Phoenix Rising Pt. 01

We had buried Grandad a month ago. Mom and I were in his old room going through his things. Whatever else you might say about the old farmhouse, it was plenty big enough and there were lots of places he and Gran had stashed stuff. I sat on the bed surrounded by piles of papers. I don't know why I wanted to organize them. Most of the stuff - tax returns, bank statements, financial statements for the farm - was meaningless after fallout. Some of it we would keep for sentimental reasons: birth certificates, marriage license, that sort of thing. None of it meant anything but we were going to keep some of it anyways.

I glanced up from my place on the bed and saw Mom on her hands and knees inside the walk-in closet. It was summer so she was wearing shorts that had at one time been perfectly decent and serviceable. But three years of hard use and they were thinning and torn. Her beautiful, round, shapely ass hung suspended in my vision and I saw that beneath her shorts she was wearing a thong. It was a perfect picture and I struggled to pull my gaze away.

"What have we here?" She pulled a small box out of the closet and sat back on her heels. While I could no longer see her ass, the show was not over. She wore a tank top that was similarly torn and thinning, and I had a view of her large, rounded breasts glistening with sweat in her plain white bra that did nothing to hide them from me. I could see that her bra was thinning every bit as much as her shirt because her nipples popped through both. If she moved the right way, I could see the outline of her areola, a darker shade of brown on her olive skin.

"What is it mom?" I asked trying not to stare.

She held up a small box to me. "It has your name on it."

"My name?" I got off the bed and took the box from Mom. I was self-conscious that my shorts were also falling apart. We had thought that maybe once I grew a bit I could fit into some of Grandad's old clothes, which is what Dad had done, but for all that I grew it hadn't been enough. I tossed my hair aside, it was easier to tie it up in summer than it was to grow it out in winter and it was partway down my back now, just like Mom and Paris. Dad was mostly bald and he preferred to shave his head summer and winter alike.

I got on my knees beside mom and thought, not for the first time, that we looked pretty alike. I was only a bit taller than Mom. We both had the same auburn hair, hazel eyes and even similar facial features. Mom was curvier and softer than me, obviously, but I also had a narrow waist and wider hips than what was common for guys. The largest difference between my mom and me these days was that she had breasts (C cup I think) and I had a cock (seven inches long and three around, thank you very much). If it hadn't been for the fallout I had the strength, the speed and the build to have gone to national karate competitions.

She held out the box to me. "Well go on. Open it."

It was a small box, like a jewelry box. wrapped in simple brown paper and twine with an old fashion card attached to it. I opened the card. "To Phoenix, from grandmom," I read. "To be opened on your 18th birthday. With all my love and my best hopes and wishes for you."

"Well," Mom said, "your eighteenth birthday has come and gone. Open it."

I didn't say anything I just untied the string and carefully unwrapped the paper. There was no knowing when paper would be useful. The box inside was plain wood with a simple lid. Inside was a key. It was an old ornate key made from wrought iron. I held it up and Mom gasped.

"What is it?"

"That's the key to the cellar," She said. "Your Dad and I have been looking for that ever since Gran died."

I handed her the key. "Here ya go."

"No," she said. "Gran gave it to you."

"Do you want to see what's down there? Supplies maybe?"

"Let's not get our hopes up too high," Mom said with a smile. Then she got to her feet and pulled me up behind her. "But let's go take a look."

Like I said, the farmhouse was huge, and while we had always been able to get into the basement, there was a locked door down there which we had never been able to open. I suppose we could have taken an ax to the door, or a sledgehammer to the frame, but for some reason we never did.

Paris and Dad were out on the back porch relaxing after a hard day in the fields. "What you got there?" Dad called to us as we made our way downstairs.

"Phoenix found the key to the cellar!" Mom called back, her excitement obvious. "Want to come with us?"

"Let me know if you find anything interesting," Dad said. "Paris and I will just hang out here for a bit."

The door down to the basement was in the kitchen. The stairs from there went straight down into the basement but most of the open space required someone to go around the stairs. The locked door was three feet in front of the stairs. The key went in without a problem and the lock turned as though freshly oiled. When I saw what was behind the door, I didn't know what to think.

