The Pool

I came up for air and dove back down three times before I heard Jason yelling my name.

"Kate! Kate, what's wrong? What's going on? What happened?"

The pool had already destroyed my mascara, which kept my tears from streaking as noticeably down my face. "Jase, he did-...he didn't..." My sobs kept me from getting a thought out. Jason wasn't wearing anything but a pair of boxers. He jumped into the pool with no hesitation and walked over to where I was standing in water up to my chest. He threw his arms fiercely around me.

"Shhhhh, shhh, Katie, just breathe. Just calm down and tell me what happened. Did he hurt you? Do we need a doctor? What's wrong? Just tell me."

"He didn't know, Jason," I buried my face in his chest and sobbed.

"Didn't know what, Kate?"

"He didn't know I was divorced. You put on the profile that I was single and I didn't check it."

"So...what happened? I don't understand?"

"Everything was going great, and I mentioned something about it offhand, because I thought he knew. But he didn't, and he just gave me this look and..." My breath threatened to get away from me again, but I held on tighter to Jason's waist and got it under control, "he asked me what was wrong with me that I'd already burned through a marriage at twenty-six. Then he gave me this ten minute lecture about letting people know I'm 'damaged goods' before they spend a week e-mailing me, how rude it is to waste someone's time."

"Oh, god. Oh, Katie, Katie, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault." He was stroking my wet hair. "I am such an idiot and it's all my fault. I never should have made that profile, I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry, Kate, please believe me."

I just held on to him, calming down as he petted my hair and shoulders and held me close to his thudding heart. I don't know how long it was before I realized that all we were wearing was underwear and that my naked breasts were pressed against him, the nipples as hard and round as pebbles with the combination of cold water and hot skin. I didn't care. After years of having my marriage fail slowly, almost sweetly, it was a hideous relief to have a blow-out humiliation and be comforted by skin-to-skin contact, even if the man giving me what I needed was my brother. I just didn't have it in me to care about it at all.

Jason held me firmly against him with his left arm around my lower back. He pushed the wet hair plastered to the sides of my face back and swiped under each of my eyes with his right thumb. "Shhhhhh," he soothed, caressing my face. "Kate, please forgive me." He was staring at me intensely, his face inches from mine, his lips still wet from the pool. "Kate, please..." He dipped his head so smoothly I didn't realize what was happening until the moment his lips made contact with mine. He didn't seal the kiss, hesitating long enough for a single warm exhalation before slipping his lower lip under mine and pressing in. He didn't move his mouth at all until I pursed my lips to meet him. He parted his lips slightly and slid them millimeters back and forth against mine. It was so light, the kindling for the fire that suddenly flared inside me. I opened my mouth and tilted my head to the side, catching his upper lip in mine and pulling gently. Jason pulled back completely, then kissed me again, his mouth open enough for me to feel the wet probing tip of his tongue. I answered it with the questioning touch of my own.

It was like licking the end of an active battery. The intensity of the pleasure of feeling Jason's tongue against my own was almost too much to take, but I couldn't imagine pulling away for more than the half second it took to close the kiss again. Jason and I teased our tongues against each other, and my mind blanked out everything but those sensations, though a familiar ache between my legs was pulling at my consciousness. Jason shifted his weight and pulled me closer, giving me his full mouth. I felt the hot press of his erection against my hip.

It hit me all at once that I was standing mostly naked in my parents' pool, making out with my brother. I pulled my lips from his and stared at him in wide-eyed shock. The look on his face in the unreliable light reflected up by the surface of the pool wasn't shame or confusion, just disappointment from me breaking contact. I jerked away from his body and he let me go. I swam slowly back to the opposite edge if the pool from where he was still standing, watching him as I went. He didn't move. I climbed out of the pool and walked into the house without a word, going straight to my bedroom and shutting the door.

My thoughts were roiling and I held on to my mattress like a life raft. At some point I'd had the presence of mind to strip off my wet panties, but I didn't remember it. I was trying to explain what happened in the pool away in my mind as a mistake, an accident. I tried to compress it in my memory to a single brief kiss. I tried to make it my fault, my moment of weakness and neediness; I cast Jason as too confused and surprised to stop me. It didn't work. I knew, my body knew, that he had kissed me and I'd responded with far more than a moment of poor judgment. If I hadn't stopped because of the taboo of him being my little brother, I would still have been down in the pool, grinding against his hardness and begging for more. I still wanted more. I rolled over onto my back and gently spread my outer lips and haltingly stroked inside with my index finger.

