Chapter Text
The area is pretty much perfect. Trees for miles, the grass stomped out and decayed due to the autumn weather. I don’t hear any cars or signs of human life, just the stillness of the woods and all its peculiarities. There are some targets stuck to some of the trees, the paper thick and crinkly from the elements. One of them has a human shaped outline on it, a dark shadow of a person with a bullseye right in the center of his head where a brain would be. The edges of him are all torn up with giant holes splattered over his body.
I find casings under my sneakers every which way and kick away at empty beer cans and bottles. There’s an old beaten down structure in the distance, the remaining of some old shack that’s now dilapidated and sunken in on itself. It has a twin, just as precarious looking but it’s managed to keep its shape over what I can only guess is years of neglect.
I try to guess what this place looks like at night. Something out of a horror movie. I’m filming all of it, zooming in on anything of interest.
“I feel like we’re gonna run into a crackhead or something out here.”
I turn the camera over to my best friend, Ekko, zooming in on his face as he looks around the place with skeptical eyes.
“Nah,” I brush him off. “Just trigger happy rednecks.”
“That ain't better,” he says, kicking at a bottle. “They’ll want to use me for target practice.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” I reassure him in a sickly sweet voice and get flipped off for my efforts. I zoom in on his finger. It’s covered in silver rings.
“They’ll snap you like a twig and use you for firewood,” he says matter of factly.
“They would probably just throw me in the back of their way too big pick-up truck and have their way with me.”
“Jesus, Jinx.” But he’s laughing. I’ve been slowly contaminating him with my crude sense of humour. He hates it.
We’re walking to the flattened shack now. I film the ground. You see my flimsy converse crunch at the drying grass and dirt. Sometimes my attention shifts when I catch some trash stuck in a bush or some rusty paint cans that look like they’ve been sitting there for a hundred years. It’s all interesting to me, it’s all texture.
When we make it to the pile of wood planks and roof, Ekko kicks at it like he’s testing to see if something will jump out. Nothing does, the structure just makes a big clunk noise. Looking around, hands shoved in his giant hoodie, he asks, “So, how’s Vi doing?”
I pause and zoom in on a caterpillar the color of a bright green highlighter. It’s sitting on a leaf munching away.
“You know, she’s Vi. Same ol, same ol.”
“I mean, not really.”
I tense up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ekko is quiet for a moment, seeming to be heavily contemplating the old beaten down shack. But then he says, “I dunno. It’s been kind of awkward around her lately.”
I stop filming the caterpillar, the camera falling back down to my feet. “Why?”
He shrugs, looking bashful at bringing it up. “She’s just so quiet now. Anytime we all hang out she’s just all silent. All she does is drink and ignore us.”
I would have tried to defend her but the truth was, I was well aware of what he was talking about. I could have chalked it up to us being three years younger than her, just a bunch of snot nosed kids in her eyes, but that wasn’t Vi. She never was above hanging out with us, never made us feel like less even when the gap felt way more substantial. Like when I was nine and Vi just looked like an adult to me. It didn’t even register that she was a kid just like I was.
And I know that’s still true, that Vi doesn’t look down on us, but she’s different now. She doesn’t like to come out of our shared room, doesn’t like to do a lot of things. I drag her out when I can but it’s the same story everytime. It’s her looking on at us as if we were some separated thing from her.
“She’s still the same old Vi,” I say. It’s true but untrue. “Besides, it’s not like she’s gonna bite you. She’s-,” I hesitate. “Depressed, or something.”
“Yeah,” he says, conceding. “I’m just saying.”
I roll my eyes. “Dully noted.”
I lift the camera back up to film the caterpillar again but it’s gone. We walk over to the other shack, bigger in size. I peak my head through the door. “No crackheads,” I announce.
We walk inside. It’s stuffy and quiet. Trash littering the hard wood planks of the floor.
“More room than I thought,” Ekko says.
“Mm.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s great. We can’t really use the shack but I think the location is good.”
We quietly explore, though there’s not a lot of ground to cover without getting lost.
“If you ever want to talk, you know I’m around,” Ekko finally says.
I turn off the camera, nod.
We head back to the car, hiking back through the long grass and dry branches. We don’t really talk for the drive, instead, jamming out to a Fugazi cassette I found lying at my feet, the volume a screeching high. Ekko’s car is a janky Dodge Caravan his foster dad loans him, ugly and brown and the cassette player all taped up because Ekko is too lazy to fix it. The music comes out all warbly sometimes and skips when we hit a bump.
Ekko drops me off at home and I hop out and wave back at him as I skip up the creaking wooden steps to our front door. The screen is all shredded up from racoons. I give Ekko one more wave before he begins to drive off and I let myself in using my key.
It’s still a little early so dad’s not home yet so I let myself walk around freely. Mom’s usually taking a nap around this time because Isha is usually taking a nap around this time. I grab a snack from the cupboard and thinking about it for a moment, decide to grab a beer from the fridge. They’re never missed.
With my bounty, I tiptoe downstairs to the basement where me and Vi’s shared room is. We used to have separate ones before Isha came along. I often feel guilty for encroaching on Vi’s space but considering her room was the only one besides the living room that had a TV, I get over that guilt pretty quickly.
I give a few taps on the door before letting myself in. “I’m home, so you better be decent,” I call out, covering my eyes with my free hand.
I make a big show of wobbling around blindly before I feel a pillow hit my face.
“I’m just sitting here you dork. Like always.”
Yeah right, I’ve caught Vi masturbating like five times. And predictably, when I uncover my eyes, Vi is lounging on her bed reading a porno mag. She’s laying over the covers in a pair of old boxers and way too tight tanktop. She looks bored as her eyes scan over the glossy pages before lazily turning over to the next ones, like she’s reading the morning paper or something.
