Better Off Together

Note! This is my longest story to date. It's also more focused on comedy, drama, and a slower build-up of chemistry and emotional payoff. For the quick strokers out there, the sex is near the end. I dedicate this to those who supported me and encouraged me throughout my short time at Literotica. Thank you.

*****

1

'Where the fuck have you been?' came the impatient call from the living room, high above the enthusiastic chatter of the BBC's evening television show hosts. Summer was on its way. The nights had gotten longer again, and on that gloriously sunny day, I'd celebrated a highly productive morning and early afternoon with a few pints, or six.

I could write volumes about the state of my life over the past seven years, and my sister's, but to cut it short we were facing the onset of middle age together and had grown comfortable. To begin with it wasn't difficult, but it's amazing how you can go from living in the corner of somebody else's life to being left high and dry and needing all the sprawl-space you can get.

Kerry and I got in each others' way and we didn't want to count on each other so much, but as time went by and we got used to living alone, together, it just became a matter of convenience for us to pool our resources and to live like a couple.

So there were bound to be days where no plans could be counted on. Days like today, plans went to shit. And because I preferred to drink during the day on the odd occasion that I drank at all, I would get home to Kerry asking where her fucking dinner was.

'I was at the fucking pub,' I called out, bursting to relieve myself for the twentieth time that day.

'Where the fuck was my invite?' she yelled.

'Ehhhh,' I offered and tilted to one side, failing to take off my jacket like an ordinary competent human being. As my balance failed and my forehead promptly propped me up against the hall's artex wall with a dull thump, I moaned hopelessly to myself and continued to struggle out of my clothing.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' I heard her say close up, now a few feet behind me. And she began to laugh to herself as I struggled. 'How many half shandies this time?'

'Fuuuuck's sake,' I exclaimed, struggling to be free before I peed in my pants.

'I'll cook,' she said, not so bemusedly that I feared being left in the doghouse. I didn't complain, but neither did I apologise either. I knew the tone of her voice implied that I would only burn the house down. Finally out of my jacket I stumbled to the bathroom and soon made my way to the kitchen where dinner was now cooking.

There stood Kerry, laughing to herself as I sloppily made my way to the coffee machine for a dose of sobriety, of which I would need many, because I was completely fucking hopeless.

Giants will fall. This is the facts of life. The true ones!

You can drink all you like at the age of twenty, and defy the laws of kidney failure and brain damage, but when you hit thirty, shit rolls downhill. And then when you hit thirty five, you're on your own.

Of course I was on my own a long time before now. That's how I came to be with this perfect little setup of a tiny two-bedroom house, which I had all to myself, until Kerry's fiance of ten years got the boot. He was all talk and no substance right up until the day she discovered that he was using her as an excuse to get sympathy pussy.

I love my sister, I really do. I looked out for her when mum died. Dad was long gone by then, when I was twenty and she was sixteen. Now I was thirty six and she was thirty two, we were trying to make the most of it, like we were reliving our youth the way we should have been able to the first time. But by now it was like trying to put icing and cherries on a giant shit and calling it cake.

Kerry, living with social anxiety and occasional bouts of major depression, was devastated by the failure of her one certain relationship. I'd never had anything lasting over a year. I just grew used to being alone. And I didn't mind that at all.

Most women I met either seemed like they were from another planet, or their motives seemed aimed towards turning bad boys good, leaving me to pick up the pieces when they got their arses handed back to them. I knew that not all women were the same, but nobody was trying to convince me otherwise. I learned to love being alone rather than to waste my life over constant disappointed.

Bollocks! My favourite human was making dinner and I was halfway shitfaced on a perfect day. What else did I need?

'Will you find somewhere to be on Saturday afternoon?' she asked as she stirred the taco spices into the sizzling ground beef. 'I need the house.'

2

'So who's the lucky fucker?' I asked, aiming the grilled taco express train of calamity towards my mouth. The bastard would collapse against my face and tumble down my shirt the moment I took a bite, as they all did, those awkwardly delicious and ultimately hazardous Mexican bastards.

But oh no, I managed to get some into my mouth before I scalded myself and cried like a horny walrus. The fact was that I was beyond horny. I'd given up because I wasn't going to settle for being a tacky little fuckboy, propositioning the equally undateable for a roll in the hay.

