This is not a quick “I fucked my sister. The end, lol” piece. This is a story, the first of several parts, with an actual plot and actual characters. If you’re looking for a quick wank over some 5,000 word erotica then perhaps this story is not for you. This is my first attempt at a story on here, and there will be errors. I’m only human, after all. I look forward to reading all your comments and reviews. I understand that it’s a lengthy piece, and I’m sure future instalments in this series will be lesser in length.

Finally, I love the First Amendment. I think it’s the most important piece of writing in modern history. I’m with Evelyn Beatrice Hall on it, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Everyone’s opinion on this story is important to me, but please, if you’ve never written a word in your life then don’t comment on the quality of mine, especially with something as banal as “it’s shit.” I want criticism, if you think there’s something that can be improved upon. I don’t need insults. Writing is seldom easy. Any writer will tell you that.

That said, I hope you enjoy the story.

Many thanks for all your support.

I.M

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Cory and Tilly – “You say you like storms, but what if you can only handle a little rain and I’m a downpour?” she asked him, to which he said; “Then I’ll drown.”

Cory Greenstreet and his sister, Tilly, had pretty much fended for themselves ever since their father had run away with a blonde twenty-something seven years ago. Their mother had turned to the bottle as an anaesthetic and her kids had taken a backseat role in her life after that – their father was too busy in Nova Scotia with his trophy-wife to bother with two teenage kids, and Loraine was too busy with the drink that drove him away in the first place. When she wasn’t laid out in semi-conscious inebriation in front of the TV watching one of her reality shows, she was at work. She drank and she worked, and sometimes she drank at work and should she be fired for public intoxication it would come as no surprise to either of them.
“Any day now,” they would joke as they took the 8/10 bus to school. “What’ll be her excuse tonight?”
The answer was always the same. “It’s been a tough day.”

Cory didn’t really blame his Dad for leaving. He was a ruthless businessman whose only motivation was money. Apparently he was enjoying the perks of a seven-figure a year Directorship in Canada with a company Macan and a newly renovated lake house on Porters Lake. Naturally, they saw none of the money. Cory remembered receiving a birthday card the year after he had left with twenty bucks stuffed inside and a message saying Happy birthday, kids. But that was years ago now. He’d heard something about his twenty-four year old model wife being pregnant, but he didn’t tell Tilly. Tilly, he knew, took it the hardest. She missed the father figure in her life and it showed sometimes, and knowing he could do nothing about it killed Cory. Seeing his twin, his blood, his best friend, in pain was like a knife to the heart. They were born just minute apart, and had shared an unbreakable bond ever since they had been old enough to register each other’s presence. They would cry together, feed together and sleep at exactly the same time. Forcing them to adapt to life without a father had been a shock to the system for both of them, and they had gone from normal ten-year-olds to de facto adults in the blink of an eye. With Loraine in a constant state of drunkenness their childhood had pretty much ended the day Mike had up and left. Having lived this life for as long as they could remember, they seldom remembered a life any different. They shopped for themselves, bought food and clothes and supplies for the house (out of the weekly money Loraine barely remembered to leave on the breakfast bar) and Cory juggled school with a paper-round and a weekend job at the local garage and two lots of training every week. He was either going to have to surrender football or running, and he loved both in equal measures. He and Tilly trained for the same running club, and neither wanted to give that up. It was the only real time they did what they wanted to do.

Cory and Tilly were less like siblings and more like best friends. They knew each other better than anyone else on the planet, their secrets and fears, stories and dreams, and had it not been for them then their house – a small detached two-story in an area of town they really struggled to afford – would be a shit tip. (It was a good job that Mike had paid the mortgage off long before he fucked off to Canada because without that security Tilly didn’t know what they would have done.) Between them they managed all right. More than all right, they managed perfectly fine on their own. To them it was life reversed. Loraine was the child and Cory and Tilly were the breadwinners of the household. Cory cooked and took care of the blue duties, as they had termed them, (Cooking, maintenance, gardening) and Tilly took on the pink roles (cleaning, ironing and washing). Loraine, well Loraine drank.

That morning, as Cory was cooking up breakfast in the kitchen (scrambled egg on toast), Tilly walked in in a fluster. She bumbled into the kitchen with her auburn hair pulled into a tight high ponytail, school blouse half buttoned and just her pink and black Jack Wills cotton panties on.
“Have you seen my foundation?” she asked at a hundred mile an hour.
“Not since yesterday. You haven’t left it in the bathroom again?”
“No, I just checked in there.” Her arms went up in exasperation. “Shit!”
“Why do you even need it?”
Tilly looked at him like he’d just come out with the most stupid sentence she’d ever heard.
“Why?” she said, mocking. “Why? Because … just because. Okay? It’s a girl thing and you really wouldn’t understand.”
Cory laughed and checked on the eggs. “Whatever. No, I haven’t seen it.”
She mumbled something under her breath and turned for the door.
“Hey, Tills?”
She turned. “Yeah?”
“You don’t need that shit anyway,” he said. “You’re beautiful enough as you are.”
Cory caught the beginnings of a smile forming on Tilly’s ever reddening face before she turned away from him.
“Why do you always say that?” she laughed, masking her embarrassment.
He rolled his eyes and started to serve up the eggs. Although she was facing away from him he could tell she was blushing like crazy. “Because you are. Now hurry up,” he said, pouring two glasses of orange from the jug in the fridge. “Breakfast is up.”

Ten minutes later with Tilly now dressed and breakfast eaten and plates and cups in the sink, they headed off for the bus at the end of the street.
“Today is the day,” she said as they boarded. “I am so unprepared for this exam.”
Cory took his seat at the window and Tilly shuffled down next to him. “You’ll smash it.”
“Your faith in me is … misguided,” she laughed.
“Your faith in yourself is misguided,” he said as he fingered at his phone. “My faith in you is absolute.” She playfully hit him on the arm and he laughed to himself and went back to his phone. At the next stop Ellie, Tilly’s closest girlfriend, boarded with a flock of other students and Tilly met her with a smile and they headed to their usual spot at the back of the bus.
“Hey Cory,” Ellie said with a flirtatious smile.
“Morning, Ellie.”
“I’m leaving you,” Tilly said, giving him a peck on the cheek.
“I’m shocked,” he said in response. “Goodbye, Ellie,” he called after the girls, watching her ass as it flirted with him as she walked away.
“He’s so hot,” Ellie would say to Tilly as they sat down.
It was the same dance every morning.

Tyrell Jacoury, TJ to his friends and, in fact, to anybody that ever asked, was waiting by the gate when Cory stepped off the bus, girls in tow. He was going to make it as a rapper. No questions asked. Everybody knew it. No, he wouldn’t consider anything else. End of story. He slouched and gave Cory a “waddup, bruh.”
Cory nodded amiably and they followed the girls inside and TJ, brimming with pride, couldn’t wait to tell Cory that he had spent the night with Aimee while her parents were out. TJ and Cory always commanded the attention of the female contingent when they first passed through the gates (they could pretty much have any girl they wanted. TJ exercised that right like it was going out of fashion; Cory was more reserved.) They were the school’s two leading male athletes. TJ was captain of the football team and the basketball team, but he said that when he was offered scholarships (because, that too, wasn’t in question) he would turn them down in favour of music; while Cory was the cross-country, track, road and distance record holder having smashed nine four-decades old records with ease, and was currently the state’s leading goal scorer in the soccer league. They were natural athletes, but unlike TJ, Cory was odds-on for a scholarship. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted, but he didn’t know what he would be doing should he get one either. He had Tilly to consider and that made the future uncertain.
“What’s she like?” Cory asked as TJ finished his story.
“Amazing, bruh.” He gestured to her ass, which everybody knew was mighty fine.
“Did she let you put it in?”
“Nah, but while we were fucking she let me stick a finger up there.”
Cory grinned. “Nice!”
“And she let me finish too.”
Cory slapped his mate on the back. “Where?”
TJ licked his lips and the two boys laughed.
A group of girls wolf-whistled as TJ and Cory passed, but the boys ignored the girls. They took one look at Ellie and Tilly, their tight bubble butts packed tightly into their pants, and they looked at each other and grinned. Their attention was in one place and one place only, and they were semi-hard just watching the two girls move. Ellie and Tilly were the two prettiest girls in the school by a considerable margin, and Cory had had a secret crush on his sister’s best friend for years now. TJ did too, but of the two, Ellie fancied Cory that little bit more. Ellie was the spitting image of Tilly, and if you didn’t know them then you would easily edge your bets on them being twins over Tilly and Cory. Ellie’s platinum blonde hair was in a loose bun and bobbed with every movement. She was definitely a distraction to the upcoming exam, Cory thought. When they reached the door Tilly turned to Cory.
“I’ll be late home tonight, I’m training after school.”
“I’ll wait to cook,” he said.
“Just eat if you want, I’ll be fine.”
Cory smiled. “I’ll wait.”
Tilly beamed at him and they went their separate ways. It was a very slow day.

