It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  “I’m s-s-s-s-sorry,” she sobs, her laughter mixed with tears. My nails rake her stomach, her sides, and try as she might, she can’t squirm away. Her legs kick out ineffectually above my thighs, she’s laughing too hard to peg me with a good shot, and her arms batter mine with all the strength of a kitten’s paws. “Let me up, Mike,” she gasps, breathless.

  Strumming a hand across her stomach, I tease, “You’re ticklish as hell.”

  “I am not,” she cries, but my fingers pinch around her navel and she dissolves into fresh giggles. “I’m not, get off, let me up. I didn’t know you guys were getting it on in there, okay? I said I was sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” I tell her with a glance over my shoulder at Dan, who makes his way towards us with a noticeable limp from the equally noticeable erection that’s crammed down the front of his jeans. He’s even pulled the hem of his shirt out of his pants in some effort to cover it, poor guy. “See what you’ve done to my baby?” I ask my sister. I stop tickling her long enough for her to sit up and get a good look at him, walking like a soldier wounded on the battlefield, and what she sees sets her to laughing again. “A few more minutes and I could’ve taken care of that for him.”

  Caitlin flops back to the ground, hands over her ears. “I’m not hearing this,” she says loudly as she tries to wiggle away from me. “We said no talk about sex, remember? I don’t want to know—”

  “You’re the one who crashed our party.” I catch her by the waist and she squeals in delight. “You’re getting to be as bad as Ray.”

  Her laughter dries up instantly, and this time when she kicks out, her foot connects with my upper thigh, dangerously close to the family jewels, which are still a little hard themselves from playing with Dan. Lucky for me, she’s wearing a small pair of Mary Janes instead of her usual Doc Martens, or that foot would’ve sent me clawing at the sky in agony. “Jesus Christ, Caitlin!” I twist away from her next shot, blocking her foot with my leg so she can’t get any closer to hitting home. “Watch it, kid.”

  She kicks at me again, her foot glancing off my hip to connect with my elbow, and pain flares up my arm like wildfire. “You take that back,” she growls, all playfulness gone.

  I laugh in shock, surprised at her sudden change of mood. “No,” I tell her. “It’s true.”

  Fisting her hands into the grass, she grimaces as she tries for another shot, this time with both feet—they land in the center of my stomach and she knocks me back to the ground. “Fuck you, then,” she mutters. Her face scrunches up, is she about to cry? I can’t believe it but when I reach for her, she flails out and pushes me away. “Leave me alone.”

  I shrug her off as Dan comes up behind me. “What?” I ask, confused. “All I said was—”

  “Shut up!” My sister kicks at me a final time before heaving herself up on her feet, and then she pounds me with one small fist, hard on the shoulder. “Shut up, Mike. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

  With that, she turns and storms up the stairs to the porch, the thin wooden soles of her shoes clap clap clapping with each step. There’s an anxious moment where she struggles with the screen door—the latch is caught and won’t open for her, it’s ruining her big dramatic exit and I could run up there now and apologize, she might still laugh this off—but she finally gets it to work and disappears inside, slamming the door shut behind her. “What did you say?” Dan wants to know.

  “I told her she’s as bad as Ray,” I say.

  I expect a laugh—it is a funny thing to say, I can’t be the only one who finds the humor in it. But Dan just shakes his head and sighs my name. “What?” I ask. Am I the only one here who doesn’t get it? “It’s true. We get a little frisky and poof! She shows up out of nowhere. You said it yourself, it’s getting old.”

  He shrugs. “But as bad as Ray?” he presses. “Michael, that’s…damn, that’s low.”

  Now it’s my turn to sigh, and when I hold a hand up, he helps me to my feet. “This means I’m going to have to say I’m sorry, doesn’t it?” I ask. He just shrugs again. If it’s not one person mad at me, it’s another. Gotta piss somebody off, I think sourly. I’m almost not in the mood to pick up where Dan and I left off before we were so rudely interrupted…and she thinks I’m not going to comment on that? So she’s pissed, so what? What about me and my lover’s jilted libido? “Fine,” I mumble. “Make me the bad guy.”

