He Waxes Sis

There was a cave, a playful hidey-hole, behind the waterfall curtain. Its cool ambience was in sharp contrast to the glorious sunlit warmth outside. The incessant heady roar of falling water. The soft showering caressing stray sprays. A moving cinematic view of the world through the surging water curtain. A dreamy water cocoon that was a world unto itself.

Brother and sister sat and leaned against the back of the hidey-hole, thigh to thigh, next to each other. Cole's and Antônia's hidey-hole. Cole's hidey-hole. And now, their hidey-hole.

In the thundering silence, they were observing what was around them, and eventually looked back at each other.

It was weird. It was like their time together was just theirs. Their own creation. It was like she was in his dream, and he, hers. They immersed in an aura that was a hazy unity of fantasy and reality. Their time here was completely out of time.

Realising that they were now committed to one another in some strange way, there was an awkward silence.

Cole looked at Julia. In the dark of the hidey-hole, and the backlit radiance of the water curtain, she presented a surreal vision of loveliness.

"What do you think of your big sis?"

"A sight to behold."

"One word?"

"Comely"

"Me or you?"

The back of the hidey-hole was cold as damp rock would be. Julia shunted over seeking warmth. She sat in front of Cole. Julia paused momentarily as if serving Cole notice of her next move. She reclined gently. After a minute of snuggling down to fuzzy comfort, relishing the home and hearth warmth of his brotherly form, she cocked her head to look at him coyly, and then twinkled a kittenish knowing smile.

Julia felt that she was in the still centre of a whirlwind. She felt a perfect peace, that perfect calm.

They watched the water fall.

***

Julia looks at Julian. He is in agony.

"You're in a state. Let me finish you off."

"I want something different."

"Oh?"

"I want to hump your pristine, smooth mound."

Julia a tad disappointed, "You would prefer a dry hump over more penetrative engagement? That is so economical."

Sheepishly, "Yes"

Julia observing, "Un bon repas doit commencer par la faim".

"Huh?"

"A good meal starts with hunger."

"I'm raring to tuck in."

In a kind of hypnotic trance, Julian guides Julia to the wall. He presses her back hard against the bedroom sandstone wall almost bruising her. He extends her arms horizontally in a crucifixion configuration. His hands pin down her palms to lock her down. She is nailed! Is this some divine symbolism?

He nuzzles his rock-grade hard shaft at the moist confluence of her lower mound and upper thighs in a sawing dry hump motion. As she tightens her clenched thighs, Julian intensifies his pistoning motion to breach the seal.

Oooh! The grind of his head against her smooth, pliant mound flesh feels so good! Tender on tender. And yet, savage. So very good! Animistic pagan growls and howls. Can the neighbours hear them? His perseverance pays off. He gets in, by dint of forceful persistence.

Julian closes his eyes. He sees a single blob of violent colour. As does Julia.

Oh yes, the climax is over, Julian knows that. But, it is not over, not until he feels it. It is not over until it stops pleasing. And he is pleased now. He needs to get over the pleasure. A strange thing to think.

Julia smiles beatifically like a Virgin in a Sunday School colouring book.

As Julian climbs down, he nuzzles, then kisses Julia, to thank her for making the moment possible.

Julia looks back at Julian with a smile of gratitude far more than is called for.

They stretch out on the bed. In the quietude of afterglow, they talk, cuddle a little. She plays with the hair on his chest. He doodles on her mound. His finger traces her contour of breast. A fleshy swell of rise, an icing stage of denser and darker flesh, a summit eruption of nub.

***

Chapter 4: Unfinished Business

Fast forward.

Five thousand miles away. A sisterly cellphone chime tone emanates from Cole's trousers. He feels the vibration in his loins.

A message, "In town? Lunch sometime?"

"Bangkok. Le Coq, Fri, 1230?"

"Be serious!"

"Le Coq, 1 Flagstaff Rise"

"Mmmm... Lovely!"

Julia rereads the message thread. She feels a tingle of anticipation, although of what exactly, she can't tell. She smiles. This is so Cole.

For some inexplicable reason, she thinks back to the blindfold game she once played with Cole on their treehouse, at the bottom of their garden. She was twelve, and he, ten. All the while, she was fearful of falling off the treehouse. And yet, she did not wish the game to end. And when at last she thought she fell, she did not. And here she is now, on a kind of lofty perch in the sky, only higher, and she, older. A gentle kind of haunting.

Julia thinks of Kierkegaard's "fear of falling". Anxiety, dread and angst are unfocused fear. When the person looks over the edge, she experiences a focused fear of falling. But at the same time, she feels a terrifying impulse to throw herself intentionally off the edge. That experience is anxiety or dread because of her complete freedom to choose to either throw herself off, or to stay put. The mere fact that she has the possibility and freedom to do something, even the most terrifying of possibilities, triggers immense feelings of dread. The dizziness of freedom.

***

Julian is on business travel away for a week. Julia has a collection of hours to spend. Cole is in-between assignments, a week, a window of idyll.

***

Cole is a six footer. Well-trimmed beard. Clean cut. Aquiline. He looks the part of the archetype roving intrepid photojournalist, comfortable in the method to the madness of the world. It is easy to imagine him ducking machine gun fire on a busy day in Congo, or ascertaining the finer cultural nuances of the Shan mountain people in Myanmar.

A gentleman with the muted demeanour of a mild cad. A beast with brains.

