Chapter 5
On the way home, Avery barely touched the gas, letting her station wagon roll down the empty streets in the middle of the night. Her neighborhood was anything but affluent. Modest one and two story homes lined the roads, some with chipped paint or junk on the lawn. A few other cars were parked here and there. They were ugly enough to make Avery’s look good by comparison.
Pulling into her driveway, she heard a loud crunching sound. Sure another hassle would kill her, she got out to find she’d run over her little sister’s small pink bicycle with tassels streaming from the handlebars. There was nothing she could do about it now, so she trudged inside her dirty two-story home, desperate to get some sleep.
The ground floor was dark and quiet, smelling of PineSol even though the place wasn’t close to being clean. It depressed her to pass a torn couch and a broken window. She also noticed light slipping under the closed door under the stairs. Avery’s mother spent her night’s typing her pipe dreams into an old word processor, sure her days of being a famous author were just around the corner. Avery had learned long ago which creaky steps she would need to avoid to get upstairs unnoticed.
A sound disturbed her ears as she snuck to her room, and it wasn’t the sound of clacking on a keyboard. Muffled cries of passion leaked through the walls, which was unusual for this house unless she was the one making them. Reaching the top, the moaning and grunting unmistakably came from her room, and she threw open the door and switched the light on to find some of her friends, three guys and two girls, engaged in unspeakable sexual acts on her bed. All five of them turned their shocked eyes to Avery, who released a throaty groan of her own.
“Oh, come on, guys! This isn’t my fourteenth birthday party! Get out of here!” she demanded.
The glum group disengaged from each other and quickly went about grabbing their clothes and scampering out the door. One by one, mostly naked bodies whizzed by Avery, including one young man who looked as though he hadn’t gotten any presents on Christmas morning.
“But I didn’t cum yet,” he whined.
“Then go find an empty 2-liter Coke bottle, you stumpy little prick!” she howled, booting him out the door. The room smelled of sex, and there were lubricant stains on her sheets. Disgusted, Avery went back out into the hallway. “Who let you in anyways? Mom!”
Stomping on every step, Avery descended the stairs. Some rustling came from within the tiny room underneath, but she continued into the living room and collapsed onto their big, cheap couch. If she hadn’t felt so frustrated and dejected, she could’ve fallen asleep right there.
The door underneath the stairs dragged against the floor as it opened. Avery’s mother, Candice, latched onto the wall as she stumbled through the living room’s entranceway. Her hand groped along until she found the light switch. She recoiled at the sudden illumination, trying to block it from shining onto her bloodshot, wandering eyes. The woman’s greasy blonde hair was a mess, and her thong underwear rode up onto the sides of her bare midriff.
“Are you high again, mom?” Avery groaned, as her mother teetered over and fell onto the other side of the couch.
“A bitty bit, dear. It helps my writing,” Candice muttered, nearly incoherent. She tried to smile, but her stained teeth disgusted Avery.
“No, it doesn’t! Every time you write when you’re high, you always churn out this gibberish nonsense about how dad ruined your life, destroyed your body with two kids, and always fell asleep too quick after sex. Correct me if I’m wrong, but nobody wants to read about that stuff.”
Candice rolled her head against her shoulder and stuck her pinky in her ear until it almost vanished inside.
“Did I ever tell you ‘bout how you were conceived?” she asked, her eyelids sagging.
“I don’t want to know. I wish you hadn’t let my friends in. I feel like I need some time to think.”
“I was getting’ out of the shower, clothes off, naked as a Sp-Ed kid. Reached for a towel to dry myself off, went to the mirror, but slipped and fell to the ground like a ton of bricks. Seems your old man—Leon, that drunk bastard—lost track of his seed after a wank-session not too long before. Came right down on top of it and got a bruise this big around. He wouldn’t touch my ass for a week, saying it looked ‘bout to fall off, but that wasn’t the only surprise. Just goes to show, even the hardest falls can bring an unexpected miracle,” Candice babbled, smiling and reaching out for Avery, who slapped her hand away.
