The Family Room

"Hello," my voice cracked as I answered the phone.

Lance's voice languished amid the bullets and explosions of the latest Vin Diesel flick.

"You have to speak up--- I said you have to speak up!" Beside me Julie rolled over, she pulled the pink blanket over her bare shoulder and snuggled close.

"Are you coming to work today?" Lance had asked that question every day for the last three. I hadn't been to work or even seen my best friend since the night at Erin's house. I told him I didn't know if I would make it, while I stroked my sister's long brown hair. "Don't tell me you have something better to do."

No, just someone, I thought.

"Come on, man. I had to fire Nick for pissing off a customer, I need help down here. I saved your ass, now save mine."

He had saved me all right, it's been three days without so much as a peep out of Erin. "Let me ask permission." I cradled the phone between by ear and shoulder and nudged Julie's shoulder. She snorted as she stirred, then sat up and yawned.

"What?" she asked.

"Julie, baby, would you mind if I went in to work today?"

She kissed me on the mouth, her hand wriggled under the sheet to find it's way to my lap. She squeezed my semi-hard penis. "What do you think?" she asked. Her eyes narrowed like a cat.

"Sorry Lance, maybe tomorrow."

"Come on Rick, you are so pussy whipped. I never thought I'd see the day that Rick Martin---"

"Wrong number," I told Julie as I placed the phone back on the cradle.

She sighed as her hand released my dick. "One more day of playing house before Mom and Dad come home."

That's exactly what we'd done while our parents were in San Antonio.

"Maybe we should have went with them," I said wrapping my arms around her. "Just think, in a whole other state where nobody knows us. I could hold you in public and kiss you, no one would even bat an eye."

"No one but our parents," she giggled as I kissed her. "Besides, we weren't around for their first honeymoon, why should we be for the second?"

"We could keep them out of trouble." My hand went to her breast and squeezed.

She hissed and bit her lower lip. "Yeah, but who would keep us out of trouble?"

I kicked off the sheets and eased her down on the squishy mattress. "I guess we'd just have to get in trouble." My fingers tickled their way down her ribcage. I stalled on her stomach, swirling the pad of my index finger around her little navel. I bent down and kissed, leaving a pool of saliva just above her belly button. I blew cool air on the puddle, she forced a laugh through clenched teeth. Goosebumps raised on her soft skin and she cooed my name.

My fingers traveled south, to the nest of brown curls, the very pussy that had whipped me. I teased her folds, beckoning moisture to lubricate her in preparation for what was to come. "God Rick, stop fooling around down there. Just put it in."

"Again?" I raised to my knees, maintaining a shaky balance on the shifting mattress. "Aren't you worried that you'll get bored with me?" She pounced like a feline, planted her claws in my chest and forced me on my back. She climbed on top of me and slid her naked body across mine. She smiled victoriously, seductively. "I let you win," I said.

She reached behind her delicious body until her fingers closed around my erection. "Now you're going to let me have my way with you." Julie's lips sagged in a mocking frown. "Can you believe you missed work for this?" She pressed the head of my penis against her vagina, it stretched slowly, to permit my entrance.

Julie sank all the way down, until she was sitting on my lap. My hands cupped the soft globes of her butt as we savored our togetherness. "Julie," I said.

"What," she answered. Her voice was dreamy and light.

"Remember the other day when you made me promise not to screw things up?" She nodded letting me know that she did. "If I ever screw us up, I'm going to jump right off Miller's Bridge."

"At Lake Jude? But you're not a very good swimmer," she said.

"That's the point." I took her hand as she started to move again.

Julie rose and fell on my hardness, moving as slow as the tides. After ten minutes she had worked her way to a rapid bounce. I loved it in this position. All I had to do was lay back and watch her beautiful body jiggle with each gyration while she pleasured herself. I wished I had a bag of popcorn and maybe a napkin to clean up the mess once we had finished. And we did finish. A geyser of cum erupted almost without warning, spraying her insides with my semen. My offering triggered Julie's own orgasm. She hunched over me and rode out the waves of pleasure, bringing me even more pleasure by mashing and rubbing her spongy boobs across my chest.

