Monday (part 2)

Eventually we untangled ourselves, rearranging into a slightly less compromising position; I felt a sense of loss as his softening dick left me; I felt myself closing up behind him, as if trying to cling to him. Sometimes I wish we could just stay like that forever, him inside me; there is nothing to compare to it. But that wouldn't work very well. He turned me up on my side and lay down behind me, tucking the blanket around us, his arm around my waist, in easy reaching distance of my breasts or my pussy, if either of us should be so inclined. It was comfy and warm next to him, the blanket around us like a cocoon, his receding hardness nestled between the cheeks of my ass. He seems to favor this arrangement, and it's nice, but there are other things I'd prefer... Not that I tell him that. It would be... Unseemly for him to know these things.

"I have to tell you, that... That thing last month, on our anniversary," Brandon's voice rumbled behind me. I could feel the vibrations in my shoulder blades. His fingers gently ruffled my pubic hair. "That was really cool."

"I know," I said, smiling. "I kinda liked it, too."

"Too bad you couldn't keep it that way," he said.

"It itched," I said. "And besides, what if I'd gotten called in for The Program then? It'd cause... Talk."

"True," said Brandon. He'd be very demonstrative in public if he could, but he's conscious of how disturbing it can be to have someone nearby liplocking with their significant other when you don't have one. He says Zach used to rub it in his face a lot. He and Christa don't do that now—not that anyone would really complain—but I like it that he's so considerate. Brandon, not Zach. Though I'm sure Zach's considerateness pleases Christa in equal amounts. The point is, it's wise to keep a low profile, and he knows it.

"You, uh..." Brandon said. "You seem awfully wet down there."

"It's your cum," I said archly. "It's leaking out of me."

"... Oh."

"Yes. That's why I always stop for the blanket whenever we do this."

"I suppose I should wash these then."

Now that's just great. "Yes. Uhm. You should."

"The things you learn from your girlfriend," he said dryly.

Then there was silence again, and the feeling of his chest moving as he breathed. How interested that we had come full circle, starting and ending by just being in one another's arms, talking.

"What did you mean about 'your life's work, '" I asked.

"Hmm?"

"You said that you were going to get married some day because it was your life's work," I said. "Which is... A different way to put it."

"Oh," he said. "Well."

He was silent for a time, thinking. His hand, quite possibly of its own accord, moved to cover my breast for a moment before slipping away again. His burgeoning erection rested between my thighs again, and I thought about but decided not to slip him into me again. If only... If only.

"It just..." he said. "Well, you know how it is. You've met my parents."

"No, actually, I haven't," I said, amused. "I wasn't able to make it the one time they were around, remember?"

"My point stands," he said, totally serious. "They're never here. I don't see them. I might as well not have parents, for all the attention I get from them. I can't tell you for certain what kind of person I'd be if they hadn't scuttled off when I was ten, but I know I'd be totally, fundamentally different. So different I can't even imagine what my life would be like. Would I have the same friends? Would I have the same hobbies? Would Zach and Sajel even be in my life? I know you wouldn't, because I would've never entered The Program when I did and for the reasons I did, and you'd just go on being that particularly beautiful soprano and I'd just go on being... Whoever I'd be..."

It was a chilling thought. No Brandon? Us never meeting? I shuddered to think of it.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly," Brandon said. "So you have that. And then you have... Well, Arie's parents, particularly; but also my own; and Jane's to some extent. And on the other hand you have your parents, and Christa's, and Zach's mom, and... Very different people with very different kids. I don't know what effect nature has on our lives, but the nurture effect is very clear to me. And seeing all this, seeing all that I see... It's just obvious to me that... This is the most important thing in life. Parenting. Being a good parent. Being the kind of person your kids come to when they need help, and aren't ashamed of introducing their friends to, and who doesn't screw your kids up so that they end up with scars on their arms. That's the most important thing. And that's what I wanna do with my life."

"Do you know," I said. "You're probably the only sixteen-year-old who has ever thought of it that way."

"Well," he said dryly. "I'm also probably the only sixteen-year-old who's thinking in total seriousness about marrying his girlfriend."

