Looking Glass Rose

Finishing up, she returned to her car, and he followed, mumbling thanks. She leaned across her seat and asked suddenly if he wanted to grab a burger. He waited a moment. She watched him closely. As he leaned at the window, he seemed to vibrate with energy, she thought - although nothing moved. Lauren realized she herself was a little excited; this was the first time they'd spent together in... Who knows how long?

They dropped off his car at the house and she drove to a place on a cliff above the coast. Once in, seated, ordered and facing each other over Formica, the words began to choke off again. Out of the blue, to break the tension, she asked him if she should cut her hair. He chuckled and shook his head.

"I'd like us to be close again, Jepp," Lauren said. "We're almost adults."

This time he nodded. "I've wondered how we ever got so far away." Seeing discomfort in her, that she recognized her own part in pulling away, he said, "It's complicated. Maybe we were too close as kids. Maybe it's because of what happened then, being twins, all the hassle."

"We couldn't be TOO close, Jepp. There's no way that could happen," she said emphatically.

For a split second, he thought she was about to cry. Jepp wanted to tell her how he felt. It occurred to him to tell her, right then that he sometimes felt about her in ways he shouldn't. He never could admit that to himself before, much less her. Of that, he dared not speak. She looked at him with sympathetic eyes, searching in him for something she could heal, comfort.

"It's complicated." he repeated, shrugging. He knew he must've looked pretty uneasy, and was relieved when his cell phone rang to take him outside. Through the glass, Lauren could see him leaning forward when he spoke, punching the air with his forefinger. Every movement was fired with angry tension. She knew he was having an argument. And she knew it was with Dena.

After awhile, he steamed back inside.

"Jepp, if you need to go, I'm fine," she said soothingly. "Are you OK?"

"Don't feel sorry for me," he suddenly shot at her.

Lauren felt anger rush to her face in a flush. She was furious, not so much at his assumption of her pity as his expectation of it, that he saw himself as pitiable to anyone. More than anything else, she wanted to kick him in the ass and tell him he could do anything he wanted, anything he set his mind to do. Lauren felt she saw promise there that was invisible to him, but he sounded like a hopeless cause.

"I don't feel sorry for you, Jepp," she said, her eyes cold now.

"I'm not you."

"Oh, I know that. You don't have time for hokey stuff like getting an education and earning a good living. You're an artist. ...Very romantic. Who's the blueprint this week? Leonard Cohen? Want to live in a garret in Paris with rats?"

"I don't have to live on Wall Street with Citibank and thieves. I don't need to be a winner and grind everyone else to powder."

"You don't have to hurt people to achieve something for yourself, Jepp."

"You sound like mom."

"I knew you were angry." she said, sitting back in the booth. "You're angry at everything. Mom's right, you're lazy and this was a mistake."

Lauren threw down her napkin and got up to leave. He suddenly reached out and took her hand. The contact startled both of them.

"Wait."

"Would you rather I went back to stone? ...To ignoring you?"

Jepp shook his head.

"Sit down a moment, sis," he said quietly. "Please. People are looking."

Lauren sat again, her eyes darting around the room. "I don't care who's looking," she lied.

A waitress approached. "Can I get you folks anything?"

"We're fine," Jepp said quickly. Lauren covered her eyes. It was all she could to keep from biting someone's head off.

"Lovers' quarrel?" the waitress asked with maternal friendliness.

"No!" Lauren and Jepp practically yelled, in perfect unison, enough for the waitress to jump back in surprise.

Lauren rose quickly. "I'm sorry," she said. "We've just gotten some bad news. We didn't mean to shout."

The waitress nodded in uncertain acknowledgement and walked away. Lauren and Jepp looked at each other and burst into laughter. Then Lauren reached out and squeezed his hand.

"I don't feel sorry for you, Jepp. I think you beat yourself up a lot. This is going to sound like bullshit, but I'm very proud to have you as a brother."

Although his first inclination was to wave off this kind of testimonial, when he looked up her expression stopped him. Lauren peered intently at him. Jepp looked down at her hand as it gripped his.

"Thanks, sis, I mean that." He looked down again. Jepp snatched the bill and they walked to her car. On the way home that night, Lauren thought she saw tears on his face in the oncoming car lights. When she turned into the driveway, and they got out, she expected Jepp to leave in his car and patch up the quarrel with Dena. And everything else they do when they're together. Instead, he followed her to the door.

