by Zoey Long
“Thanks a lot. I appreciate that.”
On my way home, I start thinking about opening my own studio. I have enough saved that with some help from my father, an advance on my inheritance perhaps, I could get something off the ground. It certainly would give me some “focus and direction,” as Frank would say, and he loves that shit.
I give the doorman a nod and make my way up to the apartment. I wonder if Madison is home. I hope she is. I hope she’s there all alone, that our parents are out. That I can entice her to let me run my mouth down her from her lips to her ankles. Throw her legs over her head until she’s coming all over me, spasming on my cock and biting her pillow in ecstasy.
“So when is it?”
I hear Frank’s booming voice as soon as I step off the elevator and my boner dies instantly.
“Hey, old man,” I say, entering the kitchen, dropping my keys on the counter.
Madison is there with her mother, and they’re all standing around the expansive kitchen island.
“Hey, everybody. What’s up? Is this some kind of family meeting?” I ask jokingly.
I look over at Madison. She smiles at me. I don’t think the cat’s out of the bag. She wouldn’t be that calm.
“Not at all, Derrick. No meeting. God knows I have enough meetings at work. I don’t need to start having them at home. My wife would kill me.”
He takes Amanda’s hand. She smiles, her gargantuan engagement-and-wedding-ring combo glinting on her finger. At least they’re happy.
“Amanda and I are simply going to attend some kind of event at your school in a couple of weeks. It’s for parents. And before you say I don’t need to go, I’ve decided to start taking a more active role in your school life and education.”
Really. Is that so? Better late than never, I guess? Never too late. That’s what they say. How ridiculous can he be?
I start to laugh.
“And what brought about this sudden change of heart, Frank? I’m in my twenties—you know that, right?”
“See, he’s always ungrateful,” he says, turning to his wife.
“He doesn’t want me to be involved. He’s never wanted me to be involved. This was a stupid idea.”
Of course it was the new wife’s idea. Amanda steps in.
“Derrick, I know your father hasn’t been involved in your life much recently, education or otherwise, and that’s what we’re trying to change here. You’re a grown man, we know that. Both you and Madison are talented young people ready to start your careers. Since you and my daughter are going to the same institution, albeit in different schools, we saw this as the perfect opportunity to see what’s been going on in both your lives.”
Wow, was that her teacher voice? I think that was her teacher voice. Our parents becoming more involved in our lives is the last thing we both need right now. Still, good for the old man for trying.
“Thanks, Amanda. That’ll be good. Nice.”
“Have you just come from the gym, dear?” Amanda asks me, in a rare moment of keen observation.
“Yes. Actually, Frank, I have some ideas that—”
“See, that’s exactly the kind of thing we’re talking about,” Frank interrupts. “I know you’re really passionate about this…fighting… this MM… whatever it is, but I don’t know anything else about it.”
That was ironic. I was just about to tell you.
“Mom, what is this event? I haven’t even heard of anything,” Madison asks.
“It’s like a meet-the-teacher night, I guess.”
“Mom, we…don’t have those anymore.” Madison smiles. She’s purposefully trying not to look over at me, like she does whenever we’re in the presence of our parents. I move over to her and grab her hand. She jumps, almost comically. I hold her hand steady. Parents don’t notice.
“Sis and I would love to have you there, whatever it is.”
I give them my very best dazzling smile, still grasping my sister’s hand. It’s clammy. She’s pissed. She forgets that siblings are actually allowed to touch. Just not as much as we do.
“Wonderful!” Amanda gushes, clapping her palms together.
“Great. So we’ll go. It’s not for a few weeks, so you have time to get used to the idea,” Frank finishes.
Madison jerks her hand away from mine; it slips quickly out of my palm.
“I have some work to do downstairs,” she says abruptly.
