My Sister's Spawn

My Sister's Spawn

The younger, Mr. Alan P. Templeton knuckled the door frame at the side door of the Brownings' condo on Upper Mill Road. Alan hears the lady of the house call out then the slap of bare feet on the linoleum. He failed to suppress the insanity that came from out of his subconscious with view the lady provided through the screen on the screened security door. Bare but for a pair of very low cut briefs and a matching powder-blue bra, Melissa Browning stepped down the six stairs from the ground floor landing to the foyer with a boyish gait and a sly smirk on her mouth. Alan resisted putting into the spoken word the allure he was feeling for the pale flesh heaving over the cups of Melissa's lace-trimmed bra with each breathe taken. He backed into the sunlight and reminded himself 'behave'. He had suffered similar temptations and want for Melissa's pale flesh in the past as far back as his memory allowed.

Mrs. Browning, a fifth grade, special-Ed teacher at the middle school in the Village of Cadiz usually presented the antiquated visual of the small-town schoolmarm. Black slacks or a long black skirt and a matching blazer and a starched white Oxford dress shirt were Melissa's school day attire. Sensible shoes and black horned rimmed eye wear completed the habit with which Melissa concealed Mother Earth's bounty. That descriptive term was coined by her mother, the elder, Mrs. Alan P. Templeton when she spied her daughter in the all-together on the white sands of Seven Mile Beach the previous December.

Men in a position to know better used more simple terms. Voluptuous, being the one most often uttered softly in Melissa's presence when she was out of uniform. Other more salacious adjectives were used to describe the twenty-nine year old woman when Melissa was out of earshot.

Alan Templeton's approach that Saturday afternoon was timid and carefully measured so not to disturb the fragile balance that existed since the truce.

Melissa had taken his mother-in-law's side in the argument that erupted at St. Joseph Hospital twelve days earlier. The entire family was there awaiting word on Gayle Templeton's condition. Emergency surgery was required to correct the complications after Gayle's third mid-term miscarriage in two years.

"You're going to kill my daughter if the two of you keep up this nonsense," Barbara Kozlowski said in a less than ladylike display towards the close of their four hour vigil.

"Gayle cannot go through this again, Alan."

"She's my wife," was all Alan came up with in his own defense.

Melissa saw the distress on Alan's face as she took the six steps double time. She assumed the worst otherwise why deliver the news face to face four hours ahead of the planned get together for dinner at the Brownings?

"What's wrong?" Melissa asked when she saw the tears welling in her brother's green eyes.

"Some sappy Dixie Chicks song on the radio," Alan said the half-truth.

"Is Gayle all right?"

"Yes. She's doing better today."

Another lie; Gayle was not doing better. While physically her condition had improved emotionally she was on the verge of a breakdown following that third miscarriage.

"The bleeding is under control. Dr. Kraska said she'll be home within the week...but they had to perform a hysterectomy this morning...

"We're out of the parenting business for good."

Alan forced a smile in Melissa's direction.

"And today, you're knocking at my door to what...to tell me all is so well? I saw you pull in and you sacred the shit out of me, Alan. I thought she was dead..."

"The door is locked, Melissa. I had to knock..."

"Oh. That's about the dumbest thing you're said in years. I thought we said five-thirty."

"There was an envelope to deliver to Walker's offices on Charles Street. I was just around the corner..."

"Jeans?" Melissa questioned.

"It's my day off. I no longer work weekends. I just happened by Dad's office on my way to the hospital. I thought I'd save him the messenger fee." And put myself closer to you he did not say.

Melissa worked the lock on the screened door.

Alan stepped in when Melissa smiled contentment, at ease with his appearance at the side door.

With a glimpse unhindered by the screen, he whispered, "Caliente."

"What's that?"

"My Spanish word for the day, Melissa."

"Thank you, Alan," she said after securing the translation from her memory. She grazed his cheek with her fingers.

"How is it you are able to stand upright with those two?" Alan quipped.

Where Alan placed his gaze was explanation enough for Melissa to cross-examine Alan.

"This is not the first time you've seen my tits. They're pretty much the same ones you've been gawking at your whole life at least since they sprouted at thirteen. Good muscle tone and big feet help with the balance. Wide hips help..."

That's true he reminded himself. During a family stay at the property leased by Mr. Templeton Sr.'s firm in Negril in January, Melissa chanced an impromptu stroll along one of the nude beaches with Alan affectionately at her heels. That afternoon the siblings crossed into that uncharted territory as Melissa stripped out of her two piece swim wear without missing a step. Lovely breasts cut a healthy swath as they swung in time with her long strides. Alan took in the view and the arousal came, feelings he could not deny given the bulge in his swim trunks.

"You were on the nude beach..., with your sister?" Gayle asked later that afternoon at dinner. She had overheard the elder; Mrs. Templeton's report the facts to Alan's dad shortly after tea while Gayle recuperated from a bout with traveler's diarrhea.

"Yes," Alan said truthfully so as not to deepen the hole he had fallen into that afternoon.

