Pact

I sat at the vanity in my bedroom, looking in the large mirror and sighing sadly. In just a few days, my twin brother would be leaving for college, and the following week, it would be my turn to leave the nest. I would certainly miss him, and being five hundred miles apart would be rough at best, but the reason I sighed sadly was quite different. It was due to a pact.

Just before starting high school, Vaughn and I had made a promise to each other. We would both turn eighteen days before graduating from high school, and would then have about three months to legally lose our virginities. Neither of us really wanted to go to college as virgins, for at our young age at that time, being a virgin in college seemed so ludicrous. Yet, we had drawn up a "contract" of sorts and signed it, and then made a photocopy so I could have one and my brother could have one.

The part which troubled me most was the final sentence, which I had committed to heart despite myself: If in the three days before leaving for college one or both of the parties is still a virgin, they will have sex together to ensure that neither is a virgin when leaving for college.

I knew that Vaughn was no longer a virgin. He had been dating my best friend Katie since about Thanksgiving, and shortly after graduation, she had gushed about the details of sex with Vaughn... with me, his twin sister. Several times since then, she had provided a play-by-play review of making love to my brother, of how he had so gentle and caring, of how he truly seemed to adore her as a person and not just as an available woman.

The thing which "scared" me is that, other than the sexual acts themselves, Vaughn had always treated me the same way. He had always been gentle and caring, always seeming to adore me as a person and not just as a sister. While Katie was my best friend, Vaughn was very much a close second, and the only guy other than our father who I could ever imagine seeing me first thing in the morning bedridden hair and without any make-up on.

But to have sex with him... To give myself to my own brother, to allow him to see me naked...

It was almost hard to fathom. Four years earlier, I had agreed to the pact purely because I could not imagine either of us needing to resort to each other to have our first sexual experiences. Yet throughout high school, none of the guys ever interested me in that way -- if anything, they all seemed to become more immature as they grew older.

...with Vaughn being the lone exception.

I glanced up at the kimono calendar on the wall. It was a Thursday evening. Very early Monday morning, we would all start the long drive across the state to take Vaughn to his college. I had less than twelve hours before the final countdown of the pact would take effect, meaning that sometime Friday, I would need to shed my clothes for my brother and allow him access to my body. The thought did not sicken me, as I knew that there could be many worse people to dip into me, but the thought did send a chill along my spine, for that was one of the ultimate taboos of society, and while Vaughn and I were indeed very close, I just could not imagine taking that final step across the line in the societal sand.

Looking down at my photocopy, I stared in renewed disbelief that I had even signed such a pact. I could almost certainly back out of it -- perhaps claiming that I was on my period, or that it was not a true legally-binding contract. Yet I knew, deep in my heart, that I had to do this, that I would do this, because I was someone who always kept her word, no matter what: That was something our parents had instilled in each of us with great success, something that formed part of my core.

...and that was exactly why, when I heard the soft telltale knock at the door, I knew that it was my twin brother, coming to inquire about the pact.

With another sad sigh, I stood and went to the door, opening it to see him gazing at me appreciatively, yet his eyes were full of concern. He did not ask any questions -- as a twin, he typically already knew what was plaguing my mind -- and simply took me into his arms, holding me close as he had done so often, allowing me to tremble against him.

Then there was another issue with this pact: Katie. If we went through with this, if I truly did allow my twin brother to claim my virginity, then I would be helping him to cheat on my best friend. It was not a situation I particularly wanted to contemplate, but somehow, I had to come to terms with it, and, somehow, Vaughn and I would both need to keep this from her for the rest of our lives.

"Katie's here," my brother whispered into my ear.

I was surprised, for I had not even heard her arrive -- she must have arrived just as our parents had gone out to a movie together, which meant that she and Vaughn must have spent some "quality time" in his bedroom. I did not even want to think about what the "quality time" entailed.

"Should I send her in here?"

I was undecided for a moment, but ultimately nodded.

