Three.

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Tilly

I can’t sleep, and this time it’s not because The Donkey keeps me up with his incessant pissing, or ridiculous games, it’s because, for one reason or another, I can’t get the loud-mouthed, can’t-do-anything-wrong, star athlete out of my head. I can’t tell you how annoying that is either. First he invades my world, and then he invades my head. The next thing he’ll be doing is invading my dreams. He might already be there if I could sleep for long enough to find out.

The mattress is incredible uncomfortable, and half way through the night I have to turn it over just to see if it’ll make any difference. It doesn’t. I don’t know how much more I can take of this. We should be taking turns, but I know Landon will just tell me to put the mattress back on the bed it came from and quit whining. There isn’t any real reason for me not to sleep in there either, except I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing any more of my flesh than he deserves too. That’s why I’m sleeping in my track pants, even though it’s damn hot with them on. I’m not going to let him have more ammunition to mock me with.

I finally fall asleep at around five am, just when the morning light is breaking through and the room takes on a kind of milky, ethereal haze, and what seems like less than a moment later, I’m woken up by Mom and Marvin eating breakfast loudly at the table above me. Actually, it’s Mom’s foot in my gut that does it, apparently an accidental swipe as she stretches out her legs.

Wide awake again, and with the house now up, it’s going to be impossible to get back to sleep, so I don’t even bother trying. I can’t have slept more than two hours. My head hurts, my back hurts, my brain hurts and my mouth is dry. This vacation sucks.

“Morning, Tilly.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“And it’s a beautiful day already”, Marvin adds.

I notice the drapes have already been drawn and the garden and decking is bathed in sunlight.

“You know I was sleeping, right?”

Mom avoids the question. “You want some breakfast?”

I don’t think I can face breakfast right now. I don’t think I can face anything but a darkened room and some relaxing music. Perhaps a massage. My eyes go to Landon’s still closed bedroom door.

“How come you have to wake me up and The Donkey gets to sleep in?”

“Landon? He left about an hour ago.”

“Left? Where?”

“For a run, I think. Said he was going crazy being cooped up.”

Instead of feeling jubilant that my new big brother is finally out of the way, I feel a little disappointed he’s disappeared, without even telling me. I shake the feeling away and blame lack of sleep for my clear emotional confusion.

“Coffee’s still warm if you want some.”

I drag the mattress back to Landon’s bedroom, not because it needs to be there, but because I want to see if Mom is right. She is. Besides a stack of clothes, a general mess and a musky boy smell that makes me want to lie down in his bed, and not because I’m tired either, he’s gone.

I dump the mattress down on his bed, partly because it’s easy for me to retrieve when I need it, mostly because it’s in his way and I know it’ll annoy him, and then I sit down on the bed next to it and take a look at the room that should be mine. We’ve only been here two days and he’s not only made it a mess, he’s completely made it his own.

I have a sudden urge to rifle through his belongings, dig for secrets at the bottom of his bag, or just take advantage somehow of his absence, but I’m not entirely sure where to begin, nor what it is I might be looking for, and the intimacy of the idea finally stops me.

“When is he going to be back?”

I sit down at the table, take two slices of cold toast out of the rack and lather them with honey and peanut butter.

“He didn’t say.”

“I thought we were supposed to be doing things as a family.”

The coffee may have been warm five minutes ago, or an hour ago when Mom first made it, but it definitely isn’t now.

“It’s only a run, honey, he’s not going to be out all day.”

“He did take his car.”

Marvin has a funny way of looking like he’s not listening, lost in some other task or activity, and then saying something, usually in a way that sounds like he’s saying it to himself, that proves he’s been listening all along.

I watch him let that comment fall, as though talking about the weather, which I suppose he could be because whether Landon has taken his car or not is really neither here nor there, turn the paper with a carefully saliva dampened finger tip and push the last of his toast into his mouth.

“His car?”

Agreeing to come on a family holiday means that he’s not allowed to escape. This is against the rules. This is subversion on a massive level. This is. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me.

“He said something about getting a signal for his phone, checking in with his team, you know, something important like that. He is Shoreville’s most valuable player.”

“Mom, stop pretending you know about football when you don’t. You didn’t even know what MVP was until two days ago. And i’m sure Shoreville can cope without their troubled star for a few more days, it’s not like the world revolves around him.”

“Well it sounded important that’s all. I’m sure we can manage without him, or are you missing him that much already?”

“Yeah, right.”

“I can’t tell you how happy it makes us both to see you two getting along.”

