A Whiff of What's to Come

Honestly, I think the whole lusty affair began the moment - the very first instant - "Claire" entered my life. Let's call me "Tom." I'm going to tell you how my stepsister and I went too far.

Claire is only four days older than me and we were both high school seniors when her dad began visiting our apartment, courting my mom. When things between them got serious, he began bringing Claire along on family dinners and trips to the beach and such, to make sure we two 18-year-olds would get along at least tolerably well.

Claire's father is of Afro-Caribbean heritage and her late mother was Korean. There's no name for her skin color, but I'm going to call it "molten bronze." My mom is Cuban-American from Miami and my dad was some white boy who knocked her up when she was 16 and then abandoned us by going to 'Nam, where he further skipped town by getting himself killed. I look a bit Hispanic, but with light gray eyes.

Claire was tall, like her dad, but curvy, not gangly. She possessed a lithesome, muscular grace, like a leopard. That was her nature, nurtured by years of dance training. You know the phrase, "a 'stunning' beauty"? Well, her beauty tasered me the first time she glided into our place. And that was only love at first sight — that was before we got to the beach where she dropped her T-shirt and denim cut-offs in the sand and strolled into the bay wearing a cherry-red one-piece thong. I actually made a little gasp when I first saw her bubble ass, then I shot my eyes over to her dad, hoping he hadn't noticed my reaction, but he was too busy ogling my mom's ass.

Claire and I were committed to getting along well because we both saw how happy our mom and dad were as a couple. They were a great mix, like wasabi and sushi — each enhanced the other. So Claire and I were overly cordial the first few times we got together, but it wasn't long before we relaxed into a natural ease with each other.

When my mom married Claire's dad, we and our golden doodle moved into his big house on ten wooded acres. I thrived on having a father figure in my life, and I saw the way he made my mom glow. I also now found myself living with a stepsister, who, despite the terrible distraction of being scorching hot, soon became my best friend.

Claire and I were muy simpatico. We didn't have to pretend to give a damn about who won which college football game, or what in the hell Lost was supposed to mean, or who Justin Bieber was dating. We enjoyed each other's company and we loved being outdoors, so we didn't need to talk much when we went sailing in her Quest dinghy or hiked along wooded trails. Yet we could talk — and talk and talk — about books, music, and art... and feelings. Claire was impressed that I could articulate my feelings; none of her boyfriends expressed his emotions in any more subtle way than an emoji could manage. We even both liked Nick Drake and his tragic songs, when maybe only two other people in our high school had discovered him. Claire had a beautiful singing voice; I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but I'd been playing guitar since I was six, and we spent hours making music together. We both loved dogs more than we loved most humans, and our doodle and her Rottweiler "got along" so well that the Rottie soon had puppies.

I could go on about our soulful rapport, but you want to get to the sexy parts.

Well, it won't strain your imagination to hear that a robustly healthy, teenage man sharing a home with a voluptuous, catlike teenage woman, was daily experiencing a "disturbance" in The Force. Underneath our relaxed camaraderie — you know, like brother and sister — an ember was smoldering in me, ever ready to burst into flame. And while I can talk intelligently about my feelings, that doesn't mean I was forthcoming enough to confess to my stepsister that I had intense...feelings...for her. I tried my best to keep a tight lid on my desire, to keep that glowing ember hermetically sealed, deprived of oxygen.

But I was always so damned horny — and that was before Claire and I became housemates, and she would nonchalantly stroll to the bathroom in just her bra and panties, or with a short little silk kimono riding that bubble ass. Or she'd do yoga on the screened porch, shrink-wrapped in colorful spandex that was like a coat of paint over her nude curves. The vision of Claire's ass, gloriously displayed in Downward-Facing-Dog, was like lighter fluid to my secret ember. Flames would erupt, and I'd have to "take matters into my own hands." You get me: stoke ember = stroke cock.

Now, for an 18-year-old male to feel chronically horny is about as extraordinary as a teenage male getting zits. But what was different about me was how powerfully I was turned on by sexual aromas. This came to me as no surprise, because I'd always had an unusually keen sense of smell, and with it, an appreciation for all kinds of scents, from the most expensive subtle perfumes, to the earthy smell of wet fields after a rain. Even stepping outdoors in summer when the magnolias and tupelos and tea olives are blossoming, can stop me in my tracks because the warm air smells so good.

