Jen's Little Brother

I fucked her mother again after my daughter had finished feeding.

The Past -- Growing up together

So, when did it start you might ask. How is it that a nineteen year old teenage boy became the lover of his five years older sister? Why did a happily married bride let her brother impregnate her?

Or did it start before she'd married? Well...

There is a picture on the first page of one of our old family albums, the album in fact that my parents started on the day I was born, that shows a little girl, all dressed up in her finest dress, sitting in a chair in a hospital room and holding a baby in her arms.

Yes it was Jennifer and I! It was our first meeting. And looking at Jen's eyes in the picture it's clear even all these years later that it was love at first sight. A bond had been formed. What culminated eighteen years later started that very first day.

My mother has a hundred stories she tells about those early days. Amusing stories about Jen and me and the special relationship we had from day one. And there are the pictures from those first weeks and months. An endless series of shots. Jen changing my diapers. Holding me. Kissing me. An album full of them.

And mom always embarrasses Jen when she brings up the famous 'milk' story.

"I did not," sis always declaims when mom describes how her five year old daughter tried to emulate her mother and feed me. How mother had come into my room one day and found Jen holding baby Jimmy to her breast.

"He's hungry," the little girl had told her mother. Mom had started smiling. And then had told her daughter that someday she'd have her own baby to feed. Mom just didn't know then that it would still be me who'd be looking for Jen's milk!

In many ways I had two moms growing up. Certainly in the first six years or so of my existence. I followed Jen everywhere. She doted on me. I reciprocated by giving her my unconditional love.

Jennifer walked me to school on my first day of kindergarten. While holding onto my hand and giving me advice all the way. This after she'd tied my shoe laces and combed my hair before we'd left. She was waiting outside the schoolroom door when the bell rang at 11:45.

I combed my sister's hair for the first time on her eleventh birthday. May 5th 1999. Officially combed it I mean. Jennifer has beautiful hair! Always had. Even in the first picture of us together on the day I was born you can't miss the then four and a half year old girl's wondrous tresses. Rich, thick flowing hair that curled over her shoulders and then halfway down her back. Hair that literally danced with every step she took.

My mother had suggested the gift when I'd asked her what she thought I should get Jen for her birthday that year. "Her old hair brush is almost finished, she'll need a new one soon," mom had answered. So the two of us had gone out shopping for a new one. Mom figured we'd just get Jen one of those three dollar plastic ones.

First we'd gone to the local pharmacy. I wasn't impressed by the selection. "But honey," mom had said with a sigh as we'd stood in the hall lifting up brush after brush, "it's just a brush. Jen's only eleven."

"These aren't good enough for her," I'd answered, then asked her where you bought the best hair brushes in the world. Mom had laughed. But then, after minutes of begging on my part, she had led me to her hairdresser's salon down the block.

"I want to know who makes the best hair brush in the world and where can I get one?" I announced to the bemused owner after mom had introduced me.

"Mason Pearson brushes are the very best but they're very expensive young man," Matilda the owner had replied as she'd patted me on the head while smiling over it at mom. "But I've got some nicer ones that are cheaper," she offered. She didn't know me!

In the end I bought a Mason Pearson one. A long, ivory handled brush with the finest blend of boar bristle and nylon and especially designed for young girls with long hair like Jens, it cost me ninety-one dollars! It emptied out nearly every cent of my savings account, an account that had been laboriously built over the years with birthday and Christmas gift money from grandparents and aunts and uncles. But looking back now I can honestly say that I've never received as much pleasure and return from any item I've ever bought since.

"Ohhh my gawd!" I was engulfed in my sister's hug. "I love it. Love you," my sister squealed the second she'd opened my brightly wrapped birthday gift. Her hug made my day. The money I'd spent was immediately repaid. But it was just the first installment.

****

"Is it okay?" I was peering in through her doorway. It was hours later. The birthday party was long over. Jen was sitting at her vanity. Facing the mirror. I'd watched three or four strokes of the new brush before I'd said a word.

It was a ritual I'd seen Jen perform many times before. However I'd always been an observer, never a participant. Jen caught my eyes in the mirror. "It's perfect. Would you like to try?" she invited, then spun her chair around and offered me the brush.

