Charlie and Mindy Bk. 02 Ch. 05

This is the fifth chapter of seven in Book 2 of the Charlie and Mindy tetralogy—which is a story of forbidden love between a brother and a sister.

While Book 2 stands on its own, it refers to events that took place in Book 1. Book 1 also contains some of Charlie and Mindy's family history that bears on the story. You may therefore want to read Book 1 before reading Book 2.

This is a rewrite of a series I posted in the past and removed for a while.

Please leave your comments. I try to respond to non-anonymous comments within a few days.

—CarlusMagnus

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Mindy and I slipped easily into a routine during the first couple of weeks of the semester. On the days our French class met, Mindy got some breakfast in her dormitory dining hall and walked over to my house. She usually arrived to find George leaving and me finishing my own breakfast. On Monday and Friday mornings, which were the days when George didn't have labs and was likely to spend the afternoon studying in his room, we'd make love—joyfully, enthusiastically, exuberantly, but quietly, quietly, because Earl was still at home downstairs. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, knowing we'd have the apartment to ourselves all afternoon, we'd use that morning time to work on French or calculus together. Then, on those four mornings, we'd head off to our French and calculus courses together, no matter what form our morning exercises had taken.

On Wednesday mornings, Mindy and I had only an eleven o'clock class, but George had a nine o'clock and a ten o'clock. Mindy usually got in an hour or so of studying on her own after her breakfast, and then arrived a bit before nine—to find George leaving and me finishing my breakfast. Those mornings, we might Do It, we might study, we might just hang out with each other, or we might do some combination of two or more of the three. In any case, we knew that we would have another two hours we could spend alone with each other in the apartment during the afternoon.

Most afternoons and early evenings, we spent the bulk of our time studying together, even when we were working on subjects the other wasn't taking. Naturally, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were our favorites; we had the apartment, and each other, to ourselves those afternoons after Mindy's English comp class was over. Once we'd arrested, for the moment, my Deadly Semen Backup and her Severe Semen Deficiency Disease, we would snuggle together at my desk, poring over our calculus or our French. I remember feeling caresses in her voice as we discussed what we were studying, and I tried to return them with my own voice. She behaved as though I was successful, reminding me of a rose blossom opening to welcome sunlight.

When Mindy and I were alone in the apartment, working on the subjects we were not taking together, we often sat in the living room on the couch—our bodies touching. We soon learned to savor this intimate time together, sharing our work with each other as we could, sharing our bodies with each other in ways that went beyond the merely sexual, expressing our love for each other in a multitude of small ways whose sum far exceeded the paltry total of the pieces.

I did not give up all of my bad habits. George and I frequently quit studying sometime between eight and nine in the evening and went to Sarge's to hoist a few. Usually, we called it quits after two pitchers. Two, because there were two of us, and the Fundamental Code requires that each drinker buy the same number of pitchers. Not four, because George was determined not to miss any of his morning classes. (I didn't want him to miss any of his morning classes, either—but for entirely different, entirely non-academic, reasons.) Mindy didn't exactly approve of our nightly activities, but she didn't actively disapprove, either.

Mindy and I had found, to our mutual surprise, that we didn't need to spend the traditional two hours outside of class for each hour inside in order to master our studies at the level Mindy thought was necessary. And I was beginning to be able to make reasonable judgments now about whether or not I'd mastered something without depending on her to decide.

I'd known that Mindy was smart; I was beginning to think that she might've been right about me. It was an altogether new feeling, and I had her to thank for it. I'd thought ever since our trip in Wyoming that her love was good for me; now I was certain of it and I loved her all the more because of it.

The men I shared the house with accepted Mindy's almost constant presence during the week at face value—the value of the face, that is, that Mindy and I presented to them. Frank and Earl, being downstairs almost all of the time, saw little of us together—though they certainly had to know how much time she spent in the house.

George often saw us together, and he certainly knew that we were a very close brother and sister. But he had known that from what I had said about Mindy last spring, and Mindy and I were very careful. We did our best to give him no reason to suspect that we were more—much more—than brother and sister to each other.