***
Thursday Night:

Tilly had aced the exam.
There was a stir-fry almost ready when Tilly arrived home that night and the smell greeted her churning stomach like nectar to a bee. Training had been intense and her legs felt like jelly. Cory heard the door close and met her in the hallway with a long, tight hug. She was still in her club crop-top and she was sweaty as hell but it didn’t seem to bother him. “Here’s little miss “I’m so unprepared”,” he mocked and she playfully hit him in the ribs. She’d scored 91% to Cory’s 86%. He was sure she just set out to better him. He couldn’t recall a single exam in which he’d achieved a higher grade then she.
“I hate hills,” she said, and Cory laughed.
“Here,” he said. “Give me your stuff and go get changed. I’ll stick the shower on for you.”
She was tired, Cory could tell, but she still flashed him that grateful, loving smile again. It was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. It was infectious, almost. Her smile was like a drug to him. She groaned in appreciation. “I love you,” she told him as she dumped her bags on his arm. She mouthed thank you, loaded with fatigue as she passed him.
“I know,” he said, giving her a playful slap on the ass. The evenings were still mild and Tilly just wore her training pants rather than her leggings. They were just a little big longer than cheerleader panties, black and tight and her bubble butt looked incredible. She giggled at the touch and set about tackling, with extreme difficulty, the stairs, which had never looked so unappealing. How she longed for a downstairs bathroom. Her quads screamed at her with each step. Cory sympathised – he knew that feeling well. (John, their running coach, really knew how to push his army to the limits.) As Tilly ascended the stairs, Cory watched her and he felt himself growing a little in his pants and he pulled his eyes away. He knew he shouldn’t be looking, be having these thoughts, but…

Cory had left the shower running for Tilly, and she looked at it gratefully as she entered the bathroom. She stripped off out of her running clothes and as the warmth of the water seared over her naked skin she thought about Cory and how brilliantly kind he was to her, even when she was a bitch. All she ever heard from the other girls at school was how ‘fit’ and ‘hot’ Cory was. They all talked about how great he was all the time, and how they wanted him and she often thought how they didn’t even know the half of it. She knew for a fact that she wouldn’t have survived the last few years without him by her side. He wasn’t just a brother to her; he was her partner, her best friend, and her world. He knew everything about her; knew her better than she knew herself. She wanted to say her soul mate, and although that’s how she felt it sounded wrong. He made the loneliness go away when she was with him – he made things better. He was kinder, more loving, towards her than any other boy could ever be. He made her feel … alive with each moment they spent together and the way he looked at her made her melt like butter. It made her fluttery. It was like each time he looked at her was the first time he had seen her in a million years. When they ran together it was like running with their enemy, pushing each other harder and stronger to their limits. At school they pushed each other further. But it was never a rivalry; and when they hung out at home, at the cinema, at the bowling alley, the ice-skating rink, they were like a couple goofing around and taking pictures. They were good for each other. He was good for her. Not like the ex-boyfriends that had come and gone, and they had come and gone because of one single reason. They weren’t Cory – they couldn’t match up to him and they didn’t make her feel the way he made her feel. She didn’t need another boy, she told herself. All she craved was the intimacy a relationship brought. Cory gave her everything else – the love, the feelings and the emotions – the only thing lacking was the intimacy. The girls at school talked about intimacy and about boys and about sex and she knew a few of the girls had been intimate with boys. A few of them talked about wanting to get intimate with Cory and it killed her to know that they had that chance.

The water washed away the sweat and grime of training, and Tilly turned up the temperature and let the scalding water flow through her hair. She had a feeling Cory had been with a couple of girls, but if he had then he never bragged about it. She thought about him, and his body;

Tilly thought Cory was beautiful. He was dangerously handsome with deep blue eyes and a personality that was infectious to girls. He was 6’2”, with chiselled looks and styled hair and a beautifully taut, defined body – muscular and strong with a toned chest and powerful legs. He was the All-American type, but he was smart and ambitious too. The buck didn’t stop with sports. He wore nice clothes and wrote great stories and he cooked great food and Tilly knew why all those girls talked about Cory like that. The other boys were lame. They were all about sports or parties. But Cory, he was something else entirely. He had another level, he was interesting, and as the water pounded down Tilly felt those feelings she got from time to time when she thought about her brother. She did not know whether it was tiredness or whether it was something else that was making her have these stupid, impossible thoughts but those thoughts where real and she ran her hands down her body, imagining they were his hands. She felt butterflies in her stomach, and then a knock on the door broke her from her mirage and she shook it off like a dog shaking off water.
“Dinner’s up,” Cory called and Tilly called back saying she would be out in a minute. She put her hair into a loose bun and pulled on some jogging bottoms and one of Cory’s old Ellesse hoodies and headed downstairs.

They were half way through dinner when Tilly asked Cory how many girls he had been with. The question caught Cory off guard and he spluttered through his mouthful of stir-fry and Tilly stifled a laugh.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“It’s just a question.”
“You’ve never asked before.”
“I’m asking now.”
Cory felt himself reddening in the cheeks as he stumbled around an answer. He didn’t really want to tell Tilly that he’d manage to get with four girls – it wasn’t his style to go around bragging about it and she’d never asked before. But there were no secrets between them and as he stumbled and stuttered his way through half sentences and odd words her familiar smile greeted him. She took a mouthful of dinner. “It’s okay,” she said after a beat. “You don’t have to tell me their names. I’m just curious is all.”
“Ah … four,” he said after a couple of beats. “You know, I’m not the one who blushes. This isn’t right.”
Tilly laughed. “Suck it up, big boy,” she mocked.
Loraine was asleep on the sofa with Survivor playing on the TV, and there was an empty by the foot of the couch. Cory had muted the TV before Tilly had come down and a playlist from his laptop played quietly as they ate at the breakfast bar, facing each other.
“Do you love any of them?” Tilly then asked.
“I don’t,” he said. “They were heat of the moment flings. Nothing more. Why,” he then asked, “are you jealous?”
He grinned and Tilly feigned repulsion. “You wish,” she laughed.
Cory changed the subject. “And you,” he said. “How many boys have you been with?”
“Would you think any less of me if I said a number?”
Cory shook his head immediately. “No. I could never think any less of you.”
She smiled at his words and then shook her head. “None,” she said.
“Boys come onto you all the time,” Cory said. The meal was now forgotten in favour of their conversation. They never really got in depth about girls and boys; this was new for them.
“Yeah, but they’re not…” she trailed off. “…nevermind…”
“Not what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. She looked a little guilty. You, she said in her head. Cory nodded. He understood that look and he knew not to ask.
It was another thing she loved about him.
“What about all those boyfriends? Not even any of those?”
“All those boyfriends? You make me sound like a huge slut,” she laughed. Tilly went through boys the way most people went through hot dinners. She practically had a new one every week, but they never lasted long. For all her beauty and her charm she was an old-school romantic and she was broken. She’d been cheated on more times than Cory could count because she wouldn’t crawl into bed after the first week. Boys got bored, and he had punched more of the little bastards than he cared to admit. She knew the real reason they didn’t last, deep down; she just didn’t want to admit it to herself. The voice in her head spoke again: because I love Cory more than anything else in this world. He is the reason I get up in a morning.
She felt herself blush.
“You know what I mean,” Cory laughed.
“No,” she said after a beat. “Like I said, they’re not … they’re just not,” and Cory nodded. “People talk about their virginity as if it’s this terrible thing that needs to be thrown away like trash but I don’t believe that. I don’t think it should just be thrown away but I don’t think that it should be put on a pedestal either. I think that if you’re in love with that person and they are in love with you in that moment then it’s right because it’s the realest, most private thing you could ever do with another person. But losing your virginity doesn’t make you any less virtuous or any less pure,” she said and Cory listened intently. She was breathless, wise beyond her years. She was much wiser than a girl her age had the right to be. “I want my first time to be special. I want it to be with someone that loves me and that I love back and even if it doesn’t last forever, I’ll know that the most intimate, most private moment in my life was special and that’s okay with me.”
Cory smiled at the poetry of her words and then he thought and then Tilly asked: “Was your first time special?”
Cory shook his head. “No,” he said. “It was clumsy and awkward and I wish I’d have waited too.”
She smiled at him, understandingly and then she asked; “Why don’t you have a girlfriend, anyway? It’s not like you don’t have the option.”
Cory met her gaze and shrugged. A lump was in his throat and he swallowed hard.
“Because they’re just not, either,” he said.
“Oh.” And a silence took a hold of the table. The playlist had ended now. A clock on the wall ticked. Brains whirred, say something, anything, their heads said in unison. Cory loaded up another playlist. Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd started to play on the laptop.
“And anyway,” Tilly said after a beat. “There’s a difference between a boy wanting to sleep with you and loving you. Right? None of my ex’s ever loved me. They just wanted to get into my pants and then move on.”
Cory nodded. “Very true.” Boys at school talked. Tilly was the ultimate prize everybody wanted, and she was aware of that. The most attractive girl in the school. She was an object to the masses of immature boys though, and nothing more – something to possess and then discard once they had used her. They didn’t want her. They wanted her body, her virginity. They wanted to be the one that said, I was her first time. That’s why she didn’t date anymore.
“I guess with me it’s the former.” She laughed. “I guess nobody actually loves me.”
“That’s not true,” Cory said and Tilly beamed. “I love you.”
She let it linger for a couple of beats and then asked why. “And none of that ‘because you’re my sister’ bullshit this time,” and Cory laughed and then he looked at his sister, properly – not as a sibling – but as an example of the opposite sex and he was hooked.

Tilly was more beautiful than any girl Cory could ever dream of seeing. Tilly was white, 5’1” and she weighed 118lbs wet through – delicate and petite, soft and virginal, innocent and unspoiled. She was young, pretty and sexless. She had soft auburn hair and beautiful green eyes and the body of a cheerleader, tight and taut with long, slender legs leading up to a thigh gap, which served as a peristyle of the Gods. No brainless beauty though, she was wise beyond her years. She read books, Nobakov and Hardy, Bronte and Austin, Dickens and Steinbeck and she was beautifully, tragically romantic. She wrote beautiful, lyrical poetry, and masterfully crafted stories inspired by those that had inspired her. She was athletic too, captain of their club’s junior cross-country team and captain of the school netball team. And as he looked at her, the satiny perfection of her skin, he was addicted like she was a drug that he couldn’t get anywhere else.

