Chapter 1

The door slammed loudly just as the closing theme to ‘Happy Days’ blared from the TV I was lying on the floor in front of. I looked up with a frown as I heard my sister run up the stairs like a herd of elephants, stomping, not even bothering to shout out a ‘hello’ as she returned from her date. I checked my watch with a sigh. And a whole hour early, too. There was only one reason for this: Matthew Constane was a complete dillhole, and I was going to have to beat him up on Monday. Something had gone terribly wrong. I reached up to switch the TV off and followed her.

Earlier, while she’d been preparing to go out on a Friday night, excited like any other pretty teenage girl, she had practically mooned over Matthew. I had knocked on her door with the excuse of needing to borrow her calculator for my trigonometry homework, but had stayed back quietly once she’d found it for me to watch her get ready.

‘Nat,’ I said, fiddling with the calculator cover, ‘do you ever wonder about Dad?’

Maybe it was low, but if there was one thing my sister never tired of talking about, it was our no-good absentee father. If I got her started on that, she might just let me stay, or not really my notice my presence. She stilled for a second, her back still to me as she sat at her dressing table, but I could see in the mirror from where I sat on her bed that her happy face had turned solemn.

‘What kind of question is that, Trevor?’ she said finally, giving a short laugh—very uncharacteristic for her. ‘You know I do. Mum works very hard for us and we have a good life. Why should we wonder about the lowlife who walked out on Mum when she was pregnant with you and I was barely two?’ She sighed, a low sound, and then forced a smile. ‘Besides, I want to feel happy tonight. I’m going out with Matthew Constane. He’s on the football team.’

‘I know,’ I said sourly, but tried to keep the sarcasm from my tone. No matter what anyone said about Matthew, he was a drip—and I didn’t see why someone so nice and pretty like Natalia would be at all interested in going out with him.

Her eyes sparkled, and she swiveled in her seat to really look at me, only wearing her cream-coloured satin bra and slip. ‘He’s a dreamboat! Tonight is going to be the best night.’ She turned back to the mirror again to appraise herself dreamily ... our mother didn’t approve of much makeup, and Nat didn’t really mind. A little mascara and a swipe of blush were really all she needed to be a mysterious, doe-eyed creature of the night. Her brown eyes were big and naturally rimmed by dark lashes already, and if you really looked close there were some caramel flecks in them. She wore her strawberry blonde hair long, simple, and parted in the middle, like most girls our age, but had a fringe on both sides of her part. Her body was soft and slender, her skin pale, and she was just my height since I’d grown last summer. As she sat there, my eyes drank in all her curves ... in the mirror, I could just make out over her shoulder the swell of one pale, perfect breast, the curve of her modest cleavage emerging from that silky brassiere...

Nat’s eyes narrowed on me in the mirror. Could she see me beginning to drool? ‘That trigonometry homework isn’t going to do itself, squirt.’

‘You sound like Mum.’

Natalia rolled her eyes. ‘Hand me my skirt, will you, you perv?’

It was laid out on her bed beside me, a pretty yellow and green patterned flowy thing with buttons which was decidedly hippie-like in fashion. I tossed it to her, sticking out my tongue. ‘I just wanted to see how sisters could transform from such deranged, deformed demons into something so supposedly innocent and sweet in only an hour,’ I quipped. ‘Ow!’ I winced. Nat had stood, crossed to me, and hit me on the arm none too gently with her hairbrush, but she was smiling. ‘Bet you Matthew doesn’t know how foul you can really be,’ I smirked, standing now, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. Nat was buttoning up the skirt. It clung to her waist and hips before flowing down to her knees. She looked beautiful already. I could feel my penis begin to agree and shifted my gaze away from her still-exposed bra.

‘Of course, he doesn’t,’ Nat said, putting a brown leather belt through the loops the skirt had. She frowned in concentration, pushing some hair out of her face. ‘I only save that for annoying squirts like you.’ Despite my growth spurt, she had insisted on calling me that nickname for most of my life.

‘What, don’t want him to hear you curse like a sailor? Think it’s not good ‘wife’ material?’ Nat raised her eyebrows in a haughty expression. I loved how defiant she could be. As long as it wasn’t about anything serious, fighting with Nat was usually sort of fun. She was feisty and pushy with me like she never was with anybody else, probably because I was her brother. She didn’t care what I knew.

And it was true, by the way, that part about her cursing. One time, last summer we’d gone biking together. It was a sunny day and Nat was wearing a cropped tie-dye shirt and an old pair of my jeans in cut-offs. She was feeling sloppy and her hair was a mess in a braid, but I liked it best when she was relaxed like that. I’d chosen to ride behind her—yes, okay, for the reason you’re thinking. She has a great ass. Nat always complains that it’s too big, and I’m careful never to say anything one way or another, choosing the diplomatic response, ‘Don’t make an ass out of yourself;’ to which I always get a cuff over the head and a big grin. So, I was ogling her butt and how nice it looked in my old pants, and then suddenly she was crashing and gasping and halfway down the pavement.