What was it about being in my parents' house that made me do and want such fucked up things? I went through my usual rote of the memory of Dad and Sara and the fantasies of me taking her place while I rubbed my clit, but it didn't get me close enough to get off. My mind wandered instead to Jason, his smooth, tanned skin and leaner muscles than Dad's, his runner's legs splayed while I mounted his face and let his delicious tongue explore my slit the way he had my mouth. That did it - I came, but I could tell it was only the beginning of what my body would want.

You don't stay with a gay guy for ten years and not learn about doing for yourself. I may have thought the prospect of me going on a date this summer was so remote that I didn't pack any going out clothes, but I had certainly brought my sex toys. I found a slim vibrator and a jelly dildo I had picked because the tapered shape reminded me of Dad and began rubbing my clit again, thinking of the kiss in the pool.

What if Dad wasn't really Jason's father? What if he was? Would Jason's penis be the same shape as Dad's? In my mind, Jason and I had moved from kissing in the pool to him grabbing my ass and hoisting me onto him, our underwear melting away in the water. In bed, I took the dildo and pressed its pink jelly head against my begging inner lips, slipping it halfway into my soaked cunt with the first thrust. In my mind, Jason wasn't gentle, as he had been with the kiss. I fucked myself deep and hard to match, each inward thrust accompanied by a wet smack.

After my second orgasm, I left the jelly where it was, squeezed halfway out by my contracting muscles but still filling and stretching my lips, and turned on the vibrator. At first, I just brushed it around my vulva, staying clear of my clit until I ramped back up. I thought about the pool more abstractly - how Dad ended up having it put in because Mom caught him sleeping with Deb Hansen from the accounting department of his business. I knew months before Mom did because I'd caught him, first. I'd seen the way he looked at Deb at the anniversary party and I knew that if I followed him, I might get a chance to see him taking a woman again.

You live in a house with people like my parents long enough and you get a sixth sense for these kinds of things. By the time I got trapped in the bedroom watching Dad with Sara, Jason and I had both developed the ability to leave the house together for our trip to get ice cream or go to the library just as Dad started slapping the locked bedroom door and sobbing "Haruna, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Haruna, please." We always managed to come back after Mom had finished tidying up whatever she had broken in her rage. So I knew, when I saw Dad's posture and Deb's glance at the wet bar as they both went to get a fresh drink, his only half empty, that they were making some kind of plan. I wasn't disappointed.

My parent's thirtieth wedding anniversary party was at the new country club, the one they joined after Dad got caught with Sara. The party had already been going for three hours or more by the time Deb slipped away to the empty coat check room and Dad followed a minute behind, first going to towards the bathroom at the other end of the hall, then doubling back. I had squeezed Matthew's hand and told him I was going to get some air, my stomach knotting and burning with the shame and excitement of what I was doing. I went to the half-door of the coat check, leaned against the wall, and pretended to be listening to someone on my cell phone. My position was perfect - I could see in to the back of the coat check well, but the coats inside covered me from anyone looking out. Nobody would interrupt Dad, either. Since I didn't live at home any more, this was probably my last opportunity to watch him.

By the time I was in position, Deb was standing in the back of the coat check with her sparkly black party dress pulled up over her hips and Dad was kneeling between her legs. Deb had her blonde head tipped back, eyes squeezed shut as she bit into her fist to keep quiet. Dad pulled away from licking her slit so he could see better when he pushed two fingers suddenly inside her. Deb's eyes went wide as he pistoned his arm into her, no exploration but rather a seizing of her body and demanding it orgasm for him. They had clearly been lovers for some time. My own pussy felt uncomfortable and tight, reaching for that same savage attention as I watched.