Once school started, at the urging of her mother, Madison converted one of the rooms in the basement to her art studio. I haven’t gone down there. She hasn’t invited me, and I respect that it’s her work space, but I have to admit that I’m dying to see it. I’d love to see her art. I imagine her in a sea of colors, throwing paint on canvas, covered in paint herself, letting her passion fly out all over the place.
Chapter 5: Madison
Once I get downstairs, I see one of my pieces still sitting half-done on my easel, since the last time I worked on my own stuff. There’s no order to this painting; it’s all blue and green splatters. The state of the painting is the state of my mind. I pick up my brush, and without thought to technique or vision, I let more colors fly on my canvas. I don’t let myself work with this level of abandon at school; it’s usually working for someone else, on an assignment, practicing some kind of technique or school of thought. Down here, I can just paint for myself. Abstractly, freely, feverishly.
I hear thumps down the stairs and it startles me. No one comes down to the studio when I’m working. It’s something an unspoken rule. My mother, as an art teacher, would never break the rule, and I don’t think Frank even knows what I do down here to be perfectly honest.
“I… don’t want to bother you.”
It’s Derrick. I jump back in surprise, paintbrush still in hand. I must look like a deer in headlights. I feel like he’s seeing me even more naked now than when we have sex. I feel more exposed to him covered in paint in this cave of my own making than when he has me bent over a table, my legs over his shoulders. I can’t explain it. It’s like Derrick can immediately sense how uncomfortable I am.
“I’m sorry.” He turns to go.
I take a deep breath.
“No, Derrick,” I say quickly.
He stops.
“It’s… I wish you would have asked first. But it’s okay.”
I smile at him.
“No, I can go back upstairs, I’m sorry. Really. I was just really curious.”
The truth is, I never show my art to anyone anymore. When I was in junior high, I showed my mother my pieces, but she always approached them like a critic, an instructor.
“What were you trying to accomplish here?” she would ask. I have no idea, Mom. I’m just feeling with paint. As the years went on and I did study technique, she was far too subjective to give me her opinion.
Showing my work to her felt like showing your short stories to an English teacher, and all they do is correct your grammar. Nothing about content. Passion. Intent. All surface corrections. I just keep it all to myself now.
The walls of the studio are covered in my pieces, some from many years prior, some from just a few weeks ago. Hanging on the wall, there’s a piece I painted right after Derrick and I had sex for the first time. The colors are all light and gold ochre, a huge center of violent venetian red, splatters of cobalt and cerulean blue. Derrick’s eyes are darting all around the walls of the studio, his gaze jumping from piece to piece. Oddly, he stops right in front of the piece I painted the day after we made love. I feel myself get embarrassed.
“This…Madison, these are really good,” he says.
“Please don’t say that. Please. You have to say that, and I’d really rather you didn’t. Don’t just flatter me.”
He stares into the lovemaking piece, narrows his eyes, like he’s looking for something. Then he smiles and nods before whipping around to see another canvas. I watch as Derrick’s eyes keep kinetically darting from piece to piece, all
over the studio, high up, at eye level, in all directions. He’ll stop to look at one, consider it, and then spin around to see another. It’s like he’s always hoping there’s more to see, and he can’t get to the next one fast enough. Then he’ll return to the first and sit with it. His actions speak more loudly of his opinion of my work in this moment than any words he could say. He seems excited. Genuinely enthralled. Then he starts laughing.
“I am not kidding,” he says.
“Madison, these are interesting. They draw the viewer’s eyes into the canvas. Look, I don’t know about art the way you do. I never said I did. I haven’t studied it. I have, however, grown up around art and artists all my life. You know I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think you had something here. That would be incredibly fucked up, given the business my family is in. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. Artists are a dime a dozen in this city. And I don’t just say this because I love you, but these… vibrate. They pulse with emotion.”
He’s not looking at me when he says this. He’s looking at my work. He won’t stop looking at my work. I stand back and a small smile forms on my lips. That’s what they’re meant to do.
“I still wish you’d asked to come down here,” I say.
