Chapter 25: Sunday Afternoon

Lance Jenkins arrived at about twenty minutes after two. Tara opened the door and looked him up and down. He was dressed nicely in a good pair of jeans and a button up shirt.

“You must be Lance,” said Tara. “Come in. Bec is expecting you.”

Tara led him into the living room where I was sitting with Angie. I stood up and went to Lance.

“Hi!” I said and went up on my toes so that I could kiss his cheek.

“Come and sit down.” I gestured at the couch where I’d been sitting.

While Lance was sitting himself on the couch, I knelt beside Angie where she sat on the floor and helped her to gather up her toys, which were artfully scattered around her.

“How about you put these away in your room and go play in the kitchen with Tara?” I said to Angie.

“Okay!” she said. Angie took the bucket of toys from me and lugged it out of the room and towards her bedroom.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked Lance. “We have juice or lemonade.”

“Do you have Coke?” asked Lance.

“Sorry, no cola of any description.”

“Lemonade would be great,” said Lance.

“Back in a sec,” I said and ducked out into kitchen.

Tara and Angie were sitting at the kitchen table. Angie had some paper spread out and crayons ready to do some drawing but she hadn’t started yet. Tara looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I winked at her.

I poured two glasses of lemonade and took them back to the living room. Lance was sitting there, looking bored. I gave him one of the glasses and then sat next to him and sipped on my lemonade.

I looked down at my chest. It was standing out a bit more than normal as a result of some extra padding. I tugged on my top a bit so my slightly enhanced boobs stood out even more.

“So, is it just you and your two sisters here at the moment?” said Lance.

“Yeah. My Dad is over with Mr Davidson watching some afternoon football on TV. Mum is down in her studio doing some painting, so technically she is around, but she doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s painting.”

Lance pointed at the painting on the wall of Mum and the three of us girls. “Did she do that?”

“Yeah. That one was soon after Angie was born – obviously. And the one over there is of Dan and Dad back when he was a senior in high school.”

“She’s a pretty good painter,” said Lance.

“I think so too.”

I looked up at the painting of Mum. I could have sworn she was looking more dangerous than normal. I smiled.

“So where’s Dan?” asked Lance.

“Oh, he found something better to do than look after Angie.”

I heard a thudding sound in the hallway as Angie ran to stand in the doorway. She stood and looked at us for a moment and then ran back to the kitchen, yelling “They’re just talking!” as she ran.

I looked at Lance and rolled my eyes. “Sorry about that. Angie can be a bit nosy sometimes.”

Lance shrugged and put his empty glass down on the coffee table. Then he slid back into the couch, somehow ending up closer to me than when he’d started. I took another sip of lemonade.

“So,” said Lance. “How’ve you been?”

“Good!” I nodded. “This morning I went to a friend’s place to record a presentation for a class speech I have to give tomorrow. I had all these drawings and Phil had a scanner thing so we could scan the drawings into the computer. Then we put all the drawings into a slide show and recorded my speech over the top of the slide show. It was pretty interesting how it all came together.”

“Uh huh!” said Lance. “Who’s Phil?”

I shrugged. “He’s a guy I know from school. He’s into computers and all that stuff.”

“Do you like him?”

I smiled into my lemonade. “He’s just this guy. He’s a bit of a nerd but he’s okay.”

Lance slid his arm over my shoulder.

I heard Angie thudding along the hallway again. She stood and looked at us for a moment and then ran back to the kitchen. This time she yelled “Lance has his arm around her!”

Lance whipped his arm away from me.

I sighed and rolled my eyes at Lance.

Then I turned my head toward the kitchen and yelled through the wall, “Tara! Stop sending Angie to spy on us. You promised to stay in the kitchen.”

“I promised,” yelled Tara. “Angie didn’t promise.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said to Lance. “My sister is being such a brat. Maybe it would be better if we went into my room. It would prevent all of the interruptions.”

I stood up and Lance practically jumped to his feet.

“Okay!” he said – a little too eagerly.

I led him out of the living room and into Tara’s bedroom.

That’s right, I took him into Tara’s room. What? You didn’t think I was going to let Lance see my bedroom, did you? Not with all those paintings on the walls. Tara and I had gone through and put away all the things which were obviously Tara’s – like her swimming certificates with her name on them and photos of her with her friends. Then we’d scattered a few things of mine around to make it look lived in.

“We’re going into my bedroom!” I yelled at Tara. “Now, leave us alone!”

“Spoilsport!” yelled Tara.