Deb's pale cheeks flushed redder under her makeup as she suppressed a scream and ground her hips down onto Dad's hand. He pulled out and sucked on his fingers, then turned her around abruptly to face the back wall. As a seasoned cheater, Dad could get his cock out of his pants and position it with one hand while taking another pull off his drink with the other. All I could see from the front of the double row of coats was Dad's broad back and Deb's hands braced against the wall. At first, I was disappointed because I had been hoping for a view of him as intimate and complete as the one I had enjoyed years before. As I watched Dad grind into her, though, it became easier and easier to imagine myself against the wall. My hands shook and I almost dropped my cell phone. I scanned the room and saw no one near, no one watching. I pressed the heel of my free hand against my mound through my dress and rubbed slow circles.

Dad pulled out and rotated a quarter towards me, showing his bobbing cock in profile, purple and slick. Deb repositioned to face him and lowered to her knees, her cocktail dress still hiked up well over her black garters. She wrapped her red lips around his glistening shaft and sucked at her own fluids. It couldn't have been more than half a minute before Dad groaned and pushed all the way into her mouth, careful not to grab her smooth blonde updo. He pulled out and pressed the crown against her throat, letting the last slow spurts dribble down the skin of her neck and décolletage. He'd never even put down his drink.

I knew I should leave. Every second I stayed, I was closer to being seen by Dad or Deb or approached by someone in the crowded ballroom. My feet were rooted, staring at his bare shaft. He wiped himself off with his cocktail napkin and tucked away, still half hard. He helped Deb up and offered her his handkerchief for the cum on her neck. That was Dad, always a gentleman.

Something about seeing all of the tangible evidence of their coupling wiped away released the moment's hold on me and I moved as quietly as my shaking legs would take me out to my car where I masturbated furiously for as long as I thought I could be away without Matthew coming to make sure I was alright. When I was washing my hands in the bathroom before going back to the party, Deb Hansen came in to touch up her dark red lipstick. She was wearing a lovely black pearl necklace that I knew she didn't have on at the beginning of the night.

Six months later, construction began on the pool.

In my bedroom, with a dildo filling my just-fucked pussy, I thought about Dad, then Jason, then Dad, dripping cum over my chest. I touched my clit with the vibrator at last and began to moan. For just a moment, my mind cast Matthew in the role. I banished him with thoughts of the flexing muscles of Jason's lean hips and thighs.

The next morning was dark and cloudy, a fitting match for the two of us slinking around the house. I got dressed, made coffee like always, and read the paper as a way to put up a barrier between us. Jason drifted around in his t-shirt and pajama bottoms, his hair an inky tangle. He hadn't shaved in a few days and the stubble looked good on him. I tried desperately not to notice that, or the way his t-shirt clung to his shoulders. Neither of us seemed to be able to stay in the same room with the other for more than five minutes. I started the day in the kitchen, he came in only long enough to get a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal. He was watching TV in the living room, I came in to read, he went to his room. At noon he was in the kitchen working on one of his masterwork grilling marinade concoctions, I took up as little space as possible while I made a sandwich and left to eat it in my room.

Finally, after the sun went down, I was lured out by the smell of charring chicken and spices. Jason had spread a full meal on the dining room table. He was wet from standing outside next to the grill, but his marinade and persistence had paid off. I frowned at his soaked t-shirt (and my body's reaction to it) and got him a fresh towel from the linen closet. My first instinct was to drape it over his shoulders and help him dry off. Instead, I held if out to him at arm's length. "Jason, this is amazing. You didn't have to do all this."

"I know," he said, then vigorously rubbed the towel across his hair, "but I figure I owe you a good dinner after your last one ended up so bad." He peeled off his soaked t-shirt and wrapped the towel self-consciously around his torso. His damp hair still clung to his forehead. "I don't want things to be like this between us. Not like today. It..." he searched for something emphatic and profound, "...it sucked."

I couldn't help myself and laughed at how far he'd missed the mark on what he wanted to say. "It sucked. You're right. Let's eat while it's still warm."

Just like that, we were back to joking and laughing. Jason didn't change into a fresh t-shirt and eventually set the towel aside. We did the dishes together after dinner and settled in on opposite sides of the living room couch. I had an e-mail from Matthew. Everything was fine with him, but he hadn't heard from me in a while. I frowned at my laptop, wondering whether I should tell him about my dating disaster or not. I definitely wasn't going to tell him about what happened after I got back to the house, the same way I'd never told him about watching Dad.

