My Confession, a Love Forbidden

I’m writing this as a confession. Kind of. My name is Katie. When I was sixteen I broke up with my first oh-so-serious boyfriend Tom. It was dramatic, though at that age I think all breakups are. Tom and I had been dating for a year. (I know, a whole year.) Things had been going pretty well up until we hit a brick wall called prom. I’ll get to what happened there later, but I should point out that I’m not confessing about a breakup.

After the break up I had a fling. You know, the night of passion you have to get back on your feet and remind yourself that, yes, you can actually go on living without the boy you’ve been mooning over. So I had a fling, big whoop, right? Most people have at least one of them. But this is where things get strange. My fling was my little brother Shawn. There, I said it. You can hate me if you want, but at least hear me out so you can hate me for the right reasons.

Let’s get one thing straight: I didn’t set out after my brother. It wasn’t like that. I really didn’t look at him that way. There were a lot of things that made what happened… happen. But looking back on it now I think there was one moment that set things in motion. It’d happened one night a month or two into my relationship with Tom.

***

Shawn and I had a tradition of sorts. Every Friday night we’d watch a movie. If we didn’t have other plans, that is. In theory either of us could choose a movie, but being the oldest, I usually pulled rank and made him watch whatever I chose. This particular night I’d chosen Jurassic Park. What can I say? I like raptors. Anyone will tell you that Jurassic Park is a classic, and if they don’t then they’re full of it. My brother Shawn was full of it.

“The raptors are so lame! I mean how can a dinosaur open a door? Mittens can’t even open a door and you expect me believe they can? Pft, like I said, lame. Lazy writers,” Shawn said with unbearable smugness.

“You take that back!” I shrieked. “Scientists think they were pack hunters. That takes some degree of intelligence. And our cat is an idiot. Case closed.”

“Fine, even if the raptors were legit, what about the awful robots? I mean, come on, I think I’ve seen better stuff on Sesame Street in the last few years,” He said, and crossed his arms.

“You…” I could only scowl at him. I could have explained that the set and props on the movie were cutting edge for their time, but that would have legitimized his arguments. As if! The only appropriate response I had to this was to tickle his unsophisticated critique into oblivion. At thirteen Shawn was still a bit smaller than I was.

I stood about 5’6” on a good day, and Shawn was an inch or so below me the last time I’d checked, though he’d been going through some serious growth spurts in the last year, I wasn’t likely to continue my reign as tallest sibling for long. I was also stronger than he was. I dove at him from across the couch and aimed my hands straight for his sides.

It was his kryptonite. He was the most ticklish person I’d ever met. He squirmed and gasped and giggled. With flailing legs he tried to lever himself out from under me, but I held on. We both tumbled over the edge of the couch. I landed on top of him. That’s when it happened.

As was typical for a movie night, I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. When I’d landed on top of him I’d ended up vaguely straddling his hips, not in an intentional way, but our hips were aligned nonetheless. He was wearing some loose plaid shorts. My sweat pants and those shorts were the only things separating his throbbing, yes I felt it throbbing, erection and my own naughty bits. What the hell? I mean I was his sister. That was pretty messed up, right?

This all happened in the span of maybe a second or two. In the same instant that I felt his erection pressing against me, he tucked his hips and pulled it away. I looked up to see that his face was beet red. My outrage dwindled at that. Ok, maybe I was being too judgmental. I mean he was a thirteen year old boy, which meant he was three parts penis and one part brain. And I was, to toot my own horn, a fairly attractive and sophisticated young lady. Maybe I should let it go and just take it as a compliment.

“Sorry, buddy, the boner maneuver isn’t going to save you,” I said, and finished tickling him into oblivion, my hips a safe distance away this time. Afterward we finished watching the movie and didn’t speak about it anymore. He was a little awkward immediately afterward, and rightfully so. But by the end he’d gotten back to his smart ass self and expounded on his dislike of rubber baby dinosaurs in the hatchery scene.

Obviously nothing untoward happened that night, that’s not why I brought it up. I was still seeing my boyfriend Tom. The point is that the night made me aware that underneath the label of brother, Shawn was sexual creature, even if I found the notion mildly nauseating at the time. More specifically, he was a sexual creature that evidently found me attractive, if the erection was anything to go by.

***

Tom and I never really had a chance, when I think back on it. But hindsight really is 20/20, isn’t it? We all lie to ourselves at the time. We’d met at school, of course. First period was a study hall. At my school we had four classes a day, each about ninety minutes long, but they only lasted for half a school year. So that meant that I had the first hour and half of every day to do as I pleased.

Study hall was a bit of a misnomer. So long as you had at least a B average studying wasn’t mandatory. You could go to the library, the cafeteria, or, if you were clever, you could sneak into the auditorium. I was all sorts of clever. One day I was hanging out in the auditorium with my friend Jane. Later on in the day you’d have to worry about dodging the theater groups, but in the morning it was open.