"Yes, but I'm even weirder," I reminded him. "I'm fifteen and I'm thinking that."

"Five days," he reminded me. "You're practically sixteen as it is."

"Yes, but practically's not the same as really," I said. "I felt so tiny and knowledgeless when they skipped me over seventh grade, and I don't think that feeling has ever really left me."

"God," he said, "what about when I turn nineteen. It'll be eight months of no sex for us."

"Why? Oh, the statutory rape laws."

"Ugh."

"Well, that's only if my parents find out," I said. They're great people, both of them, but I don't think they'd be keen about finding out their fifteen-year-old baby girl has been having sex. Though, they may be a little more calm when I'm eighteen. "I think they'll have gotten used to the idea by then."

"True," he said. "I mean, we'll only have been together for three years at that point."

"We're gonna have babies, you know," I told him, smiling.

"Huh?" He bolted upright, startled. "What—you mean—right now?"

"No, silly," I said, turning on my back to smile up at him. My naked breasts slipped out from under the blanket. "Eventually. I'm still on birth control, my parents would freak if I got pregnant. But we've only been talking about our marriage and how your dream job is to be a parent—what's the next obvious step?"

"Oh," said Brandon. "Oh yeah. That makes sense."

I giggled. "Silly boy." Reaching up, my arms twining around his neck, drawing him down—the cool air on my breasts felt good, but I knew what would make them feel better, and I wanted it. "But you're my silly boy."

"Mmm," said Brandon, an assent—or maybe something to do with the fact that his lips were an inch from my nipple. "Mmm..."

Then there was a beep—we both jumped—followed instantly by a high-pitched, electronic tone.

Brandon stared. "What the—"

"Could it be Greta?" I asked.

"No," he said, "she leaves at three and she calls if she has to come again."

The house was wired with an alarm system, with sensors on doors and windows. This was a basic safety precaution for a residence that would contain (when plans were completed) upwards of ten thousand dollars in electronic hardware alone—not to mention furniture, silverware, clothing, books, movies, etc. Whenever any of these were opened, the alarm system itself would beep out of various speakers and sound emitters (this room's surround-sound system, for instance, which was hard-wired into the ceiling), in sufficient volume to alert everyone in the house. The tone, on the other hand, was an indication that a door or window had been opened while the alarm system was armed. Brandon, the cautious sort, set it on Home mode whenever he was indoors; should he be Asleep, an opened portal would trigger a loud siren, not to mention a bunch of light switches that had been programmed to flick on and off every second when security was breached, and then stay on when the alarm was disarmed (if it was). We had triggered the Asleep alarm mode, just for fun, once; it took the seven of us an eternity to cover the entire house and shut down all the automated lights.

What was going on, in case you got bored with that little description, was, simply: someone had entered the house. This in itself was not a bizarre occurrence. However, at this point in time, no one should be entering the house—for that matter, no one should be able to.

And here we were, in a residence containing upwards of ten thousand dollars in electronic hardware—not to mention furniture, silverware, clothing, books, movies, etc.

There was another beep, lower in pitch than the first, indicating that the door had been closed; and then a third, in the highest pitch yet, and the tone cut off. Its silence was even more chilling. I spoke the obvious out of numb lips: "They disarmed the alarm system." Whoever these people were, they knew the security codes.

Brandon shoved himself out of the blanket and began to put on his pants.

I stared at him, incredulous. (The blanket, unnoticed, fell to my waist.) "What the hell are you doing!"

"Somebody's in here," Brandon said. "I don't know who. But if it's... Someone dangerous, I don't intend to be caught with my pants down."

"What are you doing!" I said again.

"I'm going to take a look," Brandon said.

I stood up, reaching for my blouse. "I'm going with you."

"No you're not, it's too dangerous," Brandon said. "My house, my risks."

"Brandon, you just agreed to marry me. If you think I'm going to let you dash off into— Wait." I held up a hand, signaling for silence, my ears straining to make sense of a few distant noises... Rhythmic thumps, with a vague stentorian echo, as from a hardwood floor. I had heard the sound many times before.

"They're in the kitchen," I whispered.

Brandon flashed a glance at me, leaning towards the room's doorway ear-first.

