Chapter I

I knew what my life was missing.

I had never been a fan of porn, though the subject didn’t bother me. I had had a few relationships in the past, but they had never turned into anything serious, and by the time I had turned 21 I was still a virgin. This fact didn’t bother me, though my friends often chided me about it – I took the ribbing, even joked back a bit, but the idea of having sex with a woman who I cared nothing for had never interested me; to be honest, it appalled me. My respect for women has always been something that I took pride in, and still do – I open doors for them, I pull their chairs out when I take them out to dinner, and I never kiss on the first date unless they want me to. I’m an old-fashioned guy, I guess.

I was an only child and a child of a single parent – I knew my dad, but the relationship he had with my mom had never worked out. For most of my life I lived with my mother, with a few weeks during summer, and lately holidays, spent in New Mexico with my father.

The only person in my family who lived close at all was my cousin, Mia, who I absolutely adored. She had lived with us for a bit when I was seventeen while her parents were getting divorced, and we had grown quite close; she was the closest thing that I had to a sister at that point, and we shared everything together. Our favorite subject of conversation was the old standby “Would You Rather,” which started off debating our favorite celebrities and ultimately dove-tailed into the strange and bizarre, ranging from debates between fucking Edgar Allen Poe or Ernest Hemingway to a cat or a dog. We shared a room at that time, as our small apartment was only a two-bedroom, and I had developed moderate sleeping problems due to my chivalry: she would sleep on the bed, and I would be stuck on the floor, utilizing our under-stuffed couch cushions.

It had been the summer, so staying up late didn’t interfere with our studies, and my mom worked nights at the sheriff’s office as a receptionist, so we had a lot of time to ourselves. We grew close during that summer, to the point where I would shirk my friends (and, indeed, her shirking hers) in favor of spending time together. When her parent’s divorce had been finalized, her mother had won full custody; she had packed her bags and moved to North Carolina, leaving me with a hole in my heart that no woman could fill.

We were seventeen at the time; as the years wore on, we kept in touch, at first by phone and then via Facebook. I had forgone college in favor of taking a position as a playwright for the high school that I graduated from, and while the pay was horrible my mother wasn’t in any position to see me go – I was the only man in her life, with her working nights not allowing her any type of social life, and I adjusted my schedule around hers; most often I was up until she got home, we would spend some time chatting, and then we would both go to bed at around six o’clock in the morning or so.

My mother had just gone to bed – I could hear the snoring through the thin walls – and I was busy working on my next project, when I heard a soft knock at the door. It was the opening to “Shave and a Haircut,” the old standby, and I arose from my small table by the entrance to the kitchen to answer it.

There she stood, a bit taller than I remembered her, and a lot more tan – North Carolina had been good to my cousin.

“Jon!” She yelled, jumping into my arms, hugging me around the neck tightly. Her legs curled around my abdomen like a vice, and my only option was to hug her back. “Oh Jon, I’ve missed you so much.”

I dropped her lightly on her feet and held her at arm’s length. “Mia, what are you doing here? I thought you were still in North Carolina, studying psychology.”

She smiled the smile that I remembered so well. “I decided to take some time off and come back home for a bit. Mom was concerned at first, but when I told her I needed to get away and see you she bought me a plane ticket and I headed out on the next flight.” She hugged me again, not jumping into my arms like a long-lost lover this time, though the thought of her being one crossed my mind.

“Well, it’s great to see you. You look great. Sorry I look like crap, I wasn’t expecting company.” The truth was that I did look like crap – I was wearing nothing but a pair of ratty boxers that I had owned since before she had moved in four years ago and my long hair hung down to my shoulders, partially obscuring my vision.

“Yeah, you look a bit like Willie Nelson – you know, without the gray.” She laughed, her seductive laugh that I remembered, and a smile escaped me.

“I know, sorry. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting company. Come in, have a seat; let me take your bag. Can I get you something?”

She gave an audible sigh as she sat down on our couch – a new one, bought from a consignment store and thankfully not threadbare like our previous one – and put her feet on the coffee table. “I’m fine, thanks. Come here, I want to catch up a bit. Is your mom still working at the sheriff’s office?”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting in the chair across from her, “she’s still working nights there. It’s nice because I can work during the night without interruptions; she’s asleep right now,” I added, more as an afterthought than anything else.

