by Amanda Wals
"Do you know if Amy has a boyfriend?" She asked me after a pregnant pause. I found myself cocking an eyebrow, curious where this was going.
"Not that she's mentioned. Why?" I tried not to sound as wary as I felt.
"It's just that she used to date all the time. I haven't heard her so much as mention a boy in a couple of months now. I'm not sure if I should be worried about her or not. Does she seem okay to you?"
"She seems fine to me, mom." I replied, dialing my hidden panic meter back down a couple of notches. This conversation wasn't headed where I initially feared it may be. "You remember that dickhe- er.. Sorry, mom. You remember that jerk she was seeing, Jeff? He cheated on her and really hurt her feelings. I think she's just taking a break for a little while from dating after that. But I think she's fine."
Thankfully, she elected to ignore my cursing. Normally, I'd have gotten a bit of a tongue lashing for that. It didn't matter how old I was, it was still her house. In her younger days, Amy had seen it as her personal mission in life to report me for every foul word that ever crossed my lips within earshot, despite her being the root cause of most of them.
"I guess so." Mom replied. "It's just not like her, you know? She should be out having the time of her life right now."
"I'm sure she's fine." I certainly hoped that she was having the time of her life, as well. Just not quite the way that our mother did.
"You'll keep an eye on her at school, right? Make sure she doesn't fall for the wrong guy?" She added.
"I can try, mom. She doesn't exactly value my opinion in the dating department." I felt the guilt stabbing me in the chest, feeling like my baby sister perhaps had fallen for exactly the wrong guy. The last guy she should ever fall for, in fact.
"I know, but you two are getting along really well these days.. Just try to watch out for her is all I ask."
"Sure. I'll do what I can." I replied, noncommittally. I felt bad about my relationship with Amy for the first time in a long while. It was one thing to not mention it to people and hide it. Directly lying about it to our mother was harder. Harder than I had expected.
"Thanks, sweetie. Dinner will be ready in about an hour. Love you."
"Love you too, mom." I replied and went back upstairs.
I didn't fully exhale until I retreated to the relative safety of my bedroom. While our mother clearly had no idea about us, that entire exchange rattled me. I went to my computer and turned the music back on. I paced back and forth in front of the canvas for a while, trying to shake the darkened mood that I was slipping into. My mother's words "the wrong guy" kept repeating in my head, feeling like I was very much the wrong guy, even if I was the only one who seemed to realize that. I paced more, feeling my chest tighten. My eyes bored holes in the black canvas in front of me. An image began to form in my mind... I grabbed the paint knife from my shelf and set to work.
I painted with an almost feverish intensity, working entirely in shades of black and white. I painted straight through dinner, never hearing the call that the food was ready. I kept layering on white paint, then scraping much of it away with the paint knife. Then I'd layer on black paint and scrap it the same way. Ghostly smears remaining behind. Subtle, mournful faces emerged from the background. Walls of tall, ominous shades of gray towered over them. Figures, not fully defined and only hinted at, cowered in the corners of the canvas, their faces covered in shame. The knot in my stomach finally began to loosen it's intense grip on me, as I wrapped up working on it for the night.
I backed away from the canvas a moment to take in what I had done so far. My now black and gray forearms ached from how hard I had been gripping the paint knife. The shorts I generally painted in, the ones with the yellow hand prints all over them, were now heavily flecked in black and white, like a wearable Jackson Pollock canvas. With a heavy sigh, I dropped to my knees in front of it and closed my eyes wearily. I sat on the floor that way for several long minutes, emotionally drained and exhausted.
A small, gentle hand came to rest on my shoulder. I almost flinched from it, but recognized the touch immediately and caught myself. I looked up at Amy's beautiful face to see a worried expression staring back at me.
"What's wrong, baby?"
Instead of replying, because I was unsure of what to say, I buried my face in her hip. For once, I remembered the paint all over my hands and didn't hug her. She placed a worried hand on the back of my head, holding me to her. She smelled so fucking wonderful to me, as always.
