Charlie and Mindy Bk. 02 Ch. 01

Slowly we subsided and recovered, still in each other's arms. I nibbled on her neck and her ears; she responded by stroking my back and my shoulders. I raised my head and sought her lips; found them and kissed her. She stopped stroking, held me tightly. Our bodies were still joined, and my cock had not yet softened when my hips bucked from a random post-orgasmic spasm—driving me more deeply into her. a spasm of her own caused her to contract around me again. We both moaned into the kiss we were sharing.

When the kiss broke, we looked into each other's eyes again.

"I really, really like making love with you," I said.

"Oh, Charlie! I really like making love with you, too. And that was the best ever! I've never come twice like that before. I didn't even know I could."

In spite of the way she continued to contract about me, I was now softening. I pulled out of her and rolled over to my left, onto my back. My cock, now at half-mast and coated with our juices, flopped wetly up against my belly. She rolled over onto her right side, placed her head on my left shoulder, her left hand on my chest.

We had lain there for a few minutes when her hand tracked down from my chest, across my belly to my now-limp cock. It was wet and slick, but that didn't stop her. She wrapped her hand around me and pumped a few times, taking advantage of the lubrication.

"We made another mess, I see," she said with a little laugh. "Maybe I should clean it up."

She got to her knees at my side, facing me. She bent over and took my shrunken organ into her mouth. Slowly, she sucked it in. I felt it begin to stiffen again. As it did, she withdrew and sucked it back in. She repeated several times, and I felt her tongue fluttering against my crown, which was more sensitive than usual as a result of my orgasm. But it seemed that the best I could manage was half hard.

"That feels wonderful," I said. "But I'm afraid he's done for the morning."

She sealed her lips around him and pulled slowly away from me, sucking as she did so, stripping off the slick coating. She sat up and looked at me.

"Awww," she said in mock sorrow. "But we do taste good together." She grinned and smacked her lips. I had not known it was possible to make smacking your lips obscene. But she did. And I loved it. I sat up, put my arms around her, drew her close, and kissed her.

She was right about our taste.

We lay down again, side by side, her head again on my shoulder, my arm around her. We talked for a while about what we needed to get done that day. Mostly, it amounted to sorting gear, cleaning it, returning the items we'd borrowed, and storing the ones we hadn't. When we had that accomplished, we would start thinking about packing for school.

Then she asked, "Do you think Mom and Dad will help me with a MOLS course?"

"I bet they will," I replied.

"I don't know. They didn't seem very positive about it last night."

"I've been thinking about that," I said. "They weren't negative either, and it occurred to me later that I wouldn't want to make a decision that affected us both without talking it over with you privately. I think that's part of being a couple. Talking joint decisions over should probably be almost as private as making love is. I'll bet they just want to be sure that they're on the same page before either of them will make a commitment."

"I never thought of that. You're absolutely right about making decisions as a couple. Oh, I hope they'll do it!"

"Me, too!" I said. I rolled over and kissed her again.

"Mmmm," she hummed. But then, "We'd better get showered; we've got stuff to do, and it's almost nine-thirty."

We'd been sharing the same bathroom for nine years, but we'd never before shared the shower in that bathroom—at the same time. Showering together involved a considerable amount of touching, fingering, stroking, feeling, tickling, tweaking, pinching, hugging, nuzzling, licking, kissing, squeezing, sighing, giggling, laughing, and so forth—so it took us a while. Drying each other took a while longer. And if we hadn't been hungry, we would've spent even more time "showering."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was late morning by the time we got to our chores. By the time we had the tent cleaned, the sleeping bags aired out, and our clothing sorted for laundering or cleaning, it was noon. We saw no reason to pass on lunch just because we'd had breakfast only two hours earlier, so we spent a half-hour fixing and eating lunch.

After lunch, we folded the tent and packed it—along with the fly, the poles, and the stakes—into its bag. We stuffed the sleeping bags back into their stuff sacks. The bags and the tent, we took down the block to Bob and Sally's house to be returned. Sally was at home, and she invited us in for a cup of coffee and a report on our trip.

We drank the coffee and gave her the public version of the trip. As we left, about a half hour later, I felt a tinge of sadness.