“I’m sorry. Thank you for letting me see these and not kicking me out. They’re really great. I mean it.”
I give him a nod of appreciation and he heads back upstairs.
Chapter 6: Madison
I’m in the campus library perusing books on classical Greek myths as research for a new painting. I want to use well-known myths, ones I first studied when I was in high school. I flip open a gargantuan hardcover and look up the only twin gods I know, Apollo and Artemis. One male, one female. Apollo is the sun god, physically perfect, but with a temper. That’s apropos. Artemis is a huntress who represents the moon, but she was chaste. Maybe not in my painting.
I keep flipping. There have to be other examples. Castor and Pollux were brothers, one mortal, one divine. When Castor dies, Pollux gives up his immortality to be with his brother. That’s romantic. Zeus and Hera were apparently brother and sister as well as husband and wife. Of course I’ll do it abstractly; there’ll be no figures in the painting. Derrick won’t know it’s inspired by siblings unless I tell him. I don’t know if I’ll tell him or not.
Whispers and small spurts of laughter distract me from my page. They’re muffled sounds, but still distinctively distracting. It’s then that I realize I’m standing directly across from the media room where Derrick and I fucked a month prior, when I ran from my studio class as fast as possible so Derrick could lift me up onto the table and shove himself inside me as hard as he could. I remember biting my lip so hard trying to be quiet that I almost drew blood. The thought of it excites me again, but then I think about how we got caught. Noel catching us with my legs wrapped around his Derrick’s head, how that was the moment that set all of this in motion. When Noel got himself punched in the jaw. When the rumors started.
There’s a group of girls I’ve never seen before, three of them. They’re all petite, look more like little girls than coeds. One of them has a long chestnut mane and a string of pearls around her neck. She probably lives in my neighborhood.
“Yep, that’s totally the room,” she says.
The other two girls, also short and girlish, start giggling and muffling their sounds with their small palms. They look like they’re trying to emulate the brunette with the pearl necklace. It looks like high school to me. She’s pointing to the room where Derrick and I had sex.
“What’s the girl’s name?” Girl Number Two asks.
“Madison. Dale.”
The blood drains from my face at the mention of my name. I think I stopped breathing so they wouldn’t hear me.
“And she’s… screwing Derrick Bourse? Her stepbrother?”
Their voices go into stereo. I can distinctly hear the sound of my own inhalations and exhalations. I think I might pass out. I know I can’t because then I’ll be the girl who fucked her brother and who passed out in the library. I bite the inside of my cheek to shock myself back into reality. That works.
The three girls are still talking, I catch every other whispered word. They’re using words like “disgusting” and “gross” and “terrible” in between their incessant giggles. They’re saying, “I’ve seen her before,” and “I saw them kiss.”
I can’t believe this. Everyone must know at this point. I’ve never even seen these girls before. They have to be freshmen. I never even interact with freshmen. My mind starts to spin. Have I seen them before? Do I know them? Have I seen them at parties? I know I’ve never talked to them. How do they even know who I am? How careful have Derrick and I been lately? Did they see the fight? Where the fuck is Noel? I know he’s on some kind of mission to destroy our relationship. I feel like nothing is going to steady me. I’m spinning out of control. I feel woozy on my feet. The only thing that will make me feel better about this is the very source of the problem. I need to find Derrick.
I take out my phone and text him.
I write two simple words. “People know.”
Derrick always responds to my messages within minutes. It’s a reliable part of him that I didn’t expect. After a few seconds, I see the bubbles of response indicating that he’s writing back to me. He responds with three question marks and a kiss emoji. That’s exactly what I need right now. Thanks.
One of the girls, the brunette UES coed, looks up and makes eye contact with me. I dart my eyes away, but it’s too late. She saunters over.
“Well, if it isn’t Madison herself,” she says.
The other girls follow her over to me like lemmings.
“Do I know you?” I ask her.
