Enough to Call Down the Stars

That was my Claire. Bold and brave and perfect, willing me to take what she offered. I couldn't turn down what she was giving. I couldn't hurt her like that. I couldn't hurt me like that. It was perfect.

Claire made no effort to hide her loveliness. Instead, she was reaching for me, and I was reaching for her, too. We clung together on the bed, too small, but what we had.

Our kisses were hot, sparking with an electrical tension. Finally, the clothes that had prevented the currents from running through us were gone and the circuits were complete. Sparks and flames and heat permeated us both.

Our hands traced over each other, learning, memorizing the shape of each other, the feel of each other, the heat of each other. Each hand trailed sparks, made a connection, a connection that would bind us together for life. It would be us, now, not Tony, not Claire, but us, bound together by lust, by heat, by our love.

I loved her taste, her enthusiasm, her fire. I pulled back for a moment to gaze deep into her eyes, pools of lust and need and love, even triumph.

"Yes, I am yours, and you are mine, and we are together and we will be together always."

There was no answer for her. She was right. The merging of our souls had begun.

I pressed her down on the bed, the covers rumpled, and drew them aside, leaving her on the sheets. My Madonna. I pressed myself between her warm thighs. Curiously, I was a little apart from myself, my lusts inflamed, but cautioning my fiery self throughout. It is her first time. You must hold back. You must make it pleasant for her, even joyful if you can. It is the rest of your life at risk. All this I told myself. And it was all true. The rest of my life rolled out before me, ruined by my impatience and ineptitude. Or joyous, with my love beside me, conquering worlds with our passion. For once I listened.

Claire writhed beneath me, her passions alight, so seductively urging me to simply take, enjoy. She pressed against me, up into me, as her hands laid paths across my body for the whirling electrons to follow, to spark and to heat. I pressed back, wanting to merge with her flesh. I lifted for a moment, her eyes, surprised, flashed, but then I fell down beside her, reached for her, started to feast on her. I covered her, all of her, with my lips and my tongue and, sometimes, my teeth. I praised all of her slender body with myself. My eyes caught hers, my lips connected and we were caught again sharing our selves, each with the other. I broke away again. There was too much, too much. I would never get my fill of her.

My mission now was focused on her breasts, small, perfect, with a divine taste and smell. I licked around each, swirling in to her areolae, slipping over their slightly rough surfaces to her nipples, waking them to alert, sentries drawing me in rather than forcing me away. I suckled gently on each, my heat stoked by her moans of passion, her hips thrusting upward into my centre, her arms pulling me down and into her.

For a moment I ventured to take her entire breast into my mouth. Then the other. The sweetness of the contact nearly pushed me too far. I let my mouth wander lower, down her chest, over her flat stomach, dipping momentarily into her navel, swirling, eliciting further moans, her enjoyment obvious, arousing. My tongue slid toward her centre past the silkiness of her pubic hair, guarding her treasures. I licked lightly over her labia, flushed and open with her arousal, then delved in as far as my tongue would allow. I withdrew, angling so as to taste as much of her as I could, then tapped her emerging clitoris, then licked, hearing her breathing rush, now, as she climbed, climbed, then fell over, her climax pushing her body into spasms, her mind into the heavens. I slowed my caresses, keeping her in heaven, until she fell out and slowly floated back to Earth.

"I knew you were the one," she told me. I was unbelievably pleased that she chose not to thank me, that she took it as her due, her due from me, the one who above all others sought to please her. As I did.

"Inside" she panted, her desires fierce and obvious still, even after her massive climax. "All of it, Tony," she continued. "Take me to all of it."

I settled back. The head of my cock brushed against her clitoris and she shuddered again, a small aftershock from her orgasm. She was open, willing, waiting, wet and warm. I slipped myself between her labia, sliding back and forth to lubricate myself on her effusions, driving myself insane with wanting, the need to bury myself within. Only the knowledge that I was creating the rest of my life, with Claire or alone, held me back. I pushed in, a trifle, a touch. She was so warm, so moist, so tight and welcoming. Another trifle. She eased open as I moved, welcoming me into her depths, her soul. A barrier. I butted myself against it, ready to swoop, destroy, invade and conquer. Claire pushed hard against me. She gave a soft cry, half pain, half victory, and the barrier had been destroyed and I was in. I eased further along, holding back, allowing her to fit herself to me as I slipped into the depths of my beloved, pushing further and further until there was no further I could go.

