I was watching TV. The only English-language station played reruns of The Partridge Family, Gilligan's Island, M*A*S*H, and All In The Family every afternoon. For me, at 15, living in Qatar, that was my so-called life.
We'd been in Qatar only since January - three months. We moved from Taiwan. Before Taiwan was Indonesia. Before that Kenya, Latvia, New Zealand... We moved a lot. No, my dad wasn't in the military - it was his business.
Taiwan had been pretty good. We'd lived there for almost two years. My sister, Janet, was sure she was going to be able to finish high school there. No luck. At Christmas, Dad called a family meeting and announced that we were moving in 3 weeks. The color drained from my sister's face. "No, no, no!" she shrieked.
Janet screamed. She cried. I seriously thought she was going to murder Dad. She begged to be able to stay in Taiwan. She pleaded. She slammed doors. She broke plates.
Really, I could understand. Qatar would be her fourth high school on the third continent. And she'd have to leave behind her friends (again), and her boyfriend - her first serious boyfriend - Dan. And going to a new high school just for second semester of senior year was going to be tough.
But my father was implacable, and my mother, who didn't like Dan, backed him up. "We were all going to Qatar and that's that!"
Actually, though, I pretty much felt Janet was carrying things a bit too far. She always hated moving because she always had to leave behind her friends, because she'd always made friends wherever we'd gone. After the first day of school in whatever new country we were in, she'd announce that she had a new friend, or two, or three.
Me - I usually could predict when we were due to move next. Usually, it would be just as I began to make my first attempts at friendship with someone. Since that took me about a year-and-a-half on average, it coincided pretty well with the next move. And put any thought of a girlfriend for me right out of your mind. I'd never even kissed a girl, and I had no prospects for a date ever, as far as I could see.
Yes, Janet would make friends anywhere, at the drop of a hat, and I wouldn't.
Until we got to Qatar. Not that I suddenly started picking up friends left and right. Quite the contrary. No, the trouble was that Janet hadn't made any friends either.
Now, you might think that, what with moving every one or two years, that my sister and I would be pretty close. Hah. Though less than three years apart in age, and despite having so much shared history in so many strange places, we'd never bonded with each other. For Janet's first rule about friends is that they didn't include her younger brother. I was the pile of dirty socks that somehow was always in her closet. I was the ugly portrait that always hung on the living room wall. I was the annoying sound she couldn't get out of her head. In short, she detested me, and had detested me non-stop ever since I interrupted her perfect life by having the audacity of being born.
So when she sat down at the extreme other end of the couch to watch TV with me, I paid her no mind and expected the same in return.
There is little in the world more inane than an episode of The Partridge Family. After a particularly inane moment, I looked over to Janet, wanting to roll my eyes at someone. I was kind of surprised to see that Janet wasn't even watching the TV. She was watching me, or at least staring off into space in my direction.
I went back to watching Susan Dey, wondering for the hundredth time if I thought she was cute or not. As usual, I came to the conclusion that she wasn't all that good looking, and that she looked altogether too much like Janet.
At the next break, I glanced over at Janet again. She was definitely staring at me.
"Whaaat?" I asked her, rather defensively. As in "whaddaya-lookin'-at-huh?"
She looked down into her lap, and said quietly, "I miss Dan."
What? My sister confiding something to me? That was a first.
"Yeah - and now were stuck in this oven-baked prison where even you can't find a friend," I blurted out without thinking.
I looked back at the TV and Janet suddenly stood up and went to her room. As she passed, I noticed that she looked like she was about to cry. Her door slammed and I was left alone with Danny Bonaduce.
Life did suck here. An hour long bus ride each way to school. Classes full of total idiot kids from Texas that talked funny. Almost everyone from school lived in one of three American Compounds with swimming pools and movie theaters, but not us. We lived in an apartment downtown - the only Americans there. Janet and Mom were not even allowed to leave the apartment without being all covered up. No social life, and no hope for a social life.
