The Greatest Taboo of Them All

chapter one

Everything was simpler before my brother's penis fell out of his shorts.

Our eldest cousin Daria, sitting on the patio sofa, was holding court as usual, talking endlessly about some new drama in her life; her sister Alia listened intently, outstretched on the terrazzo floor, fists propping up her chin. Khan, shirtless, a loose towel draped over his waist, sat next to Daria, their upper arms touching. I was next to Alia on my own towel, legs crossed, squeezing water out of my hair. It was a wholesome family pool party. We might as well have had juice and crackers.

"And, then after all of that, the fucker never even texted me the directions!" Daria concluded, finishing her story emphatically with a smack of the cushion. Her boobs jiggled with the motion, wet hair sticking to them. Khan pretended not to notice.

"What an asshole," said Alia, shaking her head. She was lying on her stomach like a sphinx, her little legs bent upward, tightening her rear under her suit. She gazed up at her older sister, then at Khan, with her enormous eyes. Her dark brown hair was slicked back, making her large forehead appear even bigger. Water droplets trickled down her neck, collecting between her deep cleavage.

"College guys," Khan mocked. Daria nudged him with her elbow, and he playfully nudged back. His hair was black and wavy, his skin bronze, like Dad's side of the family. His body, still hairless, nevertheless had changed — he was long-legged and sinewy, with some new definition in his arms and chest. His jaw seemed wider, his eyes narrower.

"Yeah, that's gonna be you in six weeks," Daria pushed his head with her fingers, then put her arm around him. "I still can't believe we're gonna be on campus together."

"Go Bruins," Khan deadpanned, as he leaned into her embrace. She kissed his forehead, the skin of her sideboob pressing against his ribs. Ew, I thought. Is that weird, or is it just me?

"College boy Khan," added Alia, smiling sweetly at him, her adorable anime features spiced with a hint of trouble. She sipped from her water bottle with thin lips, still bluish from the pool. "You should hook him up with one of your friends."

Daria, who was three years older than Khan, joked: "They're too sophisticated for him."

"Pfft," he scoffed, widening his legs under the towel.

"Stop manspreading," she countered, her bare thigh pushing back. He hit it with his right knee, starting a leg war.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't make me separate you two," I said. Khan gave me the finger.

Daria laughed prettily. "Zara," she said to me, now more serious, "What have they been doing to you at Berkeley?"

"What do you mean?" I bristled. It was a loaded question that could have meant anything. Freshman year had been taxing on multiple fronts. I often felt lost and alone. Plus I hadn't seen any of them the whole time, not even Khan, and something about being here, something we've all done a million times, now felt off. Was there something different about me? Was there something different about all of them?

"You are, like, so gorgeous right now?"

"Oh my god, yes!" chimed in Alia. "I love your hair . . . Did you darken it?"

"Hair?" snapped Daria. "Look at her body. It's amazing."

"Oh," I blushed. "Thank you! Uh, swim team? I guess?"

"You guess," she smirked. "There's not an inch of fat on you."

I looked down at my B-cup boobs in my blue bikini top and covered them with my hands. I looked back up and pouted.

Alia laughed at that a bit too loud. Despite her petite frame, she was blessed with a deceptively large pair, which she was squeezing together with her arms as she lay on the floor in the small white top that clung to them.

"Weirdo," sighed Khan, shaking his head at me before grinning like an idiot at Alia.

"Don't be dramatic," Daria said with a smile. "Unwanted fat."

"Look who's talking," I quipped, looking her up and down. A star volleyball player at UCLA, she was professionally fit. Her legs, now crossed, were long and athletic, her hips wide, her stomach flat and her breasts plump; her arms were toned, and her skin tawny and smooth. Guys would have lined up even if she didn't have a model's devastating beauty, which of course she did — smoky eyes, strong nose, mean jawline — under her stunning raven-black hair. It was hard not to hate her.

"Yeah, well," she said, placing a limp hand on her chest, raising her dark brown eyes to the sky. "If I didn't work out twice a day, I'd look like a hippo."

"The curse of Mom," Alia beamed. "Your big fat ass."

"Curse you . . . You wish you had my ass."

"Who hasn't had your ass?"

Daria bit her lip, then grabbed the towel off of Khan's legs and slapped her sister in the face with it.

"Ow, you whore!" Alia yelled, punching her sister in the calf. "That hurt!"

Daria kicked at Alia; Alia caught her foot and pulled her half off the sofa. I watched my cousins play fight with amusement, then turned to Khan. He was watching them too.