There was a room that was the size of a large walk in closet. There was a table and two chairs in the center and a pile of boxes on one side. There was a deck of cards on the table in an ornate, open box and covered with a thick layer of dust. Beside the cards was a letter with my name on it.

Mom opened the first box and gasped. "Candles!" she shouted. "Hundreds of candles!"

And not just any candles but the kind that could burn for hours on end. I turned my attention to the letter but chose not to read it right then. I stuck it in my pocket and covered it with my shirt. I don't know why. I just felt like I couldn't read it right then.

"Great!" I said. "Making candles is hard. What else is there?"

We put the box aside and opened another one. "Oh dear." Mom laughed as she looked at the frilly lace lingerie in the box. "As lovely as this is, I'm afraid it won't help us much." She held it up. "Maybe she wanted to give it to you to give to a girlfriend?"

I shook my head. "Because the ladies are just falling over each other to get to me these days." We were on a farm in the middle of the West Virginia mountains. When the car used to have gas, it took us three hours to get to the post office. No one was coming to us. "There are other boxes," I said, "let's take a look."

The other boxes were filled with clothing. Underwear, pants, shorts, tops and coats for both men and women. Unfortunately none of the men's clothes were in my size (they were for Dad) and everything else was women's clothes with most being perfect for Mom and Paris. They both even had some frilly lingerie in their sizes.

"That's disappointing," Mom said. "I'm sorry Baby. Let's look around and see if there's anything else in here that maybe Gran wanted you to have. The cards on the table maybe?"

With the letter in my pocket, there was nothing except the old deck of Tarot cards which I was not going to touch.

"First rule of magic, Mom," I said, "Do not touch the mysterious anything that sits by itself on a table."

Mom laughed and we made our way back upstairs. "Marcus!" She called to the porch, "Come on down here and take a look at this!"

"Is it booze? I could really use a beer." Dad went downstairs. I went to the top floor of the house, the attic that I had claimed as my own the first night we had arrived. There used to be a couple of boxes of Grandmother's clothes in the corner, but we had taken those apart ages ago for Mom and Paris to try and make something out of them. Aside from that I had my bed, a small table and chair, and a chest of drawers that I used for my own clothing. I usually kept a bowl and a pitcher of water on the table with a wash rag so I could clean up in the morning and get the night's grit out of my eyes. Or, as had become increasingly common, dried cum off me and my sheets.

I sat at the table in the last light of day and opened Grandmother's letter.

Dear Phoenix,

I hope you aren't too disappointed with me. If I read the cards right, I am dead, and Grandad is dead, and the world has gone to shit around you. I can't say for sure HOW bad the world is, but it looks pretty bad from what I can see.

I hope I'm wrong.

The cards tell me that you are keeping three secrets. Let me tell you young man, that one of them is no great problem. I'm sure to an eighteen year old man it is a catastrophic thing to be a virgin, but it isn't. I promise you it isn't.

The other two secrets are bigger.

Obviously.

But I want you to know that I don't care. I still love you. I love you more than I know how to say, and I hope that the gifts I left for you with this letter will help you grow out of your secrets and into the light.

The world is falling apart dear heart. Now is no time for secrets.

I love you.

Grandmom

PS - I told Grandad some of this and hopefully he'll be able to help when things start to go south. Wouldn't it be something if after all these years his paranoid bullshit about living off the grid actually paid off?

That night at dinner Mom talked about how disappointed she was for me.

"I'm just sorry we couldn't have a real birthday party for you. 18 and all you know?"

"And even worse," Paris said leaning back in her chair, "is that half of those clothes don't fit me or Mom." She shook her head. Paris looked more like our Dad. Although all of us were tanned by years working outdoors, she and Dad were still paler than me or Mom. Paris was blond, like Dad. She had a soft, curvaceous body that belied her toughness. She was shorter than me, about mom's height, although not quite as curvy as her. Where she and mom were most alike though was that her clothes were starting to wear thin. It took effort on my part to keep me from staring at the nipples that tented her shirt. Paris didn't even bother wearing a bra anymore. "And as much as the lacy things are nice, who am I going to wear them for?"

