September 19, 2010
I've just uploaded my latest novella, titled Vacation for Two. It's about a teenage brother and sister whose parents take extreme measures to convince them to learn to get along.
I got the idea for this story as I was thinking about brother-sister incest. I was never attracted to any of my sisters growing up, and in fact, have never been involved in an incestuous relationship at all. But I wonder just how common it really is.
Look at it this way:
Take two people, one male and one female. Make them adolescents, at the age where they're just starting to come to terms with their sexuality, and are curious about it. Put them under the same roof. Make them share a bathroom. Maybe a bedroom too. Let them see each other in bathrobes or pajamas, and even occasionally less. Have them spend time together, even alone sometimes. Now tell them they're supposed to love each other. Encourage them to get along together. What is the result?
The answer is, of course, sex.
Unless they're brother and sister, in which case nothing goes on between them. No sir. This is a respectable family, and nothing like that would ever happen here. How dare you even suggest such a thing?
My point is that it probably happens more often than anyone is comfortable admitting.
I decided to take this thought experiment and turn it into a story. These two characters are artificially isolated under the same roof for a week with almost nothing to do but interact with each other. I think it's pretty obvious what's going to happen. There's a bit of a surprise ending, but most of the story is fairly predictable. That's not to say it's bad; it's just that the fun part is not in finding out what happens, but how it happens.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.