While she’s distracted, I quietly set the snacks and beer down, and put my backpack to the side after digging the camera out. I zoom in on the dirty magazine cover before the lens starts to roam over my sister’s body. She’s not as in shape as she used to be when she was doing MMA, but she’s kept a lot of muscle. In any case, her body is way more impressive than mine, that’s for sure. She’s got curves, real one. She’s got a broad chest, big arms, and pillowy thighs that could crush you. All of her could crush you. Her stomach is softer than it used to be, courtesy of all the empty beer cans that litter the room, but I like it. I like all of her.
I can see her nipples through the thin material of her tanktop and zoom in on them, just for a moment before directing the camera to her disengaged eyes.
When she notices I’m filming she sighs and chucks the magazine at me which I swiftly dodge, already seeing it coming a mile away, cackling as I evade her attack.
“I told you to stop filming me like a creep.”
The magazine is lying at my feet so I film the splayed open pages with keen interest. Vi, for being the biggest dyke I’ve ever known, is really obsessed with straight porn for some reason.
“You’re my best subject,” I say, ignoring the creep comment. “My muse and all that.”
“Fuck off.”
It’s got no bite. Vi sounds pissed off all the time anyway so it’s hard to really get offended.
She relaxes back into the mattress, resting her shaggy head on crossed arms and turning her attention to the TV which is playing Friday the 13th. She looks like she’s barely paying attention.
I crawl in with her, carefully placing myself on her chest, curling my head under her chin and wrapping myself around her body despite her half-hearted complaints. She’s a little sweaty. The musk of her damp skin is so visceral to me, invading my senses. My camcorder is nestled in my left hand. I point it down at me so I can see what I look like in this moment later. This moment where I’m giddy and laying on my sister’s soft chest.
“It smells like beer and sex in here,” I say randomly, breaking up the little peace we managed to build.
“Fuck off,” Vi says again. “Don’t be gross.”
“Were you jerking off?”
“Jinx,” she groans. “Christ.”
“I just know the pages of that magazine are sticky as fuck.”
I’m almost shoved off the bed but I just squeal in glee, holding onto her as tightly as I can. Vi could easily throw me off, but she doesn’t. She could fuck me up if she wanted to but she never does, at least never on purpose.
“I don’t jerk off to those ones, I appreciate them.”
“Appreciate them with a hand down your pants-”
This time I’m actually shoved off the bed and I roll onto the ground with a thump but I quickly scramble to climb back on her. I wrestle back into her warmth and either she’s too lazy to push me off again or she just doesn’t give a shit anymore but she lets me and we get back into our original position. I make sure my camera is okay before getting comfortable again.
Laying like this, I’m in direct sight with Vi’s armpit. It has fine dark hairs that curl slightly. It kind of matches the happy trail that leads into her boxers. I can imagine myself leaning over and licking the musky skin there, smoothing over her hair with my tongue, like I’m grooming her. I want to feel how soft it is, want to feel Vi tremble into my mouth. Want to do the same for other places too. Instead, I allow my fingers to delicately graze over the dark hair there. Vi’s body shudders at the sudden touch, probably more in surprise than being ticklish. She slaps my hand away and covers her armpit protectively, glowering down at me.
“I like your armpit hair,” I say, avoiding her eyes. “I think it’s kind of sexy.”
Vi swallows up my words. I can just imagine the face she’s making.
“Why don’t you grow some yourself then?” she asks, offering a practical solution to counteract my weirdo statement.
“I guess I’m just addicted to stereotypical beauty standards like most girls.” I sigh dramatically.
When Vi snorts I act offended and poke her ribs in retaliation. “What?” I ask. “You don’t think I’m beautiful?”
“You’re very beautiful,” Vi says, blunt and humorless. “You’re just anything but stereotypical and you’re definitely not like most girls.”
I think I’m blushing and hide my face more into her chest. Did I get that? I look at my camcorder, and yeah it’s still on, little red light blinking at me. I know what she actually means. What she means is I’m a crazy bitch that will never be a normal girl ever, but the way she said it just now, I take it as a compliment. She called me beautiful afterall. I don’t know if I believe it, but if she does, then who am I to stop her? I digest her words a little more before sitting up and straddling her waist and pointing the lens down at her. She looks up stony-faced, a thick dark brow arching while she waits for whatever annoying thing I’m going to do next.
She’s still covering her armpits, protecting herself from any more unwanted touching.
“Move your hands,” I instruct. “I’m gonna go find a bunch of smoking hot lesbians and show them your sexy armpits.”
“Perv,” she mutters but ultimately, does as she’s told, resting on her folded up arms again.
I zoom on her face, closing in on the faint freckles that dust over her cheekbones. I have to really zoom in to capture them. Same with her crooked nose. It’s not quite as pronounced as it is in reality. The camera kind of smooths it out, makes it harder to see unless I get the right angle. Her lazy smile, barely a smile. Just a line on her face disguised as disinterest, just the barest of twitches at the corner of it, doesn’t come off as exhilarating as it does seeing it up close in person. Her vibrant blue eyes look grey. The pink in her cheeks is dull and fuzzy.
You can capture a lot with a camera. But you can’t capture the way I’m thrumming behind it, can’t capture how it feels, us pressed together like this.
I focus on the armpit but get distracted by the rest of her arm.
“Flex for me,” I command, now in director mode, all professional.
Vi does. She’s rarely able to resist showing off, even now. Her bicep bulges out proudly, her forearm all defined, her skin stretching taught over her muscles. I film her flexing bicep while settling more onto her waist, shifting ever so slightly. Rubbing on her subtly, getting little gut punches of arousal with every slight movement.