The Partridges sang whatever stupid song-of-the-day that would make life sweet again, then the show mercifully ended. But Gilligan came on next, and it was a truly dumb episode that I'd seen several times already, and which I just couldn't suffer through again. I shut off the TV and went to my room, passing Janet's room on the way. I paused and listened at her door. I thought I heard sobbing, and something was squeaking. I shrugged, and went to my room to study History.
Just before six, the phone rang. I thought Janet would get it. In Taiwan she was always getting phone calls, and the rest of us had pretty much gotten used to every call being for her. The phone rang the fourth time and I realized she hadn't gotten it, so I hopped off my bed and ran to get it.
It was Mom. Mom worked at the one English-language newspaper - a weekly - and something had gone wrong with the production, and she was going to have to stay late. She wouldn't be back before 9:30 or maybe even 10, when Dad would be getting home. She wanted to talk to Janet about dinner, so I put down the phone and went to Janet's room and knocked on the door. "Mom wants to talk to you," I shouted through the door. I could hear the soundtrack to "Grease" playing in her room. I hated that album. Janet and Dan listened to it for hours on end. Even if they hadn't, I would have hated that album. "Hopelessly Devoted to You", in Olivia's painfully thin, high voice... Uggh.
Janet didn't answer, so I knocked louder. When she still didn't answer, I slowly, cautiously, opened her door. Entering Janet's room without permission was a mortal sin in her book. And permission was never granted. I peered in and saw Janet just getting up from the bed. She looked awful, with her clothes rumpled, her hair messed, her eyes red from crying. "I'm coming," she growled at me, and pushed past me to get to the phone.
Mom wanted her to make dinner, which turned out to be Swanson TV dinners imported from the U.S., with two pieces of fried chicken in the main part of the tray, and three little dimples above, one with peas, one with corn, and one with a little blueberry muffin for dessert. When they were cooked (one of the very few things Janet could cook), we sat across from each other and ate in silence. When we were done, she finished her glass of milk and just sat there staring at the empty foil tray.
"I miss Taiwan too," I said quietly. "It was way better than here. They should have let you stay."
Janet still looked down at the table. It looked almost like she was going to start crying again.
"I mostly miss Dan," she said, barely audibly.
I waited for her to say more, and when she didn't, I got up and cleared the table, even clearing her stuff. I washed the glasses and forks (no dishwashers in Qatar) and threw out the trays. Janet had gone from the table while I was washing up.
I headed back up to my room, but stopped as I passed her door at the sound of her voice.
"Jimmy, come in here." It was an order.
I pushed open the door and went to sit in her big wicker chair.
"Close it," she said, indicating the door. Odd, since nobody was home except us, and nobody would be home for almost 3 more hours.
I closed the door and took my seat.
Janet had changed clothes, and was wearing purple sweat pants and a matching purple sweatshirt. She was sitting on her bed, her back against the wall, her legs stretched out towards me.
"I saw you jerking off yesterday," she announced.
Busted.
"So? Why didn't you knock before you opened the bathroom door anyway?"
"I did, but you were too busy," she cut back nastily. "You're not as big as Dan," she added, "... down there..."
Whoa. That was the first sexual comment she'd ever made in my presence. I sat in stunned silence, not knowing what to say, not knowing why she was telling me these things, not knowing why I was there at all. My befuddled brain latched on the thought that I'd had no idea she and Dan had gotten to the point of knowing what their privates looked like. I'd always thought of Janet as asexual - maybe even antisexual. But I guess even someone as cold as ice as Janet...
"I bet you've never even kissed a girl, have you?" She was almost, but not quite, taunting me.
After a second, I shook my head, "no", not trusting my voice.
"You ever see a pussy? No, of course not. You wouldn't know the first thing about pleasing a woman, even if you could find a girl who would let you kiss her." She was dismissive in her tone.
I thought about arguing back. After all, I'd seen pictures of pussies in Penthouse (though I'd been told in no uncertain terms that I was NOT to bring anything like that to Qatar), and I'd read about all kinds of stuff in the Forum section. I'd even read Our Bodies Our Selves, which my mother had gotten for my sister somewhere. (It also wasn't in Qatar with us, for it was also considered pornography by the local authorities). But of course, Janet was correct. I was clueless. So I said nothing, and looked at her feet.
