The Twins Go Camping

The first story I wrote I stupidly split into two chapters, "Heather and Michael Ch. 01" and "Heather and Michael Ch. 02". After that, I published "Cycling Weekends with Sis". I then decided to do a sequel to "Heather and Michael" which I was going to do as four chapters. I published the first chapter of the sequel, "Heather and Michael Ch. 03", which got lots of negative comments. The negative comments killed my motivation to write. A year after Ch. 03 was published, I decided to move on and published "Sister Has a Plan". I revised "Heather and Michael Ch. 03" to say that I wasn't continuing the series. Every so often, I'd get a comment asking me to finish the sequel.

In 2017, I looked back at "Heather and Michael" and saw that my writing was terrible. I had learned so much about writing after I published that story. So I came up with the plan of replacing "Heather and Michael Ch. 01" and "Heather and Michael Ch. 02" with "The Twins Go Camping", and then finishing the sequel as "The Twins Go Camping: Complications". I got "The Twins Go Camping" done, but I got stuck on one scene in the sequel. I eventually pushed the project aside and worked on other things. Sometime later (2019?), I figured out how to write the scene I was stuck on in the sequel and started back on writing it, but got stuck on another scene.

I took all my stories down in January 2023. With all of the "Heather and Michael" chapters down, I've decided to publish only "The Twins Go Camping" and to forget about the sequel.

What was going to be in the sequel? Michael would start dating Maddie and eventually he, Maddie, and Heather would become a throuple. I do a much better job of building the throuple in "My Mom Competes with my Stepmom" and "A Week At The Lake With My Sister".

Chapter 00
It was the Monday of the week before finals. I set my school stuff on the dining room table and headed into the living room to do...something. I couldn't remember what. I stood there feeling overwhelmed.

Then I felt arms wrap around me, and I was being hugged. I hadn't heard my twin brother Michael approach me, but I knew it was him.

"It's okay, Heather," he said soothingly. "In no time, you'll find a guy who's better than Drew."

I sighed. At the end of the school day on Friday, Drew told me that he was breaking up with me and would be going out with Taylor Hopkins.

"I know," I said. "It's not Drew. He was a good boyfriend..." - we had been the king and queen of the prom a few weeks earlier - "...but I didn't love him. It's that..." Michael gave me a reassuring squeeze. "None of The Gang would talk to me today."

I belonged to a group of twenty or so of the most popular kids in my high school with Drew and Taylor. Or had belonged. To get into "The Gang", you had to be good-looking AND popular AND have money. I'd always felt a little insecure about being a part of The Gang as my parents didn't have money, but I had managed to stay in The Gang for four years. We had lunch every day in "our spot". Non-members were given the silent treatment if they tried to join us. Today, I got the silent treatment.

Michael said, "Then they weren't really your friends."

That was what hurt. I had hung out with The Gang every day for almost four years. For them to treat me now like an unworthy, like a loser, was very painful.

I said, "Maddie was the only one willing to eat lunch with me. And I'm sure she won't do it tomorrow."

Another reassuring squeeze. "Eat lunch with me and the guys."

"I don't know..."

What did I want to do for lunch tomorrow? What I wanted was to be back in The Gang. Why kick me out when I had just a few days left in high school? It was so petty. I had broken up with two other boyfriends who had been in The Gang and they hadn't organized my ouster. I had thought my breakup with Drew had been amicable. Things had been a struggle for us for a while, so I hadn't been angry when he told me he had found someone new. I had texted with different friends in The Gang over the weekend and I hadn't said anything nasty about him. But as soon as I got to school, the members of The Gang refused to make eye contact with me. Drew and Taylor must have spent the whole weekend organizing my ostracism.

When I didn't respond further, Michael released me and headed off to his room. "Do what you want. You know where we eat."

I stood there for a while, wondering how I would spend the rest of my day. I had always spent my afternoons and evenings with someone from The Gang. I felt all alone.

I thought about Michael, upstairs in his room. He'd be playing a game or watching a video to unwind for a while before eventually returning to the dining room to study. I had always studied with him during middle school. I had always had lunch with him, too. Michael had been my best friend, and we had done everything together. But then I had joined The Gang and had hung out with them instead.

