'I heard if you drink diet cola after you eat a Mentos your stomach would explode.'
'Not something we want to hear at breakfast, Alissa,' mom said nonchalantly.
'You're an idiot,' I said. 'Mythbusters busted that ages ago.'
'Don't call me an idiot.'
'Jake, don't call your sister an idiot,' dad said, slightly muffled from the few bits of muffin that didn't go down in the first swallow.
'If she wants to say stupid things...'
He glanced over at me this time but didn't say anything more. There was no real anger, as though he didn't really care what I said, but I knew what he meant.
Just don't piss her off.
'What classes have you got today, hon?' mom asked me.
'Um... journalism and a few psych ones.'
'And are you going to any of those or are you gonna stay home like a loser and watch sports all day?' Alissa said.
'It looks like it's gonna be sunny today... are you gonna spend all day at the beach or will you actually go to school? Maybe a token appearance in the morning?'
Neither mom nor dad said anything, but we were done. That seemed to be the strategy these days: just let us fizzle out rather than interject or attempt to break us up. They knew that one wrong word and either Alissa or I would be down their throats accusing them of taking a side. Or they could play it perfectly and it would still develop into a shouting match between us trying to get our point into whichever of them was brave enough to speak in the first place. Even I found it frustrating.
Alissa was the first to get up. I watched her leave with the usual half-loathing stare I would give her after any argument, to which she reciprocated until she was into the hallway. I guess she was right, though. The chances of me being bothered to get to class this morning were low at best, while this afternoon's classes enjoying my attendance was highly dependent on whether mom was still home. I think my "the professor is overseas so we watch the lectures online" excuse was probably over-used by now, so I would be forced to go if she was still around.
'Jane was telling me the other day,' mom said, pausing to swallow, 'that she might have a job for you if-'
But I'd stopped listening. I could hear footsteps through the floor right above us. My room.
'Bitch!' I muttered only half to myself; standing up so hard the chair fell over and made an unhealthy
crack
on the hard-wood floor.
'I keep hoping they'll somehow go back to the way they were when they were young,' I heard mom say through a sigh as I left.
'Are you kidding?' Dad said. 'Remember when he was six and he brained her with his whiffle bat for saying his swing didn't look anything like the guys on TV?'
I do. She was a bit meaner about it in my recollection.
*
Friday nights were family nights. It was possibly our parents' last effort to keep some cohesion in the family, either because Alissa and I were as worse as we had ever been toward each other or because we were getting a little too independent for their liking. Or at least she was. I was more than happy to still live at home and commute to college.
It wasn't so bad, really. We got a movie the majority agreed upon and we watched it together, and no parties or going out afterwards. Alissa hadn't enjoyed getting that news at the inaugural night about two months ago. Losing two hours of time in the party night of the week was bad, although still manageable. Losing the whole night was unacceptable because, after all, she had her vapid reputation to protect.
This Friday night it was my turn to begrudgingly sit in the living room. I was out-voted on the choice of movie, but that alone wasn't killer. My parents' refusal to put cable in my room meant the main TV was the only one to watch the basketball game on, and their accompanying refusal to get Tivo meant I missed it altogether.
Even worse still were the brutal conditions we were sitting in. Due to our dog's annoying habit of using the living room as an extension of the backyard, the carpet was completely stained with piss, which my mother decided to clean today. The cleaning chemicals still hung thick enough in the air to almost taste, helped by the fact the room was also still uncomfortably humid from the amateur effort at steam cleaning afterwards. It was like an ammonia-soaked sauna being fuelled further by the warming spring air. It had given me a headache even before the painful opening sequence of 'Date Movie' was over.
Ironically, Alissa was cheerful. I don't exactly pay attention to her life, but I have to assume something went well that day because she hadn't yet made one badly veiled sarcastic comment like: 'this is sure to be a good use of time'.
At one point in the movie dad had yelled at her to stop shifting herself around every two minutes: just another in her wide repertoire of annoying habits. Surprisingly there was no snappy remark, she got up off the couch and parked herself on the floor, right in between me and the TV. She lay down straight, so that her head was cushioned under her arms up near the TV and her feet down near me. Her moving from the couch had broken what little concentration I'd had in the movie. I watched her move down there but my eyes didn't return to the TV, instead staying on her in a blank, unfocused stare.
She'd been smarter than me in choosing what to wear that night. Instead of the comfortable sweats I hadn't quite let go of for the year yet now that summer was close, she wore a tight fitting green tee-shirt that still had a damp V-mark from where her dirty-blonde hair had been allowed to sit after her shower. Below that was a small blue cotton mini-skirt that had been a summer favorite of hers around the house for years now. Ever since she'd grown the ass to pull it off. It had ridden up a little higher from her continued fidgeting to find a comfortable position, enough to see a hint of something red -wait- red panties?
My eyes snapped back into focus. My eyebrows furrowed when I confirmed I'd seen what I thought I had, and I went to look away. But it wasn't soon enough.