I never saw the logic in getting to know a girl by showing her a photo of your penis. If I want to get to know whether I like someone and they feel the same, I don't need the key to unlock her womb. If her personality is there then I have to worry what I'm getting into.

'Uhm?' Kerry mumbled, munching away and more interested in what was happening in her soap opera. 'Fuhhh-uh?'

'Saturday,' I reminded her, brushing the contents of my shirt back onto my plate. 'Am I just buggering off out in the hopes that you interest somebody, or is there somebody in mind?'

'Oh, no there's nobody.' The sadness in her voice wouldn't have carried farther had she air mailed it to me, not that she wanted to telegraph that air of hopelessness that I myself knew all too well. And that saddened me too. Because let me tell you about Kerry...

'So you just want me out of my own house for the fuck of it?'

'Possibly...'

They say that boys grow to marry their mothers, and girls their fathers. I don't know exactly how she feels about me having been a father figure to her from my mid-teens onwards, but I know that Kerry is the closest a woman has ever been to me my entire life, and that if I'd marry anyone they'd have to contend with my sister and only remaining family.

They'd also have to do better than; "Get out of your own house, I want to be alone in it!"

Kerry's unique in that she's neither one of the girls nor the boys. She's her own individual, despite trying her hand at being a wife in training for so long. It's hard to call her generic as well, however. She's aware of her gifted female anatomy - a terrible waste - and if she's not having fun with it then she's making fun of it.

Think of the story of the boy who wakes up in a woman's body. That's Kerry. Her tits never stopped being a novelty to her, bless!

Kerry would be the perfect partner to every man that is already married, but mostly to every boy who never wanted to grow up. And yet the only men who seem to recognise her seem to be seeking voyeuristic Facebook Messenger wives.

Just so not to end that description on such a grim note, as a testament to her character, my life is going to be fucking terrible without her. She makes me laugh myself to tears and she doesn't give a fuck what people think. I know it's how she copes at the worst of times, but at the best of times I just love to see her quiet and content...

But fuuuuuck, I cannot get these tacos into my mouth in one piece. What's the deal with those Mexicans? Surely tacos are just, like, the longest-running least elaborate practical joke.

3

'I thought you were going out today,' she said from the doorway of my bedroom. Here I was, like a kid who'd grown old before his time, reading comic books on my bed on a Saturday afternoon; happy as a pig in shit.

The sun was shining, the neighbourhood was buzzing the same as it did the arse end of Hump Day, and the hermit had ventured out of her room in her pyjamas to hint to me that I needed to get the hell out of my own house.

I heard the hint in the tone of her voice. The girl was horny and needed me gone. Not that I cared what she did in her own room. I respected privacy. I didn't exactly make any noise, but I didn't try not to make my own bed squeak at night. People have needs.

'I thought you didn't have anybody,' I said absently as I perused a full-page spread of The Punisher shooting another hapless moron criminal point blank range in his hapless moron face with a combat shotgun.

Not revenge, punishment...

'Can you just go do something for a few hours?' The cheek of the girl...

Lazily I slumped off the bed and up to my feet, facing the open doorway where she stood. I didn't need to ask why. The poor girl was desperate for some alone time, even if she had to manually fuck herself into a coma. The colour was high in her cheeks, green eyes pale and intense, and otherwise she looked edgy and barely self-restrained.

Yup, I was not going to argue, and she knew that I knew. She wasn't ashamed that I knew, despite refusing to say it in so many words. I cleared my throat and looked away, searching the room for where I'd last left my shoes.

'Ehhh,' I agreed. I looked at the time on my phone. 'I'll be back around five.'

'Make it six,' Kerry suggested. Oh for fuck's sake, fine. I waved her off. 'Thank you,' she offered almost apologetically. Half an hour later I was reading the same damned comic book in the quietest corner of a cafe, while the ordinary people in their civilian drabs flickered their eyes from their partners to me and then back again, not so covertly.

"I'll return the favour whenever you want," came a message from out of the blue. "Whenever you need me out of the way, just tell me."

"I don't need you out of the way," I replied, and added, "I'm the one who needs to be out of the way and that's the way it's always been..."

