I am not quite sure about the information I have of that time, but I tried to make it as close as possible. I am very sorry if any information is wrong or offensive. This is a new thing I'm trying and I really want to share it despite the fear that people are gonna be like wtf! The sentences are somehow fragmented and the plot is full of flashbacks and you have to focus in order to distinguish the original setting from the flashback. I am using modernist elements so there is really no resolution to the one-shot, but there is an epiphany. The fragmentation and chaos in the plot suits the period of time as it was a time of war and chaos, a time of loss of one's identity and a time of confusion. I hope you enjoy it and accept it.
"Do you think father is alive?" Sara asked her sister after taking her first sip of the bitter liquid this morning. She never liked sugar in her coffee. Her twin; however, she added plenty of it until Sara remembered to stop her. Sometimes she never did. Sometimes she felt that Tegan did need enough sugar to put up with days like these.
Do you think father is alive? Did she want him to be alive? The first days were so hard, so brutal, so rough. The first days were monstrous and ghostly. But now? Now...What now? Now she could manage. Yes, maybe, yes...why not? She and her sister were so co-dependent, so young, so beautiful. But now they could manage alone, or so she thought.
They hadn't received one single letter since the strategic bombing had started on the English cities six months ago. The Blitz showed no mercy, left no city undestroyed, no human unharmed; they heard it all on the radio. Was their father alive? She loved him so much, but now...it's different. It came like an apparition whispering in her ear, now it's different.
There were those days, those harsh days after he kissed their foreheads and left them alone. Colonel Quin was forced by the circumstances of this globe they lived in to leave two eighteen year old women in the vast prairies of Alberta.
Women? They were kids. They were innocent little children who knew nothing about this world other than the information their father told them and the books he made them read. He wanted to have the best brought up girls in this town. He wanted all the boys to admire them. And he did succeed. With a wife he loved dying just three years after she birthed them, his full time job was dedicated to teach his girls and make them the women society wanted them to be. And sadly, society considered two naive girls as women. And he had to leave them alone in a beautiful house, in the grassy wilderness, where nobody was around them but the house of Mrs. Shaw.
Mrs. Shaw—what an awful woman to leave two innocent girls around. All the rumours. The big, fat, ugly rumours about Hera Shaw. He witnessed nothing. Maybe that's why he gave in and left them alone with a promise from voluptuous Hera that they would be taken care of. He thought about it, about sending them to the Clements, where their grandfather was still alive and they had an uncle who visited every once in awhile. He thought about it but he did not do it. They would take better care of themselves than that provided by their hoary grandfather. He was very old. His house was very small and uncomfortable. They were better off around the grass, around the animals, in their father's house, around Hera Shaw, and around the boys.
Oh, what about the boys? That was another thing to worry about. Who would even deny Jeremy's stealthy glances at his older daughter? He was so angry that day when Jeremy stood in the backyard, hid his body well and watched her pale legs on display; with her dress all the way up to her upper thighs; and her legs spread around the tub; and her hands busy washing her and her sister's clothes. Colonel Quin was behind Jeremy, watching him watch his daughter. He did not allow the boy to visit for more than a month after that. It was punishment. And then there was Jack, whom younger daughter blushed around and became as light as the swaying wheat in their cornfield. Both of these boys did not leave for war. His girls were left alone with them. Jeremy used to to help him around the house and the farm; Jack used to come mainly to discuss politics with him. The boys in the town loved him. They also loved his daughters.
It had been more than a year since he left her with her younger sister, how could Tegan think he was alive after all that they had been through? Tegan looked up at her sister, she added more sugar and more and more till her sister became worried, and this time, she stopped her. She hadn't stopped her since these first weeks without them receiving the letters and with the news they heard on the radio making them stay awake like those first days their father went away.
Tegan loved her father more if that was possible for one twin to love a parent more than the other. But both of them knew that Tegan loved him just a scratch more.
Why was her sister even asking her that? She hoped he's alive. But then again, if he was, what would they do? How would their lives be? She cried the first days when the letters didn't come. She cried in September, in October, and even halfway through November. But now, in March, a new year, a new month; she didn't have it in her to cry. She managed to live. Who knew?
She turned nineteen with her sister just a few months ago, the same month the letters stopped coming. Hera Shaw baked them a cake and invited them over. Even though they had their own covert life which was full of the mystery they once desired to know about Hera, they were still quite intrigued taking their first steps inside her house. They even whispered to each other with that small giggle the boys in town loved. It was a habit they had since they were five. They stood beside each other (they understood what the other was thinking) and then they giggled. And so they giggled when they entered Hera's house. The smell of the delicacy was still there; they could tell. But they knew theirs was the finest, the ripest, the purest.
"Of course he is alive. You shouldn't even think about him dead," Tegan said it like the older sister she was. "Don't you miss him?" She tilted her head to one side, trying to know if her sister secretly hoped their father wouldn't ever come.
"Of course I do," Sara said honestly. But Sara also loved her so much, her sister. What would they do if he came? Would she have to marry Jack? She always wanted that. But not anymore. Not after Hera Shaw's ample breasts were enticingly pressed against the window, not after watching her shake and rock from her bedroom window alongside her sister, not after their revelation, not after their ecstasy, not after all the fear and the tears and the hard times. Now she felt like a woman, like a grown up woman. She was a girl when her father left her, but now she was a woman and she wanted to be that. She wanted to live like that.
It was hard to depend on one's own those first months. The twins only had each other. At stormy nights, when she found her sister's body curled up beside her, she thought of her mother. She remembered sneaking out of her and her sister's room and curling in bed with her mother. Her sister would follow and they would hug the fatigued woman's legs, each twin on a different side. Their father stopped them from doing that at one point. Now she knew why. Their mother had tuberculosis and they did not understand it at that time. That was the only thing she remembered of her mother.
