In The Grace of Liars

I leaned against the wall, stroking myself as I watched her, my own orgasm building as my hand pumped my cock. It was too much. My head started swimming as I got closer and closer to orgasm and somehow, even though I was leaning on the wall for support, I lost my balance and had to step forward hard to keep from falling on the floor in her bedroom doorway.

I just knew I had to be caught. My blood turned ice cold in my veins and my knees went to jelly as my body was flooded with adrenaline. My heart beat was loud in my ears, thudding away. Now standing partially in the doorway, I looked up to Andi's bed, already preparing a long string of apologies and excuses in my head. But as I was about to let loose with the preamble to my hastily conjured justification, I noticed that Andi herself hadn't moved. Her eyes remained closed and that pink phallus continued on it's alternating up and down course through the folds of her glistening sex.

I quickly stepped back behind the door frame and breathed a deep, if painfully slow and quiet sigh of relief. My erection was gone -- adrenaline having trumped testosterone in the first few milliseconds of my misstep.

No longer fueled by lust, my logical mind took over. What would have happened if she had caught me? There was a small part of me that suspected she might not have been angry. She had made no secret about wanting to be with me and obviously didn't have the same scruples that I did about the fact that we were cousins. But there was another, larger part of me that knew that I had stepped over a line -- not just sexually, but ethically as well. I had spied on my cousin during what should have been a private moment. Worse than that, she wasn't just my cousin but my best friend as well, and I had betrayed her trust on a very fundamental level.

From the hallway I could no longer see Andi but I could hear the vibrator buzzing, the pitch of it changing in time with her movements. Her pace was increasing and I could barely hear the faint but unmistakable sound of Andi moaning as she approached an orgasm.

Disgusted with myself, I suddenly found that I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to hear Andi finish and I didn't want to rack up any more guilt than I already had. I still had to look Andi in the face the next morning and what was worse -- I still had to look at myself in the mirror. As silently as I had come up the stairs, I made my way back down them and finally back to my bedroom. I closed the door quietly and lay down in my bed, wrapping a pillow around my ears to mute the faint but still audible buzzing sound of Andi's vibrator.

Eventually, I drifted off into a fitful and uneasy slumber.

###

I dreamed that night. I tell you this not because I thought it odd to dream of my mother, but because I thought it odd that I dreamed at all. See, I don't usually dream. There have been very few times in my adult life that I've had a dream. I remember them all very clearly when I remember anything at all, and to this day can recount to the finest detail every dream that I've had since I was a teenager. This one remains one of my most vivid, perhaps because it draws on a memory of my childhood that up to that point remained buried in my subconscious.

It was a clear and beautiful day at the camp. I was young. Very young, probably a little over two years old. I know that because Aunt Janice sat in a rocking chair on the porch with a baby bottle in her hand and a very tiny bundle of Andi in her arms. She rocked and cooed and smiled wide at her as I looked on in wonder at the tiny baby cuddled against her chest. I bounced and played and ran around my mother who was busy planting the shrubs that now encircled the house. She dug into the dirt with a small shovel as Uncle Dave pulled the still young potted plants out of the back of his truck, hauling them over to her as she made a hole large enough to fit them.

My Aunt Janice looked over at my mother as she worked and spoke. "Tell me again, what are they called Terri?" she asked.

"Well it's a little muddled to be honest. The lady at the nursery called these 'Heather' but the first place I saw them was at the hospital where Chris was born." Mom grunted as she lifted a shovel full of dirt out of the hole she was digging. "There was an old man working their flower beds and planting these. I was so taken by how pretty they were, I just had to ask about them. He called them 'Erica'. I thought that fitting as they are so pretty when they bloom."

Janice smiled as here eyes watered. "Thank you so much Terri. This is so thoughtful. They are going to be beautiful."

My mother responded with a smile as she continued her work. Uncle Dave walked up behind her as she dug and placed another plant on the ground behind her.

"That one's off center," he said, gesturing to the hole she was digging.

Mom wiped sweat from her brow and then pointed a gloved finger at him, "Listen buster, when you're over here digging holes you can be as critical as you want but until then you just keep your trap shut."

