Ash and Tori at the Lake

This story was originally intended to be an entry in the 2023 Summer Lovin' Story Contest but alas, life events kept me from finishing this story in a timely fashion. It was a particularly challenging one to write, but I like to think it came out pretty good. Hope you enjoy it!

Fair warning to my readers, this is not a lesbian story as you might normally expect from me. This is a romance depicting cousin incest.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All characters in this story are above the age of eighteen.

Have you ever had a crush on a cousin? I don't mean that you thought a cousin was objectively hot. I mean, like you possessed a wrong desire to do dirty things to said cousin. There's a chance you have. There's an even better chance that this wrong desire never even left your mind, or even if it had, perhaps in confessing it to a very close friend at a sleep-over, it would never develop into anything more than an innocent, quirky fantasy. How could you dare to let it? But have you ever thought about what it might take for the fantasy to develop into something more? Like what nudges might coax your wrong desire to leave the safe harbor of your mind at the risk of being discovered when your entire sensibility tells you how wrong it is? What if, for example, you discovered that the cousin you lusted after also harbors a wrong desire for you? What if you find yourself in a place where you could act upon that desire, and no one else would be the wiser? And what if you might never have another chance to act upon that desire? What then would you do?

My name is Tori, and my cousin Ash was the object of my desire. This story is about my confronting the very dilemma I described above.

I have always loved Ash like a cousin, of course. We grew up together on the same street in Puyallup, Washington, and we were roughly the same age. We acted more like brother and sister than cousins. Many at school thought we were. Some even commented that we could be twins. I don't know how -- we looked nothing alike. We were both tall, sure, but that's where the similarities stopped. Ash was a stud. A spitting image of a Greek god and the star quarterback of our high school team. A dirty blonde mop of hair and a smile that melted every girl's (and older woman's) heart in a two-mile radius. Every girl wanted to be with him, and every guy wanted to be him--that sort of guy. I was not the female equivalent. I was a string bean. All elbows and knees. Bookish and shy. A wallflower, except whenever Ash yanked me from the wall. We were very different, but we complemented each other pretty well and always had each other's back.

I'm not exactly sure when my crush on him started. I think it was a gradual thing. Something that happened along with puberty, starting as a seed of an idea that he was hot, then developing into little fantasies that terrified me. It all came to a head in Senior year when he started dating Stacy, the queen of the high school. Like an avalanche, the announcement that he was dating her triggered an upheaval inside me. Jealousy, anger, betrayal, and dreadful heartbreak made me realize that I didn't just love Ash as a cousin. I was in love with him.

At first, I couldn't figure out why I felt the way I did, but once I knew what I knew, my whole world turned grey. I became morbidly depressed. I was disgusted with myself. I hated myself. But I couldn't help myself. Whenever I spotted them holding hands, passing notes to each other in class, or laughing at each other's jokes, I felt a terrible pang of heartbreak. I wanted to be the one he shared those jokes with and pass notes in class. I wanted my hand to be the one that he was holding. I wanted to be the one sitting on his lap in the quad during the breaks between classes.

I was ashamed of myself for my taboo fantasies, yet at least I could reassure myself that these fantasies wouldn't ever have to leave the confines of my mind. I felt myself becoming at peace with the notion that, as hard as it was to bear, I would eventually get over it. But something else happened, wiping away that notion like a sandcastle in a crashing wave.

Ash and Stacy broke up on prom night. It was the breakup heard around the world. They didn't win King and Queen of the Prom. Stacy stormed out. Ash chased after her. Half the senior class tailed them like a flock of ambulance chasers just in time to hear teary-eyed Stacy yell, "I can never be like her, Ash!"

Rumors bounced around for weeks, it seemed, as to who this mysterious her was. Jake, Ash's best friend, clarified what I most feared and (horrifyingly) hoped was true.

"You're her, Tori," Jake said. "You're the reason Stacy broke up with Ash. You're the girl all the other girls can't measure up to, even Stacy."

I couldn't talk to Ash about it. I wouldn't dare, being fully aware of where that conversation might lead. Yet, it only made my fantasies even more vivid. Fervent, even. Fever dreams that made me sweat. I was a spring coiled up and ready to launch. All I needed was a release.