I started doing this when we were younger. You know, rub up on her like she was a toy or something and Vi let me, always. It might have started as this self soothing thing but I think it just felt good. It was like a special kind of cuddling and Vi wouldn’t comment, just sit back and let me do my thing.
I feel something pull at the pit of my stomach and hold in an embarrassing noise. Vi feels so hot under me and I’m having trouble focusing on aiming the camera. Instead, I’m sorta using it to hide my flushed face as I look down at where our bodies are pressed.
I press down with more intention, my breathing coming out shaky. I see Vi flush through the lens. She brings up unsteady hands and holds my waist, her touch uncertain.
“Okay, enough.” Vi breaks me out of my thoughts and pushes me, telling me to get off her. I do, closing the camera and walking stiffly to my bed on the other side of the room. I lay down, curling on my side, still sneaking glances at her. I feel hot and sticky between my thighs. The older I’ve gotten the less tolerant she’s gotten of my certain brand of… affection, especially lately. She’ll endure it, but always pushes me away in the end. I think we’ve both known for a long time that it’s totally inappropriate but neither wants to say something.
First time I knew my feelings towards Vi were more than sisterly, I was nine. It’s hard to explain, and I’ve never tried before. It happened fast and I wasn’t all that surprised at myself. I think it’s like when some people know they’re gay– just like that. It snuck up on me and that was my life now.
I was never dumb enough to think I could try and get with her. I had fantasies of us dating and kissing, and of course, there was our special cuddling, but I could never delude myself into believing I could be anything more than her annoying little sister. I don’t know, sometimes I wondered if I grew up hot enough she would at least consider it but I was sixteen and skinny and pale and nothing like the type of girls she drooled over. If I wasn’t her sister maybe I could’ve gotten a pity fuck at best.
When I first found the camera, a clunky hi8 that was found buried under wires, tapes, and defunct gadgets in a dusty box in the garage, I had used it to film and take pictures of Vi. Seriously, I was like her stalker for years before I started getting serious about the whole filmmaking thing. Then it was claymation movies, then skating videos for Ekko and his friends, then just capturing the day to day.
The old tapes had footage of birthdays, holidays, roadtrips… Stuff that used to matter but not anymore. It was like this bizzaro version of my family that didn’t seem so familiar anymore. Everybody tried to smile for the camera, tried to make themselves a normal family and who knows, maybe we were a normal family at some point, but I never remembered it that way.
The old tapes have Mom and Dad smiling and joking with each other. There’s footage of Vi, younger, running around with an energy that’s been slowly drained from her throughout the years. She smiles more in this one tape where she’s pushing me on the swings than I’ve seen from her in years. She keeps pushing me, way too high for someone too small but all I do is squeal and giggle, not scared at all, holding onto the chains for dear life, kicking my small legs like I’m running through the air.
Dad and mom don’t bother with keeping the memories anymore so the camera is mine now and the memories are pretty much forgotten, just taking up space.
Ekko and his skating buddies are always eating shit and flubbing tricks, boards zipping past their feet as they hit the ground. Bodies rolling around, falling, skidding on concrete and sidewalks. I once made a movie that’s just that, people tumbling around, getting hurt. Vi’s in that one. Before when she ate the most shit out of all of them, doing a trick because she was dared to even though she didn’t skate because that’s just how she was. She skid across the asphalt, her arm reaching out trying to protect herself, the skin of her forearm dragging against the rocks and cement, leaving a little red trail behind her, chin bumping onto the ground, a red mess of blood oozing from her teeth and dripping down her chin into a puddle onto the sidewalk. She had to go to the hospital but ended up fine. They just wrapped up her arm and sent her on her way. She still has scars from that day. A little one barely noticeable on her chin, and a big one on her forearm that reaches up to her bicep.
I film Vi’s sixteenth birthday party. Our parents let us throw up a little shindig in the basement where we squeeze in a crowd of rowdy teens, mostly her friends, some of mine. There’s music blasting and pizza boxes scattered everywhere. Overly sweet soda in plastic cups slosh around, some cups having the familiar distinct bitterness of ethanol, the smell setting your nose on fire. Mom comes to embarrass Vi in front of all our friends, coming down with a supermarket cake and singing happy birthday in her raspy voice. Vi ignores the snickers, but I catch the little bit of pink that catches on her cheeks.
I film her unwrapping her gift from me, away from the noise in one of the far off rooms. It’s hers. It has a punching bag hanging from the plaster, posters of MMA champions cover the walls, a floor length mirror with a big crack in it. She obediently sat on the bed, eyes closed, but I know she’s peeking. Still, I give her the new gloves, sitting at the bottom of an old gift bag I found in the back of a storage closet. It has snowmen and reindeer on it.
I filmed her going at her punching bag, fists flying out like bullets until she’s exhausted and laughing, a little drunk, just like me. This is the first time I’ve ever been drunk and she has to hide that fact from mom and dad for the rest of the night. She lets me sleep in her room that night and makes fun of my beet red face and uncontrollable hiccups. I just want to wrap around her and she lets me. That night she held me down and had me squirming under her weight. I lifted my hips up into her and she took it as me trying to escape and pushed me even further into the bed.
It was only a few months later that I also caught her fucking up her ACL during a match. I barely knew what happened. One moment she looked normal, looked as confident as always and then she was on the floor, holding her leg in pain.
I didn’t even know it was going to be that serious until surgery was involved. The skateboard accident seemed like it would have left a more lasting effect than her just crumpling on the ground like that. Until Vi couldn’t fight anymore and had to do physical therapy all the time. Until she got all sulky and even my goofy faces and jokes barely phased her anymore.
