25 comments/ 119006 views/ 50 favorites James Gang Ch. 01: Mean Darbie By: LordOfHell I grew up in a small town, with a nice quiet life—or at least, as quiet as one can get when you have eight siblings. I was the fifth of nine; along with my twin sister Darbie, I was the ultimate middle child. All of us were born no more than a year apart from each other, since Mom and Dad wanted to have a lot of kids, but didn't like the idea of spreading our ages too thin. That would ruin the joy of one or more of the kids having siblings their own age to play with, or some shit like that, they said. Maybe they just liked fucking, and nine stair-steppers was the natural consequence of that. I dunno. Anyway, like I said—I was the middle child, but that wasn't the only thing that made me unique. I was also the only one of us, aside Darbie of course, that had a twin. Darb and I used to argue over which of us was "really" the middle child, although I had a leg up on her because I was actually born first. You know, stupid little kid shit. It seemed so relevant at the time. And then there was one last thing that made me unique: I was the only boy. Or, at least, I was the only one that survived to middle school age. My big brother, Dwight, the second-born, died when he was only nine. I was five at the time, so I remember very little about him. From what my oldest sister Grace tells me, Dwight's death was a radical turning point for our family. Mom and Dad split up and got back together within a year and Dad started drinking around then. From what I've heard my sisters whispering from time to time, Mom never stopped seeing the guy she dated during her and Dad's separation, but that's whole 'nother story. Eventually, we grew up and all of us kids eventually moved out of Mom and Dad's house, except for Caroline, the youngest, who stayed mostly to help deal with Dad's declining health. Like I said, Dad hit the booze pretty hard after Dwight's death, and he eventually developed liver problems that I had to donate a chunk of mine to stabilize. Even afterwards, he had certain complications, and Mom needed help taking care of him in addition to maintaining her salon business. So that task fell to Caroline. I never moved far—I went to college just a few towns upstate and wound up back in town after I graduated. Most of the girls left, though. Grace moved to France and married some doctor there. Sarah met some negro football player and ran off with him, despite Mom and Dad's protests. I haven't heard much from her, but I did hear they'd started a litter of their own since. Rachelle moved to New York, but I heard she was struggling to make it as a chef and considering a move back to our town. Chloe moved to Idaho and became a family rights attorney; I heard she married and divorced about a year ago. And Barbara joined and left the Army; she and her husband decided to do a lot of globe-trotting before they'd eventually settle down and have kids. Well, if you were doing some counting during that list, you may have noticed I missed one name. That's because, like Caroline and I, Darbie never left our hometown, either. She moved out of the house and opened her own pet shop, but that was basically it. She said she didn't want to move away from our quaint little burb, but she couldn't stay at home either with it feeling so empty. I understood. I started a small contractor unit in town because I wanted to stick around and make myself useful. I loved that town, and as far I was concerned, I was going to live my whole life there. Myself, Caroline and Darbie were the only three that never married or had kids of our own. Caroline often complained that it was hard to date when she lived home with Mom and Dad, but she loved them too much to leave. It was Caroline who began to suspect that Mom was still having an affair with the guy she dated years back, but she didn't pry because as long as it wasn't affecting their home lives or Dad's condition, she didn't want to rock the boat. She just noted that Mom did a lot of 'personal styling' house calls, only for her to observe that the same customer's hair looked exactly the same a couple days later. In any case, my contracting business was doing pretty well. There weren't any competitors in our region, and the advantage of living in a small town is that people are always loyal to their own first and foremost. Me and my people did almost all the building for everybody in town, and it was a pretty nice feeling to watch the backwater little placeI grew up in become slowly updated and modernized with my help. It was like I was leaving my mark; one that my kids would eventually be able to appreciate. Whenever I decided to have any. That was another thing: my sex life, or lack thereof. I'd had my pick of girls when I was younger, and Dad used to encourage me to 'break some hearts' when I was old enough to date and fuck. Unfortunately, I did just that a little too often. I let some good ones go in my youth, and although many of them forgave me over the years, they moved on and married. Before I knew it, I was about ten-plus years older than most single bachelorettes in town, and I ain't no cradle-robber, so my only two hopes were to cross my fingers and wait until one of the gals my age became a widow, or to wait for her to get plain old bored with her hubby. But, I wasn't enough of a rat to do either of those. In the end, I settled into a house way too large for a single man to be living in, and just made the best of being a bachelor. One day, I got a call from Darbie. A tree had fallen on the side of her pet shop and she needed someone to remove it and repair the damage. I promised I'd come and take a look at it, so I put some time aside to swing by and check it out that same day. It was a right mess: a big, two-yards thick trunk just leaning right through the side of the shack like it'd been invited in. It seemed that the roots had rotted out of the old thing, and some strong wind must have pushed it against poor Darb's building. I surveyed the damage and let out a low whistle. "This is one fine mess you're in, Darb." "Gee, Captain Obvious. You think? You wanna tell me that the Alps are cold, next?" I just shook my head and smirked. "Still a firecracker. How do you always do these things?" "Don't be an idiot. You can't blame ME for the wind, 'big brother'," she said, folding her arms, "I ain't Mother Nature." "Nah, but you got a mean temper like her." She proved my point by smacking me upside my head. Darbie was always the 'spitfire' of the family, kinda. In reality, there were two sides to her—one second, she was sweet and shy, and the next, she was the meanest handful you ever seen. I usually had the misfortune of being around during the latter moments, so I was usually her primary target . . . or, should I say, 'victim'. Since Darb and I were twins, we saw a lot more of each other than the other kids. She and I were usually in the same classes and age groupings, and in our early years, we were known as the 'terrible twosome', because got into all the trouble. Then, as time went along, and we entered middle chool, I saw a lot less of 'Sweet Darbie' and at lot more of 'Mean Darbie'. Guess which one I was dealing with now. "So are we gonna stand out here in the damn cold, or are you going to tell me if you can fix it or not?" she demanded. "Of course I can fix it," I said with a chortle. "I can fix damn well anything I set a mind to. 