"I'm going to go take a shower, real quick. I'm a damned mess." I stood up and tossed the paint rag on the drop cloth by the rest of my art crap.
"I'll try to explain when I get out, okay?"
She nodded, still looking concerned, but not wanting to push the issue just yet.
I had been in the shower for a few minutes, collecting my thoughts and scrubbing my forearms clean. I was watching the paint from my arms create a gray line of water racing toward the drain, when the shower door opened and Amy, now fully naked, stepped in to join me.
"Are you nuts? What if one of them comes upstairs?" I gave her an alarmed look.
"They're asleep. They won't come up."
Already?" I replied, puzzled.
"What do you mean 'already'? It's after midnight." She still looked confused.
"Damn. I had no idea." I must have been working on that painting for hours.
"You were really intense with that painting. Something's really bothering you. I was in the room for about fifteen minutes before I touched you. You never even looked up." She took the washcloth from me, knelt down, and began scrubbing the paint flecks from my shins and calves. The sight of her gorgeous, wet, naked body kneeling before me caused my cock to take notice and twitch approvingly. "We don't have to talk about it now, if you don't want. I just felt like I should be here with you right now. If you want me here?"
She looked up at me questioningly. I cupped her cheek in my mostly clean hand, leaving a bit of a dark gray smudge on her face, and nodded. She flashed me one of the mid-sized smiles from her arsenal of things that she could use to melt my heart at any given moment.
"Mom is worried about you because you haven't been going out on dates lately." I cleared my throat.
"Oh really?" Her eyes sparkled in amusement.
"She asked me to watch out for you with the guys on campus."
"Hmm... So my big brother is going supposed to be the door man with the clipboard of names of who's approved to date me?" She asked playfully. Her hand came up to stroke my cock affectionately as she spoke.
"She wants me to make sure you don't fall for the wrong guy." I emphasized "the wrong guy" when I spoke, and swallowed hard. Her hand dropped from my cock to her thigh and she titled her head up at me. It was goddamned adorable. Why did she have to make this so difficult?
"So you are worried that you are 'the wrong guy'?" She asked.
"The worst guy." I replied, feeling that knot move its way into my throat. "The absolute worst guy you could ever fall for. Your brother. And isn't it part of my job to make sure that doesn't happen?"
She stood and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. Her naked form felt fantastic against me. My dick remained erect in defiance of my troubled emotions.
"You aren't the worst guy, baby. Not by a long shot. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. The absolute best. I'm so glad that I fell for you." Her hug tightened.
"You're biased." I made a tiny stab at humor, despite the circumstances.
"I am. But I'm also the most the most qualified to know what makes me happiest. YOU make me happy. It took me nineteen years to figure it out, but I did."
"I just want what's best for you, Amy. I love you more than anything." I whispered into her ear.
"That's easy. You are the best thing for me. You. So just keep loving me, and it will all work out, okay?"
"Okay." I nodded, and hugged her back. She tightened her hug even more, a desperately tight hug.
"Amy? I'd like to breathe now, if i
t's okay."
"Fuck you, jackass. I'll hug you as tight as I want." She slapped my arm playfully, but her eyes were rimmed in tears.
"You feel better now?" She asked, her voice totally serious.
"Much better." I kissed her forehead. She grabbed my face and pulled it down to hers in a deep, long kiss.
"Good. Glad that's settled. Now let's get this paint off before the hot water runs out."
I smiled at her, wiping the paint streak from her cheek, and did feel a bit better.
* *
The Fall art show took place the weekend before Thanksgiving. Between prepping for the show, my class load, and work, I was insanely busy. The entire semester felt like it had gone by like a whirlwind. Amazingly, my classes were all going quite well. To no one's surprise, Amy's were going better. As it turned out, Dr. Miller gave me one of the most prominent placements in the show. I was one of five art majors who would have display space twice as large as the allocations that were given to the other students. The most noteworthy thing about this was that I was a sophomore. The other four art majors with the larger display space were all seniors and grad students. I heard rumblings of favoritism from some of the other art students, as I was Dr. Miller's assistant, but more than one student congratulated me. Amy was, of course, more excited than I was.
