Fifteen Minutes Of Fame

(This tale is rather silly, and the dialogue is puerile. I make no apologies.)

*

The passenger door slammed shut, and I jumped. I'd dozed off in the weak sunlight trickling in through the windshield. "Got in safely, then?"

"I called you twice, you asshole." Pamela tossed her dark hair back and checked her makeup in the mirror. She looked good. She always looked good, and she always knew it. "Maybe if you weren't so boring that you didn't fall asleep every ten minutes, you'd know that."

"Glad you didn't get held up leaving Chicago," I continued, ignoring her completely. "Nasty storms blowing through there this past week." Turning the key, I glanced out the window and pulled into the flow of airport traffic. "How's Mom?"

"Fuck you, Carl, and the fucking horse you rode in on."

"You get used to it. Believe me, being cut out of the family is liberating. No more reunions, for one thing..."

She snorted. "Yeah. Liberating. This coming from the kid who hasn't left this shitheap of a town in five years. You know what that bitch said to me right before she slammed the door in my face? 'We never wanted you,' she said. 'We wanted a little princess, not a manipulative psychopath slut.' She fucking called me a slut."

"You really shouldn't hold in your feelings like that," I said, straight-faced, my eyes still on the road. "It's unhealthy."

There was a sharp pain on the back of my head, and I lurched forward, bumping the wheel. "Fucker!" I swerved wildly to avoid running into a lamppost, overcorrected in the opposite direction, and managed to straighten out and miss sideswiping a cab by a split second. Once we weren't in immediate danger of death by car crash, I glared over at Pam. "Look," I said through gritted teeth. "You're pissed. Fine. But don't hit the driver unless you want to get both of us killed. You may be suicidal, but I'm definitely not. Clear?"

"Crystal." She sounded, and looked, sullen, but didn't seem inclined to lash out again, so I turned back to the road. "Sorry. Not for hitting you, but for doing it when you're driving."

"Apology not accepted, you conniving bitch."

"Self-centered ass.

"Unscrupulous drug mule."

"Imbecilic worthless goat-fucker."

"Scrotum-sucking Babylonic whore."

That did it. She kept her poker face for another second, then cracked a brief smile. "Babylonic? Where did that come from? And isn't it 'Babylonian'?"

"Dunno. You know I never paid attention in Sunday school." I flicked on the radio, turned it off again a moment later. "Anyway, it's good to see you again. Missed having your nagging harpy voice lurking at the edge of my hearing."

"Missed you too, bro." Pam sighed, looking out at the skyline. "Hate this place, though. Always have."

"I don't blame you. Can't stand it either."

"Then why the fuck are you still here?"

I shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Whatever."

We drove in silence for a few minutes, and I took the opportunity to shoot a few sidelong looks at Pam. For someone who had just been tossed out of the family, she looked pretty damn composed, apart from the periodic twitch in her forehead. It looked a bit like she was having an aneurism. Several aneurisms, really. She was also wearing a peasant skirt/low-cut blouse combination that was totally unsuited for a Massachusetts fall, but it was definitely doing its intended job—she was getting a lot of double takes from other drivers. And from me, but that wasn't relevant.

"Fucking bitch," Pam blurted out after a while. "Can't believe she did that to me."

"Yes, well, little things like 'making sense' and 'responding rationally' never were Mom's strong points." I switched lanes, turned off of the highway, threw a middle finger at the sports car that tried to cut me off. "What'd you do to make her flip, anyway? I tried calling you after I heard your drunken rant on my voicemail..."

"Okay, get this." She took a deep breath. "You remember Angelo, right?"

"Was he the one who was into watersports, or was he the one who turned out to be gay?"

"Ha ha, asshole. So anyway, he came with me to Mom's for Thanksgiving. And Mom put him in the guest bedroom."

I sighed. "If this is going where I think it's going, I don't want to hear it."

"Shut up and let me talk," she said through gritted teeth. "So it's Wednesday night, and I'm in the guest bedroom with Angelo's cock halfway down my throat-"

"Spare me the details, please." I had a brief mental image of Pam in the act of deepthroating and felt an instant stirring in my pants. "So, what, Mom walked in?"

"No. Aunt Kelly walked in. And she fainted. And she broke her hip when she fell."

"Ah." I drove in silence, trying to sum up some sympathy for Aunt Kelly as a way of distracting myself. I couldn't, so I continued: "And that's when Mom walked in and read you the riot act."

