“Oh god… we woke you didn’t we?” Jeff covered his mouth with his gloved hand in embarrassment. “Fuck I’m sorry!” He looked down at the snow at his feet before continuing. “I thought you were awake! You’d completely changed positions when I came out of the toilet.”
Katy grinned sheepishly, “Yeah neither of you were very quiet.”
“Ugh… this is so embarrassing…” he muttered back to her.
Katy gave him another playful jab with her elbow before going on. “Ah, don’t dwell on it. I’m not your baby sister anymore. Besides, from what I could hear she should be thanking you for a good time!” Katy kept laughing at her big brother’s embarrassment.
At that comment, Jeff’s face was red enough that Katy could make it out even through his beard. “Well, she doesn’t feel the same. To be honest we’ve been a bit mismatched in that area anyway. All this just makes it worse.”
“It’s okay, no need to explain! I get it!” Katy paused before adding, “So… what did you think about?”
Jeff looked at her, still red in the face from more than the cold air. “Yeah not sure I’m ready to divulge that,” and followed it with an embarrassed and nervous chuckle.
Katy was curious at his hesitancy to own up to that information. Her own mind was filling in the blanks with all kinds of ideas of her own. Katy’s curious and horny imagination offered up the passing thought that her brother may have featured herself in his imagination. The thought shocked her, but also warmed her body in a way that made her feel as embarrassed as he was. Her curiosity aside, she decided to not continue pressing the issue and risk putting him off.
The siblings approached a downed tree across the path that had fallen in a storm earlier that summer. Jeff stopped and extended his hand to help her climb over it.
“Up and over, Shortcake!”
Shortcake was a playful nickname that Jeff had started calling her when she stopped growing and it became apparent that he was going to tower over a foot above her for the rest of her life. Katy gave him a joking snarl and took his hand and climbed over the log. When Jeff followed, she stopped short and spoke.
“All messing aside, I meant what I said earlier. She’s lucky to have you. You take care of everything for her, even in bed!” At the latter end of the statement she grinned and looked downward before following up. “Some of us aren’t so lucky.”
Jeff reached out and pulled his sister in for a hug with both arms. “You’re the sweetest and crudest little sister in the world.” He chuckled again as they continued on.
“Can I ask something?” Katy said, slipping her arm back inside her brother’s. “And feel free to tell me to mind my own business if you’d rather not answer.”
“Go on then!” Jeff said, starting to sniffle in the frigid air.
“What did dad think of her?”
“Ah, well he was always openly supportive. Never really sat me down and said anything poor about her. Though looking back I think there were times when he may have thought she could have been too much like mum.” Jeff paused a moment before continuing. “I may be imagining that, but I swear sometimes he would have that look like he was worried about something and wouldn’t say.”
“Yeah I know that look.” Katy responded. “He gave me that look when he saw the bikini I was packing before going to university.” Katy gave another hearty cackle and was joined by her red-faced brother in laughing over it. “It’s almost like he was saying ‘be careful’ with his eyes.” Jeff nodded in agreement before she continued. “You’ve got that same look sometimes.”
“Yeah I supposed I inherited that honestly.”
Jeff went on, “I guess when his son showed up with someone that resembled his awful ex-wife so much he had reason to be concerned… I suppose it’s true, that whole ‘guys look for a type like their mother’ thing.”
Katy held back her initial thought that Bethany seemed to have more in common with their mother than just her appearance. She was taken aback at how her distaste for her sister-in-law seemed to be broiling inside her during their trip. She paused before finally quipping back, “Well I resemble her even more closely! I always wondered if that was hard for dad or not.”
“Oh god, don’t think like that! You got all her good qualities and managed to dodge all the bad ones!”
Katy smiled at the sweet comment. “All except the artsy-creative stuff. That she gave to her dorky, lanky firstborn!”
They made their way around the last bend of the lake and the cabin came back into view. Katy knew her quality time with her brother was coming to an end and tugged his arm close to her again.
Jeff stopped in the snow as if he was hesitant to go back inside. After a brief moment he smiled and spoke.
“Thanks for suggesting this walk and making me talk things out. You’ve helped so much in all of this and I’m lucky to have you as my sister.”