UES brunette twirls her ponytail in a ridiculous display, cocks one of her hips to the side and smiles.
“Nope,” she responds.
“O-kay. Well, you obviously already know my name, so…”
“Everyone knows your name,” one of the other petite girls chimes in. She’s got red hair, a long fishtail braid.
“Yeah. You’re the one with the hottest boyfriend on campus,” Brunette says.
I can’t do this. They’re ganging up on me like something out of some teen movie.
“What’s that mean?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
“Oh my God, duh,” Redhead blurts.
“Shh, Molly,” Brunette snaps at her.
This is ridiculous. I wish my heart wasn’t beating so fast and I wasn’t sweating. I won’t let these little bratty girls intimidate me. I turn to leave the library and Brunette stops me against the stacks, blocking my path with her forearm. She’s wearing heels so her eyes meet mine. Her thighs are tight and toned; an ivory ribbon is tied around her ponytail. I bet those are real pearls. Is she trying to look like she’s barely legal? I’m sure she really is just eighteen.
Her eyes hold my attention. They’re large brown pools, almost a reflection of my own, but larger, more widely spaced. I’m drawn into them; they’re deep and mesmerizing. I can’t help but look into her face and hold her stare even though she’s being such a brat. She smiles at me, which breaks my concentration. I can see the sticky lip gloss sheen on her mouth. She looks so friendly as she moves close to my face and whispers.
“You’re fucking Derrick Bourse. But you already knew that. You did it in there. He probably bent you right over that table, where you took it from your stepbrother like a slut.”
She points to the media room and flashes me the cattiest smile I’ve ever seen before turning on one heel to go. The other girls follow. Wow. My mouth is agape. She’s lucky I didn’t smack her.
I leave the library and take out my phone. Derrick texted.
“Meet me for lunch,” it says.
Chapter 7: Derrick
By the time the parent–teacher whatever the hell it is rolls around, I’m hearing the rumor most every day. I get stared at when I walk into classrooms. Some
guys high-five me. Most want juicy details. Madison is a mess. She’s getting it worse than I am. I want to scream at or punch everyone who confronts her, but I can’t. I’ve been fighting every day again, in the studio, just to clear my head.
“She’s not really your sister,” my boy Dave says. Dave notoriously wants all the details all the time. He pounds a bottle of water and smiles.
“No, she isn’t.”
I deny the fact that I’m sleeping with Madison to everyone at school; it’s none of their fucking business, but I can’t lie to Dave. We met at the studio a few years back. He was one of the first people to introduce me to MMA. I trust him.
“So what’s the problem?” he asks.
“Dude. We live together with our parents. People at school know. It’s hell. Madison is getting called out by catty bitches who call her a slut all the time. I hate it. It’s stressful for both of us.”
“Ah, man, that blows. So you’re pretty much not banging each other anymore, I bet.” He nods.
I let out a half smile and take a drink of water.
Dave’s eyes widen.
“You are still banging?”
The truth is, fucking each other’s brains out is the one thing Madison and I haven’t stopped doing. We try not to do it on campus, but shit happens. Just last week, we were fighting in the lounge above the student center and I swear she almost smacked me across the face.
“I can’t stand this anymore!” Madison yelled, high above the bustling crowd in the center, up a flight of winding stairs. There’s stark white walls up there, a single couch and some chairs. A bookshelf that hasn’t been touched in years, with old mysteries my grandmother liked to read on it.
“I’m getting called a slut all the time by catty bitches and you, you’re getting high fives? Fuck you.”
Madison pushed me then, hard. I caught her wrists, pinned her arms behind her back and pulled her into my body. The scent of her immediately got me hard. She softened a bit and pressed her ass into my cock, feeling my erection. She gasped and pushed her ass harder into me, leaning her head back onto my shoulder. I kissed her neck and bit down. Adrenaline meant that her legs were shaking. Her breath was quick, and she started to sweat.