“Wow, you guys haven’t changed much.” She smiled at me, and my heart skipped a beat. Here she was, my long-lost cousin, sitting across from me chatting as if the past four years had never occurred. We talked about anything and everything that we could think of, from what she had been doing over the past four years to the colors of the skies over North Carolina and Colorado. It was a relief to see her – no, not a relief, as I had never been worried about her, but more of a pleasure, like a fine Merlot that had aged just long enough to bring out the full potential of the flavor.

The conversation abruptly turned serious. “Why did you really come here, Mia? You sounded so happy in North Carolina.”

She wrung her hands, obviously hiding something. “I just needed a break, that’s all.” She smiled at me again, but her smile was more pleading than anything, as if she were asking me to drop the subject. I couldn’t, of course, so I pressed on, at the time oblivious to her silent pleading.

“Come on, Mia, I know you too well to accept that you flew across the country because you missed me. You hate flying, remember? So spill it – why are you really here?”

She looked down at her hands and her voice became a mere whisper. “I was…Jesus, I can’t even say it. Jon, I didn’t know what to do, I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t even think and it all happened so fast—“

“Woah, Mia, slow down.” I moved over to the couch and took her hands into mine. “Slow down and tell me what happened.” I was concerned at this point, and my face showed it; she broke down, sobbing into my chest. I grabbed her into a hug and rocked her slowly, as I did for my mom after a particularly bad day at work. “Shh, it’s OK, I’m here now. Just tell me what happened.”

She sat up, taking a deep breath to compose herself, and wiped her eyes. “OK. I can do this. I was at this party last month, and I had a bit too much to drink, and I ended up in the back of a van with this asshole. He…he raped me, Jon, he raped me and then his friends all had their fun too. Jesus Christ, Jon, I was raped.” She breathed the last sentence and immediately broke down again, sobbing once more into my chest.

I was too angry to speak. The thought that some son of a bitch had taken my cousin – my Mia – and had stolen her innocence made my blood boil. My head was reeling with possible revenge scenarios, the most prevalent being getting his name and flying to Winston-Salem to beat the shit out of him. I would gladly spend twenty years in jail if it meant that my cousin’s attacker had been thoroughly destroyed.

But instead, I merely rocked my cousin back and forth, reassuring her that she was completely safe here with me. “Does your mom know?” I asked, gently, when she had finally stopped sobbing.

“No, I couldn’t bear to tell her. What would she think? You know my mom, she would have had a shit fit. I told her that the stress of college was getting to me and that I needed to take some time off. She tried to tell me to stay, but I was pretty firm; I actually played the move-card on her, and she caved, can you believe that? Jesus, Jon, I’m sorry to burst in here, but I didn’t know what to do. You were always my best friend, you were always the one I could count on when things…when things got tough, and I didn’t know what else to do.” She broke down for the third time.

“Mia, it’s OK, everything’s going to be OK. Here, why don’t you get some sleep – you can sleep in my bed, like you used to. I’ll stay on the couch.” I started to get up but she pulled me back down, her eyes glistening with her tears.

“No, please, Jon, just stay with me for a minute, please? I promise I won’t cry on you anymore.” She gave me a small smile, and tears welled in the corners of my eyes.

“Of course, just let me get comfortable. Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, a movie sounds good. You know what, though, I’m a bit tired, could I lie down in your room? I don’t want to bother your mom.” She got up, my hands still in hers, and slowly made her way to my room.

The layout hadn’t changed, except for the addition of a VCR/DVD combo to my small setup, and I could tell that the familiarity of the room put her at ease. Just the idea of normalcy in her hectic world made her feel more secure. She lay down on the bed, kicking off her shoes, and got underneath the covers. I put on one of the TV shows that I enjoyed watching and curled up beside her, making sure I didn’t crush her as I maneuvered over her. She grabbed my arm and put it around her, and I couldn’t help but admire her sheer tenacity – even after the brutality that she had endured she was still comfortable enough to let a man be this close to her.

No, not just some guy – her cousin. That was the key difference, I had to tell myself.

I hadn’t had a woman in my bed, family or otherwise, for well over a year – I was too involved in my work to let anything get in the way, and frankly I didn’t really care about sex too much. It wasn’t at the forefront of my thoughts, though when she put my arm around her I felt the tingle of sexuality in the air, despite all evidence to the contrary. I pushed the invading thought from my mind as quickly as it entered it, instead reveling in the fact that my cousin, my best friend, was finally back.