Is she for real? Even Marvin is nodding. Landon and I getting along is like saying Trump and Obama are best friends.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect at first, you know with Landon being from such a different world to ours, but he’s such a genuinely nice guy, you don’t even think about it after five minutes.”

How can coffee heated in the microwave actually taste worse than cold coffee? It’s so bitter I almost spit it out without thinking.

“You know, I was worried he wouldn’t like my cooking, or get bored or, you know, whatever, but he’s been such a sweetheart, hasn’t he Marv?”

There’s that nodding again. No wonder Marvin is so meek, he’s grown up living in his son’s shadow.

“You know Landon is on his final warning at the club? You know he’s had problems with drugs, problems with violence and problems with women? You know about the car crash that almost ended his career, I presume.”

“I know how much baloney the papers make up. Anyway, you shouldn’t say bad things about your brother, I can tell you’re already missing him. An hour without him around and you’re pining for your playmate like a lost dog.”

“Are you serious? I don’t even know him.”

“Exactly, which is why you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“And he’s my step brother anyway, not that I asked him to be.”

“And I know you well enough to tell you’re over the moon about it. It’s alright to admit that you like him, you know.”

Jesus, not Mom as well. What is this, liberal Americans week?

“Whatever. He can do what he likes as long as he leaves me alone.”

Jacuzzi, massage, pissing with the door open, sunbathing with his top off, smiling, poking fun, walking behind me, in front or alongside, whatever, as long as he leaves me alone.

Mom clears the dishes while Marvin focuses on the newspaper. I have to wrestle my plate back of her because I haven’t finished, and then explain why it’s taking me ten minutes to finish a slice of bread - sleep slowing everything down, Mom - to which I get the response:

“Landon would have polished that off in seconds. That boy can eat like a horse.”

Piss like one as well, I almost say.

Mom and Marvin have traditional roles, which would bother me, but doesn’t seem to bother them at all. Marvin is very much the trouser wearer, while Mom is happy to cook and clean and let him do his thing, which he does, very quietly and without much ruckus. Dad and Mom used to have blazing rows, but I can’t remember Marvin and Mom ever saying a crossed word to each other.

With Mom busying herself in the kitchen, and Marvin and I affectively alone at the table, I decide to do some digging. I’m hoping for some ammunition I can use against Landon later, if he comes back later of course. He’s left all of his stuff here so I presume he is. I hope he is too, even if it’s just so I can have a go at him.

“Marvin?”

Not so much a word as a gentle sound of agreement.

“What was Landon like when he was a boy? Do you have any embarrassing stories about him?”

“I’ve got plenty about you, Matilda.”

Jesus, this house really is too small.

“Mom, stay out, I want to find out about our super star.”

Marvin looks like he’s thinking. Reading the paper still, but thinking as well.

“Embarrassing stories about Landon?”

“Yeah, you know, the kind of things that he’s tried to forget about for years. The stories he wouldn’t want you to tell me.”

“Like that time you decided to go for a wee on stage, in the middle of the nativity play, in front of everyone. All the staff, all the parents, twenty film cameras.”

“Mom, I was four years old, and it wasn’t like I chose to do it, I couldn’t get to the bathroom in time, and it was a little bit of wee, you make it sound like I was peeing for hours. And no one had a film camera, you’ve just made that up.”

“Tracy has it on VHS, darling. She filmed all of the plays. Come to think of it, she might have even transferred it onto DVD. I’ll have to ask her about that.”

Every Christmas and every birthday without fail, Mom brings up that stupid story.

“Something like that?”

“Something exactly like that.”

I expect Landon has pissed all over a stage before. It’s undoubtedly something in his repertoire. Any excuse to get his huge dick out and swing it around. Alright, I’m exaggerating a little bit there. To be fair on him, despite countless confessions and hundreds of model shoots, Landon, to my knowledge, has never actually got his cock out and started swinging it around, just for publicity. It’s exactly the kind of thing I expect him to do, but, up to now at least, I have to hold my hands up and say he’s never done it, at least not in public. In private is a different matter entirely.

“Landon was always quite a shy boy growing up, he got bullied a lot for his height and his weight.”

Hold on. Landon fat and small? Landon a normal human being? That’s impossible.

“Bullied?”

“We had to move around a bit because of my job, which meant Landon was always in and out of schools, which is why he struggled to make friends. If I’m being entirely honest with you, I don’t think Landon’s ever made any friends, not real ones anyway.”

This is not really what I expected to hear.

“I mean he’s always had football, and his team mates from that, and things are a little different now, but he’s never really had a strong friendship group. I guess he takes after me in that respect at least. I always wanted to give him brothers and sisters, but things didn’t work out that way. It might explain why he can sometimes come across as abrasive or headstrong.”