I'd study with Michael tonight. And when I was studying with him, I'd tell him I'll join him for lunch tomorrow.

* * * *

The next day at school was awful. I felt like everyone was talking about me. I didn't doubt that my getting kicked out of The Gang was the biggest, juiciest story on campus. I had always walked to my next class with a member of The Gang, but today I walked alone. I felt life was so unfair.

I had lunch with Michael and three of his friends in the Chemistry teacher's classroom. I hadn't met two of the guys before, but I knew them by reputation - all four were the best math and science students in the school. While they ate, they played a board game where they were adventurers exploring some ruins. When they got to a new area, the game had a card to be read that spelled out the new challenge they had to overcome. Michael got me to dramatically read the cards, and it was goofy fun. Everybody in The Gang wouldn't be caught dead playing such a nerdy game, but Michael and his friends loved it. They'd brainstorm how best to defeat the challenge, quickly decide on a strategy, and then they'd root each other on as they rolled dice to see if their planned actions succeeded. One guy, Rajiv, had a stump for a left arm, and it was interesting to see him use his stump to manipulate his cards. He was the equal of the other guys, contributing just as much as anyone to the group's success.

After seeing Rajiv, I felt stupid for feeling sorry for myself. After lunch, I sought out some fellow members of the swim team that weren't in The Gang. They were happy to talk to me.

Yesterday, the end of the school day had been terrible. I had been forced to ride the bus home. I hadn't ridden the bus home since sophomore year. Most of the time, I had a boyfriend with a car. During the short periods when I was between boyfriends, I had gotten rides home from friends in The Gang. Yesterday when school was over, my "friends" in The Gang that I saw as I walked toward the student parking lot had ignored me. I had waited near the parking lot, hoping one of them would resume our friendship but in the end, I had no choice but to race to catch the bus to our house.

Today, I joined Michael straight away in the bus line. Once we got home, we dropped our bags near the dining room table. After I dropped my bag, I walked into the living room and stopped like I did yesterday, though intentionally this time. I heard Michael walk up to me, and then I felt his arms wrap around me. It felt good to have him hug me.

Michael asked, "How was your day?"

"Okay. I had a good time at lunch. It still hurts that all my friends in The Gang won't talk to me."

"I've never liked the people in your gang. All except Maddie. She's sweet."

I had known Madison Walcott since I was six. We swam together on the city summer swim team. When we turned nine, we both joined a swim team that swam year-round. In high school, we swam on the school's swim team together for all four years. On each of those swim teams, we had been the best girls of our age. Our times were always very close. I'd get better than her at freestyle, and then she'd work hard on her freestyle until she could match me. If she started doing better than me on long swims, I'd push myself to increase my endurance. In all the years of swimming together, there was never a time when one of us was clearly better.

Maddie was the one who had gotten me into The Gang. One day freshman year, she told me that two guys from her neighborhood had invited her to hang out at school with them and their friends and that she didn't feel comfortable going by herself. Maddie's parents were both doctors, and they lived in a very expensive neighborhood. Maddie had asked me to come along with her. I could tell some people in The Gang weren't happy with my presence, but Maddie somehow got me accepted long enough for me to get asked out. After that, I had thought I was securely a member.

I said, "Maddie is not sweet. She'll do something nice for you only if it benefits her. She is the most self-centered person I know."

"Yeah. And she's sweet too."

I laughed. "Are you pulling my leg?"

"No. She was the only member of your gang who would talk to me."

"When did she talk to you?" I then realized the answer.

"Whenever she beat you in a swimming event. Or when she beat your best time. She'd come over and talk..."

"Gloat."

"...talk about her performance."

I'd seen Maddie do that a hundred times. Each time it pissed me off. But Michael had never got angry. I said, "Did you ever talk to her after I beat her in an event? Or beat her best time?"

"No!" Michael sounded offended. "That would have been rude." I snorted. "And when she talked to me, we talked about lots of stuff besides swimming. She'd ask me what book I was reading. We'd talk about any recent science news. She'd ask about what I was doing in Scouts. It was like she was using the excuse of gloating to have an intelligent conversation with me." Michael squeezed me. "You know, you're badmouthing your future roommate."