My twin brother left my bedroom, and I moved to the window, looking out across the backyard fence to the beach beyond, noting the sun sinking toward the horizon. For once, I could not truly enjoy the beauty of the sunset.

"Elia?"

Hearing Katie's voice filled me with trepidation. With another sad sign, I turned to face her, and saw her standing just inside the bedroom doorway with Vaughn, holding his hand, her short height magnified by his tall frame. I had not expected to see them together in my bedroom, not in this situation, not with the pact hanging over my twin and me.

Katie left my brother in the doorway and moved around the bed toward me. I was uncertain what to think, how to react, and was very surprised when she simply hugged me for a long time.

"I know about the pact," my best friend finally announced softly. "Actually, I think it's rather sweet."

Looking past Katie's head, I looked in wide-eyed disbelief at Vaughn, unable to believe that he had spoken about the pact with anyone. Characteristically, he just shrugged nonchalantly, which further infuriated me more than I had expected.

"If it was anyone else," Katie said, regaining my attention, "I'd be really pissed. But it's you, it's his sister. I suppose it isn't cheating really, is it?"

I could see it. That was my "opening" of sorts. That was how I could justify actually going through with the four-year-old pact. If my best friend could see past the incest taboo yet still use it convince herself that there must not be any meaning between a sister and a brother sharing in the pleasures of the flesh, then perhaps I could tap into that same logic.

Katie stepped back from me, her hands holding mine as she looked into my eyes with reassurance. It was the most bizarre moment of my young life to date: My best friend was trying to make me feel better about being the "mistress" and helping my twin brother to cheat on her, and this while he stood across the bedroom watching us. When I glanced toward him again, Vaughn had a soft smile upon his lips, and in his brilliant eyes I could almost see in progress the fantasy of watching his girlfriend and his sister enjoying a Sapphic encounter together.

I looked back at my best friend. Given that I was very nearly as tall as my twin brother, I had to look down to peer into her eyes, into her heart, and the unasked question was answered: She truly was okay with this, with the most unusual pact my brother and I had inexplicably concocted and signed four years earlier. "It's okay," she whispered to reassure me, and after giving my hands a soft squeeze, she released me and stepped back a moment before going to Vaughn and sharing a quick kiss with him, his right hand rising to gently squeeze a breast -- my brother's right hand rising to gently squeeze my best friend's breast in my presence.

"I'll see myself out," Katie announced quietly, and then disappeared from my bedroom, leaving me alone with my twin brother, and I suddenly wished she was still there, for, even with her unexpected blessing, I was still uncertain, still almost too nervous to be alone with my brother knowing that the resolution of the pact was imminent.

Hearing the front door close seemed to seal my fate, leaving me alone in the house with my twin brother. While it did make me somewhat happy and even thrilled that I would not be a virgin when I went to college, this moment was difficult at best.

"I love you, you know," Vaughn said quietly.

"I know." I knew that he did love me: like a sister, like a twin sister. There was a closeness, a bond between us which seemed to baffle everyone around us, a unique relationship which I figure could only be explained by the two of us having spent nine months together in such a confined space. The strongest chains could have been wrapped as painfully tightly as possible around us and it still would not be as prominent as the special relationship I shared with my twin brother. Yet it was not romantic what we felt for each other, even though we hugged a lot and often chastely touched when passing each other or simply shared a knowing gaze at the most unusual moments. If it was truly love, if there was truly something romantic between us, then I believe I would have felt so much better about bringing our most unusual pact to its intended conclusion.

But there was no love. There could be no love -- not with my twin brother involved both romantically and sexually with my best friend.

Before I realized it, my twin stood before me and took my hands in his, the same way Katie had done earlier. "Are you sure you want to go through with this, sis?" he asked me.

My heart was suddenly pounding with incredible force within my chest, and I was afraid that if I were to look down, I could see the front of my tank top subtly quivering with my heartbeat. The continuous sound of the waves breaking on the sand was suddenly masked by the thunderous cacophony pounding between my ears, a rhythm of life which in perhaps any other circumstance I would have gladly welcomed.