The telephone rang again. I reached for Julie's nightstand and picked up the phone. I didn't feel like talking at the moment, so I delivered the handset to Julie. "Hello?" she said looking a bit flushed. "Oh, hi Mom. What am I doing?" She cringed as she tried to think. She couldn't tell Mom she was lying naked on top of her brother. "I'm just catching up on some reading... Oh, it's just some sappy romance novel, teenage melodrama that sort of thing... I don't know where Rick is, I think he's been spending all his time with a new girl." I started to snicker beneath her, she shushed me. "Well, all I know is she must be making him happy, because he's walked around with a goofy smile on his face ever since you guys left... Don't worry, I'll stay on top of things." She wriggled her hips and my softening penis slipped out. "Give our love to Dad. Bye."

"You'll stay on top of things?" I asked suppressing a laugh.

"On top of, underneath, beside, any other positions you can think of?"

"Just one, but you'd have to bark like a doggy." I tried to sit up but she tackled me back to the mattress. Just for the record, I let her win again.

"Well, well nice to see you could make it," Lance said. He balanced precariously from his office chair. "And just in time to help me with these damn cases you were nice enough to stack."

"I guess we're even for Saturday, when you left me alone with Nick."

"Hey don't bring Nick into this, at least Nick was responsible enough to show up for work on time and not leave me hanging for three days. Of course he was also responsible for calling a customer who tried to return an opened disc a 'cock-sucking bastard,' so it looks like I'll have to settle for you."

"So," I said as I grabbed a box off the stack, "how's Dina."

"She's been acting kind of weird about the whole thing with you and your sister. I didn't know how to tell her, the way you told me. I just blurted out that you were fucking Julie."

"You...? Jesus, Lance you're so stupid. It's bad enough that she knows, now she thinks I'm some kind of pervert."

"She doesn't," Lance said, "not really." That made me feel better. "I'm sure she'll come around."

"Somehow, I doubt it."

"She will. I can be pretty persuasive with people, take Erin for instance." I grabbed another box from the stack and tossed it to Lance. "You haven't heard anymore from her have you?"

I was in mid-reach for another box when I stopped. "How did you do it, Lance?" The question had been eating me up. I had done a pretty good job of avoiding it since that night, when Lance assured me that everything would be taken care of.

"So did you see the list of new releases for the fourth quarter? Better start saving---"

He was giving me an out. I wouldn't have to ask, he wouldn't have to tell. All I had to do was shut up about it. "How did you do it, Lance?"

"Just forget about Erin. She got what she deserved and you're free of her meddling forever."

I got that pain in my stomach again. I clutched my midsection and slumped against some boxes for support. Lance tried to help but I pushed him away. "What did you do to her?" I demanded.

Lance's eyes shifted around. "I can show you. But you can't tell anyone." He looked in my eyes and reiterated. "Anyone!" There was something about his tone that was wrong.

He led me to the office. Lance reached in his pants pocket and pulled out a jangling ring of keys. He kneeled down beside the desk and unlocked a file drawer. Worst case scenarios ran through my mind, what if he pulled out a bloody knife or a pistol? I was afraid for him, in a tiny way I may have been afraid of him. The drawer rolled open and he extracted a videotape.

"The only other copy was sent to Erin." The moment the black plastic touched my hand, I chilled. "She won't bug you anymore."

"Lance," I whispered.

He recognized my fears, his face softened. "What? Did you think I killed her or something, chucked her off the bridge? She's fine, not a hair on her little blonde head got harmed." He snatched the tape from my fingers. "This tape gets you and your sister off the hook for good. I'd let you watch, but I know how big a pest your conscience can be."

I watched the tape, a few days after I found out about it, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. I swiped Lance's keys from his desk while he was with a customer and hid the tape in my lunch sack. While he was at the Pizza Sub I popped the tape into the little T.V. in the backroom.

The night vision of Lance's camcorder gave the screen a green, ethereal sheen, I could see Erin's sleek body, glistening with sweat and in the same position that I had left her in. She still had her face buried in the blankets and her pert little ass raised for my return.

I recalled the odor of sex drifting through the air like an invisible fog, her smell had been strong in the tiny room. I could almost smell it again as I stared at the little screen. I had found it so much more pungent than Julie's own, almost sweet odor. Sam must have smelled it, his eyes closed and his chest expanded as he appeared in the doorway.

Sam was older than Erin, a good seven years older, a fact that made their impending coupling seem all the more perverse. He approached his sister slowly, afraid to make a sound. His hands headed straight to her buttocks. His fingers gripped the firm cheeks, producing a shiver throughout the length of her body.