“Because, Matilda Greenstreet,” he said and she giggled at such formality, “you have the most perfect smile and the most addictive and infectious personality and you’re so kind and so smart and so funny and those things make you a truly beautiful person. And you’re not just my best friend but you’re my world and I wouldn’t be me without you. That’s why I love you, because I appreciate who you are and what you do for me.”
She was pink like a virgins blush now, and Cory stood up he smiled to himself and as he cleared away the plates he kissed her on the forehead and then shrugged as he deposited the cutlery and plates in the sink. He then added: “Other than that you’re an absolute bitch,” to which Tilly burst out laughing.

***
It was a warm night and Cory was led on his bed in just his Calvin Klein’s. He was thinking a lot about Tilly and then about TJ with Aimee and then he thought about Ellie. He wasn’t sure whether he had a crush on Ellie because of who she was, or because she bore an uncanny resemblance to his twin sister. After all, he didn’t really know her. But if it was the latter then he asked himself why he didn’t feel guilty or ashamed. And, the more he thought about Tilly or Ellie or whichever one of them it was that stalked his mind, he felt the growth in his Calvin’s growing and growing.
Tilly is more of a friend than a sister, his head was telling him, as if justifying the feelings he knew deep down were not for Ellie but for Tilly. She stopped being your sister when Mike left, it continued. They were casual around each other. He held her and kissed her head and her cheeks the way boys kissed their girlfriends, not their sisters. He looked at her the way you look at a lover. And then those feelings came back, the ones he tried not to think about, and they took over him.
Cory pulled out his iPhone and loaded up Safari. With a couple of finger movements he had loaded up his phone’s incognito mode and was surfing one of the sex story websites he frequented. In an effort to distract his wandering mind he pulled up a rather lengthy story about a girl and her teacher and it wasn’t long before the growth had expanded into a raging, burning erection. With a spare hand he reached down and slipped the Calvin’s down his legs, freeing the raging beast from its cage and he groaned as his fingers wrapped around his shaft. He could feel the pressure all the way down to his nuts, three days worth of pressure, and he closed his eyes and groaned to himself as his fingers rolled over the head and he pumped up and down.

He was close to blowing when a knock at the door froze him solid.
“Hey, Cory. Can we talk?”
“Erm…” he stuttered and stammered as he fumbled to get his Calvin’s back up. He turned onto his side so his erection was partially hidden and he closed Safari and he said for Tilly to come in. Her beaming face appeared at the door.
“What’s up?” he asked.
He was flustered in the face and the bulge in his underwear was self-explanatory. If she knew then she never said anything but she had a wicked smile on her face and for a girl who noticed everything the odds were not in his favour. “You know what you said earlier?”
She edged further into his bedroom and perched on the end of his bed. She was in a little crop top and some sort bed-shorts and her hair was in a side ponytail, plaited over one shoulder. He gulped as she neared and he nearly blew his load right there and then. If she didn’t know before she would now, the damn thing was fighting against his fabric. At this moment he was the very definition of blue balls. “Which bit,” he stammered.
“You know which bit.”
He smiled, relaxing. “What about it?”
“Did you mean it?”
He leaned forward, careful to hide his bulge with an arm, and he kissed his sister on the head. “Of course I meant it. Every word.” And then he stood up before it became awkward.
She looked down at the floor and was smiling like crazy. Her cheeks flushed. Cory turned away from Tilly and he kicked off his Calvin’s and pulled on a pair of loose fitting joggers that concealed his erection. “You’re an absolute bitch,” he laughed and she guffawed again before hurling a pillow at his head. He laughed back.
“Yes I meant it,” he clarified. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
She nodded and stood up and reached the door. “One more thing,” she said. “There’s a party this weekend – someone from school has a free house and Ellie’s invited me.”
“Yeah, TJ told me. He’s asked me to go too.”
“Are we going?”
Cory grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Back in her room, Tilly beamed to herself. She wasn’t one for self-gratification but hearing what he had said earlier had made her stomach flutter and she wanted that feeling again just one more time. She collapsed onto her bed and rolled over to look at her bedside. Amongst the scattering of nail polishes and make-up tubs and earrings was a framed photo of her and Cory taken at the finish line of the Three Hills 10K earlier that year. They had both run PB’s that day. They were in their club vests, medals hanging from their necks, and he was standing with her, his arm around her waist. Tilly was beaming at the camera, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and Cory was looking at her with such pride and such love. (He was looking at her the way girls longed for guys to look at them.) It was the most complete picture she had – her absolute favourite, and she was sure he had the same picture on his wall somewhere.
She found herself smiling as she looked at the photograph. Then she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She thought more about Cory, about what he had said. She thought about how flustered he looked when she walked into his room, and about how he tried and failed to hide the bulge in his boxers. She thought about his body and his bare, naked behind as he pulled on his joggers and she felt that fluttery feeling in her stomach again. She didn’t know whether it was the heat of the moment, a sudden release of testosterone because she was almost due ovulation, or whether it was something else fuelling the sudden rise in libido. Maybe it was because she was almost due her period, she mused. Tilly had gone through menarche just before her thirteenth birthday and she had noticed a rise in these ‘feelings’ since then. This one felt different, though, and she found her hands slowly starting to move over her delicate, nubile frame while in the other room, Cory blew such a powerful load that it felt less like an orgasm than like a purge, like he had just been turned inside and out and both drifted off into satisfied, deep sleeps.

***
Saturday Night:

Everybody was going to be at the party, and Cory and Tilly Greenstreet were no exception. Carter Baines’ parents were away for the weekend and had left strict instructions for him to behave. That, of course, meant a party. TJ had said that Aimee was going to be there, and that her cousin was over from the next state and that she was dying to meet Cory. “I told her all about you,” he said when he told Cory that he had been round for dinner with the family. That was the third night in a row he had seen Aimee now and Cory had asked him if they were a thing, to which TJ had shushed him. “Not so loud, bruh.” He said in mock confidentiality. “This playa be keeping his cards on the table.”
Naturally, when the time came to take them Loraine was took drunk to drive so they had to rely on a lift, which TJ offered as a last minute solution. “I’m sorry about this, mate,” Cory said down the phone. “She said she’d take us.”
“Nah bruh, it’s no shit,” TJ had said. “I’ll holler at you in twenty.”

Nights like this were rare. They were a way for Cory and Tilly to let off steam and they relished the chance to get out of the house for anything other than school or training. Sure, they hung out with friends and for the most part had normal teenage lives, but it was difficult trying to live a normal teenage life and juggle running a house with training and school. And so nights like this meant a lot to the both of them, and Cory was dressed to impress. He donned his Royal Blue long-sleeve Polo Ralph Lauren and his Levi’s, and was sorting his hair in the downstairs mirror when Tilly came down.
“Don’t you scrub up well,” she mocked. “You look good, bro.”
Cory laughed, and then took in Tilly’s appearance. “Tilly,” he said, putting emphasis on her name. “You look … just … stunning.”
“Really?”
“It must be so hard for Mom when her kids are this good-looking. Right, Mom?”
Tilly laughed. Loraine mumbled something that sounded like that’s right, honey from the couch. Survivor was on and she had a can in her hand. He had her priorities sorted. She would order a pizza when they left, and then have a couple more cans. She would still be there on the sofa when they came back.

Tilly was wearing a tight, short pinky-red dress, which clung to her body, perfectly accentuating the natural curvature of her slender frame. Her small breasts (which were still not fully developed and which were yet just buds) were round and pushed out perfectly. It was zipped from the rear, which Cory was now doing up, from just above the small of the back to just below the shoulder blades where straps came up over the shoulders. The sides of the dress were cut out from just below the breasts to just above the hips, and this followed around the small of her back. It was scoop-necked with the top connecting the skirt by a slim piece of fabric that covered the navel. The bottom of the dress was pleated and short and it showed almost all of her endless, slender legs. It was not exactly see-through, but if he looked hard enough then Cory could see the outline of her panties underneath. She was in matching red heels and her auburn hair was pulled into a tight high ponytail, which draped down her back. She already had 98 likes on Facebook, and people were commenting in their droves with things like “OMG Tilly” and fire emojis.
Cory stood back and admired Tilly and he couldn’t possibly deny it any longer.
His sister looked incredible.