"I wouldn't know what to do," I said nervously even as my fingers accepted the brush.

"Then it's time you learned. Now that I'm eleven I'm going to need someone to help me with my hair. It's a big job you know."

I tentatively ran the brush slowly through the bottom of her long mane. "Longer strokes, from the top," Jen instructed as she reached back and guided my hand.

"I don't want to hurt you," I answered without taking my eyes off the brush. I took a few more tentative strokes. "Was that okay?" I asked as I lifted my head and found Jen's eyes in the mirror. "The lady at the store said it was the very best brush you can buy," I said as I resumed combing.

"You're my very, very favorite brother you know."

I looked up again. Jen was smiling. "I'm your only brother."

"I love you." I blushed. Then continued combing.

"Does that mean you'll marry me some day?' I finally asked shyly.

"You know maybe I will," Jen answered. Jen was eleven that day. I was six and a half years old. I can remember that night as if it was yesterday.

****

The hair combing became something of a routine for the two of us after that night. I didn't do it every night of course but at least once every week or ten days I'd end up in her bedroom combing her hair. And as I did we talked. About everything and nothing. Secrets. Our lives. We developed an intimacy in our conversations extraordinary for two siblings so far apart in age. Somehow the act of combing allowed us to transcend the incongruity of our words.

My father and my mother separated that year. And the night we were told I spent half the night brushing my sister's hair. At various times that night both of us had tears on our cheeks. I'd comfort her and then seconds later I'd start sobbing. Then she'd comfort me.

At the time both Jen and I blamed dad. He'd left us. For another woman. Deserted mom. Deserted Jen. Now, at nineteen, I have a somewhat different view of my father. I'd refused at first, as had Jen, of having anything to do with him. But slowly over the years we've reestablished contact and if I don't even now have total respect for him I do love him in the ways every son loves his father. Seeing him in the stands cheering me on at my various ball games, talking to me afterwards with his hand around my shoulder, tossing the ball with me on a Sunday morning had slowly chipped away at my hostility. And mom, understanding the needs of young boys had not only allowed it but had somewhat encouraged it.

But while I had allowed him into my life Jen never had during her high school years. Any rapprochement would have to wait until she was much older.

****

Of course I must have become a real pest to Jen at some point or another. All boys are. And I'd been a typical nine and ten and eleven year old boy. Wild, rambunctious, always getting into trouble ... a hellraiser ... a continual trial for both my mother and Jen. Except somehow I never was for sis. And I can't remember her ever getting really angry at me. The hair brushing bull sessions seemed to always ease away any and every problem between us.

I was almost twelve, in Middle School, and Jen was sixteen years old and a High School sophomore when perhaps one of the most important events in our relationship occurred. It was the first precursor of what was eventually to come. Not that we knew it at the time. It was a Friday night. Relatively late -- I was already in bed and had been asleep. I awoke, my sleep interrupted by a door opening and closing loudly.

And it was only because I'd had to pee upon awakening that I heard her. Jen. Crying. I heard the sobs as I started to walk back towards my bedroom from the can.

"Jen?" Whispered after a gentle tap.

"Go away," came back. A hissed order.

Of course I opened the door anyway. No one, and I mean no one was going to make my sister cry without me finding out why.

"What is it? What happened," I asked as I penetrated the gloom of her darkened room.

"I'm okay," whispered back. I flicked on the bedside lamp. Tears were cascading down Jen's cheeks. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She didn't say anything for about twenty minutes. Somehow, even at that age, I knew enough to not say a word. I just held her.

"I'm okay," she finally said as she wiped the tears off her cheeks. I gave her the quick 'are you sure' look.

"Promise... and thanks," she said softly, then gave me a hug and quick kiss on the cheek. I was being dismissed. Nicely of course but still dismissed.

"You know I could comb your hair," I offered as I stood tentatively between her bed and the door. I instinctively sensed that I should stay.

"You're crazy!" Said with a giggle. "You should be in bed." I walked over to her dresser and picked up the famous brush. It was starting to show its age but so far Jen had been adamant that she wasn't quite ready for a change just yet. I'd already decided that I was going to give her a replacement as a Christmas present.

