I don't remember returning to bed that night, but I woke on my back, naked with no covers. My daughter's pleasant moans rang in my ears as I tried rouse myself. It took me many minutes and a few idle strokes of my fingers between my legs to force my body from the bed and into my robe.

Kira was still in her bedroom, so I crept down and made coffee. Before I'd finished my cup, she joined me at the table, eyes averted.

“Kira...” I said, trying to remember what I'd planned to say to her the night before. “I'm sorry... I shouldn't have done that...”

She shrugged, “it happens...”

“Well... it shouldn't have... not where you would see it. I'm sorry.”

“Fine, Mom. It's fine.”

An uncomfortable silence followed and I tried to fill it with idle conversation. “Any plans today?” Her brother was going to stay at Donnie's until Sunday. I flashed to what my hallucination had said, that Donnie and my son were fooling around with hands and blowjobs. It was only with effort I stopped from sliding into that fantasy.

Kira responded, which helped. “Nah... maybe I'll just read today. Not feeling great.”

“Are you sick?”

She shook her head, finally looking at me briefly, “no, just... weirded out...”

I felt shame. “Sorry...”

“No, it's... it's not that... just... you know... everything...”

I knew she was referring to the earlier incidents and admissions, and I tried to ease her thoughts. “That's behind us, Kira... don't worry about it... really.”

“Have you talked to Dex yet?”

“No...”

“Will you?”

“I... I should, yes.”

“Do you think it's sick? That... that he and I like to play games with my panties?”

I paused before speaking. I chose not to lie. “No... it's not sick... Maybe it's not... normal... but, no, it's okay...”

“He let me see him getting dressed yesterday...” Kira said softly.

“I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This is... difficult to deal with, Kira... really, really difficult.”

Kira was quiet a moment, then said, “you didn't have a brother... or a sister... you wouldn't understand.”

“I--” It was a race to see whether a lie or the truth would come out first. I honestly wasn't sure which I would tell. “I had a sister...”

“What?!” Kira burst out, “you always said you were an only child...”

“I know... I'm sorry... I had a... sister...”

“A sister? Mom! Why didn't you tell me? Where is she?”

My lip trembled as I tried not to show my sadness. “She's dead.”

“Oh,” Kira leaned over and touched my arm. “I'm sorry. I didn't know...”

“She died when I was sixteen... I'd... I'd tried to forget about her... it hurt... too much...” Tears were forming in my eyes and I stopped trying to control them. It came back in a rush what had happened, and even as I couldn't describe it to my daughter, the memories flooded back and left me sobbing and inconsolable.

- - -

“I'll be there in an hour!” Jackie told me over the phone. “Just had to stop and pee!”

I laughed and told her how excited I was that she was coming home for the weekend. I'd not expected to see her before Thanksgiving, but she'd begged a ride from a college friend and was coming in for a couple of nights. I'd pleaded with her to come, that I really wanted to see her and talk to her in person. I missed those long nights talking about our feelings and our lives, I missed being able to share everything with Jackie, including my body.

I'd started to date Niles, and though I had meant what I said about being faithful to him, I knew that once Jackie was home, I'd want to make love with her like we had so often since I was fourteen. She'd dropped hints that she was more than willing and wanted to be with me as much as I wanted her.

I hung up the phone and cleaned up my room, giddy with excitement. I showered and put on clean panties after carefully trimming my pubes. My mom had finally allowed me to get a razor when the hair on my legs reached some arbitrary point where it was no longer conservatively feminine to appear that way. Naturally, I'd learned quickly how to trim my cunt and leave a well-groomed frame around my maturing vulva.

I put on a bra and slipped into a shirt I knew she loved, then put on leggings which I thought made my butt look hot. My mom hated it, but she'd stopped fighting against me when it was obvious I was just going to wear what I wished. I dabbed on perfume and put on lipstick and eyeliner. I wanted my sister to see me as beautiful as I could be, and I felt full of confidence as I blew myself a kiss in the mirror.

