My European Summer Vacation

"Are you okay?" asked Sinead.

"Some indigestion. I think I burned the candle on both ends last night."

Sinead gave me a happy, knowing smile.

We were holding hands again. I felt very uncomfortable. I needed to end this quickly. We were in the far back, and no one was close to us. I reviewed my speech one more time, then plunged into it.

"Sinead, I'm leaving for London tonight."

"What?"

"I'm leaving for London tonight. There's an overnight ferry, and I'm going to take it." I kept talking so Sinead couldn't protest. "I had planned on touring Ireland for a while, but I know I won't enjoy it. The whole time I'd be seeing these sights I've always wanted to see, I'd be thinking about getting back to Cork and you. And I don't want to stay in Cork as I've seen everything I want to see there."

Sinead was surprised, but not obviously upset.

I asked, "So what would you think of in August quitting work two weeks early then we travel around Ireland together?" I'd be 'delayed', and we wind up meeting in Dublin just in time for the flight to Boston. At Boston, I'd tell her I'm her half-brother. No more sex for us.

Sinead pulled out her iPad and started doing something.

She's taking this well.

Sinead continued working on her iPad for a bit and then asked with a hint of a smile, "So you want to travel with me around Ireland for two weeks?"

Sinead, it's okay to get upset about my leaving you.

"I can't think of a better guide."

Her smile widened at that. She kept doing whatever she was doing on her iPad. "I haven't seen much of Ireland. I haven't seen much outside of County Cork."

I was starting to get pissed at how well she was taking this. Two days ago, you asked to live with me, and now you're willing to let me slip away for months without a fight? Something didn't make sense to me. Had I misjudged her feelings for me?

Sinead asked, "Am I going to need a lot of money when I arrive in Boston?"

An odd question. What did that have to do with us here and now?

"No. You'll be staying with me or my family. You won't need furniture. You won't need money for rent. You're going to need money for an immigration lawyer, but that's about it."

"In that case," said Sinead as she put down her iPad and looked at me, "I can afford to go to London with you. To all of Europe for the rest of the summer."

Oh, shit.

I said, "I'm going to be traveling very cheaply, Sinead. I'm not going to be staying in hotels and eating in restaurants. I'm going to be staying in youth hostels. I'm going to be eating sandwiches and other food from the grocery store. It's not going to be a glamorous trip."

Sinead nodded her head up and down. "That's what I'm counting on. I've developed a budget for the trip, and I can only afford it if we travel cheaply. Perhaps in some places, getting a hotel room will be cheaper than both of us staying in a hostel. I may run a little short of money, but I'm hoping you'll have enough that I could borrow from you and then pay you back once Dad gives me money before our flight to Boston."

I'm so screwed.

I said, "My great-grandfather Vaupel fought in Europe in World War One. I have his journal. I'm going to follow his route on a bike. I don't know how long that will take. Won't you find that boring?" I was reaching, but I didn't have anything else.

"That sounds fine. I love cycling. It'd be good to see the countryside. I'm still a country girl at heart."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This is it. She can't go with me. If she goes with me, she's going to expect to have sex all the time, and that would be wrong. I have to tell her I'm her half-brother. She's going to scream, and the people on the bus are going to freak out. I'd break my promise to her dad. But I had no choice - I must tell her.

...But maybe, I don't. What if we were to break up during the summer? Surely she'll get sick of traveling on the cheap. Become miserable, and then we'll have a fight and break up. Maybe she'll meet some Italian millionaire while we're traveling and dump me for him. Either way, I'll never have to tell her that I'm her half-brother. That's it! I'll just kick this can down the road.

"Sinead, I'd love for you to travel with me. If you're willing to travel like I travel, I'll lend you the money you need to keep traveling with me."

Sinead threw her arms around me, hugged me, and kissed me. "Oh my God! This is going to be so wonderful! But we leave tonight?"

"We leave tonight. I already have my ticket for the ferry."

"I've so much to do! I have to give notice at work. I have to clear out the apartment and get it ready to be sublet. Oh my God!"