'Cept your attitude. I don't know if the Almighty himself could contract that job." She shook her head. "I don't know what's worse—your petty insults or your blasphemy." "Aw, hush, little sister. The Lord knows I ain't mean it." Then, I whispered, "Mostly." Before she could ready her next quip, I tipped my hat and said, "this looks like a pretty big job. You'll probably have to move your stock somewhere until we can finish. Depending on how extensive the damage is, that could take weeks or months." Darbie winced at that estimate. "My poor babies," she said, talking about all those damn critters she kept in her shop. "Where are they supposed to go?" I shrugged. "Beats me. They're damn lucky to survive having a tree fallin' on 'em for one thing. Maybe you should let 'em loose and see if they can make the best of that luck." Her lips twisted angrily. "They're domesticated animals, dummy, not bred for the wild." I shook my head and sighed. "Then what's the point of bein' an animal if you can't even survive like one? Critters like that, they're more like imitation PEOPLE than what God intended them as." That set her off. Raising her arms in agitation, she stormed back to her building, her short little legs pacing quickly as she hurried along. I watched her leave with a smirk on my face, always happy to get the final word against Darb. It felt good to watch her storming off like that, although watching the way her tight little ass bounced back and forth as she walked in those tight jeans made me wonder why the hell she was the only single gal in town our own age. There may have been a shortage of single middle-age women, but the market was cornered on bachelors my age. I knew this, because I hung out with most of them. But whatever, it wasn't my problem. Between the thick glasses, flannel shirt, jeans and boots she always wore, I could sooner assume Darbie was a dyke and leave it at that. I didn't approve of dykin', but that was a problem between them and the Big G. Were it up to me, I'd just throw some jello on 'em and pull up a chair. Somehow, though, Darbie managed to get rid all of those critters. How, I have no idea, but I did notice a few more dogs and cats in yards that hadn't had them some weeks back. I doubted she sold all of the beasties, but the how of it didn't concern me. Me and my boys were ready to roll when we got the okay from her. "Just be careful with my stuff," Darbie said to me on day one. "Huh? Stuff? What stuff?" I asked. "Hello? Anybody in there?! I LIVE here, 'big brother'!" As usual, she was using the 'big brother' title as an insult, throwing in my face all those times I claimed to be the older, more mature of us. "You lived in a damn pet shop?" I said, dumbfounded. "Above it, yeah," she told me. "My bedroom was the worst room hit when this damn tree crashed though." "You could have been hurt!" "But I wasn't," she retorted. "But thanks for worrying about me," she added with a warm smile. I rubbed my hands through my hair. The job had just gotten more complicated than I'd expected. "So now we're gonna have to move all your stuff out?" "Huh? Why?" she asked oafishly. "I thought you were just going to repair the damn wall." "Darb, it's not that simple anymore." "Maybe it is, but you're just acting too brain-dead to see it . . . 'big brother'." I pinched the bridge of my nose, holding back the urge to smack the back of her head. "Darb, you could have major structural damage. This building is older than our grandparents, and there's no telling how well it was holding up even BEFORE this started. Even if that weren't true, you CAN'T stay here while we're working, so me and the boys are gonna have to move your things out." "Oh," she said dejectedly. She really hadn't known, and I could tell that she felt remorseful for not having though that far ahead. "I'm sorry, brother." That was the Darbie I rarely ever saw anymore—the sweet girl who used to be best friends with everybody. Of all the kids in the house, Darbie had usually been the one who got along with everybody else. She even got along with the other kids in school—even the boys who tried to pick on her when she was smaller, or the jerks who tried to hit her up when she was older. Everybody in town liked Darbie, but few of them knew about the other side of her—the one that her twin brother Kenneth saw on almost a daily basis. "Don't worry about it," I said, bested by her saccharine demeanor. "We can take care of it." "I can pay you extra," she insisted. "Nah, we're barely gonna charge you anything as it is," I corrected her. "What?! But a job like this has to be expe—" "You're my little sis, Darb," I told her, placing an easy hand on her shoulder. "Our business is doing dandy without me tryin' to squeeze blood from blood. I'm gonna take care of most of the expenses and the guys will receive the same pay they always do. Heck, Ol' Chuck Willingham even offered to do it for free if I let him date you." "Oh? And what did you say?" she asked, transfixed with her cool blue eyes. "I told him that I have a track record of punching guys who put the moves on my twin sis, and that it was his call if he wanted to risk it after that. I guess we'll know how it turns out in a matter of days." She smiled at me, giving me a long, satisfied look before she said, "Good." I didn't know what that meant. 'Good' that I protected my sister's honor? 'Good' that I gave the guy a shot? 