Or arrogant and aloof. Not being able to form relationships makes perfect sense. He may think he’s perfect, but he’s hiding something broken inside.

“He took the divorce badly, and I don’t think he’s ever forgiven his Mom for leaving, but we don’t really talk about stuff like that. That’s probably my fault just as much as his to be fair.”

Marvin smiles softly, pushes his glasses up his nose and then goes back to his paper.

A psychological profile was not what I was after. I wanted a peeing his pants story, an embarrassing remark in front of a disliked boss, a hilarious gaff at a high profile sporting event. There’s no way that I’m going to be able to finish my toast now, not after a sob story that’s going to make me feel sorry for the millionaire playboy.

The morning ticks on, stuttering slowly into the afternoon as the sun climbs up into the cloudless sky over head.

After his initial mishap with the jacuzzi yesterday, Landon spent a large part of the evening out here in it, while Mom and Marvin followed my lead and declined an invite to join him. There are marks still on the grass below the decking, and the ones on the wood have only just dried up.

I read my book, I walk to the end of the garden, I make shapes out of clouds, I sit in silence in the bedroom that’s not mine and I wait for him. I hate to admit it, but I’m bored. I’m bored without him.

Mom and Marvin soak up the sun on the deck, books or pamphlets or local information on their laps, lost in their own thoughts, happy in the comfort of each other and the silence the countryside brings. We eat lunch when we get hungry, a banquet of cheeses and breads and chutneys and sliced meats that Mom somehow conjures up from something, and in the afternoon we return to the garden, Mom and Marvin happy to relax once again, while I struggle to find something to do, my mind never too far away from him.

I imagine what it would be like, allowing myself, for the first time, to play with the ridiculous premise. Landon Maddox and I together, like I see Mom and Marvin being, both of us on our sun loungers spread out on the deck, comfortable in our silence. Our children where I am now, playing together at the end of the garden.

The image gets squashed by the reality, and I’m unable to avoid imagining Landon without picturing him in some kind of position of dominance, or acting in some way to court my attention, and as I continue to explore it, I begin to realize I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It amusing me to picture us both like this, not as enemies, or even as siblings, but as lovers, perhaps even secret lovers for a time being, until we are able to come out to Marvin and Mom and his coach and the Shoreville fans and everyone else who would be affected by that status.

Secret lovers. I explore the possibility in the comfortable confines of a fantasy, of a daydream. I know it would never happen, which protects the plausibility of imagining it.

Here, in my own head I can think about that huge appendage, that swinging dick going hard between my legs. I can think about that perfect body, that pantie-melting smile. Those eyes, those abs, those legs and arms. I can think about all of that because I know it will never happen.

It’ll never happen, not because he’s my stepbrother, but because I hate Landon Maddox. I hate him, because if I didn’t, I might not be able to hold myself back.

When I think the sun has gone behind a cloud, and I open my eyes just to check, there his is above my, smiling down like a lunatic. I’m not quick enough to hide the smile I give him back.

“Alright, Sis. Did you miss me?”

I don’t notice until he pulls me to my feet, just how wet my pussy is.

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Landon

I know she knows I know it, and I know too she’s trying to hide it. She missed me. It’s written all over her face. She’s been lying here all morning waiting for me to come back. She’s probably been thinking about me too, although I know she’d never admit it.

“So what have you all been up to?”

“Oh, you know, relaxing, reading, soaking up the sun. Nothing too energetic. Good run?”

Rachel may be the one asking the questions but it’s Tilly’s who’s got her eyes all over my sweaty, sun-baked skin.

“You’ll have to come next time, I found a beautiful spot.”

“My running days are behind me, thank you. Perhaps you can take Tilly with you, she’s been moping around all day looking for something to do.”

I knew it.

“I have not. I’ve enjoyed the peace and quiet, thank you very much, which, of course, you have now ruined.”

“I found a lake, we can go swimming in. The water is so clear you can see the bottom.”

“I didn’t bring my bathing costume I told you that already.”

“Then it won’t be the bottom of the lake we’ll be seeing, will it?”

Rachel laughs at that one and Tilly gives me a kind of sarcastic smile.

“What took you so long anyway? I thought you might have just given up and gone back to the city.”

“Me? No way. Not when we are all getting along so well. I was getting to know the area. There’s nothing here.”

“I could have told you that and saved you the trouble of going.”

“You wouldn’t have missed me as much if I’d stayed here though, would you?”

“I didn’t miss you waking me up this morning, that’s for sure.”

I bet she did. I bet she even dreamed about me doing it.