On top of how busy our schedules were kept between school and work, our parents had not gone on any of their weekend trips in over well over a month. As a result, Amy and I had been unable to even secure as much as an hour alone together in the house without a parent home in more than two weeks. As wonderful as her mouth and hands felt on my cock, I was absolutely dying to be inside her and she made her mutual feelings on the matter abundantly clear in a series of increasingly explicit text messages scattered through the passing days. There was also our upcoming Thanksgiving trip that would certainly keep us apart for a while.
The day before the show I had narrowed my choices down to ten paintings that I felt were decent enough to display. Amy asked to see the ones I chose and she agreed with most of my picks. I pulled two of them out that she seemed uncertain about.
"Why aren't you showing that one?" She pointed at the black and gray painting that I had placed midway through a pile of older paintings leaning against a far wall.
"I'm going to paint over it." I replied.
"What? Why? You worked really hard on that." She looked astonished.
"Bad memories. I only painted it to try to clear my head that night. It has too much meaning for me. I don't like looking at it." I admitted.
"I still think you should show it. I know you were really upset when you painted it, but it's a great painting. I bet it will sell."
"If it doesn't sell by the time we get back from Colorado, I'm burning the fucker." I muttered, more to myself than her. The following week, our family was going to visit our aunt, our mother's sister, and her family in Colorado. In the past, I had enjoyed snowboarding in the mountains. This year, I felt like trying to get out of going, but could not think of a good reason for Amy and I both to remain behind. Actually, I could. But I couldn't bring myself to tell our parents that I wanted to spend the week deep inside their precious daughter. I harbored a few concerns about being around family that had known us our whole lives that may see something that our parents had overlooked between Amy and I. I didn't know what exactly. Just something that may give us away.
I relented and put the painting in the show. Instead of naming it something arbitrary, as I usually did, I named it "Judgment." It turned out to be one of the first paintings in the show to sell. At least I was rid of the damned thing.
Our parents didn't come to this show, but Amy did. As before, seeing her in her outfit took my breath away. This time she wore a short, dark blue dress that showed a lot of leg. Her hair was again pulled back to show her sensuous neck, for my benefit, and her makeup was flawless. I wanted to take her home and fuck her the moment she walked in the door. I told her that very thing as soon as a safe opportunity presented itself. The death grip that she gave my arm, combined with the slight flush of her skin told me that my compliment, however obscene, had been well received. She moved among the people who would come to look at my paintings, playing up my artistic abilities and details of my work to them. Amy was far better with people than I was. I watched her with admiration as she seemed to effortlessly move from stranger to stranger, easing in and out of conversations.
As for myself, when Amy was chatting people up, I hung back near my work and visited with John, and for a brief while Dr. Miller. Dr. Miller commented again on my improvement as an artist, and to my annoyance, declared "Judgment" to be the best painting of mine he had seen thus far. But the majority of my time was spent with Amy, who intentionally kept me in a constant state of arousal throughout the event by shooting me seductive looks when no one was looking and occasionally whispering how badly she wanted my tongue or cock inside her when no one was in earshot. Needless to say, we left as soon as the show ended.
When I got home, my phoned vibrated with a text message from Amy telling me that our father was still awake and that she'd come to my room once everyone went to bed. Being the paranoid sort that I was, I promptly deleted the message and headed inside.
After a shower, I pulled on some cargo shorts and flopped in my office chair. I put on a jazzy electronic album and started a new sketch at the drafting table next to my desk. I liked to use calligraphy pens to draw when I worked on something larger than a sketchbook. Something about having to dip them in the ink reminded my of painting. I could see where it would annoy some people to have to stop every minute or so to reload their pen with ink, but I didn't mind. It felt like I had only started just begun to draw when I felt a hand snake down my chest and a head lightly rest on my shoulder. My face broke out in a smile as a familiar scent made its way into my lungs.