Sara was the one loved by the boys the most. She had her ways with them. She knew just when to giggle and when to flip her hair. She knew exactly what to say and when to say it. But she only wanted Jack because he made her blush. Tegan, on the other hand, was the one who said all these silly jokes and laughed at them on her own. But there was this one boy who laughed along as he stood in the back. Tegan knew Jeremy was in love with her. Sometimes she felt jealous that all the smart, well-educated boys were after her sister, and only Jeremy, who refused to go to college and had a mediocre education, was infatuated with her. But at other times, when she looked at him through her bedroom window; working; sweating; and doing everything he could to impress her, she couldn't help not to give him the smile he waited for.
But those were different times. Those were the old times. The times before her sister called her name one night, whispering and gasping and giggling. "Come here. You must see this." She opened her eyes and saw her younger sister at her door.
In the darkness, there Sara stood, with her long brown hair and her slender body. She looked like a lighthouse in the distance. The only light that's making her shine was coming from the hallway. But it was far, and it made Sara look like that glimmering lighthouse. Tegan sat up to make sure it was her sister there. Maybe it was the low cut nightgown that she was wearing that made everything seem blurry to Tegan. They never walked around the house with anything like that when their father was around. They were tremendously shy girls, but they did undress in front of each other if they had to. But Sara was standing there, in that silky nightgown, and the top of her beautiful breasts was exposed. The focus of that light was on the two mounds squeezed together; the other part was on her face, on her soil-like eyes. Tegan climbed out of her bed and followed her sister in her more conservative, covered nightgown. Sara looked like a woman with her arms and bony shoulders showing; Tegan looked like a girl, someone who knew nothing about the ecstasies of this world and about being a woman.
"Sit next to me. Look!" Tegan almost forgot why she was invited to her sister's room. But then she looked out of the misty window and saw two figures moving in a rhythm she wasn't able to understand. "It's been happening everyday for the past week. I was reading by the window because I couldn't fall asleep and I saw it." And then Tegan focused and saw what Sara was talking about; the large breasts; the dark hair; the naked belly...the naked everything. She also saw the face of the man behind. She saw the facial expressions; she saw the moves. "I guess the rumours are true."
It was Hera Shaw. Their neighbor. That woman who taught them things necessary for every teenage girl to know at that time; that woman who took their mother's role when it was necessary to have a woman to discuss womanly matters with. Their father was not supposed to talk with them about such topics. Hera Shaw was there. Hera Shaw taught them how to do many things and what clothes to wear and how to behave and how to look. They always heard these rumours, but they had nobody to help them but that woman who lived alone in a large house, around a large farm.
"We shouldn't look at that. It's wrong." Then Tegan understood why Sara was wearing that nightgown that only married women wore. She wanted to feel like Mrs. Shaw. She wanted to be like her.
With the stars in her eyes and the darkened glow in her face, Sara was like a picture painted on those newspapers Tegan saw in the market as she strolled down the streets twice a week. "Don't you want to know? Don't you want to know how it happens? How they do it? Don't you want to feel it?" Sara herself did feel it. She knew her sister felt it too.
They were only fifteen when they became curious. First one to talk about it was Sara: she told her sister about the moisture in her undergarments and that feeling in her private parts. They both giggled that day. Their cheeks were cherry-like globes and their hearts drummed faster than ever. Their curiosity made them ask Hera Shaw. They wanted to know what was that act everybody talked about. They wanted to know its details, how it felt, how it was done. Hera Shaw's loud laughter rang through her house. She looked at them with her two narrow eyes and her wicked smile for long moments till she told them what happened in the sheets.
Since that day, Sara hadn't been able to stop imagining herself touched in all these places Hera talked about. She imagined every boy who looked at her touching her that way. But when she saw Hera there for the first time, she couldn't help but imagine Tegan, her sister, there in that place. They were the breasts, she knew they were the beautiful breasts that made her think of her sister. Her sister's breasts were that size, hers were not. But then, night after the other, Sara imagined herself in that same spot. She looked at the man thrusting from behind and at Hera's wide opened mouth and at the hairy mound that faced her and imagined herself. But the picture was wrong. It was very wrong because she did not imagine Jack or any of those boys there behind her; she imagined Tegan. She imagined her sister equally naked behind her.
And that night Sara couldn't hold it any longer; she had to call for her sister and invite her to watch the scene.
"Yes, I do. But I'll know when it happens. And we already know. She told us. We shouldn't be looking at her." Tegan suddenly felt like she was the only one over-dressed. She wanted to strip or wear anything like that her sister was wearing.
"I wonder why they keep doing it like that. I see a strange man everyday. If she knew I'm always awake and I can see everything she wouldn't have done it, right?"
"Right." Tegan worried that their father would hear about that. He would not let them see Hera Shaw again. Why was she worried about not seeing the woman again? She did not care about the woman. But suddenly, with this view, the woman seemed very important to Tegan. She suddenly seemed as someone that Tegan wouldn't want to be banned from seeing.
"Do you think her daughter knows?" Sara and her sister heard of that daughter many times. She was living with her father. Sara never imagined her to be so delicate and soft-looking. She thought the daughter would look like the mother, sharp, voluptuous, curvy, delicious. But once Stacy visited the summer before the war, Sara was in awe when the door was opened and a very charming smile on the face of a tall girl met her.
Feelings...some feelings Sara felt and she was not sure about them that day. But then she looked at Hera Shaw and felt herself renewed and dignified. She felt as if she was a new person, as if she gained a new experience, and suddenly, she had become a powerful woman, someone who knew things others did not know; Tegan did not know. And when she imagined herself there and her sister behind her, she felt herself elevated with joy she could not replace, it was dancing inside her chest and stepping on her toes.
"I think that everybody knows," Tegan said. "Because we've been hearing rumours. And these rumours are true." Sara looked at her sister again. She had been always the wiser one when it came to common sense. Sara, Sara was the daydreamer in the night. And that was true and she knew it. If it wasn't for her habit of reading numerous books and daydreaming about this person and that, she wouldn't have caught Mrs. Shaw engaging in sexual relations with a different man each night. "I am just not sure how she hasn't caught you staring at her yet. If I were her, I'd never have sex like that. I'd hide...and I'd be ashamed and shy and be as secretive as possible." Tegan was also the more conservative one, the more prudish one. Sara knew it was not out of will, it was mostly fear, coyness, and also bad teachings from a father who wanted to repress them as much as he could. And the repression too, Sara knew, was just out of love.
