26 comments/ 53243 views/ 43 favorites Narcissus By: MSTarot I could start my story when my brother and I were children. I could tell you about the long years when we did all the normal things children do. The endless days of riding bikes, swimming in the salty water near our home, or hiking in the green hills. Our years on our grandparents farm riding horses. But...no. I will, I think begin my story when I entered my high school years. I should tell you as well, this story...isn't about me. It's about my brother. Tyler Raines. And the year he fell in love. Some people just seem to be born beautiful; others bloom into their looks as they age. Some have an awkward phase when they are all elbows and knees, like myself that first year. My brother? God kissed him in the cradle! There has never been a more photographed baby, I think, in history. He had his picture on the cover of magazines, billboards, and newspapers. Even a thirty second commercial of him just giggling. If Guinness had a category for the most beautiful baby his picture would have been there as well. Me? Not even the cover a dog walkers magazine would have used my pictures as a baby. Modeling agencies approached Mom. After that first year I think she had seen where she was taking her son though. She brought it all to an end. He became just another kid at school. Right... He was attracting girls to him when he didn't even like girls. They would flock to his side. Little giggling hoards all passing him notes. Do you want to go steady... check yes or no? Do you have a girlfriend? If so am I prettier? Have you ever been kissed? If no... would you like to try? The notes I got? What's your brother really like? "Fuck them all!" Damn it...girls are supposed to be the pretty ones! I cried myself to sleep at the injustice of it all on many a night. High school? Right, it was there that things turned strange. You see Tyler started to read and study art. I mean really study it. Then it was poetry. Byron, Shelly, Whitman, and the writing of Edgar Allen Poe became his most favorite. Then how he dressed started to change. No, not over night, it took most of his sophomore year, but if you look at the pictures you can see the difference. When he walked into the school the first day of his junior year, he look like he was born in the eighteen hundreds. He was wearing a waistcoat! Knee high black boots, tight as sin pants, and a white shirt. With an embroidered silver and gray waistcoat. A weirdo? A fruit maybe? NO! They just saw Tyler Raines. The... Male... God... of the whole damn school! He was and is my brother so I love him. Love him more than I am willing to say even in the shadowy parts of my mind. But by the end of that junior year I goddamn hated him. I shit you not the only dates I got that whole year were from guys that wanted to be seen hanging around Him! And the girls? No to hell with that... the women! He had to drive them off! Ever had to see over a hundred people come to your house for your brother's birthday and then a week later you have only about six people show up for yours? Ever found yourself thinking about... Tyler went on a hundred dates before I went on my first. He got away with stuff I would have been arrested for. Mom? Oh he was God's fucking gift to her! Dad? He strutted like the damn cock of the walk every time his son's name got mentioned. Me? I would have had to steal Brad Pitt from Angelina, then have her come over for a threesome just to get them to notice I was alive. It was horrible, and yet...to Tyler I was his brown haired baby sister. He would come to my room and we would talk for hours about everything under the sun. He took me to his junior prom and we danced the night away together. I was the ugly duckling to his beautiful swan but I noticed my popularity increased after that night. And then it happened. Tyler fell in love. He saw the most beautiful person and fell madly in love. He found that person in the mirror. I guess looking back on it I should have seen it a long time coming. There was in the whole school no one in his league. If he wanted to be in love...what teenager doesn't, it would have to be with himself. The sounds of the tread mill going greet me as I make my way down the basement stairs. Stopping at the doorway I stand looking at Tyler. It's a view that the rest of the girls in my school would build monuments and shrines to get to see. Tyler was in the smallest shorts you could put a person his size in. They were almost literately spray painted on him. If he had a pimple on his ass you would have seen it. Not that he's ever had a pimple. On his ass or anywhere else for that matter. His skin is like alabaster marble. Flawless, in every bend and curve of his body. The muscles that move across his back do so with a lover's supple embrace. They seem to flow with a dancer's graceful moves. He runs at a pace that would kill most people after a few minutes. I know that he's been at it for an hour. You see he has a set exercise routine. He got to worrying about how his body looked at some point and decided to fix the little flaws he saw in himself. I think he was three at the time. I don't know maybe two. I was too young to remember really. There is only a year between us after all. Tyler runs. I shake my head at the sensations I feel flowering in me. I know if he wasn't my brother I would be just like the rest of the girls in my school. I would have the bedroom shrine to him. Really I've seen them. They do exist. Our parents, I think, built the home gym purely for Tyler's use. I've been given dirty looks when they find me in here. Like my brother, I love my parents...but they can go fuck themselves. I chuckle. I guess in Tyler's case that's more accurate than for them. My brother turns his head at the sound. The statue notices the dirt at his feet. That's not the look on his face but just the way I feel. "Hey Sabely want the tread mill?" I shake my head. My names not Sabely. It's Sable. Sable Raines. I guess our parents though if they hung a sexy name on me it would make up for me not being as beautiful as my brother. It didn't work. I walk over to the stationary bike. I know he started on this first so I won't be interrupting his workout routine with my choice. That was the source of the nasty looks I've received. Not that Tyler would have ever said a thing if I went to the weights that he will go to next. He would have just skipped on to the yoga mat. I try to keep my eyes on the digital screen in front of me as I peddle but I can't. My eyes are drawn to him again and again. I hate the wet feeling between me and the bike seat that starts to build. He's your brother you twisted bitch! I look away from his glowing body. Not that the statue would ever notice the likes of me. Brown hair. Not brunette, not auburn, not dark and sexy, just brown. Like my eyes. How he got those gorgeous hazel eyes with their flakes of gold I really want to know. Probably the same place he got that raven black hair. I