"They're good clothes, but let's not dump what we have in the rag pile just yet," Dad said. He had been an agronomist... not that I ever understood what that was, but hew as gorgeous. Sure he shaved his head, but three years working the farm and he looked the part of a man's man. Put a beard on him and there wasn't a wood cutter for a thousand years who wouldn't welcome him into camp. I was close. I had the build, the shoulders and the strength to keep up with Dad, but for some reason I didn't have as much body hair as he did. I couldn't grow more than a light peachfuzz of hair on my face, and my leg hair was so thin I might as well have been shaved. On more than one occasion I had shaved just to see if anyone would notice -- they did not.

"It's strange though," Mom said, "It's almost as if she had clothes for all of us except for Phoenix. I just don't understand, she never left you out of anything." She spun a strand of hair around one finger as she thought about it. I sighed and relished in how incredibly lucky I was. There at the end of the world I was living with beautiful people, walking around in clothes that barely offered any modesty. Nevermind that they were my family, they were still beautiful.

I didn't say that of course. Instead I shrugged and replied to Mom's statement. "Maybe she was thinking of opening up a store at some point. Maybe she was holding them for someone else. Who knows?"

"Maybe we should go down there and check again," Mom said, "Maybe we missed something."

"It's fine Mom."

Mom shook her head. "If only it were."

I reached across the table and took her hand. "We've all missed birthdays. Christmases. No one has gotten any real gifts for the last three years, but we're all alive. I'll take it. Happy birthday to me, my family is fucking alive."

"Language," Dad said. He reached over and placed his hand atop of mine and mom's. I felt the heat of his hand surge through me. "But I can't say I disagree either."

Paris leaned in. The candlelight shone through her baggy shirt and I could see her small pink nipples with their equally pale areola. They seemed to twinkle like stars in the night. "Me too. I'm so grateful that we don't have to do this alone."

There was a moment then. We gazed at each other and i felt the love flow between us fully and openly. I felt my family, not just their hands but their whole beings and I was in love with them.

I couldn't help it. I was in love with my family and my cock was growing at the closeness we were experiencing.

"Or with your old roomate?" I asked Paris. The joke broke through the tension. The heat was still full in me and I had to work to make sure my cock didn't tear through my briefs (I didn't have that many pairs left). Thankfully, the candlelight hid my blush and dinner went on as normal. I sat and waited for my cock to shrink so that it wouldn't be so obvious in my own thinning, and too-small shorts.

After dinner Mom and Dad went through the boxes in the cellar again and took what was obviously the right size for Mom, Dad, or Paris to their respective rooms. Everything else they left down there. I was helping Paris wash the plates and I felt her body so close to mine that I felt the warmth of her skin. I smelled the combination of honey and spring water that seemed to cling to her like no one else in the family. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, desperate to touch her and terrified at the same time. I wanted to scream for her touch and beg her to look at me the way I looked at her. I wanted to feel her body against mine. I wanted to feel her soft breasts pressing into me, any part of me. I wanted to touch her ass and feel her hands on my face, my hair, my chest and ass and cock. I wanted so much to drop to my knees and press my face into her groin to inhale the scent of her pussy but I did none of those things. I just stood there doing the dishes.

Paris leaned into me and wrapped one arm around my waist. I thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest. "I'm glad we're alive," she said, "but I'm with Mom. I wish we could have gotten you something for your birthday. Celebrated somehow."

"What about you Miss 21?" I leaned into the hug grateful for the contact and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. I was always afraid to touch my family and I was always so desperate for it. "Shouldn't we be talking about your big day?"

"Please. 21 doesn't mean anything anymore."

I looked at Paris. We were nearly the same height and she used to joke, before the fallout, that with only a bit of makeup I would have made a perfect sister. "18 doesn't mean much of anything either," I said.

She turned to face me and gave me a hug, pressing my body into hers. I felt her breasts against my chest and her nipples scraped against my skin through both our shirts. Her breasts were not large, not as large as Mom's for sure, but large enough that I could feel their softness contrasting with the hardness of her nipples. She took a half step forward and I felt her pressing into my quickly hardening cock. In some small part of my mind, I thought I felt the heat of her pussy pressing into me. "Maybe it should mean something. Maybe your big sister wants it to mean something."

