A Terrible Idea

Her brother could only smile at the image. 'Maybe not the time of year for that.'

'It's warm inside,' she countered.

'What you're wearing is just fine, sis,' he said. In fact, it was actually a rather sophisticated outfit, considering her limited budget. She wore a black chiffon top with a petrol-coloured short jacket, and a black pleated skirt over black tights. Maroon pumps were the perfect complementary colour to the jacket. The black of the top contrasted with the paleness of her skin --another trait she inherited from her paternal grandmother-- of her face and her cleavage. Albert couldn't help but notice that quite a bit of that cleavage was showing; not that his sister had to try very hard for that.

His grandfather, who had downed quite a few glasses of wine by then, turned his attention to them. 'Alberto,' he called out. 'How come a nice boy like you hasn't found himself a good wife, eh?'

Oh dear. This was the moment that he'd been dreading. Charlotte had a 'hey, don't look at me' expression on her face.

'Don't embarrass the boy,' his grandmother said.

'Hey, it's a reasonable question,' said Gaetano. 'I'm an old man, I'd love to be a great-grandfather. Alberto's my best hope.' He gave a scornful look to his other grandchildren. 'And God willing, my only hope,' she spoke under his breath, just loud enough for Albert and Charlotte to hear it.

'He, and the principessa of course!' he added.

'Grandfather! I'm only 20!' Charlotte protested.

'Ah, when I was your age, your father had already been born,' the old man mused. 'Things were different back then.'

He continued with Albert. 'So no nice girl at all? They must be lining up to be with such a good-looking Italian like you.'

That was not entirely untrue. In fact, it was rather accurate. But Albert had never found that one spark, the spark that told him that this was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

'I'm still looking, grandfather,' he said. 'I'm not in a hurry.'

'That's easy for you to say,' his grandfather muttered. 'You still have your entire life ahead of you.'

Presently, dinner was served, and the siblings spoke about nothing much in particular between bites.

Towards the end of the meal, Charlotte's phone chimed. She took it out of her evening bag, looked at the message, produced a huge grin, and mouthed something to the ceiling. To Albert, it seemed like it was 'thank you, God'.

Then, his own phone chimed as well. It was the specific sound for a weather warning. He fished the phone out of his pocket and saw the message.

'It says it's going to snow,' he said. 'Like, pretty soon.'

'Yes, that's what mine said, too,' replied his sister.

'I'd better be on my way then,' he said. 'It's a long drive for me.'

'No!'

The rest of the table looked at Charlotte; she had actually shouted it.

'You'll never get home before the snow, and then what?' she told him. 'You'll get stuck and who knows what will happen then. Do you want to spend Christmas night in your car freezing to death? I'm not letting you and that's it. Full stop.'

'But then what am I going to do? I don't want to bother Nonno and Nonna; they're old people. And I'm most definitely not staying with Mum and Dad.'

'You could stay with me,' his sister suggested. 'It's only like a 20 minute drive from here. We can unwrap the presents, help them clear up, and be at my place before it starts snowing.'

Albert considered it for a few moments. 'I suppose I could... You're probably right. OK, why not? Looks like I get to see your new place.'

Charlotte beamed at that. 'Wonderful!' she said. 'Don't worry, there's enough food and drink and anything else we might need.'

Her brother chuckled at that. 'Well, didn't you think of everything?'

'Pretty much, yeah,' she smiled.

After dinner, it was time to unwrap the presents. Their grandparents had presents for all children and grandchildren, as did parents, children and siblings for one another. Between uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and cousins, they had the understanding that they wouldn't give each other presents, because that would cost everybody a small fortune, not to mention that it would mean an enormous amount of presents that would take ages to unwrap.

Charlotte opened the present that her brother had given her. It was a gold pendant with a long-stemmed rose ornament. 'Oh, it's beautiful!' she cried, and kissed Albert on the cheek, perhaps a bit closer to his mouth than was really appropriate.

She, in turn, had given him a pencil drawing in a frame, showing both Albert and her. It was drawn after a photo that he knew, when he had celebrated his 20^th birthday and Charlotte was 15. It was actually quite well done. It captured the expression in their faces accurately.

'This is really nice,' he told her. 'Did you find an artist to do it for you?'

'I drew it myself. You like it?'

'Really? Lotte, this is really good. You're talented.'