Something in the way they fought, and in the way he looked on, unsettled me. It had been like this all week — forced, intentional vies for Khan's attention that he willingly gave. Are they doing this for his benefit? Are they all . . . flirting with each other? Was that what had been preoccupying me for these last few days?

That's when I distractedly looked down.

I almost swallowed my tongue. A hole had opened, a tear at the inseam, in Khan's yellow swim trunks. He was not wearing any underwear.

Khan was totally oblivious. I suppressed my first instinct, which was to point, scream, anything. I didn't know what I should do. How do I fix this, I thought, without drawing attention? Do I . . . sit on his lap? I blinked that thought away. What the hell should I do?

I did nothing. Nothing but stare at it. It was hanging out quite casually — and it hung out a lot. The smooth head of it, resting on the vinyl mesh of the couch; the dark color of it, with even darker folds; the seeming weight of it, the thickness of the veins. How had he been hiding that under his shorts?

It was shocking. Not just for the male nudity at eleven-fifteen in the morning, nor for the uncommon length and girth, not even for the fact that it was my brother's: it was reconciling that thing — that absolutely mature and manly thing — with the little boy I've known all my life.

The girls were still messing with each other; I quickly waved a finger to catch my brother's eye. It took him forever to notice, but he at last nodded up at me. I widened my eyes and zoomed them down.

He looked confused. I did it again, my eyes lingering on his exposed penis. This is so fucked up, I thought. My armpits began to sweat.

"What?" he said, annoyedly. I rubbed my face in frustration, covering my mouth. I tried the eye thing again, more exaggeratedly this time, then pointed with my pinky as discreetly as I could. He looked to the floor next to him.

"What is wrong with you?" he said to me. I put my hand to my forehand, glaring at him. The next thing I heard was a bone-chilling gasp.

We all turned to Alia, whose abnormally large eyes were popping out of her skull, her chin practically on the terrazzo. She was staring directly at my brother's wardrobe malfunction with horrific delight.

Khan looked down at himself. "Shit!" was all he could say. He quickly covered himself with his left hand, his face pale, then crimson.

Alia looked over at me with that same freaky expression, searching for validation that what she had witnessed was real. I covered my face, smiling behind my hands.

Alia dropped her face into the floor, convulsing with peals of laughter. "No!" she erupted. "No! NUH-HOOO!!!"

"What? What happened?" asked Daria. She tried reading our reactions, but she was out of the loop, and she hated it.

Khan started to get up; Daria put her arm around him again. "Wait, what did you do?"

"Nothing," he murmured. "I gotta go to the bathroom." He tried getting up again, but Daria weighed down on him, squishing him into the sofa arm.

"Hang on . . . Alia, what the fuck are you laughing about?" Daria demanded. Alia lifted her head, and tried to answer, but began laughing again. "Fuckin' tell me now!" and she kicked her in the arm.

"Khan split his pants!" was all Alia was able to get out in a high-pitched voice, before falling into laughter again.

Daria's face brightened as all the pieces fell together. She looked down at the lap of the cousin in her arms, his left hand resting on top of himself. She looked back at us.

"Did you all . . . see it?" she asked. I kept my face covered, staring back at her through my fingers. All Alia could do was nod.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She turned from one of us to the other. "Everyone saw it except me?" Alia nodded again. Daria, intrigued, went: "Um . . .?" doing a ‘thumbs-up/thumbs-down' motion.

"Dude," I blurted out. Before I could say more, Alia enthusiastically put up a thumb.

Khan had frozen stiff, his face drained of color. I almost spoke up, to end this mess while I could. But I didn't.

"For real?" Daria leaned over him with childlike curiosity. "Bro, move your hand," she said. "I wanna see."

"Fuck off!" he yelled. He again tried to stand but couldn't. He was trapped between his big, beautiful cousin and the arm of the sofa.

"Ha! You can't use this hand, can you?" She reached down and grabbed at his fingers.

"Fucking stop it!" he cried out, and turned onto his stomach. Giggling, she climbed on top of him, her boobs smushing into his bare back, and interlocked her arms around his, her legs wrapped around his legs, torquing him rightside-up. "Stop it!" His fingers were clutching at his shorts, desperately trying to maintain his dignity.

Alia let out a silly noise and then pounced. The three of them rolled off of the couch into a pile of legs, arms, and skin.

"Get off of me!" he yelled. The girls laughed, ignoring him, as they worked together to pin him to the floor. It was like a wrestling match. Daria was grunting between strange laughs as she lay flat on him, smothering his face with her belly. Alia chirped like a songbird, trying in vain to move his hands.