"I thought you were going somewhere."

"Where?"

"I'm sorry, Jepp. I just assumed that was Dena on the phone."

"I told her I wouldn't be able to see her tonight."

"She was angry. So were you," Lauren said, and when he looked puzzled she added. "I saw you through the window. I know a telefight when I see one."

"Yeah. She'll get over it. It's OK."

They went inside and watched a crummy horror movie together, Jepp's running commentary was more fun than lines the absurd script put in unfortunate actors' mouths. Absently, as they munched popcorn and laughed, they snuggled together. The polished knobs of Lauren's knees were upright just below their view, then they were bent against Jepp, and occasionally found their way into his lap. Jepp stifled the electricity that ran through him every time they did, and both of them did everything they could to appear unfazed by the closeness.

Lauren began to realize, somewhere between an hysterical local car commercial and the monster's devastation of Las Vegas, that Jepp had broken off seeing Dena because he wanted to spend the evening with her. When she snuggled closer to him, he looked down at her face. She didn't dare look back.

In the hallway, as they approached their bedroom doors, Lauren said, "I'm glad you spent the evening with me, Jepp."

"Me, too," he answered. They didn't say goodnight for fear something in their voices might betray what they were feeling.

Lauren walked to her bathroom and looked in her mirror. She was thinking about what her friend Judy said about Jepp's girlfriend, that Dena resembled him. "I know he's your brother, but that's some kind of ego." Lauren responded by asking Judy if she and Jane had been comparing notes, and wondered just how many of her friends were putting her family on their study-hall therapists' couch. Lauren let it go, because she knew Judy had such a bust-out crush on Jepp, but it was true. They did look alike. Dena was darker, with lustrous black hair, but in her face was something of Jepp's mirror image.

"...and mine," Lauren said, staring at her face in the mirror. She'd known for some time her feelings for Jepp were deeper than they should be. It's pure ego, she thought. He's my mirror image, that's all. That's why I want... she hesitated. That's why I want him.

Down the hall, Jepp finally heard the door to her bedroom close. He stared at the ceiling, envying her boyfriends, wondering what they felt when they slept with her. How she felt. How she tasted. He licked his forearm. "We're from the same womb," he told the ceiling fan, "Roommates, even." Salty skin. Hers would be sweeter. And slowly he drifted off to sleep.

The next day, Lauren returned from the tennis court, and tossed her racquet on her bed. She began to take pins from her hair and shake it loose. Lauren walked to her dresser mirror and stared again at her reflection. Brushing her cheek with her fingertips, she silently regarded her face. She knew she was beautiful, and wondered if people who weren't could imagine what a drag it could be. She'd become accustomed to mean words and hostility from others convinced she needed to be humbled, brought down to earth. Even worse, unwanted, gibbering lust had become repellent; she couldn't believe there was a time she'd smiled and indulged it, flattered at leering attention. She shuddered a moment.

She narrowed her eyes and continued her looking-glass conversation from the night before, telling herself, in her mom's voice, "It's masturbating - playing with yourself" ...Then finished with a Wizard of Oz witch's cackle. She looked long in the glass. "...Making love to him." When she said the words, she could see a change in her face, in her expression. Her eyes stared into space and she disappeared.

Pulling her top over her head, she strolled to her window and looked out to see Jepp lolling in the backyard. Splayed out on the grass, on his towel, she recalled how he'd look in his bed when they were children. Sometimes she awoke to see him just this way, like a tight coil inside him had sprung loose. Even as a child, she would pull the covers up over him and kiss him gently on the head. She smiled at him, the big lug, and curled the hair at her ear around a finger.

Outside, Jepp enjoyed the day. He loved this time of year, and he was in the perfect spot - shaded, but with enough diffuse sunlight through a thin spray of leaves to allow a slow cook. The day was very warm, and the sun seemed very close to him, a breath away. Even still, there was a hint of coolness in the background, as if the season hadn't yet taken hold. Blooms were just out. Vinegary calycanthus in an aroma tussle with sweet honeysuckle gave the backyard a winery smell.

The screen squeaked open and then banged shut. Jepp looked up to see Lauren crossing the yard. Directly across their tiny, kidney-shaped pool, she unrolled her towel and busied herself with all the stuff with which girls find a way to busy themselves. Jepp looked at her sandals and thought, amused, that there were few girls who could walk so gracefully in flip-flops.

"Y'know. You are a girlie-girl," he said.

