Sister, Sister

ONE

Red wrapper? Or blue? That was today's biggest question in my idyllic life. Salted or unsalted butter. For a moment I stood in the supermarket with a basket in my hand and stared at a chiller full of butter and margarines. A bewildering selection of spreads illuminated by bright fluorescent lighting. I could feel the cold air flowing out on my hands and feet. I went for salted.

Milk and bread were next. All I needed before going to collect Lilly from pre-school. Oh, and some bananas. That would do until the big shop arrived on Thursday. I paid and took it out to the waiting I-Pace.

I looked the picture of upper-middle-class suburbia. Nice clothes, flash car, immaculate dark wavy hair, and carefully applied makeup. I was still a relatively young wife and mother with little to do but look good while my husband made the big money.

A glance that lasted a little too long by a passing man reminded me just how good. Eyes on my arse was what you call an occupational hazard. Eye candy. That was me. I could have been some famous footballer's wife or girlfriend. I wasn't, but it described my image.

I collected my daughter from the pre-school and we went back to another trapping that a WAG would recognise. The very expensive home my successful husband paid for. Yes. Idyllic. At least that's how it appeared.

Lilly was four. She was becoming independent and curious about the big world. Everything was a toy. I had to watch her all the time or I'd find myself cleaning crayons from the walls or picking Lego out of the washing machine. A nice bank balance and manicured nails didn't protect anyone from a precocious young lady.

She'd recently discovered how the push-to-open cupboard doors in the kitchen worked. Or more significantly, how fun it was to have her frustrated mother find every base cabinet with its doors swinging two minutes after I'd looked away.

Other children her age could be sat in front of a TV to keep them quiet. Lilly's attention span for television was limited. Peppa Pig was as far as it went. A good thing in truth, but there were times I wished it would hold her in the hypnotic state some four-year-olds were gripped by.

I loved her to bits. She was my world. But oh boy, did I look forward to the occasional respite when she was at pre-school or when my niece popped in after school to spend time with her.

Abby lived across the road. She was fourteen and becoming a little adult. She was discovering boys and wearing makeup. It wasn't dolls anymore. Now it was a genuine curiousness about children and babies as she foresaw a future of marriage and families. She was at a crossroads. Soon to be a woman herself, but still retaining a part of her childhood. I think spending time with Lilly was a way she could still play with dolls while pretending she'd outgrown them.

All I knew was that it was an hour or two I could safely switch my attention off. An opportunity to prepare dinner without building a barricade around anything remotely sharp or hot.

I glanced in to check on them to find Lilly piggybacking Abby, giggling madly.

"Hi."

I turned to see my sister coming in through the sliding doors.

"Abby here?"

"Yeah. In the conservatory with Lilly. She's keeping her quiet.

Coffee?"

"Please."

"Good. That's another twenty minutes I can hold on to my saviour."

I was close to my sister. She was a year older but we were more alike than most twins. Same green eyes, and the same dark hair. Same features. Having the same beautician made us all the more alike. We even lived on the same road. I say road. It was more a gated community. Houses my architect husband had designed. Claire's had been the financial Brian, raising the capital for it all. They'd also helped build the houses as part of a self-build community. They were old school friends, probably as close as brothers in their own way.

"Joe and Rogan just got home. I left them talking about Star Trek."

Claire sat on one of the bar stools and ruffled her hair in mock frustration.

"Keeps them happy.

Rogan watches the shite while I take a bath. I can time it to a perfect forty-five minutes."

I poured the coffee from the filter machine into two mugs and joined her.

"Eddie's just as corrupted. Won't watch anything else. On his games machine the rest of the time.

So. Any thoughts about that holiday we were talking about? Skiing? Or sun sea and sand?"

"Yeah. I asked Rogan.

He suggested Barbados in January. Nice and hot.

Just like here." I added glancing out at the dull skies and wind.

"Yeah. May and it's freezing outside."

I glanced down at her legs.

"Might be because you're in a tiny little dress. Drafty?"

"It's my Deanna Troy ploy. Legs and tits and I might get a little attention from his phaser."

"Does it work?"

"No. Not really. Still has his shields up more than down."

"Same with Rogan.

Once a week if I'm lucky.

Thought men were supposed to think about sex every seven seconds."

"They do. But the thinking wears them out." Claire laughed sipping her coffee.

"Okay. Barbados it is."