"It's because I'm looking at her from the second floor, silly," Sara told her sister. "And there are no lights." Tegan was always impressed how her younger sister always found an answer to all her worries. "She's down on the first floor. She can't see anything. She's too busy feeling good to see anything." Sara giggled.
"Sara!" That was rude; that was extremely out of line. That was not something to be said by a young woman.
"Tegan," Sara said with irritation in her tone, "it's 1940. People have sex, premarital sex. And they have fun. And they go out on dates. They kiss and they touch each other and it feels beautiful. You should lighten up and not let father's conservative habits get to you."
And then, Tegan gasped. Now she got it. She understood it. She suddenly knew why Sara looked like that: all of a sudden so womanly, so luscious, so beautiful, so charming. "You've had sex!" Tegan exclaimed. "Good heavens, you have had sex." Tegan stood up. They were not supposed to make a scene, they were still spying on that woman.
"I have not," Sara answered calmly. "But I have been kissed. Sexually, yes. Sexually kissed."
"What does that mean?" Tegan asked her sister. She felt so small, so childish, so little.
"Oh, Teetee." That was the name her younger, cunning sister used whenever she wanted to tease her. "I should not tell. Jack wouldn't want me to tell." Sara flipped her long hair and her eyelashes fluttered as she shrugged her shoulder.
"Oh, well," Tegan said with every jealous sinew inside of her, "Jeremy pinched my inner thigh in the backyard." Her face flushed and her stomach clenched. She promised she would never tell anybody about that time in the backyard the year before. Their father had just been gone and she was quite sad. Jeremy teased and tickled and she allowed him until his touches meant so much more, much more to her young body than just a stupid little tickle. They were wonderful. "It was sexual as well," she said again to answer Sara's shocked face. "Very sexual. I became...wet."
Just the thought of her sister juicing in her undergarments because of a simple pinch made her halt thinking of anything else. She no longer wanted to make her sister jealous. She no longer wanted her to be exposed to the secretive freedom of sexual pleasure, a pleasure she yet had to know. Sure, these kisses with Jack, they were the best thing she had ever had. Especially when he kissed her neck and she stopped him with her giggles and shyness. But they did not have the effect her sister had on her by revealing what had gotten her aroused. Why did she become aroused hearing that?
When they looked at the window again, after revealing things they did not know about each other, they did not find Hera Shaw's breasts pressed against the glass; they only found dull maroon curtains covering the scene. They were both frightened they had been caught, but none of them said anything, none of them admitted it. And that night, both of them slept on the carpeted floor in that spot, thinking and marveling at the facts that both of them had small sexual experiences that were not very sexual, but to them they were everything they were waiting for; everything that could change them and turn them into women, not just their father's daughters.
Sara looked at the large window as she did everyday. She loved watching nothing. There was nothing. What could there be around a large house and another large house but two larger farms? She wished she lived in a house that was next to another house, and that house was next to another house, and these two houses next to many other houses. She wished she lived in a street with kids like Jack and Jeremy. She wished she'd see these boys strolling around and smiling at her as she looked at them from her living room's window.
Maybe she needed more sugar, Tegan thought about herself. It was so hard to do the laundry these days and it was harder to do them after thinking of their father not returning. What about her hair? What would he say? Would she tell him that Sara made her do it? Sara did it for her in the first place. And the clothes. What about them? She did not want to return to her old dresses and nightgowns and silly little girl shoes. She wanted to keep these clothes and walk in these large shoes that barely carried her and wanted to be what Sara wanted her to be. And what about the sex? That was something she couldn't even think about because that taboo was something she wasn't able to live with till this day. Yes, perhaps she could walk to town and get something sugary. That new cake the bakery was selling; it was very delicious. Jeremy's mother created it.
But...they would look at her the way they started to look at her. Jeremy would look at her that way and she hated it. She wished Jeremy would look at her with admiration once again. But why her? Stacy walked like that. Stacy wore these clothes and had that hair too. Plus, her hair wasn't even as short as Jack's or Jeremy's or even like that woman Stacy told Sara about. Her hair was like Stacy's and her manners were like Stacy's and Sara wanted her to be like Stacy.
Tegan looked back at Sara's figure looking outside the window. Or maybe, maybe Sara wanted her to look like Jack.
Sara walked that path each day since the brunette had visited for the second time. It was just a month after she and Tegan watched Mrs. Shaw through the window. They still watched her whenever she was there, but Hera Shaw was not always at the window anymore. And when Stacy visited, she was never at the window. Sara would find an excuse and take a basket full of apples to Hera Shaw. One time she heard her telling her sister that her daughter loved apples.
Stacy opened the door everyday and Sara smiled everyday. Stacy let her in and Hera gave two pieces of apple pie to each of them. Hera was using the apples Sara brought each day. Sara sat at the kitchen table and heard Stacy speak the way Jack used to speak around her father. She knew Hera was listening from outside, the way she listened to her father and Jack speaking.
Stacy was a mature woman; she went to college. She studied. She read. She was smart. Just like Jack. Sara felt too excited whenever Stacy read something from a book to her. Her cheeks would be blotched in crimson red and her lips would be bitten and her youthful enthusiasm would be at its peak, forgetting her sister alone in the house with Jeremy around. If their father knew he would be angry, but who cared?
'When sometimes I stroll in silence, with you
Through great floral meadows of open country
I listen to your chatter, and give thanks to the gods
For the honest friendship, which made you my companion'
Stacy wanted to be like her friends. Like these friends in that college. They sparkled with love and shone with passion. She wanted to impress this girl. She didn't exactly know why. Sara was not a beauty queen, but her hair swayed and it made her look like an angel. Her dress fluttered in the wind whenever they walked together in the prairies. Her eyes glittered as soon as Jack's eyes met hers.
