Angela in the Afternoon

Suddenly a warm hairy weight dropped on my belly. I looked, and Angela's cat walked across me and made a nest in the canyon Angela and I formed where our bodies were still pressed together. The cat licked his nose and purred at the two of us. I scratched him between the ears while Angela ran soft, gentle fingers down his spine.

"See," Angela said to me, "this one knows a loving home when he sees it."

We lay there in silence, basking in our shared light, petting the cat. I loved Angela. If anyone found out, they would say we were immoral. They would call us sinners. They would say I was her brother, and she was married, and possibly even worse things than that, but as I lay there with the only woman who had ever treated me like an equal, the only woman who had ever reacted to me like a human being, I knew everything anybody could say was wrong.

But there was one thing I still needed to know.

I turned my head and whispered in her ear: "Why?"

She returned my gaze. Her eyes looked into mine, and her breath was hot on my lips, and her hair rubbed up against my cheek, and I felt myself beginning to become aroused again.

"I told you not to ask me that," she said, but not coldly.

"Sorry."

She paused, then looked back up at the ceiling. "I went to the prom with a football player because I was supposed to. I went off to college when I was eighteen because I was supposed to. I married a guy in one of my classes because I was supposed to. And now I'm twenty-eight years old and wondering why.

"Shawn is out late most evenings," Angela continued, "drinking beer and eating pizza. He's gotten fat and his skin is greasy and I told him eight months ago that until he lost weight he wouldn't be touching me. I guess he'd rather eat and get drunk with the guys than sleep with his own wife. All of my neighbors are two-income families, so I'm the only one at home for several streets around during the day. And Shawn and I tried to have a baby early on, but nothing ever came of that, so I'm just damned lonely."

She turned to look back at me. "But you," she said, and paused. "You're useful. You're loyal to me. You pamper me like a husband ought to. I, um..." She blushed again, and touched her forehead to mine. "I deliberately clogged the toilet this morning so I could call you over. I just wanted to talk to somebody who would actually have a conversation."

"So you planned this! The couch and the coffee and you and me and, and everything!"

"No," she exclaimed. "I just wanted to talk to an adult. But when you were here, and the coffee, and the music, it all just felt right. It's been months since I've been with a man in that way. Shawn hasn't been a real husband to me for over a year. But you've been like a husband to me for my whole adult life. I saw you there on the couch, and I just, I fell in love with you right there. I thought it was maybe time to make you my husband for real."

Angela lifted her face to look right at me, and I could see that her face was streaked with tears. "I used you for my own satisfaction, and I'm so sorry. Please don't hate me."

I took my hand off the cat and stroked her cheek, mopping up the tears. "I don't hate you," I assured her. "I don't think you could do anything bad enough to make me hate you. I've been in love with you since I was twelve, and you know it."

She smiled at me, and then she sobbed, and the tears rolled out of her like a river.

"What?" I asked, suddenly panicked. "What's the matter?"

"You're just so perfect," she said. "You're everything a man should be. You're loyal and loving and handsome and completely devoted and, well, you're an excellent lover."

I leaned in and started kissing tears off her face. "And you're everything a woman should be."

Angela rolled into me, making the cat jump up and hide behind the couch. "What cruel prank was God playing," she asked, as she lay on top of me and I continued to kiss tears off her face, "to make you my brother and not a man I'm free to love?"

"Think about it," I said. "If I weren't your brother I would have been scared to ever talk to you, and if I ever did you would have thought I was a terrible nerd, and even if you didn't think that you would have known how badly I wanted to sleep with you and you would have told me to get lost. Being brother and sister gave us a bond that would keep us together in spite of my fear and lust and your pride."

"I've wanted you so badly for so long," she whispered into my ear.

"And I've wanted you just as badly for just as long. I wish I'd been brave enough to say something to you before you went to college and met Shawn."

She nodded, and I nodded, and she cried, and I felt myself start to cry, and she laughed, and I laughed, and we held each other and laughed and cried and nodded and felt such love as neither of us had ever felt before.

When the laughing and crying stopped, we lay side by side again, and Angela looked at me, big-eyed as if she'd just had an excellent idea. "I could leave Shawn. Once and for all. And when a woman leaves a husband who's the sole breadwinner, I bet nobody would think anything of it if she moved in with her brother."

"I bet you're right," I agreed.

"You'd work at home like you do," she said, "and I'd keep house, and we could make love whenever we wanted. As long and as hard as we feel like it. And I could wear that dress you love so much, Neil, and I'd never wear anything but a hand-knit cotton bra, and we'd be there for each other, 'til death do we part, just like it ought to be. And we could start a family, and I could raise--"

"Whoa!" I broke in. "Did you say family?"

Angela nodded. "I've wanted a family more than anything, and Shawn hasn't given me one. I suspect he can't give me a family, not with his lousy diet and his lackluster performance in bed. But I can think of no one I'd rather start a family with than this man right in front of me, who I love so much."

"And I can think of no one I'd rather start a family with than this woman in front of me, who I love so much." I ran the tips of my fingers down her cheek, along her neck, over her shoulder, around her breast, and back up to her chin. "So why don't we get started right away?"

"What? So soon after the last one?"

I looked down, and she followed my gaze to my penis, already nearly as hard as it had been the first time we made love. "I'm ready if you are," I said.

She reached down and wrapped a tender hand around the shaft of my cock. She traced my veins with the tip of her finger, then lifted her gaze to look back at me. "Wow, Neil. All this and you can repair the plumbing too."

"For you and nobody else."

Angela and I smiled at each other, then she leaned in and kissed me. I ran my hands up and down her spine, and our bodies wrapped together, and the sweat started to flow, and we made love again. And again before I had to leave that evening. And again in the morning. And the next day when she showed up on my doorstep with her suitcase, wearing a white cotton scoop-neck t-shirt and a hand-knit bra, we made love on the linoleum of my entrance hallway. And in my bed. And in the hammock hanging from the tree in my back yard. And leaning against the kitchen counter while we worked together to make dinner. And in every room of the house, slowly and passionately, one after another.

Seven years and two lovely children later, we've scarcely spent a night apart, waking up in each other's arms and making love to the morning cry of the house sparrow. Now it's true we've had to keep our secrets, but I love my sister, and she loves me. What more can a man ask for in this life than the true love of a beautiful, smart, willing woman?