Uncle Dave shot her a toothy smile and made a playful salute, "Yes ma'am!"

I looked over to where Mom was digging. Uncle Dave was right. She was about six inches off center.

As is often the way of things within a dream, reality fractured and I felt myself at the same time very small in that two year old body and also very tall as if I was fully grown. The odd duality of sensations didn't bother me, in fact it felt quite natural and I realized all at once that I wasn't confined by the limitations of a two year old child.

Neither my mother, my aunt, nor my uncle seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary when I easily navigated the steps leading up to the porch. Nor did they seem to notice when I turned the door knob on the front door and walked inside.

There, on the couch -- the same couch that I slept on just a few nights ago, lay my father, watching TV and drifting in and out of an afternoon nap. Aunt Marjorie stood at the island in the kitchen chopping an onion, no doubt in preparation of either lunch or dinner.

They were all so young and seemed to be vibrant and alive and most of all... happy. Every one was relaxed and enjoying the day in their own way. It struck me what a contrast that was to how things were now. The camp had been let go and fallen into the early stages of disrepair. My Aunt Marjorie was so quick to clam up and seemed to hold on to a quiet sadness inside of her. Aunt Janice, from what Andi told me was always in a bad mood, and of course my parents were no longer with us. But here they all were in another time, with a different view on the world that gave the place an air of peaceful contentment -- as if everything was just as it should be.

And then I noticed something something particularly odd. As Aunt Marjorie stood at the island in the kitchen chopping her onion, she began to glow. That's really not a good word for it -- she didn't radiate any light per-say but a haziness coalesced around her form. To say that the haze had a color would be another misstatement but to this day it's as close to an explanation as I can offer. It wasn't so much a color as it was the presence of attribute. A quality, words for which I've never found. For simplicity's sake, I'll just say that her haze was blue.

Looking back to my father, I noticed that he too had his own haze -- one that was distinctly different from Aunt M. In keeping with my color analogy, I'll say that his haze was more brown -- more earthy.

Intrigued by this discovery, I decided to go outside and see what color Mom and Aunt Janice were. When I got outside, I saw Mom first. She was the same blue as Aunt M. Likewise with Aunt Janice -- blue. Uncle Dave had a greenish hue, very different from the blue and brown that I'd seen already. Peeking into Aunt Janice's arms I spied Andi and noticed that her color, like her father, was different from everyone else. Her haze was a fuzzy light pink.

Then an idea occurred to me. I turned and ran back inside, brushing past my father and my Aunt to the bathroom. My objective was the mirror that hung over the sink but when I got there I found that I all of the sudden couldn't see over the edge of the sink! Even though I felt tall I couldn't even reach the knobs on the faucet! Had I not been so determined to see my reflection and find out if I had a haze like everyone else, I might have been upset. Instead, I turned around and ran as fast as I could out of the house and toward the lake.

As I closed on the pier, I could hear my mother calling out to me to stop. I couldn't see, but I knew she and Uncle Dave were running after me. I wouldn't be deterred though. My short/long legs carried me as fast as they could across the wooden planks of the boat landing and I reached the end just as Mom and Uncle Dave reached me. They were yelling hysterically, apparently afraid that I would jump into the water. I wanted to tell them that I only wanted to see my reflection but my two year old mouth couldn't make the words. I made it though. Just as I felt hands closing on my arms, I lurched forward and looked down at the water. The reflection in the water looked back from a muted aquamarine haze that I hadn't seen on anyone else.

No sooner had I seen my reflection, I felt my mothers hands pulling me away from the edge of the pier. She turned me to face her and pulled me into a hug so tight, it momentarily cut off my breathing. When she released me, she held me a half arms length from her and with tears in her eyes said, "You can't do this, Chris! You scared mommy."

I looked at my mothers face, at once contorted in fear and softened with the relief that she must have felt holding me in her arms. Tears spilled down her cheeks and my heart sank, knowing that I had caused her to be so afraid. I was having trouble now keeping control of my body. I was willing it to do one thing but the younger me wanted something else. With the last bit of energy that I could muster and with all the willpower I had left, I just barely managed to form the words, "I love you, Mom."