“I didn’t want to get a fright seeing you leap out of bed in your bright red, granny panties. Besides which, you were snoring when I went out, so I thought I’d better leave you to it.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“You know me, always thinking about other people.”

This is great. I needed to get out, but being back is even better than I thought it would be.

“You sleeping under the table again tonight, Matilda?”

“You having another jacuzzi for one tonight, Landon?”

“You tell me. I set it up for everyone, but nobody else wanted to get in it.”

“There isn’t much room once you’ve sat down. I saw the amount of water that spilled out afterwards.”

“Hey, that spilled out before, and there is enough room if we squeeze in. It’s not like we don’t know each other.”

“Yeah, I’ll pass I think.”

“Dad, Rachel?”

The last thing I want to do is have Rachel and the old man rubbing up against me, but it’s polite to ask and I know Tilly won’t expect me to. Dad shakes his head, while Rachel’s answer is a little ambivalent.

“You enjoy it first.”

I leave those guys on the deck and go and shower. I can’t let Tilly get too used to having me back around, otherwise she might get bored and lose interest. Yeah, right. That girl’s so transparent she could stand in front of the French windows and we’d all still be able to see the bottom of the garden from the dining table.

Standing naked in the shower with my dick in my hand makes me want to masturbate, but this house is so small that I can’t even squeeze out soap without being heard. A wank would be a waste of this sexual energy anyway, and it’s not really my style either. I’d prefer to have bad sex than a good wank any day of the week, and as long as the possibility of that happening remains, I’m more than happy to hold off, and let the thing build up until it near enough explodes.

I just need to be sure of a few things first. One, she admits that she wants it and two, she’s not going to tell anyone what happens.

She must be struggling too. I mean, forty eight hours already in my presence is enough to turn any girl into a sex crazed, nymphomaniac. She must be chomping at the bit, demonstrating an almost inhuman amount of restraint not to throw herself at me.

Well, we’ll see how long she can last before the pressure gets too much and she breaks. Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Dad and Rachel weren’t around to crush the vibe. If Tilly and I were here alone on a secret holiday, we could skinny dip in that lake I found, fuck each other out on the decking, create a whirlpool in that jacuzzi, displacing all the water we liked around the edges, and generally do exactly what it is she’s having so much trouble in admitting that she wants.

With Rachel and Dad out of the equation, we aren’t even step siblings. We’re just two horny people looking to get laid.

I’m so hard I have to wait a good ten minutes after I’ve finished cleaning myself for my dick to go back down. When it does, I realize I have the choice of putting back on my dirty running kit or wrapping a towel around myself until I get into the room, and every single one of the eight towels that I can find are barely big enough to get round me.

I don’t reckon Tilly standing outside the bathroom waiting to use it is coincidence either.

“Finally.”

We lock eyes for a long moment before I follow her gaze slowly down to what I know is an already swelling dick. A moment later we look at each other. Tilly clears her throat.

“Couldn’t find any smaller towels?”

“There weren’t any big enough.”

“Cocky.”

I step aside to let her past, because if we refer to it too much, I know what will happen. If I’m even anywhere near past semi-hard, this towel is going to lift off like a rocket, and all hell is going to break loose. I don’t care, but Rachel and Dad might, especially if Tilly decides to throw a hissy fit. For some reason, however, she looks like she won’t. Maybe she’s ready to admit it. Maybe she’s about to push me back into the bathroom, whip the towel off and make me slide every single inch of it into her while Mom and Dad do the Sudoku in the fading sun. And maybe that’s all wishful thinking.

Whatever’s going on in her head, she takes her time to pass, and for what must only be a brief moment, but feels like an eternity, we are front to front in the entrance to the bathroom, somehow jammed awkwardly against each other, trapped by the confines of the door frame.

Caught like this, we can’t help but rub against each other as she slowly tries to release herself, and I swear to God she’s engineered the whole thing on purpose. It isn’t just my arm and upper body she’s in contact with either, it’s my rapidly bulging dick, and she knows it. She’s not only enjoying this, she wants me to know she is as well. Naughty, Tilly. Is she giving me a sign or playing me?

Before I have time to react, before I even have time to say anything, Tilly is past me, and I’m staring at a recently slammed bathroom door, only inches away from my face. That’s not all, either. I can feel it against my feet, even before I hear Rachel’s voice. Thank God it’s enough to soften me almost instantly.

“Nice bum, Landon, but I don’t think that’s really all that appropriate for dinner, even in this liberal household.”

I gather up the fallen towel, careful not to expose myself in the process, and side step the short distance to my room without even turning around to see what kind of face Rachel is pulling while she watches me.

