Dirty Stepbrother

by Alycia Taylor

  We were sitting in a circle and the group leader was asking questions that we had given him. We didn’t all have the same instructors, but our textbooks, quizzes and tests were basically the same. Sam, the group leader takes the notes we give him, and designs a test which we then take orally during the group and we each take a written copy home with us to practice.

  “Okay Elly,” Sam asked me, “What’s a two shot?” He was going around the circle and he’d landed on me. This was an easy one, first semester stuff.

  “Um...It’s a shot that’s used a lot when there are two subjects who need to be in a frame.”

  “Good, are they both facing the shot?”

  “No, one is face on and the back of the other’s head in in the shot.”

  “Great!” Sam said. He moved on to the next person in the circle and asked their question as my mind wandered to my troubles with Tristan.

  I had never in my life just been someone’s booty call. At first, I was disturbed about that being all he wanted from me. The truth was though, I didn’t really want more than that from him either. I didn’t know him all that well since we really didn’t talk, but I knew enough to know that what he had to offer was not what I was looking for. To be exact, I wasn’t really even looking for anything, but now that I’d had the sex with Tristan, I loved it. God help me I think I’ve even started to crave it. I had come to the conclusion that I only had two problems with our current arrangement. First of course is that we had to sneak around. I needed to make sure he understood how important it was that there were no PDA’s between us. Second, I had to be sure that I was the only one he was having sex with. It was the only way that I’d be okay with…whatever you wanted to call this.

  I had gone through all of the labels in my head. We weren’t friends, and I didn’t imagine that we’d have much in common if we even tried to be. We definitely weren’t lovers…lovers talked to each other and laid lazily in each other’s arms before and after they “made love.” What Tristan and I did was not even close to “making love.” It was sex, damned good sex and I loved it. I guess I didn’t have to give it a name or put a label on it. I did need him to promise me that I wasn’t only one girl in a string of ten. I wasn’t bothered by the thought of him being with someone else in general, it was the creepiness of him being with some chick and then me coming along right afterwards and him being with me.

  “Okay Elly, what is an Ambassador?”

  “That is the name for the liaison who communicates between the film crew and the area or culture that they want to film.”

  “You’re on fire, Elly.” That was truer than he knew. Every stinkin’ time I thought about Tristan, that fire in my belly started flaring up. When he touched me it turned white hot. That was why I had such a hard time just walking away from him. But I shouldn’t have to, right? As long as we both acted like adults and kept things to ourselves that weren’t anyone else’s business….

  “Elly.”

  “Me again?” I asked. Susie gave me a look that said she knew where my head was at. I smiled at Sam and said, “Shoot.”

  “Okay, let me find a hard one for you Miss Smarty. Here we go, define Double system audio.”

  “Damn! Wait a sec, I know this one.” I had to dig down deep for it….”Okay, I got it. Double system audio is an audio that’s recorded with a separate audio recorder apart from the camera. “

  “And…”

  “Gimme a sec! And…When shooting double system, the audio is synched up with the picture by using a clapper slate, so the sound of the clap can be aligned with physical clap seen on camera. Also it’s used when shooting video to record a "dirty" reference track with a camera mic to help with synching.”

  “You’re amazing!” Sam told me. I suddenly let myself imagine Tristan saying that to me and I got a little shiver down my spine.

  Susie leaned over and said, “Stop it; get your mind back on your studies.” she was grinning.

  I smiled and said, “What makes you think I’m not concentrating on my studies?”

  “That shiver,” she whispered with a grin. “You’re thinking about him, perv.”

  I laughed out loud and got a stern look from Sam who by the way is probably still a virgin. All Sam ever thinks about is production, production and more production.

  I made up my mind during the study group that I was going to have to talk to Tristan about the exclusivity thing. That was probably going to be easier said than done. He was not much of a talker. I almost laughed out loud as I thought about the fact that if we had that conversation it would be the longest one we’d ever had. Yet, I’d had a crush on him since I was a little girl and he was a rock star. Now I’m grown up and he’s my sex God. It was all so surreal that I felt like I needed to pinch myself to see if it was even real life. I did and it was. Susie was watching me again. This time she only shook her head.

  Chapter Five

  Tristan

  I was practicing for my song for Fresh Voices that night and still kind of reveling in the afterglow of the amazing sex Elly and I had in a fucking closet when somebody started banging on my door. I would have just pretended like I wasn’t home, but I’d just been strumming the damned guitar. Shit! I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now…unless it was Elly and she was here for more.

  I walked over to the door and said, “Who is it?”

  “It’s your mom and dad,” I heard my mother’s tremulous voice say. If that wasn’t a buzz kill, I don’t know what was. I’d grown to hate the sound of that voice and I’d honestly be happy if I never had to hear it again.

  “I’m kind of busy right now,” I said. Then I held my breath and hoped I’d get lucky and they would leave. I knew it was a pipe dream.

  “We just want to see you for a minute Tristan. We haven’t seen you in over a month.” That time it was my mother’s whiney voice that floated through the door. “Just for a minute.”