I don't even know where that came from. I felt a wave of depression and paranoia wash over me. Kerry was clearly done. Good, that meant I could get out of here before the social couples made me want to stab myself in the eyes.

I swore the couple nearest to me, a pair of middle-aged half-arsed fashion bandwagon hoppers who'd fallen out of a catalogue and landed in hipster shit, were whispering about me to each other. The looks I was getting as I got up to leave made me want to pimp-slap the pair of them. It would have improved my sudden mood.

4

'What the fuck did that mean?' Kerry asked and immediately set about specifying. '"I'm the one who needs to be out of the way?"'

'Oh that,' I waved her off. 'Forget it, I was talking shit.'

Her tense expression told all. She wasn't about to be waved off, let alone believe my half-arsed dismissal. 'I'm really fucking lonely right now,' she started, 'but I'm not selfish. I know that whatever I'm feeling that you're probably way beyond. If I could help I would, but...'

'You're taking it out of context,' I pleaded tiredly. All I wanted was to go back to my room and read. 'I wasn't thinking of anything when I said that. I was talking to you but reacting to where I was.'

'Where were you?'

'Cafe full of trendy wankers in town.'

'I meant in your mind.'

'Nowhere,' I concluded. I was part way up the stairs and lagging when she seemed to snag herself on something crossing her mind at light speed, the way things always did when she became so animated. I gave her a look that asked "are we done here?" and moved on up.

'How lonely are you really?' she asked from out of nowhere. It stung like hell. If only she'd taken advantage of my kindness and thought nothing of it. If only I'd kept my mouth shut and been her dutiful brother.

'I have you.'

'That's not,' she started, but she never concluded. "That's not what I meant," she meant to say, and I knew her intention well.

'Doesn't matter,' called back, changing the subject with, 'what do you want to eat?'

'My words,' she said to herself, but those words travelled farther than she may have anticipated.

'Well,' I said to myself, trailing off into deeper thought. 'We're all out of Alpha-bites!'

5

There was one woman in my life that'd I knew I'd have been happy with. Her name was Jeri and we spoke every day and got slowly more intimate over the space of four years. Then one day she swerved me for a guy whose guts she claimed she hated, out of the blue, no explanation, and from there she never responded to me.

After everything else, it was the final straw. I was done. As horrible as that sudden act of abandonment was, I loved her hard and she knew it and accepted it, which made everything so much more confusing in how she cut me off and never responded to my messages ever again.

She shared everything with me, bared her heart and soul, and when she was depressed I was the only damned thing in her life that could make her smile. We leaned on each other, carried each other, and we weren't even seriously trying. We were right for each other, for once in my life, so I don't know what went wrong.

Even after that, and beyond the year of heartache that followed, nobody came close. Nobody even dared to come close. I'd been told that women should have been rushing to snap me up, but they didn't, and I couldn't have cared less.

But ever since, there had been no loneliness quite like accepting that I'd be alone for the rest of my life, and that the best thing to happen to me never actually got the chance to happen. I'm not the type to compensate by faking, so that defeated me and ended my interest in women altogether.

So it's hard to explain how my own sister makes up for all that misery, when she can. And the only time that's possible is when she doesn't know she's doing it - when she doesn't know I need her.

I just need her to be there. But in moments when the depression comes on, I just need her to not be there for me. I need her to not know. I need to suffer for wanting my own sister to fill that gap because it's wrong. At least that's how it used to be...

That evening I just disappeared inside myself and didn't even come around to switch on the lights, to appear normal. The house was deadly silent but for the sounds of Kerry tottering around. I think she was trying to be quiet, or maybe she was listening out for me.

At 10pm that night the doorbell rang and I heard a strong male voice boom amiably from the porch. The rusting of paper bags and cardboard told me what it was before the smell hit me. A few seconds later and the light was on, and Kerry was invading the bed with pizza, chicken wings and fries, a movie was starting up and she was sidling up next to me.

'Eat,' she said. 'You need your strength so you can put up with me!'

I don't believe I moved for most of the movie. I don't even remember what it was. The music implied that maybe it was a Marvel movie. Eventually I rolled around to look at what pizza she'd ordered. It didn't matter. It fitted into my face as well as any. I'd leave it to her to work her way around anything with a bone.