Maddie was going to be my roommate at college. "She's nice to me, but she screws over guys just for grins."

It felt good having Michael's arms around me. I badly needed to feel that someone cared for me. Just the way Michael held me, I knew he loved me. Michael had been in cross-country all through high school and looked like he didn't have an ounce of fat on him. I had the more muscular build of a swimmer. But with Michael holding me like this, he felt like the muscular one, the strong protector who'd keep me safe.

I asked, "Why didn't you like the people in The Gang?"

"This will probably sound naive, but when I started high school, I thought that being good at learning - you know, the thing we're in school for - that being good at learning would make me popular. But your gang looked down on me for the fact that I busted my butt to learn as much as possible. It always pissed me off."

It was true that The Gang had looked down on Michael. When I joined The Gang, they made it clear to me that I couldn't be in The Gang and hang out with Michael. He was a nerd. He studied too much. He didn't drink or party and instead read egghead books all the time.

Michael said, "Take Jason Lewis. He's a total slacker. He cheats. He pays people to write papers for him. He was mister partial credit as teachers went easy on him when grading his work. Yet people worship the ground he walks on."

"Well, he started at wide receiver for two years."

"And I was the best runner on the cross-country team for two years. It doesn't justify looking down on people who are trying to get the most out of school."

"Well, Jason..." Jason was a hunk. He was super good-looking with blond hair and big blue eyes. His parents were rich. He drove a BMW convertible. He always dressed well in expensive clothes. He...

Michael wouldn't understand. Those weren't things he valued. Time to change the subject. I asked, "Why do you think I'll quickly find someone better than Drew?"

"Because you're smart. And good-looking. Fun to be with it. And have a great body."

I continued to fish for compliments. "You think I'm good-looking?"

"How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!"

I could tell Michael was reciting something, but I had no idea what.

"Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from the hills of Gilead."

I started giggling.

"Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
Not one of them is alone."

"What the hell is that?" I asked while laughing.

"Song of Songs. From the Bible's Old Testament. You stopped me before I got to Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies."

I kept laughing. "Where did you learn that?"

"When I was dating Jenny." Michael had broken up with Jenny Anderson two months ago. She was the only girl he had ever dated. "Her parents would only let us be in her room if we were reading from the Bible, so we would read the Song of Songs to each other."

I asked, "You had to read the Bible to each other?" As far as I knew, Michael wasn't the least bit religious.

He said, "With the door open. And a parent regularly walking by."

I was curious. "Did you like reading the Bible with her?"

"It was great fun." Michael's voice had a slightly mocking tone. "For some reason, her parents forgot that the Bible has a lot of R-rated parts. Those were the parts we read. With the right person in the right context, the Song of Songs is the most erotic writing in the world."

I snorted. "I don't understand why you dated Jenny. Not that you really dated."

"We most certainly dated," Michael said indignantly. "We just had to take one of her parents with us. And no kissing." I shook my head. "But we could hold hands and stare into each other's eyes...while we were thinking of Bible verses."

I closed my eyes briefly. I couldn't imagine going on a date like that. Whenever one of The Gang members spotted Michael and Jenny on a date, they loved describing the date to everyone else in The Gang. "And you couldn't go to the movies."

"Not true. We could go to Christian movies. As long as a parent sat between us."

This was so crazy. "Why? Why would you go out with someone under such conditions?"

When Michael had been dating Jenny, he had refused to discuss it with me. All he would acknowledge was that he was seeing her.

Michael said, "Because Jenny was great. She was smart. She was fun. She was super appreciative."

"How long did you guys date?"

"Twelve months exactly." I felt bad. I hadn't paid any attention to Michael's love life. When he had broken up with Jenny, I hadn't done anything to console him. I had been too wrapped in my drama with Drew. "Her family gave her a year to convert the heathen, and when I didn't, they forbid her to see me again. We've not spoken since."

I asked, "Why would you continue to date Jenny when you never kissed her?"

"I didn't say that I never kissed her. I was never permitted to kiss her."

I was confused. "But you kissed her anyway?"