I ushered Lance into the room and gestured for him to sit on the bed. Then I firmly closed the door behind me and sat on the bed beside him.

“Don’t take this wrong,” I said. “We’re only coming in here to get away from my sister. I only want to talk.”

“Okay,” said Lance. “Sure, babe. No problems. What do you want to talk about?”

I shrugged. “Anything. What about your school? Do you like it there?”

“Yeah. It’s okay. But talking about school is boring.”

He put an arm around me. “I’d rather pick up where we left off yesterday.”

I shifted away from him slightly and moved his arm off me.

“I’m serious!” I said. “I only want to talk. Do you have a girlfriend at school?”

“Nah!” he said, putting his hand on my leg. “All the girls at my school are hos.”

I frowned, looking confused and ignoring his hand. “Huh? That’s strange. I went on MySpace this morning and your page said you were in a relationship with someone named Kanti.”

“Nah! That’s old news. We broke up ages ago. I must’ve forgotten to change my MySpace page. You know how it is. Who can be bothered with that stuff? I’m not with anyone right now.”

“Really? So you and Kanti are totally over?”

“Yeah! I was hoping we could go together – you and me. After yesterday I figured you wanted to be with me.”

“Um!” I said, looking doubtful “It’s just that...”

“Come on baby, we had such a great time at the reception.”

He put his arms around me and tried to kiss me.

I turned my face away so that his slobbering kiss landed on my ear instead of my mouth.

“No! Stop!” I said as forcefully as I could and tried to push him off.

He was stronger than me so my pushing had little effect.

“Come on, baby. Don’t play hard to get. You know you want this.”

“I said NO!”

By this stage, he had me flat on my back on the bed with him half-lying on top of me. I was still ducking my head around trying to avoid him so his next attempt at a slobbering kiss landed on my cheekbone. I could feel a hand clawing at my boob – even through all the extra padding I had there for the occasion.

Finally he caught my mouth with his and I nearly choked as he shoved his tongue into my mouth. His knee was pressing its way between my legs – slowly driving them apart. I felt a hand on the bare skin of my stomach as he started lifting my top.

The situation was rapidly getting way out of control – to put it mildly.

Fortunately I had a back-up plan.

I freed one hand and put it on the side of his face. Then I dug my thumb into his left eye socket.

He grunted and pulled his head back to protect his eye from serious damage.

That took his mouth off mine for long enough for me to scream, “GET OFF ME!” as loudly as I could.

The door flew open after the first word – which means Dan must have been hovering right outside. He’d promised to wait until I said those exact words.

By the time I’d finished screaming, Lance was flat against the wall with his feet dangling a foot above the floor. He was gasping for breath – probably because Dan’s forearm was pushing against his throat.

I regained my breath and sat up, straightening my clothes.

“Don’t kill him!” I said quietly to Dan.

Dan eased up on the throat but kept Lance pinned to the wall.

Lance was looking a bit red in the face but he managed to put on a sneer.

“You won’t hurt me. My brother...”

I think he stopped because Dan had leaned in a bit harder. I know what it feels like when Dan leans like that. The need to breathe overwhelms the need to talk.

“Is that so?” said Dan. “You think your brother will protect you? Or maybe you think the fact that Al and I are friends will save you. Let’s find out, shall we?”

Dan slid one hand down into a pocket and produced his cell phone. He pressed a couple of buttons to bring up Al’s number and pressed “call.” Then he put it on speaker so that we could all hear the ringing tone. Throughout all of that, he kept Lance pinned to the wall and had his eyes staring straight into Lance’s.

I sat there and watched to see what Dan would do. Tara appeared in the doorway. She looked at me to see if I was okay. I gave her a little nod. She leaned against the doorjamb and settled in to watch.

After a moment the ringing tone on Dan’s phone cut off.

“Yo!” came a voice. “This is Al. What’s up, Dan?”

“Hey man! What’s up is your little brother.”

We heard Al sigh. “What’s the little idiot done now?”

“He came over today to visit Bec and he’s gotten carried away. Tried to push Bec way past where she was willing to go.”

“Little Becky? I told that little shit to be a gentleman with her. Is she okay?”

Dan flicked a glance over to me and then looked back at Lance. “Not completely. Lance roughed her up.”

Another sigh. “Oh man! I’m betting you want to beat the crap out of the little shit! Don’t hurt him too bad, okay? We can’t afford the hospital bills.”

I watched Lance’s face go a shade paler.