"Mindy," I said, once we were out of earshot, "I wish we could tell people about us. Being in love with you makes me really happy, and I want to tell everybody how lucky…what a 'lucky young feller' I am."

"Me, too," she said, smiling at the memory of the old codger in Wyoming who had told me that I was "one lucky young feller" because Mindy was a "keeper" who "had class" and "adored me." I should take care to "treat her good," he'd said.

She continued, "And I really want to give you a very un-sisterly hug right now, right out here in the street. But everybody around here knows us, and I can't."

"I want to spend my life with you, Little Sister. But I don't want to spend it hiding our love. "

"We'll find a way, Charlie. We have to." I could hear the note of determination in her voice. It cheered me, because I knew what that note meant: When Mindy decided that something needed to happen, that thing happened.

"We have to," I agreed. "And we will." She smiled at me and I smiled back.

A minute or two later, when we were back home, out of sight of neighborhood eyes, we did share a hug—one that would've scandalized any of the neighbors if they'd seen it—and a very un-fraternal kiss.

It was, by then, well after one, and we still had things we needed to do that afternoon. We needed to replenish the white gas for my backpacking stove, I needed some new wool socks, and there were other little odds and ends we wanted to get. Mom had told us, the previous evening, that we could use her car, but she expected, in return, that we would stop by the supermarket and get the things on the list she'd also left us (along with some money). On the other hand, we didn't have to worry about supper, because she and Dad wanted to take us out that evening.

It was becoming apparent that if we kept trying to work on everything together, we wouldn't get done that afternoon. So we decided we'd split up. I'd stay at home, finish up the laundry, and pack away the camping gear, while Mindy would take the car and run our errands.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was going on five o'clock, and I'd finished with all of the chores I'd needed to do, when Mindy returned with sacks from a variety of locations about town. She handed me one from a local outdoor shop. In it were three pairs of new wool socks of just the kind I liked. I was thanking her when I noticed, in the bag with the socks, the empty wrapper from a chocolate candy bar.

"And thanks for the empty chocolate wrapper, too," I said with a grin.

She had the grace to blush. She pulled another empty wrapper out of her pocket.

"I got us each one," she said. "I ate mine as I left the store. But yours kept calling me… Then I couldn't figure out what I'd done with the wrapper.

"I'll make it up to you." She said it contritely, but with her evil grin.

"Some things are better than chocolate," I replied, with my own evil grin.

"Yes…a very few things."

"And," I went on, still grinning, "I'm just guessing that you're going to enjoy the payback as much as I am."

"Oh, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I will!" The evil grin morphed into a truly diabolic one. She stepped up close to me, ran her hands up my chest to my neck, and pulled me down into a deep kiss while I held her firm little body against myself.

She broke the kiss. "But later. Mom and Dad will be home soon."

"Mmmmm," I said. "Chocolate breath!"

And I dove in for another kiss. As I did, my right hand found her left tit, cupped it, squeezed gently. She kissed back. Moaned a bit.

When we finally decided that we'd better stop groping each other, it was a bit after five, and Mom and Dad could indeed be home at any minute. So we started unpacking the sacks she'd brought.

I'd put the stuff from one sack away, and I was just reaching for another one when she grabbed it.

"That's 'girl stuff'. It's mine."

"Hunh? Like what?" I asked, rather stupidly.

"Like new panties, girl deodorant and girl shampoo—you'd call them 'stinky'—Tampax, stuff like that," she said.

"Is it that time of the month?"

Neither she nor Mom made any secret about their periods. I could count to 28, but until last week I'd had no particular reason to track Mindy's monthlies. Now, I realized, my little sister's periods were a matter of some interest to me.

"Not for about a week and a half. But we Girl Sprouts are always prepared." And she disappeared into her room with the sack.

Moments later, Mom walked in to find me putting stuff from the last of the grocery sacks into the cupboards. Dad wasn't far behind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was around nine when we got back from dinner. Dad opened a bottle of white wine, and we all sat in the living room with a glass. We chatted a little while, continuing a conversation we'd begun over dinner.

Then Dad changed the subject.

"Mom and I have talked about Mindy taking a course from the Mountain Odyssey Learning School next summer."

Mindy and I were all ears.

