Chapter 3

Melody was confused. “But ... but...”

“Please leave, I’m working here,” said John, without taking his eyes from the screen.

She left his room, tears in her eyes. “Why?” She asked herself. “Why didn’t I suck his cock when he asked before?” Now it was clearly too late. Whatever the thing in that room was, it was certainly not her loving older brother.

Mark was furious. Neither his mom nor his aunt were in the mood for sex tonight, after that disaster of a discussion. He wanted to hit someone, preferably a geek. He ran upstairs two steps at a time and opened John’s door. John had barely turned his head when he found himself propped against the wall. He saw Mark’s fist ready to hit him but looked him in the eye and calmly asked: “Do you like credit cards?”

“What?” said Mark.

“I asked if you like credit cards,” John repeated. And then continued: “Because if you hit me now, I’ll make sure that you will never get one. You’ll be up to your neck in debt, your credit score will be crap, your name will be in every no-flight list and sex offender register in this country, and your face will be in every police billboard. I will turn your life into shit and I will love doing it.”

Mark hesitated. He knew John was a geek, a computer genius. And his eyes full of hate told him that he would carry out his threat. He slowly let John go, turned around, and left the room.

Breakfast was uncomfortable, at the very least. Mark wasn’t his boisterous self, Melody looked sad, and both parents ate in silence. Ironically, the only one who looked at ease, despite not saying a word, was John. Upon finishing, he said “Goodbye, people” and left the house.

After seeing him leave, they looked at each other for a moment. Nobody talked. After several minutes Celia looked at her husband, but he seemed focused on his plate. Mark was eating slowly, too slowly. He was using the “don’t speak with your mouth full” thing to its maximum extent, having chewed the same piece of toast for a long time. Melody had turned her head to the door and looked at it silently.

“I can’t stand this!” shouted Celia. “Talk, cry, curse, whatever!” she cried. “Anything but this silence!”

Melody was the first one to react. “We lost him, Mom.”

Celia looked at Melody. “That’s not true,” she said. “Didn’t you see him? He was humming, I think he’s getting over it. Very soon we will be as good as before.” It was clear that she was trying to convince herself and the others, but failing miserably at both.

“No, Mom.” Insisted Melody. “That was not him getting over what we did. That was him telling us that he doesn’t care anymore. Didn’t you hear him? ‘people’. Not Dad, not Mom, not family. Just ‘people’.”

Patrick looked at Celia in anguish. “She’s right, you know,” he admitted. “Remember the saying about the opposite of love? He’s growing indifferent to us. To all of us.”

“Last night I wanted to talk some sense to him,” Mark intervened. “He threatened me with using his geek skills to put me on the sex offenders list and destroy me financially if I didn’t leave him alone.” Of course, he omitted the part about trying to beat him. All the others looked horrified.

“Perhaps ... perhaps if we include him now...” Celia started.

“Too late, mom,” sighed Melody. “Last night I offered to suck his cock. He said it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t even look at me.”

While eating his lunch at the school cafeteria, John felt somebody taking a seat in front of him. He didn’t even raise his head, he was too immersed in his own thoughts.

“Johnny?” said the voice. Startled, he looked up at Claire. She was one year behind in their school. Being HS politics the way it is, they didn’t interact at all. Although many people knew that they were cousins, she belonged to the “cool” crowd, so it was a surprise for him to have her talking to him, let alone sitting at his table.

“Hi, Claire. What do you want?” he greeted her.

“Do I need a reason to talk to my favorite cousin?” she said, smiling.

“Am I your favorite cousin? I’d say you like your other cousins better” he retorted.

She blushed. “Yeah, about that ... believe me, it wasn’t my idea.”

He looked at her. “Tell me, Claire, how many times have you sat with me this year?”

“What?”

“I asked, how many times have you sat with me this year.”

Claire looked at her food, suddenly uncomfortable. “None.”

He smiled. “So, I’m not your favorite cousin after all.”

“They told me you didn’t want to participate,” she explained.

“I understand. But that doesn’t explain why you never sat with me.” He returned to his food. Claire remained silent. She didn’t know what to say. John ate his last morsel and stood up. “See you sometime,” he said, and left.

She followed him with her eyes, incapable of talking. Although surrounded by people, Claire suddenly felt very alone.

That afternoon John was lying on his bed, just looking at the ceiling. A single tear was running down his face. Since he had woken up at the hospital, he had felt a part of him missing. He used to be a nice, empathetic, boy. But now, despite searching, there was nothing there. Wrong. There was nothing there for his own family. With his classmates and friends, he remained the same.

“Dear, can we talk?”

John looked up and saw his mother standing at his door.

“Yes, what do you need?” Celia noticed immediately that there was no “Mom” in his answer. Suddenly, she realized he hadn’t called her “Mom” since their conversation at the hospital. She felt an oppression in her chest.

“I need my son,” she said.

“Mark is in his room, I think,” he said. His voice was deadpan, not sarcastic, but somehow the sarcasm was stronger this way.

The irony was that he wasn’t trying to be sarcastic at all.

“Oh, please, you know what I’m talking about,” she said, using the old and tried “mom voice” that had worked for so many moms since ancient times. “Don’t you think it is time for you to get over your little spat and join the family?”

He looked at her. “Join the family? Last time I heard, the family couldn’t wait to get rid of me to be free to enjoy their lifestyle in this house.”

She looked aghast. “When did you hear that?”

“The day I discovered you were having orgies,” he said. “I saw your group nude photo on Melody’s PC. I was just trying to understand it when you arrived and started to talk. I heard Mark and Patrick talking about how all of you were waiting for me to go, so you could have your orgies here.” His matter-of-fact tone conveyed a lot more than what an accusatory tone would do. And she couldn’t help noticing that she had called her husband “Patrick” instead of “Dad.”

“I’m sorry that you heard that,” she said, trying to downplay what he had heard. “But those were just words, nobody took that seriously.”

“Really? Because you said that you were waiting for that time, too,” he continued. “Therefore, I can only conclude that you meant it.”

Until that moment nobody had known how John had found out about their secret. Now it was clear for her that the damage was a lot more serious than she thought. It was not only being excluded from sex, John thought his family didn’t want him. Claire said the first thing that came to her mind.

“Please, Dear, if you want to be part of it, just say so and Melody or Claire will be happy to...”

“Do you really think that a pity fuck will make things right?” he asked, showing fire in his eyes for the first time.