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The first time he ever brings her back to the apartment, you know you're fucked.
She's a veritable vision with platinum blonde hair and lips painted black that smile like they're hungry for secrets. When she meets your eyes through thick, mascara-brushed lashes, it's a bright little flicker of violet against pale skin and dark eyeliner. She's in a corset, for God's sake.
And she's sixteen, your brother reminds you with preemptive spite. Even behind your shades, he can see you eyeing her. Eight years is way too fucking much, and way too fucking illegal.
They disappear into his room and you hear nothing but the heavy bass line of something too rock metal for his tastes for the next hour. She emerges with every hair in place and her lipstick freshly reapplied, throws you a saccharine smile to wet your cock and slips out the door without a word.
Their closed-door bedroom meetings carry on through the month, twice or three times a week. Now and then you can hear them, during a break between songs. She's quiet but earnest, an entire anthology of moans wrenched up from her stomach and spilled out her mouth. He's a cavalcade of obscenities as usual, words strung together without regard to structure or sense.
Once, the music malfunctions, falling silent entirely. They don't stop to fix it, and you find yourself listening from your room as they groan and curse and grunt. You get off just after he does, a hand over your mouth. The walls are paper-thin.
They murmur and he laughs; skin slaps skin and the bed creaks. You breathe slow and shallow until the music is turned back on. When she comes, you can barely hear it over the noise.
She stops on her way out one day, a hand on the back of the couch while you watch TV like your life depends on Daniel Tosh and his insipid sense of humor. You can't hear what he's saying, only your breathing and the soft rustle of her skirt.
"Your brother thinks you're gay."
It's a complete non sequitur. Anything would be, but this one in particular prompts you to turn around and look at her. She's smiling that secret-eating smile.
"But he thinks a lot of things that are wrong, doesn't he?"
You can't answer her. You're not sure what to say. Is she calling you out on your raging hard-on for her, or is she just making fun of your brother?
She answers your question when she leans down close, smelling like lilac and your brother's aftershave and a lot like sex. "He also thinks I've already left." Before you can tell her what a bad idea this is, she's pressing a dainty black kiss beneath your jaw, breath hot on your ear, and you're rock-hard.
It's over too fast. She pulls back, wetting her smudged lips and looking too satisfied for a sixteen-year-old girl, and she turns to leave with her hips asway.
You're still sitting there when your brother comes out a few minutes later. He doesn't say anything, but you know he sees the lipstick on your neck because he slams the front door when he leaves. He's gone for two days.
When he comes back, it's with a pack of cigarettes and an attitude problem. You confiscate the smokes and cut him down to size fast; leave him nursing his wounds on the kitchen floor.
He doesn't talk to you for four more days. An entire week has passed when you walk into the living room and find him stretched out on the couch in nothing but a snug pair of jeans, hard cock bulging under the zipper.
"What the fuck?"
He lolls his head to look at you like a lazy animal and palms his hard-on. "Hey, bro," he says, mouth quirking. "Wanna fuck?"
You walk back out.
He does it again in the kitchen the next day, perched on the counter in his boxers and fellating a popsicle. He takes it into his mouth until his throat constricts, and while you admire his control as he slides it back out slowly, you don't think his little show is having the desired effect. You tell him so.
"Well, hey," he says with lips stained cherry, "I could always give you the real deal."
Fine. If he thinks he wants your dick, let him have it. He won't even know where to start.
Unbuckling your belt, you approach the counter. "Yeah, alright."
He freezes, lips poised over the popsicle. You can almost see the gears turning.
"Uh... right now?"
"Oh, yeah," you answer, unzipping your jeans. "You offered. Ain't polite to be a cocktease." You drop them to the floor and look up at him. Sitting on the counter, he's taller than you by an inch or two. "Get down here."
The silence that hangs in the room is heavy and lasts at least a fucking year. Finally, he abandons the popsicle in the sink and lowers himself to his feet, looking cagey. You watch in disbelief as he kneels in front of you.
Before he can touch you, you catch his wrist, grabbing it with enough force to hurt. He winces and glares.
"You want your dick sucked or not?"
"Not by you." You haul him to his feet. "What the fuck are you doing, Dave?"
He's avoiding your gaze so hard that he's tucking his chin into his chest, that's what he's doing. "Nothing," he mutters, trying to twist his wrist free. "Let me go, jackass."
