Party of Five

Author’s Note: Don’t forget to leave a comment or send an e-mail. If you have questions and leave your own address I’ll reply. More chapters to come. Enjoy.

***

Josh felt quite terrible on Wednesday morning, which he suspected was due to the row he’d had with Dawn. He still couldn’t get the things she’d said out of his mind, and he’d even caught himself rubbing his crotch last night while he lay in bed.

The worst part was, he wasn’t entirely sure how he should feel about it; gratified that he seemed to mean so much to her; annoyed that she could even think he’d betray Valerie for a casual fling; or sympathetic to her misery. Whichever it was, anger ruled them all, such as only Dawn could produce. Josh was fire-breathing, ear-smoking, blood-boiling angry, and he knew that was not a good thing.

He showered rather quickly and threw his uniform on hastily before going downstairs. He met Jacquie in the kitchen.

“Morning,” said Jacquie. Josh grunted in reply. “I take it you didn’t sleep well,” Jacquie inquired.

“Not really.”

“You fought with Dawn again, didn’t you?”

“Does that surprise you?” Jacquie smiled considerately. “Did you see her this morning?” Josh asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, just before she left.”

“How was she?”

“She seemed fine,” said Jacquie. “Like she always does.”

What!?

Josh wanted to yell. How could she possibly be fine? Unless she was acting, of course. Then again, perhaps it had been one of those spare-of-the-moment things that she forgot all about once she’d calmed down. And that meant that she didn’t really mean what she had said, which meant that she had just been using Josh for sex, not that they’d actually had sex. Josh felt even angrier.

“I’m off,” he told Jacquie, forgoing breakfast once again and heading out the door.

“Bye,” Jacquie called out, but the door was already shut.

***

The school day was infinitely boring. Again, Josh didn’t see Valerie much at all, which was rather a good thing, he supposed; he didn’t want her bearing any of his anger – she didn’t deserve that. All the same, Josh was dreading returning home, and so he took his time walking, effectively doubling the amount of time he usually took.

Surprisingly, and pleasantly, he found that the house was empty when he arrived. Jacquie must be out doing the grocery shopping, and Alice wouldn’t be home for at least another two hours. There was, however, a note on the kitchen table, written in Jacquie’s eloquent handwriting. It said simply:

Valerie called

. Josh supposed this meant she wanted him to call her back, which he was happy to do. He leapt up onto the bench, picked up the receiver and dialed her number.

He was surprised she had called so quickly. It was possible, though, that she had finished earlier than Josh had. The phone rung, once, twice, and then connected.

“Hello?”

“Valerie?”

“Josh?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Oh, hi.”

Josh leant his had back against the wall and as always, found himself lost in her voice. “You called before…”

“Yeah, I did. I, uh…I just wanted to tell you that…I won’t be able to make it on Friday.”

Josh repositioned himself slightly. He tried – and failed – to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Oh, how come?”

“Well…” Valerie sighed, “I’ve been thinking a lot and…I realized that I’m not really ready for another relationship. I know that sounds like an excuse, but…I don’t think it’s fair on you if I pretend I am.”

“Oh,” was all Josh could manage, due to the fact that his heart was in the process of splitting in two.

“I mean, I only broke up with Danny a few weeks ago, and I was going out with someone before him, and I just think I need a break – some time to myself.”

“Oh,” Josh repeated.

“Please don’t think that it’s you, because it’s not. I really would like to go out with you, and I’m hoping we can still be friends for now. I just…I just need some time.”

“Right,” said Josh. “Time.”

“I’m sorry,” Valerie said, sounding extremely genuine.

“No…I understand,” said Josh.

“You do?”

“Yeah. You need some time to yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Valerie. “I’d still like to be friends though…if you would.”

“I’d like that.”

“Thanks – for understanding.”

“No problem,” said Josh.

“Will I see you at school then?” Valerie asked.

“Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

“Bye, Josh.”

“Bye.”

Josh hung up the phone and exhaled deeply. So it was over before it had even begun. Josh was again struggling to choose which emotions to express. He was disappointed, of course, but not angry. Mostly, he was glad Valerie had told him, and that she had been thinking of him when making her decision. Maybe it was best; he’d seen her go through a bunch of bad boyfriends before, and that she was taking him seriously was a good sign. Still, it didn’t lessen the pain. What did lessen it was the fact that Valerie wanted to be friends. He would actually get to see her everyday and talk to her whenever he wanted. It could even be a good thing, to build up a rapport before they decided to give a relationship a go. And how many times had he written in his diary that all he really wanted was to be around her, to be considered her friend and to have her as his friend. No, it wasn’t all bad, and in the long run it would probably improve things between them.

