Chapter 1
Josh lay on his side in bed, watching the minutes tick by on the digital alarm clock beside him. The luminous green figures lent the room an eerie, alien glow that mingled with soft rays of the moon outside. It looked a depressing scene; fit for the occasion, Josh thought. He held his breath as the clock hit midnight and then exhaled, whispering to himself "Happy Birthday", before turning over and falling asleep.
* * *
Josh woke again that night, at around four o'clock in the morning, busting to go to the toilet. After emptying his bladder, he found himself looking in the mirror, his face lit up only by the moonlight, making him look like an ivory replica of himself. Not wanting to turn on the lights and blind himself, he leaned closer and explored his face.
For the first time in years, he thought, his acne was actually receding quite a bit, his face looking a lot clearer. He knew better than to get his hopes up, but couldn't prevent a small smile from gracing his lips.
Those accursed spots had plagued him for years, certainly longer than any of his friends, who had enjoyed at least a year of pimple-free experiences. Josh found that he could trace almost all of his problems in life back to his acne, which prevented him from doing things he knew he could otherwise do; talking to girls, going to parties, looking people in the eye as he spoke to them, flirting with female shop assistants as he visited expensive clothing stores to buy the latest in haute couture. He knew, of course, he was a long way from the latter, financially speaking, but he was free to dream.
And dream he did, of what his life would be like when his face cleared up. He had pictured, more times than he could remember, what he would say to Valerie, who he had been intoxicated with since early high school. Now, in his final year, he had feared it would be too late to ever reveal his feelings to her. He wondered now, looking in the mirror again, whether things were finally set to change – whether he was finally free.
Snorting derisively, he returned to his bed, and dreamt not of Valerie, as he usually did, but of giant pears and a homicidal orang-utan.
* * *
"JOSH!"
"Argh!" Josh cried out, sitting up blindly in bed and waving his arms about, batting away something invisible. He was forced to pause for a moment, letting the blood flow back into his head. Once it had, he blinked his eyes open and looked around his room, his vision sharpening.
He saw, to his right, his older sister's face grinning at him with cruel delight. She burst out laughing. Josh scowled at her, seizing his pillow and flinging it bodily at her.
"Jacquie, you stupid bitch," he exclaimed heatedly. Jacquie's eyes went wide, as did her mouth, apparently shocked and no longer laughing. She slapped his shoulder, hard.
"Watch your mouth," she warned, though the glee in her eyes belied her anger. "You don't call a girl a bitch unless you really mean it."
Josh stared blankly at her. "Your point?"
Jacquie slapped him again and stormed out of the room. Sighing in frustration, Josh fell back onto his bed and shut his eyes again, willing sleep to return. It didn't.
Now fuming, Josh threw the covers off himself and stomped into the bathroom, stripping his clothes off and showering in record time. (He usually took half-hour showers, to the irritation of his mother and sisters.) Living in a house with four other women meant certain cosmetic comforts had to be kept to a minimum, which meant using the bathroom for a total of five minutes each morning, making absolutely, positively sure Josh hadn't left a single hair in the sink after shaving, and always remembering not to confuse Dawn's sixty dollar facial cream with the shampoo. It was a hard life.
The reason Josh lived with four other women was that his father had, when Josh was five years old, assumed his responsibilities to his family were at an end, and consequently decided to move to France with his secretary. Josh wasn't sure if he believed that – the boss/secretary affair just seemed like such a cliché. Maybe his father had actually been a covert government agent who had gone into hiding after a compromised mission; perhaps he had been an activist for Greenpeace, found and killed after he discovered a secret testing facility in the Antarctic where Walrus' were biogenetically modified into marine assassins; or possibly he was a covert government agent who had been eaten by biogenetically modified Walrus' while on assignment in Antarctica. Whatever his fate, Josh didn't care. He was never openly hostile towards his erstwhile father, but neither was he at all concerned with the man's welfare, considering he had left Josh's mother alone with her four children. Still, Josh found it helped the healing process to let his imagination run wild, which he did frequently.
His father, though, wasn't the only feature of his rampant imagination. More often than not – indeed, once ever five seconds, according to a study he'd read – Josh's mind would be overcome by sex, sex and just a little bit more sex. He supposed it was normal to be obsessed with all things sex at his age; he was less certain whether or not an 18-year-old virgin was considered commonplace. He just wished he could exhibit some control over his urges, which, he guessed, meant feeding them – something he was not ready to do just yet. Still, constantly gawking at pornography, followed by frequent masturbation sessions, really did lose its novelty after a few thousand times.
By now, Josh was dressed in his school uniform (white shirt and grey chinos) and heading downstairs with his towel and dirty clothes clutched in a bundle under his arm. He deposited the bundle into the washing hamper and walked into the kitchen, where Jacquie and Alice, his sister's – both older – were eating cereal at the table, and his mother, Laura, was sipping a mug of steaming coffee (quite possibly her third already) and speaking on the phone. Dawn, his other sister, also older, was nowhere to be seen.
"No, no, Marcy," Laura was saying, "the deadline is Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah." Josh phased out the rest of his mother's illuminating conversation.
Now several steps into the room, all three women turned and looked at Josh with amused expressions, his mother's mingled with what appeared to be sympathy.
"What?" Josh asked, wishing Alice would shove her spoon in her mouth to muffle her giggles.
Jacquie waved her own spoon in the air, looking mirthful. "Saturday," she said succinctly.
