The Step-Twins: A Love Story

Chapter 1: Inseparable

Chris and Emily’s parents married when they were both pretty young. They grew up as family. And with birthdays just a month and a half apart, they were the same age most of the year. Almost immediately Mom and Dad started referring to them as the “step-twins” and the moniker stuck.

For a long time they were inseparable. They made up games together. They teased each other in the backseat of the car on family road trips. They wrote stories together, each taking turns one page at a time.

As they got older, they shared music tastes, and developed a mutual love of scary movies, even though Chris was frequently more scared than Emily, and she quickly dubbed him the “big scaredy bug.”

Eventually, as they found interests that shaped their adult personality they began running in separate circles. Chris got into gaming and engineering and other nerdy pursuits, although he wasn’t the typical type of nerd with acne and bad clothes. He was quite handsome, though he couldn’t realize it. With a big frame and a bit overweight, a shy streak, and the lack of confidence that followed what should have been a burgeoning dating life was taking a long time to develop.

Emily was undeniably pretty, and though she also was a bit shy, her love life blossomed easily, especially with girls. The first time she kissed out with a girl she just knew it was who she was. She also suspected that the other kids in school thought she was faking being a lesbian just to seem cooler. But she didn’t care much about that. She wasn’t interested in being popular. She found her happy place among the theater kids and photography classes. She bloomed behind a camera. And her introversion faded away on stage.

But now it was Summer. Theater productions were over. So were meetings of the sci-fi club, the school newspaper, and the yearbook committee. In fact, all of High School was over. In a few months their reality would be college - different colleges.

Chris would be going to state college and following a clearly set engineering tract. Emily would head to a small liberal arts school where she’d try to figure out how to turn her passions into a career.

This summer was a hot one. Sticky. Tense. Anxious. Of course the whole family had been making the plans necessary to send the step-twins off with success, but neither of them really wanted to come to terms with the fact that they were pretty scared to be heading out into the world on their own, apart from each other and those they loved.

Emily felt lucky that at least she didn’t have to leave girlfriend behind. Sure there were the girls from school that she messed around with occasionally. But nothing like a committed relationship.

Chris was a different story. He’d taken a chance asking a girl he’d met online to prom and things had gone really well. They hit it off and at 18 he finally had his first girlfriend, first kiss, and lost his virginity. But with college a few months away things were likely to get complicated.

Em worried for her brother. He was the sweetest, kindest guy she’d ever known. She wanted nothing but the best for him. And she didn’t know how to tell him that he was having a fun summer romance and suspected he thought of it instead as his only chance of ever having a girlfriend. She worried it would end in hurt.

It did.

One Friday night in early July Chris came home from his date early and stomped up to his room without saying a word. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to notice but Emily did. She didn’t want to pester him about what might have happened but ran upstairs at least to put her ear against his door and immediately and predictably heard his sobbing.

Her heart broke for him.

It wasn’t fair that such a good person should have to feel so miserable.

Slowly the household eased to sleep and Chris never reappeared that night. Emily couldn’t stop thinking of him. He was prone to occasional moroseness and she hoped he wasn’t falling into despair. She wanted to comfort her step-twin so very badly.

It was around 1:00am when she made her decision, lying in bed unable to sleep, thinking of nothing but his feelings.

Quietly, she snuck out of her room. In the old house, the master bedroom was downstairs and the other two bedrooms were upstairs. Chris and Emily had often stayed up later than their parents watching a movie or playing a video game, thankful that they were reasonably removed from Mom and Dad’s room.

Emily had never considered that the layout of the house would benefit her doing something like what she was about to do. Because she’d never considered doing what she was about to do.

But it seemed natural and normal. There was nothing lascivious about it. Her step-brother needed comforting and if there was no one else to do it, then she would.

Quietly she opened the door to his room and saw him lying deeply asleep, a big lump in his bed. Her heart began to pound and for a moment she wondered if this was okay. She suddenly became aware of what she was wearing: a t-shirt and boxers… nothing wrong with that, she told herself, normal summer sleeping clothes. Nothing wrong with any of this. She had come this far, she was going to do this.

She slipped into the bed next to her step-brother and pressed her form up against his.

Barely conscious, he responded to her presence, cozying up close to her body and swinging an arm around her.

She felt good. She hoped he felt better. No, she knew he felt better. And quickly she fell asleep, lovingly spooning with her step-twin for the first time.

Briefly some time in the middle of the night, she wasn’t sure when and was too sleepy to figure it out, she awoke to the sensation of Chris’s sizable hand resting in her crotch.

It was fine, she thought, normal **** human behavior. Gently she took his hand, brought it up to her waist and positioned it around her tightly, then fell back to sleep.