  “I’m not.” Dan’s arms come up around me and he hugs me to him, his erection poking into my buttocks like a steel rod shoved down the front of his pants. Kissing my ear, he murmurs, “I’m on your side here, Michael. Don’t get pissy with me, we just fixed all this.”

  “I know,” I admit. I lean back against him, defeated. I just can’t win with Caitlin, can I? “There goes our good time—”

  “Why do you say that?” Dan wants to know. I turn in his arms and frown at him—surely he’s not still up for fooling around…but he is, painfully so, he’s pressed into me like a loaded gun under a shirt during a hold-up and when I look into his eyes, he gives me a slow, sly grin. “Unless you’re not up for it anymore…”

  Oh no, I’m up. Slipping his hand into mine, I lead the way inside, fumbling with the lock for a few seconds the same way Caitlin did, the damn thing doesn’t want to open, but it comes free in my hands and then we’re inside. Aunt Billy is in the hallway, taking down framed pictures and stacking them carefully on the floor—she looks down her nose to peer over the tops of her glasses at use when we enter. As Dan closes the door, she gives us a warm smile. “If you’re looking for your sister, she’s upstairs,” she says by way of hello. “You two having a fight?”

  I laugh and kiss my aunt’s papery cheek. “How can you tell?” I ask.

  Aunt Billy shuffles a few feet down the hall to the next set of pictures. “Women’s intuition,” she says. With another look down her nose, eyes twinkling, she adds, “Or maybe Caitlin’s I freaking hate him sometimes was a clue, you think?”

  I doubt my sister said freaking, but this is Billy. I laugh as we edge around her, Dan up on me so that every step bumps the hardness at his crotch against my hip, and tell her, “She’ll get over it, I’m sure.”

  My aunt’s smile is infectious. “I’m sure,” she says, her voice warm as she watches us shuffle around behind her. “What are you boys up to?”

  “What do you mean?” I counter. I feel like I did when I was younger and Stephen came over for some fun, and the two of us were trying hard not to let our excitement show on our faces until we managed to get alone. I’m sure Billy knows what’s on my mind, I’m sure she practically sees me salivating for Dan, one look at my face and she sees my sordid thoughts written out in my eyes, she knows…but she just smiles and shakes her head, a sort of boys will be boys gesture that makes my heart want to burst with sudden love for her. “We’re just going to slip into the back room for a few minutes,” I say, giving her a wink as I steer Dan down the hall. I put a finger to my lips as if it’s a secret that I don’t want her to share. “You didn’t see us, if anyone asks.”

  “You boys are bad,” she teases.

  With a laugh, I correct her, “This boy is bad.” For emphasis, I slap Dan’s ass and hurry him into the kitchen.

  Over his shoulder, my lover murmurs, “Like I’m the only one.”

  My hands on his back propel him around the table to our closed door. “I didn’t say that,” I tease.

  Inside our room, the door once again shut on the rest of the family, Dan plops on the edge of the bed and unzips his jeans with a huge sigh of relief. “Damn,” he breathes, lying back. His erection stands up from his open fly like the short, hard tail of a small dog. How does the saying go? Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails…the thought makes me grin like a fool, and Dan closes one eye as he watches me from where he lies on the bed. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You,” I tell him. It’s the truth. Locking the door, I cross the room and stand between his legs to stare down at him. He crosses his arms
behind his head and smiles at me, his shirt pulled up slightly to expose a sliver of pale flesh along his stomach, his Army green briefs tented above his hard cock. Carefully I poke at the tip of his dick and he laughs but he doesn’t move. “We need to finish cleaning up this room,” I tell him, poke. His member stiffens beneath my fingers, poke poke, and the look he gives me suggests that getting this place in order is the last thing on his mind. “Unless you’re going to work with my dad again today?”

  Like a cat, he watches me toy with him, my forefinger painting the outline of the spongy tip of his dick through his briefs. The material is darker beneath my finger where he started to cum in the car before Caitlin interrupted us—it’s still damp and warms to my touch. “I wasn’t planning on it,” he purrs, watching me, waiting, the way a cat watches a string drawn before it across the floor, waiting for just the right moment to pounce. “Unless you want me to?”