The unit the TV was sitting on had two cabinet doors with mirrors taking up the entire space on the front of them. The left hand door was still a little open from when dad had gotten to the DVD player, ajar enough so that I could see myself in its mirror and so could Alissa. And she was looking straight at me.
My eyes locked onto hers for a moment and I couldn't look away. I expected her to look disgusted and to turn around and either yell at me or scream at dad that I was perving on her. But she didn't. Her blue eyes were slightly squinted and her mouth pursed, like she was only curious as to what I was looking at. It finally sunk in that she'd probably caught me looking up her skirt, as innocent as it was, and I guiltily shot my eyes up to the TV, to which she shook her head and sighed. I shifted uncomfortably on the leather couch, causing it to creak loudly - earning me an angry shooting look from dad – and I cleared my throat.
'I need to go to the bathroom,' I announced.
'I bet you do,' Alissa said with a smile.
I pondered for the rest of the night whether that grin was to mock me or from actual amusement. I assumed the former.
*
To say that I was shocked Alissa didn't either rip me a new asshole or mock the hell out of me doesn't really say how surprised I was. She didn't change her demeanor, that is to say we still had pointless arguments and baited each other for the smallest things, but my half-glimpse of her panty-covered pussy never once came up. I was confused, because usually any ammunition she gets she will throw at me like a trigger happy criminal, mostly because she has never been quick enough to make witty comebacks, instead choosing to embarrass and belittle very crudely.
It made me extremely careful. Whenever I talked to her I had to restrain myself from pushing her too far, because I couldn't be sure she wasn't holding it back for an almighty rip at me to get out of something stupid or embarrassing she had done herself.
At breakfast a few mornings later mom had made pancakes. A whole stack of them, coated in maple syrup and smelling a special kind of delicious I haven't ever come across in those made by anyone else. Alissa was showing her lack of sleep from a 'study session' the night before: huge bruise-like bags under her eyes and a distinct lack of co-ordination. When the inevitable happened - her spilling an entire pancake she had been too lazy to cut right down her front along with one huge glob of syrup - I said nothing. The words had rushed to my mouth instantly, like a Pavlovian response, and it was almost painful not to shoot them like tiny daggers at her.
Good one, dumb ass.
She didn't take her eyes off me as she cleaned up, expecting the cheap shot to come just as much as I wanted to give it.
Night-time that same day we were home alone. Our parents were at dinner, Tuesday nights being another of their weekly themed nights, this one date night. So, obviously, we weren't involved. I watched the closing graphic of Sportscenter and sighed. I was out of excuses to procrastinate on my psych assignment any longer. I got up off the couch very slowly, again causing the leather to creak loudly and my knee joints to crack almost painfully. Not the healthiest sign in barely 20 year old legs.
I took my time going up the stairs as well. Every step of my bare foot on the padded carpet made a thump that reverberated around the enclosed staircase and made the wood underneath creak every so often. At the top of the stairs I had to turn and walk by the banister, my room being the only one that side of the stairs, and the bathroom being along that wall.
I could hear the splash of running water stop in the bathroom, with the accompanying groan from the pipes in the wall at the loss in water pressure. Alissa's nightly shower had obviously just finished. I have no idea why, but at that moment I had an overpowering urge to look in at her. I'd never once thought about her sexually. Even when her tits and ass had developed I saw them as just factual parts of her body rather than desiring female attractions. At that moment it still wasn't about some perverted desire to see her naked, just a slight and innocent curiosity as to what her naked body really looked like.
The keyhole in the door wasn't the best viewing option. It was difficult to line her up properly, and even when I managed to do so I only saw parts of her before she moved again and I had to re- adjust. She did look nice. Like I said, I'd never thought of her as hot, or even made the choice as to whether she was or not, but at that point I would have to begrudgingly admit that she was. There was still light coming in from the north-facing window, which, as warm and golden as it was that afternoon, gave a silhouette effect that meant I still couldn't see her front too well. She was faced towards me, her head turned as she watched herself in the full-length mirror while slowly rubbing her hair with the beige towel in her right hand. Every time she turned in a new direction the light would catch in the droplets of water still on her front and bounce around artistically. It would make a good photo.
Her front now in partial light I could better make out her features. Her stomach was flat and tanned, dotted with a few larger freckles that I shared with her as a family trait. Her tits were just as evenly tanned - does she go topless at the beach every day?- the 18 year old beauties sitting perfectly on her chest, jiggling hypnotically as she dried her hair. From my very limited knowledge they looked like a B-cup, but the partially obscured angle of the key-hole and the distance made me unsure. I would need to check that later.
She stopped drying and put the towel down. Her hands on her hips and weight shifted to her right side gave her curves added definition. Shit, they never looked like that before. She had a half smirk as she looked at her self. Admiring the work, I guess, because she certainly didn't waste the money our parents spent on her gym membership.