“That’s great, mom. Just what I wanted to hear.”
Scolded, Candice’s eyes started to mist up. She clutched her smacked hand to her breast and gazed solemnly at her oldest daughter.
“Why, you right, baby doll. No need to bring up bad memories. You gotta be depressed as hell. Ain’t nothin’ worse than getting’ dumped by a no-good man.”
Astonished, Avery turned her eyes to her mother. If she couldn’t even keep up the lie that she and Carter were still together to her mom, there was no one left who would believe it.
“How’d you hear about that? Did my friends tell you?” she sniped, shaking her head. Candice took a deep breath and nodded.
“Mom, listen to me. You’ve got to stop hanging out with my friends. They’re going to be a bad influence on you.”
“Oh, come now,” Candice mumbled.
“No, I’m serious! You’ve got to clean yourself up. Find a job. I’ve seen the stacks of bills hidden next to the vibrators in your dresser. They’re going to evict us any day now. I can’t live on the street. We need money. I just don’t know what to do!” Avery cried, bringing her hands to her face.
“It’s only money,” Candice shrugged. “What’s really bothering you?”
Before Avery could even shut out the question, she peeked through her fingers to her mother and the healthy C-cup she filled out. Some of her cleavage showed, and jealousy raged through Avery to glance at it.
“Why didn’t you give me your boobs?” she asked, and Candice chuckled, though it hadn’t been a joke at all.
“I’m sorry, baby doll. I did the best I could. But there’s more important things to a woman than that, like how well she can attract a man with some money, what she has that puts other gals to shame, and how round her bottom is.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Avery grumbled. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the only girl on the beach as flat as the surfboards. I like to hang out with third graders now just to make myself feel better about it.”
“You don’t have any trouble getting attention from boys though. Obviously there’s more to it than just what you carry around up top,” Candice argued.
“Yeah, but I don’t seem to do a very good job keeping them. Do you have any idea what I could do with your boobs? I’d be invincible!”
Candice sighed, looking down and admiring herself.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, dear. You wanna go grab a knife?”
“Alright!” Avery agreed, jumping up onto her feet and turning to the kitchen. But she sank back down just as quickly. “No, that won’t solve anything. I’ll just have to go on living this way and hope Carter’ll take me back even though he could swipe me like a credit card.”
Glancing over, she noticed her mother’s eyes were closed and her mouth was open. Avery silently got up to slip away to her room, but Candice still managed to wake. Her sudden outburst made Avery flinch.
“I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to find a steady guy anyway. At your age, you should just be having fun and experimenting. That’s what I did! Leastways your sister seems to have the right idea about it, or she did. Hoo boy!”
“What do you mean by that?” Avery jerked back, wide-eyed. Her heart must’ve skipped three beats. Nothing scared Avery more than the thought of something happening to her sister.
“Didn’t you hear? Little Lori’s knocked up! She’s got guts. I’ll give her that,” Candice chuckled.
“You can’t be serious! And you’re happy about this? She’s
only twelve years old! She’s got such an awful memory. It’s pull out and pray. You can’t forget the second half!”
Her mother stared at her strangely, and Avery realized there was nothing left for her to do but confront her latest torture. She went to the stairs, fuming over the thought of her little sister pregnant. It broke her heart to see Lori become something just like herself, all despite her best efforts to protect her from the cold and bitter world.
Lori’s door had a poster of some pre-pubescent male pop-singers on it. Twisting the handle, Avery threw it open and flicked on the light. There were dolls, dollhouses, and old Nalgene bottles on the floor. More posters of boys spotted the walls. Her sister slept on a single bed under a pink, unicorn-print comforter. Shoulder-length brown hair, just a bit curlier than Avery’s, fanned out around her head on the pillow.
“Wake up, Lori! I guess I’m lucky I found you alone!” Avery growled, pulling off the comforter and revealing her sister’s pink pajamas.
“Ahh!” Lori squealed, writhing and rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on? Did Dad come back again?”
“Are you pregnant? Answer me!” Avery demanded, crossing her arms and standing over the small girl.