I tied my hair in braids, two down over each shoulder, my auburn locks long enough to reach my mid-back when not bound or braided. I touched my clit a moment just to remind myself what fun I'd be having once Jackie was home.

She didn't arrive in the promised hour and I fretted, restless, eager for her to come home. Another hour passed, then another. My mom and dad began to grow concerned, and I rode with my father in the direction from which Jackie should have been arriving. We went all the way to the store she'd been at when she called me. We saw no sign of her nor of the yellow sedan which was her ride.

We drove back to the house and found my mom in tears.

“Oh! Oh!” she was hysterical, shaking on her feet, her face red and puffy.

My father rushed ahead of me and took her in his arms. “What is it?!” he exclaimed.

“It's Jacqueline... she's was... in an accident!” My mom cried harder.

I felt sick and started screaming, “Jackie!? What happened to Jackie!”

Mom leapt to where I stood, my own tears forming quickly. “Oh, Penelope... Oh... Oh!” She held me tight against her, trembling, her tears wetting my neck.

“Is she alright? Mom!?”

She sobbed against me a moment, then said with great sadness, “no... no... she didn't make it... oh, Penelope!”

It didn't really sink in then. I knew tremendous loss and anguish in slow motion. I felt like I was out of my own body, watching myself cry, watching myself give in to the grief. I saw myself from a distance, the warmth of my mother's embrace around someone else's body. I could see my father crying, eyes red and filled with tears as he wrapped his arms around us.

Even as I felt the sadness, I stood apart from it, not allowing myself to believe it true, not letting myself accept that my mother was telling the truth. “No!” I screamed. “No! She's not dead! No!”

“Oh, Penelope... I'm so, so sorry...” Mom cried into my neck. “I'm so sorry...”

“No!” I screamed that word over and over until my throat had become too thick to speak. My eyes were on fire, my body thick, my mind heavy, and I felt utterly lost, not myself.

We went to the hospital where she'd been taken a while later, all of us still crying. I was a zombie following blindly, shadowing my parents as they talked quietly to a doctor, then shuffling without thought along as we went to the morgue. My mom made me wait outside and I was more distraught at being left alone. A nurse tried to console me, but it took two orderlies to restrain me when I rushed for the door to see my sister.

I found out later that her body had been mangled and broken. I suppose I'm glad not to have seen my beautiful sister that way. But in those days and weeks which followed, I couldn't help feeling a distinct loss at not saying goodbye, and I blamed myself for being the one to talk Jackie into trying to visit that weekend. It had been my pleading, my selfish need to see her again, which had led her to beg favors of her friends, finally getting a ride home to be with me.

- - -

I cried with my head on my arms on the dining room table. I was aware that Kira stood next to me, holding my shoulders, softly stroking my arms. “Oh, Mom... I'm sorry...”

I had compartmentalized my memories of Jackie. It wasn't that I planned it. Thoughts of my sister were torn from me, everything about Jackie which reminded me of her loss wrapped tightly and buried. I think I was defending myself, refusing to deal with the grief. The more time passed, the less often I felt the memories trying to surface, to the point where I'd grown an opaque shell around those memories. My sister had been lost in my past. I forgot what we did, forgot how she'd taught me about myself and about intimacy. I hid from myself the fact that she'd even existed.

“No,” I finally managed to squeak. “I'm sorry... I... I forgot about her... I didn't want to remember anything after she was gone... I never talked about her because... I'd let those memories go. I locked them away. I loved her so much, Kira... I loved Jackie...”

Kira was quiet a moment. “Jackie... like... Jacqueline?”

“Yes...” I whispered.

“From the letter...”

“Yes...”

“I thought... she was your girlfriend...”

“She was,” I admitted between sobs, “she was my everything...”

More quiet followed as I cried. I could feel Kira trembling beside me and became aware that she was also crying. I managed to slide an arm around her waist and held her against me.

“So,” she said gently, “you do understand...”

“Yes...”

“I love you, Mom... I'm sorry I asked about her...”

