Six Degrees of Incest

But I didn't see her at all that weekend, or for the rest of the next week. In fact, I didn't see her at all until she came over to my room that following Saturday.

* * *

"Bradley, we need to talk."

Liz sat down on the bed beside me and looked me in the eye. "Bradley, I know you don't want this, and I don't want it either -- neither of us does -- but we both know that we have to stop.

"It was too close, Bradley, it was too close. Yes, we were still obeying the rules, still staying within the boundaries. Sort of. But it didn't feel that way. We both kept wanting to go further. We would never have been ready to stop until we somehow disappeared into each other. I was feeling too much to want to be bound by anything that was specifically designed to try to keep me from my feelings. It was overwhelming me.

"I realized how dangerous everything had become. Rules were dissolving. Everything I believed in was dissolving. It was absolutely beautiful and absolutely terrifying. All at the same time. I just don't know if I can handle that.

"And, along with everything else, it's just simply too risky. We have already seen what a slippery slope it was, and we just can't take the chance. How long do you really think we could keep it hidden?

"It has been incredible, it has changed me in so many ways, but, well, we both knew how wrong it was and we couldn't do it forever. Even now, I'm going to go through life knowing that I fucked my brother, and you're going to go through life knowing that you fucked your sister. We'll never be able to admit it to anyone. Even if we got married to other people, we could never tell them the truth about this."

Obviously, I agreed completely. I mean she was right, wasn't she? Even though I didn't agree at all.

* * *

Of course, we also did both agree that, now that we had come to a mutual and thoroughly mature decision on this topic, it was probably okay to do it just once more, you know, as a kind of farewell ceremony to solemnize our decision.

Maybe it was having been apart for almost two weeks, maybe it was all the feelings that we had been talking about, I don't know, but everything was even better and more beautiful and more passionate than before. I know I was feeling a kind of transcendent cosmic connection, and I think she was too. We were one, our souls were joined together. It was a perfect way to end things.

* * *

As we were lying there in bed afterwards, we talked for a long time about everything. We decided that now that we had been through so much and gotten to know each other so well, and now had gotten everything else out of our systems, we should get together at least once a week to just hang out and chill. I mean, we were best friends, right?

* * *

So, we did start seeing each other at least once a week. Since she was living in a women-only dorm, she would come over to my room and we would sit together on my bed and hang out and talk.

Sometimes, we would do something different for special occasions.

For Valentine's Day, Liz wore her red dress and heels again. She even bought red stockings for the cold weather. I went out and bought a blue suit and a bright red tie that matched her dress -- I didn't have a suit and I figured I'd probably need one sometime in the future when I was job hunting. We drove about 40 miles to a small, romantic restaurant in another town far enough away that we weren't likely to run into anyone who knew us. We were even able to walk into the restaurant holding hands without having to look over our shoulders every minute.

It was the nicest Valentine's dinner ever; afterwards we went back to my room for chocolates and some more wine.

* * *

Obviously, we're both a lot more self-confident now than we were before. Girls started paying more attention to me, and guys started paying a lot more attention to Liz.

But we never let that get in the way of our special relationship.

It's been almost a year now, and we've both been trying hard to be platonic friends and siblings together. We have the list, and we talk about it pretty much every time we get together.

I know, I hear some of you asking, "Haven't the two of you ever slipped up, even once? Maybe more than once? Maybe every time the two of you get together?"

Look, I'm not about to discuss all that. We all know it's a slippery slope, one that's hard to climb back up from. Still, I just want to focus on the future. After all, aren't good intentions the most important thing of all?

©Ron Ehrs,