  I shake my head. “Let him find his own soldier boy,” I say with a giggle. Around and around my finger goes, smoothing the fabric out that keeps us apart, I’m mesmerized by the patterns I’m making…

  Suddenly Dan clamps a hand around my wrist, startling me. “Gotcha,” he laughs, his fingers strong on me. With a gentle tug, he says, “Come here.”

  I let him pull me down but at the last minute I prop myself up above him, a hand on the bed on either side of him, and I hold his gaze as I slide down between his legs. “Let me take care of this first,” I tell him, easing his briefs down to expose his hard length. His grin widens as he watches me—I start at the base, where the sharp scent of sex clings to him. My eyes never leave his as I lick around the bottom of his shaft, in that tender area just above his balls where he’s most vulnerable. I work my way up, my tongue wetting him, up to the inverted V on the underside of his tip. When my lips close over him, take him in, my tongue finds that little spot and rubs at it in short, quick licks that send him thrusting up into me. I can taste him, salty and eager and so damn close, I don’t know how he managed to hold it in from the car to here. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

  My arms slip beneath his thighs and my hands grip the bed sheets as he arches into me and I take him down, as far as he goes, until I feel him tickle the back of my throat and still further, until tiny curls fill my nose. My tongue swirls down his length, I work him hard, harder, one of his hands is fisted in my hair and pushing me down further as he shoves into me, seeking release. His other hand finds mine beneath him and he laces our fingers together, my name escaping his throat like a sacred mantra, over and over again with each suck, each thrust, each time his ass leaves the bed and my tongue works over that little nub at the base of his shaft. And I watch him, the whole time, I never look away from his face, his slack cheeks, his eyes squeezed shut in pleasure, his mouth a perfect O of desire. “Yes,” he sighs, like it’s the only word he knows. “Yes, Michael, yes.”

  He comes in an explosive rush that I swear I feel in the back of my head, as furious as a jackhammer pounding the sidewalk, it rattles my teeth and fills my throat and I drink him down, sucking long after he’s started to wilt. “Michael,” he gasps, his hand clenched so tight in my hair that my scalp tingles, and in his other hand, my fingers have gone numb. “Oh God, Michael.”

  “He had little to do with it,” I joke, letting him slip free. He shudders on the bed as I crawl over him again, I love this, I love him. This morning I thought we were okay but I was wrong—that camaraderie at the kitchen table over breakfast was nothing compared to this, his soul bared for me, his lips trembling against mine, the taste of him still in my mouth. “I love you,” I tell him, I do.

  There’s a knock on the door…of course, I think with a groan. “If it’s Caitlin,” I start.

  Dan rolls his eyes. “If it’s her,” he agrees, “then you’re right, she is as bad as Ray. If not worse.”

  “I’ll tell her you said that,” I laugh.

  When I try to push myself up off the bed, though, he holds me down. “Don’t you dare,” he warns. I laugh again and kiss the stern look from his face. “Michael, don’t—”

  “I’m playing,” I assure him. But I keep it in mind, ammunition if she doesn’t learn to cut this shit out quick. As long as she’s around, I’m going to have the worst case of blue balls ever, and she thinks I’m an ass when I’m not getting any? She hasn’t seen me frustrated yet.

  It is her at the door, no surprise there. “Caitlin,” I sigh, leaning against the half-opened door to block her view of Dan. My lover still lies on the bed, his pants undone, his shirt pulled up to his navel, his lower belly a glorious pale stretch in the darkened room. His briefs are still tucked beneath his balls—she so doesn’t need to see that. “Look, can’t we talk about this later? We’re sort of picking up where we were before…”

  My sister holds up one hand in that annoying way she has that seems to say, what the fuck ever. “I’m not talking to you,” she announces. The angry set of her jaw and the way she studiously avoids actually looking at me makes me laugh, which pisses her off more. “Shut up.”

  Over my shoulder, Dan grins when I start, “I thought you said—”

  “I forgot to tell you why I came looking for your sorry ass,” Caitlin says, talking over me as if she doesn’t want to hear anything I might have to say. “Dad wants you to help him out in the shed today.” There’s a wicked gleam in her eye that I don’t care for, and now she looks at me, a faint smirk on her lips. “Oh, no wait. He doesn’t want you. He wants Dan.”

