Between Your Sister and Yourself

"So, I have a crazy question for you," Kristen said.

Brad raised his eyebrows. "Uh-oh."

They lay in bed together, naked and sweating, surrounded by an unruly pile of white sheets. Above them, the fan whirled, cooling their bodies as they soaked in the post-coital euphoria.

Kristen giggled. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad." She brushed her dark bangs back from her eyes. "Nothing marriage-related or baby-related."

"Thanks, I feel a lot better now." Brad put an arm around her pale shoulder and pulled her closer. Outside, he faintly heard a chorus of honks and traffic from the city streets below. "Shoot."

She lay still for a moment, as if thinking it over. She lifted her hand in the air, thumb and forefinger in a reverse L, as if literally framing the question. "Okay. If you could fuck any of my friends, who would it be?"

He laughed. "What?"

"Seriously."

"I'm not answering that."

She rolled over onto her stomach, giving Brad a momentary view of her naked, athletic frame, knees bent, feet in the air, ankles crossed. "Why not?"

"Because it's totally loaded. This is a fistfight waiting to happen."

"I won't get mad," she promised, crossing her fingers and showing them to him.

He grinned and looked past her at the ceiling fan. "Yeah, you promise that now, but I tell you something you don't like, you're going to get pissed, then you'll get suspicious..."

"I won't!" she laughed, and threw a leg over him, straddling him. She put her hands on his stomach and pushed, her small breasts bouncing. "Come on, tell me."

"Oof. Okay, stop doing that. I'll talk."

She flashed him a brilliant grin and brushed her straight, dark hair back behind her ears.

Brad made a show of thinking. "Um... let me see... I've never thought about this..."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't bother lying, Brad. I've seen your penis, I know you have one. You've thought about it."

He pursed his lips. "Point. Okay, um... okay. Alicia."

Kristen shook her head. "My single friends, dork."

"Wait, that's a rule now?"

"You bring infidelity into it, it complicates the whole enterprise. Pick again. Single friends only."

"Wait," Brad said, putting his hands on her slim waist. "If I'm fucking one of your friends, that automatically brings infidelity into it. Your whole premise is flawed."

"'Your whole premise is flawed.' You sound like an asshole right now."

He tickled her savagely, and she shrieked and pushed his hands away.

"Okay! Stop! Let's say I was totally fine with it," she said. "Let's say you got one free pass. So there's no infidelity."

"This is getting complicated."

"It isn't. You're just making it that way. Come on, play the game." She stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout.

"Christ," he muttered. "Okay. Amanda."

Her mouth dropped open. "My cousin? She's like eighteen!"

He shrugged. "Not like. She is eighteen. And you asked."

"I didn't know you liked them that young," she teased.

"I don't usually, but she's got that supermodel body. And she's blonde and dumb as a post, so I figure I'm in there easy—"

Kristen slapped him on the chest, hard enough to sting. "Jackass. Who else?"

"Uh... okay. Shannon."

"My best friend," Kristen said.

"Come on, you had to know that was coming."

"Why on earth would you want to nail Shannon?"

Brad gave her a perplexed look. "Come on, seriously? She's smoking hot. Short, tan, stacked, smart-girl glasses, and she's all bubbly and sweet and nice to everyone all the time. She has to be a freak in the sack."

"So you have thought about this. At length, it appears. So what's she wearing in this fantasy of yours? Maid outfit?"

"God, no," Brad said. "What do you take me for? Catholic schoolgirl, clearly. She's got the glasses, all you need are the stockings and the skirt and the little tie for some light choking..."

She gasped, then burst into laughter. "You are awful!" As she rocked gently back and forth on top of him, Brad could feel himself getting hard again. The conversation, and the sight of her lean body still glimmering with sweat, had him aroused.

"Who else?" she asked, grinning.

"That's it," he said.

"Liar."

"I'm not lying."

"You are too. What about Lacey?"

"Lacey would instantly start stalking me and you know it. Ed would end up in the stewpot." He pointed to Ed the cat, who lounged in a nearby overstuffed chair, completely unconcerned with both of them.

"Yeah, but if she wouldn't stalk you—"

"You're pushing my suspension of belief too far." Idly, he slid his hands up her torso and began to gently caress her breasts.

She murmured and bit her lip. "Okay, fair enough. What about Alicia? You'd really do Alicia?"

"Not really. Alicia hates me. I'm not into the whole hate-sex thing. And don't say 'what if she didn't hate you.' Aliens would have to come down from space and hit her with a brain-ray to make her not hate me."