"Not until you tell me what the fuck is up."
You wait while he scans the room, looking for an escape or trying to formulate a plan. When that fails, his shoulders slump and he says a word so quiet you can't understand it. You shake him by the wrist.
"Speak up, kid."
"Rose," he snaps, yanking back on his wrist almost hard enough to pull you off-balance. He's getting stronger and stronger these days. "Rose wants to bang you," he says irritably. "I thought— if we could have a threesome, maybe...."
Judging by the look on his face, he's correctly identified that idea as really goddamn stupid, so you don't feel too bad when you let him go with a laugh. "Wow. You can't imagine how much I wish you were kidding."
You walk back out again.
Now when he avoids you, it's like a skulking animal; a dog that pissed on the carpet and got kicked and isn't sure if he's still in trouble or not. You let him stew. You're pretty pissed, yourself.
You've lost track of the days of sullen silence by the time she shows up.
Rose. You figure that's her name, anyway. She sits at the bar and watches you do dishes, glances twice at Dave's closed door but doesn't go anywhere.
"He ruined it, didn't he?" is what she finally says, chin in her hand.
You stash a plate in the cupboard with more force than is strictly necessary. She's agitating just for being here. "Ruined what? Your foolproof five-step plan to get your man and nail his brother, too?"
Her lips purse in displeasure. "Yes. He ruined it with his own five-step plan to nail his brother. I imagine you've been put off of sixteen-year-olds now."
"I was never onto sixteen-year-olds, kid." You yank the plug from the drain and toss it at the back of the sink. You're out of paper towels, so you dry your hands with six napkins.
"You were into me," she quips. Somehow it doesn't sound as conceited as the words are, just simple, matter-of-fact, unemphatic. "But I guess you're not into him. Is it because he's your brother, or are you not into men at all?"
You lean against the edge of the sink. "What does it matter to you?"
"It doesn't matter to me, but he seems pretty broken up about it."
Broken up about it? You bark out a laugh. She's got this all wrong. "You don't get it, do you?"
The look on her face says it all: apparently she doesn't get it, and she's not very happy to discover that. Rather than demand an explanation, she waits.
"His five-step plan was to nail his brother so we could have a threesome and his girlfriend wouldn't leave him. He thought if he got me in bed with you two, you'd be happier."
There's something pitiable in the way her expression changes. Belligerence and indignation give way slowly to comprehension, affection and something like guilt.
"Oh," she says softly. "... Oh."
"Yeah," you say. "Oh."
The next two weeks are not unlike that spring montage from Bambi, a couple of clumsy, long-legged fawns shyly headbutting each other and feeling their way gracelessly around their twitterpation. Rose is tentatively delighted to find Dave more sincere than expected, and Dave is awkwardly sweet and trying to please.
They're back to fucking with the music cranked up, and it's a tax on your cock every time, but at least she doesn't eye you up anymore. When she leaves, less and less frequently, she offers you a wan, almost humbled smile on her way out.
Dave is a real treat, almost enthusiastic when she's not around to tease him for it. He talks about her with a fervor that's downright embarrassing.
You're glad to hear it.
Months later, the entire ugly mess has been put out of your head altogether. They're still fucking like rabbits, and you've even learned to tune them out, which has done wonders for your productivity. Everything's going pretty great for everyone.
That should've been your first red flag.
When Rose extends the invitation to dinner, it's with a pleasant smile and a hand on your wrist as she's leaving one Sunday morning, post-breakfast. Her mother would like to meet Dave, she explains, and his brother, too.
"Sure, why not?"
Her house is huge and vaguely exotic in its minimalism. You appreciate the decor, although the giant wizard statues at the end of the driveway are a little disconcerting.
Rose sees you both in and ushers you to a tall blonde hovering over the stove. She makes only the briefest of introductions before she pulls Dave away, up the stairs, and leaves you alone in the marble-and-chrome landscape of the kitchen with her mother.
The resemblance is uncanny. Her mother's eyes are a rich candied pink, and her hair is longer, but she has the same plush lips and the same body, if a little fuller in places. Her rings clink against her martini glass when she takes a sip. The rim is stained black.
"So," she says with a smile that's more mischief and wit than starved for secrets, "Rose tells me you're single."