What did Jack have that she lacked? She took her mother's scissors and chopped her long brown locks. She opened her father's closet and took his old clothes out and wore them. Her mother did not care; she never cared. She used to care one time before her father left her, but not anymore. She was always embarrassed by her mother but she was glad that the older woman did not interfere in the type of need that hit her all of a sudden. In fact she enjoyed it from behind these doors like a wedding planner doing its best to make things happen.
'But in the heavy fragrance of intoxicating night
I search on your lip for a madder caress
I tear secrets from your yielding flesh
Giving thanks to the fate which made you my mistress'
Sara gave her a look of wonder when she saw her with this new attire just three days before. Sara seemed uncomfortable, but also pulled in by an unknown desire. She thought Sara wouldn't return the next day but Sara did and Sara sat closer and whispered and giggled and touched her hand. Sara talked about the weather and about her sister Tegan and about Jack and about other simple things that Stacy wanted to experience. All she had was her textbooks and knowledge and a couple of old stories that her friends told her. She thought that Sara's life was way more exciting, way more fun. She wanted to walk there everyday in the prairies and visit the small shops and gossip with girls her age and flip her hair at boys who wanted a glimpse of her. All boys wanted to talk to her when they saw her walking with Sara. They still wanted to talk to her the day before when she was dressed like Jack. Even Jack seemed tantalized and interested.
Sara felt as if Stacy was some sort of a magical creature sitting on her shoulder as she walked around the town. Everybody wanted a piece of her, wanted to say hi to Sara and smile at Stacy. She had never felt so triumphant. She had never felt so beautiful and wanted. These were lies they told that women who dressed like men would be treated badly. Everybody wanted to offer an apple to Stacy, everybody wanted a taste of this woman walking next to her. Even Jack, and most importantly Jack, he looked at Stacy and smiled as he entangled his thick fingers in Sara's hair and traced her jaw line and made her turn red in front of him and in front of Stacy.
Sara giggled and bit on her lower lip. Her tiny feet were swaying from underneath the table. "Wow," she said. "These words are..." She couldn't continue; she was blushing.
"I love them. I love Vita. I wish I was like her." Stacy's blue irises danced from one feature on Sara's face to the other. "I wish I was able to make people swoon."
"You mean women," Sara said bashfully. She then giggled like a small child who wasn't supposed to say a couple of inappropriate words.
"Does that bother you?" Stacy's unnerved heart was beating too loudly for her to avoid it. She wanted this woman and she did not care about what anybody would say.
Sara looked at Stacy's trousers, Stacy's shirt, and Stacy's hat. She remembered her sister instantly. Her sister was with Jeremy, alone in the house. Her sister had beautiful long hair, just like hers. Stacy's hair reached her shoulders. Hera's hair was long like hers and her sister's.
"How come you don't wear dresses anymore?" Sara asked. Sara changed the subject. Sara felt a chilly breeze hitting her insides. She saw her father's face in front of her, sitting there, watching her. "You're not like us," she concluded.
"No, I'm not." Stacy also had blue eyes. Her sister had hazel ones like hers. And Jack had brown eyes. She liked Jack's eyes. But her sister's were the most beautiful. Even more beautiful than hers. "And you're not as well."
Sara spent that night in bed staring at the window, hoping for anybody to appear; for Hera to appear naked or her daughter this time. Or her sister. Wouldn't that be funny? Hilarious. Would she watch? Yes, she would watch. She was curious about her sister and what her sister was doing with Jeremy. Tegan said she did nothing. They spoke about the bakery and ate a carrot cake that his mother made. Sara knew Tegan was lying. Because she lied too when Tegan asked her about her frequent visits to Hera's house.
You're not like us, she repeated her own words in her head. She looked into the mirror and mouthed them. She looked at her long hair. She blinked her tears away. She wished she'd stop visiting Stacy but she couldn't do that. She hated her father that night. He was her nightmare. Whenever she visited Stacy, he was there with his conservative, old-fashioned thoughts. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw his proud face and saw him clapping his hands with his smirk, his powerful smirk. She bet he was doing the same at war: he was clapping his hands and smirking and watching her and her sister trying to be women and experience some sexual freedom, some elation, some love, some time of joy, of merriment, and liberty. Oh yes, liberty of thoughts...how she wished to have that. She wanted her body to be free and high, soaring like a bird. She wanted her youth to be made love to and be seen and be touched and be caressed like that poem Stacy read: she wanted to feel what it felt like to be a woman.
Two days later she visited Stacy again, but the woman was alone in the house. She left Tegan asleep and went to see Stacy. She didn't understand why she wanted to speak to that woman. She wanted to go to college too. She wanted to be an avid reader and she wanted to have this small circle of gossip and friends who were different. No, of women who were different. Yes, not just any friends, but women.
"I saw Jack today," Stacy told her. "He asked about you." Stacy's smile was as wicked as her mother's and her eyes sparkled the way her mother's did. "I bet he misses you."
"You think so?" Sara blushed. She hadn't gone to the library that Jack owned recently. Stacy told her not to so Jack could miss her. Tegan believed that was a foolish idea. Tegan had been seeing Jeremy each day and she refused to tell Sara what they did. Tegan did not seem changed. She did not seem to have the same type of experiences as Stacy and Hera owned. Tegan was still her older prude sister whom she loved so much and felt safe around.
"Of course." She wished she was asleep with Tegan. There was no Hera to give her a piece of an apple pie and ask her about her day and make her a cup of coffee and watch their words. Stacy was there alone and she smiled like a clown.
"Why don't you wear dresses like us?" Sara asked once again.
"Because I'm not like you."
"And who are you like?"
"I'm like myself," Stacy said. "And so are you."
Stacy held her waist and smiled while she frowned. They were the same age but Stacy was making her uncomfortable. Stacy rubbed her sides and she looked back at the door. "Did Jack kiss you well?"
"That is none of your business."
"You told me he kissed you."
"Yes," Sara said shakily. "But you cannot know how well it was."