“I guess you better come and pick him up,” said Dan. Dan looked down at where Lance’s feet dangled up above the ground. “He’s having a bit of trouble walking right now. I expect he’ll get over it without needing to go to hospital.”

“If he hurt Little Becky, I’ll beat the crap out of him myself,” said Al. “Then I’ll take him home to his momma and she’ll take her turn. I’ll be there soon.”

Dan cut off the call and put his cell phone away.

Lance was now looking very, very pale.

“So what do you think, Lance?” said Dan. “Does that sound like Al is going to stop me from laying the hurt down on you? There’s a lot I can do without sending you to hospital.”

Lance just stared at Dan with wide eyes.

I saw the muscles in Dan’s back suddenly flex and the back of his far elbow flew forward by about two inches. Dan’s body blocked my vision of what was happening, but there was a thud. Lance went “oomph” and his eyes closed for a second. His breathing was a bit ragged for a moment but then it settled and he opened his eyes again.

Then Dan started smiling. He lowered Lance to the floor and straightened his shirt.

“Do you know what?” said Dan. “I can’t bring myself to do it. You’re already so thrashed and you don’t even know it. Any little bit of hurt I could give you is nothing compared to what’s coming your way. You picked the wrong girl when you decided to mess with Bec.”

Lance was looking confused.

Dan looked at me. “Where do you want him?”

I stood up. “Why don’t you come and sit on the bed, Lance? I have a few things to say.”

Dan gave Lance a little push and then escorted him to the bed. A heavy hand on Lance’s shoulder encouraged him to sit.

“So thrashed!” said Dan with a grim chuckle. Then he backed off to lean against the wall near the open door.

I sat myself in the computer chair and stared at Lance. There was a scratch just under his eye where I had jabbed him with my thumb. It was already starting to swell up.

Lance looked at me sourly as he rubbed a spot on the side of his stomach. “You set me up. You told me Dan wasn’t around.”

I shrugged. “I told you Dan found something better to do than look after Angie. He trusted Tara to do that. Dan decided I needed looking after more than Angie. Dan takes my safety very seriously. But I didn’t set you up. You wouldn’t have known he was here if you could’ve restrained yourself.”

“You didn’t trust me?” said Lance.

I snorted. “Of course I didn’t trust you. I told you. I looked on MySpace and it said you were in a relationship with another girl.”

“Like I said, that’s a mistake,” said Lance. “Kanti and me broke up ages ago.”

I looked at him and shook my head. “There’s a funny thing about MySpace that you seem to have forgotten. There’s a link to Kanti on your page. I went to her MySpace page and that said she was in a relationship with you. There were even photos of you and her together. She looks pretty, by the way. You and her make a cute couple. Some of the pictures went back as far as 3 months – I assume that’s when you first got together. The most recent one was last Wednesday as you were getting out of school before Thanksgiving. That doesn’t seem to me like ages ago.”

Lance looked around the room then back to me. “Yeah? So? She’s a total whack-job. I can’t control what she puts on her page.”

“Is that so?” I said. I stared at him for a moment and looked thoughtful.

“When I was at Kanti’s page this morning, I left a message for her and she got back to me. We had quite a good little chat – exchanging messages and so on. She seems really nice. It turns out the only reason you’re not with her this afternoon is because she got grounded for this whole weekend because of something you made her do last weekend. I guess that means I was your second choice. I told her I felt bad because I effectively stole her boyfriend yesterday – making out with you at the reception like that. I think she was a bit angry with me.”

“She’s a total ho!” said Lance. “Don’t believe anything she says.”

I leaned forward and slapped his face – hard. I sat back and put my hand behind my back to hide how badly it was stinging.

“I really hate that word,” I said, harshly. “Don’t use it again.”

Lance stared at me with surprise – my handprint standing out on his cheek. He seemed surprised at my reaction.

“So anyway,” I continued, resuming my normal chatty voice. “This morning I was visiting with Phil like I told you about. He had a camera thing that plugged into the computer – it had a microphone too. It could record video straight onto the computer. So I asked him if I could borrow it for this afternoon. Look! Here it is. Just sitting here next to the computer in among these books. See how the lens is pointing out into the room? See how it’s plugged into the computer with this cable? It’s kind of cool. It’s such a small thing but it picks up the whole room. And the microphone is pretty good too – you can hear everything that’s said anywhere in the room. I figured I would record whatever happened and send her a video of what you’re really like. I figured you’d deny any connection with Kanti to persuade me to agree to another make-out session. I must admit I didn’t think you would get so carried away. I took precautions in case you did, but I didn’t expect it.”