He often saw us at my desk, bent over the same book or notebook, studying intently. But when he was about, we didn't engage in the close physical contact we enjoyed so much when he wasn't. We left the caresses out of our voices, and we kept our hands to ourselves—at least insofar as they were visible from the door to my room.

Less than a week after our conversation about Mindy, George had asked her out. She'd politely and gracefully turned him down, citing her boyfriend in Florida as the reason. And he'd taken it well, being disappointed but not devastated. He even remarked to me that he was glad she'd given him the "I-like-you-but-let's-just-be-friends" talk immediately rather than after he'd made an investment in her. We knew each other well enough that I knew he meant an emotional investment, and not a monetary one. Of course he couldn't have said that explicitly, on account of the Fundamental Code.

Mindy and I found weekend days harder than weekdays, because we had to work at finding privacy then. We went for long walks on those days, so that we could share some time alone with each other. The park bench by the lake—the one we had found that first Sunday afternoon we'd spent together in town—became one of our favorite spots. There we could at least sit and neck a little, away from unwelcome campus eyes.

The second Saturday evening of that month we got extraordinarily randy, and we took the red backpack—the "sex backpack" with the quilt and the (frequently laundered) towels in it—down to the lowest level of the library again, where we got buck naked and enjoyed each other on that soft old quilt. The following Saturday, her period arrived, right on schedule—so that weekend it didn't matter how horny we got.

That weekend was more difficult for another reason, too. We'd had exams in French and calculus that Friday. I'd been surprised at how relaxed I'd been able to be about those exams. For the first time ever, I hadn't had to kick the engines up to "Ultimate Overload" status the night before a test. I'd even gone, confidently, into those tests with a full night's sleep.

But after the exams, it was an entirely different story. I was nervous that whole weekend about how I'd done on those tests. I wanted an A on each of them, and I wasn't sure that I'd made the grade on either of them. Mindy's happiness, I thought, rested on the outcomes; and I was terribly afraid that I was going to let her down in spite of myself and in spite of the commitments I'd made to her and our parents.

Mindy seemed unfazed by those tests. But I began to see, from her behavior and from my own, unexpected, more relaxed approach to the exams, that my little sister had been right. She had always said that if you were doing things properly, getting ready for an exam shouldn't amount to much more than a careful review.

And, now, for the first time in my life, I'd at least tried to do things properly—with a lot of help and encouragement from Mindy. She'd done some whip-cracking, too. She'd been very kind and very subtle, but I'd known, regardless, when I'd heard the lash snapping. I was still not what you would think of as a scholar, but I was beginning to think that scholarship might be more interesting and more rewarding than I'd ever believed. The candle in that back room had ignited a kerosene lantern, illuminating the shadowy shapes well enough that I could see that they were tools—power tools, in fact—that I now very much wanted to learn to use.

She tried, not quite successfully, to calm my quaking nerves all through that weekend of dreadful anticipation. For once, she had more faith than I. So, that interminable Sunday afternoon, I resolved to take my own advice: She had plenty of faith in me, and it was more than enough for both of us. When I was sure no one could see us, I kissed her and told her that, lacking enough of my own faith in myself, I'd use some of hers. She grinned at me. "Let's go sit on our park bench," she said.

We strolled off to the park. As we walked, hand-in-hand, into the park, I looked across the lake and saw that another couple occupied our bench. We couldn't see faces that far away, but it was clear that it was a man and a woman, who were doing some fairly heavy necking.

"Damn!" I said. "Somebody's using our bench. Two somebodies. And they seem to be enjoying each other's company quite a bit."

She looked, grinned. "They do seem to like each other, don't they? Let's keep walking on around. There are other benches in the brush on that side of the lake, even if they aren't as nice as ours."

