For Nick, his grandfather's 80th birthday party amounted to equal doses of boredom and gut-wrenching worry. He still felt shitty because his mother didn't seem to remember the kinky sex life the two of them had been sharing the last month or so, and because his younger sister Elisabeth seemed completely pissed off at him for taking her virginity a couple of days ago. And to this mix the fact that the world had literally turned topsy-turvy on him, and the usual onslaught of teenage sexual fantasies, and perhaps it was not so surprising that Nick found himself completely unable to concentrate on the pathetic conversations his family was so preoccupied with.
Two discussions of new tax reforms, and one of a new designer drug, went by and passed into oblivion before Nick's aunt Angela turned to comment on his distracted state.
"Thinking about some girl perhaps, Nick? It must be tough hanging around us dried-up old fogies." A sly smile crossed Angela's face when she said it, but Nick thought he caught a faint glimmer of something besides simple jest in her face. He couldn't quite place it, and found himself staring. His mother's sister had such a pretty face, and was so high-spirited and youthful, that he couldn't believe that she was old enough to drink, let alone be the mother of his beautiful cousin Isabel. The skin on her neck and chest was so tight, so alluring, that he felt the urge to run his tongue along it.
Aunt Angela caught Nick's eye and gave him a sly wink. His eyes snapped away from her breasts and he turned scarlet. He tried to cover up this lapse.
"Oh no, it's not like that, I'm just..." as he cast about desperately for something appropriate to say, anything at all that didn't sound either obscene or totally insane. He stammered for a bit, wracking his brain for something to say, but it felt as if all the blood was racing away from his brain and into the head of his cock. Nothing came to mind.
"Don't worry about my boy, Angie love, he had a little bout of heat stroke at the water park this afternoon and he's probably still feeling a bit queasy. You know how kids are. You can never trust them to care for themselves, you have to spend your entire life running after them. Picking up their underwear off the floor, making sure they keep away from the drain cleaner..."
Nick winced. Why did his mother have to treat him like this? He had been so comfortable with her sharing her bed with him. He had felt so special, so important, so loved. Now he felt pathetic enough there really was a chance she'd have to pull him away from the drain cleaner.
"Oh no! How did it happen?" Angela interjected, referring to Nick's supposed bout of heat stroke. "Didn't Amber's mom know better than to let the kids run around the park without water?"
Feeling as though his head was boiling like a teapot and steam was about to come out of his ears, Nick jumped out of his chair and stormed out of the room, before his mother could answer or say anything else to embarrass him.
He looked back once and noticed that his mother was smiling. Nick swallowed deeply and tried to convince himself that she didn't have a look of sinister amusement on her face.
He heard her coarse laughter behind him. Maybe it was only Aunt Angela telling some silly joke, but he thought the sound of his mother's cackle was a little spiteful. Nick's heart sunk deeper, painfully.
Nick mentally shook himself, trying to think rationally. He reminded himself firmly that he was indeed still feeling sick, and this was probably making him feel overly vulnerable and irritable. As he kept walking forward towards the kitchens, he continued to rationalize, his brain moving along with his feet, as though the two of them were coupled together, lending each other power.
Besides, his mother really had been acting weird for the past several days, he told himself eagerly. Maybe she really was just having her period.
Nick caught his sister staring at him from across the room. She flinched suddenly as their eyes met, almost as though someone had slapped her, and looked away. She suddenly become engrossed in conversation with their second cousin. Today was definitely the day for impenetrable looks! Nick couldn't tell what Elisabeth was thinking any more than he could read his mother's mind. Why did women have to be so complicated? It wasn't fair!
Nick pressed his elbows onto the tile counter and looked out of his aunt's ultra-clean white-laced curtained kitchen window. The lawn was perfectly manicured, without a single yellow patch. It was almost hypnotic.
As Nick drifted off in his thoughts, the lawn faded before his eyes and an image of Elisabeth's face appeared on the palette of his mind, as she had looked while he was thrusting himself inside of her for the first time, taking her virginity and filling them both with the most intense pleasure and passion he had ever imagined.
