Growing up with a younger sister came with its perks and its annoyances. It was convenient having a younger sibling to poke fun at and manipulate into doing chores for me. I also rather enjoyed having someone other than my parents enthusiastically cheering for me at hockey games, wearing old jerseys of mine to show her support. She was my biggest fan when we were kids. Youth hockey is pretty all-consuming during the winter where we grew up. She happily followed along from town to town, hotel to hotel, as I worked my way through peewees and bantams.
I kind of took it for granted. She had her own interests, too, but I showed up to maybe one or two gymnastics meets or dance recitals of hers a year, and only because my mom forced me to. In my mind, her activities were far less important than my glorious pursuit of one day playing in the NHL. I truly believed that was my future, at least until I was about 16, when it became clear playing varsity for the high school team was probably as lofty a goal I could realistically achieve in the sport I love.
Alyssa is two years younger than I am, but I always thought of her and her friends as kids. Things change quickly, though. The first time it occurred to me she wasn't that much younger than I am was junior year. Her years of cheering me on across the upper Midwest paid off when she made the varsity cheer squad as a freshman. She now stood alongside my classmates, the girls I dreamed of dating. After scoring a goal, I'd sometimes forget she was part of the squad as I celebrated in front of the student section, getting caught off guard when I saw her beaming smile as she waved the pompoms energetically.
That was when I began to feel the annoyances of having a little sister. Hearing locker room chatter about the cheerleaders was now uncomfortable, especially when guys specifically mentioned her as being one of the hot ones. She had always been a cute girl, but I've been part of these discussions for a couple years, and now the immature comments about the girls took on a much different dynamic.
Of course, it soon became more normal as our friend circles started to mesh. I dated a couple girls in her grade in high school, and we ended up hanging out together as peers through our mutual friends. My best friend, Jake, became pretty close with Alyssa, and they eventually started dating my senior year. It bugged me at first, but eventually I grew accustomed to it. The three of us, along with Alyssa's friend, Lucia became a tight little group. Lucia and I started dating a few months later. Even though Jake was and is still my best friend, he spends more time with my little sister than he does with me.
Jake and I are in our second year of college now, and Lucia and Alyssa are seniors. They both practically live in the dorm room Jake and I share. There was always an unspoken rule of respecting boundaries, and it wasn't as uncomfortable as it could have been having my kid sister hanging around all the time. She and Jake were careful not to make me uncomfortable with PDA. Lucia and I were having regular sex at this point, as young lovers tend to, but I was able to somehow not give too much thought to Alyssa and Jake's romantic life.
I saw them kiss, obviously, but they never got weird in my presence, and I tried not to make things weird for them either. The whole dynamic worked pretty well actually. At least it used to. A couple weeks ago, Lucia and Alyssa showed up with a bottle of cheap vodka on a Friday night, and the four of us got drunk and played card games in our room. Usually they would leave around midnight, but the alcohol forced us to reconsider that idea.
When it became evident around 10 PM that the girls would be in no shape to drive home, Alyssa asked if it would be okay if they stayed for the night. I was too drunk to really care, and she had no problem convincing our parents to stay the night, since I was there to watch over her. At twenty years old, Jake and I had done our fair share of binge drinking, but the 18 year old girls, neither weighing more than 115 pounds, hadn't developed much of a tolerance yet.
As we played Cards Against Humanity, everyone loosened up quite a bit, especially the girls. After we were all healthily buzzed, Jake went to his desk drawer and pulled out a bag of weed. He and I smoked somewhat regularly, but neither of the girls had done it before. I assumed the girls wouldn't be interested, as I had offered it to Lucia a couple times before, which she casually turned down. To my surprise, they both wanted to indulge. I rolled a spliff, and the four of us passed it around, suppressing coughs as the mixture of alcohol and THC grabbed ahold of us.
As twisted as I felt, the girls must have been on another level entirely. We laughed and laughed about nothing in particular, losing concentration on the game we were playing.
"Let's play a different game!" Lucia said as she crawled over and kissed me on the lips, giggling the whole way.
"What do you suggest?" I asked her as I playfully grabbed her cheeks and returned her kiss with one of my own.
"Truth or dare?"
I turned towards Alyssa, surprised by her suggestion, not entirely sure if that was going to work, given the unique relationships the four of us shared. Before I could react, Jake and Lucia stated their approval, and it was decided. The game started innocently enough, but as tends to happen, the truth questions escalated rather quickly. Since both couples had pretty much only dated each other, there wasn't a lot of talk about who everyone had slept with. Apparently, we collectively had decided without discussing that asking our best friends/ girlfriends/ boyfriends about past partners was a bit too much.
But below that line, other stuff that would probably be off-limits became fair game. We set it up so the person chose the truth and dare without knowing who they were asking, then flipped cards to find out who had to take the dare or answer the question. The moment everything escalated to clearly inappropriate was when Lucia boldly decided to be the first one to choose to take a dare, not knowing what that dare would be.
Alyssa covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed uncontrollably, flipping over the dare she had written down.
"I dare you to take off your shorts and play the game in your underwear for five minutes," the piece of paper read.
"Oh my God, Alyssa!" Lucia was surprised, but wasted very little time sliding out of her white cotton shorts, tossing them at me as she sat back down beside me.
She was wearing purple bikini style panties with a lace pattern around the edges. They covered her up decently, but I could feel the energy in the room shifting, as I'm sure everyone else did too. I wasn't the jealous type or anything. I noticed Jake glance down to check out the results, and I couldn't blame him. I trust him and Lucia, so it kind of turned me on that she was partially exposed to everyone.
My turn was next, and for my truth I asked, "How often do you masturbate?" and for my dare, "For thirty seconds, make the noises you do when you touch yourself as realistically as possible."
It obviously crossed my mind there was a fair chance Alyssa would be the recipient of my deeply sexual requests, but I was drunk and high enough to shake off just how kinky and taboo the game had suddenly become. I thought I was, anyways. Of course, with my luck it was my little sister who had to choose.
"Umm...truth!" she said with a flushed red face and tight-lipped grin.