“Let’s do this!” she said as she straightened the hem of her dress. Cory’s phone bleeped and he told Tilly to see who it was. She took one look at the screen and glared at him in disbelief.
“How many girls do you text?” she laughed. “There are sixteen notifications here.”
Cory laughed and shrugged and Tilly said that TJ had just text to say he was five minutes out. Which meant he was probably just turning onto their street now.
“One more thing,” Cory said wickedly. “I’ve got something for you.”
She registered the mischief on his face and asked him what it was. He told her to wait a moment and he disappeared upstairs. When he returned she was standing with her hands on her hips, looking at him inquisitively. “What is it?” she asked again.
Cory was nervous. In his shaking hand was a small green rectangular box, which he felt reluctant to let go of. “Cory!” Tilly laughed, pleadingly. “What is it?”
He slowly handed her the box, but kept a hold of the end so she couldn’t open it.
“Do you remember that necklace you saw at the jewellers at the mall a few months ago?” he asked. “The one that Mom said was too expensive.”
She thought and then she realised and then her mouth opened and she looked at him in shock. “No,” she said in nothing more than a whisper. She glanced down at the felt of the box, and the gold detailing that adorned the centre. “You didn’t.”
He released the end and smiled, leaving the box in Tilly’s grasp. “I did,” he said, equally as soft as she rolled her fingers over the felt lining. “I was going to wait until Christmas, but you look so beautiful tonight and you deserve something of equal beauty to go with that dress.”
She looked at him, still shocked, and then she opened the box. What was inside took her breath away. She looked down at the flower shaped diamond pendant that stared back up at her from the cream folds of the box, and she placed her free hand over her mouth. Cory saw the beginnings of tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “How did you afford this?” she asked, voice soft as a kiss.
Cory smiled. “I saved,” he told her. “Birthday money and money from Nan and my wage from work and all the bits we don’t spend throughout the months. I wanted to get you something special, to show you how special you are to me.”
She beamed brighter than ever now. “Cory, it’s beautiful.”
He took it from the box and motioned for her to turn around. “Here,” he said, moving her ponytail out of the way, “allow me.” He unclasped the pendant and draped it around her neck and she took his hand, which lingered below her chin, and she held it there for a moment.
“Nobody’s ever bought me anything before,” she said, quietly.
“They have now.” Cory clasped the necklace together and she turned to face him. “No crying,” he said as he wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. “That make up literally took you three years to do.” He kissed her on the head and stood back and admired. “There,” he said. “Perfect. You’ll be the Belle of the ball.”
She took his hand and kissed it and then looked at him, deep in the eyes. “Thank you,” she said as she looked at herself in the mirror. Cory stood behind her and smiled. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said and she turned to face him and they stood there, tête-à-tête, for what felt like an age. Cory’s lips felt dry, and in that moment as he looked into the green of her eyes he felt sucked in. Like there was no escape from their endless beauty and she looked into his, into the blueness that captivated her, and then she looked down at his lips and she felt her own, so dry and aching with longing, and then she took his hand and they moved towards each other. Their breath was silent. Their hearts thumped. This is crazy. He made the first move, inching closer…
And then someone knocked at the door and the moment faded and they jumped and then they laughed. “Waddup,” came TJ’s voice from behind the wood. “Let’s roll.”
“After you,” Cory said. He had never felt as warm.

***
Tilly held the necklace in her grasp until they entered through the door of Carter Baines’ house twenty minutes later. Tilly found Ellie and they headed off into another room. Cory made the rounds, meeting all the people he knew and introducing himself to all the girls he didn’t. Drinks flowed, music blared.
TJ and Cory headed into the kitchen, where Aimee was stood talking with a cute black-haired bombshell by the patio doors that TJ introduced as Paige, Aimee’s cousin. She had a tight ass and big breasts and was wearing a short (a very short in fact) skirt that barely came below her ass (not that Cory was complaining.)
“He’s so cute,” Paige said to Aimee when he and TJ walked through the door.
“Paige,” Aimee said as Cory approached. “This is Cory.”
And then they were acquainted.

Ellie and Tilly were talking about boys when the one that had been looking at them all night started to walk over. Tilly giggled like an embarrassed schoolgirl while Ellie tried to stifle her gaze. “Shit,” Ellie said into her drink, “he’s coming over.”
“Act cool,” Tilly replied and they laughed again.
“Ellie Carrier,” one of the boys said with a smile. He took a seat opposite the girls and they blushed and tried to hide it. He laughed. “I’m Dillon,” he said, more to Tilly than Ellie.
“Tilly.”
“Nice to meet you, Tilly. You look stunning, by the way.”
She blushed again. “Thank you.”
“So how are you, Ellie?”
“Thirsty,” she said and Dillon smiled. “Can I get you a drink too, Tilly?” he asked, to which Tilly nodded. As he headed off into the kitchen Ellie leaned in and told Tilly how she had met Dillon at a few parties and he had always tried to get into her pants.
“So what’s stopped you?” Tilly asked.
“He’s a complete dick,” Ellie replied and they burst out laughing again.

The party was going well. People drank and music played and pictures were taken and Cory and Paige flirted openly in the kitchen. Tilly and Ellie were in the corner of the other room chatting with a group of boys, and Cory felt a twinge of jealousy of all the male attention that his sister was getting. Cory slipped upstairs to use the bathroom mid-way though, and upon stumbling into the wrong room, found TJ balls deep in Aimee with his balls slapped powerfully against her ass. He thrust deep into her sex, to which she squealed out and dug her nails into his back. TJ noticed Cory and winked and Cory left the big boy to his fucking.
“I see TJ and Aimee are getting along just fine,” Cory joked when he returned to Paige.
“Mmm,” she said through a mouthful of vodka. “That’s what too much vodka does to a girl. Another drink and we could end up following in their footsteps. Who knows what could happen,” she said with a wink and then she leaned in. “I’m here for one more night,” she said. “Don’t let me go home without a proper goodbye.” Paige reached down and slipped a hand over Cory’s cock, though his jeans.
He glanced over at Tilly. One of the boys was really into her, and she was laughing at his jokes and responding to his touches. The boy took her glass and headed off into the kitchen and Cory watched her follow him with her eyes. He looked back to Paige.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, forcing a smile.
“I need a cigarette,” she said, fingering a packet from her clutch bag. “Come out with me?”
Cory said sure and they headed out into the garden where she lit up. She offered Cory a smoke but he turned it down. “Scared?” she asked.
“Not really, I just don’t smoke.”
She shrugged and put the cigarette packet away and they continued to talk until well after the cigarette was finished. Cory thought about Tilly and the boy. He told himself he was just being stupid. Tilly was his sister, not his girlfriend. He should be happy that there were boys sniffing up her skirt. Repulsed, obviously, but happy that she was getting attention and happy that boys were into her. And yet, somehow, he wasn’t. Somehow he felt a burning jealousy. He tuned back into what Paige was saying and he tried to put it from his mind.
TJ and Aimee found them outside, fresh from their fucking, and they brought with them fresh drinks. TJ and Cory remained outside when the girls said they were going back inside.
“You dog,” Cory laughed when they were out of hearing.
TJ raised his hands. “That is some fine pussy, bruh. That’s all I’m saying.”

Back inside the foursome talked until the glasses were empty.
“Your round,” Cory winked to TJ. Aimee said she was going to the bathroom anyway, and TJ said he would rather stick needles in his eyes than be a third wheel and so he headed off into the kitchen.
Also in the kitchen refilling the drinks were the boys sat with Tilly and Ellie. The lead boy was named Dillon Harris, a first grade cunt, and lead fucknugget from one of the States other schools. TJ and Cory had played against him a few times when the two schools had met for football. He was bad news. “She’s into me,” he was saying. He lowered his voice when he noticed TJ getting drinks and they moved into the corner.
“How can you tell?” one of his boys asked.
“I can tell. Trust me, I bet you twenty bucks I’ll have fucked her before the nights out.”
The boys laughed. “That confident, huh?”
“Look, Bethany told me about her. She knows her from the Cheerleading comps. She’s frigid as fuck, doesn’t date or anything, but if I get a few drinks down her then she’ll be up for anything. She’s a good girl, doesn’t really come to parties, so she’ll be easy after one or two more, and if that fails,” he said, pulling a small packet from his pocket. There were a couple of small white pills inside and his cronies laughed. “One of these and she’ll be all mine. I know her type – thinking they’re better than all of us.” They laughed an evil, sinister laugh. “One thing is for sure though,” Dillon said. “I’m popping that cherry tonight, boys,” and they laughed and headed back to the girls with the drinks.

The drinks went down well. Ellie was occupied with one of Dillon’s cronies, a cute looking guy named Harry who was obviously into her. They had already exchanged numbers, and Tilly was jealous she’d ended up with Dillon. He was up his own ass, she had worked out fairly quickly. He thought he was the next best thing, arrogant and aggressive and nowhere near as attractive as he thought he was. He tried to run a hand up Tilly’s leg, which she slapped away. Playfully, apparently, because Dillon leaned in towards Tilly’s lips, and she moved back and smiled nervously. She glanced across towards Cory.
“Shall we go somewhere quieter?” Dillon asked her.

Cory and Paige drank and flirted and the drink was going down too easily. She laughed at something he said and finished her drink with a long mouthful. Something shimmered in her eyes. Cory glanced across to see TJ and Aimee making out in the kitchen. When his eyes returned to Paige what followed was a blur. She set her empty glass down with one hand and with her spare one she grabbed Cory by the neck and pulled him into her until their lips were locked. Cory, at first taken by surprise, then reacted and kissed back, slipping his tongue into her mouth. Paige’s sudden antics had attracted the room, which was now watching and whispering and cheering. Her tongue slipped in and battled with his in his mouth and as their lips exchanged pleasantries her body moved closer his, her breasts against his chest, the pleats of her skirt against his erection, and he felt something in his body take over, the male animal unleashed.
He took her by the waist and pulled closer.
He tasted the dryness on her lips, the anticipation in them, which had been building up all night and his hand moved to the small of her back and then to her ass, which was tight and firm and appealing. He squeezed and she squealed into his mouth.
Paige studied Cory’s eyes as they broke away from their embrace, and Cory studied the room. His eyes found Tilly almost immediately and then he glanced at Paige and her lips and he knew that the lips he had been kissing were not the lips he wanted to be kissing. Her lips were moist and he thought back to Tilly and the necklace and how his lips longed for hers, the aching and the dryness. He registered the sadness on his twins face, and she dropped her gaze and downed what was left of her drink.
It was insane, he kept telling himself. She was his sister, his twin sister, and yet the feelings he knew to have been supressing for so long were eating away at him like a disease. He was jealous of seeing his sister with another boy.
TJ hollered from the corner, and Cory heard him say: “Yeah, that’s my boy!”
Paige caressed Cory’s cheek and moved in for another smooch, but Cory brushed her off. He looked up to see Dillon leading Tilly away and he felt sick. The sickness turned to anger and the anger to bitter, unrelenting jealousy. By the time Cory had finished explaining that it was a mistake and that he shouldn’t have done that because he liked another girl, Tilly and Dillon were gone and Cory set across the room with something cold and ruthless in his eyes. It was not just the look of pain, but something more – it was the look of a jealous man. TJ came back from the kitchen to see Cory taking off, and just by the way he was forcing his way through people like a madman he knew something was up.