She looked at him and smiled. "Proud of it," she said, strolling around the pool to his side. She wore a simple, sleeveless blouse - saffron - that dropped just to the tops of her thighs. Jepp fixated on her wonderful pair of legs; he tried to come up with descriptive better than shapely and lustrous, but that's just... what they were. Must be the heels. Only Lauren could find flip-flops with heels like that. Her tan was just there - not too deep, honey colored. Her cheeks, knees and elbows, just about any prominence from her body, had mesmerizing pinkish hue atop the brown. On each side of her hips, thin cords dangled and teased from under her shirt hem.

Lauren returned to her side of the pool and ruffled through her bag. Her appetizingly bare limbs, the languid pool and thick vineyard air lent the afternoon a restless bacchanal anticipation. At least it stirred Jepp; he let a long column of air burble through his lips to relieve his unsettled tension.

Shaking a bottle of lotion, Lauren crossed back to Jepp. She raised her shades and looked around. "Almost hot," she said.

"Been hottah," Jepp replied in an Old MacDonald voice.

"Bet you wouldn't have any spare tanning lotion, hombre," Lauren said.

"Trade you," he said, holding out the bottle. "It's yours if you spread some on my back."

"Deal."

Jepp rolled on his back as she knelt beside him. He heard the gurgle of the lotion as she squeezed some into her palm. At the first touch of her hands, he felt tension run out of him. And he felt the smooth skin of her thigh against his trunk. Would the sensation be so delicious, he wondered, arousal heating in him, if Lauren weren't so beautiful, if her legs weren't so graceful and there wasn't that inviting sheen behind her knees? ...If her youthful gloss didn't soak through her? Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, he thought to himself.

"What?", she asked softly.

Jepp looked back at her.

"You mumbled something," she continued. "Sounded like 'holder'... Or 'hold her'.

"I said 'hold it' right there, you just hit a real sore spot. Up a little. Yeah... right there," Jepp said quickly. "You're good at this."

"Mom gave rubdowns in the Navy. It runs in the family."

Jepp remembered mom's stories and smiled. Photos showing her in uniform, standing with endearing pride before a too-patriotic backdrop were a source of much amusement between the two of them a million years ago. Mom was very spic and span. And pretty.

Pressing her palms into the skin of his back, Lauren wondered how her brother had become so... angular. She was impressed with his lean muscle layout in the architecture of flesh and bone. Deciding she could do this all day, she leaned down close over him, careful not to tickle him with her hair. She could smell the cocoa butter burning into him; she wanted to pour herself there, and shook off the thought.

Jepp could feel her very close. Occasionally, her breath would buffet his skin and he stifled the urge to wiggle. He didn't want her to become self-conscious. He didn't want her to move away. The little grunting noises she made as she kneaded his flesh were particularly charming, and he could feel them vibrate through her hands.

As soon as the thought entered his head he acted on it to overcome wisdom with speed - and he spun around on his back. Lauren almost collapsed on top of him and she gasped shyly. Their faces were inches apart. Lauren smiled, and when he didn't return it, hers melted. They froze there a moment, very still. From the corner of his eye, Jepp could discern her armpit, exposed by her blouse; in its sultry nakedness, it seemed an intimate place of delicate privacy. They felt each other's breath, and Jepp thought hers very sweet.

Lauren brushed her hair back and slowly sat upright, feeling as if she'd slipped on a banana peel in a crowded church. She started to say something and stopped, still staring at Jepp, locked on his eyes. He can see I'm flustered, she thought to herself, and wondered how he felt about that.

Jepp thought of making some excuse. I startled her, he thought. She'll leave now, miffed at my stupid pranks. He cursed the moment soundlessly. His whole gambit was designed to kiss her, but a shaft of fear shot him down in the last split-second. He rolled back on his stomach, unwilling to see her go. I won't apologize, he thought. I'm not sorry.

Waiting for isolation to creep around him, Jepp buried his eyes in his folded arms. Then he heard a rustling nearby. Fabric. Then there was a tug on his towel. A heft of gentle weight grounded itself beside him. He knew she was several inches away, lying next to him.

In glacial movement, imperceptible, he turned his head in micrometers just enough for his most proximate eye to bring her into view. Once in place, with his chin on a forearm blazing with the sun, he cocked that somewhat pained eye her way.

