Awkward, a Love Story

"How was your weekend?"

"Awkward."

Clearing of throat, which was her way of saying, "go on."

"My cousin, Caroline, visited with her husband and kids."

Clearing of throat.

"I don't think I want to go into it, because you're going to think I'm a perv. Basically, they came over to hang out in my pool, as they do a few times every summer. It was fun to watch them romp around."

"Why would I think you a perv?"

"Well, I fucked Caroline, and, when I think about it, all I get is an erection without regret."

Clearing of throat.

"Frankly, that's how most of my erections go. I only get regret when I'm soft. When I'm hard, regret doesn't occur to me. Someone should do a study."

"Is Caroline the cousin who was Miss Teen San Diego or some such?"

I sat quietly and shut my eyes. It was my session, and if I wanted to waste it in silence, that was entirely my prerogative.

I flashed back 20 years earlier. At the time, Caroline was 18, as was I. Our moms were sisters, but we lived 100 miles apart and generally only saw each other when we visited the grandparents. Both of us had younger brothers, and the get-togethers were fun. The only tension was that our moms would occasionally snipe at each other about lifestyle. Her mom was a stay-at-home fundamentalist Christian whose two daughters wound up being Trump-supporting, home-schooling folk who distrusted Fox News as being too mainstream. My mom was a hippy and never married my dad.

I listened to my therapist clear her throat, again. "David, where did you go?"

"Ah, back to when it happened."

We were both headed to college in the fall, but, in the meantime, we were at the grandparents's house for a few days in July. One thing we did, every visit, was head to the beach, an hour away.

As usual, it would be a long, hot day for the five grandkids, my grandfather, and my mom, who was the designated driver for the event. We needed the driver since grandpa, bless his soul, would spend the day drinking a whole lot of beer. Not sure why they didn't ask one of the 18 year olds to drive. Mysteries abound in the world.

So, yes, Caroline would indeed win a couple of beauty pageants the following year, which I always thought was odd given that those pageants were all about sexualization and objectification, and her family was deeply evangelical. People are full of contradictions.

"Can you say more about the, uhm, experience with your cousin?"

"It had to do with sun screen and the air conditioner."

I opened my eyes to see my therapist smile. I knew she'd smile--she's a sucker for lack of clarity, so I try to toss in mystery when I can. It's also fun that I see a therapist with the sort of earnest wholesomeness that tends to appeal to my inner perv. But I digress.

"We'd been at the beach all day. As we got to the car, the three younger kids were edgy and unpleasant. Grandpa was drunk, as usual, and immediately fell asleep in the front seat. My mom, the hippy, was getting ready to drive, and Caroline and I were sweaty but fine. The cranky, dehydrated, sunburnt children refused to touch each other, and the air conditioner in the car was broken, and the long and short of it was that Caroline sat on my lap in the back seat.

"Ah," said my therapist.

I liked it when she said, "ah," especially when the assumption was wrong, or at least incomplete. Spoiler alert: I didn't fuck Caroline in the car, though maybe I did. Though I really should know better, I like to fuck the cracks wherever I find them.

"So, the future Miss San Diego sat on my lap for the hour drive back to our grandparents' house. Since it was an especially hot and humid afternoon, even for south Texas, and we were already sweaty from the beach, we elected to stick with our swim suits rather than put on actual clothes. Hers was a tangerine bikini, mine was a speedo, which was my go-to bathing suit since I'd been on my high school swim team and was in terrific shape."

Clearing of throat.

"So we didn't have much choice. The younger kids had already been crying and acting like total assholes, so we tried to do the right thing."

"Uh huh."

"And Caroline was--and is--a hard core, fundamentalist, Young Life devotee. At the time of the drive, she'd never been kissed. I knew these things. We were cousins. And when she sat on my lap, covered in about 2 ounces of tangerine fabric, I thought I was in heaven. Yeah, we were both sweaty and tired, and we were both bummed that grandpa was drunk, and the younger kids were annoying, and my mom--the hippy--was a really slow and haphazard driver, but I had this clear sense that it was completely okay that I had this throbbing erection, because even though my hard-on was wedged between my cousin's ass cheeks, there was no way she'd notice because she was just too religious."

I liked watching for my therapist's reaction. Those reactions were subtle, since she was a trained professional, but I think she liked the sex stories as long as I used grown-up words like erection and ejaculation.

"So," my therapist said, "your view was that your cousin wouldn't have felt your big erection because she was religious."

"Yes."

"And this was a month before you entered Harvard?"

"Ha," I laughed. One totally fun thing about therapy is the freedom to say what you want. "First off, I never said I had a 'big' erection. To me, it was the same size as the rest of my erections."

i thought to myself that, at 18, it didn't take much for me to get an erection. The wind could blow, a commercial could come on, a cloud could sail by. Bingo. An erection. Now, I'm a math kind of guy, and I own a ruler, and even if it's a little ambiguous about where one is supposed to start measuring... the side of one's dick near the abdomen, or the base, and does one search for the root that begins within the scrotum or start at the scrotum...