An astonished voice: "Oh you fit me so well. We're so together, so much of a oneness. I'm full of love and full of you, and it's just so wonderful."

I slid out again, nearly leaving her. She gave a disappointed moan that changed to a hiss as I re-entered. I began a slow rhythm of long strokes, each reaching her depths. Slowly, tentatively, she began to respond, to lift to meet my thrusts, to grasp me as I entered and release me to pull back. My control was slipping. I moved faster. My thrusts gained power. She kept pace, bouncing up to meet me, grabbing tight as I entered, almost pulling me into her. My breathing turned to panting as I approached my climax. Claire was keening, a wail that changed register as I approached my orgasm.

Her scream echoed in the small room, the most obvious sign of the orgasm neither of us had expected. She gripped, pulsed, forced my orgasm, vibrating deep inside her, as far in as I could fit, and I, too, left this earth for a celestial awakening, the force of my climax enough to call down the stars, to force the planets out of their orbits.

"One thing for sure," Claire said as she struggled to regain her equilibrium after our peaks, "we belong together."

"That we do, love, that we do."

***

From there, Claire and I made love when we could. It was a good thing the customer flow was steady and I was out on installations a lot of the time, or we'd have driven the business into bankruptcy, all the time it would have been closed. After a few days, Claire started staying over, and we'd make love again in the morning before opening the store.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked one evening. I was trying to catch my breath. Our lovemaking had been glorious once again.

"My preference is to sell the store, the business. We've restored its appeal, got rid of the debt. That would give you enough for tuition for medical school with a little left over."

"What about incidentals like food and shelter?"

"I'll get a job. My resumé is thicker than it was and I've got decent recommendations from Matt, Mike and Mr. Mandolini. I can keep us in the basics. This way, you get to go to med school and we get to stay together." I didn't mention that as first cousins we could get married in the state where she'd been accepted into med school. Too early in our relationship, maybe.

Mom was smart enough. It didn't take her long to figure out was going on. I'd more or less expected it. I didn't think she'd mind, much. She'd be getting me settled, and she had never liked the way Claire and I sniped at each other. I knew she liked Claire. She'd get over the being first cousins bit.

Perhaps three weeks after we first got together, Mom hauled me off for a private talk after dinner. Not the family dinner on Wednesdays - nothing was allowed to interfere with that priority - but the next night, which was an informal gathering even though it involved the same people. A women's thing, I suppose, or maybe just a mother's attempt to preserve family.

"Tony, I'm pleased to see that you and Claire are getting along so well."

"Yeah, Mom, Claire and I mesh these days. It's occurred to me that maybe we should make the business a true family business."

"You mean, get married?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Oh Tony, that can never be!"

"All right, Mom, what's the problem? Claire and I are getting along fine for a change. More than fine as a matter of fact."

"It shouldn't be," she sobbed.

"Why? Because we're cousins? Even first cousins can get married lots of places. Maybe not here, but Colorado, for sure, lots of other places."

"That's not it. Or at least not all of it."

"Say what?"

"Claire's your half sister."

"Whoa. That makes no sense."

"One of the reasons your father left is because he figured out that I had had an affair and that you were the result of it, not his child at all. Thank heaven for that. I'd hate to have been responsible for perpetuating his genes. As far as I know, Rose never knew. It was simply one of those things that happen. Anyway, Zeb knew since he was the other party to the affair, and he knew as well that you had to be his child, the son he never had, and that's why he took us in and always treated you so well."

"So how do you know it couldn't have been the person I always thought of as my father?"

"We'd been on the outs. I was mad enough to refuse to sleep with him. Oh, I can't imagine I'm telling you - my son - this. He went out and found a floozie or two or a dozen. Not for the first time. Anyway," she went on, drying her tears, "we weren't sleeping together. I was looking for comfort and Zeb provided it. Zeb was ready for something and I was there and he was there for me and it just happened. We were madly passionate for a couple of weeks and then Zeb just cut it off. His conscience probably kicked in or something about making love with his brother's wife, even if his brother was acting as if he'd never married. You were the result. This all happened a good many months before Zeb even met Rose. You have to know Zeb was never unfaithful to Rose. Your father knew you couldn't possibly be his, which is why he left just after you were born, though he didn't know whose child you were. If he had, he might have tried to kill Zeb."

"Mom, are you telling me that Claire is my half-sister and I can't fall in love with her, sleep with her or marry her or even kiss her?"

"That's what I was trying to explain."

"Oh shit."

"Is that 'oh shit' as in 'I want to do this' or 'oh shit' as in 'I've already done this'?"