At this stage, I'd had sex only once: a furtive fuck sitting in the back seat of a Toyota Camry, while another couple fucked in the front, with mosquitoes whining in our ears. I'm being honest here, so don't hate me when I confess that I wasn't even interested in the girl I was fucking as a person, I only wanted to get laid. I was 18 and still a virgin, and I felt peer pressure to get over that hump (pun intended). Anyway, the most erotic part of the experience for me was not the foreplay or the sex, but the aromas that fogged that enclosed space. By the time the fucking was over, the atmosphere of four half-nude sweaty teenagers had become a bouquet of pussy and cock, and I felt stoned on the perfume.

And, uh...perfume...is how the trouble started with my stepsister.

I had just finished a beach run and I popped open the dirty laundry hamper to toss in my running shorts before taking a shower. Lying there, like a cherry on top, were a pair of Claire's panties: scarlet, with lace at the waistband.

By then, we'd been housemates for half a year and I'd spied her bras and panties in the laundry before... and, yeah, I'd been sorely tempted each time.... but I'd held back — like a good stepbrother, a sane human being — from doing what you know I finally did. I picked up her panties, turned them inside-out, held the crotch to my nose and... INHALED.

I told you my first sight of Claire tasered me. My first smell of her slew me. A switch flipped on somewhere at the base of my brain, activating primitive circuits that I'm sure I share with bonobos. I then made use of the hand lotion kept on the sink to consummate my primal awakening. Afterward, standing under the hot water of the shower, I felt that dreadful certainty that I imagine a crackhead feels after his first big snort: Uh-oh! This is going to be hard to NOT do again! I began sneaking her fragrant panties from the dirty clothes hamper into my bedroom to stroke my achingly hard cock, hooked on her sexual aroma.

Meanwhile, Claire and I were still best friends. I'd go for walks and long talks with my best friend, after having smothered my face in my best friend's redolent panties the night before. My best friend and I would talk into the night about her boyfriend's shortcomings, after I had cum — three times — all over her baby-blue thong panties that same afternoon. Graduation arrived, summer bloomed, Claire and I swam and sailed and surfed and sang together, and I beat my meat, pretending she was pressing her warm, fragrant, wet pussy in my face. If I touched my tongue to the inner crotch of her panties, I could subtly taste her.

I found myself wishing the dirty clothing hamper had some kind of Parental Control setting, because I couldn't muster the self-discipline to resist "utilizing" Claire's redolent panties. I began to seriously worry that I was abnormal or had a pervy fetish. So I confessed to my spiritual advisor, Father Google. I used the search term "sexual scent," and learned about the molecules called pheromones.

Turns out, it isn't just animals that sniff the air for news, so to speak. Young women who live together, say in a sorority house, tend to sync their menstruation cycles because of all the sex perfume wafting through the dorm. In lab studies, women who first smell the armpits of T-shirts freshly worn by anonymous men, will then rate random men they view in photos as sexier, and also will get wetter pussies when viewing porn. Dozens of related studies have shown that we humans are inescapably, though mostly unconsciously, driven by pheromones. We are as much to blame for our hard-wired sexualities as birds-of-paradise are for theirs. So I wasn't completely weird, but maybe more of a scent hound than most. Who knows? Hardly anybody ever talks about this stuff. So when I read in a Tom Robbins novel, "Smell is 70 percent of sex," I said aloud, "Thank you!" and I underlined the words.

That summer, Claire and I began to feel an almost tangible erotic charge between us, like the build-up of electricity in the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. You know the way the energy touches your skin, how you sense it in your bones? We never talked about it, never made any moves. We were step-siblings, not taboo-breakers. As August drew to a close and we both got set to go away to separate state universities, I looked forward to escaping the pent-up tension. And to the absence of temptation! My withdrawal plan was to go cold-turkey from my panty-sniffing habit.

Claire had a full scholarship for dance, and I had a full-ride for mechanical engineering.

The day we both left home she gave me a goodbye kiss on the cheek and handed me a small package. The wrapping paper was a Japanese design, a repeating motif of black-and-white kimonos. She had tied the gift with slender pink ribbons that centered on a pink satin rose. The wrapping struck me as very feminine, not something you'd give a guy, and I raised one eyebrow. "Don't open it unless you're alone in your dorm room," is all she said.