"If you're ever to have hope, someone's going to have to teach you, if you're not too much of a dork to learn."
My eyes snapped up to hers. What was she saying?
We stared at each other for a long time, silently.
"I taught Dan very well. Maybe you could do half as well. Get on the bed." It was another command.
My mind reeled. Was she proposing what I thought she was proposing. I sat frozen in fear, trying to decide whether to obey or run.
"Come on, I won't bite you," she said, in a bit softer a voice.
I slowly got up from the chair and climbed onto the bed.
"Lie on your back with your head on the pillow and don't move," she instructed. "And put your hands behind your head. Don't think your going to get all grabby!" she cautioned.
"Now close your eyes," she demanded. I did, but I peeked anyway.
She got off the bed, pulled off her sweat pants and her panties, then climbed back on the bed straddling me. I peered out under almost-closed eyelids right at her pussy. Her knees were up against my armpits. She was very hairy down there.
"Open your eyes," she ordered, and when I did, she began to instruct me. "That's my pussy. You're going to learn to lick it and make me cum, understand?"
I nodded. She proceeded to point out all of the various parts of her intimate anatomy - all things I knew from my secret looks at "Our Bodies...". Her pussy looked funny, and the situation was weird, weird, weird, but I was painfully hard anyway. She kept telling me what I should do and how I should do it. Then she asked, "Ready?"
She didn't give me time to answer. Instead, she picked up one knee and moved it forwards, pinning my arm to the mattress, her knee by my ear. She repeated the process with the other knee, and I was trapped with her pussy just inches from my mouth. Then she sat down on my face.
My eyes and nose were in her pubic hair, my lips and chin were up against her gash. My ears were being squeezed by her thighs. Remembering her instructions, I opened my mouth and stuck my tongue out and felt around with it. I could feel her pussy lips, and then her hole, so I moved my tongue up and found her clit. Having gotten oriented, I began licking her, not feeling that she'd given me much choice in the matter. Her taste and smell were indescribable, except to say that she was rather bitter, but tolerable, and the smell was neither good nor bad. Unexpected though. Everything about this was different than I expected for my first sexual encounter.
She reached down and grabbed my head, steering my tongue where she wanted it through tugs and pushes on my scalp. I shoved my tongue as far up her hole as I could. Then, when she shifted my head, I began licking right next to her clit with a kind of side-to-side motion, rhythmically nudging against her clit without actually licking it directly. Then back to her hole, then up again. Janet's breath got sharper and somewhat faster. I was grabbing a breath through my nose whenever I could. It was better when I was licking near her clit; when I was in her hole, my nose was squished against her pubic bone and I couldn't breathe at all.
Janet seemed to be getting juicier. In fact, when I licked near her clit, juice was spurting into my mouth and onto my chin.
"Now! Suck my clit!" she suddenly directed. I curled my tongue around it, then slipping the tip of my tongue under the hood, I got my lips in position to give her a clitoral kiss and I began to suck. She crushed me into the pillow, and her thighs squeezed my ears. Her hands clutched at my hair. I could feel her quivering. My chin felt like it was inside her pussy. I knew I'd made her cum. Now I just hoped she'd get off my face; my jaw and my tongue ached, and I needed a breath really desperately.
Finally she relaxed, raised herself up, and flopped onto her back next to me on the bed.
"That's what I needed," she said, sounding relieved. She turned her head to look at me, and laughed. "God, you're a mess!" she said, panting. "I came on you pretty good. What did you think of your first taste of pussy?" she taunted.
I was still gulping in air and licking the juices off my lips. I extracted my crushed arms from behind my head and reached down to adjust my painfully bent cock.
"Got you hard, did it? Well, don't think I'm going to help you with that.
But then she added, "You going to jerk off?"
What I wanted to do was get the hell out of her room, rush to the bathroom, wash my face, and then jack off. But she commanded me again.
"Pull down your pants. I want to watch you jerk."
When I hesitated, she added, in a sing-song voice, "If you don't, I'll tell Mom you came in here and tried to rape me..."
