The Lake

My sister and I arrived at the inn. We parked and got out of the car. When we walked in, it was the same as it had always been. Wood interior, the deer's head on the wall, the fireplace, the furniture. Even the TV was the same. We walked up to the front desk where an old lady was standing.

"Hi," I said. "We've got a reservation for a cabin. The name is Harris."

The old lady adjusted her glasses. "Tom Harris? Is that you?"

I smiled. "Hi Barbara."

"Oh my! You're all grown up!" She turned to my sister. "Oh, and you too, Kelly! It's been so long since I've seen you two!"

"What was it, ten years?" Kelly said. "I'm surprised you remember us."

"You came here every summer from when you were toddlers to when you were teenagers," Barbara said. "I got to know you two pretty well. Your parents too. Will they be joining you later?"

Kelly and I looked at each other. "Well, no." I said. "They both passed last year. Car accident that took them both."

Barbara's eyes widened. "Oh my! I'm so sorry to hear that! Oh, you poor dears."

"Oh no," Kelly said. "I feel bad that we never called and told you."

"Now don't you two worry about that!" Barbara said.

"It's been a bit rough for us both, honestly," I said. "I guess that's why we decided to come back. Just get away from our jobs and come back to where we had some happy memories, you know?"

"I know exactly what you mean, sweetie," Barbara said as she handed me the key to the cabin. "You just enjoy your stay here. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask, okay?"

"Thanks Barbara," I said.

Kelly and I went back out to the car and grabbed our bags. We carried them over to the cabin. Like the lobby at the inn, nothing had changed since we last stayed there. I set my bags down in the living room and went into the kitchen. Kelly set hers down and followed me. We could see Lake Superior from the kitchen window and hear the waves.

"Remember how back then we used to sit out here and just listen to that at night?" I said.

"Yeah, I remember how we fell asleep on the floor a couple times," Kelly said. "Heh. Mom and dad had to carry us up the stairs to the beds."

We went out the kitchen door. We stood on the path were the grass merged with sand from the beach. I looked out to the lake and watched the waves. I looked over at Kelly and saw she was watching them too.

"Remember how we would stand out here with Mom sometimes?" she said. "Watching the lake was like a religious experience for her. She would always talk about how we could see God's glory in all of this. The beauty of God's creation. Even at church, she wasn't that enthusiastic. But here, it's like the meaning of everything was obvious to her."

We stood there in silence for a moment.

"I really miss her," Kelly said. I heard her voice tremble a little. I put my arm around her and pulled her close to me.

"I do too. Her and Dad," I said.

"Yeah," Kelly rested her head on my shoulder. There was another moment of silence as we watched the waves on the lake.

"Tom, do you think there is a god?" Kelly asked.

I thought about it for a moment. "Well, it would break Mom and Dad's heart to say this, but I'm really not sure anymore. Mom always told us we need to have faith, but I guess I just don't have it."

Kelly sighed. "I think I feel the same way. I'd like to think that there is, and that Mom and Dad are in Heaven right now. But it all just feels like wishful thinking. When I look at this lake I don't feel anything I could call 'god'. I mean the lake is really beautiful, but I don't think I feel what Mom felt."

"It kind of reminds of that one poem I found in one of Dad's books. 'The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore / Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. / But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,'" I said.

"Oh yeah, I remember you showed me that poem. It's called 'Dover Beach' right?"

"Yeah."

"That's a pretty accurate description of what the lake sounds like. 'Melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.'"

We stood there and watched the lake. I scanned the horizon where the lighter blue of the sky met the darker blue of the water. Whenever I looked out there, I had always thought I could see some vague image of the other side. That probably wasn't possible, it was the biggest lake in the US. I doubt anyone's vision was good enough to see across it into Canada.

I looked at the beach. I watched the lake go in and out. The dark and compacted sand where the lake hit reminded me of the times Kelly and I would make little sand castles and watch the water knock them down. I remembered the time when I was 10 and swam out too far. I started flailing and splashing in panic, and Dad had to swim out to get me. When he brought me back, Kelly hugged me and started crying. I think she was more scared than I was.