Michael dodged my question with, "I didn't say that either." Michael tried to change the subject by saying, "Is this enough hugging? I assumed that you stopped in the living room because you wanted a hug like yesterday."

I wasn't going to let him change the subject. "Did you ever kiss Jenny?"

"What does it matter? I'm not dating her anymore."

I was starting to get pissed. "Why are you being so evasive? Did you kiss Jenny? Yes or no."

"For Jenny and I to kiss would be very wrong." Michael's lightly mocking tone was pissing me off as well. "It would have fired up sinful desires. It would have made us think about bodily lusts instead of God." Why was Michael telling me this bullshit? "Jenny would have gotten in a lot of trouble if we had kissed."

I was getting frustrated. Michael had never been evasive with me. "So you never kissed her?"

Michael moved his hands away from my waist and started to pull away. I grabbed his hands and pulled him back.

I asked hotly, "Did...you...ever...kiss...Jenny?"

"Jenny and I had a saying. If no one saw it, and we didn't talk about it, it didn't happen."

I was close to strangling Michael. "So did you kiss her?"

Michael said, "We would have never kissed." Back to the lightly mocking tone. "I told you that it would have been wrong for us to do so."

Michael had never talked like this before - the mocking tone, the evasiveness. There was something else to his voice - like he was talking about a happy memory instead of a frustrating situation. I was getting the impression that I would never get a straight answer out of Michael.

I decided to try to play along. I asked, "So you never would have kissed Jenny?"

"That's right."

"Is there anything else you would never do?" I was trying to break the code. "Would you never touch her butt?"

"It would have been very, very wrong for me to touch her butt."

"So did you ever touch her butt? Cop a feel?"

Michael laughed. "I certainly never would have rubbed her ass until Jenny had to bite her lip to keep from moaning." The mocking in Michael's voice was getting stronger. It sounded to me like he had rubbed Jenny's ass until Jenny had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.

I asked, "Did she have a nice ass to not rub?" This was such a weird conversation.

Michael proudly said, "Jenny had the nicest ass that I would never rub."

"Did you ever fuck?"

Michael said regretfully, "It was impossible for us to ever fuck."

Okay, so they had never fucked. Time to keep probing. "You never touched her tits?"

"Get behind me, Satan!", said Michael fervently. "Of course, I would have never touched her tits."

So Michael may have touched her tits. He may have rubbed her ass. Or he might be yanking my chain.

Michael had my curiosity fired up. I had always assumed that he had done nothing with Jenny. Now, I was suspecting otherwise. How much had he done with Jenny? How much was he willing to hint at? He must have promised Jenny that he would never tell anyone how much they did.

I asked, "Did she ever touch your dick?"

"Why would she ever touch my dick? A good Christian girl like Jenny? That's a really terrible thing to suggest."

Was that a denial? It wasn't a firm no but it wasn't an I never would have statement that seemed to imply that he had. Had I asked the question the wrong way?

This was a crazy game we were playing. Something like asking riddles. Why was he even giving me these hints? I guessed that Michael didn't want to lie to me. But it had to be something more. I had dismissed his relationship with Jenny as being pathetic. He wanted to let me know that it had been hotter, more intimate than I had thought. He wasn't the inexperienced naif that I had thought he was. But he would never say anything that would sully Jenny's reputation.

I tried to picture Michael making out with Jenny. Could they have made out at school? Too big of a risk of someone seeing them. It sounded like the only time they were ever alone was at her house. I pictured Jenny and Michael in Jenny's bedroom, fully dressed. They had a few moments of privacy. They'd kiss while Michael rubbed her ass with his hands, pulling her close to him...

I asked, "Jenny would never have rubbed her body against your dick, right? That would have been a very sinful thing to do."

Michael laughed. "Very depraved. Jenny would never have done something like that." The mocking was turned up to eleven.

So she had rubbed her body against his dick. Picturing the oh-so-conservative Jenny silently rubbing her body against Micheal's while her parents lurked nearby was getting me excited. Would they have made out on the bed? While standing up? While in the same position Michael and I were in now? Michael was still behind me with his arms wrapped around me.