  Shit! What the hell do they want? They always want something but I’ve turned them down so often I rarely had to tolerate them asking any longer. I don’t know who they bothered when they weren’t on my doorstep and I didn’t care. I appreciated the reprieve.

  I pulled the door open and said, “See, it’s me, still alive. Thanks for stopping by.”

  The old man looked like holy hell. He was shaking and sweating and his eyes were sunken about six inches back into his head. I was trying to remember how old he was…not quite fifty yet. He looked about sixty five. Mom was pretty torn up herself, but she didn’t look like she was about to drop dead at least.

  Realizing my sarcasm was falling on deaf ears anyways I asked him, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Tristan, baby…can we come in for a minute?” Great, Mom’s broken out the pleading voice. She missed her calling; she should have been an actress.

  “I’m really busy…” I tried again.

  “Please baby, just a minute.” Baby, yeah right.

  Deciding it would be easier just to listen to what they wanted and get turning them down over with, I stepped back and let them in. The old man still hadn’t said a word and it looked like my mom was actually holding him up. She led him over to the couch and helped him sit down. I wondered if he was really that bad off or if they were playing it up, hoping I’d feel sorry for him. Fat chance.

  “Okay, Mom. What the hell is going on?”

  She looked at my dad sadly and then took a deep breath. My guess was she was giving herself some time to work up the tears in her eyes. She obviously had no clue that either way whatever it was wasn’t going to affect me.

  “Your daddy’s real sick, honey. He needs to go into a program, and he wants to…but they told him he couldn’t test dirty. Medical doesn’t pay for detox anymore and we can’t afford it….He’s been trying to do it on his own. I’m scared for him and to top it off, we’re between places right now…”

  “I don’t have any money,” I told her, hoping that’s what they’d come for and they’d leave.


  “We know that, honey. We’re not looking for money…”

  “Then what, Mom? The only time you come around is when you want something, so what is it?”

  “He’s sick, Tristan. He’s really sick and I was hoping you’d let us stay here for a while…”

  I laughed. I know that sounds terrible, but unless you were there while they were “raising” me, you wouldn’t understand.

  “No Mom, you can’t stay here. This is a studio apartment. I hung up a fucking curtain over there to make a bedroom. Where do you think I’d put you?”

  “Baby, we don’t need much space. I’m looking for a job. Your daddy can’t work because he’s just so sick…”

  “He’s not sick, Mom! He’s withdrawing from that shit he puts in his veins!”

  “He wants to quit baby…”

  “And what about you, Mom. How long have you been off the pipe?”

  “It’s been over a month since I’ve touched the stuff.”

  “What are you substituting for it?”

  “Nothing, baby. We both want to be clean. We want to be the parents to you that we used to be…”

  “Are you delusional? When were you ever parents to me? Even before you both discovered how much you loved getting high, you weren’t ever parents.” She had the audacity to look like I slapped her in the face. Then she said, “It hurts me when you talk that way, Tristan. You know I brag on you…even now. I was at the shelter the other night for dinner and that Fresh Voices show was on. I saw your beautiful face flash across the screen and my heart swelled with pride. I told everyone, ‘That’s my boy’.”

  “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re wasting your time, I haven’t won yet and even if I do win, you got the money the first go-around. I get the money this time and you can keep living on the streets. You’re done living off of me and my talent. None of which I got from either of you by the way.”

  I went over to the cabinet in the kitchen and took a full vial of cocaine that I’d just bought out of the flour canister. I didn’t care that I would be without, whatever it took to get rid of them. “Here, share this with him,” I told her, like they were little kids with only one candy bar. It was pathetic. “He’ll be fine in a while. Turn a few tricks and make some cash until your welfare check comes and everyone will be okay. Alright? Get it out of your head that I’d give you a single penny if I won that million dollars. It won’t happen.”

  Again, she looked hurt, and shocked that I would talk to her that way. She was looking at me with what looked like real tears in her eyes now. The old man was on his feet, headed towards the vial in my hand.

  I tossed it to him and he looked at her and said, “Come on, Brenda. He doesn’t give a shit.” It was all a fucking act. They came for money for drugs, just like they always do.

  I laughed again. The old man was taking my last G of coke and he wanted to get in the last word before he left. These people were too much. They would be poster children for sterilization before they managed to procreate. Dad took my mother’s arm and led her towards the door.

  Before they got there, she looked at me again and said, “I don’t know what happened to you. You used to be such a sweet boy.” That was it. I walked over and pulled open the door for them.

  “Get out, and please don’t come back. I really don’t want to do this again.”

  They limped out together, old and broken before their time. My mother turned around and looked at me one last time and that was when I got in my last word…I wanted to make sure that she knew her guilt trip was lost on me. “You happened to me, Mom. I’m a product of your raising.” She started crying again. I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t my fucking problem. I had my own crap to worry about.