Chapter II

Time crawled as my cousin adjusted to the new life that had been forced upon her. Her mother was worried, of course, but after repeated conversations with Mia she finally stopped calling. My own mother was delighted to see her, as they had also grown close while she had stayed, though the circumstances of her visit – the true reason she was here – was known only to the two of us. We kept up the charade of her taking some time off from college, which worked surprisingly well, and in the interim the relationship that we had enjoyed four years ago continued as if she had never left.

The topic of sex was broached just one time and she had gone white as a ghost – we had been washing the dishes, me washing, her drying, and she had actually dropped a plate, letting it shatter onto the linoleum. The conversation had started innocently enough, and I had merely suggested a small game of would you rather when she had suddenly froze. My momentary lapse of thought immediately hit me, and immediately I welled up with tears at the obvious pain I had inflicted upon Mia.

“Oh my God, Mia, I’m so sorry, I – I didn’t think, Jesus Christ I’m so sorry,” I stammered, trying to apologize. Her tears hit me like a punch in the stomach and I felt even worse for it. “Mia, please, I’m so sorry, I just didn’t think about what I was thinking. Mia, please, I’m so sorry.”

She looked at me and smiled, despite the tears falling down her face. “Jon, don’t worry about it. I can’t expect you to curb your conversation topics because of me. I’m just…I don’t even know why I reacted like that, we used to play all the time. I guess I was just thinking of how great of a guy you are.”

That stopped me cold. “Wait, you’re not mad at me?”

“Of course not! Jon, you didn’t mean to make me cry – I tend to do that a lot without any outside help. You’ve been so kind to me, letting me sleep in your bed, doing my laundry for me, making my dinner, and here I am just completely useless. Shit, I jump when someone says sex, for god’s sake.” She laughed, a small bark escaping through her tears.

“Mia, I’m not going to let you fend for yourself, especially after…after what happened to you. If anything I’m the jerk for bringing it back up. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it sweetie, you were just making small talk.” She blushed a bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you that. It…it was a pet name I had for Brandon, back before he turned into a fucking asshole.”

“I’m surprised that you’re not catatonic, Mia, to be honest with you – after what happened I’d figured you’d be rocking yourself to sleep every night. You’re a lot braver than you give yourself credit for.”

She smiled again, that small smile that reminded me of when she was just a care-free seventeen year old lost in the clutches of a nasty custody battle, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Jon, I’m a tough woman, I can handle myself. It was just…so shocking, you know? I was a virgin when that happened, and I never really drank before that night, and Brandon just took advantage of me, and then his friends…” she trailed off, not needing to explain further. I put down the dish rag and hugged her.

“Damnit Jon, your shirt is all wet!” She pushed away from me, mock disgust written on her face, and I immediately splashed her with the water running from the tap. She laughed and attempted to shield herself from the barrage of water, though by the time I was through she was soaking wet. I couldn’t help but notice her nipples piercing through her white shirt, though I quickly looked back at the sink, tearing the thought from my mind.

“Jesus, Jon, I’m fucking soaked now. I need to go change.” She turned around, dropping the rag that she had been using the dry the dishes on the table that served as my workstation, and headed into the bedroom. “Aren’t you coming? I need your help to pick out an outfit.”

“I’m not gay, you know – I don’t know how things like that match,” I called from the kitchen, though I followed her anyway. “If you haven’t noticed the most colorful thing in my wardrobe is my tie-died Sabbath shirt.” I turned the corner into the bedroom and had to stop in shock of what I saw.

She had her back to me, but it was bare. She was topless, standing over the bed, rifling through her bag. She had no tan line, which was surprising given her modesty – at least, the modesty that I had known before she had left. Clearly she had changed. I quickly regained my composure and turned around. “Sorry, Mia, I didn’t know you were undressed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re practically my brother, and you’re sure as hell my best friend, I’m not worried about being naked in front of you. Turn around and tell if this looks OK.”

I turned around and, instead of seeing a shirt covering her, all I saw was her naked breasts staring at me. I shielded my eyes and turned back around. “Jesus, Mia, you should have told me you were still topless! I know we’re family and all, but still, I can’t in good conscience go around being myself with you standing there with your tits out.”

“Jon,” she said soothingly, “I’ve been through a hell of a lot of shit these past few months. You’re the only person who I feel even remotely comfortable around, and this...