It was the summer of 2006. We had just graduated high school. At a family dinner to celebrate our graduation, Ash announced that he was joining the Army.

A stark awkwardness struck the dinner table like a bomb, lifting an unsettled quiet into the air, which hung there for a hot minute, disturbed by my aunt finally breaking into a sob into my uncle's chest.

I stared at my cousin. No, I glared. I glared like the most loyal person in my life had just betrayed me.

My mom dropped her fork. "Ash, why?" Was all that she could muster from her lips.

We'd all been watching the news. We all saw the quagmire Iraq had turned into. Even if he were the star quarterback and had the physique to prove it, Ash was too much of a gentle soul for me to picture in a war zone. Once, he killed a dove on a hunting trip with my dad and was stricken with remorse that lasted for months. That was the first and last time he ever went hunting.

"They say they'd let us stick together if we signed up together. I'm joining with Jake."

Jake grew up on the same street as me and Ash. He was Ash's closest friend.

"I'm not going infantry," he quickly clarified, as if that would stem the growing unease at the table. "I'm going to be a medic. You know I plan to be a doctor someday. This is a good first step. They'll pay for my school when I get out and won't send me to the desert if I don't want to. They say I'll get a choice. I could even get to go to Hawaii if I asked for it. There's a big Army hospital there."

The look on my mother's face told me she was not convinced. The loudening sob from my aunt told me she was beyond convincing. My dad, a Marine vet of the Vietnam War, gave a grunt and an approving nod, and in his gruff, stilted way, he commented, "One of the best men I ever knew was a Corpsman. A damn good man." Then his eyes grew glassy and wandered to gaze out the living room window, just like every other time the thoughts of 'the war' rushed up from the tainted wellsprings of his mind. It didn't help the mood. It certainly didn't help mine.

For my part, I was hurt because this was the first I ever heard the big news from Ash. It was the sort of decision I had come to expect him to confide in me before pulling the proverbial trigger and certainly before telling his parents. But he hadn't, and that was why I glared at him.

As much as I wanted to join the chorus against him, I didn't want him to be alone in that moment, facing the music for this obviously difficult decision. I put my hand on his fidgeting hands on the tabletop and gave him a smile of solidarity.

"Good for you, Ash," I said, failing to not sound meek in my support.

My mom forced an awkward smile. My aunt's sobs turned into puffy-eyed sniffling. My dad patted Ash on the shoulder, then whisked my uncle out to the backyard for a cigar, where they would discuss the decision using as few words as possible.

That weekend was to be the last family trip to the lake cabin on Lake Crescent before Ash and I left the nest. The last hurrah made even more emotional by Ash's impending departure to boot camp. We all anticipated that it was going to be a somewhat bittersweet weekend given that it was going to be the last summer that Ash and I were both still at home, but now it was going to be awkward, thanks to Ash's dramatically large elephant he was bringing into our tiny cabin.

Ash never returned to the dinner table after excusing himself for the bathroom.

Still dazed from his announcement, still thinking it might have just been a figment of my imagination, I left the table while the parents held their pity party and I found him on the front porch swing. The stars were just starting to emerge, and the crickets seemed louder than they normally were. The breeze was fresh and light, which was nice because it had been a particularly hot and heavy day.

Ash had one leg folded on the seat beneath his butt while he used the other to gently rock the swing by pushing against the floorboard. He had his earphones in.

"Scoot over, loser," I said.

He smiled and made room for me. I sat and nudged the ground with my foot to get the porch swing moving again. He took out an earphone and gave it to me. I put it in to hear 'Nothing Else Matters' by Metallica.

"Gosh Ash, on a scale of one to Eeyore, I'd say you're pegging the meter right now," I remarked.

Ash laughed. "Can't I listen to my favorite songs without getting my balls busted, Tori?"

"You brought it on yourself."

I punched him in the arm to convey my displeasure. My fist bounced off like I had just hit a granite wall. There was once a time when he was smaller than me, and I had used that to my advantage to beat him up constantly. Thank God he didn't reciprocate when he grew into what he was now.

"Yeah, I know," he replied.

"And you should've told me."

"You mean, ask for your permission?"

"You're damn right."

Ash smirked, then sighed. His moppy, dirty blonde hair slunk down to cover his hazel eyes, making him look mopey.