She laughed and shrugged bare shoulders, mollified. "Anyone else?"

He pursed his lips. "Nope."

Kristen stopped rocking, putting her hands over his. "You're lying again. There is someone else."

"I am not." He gave her a look of innocence he already knew was hopelessly exaggerated. Ultimately, this was one of the many reasons he'd never consider infidelity — he was just no damn good at lying.

"You are! I can see it in your face!" She leaned over him, her hair falling in her face. "Tell me."

"There's nobody."

"Tell me!"

He rolled his eyes. "Promise me you won't get mad."

"I already did, dumb fuck."

Brad sighed. "Jennifer."

Kristen gave him a knowing look, her tongue probing the inside of her cheek. Her hands closed around his and pushed them down to the bed. "My big sister."

"See, I told you you'd get mad."

"I'm not mad," she said. "You're a pig, though."

Brad shrugged. "Well, no shit, woman. You knew that when we got together."

She cocked her head. "Seriously? My sister?"

"Sorry. She's really beautiful. If the opportunity arose, and, according to the parameters you laid out, there was no infidelity involved..."

Kristen laughed. "Parameters? Oh my god."

She leaned down over him, her hair tickling his neck, her face inches from his.

"So are you telling me," she said slowly, "that when she's come out here to visit, during Thanksgiving dinner, or for my birthday last year, while we've been sitting around having drinks and talking, that you were thinking about my sister naked? Thinking about fucking her?"

"Uh, no," Brad said, lifting a finger. "Let me be clear about that. No. Not while she was in the room. Because then, see, I'd be sporting a huge boner and it would be super awkward..."

She gave a horrified laugh and rolled off him. "Oh my god, you are totally disgusting."

"Unless, you know, it was like in the pornos, where she sees the boner and she likes it, and then she gets all curious and she just has to see it, so she comes over and unzips my pants..."

"Okay, shut up now," Kristen said. She hopped out of bed. "I'm going to go take a shower. I need one after this conversation."

"You started this conversation!" he yelled in mock indignation. "Anyway, get back here, I'm ready to go again."

She looked over her shoulder with a grin, tilting her hips at him. "Come and get me," she said.

"I intend to." He threw the covers off. She squealed and ran for the bathroom as he lunged in pursuit.

# # #

Contrary to Brad's suspicions, they did not have a fight. The subject didn't even come up again for a long while. Their relationship continued much as it had. He went back to work at the law office, she went back to work at the marketing firm. They met for dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and she crashed at his place from Saturday morning to Sunday night. Most of that time, they spent in bed. It was an easy relationship. At least so far.

Two weeks after the talk, as they sat in the back booth at McKinley's over steaks, she hit him blindside.

"So how would you rank them?" she asked, picking at her asparagus with her fork. She was dressed in a sheer black strapless dress and the diamond necklace he'd bought her for their first non-versary, her hair down around her shoulders.

He licked Guinness foam off his upper lip. "Rank what."

"My friends."

Brad blinked. "Like... out of ten?"

"No, in descending order."

"In terms of moral worth?"

She lifted one eyebrow at him skeptically. "Don't be a tool, Brad. If you were going to have sex with any of my friends — or my sister — how would you rate them? Who's your number one?"

Brad's eyes widened in disbelief, and he looked over his shoulder. They came to McKinley's for the privacy, and there was no one within earshot, but the frankness of the question still made him squirm a bit. Kristen tended to be far less reserved in public than he did — he liked to shed his inhibitions behind closed doors. Even her few teasing attempts to tempt him into sex in semi-public places had met with universal refusal.

"You want to talk about this now?"

"Just making conversation," she said with a shrug. "Why? No one's going to hear you. Go ahead, give me your top ten."

He laughed. "Is there a reason you keep returning to this topic?"

"Why? Do you have a birthday coming up or something? I'm just interested. And I kept my promise not to get mad. So come on."

"First of all," he said, "it wouldn't be a top ten. I think we got to like, five, at most."

"Yes, all right, top five. Don't nitpick, Brad, it's douchey."

"Christ," Brad muttered, and drained his beer. "Let's see. Um, Shannon would be number one. She's just... I don't know, she has this sweet innocence about her that makes me want to violate and degrade..."

"Uh-huh."

"Amanda second. That's kind of tough, actually. Amanda has the body, but Shannon actually has a personality..."

