Well enough by now to read the tension in me, even through my outwardly calm demeanor as I poured out my affection onto my big/little sister.

Danielle and I came down for lunch. Amber, E-Beth, and Diane were hanging out in a typical lazy Sunday, with no classes to worry about until tomorrow. The next hour was an awkward mix of uncomfortable silence and overly dramatic affection and support for what Danielle was going through.

I think Danielle was more exhausted from trying to keep up a brave face than she was helped by their encouragement.

And so it was only two in the afternoon when Danielle and I changed into our pajamas and settled in to sleep in her bed. I was snuggled under the covers beside her as she pillowed her head on my chest and was soon breathing softly as unconsciousness took her.

But despite the comfortable positioning and my exhaustion from a restless night, I couldn't join her in sleep. There was just too much running through my head.

Was it really my fault that Danielle had gotten raped? After all, I hadn't forced Danielle to go walking to the liquor store in the evening. I hadn't forced some cowardly prick to attack her and rape her. It couldn't actually be my FAULT, could it?

Should I have done things differently? Should I have let myself succumb to temptation and take her into my bed?

There were some severe moral and ethical arguments waging war in my conscience. They say that hindsight is 20-20. But for me, even hindsight was still cloudy. If I had known what was to come, would I have done things differently?

Certainly, incest was considered morally wrong. On any given day, despite the physical lust I had for my sister, I would never have crossed that line. We'd surely gotten close to the line on a few occasions. I vividly remembered fucking Maria from behind while she was eating out Danielle. I'd seen her naked body and we'd even physically contacted each other in ways that weren't quite sexual, but perhaps more than a brother and sister should. But to have actually put aside my moral reluctance? No. I never would have.

But if I had known with certainty that this... violation... would have happened to my sister? If I had truly thought that making love with her would have been the only way to save her? Then what?

I would have done it. In a heartbeat.

But that rationalization wouldn't even hold up in my own mind. It was an excuse to feel less guilty about my fantasies of my sister. I didn't want to see her as a woman. I SHOULDN'T think about her as a woman. It was just wrong... And I couldn't let myself see her sexually. I shouldn't even let her naked body arouse me.

This was my sister and she was trusting me not to lose control. It meant so much to her that I could be a man around her in a sexually vulnerable state and not take advantage of her. I had to prove Uncle

Verne wrong.

And yet, it was a torture to be presented with her physical beauty and not be allowed to feel any Lust. I would have been better off if I'd never had the opportunity to see her naked or ever be led to the thought of having sex with her. Even now, it was a strain to hold her body so intimately to me while she wore only a single layer of thin cotton between me and her womanly charms.

For just a second, I actually resented Danielle for putting me into this mental turmoil while she slept peacefully. But my love for her wouldn't let that Last more than just a fleeting moment. It wasn't

Danielle's fault. It wasn't my fault. It was... HIS fault, whoever ‘he’ was.

And then my rage was back. My need to find him and punish him for what he had done washed out my guilt in a red haze.

Mercifully, Danielle was unconscious and couldn't sense what was going through my mind. But when she rolled over, letting go of me and facing the opposite direction, the anger in me had an opening with which to act.

Quietly, methodically, I slipped out of bed. I turned back to make sure that Danielle was still sleeping peacefully, and then silently slipped out the door. I first went into my room, needing to change out of my own pajamas.

“Where do you think you're going?" Amber greeted me from our bed, where she was sitting on our bed hunched over her books, her cute wire-rimmed glasses on her nose and her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. It was still the afternoon.

"out," I answered gruffly as I started pulling off my T-shirt and dropping my pajama pants.

“Out where? Do you really think you're going to find him?"

“Maybe...” I pulled open a drawer to find my jeans.

“Do you even know what he looks like?"