Sam withdrew a few steps. He looked like he was having second thoughts. "Don't get shy on me, pretend I'm your sister," Erin said.

Her words set Sam off. I imagined that I had not been the lone target of his sister's teasing and flaunting. Sam groaned and kneeled on the edge of her bed. He had already yanked off his ash gray muscle shirt. How could Erin not feel that something was amiss. Sam's body was thinner, more wiry than mine. Combine that with the fact that Sam was around six inches shorter than me, and the charade should have ended from the start.

From behind Sam buried his face in his sister's drooling pussy. He trailed wet licks and kisses from her labia to her butt cheeks. Within a minute she raised her head and screamed my name. Her window was still wide open, allowing a gentle breeze to tousle her short blonde hair. Any neighbor who happened by would have known what she was doing.

Sam worked open his zipper and pulled off his black denim shorts. White Fruit of the Looms were the next to fall. "Oh baby let's do it," Erin said as she rolled around to face her lover for the first time. Her eyes transformed into silver dollars, two huge, perfectly circular objects. Those wide eyes told her who had eaten her pussy, who had brought her to orgasm and who wouldn't stop there. "Sam?!" she screamed. "Sam!"

Sam climbed on top of his younger sister. He used his wiry body to pin her down. Erin screeched as his short, thick erection bumped against her swollen pussy lips. "This is what you wanted," Sam said, sinking his dick inside. "All the times you've teased me and taunted me. You wanted this." Sam planted kisses on her neck, breasts and protesting lips.

"Sam, I'm---" she grunted as he invaded her. "Sammy please! Ouch, you're my brother."

I turned away from the television screen. I could hear Erin's mattress squeak, Erin squealed and cussed as he drove harder into her. I glanced back at the screen long enough to see Sam pull out. His seed arced across his sister's midsection, some spurts landed as far away as her heaving chest, while others couldn't make it past her smooth crotch. Sam offered a lame apology, about being drunk as he rolled off his sister. He snatched his clothes from the floor and retreated from her room. Erin wasn't cussing anymore, she wasn't yelling or moaning. Her hands covered her face and her chest was heaving. I turned off the T.V. I couldn't bear to watch her cry.

I yanked the tape out of the machine. I thought of everything Erin did to my me, and everything she tried to do. She would have ruined my life, the life I wanted to build. Lance was right, she deserved it. Deserved it? As soon as the thought escaped my subconscious I threw the tape on the ground. I crushed it with my foot, stomped on it, tried to grind it into dust with the sole of my shoe, anything to make the guilt go away. The guilt wouldn't be so easily dispatched, it festered in my stomach. I suffered through pain for the rest of the day, but that was okay, I deserved it.

Lance, grinned at me he returned from lunch. I wanted to hate him, how could my best friend do something so reprehensible. I wanted to hate Sam for what he had done on that tape and I wanted to hate Erin for being the cause of it all. Most of all I wanted to hate myself, because deep down I knew that everything that had happened was my fault alone.

I brushed past Lance, ignoring his calls as I walked out the door. I knew where I had to go, but drove around the city for a few hours to build up the courage.

My heart pounded as I stood outside the duplex. I rang the doorbell. It didn't seem to be working, maybe I should just forget it. Finches fluttered out of a boxwood hedge as my fist struck the front door.

I hoped her father wouldn't answer. No, that badger of a man's truck was absent. He was probably still at some construction site, or drinking beers at the bar. I knocked again, harder this time, prompting the neighbor's dog to bark. I heard fussing on the other side of the door as a deadbolt was turned. The knob twisted and the sun-bleached brown door creaked open.

A sleek feminine form stood dressed in a red cotton nightgown. Her long legs were capped by white socks. I hadn't seen Erin dressed like this in a long time, she could almost pass for innocent. Her short blonde hair was a mess, her face was shiny and clean, free of makeup.

"What do you want?" Her words were followed by a quick yawn. She used her red fingernails in an attempt to tame her locks as she waited for my answer.

"I just wanted---"

"To gloat? Don't worry Ricky, you and your sister don't have to worry about me anymore. Your little plan worked."

She tried to shut the door but I stopped her. "Erin, I didn't plan any of it. I swear, I had no idea this would happen to you." I took her hand, but she yanked it away.