Tilly and Dillon were upstairs in the back bedroom. Her drink was on the nightstand and she was fingering the necklace again. She was no longer thirsty. The room was empty and he moved closer towards her. Tilly thought about Cory and Paige, and the way she held him and kissed him and the way he was holding her so effortlessly, showing her off so casually. She fought to hide the tears that threatened to flow. This was stupid, she was telling herself. He was her brother not her boyfriend, she shouldn’t feel like this. But the truth was that she did feel like this. Tilly wasn’t stupid. She knew what jealousy felt like and as she looked at Dillon, the mess of hair slicked back so clumsily and the rough, aggressive way he looked at her and tried to touch her, she felt even worse. He kissed her hard, trying to force his tongue into her mouth, and she kissed back but managed to keep his tongue at bay. She could taste the drink on his lips.
She had come in here, with him, because in the heat of the moment she thought that she wanted him. But you don’t, do you? Her internal compass said. You just couldn’t stand seeing Cory with that girl any longer. She felt drained.
She opened her mouth to tell Dillon that she had made a mistake when she felt the rough, forceful wetness of his lips inches from her own again. She reeled back, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards him. “What’s the matter?” he was saying. “Just relax.”
He took his hands and started to slide them up Tilly’s legs, towards the golden prize under her skirt and she tried, and failed, to pull herself away.
“Let go of me,” she said. “I want to go.”
He ignored her and when she pulled away he slapped her, hard, across the face. He reached down to his belt and started fumbling with it. “Just shut up and enjoy it,” he said, forcing his hand further up Tilly’s leg.

Cory pushed his way past a crowd of testosterone-filled boys and girls laid passed out on the stairs and up into the back room where Dillon was putting his hands all over Tilly. He froze at the door, seeing his sister locked at the lips with this boy. Emptiness took over him and he turned away, hands starting to shake. Cory then heard Tilly say, “let go,” and he turned back, just in time to see Dillon slap Tilly, hard, across the face.
He pulled Dillon off and punched him so hard in the face that they both fell to the floor. Tilly cried out Cory’s name as Dillon hit Cory just above the eye with a hard elbow. Cory rolled back, shaking it off. Dillon, disorientated, said “what the fuck—“ and he hit Cory again as they scrambled to their feet.
“What the fuck’s your problem,” he said, bleeding from the lip.
“Touch my sister again,” Cory said, “and I’ll fucking kill you.”
“She was asking for it,” Dillon mocked. “It’s not my fault she’s a frigid cunt.”
Cory heard Tilly supress a sob, and he hit Dillon again in the mouth. He probably wouldn’t have stopped hitting him had it not been for TJ, who wrestled Cory from Dillon and held him back. “Leave it, brah,” he was saying in Cory’s ear. “He’s not worth it.”
A small crowd had formed at the door, and the obvious chants of “fight, fight fight,” and “frigid bitch,” were short lived when TJ told them all to back off. TJ was black, tall, with a fuzzy black Afro and he was built like a brick shithouse. If he said it was Thursday then it was Thursday.
“You just can’t stand seeing your sister get some action, can you?”
Cory tried to wrestle his way from TJ’s hold, but his arms were too powerful. “You fuck,” he spat and Dillon laughed and mopped up more blood.
“Get the fuck out of here, you pussy,” he said. “And take that bitch sister with you. The rumours are right; she’s too uptight and frigid to get with a boy anyway. There’d be more action in a fucking corpse than with that virgin bitch. No wonder she can’t get a proper boyfriend. She’ll be the worst fuck in the whole state anyway. She can keep her fucking cherry.”
TJ was escorting Cory away from the bedroom as Dillon continued his rant. “Fuck you both,” he heard Dillon call after them. Cory told TJ that he was fine, and TJ let go as Cory scanned the house for his sister.
“Where’s Tilly?” he asked one of the girls and she told him she’d left.
“Keep her,” Dillon mocked as he followed them downstairs. “Bet you only want her for yourself,” he laughed, and some of the girls stifled laughs too. Cory looked at TJ and TJ just stood back and shrugged.
“I’m done playing peacekeeper, brah,” he said with a wink.
“Go on,” Dillon continued. “Run home to your bitch sister and drunk as fuck mommy.”
Cory took one look at the room, and then he sparked Dillon out with another hard punch before heading out after Tilly.

She was standing at the corner of the street, shaking when he found her.
“Is that all I am to people?” she said, her voice breaking. “Someone naïve and easy to fuck? I thought he was into me, Cory. I saw you with Paige and Dillon had been talking to me all night and I was going to go with him. I thought he might actually like me and I was going to go with him. What’s wrong with me? Am I not slutty enough or not attractive enough or not fun enough? Is that why they just want to get into my pants, is that it?”
The knife that was his sister in pain struck him straight in the chest.
The words almost failed to leave his mouth, like they were stuck in his throat. And when they did finally come out they were almost devoid of sound, as if someone had snatched it from his lips. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he managed to say.
“There is!” she almost yelled. “There has to be!”
She looked at him. “Do you know why I was going to go with him?” she asked and Cory shook his head. “Because I was jealous. You’re right. I was jealous of seeing you with Paige; they way she could kiss you like that and the way you could kiss her and hold her and show her off and they way that I can’t do those things.” She ran her hands through her hair. “God, I’m so fucked up.”
The silence lingered; cold and empty.
She threw her arms around in exasperation as she fought back the tears that threatened to spill down her soft, delicate face like a dam about to break its walls. “That’s why storms are named after people, right? Because they come into your life and they fuck everything up and then they just leave! They come into your perfect day and they shit all over it, they bring their dark clouds and their winds and they tear it all apart and then they’re gone and you’re left with the pieces in your hand like your life is a window and they’re a brick. Everyone in there thinks I’m this frigid little bitch now.”
Cory looked at her for a beat before something in him snapped. Which one was the storm? he asked himself. Paige or Dillon? He took her trembling arms and wiped the tears that started to flow down her cheeks and he held her there, in that look, for a moment. “Maybe, but every storm always runs out of rain. Look, Dillon’s a fuckboy. He’s always been a fuckboy and he always will be a fuckboy, but you’ll always be beautiful – beautifully Tilly. Beautifully broken, perfectly imperfect and tragically human and if you want to talk about storms then you’re a beautiful disaster. We’re all storms. But you’re beautiful the way a forest fire is beautiful. Look, we’re all flawed – every one of us. Nobody is perfect; we’re intrinsically flawed.” She looked at him, differently than before. Maybe it was the way he was holding her or maybe it was because he looked at her like nobody else ever had. Like he wasn’t saying these things to get into her pants, but because he loved her in a way she had never before understood. “But maybe storms aren’t named after people because of the destruction they cause; maybe they’re named after people because, like hurricanes, some people are all wind and rain and lightening – but if you get too close they’ll sweep you away.”
She looked at him, and he looked back at her and a clusterfuck of emotions and feelings exploded inside her, surging through her body, taking over her and sweeping her away like tumbleweed in the wind. She was crying freely now, streaming down her face.
“Every single female eye in that stupid party was on you tonight. You could have had any girl in there. You can have any girl you want. Why don’t you?” she asked. The sound from the party thumped in the night. “Girls talk about you all the time; how they want to date you and be with you and I know you know that. I see you flirting with them, with Paige. She was so into you and instead of making a move you’re out her with me. You could be happy with her, Cory. You could have spent the night with someone and yet you threw her away. And you’re not scared, are you, because you’ve been with girls before?”
“No, I’m not scared.”
“Then what? Don’t you want to be happy?”
The moment lingered. “Say I can’t have any girl I want, Tilly. What then? Do you know how cold it is just fucking girls and leaving them? Some guys can do that, but not me. Believe me, I’ve tried. But I’m not built like that. When I’m intimate with a girl it’s because I want to be with them, not because I want to get into their pants. If I wanted that then maybe I would make moves on these girls. Because maybe I am in love with a girl and maybe I don’t want to fuck around with any others because I only want her. But what happens when that girl, the only girl I am actually properly, truly in love with is the only girl in the world I can’t be with? What happens then, Tills?”
“What?” she said softly.
“What happens when the only girl in the world I want to be with, is the only girl in the world I can’t be with. Ellie, Paige, whoever. They’re not the girl I want. And you say you were jealous, well seeing you walking away with Dillon, well that made me jealous. The thought of another boy touching you… so don’t tell me you’re fucked up because I know exactly how you fucking feel, Tills.”
And then, in that moment, she understood. Later, they realised, they did not really know how it happened but suddenly Tilly was kissing him and Cory was kissing back and those feelings that they had been feeling suddenly made so much sense. It was soft and delicate and beautiful and passionate and then it was over and they gasped for air like it was their final breath, like it was running out and then they were silent, breathing heavy and looking at each other through the night.
Tilly turned, reeling back, moving away in shock but Cory grabbed her and pulled his twin back towards him, into his arms, determined to see this (whatever this was) through to the end. He kissed her like her lips were air and he couldn’t breathe; like it was the most complete feeling he had ever felt. And Tilly kissed back in every bit an equal, like their feelings were at equilibrium and like this feeling, which was so wrong, was the most natural thing in the world and these two broken siblings kissed and cried under the moonlight until their lungs were emptied and they clawed for air.