I also remembered that one time. I was 15 and Kelly was 14. It was the second to last time we came up here as a family. Kelly and I went for a walk up the beach to some remote part where there were no cabins and no other people around. We sat in the sand and just talked for a little bit. It started off innocent. I just I started teasing her. Soon we were horsing around and laughing. Then it started to turn serious. Very serious.

I could feel myself getting excited as I remembered it. I think Kelly felt it too.

"Hey, I think we should go back inside and unpack our stuff," she said.

I nodded and followed her back in. There was an awkward silence between us. That same kind of awkward silence on that day after we finished, got dressed and walked back. We had silently agreed to pretend nothing had happened.

Wishful thinking doesn't get you very far.

We took the bags with our clothes up to the loft where the beds were. Kelly broke the silence.

"Were you remembering that time when we were at the beach and then... Um..." She hesitated.

"Yeah,"

"Do you ever regret that?"

"Well, it wasn't the last time we did it. So I don't think either of us regret it that much."

It was true. A couple years afterward, I dated this girl who ended up breaking my heart really bad. One night it was eating me up so much I couldn't sleep. I went to Kelly's room to talk to her. I ended up staying there the whole night and went back to mine before Mom and Dad woke up.

Then in her last year of college (I'd graduated a year before her), the shit hit the fan at Kelly's part-time job. She was working as a waitress and had a customer lay into her so much, she broke down crying. Her boss didn't do anything to help and, in fact, just fired her. She was so upset, she called me to vent. I drove over to her dorm (it was a single) to give her some company. Again, I ended up spending the night.

Both of those times we didn't speak about it afterwards.

Not long after Mom and Dad died, we came back to our hometown for the funeral service. I asked Kelly to share a hotel room with me, I couldn't bear to sleep alone. She agreed. She told me then we'd have to talk about this eventually, but for now we both needed it. We'd deal with the issue later.

Now the time had come.

"Do you think what we've been doing is wrong?" Kelly said.

"I don't know," I said. "Should it matter?"

"Shouldn't it?"

"Sometimes I wonder if anything can be called right or wrong. I don't see how it matters if something is wrong. It doesn't stop people. The idea of 'that's wrong' doesn't stop criminals. It didn't stop the drunk driver who hit Mom and Dad from getting behind the wheel. It hasn't stopped us."

Kelly looked at the floor. "I mean, you can't just do anything you want without thinking of anyone else. Can you?"

I walked up to Kelly and put my hand on her shoulder. "That doesn't seem like a good way to live life. You just end up hurting others. I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want to be happy. When I'm with you, that's when I'm happiest. We're not hurting anyone else. I'm not hurting you, am I?"

Kelly rubbed her eyes. "No. I'm really happy when I'm with you too."

"Well, in this case, I think that's all that really matters."

She put her arms around me and pressed the side of her head against my chest. "I hope you're right," she said.

"So do I," I said.

I put my hands on her back and started massaging her. I felt the straps for her bra under her shirt. She felt so warm. The smell of her brown hair was driving me crazy. I could feel my hard-on starting to grow. We looked at each other for a moment and our lips met. I kissed her hungrily. Her tongue and her lips tasted so good.

I pulled her against me and started kissing her harder than I ever had before. At that point, it had hit me that the only people whose objections to this I would care about were gone. Thoughts of how Mom and Dad would feel had always haunted me. But they weren't here anymore. Now it didn't matter. Now this was more than an expression of love for her. It was an act of defiance to anyone alive who would call this wrong.

As I bent down and started kissing her soft, smooth neck, she unbuttoned my shirt. After I tossed it to the floor, I got my arms behind her knees and back and picked her up. She gasped and giggled as I carried her over to one of the beds and sat her on it. I pulled her shirt off and had her lay back, then I slid her jeans off.

Seeing her beautiful, thin body laying there in just that blue bra and panties made my hard-on strain against the inside of my zipper. I dropped my jeans and my boxers and climbed over her. I kissed her again and felt the warmth of her body under mine as my tongue darted in and out of her mouth.

"You're really excited, aren't you?" Kelly said as I started kissing her neck again.

