Mike:
The first time I met Max Elliot I wasn’t that impressed; I suppose I was biased; Rys had always been the little princess in my life, my adored and adorable baby sister, and suddenly she was a grown woman, attracting grown men and dating them, and I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all, and that puzzled me. Carys was supposed to go out in to the world, it was what growing up was all about, she wasn’t breaking any rules, and yet I still hated the idea. Watching them sitting at the table with mum and dad chit-chatting, watching them sharing private little inside jokes and meaningful glances and expressions seriously put my back up.
I bit my tongue, sometimes literally, because this was who she’d chosen to be with, and from the tenor of the conversation I gradually gleaned the information that they were engaged; Max had asked her to marry him, and she’d said yes. And yet I didn’t get any strong feeling of joyfulness from her; it almost seemed like she was working off some kind of internal tick-list: qualify, find a man, marry him, have his children, be a standard family with 2. 5 kids and a 3-bedroom suburban semi-detached house, grow old together, and eventually be buried side-by-side in the local churchyard. Max seemed to be in a haze whenever his eyes alighted on her, I was in no doubt that he was absolutely smitten with her but strangely, I didn’t get that from her at all, and that worried me deeply; was he forcing her, somehow?
She seemed perfectly spontaneous with him, she didn’t shy away from his touch, she looked him levelly in the eyes when she spoke to him; was I seeing pressure and coercion where none existed; was she, in fact, exactly as she seemed, a fully willing partner in this and was I letting my suspicions and unease do my thinking for me? I seemed more and more that I was just unwilling to accept my Rys needed someone more than she needed me and that sent a very peculiar pang of loss and hurt through me.
That night I had a weird, sexy, and very disturbing dream; in the dream, I was talking to Carys about something and as we chatted she walked around the room disrobing as we talked, looking hotter and sexier with every item of clothing she took off, until suddenly she was naked, her perfect body on display for me. I realised I was naked too, and as we chatted she started kissing me, just little nibbles, but God, so sexy! I started responding in kind, and then we were kissing for real, our tongues exploring each other’s mouths as we kissed like long-parted lovers. All at once we were in her bed, our bodies entwined as we writhed and groped, and then she looked into my eyes, her own eyes burning with lust and she whispered “Fuck me, Mikey, please, make this real!” and I did, jamming myself into her even as she thrust back at me, meeting me thrust for thrust. My heart and soul seemed to be exploding as I made love to Rys, my Carys, and when I came, it was with the heat of a thousand stars, blasting myself deep into her again and again.
I woke with a jolt, my head ringing, totally disoriented for a few seconds, unable to remember why I was here, and all that was clear in my mind was the memory of bedding my sister, of making love to Carys, and her enthusiastically receiving me, and more. I knew it was a dream, but my body’s response had been real enough, and I pondered what was wrong with me as I shamefacedly cleaned up the evidence of my shameful, impossible dream, sick at the thought I could think of my baby sister in that way, beautiful young woman though she now was. Thoughts and feelings like that were more than shameful, they hinted at wrong, illegal things, things no normal person could ever indulge in, or even allow one to even contemplate.
I had to get away from her, as far as possible, until I could look at her and not see in my mind’s eye what I’d dreamed so graphically.
I went back down to Bath in the morning; in truth I ran down to bath, bugging out with almost unseemly haste; my coursework and qualification requirements gave me an iron-clad excuse to run from there as quickly as possible and get away from Carys, because now, of course, every time I looked at her I saw those outrageous images in my mind. I had a one-year placement with a large architectural practice in London, and I needed to get my portfolio in proper presentation order and signed-off by my course tutor. Max shook my hand and told me he’d see me at the wedding (how I didn’t crush his hand I don’t know; instead I forced a happy smile and told him I was going to be there to see my baby sister married), Carys hugged and kissed me goodbye, hurt and loss flashing in her eyes as she clung to me for just a second, then stepped back and smiled widely, but the smile didn’t touch her eyes, and once again I saw in my mind’s eye that unspeakable image of her from my dream, her eyes wide and lambent with lust for me.