"I want you to know why I am so different and why you are just like me." Sara couldn't say anything more. She felt the same feeling her sister must had felt when she talked about being a sexually experienced woman, a free woman: she felt small, little, and without much will.
Sara allowed herself to be stripped off her dress when Stacy told her to remove it. She was not very shy but she was feeling as if someone was toying with her heart. Stacy began to raise her slip slowly, revealing parts of her thin pale thighs. She looked back at the window. Tegan could still be asleep. Jeremy could have done the same to Tegan.
"I was a little girl just like you once," Stacy told her. "And a woman who dressed like me showed me what it's like to be a free woman who feels and thinks and knows."
"I don't want that." Sara pushed Stacy. "You weren't like that last week. You're just trying to show me you know better than I am. I like the old Stacy." The woman nodded. She did not seem startled. "It's wrong. What we're doing is wrong."
"Is it because I'm not a man or is it because I'm not wearing a dress?" Stacy asked calmly. "I can wear a dress if you want." Stacy unbuttoned her flannel shirt quickly. Sara averted her gaze.
"I like Jack," Sara finally said after moments of silence. She buttoned the front buttons of her summer dress. "He likes me too. We're going to get married when father returns."
Stacy turned around and did not say more. That was the last time she had seen Stacy until now. Now the woman was there in front of her, outside the large window. In a dress, a yellow dress like hers. Her hair was longer and her face was sadder. They looked at each other and Stacy nodded. Sara looked back at her sister; she was standing there in their father's clothes, in her short hair, with their own dirty clothes in her hand, she was staring at her. How beautiful was her sister! How changed she was! Was it because of her? Jack did not want her anymore. Sara did not understand why, but one morning she went to his library and Jack did not say hello back. Jack did not smile at her. She cried so hard when it happened once again. She cried on the floor as she closed the door. Her sister hugged her and kissed her tear-stained face. Sara still didn't know what happened till this day but she was a different person from that day she sat on the floor and cried. She still cried at night next to Tegan; they cried together. She still worried and hated herself. She still saw her father's face. She still wanted him gone but still wanted him there.
Innocence was a bliss. Ignorance was part of innocence. Why couldn't she have wings to fly with Tegan and live on a cloud where they could make love and not be scared of it? Why couldn't she love a woman and crave a soft hand above her breasts without hearing others joke and mock those who were like that? Why was her sister mocked and hurt walking in these clothes while Stacy wasn't? Was it because Stacy was Hera's daughter? Why wasn't she Hera's daughter? Loving Tegan would be easy for her. She did not want to marry anybody anymore. She wanted to be with Tegan and around Tegan in this house till they both died. She knew her mother's not angry and not mad. She never appeared with an evil clap and a smirk in her dreams or daydreams. It was just her father, her old, mean father who molded her to be a girl and never a woman.
These following nights after Jack's abandonment and desertion Sara found herself unable to sleep calmly in her bed. She stood at the window each night, waiting, watching, wanting. Her tears wrapped their wetness around her face and her heart sunk deeper when each morning came. Tegan had stopped crying and now Sara was doing that. Tegan felt as if the weight of the whole world was on her shoulders. Her mission was to make her sister feel happy and proud again. She hugged her and allowed her to cry. She knew something was growing like a fungus inside them.
Sara felt the growth of vine leaves whenever her sister wrapped her arms around her. The scent of a human body filled her nostrils, making her calm down. Quiescence filled the room they were in when she stopped crying, hearing loud beats of a scared heart and soft breaths coming from vigorous lungs. Whenever they connected, they produced more leaves, more green. Someday they would make a tree, Sara thought. They were beautiful together, their bodies matched and felt good to be connected. She looked up at her sister and saw the worried face. She pecked her sister's lips and smiled. She thanked her sister.
They kissed each other's lips when they were young. They always did that. It was always a soft peck that demonstrated their sisterly affection towards each other in circumstances when they felt as if they needed each other in order to survive. Nothing showed it better than an innocent kiss. Sara needed her to survive so she kissed her lips and abruptly felt the tree being birthed and herself growing wings and her body breaking every chain their father locked them inside.
Instead of staying up those nights crying alone, Sara found a better way to cry, a more relaxing way to want, a more suitable way to feel. Sara paced to her sister's bedroom with her pillow clutched tightly to her chest. Her sister awakened each day because she started to expect Sara. The first time was the scariest; she felt someone touching her and she awoke to find Sara's wet face on her shoulder. She didn't scream but her gasp was loud enough to awaken Sara. They cried together till they fell asleep.
When Sara's visits became daily and frequent, Tegan would only pretend she's asleep until her sister climbed up her mattress and slept next to her. She didn't understand why her sister just didn't join her in bed when she declared she was going to sleep hours before. She felt the fungus growing whenever they tightly held each other and whenever Sara appeared next to her in that silky and lacy slip that covered nothing. Why wasn't Sara wearing her pajamas anyway? So what if their father wasn't around? She was around.
"You like girls," Tegan said one night to her sister. Her sister's head was on her chest. She couldn't hold it inside anymore. Her sister was not like anybody else; she was different and each day Tegan started to notice that. But liking girls was something else from liking her and despite all of everything that made liking her seem worse, she still thought that liking girls was worse.
"What if I do?" Sara sat up like a thunderbolt that struck all of a sudden amidst the darkness and gloominess of a starless night. Her sister was always very defensive, sometimes even aggressive. Tegan remembered when they were children how her sister hit anybody who hurt her. She always ended up crying and Sara did the business, beating up silly little boys and girls. Then Sara kissed her lips and told her that she would be okay, and Sara was always right; she was always okay after a few minutes.
"I...I just...Sara, but what about father?"
"What about him?" Sara started to cry. That was a sensitive topic that had been keeping her up at night, every damn night. What if Tegan knew she also liked her and admired her and imagined her and wanted to be held by her? Why couldn't she be a bird? Why couldn't she fly?