"I'm sorry, Tori."

I couldn't stay mad at him. Not when he looked so deflated. I knew for a long time that Jake wanted to join badly. Ash, for a long time, had tried to convince him to apply to college, but Jake wasn't having any of it. Ash joined because he felt like he had to look after him. He was a sheepdog, after all. He'd be a good medic.

"I know," I replied.

We sat in silence for a while longer. I nudged the floor again when the swinging started to die off. 'Hunger Strike' by Temple of the Dog came on. I put my head on Ash's shoulder and thought of Stacy's words on Prom night. I felt special to think I was the girl, but the pit in my stomach grew with every creaking swing. Soon, I wasn't going to see Ash anymore. Soon, he could be going to someplace dangerous, and he may never come back. My throat tightened. I held back tears. I put a hand on Ash's lap and squeezed as if to put a hex on him to keep him here forever.

Being born primarily from the snowmelt of the towering Olympic mountains that surround it, Lake Crescent's alpine water is an electric blue gem. It is also deep. The official number is six hundred and fifty feet at its deepest point (deeper than the Space Needle is tall), but some locals claim that there are chasms in the long lake stretching down as deep as the Marianas Trench. The lake was created, according to the legends of the local tribes, that the spirit of Mount Storm King, angered at the fighting between the Klallam and the Quileute tribes at his feet, tore off a piece of himself and launched it at the fighting warriors, killing them and creating the lake. There is some geological truth to the myth -- the lake was, in fact, created due to the energetic propensities of the surrounding mountains. Violent upheavals of the surrounding land created the fissures into which the glacial tops of the mountains would pour into and deepen and widen as they filled with water.

Despite its tumultuous history, Lake Crescent is a serene sliver of paradise today. It's a quiet lake where cabins beneath the evergreen canopies of towering Douglas fir and the Western red cedar dot the lakeside. Our cabin was on the northernmost tip, its roof covered in a mat of browned evergreen leaves and its cedar log walls mottled with moss. It didn't look like much, but what it lacked in spaciousness and luxury, it certainly made up for with a treasure trove of wonderful memories. Just seeing it there, nestled between the wide trunks of two primeval firs, evoked the sultry scent of family barbecues, the feel of the frigid water, the alpine hikes, and the melted s'mores.

With Ash's bombshell fresh in all our minds, the typical chirpy family banter was absent as we disembarked the SUVs. Ash, feeling the most uncomfortable about the awkward ambiance, made a beeline for our bedroom in the cabin. I followed closely behind.

The small bedroom had two twin beds against opposite walls. Mine was the one on the right, his on the left, which one might be able to guess by the various ornaments that decorated the proximity of these beds--trinkets of times past. A Pearl Jam poster peeling off at the corners and a football signed by Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck attended Ash's side of the room. A dreamcatcher and a shelf of dust-covered fantasy and science fiction books, principally Ursula Le Guin's, attended mine.

He tossed his bag onto his bed. "Come on, Tori, let's go to the 'swing.'"

He took his swim trunks from his bag and went to the bathroom to change, coming out with his top off. A body approximating the lustiest artistic rendition of a Greek god graced my eyes--Abs, biceps, and all. I blushed as I turned away and held a hand up to my face to veil my blushing. Ash being Ash, the naïve innocent boy, fortunately, did not notice the heady effect his bare chest and abs had on me.

"Ok. I'll catch up with you after I change," I murmured, growing hot and bothered.

The 'swing' was a rope tied to a hefty branch that hung out into a small, deep cove. It's been there for several years.

As Ash left, I opened my suitcase for my swimsuit. Now, normally, this was not a difficult affair. My go-to was my one-piece swim team swimsuit that did nothing to accentuate any of my curves and, in fact, accentuated my lack of curves, the skinny rail that I am. But just the other weekend, Ash's mom, my aunt, took me shopping and bought me a tiny red bikini for a graduation gift. I blushed again as I held the napkin-sized bottom to my waist in front of the floor mirror. I hadn't worn it because I never saw a need to wear something so sexy. Yet now, I felt like I should wear it. I blushed again. My heart began to race. I wanted to wear it because I wanted to be sexy for Ash. What better chance to show him just how sexy I could be?