watch the silky mane shift side to side across his shoulder blades as he runs. Worn a good six inches longer than school regs allow he had never been even asked to cut it. As I watch, Tyler runs a hand through his hair. It like seeing a man caresses his lover's hair! So very sensually slow. An intimate caress your not suppose to be there to see. I see my brother's eyes on himself in the huge mirror that takes up one wall of the gym. I can tell he's watching how he moves in the glass. His eyes shift to me. "Got a date for the senior prom yet?" he asks me. Damn, he's not even breathing hard! My face quirks. I hate the way it looks in the mirror. "Why would I? I'm a junior. Hell I don't even have a date for my own prom let alone yours." I look back down from his reflected face and peddle harder. "How about I take you to both? We had a great time last year at my junior prom. You looked wonderful in that blue dress." I look up at him. "I wore green." He smiles and shakes his head. Those pearl white teeth that escaped from a toothpaste commercial flash in his beautiful face. "You wore blue. I remember." He says grinning. Helen may have made a thousand ships sail with a smile. Tyler could have made them turn around with a grin. "The flower I pinned to you was a blue orchid backed with baby's breath white. It would have clashed horribly with green." He stops running and moves towards the weights. I know it was one hour running to the second. I could set a watch by him. I look at my own reflection in the video screen in front of me. He remembers the flower he pinned to me. I look up when he gives an effort grunt at lifting half again my weight. All I can remember is his fingers brushing my breast when he pinned the flower to me. The way my nipple... Clenching my teeth I look down and peddle twice as fast. I blank my mind to everything and just focus on the movement of my feet. Two wet tears drop onto my sweat paints. I see them blur out into twin wet spots on my thigh. I know from a certain view there might be another ..... I grab my mp3 player from off the little table and stick the buds in my ears. The masculine sounds Tyler's making are driving me crazy. I shouldn't have come down here when I knew he was down here. I chuckle to myself. I came down here because I knew he was going to be down here. I'm just as bad as all the other girls. NO! I will not worship him! Pissed I stop the bike and walk over to the treadmill. I hop up on it and hit the start button. My face hits the belt as my feet are taken out from under me! I'm thrown off the back of the treadmill and into a weight rack. "Sabely!" Clutching my jaw and mouth I curl up around the pain in my gut from where I hit something. "Sable? Sabely are you all right." His hands on my side. His finger tips just at the edge of my... Then his other hand at the back of my neck turning me up towards him. The light above him is hidden behind his head. A silver halo shines around his dark hair. I chuckle. Of course it does. Every angel has a halo. All the paintings show that! Tyler moves my hand. I see the concern on his face as his fingers lightly brush my chin and lips. The powerfully male scent of him fills me. I feel a drop of his sweat fall for his body and splash onto my skin. It carries his essence to me like a priest blessing with holy water. Tyler pulls me to him as I start to cry. I clutch at him as the tears flow knowing that the other girls at my school would willingly endure much more pain than what I'm feeling to be held by him. He caresses my hair, my brown simple peasant girl hair. Cow brown, dirt brown. I clutched him to me all the harder. The twin proms are wonderful memories for me. I wear a blue dress to both that matches the one I wore the year before in color if not style. He was right. The pictures showed the beautiful blue orchid against the azure sateen. I could feel the waves of hate coming from the other girls as I danced with my brother. I would pull back and look into those hazel eyes. The very slight difference in our heights making his only a little above mine. He would smile and spin me faster. We didn't bump into anyone as you might think at a dance. The others at the prom all but cleared the floor around him when he danced. On the night of the senior prom when we got back home he stopped us at the front door. With that grin he leaned in and kissed me, a soft brush of his lips against mine. Said it was tradition at proms to kiss your date goodnight. He didn't know how much I wanted to live out another prom tradition with him. And then he was gone. Off to college. Full scholarship. He went with a letter of recommendation from the principle, vice principle, school career councilor, hell the school janitor would have wrote him one if that old fucker could read and write. Of course he was accepted. NASA did his S.A.Ts! Okay...I'm exaggerating, but they were at least given a more than passing glance at by NASA. And Stephen Hawkings checked his physic homework! Mom cried for weeks. The carpets through out the house were soggy from the salty rain. Then he would call and it would be like the sun had came out! All the dark shadows would be banished from the house and his presence would be felt again with a sound of angelic voices from on high. Then the phone would hang up and purgatory would descend upon the house again till his next phone call. My senior year was a constant stream of questions. Has your brother called? Is he coming home for fall break, Christmas, New Years, spring break? Presidents day! I would just shake my head and go about my studies. I was in no way going to be given the easy walk into college that he had been. If anything the teachers resented me for somehow not making him stay here another year. If anything the boys were even worse. They started asking me out in droves because to be seen with me might get the other girls noticing them! They had been out with someone associated with the great Tyler Raines. Tyler called on the night before his birthday to say he wasn't going to be able to make it home after all. Dad was heartbroken. He had to cancel the appearance of the Radio City Rocketts and the magic show with David Copperfield. Mom took to bed for a week. My eighteenth birthday pass unnoticed by them in their depression. Tyler sent me a wonderful card with a poem he had written about his love for his sister. It carried his scent for days. I kept it under my pillow till tears made the paper too soggy and it broke apart. I graduated Salutatorian. Marching bands? Parades? No. We went out to eat because Tyler called to tell me congratulations. I sent out tons of letters to colleges all across the country anywhere but where Tyler was. The only school that sent me one back. The one I didn't send. The scholarship my top grades had gotten me? Well it covered only the tuition. Room and board? Well I could live with Tyler of course. He was staying just off campus in a large loft apartment he had rented from the