'Thanks,' she said. 'I, um, didn't really have to money to get you something expensive. So I got you something personal instead.'

'Sis, this is one of the best Christmas presents I've ever got. I really appreciate it.' And he kissed her cheek in turn. She was wearing a nice fragrance.

After they helped their grandparents clear up, it was time to leave. They said their goodbyes to everybody, and went outside in the cold. The first snowflakes were already gently falling down.

As they arrived at Albert's car, Charlotte hollered. 'Whoo, brother, well done! I bet that all the girls love it. I do, for sure.'

'Hey, it gets me from A to B,' Albert said defensively.

'So does the bus. And the bus isn't red, has more than two seats, and doesn't have massive wheels.'

'Of course a bus has big wheels, what are you saying?'

'Big alloys? On a bus? What size are these anyway?' asked Charlotte.

'19 inch. And it does have a back seat, you know.'

'Which barely fits a cat. Admit it, Bertie, you bought yourself a chick magnet.'

'If you say so,' Albert muttered. 'Fat lot of good this thing does in this kind of weather.'

His sister was waiting next to the car, looking expectantly.

'Aren't you going to open the door for me?'

Albert raised his hands in exasperation. 'Fine, give me a moment,' as he opened the passenger door for his sister.

'Thank you,' she said as she got in, showing him a big smile.

The drive to his sister's flat was uneventful. He had to drive carefully, but the snow was still light. Charlotte lived on the third floor of a modern block of flats. They took the lift to the floor, which had another seven units.

Once inside, Albert was favourably impressed. The flat was small, but despite her limited means, his sister had managed to make it a proper home. He recognised some of her old things, and there were some new things as well. The place was dimly lit, just enough so that you wouldn't stumble and fall flat on your face, whilst creating an intimate atmosphere.

She had also spent a lot of effort on Christmas decorations. There was a small wreath on the front door, and a Christmas tree in a corner. There were Father Christmas and snowman figurines scattered about, as were little penguins wearing Christmas scarves and hats. Then Albert looked at the ceiling.

'Say, sis, was the mistletoe on special offer or something?'

Everywhere he looked; everywhere a person could sit, or walk; above the sofa, above the small dining table, in doorways; there was mistletoe hanging literally everywhere.

'Oh, that?' Her face flushed red. 'That's, um, a joke really. I wasn't actually expecting anybody.' She rummaged around with some things that didn't need rummaging around with, but it gave her an excuse to avoid his gaze.

'Not expecting Mr Appropriate then?' he teased her.

She stopped rummaging and looked straight at him. 'To be honest, I don't give a shit about Mr Appropriate. I want Mr Right.'

Albert had no response to that, and an uncomfortable silence fell.

'Why don't you sit down on the sofa and I'll get you a drink?' Charlotte told her brother. She disappeared into the kitchen and presently returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

'Chardonnay? Don't tell Nonno,' Albert joked.

'Hey, I can't afford his special wine. I'll save that in case he'll come over one day.'

They chatted a bit about work and their plans for the next year, as they drank the wine. Sooner than Albert had expected it, they had polished off the entire bottle.

Charlotte got up, slightly unsteady on her heels. 'I'm going to... change my clothes. Won't be a minute.'

Albert leaned back, his head slightly abuzz from the wine. His sister had decorated the living room rather elegantly. Given her low budget, most of the furniture came from flat packs, but with little ornaments and accessories, she had managed to give her own flair to the place.

She even had a little table with the traditional family photographs on it. There was a photo of him, too. In fact, there was more than one. Actually, the majority of the photos were of him.

There were also some of her pencil drawings on the wall. She had drawn a self-portrait, which Albert thought was rather good. She had captured the sadness, which was all too often present on her face, really well. But the other four drawings were of him.

In one of them, he had his hair long. He must have been around 17 at the time. Another showed him at his graduation ceremony. A third one saw him in swimming trunks; she had perhaps exaggerated his musculature to some extent. And the fourth one, centrally on the wall opposite the sofa, was staring back at him with an intense gaze.

Albert started to feel somewhat uncomfortable. Had he walked into some sort of shrine, dedicated to him? His sister and he had always been close, and he knew that she looked up to him, but this was a bit creepy.

Presently, Charlotte returned to the living room. 'Well, what do you think?' she asked.