***
Monday Morning:

Tilly’s alarm woke her.
Her throat felt dry, and she found that her mouth was open trying to suck in whatever air she could. She had woken up wanting, but she wasn’t really sure what exactly. There was a craving deep within her that she couldn’t explain. She sat up, looking out across her room. Those things she had awoken to – thirst and wanting – had already taken a hold of her during the night, if not before, and so waking up had changed little. She just lolled around the bed, regaining her bearings. She was lost in that moment when you’re awake but not aware, unsure whether or not she was still dreaming. She was led on the covers in just her bed-tee and her panties and she looked at the morning light streaming through her curtains with such curiosity, like something so simple could be so fascinating and when everything makes so much sense. She then glanced across at the picture of her and Cory and she thought about him. They hadn’t really spoken since the party. She didn’t know what she felt. That kiss, their moment of madness, had been the realest, most complete feeling she had ever felt and so she was unsure why she felt so empty. These newfound feelings, which she could not understand, felt alien to her.

It was when she was leaving the bathroom that they ended up face-to-face. She froze in the doorway and just by looking at him she knew he was feeling the same pain she was. He was topless, standing in just his jogging bottoms and he looked at her with the same shock. Like neither of them knew what to say.
“Cory,” she said, breathless. Tears formed in her eyes again, and she didn’t know why. “I .. I … I didn’t mean …”
He shook his head. “Don’t apologise,” he whispered. “Never apologise.”
“I kissed you,” she said, trying to gauge his response.
“And I kissed you.”
“I’m a storm,” she mouthed, barely speaking. “You said it yourself.”
“I like storms,” he says. “Whatever this is, no matter how complicated it gets, I want it. I want you,” he said as he moved towards her. “It’s always been you.”
“I love you, Cory,” she said, and she said that she was saying it not as a sister but as a human. It wasn’t the casual I love you that friends or family say. This was the real thing; and he knew it took everything in her to say it to him, “but not just that. I’m in love with you and I know that you’re in love with me too but you say that you like storms … what if you can only handle a little rain and I’m a downpour?”
He grabbed her hands and pulled her towards him. He felt himself getting lost in the green of her eyes. “Then I’ll drown,” he said.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she sobbed.
He was almost silent now. Their faces were inches apart. “You could never hurt me, Tilly,” he said and then she kissed him. She put everything she had into that kiss, she could feel her emotions draining from her body as their lips touched and sparked and tingled and danced. And then Cory took control. He pushed her against the wall, used his hands – which were so strong and powerful – to touch her body so gentle and delicately. He pushed up her top and she felt his hands as they moved across her virgin skin, the tingle in her body as he caressed her navel and then moved to her sides. The coolness of the air as it moved across her warm skin. She relaxed herself to his touch, enjoying the feelings that washed over her as Cory – her brother, her twin, her everything – became the first boy to ever touch her like this. He moved down to her thighs, and then to the thin fabric of her panties, which provided the only barrier between his skin and hers. Their mouths danced, fighting away with each other as if this kiss was their last, and as his hands came to her bubble butt, using it to push her body up against the wall, she moaned into his mouth.
He felt her hands clawing at his skin, digging into his back like a wild animal. Her touch was electric, searing his body with her tenderness and the member in his pants ached and throbbed and longed. Her hands moved to his chest and she traced his taut definition with her nails. He felt her scrape down his skin and he kissed her harder than ever. Their tongues met and fought and then settled. He felt her hands come to his joggers and he kissed her harder still, pushing his body further into hers, her breasts against his chest, her legs wrapped tighter around his waist. Tilly found her hands clawing at his waistband, forcing the material down his legs. She scratched at his lower back, his now partially naked ass. She could feel the warmth from the bulge in Cory’s joggers, hovering so close to her body and the longing and the wanting she had earlier felt ached within her. She felt his hands move up to the waistband of her panties, and he started to tug, moving them down over her bottom. His joggers were around his hips now; she could feel the top of his pubic hair sprouting over the fabric. Her panties stretched as he moved them from her bottom and along her thighs. She felt the coolness of the morning air brushing over her cheeks, and then his hands came onto her naked bottom, squeezing and feeling. His hands came and found hers, moving them up and over her head. She was against the wall, his hips holding her against it so powerfully. His hands locked into hers above her head as he moved from her lips to her neck, kissing her and nibbling her. She was cooing and moaning quietly, the sounds barely leaving her lips. Her eyes were pressed shut as she felt these newfound feelings of lust and passion overcome her. She broke free from his hands, moving hers to the back of his head, moving through his hair, until his lips were back on hers and she was pushing his head into her, kissing him hard. So hard. Shit, they thought concurrently. This is happening.

“You’re going to be late,” Loraine said from the bottom of the stairs.
They were silent. The kiss broke and they gasped for air, breathless and panting. Their hearts pounded in their chest as they stood there, Tilly against the wall, her legs wrapped around her twin brother, their bodies touching, her panties almost off, his joggers around his hips. The hallway lingered with the light smell of their passion.
“You’re up, aren’t you?” she called again.
“Yeah,” Cory called back, trying to steady his voice. “We’ll be down in a minute.”
He looked at Tilly, afraid of what reaction she might have. She bit her lip, and looked back at him. And then they laughed like they used to laugh, and it was perfect.

***
School was impossible that day.

Cory couldn’t concentrate on his lessons or on his sports. All he could think about was Tilly and the way she made him feel. Of all the girls he had been with, the four he told Tilly about and the others that he hadn’t, none of them had made him feel so … alive before. None had made him lose control so wildly – her lips were toxic and he was slowly, tragically addicted.
They talked little as they waited for the bus, and even less as they waited for the next stop and then Ellie. Tilly was warm under the collar; she had felt things in that hallway that she had never felt before. Her panties, she realised when she got back to her bedroom and closed the door, were wet in a way that at first made her think she’d had an accident. Her body shook. She felt physically and emotionally exhausted and she found herself, as she sat up against the door, crying but not from sadness and then the crying turned into laughter and then the laughter turned into elation. But the elation didn’t last long. Feelings had exploded within Tilly that she never even knew existed. Her body ached from his touch, she could feel his hands on her skin, on her ass, and something inside her burned with a lust she had never before felt. Her lips stung as she thought about his mouth on hers, and her body tingled at the thought of his hands roaming her skin.
“We need to talk,” Cory said wryly as Ellie appeared at the front of the bus.
“I know. Tonight,” Tilly said, kissing him on the cheek, as per the brochure. This one, though, lingered for a little longer than normal and she scurried off to the back of the bus. It set off again, and Cory felt it burning his skin. Her scent lingered around him after that. Then he thought about whether he had said hello to Ellie. Today, he thought, was going to be a long day.

Had the thoughts that now consumed her mind not been present then Tilly might have noticed more the looks and the whispers that went on as she passed people in the corridor. Tilly was the popular girl, part of the popular clique that every school has, and the entourage of friends and followers that surrounded her was huge. That said, with the emotional war going on in her head and with nobody to talk to about it, she had never felt so alone.

Cory knew exactly what he was feeling – he just wasn’t ready to accept yet that he had fallen head over heels in love with his twin sister. This wasn’t a teenage crush on the pretty girl. This had been brewing for an eternity within him, eating away at him every day and every night for as long as he could remember.
“Cory,” Mrs Gardener called for a third time, heightened annoyance in her voice. It was his turn to read and he was grateful for the fifteen minutes peace he got from his thoughts as he stumbled and bumbled his way through Paradise Lost. Afterwards, TJ asked him what was wrong and Cory shrugged and said he was tired. TJ either believed his bullshit, or just knew not to ask. Either way, he accepted what Cory said and it wasn’t mentioned again.

Lessons were tough. Tilly spent Math looking longingly out of the window, and nervously nibbling away at her pen lid so that by the end of the lesson it resembled more of a dog toy. She too knew what the feelings were and what they meant. I’m in love with him, her internal voice said, over and over again like a broken record. I’m in love with Cory. And her sub-conscious smile turned into something different as the thought repeated in her head. She started thinking, and thinking was bad.

Cory had soccer training afterschool, and he was off pace. He finished having achieved his worst ever score in the bleep test, and in the practice match that followed he missed a penalty and two one-on-one attempts on goal. He assured his coach that he was just tired, and he made his way home.

***
Monday Night:

Tilly heard the front door close downstairs and she felt her heart thump in her chest.
She was stood in the hallway when Cory made his way upstairs and she took a sharp intake of breath when he noticed her. She found herself smiling at him, and he was smiling back.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s out with work.”
He nodded and dropped his bag where he stood. He was sweaty from soccer training, and he was still in his kit. Tilly was sweating too, but it was a cold sweat. Her hands shook a little, and she was fingering the necklace with her left hand. It has become her safe place today, breaking from her thoughts to find it twirling within her grasp. It was her little piece of him. A gift. From him to her. She donned a pair of black leggings and a black crop top. He took a step towards her. He had been thinking about what to say all the way home.
“Tilly,” he went to say, taking another step towards her.
“Cory,” she said back, mimicking his movement.
“Tilly.”
“Cory.”
He laughed under his breath as they moved closer still.
“Tilly,” he said again more forcefully.
“Cory.” They were only a few feet apart now.
“Are we just going to keep saying each other’s names?” he asked.
She smiled and shrugged.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Not yet,” Tilly said, her lips moving almost soundlessly.
“Then when?”
“Later.”
They looked at each other through the dim light of the hallway. Seconds passed, but they seemed like hours. They worked each other out. They worked out the situation and then Cory broke the silence. “Fuck it,” and they started that all-to-familiar dance once more, their lips locked in a blissful taboo.