I gulped as I stared at myself in the mirror. I shook my head vigorously, tossed the red bikini bottom back into my bag, and pulled out my black, shapeless one-piece. I took off my clothes to put them on and studied my gangly body. How perfectly unflattering the swimsuit was. My eyes went to the red bikini. Ash's mom bought it for me for me to wear it, didn't she? Shouldn't I wear it, then?

I removed the black swimsuit and put the red bikini back on. The top pushed my tiny breasts together. The bottom rode up high on my waist, making me tall and slender, not like a skinny rail slender, but slender like a dancer. I turned around and glanced at my butt. The bikini bottom triangle cupped my cheeks just right, and when I yanked up at the waist, the triangle slid between my butt cheeks pleasingly. I had nice long legs, and my thighs were amazing. This bikini, riding high on my waist, did a wonderful job of showing them off. I doubted my mom would ever allow me to wear it. But it looked good on me. I looked good. I looked sexy. Before heading out to meet Ash, I took one good look at my face. I was a slightly boyish sort of feminine, made more boyish by my bob cut that my aunt convinced me to get. I was sure she was right after seeing how cute actress Kate Mara (my girl crush) looked wearing one. But I was no Kate Mara. I looked okay, but I was always sure I had a face more suitable for disappearing into a crowd. I was the apex of ordinary.

I flicked my bangs from my eyes, puffed out my cheeks, pursed my lips, and shot a pose. I wasn't too bad when you looked at the whole package. I was tall, and my legs were tall. I could be a supermodel -- if you squinted.

Mom was in the kitchen with my aunt, unloading veggies from the cooler into the fridge, when she spotted me slinking out of the bedroom.

"What on earth are you wearing, Tori?" Her voice grated my ears.

My aunt glanced my way. A proud smile grew on her face as she looked me up and down.

"Oh my, you look so cute, Tori!" she exclaimed, her hands proudly planted on her hips.

Mom snarled at her.

"Oh, don't give me that look! Let her dress how she feels! And now she feels like wearing a sexy swimsuit!"

Nostrils still flaring, my mom turned her glaring eyes to me and said, addressing both me and my aunt, "And who exactly is Tori wearing a sexy swimsuit for?"

"No one," I mumbled.

My aunt snapped back. "Oh please, don't tell me you don't remember when..."

While they bickered, I escaped out the lakeside entrance onto the rocky trail leading to the swing where Ash was waiting.

The sun was bright and shimmered off the lake water. White clouds whipped the surrounding mountain peaks. A gentle breeze whispered through the cedar, but it did nothing to ease the stifling heat. I found Ash perched on a rock, rope swing in hand, when I finally arrived.

When he spotted me, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. I guess he was impressed.

"Tori?"

"Of course, stupid. Something wrong?"

"No. Nothing's wrong," he said, shaking off his trance.

He cleared his throat. "You look good."

"Thanks," I replied with a sheepish smile, my heart swelling with giddiness. "Now go on, let's see a flip."

"Alright, coming right up!"

He climbed to the swing, tightened his grip on the rope, then jumped off the rock. The rope swung him low so that his feet grazed the water, then back up like a pendulum. He released right at the crest of his swing and curled his body into a backflip right into the water with the deftness of someone who's been doing this for years.

I took the rope, climbed onto the diving rock, and hurled myself into the air. I couldn't get quite as high as Ash did, but I liked to think that my backflip was cleaner.

The water's shock of cold was a pleasant relief from the sweltering heat. When I emerged, I found myself floating right next to my cousin. He dunked my head back into the water. I tried dunking him but failed miserably. Against his six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound frame, I couldn't do anything but cling to his back like a baby koala.

Oh, how warm he was. How lovely his rock-hard muscles were against me as I clung to him. How I wanted to run my hands over them. Just as the thought sprung into my mind, I let go. I shook off the inappropriate thought and reprimanded myself quietly for getting lost in them as I swam back to the shore.

We spent about an hour at the swing. After countless audacious dives into the lake, we decided to hike the abandoned railroad track that led out to the point.

Our hike was languorous. More a stroll than a hike. Occasionally, we'd stop at a particularly pebbly stretch of shore and fling pebbles into the lake. Ash was particularly good at skipping them and consistently got five or six skips. I'd get two, maybe three.