"Aren't you going to ask Joe?"

"He won't care. I'll tell him it's a planet in The Neutral Zone and he'll be fine."

"You sure you don't watch it in secret? You know a lot about Star Trek."

"Be glad you haven't got a twelve-year-old coming up thirty. I get the rundown every time he watches an episode.

Ugh."

She mimicked shooting herself in the head.

"Can't be worse than Peppa Pig over and over.

Were we like that do you think?"

"I only remember having the hots for Ryan Phillippe and getting told off for watching Cruel Intentions."

"Not for girls your age."

We mimicked Mum in unison before collapsing into laughter.

"Mum.

Dinner ready?"

We both looked around to find Abby standing by the huge glass panels at the side of the house. Her school uniform dishevelled by the antics of my daughter.

"And that's teenagers for you. Always food."

Abby was the spitting image of her mum. She was going to be another slender hottie when she was all grown up. Lilly was at her side dancing to some tune only she could hear. She took after her dad. Blonde hair.

"I only asked. I thought you'd come to get me."

"Do you have homework?"

"English and History."

"Then I've come to get you."

Claire stood up.

"Come over later, Maya. Joe has a work thing on and I have a bottle of wine that needs help drinking."

I walked with them to the door.

"About eight?"

"Perfect. The kids will be up in their rooms by then."

"Mum." Abby protested.

"The kids will be up in their rooms by then." She said a little louder and clearer for Abby's benefit.

"Sorry, Abby." I smiled.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

I would. Most days Abby came over. As did Claire. Or I went to their home. We practically lived in each other's houses.

Joe and Rogan were just as bad. Of course, they worked while we were stay-at-home mums now. But in their free time, they hung out. Played golf occasionally. And arranged most things to include both our families.

They were childhood friends going back to their first day at senior school. I'd met Rogan through Claire and Joe not long after they'd started dating. A charity football match they'd played in. Claire had convinced me to go watch her new boyfriend with her. I'd not been so keen, expecting to play Gooseberry after the match. Instead, I'd met Rogan and became captivated.

Our first date had been the same night. That'd been almost sixteen years ago. Now here I was about to cook his tea.

"Mummy.

Can I watch Peppa Pig?"

"Yes, darling."

Bonus. Peace would continue.

TWO

The beauty of our physical closeness was that we could continue as adults being the childhood friends we always had been. Only with added alcohol.

Claire's children were upstairs doing whatever kids that age did. In our day it'd been texting and watching videos with our friends. I imagined today it was TikTok and FaceTime for Abby. In Eddie's case, there was no secret. It would be Call of Duty on his Xbox.

I crept away from Rogan with the "just popping to Claire's" excuse he'd heard so many times.

She already had a bottle waiting.

"Do we drink too much?"

She asked handing me a glass.

"Probably. We should cut the coffee out."

"Ha. That'll be it.

Cheers."

She raised her glass and took a mouthful.

"Let's go sit down."

Claire's home was a similar style to my own. Open spaces, minimalist, and huge glass panels that folded away in the summer to a secluded garden where no one could see. There were eight other homes in our group. All were constructed by a self-build collective Rogan and Joe had led.

It was a gated little community on the far edge of town with open fields and green spaces isolating us from the world just a little more.

I flopped onto one of the sofas. It was a home-from-home for me.

"Look at us. We live in nice houses, I drive a BMW. You a Jaguar. We're planning a holiday in the Caribbean for fuck sake. We didn't see that one coming during Assembly at school. Anyone would think we have perfect lives."

"We do don't we?

Look around. Not bad for two girls who grew up in a semi and went to a comprehensive school."

"True. But sometimes I think life is passing us by in our little cocoon."

This was new. Claire not so convinced by our amazing luck.

"What's nagging at you?"

"I don't know. Life I guess.

It all gets a bit run of the mill doesn't it."

Claire stared into her drink.

"No one knows what life is like when we close our doors."

I topped her glass up and she went on.

"I remember when it was fun. Going out every weekend. Having boys pester us for a kiss, or more. I remember when I first went out with Joe and he couldn't keep his hands off me."

"I remember having to work for a living and trying to decide if I had enough money for the new shoes I wanted."

"But it was exciting. Now it's all ... bluhh."

"Claire. All you have to do is pamper yourself and look good for Joe."

"That's just it. What am I looking good for? Two kids, a job in finance that takes so much of his time. We're more like brother and sister than we are lovers."