'Good' that she could finally be on a date for the first time in fifteen-or-so years? Unfortunately, she changed the subject before I could tease her about it further. "Where are you gonna move my stuff to?" she asked. "Well, the nearest storage depot is fifty-seven miles down the highway," I told her. People rarely needed to store things here, what with there being plenty of space to build sheds, barns, cellars, or whatever else they needed, but I doubted anybody in town had enough room to store all of Darbie's things at last notice. And that still left the issue of where she'd be bunking. She could stay at the inn in town, but that would be an awful waste of money. In the end, there was only one solution I could think of that made sense. "I live in a big ol' house by my lonesome," I told her. "No kids and no missus to ask for permission. All your stuff'll fit easy, and I got plenty of extra rooms." Her eyes widened at the offer. "You . . . you'd let me bunk with you, brother?" "Why the hell not? Be nice to wake up and see something resembling a woman around the house," I teased. To my surprise, she didn't hit me for it. The joke probably went over her head, I figured. "You gonna move my stuff in today?" she asked. "Yeah. We gotta do it before we get to the real work, so we might as well get it outta the way. You can come in with us, but make sure you wear a hard hat and keep out of any spots that look weak." "Okay," she nodded, and we immediately got to work. Me and the boys took the time to get Darbie completely setup in her temporary digs so that she could feel just a little bit at home while we did our work on her building. There wasn't quite as much as I expected, anyway—Darbie didn't live like most chicks I knew . . . she was completely bare-bones with hardly any furnishing, no nicknacks, and just a closet full of flannel and denim. Nary so much as a painting on her walls. How the hell was she planning to get a man . . . or whatever . . . in this setup, I wondered. The only things I found in frames were one picture of all eleven us together, back when Caroline was just a fetus and Dwight was still hale and hearty, and another photo of just me and Darb, back when we were the 'terrible twosome'. The days when we were nearly inseparable. After we got everything set up, the guys and I left and headed back to her place to get some work done before sundown. When I returned after dark, I found a delicious aroma coming from the house and a light on in the kitchen "Oh, good, I was hoping you'd be back about now," Darbie said as I walked in, led by the sting in my nose and the watering of my lips. "I'm about to take the chops out of the oven." "What's all this, Darb?" I asked, gazing at the mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, corn muffins, and a six-pack of beer strewn about my kitchen table. "You and your boys are doing me such a favor, I thought I'd do a little something and fix you dinner," she told me. "I had to go out to the store for most of this stuff, though. You don't keep nearly enough food in your pantry for a man of your age and weight." "I get by just fine," I said, eyeing her for snooping. "But you didn't have to do any of this. I told you, you're my little sister. It's my job to take care of you." "You're older by about four minutes, 'big brother'" she said, once again mocking my seniority. "So, I think I'm entitled to do a little 'takin' care' of my own." I decided not to press it. Arguing was doing nothing but giving me more of an appetite, so I sat down and eagerly waited for her to put some porkchops on my plate. The entire dinner was absolutely fantastic, and afterwards, I followed Darb through her section of the house we discussed the renovations on her place. "Yeah, it looks like it's going to take at least a month, if it can be salvaged at all," I told her. "The building had some really bad weather damage, and if that tree hadn't fallen on it when it did, it's likely the building could have caved in about ten years or so down the road, or even sooner, if the conditions were just right. Or 'just wrong', as the case may be. " "Oh. I'm sorry, Kenny, I didn't know," she said sweetly. "Nah, don't be. Just be sure to thank the Almighty that he sent that tree through your place when he did. I don't think he could have sent a clearer message for you to get the hell out of there." She nodded, though she seemed sad. She had lived in that place ever since she'd moved away at eighteen. Now, at thirty-three, it had become more her home in some ways than the one we'd grown up in. I decided to try and cheer her up by talking about a positive subject. "So, why did you decide to live in a pet shop anyway?" "It wasn't a pet shop when I moved in," she told me. "It used to be a china shop owned by Old Miss Kurtman until she passed way back." "I remember Miss Kurtman!" I chortled. "She was the old bat who had the hots for Dad." "Yeah, but she was a sweet old thing. She gave me my first job when I was sixteen, and she left me the deed to the shop when she passed. I didn't know anything about china, though, so I gave them all to her kids and grandkids and converted the shop into a pet store. I always did like animals." "Why animals?" I asked her. "We didn't even have pets in the house when we were kids. Mom was allergic." "I know, but . . . well, actually, I think it was less about 'animals' and more about just having something to take care of." "A maternal instinct?" I said. "You just wanted to have kids?" "I guess," she shrugged. "Yeah." "Then why didn't you? With your looks, you could've had any pick of the boys in town. Still could, in fact. Why settle for pseudo-motherhood when you could just settle down have the real thing?" She glanced away, and I could tell that I'd hit a sensitive spot with that question. Her reluctance was giving one of my most likely theories more weight. "Look, Darb, if you're a . . . if you don't like men . . . then you don't have to feel ashamed to tell me. I'm your twin brother, and I'll love you no matter what. Mom and Dad might be a little upset because they're old-fashioned. They didn't like it when Sarah ran away with that black boy, but if you told them it made you ha—" "Dammit, Kenny, what the hell are you talking about? I'm not a dyke!" "Oh," I said, feeling a complete fool. "I'm sorry, I just thought—" "It's the jeans and flannel, isn't it?" she accused me. "I figured people probably whispered about it behind my back, but it was just practical, okay? Dealing with so many animals all day gets a little messy, so there's hardly any point to wearing fancy, expensive clothes when they just get mussed on or torn to shreds. I wore this stuff because I had to, not because I wanted to." Well, that shut me up. "Sorry, Darb. That's what I get for assuming, and not taking the time to ask my sis a proper question." Again, she shrugged. "It's okay, I guess." James Gang Ch. 01: Mean Darbie "So why were you so shy when I asked why you didn't have a man? Don't tell me it it's just because you're sheepish!" "Well, maybe," she admitted. "It's just . . . there was always a guy I liked, but I never said anything to 'im until it was too late. Then he moved on, and I never thought to bring it up again." Now I was curious. Who was this mystery crush of my sis's? "Got a name for lover-boy?" I asked. She ignored the question and looked down at her dresser, glancing at the picture of all eleven of the family, back when we were all together. "You remember this, brother?" she asked me. "Of course I do," I told her. "That was probably the best time in our family . . . right before Dwight fell out of the treehouse and everything else went to hell." She smiled wistfully. "Dwight laid in our backyard for half an hour with his skull fractured before Mom found him. Dad blamed her for not watching him, and Mom couldn't cope with the guilt. They got divorced a month or so later, and Mom moved in with Benny Hines, the railroad engineer. Dad took to boozing and it was up to Grace and Sarah to really run things on their own." "Things got worse until Dad got arrested for being drunk and disorderly," I continued. "A few months later, Mom moved back in and the two of them reconciled, but I think it was just for us. I don't think they've had many happily married days since then, but they hide their pain fairly well." She glanced at me with a soleful expression. "Do you think Mom . . . y'know . . . still sees him? Mr. Hines?" I shrugged. "Who knows? Carol seems convinced, and she's the only one of us that lives there. But, I'm not going to pry." "It just pisses me off," Darb said through clenched teeth. "He's married now and she got back with Dad. Why would they continue to see each other behind their spouses' backs?" "Some folks are just built different than others," I told her. "That's assuming that Mom does it at all, I mean. Maybe she still loves him, and he still loves her, even though they're forced to endure their marriages for the greater good." "The 'greater good'?" she said incredulously. "'Big brother', please tell me you don't believe in compromising your morals for something like that!" "Like I said, not my place to judge," I told her, "but I don't have to agree, either. That's largely the reason I never settled down, either. When I find the one, it'll be her—just her. And no force on Earth is going to keep me from her. And I don't aim to court in secret, either. I plan to take the woman I marry for walks through town, and hold hands by the lake. Love ain't worth nothing to me if you can't do it right." Darbie was smiling at me as I said my piece, but her eyes still looked sorta sad. I wondered what she was thinking at that moment. Was her mystery man someone that she wanted to approach, but couldn't? She'd said that he'd moved on, so maybe he was someone she would only be able to love in secret, away from his wife and their family? There were lots of messages being sent through that forlorn glance of hers, but I could hardly pick out nary a one of them. Then, her eyes went to the second picture—the one of her and me as kiddies. "I think I'm the only one of us that kept THIS picture. This one was from when Mom and Dad were apart, and big sisses were in charge." "I remember," I said. "If I recall right, you did a pretty decent job of holding us together, too." "Noooo," she denied modestly. "No, seriously. You made all of us get along. When Chelle and Clo used to start fighting over toys and whatnot, you used to break them up." "Yeah, but they were just four and three!" she said. "And we were just five!" I persisted. "Yet you knew that if we were going to make it as a family, we had to pull together to help Dad. Grace and Sar wouldn't have been able to maintain the household without you there doing the peacekeeping and changing Barb and Carol's diapers every so often." "Oh yeeeeeah," Darb said thoughtfully. "They DO owe me for that." I chuckled. "Good luck finding Barb. She's probably off to Katmandu by this point. And you better hurry up with Carol. If she decides to up and leave home, you might never get another chance." We both shared a chuckle and Darbie stared into my soul with those soft blue eyes of hers. "Thanks, brother. You've really been looking out for me." The way she looked at me then, never had I felt so strong and confident in myself. But it also made me reevaluate the relationship I'd had with my twin sister over the past twenty or so years. We hadn't always gotten along, and there had been segments when we were hardly even speaking to each other. Heck, before she called me about her place, I hadn't spoken to her in over 15 months, even though we lived just a few miles from each other. I wondered if I had really done right by my sister. She had been living alone in some pet shop squalor for all these years and not once had I even dropped in to check on her. I just assumed that if she needed help or anything, she'd call as she did with this emergency. But, there were degrees of 'help' that people didn't like admitting to. Plenty of people felt trapped by everyday life and needed someone to help them break out of it, but were either too proud or too scared to ask for it. I assumed that Darb was a little of both. Underneath that 'spitfire' exterior, there was still the same sweet Darb I had known all those years back. "Darb, if you ever need me for anything," I told her. "Anything at all, I'll be there. I know I don't say that to you much, but—" She smiled and lightly rose a hand to my cheek. "It's okay, Kenny. If you're thinking you've been a bad brother to me, you haven't. You've always been good and sweet and kind. That's why I knew I could depend on you to help me with this. If anything, it's been ME that's been in the wrong all this time, and I should be the one apologizing for deceiving you all these years." "Huh? Deceiving me?" I asked. "What do you mean?" Darb bit her lip and stepped away. "Nothin'. I don't mean nothin'." I could see her withdrawing from me again, and I saw the layers of the 'Mean Darbie' shell coming up as a defense. "Don't do that!" I shouted, keeping myself in her personal space, not allowing her to back off from me, physically or emotionally. "Tell me what's wrong. You know that I'm gonna love you no matter what." "Just, shut the fuck up and let it go, 'big brother'" she snapped. Darb tried to fight, but I grabbed her shoulders and wouldn't let her go. No matter how much she struggled or cursed me, I made it clear that I wasn't going nowhere until she came clean and told me what was on her mind. Finally, she caved, and she sat down on a chair as she began opening up. "Well, I meant it when I said that it wasn't YOU who had been the jerk all this time, and that it was me who'd been lying to you. But, what I was saying was that I intentionally changed my attitude toward you. I intentionally put up that 'Mean Darbie' side—as you used to call it—and directed it almost completely at you. Just you." I had always suspected as much, but I never thought that Darb would outright admit that she'd done it on purpose. So, in the end, I was only left with one question. "Why?" "I don't know exactly when it started. When we were kids, maybe. When you used to beat up guys who tried to tease me or hit me. I eventually wanted to learn to take care of myself, and not rely on you. I wanted to become tougher and meaner, so that you wouldn't always have to come running when little sister was crying." "That's what big brothers d—" "Shhhh. Don't interrupt," she told me. "I'm on a roll, and if I don't get this off my chest now, I may never have the courage to do it again. "Anyway, I truly started putting it into practice when we got to high school. That was when I decided to become 'Mean Darbie' to you all the time, and intentionally provoke and antagonize you." She could sense that I was going to ask why again, so she got right to it. "You were always dating girls. Bimbos. Floozies. Just anyone who you could hook up with for a few months, get what you wanted, and then kick to the curb. I hated seeing that. I hated them for being such cheap whores, but I hated you more for caving to them. To being something that was beneath you. You were better than that, and in my own way, I was trying to show you." My eyes met the floor—Darbie was telling the truth. I was a real cad in high school, largely because of what Dad had told me. 