Chapter 7: Two steps forward, One step back

I awoke with my youngest sister in my arms. I disentangled myself and headed to the shower. I tried to process what had happened yesterday; I’d spent time with Sylvie, Beaten the crap out of Marky Mark, Defended the bitch in the process, and slept with my Annie. It was a lot.

When I got out, she was already awake. She sat on my bed a sheet pulled to her shoulders. The Red Curls she got from her mother and a shade of pale skin that matched my own contrasting. I smiled at her as I had no idea what to say.

“You were gentler than I thought you’d be after talking to Amy and Sylvie.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were Mandy ... till it was too late.”

“Don’t be sorry, it was nice.”

“Was that really your first?”

“With a real cock? Yeah. Daisy did my induction with a strap-on, but you’re a bit thicker than that was.”

I moved to sit on the bed. Of all the women in this house, Annie was the one I held the least against.

“So, how did you manage to avoid the real thing till last night?”

“Toys and tongues have always been enough. Honestly, Uncle James is kind of gross and Mark is a dick. I thought about Grandpa Pete, but he’s just old. He was upset that he didn’t get to do the ceremony I figured I’d save that for someone special.”

I was tempted to ask for more details about the ‘ceremony’, but to be honest it would only be to ease my curiosity. I would be done with these people soon enough and certainly didn’t care about the ritual aspect of their sex lives. Instead, I asked, “And you settled for me?”

“You got stabbed for me. You saved Amy. You’re worth it.”

“I’m really not.”

She got an excited look on her face, “Ooh, do you wanna play some games? We could do co-op?”

“You don’t play games with me, Annie.”

“We used to play before everything got fucked up.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t played video games in a while and I tend to take games a little too seriously ... I think I take after Dad in that regard. He used to make me play games with him. Almost every week. Chess, Checkers, Go, always stressing the strategy of it, that you didn’t play the game you played the man across form you, and that if you didn’t win you might as well not even try. I haven’t played a game just for fun ... in a long time.”

“We could start. I don’t remember Dad, but you and I used to play together all the time.”

“All right. One game ... but we should work together. You don’t want to play against me.”

I dressed then followed Annie up to her room. We spent a few hours with controllers in hand playing some FPS. Prior to the theft of my console, I’d enjoyed Halo and COD, but that definitely wasn’t this. After that I tried to head downstairs and ran into the Bitch instead.

She smiled at me and asked, “You want to go for a ride?”

“I’ll check out your tattoos, but I’m not ready to break out the toys yet. Maybe this evening.”

“I meant literally.”

“Where to? Cause I don’t remember you asking for permission.”

Her eyes flashed wide and she squeaked out, “I’m asking now?”

I sighed, “Where are you going?”

“The Airport. Helen asked me to pick up Grandpa Pete and Grandma Jenn.”

“Yeah, you can do that.”

She reached out and touched my shoulder and I admired Emily’s work on the hand patterns, “You should come. They’ll want to see you.”

“They haven’t bothered to care in the last five years. I’ve barely seen either of them in that time. I have absolutely no reason to believe they’d ‘want to see me’ or give a fuck whether I live or die.”

Her face contorted. I recognized the emotion immediately. She stank of guilt and whispered, “That ... that isn’t true.”

My blood started to boil, “What did you do?”

She shook her head.

“What did you do?”

She practically belted out, “They didn’t forget you! It ... it was my fault, but please don’t make me say it. Things were getting better.”