The treads cut off suddenly, replaced by a dimly-heard swishing sound. Clothes. In a hallway.

"They're coming here," I breathed.

Our eyes met, wide.

"The window," Brandon said. He strode over to the wall, unlatched the window, cranked it open. (The alarm system beeped again.) "Can you make it over the sill?"

"I don't have a choice, do I," I said, zipping my jeans closed with as much care as I could manage under the hurried circumstances. I didn't have my panties on and I didn't want to catch anything in the zipper. (Brandon must have it worse.)

"Here, help me with the screen," Brandon said, his fingernails dug in. We strained at the thing, which I don't think had ever been removed before, slowly pulling it out of the window frame, centimeter by infinitesimal—

"What, Brandon. So upset to see us that you have to escape out the window?" said a rich male voice.

And then a woman, dryly amused: "At least let the young lady put all her clothes on first."

Brandon's face went white. I turned to see a man and a woman standing in the doorway, resplendent in stern business suits, lined faces, strange smiles. One had pale blonde hair, the other a dark brown, both lightened by streaks of grey. Facial features leapt out at me, a composite picture I had spent a lifetime of six months memorizing. I gasped.

"Mom?" Brandon said. "Dad?"

M .4

My mom is the dumbest person on the face of the planet. Absolutely the dumbest. No intelligence, no common sense, no smarts, no anything. The dumbest. And if it's not her, then it's my sister Trina.

Hey, I'm Arie Chang, and I don't know where I got my brains from.

I'm also not entirely sure what I'm doing here. Derek asked me to contribute to his Program account because, as he put it, "Your experience of the week was vital—no, integral—to mine." Whatever the hell that means. I think he's just trying to get out of some work. But I guess, why not. Just, let's get this clear: this is Derek's fault. If someone gets into trouble, you know who it ought to be.

Family therapy has become a sort of a tradition for us, some sort of sadistic Christmas. Every Monday afternoon we get together (Dad has to get out of work an hour early), go to Mr. Moreau's office, get therapized for an hour, get dinner and go home. It's always an ordeal, because Loren (he insists we call him that) always has some pretty stupid advice. Like, a token economy. He suggested we set up a token economy. You know how, when kids are like five or six or something, their parents will offer them rewards in the form of 'Gold Stars (TM)' or 'Happy Points (TM)' or whatever, for doing their chores? Which you can exchange for prizes and stuff? That's a token economy. Mr. Moreau said we should set one up because it would encourage me and Trina to actually do the things we're supposed to—like get out of bed on time; like wash the dishes; like do our homework. Which, actually, is not a bad idea in theory, but is incredibly demeaning when your parents make a big deal out of parading you to the magnetic whiteboard on the fridge and pin a gold star to it in your name. Not to mention how no one actually keeps track of points anymore. We're supposed to get five points for doing the dishes, and one of the privileges we can purchase is the right to stay up half an hour past bedtime, at the cost of fifteen points. Well, it's been three weeks, Trina and I alternate dishwashing duties, but every time, Mom says, "No, you haven't earned enough points. No, sorry, you haven't earned enough points." At which point I just slam the door, turn off the lights make the iMac's display really dim. I mean, honestly. This is part of why my mother's the dumbest person on the face of the planet. I also think Mr. Moreau's a total moron, but that's neither here nor there.

("Dr. Moreau?" Brandon said to me when he heard about it. "Your therapist is named Dr. Moreau?" And I said, "No, he's not even a licensed therapist, there's no doctor about it." And I said, "What's so special about Dr. Moreau," and in answer he gave me a map to the school library. Whatever the hell that meant.)

Anyway, so. Here we were, early on Monday evening. Dad sat on one side of the couch with Trina stretched out longwise across its length, wrapped up in a blanket, her feet in Dad's lap. Mom sat at a right angle to Dad on a wooden chair, and I sat on its twin near the door in mirror relation to Trina. Finally, Mr. Moreau—Loren—sat in the room's only armchair, right in the middle of the room, the head to our five-pointed star.

