Salvation through Sex

Taboos do not apply to those marooned in uninhabited islands

My daughter was back home from the department store where she works as the warehouse keeper. One look at her face and I knew she had a hard time.

"Susi, you seem to have had another bad day," I said.

"Yes Ma, Lori came and was chatting with Heidi. My greatest friends a few months ago they talked and laughed not two yards from where I stood but spoke not a word to me. They pretended as if I was not there. I do not know how they managed. I am a non-person in my work spot Ma, I can't stand it. I want to end it all." She hugged me and sobbed. I patted her back as if she was once again my baby.

"Don't talk like that and don't even think of doing away with yourself. If our people had lost hope you would not be here. Your father would have died with a shot in the back of the neck, I would be breaking stones in prisons and you would have become a servant to some big shot in Hanoi."

*

My name is Mary but I was not born Mary. My Vietnamese name is too complicated; I will not bother you with it. Our eventual arrival in the States is an adventure story. Though I was only 8 years old when it happened I have a clear recollection of the events. We lived in North Vietnam during the war. My father was a farmer but he was also an informer for American intelligence. One day my father had a visitor in the middle of the night. He told my father that the police had some reason to suspect that he was in touch with the enemy. He said they would pick him up for questioning any time now. That of course meant torture and after that a bullet in the back of the neck. His family will go to concentration camps. My father collected whatever food stuffs he could gather and we cycled to the next village where he had friends who were also informers and who would also be in trouble. All of us, 18 people of three families, cycled to the shore and with the help of contacts got into a boat as day was breaking. Unlike us the other two families were fisher folk. They knew how to handle boats. We unfurled the sails and pushed off. We were now the famous boat people.

Our plan was to enter the shipping lanes and get help. We apparently did not know the lanes for five days we saw no ship. Our food stock was all gone and water supply was dwindling. After three days of nothing but sips of water to drink death from starvation was staring us in the face. Then one afternoon we saw a ship. They gave us food and water and towed us close to South Vietnam shore and let us loose. We made land fall near an American army camp. Though the Americans gave us food and shelter they were not too friendly. My father told his story and gave them his code number. They must have checked for from then on we got very good treatment and eventually permission to come to the States.

In America one man more than any other was very helpful. He must have taken a liking to father for he gave him training for job. It was only after he joined the factory where that man was working in that he knew that the he was none other than the senior VP of the manufacturing company.

I schooled in that small town and married a Vietnamese refugee also from North Vietnam though not a one who escaped in a boat but crossed over the border. He was working with father. We have two children Dan and Susi.

All Vietnamese are hard workers and we of North Vietnam, thanks to the regimentation of the Communists, were in addition as disciplined as soldiers. My father rose rapidly and was soon the right hand man of the VP. He had suffered so much that his body was weak. He died. The VP gave his job to my husband. We prospered. Then the blow fell. The company collapsed. The reason was massive corruption by no less a person than our godfather the VP. He apparently had another side to his character about which we knew nothing. He and three others all Vietnam refugees were arrested. My husband was among them. All eventually got stiff prison sentences. My husband did not have the mental strength to take it. He lost all desire to live. He pined away and died.

Our small town that was wholly dependent on the factory suffered greatly. We were ostracised. I understood their anger. They rightly felt that refugees whom they had befriended ought not to have done this to them. This VP was the man who set us on our feet in this strange land. It took courage to help a destitute group of refugees with no proper education, no knowledge of the language, and no training for jobs. He joyfully did that. My father had to do whatever he wanted him to and so did my husband. That is Vietnamese culture which we cannot expect the townspeople to understand. My husband could have got a much lighter sentence if he had cooperated with the persecution by turning against his mentor. That he would not do. We are proud of him.

*

It was Susi's talk of ending her life that pulled the trigger on the plan that I have been mulling about for some time. We were like people stranded in an island. We three have no one to talk to and no one to interact with other than ourselves. It was as if my son, daughter and I were like Crusoe alone in a remote island. I judged that absence of friends of the other sex was the killing element in this ostracism. If that can be set aright some sort of stability will enter our lives. How to achieve that? I had to think out of the box as they say here in the States to get to a solution. I did and came out with a solution that many may consider wicked but I was comfortable with it. It was on the surface a simple solution—my son and daughter must become lovers. Taboos do not work under conditions we were now in. I decided to bring them together.