Now in a strangely neutral and content mood, Josh hopped off the bench and walked into the living room. He felt almost better now than he had when he had been awaiting a date with Valerie. If he had simply been dating her, he would just be the boyfriend, restricted to only certain parts of her life. It would mean she’d still have her friends and he’d still have his friends and they’d just give each other that something else that friends couldn’t give you. Now, however, he could be both a friend and a boyfriend, in time, of course. He liked the idea of going to the movies for a date with a close female friend much better than going to the movies for a date with a stranger.

So now he and Valerie were friends, there was the definite possibility of a relationship in the future, he was acne-free, young, handsome and had actually gotten an A on his math’s assignment. Life was, again, looking up. Josh felt so good, in fact, that he resolved to patch things up with Dawn once she came home. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d say, as he was positive he’d done nothing wrong, but perhaps he could force an apology out of her and things would be okay between them again. Would she still want to make love to him? And did he want to? Well, of course he did, but he still felt kind of guilty when thinking about Valerie. She was his friend now, true, but it was almost as though they were betrothed; she had definitely hinted that there could be a future to their relationship. But no, it didn’t mean Josh had to stay celibate until then – he wasn’t even celibate now.

Around four-thirty, Jacquie arrived home with a trunk full of shopping bags.

“Josh,” she called out from the front door. “Can you give me a hand.”

Josh made his way outside and started fishing bags out of the trunk. He followed Jacquie inside and set them down on the table.

“Did you call Valerie back?” Jacquie asked.

“Yeah.”

“What did she want?”

“To tell me that she wasn’t ready to start dating again and she just wants to be friends for now.”

Jacquie stopped what she was doing and looked over at her brother with concern. “Oh, Josh, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s OK,” said Josh, meaning it. “I’m thinking maybe it’s better this way. I mean, this way we can get to know each other without the pressure.” Josh extracted a loaf of bread from one of the bags and handed it to Jacquie, who opened the refrigerator and put it inside. “This way I get to be around her and talk to her, which is what I really wanted in the first place.”

“Wow,” said Jacquie. “Five stars for maturity. If that had happened to me at your age I probably would’ve locked myself in my room and cried for weeks.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t cry,” said Josh.

“What about that time Dawn held you down and plucked your eyebrows?”

“That doesn’t count,” Josh replied defensively. “They were tears of physical pain, not emotional pain.”

“Whatever you say, Josh,” Jacquie said with a smile. “Still, I’m impressed.”

Josh began to wander whether this was the right time to bring up the little matter of their now dormant sex life, and the possibility of resurrecting it. Would Jacquie take offense to it? She definitely wasn’t as hot tempered as Dawn, but she might accuse Josh of simply ‘settling’ for her when he had no one else, only to run off again once Valerie decided she was ready for a relationship. Perhaps it would be better to wait and see if Jacquie brought the subject up.

“Casserole tonight,” said Jacquie, referring to what was on the menu for dinner.

“You need help?” Josh inquired.

“If you have time.”

“Sure.”

They spent the next two hours in the kitchen preparing the meal, neither of them saying much at all, other than the occasional request for a knife or the sponge. The entire time, Josh was wrestling with the idea of whether or not to talk to Jacquie about their relationship. His train of thought mostly followed the pattern:

OK, I’m going to ask her. Here goes

– at which point he would open his mouth –

Crap – I can’t. I’ll just wait for her to say something

– at which point he would close his mouth. Overall, it was a rather distracting mental loop that he followed and after two hours his thoughts were so muddled he decided it was best not to think of anything too strenuous for the time being. With luck, he thought, Jacquie would drop her tits in the water again tonight. Wouldn’t that be something…

Dawn didn’t arrive home for dinner, so Jacquie set aside her portion and the rest of them ate anyway. It was a quiet meal, as they usually were when Dawn was absent. Josh’s proclivity for starting conversation rivaled Dawn’s, but at the moment he was too preoccupied staring at Jacquie’s breasts to say anything. The meal ended on a similar silent note and Jacquie and Josh began on the dishes – again, in silence.