"What's with the face?" Jason asked, scooting over to me.

"Nothing. E-mail from Matthew. He's doing well. The vet says...says Ranger has arthritis. He's still dating...whatshisface...he's doing...well..." I trailed off as my breath hitched into small sobs. This was my life, the one I was supposed to have. It wasn't just destroyed, it had never been true in the first place. Jason gingerly moved my computer out of my lap and pulled me against his chest. This wasn't the long, ugly cry from last night, it was only a momentary regret. My tears passed soon but I stayed where I was, appreciating the smell of his skin that I couldn't quite pull into my nose last night over the chlorine. He rubbed my back, long fingers relieving my tight muscles long after I stopped crying.

"Kate? Can I ask you something?" I nodded against his chest. "This is OK. This, me holding you and rubbing your back. It's comforting to you." He paused, suddenly unsure in what sounded like a speech he'd been running through his head all day. "It is comforting, right?"

"Yes." I wrapped my arms around his bare waist.

"Then why is it wrong to comfort each other in other ways? This is OK," he kissed my forehead, "but this isn't?" He bent down and pecked me on the lips. I returned his kiss, stronger, then broke away.

"Jason, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not...qualified," I whispered huskily. "I'm pretty messed up. Not just from Matthew being gay, but from Mom and Dad, too. Maybe that asshole last night is actually right and I'm damaged goods."

"Then I am, too," Jason said, and he tilted my head back and kissed me passionately, our tongues reuniting. He pulled away again, but began kissing a line down my jaw to the side of my neck. I shuddered in hot pleasure. "I heard you last night," he said, between kisses that shocked right down to my core. "In your room. I heard you and I thought you were crying, so I almost opened the door to check on you." His right hand drifted up to cover my breast and I twisted my head to press my lips against his again, to taste his mouth. "I waited long enough to knock that I realized that wasn't the kind of crying you were doing. Were you thinking about me?"

"Yes," I swallowed hard, "I couldn't help it, I..." He covered my mouth with his, stealing my justification with his probing tongue. He pulled my tank top off and cupped both of my bare breasts in his hands.

"Good, because I didn't want to be the only one. I beat off three times last night trying to get your body out of my mind, but," he looked at me, intense, earnest, "I can't Kate. You're the one I want, even if you are my sister." He began to lick and suck my nipples, and I leaned back against the overstuffed couch cushions and moved my legs to either side of his hips to give him better access. He alternated with opening his mouth wider and pulling as much of my whole breast into his mouth as possible. I didn't even realize when I started grinding my pelvis against his taut belly, I just became aware of how it inflamed my already molten pussy.

"Oh, god," Jason sighed, pressing back against me. "Will you show me?"

"Show you what?"

"Will you show me how you touched yourself last night when you were thinking about me?" I untangled from him and stood up. Making out, even sucking on my breasts, that was all above the belt. The barrier seemed stupid, but it was there. I knew if I let my brother see me touch myself that I wouldn't be able to keep myself from letting him touch me, taste me, probably not even from opening me up with the head of his cock. I unbuttoned my shorts and slid them to the floor with my panties.

I didn't go back to the couch, but sat on the edge of one of the overstuffed armchairs and spread my knees. Jason eagerly knelt in front of me, his basketball shorts straining over his erection. He rubbed it through the silky material while he kissed the inside of my calf. I spread my outer lips with my fingers and just let him stare for a moment, then I stroked my clit with one finger, giving it the first tiny taste of release that was just going to build to greater and greater need. He continued to kiss up the inside of one leg until he hit mid-thigh, then he switched to the other. I rubbed tight circles over my clit and slipped my middle and ring fingers halfway inside my lips to push at the tightening muscles. I kept losing friction between my fingertip and clit because I was so slippery.

Jason didn't stop at mid-thigh on my other leg. He kept moving up until his kisses were raining indiscriminately on my fingers and my vulva. I buried my hands in his hair and he swooped his tongue in from the edge of my anus to the top of my hood to taste it all. I moaned his name as he gently, methodically moved his lips and tongue to the different parts of me, savoring the flavors and textures. It wasn't anything like what I'd experienced with Matthew or seen of Dad.