Tegan sat up and held her crying sister in her arms, she had been doing that quite a lot lately. Sara sobbed on her covered shoulders and she rubbed the very thin fabric over Sara's back. Sara was not wearing anything under her slip, nothing at all. Tegan still did not get it. "I don't want you to be hurt and hated and kicked down," Tegan told her, whispering in her ears.
"Nobody says anything to Stacy. They all love her."
"It's different," Tegan said. "Stacy's Hera's daughter. They expect such behaviour from her. They think she is a whore."
"She's not," Sara defended. She also felt defensive over Stacy. She awakened her, gave her the epiphany, drew the picture, showed her what she was, made her think and question, made her jump outside of the window; she made her see herself in a new attire and a new place and around new people. Everything felt new and she felt renovated like she once did watching Hera Shaw's naked body.
"That's not the point." Tegan kissed her sister's brow, it felt necessary to do so. "The point is that they don't look at you that way here. You're a noble man's daughter. You're representing his family; you're supposed to marry a man, have a bunch of his children, grow old with him and die before him. I'm expected to do the same. I don't want that for me. Do you think I want it? But I have to do it. If I don't, they will kick me down and they will beat me up and father will desert me and despise me. I can't bear that."
"You feel the same way?" Sara's face was up now. Her eyes looked at her sister's beautiful hazel ones. She was a beauty; her sister was a beauty with her long dark hair and her pale skin and innocent gazes.
"Sometimes I feel it," Tegan decided to admit her feelings that night, perhaps it would make her sister see some common sense, perhaps it would make her aware that she was not alone in this suffering they were living in. If only her father hadn't left. If only they hadn't visited Hera Shaw. If only Sara hadn't called her up that night to watch the woman utterly nude. If only she hadn't looked at her sister nor taken many glances, nor let her mind wander, nor let any thought inside. What would she do now? She too had her own epiphany and everyday it grew like fungus. It was going to cover their whole house—she bet her father could see the fungus from England, all the way from England. She dreamed about it. "But I suppress it because that's the right thing to do."
"It is not." Sara cried again. "We deserve a life. We deserve to love who we want and feel the way we want and touch whoever we want. We deserve sexual freedom."
"We don't have a voice, Sara. We're just his daughters." Tegan sighed. "And I'm happy with that," Tegan pondered.
Was she really? Sara did not believe it.
"How can you be?" Sara was astounded and shocked. How could she be happy with a prisoner? "How did you realise you were a homosexual?" They were like vine leaves on that bed, sharing experiences and secrets. If only they could fly, perhaps if their roots entangled they could.
Tegan did not like that word. She couldn't hear it. It was too soon and it felt too soon and things were progressing all around the world because of that damned war but not inside their fungus-filled home. Plus, she still liked Jeremy.
And how could she tell her that she discovered that whim that same night Sara called her up to the room? How could she tell her it was that nightgown? How could she tell her it was the beautiful long hair or the exposed shoulders or the feeling of soft breasts against her own when they hugged? They had been hugging for the past week and every night felt more angelic and miraculous if she only accepted it to be that way. And at some seconds, she really did let the good feeling inside and pushed the guilt away. Perhaps they were not a fungus but something better that was growing, who knew, they could be...she couldn't decide.
Sara's hand moved like a spectre and landed on her hair. She stroked the soft locks. Tegan had taken a shower that night and smelled beautiful and clean. Her skin looked supple and soft and her face looked fresh and pure. "It's alright if you don't want to reveal it. I appreciate you telling me such a secret. I know how you feel." Tegan knew Sara liked her and wanted her. She knew that when her sister liked someone, her eyes looked softer and her touches became tender and her attempts of flirting became very weak and full of bashful failure. Sara also had been wearing less and less each day. Her nipples were poking from that silky, lacy slip.
"You made me realise it," Tegan finally said. She began to cry too. Her heart cried and her mind and her body and her eyes and everything in her cried. How did she admit it when she swore she wouldn't? Was she that desperate? Did she want something more? No, that was wrong. That was the fungus she thought of. No,that was wrong.
Then Sara kissed her. It was not like all these kisses. It was not a gentle, innocent peck that they shared since they were children. Sometimes thinking too much would betray you, sometimes not thinking at all would help you. Sara did not think at all, she just acted on instinct; she kissed Tegan the way Jack once kissed her. She kissed very slowly with her eyes closed and her worry sprawled inside her body; she accepted it, welcomed it, made a room for it to rest there, and then she ignored it. Let her be worried and scared and frightened. She wanted to kiss her sister and wanted it more than her worry wanted her to think about her sinful thoughts.
Tegan didn't really know what to do but a feeling (that she always felt whenever they were tucked inside one blanket, inside their home, near the fireplace in the cold winter) was setting in inside her soul the more Sara deepened the kiss: security. She felt secure, safe, close, happy, peaceful, satisfied. She felt warm and she felt elevated. Oh yes, elevated. She felt elevated and sublimated.
And since that night everything had changed and everything grew like a vine tree and a fungus, both intertwined together, interlaced and interconnected. Sara felt herself on top of the world at all hours of the day but Tegan, sadly, her elation and euphoria only emerged in these hours of the night when her hands began to explore her sister's supple and soft skin.
Sara noticed that her legs were not shaved like her sister's while she was being kissed in different areas of her body. She didn't know her innocent sister could kiss like that but she also didn't know that she was the one who would be so coy and careful. Her heart raced with every touch. Her legs were spread and she knew that nothing covered her body but the thin fabric of her slip. Soft and quick hands removed it in motions that felt hazy and foggy that Sara felt like she was not sober. Perhaps that was the feeling of sexual nirvana, perhaps it was hitting her all at once like that book she stole from her father's study one time. It had pictures of the human body. She saw a naked man in that book the first time. The other time was through the window when she watched Hera Shaw and her men. One time, and it was very surprising, she felt Jack's own manhood rubbing against her when they were making out behind a giant bookshelf in his library; that time she almost lost her self-control. But not any time made her feel as majestic and robust as this time. She was a bird; she could fly.