money he was getting from the paintings he was selling. He has managed to mix poetry and art in a form never before seen that was getting rave review all the way up and down the East Coast. The cab driver warned me about the neighborhood when he dropped me off a block away from the address I gave him. He said there wasn't a big enough tip to get him to ride down those roads. I made him double check the address before he drove off. I walked, carrying my suitcase, down a place I wouldn't have normally walked without...hell I don't know maybe the Marines! That I wasn't robbed, raped and my organs sold before I got to the door is a true surprise. But not as much a surprise as my brother when he opened the door. He was unkempt! I know that sounds silly. Not such a big deal, but you got to understand I've never seen him dirty. He could ride a horse all day, curry it's coat till it shined, muck out it's stall, then feed it... and still look ready for a photo shoot for Flirt magazine. "Tyler?" I had to ask to really be sure. I wanted to check the basement for pods by this point. "Sabely?" Tyler turned away from the open door and fled into the apartment! After a minute of brain readjustment I followed. At first I could see my brother's influence on the place. I saw his paints and canvases near the window on the easel he had used for years. I saw a canvas with one of the half-finished works he had been starting to tinker with just before he left. I saw a single leaf of a newspaper sitting on the table covering his pallet. The gobs of paint on it were dried and cracked. I picked up the paper. "A pretty face is all the talent this artist has." I flinched at the reviews headline. A quick skim of the rest showed it to get worse if anything. I follow my brother's path through the apartment. I'm appalled at the state of the place. Some wouldn't have even seen anything wrong with it but I know my brother. To his sense of neatness this place looked like a tornado had landed here. The bedroom was dark. The windows painted black. When I flick the light switch I see that the walls have been as well. The small bulb barely illuminates the room. It does show me the pile of broken silver glass against one wall. The iron weight lying in the middle of the shattered glass. The dent in the wall. "Tyler?" "Here." His voice is a whisper. I turn to the corner and see him sitting in the dark shadows. By his feet are four empty wine bottles and...one of his beautiful custom made waistcoats! Lying on the floor! I walk slowly over to my brother and kneel down by his feet. The peasant approaches the king and kneels...even when the kingdom seems to have fallen. "I was laughed at." I take his hand into mine. "My first day here. Laughed at. I don't know why... Why would they laugh at me, Sabely?" Reaching down I pick up the waistcoat. I dust off a bit of fuzz. "Most people don't dress like this at college, Tyler." "But I wore that style to school every day? For years!" "Yes Tyler. Around people who already knew you." I look around the apartment. "Luxury loft apartment?" "I had to move out. The cost of living there was too high. I couldn't pay all the bills." I pick up one of the empty bottles of wine. "I saw the review. I take it the art and poetry together is not working out so well? That part of the paying the bills problem?" I see Tyler look down. I raise my hand and cup his chin. Sitting up a bit I lean forward against his knees. His hazel eyes, red rimmed I see, met my brown. "Tyler...brother...I love you. I'm here now. We will get through this together. Okay?" "I don't know what's happened Sabely. I feel like the whole worlds fallen to shit." I stretch out my hand and catch the back of his head. I pull him forward till our foreheads touch. "No big brother nothing changed. You're just in the real world now. This is where the rest of us live." I smile at the confusion in his face. "Come on brother lets get this pig sty cleaned up. Tomorrow we will go see about a better place to live before we get our throats cut." He nods. I see him hug his waistcoat to his chest as he stands up. I realized as I was cleaning up broken shards of mirror just what I'm dealing with. My brother's lover dumped him. How the hell I'm going to fix that I don't know. Or even if I should. Step one. Money. Well of course. Everything in this worlds about money. The first thing I did was get him back to painting. Not the poetry in art stuff that he was working on. Don't get me wrong it's good. Real good. Just maybe a bit before it's time. Give it a few centuries and he will be famous for it. The next day I took Tyler to the huge green field that the sits at the center of the college. I stretched out on a blanket and read my way through 'The Thing on the Doorstep' and 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' Not really my normal cup of tea but I had grabbed up the first book I saw from his place. Tyler painted me. I lay in such a way that I could see him out the corner of my eye. Tyler paints at a furious pace! He learned it from his first teachers. He can bring a blank canvas to a sellable portrait in under an hour. When he's focused. Like he was today. We attracted attention. Because of what we were doing of course. It's not like I was dressed in a bikini or something shocking. Tyler? Well Tyler was dress as Tyler. He had the look of the mid to late eighteen hundreds. I had though about trying to change him into something a bit more modern but he really doesn't have anything newer than nineteen hundred. Besides he's comfortable in it. That's important. His self-esteem has been shattered even more than the mirror was. He needed his confidence back. Narcissus I was just starting on 'The Dreams in the Witch-House' when I heard someone talking to him. Looking back I saw a man and his girlfriend? No they had rings on. His wife then standing next to Tyler. I saw my brother nod after a few seconds. The man smiles and they shook hands. As they walked off I got up and went over to Tyler. "What was that about?" I ask not looking at the canvas. I know he really doesn't like it when his model sees the painting before it's done. "The guy wants me to paint him and his wife's portrait." Tyler points over to the tall bell tower. "Over there after lunch." I grin as part one starts to appear. As I turn to go lay back down I see the canvas. I look away quickly. A single tear falls from my face to the blanket as I resume my pose. Tyler was using a lot of artistic license. The girl in the painting was beautiful. Step two. Make Tyler popular again. That felt like a two edged sword. I was enjoying the lack of worshipers... a lot. The biggest problem I had was I wasn't sleeping well. Not hearing the constant ringing of a phone was keeping me awake. I decided to skip it for the moment. Step three. Patch up the lover's quarrel. I got us moved out of the set of West Side story and into a nice place not to far from the college. I took on a job at a local used book