  Their surprise visit had pissed me off so bad that now I was all amped up and I couldn’t fucking concentrate. I opened the fridge and was at least happy to see I had a couple of beers left. Other than a lime and something that I think used to be cheese, that was all that was in there. I grabbed one and twisted off the top, drinking half of it in that one big gulp. I fucking hate that I’ m related to those losers. I took another long swig off the beer and then tried to refocus on the music I’d been writing before I was so rudely interrupted.

  I sat down on the barstool and picked up my guitar. I played a few notes of what I already wrote but my head just couldn’t let all the crap with the parental units go. I got it in my head then that maybe I should write a song about that. Maybe it would be cathartic to release some of the anger and frustration I felt towards them in a song.

  I started writing and within a half an hour, I had written the most dark, depressing song in history. I set it to the melody of another song I’d written not too long ago and I sat there, alone in my crappy apartment and sang the song I’d written about my crappy life. When I finished it, I was more depressed than before I started. I always tried to tell those freaking stupid therapists in rehab that talking about depressing shit didn’t help. It didn’t change anything and it only served to remind me of what a crappy hand I was dealt. They used to tell me that it would destroy me if I kept it inside. I always thought it was a bunch of bullshit and this is proof as far as I’m concerned.

  It took another beer a few good hits off the bong and another hour to get my head back where it needed to be. I tried to put the parents back where they belonged…at the bottom of the shit pile in my brain and I set about finishing what was important…my song for round three.

  Chapter Six

  Elly

  Tristan actually acted somewhat normal today while he was in the contestant waiting room. He didn’t touch me or kiss me. He actually barely acknowledged me. He said hello and talked to a few of the other guys before finding a quiet spot in the back of the room and going over his sheet music. I did my best to not look over at him every two minutes, but it was hard. He looked really good. He’d showered and worn a black muscle T that showed off his tat’s with a pair of jeans that showed off the rest of his assets. His hair was clean and styled and he had just a spattering of a five o’clock shadow that looked really hot. I couldn’t help thinking about the sex in the janitor’s closet. My belly was full of butterflies and my pulse raced and I felt tingly between my legs when I remembered how he felt….

  “Earth to Elly!” It was Keith. He’d been trying to get my attention, I guess. Tristan is finally behaving and I’m going to act stupid and screw it up.

  “Yeah, sorry Keith, I was deep in thought.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “Hey Jake called the trailer and he said to ask you if you can come see him when you get here tomorrow morning.”

  “Yeah, sure…thanks.” I wondered if Jake was going to offer me the production job when the top ten went on tour. I’d all but decided that if he did, I was going to take it.

  “You okay, Elly?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Keith.” He looked like he wasn’t ready to let it go, but the stage manager’s voice floated through my earpiece…

  “We’re ready for Tristan,” she said.

  I stood up and told Keith, “I have to get back to work.”

  “Okay, Elly. Let me know if you need to talk.” I smiled at him; it was nice of him to worry but Keith and I were definitely not close enough to talk about what was worrying me.

  “I will thank you.” I told him with another smile. Then I walked half-way over to where Tristan was at.

  He still had his head down and I had to find my breath before I said, “Hey Tristan, they’re ready for you on set.”

  He got up and for the first time all morning he made eye contact and smiled at me. I smiled back, that was acceptable I think I smiled at the other contestants all the time.

  He looked a little nervous and before he stepped through the door I said, “Good Luck.”

  He took a deep breath, winked at me and went on. That little wink sent shock waves through my body. I closed the door and went over to the television monitor where I could watch. Tristan had a full band, a piano,
bassist, drummer and banjo player. He played his guitar along with them, and at first the music was beautiful. Then he started singing and I was taken back to that bar the first night I’d seen him after so many years. I think I may have actually grimaced. He wasn’t singing…he was yelling. It was a rock song and it called for the yelling, I guess but I was cringing inside because I knew that it wasn’t something our judges were going to care much for. The purpose of this show was to showcase talent…vocal abilities. This song didn’t do that at all. It also seemed to go on and on and on.

  When he finished, he looked confident. The judges were all looking like they didn’t want to be the one that had to talk first…that wasn’t a good sign. My chest ached a little because I knew what they were about to say and he looked like he had no idea. I think it would have been easier if he’d known how bad it was. The country star got stuck with the short straw.

  “I’m sorry Tristan…for me that was…I just didn’t like it at all.” I had my eyes trained on Tristan’s face on the screen. He flinched a little, but that was it, he didn’t say anything. “The music didn’t seem to match the lyrics and the lyrics were hard to understand because you weren’t actually singing them…you were yelling them. You have a great voice, but this just didn’t showcase that in any way.”

  The “Diva” went next. She looked like she was going to cry as she said, “I really like you, Tristan. You’re one of my favorites and you have so much talent. Wow, I hate having to say this baby but…that was just all bad. You were all over the place….” She stopped there and said, “Sorry baby.” Tristan had kept his eyes on her the whole time, but his facial expression didn’t change at all. He looked at the last judge then, the harshest one.

  The aging record producer simply said, “I hated it. It may well have been the worst thing I’ve ever been forced to listen to.”