A question caught me by surprise-3

Jennifer and Vicky are entirely different as bed mates. Jennifer snores
for one. Not loud, but enough to notice. She’s a rather messy sleeper
too, sprawling across the entire bed, entangling her limbs with my own.

Vicky on the other hand slept like the dead. Silent and still, she
curled into a tight ball, affording me so much space I sometimes forgot she
was there.

I heard my bedroom door creak open late one night as I lay awake, still
in the grip of insomnia. I kept my eyes closed tight, wanting to avoid
another whispered argument with my twin. Vicky had every right to be there
and Jennifer was just going to have to learn to live with it.

My conclusion, however well-reasoned, didn’t make me feel any less
guilty as my sister quietly retreated back into her own bed. I tried to
put that thought and all others out of my head as gazed at Jennifer’s
tightly shut door, hoping I was imagining the sound of a lost girl crying
in the dark.

As the spring approached, the cracks in the armor became deeper and more
jagged. Vicky excitedly made plans for a spring break road trip, one which
included the entire group, save for my sister. “Well, I thought she had
her own friends now,” Vicky explained, feigning sympathy. “I didn’t think
she’d want to come.”

This slight and others didn’t go unnoticed by Jennifer, and what started
as a quasi-amicable rivalry between the two women escalated to the point of
outright contempt, with Vicky getting the upper hand at every turn. Things
were coming to a head.

By some small miracle, Nick and I were invited to a genuine college
party by some guy named Dave. Nick was given a laundry list of alcohol to
provide in exchange for his admission, while my sole instructions were to,
“make sure that fine-ass sister of yours shows up.” As much as I despised
the notion of Dave or any other drunken frat boy piece of shit even
touching my sister, I thought that socializing with our peers might do us
all some good.

The atmosphere in the Vicky’s dorm room had grown suffocating since
Jen’s departure. Michelle was never the most social person, even by our
standards, but now she rarely looked up from her computer. Nick and I were
forbidden from Halo, Madden, and all other forms of digital distraction
when Vicky was in the room, which was goddamn always. Ryan and I had even
less to say to one another now that our jam sessions had come to an end.
As for Vicky, I honestly kind of hated her.

And so, the six of us made our way to Dave’s house. As expected, the
place was a dilapidated hell hole, worn down by years of abuse and neglect.
But there was beer, and beer can make anything better.

We arrived separately. Vicky and I rode in her car, Michelle and Ryan
in his van, and Nick and Jennifer in his truck, thus affording each of us a
convenient exit without burdening the entire group. It also had the
unspoken benefit of keeping Jen and Vicky away from each other.

Vicky had something of a tomboyish streak about her, which I actually
liked as a rule, but clashed considerably with the designated feminine
attire of the event. All the other girls were dressed in cocktail dresses
of some kind or another. I was actually a little excited about the
prospect of showing up at a social function with a date that wasn’t my
twin, so the fact that we were dressed almost identically, jeans, leather
jacket, and Tom Petty/Rolling Stones t-shirts kind of undermined the whole
effect.

Jennifer on the other hand looked like something out of a dream. She
wore a little black dress, a very little black dress, which basically
consisted of a strip of shiny cloth that served to cover her ass and sort
of cover her tits, albeit very poorly. I didn’t know that she owned such a
gratuitous article of “fuck me” clothing, so I assumed she bought it just
for this occasion.

Shit, she caught me staring. The last thing I needed in a public venue.
She seemed please though, almost smug. I tried to regain my composure with
a joke.

“Mug a tween for that get-up?” I asked sarcastically, making a mental
note not to state at my sister’s cleavage.

“I know, right?” she agreed. “I’m practically spilling out of this
thing. They just don’t make a decent dress anymore for a girl with tits. I
was going for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not Girls Gone Wild.”

“You look beautiful Jen.” I whispered softly. She smiled brightly at
me, a warm genuine smile miles away from stone silent sister I’d failed to
grow accustomed to. Naturally that was Vicky’s cue to fuck it up.

“Jennifer, nice to see you as always,” Victoria said diplomatically.

“Vicky,” Jen replied stiffly.

“I love your dress. I bet you’ll get plenty of attention wearing that,”
Vicky said, her eyes glancing down at Jennifer’s ample breasts. I never
cease to be amazed at a woman’s ability to mask an insult with a
compliment.

“I know, it’s a little revealing. Must be nice not to worry about
that,” Jen fired back. It was not secret that Vicky’s figure was a little
on the boyish side, and her manner of dress did nothing to help that fact,
but even I had to admit it was a low blow.

“Why don’t we get drinks?” I suggested, eager to diffuse the situation.
Jennifer, sensing that she’d been offered an opportunity to exit the
conversation gracefully, excused herself and faded into the crowd. Vicky
and I made our way to the bar, where Dave, at least, I think it was Dave,
offered us both a bright red cup full of coldish beer.

Despite early setbacks, the night held some promise. There would be
drinking, there would be dancing, and hopefully the combination of alcohol
and poor judgment would make Vicky the Ice Queen a little more pliable in
the bedroom.

Unfortunately, Vicky insisted on talking instead of drinking, and
instead of receiving another lecture on the genius of Albert Hitchcock, I
was treated to an angry tirade about my sister.

“Thanks for your help by the way,” she muttered after stewing for
several minutes.

“You’re…welcome?” I offered. Wrong answer.