And then Tilly was taking Cory by the hand and leading him back through the door to his bedroom, where he took her in his arms and laid her down on the duvet, their lips failing to break their lock. She moved her back and opened her legs, allowing him in and then she felt him move onto her. She felt the power in his body as he pinned her down on the bed, his hands moving from her hands and up her arms, tingling the skin like his fingers were nettles. She felt the same animalistic prowess as she had that morning, like her inhibitions had gone out of the window, and she was clawing at his training vest, trying to rip it from his body with her claws.
He was resting over her with one elbow on the bed, and with his spare hand he traced the outline of her body from her neck and down, caressing her curves with his touch. She felt electric when his hand came to the bare skin of her sides and she moaned breathlessly into his mouth. He came to the top of her leggings and started to thumb the waistband, pushing the material down. Tilly moved her hips up, allowing the material to fall off her ass and down her body. The top of her Jack Wills panties came into view, and then more as the leggings moved further down her legs. But Cory wasn’t going to have it all his own way.
Tilly stopped Cory’s hands, and she grabbed the bottom of his vest, forcing it up his body. They broke their kiss, gasping for air in the moments rest, as the vest was pulled up and over and discarded on the floor. They looked at each other for a second, for the tacit approval of each other’s eyes to continue. And then he kissed her again, and she brought her nails down on his back as he nibbled at her neck. She groaned and he grunted approvingly, arching his back at her touch, and then she attacked the front with her claws, scraping down his chest while he breathed in and out, faster and faster until her hands came to the knot in his gym shorts. She made short work of it, and they looked at each other in dimly lit silence as her thumbs hooked into his waistband and she started to roll the shorts down his legs.

His erection burned like the deepest fires of hell in his Calvin Klein’s, forcing against the material like a great beast threatening to burst from its cage. She gasped to herself as the shorts fell over the boxers and down to his knees, where he kicked them off into the room. The only noise in the room was that of their harsh, irregular breathing.
“You’re sure?” he asked her gently.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Cory rolled onto his back and pulled Tilly on top, and she squealed in delight. She strad-dled him now, her leggings partially down, and she leant back into his lips. His hands took control again, pushing her crop top up and up until their kisses were broken once more and the garment discarded. She pulled her ponytail tighter as Cory’s hands roamed over her body. She was taut and well sculpted and perfect, Cory thought as his fingers danced over her chest, her stomach, and her navel. She kissed his lips, his face, his neck, nuzzling and nibbling like a wild animal while Cory caressed her back. He traced her spine to the small, and she shuddered as his hands came to rest in the waistband of her leggings once more. He pushed them further and further down until they were clear of her thighs and she lowered her body until the cotton of her panties came to rest of the bulge of his Calvin’s. Their stomachs were touching; he could feel the warmth of her chest and the beat of her heart. And then he felt her hips rock, gently and tentatively, and he felt her shudder violently as the tip of his caged beast flicked the bean of her clitoris and he heard her whimper for the first time – the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

Cory sat up and pushed Tilly backwards towards the foot of the bed. He pushed off her leggings and moved his hands up her naked thighs to the sides of her panties. He could see the wetness forming as she moved her legs wider, allowing him in. She was breathing hard, and so was he. With one hand tracing the contours of her face, his second moved towards her panties. She gasped, he touched, and then her body was propelled backwards into the bedding as his hand grazed across her slit through the fabric of her panties for the first time. It was wet and gentle and soft and Tilly moaned, audibly this time, as another human hand touched her cunt. Their bodies glistened with the beginnings of sweat as she raised her hips, while Cory inched his fingers onto her now moist mound, feeling the softness of the fabric and beneath that, Tilly’s warm wetness. Her hand tentatively hovered over his Calvin’s until curiosity got too much and she lowered her longing hand onto to the base of his bulging erection.
Her touch was like magic, sending a tingling all the way down his shaft and into the aching pockets of his balls. Tilly began to stroke Cory’s shaft through his Calvin’s, as he began to run his hand over her panties and up to her clitoris, which sent more shockwaves of pleasure through her nubile young body. Cory groaned and exhaled deeply as the feeling of his sister’s hand around his caged animal threatened to overwhelm him. As she stroked and teased the head, he rubbed her bean faster and faster against the growing wetness, and she purred in his ear, moaning with such beautiful softness, her breathing shot to fuck, telling him, begging him, commanding him not to stop.
They were at each other’s mercy now.
Tilly’s hips buckled upwards and her breathing became short and uneven and the most intense tsunami of feeling flooded from her feet to her brain, overpowering her in the moment. She wanted to moan but had no energy to do so. Her eyes were pressed tightly shut, and she bit at Cory’s bottom lip until he could taste the iron of blood. Tilly then screamed out in orgasm, finally releasing the tsunami that had overpowered her. Together, their hands toyed and teased with the other’s most intimate part. Her hand became a vice, gripping the tip of his erection, and when Tilly opened her eyes, whimpering after the most orgasmic of emotions, he saw bliss looking back at him and she released his cock from her grasp.

Cory was ready to blow.
Tilly teased and giggled as he watched her slowly rolling the Calvin’s down his legs. His pubic hair sprouted, and then his monster was uncaged. As the fabric of his boxers descended his body, the animal that was his erection sprung free and Tilly supressed a gasp.
“Oh my,” he heard her say. Cory was well hung, not massive, but well hung – five inches with substantial girth and a head that throbbed with longing. He kicked off his Calvin’s and retuned the favour. First he rolled over, allowing Tilly back on top and their lips resumed the dance of life as he unclasped her black bra from her body, letting it fall into the void between their entangled bodies, and Cory saw Tilly’s naked breasts for the first time. Tilly felt his naked erection as it brushed against her panties, rubbing the wetness as if it had a mind of its own. They were small, an A-cup, but the proportion to her body was perfect. They could not have been any better, round and blissful. Her nipples were beautiful, and Cory rolled one in his fingers, causing Tilly to moan against the touch, and she bit the tip of his ear as his hands danced across her areolas and back onto her nipples. He pulled at her nipples, very lightly at first, then more insistently, until they stiffened and began to ache. When Tilly was laying back on the bedsheet, Cory pulled her panties off and threw them off the bed and then they were there, in that moment, naked and together.
She started to blush at the thought of somebody seeing her naked for the first time, but Cory kissed her and told her that she was beautiful. And as Cory leaned in, his throbbing erection touched her naked cunt for the first time and in that moment both were sure they were in heaven. Tilly moaned again as he moved his hand over the wetness of his sisters mound for the first time without panties as a barrier. He moved along the wetness between her lips, tracing from her clitoris to the steaming warmth of her tunnel and he tested the water. Tilly was garnished with a small garden of auburn, and it served as a peristyle to a temple worthy of a God. Her temple was narrow, though, and as he moved his middle finger deep into his sister’s innocence, Cory felt the walls contract against his finger, threatening to cut off blood supply, and he heard Tilly gasp and then shudder and then whimper and squeal at the intrusion of something foreign inside her for the first time. She had only ever had Tampax up there, but this was no tampax.

Cory worked Tilly’s clitoris with his thumb, slowly bringing his middle finger in and out of her virgin tunnel. She was warm and tight, and so wet and each time his finger came out and went back he could hear the suction. Tilly was moaning properly now, louder and louder and harder and harder with each stroke, only encouraging his movement and only making his erection throb that little bit more. Their lips met and battled hard, tongues wrestling as Cory fingered his sister. He felt her arms wrap around his, forcing him deeper into her until, all at once, her hips buckled and her muscles locked and she climaxed for a second time.

And then it was time.
Her mouth was open but no sound came as Tilly reached between them and grabbed Cory’s naked erection in her hand for the first time, pulling it between her legs. When the end of his member brushed the lips of her virgin slit, she shuddered again. Cory was pushed up on his elbow, and he looked down at his twin, his sister, and he kissed her. She smiled back at him, a soft, vulnerable smile that he had never seen before. They remained in that moment for a few beats, and then Tilly moved her hips up to meet Cory once more. The end of his erection slid along the folds of her mound and her nails came back down on his back. Their bodies rocked as Cory’s erection moved between the warmth of her puffed lips. Neither of them spoke, the sound of their breathing said it all. After testing the water for a few more moments, Tilly felt she was ready and she urged Cory towards her hot, wet tunnel.
“Are you sure?” he asked her, lips hovering tantalisingly close to hers.
“I’m ready, Cory,” she said and they kissed a soft, lingering kiss.
Cory kissed her again, and then he pushed his hips forward. Tilly moaned out loud and deep as Cory’s member penetrated her tunnel for the first time, his shaft forcing apart her virgin walls as it started to slide inside her oven. He took it slow, kissing Tilly gently. Her eyes were pressed closed as she adjusted to the intrusion of another human inside her sex. She was warm, oh so warm, and Cory was sure her pussy was the tightest pussy he had ever experienced. The feeling of his shaft sliding into the forbidden fruit of his sister was insane.
The pain was both unbearable, and at the same time the most incredible thing she had ever experienced. She felt her walls stretching, and it felt like she was being torn apart. She groaned and cooed and moaned into his mouth as she felt him slither inside her.
Cory stopped moving when he came to the soft, film-like barrier of her virginity and he took Tilly’s hand in his and he gripped it. “There’s no going back,” he said and Tilly took a deep breath whispered into his ear: “I’m yours.”
Cory kissed her, and he pushed forward and that was the moment. It was the moment that her hymen was plucked from the wilderness of her body and she was his. She buckled her hips and whimpered and cried into his mouth at the sudden jolt of pain deep inside her as her cherry popped, and Cory felt her nails draw blood as they clawed at his back. They remained there for a moment, a tear escaping down Tilly’s face. And then her hips started to rock and the dance continued. Cory slid deeper into Tilly, until his balls came to rest on the coolness of her bubble butt and their pubic hair meshed. Tilly put her hands on Cory’s body, pulled him close and kissed him deep as he started to slide himself in and out of her tunnel, her needle threaded and the passion of their sex in full flow.