It struck him suddenly, horribly, that this was the same girl who had glared at him from across his aunt's oversized dinning room. It was the same face he had caused to glow with pleasure, but distorted now by...what? Pain? Lust? Hate? Fear?
Damn it all!
Nick was shocked to realize that it was no longer his sister's face in his fantasies, but that of the dead and resurrected prostitute, Mary, whose hand he had held walking down the church steps moments after the magickal ritual, the same face as the one that belonged to the beaming brown-haired biker girl Laila, who had confessed her keen interest in younger men to him earlier that day.
Damien's words from the afternoon at the water park returned to Nick, and he found his cock growing stiff in his dress pants.
As if he needed more complications in his life! Nick pushed his hard penis over so it hid itself down his pant leg and stopped straining against the fly of his pants.
It was at just that moment that his mother approached and told him to come and say happy birthday to his grandfather. She was staring at the crotch of his pants suspiciously, as though she had seen him adjust himself.
Nick half-stammered, half-mumbled an assent, but the moment his mother's back was turned, he ran to the bathroom to compose himself first, and to make sure the words "hey Grandpa, your wife came back to life as my new little sister and I fucked her on an altar as part of a dark ritual," were not somehow scrawled his face in black marker.
---
Although Nick hoped with all his heart that the awkwardness in his home and sex life would magically resolve itself within the next few days, things at home remained, well, awkward.
His mother and sister still avoided being alone with him, as though they were afraid they'd get some terrible disease just by breathing the same air as him.
They weren't even talking to him very much.
Both of his natural female relatives buzzed around the house cleaning and canning and redecorating as though they were preparing for a nuclear attack. They were behaving so irrationally and unpredictably that Nick soon learn learned to avoid conversation with them.
As if that wasn't enough to turn Nick into antisocial freak, Amber was giving him the cold shoulder at school. The blond girl he had a crush on, Jessica, would pass him notes with happy faces doodled on them or wave to him in the hallway when she was certain no one else was looking, but she was far too cool to be seen associating with someone who was so obviously a complete loser.
To cope with the stress, Nick masturbated compulsively. He actually began drinking more water, fearing dehydration from all the ejaculation. No matter how many times he came, though, he still wasn't able to sleep properly. His brain refused to relax enough to let him rest at all, and he was once again becoming well-versed in online erotic writing. His little metal trash can was overflowing with used tissues.
One night, a few days after the party, while Nick was polishing off an erotic poem about a love affair gone sour, he heard the phone ring. It was probably just telemarketeters. Now that a lot of telemarketing was outsourced, they had been known to call at all times of night. Apparently the concept of time zones took some getting used to.
Desperately, Nick grabbed the receiver, ready for any kind of distraction. After all, he could not live on porn alone, and if he lucked out, the person on the other end of the phone would be a hot woman with a sexy voice. It could happen!
"Hello?" he almost shouted. The voice on the other end hit him like a boulder and he almost fell of his chair.
"Nick?" It was Mary. Just as he was about to greet her by that name, he remembered that she was Laila now, that Mary, for all he knew, had only been a figment of his imagination. His voice came out as a cough, as he remembered the look she'd given him at the water park. "Are you all right, Nick?"
"Fine," he croaked, "What can I do for you?" he managed to add, after another moment or two.
"You're in AP American History, right?"
"Yeah," Nick answered, a bit confused. That was not something he'd expected her to ask. After all, what did it matter to her what classes he was taking?
"Well, Damien and I are going to be having a little study session about the French and Indian War over here tonight, I think you might find it helpful. Want to come over?"
"That sounds cool, I've never really been part of a study group with college students before. But I don't know where you live."
"Don't be silly, I know you don't have your own car. I'll come pick you up on my bike if you're interested." Nick's heart picked up the pace a bit. "What do you say?"
"Um, sure," Nick replied, his voice breaking just slightly.
"Great! I'll be at your place in twenty minutes." The line went dead, and Nick replaced the phone in its cradle.
Mary or Laila, he didn't give a fuck anymore. What did it matter if he was sane or not? He could remember the warm moisture of her mouth around his cock a lifetime ago, when he felt like the entire world held nothing but possibilities.