It was during this time that Mom and Dad had another baby. Isha was born and everything seemed to get worse. All the effort our parents would have put into getting Vi to heal and recover went to Isha, both of them these tightly wound anxiety husks arguing over every little thing. It never really got better after that. Vi got quiet and withdrawn and our parents never stopped fighting.
I kinda want to talk about it but Vi doesn’t really like talking about it. We have this quiet acknowledgment that everything around us is burning down but that’s it. I want to talk to Vi so badly. We don’t talk really, not about the stuff that matters.
I film the decay of the house, how the wallpaper is starting to slide down the walls, the waterstains, the dirty carpet, all the mess that gets scattered over every available surface. The backyard is a resting place for all the junk they can't keep in the house, all the broken and unneeded things that have no other place to go. I film my mother, who always looks a little out of it, a little lost. She’ll smile when I point the camera at her but it never quite reaches her eyes. My father stares at the camera like he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Isha loves the camera, thinks it’s this shiny toy, always tries to reach for it and cries out with high-pitched baby laughter when I deny her. Vi, who used to perform anytime the camera was on her, now flips me off or shoves it away if I get too close.
When I miss her I look at old fights she had that I happened to tape. My camera work was shoddy back then, always shaky, and sometimes I got distracted filming other stuff, but there was enough of it there that I got to look at the old Vi again.
Maybe it was seeing her fight. She wore a sports bra and little shorts that showed off her muscled thighs. She was spry and arrogant and sweaty and my brain liked that. The other girls she fought were in much of the same state but I never noticed them, I always just looked at her.
Sometimes she got the shit beat out of her. Sometimes she had a big victorious smile, blood drying on her nostril, bruises nice and fresh on her cheek, and I was captivated– trying to take pictures with my brain. I wanted to press on her bruises and see what kind of wounded sounds she would make. I thought about her skating accident, and how she writhed on the ground like a wounded animal. She was like a little worm in a jar that I wanted to shake and examine.
I don’t know. I don’t know why my crippled adolescent brain saw this stuff as sexual, I don’t know why I get so carnivorous when it came to Vi. Most kids have their sexual awakening in fairly normal circumstances, mine was just shoved onto me without much thought or even escalation.
I had this fucked up dream. Sometimes, I still have it and it get’s even more fucked up. Vi kills our parents, chops everyone up with an axe as I watch every sinewy detail unfold. Chops up mom’s stomach until it becomes just a pile of gore, bashes the axe into dad’s head. It was almost comical how easily she tears their limbs off in red bursts of jelly just like the movies. She chops and chops until they’re a big mix-match of body parts around the room, blood splatters and puddles of red all over the place.
The first time I dreamed it, I woke up and was sticky and wet between my legs. When I stuck my hand down my panties and brought it out for observation, it was blood. My period. My first one. A red pulpy mess mixed with syrupy wetness. I groaned before retreating to the bathroom to clean up the mess and figure out how to put in a tampon, all shaky, the remnants of that dream taunting me.
I couldn’t help but feel irrationally mad at Vi. Not even for the understandable stuff like murdering our family, but for the fact she made me horny, like it was her fault that she turned me on and apparently when I was turned on I got violent dreams. I ended up giving her the cold shoulder for like three days before I got over myself. And Vi, despite not doing anything wrong even, tried to make up for whatever imaginary line she had crossed. I just couldn’t shake the image of blood splattered all over her gorgeous face and I stopped being pissed about it.
Those dreams are far and in between now, but not gone.
“Hey”, I call out later, when the lights are off and I’ve popped in one of my favorite movies into the VCR. Evil Dead 2. Vi likes this one as well.
Vi is watching with vague interest, nursing the beer I brought from downstairs. She looks at me.
I tell her, “There’s a Halloween party happening in the woods next week. You should come.”
“You mean with a bunch of sophomores from a school I don’t even go to anymore?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like a good waste of my time.”
“Come on. There’ll be beer and stuff. You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to. Me and Ekko found this creepy place today, it’s awesome.”
Vi glances at me. “Why do you want me to come so bad?”
I bite down a nervous grimace. “Don’t you wanna get out of the house?”
I already know how she’s going to react.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she laughs. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Come onnn,” I whine, sitting up. “Aren’t you tired of laying around doing nothing all day?”
Vi ignores me, takes a drink.
“Vi.”
“I don’t need my baby sister to act like my mom, come on, that’s annoying.”
“You’re the one who’s annoying!” I lash out, throwing one of my old stuffed animals at her. “Stop moping all the time and come out and do something with me. I don’t even care if you don’t say a single word all night and just drink, just come on!”
Vi is looking at the TV, it’s grim blue dark colors painting over her face.
“I wish my arm was a chainsaw,” she hums.
“Viii,” I whine some more. She throws my stuffed animal back at me, though not as hard as I threw it at her.
Eventually, I say, “Please?” in the most little girl pleading voice I can manage. The one that really gets her.
“Hm?”
“The party?”
“Fine,” she says. “You’re just going to keep bothering me until I go anyway.”
I hum happily, sinking back in bed and half paying attention to the movie. Mostly I’m thinking about Vi. I’m always thinking about Vi.
I think about my dream of her covered in blood. Maybe I’ll make a movie one day where she’s the main killer. I’ll have her chop up parents that resemble ours.
That night I don’t dream of a bloody crazed Vi, it’s just darkness until morning.
The week goes by pretty quickly and Wednesday night I’m getting ready. Not really dressing as anything, even though I’m making Vi wear a Jason mask we had lying around.