story. When we had no customers, a frequent thing at times, I could study. It didn't pay a ton but with his paintings selling again we managed the rent fairly well. Actually his paintings were helping with step two. He was, after a few weeks, getting a reputation as a wonderful local artist. If a bit eccentric. Anyway, the lovers. Tyler and... Tyler I got him back into the gym. I got us both memberships at a local gym and we were soon regular customers. We also took to jogging around the campus. A very popular past time I soon discovered. The looks he was getting from some of the sweaty young women passing us from the other direction told me step two might be a hell of a lot easier. Tyler hated mirrors now. He had me brushing his hair every morning. I would get up and get ready for school or work depending on the schedule I had for the day. He would either take his books and head for class or his paints and head for the quad. Before he would leave I would get his brush and fix his hair. Now understand me at no point in time has my brother suddenly become any less sexy or beautiful. Not to my eyes or the eyes of any other breathing, walking, talking, non-lesbian female. Hell even a few of them would give him the eye. I would look down into those beautiful eyes in that face an angel would envy and run the brush and my finger through his black hair. I would chase away any tangles that had dared to tempt the ruination of perfection. I finally had to give up on step three for now. I was seriously having a conflict in interest. Step four? Time. He needed time to become a know figure around the school. Time for his little eccentric behaviors to be a know thing about him and for them to be accepted. That became my biggest problem. You see Tyler wanted to have his life miraculously back the way it was. I had to find him a way to see that it wasn't going to happen over night. That lead to depression again. That lead to the night... "Tyler?" The house we had rented was old but had been fixed up. Tyler loved it. It was right in the time line that he felt humans should have never moved forwards from. He spent more time hunting old antique stores for furniture that would be 'right' than I thought was wise. Not that he would buy stuff that was good looking or expensive. No. He converted one of the bedrooms into a workshop and began restoring old furniture whenever he had the time. His favorite piece? A chair. No. A throne! It was a massive piece that you had to take apart to get through doorways. He relined it with a crushed black velvet and deep blue leather. He reapplied the gold leaf by hand and spent hours polishing the thing till it wouldn't be out of place in any castle in Europe. That's where I found him that night. Passed out. The bottle of cognac next to him was a gift from an admirer of his work. The man had begged my brother to paint him nude. Not him nude... Tyler. He wanted to see my brother naked and covered in smears of paint. Get in fucking line! It starts back in Florida! Still it must have been good cognac. I take the glass bottle out his limp fingers and sit it aside. I kneel at his feet, and place my hands on his powerful thighs. I give him a bit of a shake. "Tyler?" He doesn't stir in the least. If not for the even rhythm of his breathing I would have been worried. I reach up and brush his hair out his eyes. I caress that beautiful face that has been my curse. He looks so lost. I lean forward and lay my head in his lap and make no attempt to keep back the tears. The irony of this has been tearing me apart for weeks now. I finally don't have to deal with the life I've had and I'm trying with everything I have to bring it back. I go silent when I feel his hand come to rest on the top of my head. "I'm so sorry Sabely. I never knew. I just didn't think." When I look up I can see he is still severely drunk. For some reason I see again the brother I once had. The one year older version of myself. The boy, who loved to ride horses, fly fish in mountain stream. Go swimming, gather shells. "I've let everyone tell me I was perfect." He says in a whisper. I nod. I see tears falling down those flawless cheeks. "I feel broken inside Sabely. Shattered like that mirror I broke. Thousands of little fragments that all give back the full images but are so much lesser than they were when whole. The worlds ignored you because of me. Hasn't it?" I nod. "You were the most beautiful girl in our school but they never looked beyond me to see you." I see him swallow. I would have to swallow as well after saying such a load of bullshit. "I'm so sorry Sabely." "It's alright Tyler...." "No! It's not!" he stands up quickly then sits back down just as quick. "Whoo...that's some good stuff." I grin at him and chuckle. He looks down at me and his face breaks into a smile. "My beautiful Sabely. I thought I could walk on water. I just didn't know the water was shallow till I stepped into the deep. You saved me from drowning my beautiful Sabely." "Stop calling me that." I tell him my tone a bit harsh. He looks down at me and blinks. "Why?" "I don't like to be teased about how I look." I tell him as I get to my feet. I turn away from his majesty's golden throne and start across the room. His fingers are painfully tight as he catches my arm. I'm spun around like a top. He's standing behind me and he looks cold sober. My brown eyes are almost level with his hazel. "You... Are ... Beautiful!" I look away from him shaking my head. His hand catches my jaw. I 'm turned painfully back to face him. "Do you think I'm beautiful? Most everyone has told me that I am. Do you think so?" I try to move my face away from his but his hand on my chin stops me. "Yes. Now let me go you're hurting me." His hand moves from my chin down my jaw line and around to the back of my head in a second. I feel his fingers grab the hairs at the base of my neck. As I arch up I feel his nose touch mine. "You are almost my twin. I have Mom's hair you have Dads. Other than that we look almost just alike." Twin tears spring from my eyes to run down to my chin in continuos rivers of pain. "Stop Teasing ME!" I see a man then that has gone from drunk to cold sober in seconds. His eyes focus on me with a look of total shock. Suddenly I'm being turned and pushed before him. His strength, sculpted by years of effort, is impossible to resist. I'm taken down the hall and into the bathroom. The square of round lightbulbs springs to life around the only mirror left in the house. I'm pushed forward till my stomach is against the sink and my face is only a foot or so from the silvery glass. I see Tyler move till his face is just beside mine. "I paint portraits Sabely. I know how a person's face is structured. Look at us." Against my will I'm made to compare his loveliness and my plain features. He is even now god like. His dark hair, lovely eyes, full lips, and strong chin. He has the look of the statues of ancient Greece or Rome. Carved from marble, polished till all the