Susi calmed down after the burst of anguish. She went to wash and change. She was back soon in a sarong and loose top with a mug of coffee in her hands. She like Americans drinks coffee from mugs and not from small cups as we used to in Vietnam. I waited for her to settle down and then started.

"Susi, do you masturbate?" She stared in bewilderment.

"Mom, have you taken leave of your senses, or are you delirious? Is this the time to clear such a doubt?"

"I am in perfect control of my senses. This is the perfect time for such a question as you will presently see. Answer, do you masturbate?"

"Of course I do. What else do you expect a 20 year old woman to do? After Ron cut me cold I have no boy friends and cannot have one."

"Whom do you think of during masturbating?"

"Ma you have become mad to ask a question like that."

"Answer my girl." I spoke tenderly.

"You should not ask a question like that. I refuse to answer anyway."

"Dan?"

"My brother?"

"Yes?"

"Mom, how can you say such a thing?"

"Please do not mistake me. All young girls use their fathers and brothers while masturbating. I have done so in my time. Answer me." She turned away for I was treading on slippery ground. "So you do. Natural enough. Then why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Have sex with him."

She got up and stood arms akimbo staring angrily at me. I did not flinch. I met her stare without blinking. She turned and stalked out of the room. I took my novel written in our language and read a chapter to give her time to settle her neurons. Then I went to her room.

She lay on her bed face buried in the pillow. I sat by her side. For a while I fingered the soft hair on the back of her neck. Susi liked that and often would ask me to do that to her. Then I leaned forwards and rested my body on her back. I gently swept the hair covering her ear and spoke softly into her ear. If she was expecting an apology she was mistaken. A person who had braved the stormy China Sea in a small open boat and one who was an eyewitness to a dozen of her village friends lined up against a wall and shot was made of sterner stuff. I was actually on the attack.

"Susi," I said, "today is ideal, a handpicked day."

"Ideal and for what?"

"Your periods were over only yesterday. It is a safe day." She tried to get up but I forced her down. She thereupon turned the ear I was speaking into on to the pillow. That of course brought the other ear up. I spoke into that ear.

"I know men," I said, "I have no doubt that Dan masturbates exclusively with you in his mind's eye. I have also seen him visibly excited when you wear that red low necked blouse that you like so much." She closed the exposed ear with a hand. I rested my head between my shoulder blades. I was in no hurry.

"You of course can't take the lead," I said after a while, "but man though he is Dan can't either for after all you are his sister. You don't have to do a thing Susi. When events unfold flow with the current. That is all I ask you to do. Flow with the current. That is the only way we can regain our inner peace—by physical love at home. If our home is heaven what happens outside would not touch us. We have no option. Flow with the current." I left the room. I could hear Dan returning from work. I had to make pan cakes for him for he always returned ravenously hungry and he liked pan cakes. After he feeds I will have to work on him.

My daughter was an easy target. Though she was protesting I knew that she was play acting. Just one move from my son and she would fall flat. I did not expect difficulties from my son either. I have seen him watch his sister lovingly and on days she wore a low necked blouse the post-dinner period in our drawing room with be very warm indeed. Dan would have great difficulty in hiding his hard organ. My daughter will bend this way and that exposing as much of her breasts as possible. Pretending to be reading a novel I would watch their antics with amusement. I was certain that one spark will set them aflame.

Dan freshened himself and came to the table dressed in loose top and sarong. Men and women wear the same sarong but with different patterns. He demolished the American style pancakes systematically. Not for him maple syrup. He liked eggs and sauce with tomatoes and peppers from a recipe I learnt from my Vietnamese friends here. Pan cakes over Dan stretched on an easy chair sipping his tea.

"Dan."

"Yes Ma."

"How was today?"