“Oh, Cory. Cory. Cory. Oh, Cory,” Tilly moaned, her hips bucking and flexing and going into spasm at his thrust. He withdrew, feeling the friction of her lips as it released his cock for the first time and he saw the blood of her purity on the tip, and on her lips as evidence of her beautiful and passionate depucelation. He kissed her, and then he pushed himself back in and her scream of ecstasy filled his mouth. Tilly and Cory fucked like animals, a couple embellished in lust for each other. She moaned and cooed in his ear with each thrust into the warm tenderness of her promise land. She grabbed his back and clawed at his skin until it was riddled with scratches and bled. She got used to the intrusion quickly and her hips undulated, welcoming him and fucking him with as much passion as he felt. “This feels amazing,” she would whisper in his ear as the feelings grew in her belly. She nibbled at his neck and he felt the passion growing, from his balls to his shaft, and then he came hard and deep, thrusting one final time, groaning like a man on the edge of oblivion, until he was balls deep and firing streams of his hot climax into his sisters womb, filling her with the seed of his passion. “Oh my,” she said, breathless, as she felt the warmth of Cory’s semen firing deep into her cervix.
Cory collapsed onto her hot, sticky body. “That was incredible.”
She agreed, unable to find words.

They said little, the noise of their breathing and the rise and fall of their chests was the only sound in the room. She could feel his seed within her, warm and forbidden. It was silent. Night was falling, and the room was cast in a deep golden orange glow as if encased in perennial sunset.
“Do you hate me?” Cory heard Tilly whisper.
“You’re incredible,” he said and her smile lit up the dimness of the room.
“Is this…” she went to say and Cory took her hand and squeezed it and she stopped. They both thought about the taboo, about the forbidden sex of a brother and sister, but they didn’t care. In that moment, they did not care.
It was Tilly who made the next move. She rolled onto her side and kissed Cory’s cheek, and as he turned to face her, his lips. Her hand moved between his legs and she felt him in her hand, the wetness of his tip and throbbing that came with each tug she gave.
“Fuck me again,” she whispered.
“No,” he said, kissing her gently. “You fuck me.”
His hand found her ponytail and he pulled back until their eyes met. She bit her bottom lip, and then his teeth found that same bottom lip and he gave a tug and Tilly gave a moan. She pushed Cory back onto the bed, and her eyes shimmered with wickedness.
Tilly moved on top, straddling her brother again, only this time there was no fabric barrier beneath them. She grabbed his shaft and positioned her pelvis, moving the throbbing muscle (which was now stoked again. Thank God for young recovery) between her legs. “Tell me what you want,” she said, seductively.
“I want you,” Cory said, “to fuck me.”
“How,” she said, breathless.
“Fuck me hard, Tilly Greenstreet,” Cory said. “Fuck me anyway you like.”
Tilly giggled and leaned down to his lips. As they kissed, she thrust her hips down and impaled herself on his member, breathing hard against his lips as this sister fucked her brother, hard and passionate, under the ever-deepening sunset until she came to another hard and explosive orgasm, and with it, another powerful purge from Cory.

Ten minutes later they lay there in the warm afterglow of orgasm, the scent of their fucking lingering in the bedroom as a reminder of their actions – him having climaxed for a second time, filling his sister with his love, and her having felt things she never even knew possible in the orgasms he had given her. She had come hard and explosive that time, while impaled on his shaft, and it was the greatest feeling she had ever felt. And then they lay there, she was a wreck and he was a mess and neither of them had the energy or the words to say or do anything more. They just lay there, legs entwined and bedsheets twisted in the manner of their fucking. She was filled with her brother’s seed, and she felt it tricking down the inside of her thighs and onto her bedding and then she slept.

***
It was sometime in the early hours that Tilly awoke, alone in her bed. She was still naked, but she was under the covers and she could hear the loud hammer of raindrops battering her window. She didn’t remember coming to bed, and she wondered if Cory had carried her there.
Her throat was dry and she felt cold.
Tilly dressed in her long blue sweater and she pulled on some panties and she headed downstairs for some water. From the kitchen window she watched the rain and she drank, and then she thought and that was when the tears started. And they came like a flood, all the emotion and all the passion that had built up within her over the last few days was being released like a tidal wave of pain and longing and what could never possibly be. She sat by the window, knees pushed into her chest and she sobbed as the water poured down. She felt a sharp pain in her loins, an aching from where her walls had been intruded for the first time. Her nipples ached and were sore, and her lips were chapped from their kissing. She cried because of what had happened, the emotion that came with losing your virginity. She cried because of how beautifully perfect and how hotly passionate it was, and how it was better than anything she could ever have imagined. And she cried because it was with Cory and they could never, ever be together. She started to claw at her skin, as if there was an itch there that, no matter how hard she scratched, it would not go. She felt dirty. And that was where he found her.
“Tilly…” his voice called, soft and caring, from the stairs.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, sweating now. “Before.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said and she sobbed harder.
“I know what you were going to say,” she said. “But I wanted it to be you, and I wanted the moment to be right and I wanted it to be special.”
A silence lingered for a moment. The rain battered the patio windows.
“And was it?” she heard him say. She could not look at him yet.
“It was perfect,” she sobbed.
“But?”
She opened her mouth to reply but words failed her. “Are you OK, Tilly?” he asked and she cried harder now, into her sleeve. She wiped a layer of sweat from her forehead. It was so cold yet she was so warm. “I can’t help but think that things have changed between us now,” she said through sobs. “Like we’ve lost our closeness and our trust in each other. Like when you look at me all you seen now is this fucked-up, pathetic little girl who is so emotionally damaged. This little slut of a sister that had sex with her brother because she is too emotionally unstable to be in love with anyone else. That’s what is wrong, Cory.” She found herself yelling and cried into her sleeve again.
“Hey,” he said back, on the defensive, “that must make me fucked up and emotionally damaged too, Tilly. I’m not saying what we did was right, but I don’t regret it either. Not for one second. That was the most alive I’ve ever felt. And for the record, I wasn’t going to say what you think I was going to say.”
“You’ve always been so much more than just a brother to me but this… I never thought… how can something so wrong feel so right?” she sobbed. It’s like she can read his mind. She’s burning up now, sweat pours from her head. She can’t take it anymore, and she flings open the patio doors and she runs out into the rain and the coolness, yelling, “I shouldn’t love you. What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be in love with you.”
The coolness was nice, she thought. She felt herself cooling as the water bounced off her face, matting her hair so that it stuck to her face. The rain was coming down, and it was coming down like a storm – this wasn’t light rain, she knew. This was a downpour.
Cory raced outside after her. “Because we’re broken,” he yelled over the rain as it bounced down around the two, “but sometimes love is broken too. Maybe this is wrong and sick. Maybe we are two seriously fucked-up teenagers, Tills, but I love you and you love me and nobody can change that. You can’t help who you fall in love with. Love just is. There isn’t a guide or a handbook on what to do. It just happens. And look, nothing about our situation is normal. Our lives are pretty fucked up, right?” He moves close to her so she can hear him over the battering rain. “I’m sorry that you feel like this, and I’m sorry that our lives have turned out the way they have, but I could never, ever, look at you any differently, Tilly because I love you, and that’s something I can never apologise for
“I’m dirty,” she said, clawing at herself again.
“No, you’re absolutely perfect. That talk you were so scared of, I wasn’t going to shut you down. I was going to say to you,” and he took her hand now, the trembling fingers that shook within his, “Tilly Greenstreet, I am head over heels in love with you,” and she cried, maybe in relief, maybe in exhaustion, but she cried differently and she cried as her lips met his again, under the torrents of rain that fell from the sky, and in that moment she felt absolution.

Back inside, Tilly led against Cory on her bed with the sound of the rain battering down as their soundtrack. His arm pulled her close to him, and she felt safe within his grasp.
“Are you OK?” he asked again and the question lingered for some time.
“I hope so, she finally said. It was the best she could offer, and it was true and the silence took over after that. They did not move for the rest of the night. Cory didn’t sleep, and Tilly drifted in and out until their bodies forced their brains to shut down sometime around three AM. And that is how they woke, side by side, with the streaming of sunlight breaking through the gap in Tilly’s curtains and the sound of Loraine’s voice announcing that she was going to work. She always left early, and hit the 7/11 on the corner for a bottle and some mints.
They looked at each other through broken vision, colours and stars and blotches of white as their eyes adjusted to the light. Led there, his arm around her, comfortably numb and without feeling. His strong body naked except for his grey Calvin’s with their grey and black detailing. She, her light blue cotton jumper crinkly from where the rain had dried, and her panties exposed from where her top had pushed up in the night. She was cold, but she felt warm in his grasp. They looked at each other in silence until their vision was sound and their eyes met. She felt the warmth take over her body again.
“I’m okay,” she said and she was. She placed a kiss on his dry lips. A gentle, lingering kiss in the early morning light. “I’m okay,” she said a little louder, and she laughed at the craziness of their togetherness, and that is all he needed to hear. He wouldn’t cry, but it was a relief to know that he could. He laughed too, and that hole he had felt was repaired, and he kissed her back. She moved on top of him, he on the bottom, their bodies together and legs twisted and entwined as she kissed him again. His groin pressed through his boxers at the fabric of her panties but it was content, not excited. And then they just lay there, not fucking, just laying, her head on his chest listening to the soft, steady beating of his heart. They felt complete, she felt complete, despite the circumstances of their kindred relations being so dangerously corrupted, and they lay there until the middle of the morning, sleeping in the most innocent sense of the word, bodies entwined in the new-found boundaries of their kinship and they were together. They were OK, and it was perfect.

/fin