'Break some hearts' he said. Of course, I was taking the advice of a drunkard with a failed, loveless marriage, so I really shouldn't be surprised that some odd decades later, I was still single and dateless. Not to mention that it seemed that when I was out there 'breaking hearts', the one I broke the most belonged to the sister who looked up to me. "I'm sorry, Darb," I said weakly. "I was an idiot back then." "And you're one now, too, if you keep interrupting me," she said, unshackling 'Mean Darbie' for a fraction of a tick. "God, I'm trying to make a confession here, and you're not making this any easier." "Sorry," I said. She took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. "Okay, Kenny, what I'm about to tell you is something that I've been living with for the past twenty or so years of my life, and whatever issues I have buried deep inside are going to rely upon me coming out and saying them now. So, here goes." She sat in the chair with her hands folded, looking soulfully into my eyes. "Kenneth . . . I have been madly in love with you for over twenty years." The words hit me like a kick in the nuts. I had to echo them two or thrice times more before they finally truly registered. "W-What . . .!? Darb, what the hell are you talking about?!" She stood and walked around the room, hugging her arms around herself, obviously becoming a greater nervous wreck the more she thought about what to say. "I told you that there's a guy that I'd had my eye on for a while, right? A guy who 'moved on' without me? Well . . . that guy was you, up to the day went to college. I know you were only a few towns away, and you visited often, but to me it felt like you were that much farther. While the rest of our sisters were looking for ways to get out of this town and start their lives elsewhere, I felt compelled to stay here—to wait for you to return. Lucky for me, you decided to stay here after all, because if you had moved away . . . I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have just found some excuse to follow you." I couldn't believe these words were coming out of my sister's mouth. "Darbie, this . . . this is crazy talk you're sayin'. Just tell me that you're jerkin' my chain right now so that we can end this foolishness." But she only looked at me with those same solemn eyes. She didn't burst into laughter and yell 'gotcha' or shrug her shoulders and say that she was only foolin'. It took me a few minutes more to realize . . . she was dead serious. My sister was standing in my house, confessing her love for me. "It's okay if you don't like it," she told me sadly. "I've been preparing half my life for that likely outcome. But, it won't change how I feel. I've come to grips with this for a loooong time. I can't think of you without longing. I can't look at you without fantasizing your arms around mine. I've tried so hard to look at you as just a 'brother', and not the man that I love, but I just can't. When that didn't work, I tried to drive myself to hate you . . . to be as mean a sister to you as I could be so that you wouldn't even want to be near me. But that has backfired, and you've only made me love you more. So now, I've accepted that I'm going to love you . . . I'm going to pine for you . . . for the rest of my days, and I'm happy with that. "Like you said, you need to find some woman whom you can love openly. Someone whom you can showcase to our friends, our family, the whole town and say: 'This is my woman!' I will totally support you when you do that, even as I long for what could have been. I will love your wife like a sister, and your kids as my nieces and nephews . . . but you will never be just 'my brother'. For me, you will always be my soulmate . . . the one that God teased me with the day we were born together, but wouldn't let me have. The one that, in another lifetime, I could have met on some expensive yacht, far from home, and lived happily ever after with." She sank back down into her chair. "If that's my lot in life, then I accept it. I've been in love with you for twenty years, and that isn't going to change." I didn't say anthing at all. There was nothing I could say to that. That was a far more candid, more honest, and more HORRIFYING confession than I'd expected from my twin sister, and there was nothing in this world that could have prepared a response to it. I walked out of the room and went into my den, where I immersed myself amongst all of my carpentry books and personal power tools. Sinking into my chair, I thought about everything I'd just heard. I had no clue what I was going to do—I still hadn't even processed how it made me FEEL yet. On the one hand, for the first time in my life, a woman had confessed undying love for me. It was something I had dreamed about, fantasized about, every day of my adult life. There she was—this gorgeous, strong-willed beauty, telling me the words that every man wants to hear. I'd take her in my arms, tell her how I felt, and then we'd race off to the church to be wed. And here I was, with that first step just becoming reality for me. Except that it was from my OWN DAMN SISTER! I was torn between two conflicts: telling my sister that it was unacceptable for her to feel this way about me, or just ignoring it and attempting to pick up our lives as it used to be. In my mind at the time, those were the only two realistic options available, but I wasn't sure which one would work out best. The first might break my sister's heart, or even worse, it'd cause her to never open up to me again, leaving me to deal with something much like 'Mean Darbie', except even more unsettling. The second was, apparently, what Darbie seemed prepared for, but I wasn't so sure *I* could handle it. We lived in a small town, so we were bound to bump into each other in the future. What if I DID find another