Late that afternoon in my dorm room, with my roommate not arriving till the next day, I opened Claire's parting gift: a new pair of pretty white panties with lots of lace. The Victoria's Secret tag was still attached. Her note said, "Trust me. Your secret is safe. When you come home for Thanksgiving break, feel free to try on any of my clothes that can fit you. Remember that I love you just the way you are."

I stood there, feeling ridiculous. She thinks I'm a sissy! Apologies to all you crossdressers reading this. Really. Whatever floats your boat is fine by me. But that's not my thing.

We spoke on the phone almost every day, as lonely friends away from home for the first time do. But I never even mentioned the gift of the panties. What was I supposed to say? "Uh, Claire, I'm not a transvestite! It's just that I'm enthralled by your pussy's musky essence. I ache to bury my face between your muscular thighs and lick you till my tongue falls off!"

Halfway through the first semester, Claire found a boyfriend and a month later I found a girlfriend, and we spoke less, but still a couple times a week. The first few times I had sex with my girlfriend, I pretended she was Claire. But after weeks of good sex, I felt grateful that I'd started to wean myself from my lust for my stepsister. After all, my girlfriend smelled and tasted really wonderful, too. Not the same pot pourri as Claire, but... exquisite! Women each have a unique perfume.

Okay, here is where I need to tell you how I know that each woman smells unique, given that I've had sex with only three women in my life. But to present my evidence, I'll have to confess to an incident that some of you will find debauched. At a popular surfer/beach clothing store frequented by college students, I stepped into a changing booth to try on some Billabong shorts. The store sold lots of bathing suits, and women were required to wear a disposable paper liner when trying them on. A wastebasket in the booth was stuffed with the used paper liners. You already know what I did: I sniffed the scent of more than a dozen pussies! Tidal pools, hothouse orchids, rising bread dough — forget it; there's really no equivalence. Each of those fragrances turned me on, and none of them smelled the same.

When Claire and I came home for Thanksgiving vacation, the erotic electricity was immediately obvious, like an invisible third presence in our midst. So much for weaning myself from my longing for her! The first night we were together, we talked about our sex lives back on campus.

Claire said, "Does she know?"

"Uh..." I didn't know what to say.

"She doesn't know!"

"Claire, it's... not what you think."

"You weren't taking my panties from the hamper?"

I felt my face grow hot. "Well, yeah. I was."

"And wearing them?"

"No!" I said. "I didn't wear them."

"No?" She held up her hands. "Then what?"

I sighed and shook my head.

Recognition dawned in her face. "Oh my god! You perv! Holy shit!"

"I thought you loved me just the way I am," I said lamely.

"Sort of. But you're my stepbrother. You crossed a line."

My heart was beating fast. I worried that my transgression would ruin our rapport.

She let me dangle a moment, wearing a stern look. Then she smiled. "Fact is, I once borrowed your running shorts from the hamper." She bent forward and whispered in my ear. "And I didn't wear them."

The rest of that night, and the remainder of Thanksgiving vacation, we felt trapped in a strange weather pattern, a kind of emotional heat dome. Here we were, step siblings, and we had both finally acknowledged our potent sexual magnetism. But we were paralyzed to do anything about it. By the time we went back to school, we may as well have given the Third Presence in the Room a pet name. Yet I can report that I did not fall off the wagon: her yummy panties remained in the laundry hamper, unabused.

Back in college, between our studies and our lovers, we were kept busy enough that we could talk on the phone a few times a week and not feel too distracted by our forbidden desire for each other.

We next got together over Christmas break. Claire had broken up with her boyfriend, but for some reason, she was uncomfortable talking about it. One night, after our parents had gone off to bed, I made us some forbidden margaritas. It was unseasonably warm, and we were sitting on a wicker couch on the screened porch. Claire was wearing a green dress under a thin red sweater. Holiday colors. She looked more beautiful than a Christmas tree ornament. The buzz from the margaritas had loosened her tongue.

"In one way, he was good in bed," she said, "A better fuck than any of my high school boyfriends, but..."

"But what?"

She gave a little laugh. "I'm drunk."

