Chapter 1

For the last few years, my older brother Alex had been bringing home more girls than I could count. I think it started a little after he turned sixteen. I remember coming home one night from choir practice at school and flicking on the lights in the kitchen of the tiny flat we rented—it wasn’t really a flat, I guess, but the upstairs of a house which we rented from an older lady who lived downstairs. Anyway, I flicked on the lights and thought, ‘I guess nobody’s home yet,’ and wondered where Alex was. Da would be out—working or drinking, we never knew which it was—until ten at the earliest, usually. I went over to the sitting room and flopped onto the sofa, grateful the day was nearly done, wanting to read a bit before I started on tea.

Just as I was reaching for my book on the side table, though, I heard it—a giggle. A girl’s voice, although the words were muffled and unintelligible, and then another giggle. I rose slowly from my seat and crept carefully towards the bedrooms just at the other end of the hall. Alex’s door was closed. I put my ear to it and was shocked to hear the steady creak of bedsprings and—and moaning! So, I was only thirteen, but far from uneducated about sex. I knew what was going on in there, and my face reddened at the thought. It was silly, because I knew he wouldn’t give a fig if I had heard anything, or knew about it, but I tiptoed as quickly as I could back to the front door, grabbing my jumper on the way, and closed the door like a mouse. Then I flew down the stairs, out the door, and down to the chip shop a block away, where I ordered tea and sat at a greasy table gingerly sipping it for a half hour, until I was certain they would be done whatever—whatever they had been doing. I tried not to think on the details too hard.

It was only later, when I returned and found Alex sitting casually on the sofa, fully dressed and alone, reading my book—MY book! —that I realized I’d left the kitchen light on in my hasty flight, and my pretense of not knowing about the whole thing had thus been botched. Royally.

Over the next two years, however, my reactions to such situations changed radically. Da was rarely home, so the two of us had the run of the house most of the time. Alex brought girls home weekly, and rarely the same one more than once. Whether or not I was home at the time, he would come in with them and go straight to his room. I smiled at the girls, but we never said anything, and I would often hear Alex mumble, as his door clicked shut, ‘That’s my little sister.’

I wasn’t surprised Alex was able to bring home so many different girls—he was gorgeous, a real teen heartthrob. His hair was yellow blonde and curled, and he wore it semi-long on top and on the side, but cropped a little closer at the back, still long enough that he could run his fingers through it when he was frustrated, or thinking. He had a defined jaw and sea blue eyes, eyes you could easily get lost in. We were quite relaxed at home, and thought nothing of walking around in underwear and a t-shirt, or, sometimes in his case, just underwear. Boy he had it going, that’s for sure. His chest was strong and toned, his shoulders broad. My brother could’ve been on the cover of a woman’s porno mag and he’d have fit right in. I’m sure he gave lots of girls at school the hots, and the proof in the pudding was how easily he took so many of them to bed.

After the first few times my brother brought girls home, my embarrassment over the situation faded completely. I am not sure at what point it changed to curiosity, but it did. I found myself lingering outside his door longer and longer on my way to my room, which was next to it, listening to the sounds he and whoever his partner of the day was made. I thought that maybe he was a good lover, because they sure made a lot of noises, especially the girls. There would be those little gasps, guttural moans, and many exclamations of ‘Mmm.’ Of course, the bed was loud—louder at times, depending on the position they were in, and sometimes I could hear some ‘juicy’ sounds, which, from my experiences with porn videos, meant a juicy pussy. There was also the unmistakable sound of flesh slapping against flesh.