Kristen gestured at him with her steak knife. "Let's limit the color commentary, shall we?"

"If you don't want to hear my actual thoughts on this, why would you bring it up?"

"Okay, I'll give you that one. Keep going."

"Uh. I think that was it, wasn't it? Oh, Anna. I guess Anna would be a close third. And Lacey, if she wouldn't stalk."

"I thought Lacey broke your suspension of disbelief."

"No, that was Alicia. And the other day at the gallery Lacey was wearing this tight little green shirt and she has that amazing rack..."

Kristen snorted. "Oh, well, at least you had a good reason for changing your mind."

"Right?"

"So where—" Kristen stopped as the cute red-headed waitress brought another Guinness.

"Thank you," Brad said. As she left, Kristen pointed at her swaying ass with a fork. "What about her? Number five?"

"Nah, definitely number three. I like redheads. I'd bump Anna for her."

"Oh, okay," she said, taking a bite of steak.

"So, seriously, is there a reason why we're doing this? I feel like I'm talking with one of my guy friends."

"Oh yeah?" Kristen took a drink of her Harp. "Does that make you uncomfortable? Should I be getting really jealous and insecure and telling you that if you really loved me, you wouldn't so much as think about another woman ever? Come on, face it, Brad. You live a charmed life."

"Well, maybe so," Brad said. "But you do seem to call me a pig and disgusting an awful lot when this topic comes up."

She shrugged. "Well, aren't you?"

He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. "Yes," he said after a pause. "But I only like admitting it so many times a day."

"See, what you're missing is" — she gestured to him with the fork again — "I don't mind that you're a pig. I kind of like it. You're a pig, but you're an intelligent pig. You're an Orwellian pig. First among equal pigs."

"I was in a cover band called Orwellian Pig," Brad said.

"That was awful. Okay, so you're not that smart of a pig. But you're honest. I can read every emotion as it crosses your cute little rugged manly face. I can tell what you're thinking right this very second."

"Oh yeah?" Brad said with a sneer. "Go ahead. Do your worst."

"You're wondering if I'm going to bring up my sister," she said.

Brad grimaced. "Fuck!"

"See?" She smirked and finished off her beer. "Like an open book. Like a big old teleprompter. Your emotions are like an advertisement on Times Square."

"Yeah, fine. Rub it in. I'll take it out on you when we get home."

She grinned. "Promise?"

"As a matter of fact, I do."

She pushed her plate away and put her chin on both hands, gazing at him steadily. "So, where would you rank Jennifer?"

"Oh, God," Brad said.

"Come on, just humor me. Where does my sister rank on your personal little imaginary harem?"

Brad puffed out his cheeks. "One," he said at last.

Kristen's jaw dropped just a little. "Really. Number one?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's true. She's hotter than any of your friends. By a pretty significant margin."

"What's so hot about her?" Kristen asked, her expression perplexingly eager.

"Uh. She's curvy. She has black hair, like yours. Big blue eyes like yours. Nice full lips... like yours..."

"If you're trying to butter me up so I don't kick your ass, you really don't need to."

"I'm not. I'm just saying, you both have features I really like. But she's..." he gestured vaguely in the air.

"Bigger tits," Kristen said.

He shrugged. "Well, thank you for not making me say it."

"It's true, she got all the breasts."

"But don't get me wrong — I like your —"

"Please," Kristen groaned. "I'm not insecure about my body, Brad. So don't worry about bruising my ego."

"Okay," Brad said. He took a long pull at his beer. "And she's kind of like you, but not like you. She's smart, and funny, but she's not sarcastic like you are. She's nice, but not, you know, cloyingly nice. She's proper, but not repressed—"

Kristen barked laughter.

"What?"

"Proper?"

"Why is that funny?"

"You're right that she's not repressed," Kristen said, "but proper she isn't. That's all a show she puts on. She's like you. She's worried about what people are going to think of her. So in public she's Miss Perfect. Maybe that's what you like about her."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

She smiled at him, biting her lower lip. "You've thought about this a lot."

"I have not." Her gaze didn't waver. "Shit, okay, yeah, I've thought about it some."

"It's okay," she said. "I think it's kind of funny that you have all these little details in mind. So does her 'proper' demeanor turn you on because you think she must be a dynamo in the sack, like Shannon?"

"Holy shit," he groaned. "Can we talk about something besides me banging your sister for awhile?"