"The dress not working then?"

I looked at her legs stretched out to rest on the edge of a huge coffee table, bare all the way up her thighs. If it'd been any shorter I could have checked the colour of her panties. Was she saying Joe had lost interest?

Claire gulped more of the wine.

"I'm not Deanna. Or his other fancy. I'm just boring, dependable wifey."

I felt a little of her pain. I could see the same with Rogan. It wasn't just him. It was me too. Claire had a point. Marriage did become mundane. It was just that the wine hadn't reached my head quite enough yet to bleat about it.

"Who's his other fancy?

With Rogan, it's Jenna Coleman. Watches anything with her in. Thinks I don't notice."

"They always give it away, don't they? Just a little too attentive. A little too upright in the chair.

I don't care to be honest. So long as he performs for me."

"And Joe doesn't?"

I started to see where this was going. She swirled the last of the wine around her glass.

"He does. Now and then. Not as much as he did. But the problem is more that he's rarely there. I mean, he is physically, obviously. His head, not so much."

Claire looked straight at me. I saw it in her eyes. That glass in her hand wasn't her first drink of the evening. And she was letting her guard down more than usual.

"The trouble with Joe is, he fucking fancies you more than he does me these days."

I laughed. I'd have been a little uncomfortable hearing that from anyone else. But Claire knew I wasn't a threat.

"The unobtainable is always attractive. I'm sure Rogan probably harbours thoughts about you."

"You'd know if he did. Same as I know about Joe."

I pulled an unsure face.

"I don't know. Rogan can be a closed book. He could easily be thinking about you while he's doing me.

Or Deanna. Or Jenna Coleman.

Wouldn't bother me to be honest. So long as whatever's in his head is keeping him hard, I'm happy to ride it.

And I have my own fantasies."

I curled over laughing to cover my embarrassment at saying that out loud as Claire stared at me wide-eyed.

"Maya. That's ... outrageous."

"Why?

Come on. We all fantasise a little to break the monotony of fucking the same person night after night."

"Night?

Don't you mean week?"

I cringed.

"Yeah. Week. Ish. If I'm lucky."

"Thirteen years married. Eleven for you. I guess it does get a bit boring with the same person."

It used to be three times a day. Then three times a week. Would it soon be three weeks a time? I could see Claire's frustration. Things had cooled off for me as well when I thought about it honestly.

"So. Who do you think about?"

I pushed. She couldn't be innocent on that front. It wouldn't be natural.

"Maya. That's personal."

"Fuck off. We're sisters. We tell each other everything."

"Not everything." Claire looked sheepish.

"Oh. What aren't you telling me?"

"Who I think about when I'm having sex, for one." She waved the glass at me dismissively.

I grinned.

"So it's not Joe then?"

"Jesus. Can we talk about something else?"

"No. You started it. And I'm enjoying this.

Joe thinks about me.

Rogan, probably, thinks about you. With Jenna Coleman in a threesome..."

"Fuck off. I'm not sharing. Though Jenna is a hottie I suppose."

"And I ..."

I wasn't sure how brave I was at this point. Should I tell the truth? Fuck it. I was in now.

"I, maybe, sometimes, occasionally... think about ... Joe."

There. I'd admitted it. I'd told my sister I fucked while thinking about her husband. I'd laugh it off if she got mad.

She didn't. Instead, she just sniggered.

"So my sister and my husband think about shagging each other. Interesting."

"It's just fantasies, Claire."

"We need to drink less. Some things should remain secret."

"Sisters remember. When have we not told each other everything? We even swapped notes on popping our cherries."

"Ha. Yeah, we did. I remember that. Drink was involved then as well."

I raised my glass.

"It was indeed. Glory be the power of a good Merlot."

I swigged back a mouthful having given up on Claire letting out her secret. It was probably George Clooney or someone anyway.

"It's Rogan." She suddenly said.

I was taken aback more by how she said it than the fact she had. So matter-of-factly. As if slightly hesitant to.

"Rogan? Really?"

She smirked.

"He's hot. You know that. I always said he was hot. Even before you were married.

"You haven't seen him snoring and scratching his balls."

"Ha. I think they all do that. It's genetic. Have sex, yawn, scratch balls and snore.

But I bet he's fun between the sheets. Scratch that. You told me he is."

"You once said the same about Joe. But that was years ago. For both of us.