We were doing what we call the Week In Review. Since we only meet once a week, we take a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting to go over everything that's happened in the last week. Sometimes this sets the agenda for the family's discussion; sometimes it doesn't. Generally, Trina takes longest; more often than not Mr. Moreau has to tell her to wrap up before she'll stop. I think it's a power thing; she wants to be the one who wastes time. I also think she's an idiot.

Trina said, "And so Bobby said—"

"Ah, Trina," said Mr. Moreau—Loren—breaking in gently. "Time's getting on, so, if you could bring this to a close... ?"

"I have just one more thing," Trina said, and composed herself for a final transgression.

"Last Tuesday, I was... Passing by the bathroom," she said, hesitating in a fawning, childish way. "Not long after dinner. And I knew Arie was in there, because I'd... I'd seen her go and I'd heard the door close. But when I passed, I heard...

"Retching sounds."

All eyes went to me.

"We'd just had dinner, so I think she..." said Trina, now stumbling. "I think she was..."

There she stopped, apparently unable to go on. As far as I was concerned, she'd said all she needed to. The damage was done.

"Arie?" said my mother fearfully.

Now, okay. Look. I can explain what was going on in two very simple words:

Tuesdays suck.

Some people say Monday is the worst day of the week. I personally disagree. On Monday you get to see your friends again, which is not what usually happens for me on the weekends because of my parents. Mom has relaxed some things a bit, but she's almost murder on any suggestion that we go somewhere after school; I think she wants us under her eye. Derek's house, forget it; Brandon's house, maybe if I'm lucky. I mean, there's a reason Derek and I have to do a lot of our fucking at school. So, the point is, Mondays are nice because I get to fuck Derek after a long, sexually-deprived weekend. And because I get to see Brandon and Meredith and those other people too.

Wednesdays are good because, halfway through it, you suddenly notice you're halfway to the weekend, you're on the home stretch and heading in. Thursday is even better. And then Friday—well, yeah, school's out! You get two days off! And then Monday hits, and Derek hits, and you start all over again.

But Tuesdays... No. Tuesdays have no redeeming features. They are the butt-ends of the week. Nothing good has ever happened on Tuesday, and a lot of bad things too. And that particular Tuesday was the worst of the lot.

It started by me staying up practically all night to study for a Spanish test. When I woke up to get ready for school I had had way too little sleep and I was groggy and cranky. Mom and I immediately got into an argument about my sleeping habits, and (more accurately) how they tended to be affected by my study habits. The mood in the car when she dropped us off was decidedly frosty.

Then we went into Pre-Calculus. It was good to see Derek again and I wanted to sneak off to the bathrooms then and there, but that wasn't happening, especially since Mr. Bhajra was handing back yesterday's quiz... Which I got about an H+ on.

If F's start at 50% that tells you where an H falls. And then we got into English, where I hadn't done the reading—well, I'd done half of it—so of course Mr. Cavanaugh consistently picks me to answer questions—on the half I hadn't read; and then we got into Current Events, which was the exact same situation, except that this time I hadn't done any of the reading, and so of course I got picked to answer all the time. If anyone had asked me to answer in Spanish, I could've done a damn good job! But no one did.

And so it's break time, and it's like, Yay, Derek time!... Except that he had to go xerox something in the library for his next class, and that took all of recess.

And so it's fourth period and I'm pissy. And while things didn't get worse, they certainly didn't get any better. And then I get home and my parents are all this and my sister is all that and one thing led to another, and I did what any self-respecting girl would do: I broke out the razor blades.

Now. You know how when you get really hurt—say, if you get punched in the stomach (which happens inevitably if you've taken martial arts, like Trina and I have)—you feel like throwing up? (Brandon adds, for the record, that being kicked in the balls produces much the same effect.) I guess I must have hit a nerve or something. I didn't throw up—I produced a lot of sound and fury and prayed that no one would overhear—but I didn't throw up.

So, see. It's all because Tuesdays suck.

But Mr. Moreau Loren and my mother and father were still waiting for an answer, and I couldn't tell them one. Because if there's one thing you don't talk about in our family, it's self-injury. Not if you want to keep breathing.