"Hold me," I pleaded in a whisper, and to his credit, he did. My chest pressed to his, I could feel my twin's heartbeat attempting to synchronize with mine. His large hands gently caressed my back, his fingertips seeming to press along my spine in the very way which I had once confessed to Katie that I really, really liked, and despite myself, despite my indecision, despite the battles being waged inside my brain, despite the fact that I was his twin sister, his fingertips were beginning to arouse me while still only chastely touching me.

So many times, Vaughn had held me, comforting me, helping me to unwind after a stressful day or event. After a few moments, I felt myself relaxing in his arms again, yet the more I relaxed, the greater the arousal. I wondered if he truly knew what he was doing to me, if he could sense that my mind was being beaten into submission by my body, that society's taboo was crumbling to allow me to give in to the pact.

...to allow me to give in to him.

I whimpered into my twin brother's neck, my arms tightening around him as he responded in kind, his fingertips pressing against my lower spine just right and causing me to arch more fully against him and become more aware of his own arousal.

For just a heartbeat, I was scared, for never before had I felt a hardness in my brother's shorts. But, while I had never had sex, I was not stupid -- I knew what needed to happen to make sex possible, and to some extent instinct was trying to take control of me, yet to feel his growing hardness for the very first time made my breath catch in my throat, and after that initial moment of surprise, of shock, I relaxed again, against him, allowing his fingertips to press more firmly against my lower spine and my body to arch more fully against his male appendage.

He gave a low sound of amusement from deep in his throat. "Does that mean that you want to actually fulfill the pact?"

Before my mind could overrule me, my answer was a kiss to the side of my twin brother's neck.

Over the next few minutes, we transitioned from being siblings to being a couple. No longer were we a sister and a brother: As we touched, as we rubbed, as we hugged, as we kissed, we became just a woman and a man, both old enough and sane enough to consent, and while the pact was driving our consent and the woman we both knew well had blessed our consent, it was consent nonetheless.

Gradually, we moved away from the window, and it was somewhat of a surprise to feel the off-white wall cool against my back. That was when my twin's hands alighted upon my chest for the very first time, resting gently, as if simply testing how I would react by placing his still hands upon my breasts. I had learned that breast play truly turned me on, so I nodded slightly to him, giving my brother explicit permission to manipulate my breasts.

He did, which increased the wetness emerging from my body. My eyes closed, I was almost certain that he could feel my hardened nipples through tank top and bra, but he definitely knew how he was affecting me by the soft sounds rising up from deep within me, sounds unlike any I had ever made before yet which felt incredibly natural to me even if it was not exactly natural for this particular person to be the cause of such sounds.

In a way, I lamented the fact that I was not wearing a skirt, or perhaps still wearing the bikini since I had been swimming earlier in the day. My shorts would make it harder for my brother -- not necessarily harder, perhaps, but it would take longer for him to finally take my precious virginity. He was lucky -- one of us could extract his sex through the zipper of his shorts, but it would be a little more difficult than that for me.

But, even as we kissed and groped, even as I was nicely trapped between a hard wall and a hard twin, I was not particularly sure that I really wanted him to see me, to see his sister, naked. I was actually not entirely certain that I wanted to see him naked. Yet he had set my hormones on fire, giving me an adrenaline boost unlike any I had previously felt. My inhibitions were crumbling along with the taboo we were violating.

...and, oddly enough, I was the one who unzipped Vaughn's shorts. His hands never left my body, and his lips separated from me only long enough to attack another area of my exposed flesh, but he did step slightly back, allowing me room to work between us, to seek out and ultimately withdraw that which would soon violate me, which would soon tear me and spill my blood, and when my fingertips at last could grasp his fleshy bulbous tip, I was a bit surprised to find it slickened, clearly in anticipation of spreading me open and breaking through the final vestige of my girlhood.

