The twins were born minutes apart, the female at 12:03,
the male at 12:12. Their father hadn’t been able to
make the event, being on duty in the Philippines at the
time. No one from the immense horde of relatives had
come from their scattered homes to the Denver event, so
the mother had no one to prevent her from indulging her
whims. When the nurse asked her what she wanted to name
the children, Mrs. Smith-Riley replied, “Guinevere and
Arthur.” They were doomed for life.
Both of them took after their mother in appearance,
with clear, almost translucent skin, flaming hair and
deep green eyes. Those ethereal good looks were to be
very useful to Art, who discovered at age ten that his
lifelong passion was to be the theatre, his dream to be
a Shakespearean actor in London. He and his sister
would hide in their cluttered attic, and he would
declaim monologues while she brandished a fireplace
poker as a makeshift sword.
Luckily for her, she quickly grew bored with the
theatre, and lucky for the theatre as well, since she
had all the dramatic talent of a block of wood. Gwen
channeled her passion into living, living dangerously,
and Art became the shy, silent type, only coming alive
on stage. Then they went to college.
Not much changed there; they just became more
themselves, somehow. Freed from the restrictions and
tempers of her rather arbitrary mother (their father
had died ingloriously in a barroom brawl years before).
Gwen went to college and raged. She’d chosen the
University of Chicago, rather an odd choice; but it
turned out to be a school well-suited to her brilliant
mind and headstrong ways. Not a place that had many
rules about its students’ social lives… nor really
cared if they had them at all… It left Gwen, when she
wasn’t excelling in her Psychology classes, free to
spend her time in lewd and lascivious pursuits.
Stories were told about her on campus, legends almost.
They said that she had taken on all of Alpha Delta and
lived to tell the tale, that she had seduced every TA
she had… to the point where they fought to get her
assigned to their section, and that she considered it a
personal slight against her honor to become friends
with a virgin and let him, or her, remain so.
Art lived a very different life at Northwestern. He was
silent in his required classes, never speaking unless
pushed, never volunteering anything. Like his sister,
he had no trouble with exams, and wrote complex, witty
papers on the correct way to tie up your hose in the
Renaissance, and the symbolism of color in Ibsen. But
he had few friends, and no lovers.
In Northwestern’s vibrant theatre life, he was a
presence only on stage, and all attempts the female
drama students made to befriend him were met only with
bewilderment and flight on his part. He became more and
more technically skilled, more and more passionate on
stage… and far lonelier elsewhere. He told none of
this to his sister, who found little time in her busy
social life to visit him. So things remained until the
end of their senior year.
It was June 9, 1994, their mutual day of celebration.
Twenty-one today, and classes were over and graduation
was imminent. Their mother would be flying into Chicago
in the morning. At 8 pm the twins had only a precious
few hours left to themselves. They’d wound up back at
Gwen’s apartment after a raucous tour of her favorite
campus hotspots, such as they were.
Art rarely drank, but tonight was a special
occasion…birthday, coming of age, and graduation all
at once. The champagne was flowing freely and he was
well past the tipsy stage. At that moment, he was
standing on her bed, muddy shoes and all, reciting the
monologue he hoped to play in London that summer:
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” It was almost
painfully appropriate.
“I think you should shut up,” Gwen bellowed, over the
rising chant “and get laid! You’d be a lot happier.”
Art’s voice suddenly cut off, and he peered at his
sister from behind thin glasses and strands of hair.
“And what makes you think I haven’t, oh sister mine?
Just because I don’t trumpet my conquests to the world
doesn’t mean I don’t have a nice piece of ass stashed
away somewhere.”
Gwen laughed. “Dear brother, you wouldn’t know a nice
piece of ass if it came up and bit you.” She walked
towards him, waggling a forefinger at him to emphasize
her point as she said, “You…a re… a… virgin. Just
admit it and then we can do something about it. I have
some nice friends I could introduce you to…open-
minded girls with a taste for redheads. And I promise
they’re good in bed.”
Art blushed scarlet, and suddenly lost his balance,
plopping down on the bed. He quickly regained his
composure, and reached for his champagne glass, downing
its contents before remarking, “Well, maybe I am. A
virgin.” He blinked owlishly at his rapidly advancing
sister, whose forefinger was now pushing his chest, so
that he fell backwards on the bed.
Gwen crowed in triumph! “I knew it! Little brother, you
have no secrets from me. Now what would you like? A
slim brunette, a curvy blond? A virgin would be hard to
find, but I can guarantee you disease-free.” She sat on
the bed next to him, counting women on her fingertips.
“Ah, big sister, how could any maiden compare to you?”
Art proclaimed hastily. “I remain chaste only because I
have not yet met the woman who could compare with you.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thy eyes are
nothing like the sun’s! Hark! The fair Ophelia! To be
or not to…oof!” Art’s words dissolved into laughter
as his sister furiously attempted to pummel him into
silence.