Albert's mouth fell open. His sister was wearing what could be called an elf outfit, if Santa's elves were hot young women. It was a little red Christmas dress with fake white fur around the edges. It barely reached below her crotch. Underneath it, she was wearing black stockings with an intricate leaf pattern. Albert realised that the leaves were mistletoe. On the other end of the dress, her ample bosom threatened to spill out, and it was constrained, to a greater or lesser extent, by what looked like a black lace bustier. On her feet, she wore low-heeled black boots that went up to about mid-calf, and to top everything off, she wore a red-and-white Santa hat. She wasn't wearing any make-up. She didn't need to.

On an intellectual level, Albert knew that his sister was a woman, of 20 years old, and an attractive woman at that. But he wasn't quite prepared for the image of divine perfection that graced his eyes. His sister was seriously hot. But she was his sister. It brought up all sorts of conflicting thoughts, and to make things worse, he had to shift his position somewhat because his black jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight.

Charlotte's face fell when she saw his expression. 'You don't like it,' she said.

'Oh no, Lotte, it's lovely, and you look fantastic. It's just that... I'm not used to seeing you like this.'

'So you like it then?' she asked.

'Yes, I like it.'

'How much do you like it?' she insisted.

'You look beautiful, Lotte. Beautiful and hot. God, I can't believe I'm telling this to my sister. It must be the wine.' He closed his eyes. That, at least, removed the direct visual stimulus, but the image in his mind lingered, and her scent didn't help much either.

He felt the sofa depress to his left. When he opened his eyes again, he sister was sitting right next to him. His eyes involuntarily dropped down to her cleavage. His sister's cleavage. And what an incredible cleavage it was.

Desperately, he tried to think of something else. Teddy bears! If he could think of teddy bears, he could think of his little sister as, well, little, and not so disturbingly grown up.

'What are you thinking about?' she asked him.

'Teddy bears,' he blurted out.

'Teddy bears? Why, of all things, teddy bears?'

'I can't really tell you,' he said. 'It's a bit, um, personal.'

'You're being silly,' she smiled. 'Anyway, so is that babe magnet of yours working?'

'Eh? What?'

'Your car. That little red hot thing that took us here. Is it working?'

'In what sense? The car is working. It drives.'

'No, dummy,' she said. 'Is it scoring you any chicks?'

'Well, um, recently no, not really. I've been busy at work, and...' His voice trailed off.

'So you're not seeing anybody?' she wanted to know.

'Right now, no,' he admitted.

'Oh, poor little Bertie. Haven't found Mrs Right yet?'

He looked at her for a couple of moments before speaking. 'Nor Mrs Appropriate for that matter.'

'How come, Bertie?' she asked him, while she traced a delicate finger over his chin. 'You're a nice boy. Any girl would be so lucky to have you.'

'I don't know, sis. There's something missing, I guess. Something that I'm looking for, but that's never there. And at some point, you just give up because you don't want to be hurt every time.'

'How long has it been?' she asked.

'It's been a while,' he said in a sad voice.

'And what is it that you're looking for? The thing that's missing?'

He sighed. 'I wish I knew. Then it would be easy. But I can't put my finger on it. It's like it's just outside my grasp, yet right before my eyes.' He made a gesture as if grabbing thin air and opened his hand again. 'Elusive. That's what it is.'

'So... it's been several months since you last kissed a girl?'

'Yeah. Let's say "several", and leave it at that, or I'll cry.'

Somehow, she had moved a bit closer to him. Her scent was even more obvious now. It made his head spin even more than the wine did.

'We're underneath the mistletoe,' she pointed out.

'That's not really a surprise, is it? Probably the only place in this house where you don't have mistletoe hanging is in the toilet.'

'Well, actually...'

He held up his hand. 'No, don't tell me. Too much information. I don't want to know.'

Then, her remark started to sink in. She had mentioned the mistletoe. Surely, she couldn't be suggesting... or could she?

'Why did you say that about the mistletoe?'

'About the toilet?' she asked.

'No, not about the toilet! I mean, why did you point out that we're sitting underneath it?'

'Oh, it's nothing really. I was just thinking, maybe he wants to kiss a cute girl. But apparently you're not interested.' She feigned indifference, toying with a loose strand of hair.

'You mean, kiss you?' he asked.

'Are you seeing anybody else in here?'

'It would probably be a bad idea,' he said.

'Oh, it would most definitely be a bad idea,' she replied.

'What with us being siblings, I mean,' said Albert.