edges flow perfectly. Touched by the maker's hand and given a glory that will last till time breaks all beautiful things. Me? I look like ...me. I see him slowly shake his head. He leans even further forward his body pressing full up against me. "You look beautiful. Why can't you see it?" I feel the warmth of him against me. For a second I want to feel it even more. To feel it from his bare skin. I push back against him trying to drive him off me. I'm again turned in his hands. My back goes against the cold tile walls. My brother's eyes are just inches from mine. I can see those wonderful flakes of gold that set his eyes so far above all the rest of us. I choke down what I'm feeling. "I..." the words wont come out. "I'm ugly Tyler. Why can't you see that? Why are you teasing me like this? Why? WHY!" I slam my hands against his chest trying to drive him back. He turns lose of my hair and grabs my wrists. My arms are driven out to the side of me and he leans into me. I feel his words as feather whispers against my neck. "I took to the prom three times the most beautiful woman in our whole damn school. I felt like I was the god of the dance floor because I was dancing with that gorgeous woman. I..." "Stop IT!" I scream "Stop it please..." my words trail off into tears. His arms are warm as they close around me. He holds me as I cry into his chest. His hands slide through my hair like fingers of silk. I feel him crying into my neck. "Sabely...What do I have to do? What do I have to say?" his words are whispers. "Why wont you believe me?" I hold the Angel of God against me as I cry out my last breath of self-pride. All the years of pain begin to roll over me. All the little slights from our parents at how I'm so much less than his loveliness. I claw at his back, my nails digging into his skin. I feel a need to hurt him. To make him feel all he pain I have felt. The hungry need to be looked at the way he has been. I slowly pull myself back from his embrace. I look at his face. That gorgeous face. I have an almost overwhelming need to break it. To destroy something beautiful. "Why wont I believe you?" I bring my hands to his chest and shove him from me! "Why...? You're so beautiful you had to fall in love with yourself! No one in our whole school was good enough for you! You're never going to understand what it's like to be ugly!" I flee the bathroom and run to my bedroom. I slam the door shaking the whole of that end of the house. Maybe five seconds after I fall crying into the bed my door lock shatters. The door flies inward hard enough to strike the inner wall and dent the plaster. Tyler stumbles a bit holding onto the doorframe. "What the Fuck are you talking about?" Shaking I lean my back into the fancy eighteen seventies headboard. "The only person you have ever met that was beautiful enough for you to love is yourself." His eyebrows come together. "What in the fucking hell ever gave you an idea like that?" I slowly bring my hand down from in front of my mouth. I have never in all our years seen him this angry and yet... confused? How can he be confused about this? "You sit looking into your own reflection for hours Tyler. You caress your own face like a lover. You have burned out hair dryers primping your hair. You...." "Wait, wait, wait!" he moves forward and crawls onto the foot of my bed. A slow smile is starting to grace his mouth "You think that's why I look in mirrors? Sabely I was studying the bones. You have to know how to paint the understructure of a person's face. I needed to know how the bones move." I look at him. It takes a second of two for what he says to register. 'And the hair dryers?" I ask. "I like the way hot air against my face feels. Always have. I'm a sensualist." He shrugs. "I just like the way it feels." As I watch he crawls up my bed on his knees. A smile is definitely starting to form. "Come on. Keep it going. Why else do you think I'm in love with myself?" "After your junior year you never took a single girl from our school out ever again. Why not?" I grab my old stuffed rabbit, Mr. Fluffles, off the bed and pull him up tight against my breasts. I see him stop. He settles down on the bed his leg against mine. I follow his eyes to my bare feet. I tuck them up under me ashamed of the unpainted toenails. "You're partially right there. I didn't date the girls from the school after a certain time. It wasn't my junior year. It was after my junior prom." "But Casidy?' Tyler chuckles. "Casidy and me never dated. I was teaching her fine line drawing. I'm the wrong gender for her tastes." I know my eyes go the size of dinner plates! "Casidy?" He nods. "But...but... But I got undressed in front of her in the gym locker room!" I think back to those memories and feel a shiver of...I don't know what. "I know. When we...went out...she said she would love to teach you how to dress properly. If for no other reason than to undress you properly." Tyler is grinning at me. I feel the heat rise in me again. "So why after your prom?" I demand. He looks at me shaking his head. "Because I took you." I feel like I've been slapped. "Oh...so I ruined all other women for you? I don't recall being that bad of a dancer!" I throw Mr. Fluffles at him! Tyler catches the stuffed rabbit and chuckling, looks down at the old toy. "I remember when you got this. You were mad at Grandma for getting you this when they got me a bike. You didn't let it show but I saw It." he runs a hand across the ears that long ago lost their fur. "Then you would never be parted with it." I nod. I hold out my hand and he gives me back Mr. Fluffles. I look at the worn face that soaked up so many of my tears when grandma died. "Yes you ruined me for other women, Sabely. Not for the reason you were thinking though. In you I had the best that was at our school." I scoff. "Oh please! I was the most homely girl in the whole history of the school." I see his eyes go hard. "Sabely..." he looks down then back up. His eyes are blazing. "Sable Evening Raines, you are a fool! Half the guys in our school wanted to take you out but were too afraid to ask you." "The only guys to ever ask me out asked me questions about you all damn night!" I yell at him. I feel the temptation to let fly the 'rabbit of war' again but the tired old toy has had enough for one night. "They didn't know what to talk to you about!" he yells back at me. "You were the smartest girl in school. You never talked about anything with anyone. You are so private they were intimidated to ask what you like." He sits back shaking his head, "And the other half?' I ask after a second or silence. "What about them? Were they too intimidated by my...radiant beauty...to even ask?" Tyler nods. "A lot of them were. Some were probably worried you were going to wear sweat pants and a sweater on your date. You do know you have the fashion sense of the average bag lady?" Mr. Fluffles cringes in my hand knowing his flight is imminent. I feel my nose flaring. "Just because I don't dress