Pam snorted again. "Sure, if you wanna call it that. She basically told me that I was going to burn in hell, and then she called me a slut, and... well, I snapped back, and she kicked me out. End of story."

I pulled into my driveway and shut off the engine. "Well, welcome to the other side of the family. Me, you, Uncle Harry, Cousin Sal, all of us chucked out on our asses and written out of the will. At least you're in good company."

"Harry's a convicted pedophile probably getting anally destroyed in prison, and Sal's probably still running drugs."

"Sure, we all have our little problems, but it's the thought that counts, right?" I popped the trunk, climbed out of the car, and headed for the front door. "Don't forget to grab your bags."

"Prick."

"Don't remind me," I said under my breath, trying to ignore the swelling down below my belt.

***

Pam locked herself into the spare bedroom for three days, spent most of that time screaming obscenities and breaking things, and then that was it. She came out for breakfast on the fourth day, started looking for jobs, and nailed some sort of temp work by the end of the week. I didn't ask for any more info; she didn't offer any. It didn't matter in the slightest to me how she made money as long as she spent some of it on the rent.

Life went on. I started getting used to sharing the house again. It was hard, at first, what with there only being one shower and my sister being a selfish bitch, but selfishness and various forms of bitchery and dickery tend to run in the family, so I couldn't complain all that much. I think it was a lot harder on her than it was on me, really; I hadn't just lost everything I cared about and had to move in with my loser-ass brother who somehow managed to live off of ad revenue from a dozen shitty websites.

So we settled into a routine. I worked whenever I was awake, as usual; she held down an actual job with actual hours. I "cooked" (by which I mean I put frozen food in the oven and usually didn't burn it) when I felt like it, and she did the same. I gave her shelter and what comfort I could, and she pretended not to notice that the first thing my eyes always went to was her chest. I swear those things had their own gravitational field.

Was it healthy? Of fucking course not. But, hey, why the hell not enjoy it? I told myself I'd stop—or at least try to hide it a bit better—when she told me to, and until then it was awesome (because holy shit, she's hot) and horrible (because holy shit, she's my sister) in almost equal portions.

And I thought about Mom. Mom the alpha cunt. Mom the high-and-mighty. And it took eight weeks, eight long, painful, masturbation-filled weeks, before I had a good idea. Triggered, by all things, by daytime television.

***

She came back from work, pissy as usual, which was a good sign. When Pam wasn't pissy, things were really bad.

"So I had an idea," I said as she walked in.

She snorted. "Hello to you, too, asshole. And you? Thinking? There's a first."

I ignored her. We did that a lot. "It's been almost two months, and I'd bet you all the money I have that Mom doesn't give a fuck how you're doing."

"No shit." She breezed past me on her way to the kitchen; I stole a glance at her ass as she went by and didn't feel the slightest bit bad about it.

"And I don't think it should be that way. I mean, she's done awful things to the family, and she keeps not feeling anything after it, and... well, it's just not right."

"And?" The clinking of glass against glass accompanied the words, which was a sure sign she planned on being drunk by the end of the hour. "You're gonna pull off a miracle and make her feel sorry for me? Or sorry at all for anything ever?"

"Course not. She'd die before that happened. I want to humiliate her. To show her that we're not exactly going to roll over and die because she cut us off, y'know?"

Pam stood in the doorway, a glass of something clear that was most definitely not water in her hand. She seemed genuinely interested, now, as I'd hoped she'd eventually be. "How?"

I gestured to the TV. "We lie. We lie and it gets broadcast internationally, and everyone buys into it, and we blame it on her. And we do it in the sleaziest way imaginable."

It took a second for it to sink in. Her eyes went to the television, hovered there for a moment, flicked down to read the episode title, shot back to me in an incredulous sort of way, went back to the screen. "You're fucking kidding me."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"We go on there and tell the world that we..."

"Yeah, that's what we do."

"Carl, she doesn't watch the show."

"No," I said. "But what's-her-name, Sandra or Sandy or something, the woman across the street from Mom's place? The one who yelled to all of Chicago when she thought Billy down the block was gay? She does. And even if she doesn't see it, the media will. The Internet will. It'll spread. It'll get out there. She can't avoid it."

Pam drifted over to the couch and sat down next to me. She stared off into space, looking thoughtful. "It'd ruin her life."

