Family Ties

“You’d’ve lost me already if I hadn’t figured out the rest. I still wanna

hear you say it, though.”

“All right.” I took a deep breath. “Here goes… Yes, I want to have sex with you and Wren.”

I might’ve imagined a dozen possible reactions, but none of them would’ve been what she actually did, which was breathe a sigh of relief.

I did too. Then I stated the obvious, “Not what you were expecting?”

“I… don’t know. You’re always preaching honesty, like the Church preaches chastity. I guess I didn’t expect…”

“Didn’t expect me to practice what I preach?”

“Honestly? No.”

“Well, I wish I could say I’m a hundred percent honest all the time, but I’m not. I try to be, but I’m only human. I get scared too, and I make the wrong decision or say the wrong thing.”

“But not about the really important things.”

“No. Well… not really. I’ve told you all along that there are lots of things you don’t know about me. Sometimes I lie by omission. I don’t want to tell you more than you can handle.”

“Like the nudist thing.”

“And the shaving.”

“And the fact that you want to sleep with my best friend.”

“Right,” I said heavily. “There’s more to it than that, but… that’s the gist of it.”

“Oh? More?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know if you’re ready.”

“How come you’re the only one who gets to make that decision?” she asked in a fit of pique.

“Because I’m the one who knows what you don’t know.”

“How’m I supposed to know if you won’t tell me?”

“Fair enough. But… lemme see if I can explain it another way.”

She nodded and fell silent as I thought about it.

“Okay, try this,” I said eventually. “You’re an amazing sculptor, but it’s taken you years of study and practice to get to this point. Imagine if Siobhan had expected you to create The Dying Replicant when you first started studying with her. You weren’t ready, so you couldn’t’ve done it. And you’d’ve probably given up.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I don’t give up easily.”

“True, but if you don’t have the ability, you simply don’t have it. You can

learn, but that takes time.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’m a bit like Siobhan here. You trust her to teach you everything she knows, right?”

“Of course.”

“But she has to do it in manageable pieces and wait till you’re ready for the next step. I’m doing the same. I’ll tell you everything… but a little at a time, and only when you’re ready.”

“I’m not an idiot. Or a child.”

“No kidding. It scares me how fast you figure things out. But you aren’t me, either. A lot of this sex talk still makes you uncomfortable.”

“You can say that again.”

I deliberately kept my mouth shut.

She took a deep breath and physically relaxed. “I still don’t like that you won’t tell me things, but I understand. I can’t learn everything at once.”

“Exactly.”

“Still… you’d be proud of me,” she said after a moment.

“Probably. But what for?”

“Well, I figured out what you wanted with Wren, and why you weren’t jealous, and…”

“And…?”

“Duh! I was really mad at you. But… now I’m not.”

“What happened to change your mind?”

“Something you said.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We were talking about those girls you dated before me, the ones with the religious hangups.”

I nodded that I remembered.

“You said I have problems with how I think I should be and how I really am.”

“Right…”

“Well, when I realized you want to sleep with Wren too, I got upset and jealous. I wanted to hit you. The only thing that saved you was how innocent you looked while you were sleeping.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Yeah, I know, right? He works in mysterious ways. So when I didn’t hit you, I started thinking… was I really jealous, or did I just think I should be

jealous?”

“What did you decide?”

“What do you think?” she said without heat. “I thought about it a lot. You know, like you said: I tried to be honest with myself.”

I nodded.

“I won’t say I’m not scared,” she admitted, “but I’m not jealous.” She fell silent and thought it through again. “Once I got over the initial shock, I started thinking about you and Wren together… with me.”

My eyebrows flew up.

“Mmm hmm. It was… pretty steamy.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m not ready. But it was fun to think about. And then you—!” She laughed. “I was thinking about the three of us, getting more and more worked up, and your penis decided to say hello.”

“Ha! Really?”

“I told you, you get hard a lot. Well, you must’ve known what I was thinking, ’cause you sure reacted.”

“That’s my boy.”

“You’re so proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Of course. But I’m proud of you too.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she cautioned. “I just said I wasn’t jealous, not that I want you to hop into bed with Wren. Besides, I don’t think Trip would like it.”

You have no idea, I thought with a silent chuckle, but kept it to myself.

“So… maybe you’re right,” she said after a moment. “Maybe it is best if you tell me stuff slowly and let me get used to it. I… don’t think I’d’ve handled it well if you’d told me everything right after the Halloween party.”

“Um… no.”

She laughed softly. “How long’s it been since then? You know I stink at math.”