Josh looked down at his clothes, then up at his sisters. "Shit!" He spun on his heel and stomped back upstairs, his sisters' now unrestrained laughter following him up, along with the sound of his mother saying: "Leave him alone, girls."
As soon as Josh had slammed the door of his bedroom, he pulled his shirt over his head, without undoing the buttons, and fished around in his closet for a top to wear. He picked a plain black T-shirt and a pair of jeans, which he traded for his school pants. He didn't bother returning his school uniform to his closet, but let it lie strewn on the floor instead, which gave him a small amount of satisfaction. He spent another several minutes thinking about whether there was anything else he had forgotten, so as to spare himself further ridicule from the giggling chorus downstairs. Finally satisfied, he returned to the kitchen.
He was aware, as he bustled around the kitchen preparing himself a bowl of cereal, of his sisters' jovial gazes following him. He plonked his cereal down on the table and saturated it with milk before consuming it in large spoonfuls.
"So," Jacquie said, "have a nice sleep, Josh?"
Josh glared at her. "No thanks to you," he replied.
"Aw, come on," said Jacquie, "I was just messing around. It got you up didn't it?"
"It also nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Oh, stop exaggerating," Jacquie said.
"What did you do?" asked Alice.
"I just yelled his name. Once!"
Alice giggled. "And what did he do?"
"He did this..." Jacquie proceeded to wave her arms about like a drunken zombie.
"I did not," Josh spat, both the words and bits of cereal.
"Ugh," Jacquie groaned, flicking grains of wheat and soggy sultanas off her blouse. "Gross."
Josh laughed. "Serves you right."
Jacquie finished her cereal, placed her bowl in the sink and walked towards the stairs, hitting Josh on the back of the head on her way.
"Ow!" Josh bellowed. He glared at her back for a while before turning back to his cereal. Alice was giving him a placatory smile.
"She's just teasing," she said.
Josh felt his anger abate, now that Jacquie was out of the room. She was always the mischievous one, and the eldest, at twenty-four. The truth was Josh didn't really mind her playful antics, and was usually even livelier himself. Today, however, he wasn't in the mood. Alice's calming tones, though, had a soothing effect on him, as they usually did when she played the peacemaker. She was four years younger than Jacquie, at twenty years old, and definitely the easiest to get along with out of Josh's three sisters. She could even be shy at times in public, Josh had noticed, which he thought was cute.
And then there was Dawn, the middle sister, or second eldest child. She was twenty-two and something of a nemesis to Josh. They just plain didn't get along. They fought, they squabbled, they quarrelled, they bickered – they did just about everything except kill each other, though they often came close. Dawn, and not Jacquie, was the true source of the practical jokes and carefully placed insults. She liked to go out a lot though, which suited Josh fine. She also seemed, to Josh, a bit of a slut, always going out with guys and wearing those skimpy clothes. Josh thought he would rather endure Jacquie's torment any day than be locked in a room alone with Dawn for even five minutes. They would surely kill each other then.
Luckily, Dawn seemed to be out already, which meant Josh was able to finish his cereal in peace. Laura had just finished her phone call, and was collecting her handbag and jacket, ready for work.
Josh's mother worked to support the family, as did Dawn and Alice. Josh and Jacquie saw to the housework and meals, which made for a good arrangement. After Josh's father had walked out, Jacquie found that she had been forced to take on most of the adult responsibility in the house, whilst her mother was out working. She didn't mind it at all, though, and the constant help from Josh made the work a lot easier.
All four children felt they had something of a duty to stay at home and help their mother, rather than move out periodically, leaving her alone. They found that no one really suffered from this arrangement. Laura though, was extremely thankful for the kindness of her kids, who meant the world to her. As a result, she was always lenient when it came to their socialising, which, Josh guessed, was part of the reason why Dawn was such a harlot.
"I'll see you later, kids," Laura said, kissing both Alice and Josh on the head. "Bye, Jacquie," she called out loudly, before leaving.
"What are you grinning about?" Alice asked Josh, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Huh?" Josh thought about this for a moment, and then realised he had been amused by thinking of Dawn as a harlot. He could insult her as much as he liked in his head, and she was none the wiser. "Oh, nothing."
Josh finished off the last of his cereal and washed his bowl in the sink. Alice came over and he took her bowl, washing it too.
"Thanks," she said, pushing herself up to sit on the bench. Kicking her legs like a child, she asked, "So, what are you doing today?"
Josh began loading the two bowls into the dishwasher. "I don't know," he replied. "Read a book maybe."
Alice stared off into space, as she often did, before turning back to look at Josh. She smiled. "Okay," she said, then jumped down off the bench, crossed the kitchen and threw her arms around Josh, hugging him tightly. "Happy Birthday."
Josh felt himself redden from the contact, which was something he got very little of, despite the fact that he lived with four women. He supposed he should be better suited to female company, considering this fact, and he guessed he was – just...not the contact. He put one arm around Alice awkwardly, thankful for the wet dishtowel in his other hand, providing a convenient excuse.
Alice pulled back, though she left her arms on her brother's shoulders. "They didn't forget," she said. "Mom's just busy and Jacquie probably forgot after you spat on her top."
"Yeah, I guess," Josh replied, somewhat dejectedly, though he had no idea why. He didn't really care that he had just turned eighteen, so why should he expect anyone else to?. Josh just didn't assign much importance to birthdays. Parties either, especially his own. He found the whole idea of throwing yourself a party rather vain.