'I know what you mean, bro.' She inched yet closer him. Her face was very close to his. 'It would be a very bad idea. We really shouldn't do it.' Her mouth was mere inches from his lips.

'Yeah,' he said lamely.

'Exactly,' she concurred, while continuing to decrease the distance between their faces, until her lips ever so gently touched his for a few seconds.

It was a nice kiss. It wasn't a toe-curling, no-holds-barred, mind-blowing kind of kiss. But it was the first kiss in a very long time, and it made Albert's head swim, not in the least because it had been his sister kissing him.

'A terrible idea,' he said.

'Absolutely disastrous,' said Charlotte.

'We shouldn't have done that,' he said.

'I completely agree,' she replied. 'So, you want to try it again?'

'OK.'

This time, she didn't hold back. She put everything in that kiss, grabbing his head in her hands, pressing her lips to his, hard, probing with her tongue into his mouth. Albert's conscience narrowed, reduced to the sensations from the kiss, until they both had to come up for air.

'My God, Lotte, what are you doing?'

'What does it look like I'm doing?' she asked.

Albert swallowed before answering her. 'If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're seducing me.'

She gently stroked his hair. 'That's a fairly accurate description of what I'm trying to do, I'd say,' she said. 'So, is it working?'

'As much as I hate to admit it, I think so.'

'Ah, brilliant.' She give him a radiant smile.

'But why?' he demanded. 'Why me? Your own brother?'

'Why? Oh, that's simple really. Because I realised that I'm in love with you. And I can't shake it, try as I might. So I decided to act on it. That's why.'

'And how did that happen? How did you fall in love with your brother? When did you realise?' he asked.

'When you left the house, Bertie. It broke my heart. I've had boyfriends and dumped them, because there never was a spark. Like with you, you never found that spark either. But when you left, I was devastated. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to eat. I became a wreck. It's then that I realised. How it came to be, I don't know. I'm guessing that our family situation has something to do with it. We're pretty fucked up, and this just fits the pattern.'

He averted his face, looking at the self-portrait his sister had drawn. 'Leaving you was hard on me too, Lotte. It hurt a lot. But I never thought of it that way. I just soldiered on, was the tough guy. At least, when there were other people around. In private... actually, I don't really want to talk about that.'

She took his face in her hands. 'Think about it, Bertie. Why do you think you never found Mrs Right?'

'Because none of them could measure up to you,' he replied slowly.

'Exactly. And none of the boys came even close to you. You were what I've come to expect a man to be. You spoiled me for life, Bertie.'

'So you found your Mr Right...' he said.

'...who happens to be extremely inappropriate,' she finished his sentence.

One of her hands slid down to his neck, while she trailed the other one lower and lower, until it came to rest on his crotch.

'Now that would be a really bad idea, sis.'

'A terrible idea,' she concurred, as she undid the top button of his jeans.

'I mean, kissing is one thing,' he said.

'You're right, we shouldn't do this,' she said. The second button went.

'It would be incest, right?'

'Most definitely,' she said, as she undid the third button.

'Isn't that illegal?' he asked.

'No,' she said simply, as the fourth and final button came loose. She placed her hand on his erection.

'Say what you like, bro, but somebody seems to think it's actually a pretty good idea.' She gently pushed down the elastic of his underpants and placed her hand directly on his now exposed penis. She sucked in her breath as she finally had in her hands what she had been coveting for so long.

To Albert, it was as if an electric shock went through his body. It had been a long time, a very long time indeed. But the wrongness of his sister touching his most private body part made it incredibly more exciting.

'Oh Bertie, I've waited so long for this. It feels wonderful in my hand.' She started stroking him up and down, slowly but firmly.

Albert closed his eyes. If it felt wonderful for his sister, it felt positively phenomenal for him. He let the sensation, of his sister giving him a hand-job, wash over him.

'Keep doing that,' he managed to utter.

'Like it?' Charlotte asked.

'Love it, sis. As fucked up as the whole thing may be, it feels fantastic. Right now I couldn't care less about propriety.'

Charlotte, meanwhile, had managed to take off the little Christmas outfit by alternating the hand with which she was stroking him. He could now see her lacy bustier, which was struggling to contain her breasts. Below, she wore a garter belt that held up her stockings. Below that, she wore a pair of panties with yet more lace. Albert just about managed to notice that the panties were, in fact, on top of the straps of the garter belt.