“Vi’s taking me out tonight,” I told our parents earlier over dinner. We have that weird dinner rule where we all have to eat at the table together despite nobody wanting to face or talk to each other. Me and Isha do the most talking. Vi kind of just sulks in the corner while dad watches the TV that sits in the livingroom, usually playing the news. Mom just kind of politely listening.
Dad turns to Vi. “Where?”
“Just a small get together,” I answer for her.
He looks between the both of us before nodding. “Be quiet coming home. I don’t want you waking Isha up.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, pinching her cheek, making her squeal while pushing me away.
“You’re chaperoning your sister,” he tells Vi, voice steely. “So no drinking, understood?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not stupid.”
I hold back a snort and stuff my face with some underseasoned cauliflower.
After dinner we wait outside on the curb. Ekko is going to pick us up. I’m wearing my sleep away camp shirt and painted my nails orange and black. Even with the mask, I can see her being grumpy.
She is predictably quiet in the car while all of us are chattering over each other, excited for the party. I keep my camera safely in my lap. At one point I catch Vi looking out the window into the dark.
“Go have a drink,” I tell her when we pull up to the party, everyone’s cars parked together. We’re out in the woods me and Ekko had surveyed earlier. It’s more alive than it would usually be, lights strewn about trees, hanging from branches, lamps hanging around. There’s even a fire going on. A giant boombox is playing the beastie boys. “Loosen up.”
Vi does so, laying against a tree, far off from everyone else, her mask pulled up awkwardly over her forehead so she can drink.
I lurk around the party, filming it in broken fragments of sneaky glances into groups of overzealous conversation, people speaking over each other, rowdy boys yelling, awkward teens flirting. Every once in a while I zoom in on Vi, always in her spot unless she’s grabbing another beer from one of the many coolers. She looks out of place, older than everybody. A real loner.
I make my way to her, myself having a pretty good buzz going, a couple shitty beers already down the hatch along with some shitty weed.
“Hey,” I say, saddling up next to her.
She hums, eyes far off. I try to see what she’s looking at and snicker when it’s a girl I recognize from school halls only. Pretty in that barbie girl way.
“Creep,” I tell her.
“Fuck off, you’re the one filming people afar like a perv.”
“Oh? So you’re watching me too?”
She huffs and kicks at some dirt.
“She looks older but I’m pretty sure she’s a freshman,” I tell her. “You’d be stealing from deep in the cradle.”
“Like I’m going to waste my time trying to talk to highschoolers,” she mumbles, her mood souring.
“Yeah, I bet you don’t want to talk to them,” I say, egging her on. “You want to do way more than that, right?”
She tosses her empty can away. Despite its weightlessness it zips off almost violently. She starts walking away, probably for another beer. I’m used to pissing her off but this feels like I did practically nothing to earn this abrasiveness this time. I’ve said way worse than this. Maybe it’s because I dragged her to this party. I thought beer and being around cute girls would cheer her up.
I look at that girl she was eyeing, absolutely not a freshman, but I had to say something to make Vi look the other way. She’s covered head to toe in frills and pink, a pair of flimsy glittery wings strapped to her back. Nice ass but I think mine might be nicer.
Vi isn’t walking back to the tree. She wanders aimlessly, bored, phasing through crowds of people like she’s a ghost. I notice she left behind the mask and picks it up, brushing dirt off the plastic. I eye Vi’s back disappearing into the mess of people before following after her. When I shove the mask into her back, she flips around before taking it in surprise.
“You forgot something,” I say, then, “You mad?”
“Just not drunk enough,” she mutters. But she is tipsy. That much I can tell. She drinks really fast. Too fast.
I hum before holding onto her arm, overly clingy and leading her away from her meandering aimlessness. “I know some place nice and quiet if you wanna take a break from the party.”
She lets me lead her off into the dark, further into the woods. The party grows distant but not entirely. There are stragglers around, couples making out away from prying eyes, and the music and lanterns and some of the car headlights still reflect off the long itchy grass and trees. I lead her to those two messed up broken-down cabins, and take her into the one still standing. It’s dark inside them except for the moon that peaks through the paneless window.
Vi looks around. She’s put the mask on like a spooky hat again and keeps adjusting it so it doesn’t fall over her eyes. “Place is a shithole,” she says, throwing her now empty can with the rest of the random junk that litters the floor.
“Yep,” I chirp happily and investigate the trash lying around because if I don’t do something I’m just gonna bother Vi. I leave her with my camera, telling her to keep it safe. She takes it with surprisingly no resistance.
I kick aside rotting wood and bottles until I find stacks of flattened magazines and laugh when I bend down and see what they are. I find one that looks mostly intact, its past glossy pages now dry and crisp.
My plan not to annoy Vi is easily forgotten as I skip over to her side and show off what I found. “Just like yours,” I say, waving it in her face.
She blinks at the cover before her mask falls back over her face, leaving her an expressionless werewolf before she sighs and throws the thing off to the side which makes me cackle.
“God, do people actually just jerk it to this stuff?” I say, flipping through the water damaged magazine. Some of the pages are as stiff as cardboard and most images are warped and unrecognizable.
Vi is suddenly at my back, looking over my shoulder. I feel her breath against the side of my face. It’s hot, smells like beer. I can’t really pay attention to the rotting porn, way too aware of her.
“Too good for tits and cock?” she asks.
I’m about to answer her when I feel something cold press against my cheek and I’m looking back at my own camera, the sound of it zooming buzzing in my ear, then something stiff and unfamiliar pokes my ass.
Forgetting about the camera she has practically shoved in my face, I say, “Fuck, what is that? Is that…Oh my god, is that a strap? Were you planning to fuck tonight?”
She’s stepping away from me so her… thing isn’t pressing against me and I’m whipping around to face her, magazine discarded. She has some sense to look bashful before she’s covering it up with the camera. “It’s not the one I use for fucking,” she says casully. “It’s soft.”