"Sis...!" he breathed as I fingered his slickened tip and ultimately withdrew his hearty shaft through the open zipper. I still had not seen an erection with my own eyes, but I was quickly learning about it through the tactile contact, although my concentration was being a bit hampered by the hands manipulating my breasts and the lips assaulting my face and my neck and my mostly-bare shoulders.

And then, of all things, the phone rang, which caused my eyes to snap open. Specifically, my cell phone rang: Enya's "Watermark," the ringtone signifying a call from our mother. We both knew that if I did not immediately answer, she would instantly be concerned, so we quickly and somewhat reluctantly separated so that I could go to the vanity and retrieve the cell phone. It was also a scary moment, for I needed to quickly try to normalize my breathing and find my voice again, and I purposely waited until the last possible moment before opening the cell phone.

The conversation was fortunately rather short. The movie our parents wanted to see was sold out, and the next screening would start nearly three hours later, so they would be home rather late. I thanked her for the information and quickly ended the conversation.

...turning around to find my twin brother sitting on the bed, in the process of removing his t-shirt and thus rendering himself fully naked, the rest of his clothes already in a pile on my bedroom floor, and a condom beside him on the bed.

Only luck prevented my jaw from ricocheting off the carpeted floor. It was quite a shock to see my twin naked on my bed, and in a way it was almost amusing for him to be naked while sitting on the old faded Strawberry Shortcake bedspread I had been using for nearly a full ten years. Yet it was also a bit of a shock to finally see a penis firsthand, and especially to see it fully engorged, fully erect, fully ready to plunder me.

I instantly had my doubts about whether it -- my twin brother's prominent erection -- would actually fit inside me, even though I was much taller and therefore just slightly thicker than the average eighteen-year-old female. Yet I was drawn to it, to him, like a bee being attracted to a flower, and soon I stood before him, pressed to his naked body for the first time since we were born, an arm around him for a hug while my free hand gravitated to the stiffness rising up from his groin.

I didn't think he'd fit in me, I remembered Katie telling me after she and Vaughn had had sex the first time. Somehow, though, he did, and after the initial pain subsided, it felt really, really good.

For a moment, I wondered what my best friend truly thought about me being the mistress. I knew that she would want to talk about this later, if for no other reason than to assure herself that giving my virginity to my twin brother truly held nothing romantic so that she could eliminate me as a potential threat to their relationship.

He kept touching me and kissing me, and looking in my eyes and whispering how much he loved me. Vaughn was so sweet, so gentle, and even when I could still feel the pain, I truly wanted to give myself to him. If it was possible, I would've ripped out my own heart and handed it to him -- that's how special he made me feel...

I could only hope that my first time would be as sweet, even if there was no love involved.

At last, I stepped slightly back and reached for the base of my t-shirt. With his hands on my hips, my brother watched with fascination as my stomach and then my lower ribs were exposed to his view -- not for the first time, as I often wore a bikini for swimming. But then I stopped, almost embarrassed for him to see my bra, which made no logical sense given that he had so often seen me in a bikini.

"It's okay, sis," Vaughn whispered, sliding his hands from my hips up my exposed sides.

Something in his voice and in his eyes reassured me, and I finally revealed my lime green bra. I could feel the blush beginning to heat my chest and my neck and my face, and for a moment I feigned getting "tangled" in my own t-shirt to hide my face from him, but then quickly reasoned that Vaughn would soon see much, much more of my sisterly body, and that enabled me to "free" myself of the garment and cast it aside, allowing it to fall to the floor.

Carefully, his hands rose further, gliding to the front of my body, gently fondling me through my bra. My lips parted and a subtle almost-not-sound passed between them as my eyes fluttered closed. It was actually good to have my eyes closed, to not see my own brother as he touched me and explored my feminine body for the first time.

...and then his hands left my chest, just long enough to slide around me to the clasp of my bra. I shuddered with nervousness, but also with anticipation, for this was a turning point in our history together. Opening my eyes, I gazed into him as she reassured me silently, and only then did he work at the clasp, amazingly able to release the constriction with minimal effort, which made me wonder just how often he had undressed my best friend during the summer.