“No, Kira, no. No, I... I needed to remember. I needed to think about her again. She's been lost to me for so long...”

I'm not lost anymore, Penelope.

My head shot up and looked around. “Jackie?”

I'm not lost anymore.

“Mom?” Kira's voice broke in.

“What? Did you... did you hear anything?”

“You said, 'Jackie',” Kira replied.

I knew then that I'd been imagining everything. Every conversation was in my head, even the visceral, sensual moments I'd spent with Jackie recently had been nothing more than illusion. It crushed me all the harder.

You're not crazy, Penelope... watch....

I looked around despite knowing that the voice had been made up in my head. I saw nothing but Kira beside me, crying softly with a distraught look on her face.

You're not crazy, Kira... she knows, too...

I looked at my daughter, and I saw in her expression the same wild look I felt on my own face. “Kira?”

Tell her...

“Mom... I... I've been... hearing things... whispers in the night... from Jackie...” My daughter sat hard in a chair beside me.

“What? You hear her, too?”

“Yes...”

“It's not just me?!”

“No...”

You both can hear me now... it takes effort, from all of us, but we're to the point where I can be with you both...

“Jackie,” I said breathlessly, “how?”

I heard amusement in her voice. All you need is love, Penelope. Don't remember that song? I sure do...

- - -

“All you need is love!” Jackie crooned as we danced together on my fifteenth birthday. “Love is all you need!”

I grinned at her and felt the love I had for her swelling. Even though she was my sister, I didn't care. I couldn't help that I loved her, that I wanted to be with her. She made me feel special, grown up, and she adored me enough to be with me when she easily could have been out dating boys.

“I love you, Jackie,” I said, kissing her neck. “Forever and ever.”

She kissed my lips and grinned, then started singing again when the next verse began. We danced late into the night, only stopping for bathroom breaks or to share kisses and hugs. I couldn't pretend to know why something so wrong felt so wonderful, but I was past the point of trying to reconcile the taboo acts with what others thought of as normal.

Jackie pulled me onto the bed and pushed me onto my back, pulling down my panties in one movement. We were in her bedroom long after my parents had gone to sleep downstairs. Sometimes we used my room, but she had a bigger bed and better speakers, so we liked to spend a lot of time in hers. Jackie grinned at me as she slipped down her own panties. She sniffed my crotch a moment, smiling, then licked me as I spread my thighs. I felt excitement bubbling up from my genitals.

Jackie spun around suddenly and straddled my head. We'd never before tried licking each other at the same time, but I knew what it meant when she lowered her seventeen-year old pussy to my mouth.

I felt her tongue slide through my labia and into my vagina, her nose pressed my anus. I licked her dripping juices a moment, then buried my face between my sister's legs. I inhaled the rich and arousing scents from where she'd grown sweaty and excited, then licked her quickly, her hips rolling over my face, coating my cheeks and chin with her slickness.

My vagina clamped down as she slid a finger in, her lips sucking gently on my erect clit. I bucked against her, and we both giggled, suddenly aware that we were racing to see who could make the other cum first. I won, barely, Jackie's quivering body signaling her release just seconds before my bucking hips did the same. I creamed her tongue and let my sister's pussy drool onto mine.

We ate each other like that for another hour, possibly. I don't really know. We were lost to time, lost in the pleasure of each other. Making love with Jackie was the best thing ever. I craved it when we were apart, and I always grew wet whenever I knew we would soon be together again. I forgot how many times she came, how many times I flooded her tongue. At the end, we were a sweaty pile of arms and legs and hairy, slippery teen girls in love with each other. No one else on earth could ever compare to my sister, and I hugged her to me tightly as we giggled and rocked and kissed each other tenderly.

- - -

I was aware that Kira's face was turned towards me, her eyes closed, her hand drawn idly between her parted thighs, her pajama bottoms pushed down low enough that I could see her hairy Mons. I stared openly a moment, unable to look away as my daughter's eyes fluttered open. She slowly became aware of me, her hand jerked back behind her, her legs closed and pushed under the table quickly.