“Why do you even have that?” I say, acting indignant, feeling hot all of a sudden. I’m stepping closer to her, not realizing I’m doing it until she takes a step back, her back pressing against the wall behind her. I’m looking down at the seam of her jeans, trying to find a bulge there. Why does she wear that? I find myself not caring about the why so much.
“Shut up, I just do.”
I unceremoniously grab at her crotch, squeezing the firmness there before she slaps my hand away. I do it again and she lets me, huffing while digging her head into the wall behind her. “Oh my god,” I say, squeezing her dick. “You’re so weird.” I feel hot all over.
She’s quiet, maybe speechless. I don’t know why but I kind of want to whimper or bark or yell or something. I feel all this energy unfurling all of a sudden, way too hyper. Could be the weed’s fault.
“What does it look like?” I find myself asking, ignoring the breathless tone in my voice. “Do you pretend to have a real dick?”
“I just like the way it feels,” she says quietly.
I’m following its shape with my fingers, gauging its thickness.
“Can I see?” I ask, expecting her to laugh it off or ignore me.
When I chance a look up at her, her expression is hidden, the camera shielding me from her eyes. Her mouth, which I can see, is straight and set like a stone.
It’s a jarring silent few moments before I hear the sound of a zipper coming undone. Her hand is taking mine and suddenly, I’m reaching backwards inside of her jeans, past her boxers. In my hands is soft silicone. I can feel the shape of veins and even balls. I squeeze them in my hand.
“Feels real,” I all but whimper.
“Still want to see?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
Her dick, limp, is hanging from her pants and I laugh, not sure if it’s an uncomfortable one or if I find this situation amusing or what. It’s almost touching me.
“Happy?” she asks.
Not entirely. I grab it, holding it at the base. “This doin it for you?” I ask. “You like it when girls play with your fake cock?”
The camera is still focusing on my face and I would have doubted it was actually filming me if it wasn’t for the little red light glowing in the dark. I want to challenge her, frazzle her. I slowly go down on my knees, getting used to the hardness of the ground before fully settling.
Vi doesn’t say anything. She’s pointing the camera down at me like this is the most normal thing in the world. I’ve never felt the weight of a lens so intensely. “You should see yourself,” she says. “You look like a real life porno.”
I feel too high all of a sudden.
I giggle because all of it hits me, how absurd it is. I realize that I’m wet. I wonder if underneath that toy, she is too. I want to find out so badly but that would be taking it beyond far, beyond this weird little makeshift roleplay we’ve conducted for ourselves.
I lean over and coyly lick the tip of her toy, playing at being like the girls in those magazines she gets off to. Her hips jump, just a little. I see her swallow.
“What a good little whore,” she jokes.
I nod, taking more of her. It’s not big at all but I’ve never done this before and I choke a little when I work my way to the base of it. I can smell her. All the sweat and musk. She smells aroused. Her pubic hair is peaking from the band of her underwear. I want to smell it, bury my nose in it, instead I dig my nose into her boxers, relax my throat.
“Fuck,” she gasps and it sounds real, she sound affected.
My lips leave her cock with spit and drool covering it, one stubborn strand still clinging to my lip. I stroke it, covering it with my spit, my mess. I can only imagine how fucking obscene this looks from the camera’s view. I imagine myself getting off to this footage an unhealthy amount of times. I can’t wait to see what I look like at this moment.
I’m on her again, swallowing her down easier this time. “J-Jinx,” she murmurs. She’s pushing on my head but it’s weak so she’s just awkwardly petting me instead of pushing me away. “Enough,” she says, but it has no bite, none of the authority I know she is capable of. I wonder if she can come like this. The idea of making her cum feels like another drug has entered my system, one so strong it takes hold of my whole body and I unabashedly moan.
She slaps me. It takes me a moment to realize she slapped me in a ‘get off me’ way and not a sexy way. I slide off her dick, the sting in my face getting sharper with every moment, reality taking root.
“Shit,” She says, fumbling with her pants and belt with one hand, the other holding the camera like it’s a bomb she doesn’t know what to do with. “Sorry,” she says. “You okay?”
Strangely, I am. It hurts but I’m not really mad about being hit. I rub my face, look at her. She looks scared, frazzled. Did she hit me because I was a freak and liked it too much? Did she like it too much?
“I’m okay,” I say. “That’s my bad. You told me to stop and I didn’t.”
I get up, take the camera from her and stop the recording. Fuck, that was real. I can go home and look at the footage and know this was real. She looks at me like she wants to apologize again but ultimately keeps her mouth shut. Looking at her now, all sullen, I can see how drunk she is. She’s swaying in place, blinking slowly, all dazed. She drank more than I originally thought.
I look out the window, hear the party in the distance. This place isn’t exactly private and from the looks of an old twisted off condom in the corner, it’s a potential hookup spot. Anyone could have walked in on us and misunderstood. I think Vi realizes this too because she’s staring at the floor like she’s figuring out how to fall through it.
My tongue moves around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of silicone.
Both of us are just awkwardly shifting, unsure what to do next. I keep looking at her, studying how she refuses to meet my eyes. I can’t take it anymore and decide to approach her. I walk close to her, set my camera on the window still next to us. When she finally meets my eyes, she seems to relax, just a little bit. And then I’m leaning closer, holding her shoulders– all one big movement. I’m looking at her lips.
Her head whips back like somebody’s punched her, half of her face smacking off the old wood of the cabin and bouncing off of it, causing her to grit out a small wheeze, surprisingly quiet and calm compared to the loud smack of her face on the wall.