"C'mon, your hair looks awful," I teased. A clear invitation was in my eyes.

"It does not. And it's late. I should be going to sleep..." Jen said but I knew she didn't want me to leave. And she knew I knew. "Just fifty," she finally conceded as she hopped off the bed and sat down in the chair that faced her mirror. She couldn't hide the little grin from me as I checked her out in the mirror.

I gave my sister a hell of a lot more than fifty strokes of the hairbrush that night. In fact it was only after I'd administered well over that number before she finally started to talk. And for the whole time she talked, as she told me her story, she watched me in the mirror.

In fact, looking back now, nothing really, really bad had happened to her that night. Between boyfriends at the time she'd been picked on by a group of boys at a party. A group led and egged on by the class bully, a certain Darren Robinson.

They'd been mean to her, called her names and such, and Jen had been vulnerable. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend. They were just making fun of her in a typical sixteen year old male way. But she'd been hurt!

"They said I was skinny. That I have no breasts. That my hair makes me look like a witch."

For me I didn't care very much about their calling her skinny but insulting Jen's hair? That was a fighting matter. "He'll never do that again, I am going to kick his butt," I promised as I ran the brush through her hair.

"You are not," she ordered. But she couldn't miss the grim determination in my eyes. "What are you going to do?" Jen asked. We were still watching each other in the mirror. "You're too young!" She knew I was capable of some pretty irrational responses when angered.

"It's a man thing," I answered, a statement that issued from the lips of an eleven and a half year old boy! I wasn't sure what I was going to do as I continued to comb my sister's hair, just that I was going to do something.

"Don't you dare," she forbade, "he's three times your size." Well he wasn't three times my size but he did play on the football team and did outweigh me by fifty pounds.

But I was scrappy! I'd always been a bit of a bulldog when it came to getting my way. However, when I finally did corner Darren out by the high school football field at four thirty the next afternoon I did momentarily ask myself what the hell was I getting myself into. Then I launched myself at him. I was screaming 'BASTARD' when my shoulder plowed into his stomach.

He could have killed me! Easily. And I think in a way that by the time we were finished he wished he had. But we'd been surrounded by twenty or thirty people when my attack had commenced. Both boys and girls. All his age. His peers.

And even he realized that hauling off and clocking an eleven year old would not make him look very good. So I just started flailing away. Everyone, including Darren, was amused at first and laughed at my attack. Darren fended me off without inflicting much damage on me. At first.

But if some little kid keeps attacking you, if he refuses to stop no matter what you say, and if meanwhile all your friends are yelling out mocking words, a couple of things happen. First, even a hundred and fifteen pound kid can inflict some damage if he keeps on swinging and kicking at you. Which I did on Darren.

And second, the big kid finally starts to get really pissed off. Which Darren did. Remember this guy was a sixteen year old, testosterone filled bully. He finally got fed up and knocked me down with a pretty good uppercut to my nose. I jumped back up. The crowd was clearly uneasy as they watched the blood falling from my nose.

"She's the nicest sister in the world," I yelled as I again launched myself through the air.

"You little prick," the now royally pissed off Darren hissed as he put me in a headlock and then swung me around.

"Christ Darren, don't!" I heard come from the crowd as I was tossed to the ground a second time.

"The little bastard deserves it," he screamed, all sanity now gone from his brain. Then he delivered a boot to my ribs.

"Ohhh my god!" A cry issued from at least three or four female voices. A second boot was delivered before three of his buddies finally pulled him back from me.

At about that exact second my sister appeared. She'd been running. Apparently cell phoned by one of the spectators. Sis was not happy! The slap that she delivered to Darren's cheek rang out like a gunshot across the schoolyard. A second later she was kneeling at my side. She helped me to my feet. Then she flashed death ray eyes at poor Darren. "If he's hurt I'm going to--" Jen didn't finish her threat. Instead she turned to me and took my hand, and said, "We're going home."

"You don't want me to finish him off?" I asked. Blood was trickling from my nose. My shirt was ripped. My knees were scraped and bleeding.