The look of shock on her face was the last thing that I remember before I woke up, soaked in sweat and panting as if I had physically made that run from the house to the edge of the pier.

###

I was tired from the harrowing dream -- exhausted in fact but try as I might, I couldn't fall asleep again. It was early morning and the sun was just edging it's way over the horizon. I sat at the island in the kitchen and sipped coffee, turning over each element, each detail of my dream in my head. I examined each piece carefully and tried to give it some kind of context.

By the time the sun was all the way over the horizon I had downed two cups of coffee and was getting a bit fidgety as I worked on my third. I walked out the front door and through the grass that was wet and heavy with the morning dew to the pier. Casually I walked, cup in hand to the end of the landing and peered down into the water, much like I had done in my dream. The reflection that looked back at me now was void of any fuzzy haze like I had seen in my dream. Instead of a two year old face looking back at me from the shiny surface, my twenty three year old, unshaven and tired reflection returned my weary gaze.

I poured the remainder of my coffee into the water, obliterating the reflection in a million liquid facets and turned to return to the house. As I neared the porch I noticed the shrubs around the perimeter. These were the shrubs that my mother was planting in my dream. Had she really planted them? Was it just a dream? Then I recalled the exchange between my mother and Uncle Dave.

"This is stupid," I said to myself out loud as I walked over to the side of the porch where I had seen my mother digging holes. Had I not already poured my coffee out, I surely would have dropped my cup as I spied the shrub. It was the third one from the porch on the left side of the house and it was about six inches off-center.

So it wasn't just a dream. There was something to it. I was too tired and too haggard to consider what the implications were for that. What had the colors meant? Why that memory? Of everything I could remember, what was so special about that day?

I went back inside and collapsed on the couch. In spite of the caffeine and the questions in my mind, sleep found me again. I slept hard and I slept long and this time, I didn't dream.

###

I awoke to the sound of cursing and a loud metallic clang. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I looked around the living room, and then back to the kitchen but couldn't locate the source of the noise. After more cursing I figured out that it was Andi that I was hearing and that she wasn't in the house. I shuffled to front door and out onto the porch.

The hood was raised on Andi's old, white Toyota and she was bent over the engine compartment fiddling with something. Her long legs were bare up to her thighs and her shorts rode up on her magnificent ass as she leaned over her work. Another clang and another curse and she stood upright cradling her hand to her chest with a pained look on her face.

"Something wrong?" I asked, startling her.

"Damnit, Chris! Make some noise next time! You scared the hell out of me!"

I couldn't help but laugh at that as I walked over to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

She backhanded my arm with her good hand. "Well stop sneaking around and you won't," she said.

The color drained away from my face as I recalled the events of the night before. Surely she hadn't seen me? She would have said something.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"Huh?" I returned, confused.

"You look, weird. Pale," she said.

"Yeah, I'm good. What's up with your car?"

"It died. The mechanic said this would happen if I didn't have some work done to it. I didn't have the money so I didn't get the work done. Who'd have thought he was telling the truth?"

"Your hand OK?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I was just going to run to the store for a few groceries and now... this," she waved her hand at the car.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked.

"More than my guy can fix for the price of another car. Fuck. When it rains it pours," she tossed the wrench that was in her hand on the top of the radiator.

"Wanna take the Jeep?"

Andi looked at me with that innocently pleading look that she wore so well. "Really?"

"Yeah, I'm hungry. Bring me back some breakfast," I said.

"Lunch," she replied.

"You gonna be gone that long?" I asked.

"It's after noon, Chris. You slept through the morning."

"Oh." I hadn't figured that. "I guess I was tired."

"Why'd you sleep on the couch? You get lost in the middle of the night?" she asked.

"Nah. Bad dream."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No. But food would be good."

"Got it. Keys. Jeep. Food."