'You're not mad with me are you?' I recall her asking guiltily.

'Not you,' I assured her tiredly.

'I wish mum was still here sometimes. She'd know what to say,' Kerry assured herself absently.

'Well she isn't,' I said harshly. 'And maybe it's for the best. She doesn't have to see us feeling so shit about shit that shouldn't even matter.'

'How do you figure that out?'

'I do what makes you happy because I want you to be happy,' I said, whether it was the reply she wanted or not. 'It wouldn't be any different if mum was here, whether I took her place or not. Wanting to make someone happy is a fucking rarity for me.'

'But that's not fair on you!'

'Not everyone gets it fair, Kerry,' I replied distantly, barely able to look her in the eyes. I could see that she was full of guilt and I hated myself all the more for it.

'What would make you happy?' God damn it, what was with the guilty questions? Why did she bring it on herself? She wasn't surely trying to take the weight off me and onto herself.

'Maybe I just depress myself sometimes,' I wondered.

'Answer the question, dickface,' she growled. I laughed a little.

'I already told you.'

'No you didn't,' she said and she was right. What was that? A Freudian Slip? Making her happy was what made me happy, but why wouldn't I want her to know that? If nobody else good enough would make the effort I wasn't going to let her rot in her own stagnating life. 'So what is it?' she persisted.

'I'll tell you sometime, maybe when you're older.'

6

That night after Kerry cleaned the crap off the bed, I didn't even bother to roll under the covers or to turn the lights off. I just lay there and sort of withered off elsewhere. It was somewhere in the middle of the night when Kerry got up out of her own bed to use the bathroom that she came in to check on me. I was well away by then.

She came in, switched off the lights and pulled my shoes off. Whatever she was thinking, she rolled up next to me and fell asleep with her arm around me. We woke up Sunday morning to the sound of the church bell ringing.

'Kerry,' I croaked. DONG... DONG...

'Hmmm,' she grumbled. DONG... DONG...

'Kerry, listen...' DONG... DONG...

'What?' DONG... DONG...

'When's the last time you woke up to such a big dong?'

7

The day went as lazily as any quiet Sunday could expect to go. Music, laundry, and light cleaning, took up the first few hours. The rest went to lounging around and reading in the sunlight by the living room window. Well, I was the reader. Kerry's reading material all came from Facebook where she spent most of her spare time.

I was reading some boring sci-fi novel, or so she thought, but the novelist known as Christine Feehan was known not so widely for her knack for intense sexual chemistry. Not that I was sporting a raging hard-on in front of my sister, but my jeans fit me a little tighter than usual that evening. Suddenly the questions started again over a tea of cheese on toast.

'What'd be your ideal relationship right now?'

'I don't know,' I consciously sidestepped. 'I never think about them seeing as I don't seek them. What, are you trying to set me up?'

'Oh just spit it out. Since when do I judge?' she persisted, and avoided my question.

'Fine,' I relented. 'Same as I'm doing right now.'

'Oh fuck off,' she spat. She wasn't telling me to go to hell in so few words. She just wasn't biting down on the bait. She'd only ask again if I didn't tell.

'No, really,' I insisted. 'How can you have the energy to do much other than to go to work all week and then to relax in between the amount of shagging I'd be getting up to if I could? She, whoever she is, would have an Olympian vagina, and an appreciation for procrastination.'

Kerry grunted, stifling a typically-Kerry boisterous laugh deep in her throat, and then sighed. 'Uh-huh,' she replied in agreement. I too sighed. Then; 'You know you don't have to meet anyone special to have that in your life. That's almost everybody.'

'And would you recommend the Polish, Russian, or Filipino mail order bride?' I asked and then tittered sarcastically. I dove quickly back into my book. 'If something comes up then great, but it's not my priority. I just like my space.'

'When do you want me out?' Kerry asked.

'I don't want you out,' I said. 'If somebody makes themselves available to me then I'll just ask you to disappear for a few hours, like you ask me to.'

'And what about at night?' she asked.

'Well then one of us gets to listen in to the other getting their brains fucked out I guess, unless you have headphones!' I started to laugh at the absurdity of having this conversation with my sister. 'Is something else on your mind? You're asking a lot of questions lately...'