"Help us!" yelled Alia. "He's stronger than he looks!"

"Zara!" cried Daria. "Help!"

I could see that his shorts had torn wider during the struggle, as the part where the leg meets the hip was laid bare; Khan, covering himself with both hands, tried to ball up. He fought his head out from under Daria's half-naked body and his eyes caught mine — they were harrowed, scared, pleading. Help me, they said. Help me.

Before I knew it, I had fallen upon his legs. I trapped them under my ass, squeezing them shut with my thighs. The girls cheered. They rolled to either side of him, each now able to isolate an arm in theirs, still straining to wrench them apart.

"Don't!" he screamed in panic. "Zara!"

At the sound of tearing fabric, Khan's eyes opened fully in fear. I had ripped them in half, right along the inseam, rendering his shorts completely useless. Our cousins squealed. They yanked at his arms again, in unison, finally breaking his clasp, throwing his hands upwards. The girls shrieked with joy.

"Holy Toledo!" Daria exclaimed. "It's a biggun'!"

It was such a weird thing to say, but it was somehow perfect. The scene was so ridiculous – his shorts, with the waistband still intact, now resembled a loincloth with the flaps raised up; his arms out wide like Jesus; his bikini-clad cousins entwined about him like evil sirens, ogling in puerile wonder between his slender thighs.

Khan continued to fight, flailing his cartoonishly large penis from side to side as he did. I rode the twisting and bucking of his legs like a rodeo cowgirl. Daria and Alia held on as tight as they could, laughing maniacally each time his dick flopped back and forth.

I shifted my eyes to his utterly dumbfounded face, watching his expressions change — the gritting of his teeth and the twitching of his lips, turning his head from cousin to cousin, wounded anew with each round of girly shrieks at his ongoing humiliation. He let out little helpless noises of determination and self-pity. Then he looked at me. Hatred, betrayal, the works. It stung.

But I burst out laughing. Why was I doing this? I wondered. Peer pressure? Boredom? Sibling rivalry? I didn't know. It was like an electric current in my chest that I had to discharge, and when I did it I felt the momentary elation of pure cruelty. I was manic, giddy, and filled with a disgusting sort of guilt. Worse, his legs writhing beneath me were strangely turning me on. I could feel the heat radiating out from me onto his calves. Could he feel it too?

I crumpled to the ground in tears, overcome with nervous laughter. With a new energy, Khan at last broke free and pushed himself up. He ran toward the house, hands over his shame, not even bothering to cover his naked bum, the tatters of his swimming trunks flapping around.

"Thanks for the show!" Daria called after him. I heard the sliding door slam shut. We rolled around on the ground laughing, practically hugging each other as we did.

"He's gonna cry in there," said Daria, still shaking from laughter. "Fuckin' pussy."

"You're such a bitch," I said, barely able to breathe. She pushed my face with her hand.

Alia was on her back, sighing, staring up at the sky. "That was so fucking hot."

Her words struck me wrong. "Shut up," I said, chuckling.

Daria grinned. "Um, yeah it was. I wasn't kidding . . . Your brother's got a serious hog."

"For real," Alia continued. "That's the biggest one I've ever seen up close."

"Okay, enough about my brother's you-know-what," I said, now getting uncomfortable. "Let's not make it weirder than it already is."

"Don't make it weird?" Daria laughed. "You pantsed your own brother."

"Ugh," I grumbled.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful," she said, sitting up. "I woulda been mad pissed if I had missed that. Christ, what a monster cock."

"Don't call it that, please."

"What, cock, or monster cock?" Daria grinned. I groaned loudly and rolled on my stomach.

Alia giggled. Then her expression changed. "When you ripped it, did you . . . touch it?"

"No! Gross!" I covered my ears. I didn't, did I?

"Wish I had," Daria added, then turned to her sister. "I swear, it was all I could to not grab it full in my hand."

"Oh my god, enough!" I cried. At that, I got up, ran, and dove back into the pool. I let myself sink to the bottom.

chapter two

"We're ba-a-a-ck!" I heard my aunt's raspy voice call from the back door of the house. Oh lord, I thought. Now this.

It was around five-thirty in the afternoon, and the sun was still high. We had mostly stayed outside in the perfect mountain summer air: Daria in a lounge chair, a red cutoff tee over her top, messing around on her phone under a patio umbrella; Alia was swimming lazy laps in the pool. I was in the sun on a towel — with Khan now hiding inside indefinitely, I took advantage by sunbathing topless, to get rid of my stupid one-piece tan lines.