"Doctor, I do modestly think I'm fairly big, like 80th percentile big, maybe 90th percentile big, but that's not really the point, though I do appreciate the vote of confidence. Second, the line about my "entering Harvard" is a bit of a countertransference enactment if you ask me--you act like I should be smart enough to know that attendance at an evangelical fundamentalist church shouldn't prevent a young woman from feeling her cousin's big old hard-on, especially when the two of them are nearly naked and the aforementioned erection is wedged between her tangerine-covered ass cheeks."

"Okay, David. You're in the car."

I liked this banter, though I sometimes wondered if my therapist knew what she was doing.

"So Caroline's sitting on my lap, and--having no alternative--my arms encircle her waist. Her little brother and my brother are also in the back seat, duly separated because of salty sunburn. For the purposes of this story, they are really tired, and fall completely asleep for the hour that Carolyn rides me during our trip home. In the front seat, my other brother splits the difference between drunk grandpa and hippy mom."

Clearing of throat.

"We engage in some soft chit chat. All the windows are open. Remember the air conditioner is shot. Grandpa's drinking had other social consequences, including a failure to follow up in basic responsibilities like fixing his car's air conditioner. And with the wind blustering in, it was loud, and the only other awake person in the car was my mom, who'd found a radio station that played her music--so she was singing along with all the greatest hits."

Clearing of throat.

"Grandpa has drunk 18 of the 24 beers he'd bought that morning, and the remaining six pack is sitting in front of us, so I decide to start drinking one. While I sipped my Budweiser, I took to asking Caroline about her life goals, and her friends from school, and what she liked about church. While we sweated and my hard-on throbbed between her butt cheeks, I gradually worked up the nerve to start rubbing her skin."

Clearing of throat.

"I started by rubbing her stomach. As you know, I've been naked with many women, but Caroline had the best stomach I've ever rubbed. She was sweaty, and she smelled like the suntan lotion from those days, and I rubbed her stomach casually, and then rubbed her thighs casually. Like no big deal. We were cousins. When she didn't complain, I just moved my hands up and down, basically rubbing anything that wasn't covered in the tangerine bikini."

"And what happened?"

"Sorry to drag this out, but it's the build-up that feels meaningful. I mean, it was so transgressive, at least for me. Mom's singing away. The sibs and grandpa are asleep, i'm drinking a beer, and Ms. Purity isn't complaining about my hands or my hard-on."

Clearing of throat.

"I ask her if I can keep asking her questions. She says sure. As I rub her legs, slowly, as if I'm just passing the time, I take to bumping the back of my hand against her crotch, and I tell her that if I ask or do anything that makes her uncomfortable, she needed to tell me, because i felt so close to her. And I'd say such stuff while casually stroking her thighs and bumping her crotch."

"Uh huh."

"I say crotch because I wasn't angling it toward her vaginal introitus. I was just being absent minded and bumping in the general vicinity. And she didn't say anything, so I asked about dating as a Christian. I think this is about when I asked if she were thirsty and started feeding her Budweiser, because we did eventually get through the six pack before we got home home, and while a few beers each is lightweight, she'd never actually had a drink before. And for each of her sips, I'd hold the bottle as if I were feeding a baby, or feeding her my dick, and she'd inefficiently suck so that some amount of beer would sprinkle down onto her sweaty body, generally down the hollow between her sweaty breasts.

"So anyway, I slowly asked if it was okay to date as a Christian, if it was okay to go steady, if it was okay to get romantically involved, if it was okay to make out. She answered without a lot of details, but without objection, and so I pressed on. I asked, if you loved the guy, and he loved you, and you were 18, would it be okay to passionately kiss, to let him touch your body. Of course, I'm not sure she was entirely paying attention, since she was probably getting a little drunk, and I was asking while rubbing her upper thighs, and tapping her pussy with the side of my hand, and my cock was wedged between her ass cheeks."

"Language."

"Sorry. Anyway, I moved back to rubbing her stomach and her arms, which allowed me to brush repeatedly against the breasts of the future Miss San Diego and the past and future fundamentalist, and again she didn't say anything. While doing so, I kept asking questions. So, for example, I'd ask if it was okay to let a loving boyfriend touch her breasts? If you loved the boyfriend very much, of course, and he respected you. And when she didn't say anything, I slid my hand inside the topmost part of her bikini top and asked whether she'd ever let a boy touch her there."

"What did she say."

"I don't remember, but I think she was fairly quiet. I moved my hand down and felt her sweaty skin and her firm tit, and I squeezed a nipple, and told her that I loved her and that I appreciated her trust. And I listened to her breath, which was jerky, and I snuggled into her neck. And I pointed out that closeness was a beautiful thing."

"Which part of this is causing you trouble?"