With that, Sinead worked furiously on her iPad with an occasional break for a phone call. She ignored me, which was fine as I was wrestling with my thoughts. Had I done the right thing? Was having sex with Sinead all that bad? We'd fucked five times already, once after I suspected she was my half-sister and once after I knew. Was that any worse than any other pre-marital affair?

Who the fuck was I kidding? Of course, it was far worse! It was 'you could go to jail for a long time' worse. 'All my friends and family will disown me' worse. I should tell her the truth and tell her that she can't go with me to London before she takes any irreversible actions.

I faced Sinead to tell her that she couldn't go, but I couldn't get her attention as she was talking on her phone while working on her iPad. As I waited to catch her eye, the urge to tell her that she can't go with me dissipated. In the end, I decided I had missed the window. She was racing down the path of preparing to leave with me tonight, and it would be awkward as hell to try to stop her now. I had decided to kick the can down the road, and, right or wrong, I was going to stick with it. We would be lovers touring Europe together, enjoying traveling and each other as much as possible. Hopefully, it would blow up someday, and I'd dodge the bullet from the gun I had pointed at my own head.

* * * *

When we got outside of Sinead's apartment, two women about our age were waiting.

"Noel, this is Emma and Lucy," said Sinead.

We shook hands as Sinead unlocked the door.

Emma said, "I'm the one who spotted you heading towards the English Market. I called Sinead and then kept an eye on you until she showed up." Emma gave me a teasing smile. "Now, I kind of regret not offering to show you around myself."

Emma and Lucy were good-looking, though not as good-looking as Sinead. I was happy I wound up with Sinead. No, I wasn't - she's my half-sister. Argh!

I pushed the thought aside as I had become quite satisfied with my plan. Travel was stressful, and travel on a tight budget was very stressful. Yeah, Sinead and I had hit it off magically so far, but it had been only five days. At some point, I'd make the wrong joke, and we'd break up. When we broke up, I'd tell her that her mom was my mom, that Mom was dead, and that there wasn't any reason to come to Boston. Sinead would be super-furious at me, so she wouldn't want to come to Boston. In the meantime, we would have fun together, and I'd endanger my immortal soul by regularly fucking my half-sister. In the unlikely event we somehow managed to stay together through the summer, I'd face the music in Boston.

In Sinead's apartment, the women discussed what needed to be done and the best way to sell the bigger items. A third woman, Katie, showed up. "I've never met a sink-scrubbing stud before," she said after Sinead introduced us. The other girls giggled.

Emma was in the kitchen when she said, "Wow, it is amazingly clean." She looked over at me. "If you cleaned my kitchen as well, I'd give you the same reward."

Much giggling followed the comment. Sinead turned a bit pink as she seemed to ignore the remark.

I helped to move the furniture to one side of the room and swept the floor. Sinead put clothes into a backpack that Katie had brought over and boxed up the rest. Lucy and Emma boxed up Sinead's pictures and knickknacks. Katie emptied the kitchen shelves. We worked furiously to clean the apartment and to empty it of all but the few big pieces of furniture that Emma would later sell for Sinead. Emma would also arrange to sublet the apartment for the rest of the lease.

At one point, Lucy lay down on the dining room table and said, "Sinead, why don't you lie down like this for a memento picture?"

More giggling broke out.

"Sinead?" I said with some heat.

Sinead came over to me, took my hands, and looked me in the face. "Some of the things we did made me so happy that I had to share them with my friends. I'm sorry to have embarrassed you."

What the hell. I wrapped Sinead in my arms. "Well, it's not like Emma, Katie, and Lucy will be living next door to us. If it makes you happy, it's okay with me."

Lucy said, "We're jealous of how happy you make her." Emma and Katie nodded.

Emma added, "And how much fun you two are having."

I knew one day the fun would end, but it was nice to celebrate it for now.

* * * *

We made the ferry with a few minutes to spare. Once we were in our cabin, we caught our breath. Sinead pulled out her iPad and started researching sights in London. She would occasionally ask my opinion of various sights.

By the time we got to London, Sinead had put together an agenda. As it was late in the afternoon, we hit a couple of sights and then went to the youth hostel. The hotels in London were so expensive that we were forced to stay at the youth hostel, which had no two-person private rooms available. The next day we had a great day in London. The next morning, I was having a good time, but I was feeling the effects of no sex for two days.