Four hands were searching in the darkness, discovering, touching, placing themselves here and there, wanting to feel this and that. It was all ambiguous and mysterious as both of their souls danced naked on the brims of curiosity. They did not want to see what their bodies hid. It's not like they had not seen each other naked, but none of them had seen each other in this form of nudity, mongering lust and need. Young, shaky fingers touched pink hard nipples and gasps escaped. A blanket covered their bodies as they lay in front of each other (each on her side) and inspected what they owned. It felt painful and it felt good. Two cores juiced and two clits throbbed and two mouths breathed against one another till a kiss took them again and their bodies were joined, nothing separating them, no barrier of fabric, no eyes of their father, clapping, smirking, shaking his head and claiming that they were like fungus spreading around this house while he was gone. Nobody cared what they were at that moment when they felt so alive and powerful in their own connectivity. Perhaps they were meant to be one person and once they were connected nobody was able to defeat them; they were stronger than everybody, stronger than both of their minds and thoughts and worries.
And then their hands moved south, both discovered generous amount of hair. Sara took a hold of Tegan's pubic hair and pulled until it slipped out of her grip. Tegan tried to do the same but Sara's hair was a bit tinier than hers and whenever she tried to grab something, the hair slipped out of her fingers. Sara looked at her eyes and bit her lip. Sara's fingers moved down till they met wetness Sara never imagined. She was wet too but Tegan was a pool she was plunging in.
They were so naive and they didn't know how their bodies were supposed to be pleased. Sara didn't know but she knew something was there and she should touch it; she heard some girls whispering and talking. She wished she was not as stupid and uneducated. She blamed her father. She blamed Hera Shaw for not giving them full details about how to please a grown woman. Sara searched and Tegan did too; her sister was even more naive and innocent. Tegan's body was very curvy and her breasts were delightful to watch. Again, Sara imagined Tegan standing there, with her breasts pressed against the window and herself thrusting in her from behind. If only that could happen. But Sara also wanted to be in Hera's place. Her breasts weren't that much smaller than her sister's, they were just a bit squishier, while her sister's were perkier and firmer. Sara did not care; she loved her own body and breasts. Jack cupped them one time and squeezed and that was one of the best moments of her life until this moment.
Her sister pressed two of her fingers on her clit and she gasped; perhaps she was the only naive one. Her sister rubbed and circled and rotated as if she had done that before and Sara was now receiving something she had never thought of. She shook and squeezed Tegan's arms and closed her eyes and breathed heavily. It was magical, purifying, and beautiful. Her pleasure built beautifully and Tegan helped her reach a moment of no turning back. Sara screamed and smiled and rejoiced when she came. It was magical; she told her sister about it.
And then it was time for her sister to be touched. Sara suddenly felt younger and less experienced when her sister guided her face down and between her own legs. Sara's eyes were wide open but she was more eager to do what her sister wanted her to perform. Everything felt new, everything felt different; she wasn't Hera Shaw nor Stacy, nor Tegan, she was just simple, young Sara who thought her sister was lost in her youth and innocence while it was her all along who did not know anything about the world, about sexuality, about women, about pleasure, about lust, about euphoria.
Sara's first taste of her sister was the best, the purest, the loveliest, the most savoury one. It was like heaven was dripping its nectar on her tongue. Her sister tasted like something she had never imagined. Women were different and women created this planet and made it beautiful, Sara thought. Why wasn't it all just full of women? Their genitals were pretty; the hair on top, the small clit, the lips underneath, and then the dripping hole that was the gate to heaven. Sara was sure Tegan's hole was the gate to heaven.
Sara's tongue learned quickly how to move in directions, dancing and turning and flickering, making the girl lying there moan and whine for more. It was all new, so new; she felt like a bird. How come these things were hidden from her and not exposed to her? How come their father wanted them to stay locked in and only experience such pleasure after marriage? A new time had emerged; it was the 40s; sex was necessary...sex was obligatory. Then another thought sat in Sara's mind when her sister came in her mouth: would she receive and give the same pleasure if she married Jack? Did women experience this satisfaction and ecstasy with men? When she saw the smile on Tegan's face and the loss of worry and fear, she knew that only women were able to give women what they deserved; only women made women feel what they wanted to feel. Only her and her sister were able to please each other and love each other and nobody could love them like they did. And in that time of the night love was shared and said and heard.
"I love you," Sara told her sister.
"I love you," her sister answered her.
Tegan stood next to Sara against the window. There was nothing that Sara was looking at. Their conversation in the morning made both of them seek silence and not say much to one another. They had to do their daily chores. Sara hadn't started cooking yet. Tegan did her part; she did the laundry and tidied the rooms upstairs, and cleaned them too. Sara hadn't cooked nor cleaned the first floor. She didn't run her errands. Sara looked outside the window for hours as if she was waiting for something that she was not sure of.
Sara did not know herself anymore but she knew she owned a precious love that if she wasted it she would stop breathing; her lungs would deflate and her heart would stop. Sara looked at her sister next to her. Was that normal what she had done to her? Tegan felt scared at first but then she loved it. But there was Stacy dressed like a girl once again. And then there was Jack, who looked at her and her sister in disappointment. Her sister was right.
After that night of exultation, nothing had been the same anymore. Sara saw her sister with brighter eyes and her sister saw her with clearer ones. They felt as if they were the queens of the house, as if they owned this and that and life belonged to them. Oh, how sweet it felt to feel so alive and happy.
Tegan burst in on her sister after hearing her groans and moans coming from the bathroom. Sara sat there in the tub, with one leg on the edge while the other one bent. Her half-shaved leg was full of tiny cuts and her face was full of tears. It was the first time she tried to shave and she found it hard. Tegan laughed at her and asked her why on earth she was doing that.
"Because I want to look good for you," Sara answered, brushing her hair off her face with the back of her hands.
"But you never did that. You barely have hair. You don't need to shave. I love you the way you are."
"But you did shave."
"I always did," Tegan answered. She took the razor from her sister's hand and sat on the edge next to that leg. "You must use a cream, silly." Tegan smiled at teary-eyed Sara. She helped her shave her legs. Sara was naked there and Tegan took glances between her legs each few minutes. When Sara noticed, she covered that area with her arm.