"Go on," I coaxed, "It's me. You can always talk to me."

She stared into her empty glass and ran a finger around the salt-crusted edge. "He never went down on me."

"Really?"

She looked up and shook her head. "Not once."

"Jeez. That's too bad." I meant it. The guy must be an idiot!

"I sort of resigned myself to just having good fucks with him. But then I finally got up the courage to ask him why he never went down on me." Her big dark eyes gazed into mine. "He was like... the opposite of you."

"What do you mean?"

"He just gave me a look, like the answer should be obvious. I said, 'Tell me,' and I swear he made a sound like, 'Eww!' I said, "What?" and he said, 'Claire, that's gross. You're dirty down there. Germs. The smell. No way!'"

My mouth sagged open and I shook my head in disbelief.

"Yeah, I'm sure I wore the look that's on your face right now. I broke up with him on the spot," she said. "I didn't want a guy sticking his cock in my pussy, all the while thinking my pussy is gross." Her gaze transformed into an expression of unmistakable longing. "I want a man who loves every part of me."

What suddenly happened next was as smooth as a dance, a pas de deux of twin flames. Without a word, I dropped to my knees in front of the couch, threw her dress up over her lap, tugged her panties down and off her ankles, spread her thighs with strong hands, and buried my face in her musky wetness. I was instantly lost in a warm sea of fragrance and flavor. Claire gasped and moaned, and in less than a minute, her orgasm erupted.

"Tom! Stop!" she said. "We can't do this!"

I didn't stop. I didn't even want to come up for air. I licked and licked her swollen clitoris and nuzzled my nose between her pussy lips. She was so wet I was lapping her juices.

"We can't!" she said. Her hands were firmly on my head, fingers entwined in my hair, but she wasn't pushing me away. "No, we can't! We can't!" Her shaky voice turned into long, low moans. I felt her thighs trembling in my grip and she gasped and held her breath before her second orgasm struck and she pressed her mouth into her shoulder to muffle her scream. Her fingers squeezed my head almost painfully. "Stop it! You're killing me!"

I couldn't stop. I was a honey bee guzzling from the Mother-of-Flowers. Now I began using two fingers, finding her G-spot and stroking the bulging tissue in a come-hither gesture. Claire began a slow-building climax. "Please! It's wrong!" she whimpered. "It's so wrong!" But now her hands pressed my face hard into her pussy, and as her climax approached, her voice took on a husky, urgent tone, "Don't stop! Don't stop! Please, please, please don't stop!" When her orgasm burst forth, her pussy gushed with fragrant liquid, overflowing on my face and hand.

Claire shifted in her seat and pried my mouth from her pussy. "What's wrong with us?" she said through tears. "This is...this is...Tom, we're bad."

I looked up at her like a helpless puppy, my lips and chin wet with her slipperiness.

"Get up!" She lifted me with surprising strength. "Go. Take a cold shower. Anything. Get away." She shoved me toward the door. "We can't be together like this!"

Standing in the shower, so many mixed emotions swamped my mind, flooded my body, I couldn't even begin to sort them. What have we done? We really did cross a line. Now what?

There were three days left in our Christmas break. Claire and I were acting so uncomfortable with each other that my mom said, "What's the matter with you two?" And on the day we left to return to school, she said to me, "If you and Claire had an argument, just apologize and make up. I hate seeing you two peas-in-a-pod acting like polite strangers around each other."

My first week back on campus I broke up with my girlfriend. I didn't understand my feelings at the time, but looking back, I realize that I wanted to be with...well, if not with Claire, with a woman I desired as much as I desired her. That semester, Claire and I talked on the phone less often, because things still felt awkward. We never mentioned The Night on the Porch. But with spring break approaching, I finally got sick of pretending to be oblivious to our unspoken issue.

"Claire, we've got to talk about it. Don't hang up!"

A pause. Then a small voice. "I won't hang up."

"Look. We're acting like... like survivors of a trauma. We yak about what grade we made on our midterms, and blah, blah, blah, but we're scared to death of saying anything that might trigger memories of what happened... What we did... what we felt. But Claire, honestly... are they painful memories?"

A long silence.

"You still there?"

"I'm here."

"I've been thinking a lot about this," I said.

"Ha," she said. "I can hardly think of anything else."