woman, and Darbie wanted to come meet her and the kids? Do I try to ignore what she told me? Ignore the fact that seeing me and another woman make the happy family she always wanted would tear her apart inside? Could I really do that to my own sister? Could I shut my sister out of my life completely? Taking away the one person that she says matters most to her? And was my sister even as strong as he claimed to be? It might be easy to SAY that you can bury feelings, but to do so over years and years . . . feeling thousands of pangs of guilt, remorse, loss and jealousy for the rest of your life . . . few people were really prepared to deal with that. I decided to take a shower and go to bed. I needed to do a lot of thinking—more thinking that I could do in one night. ****** I went to work early and my crew and I did some measurements and planning for how best to go about Darbie's reconstruction. The whole time, my mind was elsewhere, and I was hardly any help during the heavy lifting. I almost threw my back out one or two times trying to move some crap that I had no rights moving, and at the end of the day, I returned home sore and miserable. Even worse, I knew Darbie would be there, and I still didn't know what to say to her. Again, there was an amazing smell coming from my kitchen, and Darbie was there, with an apron over her flannels, finishing up a full course meal. "What I said doesn't change anything between us," she told me. "I intend to have a hot meal waiting when you come back from the site everyday, until I go back to my regular life." I said I understood, but I was still conflicted. Eating her food seemed like I was abusing her feelings now, but my stomach wouldn't let me complain. Darbie was a damn good cook, and a miserable day at work sure as shit works up an appetite. Afterwards, I retreated to my den again, and I didn't see Darbie the rest of the night. This went on two more days, until I finally began to figure out what I wanted to do. Telling Darbie to stop feeling how she did wouldn't solve anything. She'd probably just lie, and if she tried to move out of town or put some distance between us, I'd feel guilty if she ran into trouble far from home. I wouldn't ignore her feelings, either. What she had said couldn't be unsaid, regardless of what I may have wanted. So that left me with the only feasible option: just getting on with our lives. Darbie said that nothing would change between us, and I didn't intend for it to, either. She was still my sister, and I would still love her—one way, if not another. Things would be awkward for a while . . . possibly forever, but we would work through it like we always have . . . as a family. When I got home that day, dinner was waiting just as always. "Hey Kenny," she said, placing a plate of beef roast on the table. "Hey, Darb," I said, ignoring the delicious meal and crooking a finger at her. "Follow me for a sec, wouldja? We gotta talk." "Sure," she said, defeatedly. I guess she had been waiting for this moment ever since the day she confessed. We sat in my den, and I gathered my thoughts. I had prepared a careful speech in my head and now, it was time for me to recite it. Except I hadn't had this many butterflies in my stomach since giving a my final presentation in speech class. "Darbie, I started," deliberately pacing myself. "I thank you for telling me what you did. That took a tremendous amount of guts on your part, and I can't imagine how much pain you had to have been in all these years. I only hate that I wasn't able to notice it before, and maybe help you through it before it turned into something that hurts you as much as it does today." She nodded, but she waited for me to continue. "You're my sister, and I love you, but what you're telling me . . . it's just not right. I can't tell you how to feel, but I want to urge that you at least TRY looking elsewhere. There are plenty of great guys out there, in this town especially, and any one of them would be lucky to receive even a TENTH of what you've shared with me these last few days. I want you to be happy. That's my first and main priority as your big brother --" I decided to make a last-minute alteration to that part "—as your TWIN brother who loves you and wants the best for you. I think that, in time, you will see that there are better men than me for you, and you can put all of this completely behind you." I finished, feeling slightly proud of myself for remembering the whole damn thing. When she knew that I was finished, Darbie nodded again. "Thanks, 'big brother'," she said, completely ignoring the alteration I had made, "and I guess all I can do is try. But, before we go and eat dinner, there was something else I wanted to say to you, too." "Oh god," I said with a smirk. "It's not 'GOTCHA!', is it?" She smiled, but didn't humor me. "I just wanted to tell you . . . thank you, for being such a wonderful man. And one day, you're going to make some lucky girl really, really happy. But, until that day, I don't think it'll ever really settle into my head that you're not my soulmate. I can try to meet other guys, but as of right now, I have absolutely no interest in anyone but you. Call it selfish of me, but as long as I'm able to, I want to pretend. Until the day you slide a ring on that lucky someone's finger, I want to look at you and think 'My Man'. I want to think of you and fantasize. James Gang Ch. 01: Mean Darbie "I know this goes counter to half what you just said, but I want that just for a little while. And I—I just thought that you should know." Somehow, this speech got to me even more than the first one did. Perhaps it was the reaffirmation that let me know just how serious she was, or maybe it was the fact that, in her mind, she thought we were already together. In either case, she caught me off-guard yet again. "Darb," I said, taking her hand gently. "I don't think I could stop you if I wanted to, so I guess the only thing I can do is tell you that I accept it." I squeezed her hand. "Believe me, if it weren't for our blood, I'd seriously consider this." She squeezed my hand back and smiled. "I know, my darling." As she looked into my eyes and said that nickname, I could see, for the first time, what she was thinking clear as a summer sky. She was having an 'episode'. With me holding her hand like this, she was lost somewhere in the reaches of her fantasy, in that secret place where she and I were lovers, and we explored our deep feelings for each other. She had brought that to the surface, just for an instant, allowing me to catch a glimpse of what she truly felt. And, I was surprised that the reality of it felt . . . uncannily good. When Darbie looked into my eyes and called me 'My Darling', for a brief moment, I didn't see my sister. I saw her just as she saw me: as the perfect soulmate, as