"Rotten."

"Anything special to mark it off as an exceptionally bad day."

"No. On the other hand I exceed my quota. My supervisor lips were trembling to utter a word or two of appreciation, but he looked round and seeing others within hearing distance he said nothing."

"Susi is not able to take it."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. But you know she is a friendly creature who likes talking all the time. This silence has brought her to the end of the tether. She was talking for the first time of ending it all." Dan shot up in his seat.

"Seriously Ma."

"I don't know how seriously, but the thought has entered her head and that is bad."

"What to do Ma."

"Running away to another place the only option but getting a job these days of severe recession is not. No running away Dan. I have done it once. I won't do it again. We stay here and ride out the storm. Once the hard times end and that will happen sooner or later the townspeople will get friendly again. But we must not react and we must work our hardest."

"Susi?"

"Susi can't hold on that long. For all the brave front you put on I doubt if you can either. No point in denying Dan both of you are lonely. She has no boy friend and you have no girl friend. That is serious for a girl of twenty and a boy of twenty two."

"So?"

"You both must be friends." I spoke as casually as I could make it. "Yes to preserve our sanity that is the only course."

"But we are friends, aren't we Ma."

"In a brother-sister way you are of course. You need to do more. Hug her for instance."

"Hugging sisters is not our way."

"She misses the warm hugs of a man just as you miss the hugs of girls. You can kiss each other too."

"Kiss each other? You want me to kiss Susi?"

"On the lips"

"On the lips?"

"Like lovers."

"But she is my sister."

"She is also a young woman whose dream man you are."

"Dream man?"

"Yes, the man she has in her mind's eye while she is masturbating just like you have her in your mind's eye while you are masturbating." I threw my head back daring him to deny.

"Ma, I think you are not OK."

"You search your conscience. You will get the answer. Brother-sister friendship is not rare at all in Vietnam or here in the States. Sit here for a while and ponder over what I have said. It is our lifeline. It is our boat to escape from our island prison. Unlike the one I was in you have pan cakes to eat." He smiled when I said that. "Think it over." I moved to daughter's room.

*

Susi was no longer in bed with face buried in the pillow. She sat on the sofa with feet tucked up Vietnam style. All the depression her face was registering was gone replaced with what I imagined was the sparkle of expectation. If Dan came in it would be the right time to hammer for the iron was hot. I had my wish. Dan came in.

"Susi, darling what this I hear about you wanting to end it all." He opened his arms to receive her and she fell in. They were in a tight embrace. He was speaking consoling words and she had her head resting in his shoulders weeping her heart out.

"Don't cry my darling. Mother is right. We must find warmth and comfort in each other." All the anguish that had pent up in her gushed out in an immense cataract and he was consoling her as only a brother-lover can. He allowed her to get her feelings out of her system. He patted her back as she sobbed. And then he gently lifted her head. Her cheeks were wet; he rubbed his cheeks on hers, and then he flicked his tongue in and out to lick away tears form her cheeks and then from her eyes itself and then as if on cue they sought each others lips and they locked lips in a massive lover's kiss. All the physical love they had for each other that they had kept deeply hidden in their bosoms now erupted. They held each other in a bone crushing tight embrace and kissed more with their tongues than their lips.

I judged that the time had come for me to leave them alone. I got up but daughter's hand shot out and held my arm. She pulled me as they moved to the bed and soon I was lying by their side. They were still in a tight embrace kissing each other.

"I want you by my side Ma when I go through the most important event in my life, help me." This request from my daughter moved me. I understood that a girl needs help when she is uniting with her brother. I removed Susi's loose top. She had no bra on. When I left her she had bra on. She must have removed it after I left. I smiled. Wily creature my daughter. She has been preparing herself.

She was now bare breasted before her brother.