like it's eighteen twenty? Sorry but full Elizabethans dresses went out of style before our great great great grand mother was born! They are a bit had to find at Target!" His eyes leave my face and go down the front of me. "I would love to see you in an Elizabethan. You would wear it well." I sigh. In frustration at his continued teasing. "I would look like a dress on a lamp post." When I go to slide out the bed and he catches my ankle. "You didn't ask me why." "Why what?" I ask tilting my head. "Why taking you out ruined me for other women." "I figured one date with me turned you gay." He throws back his head laughing. "Oh so now I'm not just in love with myself I'm in love with all men." I look away from him. "I'm not gay Sabely...I'm not in love with myself either." I feel his fingers caress my lower leg softly. "I'm in love with you." I pull my foot away from him. "Not funny Tyler." "Do you hear me laughing?" I watch as my brother moves up the bed towards me. "I love you Sabely." "I love you too Tyler." I tell him exasperated. He shakes his head, "No my dear sweet sister...I... love... you. As a man loves a woman. I have since our first dance at the prom. The feeling of you against me as we moved together. The scent of your perfume. Seeing you in a dress for the first time. You looked so beautiful." "I looked ridiculous. I looked like I was trying to swim in all that blue taffeta." He grins at me. "Skinny-dipping it maybe. I loved how you were moving in it." I shake my head at him. I feel a bit of flattery despite the fact I know he's making fun of me. "Then this year. My god how beautiful you were. I wanted to dance with you and paint you at the same time. I chuckle at the visual of him trying to do that. "See I made you smile." He reaches out and takes my hand. I look at his long delicate fingers the skin slightly tinted from his paints. That small flaw in perfection he allows for the sake of his art. I swallow against the sensations I feel in myself at holding his hand. I look up at him. Part of me wants to see him as he once was but the larger part of me loves the way he looks now. A silent denial of his words sends shivers through me. I know what I look like. I know what I see when I look into the mirror. It's no ravaging beauty. No near copy of his loveliness. I cling to his hand wishing it were so but in my heart I know... "There's nothing I can say is there?" he asks. I see his eyes on my fingers. He slowly moves his gentle fingers in a soft caress of my skin. "Not a word of mine will convince you that your beautiful will it?" I slowly shake my head. I look up to see him lick his lips. "Well..." he sighs. "So be it." Tyler crosses the distance to me in a half second. My eyes go wide as his mouth nearly slams into mine. The whole weight of his body pushes me back into the wooden headboard. I try to squeak a protest but all that does is offer my open mouth for his tongue. Tyler is kissing me! I feel like a deer in headlights frozen in the glow of the bright lights. The knowledge that my brother is French kissing me washes over me leaving a second feeling of disturbance, then the long wanted feelings I've suppressed for so long come surging forward. I lift my hand to the side of that beautiful face and tilt my head into the kiss. How soft ...how wonderfully erotic the feeling of his mouth. The skillful playing of his tongue against mine as I start to kiss him back. I gasp as I feel his strong fingers cup my breast. Then I moan as he finds my nipple. It hardens instantly to his touch. His mouth drifts downward from mine I arch my head up as his lips kiss their way down the side of my neck. I shiver in pleasure as he kissing the skin under my ear. I hear my name moaned in breathy whispers. "Sabely." The nickname catches me off guard and sends a cold feeling down my back. "Tyler...Tyler no! We can't do this. It's wrong were brother and sister." I push against my brother's chest. I feel his power. He could resist me if he chose but he slowly moves away from me. I feel a last linger wetness on my neck as his tongue gives me a parting lick. Narcissus As I watch, my brother slowly gets to his feet. "Don't move." I sit silent, my eyebrows in my hairline, as he leaves the room. It's several minutes of hearing him doing things in the rest of the house then he is back. I blink seeing him carrying his easel and paints into my bedroom. "Do something for me please." He says softly after opening up the easel. His eyes go to me. "What?" I ask holding Mr.Fluffles to me again. "Would...would you please take off your clothes." If I had been hit with a hammer I probably wouldn't have a more stunned look to my face. "Wha...What?" I ask unable to believe I heard him right. Tyler begins to paint. His face coming into that look of total concentration that he gets when working. "No words of mine will convince you. It's cliche but a picture is worth a thousand words. I want to paint you nude. I want you to see yourself as I see you. As you really are. You see my Sabely, I think you have convinced yourself of something just as wrong as what I had. I had come to think that the world revolved around me because of the way I looked. You think the whole world looks at you as ugly. Please, let me paint you." "Why nude? Why not just a face portrait?" I ask still in a surreal haze. I lick my lips to wet them and taste him on them. I want to do it again. To taste him again. To taste more of him than his lips. "Why naked?" His face turns away from the background he must be painting. "I have a wonderful imagination my dear sister. I can paint you without your clothes in any position that I care to have you be in. This has nothing to do with sex. I want to paint you as you truly are...naked to the worlds eyes." He lowers his pallet to the tabletop beside him and walks around to stand in front of me. I see a single drop of blue green that I know must be for my coverlet on his chest. It runs like a river down one perfectly sculpted peck onto the ripples of his muscled stomach. "Please." His words are a soft begging. I look up into those eyes and I'm lost. All the feelings so long suppressed have been drive to the surface by the taste of his lips. I can't make them go away anymore. I know at the second I catch the bottom edge of my T-shirt that I would, if he asked, do anything that he would have me do. He turns away and goes back to the painting as I silently strip off my shirt. Then the sweat pants. I slide them under my ass and off my legs without getting out of the bed. I look at him for a second but see he's focusing on his work. My hands go around to the middle of my back and catch the hooks. The bra comes off as quickly as I can remove it least I lose my nerve. I hesitate then. The pair of pale pink cotton panties the last line of defense in a battle I've already surrendered. I look up and see his eyes on me. He is silent now. No words to make me give in just the look of his beautiful face and the knowledge that