"Finally," I mumbled, dropping my pen on the table and spinning in my chair to face her.
Amy stood over me, wearing her blue kimono style bathrobe. Without an invitation, she dropped herself in my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. I chuckled and kissed her.
"You don't have a shirt on." She smiled, pointing out the obvious. "That's not fair."
"Someone keeps stealing all mine. I'm running out of clothes." I no longer cared in the least if she wore my shirts.
"Well, you made all kinds of money tonight. You could go buy some more shirts with some of it." She replied as she looked down at my bare chest, dragging her fingertips over it.
"Or... you could just spend it all on me!" She smiled brightly at me.
"I dunno if you're worth it, really." I cut my eyes away from her, trying to contain my smirk.
"Excuse me?" She responded with the expected amount of indignation as she stood up. "I should just go back to my room tonight, if you feel that way about it."
She made a show of walking to the bedroom door, but spun back to face me, letting her kimono fall open as she turned.
"You sure you don't want to rethink that?" She asked. My eyes, operating on a will of their own, devoured the vision before them. Amy was wearing set of blue lingerie with black lace trim that I'd never seen before. She was so fucking beautiful that I had trouble remembering how to speak for a moment, and she knew she had me.
"My god..." That was as far as I got, before she shot me one a sultry look and began sashaying back toward me.
A new song started on the album that was playing. Amy clutched the robe closed and began dancing playfully to the music. I made a move to stand, but she gave me a stern look.
"Bad, brother, bad! Stay down." She snickered as she said it, but kept dancing. I took the hint, mildly amused, and sat back to take in whatever it was she was planning.
She swayed her hips as she danced, and allowed her robe to slip off of a shoulder. Her eyes would lock on mine, just long enough for the look in them to make my cock throb in excitement, then she'd look away closing them as she kept moving. A long, shapely leg would gli
de into view and then vanish behind the folds of the robe again as she danced. Whenever she would move close enough for it, I would reach for her, but she would slide away. There was laughter in her eyes when this would happen, but she kept her face serious and seductive. I kept my seat by sheer force of will alone as she continued to tease me.
She finally drifted just a little too close, and I managed to grab the edge of her robe. It was only after that I realized she had done that on purpose. She slid out of the robe in a single, graceful shrug and continued to dance around me in only her underwear. My beautiful little sister was completely mesmerizing. I snapped out of it as the song drew to a close and she twirled herself up next to me. This time I stood and wrapped her in my arms from behind. She sighed and leaned back into me, curling one arm over mine as I held her.
"Gotcha." I mumbled into her delicate throat as I began kissing it.
"Yes, you do." She sighed back, hugging my arm against her bra covered chest. Her other arm moved over my thigh, sliding back to pull me tighter against her.
One of my hands moved up to rest along the curve of her jaw, and she nuzzled her cheek into my palm in response. I kissed my way up to her ear, giving her lobe a quick nip before sliding my tongue along the crease behind it. She gasped softly and arched her back to push her head and shoulders against me harder. I cupped an undeniably inviting breast in my hand, feeling her nipple through the fabric of the bra and pinching it gently. Her body trembled and a shaky moan escaped her.
She reached back and unhooked her bra. I pulled her shoulders back toward me as she shrugged out of it, watching her glorious breasts come into view from over her shoulder. My hands skimmed the surface of her skin until they came to rest over the curves of her tits and began massaging them. Her head fell back against my shoulder with a long shuddering moan.
"God, I love you so much." I heard my sweet, baby sister whisper. Despite myself, a small smile broke out on my face as I continued kissing her throat.
"I love you, too."
Amy's hands snaked back between us as she fumbled for the buttons of my shorts. She let out a grunt of frustration after a few moments of groping around at my waist. Chuckling, I reached down and unbuttoned them, allowing them to slide to my ankles before getting back to groping her magnificent tits. She sighed, momentarily satisfied and ground her hips back against mine. I became aware that my erection was forcing her panties into the crack of her ass as we ground together.