As Josh dried the items Jacquie handed him, he found his gaze begin to drop from her breasts to her ass, and was unable to pry his eyes off it for most of the time. Jacquie, fortunately, didn’t notice. She was keeping her attention on the washing, and though she didn’t seem to be ignoring Josh, he got the feeling she simply had nothing to say to him. Josh, however, was busy trying to come up with something witty or profound to say, that might trigger one of those deep and meaningful situations that more often than not led to raunchy sex. He supposed Dawn would be better suited to helping him out, as his lust had definitely overtaken his affection. But Dawn wasn’t here, and nor was she speaking to him. Still, that didn’t stop him from picturing her face between his knees telling him she was going to suck his cock until he came inside her mouth.

Oh God

. Josh absent-mindedly mashed his crotch against the cupboard.

“Having fun there?” Jacquie asked, holding a plate out expectantly. Josh immediately turned bright red and took the plate from Jacquie without meeting her eyes. Jacquie turned back to her side of the sink with an amused smile on her face.

“You know, Josh,” she said after a while, “now that you and Valerie aren’t going out together…” Josh turned towards her, looking rather anxious and excited, “…maybe we can still…” She didn’t finish, but Josh knew exactly what she was talking about. He smiled as Jacquie moved close to him, so that there hips were now touching.

“That is, if you want to,” said Jacquie.

Josh’s blood ran hot in the face of Jacquie’s proximity. She was right there, right next to him, and if his hands weren’t wet and soapy he could reach out and squeeze her ass.

“I want to,” Josh said. “If you do.”

“I already said I wanted to, Josh,” Jacquie said as though he should have remembered that fact.

“Oh, right,” Josh replied. He turned back to drying a glass he was holding and Jacquie turned back to her business. A minute passed before Jacquie glanced briefly over her shoulder and then leaned over and kissed Josh once on the lips.

***

Josh was lying awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, when he heard Dawn come home. He looked over at his alarm clock, reading the display as 1:30. It wasn’t like Dawn to stay out so late during the week. The weekend was a different story of course; it was considered commonplace for Dawn not to come home at all some nights.

Josh followed her aural progress as she made her way into the kitchen, opened and closed the fridge, did something for several minutes (possibly eat or drink whatever she’d removed from the fridge) and then start quietly up the stairs. He heard her pass his door and enter her own room, shutting the door behind her.

The thought that this might be the perfect time to talk to Dawn occurred to Josh. Everyone else would be asleep, and even if they weren’t, the rooms were relatively soundproof, as Josh had learnt from Dawn’s nightly escapades. When he thought about it though, she hadn’t brought a boy home in weeks, perhaps even a month or two. Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t screwing their brains out at a friend’s place or – knowing Dawn – in the middle of the dance floor at one of the clubs she went to.

Josh waited a while so that Dawn could get changed, brush her teeth and do whatever else women did before going to bed. Then, as quietly as he could, he pushed his bedcovers aside and hopped out of bed. Despite being a rather warm night, he was wearing his black polyester pajamas – not quite wealthy enough yet to afford the silk equivalents. Still, he liked them, and thought they leant him a mysterious brooding quality that girls seemed to go for, if television and movies had taught him anything – which they probably hadn’t.

He opened his door and padded barefoot down the hall, to the last room on the left – Dawn’s room. He put his ear to the door, and, hearing nothing, opened it quietly. Like most people, Josh reasoned, Dawn didn’t lock her door during the night, probably in case of fire or, more likely, in case of urgent urination. One just couldn’t operate a simple doorknob during the night as one could during the day.

As Dawn’s room faced the opposite side of the houses to Josh’s, it was receiving much more light from the full moon tonight, and wasn’t very dark at all. There was an almost dramatic feel to the room; the windows cast their crisscrossed shadows across the carpet, half of the bed was lit by the moon and the other half was in shadow. And, standing over by the full length mirror, was Dawn, the moonlight bouncing off her skin and making her look like an ivory sculpture in all her astonishing beauty.

“Josh!” she whispered heatedly. “What the fuck are you doing in my room?”

“Hello, to you too,” Josh whispered back angrily.