someone who I loved and loved me against all odds and conditions. Someone who would always be by my side, regardless of how bad things got, or how much things changed. I saw someone kind, strong and sexy. Someone who deserved true love. And when that moment passed, when I stepped from Darbie's point of view and back into my own, I came to a shocking realization: nothing had changed! I still felt that way about Darbie. I still saw those exact things when I looked at her . . . and now, I was beginning to realize that I always had. Just as she said, this didn't change anything between us. Something came over me, and I leaned forward, slowly, gently pressing my lips to hers. Darbie whimpered softly, and as soon as our lips touched, the instinct which dwelled on the edge of her fantasy took control. Darbie had spent twenty years dreaming of this fantasy, and she had become remarkably good at allowing it to define her reality. When she kissed me, it was without hesitation or surprise. It was with complete acceptance. Complete longing. It must have been contagious, because I could feel the same feelings pouring into me. I nipped at her lips, loving caressing mine to hers, our heavy breathing loud and deafening. Eventually, she grew bold enough to slip a tongue into my mouth, and my body accepted eagerly, sucking upon it with my lips and dabbing it at the tips of it with my own. Our lips remained locked for several minutes before I finally broke away, taking one last effort to regain my sanity. I wanted to look at her with clear vision one more time before I went somewhere I may never have come back from. She gazed at me with doeish eyes, holding her breath as she waited for me to make a choice. I could see that she was still on the brink; one more push and she could go right back into her fantasy, while one last yank backward would allow her to close it off as nothing but a fond memory. But there was something else in her eyes, too: yearning. As much as she was prepared to end this here, she was silently begging me to continue. She didn't care how logic dictated this should end. She didn't care about whether this would end in happiness or tragedy. She just wanted me. She wanted me to continue . . . to let her pretend, just this once, that weren't just soulmates. That we were lovers. And now, I was curious to know how it felt, too. I pressed my face to hers again, and that was the signal. We stood up and immediately began to take each others' clothes off, walking toward my bedroom all the while. We left a pile of shirts, pants, socks and underwear on the floor as she climbed upstairs, completely nude by the time we reached the door to my room. Our hands were all over each others' naked bodies, and for the first time, I truly admired the gorgeous ass of my sister's that I'd only noticed before in passing. The more of her body I touched, the more I was in awe of it. Her skin was silky smooth, and she even displayed quite a few impressive bits of muscle, gained from twenty years of tough work. THAT fact only made me want her more. I pushed her backward onto my bed, and lorded over her with my nude body and erect cock. She feigned helplessness as she splashed on my mattress and writhed her gorgeous naked body before me. She looked up and saw stiff did standing at attention, pointing directly at her as if she'd been chosen. "Oh yesssss . . ." She breathed. "Yes, come here, please. Please, brother . . . come to me." I crawled on the bed after her, and she eagerly spread her legs and reached out to welcome me. When my body was atop hers, my hands held her meaty thighs while I put my tongue on her womanly area. I had never eaten a pussy before in my life, and had never even wanted to . . . but I was sure as shit gonna eat this one! I buried my mouth on her mound and began munching as if this had been what she cooked for dinner. I took in the smell of her sex, captivated by the aroma and only enticed more by the thought that it was my sisters—my twin's. We had both been born on the same day. Thirty-three years we emerged in life naked together, and it took all these decades for us to come full circle again. "Oh, brother, I love it . . ." my sister breathed, rubbing her fingers through my hair ". . . but this isn't what I NEED. Please, my darling . . . I've waited so long. Give me what I need . . ." I wanted to stay and enjoy her pussy with my tongue a little longer, but I couldn't ignore her pleas. Obediently, I crawled forward between her thighs, and her eyes lit up eagerly. I could see her lips trembling and her chest heaving, in deep anticipation. I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for her. This exact scene must have played out in her mind more times than I could fathom, and now, she was moments away from it happening for real. Right here, in her brother's own bed. I didn't waste any time at all. She wanted my cock inside her, and now, I needed it myself. I guided my nob into her slit, and I pushed slightly, allowing half of it to disappear into her chute with one stroke. "YES!!!!!" she screamed. "FINALLY!!!!!!!!!" I pushed a little deeper, and I felt something break. Darbie bit my shoulder to keep from screaming, but I had a feeling I knew had just happened. I'd done enough deflowering in my lifetime to know. "Darbie, honey . . .?" I said softly, "were . . . were you a VIRGIN?!" "Don't talk," she growled. "Just fuck me. Please. FUCK ME." The lady didn't need to tell me twice. I locked our hands together and pinned them to the mattress as I started pounding deep into my twin sister's pussy. She started moaning, and she locked her legs around me, trapping me against her as though letting me go would somehow allow me to disappear. "I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm not dreaming. I'm NOT dreaming," she said over and over as I pounded into her, I suppose to try and come to grips what was really happening. To add further proof to it, I tightened my grips on her hands, covered her mouth with my own, and pounded her even harder. I suppose my message must have come across, because she came immediately, her thigh muscles tensing as she screamed into my lungs. I enjoyed hearing her muffled cries in my mouth and I began motioning my entire body up and down, putting my entire weight into things as I fucked her. Her groans of muffled passion continued, and she kissed my face all over, showing me all of the affection that had been buried inside all of these years. "Oh Kenny, I'm in heaven. I know for sure I'm not dreaming anymore, because in my dreams, it isn't this good!" "Oh, I'm only getting started, baby," I told her confidently. "No, Kenny," she said, her head falling back on the pillow so that she could look into my eyes, still with those thick, nerdish glasses on her face. "Believe me, baby, I