Dazed, she looks at me, eyes wide, surprised at either herself or me. She has a little stream of blood dripping from her right nostril and she instinctively licks at her upper lip as it dribbles down while nursing her poor abused face. I watch the movement like it’s going in slow motion, following her wet long tongue, still reeling from her sudden jerk.
The bleeding won’t stop so I reach over, she stays still this time, and wipe it away, feeling it’s stickiness on the tips of my thumb. I remind myself gently that you should not lick other people’s blood, and wipe it away on my shirt instead. We’re both quiet. I’m in this bemused state, feeling like I should comment on her clumsiness, make fun of her for spazzing, but I’m all tangled up. She, who usually would be mad at me, is just looking at me, jaw clenching. And it’s awkward and weird and things are suddenly surreal. Because, we’re close right now. And we’re usually close but this is a different kind of close. The type of close that makes Vi all surly, the kind that makes her smack her head into walls and get nosebleeds.
And I feel… I don’t know. I’m looking at her and her bloody mouth and scared eyes and I’m realizing with sharp hot clarity that I want to lean over and kiss her more than I ever have. And I’ve always kind of known this but it’s never been like this, so obvious. Like seeing a color in the proper light for the first time when you’re colorblind, your whole life thinking you probably know what that looks like and then, oh, no, that’s what it really looked like all along. I feel hot all over. Because my feelings always rang oddly loud but now they swell like an orchestra.
Somehow, with words or maybe not, I’m kinda hazy and floaty at this point, we are ditching the party by ourselves. I remember telling Ekko that me and Vi were leaving and to have fun and be safe and I’ll call him later, and him trying to get me to stay, Vi gently urging me away, a procured half full case of beer lagging behind her. We walk past the cars and down the scary dark road of gravel and back to the streets and safely lit sidewalks with me awkwardly yapping the whole way because Vi is being too quiet, way more quiet than normal.
We walk side by side, her dead quiet, cracking open beer by beer, and me, talking about every little thing I can think of saying. The walk home is like thirty minutes. Almost the whole time I talk about the party, how so and so got way too drunk way to earlier and wasn’t that funny and embarrassing, and why wouldn’t they play any really good music, just all these way overly familiar pop songs, and hey I just thought of a cool idea for a movie, and we’re going to be using some real cool special effects, real blood dye that we got from the halloween aisle not red kool-aide like last time because it just made things pink, not red. And Vi just listens, nodding or humming every once in a while, mostly just drinking. And I run out of steam because we’re getting closer to the house and Vi still doesn’t really say anything back.
Sometimes cars pass us and Vi just drinks casually, like she doesn’t care. One time a cop car strolls past and she keeps the case close to her, her arm wrapping around my waist even though she’s got a beer in her hand clearly visible. She holds me close to her like she’s stopping me from running into the car or acting weird or maybe she’s just trying to play it casual, I have no idea, and the cop passes, either not paying us any mind or not caring.
We’re walking in our neighborhood, going past the familiar park and the school and houses and random little shops set up, and we're turning on our street, getting closer to our house. I can even see it at the end there, but it all feels weird. I feel like that kid in Flight of the Navigator, when he gets knocked out in the woods and walks back home but everything feels off, wrong, despite it being the same.
When we get home, we make sure nobody is awake before sneaking in through the front door. Dad’s got work early and mom will usually be passed out after a bottle of wine or two either in bed or on the couch unless Isha is up for some reason. We creep down into the basement, into our room, which is more Vi’s than mine. It smells more like her, has more of her stuff spewn about while mine is tucked neatly into a corner.
Vi excuses herself, comes back with her face clean, the dried up blood all wiped away.
She flops in bed like she’s lost control of her body and just lays there, looking up at the ceiling. I try not to notice the bulge in her jeans but can’t help myself. Maybe it was just a weird game and I took it too far. It’s hard to tell now.
“You look like you want to say something,” she says.
I’m just standing in the middle of our room, probably looking hopeless. I still feel the sting of when she hurt me earlier.
“You slapped me pretty hard,” I say.
She frowns. “Sorry,” she repeats.
I shrug. Rub my cheek again. “It’s okay,” I say. “Makes sense to hit someone like me.”
Her frown deepens. She sits up. “What are you talking about?”
“You know. Because I’m fucked up. A freak.” My spit suddenly tastes like acid.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what.”
“Not really, no.”
I swallow my awful acid spit and laugh. It sounds fake but I can’t help it. I can’t even look at Vi right now so I stare at the stupid pin up poster she has tacked on the wall behind her. A woman with overly tanned skin and mile long legs. Curves I’ve never seen in a person outside of Vi’s tasteless magazines.
“You know,” I stubbornly repeat.
“Jinx.”
“You know. How I look at you and stuff. It’s pretty gross, right? Talk about fucked up.”
Vi is pretty quiet. So quiet I look at her so I can have some semblance of her reaction. She barely looks phased, not like she had looked earlier. I almost jump when our eyes meet. And because she’s not saying anything, just looking, I clear my throat and babble on, the quiet feeling miserable.
“I know me, like, worshiping you and hanging off you all the time makes you uncomfortable but I do it anyway because I’m weird and selfish. So… yeah. Don’t try and tell me I’m not a freak.”
She’s still not fucking saying anything.
“I basically sucked you off,” I joke. My thighs press together harshly at the memory.
Eventually, she says, “Who says I’m uncomfortable?”
I scoff and look at her in disbelief which seems to amuse her. Which, I guess is better than her hitting me or insulting me. But I haven’t even revealed just how bad it is, and I don’t even know if Vi fully understands what I’m getting at really. I assume she knows only because I’m not subtle at all but what if she doesn’t? She can be dense sometimes. Maybe me sucking her fake dick and almost kissing her is on the same level as dryhumping on her. Just a weird thing I do that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
I walk over to the TV cabinet. I feel her eyes on me as I bend over while looking through our movies. I take my time picking one out and putting it in the VCR. I focus on the plastic of the tape, the rewinding sound, the click and fuzz of the TV. Videodrome starts to play. She hates this movie but that’s okay.