I managed to stop before I ran into her and let my bike fall as I knelt beside her. ‘Nat, are you—’ I began, but was interrupted by her adamant, ‘FUCK!’ she was holding her left knee, and as I pried her hands away to get a look, it was followed by a loud, ‘God damnit!’ I noticed a small scrape on her left arm, too, but it the scrape on her knee was far deeper. I probed it gently and she hissed through her teeth. ‘Shiiit.’

‘Wow, blue mouth,’ I said, laughing a little now that I could see it wasn’t too serious. ‘Are you okay? Is it just your knee really?’

She nodded, gritting her teeth. ‘Yeah.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s get home.’ I tied one of my fairly clean socks around her injury to help slow the bleeding, not that it was serious, then smoothed her fringe away from her sweaty forehead and planted a kiss there.

She cursed the whole way home, variations on the previous theme—we had to walk our bikes, which gave her enough support that she didn’t need to hold onto me, but it must’ve been more painful.

‘If he finds out, he finds out later,’ Nat said diplomatically, shaking me from my remembrance of the biking accident. ‘For now, I want him to assume I’m a lady.’ She pulled a strange face and dipped into a mocking curtsy, which was made funnier by the fact that she was still half-undressed.

‘Trev, my shirt please?’

I passed her the peasant-type blouse, which she slipped over her head. I shamelessly watched her breasts jiggle while her face was still covered by the fabric. That was definitely a hard on in my pants ... yep. I prayed silently that she wouldn’t notice.

My sister seemed oblivious, walked to her dressing table, and spritzed herself with a flowery perfume, rubbing it behind her ears and into her neck. It was a scent I hadn’t smelt on her before, a nice one, sort of tropical. It was sexy how she gently massaged it into her collar bone, looking deeply absorbed in her thoughts, and didn’t help my erection situation at all. I imagined hugging her and putting my nose to her hair, just by ear, how she would smell delicious like that, how I would feel her small, soft body close against me, her breasts pushed into my chest, my pelvis pushed against hers...

My cock twitched. I shook myself and wondered if maybe now was the time to make a graceful exit.

‘Natalia!’ It was our mother’s voice. She knocked and then bustled into the room without waiting for a reply, as was her habit, and seemed a little surprised to see me. But Natalia was fully clothed at this point, so I didn’t see what the problem would be, anyhow. ‘Hi, sweetheart,’ she said, and brushed my sister’s fringe away from her face a little in a motherly gesture. ‘Wow, don’t you look pretty. Isn’t she lovely, Trevor?’ Mum cooed, smiling proudly. Her hair was like Natalia’s in colour, but with some streaks of white and grey now. She was shorter than both of us.

‘She’s lovely,’ I agreed, the soft genuine tone of my voice, devoid of any mocking, making my sister look up with surprise. For a moment her face seemed vulnerable, softer; shy and unguarded when she looked at me with a small smile.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Our mother grabbed her face and kissed both her cheeks.

‘Have a good time, and make sure you’re back by curfew.’ My mother winked, but I could see she wasn’t worried. Nat was a good girl, a diligent student, and had never been out past curfew with a boy. They usually arrived back five to ten minutes early, and if my mother was still up, she might invite the boy in to have some coffee and something she’d baked earlier. He’d stay, for perhaps a half hour, talk a while, and then politely go home. No, our mother was never displeased by the boys Nat dated. I wondered, when I turned seventeen and was allowed to officially date, if my mother would do the same with my girlfriends. As it was, I was allowed to study in small groups, late at a pizza place or something, but never past curfew.

‘I will, Mum.’ Nat smiled and glided out of the room to go put on her boots and wait for Matthew. The last I had seen of her before she left, she had smiled and waved from Matthew’s car, looking perfectly content. For a second I could still smell her perfume in the hall, and felt myself stiffen again—but then I realized that Matthew would be smelling that on her too. Matthew would feel the same things I had felt, if not more because he was not her brother. He would want to hug her ... and kiss her, too, and maybe he’d want to touch her breasts or put his hand up skirt or...

My hands balled into tights fists, but I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What business of mine was it what Natalia allowed and who she allowed to do it? I was her brother, and it was none of my concern. Besides, she’d wanted to go out with Matthew. Maybe she liked him.

I resolved to stop thinking about it and switched the TV on in the front room, settling down to watch MAS*H.

I could hear Nat storming around her room as soon as I got upstairs. She was making a big racquet like she did sometimes when she was really angry, putting things down hard, slamming her drawers. I didn’t even bother to knock; I just came in. I knew she’d probably send me away if I asked, even if she did really want somebody to talk to.

She was being so loud she didn’t even hear me come in, and for a minute after I closed the door I just leaned against it, watching her ravage the room. She’d only turned the two lamps on, and they cast a soft yellow glow in the dim room.