What was going on here, what was wrong with me, and just as troubling, what was I missing in the whole Carys/Max dynamic? The whole thing seemed ‘off’, and I couldn’t work out why (or perhaps I could and I really couldn’t risk going there…)
I couldn’t get to Bath quickly enough, there was just too much at home for me to deal with, and somehow I knew I had to be a long way away from Carys before I could even begin to unravel it all, I was certain of that.
*
Mum kept me apprised of the wedding preparations as I worked, and Carys kept in close touch too, and all through this whole thing I kept getting this odd vibe, like she was doing this because she thought she was supposed to, not because she really wanted to. Not once did I ever tell her to cut and run, or slow things down until she was sure; I may have been her big brother, but she was an adult, presumably old and wise enough to know what she was doing, and if I’d misread the signals I stood a good chance of permanently alienating the one person in the world I loved more than anything; I could never hurt her so, so I trusted that she was sure of what she wanted and what she was doing.
The wedding itself was probably what every girl secretly wanted: the white dress like a cloud of satin and chiffon, two bridesmaids in matching pink dresses and floral chaplets holding her long veil, a page-boy to carry the rings on a white satin pillow with gold tassels, and a cute little flower-girl in a crinoline and sunbonnet strewing rose petals in front of Carys as she approached the altar on dad’s arm. I watched with mixed feelings; I was happy for Carys, honestly; she’d found and married the man she wanted, in the place she’d always wanted to be married in, in the dress she’d wanted since she was a little girl. To my shame, though, I was also nursing an acid brew of jealousy in the pit of my stomach; who was this man to come into our lives and take my beloved baby-girl away from me? I still feel ashamed at the memory of those feelings on my best and closest friend’s special day.
I was also feeling a jagged edge of loss and sorrow; she wasn’t my baby sister anymore, she was another man’s wife now, and now she had a life that really didn’t include me at all anymore, except as the brother she’d maybe see occasionally. That hurt the most, that empty space in my heart and my life was getting bigger by the minute, and I could do nothing to heal it.
Carys Elliot: Married Life
Mike leaving so abruptly hurt me; if ever I needed him, it was now, before my wedding; he should be there to reassure me, to keep me believing I was doing the right thing, that this was what I really wanted. The problem was I wasn’t sure at all. Oh yes, I like Max well enough, I even loved him, I think, or I thought I did, and that was the problem; I needed Mike to talk to me, to tell me I really was doing the right thing, that Max and I were meant to be together, because I really wasn’t feeling that at all, and I was starting to panic.
There was another thing as well, something I couldn’t possibly bring up with Mike, with mum, even my closest friends; I didn’t know how, or how to cope with their incredulity, even disgust if I shared with them my deepest innermost secret. Since as long as I could remember, and especially just lately, when I’d had dark, erotic, sexy dreams, my partner was always Max, but then he’d somehow morph seamlessly into Mikey, and we’d thrash and pound each other unceasingly all night long, to wake in a pool of sweat, exhausted and aroused, and then the self-loathing and disgust would kick-in; how could I possibly see my wonderful, sweet, caring Mikey that way, doing those things to me, and why should such a forbidden, electric thrill rush through me at just the thought of it?
He was my big brother, for God’s sake, the rational side of me was truly repelled and disgusted by those thoughts, those dream-memories, but another side of me wasn’t at all, and I was starting to listen more and more to that side. When Mikey had come home to celebrate my engagement, those feelings and fantasies actually crested at fever-pitch, I almost felt I was losing my mind, and when he left so abruptly, a small part of me actually celebrated his departure, because the almost unbearable temptation to hold him, tell him, take him was finally thwarted and I was safe again. Of course, the rest of me felt like I’d lost my one true love; I was seriously fucked in the head. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn to, except Max.
Max was my safety, the one I supposedly wanted, the one the real world said I wanted, and part of me really did feel that way, but a large part of me wondered what the hell I was doing playing it safe with a man I wasn’t even sure I loved. Don’t get me wrong, though; all the above sounds like I was using Max and that wasn’t the case; I did love him, I just wasn’t sure I loved him the right way, and was that enough, or even fair on him? In the end I convinced myself I was actually in love with him, and everything else was just me vaporing and being a fraidy-cat, everything was going to fall into place eventually, when I grew-up enough to accept it, and so I went through with it, because I loved him… didn’t I?