Old Stuff 2: I Just hooked up with My Sister

I was already asleep in the tent. Maybe it was the shotguned beers, maybe it was the chugged Bacardi, you never can be sure when it came to nights like this. She opened the flap with all of the slyness of a drunken pixie, and the whispering scratch of tent on tent roused me from my slumber as she fumbled in. I wasn’t sure exactly what was on her mind, but I had known Sophia all through college, and I didn’t think much of it.
She stumbled to where I lay hovering on the brink of consciousness. I couldn’t tell if she knew I was awake, and I wasn’t up to uttering anything, let alone a greeting. She laid down next to me, and figured her time was as up as mine had been…,shit, I have no idea how long ago I made Todd’s tent my resting place.
We had made the trip from Milwaukee out to Omaha to visit Todd, our mutual friend, that morning. He had a cool weekend planned out for us, and it began with a night on the riverbank with his friends. They were a good crew, but a little more into the bottle than I was, so, while I had mad it deeper into the night than some, I was by no means in the top half of the class.
She nuzzled into my shoulder, having come in with out a sleeping bag or a pillow. I turned my face towards hers, and she responded by giving me a wink that I’m sure looked much more becoming in her minds eye. The vocal cords hadn’t woken up with the rest of me, so it remained silent in our polyester paradise.
I had actually known Sophia for all of high school as well, but we didn’t become friends until it was clear we would be enjoying Saint Louis University together. I’m still not sure who made the first move on our friendship, but the awkwardness faded fast. It seemed one day we were fumbling through friends in common, and by dawn the next day ready to invite each other home for Thanksgiving dinner.
When I think back, the night is a haze, but I would love to believe it was her who made the first move. Whether it was her arm across my chest, or a slight roll of my body so our stomachs touched, something happened. I kissed her on the forehead, I think, maybe. Who was responsible for our lips first touch is a toss up, but I find it hard to believe a jurry of our peers would find either of us wholly guilty.
One of the things my dad told me about college, having come out of the same all-guy school I did some 35 years before, was that in college I would have friends who were girls, which were not girlfriends. And while there is an inherent confusion whenever fathers try to talk to sons about life experiences, I understood what he meant.
I am sure it was her who offered the first bit of tongue, but only because I was scared to do so myself. I am around 95% sure it was my arm that wrapped around her waist as we lay on the thin plastic coating, but the movement alerted whatever stores of Bacardi were laying dormant in my veins, ready to fulfill their obligation to me as a paying customer.
The first night I slept on her futon was mostly an accident, a movie that ran late after a day of lunch and dinner together. We could go a week without meeting, but the time we spent together was some of the most comfortable I had in that first month of a life 500 miles from home. She woke me up when she herself was roused by her roommate creeping back in after a night patronizing the fine local imbiberies. As her roommate passed out in her own bed, Sophia and I began to talk.
I am by nature someone who enjoying being on the bottom in all phases of a sexual encounter. One of my freshman year courtesans linked it, maybe correctly, to my almost troubling need to exert as little energy as possible in even the most enjoyable pursuits. I rolled up onto my back, and our thighs remained connected. The kisses were getting deeper, and our breathing heavier. She has this little trick where she will suck your tongue into her mouth, giving the most powerful of all of the muscles a sensation of being massaged and ripped out of the throat at the same time. It was fun.
Our talks came nearly every night that we spent together. Discussing everything from my respect for my dad, to her best friend of an older brother; from how much I hated that sell out Gwen Steffani to her love of The Notebook. There were opinions on religion and chicken strip Tuesdays at the Greis Cafeteria. With every word spoken, even the ones I uttered unknowingly, and then later teasingly about my distaste for Notre Dame, we became closer. It might be wrong to call her my best friend, because I could go a week without seeing her, and we rarely spent more than three days in a row together.
Our alcohol-laced breath did not bother our alcohol-deadened noses, so there was not really a problem with continuing.
We had our ups and downs, but I spent some time thinking about where I would be without her in my life. The girlfriend/friend thing seemed to have resolved itself when she came back from a week protesting the SOA with a boyfriend from my old high school. Truthfully, I breathed a deep sigh of relief after the initial shock. We talked about him, and how much they liked each other every once in awhile, but nothing really changed. I still camped out on her sweet couch/futon, which was the most comfortable sleeping pad in the building. While the Facebook pictures of my sleeping head on a pink and orange pillow, while I snuggled with a smiling fish under a pink blanket were not always welcome, were not the most becoming they were a fair trade.