Kristen's eyes widened, then cut to Brad's right. He turned to see the waitress frozen in place, a fresh bottle of Harp in her hand.

"Here you go," she said, carefully placing the beer on the table between them and taking the empty.

"Oh my god," Brad said, putting his face in his hands as Kristen burst into helpless laughter.

# # #

Another three weeks went by, and Brad forgot about the discussion a second time. It was a habit of Kristen's to hit him with sudden queries about holidays or vacations or stranger things, and then drop them completely for an indefinite period.

Which is why Brad found himself surprised once again when Kristen burst into his apartment on a Thursday evening.

"Guess who's coming to visit!" she chirped, throwing herself down on Ed's favorite chair and crossing her legs. She was wearing a very short blue dress, and her position put a distracting amount of leg in view.

"Er," he said. "Who?"

She smirked at him and said nothing until he put it together.

"You're not serious," he said.

"I am serious. Jennifer arrives tomorrow night at six at the airport. After which we are all going to go out to dinner. I was thinking McKinley's."

"You're springing this on me now? Why not give me a little notice?"

"Because I know you," Kristen said. "You'll come up with some other plans and try to weasel your way out of your boyfriendly duty. I'm not having any of it. You're coming with me to the airport and then we're all going to go to McKinley's and have steak and super-awkward conversation because I know you want to fuck my sister."

"Jesus Christ!" Brad said, a little louder than he'd intended. He crossed to the mini-bar to get himself a drink. A double. "I didn't mean anything by that, and you pretty much forced it out of me."

"Oh, lighten up, Brad," Kristen said, apparently perplexed but amused at his irritation. "You're right, I brought it up. And when I asked you to rank all your prospective honeys—"

"They are not my prospecting honeys," Brad said.

"—you said Jennifer was 'numero uno.' If you really didn't want me knowing that, Brad, then you should have lied about it and said you'd rather fuck Lacey."

Brad took a belt of Scotch. "Do you want me to just go ahead and fuck one of your friends? Would this get this weird obsession of yours out of the way?"

Just like that, her cavalier demeanor collapsed. Kristen gave him a horrified look. "Brad, I was just trying to have some fun. You don't have to be a jackass about it."

He winced. "I'm sorry—"

She kept up the doe-eyed look for another second, then burst into laughter. "Oh my God, you are so fucking easy!"

"You're a bitch," Brad said, good-naturedly.

"That's why you love me," she said, and sprang out of the chair to hug him and kiss him on the lips.

"I don't appreciate being your clown, Kristen."

Kristen pursed her lips and nodded. "All right, Brad. I'm sorry." She cocked her head as if thinking about something.

"What?"

She smiled. "I'm thinking maybe I haven't learned my lesson. You're going to have to teach me a lesson for being such a manipulative bitch. What do you think?" Her hand traveled down his body, found his zipper.

Brad finished his Scotch and set it aside. "Is that what you want?" This was a common game of hers. Kristen would prod him until he was right on the edge of getting angry, and then turn it into a chance for her to play-act the submissive for awhile.

"Oh yes. Wait, I mean oh no, please, no." She bit her lip and made a little moue of mock terror.

Brad grinned. "Take off your dress first. I want to see you naked."

"Are you going to be naked, too?"

"No." He unzipped his pants, his cock already hard.

"Ooh!" She shrugged out of the tiny dress, letting it drop to the floor. She wore nothing underneath, and for a moment stood demurely in front of him, dressed only in heels and expensive earrings.

He took a moment to drink in her beauty, then put one hand on her shoulder and pushed her to the floor. "Get down there."

Kristen went obediently to her knees, submitting to him with the same aplomb she gave to taunting him. Only a brief grin at the corner of her mouth betrayed the illusion as she looked up at him with wide eyes. She resisted him just enough to please him, squirming when he grabbed her by the hair, whimpering when he shoved his cock into her mouth.

When he didn't treat her quite hard enough, she did it for him, gagging herself on his cock until tears sprang from her eyes, her mascara running down her cheeks. He came full in her mouth, and she swallowed it all, pulling back to gasp for air. Her expression when he pulled his cock from her mouth was pure joy, a tiny dribble of come dotting one corner of her mouth.

"Feel better, sweetie?" she asked.

He twisted his fingers in her hair, and she moaned.

"It's a start," he said.

# # #

They took a cab to the airport, despite Brad's objections that his car would be faster. He considered arguing about it, but decided it wouldn't be worth the time and effort. What Kristen wanted, Kristen usually got.