Don't be ashamed, Kira. It is wonderful to share that with you.

“I... I'm not ashamed...” my daughter's voice said in a whisper.

She was there, Penelope. She saw us together... She saw what we were to each other.

“Kira?” I said weakly, “tell me... what did you see?” I didn't know what to believe.

Kira looked at me then glanced away. “You and... Jackie... on her bed... like... together...”

“Together...” I could still feel my sister's body against me, longing to feel her touch again. “Oh, Jackie...”

I miss you, too, Penelope. It's why I want you to let yourself find me again.

“Find you? What do you mean? Remembering?”

That's part of it, but not all... You'll see...

“Jackie?” I said after silence descended. “Jackie?”

There was no response, and I saw that my daughter was looking at me again. It was an automatic response which found me hugging her tight against me. Her arms wrapped around me and I felt her lips touch my neck. “Oh, Mom... I never knew... you were... beautiful together... just beautiful...”

“Oh, Kira...” I felt a swell of happiness unexpectedly. To have shared that with my daughter, that my lost secret had been ripped open, my heart and body raw before Kira's eyes, was relieving in a way I couldn't have predicted. “Thank you... thank you...”

“I thought... I thought I was going crazy, Mom... when I started hearing her...”

“Me too... me too...” I kissed Kira's cheek, then pulled back to smile at her. She really was beautiful. Jackie's description of her as looking like me was accurate I thought, though Kira was much more youthful, more beautiful. I could see my sister in her eyes, in the way her teeth had just a little overbite which made Kira's smiles look brighter and more gentle. I loved seeing Jackie smile, I'd have done anything to do so again, and a piece of me knew joy to see Kira's face broaden and soften.

“When did she start talking to you?” Kira ask me. I could feel her breath on my face. We were still holding each other, nearly whispering.

“A couple of weeks ago... I thought I was dreaming, then I thought I was crazy. At first, I didn't understand. I'd buried memories of Jackie so deep I didn't remember her. But she made me bring those memories back. Some of them hurt... well... all of them hurt because she's gone... but so many... so many are my favorite things in the world...”

Kira stroked my hair gently. “It was just a few days ago she talked to me. I could hear her so clearly. I was scared, really scared.”

“What did she say?”

“At first, she just called my name, and then she started to tell me that I was strong and pretty, that it was okay to... think about my brother... that she understood. I didn't know, until just now, that it was my aunt...”

“Oh, Kira... this is all so...”

“Crazy!” we said in unison, then laughed together, hugging close again.

“Is she real, Mom?”

“I don't know...”

“It seems so real to me... last night... she was there with me... I could feel her touching me, Mom... like... I couldn't see her, but I felt her... touching me...”

I stared at her a minute, then nodded. “I know... I've felt her, too... I don't know what to think, Kira. I was so sure she was a hallucination until just now. I can't explain any of it...”

“So,” she said in a small voice, “what do we do?”

“Stick together... that's all I'm sure of... I love you, Kira... I love you so much... you look a lot like her, you know... those eyes were her eyes... those lips...” I found myself staring at my daughter deeply, pretending just a second that Jackie was there in the flesh.

“She told me that I looked like you... and...” Kira swallowed, closing her eyes a minute, “she said... she said it was okay to have seen you last night... it was okay... she... she kept whispering that she was you when she... was with me... touching me... that it was okay to pretend it was you...”

“Oh, Kira...” I said, breathlessly, “oh, Kira...” I should have felt ashamed, embarrassed, angry. Instead, what I mostly felt was love. It flowed from my daughter's body into mine. I held her tight against me, knowing I grew wet from the innocent touch. “Yes... it's okay... it's okay...”

Kira rested her head against mine, and I slowly stroked her back. My confusion had melted into compassion and love, a shared moment with my daughter one I'd have never expected to know, one other parents, other children, would have felt nothing but disgust to experience. I felt nothing but love.

“I love you, Mom...”

“I know, Kira. I love you, too...”