"You and Jeremy did things, didn't you?" Sara asked. She thought she was the one who was eager to experience the unknown. But her sister seemed wiser and more experienced and better at everything. She felt like a fool.
"Not many things," Tegan replied. All these times Sara left her alone to go see Stacy, Jeremy touched another part of her skin; her legs; her breasts; her waist; and finally, her vulva. He rubbed there above the dress, making her close her eyes for a second and open them to look at the window, seeing Hera Shaw's house, needing her sister, asking for her sister. "I always stopped it before it got too far."
"Do you love him?" Sara asked herself if she loved Jack every night after that night she and her sister connected. She never answered herself.
Tegan did not give her an answer too; Tegan shrugged and sighed.
Do you love me? Sara wanted to ask. Because I love you more than anything and anyone, she wanted to say. I wish I could fly with you and be with you till we die together. I wish father wouldn't return.
But the last thought always made her halt and cry. She started crying in the bathroom and Tegan didn't know why. How could she wish such a wish? She loved her father and missed him. But she loved Tegan and wanted to be with her.
Sara and Tegan were in their father's room, searching in his closet for his big black coat. It had gotten colder. The letters stopped coming two months before. They were crying as they looked in his closet; there were his clothes; his flannel shirt; his jeans; his trousers; his suit; his shoes. Tegan cried and hugged her father's clothes.
"Wear them," Sara whispered. "I bet they will look terrific on you." She started to imagine her sister in these clothes and a shorter hair. Her sister would look handsome and amazing.
It was hard for Tegan to get used to her attire at first, but she couldn't deny she looked galvanizingly different. She did not only feel different now, but she found a look to suit that difference.
"I look like Stacy," Tegan said. She laughed.
"More like Jack," Sara whispered. "He has a shirt like this one." Sara looked at the window in their father's bedroom, as if Jack was standing there.
"Do you miss speaking with him?" Sara was holding her sister's hair, thinking of something, of anything to do with it.
"I do," Sara didn't deny it. "I miss going out there and feeling like I mattered."
"What changed?" Tegan asked, but then she lowered her head. That was a stupid question; everything had changed. It's like everybody smelled the scent of sexual euphoria on them when they walked. Even Hera Shaw was smirking evilly, wickedly, and cunningly. Her witch-like eyes glittered as her tongue licked her lower lip.
Maybe it wasn't the attire that made people see her that way, Tegan contemplated. Her sister's silent, still face seemed frozen with fright. She was waiting for something, something unclear and uncertain. Maybe everybody knew what they had done when they saw them the first time after they had lost their virginity to each other. Perchance they had a special glow on their faces, in their walks, in their steps.
The first few minutes of thrusting into each other with two digits were the strangest. Sara was on top of Tegan and they were sweating. Pleasure began to replace discomfort when Sara sucked on her sister's left breast, which made her sister fondle hers, tweaking and rotating a hard pink nipple.
Sara wondered if Stacy had done that. She also wondered if Jack had done that with any woman. Jack was eight years older than her. They never spoke about his past lovers. But Stacy told Sara about that woman who changed her life and made her aware of her surroundings.
And now there was Stacy outside her house again, staring at both twins, who were still staring out of the window. Tegan took another glance at her sister's sharp face and one at Stacy's small eyes. She took another glance at herself and shook her head, beginning to cry.
Sara sat her down in front of the mirror, the scissors in her hands. "Time to make you my handsome man."
"I am not a man," Tegan said irritably.
"I know that." Sara giggled. "I like to see your face angry when I say that."
Sara started to chop one lock after another.
"It is not funny," Tegan responded shortly. "I am not Jack, Sara."
"I also know that," Sara said gruffly.
Tegan felt stupid; she needed to change her clothes. Her sister was confused, locked inside her own confusion and her own denial and her own self-deprecating ideas and thoughts. Her sister was struggling and she went along, following her steps.
She loved her sister so much but she loved her femininity too.
Sara looked at her crying sister, her face devoid of any emotion. She suddenly knew. She knew what she had never realised before; it was her all along; she was the fungus and the barrier.
"You tried so hard to make the picture look suitable for you so you wouldn't feel guilty when you touched me." Tegan was still crying.
Stacy walked closer to the window.
"I still love you."
"Why did you make me do it?"
"Because I love you," Sara said again, sharper this time.
Stacy walked and walked.
"You know that father isn't coming, don't you?" Tegan asked.
"Perhaps," Sara said.
"No." Tegan shook her head. "He isn't. He can't."
"You are scared."
"I am not willing to go back."
"Then why did you blame me?"
"Because I love you," Tegan said once again. "And I can't accept it."
"That is not my problem," Sara said loudly.
"You can't accept it either so you turned me into Jack."
Stacy was just standing outside, looking at both of them.
Stacy knocked on the window. Sara did not avert her cold gaze. Stacy knocked again. Sara did not care.
"I want to tell you something," Stacy shouted. Sara's eyes did not move. "It was me," Stacy said. "It was my fault." Sara did not even blink. "I told Jack that I slept with you because I fell for you. I felt jealous." Even though Tegan gasped, Sara did not shake nor flinch. "Please, forgive me. We live in a stupid world."
Sara did not need to forgive nor be angry. Didn't Stacy know that she was happier with her sister? Their love was one of a kind, the best kind. This big house was all beating with their love. Sara didn't even want to open the window anymore, she didn't want their love to escape with the air. She didn't want anything inside her house that might make this love evaporate.
She accepted it, welcomed it, reveled in it. Her love was the purest and the kindest. She didn't want to be a bird and didn't want to fly, she wanted to stay in this house and love her sister and be loved by her because that's how her heart worked; loving her sister each dark night; pushing her face in the softness of that body; licking each part of that skin; touching each curve; reaching higher and higher till it felt like they were the rulers of the world until they came. Pure bliss danced in their cores, making them close their eyes with a smile, relishing their sad destiny; gratifying their miserable fate.