"Wanting isn't getting." I said. I spoke as much to myself as I did to her. I needed the contact. Without thinking I squeezed her close to me. I knew she could feel my cock pressing into her but I couldn't stop myself. I was fully hard now. I needed to feel her. Anything from her. But then sense came back and I eased my hold enough that she could step away.

She held onto me. She couldn't fail to notice my erection now. I wasn't porn-star large, but seven inches long and three around is impossible to hide in clothes that were falling apart. I was certain she was going to let go of me. Brother's aren't supposed to get hard over their sisters. I was certain she was going to be disgusted with her pervy brother, push me away and tell me to take a cold shower.

She didn't let go of me though. I kept my arms around her shoulders and she kept her arms around my waist. She held me tight and I just relaxed into it. I allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of her softness against me. Her breasts, contrasting with her nipples. The heat emanating from between her legs and wrapping around my cock. I didn't want it to end. But it did.

She pulled away, kissed me lightly on the lips, and we went back to washing the dishes as though nothing weird had just happened. As though I hadn't just jammed my cock against my sister. As though she hadn't held onto me just as hard as I had held onto her.

The truth was I cared about missing a birthday. I had wanted to celebrate, but it's hard to celebrate when you're worried about surviving.

As darkness fell everyone went to their own beds. I took a candle and sat on the back porch but didn't light it promising to go to sleep soon, but not quite yet.

I waited an hour. Whatever else had happened since the fallout, I had gotten good at measuring time without a watch. When I was sure that everyone in the house was asleep, I went to the sink and washed my face. The house had well water and though we had to prime the pump, it worked just fine. When no one woke to the noise of the water pump, I lit my candle and went down to the cellar.

I had lied to Mom before. There was something else hidden in the cellar: a mirror. It was hidden in shadows behind the door so Mom hadn't seen it, but I knew it was there. I closed the cellar door, put the candle on the table and opened the first box of clothes that didn't fit anyone else. They were all women's clothes.

If being a virgin was my first secret (and since the fallout happened when I was 15 that shouldn't surprise anyone), my second secret was that I loved my family in a way that I probably shouldn't: I think I probably had ever since I discovered the difference between boys and girls. The third was that I loved women's clothing. Starting when I was 12 I would sneak into my Mom's room when I had the house to myself and try on her clothes. I would sneak into Paris's room when she started at college and try on her clothes. Grandad had even snuck some of Gran's old panties and skirts for me from time to time and I had been afraid that I was coming to an end of my dirty secret. Then Gran had dropped an entire wardrobe for me to play with.

I took my time. I undressed, grateful that I didn't have an over-abundance of body hair, and looked at the boxes fully naked. I knew from previous experimenting that while I didn't have a woman's body and it was easy to look manly, I only need a bit of effort to look feminine. I lacked breasts but given the right clothes, it didn't matter because my hips were wider than my waist and the right clothes made me look like a small chested girl. I had a seven inch cock, but again, given the right clothes, it didn't matter.

I chose a lacy, red bikini panty and matching red lace bralette. I put a black robe over it that was so sheer I could make out the detailing on the panties even in the dim candlelight. Everything fit as perfectly as I could hope since I didn't have the breasts required to really fill them out. But I did have the ass. I had the right kind of ass for this.

I rummaged around the boxes a bit and found a box with a hairbrush that I had noticed earlier. I turned one the chairs towards the mirror, pulled my long hair over my shoulder and started to brush it. I sat there, in my sexy lingerie and brushed my hair.

It was a glorious feeling too. I loved the feel of the brush through my hair. I loved the feel of the lace against my skin. I loved the way I looked that night. The soft candlelight on my sun kissed skin. My legs were delicately crossed and the robe hung open just-so as I brushed my hair. Some men do this and come up with a different name for themselves. And it makes sense when your name is Robert or Mark or Luke or something so obviously male. But I was Phoenix. Just another face of Phoenix. Just a different angle on my shining feathers. I put the brush on the table (mom had dusted it, of course), and I noticed that the box that held the tarot cards had a drawer in the bottom. It wasn't large, but it was different. I opened the drawer and saw a beautiful gold necklace with a gold charm: a butterfly. It was beautiful and I don't know what madness entered my mind, but I put it on.