Not that Mom's going to strangle you or anything. No. She smothers you with kindness. And if you don't think that's possible, then clearly you've never had someone dote on you and hover over you and work herself into a state of nervous dread over whether she's going to find you dead tomorrow in a pool of your own blood. Mom's not good with blood. She's also not good with dealing with panic. Pity, then, because she works herself into a panic whenever she sees or smells or thinks blood, and it's a pretty common sight smell thought in our household.

We have a sort of a fucked-up family. In case you hadn't noticed.

I made the mistake once—just once—of identifying where a wound had come from one morning at breakfast. Mom wasn't fit to live with for a week and a half.

So here I was, and I couldn't exactly explain where those 'retching sounds' had come from, and at the moment there was only one question on my mind: had Trina brought this up deliberately?

Looking at her—looking at her reclined on the couch, her face to the ceiling, her faux pathos and her pretty little hesitations and who says 'retching sounds', anyway? Who doesn't just say, 'It sounded like she was throwing up'? Well, if you ask me, it sounded like she had rehearsed this before. I think Trina set me up.

"Arie, were you..." said my mother fearfully.

"Arie," said my father. "You do realize this is very serious news."

"Arie, I can't believe you were..." said my mother brokenly.

"Loren has told us before," my father was saying, "that if he finds out you've been doing such deliberately harmful things, he may have to hospitalize you."

"Arie, why do you have to..." said my mother, practically on the verge of tears.

"Arie?" Mr. Moreau Loren—asked me. "Is there something you'd like to say to us?"

"I think my sister's a big bitch!"

After that there was a pregnant silence, and yet I felt very, very satisfied.

But Trina didn't even blink. She just stared at the ceiling with that blank non-expression on her face, stepping out of the way of the avalanche she had just triggered.

"Arie," my father was saying, "I don't think that sort of hostility is really justified. Trina has just told us something very important, and I think you should appreciate the risk she took in—"

"Arie," Mr. Moreau Loren was saying, "that sort of behavior is indicative of deeper issues, mostly concerning self-esteem and self-image. Is there anything you'd like to tell us? What exactly makes you feel so bad about yourself? Is there anything—"

"Arie," my mother was saying, "don't forget that... Well, today's image is of a woman with the waist of a pencil, but in other cultures... Beauty is an inherited thing. In China and in other places, women who are... Somewhat fleshy are considered very beautiful, and—" ('Somewhat fleshy'. Right. That's exactly how I want to be described.)

And Trina stared at the ceiling and said nothing, said nothing to deepen the pit she had dumped me into, or to dig me out of it. That would be all up to me. Maybe this was a test, to see about my mental agility. Maybe she'd turn around and say, Ha-ha, got you, that was great.

Maybe my sister's a big bitch.

Life in hell, meet Arie Chang. I hope we get along okay.

M .5

The unofficial Program philosophy here at Mount Hill High has always been, 'Look Closer.' It's part of why Dr. Zelvetti keeps choosing the oddball outcast types to go into The Program. She wants everybody to have their fifteen minutes of fame. But the corollary to the philosophy statement is that, simply, things will happen to you that you would never, ever expect.

Hi, I'm Derek Strong, and I didn't expect what came, and when I mean didn't, I really really REALLY didn't.

First off—how awful was that? Arie, I mean. As soon as she could get away after dinner, she phoned me and we talked the situation out—though, by then, it was already past 8 PM. The Changs had eaten out, like they normally do on Mondays after Family Therapy Time, and as Arie described it, Mrs. Chang had been... Persuasive about the amount of food Arie should eat. To put it mildly. To put it as Arie herself did, "I think I am about to throw up. But I better not, or my parents are gonna kill me. Or maybe themselves. Or maybe each other. I dunno."

There wasn't a lot I could say over the phone—especially since our normal form of therapy is to sneak away and fuck like bunnies. "I could try to sneak over again, if you want," I offered, but Arie declined. The one time we'd tried it, we'd almost gotten caught—I mean we, outside in her back yard, her just trying to get me into the house, before anything had even happened.

"I still can't decide," Arie said finally.

"Decide what?"

"Whether she meant it."

"Hmm."