"Yup."

"She'd never be able to show her face in public again."

"Nope."

"Neither would we."

I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Pam," I said, "it's not like we have reputations to protect. We were publicly and messily disowned by one of the richest, most powerful, most batshit insane women in the country. We have nothing left to lose. We'll never live it down. So let's drag here down with us."

A second passed.

"We could get death threats," she said, sounding somewhat distant. "From ultra-religious fuckheads or whatever."

"So it'll be exciting."

Another second's pause.

And she nodded. "Okay. Let's take the bitch down."

"Okay. Great." A slight squeeze, and I let go of her shoulder. "Let's get to work. I filled out an application like an hour ago-"

"You fucking filled one out already? Before you even fucking asked-"

"-and that gives us a couple of weeks, maybe a month, to get things sorted out. You need to get back with one of your exes. Pick one you hate, because you're gonna end up ruining his life, too."

Pam's smile was the most gut-wrenchingly terrifying thing I'd ever seen. Also possibly the most arousing. Nothing like sadistic glee to get the fires started, I guess. "Not a problem. I'll give Chad a call. The asshole deserves worse."

"And that's just the start," I continued, trying not to think about that pink-shirted douchebag screwing my sister. My efforts were unsuccessful. "We need to plan every bit of this out. We need the right clothing, we need to script it all out and practice it, we need outside help, we..."

"Hey." I broke off and looked up. Pam was smiling—but it was a very different smile than her awful predatory grin from a moment before. It was sincere. It looked kind, even, which took me by surprise. "It'll be okay. We'll pull it off. We'll shit on her life. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay." I nodded. "Time to pay her back for all her tender care."

***

Time passed. We schemed. We thought of every possible unexpected situation and came up with ways to deal with them. We spent long hours planning and plotting, sharing pots of coffee deep into the night.

We heard back from the show, and now we had a date. A deadline. It was going to work.

I tried to stay focused on the goal, or what I kept telling myself was the goal. Yes, the plan did involve making out with Pam on national—and possibly international—television, but that wasn't the point. The point was to destroy our mother's career. The point was not to exploit the situation like a fucking douche and end up actually doing something I might regret.

...who was I kidding? I wouldn't regret a fucking moment of it. But I had to stay focused.

***

And then, somehow, it was the night before, and we had checked into our hotel in Stamford, and we were sitting picking at something overpriced and inedible from room service, and I was trying to convince myself I remembered the whole plan.

"So we don't start talking about Mom until after we're all out there."

"Right."

"And we don't give Chad time to talk once I'm there. This isn't about him."

"Yes, right, fine."

"And we-"

"Carl, shut the fuck up. I know what to do, you know what to do. Just. Shut up." Pam drummed her fingers against the table. "Okay. Hear me out."

I waited, expectantly, but she didn't immediately continue the thought. "Hear you out about what?"

She grimaced. "We need to actually have sex."

My mind took a moment to work through that sentence. "We do?"

"Yeah. Okay, think about it. Use your fucking head. We do this thing tomorrow, and it's all well and good, and then it comes out that we didn't, that we haven't been-"

"Pam, it's not gonna come out-"

"Up the fuck. Shut it." She looked worried. Nervous, even. "It comes out, I don't know how, that we lied. And now it's not a huge scandal about us anymore and then it gets back to Mom. It's a scandal about how we lied to discredit her and drag her sorry ass into the fucking dirt, except it's wasted, because now she's the fucking victim, and she's hurt by it but nowhere near as badly as I want her to be hurt." Pam met my gaze. "We have to fuck. If only so that not everything I'm saying is a lie. I'm a pretty fucking good actress when I have to be, but it's easier to work with truth."

"You're sure about this."

"I want her to burn. And I'll do whatever it takes to crank up the fucking heat and make sure she doesn't slither away."

I thought for a moment. On the one hand, her arguments made sense. It'd give both of us credibility. And it'd be lying to say I hadn't been imagining this for quite a while. On the other hand, though...

Wait. What other hand? The hand I'd been masturbating with while fantasizing about this exact moment for the past three months? That hand offered no objections.

"Okay," I said, pushing aside my plate. "Let's do it."

She stood up, took a few steps, and dropped down on the edge of the nearer of the two beds. "Just like that? You're okay with it?"