"Well it did, Ricky. My brother fucked me. He was drunk and horny, and since I'm such a whore, he just walked right in and fucked me." Erin covered her face, hiding the tears I didn't want to see.

"I'm sorry Erin, oh God I'm so sorry." I handed her a plastic shopping bag emblazoned with the Video Hut logo.

"Is this some kind of bribe?" she asked taking the sack. I shook my head no. She reached inside and pulled out a handful of plastic bits and knotted tape.

"No bribes, no blackmail. I want this off my conscience Erin, I'm living with enough sin. Now you have the only two tapes."

"This isn't a trick? There are no more copies?"

I shook my head no.

"Am I supposed to accept your offering and forgive you, so you can go home to Julie with a big smile?" I shrugged, unsure of what was supposed to happen next.

"It doesn't work that way, Rick. I won't bother you anymore. You're not going to live happily ever after, you picked the wrong girl for that." I backed away from the porch, deep down I wondered if she was right.

"We did it again," she said with a sniffle. My body went cold and stiff, all the blood had frozen in my veins. "That same night. Sam came in my room to apologize and it just happened. I'm not in love with him or anything, but it felt so good, I wanted it.

"The morning after I woke up, he was gone. Not just out of my bed, but out of my life." She brushed a tear away. "It's going to happen to you too. Julie can never be what you want her to be." Those were Erin's parting words as she softly shut the door and locked the deadbolt.

I started my car and thought about what Erin had said. What did I want Julie to be. My lover? She was my first and only. My wife? That would never be possible, not in any legal sense. The mother of my children?

I wondered if I was any better than Sam. He had left, just picked up and walked right out of Saratoga Spring. How many times had I contemplated running away. Would that have made me worse, for running out on Julie and my family, or better, for abandoning any silly notions of love and seeing our relationship for what it truly was: wrong and doomed.

That night, I drove out to Lake Jude. I pulled over and parked in a little gravel lot. Dad used to drive Julie and me out here when we were kids, to fish under Miller's Bridge. As I stepped out on the bridge I wished I'd brought a jacket.

A bronze plaque proclaimed that the taxpayer's of Saratoga Spring had dedicated Miller's Bridge in 1971. I must have crossed this bridge a thousand times and never noticed the plaque before. One-hundred-fifty feet below spires of mist hovered over the warm waters of Lake Jude. I leaned against the guardrail and let the night breeze cool my face. Every once in a while a car would pass, I was invisible to them as they hurried across the bridge. I sighed. I wished I could become invisible, just disappear off the face of the earth. Then Julie could have a normal life.

One-hundred-fifty feet down, then nothing but water. Algae-stained freshwater, it was the most peaceful thing I could imagine. This part of the lake wasn't very deep, fifteen maybe twenty feet in a few spots. I smiled, if Julie knew what I was contemplating she would throw me off the bridge herself. The poor little thing would be devastated. I decided I'd hurt enough people for one lifetime and backed away from the guardrail. I'd be damned before I ever hurt Julie again.

There was a light on the other side of the bridge, a little bait shop. I remembered the times dad would pass me a five dollar bill and send me to buy a coffee can full of worms. The times Julie came with us she always wanted to tag along with me. She always begged me to buy her a Coke from the vending machine, it was the only place that still sold glass bottles. I had a sudden craving for Coke in a glass bottle.

I used the footpath to cross the bridge, even though the last car had passed a while ago.

The lights were still on at Jerry's Bait Shop, the open sign was still glowing blue. The door rang as I stepped inside. The cramped store was layered with bait, lures, maps and nets. Anything a fisherman needed had somehow been crammed into an area no bigger than a one-car garage. There was an older man, around sixty, seated behind a counter. He was hunched over an archaic television set, studying the weather forecast despite a choppy reception.

Everything in the little store smelled like mud or fish or plastic, at times two or more of those odors joined together for a nasal assault. I grabbed a jar of catfish bait and twisted off the cap. I winced, how had they managed to fit that huge a stink inside that small of a jar?

"Yeah you son of a bitch, you would do that," an aged voice grumbled.

"Excuse me?" I asked placing the jar back.

"Oh, not you son." The old man switched off his television. "Damn weatherman called for rain this weekend, kills all my business when that happens." He flashed a mouthful of tobacco stained teeth. "You been in here before?"