“We’re lucky we have each other and leave it at that!” she responded through chattering teeth. “We’re just two siblings trying to fuck their way through their grief!”
They both laughed again as they made their way up to the front porch and quickly dusted off the snow from their boots and hurried inside to get warmed up by the fire. Bethany paid neither of them much mind and stayed planted on the sofa as the siblings shed their coats and boots and sprawled out on the floor in front of the fireplace. One thing all three of them could all agree on was watching Friends reruns on the streaming service and the trio melted away a large chunk of the day away reliving the drama of the sitcom. The absence of Katy and Jeff’s father was made apparent in that he had always found something for them all to do to pass the time that didn’t involve being stationary in front of the television during daylight hours. In fact, the television and satellite service were recent additions to the cabin. Prior to that there was no TV signal and all films were shown in the home theater. But for this particularly emotional trip, sitting mindless at the television in front of a fire was just the relaxation that they both needed.
Katy continued to wrestle with her mixed feelings of shame, arousal, and closeness to her brother throughout the day. The more the thoughts rolled through her mind, the more disdain she harbored for her sister-in-law. The information divulged by her brother on their walk did nothing but add to the resentment that had been building for Bethany. She was more convinced than ever that her brother deserved better.
Beyond that, she was stuck on something he said about “guys looking for a type like their mother” and began to contemplate whether the same applied to her as well. Her brother and her father were a carbon copy in so many ways both physically and in personality, though Jeff was a couple inches taller. Her brother had already moved out and was married by the time she started bringing boys around. Katy thought back to her boyfriends and started to see that she also may have a certain type even if she wasn’t consciously aware of it. After all, she had often joked that her brother was a second father to her. She knew him to be the most caring and good-natured guy in her life, but was now contemplating how he may have subconsciously influenced what she found attractive in a sexual way. An equally pervasive thought was that her brother already seemed to be aware of this fact in himself by remarking how much Bethany resembled their mother, and by extension, Katy.
The winter day wore on and Katy’s deepening thoughts began to be coloured by her need for physical release. Thinking about her father, and her brother’s undeniable similarities to him made her quite emotional and her body was craving a reprieve from her heavy thoughts. Slowly, but surely, an idea crept out of the shadows of her mind. She was dying for a hot physical session of release, and by his own admission, so was Jeff. Also by admission, the two seemed to fit each other’s preferred type. She tried to break her runaway thoughts before they fully crossed into scandalous incestuous territory. It was wrong, and beyond that, her brother was married and his wife was in close quarters with them. She attempted to calm herself by reasoning that the only explanation for why she was even thinking this way was due to her attempts to drown her grief. Although she had the foreknowledge that her lack of opportunity for sexual release during their stay would be a bit of an annoyance, she was not prepared to be wrestling with such conflicting and scandalous thoughts.
Just when Katy was sure that her thoughts were about to become completely unhinged, her brother looked up at her from his lying position on the floor in front of the fire and nudged her before speaking.
“Time for some lunch?”
Katy glanced at her watch in disbelief at the number of hours that had passed since breakfast. She wasn’t exactly hungry at this point, but welcomed any distraction from her train of thought that so violently oscillated between sad and wildly inappropriate.
“Yeah I could go for some!” she replied cheerfully.
Jeff craned his neck to look back at his wife still perched on the sofa in her own world before continuing.
“Fancy a sandwich, Beth?”
After a moment or two of silence and Bethany keeping her gaze fixed on her phone she responded with a short and distracted, “Mhmm”
Jeff hopped up from the floor and headed back into the kitchen to get the light meal together. Katy sat up on the floor and looked over at him. For a moment she caught herself looking at him in a way she had never dared to before… with desire. She could feel the warmth in her body begin to rise while watching him do something as benign as making sandwiches. Just as she stopped herself, she caught Bethany’s brown-eyed glare from the corner of her vision. She began to speak to try and distract both herself and her brother’s wife from the starry-eyed look she was giving him.
“So…” she began a bit timidly, “what all did you have in mind for today?”
Jeff answered from his to-and-fro motions in the kitchen.
“Honestly, hadn’t planned much. I was thinking of a rousing round or two of UNO after lunch, hot tub after dinner, then maybe a film in the theater. Then sleep in late and head back down the mountain tomorrow.”
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