###

After Andi left, I set to work. We couldn't be stuck with one car. She would be going back to school in a few weeks and I still had to be able to get places while she was gone. I opened the garage door and put Mom's BMW in neutral. It wouldn't budge. The tires were too low on air. Digging through the various junk in the garage, I located an old foot action air pump and aired the tires back up. The wheel bearings squeaked in protest as I pushed it out of the garage where it had been sitting for the last six years.

I found a plastic tube and siphoned off the old gas. It wouldn't burn well as old as it was and had to be replaced. A couple of gallons of the gas that was in Andi's Toyota did the trick. I swapped the batteries in the two cars as Andi's battery had a full charge and after some coaxing and a few false starts, the BMW roared to life.

I quickly wiped the windshield down and drove the car about a mile down the road, turning around when I was satisfied that it was in running order. Even after sitting for six years the car drove like a dream. It had a smooth ride and all the functions worked. It was as responsive as a brand new car. Even the air conditioner blew cold. I checked the odometer to find that the coupe had less than ten thousand miles on it. Having been closed up in the garage, the leather was still soft and supple. I would still need to get it checked out by a mechanic, not to mention the expired brake tag and registration, but those were minor details. The important thing was that Andi and I again had two vehicles and I don't mind telling you that in the space of that short test drive, I had fallen in love with that fine machine.

I pulled the black coupe back into the driveway and set to my next task -- washing the beast. I wanted to surprise Andi when she got back. I wouldn't be able to get a coat of wax on it but I sure could knock off the thick layer of dust and make it shiny again. That's what I thought anyway. Just as I started unraveling the water hose Andi pulled up in the Jeep.

She stepped out, grocery bags in hand as she looked on in wonder. "No way! It runs?" she asked.

"It took some doing but I got it to start," I smiled, proud of my new toy.

"Chris, that's incredible!"

"Wanna help me wash it?" I asked.

"I thought you were hungry."

In my excitement I had forgotten about my empty stomach. She was right though. I had already been hard at work and my own personal gas tank was running on E. "Yeah, good idea."

Andi and I settled at the island and munched on a light lunch of sandwiches and chips from the deli in town.

"So what got in to you?" she asked, between bites of her ham and swiss.

"What do you mean?"

"Your Mom's car? You haven't given it a second glance since we found it."

"You need wheels to get to school, right?" I asked.

Andi hesitated and then her eyes grew wide. I could see the excitement in her face as she asked, "Can I take the Beamer?"

That made me laugh. "You wish! You can take my Jeep though."

She threw a chip at me. "You ass. You had me all excited. Can I at least take it for a spin? I've never driven a BMW before."

"Depends," I said, drawing out the tension. For once enjoying that I had something she wanted instead of the other way around.

"On?"

"You gonna help me wash it?"

"I was going to do that anyway!"

"Well it's a deal then," I said.

She smirked at me and said, "You're such a tease."

Now it was my turn feign outrage, "ME?! I'm a tease?"

We finished lunch and set to work washing the BMW. Andi was in a playful mood and as you can imagine, before long we were both soaked to the bone and my face was actually starting to cramp from all the laughing. Again, I found myself unable to keep my eyes off Andi. She was soaked through, just as I was and her clothes clung to her body accentuating her well formed breasts, the graceful curve of her hip, the way her shoulders led into her delicate neck. Her wet hair fell forward and framed her face in a way that spoke of both innocent beauty and mischievous intentions -- a dichotomy that even today I find very alluring. It wasn't just her body that had me captivated though. It was her smile, her laugh, her playfulness; it was Andi pure and simple. The essence of this woman who had been such a trusted friend for so many years could be captured in a smile, a look, a subtle gesture or posture that called out to me like a siren.

I was walking dangerously close to an edge that I had on numerous occasions steered myself away from. That day though, I couldn't help myself. Andi's laugh was infectious and when she smiled, she did so with her whole being -- drawing me in and making me wish that she would never, ever stop smiling.

The car was almost done and I really did want to get a coat of wax on it but leaving it to drip dry wouldn't do. I put my thoughts of Andi on hold long enough to drop my rag and head to the house to get some towels.

"Where are you going?" Andi called.

"Towels. You've got me soaked."