"You are one sick puppy, Alan," was the younger, Mrs. Templeton's retort.

That night following forgiveness, Gayle took Alan to the sand and fucked him silly. To the best of Gayle's reckoning that was the night the third fetus was conceived. To Alan's surprise, Gayle let the matter die on the sands of Negril never to be mentioned again.

"Always an enjoyable sight, Melissa," Alan said on returning to the present from his current wandering into the realm of daydreams. He raised his gaze from nervous hands to the place where temptation resided then to his sister's fair-haired smile. "It's as if God took the most desirable ingredients She had available and allowed you to fall from heaven after the assembly was complete. In your present state and my delirium, I am going straight to hell for what I'm thinking."

"If you find me so irresistible, why haven't you...?" Melissa intentional cut short the question and let her brother come up with his own interpretation.

"I have. You just never noticed.

"You've lovely feet," he said after glancing down at her red-nailed toes.

Melissa saw the admiration in her brother's eyes but stuck with argumentative. "Like I said so many times before today, they're too big."

"Did anyone ever tell you...?"

"Geez, Alan, more than once," Melissa interrupted then paraphrased, "'...like Blondie Bumstead with enormous tits'. Get over it."

"I have never ever referred to your breasts as 'tits', Melissa," he said. This was a comment Melissa chose to ignore.

"The first time I heard you say tits, was at party celebrating our third wedding anniversary. You made the announcement in front of Mom and Dad and Paul. It was quite shocking at the time, Alan. Paul thought you were making a pass but I convinced him you were quite drunk. And I know the remark was directed at your mother in law. You had your eyes on her every time I saw you anywhere near Barbara. It's a good thing Gayle was busy in the kitchen. She knows how you are, better yet were with her mother."

"Listen to me, Melissa. Barbara was the aggressor," Alan was quick to add. "I won't apologize to anyone for what happened. It began years before Gayle and I were considered 'a thing' and Barbara refused to let go even after I married Gayle."

"And now?"

"Barbara flirts every now and then, well; she did before the hospital incident anyway. Nothing serious; playful banter...misplaced hands... Nothing I can't handle"

"Just don't handle Barbara. It would get back to Gayle. Especially after the scene at St. Joes..."

In the position he was in at the moment there was no better place to look. Melissa's tits are absolutely lovely.

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask."

"Don't ask, Alan."

With Alan's eyes falling into the sliver of a shadow that divided the right breast from the left, Melissa felt the chill scratching at her spine.

"Could you stop staring, Alan?"

"Impossible, Melissa. It's been years since I've had you in such a delightful predicament."

"The predicament is of my own making. Remember, I asked you here."

"To bare your soul?"

"No. To make you and Gayle an offer."

"And what might that be?" Alan asked.

"Give me your shirt, Alan."

"Why?"

"We're going out on the terrace. You're making me quite nervous. I need a safe-place outdoors."

"Paul and I learned that he is sterile last Friday," Melissa said once she and her brother settled into the high-backed Adirondack chairs. "That's why I can't get pregnant."

"I'm so very sorry, Melissa."

"Thank you, Alan.

"Since you and Gayle are like two rabbits and Gayle can't carry to term, Paul and I thought, in vitro surrogacy..."

"Melissa, Gayle's problem..., our problem is genetic. She has low mitochondria and progesterone plus an inhospitable uterus. It would be a waste of space," he looked to her midriff and continued, "to lay an egg in your uterus. I'm sure Gayle will have more to say on the subject if the conversation continues."

With the weight of that new information heavy on her heart, Melissa fell back into the cushion on the chair and closed her eyes.

"Alan, what if you and I...we make two...and Paul and I give one back. I was going to ask you for the sperm, if..."

"Gayle would never..."

"That seems to be going around, Alan."

Alan rose up out of the high backed chair and knelt beside Melissa. He took her into his arms and she snuggled deeper in the warmth.

"They'll refuse, if we ask."

"I know. It's not right."

"This is what I want to do for Gayle and for Paul," Melissa said.

Alan watched from the doorway of the bedroom as Melissa dropped his navy blue tee shirt and the powder blue under things on the seat of the chair next to the bureau.

Melissa lay back on the comforter and took her turn to watch as Alan added his jeans and Jockey shorts to the delicate cloth on the chair.

Melissa flinched when Alan reached for an ankle.

"Don't fuss so, Melissa."

"I've never..." she whispered.

"I know. Neither have I, honey. There's a lot of that going around."

Alan tossed her flip flops onto the carpet beside her bed then took her long narrow feet in his hands. With four fingers wrapped over the insteps and his thumbs pressed into the soles of her feet, Alan maneuvered Melissa's knees to her breasts and exposed the furrow hidden by the growth of dirty blonde velvet. Wide set hips framed a belly hardened by a daily regimen of strenuous cardio and weight training.

"Are you sure, Melissa?"

Melissa said nothing in response. She laid her head on the pillows piled three high to the waxed oak headboard. With her arms crossed over the nape of her brother's neck, she drew Alan into the trap as both had hoped so many years ago.