this angelic demon wishes it. I slide my panties under my ass and down my legs. As I get them off my ankle I look up startled. He's moved from around the canvas. Tyler walks slowly to the side of the bed and sits down. "Stretch out." I swallow and blushing furiously lean back on the bed. I flinch when I feel his hands touch me. The fingers are light but strong. I move at his urging and soon find myself in a pose. My right arm is across my breasts, covering one, but the nipple is still bare on the other. My other hand is moved down to under my belly button. Like I'm reaching to cover myself down there ...or maybe have just moved it to uncover myself. He twitches the blue green satin sheet up and lets it fall where it falls across one of my legs. I start to protest as he picks up Mr.Fluffles then I see him pose the old toy near my headboard. Tyler moves back a few steps and just stands there looking at me. "How could you not see yourself as beautiful?" he asks softly. I see a small shake of his head. I watch my brother turn and go back to his painting. The normal fury isn't there. He moved with the same intensive focus but his pace is slow. I feel the minutes begin to draw into longer and longer periods of time. Then the long hours of the day begin to get to me a little and I feel my eyes closing. "You can sleep my little Sabely." I hear him say softly just as I drift out. I feel myself awash in dreams of pleasure floating from dream state to dream state my eyes slowly flutter open when I feel a comfortable warmth settle next to me. I snuggle into it knowing by smell it's my beloved brother. His arm is a gentle weight along my side, his hand a strong reassurance on my hip as I drift into deeper sleep. I awake moaning. I open my eyes and feel the most wonderful feeling I've ever known. I open my legs a bit and take in a deep breath. A tongue like a ribbon of silk softly caressing me from the very tip of my clit to the deepest parts of my body. A gentle exploring of the folds of pink skin brings a second moan from me that wakes me fully. Opening my eyes I look down to see the mane of dark black hair splayed across my thighs and the head that's moving between my legs. I'm about to protest the wrongness of this when my eyes see it. Standing turned towards me in the morning light coming into the shaded window is the most beautiful picture I've ever seen. Of what has to be the most beautiful woman on the whole planet. She lays with languid grace amid piles of dark wood and aqua silk. The sad little toy brings an innocent to her, as does her sleepy eyes. The way she has herself half hidden from the eyes that look at her but seems to maybe be too sleepy to bother with more. I see a window behind her that would have been dark last night. In the painting it 's open, the blue curtains thrown back to either side. In the distance I can make out the half finished Eiffel tower standing tall amide a city of brick and stone. This glimpse of a time so far from this gives the painting a feeling that it was done at the turn of the century. So do the discarded clothes I see he scatters around the room. Men's clothing. Clothing that would be proper for a man of that time. I arch my back up off the bed as I feel the suction of his wonderful lips on my clit. I slowly bring my hand down to those dark stands of ebony and caress the silken weight. I moan as I feel a tingling begins to build in me then, one that only my fingers and forbidden fantasies had ever brought about before this moment. My eyes go back to the woman. Her sexy body, legs just open enough to give a lover access to her most forbidden secrets. Her nipple a dark contrast to her pale skin, the way her hair lays in waves of chestnut to black, with highlights of red blending into a tapestry of the most beautiful brunette colors. I'm in awe at the beauty of this woman. The slow realization that I'm looking at myself comes to me even as I feel the most wonderful orgasm of my life begin to flow up from the hot wet nest of lust my brother is teasing with this talented tongue. I scream out in orgasmic bliss looking upon this woman that is me. The feeling that she's watching me being devoured by my own brother is so very taboo that I scream out a second time. My fingers go to my brother's head then, I claw him up away from me. I feel his head move under my hands, then his shoulders. I realize in the seconds that follows that that he is moving up my body with a burst of speed. I'm looking up into Tyler's face as I feel the whole length of him sink into me in a single thrust that takes the breath from me. "Oh my god!" I moan my brothers wonderful cock fills me to the very end. I feel the lips stretch around him as he pushes against the back of me. So wonderfully full that it hurts but it is a pain that at that moment I love. I clutch him to me as a third orgasm hits me. I'm still cumming seconds latter when I feel the first pulse inside me. Tyler gives a breath grunt then begins to say my name in a soft whisper just by my ear. I feel a slick wet feeling then deep inside me when he rests. My brother has cum inside me. My legs twitch on either side of him as I dig my fingers into the thick muscles of his back. Panting I turn my head to the pillow, my eyes comes to rest on the painting again. "My god she is so beautiful. My brother lifts himself up off me just a bit, his warm hazel eyes looking down into mine. "I know. I've known that for a very long time by beautiful Sabely. I've loved that beautiful woman for years now." Clutching him to me I see tears forming his eyes. I hold him even as I feel his body still hard start to respond in me again. I gasp as the slight thrust takes me by surprise. Then I moan through a second thrust. Watching the woman, watching me being made love to, I know something then as well. Tyler's not the only one to be in love with her. Narcissus: Reflected He had long blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a clear complexion. There was no doubt about he was the hottest boy in the whole of Lanphier High School. Then the school bell rang. He sighed in regret and pulled himself away from the mirror. He had always hated school, the routine, the fact he couldn't look at himself, the homework, the lack of mirrors in the classrooms, the long hours. And oh, and did he mention the lack of mirrors? He walked to the classroom with a look of pride that most people would assume came from the fact that he was the captain of the football team, or perhaps even from the adoring looks any of the girls in school gave him. The fact was he was upset over the fact he couldn't skive off this class again to stand in the bathroom and look at himself. He collapsed into the desk at the back of the room and looked at the English teacher. He suddenly realized as she handed back the previous day's work that she was a substitute teacher. Her hair was long and blue, unlike any of the other frumpy, old teacher that taught at this institution. Surely they