"Sure." I wriggled out of my jacket, leaving it in a crumpled mess on the floor. "You made good points, you're unbelievably hot, I'm horny, and... yeah. Not much else to worry about, really."

Pam stopped midway through the second button on her blouse. "And the family thing doesn't bother you?"

I shrugged. "We've been talking about this so seriously for so long, Pam. Any doubts I maybe might've had about the whole incest situation were under control back, y'know, when I suggested we tell the world we were fucking each other." Sitting on the bed next to her, I placed a hand on her leg. "And you know I hate your fucking guts anyway, so there's not much point in sentimentality."

"Likewise." She blew out a long breath and returned to her buttons. "So should we do this properly, or skip the foreplay and go straight to the main act, or what?"

I watched more and more of her skin begin to show itself, and I hurriedly followed suit with my own shirt. "That's up to you, really. I mean, I'm good to go for whatever. Having a cock is like that."

"Then let's not waste any time. I can't wait to be done with this so I can go back and finish that shitty excuse for food." She had her blouse off, now, and I didn't realize I was staring until she cleared her throat. "You gonna actually make a move, or are you gonna just stare all night?"

"Sorry," I muttered, tearing my eyes away and taking off my belt. "Lose the bra and lie down, would you? Make things a bit easier."

"Arrogant prick, giving me orders like that." There was no venom in her voice, for once. Maybe she wasn't quite as business-minded as she made it sound. I stripped off my pants and boxers, and the moment of self-consciousness I had about my nakedness—mainly focused on my jutting erection, naturally—evaporated as soon as I laid eyes on my sister's naked chest. Without a bra's support, Pam's breasts sagged slightly, but in a natural, youthful sort of way, not like an old-woman way. They still stood well on their own; "plump" and "full" were the words that jumped to my mind, but neither was quite right to describe them. Her chest was the same slight tanned tone as the rest of her skin, with her nipples a darker pinkish color.

I was staring again, I realized. Pam was smiling at me. "Like what you see?"

It took me a moment to find my voice again. "This is going to sound cheesy as hell, but... you have no fucking idea how much I like what I see. You're seriously beautiful." She didn't quite blush at that, but there was a definite bit of pink in her cheeks, and she ducked her head a little bit. Strange to see her lose a little bit of composure. I loved it. "I guess you don't hear that very often."

"You're terrible at lying."

"I wasn't—"

"No, I know, that's what I meant. I just... I don't hear it sincerely very often." She took a deep breath and shook herself slightly, apparently getting herself back into her usual caustic mindset. "I hope you have a condom. No way in hell you're putting that thing inside me without one."

I sighed in mock resignation. "Fine. No incestuous bastard baby for us, then, and no horrible mutant STDs. You're breaking my heart." As I bent down to pull my wallet out of my discarded pants, a pillow bounced off the back of my head. "What, throwing pillows now? Are you six years old or something?"

"The lamp's screwed to the desk or I'd have used it instead."

The condom wrapper gave me a moment's trouble; my hands seemed to be shaking slightly. From caffeine, I told myself, and not nerves. No reason to be nervous. "Well, if you want an actual pillow fight and not a euphemistic one, I guess I can accommodate you." Another moment, and I had my cock properly sheathed in latex. I scooped up the pillow and hurled it one-handed at Pam, who threw up an arm to protect her face. "All right. Ready to do this?"

"As I'll ever be, you piece of shit." She flopped back, her head landing more or less on the pillows. With some effort, she squirmed out of her pants, tossed them aside, and then gestured at her panties, which were obnoxiously pink. "You want me to do these, or would you rather do it yourself? Get some sick kicks out of undressing your sister?"

"You do it," I said, feeling my heart rate quicken. This was it. "I want to watch."

She smirked and made an exaggerated show of pulling them off, sliding them down her legs a little bit at a time, offering brief, tantalizing glimpses between her legs as the fabric inched down to her ankles. By the time she had them all the way off, I was climbing onto the bed. After a second's hesitation, I took up a position atop Pam, kneeling on either side of Pam's thighs. A few deep breaths completely failed to calm me down, so I stopped trying and prepared to guide myself in. Into my sister. Holy shit. "Okay. I'm doing it."

"Actually, um, hold on a second."

I froze, caught quite literally dick-in-hand. "If you tell me you're having second thoughts at this point, I'm taking a picture of you into the bathroom, and I'm going to be loud enough that they hear me down at the front desk."