"I should let you," Jen announced to the watching, silent crowd. "But he's not worth it," she added as she looked disdainfully at her tormentor, then turned, and with her hand still holding mine, marched off.

We exited the stage triumphant! Darren of course never recovered his status at the school. The story of 'Jen's brother' and his defense of his sister became legendary. And not just in the high school. Within a week just about every one of my female classmates came up and congratulated me. Patted me on the back. If only I'd been thirteen or fourteen I could have translated all that goodwill into kisses and hugs. Unfortunately I was only eleven and sex hadn't yet arrived in my body.

****

"What happened to your brother?" mom demanded when she burst into the kitchen and came upon Jen tending my wounds at the kitchen table. "If you've been fighting young man you're going--"

"He was a hero," Jen interrupted and then proceeded to tell the story of her gallant knight. Mom hugged me. I was able to get away with just about everything I tried for the next six months or so!

****

Life went on.

A year or so later Jen took me aside and told me about the birds and the bees.

I'd just been going about my business of combing her hair. "What do you know about girls?" she'd started.

"Girls?"

"Sex," then she added, "getting girls pregnant."

Pregnant? Truth be told I had been going through puberty at the time. My buddies and I had had whispered conversations but most of what I'd gleaned up to that night had been hearsay and in retrospect relatively unreliable.

Over the next hour Jen remedied my lack of knowledge. In great detail. Then fielded every question I threw at her. A month later, dad, still separated from mom and living across town with a new girlfriend, decided he should fill me in on the whole girl/boy thing. He wasn't very good at it. We were both embarrassed. The session went poorly. Luckily, due to Jen's talk, I didn't have to rely on what dad told me that day.

A month later mom figured she'd better fill me in on girls. Give me their perspective. She was definitely better at it than dad had been but still not in Jen's league.

****

At thirteen, still a middle schooler, I was allowed to go to my first 'official' mixed party. Jen prepared me for it. Gave me pointers. Told me what to wear. Gave me advice on what to say. Then, when I got home just after midnight, it was she, not mom, who debriefed me while I combed her hair.

And from that night on I told her everything. About my interactions with girls I mean. What I'd felt. What I'd wanted to do. What I'd done. I asked for advice. She gave it. There was no shyness between us as we talked.

And to some extent, perhaps less so at the start, she reciprocated. Told me her feelings. Who she liked. What she and her boyfriend's did. I learned about women. I had a huge leg up in the whole boy/girl dating game.

And eventually we both got to know each other's secret thoughts. Our secret desires.

****

Of course Jen broke my heart when she went off to University.

"Who's going to comb your hair?" I asked as mom and I prepared to leave her and go home. We'd just driven her the hundred and fifty miles up to her new college. But Jen knew I wasn't just worried about her hair.

She hugged me. Whispered "I love you so much" in my ear. "And you'd better phone me every day," my sister instructed when she finally released me.

"Every day?" I tried to make it sound like that would be an impossible imposition to put on a fourteen year old. Jen knew better! I was a high school freshman, she a college one. I got the first text from her before mom and I had driven fifty miles.

"i miss you already!"

"IT'S NOT FAIR," I texted back.

Of course we had Thanksgivings and Christmases and Spring Breaks together over the following years. And of course the almost continuous flow of emails and texts that allowed the two of us to follow each other's daily life.

During the Christmas break of her freshman year she told me about the night she'd lost her virginity. To a sophomore from Chicago. Of Greek parentage. He had dark hair and was one of those guys whom had to shave twice a day. Apparently his hirsute appearance had been his main drawing card. She hadn't really enjoyed it as much as she'd hoped. Or so she explained. And as she'd described the whole experience to me in excruciating detail it had taken all of my self control to hide the anguish that was coursing through my body. I'd just turned fifteen.

Jen's story put me off Greeks forever. How dare the bastard?

****

During the summer after my freshman year in high school, when I was fifteen and a half, with her back home from school, Jen taught me to dance. "Most boys are terrible dancers, god, you should see some of the spaz's at school," she announced one night while I brushed her hair. "So someone better teach you before it's too late."