"Let's watch a movie," said Sinead.

"Okay." I was surprised as I thought Sinead would want to go sightseeing.

We caught the first show of the day at a movie theater. Sinead picked out a less-than-stellar movie for us to see.

"Are you sure you want to see this one?"

"Aye," said Sinead with a knowing smile.

Sinead had us sit in the back of the theater. We were alone in the theater when the lights went down. Sinead slipped off her panties from under her skirt, removed her bra, and tucked them into our day pack. We made out like crazy. I fingered her to an orgasm, she sucked me off, I ate her out and she sucked me off again. Once we were sexually sated, we left the theater while the movie was still playing. Sinead said, "That's the most fun I've ever had at the movies."

Sinead's friends will be giggling tonight.

* * * *

We had a great time touring England, went to Paris for a brief time to rent bicycles, and then went to Cantigny, France to follow my great-grandfather's campaign. He had been a farm boy in Kansas when he joined the American Expeditionary Forces in 1917. He had fought from Cantigny to the Argonne Forest. I'd always been fascinated with the AEF campaign and had read about it extensively. It was great to see where he had fought and to picture what it had been like. I had planned out the bike route in exact detail. I had thought Sinead would find the ride boring, but she enjoyed being out in the country with me. Every morning, I'd pack us a picnic lunch. We would ride for several hours until we found a secluded spot to pull our bikes into. We'd have a picnic lunch, make love on the thin blanket we had, and nap together. It wasn't the most comfortable way of making love, but it was different and fun. Napping with Sinead in my arms while we were physically and sexually spent made me feel so close to her.

After the Argonne Forest, we returned to Paris. All of our clothes had been worn at least once, so we went to a laundromat as soon as we arrived. I loaded our clothes into the washing machines so Sinead would have the time to finalize our plans for Paris. Except she wasn't doing that - she was staring out into space instead. Once all of the washing machines were running, I sat down next to Sinead and pulled out today's postcard.

I hadn't written much before Sinead said, "Noel, do you ever think about what it'll be like when we're in Boston?"

"No."

"No?"

"There's no point thinking about it. It's going to be so different that I can't imagine how it's going to be. I've never had a full-time job before. I know next to nothing about my roommate. I have no idea if he'll agree with you living with me. I'm sure you'll be able to find some under-the-table work, but I want you to get a green card as soon as possible, and I have no idea how that's done."

I could tell that was a very unsatisfying answer for Sinead. My plan was that we would go to my apartment from the airport. Hopefully, my roommate would be somewhere else for the Labor Day weekend, and then I'd tell Sinead there about our mother. After she had absorbed that, I would take her over to Dad's house to introduce her to her new family, who she would stay with. It was a vague plan, and I'd mainly play it by ear.

"Can I write on this postcard?" asked Sinead.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because my sisters don't know about you, and your writing to them would raise a lot of questions that I don't want to raise."

"They know you're traveling with a wan."

"How would they know that?"

"You're sending them a postcard every day."

A lesson in female secret communication methods.

"No, Sinead."

I wrote a bit more then Sinead said, "So who have you told about me?"

"No one."

"You aren't in contact with anyone?"

"Every Monday, I send my dad an email telling him I'm still alive and where I'm at. Every Tuesday, I get an email back from him saying he and the girls are fine. That's the only communicating I'm doing."

"So why don't you tell him about me?"

"Because you're important, and I don't tell important news to people by email; I do it in person. My dad is the same way. He's been dating a woman for a while, and, if they got engaged while I was gone, he'd tell me in person when I got back. Unless something happens that requires me to head home right away, everything will wait until I get home."

That made Sinead very unhappy. She sat stiffly with her arms crossed fuming for a while. "You were going to abandon me. Just head off to London and leave me behind."

"I had no idea you were willing to quit your jobs and travel with me. I told you why I decided to go to London when I told you I was going."

"It hurt me. And it still hurts."

"Sinead, when did you decide to travel with me?"

"What?"

"When did you decide to travel with me? I'm guessing you had decided to travel with me if I said yes to you living with me in Boston. Am I right?"

It was Sinead's turn to get defensive. "Well...more or less."