want to feel everything you have to offer, but not tonight. Tonight, Kenny, I want to feel you come inside me. And I want to feel that now. Please?" I grunted my bewilderment, but I didn't slow my pace for a second. "Are you for real, darlin'? I mean, this is one thing, but . . . that—" "Please, big brother," she said,in that hushed 'Sweet Darbie' voice I had known and loved all these years. She kissed me lovingly and then looked back into my eyes. "Even if nothing happens after this evening, I want to be completely yours tonight. I want to have just one night as your woman, and for that, I need you to come inside me while we're both at the peak." Let me tell you something weird. Maybe if she hadn't called me 'big brother' then, I would have had a different response. Anything other than that specific phrase would have let me keep some reason. But, over the years, Darb had conditioned a very passionate reaction from me every time I heard the words 'big brother'. And more than that, this time she said it without sarcasm. Without malice. She actually called me her big brother and believed it, honestly and truly. The things that realization did to me pushed me over the brink. All of the indignation and resentment I usually felt at those words converted immediately into lust and intensity. I was like Pavlov's dog, only my conditioning made me want to fuck. It made up my mind for me. I leaned my body up and put all of my effort into my hips. I ravaged my sister's pussy. I was determined to sacrifice neither depth nor speed as I quickened and pushed my hips to their brink. Even if I'd thrown my back out right then and there, I was determined to fuck her cunt to the hilt, yet at the fastest pace I could muster. "Oh Kenny! You're only man in the world for me! The only one I've ever loved! I don't care what happens after this is over, but do everything to me tonight!" Maybe it was the intoxication of sex. Maybe it was how good her tight, wet pussy felt, but before my head could catch up, my mouth said: "Fuck tonight. You think I'm letting this pussy get away from me?! No chance in hell. From now on, I'm going to fuck this every night. I'm going to fill it with my cum, and God willing, I'm going to make a baby inside of it!" Darbie screamed again, and that triggered me to do so as well. Both of our cries filled my home as I emptied everything I had into her soft, warm womanhood. ****** An hour or two after we finished, I felt Darbie's naked body moving next to me, and it nudged me from my sleep. I woke up to find her getting out of bed and starting to leave the room. As she started to go, I caught her wrist. "Where are you going?" I demanded. "Back to my room," she told me. "I . . . ah . . . I appreciate what you said in the middle of . . . you know . . . but . . . Well, we're back to our right minds now. And I figure you probably need time to—YIPE!!" I shut her up by delivering a strong backhand to her plump ass cheek, marking it deep red, and forcing the meat to jiggle several seconds after impact. "Get back in bed," I told her. "This is your room now, too." Never in my life had I seen Darbie look as giddy as she was then. She pounced her naked body back into bed with me, and my hard-on returned instantly. I pounded her pussy a good three or four times more before dawn, dumping a thick load each and every occasion. ****** A few days later, I returned home and told Darbie that we were probably going to need to tear down her old building. It was completely beyond saving. She feigned distress as she cried, "Oh no! Where will I ever live in the meantime!?" She unbuttoned her shirt, letting the flaps fall aside to reveal her gorgeous tits. "Can big brother cum and rescue me?" I carried her into our room and I did just that. Several times over. By that time, both of us already knew that she was never moving back into that building. I meant what I had said—she was living with me, in my bed, from that moment on. It wasn't long before people figured out what was going on. Hell, we weren't trying hard NOT to tip them off—Darbie and I went for our romantic walks. I held hands with her wherever we went, and neither of us were shy about kissing in public. I had meant what I said about only loving someone 'properly'. Darbie was my world, and I was going to treat her like it. I said to the world, 'This is MY woman!' We were the talk of the town for a while, and a few people tried to shy us away from what we were doing, but we lovingly . . . and respectfully . . . let them know that this was what we both wanted. It made us very happy, and they could either get on board or get out of our way. Unsurprisingly, at least to me, they got on board. Like I said, we were that kind of town. They threw a wedding for us at the town's own expense—apparently, a marriage between twins was such a quaint idea that it brought a cheap bit of excitement to the quiet burg. Everyone congratulated us on the street, and I even saw a few of my exes—girls whose hearts I had broken decades earlier—come out to wish us well. Mom and Dad were stunned, but when we explained what we were doing and why, the two of them looked at one-another and I think for the first time, they saw something they had both tried to ignore for years. Mom took Dad's hand gently and told him that they needed to talk. Caroline, Darbie and me looked knowingly at each other, as we guessed what she wanted to say, but we left the room to give them their privacy. The wedding brought ALL of our sisters from around the globe back home. Grace came home with her French doctor and their two kids. Sarah and her football star brought their litter of six mulattos. Rachelle, Chloe and Barbara moved back into town permanently; they hired me and my team to build a new building for the three of them to share space in, with Rachelle's restaurant on the ground floor and Chloe's law office in the suites upstairs. Barbara, at least 14 weeks pregnant, said that she and her husband were going to settle here, probably trying to open a tourism or travel bureau. Some time after the ceremony, Caroline told Darbie that she was jealous that she 'hadn't thought of this first', and when I laughed it off, she only rose an eyebrow at me and went back to the reception. Darbie just smiled. Needless to say, Darbie never reopened her pet shop. Soon, she had plenty of nurturing to do at home, and we both agreed that we wanted another family like the one we had lived in as children. We were going for at least eight, and we were halfway there only three years later. We got lucky—all of our children where hale and healthy, though we knew we would have to discourage them from following in their Mom and Dad's footsteps. We even had a set of twins. Yep, you guessed it-- a boy and a girl. We'll be keeping an eye on those two . . . THE END