Lori pulled her feet under her, leapt off the bed, and caught her older sister in a huge hug. She smiled from ear to ear, overjoyed despite having just woken up.
“You’ll never believe it! The most wonderful thing has happened. I could barely fall asleep I was dying to tell you so bad,” she jabbered in her high-pitched tone. Avery scrunched her eyebrows to show Lori she wasn’t pleased at all.
“How could you do this? You’ve completely lost your mind. You’ll never get anywhere now! Do you really want to end up just like Mom?” Avery snapped.
“What?” Lori questioned, shrugging off her sister’s criticism. “No, it’s not like that at all. This is perfect. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since the very first time I learned I could. That’s why I spent so much time licking hard plastic. I knew the chemicals would help me, and it finally worked!”
“You don’t have any idea what you’ve done!” Avery accused, suddenly stopping and gathering her thoughts. There was still time to do something. “It’s ok. It’s ok. We can fix this. I wasn’t much older than you when I learned how to give myself an abortion. Run and grab me a handheld mirror, a jar of peanut butter, and a toothbrush.”
Lori seemed to finally catch on to her sister’s displeasure with her news, and she started to become angry and defensive.
“No, you don’t understand! This is the happiest day of my life. I’ve always dreamed about this, and now it’s come true. I won’t let anything happen to my babies.”
“But you’re only twelve years old! Your body isn’t even big enough to give birth to a child. This whole thing is ridiculous! Wait, what? Babies? How do you know there’s going to be more than one?” Avery wondered, thoroughly repulsed.
“Well, probably just one at a time. I’d kill to have twins though!” Lori beamed, sitting back on her bed and putting her hand on her stomach. “And if I’m too small, that’s perfect too because it means I’ll have to get a C-section. That way my ass won’t get warped during the deliveries. It’s got a lot of work to do, if you know what I mean.”
Avery watched in horror as her sister started to grind against the edge of the bed. She felt like she was going to be sick, but, worse, it seemed as though her sister had made up her mind and decided to throw away her life. Avery wondered what kind of nightmare world she’d entered.
“Please, just please listen to me. You don’t know what you’re doing. I know it’s hard to avoid getting pregnant, but you’ve got to do it. Think of all you’ll miss out on. You won’t go to college, get a good job, or find a good husband.”
“Why the fuck would I want any of those things? You don’t think I’ve got a plan, but I’ve got a better plan than you. I probably only have thirty years of childbearing left, and I’d better make the most of all of them if I’m going to succeed. Can you imagine what I could do with thirty babies? We’d take over the world!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Avery screamed, beyond her wits. She felt like she wanted to pull out her hair or smack some sense into her deluded sister. Maybe she could shake the baby out of her.
“Just think of it, with thirty children I’d be able to form my own secret society. I’d raise one to be in the government, one for the army, insurance, banking, auto repair, stuffed animal maker, construction, and pretty soon we’d take over everything and I’ll be richer than you could ever dream!”
Lori had a devilish gleam in her eyes as she spoke. She started to wring her hands and produced a furtive smile. Avery gawked, her mouth open, unable to even think of what to say.
“Just admit it. You’re jealous you didn’t think of it first,” Lori went on. Avery leaned against the wall, feeling like she was losing her balance.
“I can’t believe it. You’ve gone mad. What are the kids at school going to think?” she asked, and Lori shrugged.
“Well, they already call me ‘Whorie Lori,’ so there’s no going back now,” Lori replied, grinning.
“How did this even happen anyway? Did you and some little dweeb from your class sneak off during recess and knock boots?” Avery mused.
Lori laughed, falling onto her side. She pushed herself up and rolled her eyes.
“Trust me, the boys in my class wouldn’t cut it. I needed a real man so I went to a frat party. They got me so drunk that I don’t have a clue what happened. Can’t even say for sure if I had sex that night. The only thing I remember is that for days afterward I smelled like Cool Ranch Doritos,” Lori explained.
“Someone, please kill me,” Avery moaned.
Loose Lips Sink Ships Page 7