"Suck her son," I said "If we had not left home she would have suckled three children by now. Her nipples are clamouring for lips. Do not disappoint her." Susi invitingly presented one breast and Dan suckled as sister moaned with pleasure. Now I slipped off her sarong that their exertions had loosened. For a moment she squirmed but that was just the natural reaction of a woman; she then relaxed. I removed it and threw it away. After the bra episode I was prepared to see her with no knickers on, but my daughter had done more. She had trimmed her pubic hair. 'Good job.' I said to myself. Soon she was naked before her brother. I then removed his sarong and loose shirt. Quite possibly he did not know that he was now naked for his concentration on sister's nipples first one and then another must have been total.

If my daughter was anything like what I was she should be losing sensation in her nipples and the feeling should descend to the vulva. Her clitoris must have been tingling. That is what was happening for she was holding her brother by the arm pits pulling him up and as he did so her thighs were widening.

"Push him down Susi," I said. "He must see what was so long hidden. He must lick. Your father and I never had sex without his licking me." Susi did not need any prodding. She placed her palms on Dan's shoulder and pushed him and soon Dan was between his sister's thighs resting on his elbow and feasting open eyed on her vulva.

"Touch it son," I said, "your sister's is exceptionally well formed. Part the lips." He did so delicately. "See the clitoris on top. It is big enough for you to take it between your lips like the way your father used to do." He was licking and Susi was helpfully parting her vulval lips with both hands so that the tip of her clitoris protrudes to brother's flicking tongue. Her pelvis was now moving to a rapid rhythm. "Stop son and wait a while," I said. He did so. "Now swipe slowly." He did and Susi moaned as she climaxed. 'Now bite." Dan sucked in the clitoris and pressed it between lip covered teeth. Susi screamed.

She was now in a hurry to have brother inside her. She was pulling him up.

"Ma," she said softly, "hold me. You must give me strength. I need it Ma." I held her arms at the arm pit and placed my cheek on the point of her shoulder. Brother was in position for insertion. His large and throbbing penis was dangling in front of Susi's eyes. She was viewing it wide eyed.

"Hold it Susi," I said, "feel its warmth." Gingerly Susi took her hand towards brother's penis. She touched it first and then she boldly gripped it. She needed no further instruction. She took it towards her vaginal opening, Dan pressed and she jerked as her hymen ruptured.

"Ma," she said as this happened.

"You are a woman from thus moment darling," I said. My voice was charged with emotion. Sister and brother were in an embrace so close that they were one in flesh.

Now a change came over me. I became an automaton. I was aware of what I was doing only after I had done it. This sight for two people having sex in front of my eyes was just too much to bear. I was as sex starved as they were. I have had no sex for a year. I was young too for though my children were in their early twenties I had just turned forty. My son was lying face down between the spread thighs of his sister and I was rubbing his buttocks and thighs. Yes I was kissing his buttocks, and then I did something so strange that even today I am unable to explain why I did so. I was inserted my hand between my son's and daughter's bodies. My hand meandered towards their crotches slowly and steadily. Soon I could feel one lip of daughter's vulva and then the other. Her vulva had split to receive his penis. I felt the base of his penis, the only part that was outside. His penis was inside his sister up to the hilt. In that tense moment I wondered if any mother had ever felt her son's penis is her daughter's vulva. Did I want to assure myself that they were indeed united or was I in such a sex starved state that I wanted to shock myself and them?

Susi turned towards me. Our eyes met and I coyly turned away my head as if I was a teenager. She smiled and then she pulled me up and with one arm hugged me.

"Ma you are in it as much as we. Form now we three are one," she said. And then she pulled off my top and with my help took off my sarong. She caught hold of my son's hand and placed it on my breast. He first cupped my breast and then kneaded it and then plucked the tit. These actions especially the tit plucking transported me to high heaven.

Their climax was nearing. Their pelvises were moving up and down with rapidity and then from his movements I knew he was ejaculating and from her movements that she was climaxing. I must have been stupendous for Dan was moaning and Susi was softly screaming. Dan waited and gave her one more and then one more. Dan rolled over and we three lay in one naked mass. Dan after his excretions was soon snoozing. Susi was not

*

"Ma."

"Yes Susi."

"I am happy Ma."

"I am glad to hear you say so."

"Very, very happy Ma."