We kept on going until we'd reached the other side of the lake. We were passing about twenty yards from "our" bench, trying to find another, when we got a fairly good look at the couple there through the screening bushes. They were groping each other pretty thoroughly. That gave me some ideas; I pulled Mindy closer and groped a little as we walked. She giggled and swatted me. I was trying to decide whether to back off or to press my attack when we recognized them.

"Hey," she said softly, not wanting them to overhear, "that's Stephanie Young, from calculus, and your buddy, Buck, from French. I guess they're an item."

"If they aren't," I said, "they both must think they're with someone else. What they're doing sure looks like fun."

She gave me an elbow in the ribs for that. After we had passed quietly by, without disturbing them, we soon found another bench. It didn't have the view of the lake we liked, but bushes screened it, too, from general view. So we sat there and necked a little. That time relaxing with the woman who loved me, touching her and talking to her, having her touch me and talk to me, went a long way toward settling my post-test anxiety.

The next day, the profs returned the exams. We'd gotten solid A's on both exams. I'd gotten A's before in math, but this was my first ever in French. Pepin beamed at me again as he returned it.

"Mes félicitations, Charles. Cela a été une performance très formidable," he remarked as he handed me my paper.

I'd gotten 93%—well above the minimum A of 90%. I was stunned. "M-m-m-merçi, monsieur," I stammered out.

I flashed the score at Mindy. She granted me one of those 150-watt smiles, as if she'd expected nothing less of me. I spent the rest of the class period in heaven. I was still walking on air when I reached the house after my econ class.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The rest of the last full week of September was worse. I had two exams on Friday; Mindy had a paper due on Thursday and an exam on Friday. Like most students, we were more than half convinced that professors got together over coffee (or something stronger) and planned their exams and their due dates so that they would all coincide.

Mindy seemed to take her deadlines in stride. There were two likely reasons. She knew her methods worked, and she didn't put things off until it was an emergency. She'd started preparing her paper—five pages, typed, double-spaced—about two weeks before the deadline, and she had done most of the work for it evenings, after we'd parted for the day. She'd done most of the typing during the early afternoons while I was in my history class, using the little portable typewriter that we kept in my room and that we shared. (Few students had personal computers in those days, even fewer had word processors, and still fewer had decent printers.)

I fretted and brooded about my deadlines, but I couldn't find any fault with my preparation. I'd been studying regularly, keeping up with class work, and doing my best to organize what I knew and what I thought. But I was new at this, and Mindy wasn't taking these courses—so I couldn't depend on her to the extent I had for French and calculus the previous week. She had to bear the brunt of my bad humor that week. She was a rock, my emotional foundation during that trying time.

We spent the early part of that Thursday evening before my exams in my room, sitting together at my desk, not accomplishing much. She'd tried to convince me that I was in far better shape than I thought. I replied, repeatedly, that she hadn't been studying the subjects—history and economics—I'd had to work on, and she was in no position to tell me I knew anything about them—let alone that I knew enough to get the A's I needed for her.

About a half-hour after eight that evening, she decided that I'd done all of the pissing and moaning that needed to be done.

"That is enough!" she announced, looking at me directly.

Her eyes flashed blue fire at me; she got up and marched over to my closet. Reaching in, she picked up the red backpack—the sex backpack—and shouldered it. My jaw dropped.

I began, "You—"

"Are you coming, or not?" she asked, summarily interrupting me.

She was smiling, but the blue fire had intensified. I wasn't being asked, in spite her phrasing and the accompanying smile. I was being told, and if I knew what was good for me…

I did know what was good for me. Obeying orders was good for me. I wasn't thinking about the red backpack or what its contents meant—though of course I was well aware of that. What I was thinking was that I knew, for damn sure, that not doing what she had just told me to do was going to get me in more trouble than I ever wanted to be in. Much more trouble than just getting a bad grade on one or two exams. So I went. Meekly. Almost reluctantly. But I went.

I thought she'd take me to our secret place on the bottom level of the library, but she had something else in mind. The late September weather was fine, and it was a very pleasant evening outside. More importantly, it was now early fall, and it had gotten almost dark by half past eight. She marched me to our park. And when we arrived there, about fifteen minutes later, it was fully dark; the moon's thin crescent was already below the southwestern horizon.

