Two months. It had been two months since my new baby brother, Colton, was brought home, and from that point on I had to deal with my mom and dad being constantly stressed, the house being in constant chaos . . . And the whole business with Courtney. Let me be specific: I had to deal with the whole business of Courtney giving me constant and unending shit. Of course, it's not unusual for Courtney to give me shit β but ever since our moment in the hospital, she's changed how she dishes it out. When we'd be eating takeout together, watching T.V. on the couch, she'd lean over and whisper in my ear beneath the screams of the baby: Soon it'll be our baby making all the noise, Mikey. Bet you'll be a good dad, too, 'cause you know that's the only way I'll let you do it again, let you fill me up a second time. Isn't that right? She'd hear my dad coming down the stairs from the Colton's room, disregard his approaching footsteps, lick my earlobe up and catch it in her teeth, biting down hard before pulling away from me like nothing had happened.
But then a few weeks passed. Courtney went from goading me into wanting her, to refusing to speak to me. Her reason at first was clear. I hadn't done what she'd asked. No period missed, no positive tests, no nothing. I could see it in her eyes when we passed one another, in the way she kept quiet when we were together, or how she went back to spending all her time with her friends as opposed to sticking around the house trying her damndest to get my attention. I'd disappointed her. So much so that she didn't even want to throw it in my face.
The truth, though, was that it was more than that: Courtney wasn't just angry. She was jealous. I should've known, but it took her stomping into my room late one night for me to find out.
"So who's the slut?" she asked.
I was at my laptop, and I turned in my chair to face her at the door.
"The slut?" I asked. "Other than . . . you?" I smiled. I thought I had a pretty good joke there . . . but she was more serious than I thought.
"I'll give you one chance to tell me who this girl you're talking to is or I'll scream my fucking lungs out and you know I'm not kidding around."
"Yeah? And wake the baby? Mom and dad will kill you." I could see the rage in her eyes, knew she was serious. "Look," I sighed. "Either you tell me what you're talking about or there's nothing I can really say."
"The slut." She already had her phone out, my Facebook open up. She pointed to a post on my wall, a girl from her class, Kennedy, who I had tutored once, asking how I'd been doing at college. I looked at Courtney, incredulous, shocked that was she possibly taking issue with this, could be so possessive of her own brother. The girl was four years younger than me, a sophomore in high school, nice enough, but a full on nerd, thick-rimmed glasses and everything . It was ridiculous. Outrageous. And suddenly, without being able to stop myself, I started laughing. It was too much; Courtney had taken it too far. The girl in question wasn't on my radar, wasn't someone that ever even crossed my mind in a sexual sense. Something about my laughter put my sister over the edge β her cheeks reddened, her eyes were ablaze, and with one swift motion she came forward, threw her index finger over my mouth, the single digit alone sending a gust of her scent β it was that strawberry soap I always saw in the shower β up my nose, it's smell powerful enough to quiet me. She leaned down to look me eye-to-eye; her tank top strained as her heaving breasts tilted forward and pushed against my chest, her finger slowly pushing its way into my mouth, in and out, in and out. Then she stopped, pulled her finger out, and grabbed my face with her hand, squeezing it together, fingernails clawing into my cheeks.
She only said two words under her breath: "You'll pay."
It seemed like only an hour later before I saw her update her Facebook: "In a relationship." I recognized the guy β she'd gone to prom with him the year before, starting QB for the football, a square block of a specimen so brawny he could get himself caught in a door frame.
Before the week was up, he was coming over to the house every day. Courtney would come right up to my door and yell to my parent's room: "IS IT OKAY IF BRETT SPENDS THE NIGHT?"
I could hear my mom yelling for her to be quiet, that it was fine, whatever as long as she was quiet.
"YEAH? OK, THANKS MOM." My door would squeak open, Courtney standing there only wearing the flannel shirt she slept in, unbuttoned halfway, her tits practically billowing out . . . and of course she had Brett's snapback on her head like a sign of his possession, his territory.
"You don't mind right, Mikey?"
"Since when do you care what I think?" I asked, trying to keep my cool.
"Hmm. Good point. I don't." She smiled β a glitter of evil in her eye β and walked off towards her room.
A few days later I got an unsuspecting message in my inbox. It was Kennedy. At first it was difficult to see beyond the string of crying emoticons she'd used, but considering the message that came along with them, they seemed justified.
"Mike I know there's probably nothing you can do, but if you could please tell your sister to stop, I'd be really, really, grateful. I swear I didn't do anything to her. This whole thing has gotten crazy, I mean I can't even go to school without people calling me a slut or whore whenever I'm in the hallway. If there's any way you can help, it'd mean so much. . . "
I got up and walked down the hallway, stomping into Courtney's room. She was on her bed, back against the pillows, iPhone in hand, laptop asleep beside her. All she was wearing was Brett's mesh practice jersey tied off at her midriff and some lace panties.
"Uh-uh?" she asked, tapping at her phone.
"What the hell did you do to that poor girl?"
She giggled, shrugged her shoulders. "Dunno what you're talking about."
"I'll give you one chance to tell me before I come over there."
Her eyebrows arched, and she looked at me skeptically. "What's it even matter? I mean if I had, say, happened to spread the word that she fucked half the football team and gave them a couple blowies in the locker room after their last game, would it really be that big of a deal? Or if I told all my friends to yell out 'Slut' whenever she walked by? I mean, Mikey, you said yourself that you don't care about her, so why are you bringing it up?"
I felt myself getting heated. You'd be hard-pressed to find a girl nicer than Kennedy. She was a hundred times the human Courtney was, that's for sure, and now she was getting bullied just because Courtney was mad, because Courtney had the popularity to pull it off.
"How could you--" I began, but she put her hand up, as if to shush me, and then put the phone to ear, receiving whoever was on the other end. "Hey, babe. Yeah, I'm here. Noooo I want you to pick me up. I don't want see that movie. Why don't we just snuggle at your place? Just you and me."
"Courtβ"
She shot me a glare. "Ok, see you in ten." A pause. "Babe, I already said I didn't want toβ"
That was all I could take. I rushed in and jumped on her bed, the same move I'd pulled so many times through the years when we'd be horsing around and I had trapped her in her room. She shrieked out of shock, just like she used to, but before she could make another move I had myself straddled atop her, hand on her mouth, the other grabbing at the phone.
I swiped the call to End. I just sat there on top of her, refusing to move my hand off her mouth, refusing to move anything for that matter. I was pretty comfortable, to be honest. Her legs were warm against the inside of my thighs, and I could feel my dick sitting between the space they'd created, growing with only the slightest proximity to her cunt; I tossed the phone out of my off hand and began pushing her down by the shoulder. By now my cock was rock hard, bulging through the lining of my jeans; I slowly glided it against her panties, her clit growing full, engorged, practically pulsating through the lace there.
My hand was off her shoulder and down at her panties, kneading her nubbin. Her muffled moans reverberated against my hand, and she began licking the creases between my fingers, treating them like she might my cock; her pelvis thrust upwards, trying desperately to meet my dick, her legs still trapped beneath my own.