My head whipped around to look at her, but she was smiling. Normally she never smiled at me except when she was beating me at monopoly. I guess this wasn't much different.
"Come on, I just want to watch. Dan used to let me watch. It made me hot."
Why couldn't my life be normal, I thought? Why couldn't I live in Peoria in a perfectly normal house, go to a perfectly normal school, and have a perfectly normal sister?
I fumbled with the snap on my jeans, then the zipper, then I pushed down my jeans and my undershorts to my knees, and pulled my shirt up above my belly. Then, resigning myself to my fate, I grabbed my aching cock with my left hand and began to slowly stroke it. I was extremely hard, but I was a long way from cumming, due to the weirdness of the situation.
Janet was on my right, and I looked over at her looking over at me.
"You do it differently than Dan," she said. "He mostly rubbed only on the upstroke. You do both up and down equally. And you're circumsized."
She licked her lips as she watched me. Her hand, of its own accord I think, made its way down to her pussy and began to stroke along with me.
"I want to see your tits," I said, impulsively. "I promise I won't touch."
She looked at me sharply. Maybe she was surprised I'd spoken up. But she acquiesced, and with a shrug she pulled her hand away from her snatch and tugged her sweatshirt over her head. She was completely naked. Her tits, like apples, hung from her chest, her nipples puffy and extended. Her areoles were hardly darker than the rest of her skin, and were covered in bumps. I wanted so much to touch one, but I was too afraid. Her hand dropped back into her lap and began its motions again.
My left hand continued its up and down, slowly gaining speed. My balls began to tingle, and I knew I was close. I watched my sister, but in my head it was not Janet I was watching, but Ingrid, a girl from Taiwan who I'd had a serious crush on before we moved. It worked much better than thinking about Janet. My eyes shifted from her wobbling tits to her hand, which was strumming her clit. I closed my eyes to lock in that image, leaned back, and exploded. After the first spurt, I opened my eyes, and watched the second bolt of cum shoot up towards my chest and splat onto my stomach. I looked at Janet. Her eyes were bugging out. My third spurt was as big as my second. She bit her lip and flushed with red, and I realized she was cumming too.
My cock continued to twitch and dribble. My breathing slowed.
"Oh fuck, I can't believe how much cum shot out or your little cock. Don't get any on my bed! God, you're a mess. Get out and go clean yourself up. Oh fuck."
She was getting frantic, and it was contagious. Doing my best not to soil her bedspread, I pulled my pants up far enough to walk and scooted off the bed. Then I stumbled, holding my pants up with one hand and my shirt up with the other, out to the bathroom where I did the best I could with a wet washcloth.
I was still standing there trying to get my cock to stop dripping when Janet pushed her way into the bathroom and washed her hands. She was already dressed in her skirt and blouse from school as if none of this had happened at all. She dried her hands on my towel, then turned on me. Her face showed its usual Ice Queen coldness.
"You'd better not have made a mess anywhere for Mom to find. And if you ever mention this to anyone, I'll tell Mom you raped me, AND I'll cut your balls off and stuff them down your throat, understand? And don't think this means I like you or anything."
With that, she went back to her room, slammed the door, and I soon heard Queen's "We are the Champions" blasting from her stereo.
I finished washing up, checked my clothes for stains, went to my own room, and shut the door.
"We Will - We Will - Rock You" thumped through the walls. I sat on my bed. It was only 8:00 - still hours before Mom and Dad were due home.
I was scared I looked different or smelled different. I was afraid that anyone who saw me would immediately know that Janet and I had been doing something very, very wrong. Even in Peoria it would be wrong, let alone in Qatar. If anyone found out, we'd likely be stoned to death for incest. My mouth went dry.
And what was I going to do if she wanted to do this again tomorrow, or next week. I was perplexed and scared. I thought about all we had done. I couldn't get it out of my head. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
But then I looked in the mirror. I appeared perfectly unchanged. Perfectly normal. Nobody would ever know what had happened. Nobody could tell. I didn't even think differently about Janet. She was still just my horrible sister. No matter how hard I tried, I could find just a single change in the universe.
The difference was that I got a hardon at even just the thought of the words "I miss Dan."