Chapter 1

Her older step-brother had gotten home about fifteen minutes before her. She knew that because the shade to his room was drawn. She knew his routine. He got home from school, entered his room, locked the door, pulled the shade, got out his magazines, and jerked off. When he was done jerking off, he re-stowed his magazines, cleaned up the mess, flushed the Kleenex down the toilet, raised the shade, laid out his school books, and unlocked the door. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes.

Since the shades were drawn, he’d gotten home one to fifteen minutes before her. In one to thirty minutes, he’d finish jerking, finish his homework, and emerge to torment her at every opportunity. If none presented itself, he’d create it. She’d learned to endure most of it.

But there was one thing that really annoyed her. He called her “Gizmo.” The name itself was irritating enough. What it exemplified about his attitude toward her made it maddening.

The way it conditioned his friends’ attitudes toward her was unbearable.

He was nineteen.

She went to the side of the house. Grandma was in the kitchen, as always at this time of day. The old, weathered face lit up as Cathy entered, and the old, toothless mouth spat a greeting. She kissed Grandma’s old, wrinkled cheek and said she’d paid close attention to her teachers. Grandma had never learned to speak English, never tried to. She’d come to live with them when Cathy was four, and Grandpa — whom Cathy had never met — died in the same house where he’d been born. Cathy had already been bilingual, since Taiwanese was often spoken in the house when the family was alone. Whenever they had guests, especially the “lo fan,” English was spoken.

Dutifully, she asked permission to help in the kitchen. By ritual, Grandma refused permission and ordered her to attend to other matters.

She kissed her Grandma’s cheek again and headed up the stairs.

The door to her step-brother’s room — separated from her room by her Grandma’s — was still closed. So he was still jerking off. She’d caught a glimpse of him doing it once. He’d been lying on his side, two of the magazines spread out on the bed in front of his face, his hand feverishly pumping his stiff dick. It was her first sight of a hard penis. It had been all red and funny-looking, she’d thought, and even looked like it might be painful. The way he’d gasped, it had certainly sounded painful. She’d stood and crept away from the keyhole. The whole big deal wasn’t such a big deal.

Cathy stepped into her room, closed the door, and set her books on her study desk. She looked briefly at herself in the mirror. Gizmo, she thought. A small Asian daughter of small Asian parents, she was even smaller than usual for an eighteen-year-old, with her hair in braids (it needed a shampoo) and an elfin face.

She turned sideways and studied her profile. Not even a hint of the — admittedly — barely perceptible swelling around her nipples. The official tartan jumper from St. Barnabas betrayed nothing of her virtually nonexistent breasts.