks like."

You sat up straighter, the sheet slipping to your waist, and I watched understanding dawn on your face—slowly, then all at once. Nancy watched it too, and her cheeks flushed, and the room felt different suddenly, charged in a new way.

"Nancy," you said carefully. "Are you saying—"

"I'm saying we should talk," Nancy repeated. "That's all I'm saying." She stood up and smoothed her jeans and headed for the door, and at the threshold she turned back. "Tuesday. My place. Seven o'clock. Bring wine and your idiot brother and whatever explanation you think is going to make this make sense."

She left. We heard the front door close, heard her car start, heard the silence settle back over the house.

You turned to me. Your eyes were wide, your lips slightly parted, and I could see your mind working, could see you turning Nancy's words over and finding new meanings in them.

"She wants in," you said. Not a question.

"I think so."

You looked at the doorway where Nancy had stood. Then you looked at me, and your expression was something I'd never seen before—surprised, intrigued, and, beneath it all, hungry.

"Tuesday," you said. "That gives us the rest of the weekend."

I pulled you back down against me. "It does."

"Then we should practice," you said, and your hand found my cock and I stopped thinking about Nancy and Tuesdays and anything at all except the heat of your mouth and the wet grip of your body and the way you said my name when you came.

We had the rest of the weekend. We had Tuesday. We had a future that was tangled and complicated and nobody's business but ours.

And for the first time all summer, neither of us felt guilty about a single thing.