"I mean, I... Well, I don't like Trina. And I've got a sort of a hunch that she doesn't like me either. But maybe... Maybe she was trying to help. Maybe she was trying to help. Maybe she honestly figured that... God, I dunno."

"It's really kind of you, actually," I said.

"... Huh?"

"Well, you could've been all, you know, 'God, I hate my sister, she's such a fucking bitch, ' you know? But instead you're wondering... You're wondering if she did it on accident. If she was trying to help. You're not going on a rampage, you're giving her the benefit of the doubt."

"Yeah, I'm only half going on rampage, " Arie grumbled, but she let it go.

"So, " she said, a new smile in her voice. "What's been going on in your life, loverboy?"

"Not a whole lot, really," I said, leaning back in my computer chair, the phone jammed between ear and shoulder. "I've just been—"

The door to my room banged open behind me, closed again. "Derek I have to talk to you."

"Hold on a second Arie." I grabbed the phone by the mouthpiece and turned my head. "Jenny, I'm kind of on the phone with Arie right now. Can this wait?"

My older sister looked back at me with wide eyes. She was pale and her hair was disheveled. Whatever was going on, she looked... Off-balance. And the frightened look in her eyes was all the answer I needed.

I sighed. "Hold on. Hey, uhm, Arie... I'm gonna have to go."

"Aww. Why, what's more important than me?"

I squeezed my eyes closed. Oh God, of all the ways she could have chosen to phrase that question. "My sister just barged in here and she looks like she just saw a ghost. I think I gotta find out what's going on." She may be my older sister, but I look out for her, you know? Most of my friends give my weird looks when I tell them that, because three of them (Zach, Brandon, Meredith) are the only children in their family, and of the rest, only Sajel actually gets along with her siblings. I don't think it's a coincidence that Sajel's the only one who doesn't find it odd that I look out for my sister. "It seems kind of important."

There was no sound from the phone, only silence, but I swear it turned chilly in my hand.

"I see." A pause. "Another hand you have to hold, is it."

"No, Arie, it's not like that, I'll call you back when—"

"I'll see you at school tomorrow, Derek. Bye."

Click.

I rubbed my eyes with one hand. "Fuck it. Fuck it."

"Why, is something wrong," Jenny asked.

I sighed. "There's nothing to be done. If you want me, you've got me."

"Maybe I can come back—"

"Jenny, " I said. "Arie hung up on me. Before letting me explain or apologize. If she has problems, they're her problems. Now. What do you want to talk about?"

Jenny blinked at me several times like an owl. An owl that had just flown into a tree or something. An owl crossed with a deer in headlights, if such a thing is possible. An owldeer?

"What's up, Jenny," I asked.

She stared at me, and the words spilled out in a rush. "Derek I'm pregnant."

Oh.

Okay.

Uh.

"Well, umm," I said. "Unless something got mixed up, shouldn't you be telling Trevor? He's your boyfriend, after all, and I suppose he's more likely to be the father than I am... Unless, like I said, something got mixed up somewhere..."

"No, I... I can't tell him," Jenny said. "I..." Her eyes closed and she began to shiver; tears coursed down her cheeks.

I led her from the doorway to my bed (she was shaking, a lot), and sat her down, equipped her with a box of tissues. Christ, no wonder she looked like she'd seen a ghost! "Okay," I said. "Maybe you'd better start from the beginning."

"Okay," said Jenny, gulping, sniffling. She looked bad, but some of the color was coming back into her face, and she took time to comb strands of brown hair from her face. Her trademark humor was coming back into play, too, as her next statement proved.

"Okay," she said. "I hope—I hope it's not news to you that Trevor and I are having sex."

"No, not especially," I said. They've been dating for two years and I've had plenty of chances to see them together. Trevor's a great guy. He's on the varsity swim team and he's never condescended to me or blown me off just because I'm his girlfriend's kid brother. They're very good for each other, and in today's climate of sexual liberation, I'd figured it was only a matter of time before they started doing it. "How long?"

"About nine months," she said. "We gave our virginities to each other on my eighteenth birthday." They're both seniors in high school and are heading off to Hill Valley Community College in the fall, holding out on the hope of scholarships.