"But you didn't tell me. You knew I was going to leave Cork when we got back from the farm, and you hadn't given me any clue that you wanted to come with me."

"I wanted you to ask me."

"Well, I thought it was pointless to ask. And you haven't told your father about me." Sinead called her dad every Wednesday morning around ten. We had to find a quiet place for her to make each of those calls.

"That's completely different, and you know it! I've asked him for money, and he'll tell me I don't need it if I have enough money to gallivant around Europe with you!"

Silence followed. Sinead fumed. Bringing up her dad had been a low blow, especially as I had encouraged her to lie to him about our travels together. I didn't want her dad to know I was fucking my half-sister.

"Look," I said. "We had a failure to communicate. Not your fault and not my fault. Nothing for either of us to be angry about."

"Well, I am trying to communicate with you now about what's life going to be like in Boston. I need to start planning. I need to start getting a picture of our life together in my head."

Don't make any promises. Don't make any commitments.

"I can't help you, Sinead."

Much silence followed. I finished my postcard. This was our first fight. We hadn't had any serious disagreements up to this point. I wanted to compromise. I wanted to meet her halfway, but I couldn't without either lying to her or telling her the painful truth.

Finally, I couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Sinead, you're the most wonderful woman I've known. I've enjoyed every day with you. I'm afraid that because life in Boston will be so different that anything I tell you now won't come true. I don't want to lie to you. I don't want to make you a promise that I can't keep." Sinead had unfolded her arms, and I took her hands. "I'll make you a promise that I can keep. Every day that you travel with me, I'll try to make it a great day." Sinead gave me a little smile. "That's an easy promise for me to make because every day with you is a great day."

I stood up and pulled Sinead up with me. I wrapped my arms around her. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever been with. You're the smartest woman I've ever been with. I respect you more than any woman I've ever been with." That seemed a satisfactory answer because she smiled at me when I looked down at her. We kissed. "Of all the women I've been with, you're the best in bed. And on the couch." Sinead smiled. "And on the dining room table." She giggled. "And the very best in the back of the theater." She laughed.

Sinead hugged me tight. "I'm so crazy about you, I can't stay angry at you."

And so ended our first fight.

* * * *

After Paris, we worked our way North. We discovered that, early in the morning, the bathrooms on train cars are a fine place for a quickie. When we got to Oslo, Norway, we were burnt out on churches and museums and decided to take a multi-day hike through the mountains. We would regularly wander off the trail for some hot sex. After that, 'I'm pining for the fjords' was my favorite code phrase for I wanted to fuck, preferably someplace different and fun.

At some point, I figured out why being in charge was so important to Sinead. Some of it was that she was great at researching and planning. Being in charge gives her carte blanche to do so. I gave her time to research and plan by doing the shopping, the food prep, and the laundry. Some of it was that she hated wasting time. She was up early, dressed quickly, and was fast out the door. People who delayed us because they didn't know their job infuriated her. My approach to touring - we'll do the Louvre then decide what to do next - would have driven her crazy. And some of it was that she liked knowing what was going to happen. She was never anal about her plans, and, in fact, enjoyed it when I'd spontaneously send us on a side adventure. Without her being in charge, I wouldn't have seen nearly as much and wouldn't have had nearly as great of a time. I knew that it bothered Sinead that she couldn't plan for what her life would be like in Boston, but there was nothing I could do. Fortunately, she never brought the subject up again.

From Oslo, we went to Sweden and Finland. Russia isn't covered by a Eurail pass, so Saint Petersburg was the only Russian city we went to. We returned to Helsinki and got a private room in a hostel and were in bed together. I was on my back as usual with Sinead's head on my shoulder. She was playing with my chest hair.

Sinead said, "You're the best flatmate I've ever had."

I chuckled then shook my head. "I'm not your roommate yet."

"You more or less have been. We've spent more time together than I ever spent with a flatmate."

"Well, you're having sex with me, and you didn't do that with your roommates."

"I did with one. I've roomed with two wans and a fella. The wans were my first two years at university. We ended up fighting all the time. The fella was during my last year of university. He had been a great boyfriend until I moved in, then things quickly fell apart. I was a little worried that I couldn't live with someone else."