JSDuke.com

Tyler Rose

by JSDuke

Yes, but you don't know what I did with your sister.

I know we were young, then, you and I, but she was three years older than us, remember? While we were more concerned with Go-bots and Transformers, she was becoming a young woman. Those hot summer days at the lake, well, we just splashed and played, oblivious to God's beautiful daughters frolicking around us. But she -- she was noticing God's beautiful sons. The way Lake Tyler slid off their chests and down their stomachs to disappear into swimsuits and cut-off shorts. The way the water turned their hair dark, and their skin bright. Their firm backs and lean legs disappearing below the water's surface in slow motion in her mind. She was noticing... and wondering how their kisses taste...

The ghost stories were a foil, a clever deceit that both distracted you and gave her room to experiment with me. Do you remember? In her room with the lights turned out she convinced you to lie down on the floor next to her bed while she lay down with me on the other side. You never knew that we weren't listening. Were there ghosts in your ghost stories? Were they scary? Were there creepy old houses with creaky stairs creaking and thunderstorms thundering? I'll never know. But oh, the things I could have told you. You never wondered why our stories were so short. We were eager, you see, to get back to each other.

On the floor of her room, just feet from where you carried on with your stories, she introduced me to a new pass-time. She curled her body around mine, and pressed into me, urgent and sincere. Her arms went around me and found my hair, my neck, the small of my back. I ran my hands over her hips and pulled her closer - it seemed the thing to do. She smelled like heat, like tall grass, like a long Texas summer. I wanted to feel her hair on my skin, that sassy red tangle on my skin, and pulled her to my neck. I pushed my face into her hair, and, she pushed her mouth into my neck. My first kiss, a tentative, biting kiss, and I wanted more immediately. Something awoke in me, something that knew more than I about what was happening then, and I held her there with her hair in my face while she sucked at the flesh of my throat. Something had awoken in her, too. I pushed her back so she lay flat on the floor, and rolled around to look down on her. She reached for my face and raised her mouth to mine. She tasted like corn silk and bubble gum.

There was another time, months later, too. Do you remember when your parents helped us move to Greenville? You all stayed the night, and there were ghost stories again, this time in my sister's closet. You were an arm's length away that night while I held your sister in the darkness, and your sister held me. There had been talk between our parents of weekend visits and summer holidays, but we knew we were saying good-bye. That night we held each other close and made our farewells with slow kisses.

Your red-haired sister was my Tyler rose, and in that moment I fell in love with her. We were still innocent, if a little less pure, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Your sister was my first love, and the sweetest. And still, after all this time, the best.