I walk to her bed, stand over her for a moment, just observing her. “You slapped me, Vi.”
She doesn’t look as guilty this time. She nods slowly. “Yeah,” she says quietly. She eyes the movie for a second before looking back at me.
I lay myself on her lap, just like I always do. She stares up, expression blank as she watches me. I hold onto her shoulders, stabling myself. I let my fingers roam, just to test her reaction maybe. Then, I grind against her, just the way I always do. Subtle but clear enough what I’m doing. Clear enough that Vi feels me. Vi always stops me when she notices. When it gets to be too much. When I get too greedy.
“You hurt yourself,” I say. “Just to get away from me.”
“Yeah,” she nods again, voice thicker this time.
“Are you uncomfortable?” I ask, my face hot from shame and the smallest bit of traction I’m getting from rubbing against vi’s stomach.
I think I see her eyes go dark. Maybe she is going to hit me again.
She holds onto my waist. Not stopping me, not pushing me away, just holding.
“Not really,” she says casually.
“You usually look like it bothers you.”
“I didn’t think you were doing it on purpose. Felt like I should be stopping you.”
“It wasn’t at first. But… I noticed it feels really good and just… didn’t stop.”
“You’re using me to get yourself off?”
“N-no! It’s not like that. I never, um.” I bite my lip in embarrassment. That familiar lazy pressure is building and building. I'm not trying to hide it so my rocking is a little more zealous than usual.
“Why are you shy all of a sudden?” Vi asks, voice hinting that she’s teasing even though she still looks pretty straight faced.
“I never finish,” I weakly say, then close my eyes because I don't know where to look. “I also, um, check you out. Like, when you were fighting, I thought you looked so cool and hot. You would get all sweaty and bloody and bruised. “
Vi laughs at that, sudden and surprised so I look at her again.
“Yeah? That’s what you’re into?”
“I dunno.”
“So, what?” Vi asks. “You have a crush on me or something?”
“Dunno.”
Another laugh. Sounds kind of mean but her hands are still gentle and warm against me.
“You’re really going to town,” she notes. “Sure you won’t cum?”
“Shut up,” I say. Because I might. Right here on her lap in my shorts. The dick is pressing against me now. Her dick. I grind against it more when I realize that’s what I’m doing.
“It’s weird, right?” I ask shakily. “I’m weird. This is weird.”
“I guess a little,” Vi says. “But I’m used to it. Not like I’m not weird too.”
“You were my first wet dream,” I tell her. She grabs me harder. “Y-yeah. It was really fucked up too.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm.”
“What was it like?”
“You chopped everybody into pieces. You were evil and fucked up and I liked it."
“Jesus,” she laughs. “What’s wrong with you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“What am I supposed to do with that information?”
“I guess I’m pretty sick, huh? You don’t hate me?” I ask, sounding desperate. “It really doesn’t bother you?”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this.”
“Was that really your first wet dream?” she asks.
“Uh huh.”
“You touched yourself after?”
“Uh huh.”
“How old were you?”
“Um, I think like nine.”
“Jesus,” she laughs, beside herself.
She’s helping me now, guiding me against her. I’m waiting for her to snap out of it, push me away, but she doesn’t. I chance another look at her, despite how mortified I feel. I need to look at her. She’s so red in the face, freckles barely noticeable under her blush, eyes glassy, locked in on my gyrating hips. We’re practically fucking, this isn’t some little kid game. It probably never was. I think I’ve always been aware of the hot syruppy way Vi makes me feel.
“I think-” I swallow. Try again. “I think I’m really gonna cum.”
“Yeah?” Vi asks, voice all smoky and deep. God, I’m so wet.
“Do… Do you have a hard one? One for fucking?”
“Do you want to see that one too?”
“Uh huh.”
“Maybe some other time. We have to be quiet.”
The impact of that statement crushes me like a boulder. The idea that she has a hard cock that she’s going to use to fuck me at some point, that I’m not going to be able to hold in my noises.
She’s grabbing me harder, forcing me to grind on her deeper than before. The movie in the background suddenly beams into focus, my ears picking up on it. I recognize the scene on the cadence alone. Can see it so clearly in my head. I feel like I’m gonna cry or something and I have no idea why. I let out a moan I can’t stop, so loud and anguished sounding that I feel like our parents are gonna hear.
“Bite me,” Vi husks, forcing me head down to her shoulder. “You can’t be loud like that.”
I bite her, maybe harder than I intend to because she gasps in pain. I feel my moans, my pleasure building up there behind my teeth leaking through my lips and being soaked up by Vi. I whimper, and bite her on the neck, just to feel her naked flesh against me. She groans in pain but doesn’t stop guiding me against her. I feel a white hot flash and I’m stuttering against her, soaking my panties. It feels like I've never cum this hard, for so long. It keeps going and going and tears actually escape my eyes. I’m whimpering against Vi’s neck. I want to cry out so badly.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, drool leaking out of my mouth. “Oh my god.”
Eventually it stops, and Vi’s hands are squeezing me tight, halting my hips. The reality of what just happens hits me full force and I have no idea how to feel. I lean back and carefully assess Vi. She’s still breathing deeply like she’s out of breath. She’s touching me gently, playing with my t-shirt, touching my tummy underneath it.
“This has to be a secret,” she whispers. “You can’t tell anyone about this, promise?”
I nod against her.