"Yes," said Mom. "We think it's a good idea. From what you two have said about your trip last week, it sounds like she'll be spending more time in the backcountry in the future. We'd like to think that Mindy knows what she's doing out there as well as you do, Charlie."

Mindy was glowing. "Oh, Mom! Dad! Thank you!"

"Well," Dad allowed, "there's a catch. Actually, it's a double catch. There are two conditions."

"Dad, I'll do anything. I really want to take a MOLS course."

"It's not just you. Charlie got you into this. He gave you the idea, and he'll have some responsibilities, too." But he was smiling.

"Dad," I said, "I'll do whatever I can to help Mindy with this. I know she really wants it."

Mom spoke up again. "The first condition is that you, Mindy, have to do your best at school."

"Mom," said Mindy, "I'd do that anyway!" She managed to sound disappointed.

"That's what we thought," Dad said, smiling. "We just wanted to make sure. But now for Charlie's part of the deal."

"Yes," said Mom, also smiling. "That's the hard part."

"Charlie," said Dad, now very serious, "You've been doing okay at school, and we haven't been displeased. But you, your mother, and I all know that you can do better."

I gulped. Last year I'd brought home mostly B's with an A and a C in the mixture, and I had an idea of what was coming. I looked at Mindy. She was bubbling over. It had never been in me to disappoint my little sister, and Mom and Dad knew that.

"Mom and I have thought about this a lot." He looked at Mom, who smiled and nodded. "We know that you can do what we're going to ask you to do.

"Your part in this is to bring home only A's and B's, with more A's than B's, for each semester this coming year."

I gulped again, and I said, "I'll do it."

I didn't say, "I'll try," although that was what I really wanted to say. I'd been well and truly had; I was in a box from which there was no escape. I'd better be as smart as Mindy (and, evidently, Mom and Dad, too) thought I was, because "try" wasn't going to be good enough.

Dad smiled at me. It was, I saw, a genuine smile, without even a trace of "gotcha."

"We know you will," he said, simply. He believed it, and so I had to believer it, too.

He stood and raised his glass. "Let's all drink to our new commitments."

We all stood and raised our glasses, clinked them with each other's, and said, together, "To our new commitments." Mindy sipped at hers, while Mom, Dad, and I (especially!) drained ours. Mom and Dad put their glasses on the coffee table.

"Mom and I have to get up tomorrow, so we're going to bed now. There's still some wine left in the bottle, and I don't think there's any good reason why you two shouldn't finish it to celebrate. It's in the fridge."

Dad offered me his right hand. I gave him mine, and he took it into both hands to shake it. Meanwhile, Mom hugged Mindy. Then Mom hugged me, while Dad hugged Mindy. Wordlessly, Mom and Dad took each other by the hand, smiled at us, and headed upstairs together.

Mindy, still bubbling, looked at me. When I heard the door to the master bedroom shut, I said, with an air of desperate, forlorn helplessness, "Mindy, I don't know how to study. Will you teach me?"

"What a dope!" she said, grinning. She stepped up to me and took me into her arms. She laid her head on my chest, my own arms went around her, and we hugged. Suddenly, I was ten feet tall again, and I knew that Mindy would return to the Wind River Range the next summer—with MOLS.

We stayed up for about another hour, snuggling fully clothed—as we had the night before—on the couch and finishing up the third or so of a bottle of wine Dad had said we could. We talked, mostly about what a MOLS course was like. She was still in seventh heaven over Mom and Dad's promise that she could take one, and seemed unconcerned about their conditions. I wished I could be as unconcerned, but I took some comfort from the fact that neither Mom, Dad, nor Mindy seemed to have any doubts whatsoever that I would be able to deliver on the promise I'd made.

When the wine was gone, we decided to head for our separate beds. It was nearly eleven, and I found that I didn't feel nearly as sorry for myself as I had the night before. I would still be lonely in bed, but tonight I hadn't forgotten—the way I had the night before—that Mom and Dad would be gone in the morning.

I had barely closed the door to my room when there was a light tap on it. I opened it, thinking it was Mindy. But it was Mom. Uncharacteristically, she, the original naked-lady-about-the-house, was wearing a housecoat. I hadn't even known she owned one.

"Can I come in for a minute?" she asked.