I moved back enough to let her sit up. I glanced down at my hard-on, smiled at her and said, "Isn't it obvious?"

She giggled as she undid her bra. She tossed it aside. The pink nipples on her small, cute breasts were already erect. I leaned in and sucked on one of her nipples. She moaned. I kissed across her chest and sucked on the other. She placed her hand on the back of my head as I repeated this a couple times. The whole time she gasped and moaned adorably. She had always had sensitive breasts.

I kissed my way down her tight tummy, then pulled her panties down her smooth legs. She spread and exposed her pink cunt to me. I leaned in and breathed in the warm scent.

"You smell so fucking good," I said.

Kelly giggled. "Don't say that! It's embarrassing!"

I dragged my tongue across her cunt. She gasped.

"You taste even better," I said.

I wrapped my arms around her thighs and pulled her crotch to my face. I licked and sucked on her cunt like I was starving while she moaned and writhed. Her sloppy wet cunt tasted so good. I just kept going at it and lost all sense of anything around me. I was brought back when Kelly cried out and began thrashing. When she calmed down, she started laughing. She always laughed after she came.

I moved up and kissed her again. She was breathing heavily.

"Can you taste yourself on my lips?" I said.

She giggled and gave me a playful shove. "You're such a pervert!"

I just smiled. I started rubbing my hard cock against her pussy. It was so wet that my cock slid over it easily.

I whispered in her ear, "You want me to fuck you, baby?"

I nibbled on her ear and gently pinched one of her nipples. She made such a hot moan.

"Oh, you bully!" she said in a throaty whisper. "Yes! Fuck me, Tom!"

Kelly wrapped her legs around me as I slid my cock into her pussy. I pushed myself all the way inside her. I started pumping into her. Her hot breath was blowing into my face and neck. I started kissing her deeply.

While I sucked on her neck she said, "You really like kissing, don't you?"

"It's because your mouth tastes so sweet," I said and kissed her again.

I could feel the pleasant burning in my cock as I thrust into her. Her adorable moans turned me on even more and encouraged me to fuck her harder.

"I love you, Kelly," I said through my heavy breathing.

"Oh, Tom. I love you too," she said with a beautiful smile on her face.

Her cunt must have still been sensitive from the first time because she threw her head back and gasped loudly.

"Oh! Yes! Right there!"

I slammed into her. I wanted hear her cry out in joy again. I wanted to hear that lovely satisfied laugh again. Soon she began writhing underneath me and I heard her sounds of ecstasy. I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers again. Her laughter made her mouth taste even sweeter.

It was too much. I could feel the pleasant burning in my cock about to spark into a white hot climax. I pulled out of her cunt and grunted. My mind went blank for a brief moment, then I felt the release of pressure. My cum shot across her stomach and her breasts. Some drops of sweat from my forehead fell around the line of cum on her body.

I lowered myself onto her. I felt the heat of her body and her rising and falling chest. I also felt my own cum rubbing on me. I didn't care.

"Satisfied?" she said, out of breath.

"Are you?"

She just giggled and kissed me on the cheek. I climbed off her and went over to the bathroom and grabbed a hand towel. I wiped off the cum that got on me then went back to Kelly. I gently wiped my cum off her body.

"Thank you, Tom," she said sweetly.

I tossed the hand towel aside and climbed back in bed with her. I held her in my arms, and she lay her head on my chest.

My beautiful Kelly. My sister. My lover. Any thoughts that this could ever be wrong were miles away from me.

While we lay there spent, I could vaguely hear the sounds of the waves on the lake.

"Hey, Tom?" Kelly said.

"Hmm?"

"How did the last part of that 'Dover Beach' poem go?"

"Oh yeah. 'Ah, love, let us be true / To one another! for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new, / Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.' Is that what you were thinking of?"

"Yeah. It seems like a depressing way to view things, but I don't think it's that bad. There's a certain freedom in it."

"I know what you mean. Sometimes I don't think I know what's true or not anymore. But I know my feelings for you are real. I think I'll be fine as long as I have that."

"I think we're both going to be okay."

Kelly kissed me on the cheek. In the distance I heard the waves of the lake clash against the beach.