Daria sighed. "The moms are back early." I sat up and put on my long white beach shirt, my skin itchy from the chlorine.

"Dunno if that's good or bad," I replied.

"We brought you guys pizza!" I heard my mother yell out. They were still in the shade and my eyes couldn't adjust, so I couldn't tell if they were drunk yet or just tipsy. We walked over to the outdoor high table of the patio, where our mothers were. Mom was putting paper plates around the table while my aunt was opening a bottle of Malbec.

Aunt Liz looked striking today in a tight red dress that fell off her shoulders, with a matching red straw hat sitting atop her long blonde hair. Although the older sister by a couple of years, my aunt dressed much younger than Mom, who still looked pretty in a long-sleeved top and linen pants. But Aunt Liz had the figure to pull it off. A sizable portion of her divorce settlement was invested in beauty maintenance. Her skin was flawless for her age, and her breasts would have looked natural on a twenty-five year old. And, as Alia mentioned earlier, she did have a big fat ass, but it was no curse.

"How was the second husband hunting," I asked dryly. Daria snickered.

"Shitty, like your attitude," answered Aunt Liz, lightly swatting my head. "Figured we'd rather hang with you losers."

I sat on one of the stools and flipped through my phone while I waited for my mom to serve us. "Where's Khan?" my mother asked, passing me a plate.

"Haven't seen him," I said, not looking up.

"Inside somewhere," replied Alia.

"Well, someone go get him!" Aunt Liz. "Time to eat."

"Maybe," drawled Daria, "one of you should go get him."

My mother narrowed her eyes. "Why . . . what did you guys do to him." We all tittered nervously.

"What?" Aunt Liz asked. "What happened?"

"Well," began Alia delicately, "Khan's bathing shorts kinda . . . opened up."

"What do you mean," Aunt Liz asked loudly, "‘opened up?'"

"His weiner fell out," Daria said flatly.

"Oh no," my mother groaned.

"And he's huge," whispered Alia.

My mother and I both covered our faces.

Aunt Liz's jaw dropped and she steadied herself on the table with both hands. "Wait . . . what now?" She looked at Alia, who nodded. "What are we talking about here?"

"Liz!" my mother let out.

"What?" She turned to Alia with an inquisitive look. Alia grinned and held up two hands far apart.

"Get out!" exclaimed Aunt Liz.

"Kid's a got a Coke can," added Daria.

"Daria!" my mother reprimanded.

"Get out!" Aunt Liz repeated.

"Cute butt too," added Alia.

"I think he's really mad and embarrassed," I said. "Maybe we should just leave him alone for the day."

"Yes, please, let's all be cool about this," my mother agreed. "He can be so sensitive about these things."

"You don't seem very surprised," Aunt Liz said, eyeing my mother suspiciously.

Mom got beet red. "Well . . ."

"Aunt Sandy!" Daria teased.

"I . . . happened to catch him once a couple of months ago," she said self-consciously. She put a hand to her mouth and whispered. "Masturbating."

The table erupted with laughter. I wondered if Khan could hear us.

"Good God, mom."

"It was an accident, obviously." Liz gave her a red plastic cup filled full with wine, and she drank it gratefully. "Ooo, that's lovely," she nodded.

"No, you can't end the story there," Liz followed. "What happened? What did he do?"

"He . . . didn't do anything," Mom said, clearing her throat and taking another sip. "I don't think he saw me."

"How did you catch him?" asked Alia.

"It was . . . through the window?" Mom meekly responded.

"Whoa," said Aunt Liz, "You mean you were spying on him?"

"It wasn't on purpose!" she insisted. "His room has a floor-to-ceiling window facing the golf course. The shades were up, and I came home from the back that day. I just wanted to check in on him, but I . . . saw him at his computer, and, well, you know."

"Uh-huh," Aunt Liz. "How long did you watch him?"

"I . . . went to say hello . . . I . . . saw what he was doing . . . and I left . . . shortly thereafter," she concluded into her cup.

"You watched him finish, didn't you," Aunt Liz said without moving her lips. My cousins were weepy with laughter.

"Oh my god," I said out loud. "This family is so wrong."

"I . . . just wanted to know that everything was . . . okay," Mom smiled nervously. "And yes, he has a very large penis, unlike his father." They all giggled; I winced. Why is this happening to me? "I'm very happy for him."