Carrie felt the need to confront Grant over his treatment of her friends.
The girls had all left; to say they were in a sour mood was an understatement. It had taken a lot of effort on Carrie's part to dissuade them from having Grant dropped off to jail: she did get them to admit that they had not been entirely blameless in the matter. They were all of that age when matters of love, sex, and romance could be so overwhelming—producing a sense of anticipation, and fear, so all-encompassing that reason and sanity went out the window—that mistakes like this were bound to happen. So they all had to chalk it up to a lesson learned. There was no way to stop certain boys from taking advantage of them, and girls had to take special care not to let themselves fall into a compromising situation.
Still, Grant had not behaved well.
She approached his room late in the afternoon. He had had football practice that day—the team had been meeting for weeks, long before the school term started, and their first game would be the very next weekend—and she felt he might be so exhausted that he wouldn't put up too much of a fuss over what she hoped was a severe tongue-lashing.
But whether she herself had the guts to deliver such a lecture was very much open to question. His invasion of her body had filled her with all manner of mixed emotions: there was the conventional horror of such a violation of social norms, but she couldn't deny that her lifelong worship of her older brother had led her to yield to his seizure of her body where other girls might have put up much stronger resistance. Even now her two intimate areas still tingled from Grant's probing of them; but in some ways his fastening of his mouth onto hers was an even more intimate gesture, and as she licked her lips she remembered the taste with a shudder of shameful pleasure.
For it was, in fact, the first time she had been kissed by a man.
So Carrie knocked on Grant's door far more tentatively than she had planned. For some moments nothing seemed to happen, and she wondered whether he had even heard the knock. But then the door abruptly opened, and a broadly smiling Grant was facing her. He looked her up and down and said blandly, "Hi, sis."
Carrie entered cautiously. Grant positioned himself down in front of an angled desk—rather like something an architect might use for drawing up blueprints—that he seemed to like for doing homework. He was sitting on a stool that made him seem taller than he was, and as he glanced at his sister with twinkling eyes she thought:
He always likes looking down on me.
"Grant," she said in what she hoped was her best schoolmarm voice, "you really weren't very nice to my friends last night."
His face betrayed an expression of mild surprise. "Not very nice? I thought I managed to please them pretty well—and you too."
Carrie flushed at that last barb, but went on: "You weren't nice! You—you forced yourself upon us."
Now Grant's face showed a scowl. "Hey, don't give me that! You're the one who called
me,
remember?"
"I know that, but—but we weren't expecting . . ."
"Well, you should have," he said hotly. "What did you expect me to do? Parade around in the buff and then just walk off, as if I was some Chippendale's model?"
That was, in fact, exactly what Carrie and the other girls seemed to have in mind—but now that Grant had said it out loud, the absurdity of the thing suddenly struck her. "Okay," she conceded, "we were pretty dumb in calling you over. But you still didn't have to do what you did—and both ways too." Again she flushed in remembrance, and she realized that her bottom was aching a bit more than her pussy.
A slow smile spread across his face. "Well, I have to say I surprised myself in my, um, endurance. But the five of you were too tempting to resist. And that includes you."
And with that, he grabbed her around the shoulders and forced her to stand between his legs as he held her close.
"Oh, Grant, lemme go," she whined, not even convincing herself.
"You're really kind of cute, you know?" he said softly, moving his hand down to her butt.
"Grant, stop it!" she whispered, fearful that their mother might come down into the kitchen at any moment. She had closed the door of Grant's room, but any noise that emanated from here could easily be heard in the kitchen.
"Oh, just relax, six," he said. And with a quick gesture he pulled her skirt and panties down to her knees and, after some firm strokes of her bottom, moved his hand to her front and parted the lips of her pussy.
"Grant, you mustn't!" she said, now terrified of detection. As Grant stroked her, she immediately became wet, and his fingers' surprisingly delicate rubbing of her clitoris made her worry that she would cry out involuntarily. Grant prevented that possibility by bending his head down and plastering his lips against hers. She had no choice but to drape her arms around her shoulders as she pushed her groin against his hand.
The whole business only took a few minutes, and as her climax washed over her she did moan—but the sound seemed to go right into Grant's mouth as their lips remained glued together. Grant knew enough about female desire that he continued to stroke her clit gently, prolonging the sensation almost beyond endurance. At last Carrie couldn't take it anymore, seizing Grant's hand and moving it away. She also pried herself out of his embrace.
"Grant, that was really naughty!" she said in a harried undertone.
He just gave her a crooked smile.
She angrily pulled up her panties and skirt and glared at her brother. She hoped this would be the end of it, but hadn't failed to notice a certain hardening in the area of his own groin. But he didn't seem inclined toward any more action: he all but turned away from Carrie and resumed focusing on whatever it was he was doing at his desk.
Carrie was about to turn on her heels and flounce out of the room when Grant said, "Say, that girl Marcia—"
"What about her?" she said sharply.
"I kind of like her. Why don't you have her pay me a visit tomorrow night? Can't be tonight—I need to rest up."
Carried stared at him, speechless.
"What makes you think," she said slowly in stupefied wonderment, "that she will want to have anything to do with you after what you did to her?"
Grant gave her a look that said,
Oh, come on, sis, she really liked it.
"I'm sure you have great powers of persuasion."
Carrie just shook her head. "You're so full of yourself," she said, mostly to herself, and stalked away.
*
Carrie waited till the next day to confront Marcia.
They met in the mall early in the afternoon. Both of them were stocking up on supplies they would need for college, and both studiously avoided talking about what had happened at the slumber party. Maybe, they concluded, if they forgot all about it, they could somehow pretend it hadn't happened.
But that hopeless dream didn't last very long.
As they sat down to refresh themselves at a Starbucks, Carrie gazed at Marcia with a strange expression. Marcia, for her part, had spent the previous hour chattering away on any and all subjects—except the one that was obviously in the forefront of both their minds.