Lauren was on her back, face skyward, and her blouse was gone. Now his arousal came in spasms, so strong he feared she could see them rattle through him. She spread languidly before him, almost naked, one knee slightly bent. Tan lines striping her lower hips were slightly wider than the thin strings now holding together what was barely swimsuit, and glared in contrast to the rest of her. Never in recent years had Jepp seen her so close to naked. He wondered if she'd done it for him. As she breathed, he watched in awe, almost envy, as her chest and round breasts rose and fell, trailing a slight ripple down the delicate mound of her belly.

Wondering if it was merely her imagination, and disappointed if that were so, Lauren thought she could feel his gaze. Was she beautiful to him? Did he want her? Could he see she was as rigid as pine board, and her loll was theater, an uneasy impersonation of relaxed drape? The bikini underlined her near-nakedness, and that was her intention. Its strings on her skin made her feel vulnerable, and she found that beguiling.

At the point suspense was becoming painful, Jepp rolled to his side and she to hers at the same time. Facing each other, they spoke simultaneously, the tone of their voices striking a jolting chord.

"Why don't we..."

"I have an idea..."

They choked off their words for an instant and then burst into laughter. Lauren picked up a tube of zinc oxide and dabbed a white spot on his nose. Jepp took off his shades to see himself in his mirrored shades. "Ah... très pimp."

"Very Ronald McDonald, Bozo."

"Glad you don't have a pie."

Replacing the opaque shades, he shamelessly ogled her. Her lissome body arched out to him, her smooth torso quivered when she laughed. Jepp thought she'd never been so close, so near-tactile. The globes of her breasts, glossy smooth, were edged with crescent folds of skin as they rested sideways against her chest; a pronounced midline ran down her trunk from throat to pubis, punctured arrestingly by her gently gaping scoop of navel. He wanted to press her to him, to embrace her in a dangerous squeeze and feel her warmth.

"I'll miss you," Jepp said.

Her eyes narrowed. "Am I disappearing?" Then she got it. "Oh... this fall. It's not even Easter yet. We've got time." The last sentence was said with a tenderness she didn't see coming.

"How many scholarships did you get anyway?" he said quickly, to lighten the moment.

"I can only go to one."

"...Business, right?"

"You think I'm such a nerd, don't you?

"You're too sexy to be a nerd." Damn it. He gritted his teeth. It just popped out of him.

That stopped them both. Their smiles faded.

In a low voice she didn't intend, Lauren said, "Thanks." What was with her vocal cords today? "I'll miss you, too, Jepp." The softness in her voice just wouldn't leave.

They looked at each other, deep in the eyes, for a long time.

"We've been together quite awhile," she said.

"Shootin' the tube," Jepp answered. And they smiled again.

"It isn't even Easter yet," she repeated, and they faked laughter at the redundancy, pointing at each other. Tension was building; small talk was more difficult and they both knew it.

In pantomime of luxuriating in the warmth, Lauren said. "Isn't Southern California wonderful?" She stretched her body, unable to keep from proffering it to him. She wanted, desperately, for him to touch her, and she didn't care if he knew. Out of nowhere, tears welled up in her eyes. Her belly ached and she wanted to bend forward to relieve it, but she strained to keep it bowed out to him, yearning for him to kiss her there, kiss her neck and nipples. "Hay fever," she said, swallowing, and wiped her eyes.

She suddenly couldn't stand her reflection in his mirrored shades. To do something, anything, she suddenly reached up and pulled off his sunglasses, saying, "All I see is me in there."

"We're twins. What's the difference?"

She smiled. The dimples showed at the edges of her mouth.

"Now I can't stare at you," he said, this time deliberately.

She started a little - almost imperceptibly, and involuntarily toward him. Still smiling, she asked, "Were you?"

"You're very beautiful, Lauren," he said.

She again stopped smiling. Self-conscious, Lauren squirmed a little. To break the spell, to keep from sobbing outright, she said in a shaky breath, "That's ego. Remember, we're twins. You're looking at yourself." She wiped her tears away.

"Sometimes it doesn't feel that way," he says.

She stared at him. Her voice was very quiet. "I know."

"What are you thinking?" he asked after awhile.

"You know," she said.

He leaned forward. She trembled and began to say "we shouldn't". In the last few inches between them, they crushed themselves together, their mouths melting in contact. She made a high-pitched squealing noise through her nose as the tension broke in her, and rubbed her mouth into his. Both of them felt the sudden release, as if their bodies, so coiled, suddenly sprang loose.