didn't hire people with blue hair, he thought as she handed him his paper. It was funny, but he could have sworn that she hadn't called role yet. How could she have known who each of the students were? He shook his head at the thought, reminding himself that he did not care anyway. She walked up to the board and started lecturing. This was always the point in the class where he fell asleep, or ceased to pay attention if the other students were too noisy to get any sleep. Never being one to do anything he did not want to do, he fell asleep. He woke up when something that looked like a blackboard eraser hit him on the head, "What the..?" He finally managed to get out, "Is class over already?" "It most certainly is not over, Nathan," responded the blue-haired sub, he had not figured out what her name was before he had fallen asleep, and he wondered how she knew his. Then again, he was the hottest boy on campus he thought with a smile. "Then why did you wake me up?" He meant for the question to come out as if he had some authority over the classroom, but it came out sounding a little less than authoritarian, whiney even if he thought about it. "Because," she said slowly as if talking to a rock, "We are in class, and you should be learning not sleeping." He shrugged as if her opinion did not matter, then he noticed, as if for the first time amidst the chalk dust on his a desk a single sheet of paper that hadn't been there before. It was unlike anything he had ever seen in school, for it only had one sentence written on it. It read: What would you do if granted one wish? He laughed out loud, "What is this?" "It is your assignment, Nathan. I would appreciate it if you did while in class instead of getting someone to do it for you." The sudden silence in the classroom unnerved him. He shrugged off the strange feeling of being put in his place and leaned back grabbing a pen from his bag and looked at the question again as the ambient noise in the room went back to its normal volume. What would you do if granted one wish? What I would do, he thought. He knew the answer almost immediately and scrawled down in what was, in his opinion, perfect handwriting. When the bell rang signaling the end of the period he got up and handed her the paper nigh on flying out of the room and down the hall heading to bathroom to improve his looks before going home for the day. The substitute teacher smiled as she picked up the essays she had ha the children write on Narcissus, as the teacher had asked, and left with one paper in her hand. The name on it was Nathan Smith. Once she reached home she sat down and looked at the paper. Unlike the other papers she had handed out, this one only had one question, what would you do if granted one wish? She knew the answer almost before she looked. She always had known the answers when certain people were confronted with questions like this, but she liked to pretend she didn't. I wish that everything around me would turn into mirrors, so that I may gaze upon myself always. She smiled when she saw this, no mattered who she asked, they always gave her wishes with great loopholes. Maybe one day, She thought, someone will have the sense to ask for something that doesn't have such amusing loopholes. She sat in front of her half sphere and centered herself before intoning: A wish you asked, and a wish I gave, To give the thing of which you crave, With this you, I will enslave. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Warn this boy what might befall, When this wish he seeks to recall. She smiled and the half sphere next to her turned from a golden statue of a man to Nathan in his room. Nathan sat in his room and looked at the mirror, priding himself on his good looks. He had schoolbooks spread about him, but he had long ago given up any attempt at studying, not that he needed it being the football team captain and star. All the sudden everything in his room rippled, he thought it was an earthquake, not that they had any in that area of the room, but he closed his eyes and hoped it wasn't. When he opened his eyes, everything was made of mirrors, the walls were full-length mirrors, and where his bed had been was a mirror shaped and rippled just like his sheets had been, his posters were mirror upon mirror. In short, everything had become a mirror in an instant. He smiles and hundreds of him smiled back. I could get used to this, he thought. He lay on the bed, and realized all his books were now mirrors too. Good, He thought, I did not need to study anyway. He heard his mom downstairs calling him to dinner. He was famished and ran down the stairs two at a time, noticing that everything else in the house were mirrors now too. "Nathan! Oh there you are," his mother said, or better to the point said a figure that looked like fluid quicksilver. He could even see his smiling face in his mother's face. He sat down at the mirror table on a mirror chair and wondered if something was wrong with his sight. "Is there something wrong Nathan?" His mother asked. "No, nothing is wrong, practice was just tiring. What is for dinner?" "Your favorite steak and fries." He smiled and his stomach growled, "Fantastic!" She smiled indulgently, or at least that is what he thought she did, the mirror-like coating on them obscured her familiar features. She left the room to go to the grill and brought him back a platter of steak and fries, which looked like mirrors to him too. He was slowly getting sick of looking at himself as he cut the steak and put it in his mouth. Immediately it shattered into pieces and cuts up his mouth causing him to cry out in shock and pain. "What is it son?" His mother asked as she cut up her own steak and ate it as if she was unaware it was a mirror. "Mirrors, its all mirrors..." he said through a broken mouth, as he tasted the blood. "I don't know what you are talking about. Are you sure you are feeling okay?" "Yes, I am sure," he responded snapping at her. "Can't you see them? They are everywhere! Everything is a mirror even you and the grass!" he nigh on shouted as he began to laugh hysterically. "I don't know what you are talking about son. I think there is something wrong here. Why don't you come with me, and we'll see if we can't find out what it is?" He nodded silently as he got up, and went with her not caring what she was mumbling about. He did not even notice when she made a quick phone call before they went to the car. * "What do you think Doctor?" Nathan's mother asked as she looked at her son through the two-way mirror. "Some kind of schizophrenia is my early analysis, but to be safe we should keep him here. I am afraid he may become a danger to himself as well as others," the Doctor rubbed a bruise he had received from Nathan as he had tried to put him into the padded cell. "It is for the best I am sure," she replied before turning and walking away. "Mirrors, all mirrors," was the last thing she ever heard her son say as she walked away from him, never to return.