There really wasn’t anything good about hanging out there over the cafeteria or library, except that you weren’t supposed to be there. The seats were pretty comfortable though. That day Jane and I were sitting in the back row, listening to music, and generally enjoying having nothing to do.

We weren’t the only clever students, though. A group of boys were milling about the first two rows of seats. The boys were being just loud enough that I was starting to worry that they’d get us all kicked out. Getting caught by a teacher and punished was the last thing I wanted to start the school day with, but I tried to ignore them, they couldn’t be that stupid right? Boys. They only got worse.

Eventually I’d had it, I wasn’t going to get caught because of them and I was not going to leave. We’d gotten there first, after all. I took off my headphones and stood up.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Jane asked.

“To shut those idiots up,” I replied.

“Maybe we should just go,” she suggested. She didn’t like conflict, but that was okay, she didn’t have to get involved.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll handle this, you just sit there, I’ll be right back.” I started climbing down the steps before she could try and talk me out of it. The boys didn’t look up at me until I was almost down to the front row. They quieted down and just looked at me. I glared back.

“What do you want?” Asked one of the boys in the middle of the group. This was, unbeknownst to me at the time, Tom.

“I want you jerks to shut up, you’re going to get us all caught,” I said, maintaining my glare.

“Yeah, okay, mom,” one of the boys said, I didn’t catch who.

“Hey, shut it,” Tom said, punching, presumably, the heckler in the arm. He turned back to me. “Alright, we’ll quiet down, on one condition, though.”

“What’s that?”

“You give me your number.” And I did. I was sorely tempted to just make a number up, Tom had some nerve. But despite myself I was intrigued by him. He had light blue eyes and dark hair. He also had a wispy, teen mustache, but I could forgive him that. That very night he called me for the first time and we set up a date for the weekend.

***

The date consisted of dinner and a movie. Totally cliché, right? But what else can you do? Between curfew and money high school dates were what they were. The dinner portion took place at Portillos. It’s a regional Italian beef and burger joint. We were sitting in a booth underneath a neon sign and all sorts of old movie memorabilia. Yeah, it’s that kind of place.

“Oooh, so you’re a big bad junior,” I said.

“Watch it, sophie, I might pull rank and get you shoved in a locker,” Tom said with a wink.

“Yeah right, that only happens to freshman, and you’re not that big of deal, talk to me next year when you’re a senior. Or maybe the year after that when you’re a super senior,” I haughtily turned my face away from him.

“Ouch, you got a band-aid? I think that one left a mark.” As we talked I learned a lot about him. He’d moved into the area a couple years ago, so he was still kind of new, he didn’t have the life-long childhood alliances that natives like me had. Jane? I’d known her since first grade. I didn’t feel too badly for him though, Tom had clearly demonstrated that he could put himself out there.

He glanced down at his phone, “Woah, hey, we’ve got to get going if we’re going to catch the movie.” We tossed our garbage on the way out and got into Tom’s car. I still couldn’t help being impressed by the car, as a fifteen year old I could only stare in jealously. There were advantages to dating a junior, I had to say.

***

The movie was terrible. It was a spoof movie that was supposed to riff on how terrible all the other movies in the genre were, but it mostly managed to just be terrible in its own right. When I felt Tom lean over and lightly kiss my neck I was almost relieved, it was a welcome distraction. That light kiss was followed by a firm kiss. I turned to face him and our lips met. His tongue met mine and before I knew it we were deeply involved in a make out session. Luckily we’d sat near the back of the theater where it was dark and somewhat secluded.

Had he planned this? I wondered, but I wasn’t going to complain. He nipped my bottom lip lightly and ran his fingers along my forearm. I got goose bumps.

“Your lips are so soft,” He murmured quietly.

“Your mustache is a little itchy,” I said in a mock-sweet tone, instantly regretting it even as the words left my mouth. Foot, meet mouth. Mood killer in the house.

“You really are a smartass,” he said, and kissed me before I could make any attempt at a lame apology. I felt his hand run further up my arm and then cup my breast over my shirt. Wow, he really was forward. I’d already lifted a hand to push his arm away, but decided against it. What was the harm in a little shirt boob?

I gasped as I felt him lightly tweak my nipple through my shirt and bra. Wow again, he knew what he was doing. I put a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him closer, my kisses grew more urgent. He gripped my breast more firmly and wrapped his free arm around me. He took my hand, but I didn’t pay much attention, being deeply involved as I was in kissing. That is until I felt him rest it on something warm and soft. I broke off the kiss and looked down.

When I said he put himself out there… I hadn’t meant it quite that way. What I saw was his cock sticking out of his unzipped jeans. My hand still rested on it, the fingers curving, though not actually gripping the shaft. It was a good size cock too. My thumb and index finger might have reached around it, but just barely. And he was uncircumcised, that was new for me. I could feel a bit of sticky pre cum on my palm that had streamed down from the head.

Dammit. I was fine with a little over the clothes heavy petting.