He registered quickly what Dawn was wearing, and were he wearing socks, they would have been knocked off. She had dressed for the hot weather, clad in a pair of pink silk boxers and a white sports bra. Her arms, her legs, her hair – even her prized abdominal muscles – were all sleek and soft in the darkness.

“I asked you what you were doing in my room,” Dawn snapped, still whispering.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Josh replied. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her stomach; it was so flat and toned – why couldn’t he have abs like that.

“Oh,” said Dawn, “so you want to talk to me now. Well, as it so happens, I’d rather you burn in hell.” She started walking towards her bed. “Good night, Josh,” she added, calling on her awesome power to make even a pleasantry sound like an insult.

“Wait,” said Josh, and she stopped, hands on hips, staring at him with an air of immense irritation.

“What?!” she demanded.

“You’re still upset at me…” Josh said.

“No, not really,” Dawn replied. “Just tired of looking at your face. So if you don’t mind…”

“Valerie called me today…” Josh said. He wasn’t sure how to begin, but he was quite positive an apology wasn’t in order. He

hadn’t

done anything wrong. He expected Dawn to stop again and look at him possibly with curiosity or with greater irritation. But she just kept on walking and started removing bracelets from her wrists and placing them on her bedside table.

“Did she?” she said. “Calling to dump you, was she?”

“Well, yes, actually,” Josh replied.

Dawn looked up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” said Josh. “She said she needed some time to herself; that she wasn’t ready for another relationship yet.”

Dawn resumed denuding her wrist of its trinkets. “Oooh, poor Joshy,” she said mockingly. “No sex for him after all.”

“I wasn’t going to have sex with her!” Josh spat.

“Why not?” asked Dawn. “She wouldn’t have you?”

Josh’s blood began to boil. “Is it so hard for you to comprehend the fact that some people actually go out together for reasons

other

than sex?”

Dawn pursed her lips, looking thoughtful as she removed the last bracelet from her slender wrist. “Hand jobs, I guess,” she said.

Josh sighed in frustration. “You’re impossible.”

“Why are you even telling me this?” Dawn asked. “I don’t care what happened with your little girlfriend.”

“Right,” said Josh, thoroughly unsurprised. “All you care about is fucking.”

“You won’t even get that from me now,” Dawn retorted, smirking derisively.

Josh opened his mouth to tell her, quite vehemently, that

she

was the one that had practically begged him for sex. He was silenced however, as Dawn took several steps towards him and said, “You thought you could just come crawling back after things didn’t work out with your little girlfriend and I’d still want to have sex with you? I don’t think so, pal,” she added, jabbing Josh in the chest with a finger.

“Ow,” Josh said, clapping his hands over his chest. “You’re the one who was all over me last night.”

“All over you?” exclaimed Dawn. “I was

not

all over you.

Now

, I’m over you.”

“You’ve got a poor memory then,” said Josh, taking a step back from his sister, whose eyes now seemed to be boring holes through the back of his skull.

“I think there’s a difference between being ‘all over you’ and just wanting a quick fuck,” said Dawn.

“So that’s all you wanted? A quick fuck?”

“What did you think I wanted?” Dawn asked. “A relationship? “I’m your sister for fuck’s sake.”

“I know that,” Josh replied rather lamely. And he did…know it. Of course he knew it. But still, would it kill her to show him a little affection, other than the purely physical kind, which she had certainly shown him thus far.

“You want me to tell you I love you and that you make me feel all tingly inside and I can’t stop thinking about you?”

“No…I don’t want that. But…”

“But what?”

“Jacquie doesn’t just do it for a quick fuck,” Josh said, finding nothing else to say.

“Then why don’t you go visit Jacquie’s room?” said Dawn. “Ask

her

to suck your cock. Oh, that’s right, she doesn’t do that.”

“I didn’t come here for…

that

,” said Josh, outraged.

“Then what

did

you come here for Josh?” Dawn asked, taking another step forward so that she was toe-to-toe with her younger brother. “What do you want from me?”

Josh noticed her breasts hovering inches from his chest, her eyes shining like gemstones in the moonlight, and the way she managed to be looking

up

at him, rather than eye-to-eye. Her face was astonishingly pretty. In the back of his mind somewhere – in that place that he kept his fantasies about Mrs. Austin, his science teacher, and the memory of having his pants pulled down by Dawn in the middle of a swimming complex when he was little – Josh remembered that he had blown his load on that face. He shook his head furiously and tried to focus.