Gwen tickled his stomach, his armpits; she pulled off
his muddy shoes to tickle his feet…and that was
suddenly too much. Art grabbed her wrists and pushed
her backwards across the wide bed. He fell forward
against her, pinning her body beneath his own, using
his weight to full advantage against the suddenly
scratching, wriggling mass beneath him.
Gwen slid her wrists up, still firmly grasped in his,
until she had her fingers around his throat. Her knees
pressed his arms against his body, so he couldn’t use
them to full effect. Her fingers began to tighten.
“Give it up, little brother” she panted. “You know I
always won our wrestling matches.”
Art couldn’t quite speak, but he could still move.
Suddenly he rolled heavily sideways, landing on his
back with Gwen above him. In the confusion, he managed
to twist away from her constraining arms, and pull her
fingers away from his throat. He held her arms
crucified away from her body. His long legs wrapped
around hers, pinning her dangerous knees. Then he said,
“The last time we wrestled was five years ago, big
sister. I believe you are now in check.” Art laughed up
at his sister’s helplessness. “What are you going to
do?”
Gwen suddenly smiled an oddly wistful smile. “Mate?”
she asked. With that, she tilted her head down an
inch…and kissed him. ‘Predictable,’ was Art’s one
startled thought, before he lost himself in the joy of
kissing those well-kissed lips. He still held her arms
straight out from her body. Gwen’s breasts weighed
heavily against his chest through the thin fabric of
her t-shirt, and her hair fell uncontrolled against his
face.
If there was one thing Art had learned, it was kissing,
after hours of stage kisses with cold women under hot
lights. Before he had only met the semblance of passion
— now passion was hitting him full force, a desert
storm. The room was burning in Gwen’s kisses. He was
drowning in the sand.
She was writhing against him, and finally he let her
hands go, uncertain what else to do. Gwen seized the
opportunity, and quickly reached down to her waist,
lifting herself up as she pulled off the shirt. She
wasn’t wearing a bra, and her soft breasts hung free in
the glaring light. Art reached out suddenly and turned
off the bedside lamp. It was too much, somehow. Having
his beloved, and beautiful, sister staring him in the
face, with breasts he hadn’t seen since they shared a
bed in grammar school. Asking him to do this in bright
light was too much.
Before he could start thinking whether it was too much
even in darkness, Gwen was pulling off his shirt as
well. She muttered curses at him when he moved too
slowly to help her, and was soon skinning off both
their jeans. Long before he could have finished
“Tomorrow and tomorrow” she had them both naked as the
day they were born. Minutes apart.
“What are we doing?” Art asked her softly. Gwen didn’t
answer, just lowering her sweet body to his eager one.
Their skin burned at the touch, yet Arthur shivered
under the assault. He took her silence as his cue, and
from them on silence reigned, broken only by her softly
moaned encouragement, and his startled sighs.
Gwen gently directed Art whenever he seemed lost, and
he took her direction flawlessly. Obviously Gwen’s
talent in bed was a shared family trait. Familiar hands
caressed skin, sweaty bodies entwined on the mud-
stained bed.
They separated only briefly enough for Gwen to reach
out and grab a condom from her nightstand. She thought
briefly that she was quite positive she didn’t want any
children from this union. Then the thought was buried
in long-suppressed desire. She, at least, had wanted
this for a long, long time. It had just taken her a
while to admit it, and a little longer to maneuver it
into existence.
Much later, Art lay there humming, his sister’s head
cradled in his shoulder. Gwen said to him, “You sound
happy, little brother. What are you humming?” Art shook
his head and laughed softly. “You don’t want to know”
he replied. Gwen twisted her head to look up at his
face. “Don’t try to tell me what I want,” she said.
“Would you have predicted tonight?”
Art kept his memory of that first startled thought to
himself, and gallantly answered, “No, though I might
have dreamt of it occasionally.” Gwen continued staring
up at him, obviously waiting for her answer. Art
laughed and gave in.
“It’s from Camelot. It’s the song where Arthur wins
Guinevere by telling her about Camelot’s scenic
beauty.” Gwen punched his side indignantly. “We pledged
that we would never, ever see that show.” Art tried to
fend her off, “Enough, big sister! I was auditioning
for it, what could I do?”
Gwen didn’t seem particularly calmed by this
explanation. Art continued, “If it’s any consolation, I
was auditioning for Arthur, and I didn’t get the part.”
That won a startled laugh from Guinevere. Arthur took
the opportunity to lift himself up on an elbow and
begin to sing to her in a low tenor, “And there is
simply not, a more congenial spot, for happy-ever-
aftering than here…”
Art paused suddenly, his eyes locked on her smiling
face. “We can’t ever do this again, you know” he said.
His eyes were suddenly wistful. “I know,” she replied,
as she put up a hand to caress his face. “Thank you for
the lesson, big sister” he said softly. Gwen suddenly
laughed again, rolling around so she was seated on his
stomach. “We’ve got at least five hours till mom gets
here. I think you need a little more tutoring before I
let you go.”
With that, Gwen leaned down to kiss him, and Art gave
up the last of his worries and kissed her back. He
started humming softly…until she bit him. Then it was
silence once again.