Let's be honest. We've been with them what? Fifteen years at least. It's like watching the same episode of Friends over and over. You know what's coming and the jokes aren't funny any more."

Fuck. I was suddenly realising how mundane everything had become.

"True.

Don't you just wish for the old excitement though? The adventure of something new and undiscovered."

"Christ Claire. Are you thinking about having an affair?"

"Nooo. Nothing like that. I just ... Oh, I don't know. Something a little less dramatic. More honest."

"It's fucking hard to have sex with someone who isn't your husband without it being dramatic."

"What if it was agreed? Mutually? A fulfil the fantasies moment?"

"I think we'd all like to do that. Not so easy in real life."

I swallowed back more of the wine to quench rising fantasies of my own.

"That's why they're fantasies."

Claire's thoughts drifted back to normality for a moment.

"Oh. Forgot to say. Joe's fine with Barbados in January. He's going to sort out the dates with Rogan."

"That's great. We can start looking for a hotel online."

"Who knows? The sight of our middle-aged bodies in bikinis might get them horny."

"Fuck off, Claire. I'm thirty-six. Not fifty-six. And you're only a year older."

"Feels like I'm middle-aged sometimes. I look just as good as I did when I was twenty. Well almost. But he never looks at me like he did."

"That's because he's seen it so many times. He doesn't have to. It's etched in his mind.

But I bet Rogan does.

You're still fucking hot. Almost as hot as me."

"Ha.

I'll have to keep an eye and see if I can catch Rogan peeking at my legs."

"I've seen him look at your tits if it helps."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Remember the barbecue at Bob's last summer? That really hot day when you wore that low tee shirt and no bra? He was looking every time you leaned forward."

"I remember. It was thirty degrees or something. I only looked good at a distance. I was all sweaty and sore."

"We all were.

To be fair. He wasn't the only one looking."

"Yeah. I probably didn't judge that top too well. Nice to know it got attention though."

"A few angry wives that day. I found it funny. Teased him when I got home. I asked him who had the nicest tits. You've never seen someone trying so hard not to get his answer wrong.

Insult the wife or insult the wife's sister. A no-win situation.

Claire sniggered.

"The Kobayashi Maru. No win situation to test character."

"More Star Trek?"

"Yeah."

"You know far too much about something you claim never to watch."

"I have Eddie explaining it to the point I want to shoot myself."

Claire was quiet for a moment. She swirled her glass watching the evening light play on the liquid.

"You know. Perhaps we should just swap husbands for a night."

"Yeah. That'd be interesting. Let them experience their fantasies."

I laughed at the absurdity of it. That's what Swingers did. Not respectable middle-class women with families.

"Fuck their fantasies. I was thinking more about ours."

That came with more feeling than I'd expected. Almost a bitterness that life was escaping her and she might actually consider doing something she shouldn't. I froze as I realised it was also escaping me. Everything she was saying about Joe was just as true for me and Rogan.

The clunk of the heavy front door saved me from finding a response.

"Evening ladies."

Joe looked hot as he came into the room with a broad smile in my direction. I'd always thought he was a good catch. Kind of a Hollywood heartthrob with his stubble beard. Rogan was good looking too. But I saw him when he needed a shave or slouching around with his dick hanging out of his boxers. I loved cock, I loved looking at it. Just not when it was presented like a wayward sausage that'd fallen from the pan.

Joe leaned over and greeted Claire with a quick peck on the lips. Suddenly they were husband and wife again, looking the perfect couple. I suppose we all did that.

I looked away as thoughts of the two of them fucking with Joe's head full of an image of my arse raced into my mind.

"I should go." I said sitting up.

"Rogan will be wondering where I am."

"Don't rush off because of me." Joe said as he slipped onto the sofa next to Claire.

"I'm not. But it's nine o'clock and I said I'd only be ten minutes. That was an hour ago."

"That's what ten minutes means isn't it?" Claire giggled holding her near-empty glass out to wish me goodnight.

"Mostly it does, yeah. But I should put a showing in for my husband occasionally.

Don't want him forgetting how hot I am."

I couldn't help but glance at Joe as I said it, wondering just what thoughts were hidden behind the smile.

I slipped out of the door into the evening air. It was only across the block paved road to my home. A modern, angular building of steel and glass. Each house in the little community was of the same construction but no two were alike. It was a world apart from most people and much of it was down to the work of Rogan and Joe.