Our bodies intertwined as much as possible considering I was fully inside my heavy sleeping bag. She was not the most gentle kisser around, and I was not in much of a state to avoid a few bites here and there. Our bodies started to pulsate, and we alternated our bodies up and down. Our hips were synchronized in their very own, very opposite way.
One of the things our friendship lacked that struck me as odd for any type of college relationship was time spent drunk together. I was with my floor friends or my fraternity buddies, and she turned towards Todd and the others when the time for that particular brand of college recreation came.
My vocal cords checked in with me to see how things were going and were justifiably shocked at the current state of events. They made up for the time lost to sleeping on the job, and a small, warm-up moan escaped from my lips. The once sacred swathe of silence over our rendezvous was lifted, and Sophia, by nature a vocal person, took the opening and, as they say, ran with it.
The first time I saw her drunk, Todd had invited me down for a wasted Wednesday celebration he was hosting in his humble abode on the fifth floor. I got lost in a game of Madden after a long day of class, so by the time I had my Dasani bottle of Seagrams 7 and several cans of the High Life ready to go, it was just short of half past eleven. The celebration had started earlier and quicker than I had anticipated, and I found myself in a freshman’s haven. I was surveying the room from just inside the door, spotting a cutie that I had yet to spot that year, when I felt a crushing hug come from my blind side. No wonder they pay left tackles all that money. It took me a several shuffling steps sideways before I regained my balance and saw Sophia doing her best Aaron Kampman impression. College girls, especially freshman, might be the easiest people in the world to identify as drunk.
I have no knowledge of where anyone else in our camping party was. They could have been outside the tent listening for all I knew, or frankly, cared. She ended up under me at some point. Being below usually has its stray feelings of suffocation, but, still being inside the sleeping bag myself, I’m surprised at her lack of asphyxiation. The change in positions livened things up for awhile, and there was renewed auditory expression. However, it remained rather tame in our two-cylinder tent.
She was carrying around her “Nalgene of love,” Gary, and by the looks of his content, there had been a lot of love bandied about that night. It’s not easy to drink or socialize with a drunk girl under your arm, so the party was rather lost on a sober me. Eventually, she pulled me out into the hall under the auspices of going back to her room to fill up the Nalgene, and relied heavily on my sober legs for the walk back. I got in a few quick shots while she unscrewed the coconut rum hidden in her freezer, and chased them down with my champagne of beers. When I saw her eyes land on me with the bottle forgotten on the floor, I knew something was up.
“You are an idiot” not the preferred way to strike up a conversation, but I let her go.
“How often does a girl have to throw herself at you for you to get the picture”
I recount her words in essence, not verbatim, because a transcription of drunken slurring does not become a pretty young lady of her stature, and I would appreciate it if someone did the same for me in a similar situation. I was silent, unsure of where this previously stuffed under the rug conversation would wind up. She recounted the story of a night I spent with her friends several weeks before school started. Apparently I was supposed to kiss her goodnight, and that’s where the whole thing got off tracked. To be fair to me, I actually am an idiot. I avoided commenting, and eventually the awkward turtle shuffled off to somewhere else he was needed, as his services are always highly in demand.
I assume it was me who went for her shirt, and she really did not put up any fuss as it came off. That was enough of a morsel for the beast of progression for a while, and we continued about or ways. My hands were given free reign over the body of a lovely young girl, so it should be obvious there was not the particular part of my anatomy which felt neglected at that moment.
When sober, she apologized for her actions, and a minimal excuse was quickly gobbled up by a very unsure me, I thought it would take longer for the turtle’s imprint to fade, but we were actually very good friends, and all things pass. I still stayed on her futon, and made insomniatic trips down to her room far past co-hab. I was sure to avoid wasted Wednesdays, thirsty Thursdays, fucked up Fridays and shit-faced Saturdays with her. I was not trying to test my luck. However, all things must come to an end; good, bad, awkward and to my chagrin, mutual avoidance. The night after she forced me to sit through Alex and Emma, I should have been worried, but my left tackle must have been confused about a blocking assignment.
She really did have a nice set, I had forgotten. In other news, I am an asshole.