“Look, maybe you don’t care that she just waltzed up to us dressed like
some cheap whore, but the least you could do is actually stand up for me
when I’m being insulted right to my face,” Vicky demanded.

I bit my lip, holding back a vicious and poorly thought out defense of
my sister’s honor, mindful that neither of them were in the right in that
exchange. “She’s not a whore,” I muttered. I couldn’t help myself.

“See! That, right there! No matter what it is, you always take her
side! I’m sick of coming second to your sister Jack!” Vicky shouted.

We were starting to attract a crowd. Apparently people were still sober
enough to take an interest in our squabble. I spotted my sister toward the
back of the horde. She slipped her way past it and grabbed me by the hand,
as if she was trying to rescue me.

“We need to talk,” she muttered as she started to pull me away.

“I’m his girlfriend Jennifer!” Vicky protested, prompting Jennifer to
turn around. “That means we should be able to go to on social event
without you lurking around the corner like some kind of pathetic stalker.
And to be honest, this jealousy of yours is more than a little
inappropriate.”

“You want inappropriate?” Jennifer challenged.

Before I knew what was happening, my sister linked her hands behind my
neck, pulled me in, and kissed me. Not a quick, chaste, familial kiss.
Not a lingering, intimate, borderline inappropriate kiss. She put
everything into that kiss, all her joy and fear and anger and regret,
everything she was and is and ever could be. She kissed me like we were
the only two people in the world. Only we weren’t. Everyone, fucking
everyone was watching.

Thank holy Christ, most of the people at that party had no idea who we
were. But some did, and even one was far too many. Especially since she
was standing right next to us, her face contorted in revulsion and fury.

Jennifer froze, the implications of what she had done and where she had
done it flashing across her face in silent horror. When we were kids, she
had a bad habit of making leaving me to clean up our mutual messes. This
was no different. She literally ran from the room, fighting her way past a
horde of morbidly curious onlookers.

This situation made me a firm believer that a human being can indeed be
rendered speechless. I just stood there, trying to process a couple of
thousand thoughts and sensations at once. I needed to do something,
anything. “Vicky, I…” I stammered hoarsely. Only she wasn’t the one I
needed to talk to right now.

There was pain and anger in her face and all manner of other emotion,
but she didn’t look surprised. It was if every terrible thing, every
suspicion she ever had about my relationship with my sister was simple
inevitable, and had finally come to pass. For the first time, we were on
the same page. “Save it Jack,” she spat acidly. “You two fucking deserve
each other.”

Vicky stood there, waiting for me to defend myself, waiting me make an
excuse, come up with a logical reason why when Jennifer kissed me I didn’t
recoil in horror. But Vicky was right. She would always come second to my
sister and that was never going to change.

I ended up beating my Jennifer home. Even though we were both on foot,
I had the advantage of running without heels. Fifteen minutes later, Jen
finally emerged through our front door. Her hair was disheveled and dark
black streaks ran down from her eyes.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

“Hey,” she replied tonelessly.

She took a seat next to me on the couch, tucking her knees into her
chest and wrapping herself into a ball. We sat there in the dark, the room
illuminated only by the muted images on the television. Both of us waited
for the other one to speak.

I broke the silence. “Jen, what the hell?” I asked softly.

“I’m know, I know,” she moaned. “I’m sorry, ok? I don’t know what came
over me.”

“If this gets out, do you know what could happen?” I demanded.

“Little late for that, isn’t it?” she said weakly as she started digging
for her cell phone.

“What do you mean?” I asked darkly. Something told me I had more to
fear than the drunken rumor mill.

A familiar scene played out on her screen, cleverly titled, “Twincest
Freakshow.” Fucking smart phones.

“Good thing Mom and Dad still haven’t figured out YouTube yet,” she
smirked mirthlessly as she put the image away.

“You think this is funny?” I demanded.

“No.”

“We have to make this right,” I persisted.

“Why?” Jen asked defensively. “You shouldn’t even be with her.”

“That’s not your decision,” I asserted, although I was confused as to
why I was continuing to defend a relationship I no longer desired.

“So you don’t care what it does to me?” Jennifer asked me, her voice
shaking with a sort of cracked sadness.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said softly, my frustration suddenly
replaced by concern.

“Well, you did. You picked the one way that you could hurt me,” she
started, her voice cracking up, tears pooling in her eyes, “worse than you
could ever understand.” She inhaled deeply, trying to hold back a
threatening sob. “I know you said that we needed to branch out, open up to
other people. And that was ok. It made sense. But when you’re with
her… You stopped talking to me. I never see you, and when I do you’re
with her. It’s like I don’t even exist.”

Until that point, I hadn’t fully appreciated the damage I had done to my
sister. I had no idea how to make it right. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
know…”

Jennifer laughed, a choked unnatural laugh. “Of course you didn’t know.
How could you know?” She closed her eyes, massaging her temples. “Our
whole lives, we’ve only had each other,” she explained quietly. “But that
was ok, because we always had each other, and I never, even on the worst
day of my life, ever felt alone. But now…it’s like you’re leaving me
behind.”

“I never meant for that to happen,” I said solemnly. I was desperate to
explain, to make her see that this was the only way. “But don’t you think
it’s time we started living our own lives? Don’t you want to get married,
start a f****y, all that? How are we supposed to move forward if we’re
attached at the hip?

“Is that what you really want?” Good question. I hadn’t thought to ask
it.