I don't suspect that anyone will think it surprising that my cock had figured out what she had in mind—probably twenty seconds before I had—and that it agreed with her. Totally.

She found a dark corner of the park, near our back-up park bench—the one we'd used the week before when Buck and Stephanie had occupied "our" bench. There, she laid out the quilt, pulled me down onto it beside herself, and undertook to screw me blind. She didn't have to work very hard before I decided that I'd already seen everything that was worth seeing and that I therefore wouldn't mind losing my eyesight.

Of course, I didn't go blind. And it turned out that mind-blowing sex was just what I needed to make me stop fretting, brooding, pissing, moaning, and being a general jerk.

But there was more to her plan. We cleaned up with the towels and got dressed. She marched me south out of the park a few blocks, and east—to Sarge's. The bartender didn't know her, never having seen her before, but he did know me. And after I'd told him she was my sister, he didn't give us any trouble about the pitcher of beer she ordered. She poured herself a mug-full, and nursed it while she poured the rest of the pitcher into me.

Half an hour later, when the pitcher was empty, she let me take her back to her dorm. We had to pass The Dog House on the way, and we couldn't help but notice that the house next door, to the south, was undergoing an extensive remodel. There was an eight-by-twelve open trailer parked near the north edge of that yard just inside the sidewalk, and it was half full of what looked like kitchen cabinets that had been pulled off the walls. We actually had to walk around the trailer tongue, which extended halfway across the sidewalk. Negotiating that detour challenged my somewhat altered coordination.

The Doberman raised his usual ruckus. As always, he worked himself into a frenzy and threw himself at the gate repeatedly. We couldn't see why anyone would keep such an animal—an animal that seemed to hate every living thing.

Farther on, I needed to stop at The Place. Beer has always flowed right through my kidneys, and my teeth were floating even a few blocks before we got that far.

When we got to her dorm, I said goodnight with the customary brotherly peck on the cheek. Trying, to the best of my impaired ability, to sort out what had just happened, I made my way home.

Part of it became clear right after I got home. Taking me to Sarge's after she'd laid me had been a bit of genius. George had been there in his room studying when I'd been whining about how unprepared I was for the exams the next day. He'd heard me, and he'd heard her demand that I come with her—though she had not said where she was taking me, nor what we were going to do. So, when I walked in with noticeably altered coordination and with a strong odor of beer on my breath, he put two and two together. And got five, as my brilliant little fox of a sister had foreseen.

Thus, thanks to Mindy's inspired stress-relief strategy, I slept soundly that night, in spite of my earlier trepidation.

The econ exam seemed easy when I took it that Friday, and I felt good about how I'd done on it when I turned it in. But as I began to worry again about the history exam I had to take an hour later, I remembered that I'd taken exams in the past that I'd thought were easy—only to get them back a few days later and find that I'd done poorly on them. And at the recollection, despair set in, because now I was sure that I'd made the same kind of misjudgment regarding the "easy" exam I had just finished.

The history exam was a bitch—a real screaming bitch. I'd never taken so hard a test, and I left that examination in another funk. And it was a funk that eclipsed the one I'd been in the evening before.

Mindy was waiting for me, of course, as I left that classroom, to see how I thought I'd done. When she saw me, she knew instantly that I was not happy about my performance.

I almost cried, in spite of the Fundamental Code, as I said, "I flunked them, Mindy. Both of them. I'm so sorry. I'll work harder and I'll make it up. I hope I didn't do so badly that I can't salvage at least a B in both courses."

"Oh, Charlie," she said, as she took my arm. "I watched you study. I know you worked really hard to be ready for those tests. And I think you worked effectively. If you flunked them, a lot of other people did, too."

We started walking back to my house. I was in such a state that it wasn't until several days later that I recognized that what she had just said echoed the reassurance I'd given her the day before classes had started.