  A familiar dull ire rises in me. “Tell him I said—”

  Caitlin turns away. “Tell him yourself,” she calls out as she walks away. “I’m not talking to you, remember?”

  I slam the door shut—a childish act but it releases some of my irritation. For added measure, I kick it, too, much good it does. My dad wants Dan out there to help him, no asking this time, he just assumes that I won’t care. Fuck that. I gave my boy up yesterday—I’ll be damned if I let him usurp my lover again today.

  When I turn, Dan’s already struggling to sit up. “I’ll go talk to him,” he tells me.

  I straighten my hair where Dan had worked his hands in it while I sucked him off. “No,” I say, “I’ll tell him. He’ll just have to do without you today, that’s all. He’s got plenty of other guys out there to help him—I want you here with me.” With a worried glance, I add, “Unless you want…”

  Dan shakes his head. “After yesterday?” he asks, giving me an easy wink. “I’m not leaving your side today.”

  Embarrassed, I my head and mumble, “I wasn’t that bad.” The look Dan gives me says otherwise, but it bolsters my courage—I’ll talk to my dad, tell him look, this is how it is. Dan is mine, he’s with me, he came to Sugar Creek to help me through this, not to play handyman. “He’ll live without you,” I say, sounding bolder than I feel. “I won’t.” Dan laughs and I promise him, “I’ll be right back. I don’t think we’re done here yet.”

  Chapter 37: In the Kitchen

  It takes everything I have to leave Dan spread out on the bed like that, stomach and cock exposed, a bemused look in his eyes that tells me he knows just how difficult this is for me and he thinks it’s funny, damn him, because he knows I’m going to race right back. If I survive my dad. I’ve told him off plenty of times in my mind, I used to shout at him behind the closed door to my bedroom when I knew he couldn’t hear me, I talk a real good game but when it comes right down to it? I’m scared. Plain and simple, the man terrifies me, he always has. That’s part of the power he has over me, I think, the knowledge that he can just give me that mean-ass look of his and my arguments dry up like so much dust. He’s never raised a hand against me—in our family, my mom doles out the punishments, swift and uncompromising like the black Queen in a game of Hearts. I was rarely the victim, that was Ray. Having a brother like him was enough to keep me out of trouble, just because he was always in it, no one had time for me.

  Like my dad—we never did those father/son things, camping trip
s, fishing, hunting. The extent of Henry Knapp’s night out was a trip down the street to the bar, where they had the game on a big screen TV, and that was never for me. I wonder if that’s what makes me a disappointment to him, that I never fell into the suburban ideal of manhood, feet kicked up in front of the television, beer in hand. Again, that’s Ray. And somehow it seems like no matter how hard I try, I can never please my father, never. Part of me says just fuck it, I’m old enough not to worry about him anymore, I’m an adult living out my life the way I want to, I don’t need his approval. But there’s another, deeper, childish part that wants him to look at me just once, to see me and accept me and I don’t know, just tell me that I’m not the biggest fuck-up in his life, is that asking too much? If he would’ve gotten angry over dinner the other night, at least I’d know what he’s thinking, I’d have some sense of where I stand with him. But that’s my mom’s role, she plays it willingly enough. She’s sharp with her disappointment while he just sits there and simmers. No use trying to talk to him about it, he won’t respond. I don’t even know what I hope to say to him now. Hands off my boy seems a little ridiculous, even though that’s exactly how I feel.

  Out in the kitchen, Ray sits at the table, eating a bowl of cereal in what I know for a fact has to be my milk. “Did you go to Grosso’s, too?” I ask, my voice tight as I close the door to the back room behind me. At my brother’s blank look, I tell him, “Because if you didn’t, then that’s my milk.”

  “Caitlin gave it to me,” Ray mumbles around a mouth full of food. For emphasis, he points at our sister, who leans against the counter and studiously ignores me. Beside her, Aunt Bobbie leans over a large, round pumpkin that fills the entire sink, one of the gourds from Evie’s garden, no doubt. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows and her hands are orange with stringy seeds—as I watch, she holds her arms out so Caitlin can scrape the messy innards off into the sink. “She said—”