"Sure, Mom," I said. "What's up?"

Had she somehow caught on that Mindy and I were…?

She came in, leaving the door open, and sat on the chair I usually threw my clothes on when I took them off. She was smiling at me as she motioned me to sit on the bed. I did so, looking at her with a big question mark still written on my face.

"Charlie," she began, "I just wanted you to know how proud you made me this evening when you promised to help Mindy."

"Oh, Mom, I couldn't even think of doing otherwise. You know how I've always felt about my little sister."

"Yes, I do. But you didn't hesitate, and you didn't even try to give yourself an out. You said 'I'll do it,' and not 'I'll do my best.' You've grown up to be a wonderful young man."

I couldn't think of anything to say, except "Aww, shucks, Mom," and I didn't want to say that. I saw that she was looking at me in a way that she never had before. Her smile was gone, and I noticed that tears were gathering in her eyes. Before I could say anything, she spoke again.

"Mindy takes after me, but you take after your father."

The part about Mindy, at least, was true. They were about the same height, and their body-types were very much the same. I'd have to take Mom's word for the part about me. She went on.

"You look so much like he did when he was your age. And you gave your promise with the same look I used to see on his face when he said he would do something and really meant it. You and Mindy got your determination from him."

Mom's husband, the man we called "Dad," was not our father. Our natural father had died before Mindy was born, and I had no memory of him. Mindy and I knew almost nothing about him, other than that he'd been a soldier and that he'd died in Vietnam. We'd tried, as children, to learn more about him from Mom, but every time one of us had tried to get her to talk about him, she'd wound up crying. No child is comfortable when Mother cries, especially when it seems that he or she did something to cause the tears, and we'd learned to avoid the topic.

"My determination? Mindy's the one with determination, Mom."

She looked at me; the tears in her eyes sparkled in the light from the ceiling fixture. She smiled, weakly, through her tears.

"Mindy makes up her mind very easily, and then it's very hard to get her to change it. Your determination doesn't trigger as easily as hers—but you have it. I've never known anyone but your father whose mind was as hard to change as yours—once you've decided on something."

Tears were running down her cheeks now. She bowed her head.

I got up and moved toward her, meaning to take her into my arms and try to comfort her. She waved me back to my bed.

"I'm all right, Charlie," she said. "You'd think that after 18 years and more I'd have learned to talk about him without crying, but I haven't."

"You must have loved him very much."

"I did. I still do. I'm sorry, now, that I've never told you and Mindy more about him. He's part of all three of us, and the two of you deserve to know more about him. Someday soon I need to tell you about him.

"Anyway, that's not what I came in here to talk about."

Her tears had stopped flowing and she was smiling again–wanly, but smiling nevertheless. She got up.

"I took myself by surprise, I guess. You, and the man you've become, are what I came to talk about. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Mom," I said as she backed out of the door. "That means a lot to me."

"You mean a lot to me. And so does Mindy," she said, and closed the door. A few seconds later, I heard the door to the master bedroom close.

She had given me food for thought. My determination? I would think about that later. But more importantly, I tried—as I prepared for bed—to imagine the effect on me if something were to happen to Mindy, my little sister and my lover. I couldn't. I knew it would be awful—and that my imagination couldn't stretch far enough to tell me how really awful it would be. But I could well believe that I would still be crying 18 years later. It was, for a 19-year-old, a terrifying new perspective on what it means to love someone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was a little past seven when I woke up. I could hear Mom and Dad moving around in the kitchen as they finished up their breakfast; the low buzz of their voices as they talked to each other reached all the way into my room. When I was a pre-teen, hearing that constellation of sounds from my bed had made me feel loved and secure; it was still, somehow, reassuring—even though I couldn't tell what they were saying.

Before long, I heard dishes being put into the dishwasher. The door from the house into the garage opened and closed, and the outer garage door opened. They always went together in Dad's car, and as I heard his car start, I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. My boxers and t-shirt were off before I even reached the door to my own room. By the time the garage door started rolling closed, I was halfway done emptying my bladder. They couldn't have been more than a block from home when I tiptoed into my little sister's room. I stepped lightly over the pile of shoes she'd left on the floor, slipped, buck naked, into her bed, and took her sleeping little body into my arms.