Although Julia is older than Cole by two years, she cannot remember a time when she has not looked up to him as her big bro. She was enthralled by Cole. He could quote Schopenhaeur, refute Nietzsche, and jumpstart cars to steal rides. Cole was a fantasy she could not act out herself. Julia would let life carry her along.

Julia smiles wistfully at the distant memory of her gangly bro brimming with fire and ambition, at a time when he had more questions than answers about the world. It was later that he realised, perhaps, that his quest was not to discover himself, but to lose himself to something greater. He wanted to make his life his art.

His dreams have lost some grandeur coming true. Nevertheless, his career accomplishments are quite spectacular. He cannot return, but can only look behind from where he came. It is a good view. That is what Julia thinks.

***

"That was a lovely lunch. What next?"

"Sailing"

"To the cove and the rockpool?"

"We've unfinished business."

"Unfinished business?"

***

At the rockpool.

"Sis, you do me, the same way I did you."

"What?"

"Antônia used to do me. The operating principles are the same. There's a symmetry to it all."

"But, you're built differently."

"Yes, but I'll be out of your way."

"Huh?"

"You'll see."

They frolic native in the rockpool. Cole swims the five strokes to the far end, flips at the rock face, and then back. He moves like a gorgeous dolphin. Just the sight of this relaxes Julia for her task. This dolphin is smooth. She will be making it smoother.

Cole lies on the lounger cushion. He feels in and of the moment, so immersed in the here and now. And yet, he is reliving some delightful past of uncertain definition. His emotions in a wave.

He remembers their halcyon sibling days at the county fair, riding painted ponies that go up and down. He remembers holding Julia tight, his big sis, but so small, so that she doesn't fall off the carousel.

She inspects her brother. This rush of detail makes her a little giddy at first. Only the second manhood in her linear life. And now, so up close and personal. But, she enjoys the lift. Her finger parses the trees from the forest as she zones him out for the waxing. The tower of sequoia is so imposing. Height, trunk, girth, canopy coverage, volume, mass and age. But, it doesn't get in the way of the forest.

He instructs, "Sis, take a leaf and render it as we did when I waxed you."

It takes Julia a full five seconds before she realises what she has to do. In an act of socially conditioned modesty which is not particularly logical under the circumstances, she turns away from Cole and renders the leaf.

Julia preps Cole. True to form, he gets out of the way for her to wax his every nook.

When Julia is done, she playfully gives Cole's still in flourish penis a smack, "Lil' bro, you've been most collaborative. Thank you."

Continuing the mirth, Cole gets up, poses a little, "What do you think of your work?"

"On ne peut juger la farine que quand le pain est quet."

"One can only judge the flour after the bread is cooked."

"Hmmm..."

Cole arcs a dive into the rockpool. The dolphin thus freed, Julia joins him. He helps her clamber through the waterfall curtain. They enjoy the thundering torrent for awhile. Julia feels at home all over again.

They sit and lean languidly against the cave wall watching the fall like a movie with its volume turned down way low to hum. A silence winds itself around them, and binds them. They look around, then, at each other, fully realising at the same moment that they are now committed to one another in some strange way.

He looks at her pensively, "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"It seems like alot of people are talking about past lives and all that. And even if you don't believe in that in a specific way, most people have a notion of an external soul, right?"

"Yes..."

Julia continuing, "Anyway, my thought is, if we all have our origins at the beginning of human history in some way, where do all the current souls, including yours and mine, come from? The earth's population 50,000 years ago was not even a million people. 10,000 years ago, it was only a few million. Today, 8 billion. That's more than 8,000 to 1 split of each original soul in just the last 5,000 years. A blip in earth's time."

Cole processing, "So at best, we're just a tiny fraction of a soul."

"Yes!"

"Is that why we feel so scattered?"

Julia doesn't answer. She moves in another direction, "How've you been managing since Antônia passed away?"

"Most days, it's like a sad melody with happy lyrics. Some days, happy melody, sad lyrics."

A deep pause.

Cole continues, "Antônia never did leave. There was no Antônia."

"Huh?"

"It's complicated..."

"How so?"

He casts a moist sentimental eye towards his sister as he reimagines time, "Antônia..."

He looks at her a little nervously and can't say it. She is minutely sensitive to the turbulent emotional detail. She is truly intrigued and a little excited at what he is struggling with. Finally, she places her finger to his lips.

Julia thinks of Virginia Woolf's "The Waves". I am not one person. I am many people.

They enjoy the ensuing comfortable silence.

He runs his hand over her feminine satin, "You've lovely skin."

Murmuring, "Get under my skin..."

It is said that only a body can truly know another body. They summon the joy out of their effort. Soon, they are in the zone. And in the golden mean of the zone.

She sees a rising cloud of butterflies of every hue. She sees their spread of wings as they bask in the sun. Now, the butterflies line up and take flight with excitement.

He strangles his long groan down into a brief, low grunt.

In the glow of aftermath, she grabs the back of his head and presses it to her, grinding her loins brutally against his face. Will she pulp his face? Her salty, earthy juices flow into his nostrils and mouth, and over his face. She tastes of overripe raw onion, a taste that goes straight to his groin.

He breathes in her strong womanly air. He wishes he can bottle a little of that excitement to stow away in a shoebox in the attic.

The End

***

Author's note:

If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy my "Who Was The Photographer?", written in somewhat the same vein. A husband cajoles his wife to be photographed by her professional photographer brother.