She was much harder to pacify when sober, and I was forced to give a response. I spoke the truth, I did not see her like that, the relationship was not about that in my mind, and no I can’t explain why, except to say that I did not see her like that, and no I can’t explain why. She wasn’t crying, it wasn’t that type of talk, but things were not what I would consider genial. I was finally granted a little reprieve after more cyclical conversation, and made my way out the door. I threw a glance over my shoulder, and she was just staring out the window. I threw the shoes I picked up off of her floor as hard as I could into the wall when I got into the stairwell, but felt that I had handled myself well. To recount our top story tonight, I am an asshole.
Things were getting hotter in the little tent, our body heat settling back down upon us. It felt great at first, but insulated against the elements in my bag of sleep, I began to get uncomfortable. At that point I was sitting up against the wall of the tent and she was sitting on my lap. The event felt not exactly close to conclusion, but I could see the Dénouement from the crest of the hill.
Things were a little strained, and our relationship lacked the closeness it once held. However, amiable relations existed and lines of communication remained open. Time passed, and things got a little bit closer to normal. Snuggling on the futon was now met with a chorus of “Not fair” and time alone was mostly spent in the company of other people. Maybe months passed, maybe weeks; in my college experience, time is not really measured, more felt. I spent drunken weekends on the town with the guys and generally stayed away from my friends that were really her friends. Random make out sessions came and went with randoms, crushes on the cute girl in French class were forgotten as crushes on the other cute girls in French class overtook them. Finally, the levy broke. After a relaxed pre-gaming session in my room, I spent what seemed like a regular night at Dante’s, an under 21 nightclub. The girl who was most interested in me was not really cutting it, so I left a little early, and found myself staring at Sophia’s door.
A noise outside caused me to startle, but she didn’t notice, and I wasn’t about to just stop. I had returned to my preferred residence, flat on my back, and the movement had renewed with vigor. A second high point if you will. It was at this point I lost a true grip on what exactly was happening. It wasn’t a quick onset, I had been slowly drifting towards passed out as soon as I had been roused. My conscious mind was locked in mortal combat with the Bacardi Bat, and my brain was not exactly focused on the matter at hand. It’s a good thing other parts of the anatomy have a pretty good handle on these kinds of times. I remember thinking things could not actually be happening the way I was seeing them, and then after several blinks I was right in that I was wrong.
I didn’t knock as much as I pawed at the door until I heard her voice call, and I opened the door with the slyness of a drunken bear. I am unsure of what happened, but I my inhibitions were not as strong as they have been. I am relatively sure that I initiated the action, and before long the pillows and blanket were watching us from the ground; we joined them not long after. The details are rather trivial, what mattered was the action, the action that I had taken so many actions to prevent. My father imparted another bit of wisdom, “it takes gallons and gallons of paint to cover a room, but only a small cup to ruin the look.” He is much smarter than I am. As if the viewers are unsure of what to make of this, the next morning and afternoon followed with much of the same behavior, but I believe I have hammered the asshole point quite home and such details are not necessary.
Semi-passed out hook up sessions have a way of freaking me out when as I get progressively less passed out, maybe I’m just weird that way, but the tent session was just about closing. She stood up and replaced her shirt and made it out of the tent before I figured out what had exactly happened. She was off to make distance between this and her, and I was stuck to sit in the mess I made.
After that, we really didn’t talk much for a couple months. I was still no closer to liking her. After the “3 days of awkwardness” as she labeled it, I was pretty much out of her system and there was nothing more there. While diplomatic relations were strained and I had lost favored nation status; there were still lines of communication. After time though, she wandered up to check on me after a dislocated knee playing basketball, and we remembered why we liked each other so much in the first place. It went back to the way it was in the beginning, slowly. By the time summer rolled around, we were back to best friends, siblings they way they were supposed to be. Talking about boys, and if I could get a word in, girls. We talked philosophy and Paris Hilton; Brosephs and Econ 101. We were close. She wasn’t even just a girl any more, she was my sister. It was all there, everything I needed in a friend. There was nothing besides another unfortunate incident that could have gotten in between us, I had a bright outlook on our friendship.
With Sophia gone, I had a chance to spend some time with myself. And I'm sorry Todd, if you are reading this, but there is no way I was going to be able to make it all the way back to sleep with my anatomy like it was. Fuck, I just hooked up with my sister.