"Both."

"Well, we do have problems, don't we?"

That seemed to sum up the situation quite nicely.

"Mom, does Claire know?"

"No, I'm pretty sure not. There's never been a reason she should know. I suppose that means you have to tell her."

"Me?"

"You, Sir Lancelot."

Well wasn't that a fine thing for a Friday morning. How was I going to explain to Claire that falling in love with me, and me with her, had been a totally bad idea for us both? Something prohibited and insane, counter to all the rules there were? Just lovely.

It didn't work out the way I expected. I expected some tears and some cutting remarks and a very cold shoulder and possibly physical violence, all of which would have been deserved, except that I hadn't known that there had been a problem.

"Um, Claire, can I have a few words with you?" It was the end of the day and we'd just closed the store. It had been one of the best weeks of our business careers. Claire had kissed me happily and in other circumstances I'd have been looking forward to some more fun time with her.

"Sure, Tony. What's up?" My pecker, of course, as usual around my love, or the person who was formerly my love, I suppose, but I could scarcely mention that given the topic of conversation I was about to have and I didn't like that bit about former, not at all. Best get it over with.

"Um, Mom says we have to stop fooling around."

"Why on Earth would she say that? I thought your mother was happy we were getting along better. Even better than she thinks, I'll bet." Claire gave me the most sensuous come-along look. I came very close to ripping my jeans. It occurred to me that we could have this conversation after a lengthy session in bed, which would be good for both of us, relax us after the stresses of the week (even though I still had some relaxation left from our morning tryst) and make us open to consider all options. Of course, there was just one, and I suppose Claire might cheerfully murder me if she thought I'd tried to take advantage of her with a secret like this hanging over us both. She'd have been right, too. Go ahead, Tony. Do it.

"Well, according to what she said, you and I are too closely related to be doing . . . stuff."

"Making love, you mean? Why not? First cousins get married" - a word we'd both thought but not uttered before - "all the time."

"The way Mom puts it, we're a little closer than that."

"How much closer?"

"She says we're siblings - well, half-siblings."

"Are you telling me your father had it on with my Mom? Can't be. Not only would Mom never have gone with him, he was dead by the time I was conceived."

"Mom tells a different story. Apparently your father had an affair with my mother, or perhaps the other way around. He wasn't being unfaithful to your mother. He hadn't even met her yet. Anyway, the affair produced me. Mom and my father - the person who was legally my father, anyway - hadn't been having relations, so it had to be your dad who provided the genetic material."

"Couldn't it have been someone else?" She took a good look at my expression and decided.

"No, I suppose not."

"Mom says there was never anyone else, at least while my father was alive." It was becoming rather difficult to refer to the old bugger that I was just as happy hadn't given me my genetic start in life. I'd never known him. Apart from an entirely inadequate survivor's pension, he'd never given me anything, never been there for me. As far as I knew I'd never even seen him or been held by him.

I supposed I could call him my legal father. After all, he and Mom had been married when I was born and he showed up on my birth certificate. A DNA test would probably show a lot of similarities, since it was his brother who'd been my biological father, and my real dad, too, in so many ways. Uncle Zeb would have to stay Uncle Zeb.

After that Claire just bulled ahead. It wasn't a three-hour meandering conversation like the one we'd had the night we agreed that we really were in love with each other. We knew that part. Now we knew why we shouldn't be. What next?

"And all of this scandalous material from twenty some years ago, twenty-five, I guess, affects us exactly how?" I thought it was obvious, but Claire wanted it spelled out.

"We're brother and sister. We can't behave with each other the way we've been doing. Brothers and sisters don't do that."

"Do you want to?"

"Want to what?"

"Keep doing what we've been doing?"

"Of course I do. You're a marvelous woman. I want you in my life all the time. Forever. But we can't."

"Tell me, Tony, do you love me?"

"Certainly. I've told you often enough. I wasn't lying, Claire. I truly love you." Once I'd figured it out, it was simpler to say, easier to get it out the more I said it.

"And did you love me before you knew I was your half-sister?"

"Yes, you know that."

"Then if you love me, and God knows I love you, I can't see that some stupid social rule should be keeping us apart."

"There are reasons, Claire. It's not just a mindless taboo."

"I know what they are, and I don't care. We'll run some serious risks, but they're just risks, Tony, not certainties. Do you plan to give up what we have together for the sake of a few risks?"

"Not if you're prepared to accept them, love."

"Then that's what we'll do."