"Okay, so I'm squeezing her nipple, and I'm sure I'm humping her to some extent. How could I not, right? And she was definitely getting into it, pushing down with her butt, her breath getting sketchy. And then I see my mom watching us in the rear view mirror. This doesn't get crazy. Mom never says anything. I never fuck my mom. Nothing like that. But she watches as I slide Caroline's bra strap over her shoulder and expose that tit to the air. I remember my mom's eyes flicker back and forth in that little mirror, flicker betwen ogling Caroline's tit and making eye contact with her wayward son, and then I remember her going back to the singing and looking straight ahead and never, ever mentioning it to me in the future. And I think it started raining, so we slowed down for a while, and I remember having the dumb idea that Caroline had never been naked. Obviously, she'd been naked in the shower, and while getting dressed, but I did have the idea that she had never exposed her body to someone's eyes and hands, that she'd never let herself go like this."

"And then what happened?"

"We pulled into the driveway."

"I thought you said you had sex with her."

"Not in the car."

Clearing of throat.

"That night, after we'd showered and eaten and hit the sack, I went to her room. It was dark and everyone was asleep. Our grandparents had a big old house, and Caroline always got the bedroom in the attic, so up I went."

"And what happened."

"I gave her my perspective."

"Which was?"

"That she had let me fondle her breasts, and rub her vagina, and press my manhood against her womanhood, and that we now had a commitment. That the sin was not starting the sexual Congress, but in stopping it, that we had demonstrated our love to God, and that it was our responsibility to maintain that Love forever."

"And what did she say."

"You got the short version. In talking to her, I spread it over about 20 minutes. By the time I got to the part about having a responsibility to maintain the love forever, I was balls deep in some sweet virgin pussy."

"Language, David."

"Sorry. Now, my cousin is a reasonably bright woman, and she is fully capable of reading a book and asking questions, but she basically went along with my logic. I explained that our sexual connection was rare and beautiful and sanctioned by God, but that man's rules forbade marriage between first cousins. And since we both agreed that we should obey the local rules, that we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, we couldn't get married under the laws of the United States. But as I plowed her, as I wedged my cock between those sweet pussy lips, as she cried out in subdued spasms, I explained that we needed to devote ourselves at least once per year to demonstrating the physical manifestations of God's most sacred love. And then I shot my load deep into her."

"David, maybe you could remind me of the point of this story."

"I told you. I felt awkward."

Clearing of throat.

"Caroline's husband works for a major defense contractor, and I never point out the conflict between his being a devoted, born-again, evangelical Christian while also helping create the most powerful instruments of death in the history of mankind."

"Uh huh."

"He's pathetic, to my mind. I don't think he's a good father or a good husband or a good person. From my angle, he's a narcissistic, bullying loser. But I don't say anything for one reason. It's not because I'm nice, or tactful, or am the kind of guy who tries to avoid family conflict. At baseline, I'm none of those things. Basically, I'm super friendly to a guy I see as a douche, because I like fucking his wife. As I said, it's been 20 years, and we keep fucking..."

"Language."

"We keep engaging in physical manifestations of God's love every time we get together. She feels obliged, otherwise she'd be sinning. Yesterday, I fucked her doggy style in the cabana while we listened to her kids splashing in the pool. She still has a great ass, and a lusty pussy, and a whole lot of enthusiasm."

"David, how is this part of therapy?"

"Because I feel awkward."

"You don't sound awkward."

"Well, she got married at 20 to this loser, dropped out of college, and had a baby within a year. Solid Americana."

"Uh huh."

"The awkward part is that her eldest daughter started hitting on me in the pool."

Clearing of throat.

"And I might take her up on it. I can see the perv in her, and she wants to break free from all the religiosity in her house, and I'm relatively hot for a 40 year old guy, and I'm single and have a nice house with a pool, and I genuinely care for her, and she's legal in every state in the US of A. In the pool, she was wearing a tiny bikini that I was surprised her parents allowed her to wear, though i guess she was wearing it among family so it was okay. So she was flaunting her teen ass all day, baseline, with a not entirely subtle cameltoe, and several times during the day, she bent or untied straps or whatever, and gave me an excellent look at her tits; once is an accident, but four times, in multiple ways? She's a hottie who's been cloistered away from boys, and she's clearly ready to move on with her life.

"Anyway, this girl asked if she could spend August with me in my big, empty house. She mentioned she couldn't pay rent, but she'd help around the house and do anything I could think of to make it fun for the both of us. And she asked if I was dating anybody, and complimented me on my body, and wondered how could I possibly escape from all the women who'd want to sink their teeth into me. Tactful, funny, not slutty. She's a sweet kid, but I've been with a lot of women--she couldn't have been more obvious.

"And the awkward part?"

"Well, the question is, do I let her have the pervy experience of fucking her first cousin, once removed, or do I give her some advance notice as to the actual identity of her father, which would be disloyal to her mother, who would obviously prefer we keep it a secret. Or do I not say anything, which seems problematic and dishonest, even if she never figures it out. I suppose I could disinvite her, though that would be rude, and I prefer to be nice to people. I suppose I could allow her to stay and then rebuff any flirtation, but that seems virtually impossible for someone such as myself. As I said, awkward."

Silence from the therapist.

"See, I knew you'd think I'm pervy."