I can hear Tilly smile to herself through the wafer thin walls, and I can’t help but join her.

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Tilly

Alright, I did miss him. Mom and Marvin aren’t exactly the life and soul of the party, so without Landon here to dick around with, it’s easy to get bored. I’d prefer a cell phone signal any day of the week, but I guess Landon isn’t too bad for a second best. I know he wants me to admit it, but I don’t think any of us should risk the potential head swelling that might occur afterwards if I did. The last thing I need is for him to know I like him, or at least like him enough to admit he has his uses, here in the middle of nowhere, in what could easily be a scene from a film about the end of the world.

What if we were the last human beings left alive? Come to think of it, that man in the tractor yesterday is the only other human being I’ve seen apart from my own family in several days. No wonder I feel some kind of attachment to The Donkey.

It must be all in my head though. As soon as I leave here, and we all head back to reality, I’ll realize what a fool I’ve been. You know, with my catalogue collection of every model shoot he’s ever done, my secret scrapbook of newspaper articles, the secret folders on my laptop of pictures. Yeah. Know your enemy, that’s what I say. Get so close to them you can feel their heartbeat, their blood pulse through their extremities.

You can’t blame me really. And after the other day, I just had to know. I had to know if it was swelling for real or he was putting it on. I had to make sure it wasn’t just socks stuffed down there after all. You should have seen his face when I did it. Shock would not go anywhere near to describing it accurately. I never thought I’d see him like that, with a face that gave the impression he had literally been caught with his pants down.

“What?”

Landon looks at me over the dinner table, trying to work out what I’m thinking.

“Nothing.”

It would be weird enough to work. They do say opposites attract after all, yet when I look at Mom and Marvin it’s definitely a case of like for like. If this is what they are like now, only a year after being together, what will they be like in forty years time? They practically finish each other’s sentences off already so perhaps they’ll just turn into one person. A kind of Marvin Rachel morph. A Marvel. If Landon ever tried to finish my sentences off for me, I’d kick him in the balls. Repeatedly.

Of course, I know he’s just fucking around. If I wasn’t his step sister anyway, I wouldn’t let him get anywhere near me. I know what Landon is like. A love them and leave them kind of guy. A quick fuck and an even quicker exit, before anything can go bad. I don’t even need to ask him to know he’s never had a long term relationship, but I’m going to anyway, just to get under his skin.

“So, Landon, have you got a girlfriend?”

His smile is not an adequate answer, and I’m not going to let him get away with it.

“I think I read somewhere you were romantically involved with a La Perla model. Veronica something wasn’t it?”

Veronica Giuliani. I know exactly who it was, and romantically involved is as much a misnomer as can be.

“Yeah, that kind of sort of didn’t work out all that well.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. You two looked perfect for each other in the photos I saw.”

In the one photo I saw of them arguing outside a McDonald’s drive through.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Sorry, is this making you uncomfortable?”

“No one likes to talk about their exes, Tilly.”

Oh, right, unless it’s everyone talking about mine.

“I haven’t had much luck with women.”

“Maybe it’ll just take you a little bit of time to find the right one. I mean, look at your father, second time was a charm for him.”

Marvin smiles at my mother in a way that  sends shivers down my spine. Thank God they’ve managed to refrain from fucking each other so far. Tonight better not be the night they go at it, although by the looks of Marvin he won’t have enough energy even if Mom wanted it.

“Are you alright, Marvin?”

He doesn’t look all that well, and he hasn’t eaten much food, although that’s not all that unlike him to be fair. He’s pretty stick thin as it is.

“Fine, thank you. I was just wondering when my son might find the right woman for him.”

There he goes again, apparently lost in some other task and following the thread of our conversation completely.

“Well, it isn’t for the want of trying is it?”

“Hey now, hold on. Just because I like women doesn’t mean that’s a negative thing.”

“You like them for a day and then you choose another one.”

“Not always, no. I get that more from the women I happen to end up with, actually. That love them and leave them kind of reputation I’ve got? Completely unfair. The papers made that up to sell more copies.”

“No, ok, that would mean you’d have to love them first, right?”

“Some people aren’t looking to settle down, Tilly, not until they find the person they want to do that with.”

“And you haven’t found that person in, what, like, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred-?”

“Sometimes you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs.”

“With long legs, bronzed skin and big tits.”

“Tilly!”

“Not all of them, some of them had small tits, and others even had tits as small as yours.”

“That’s enough about breasts, thank you.”

It makes me laugh that Mom can’t even say it.

“Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong place.”

“Maybe the wrong place is exactly the place I should be looking.”

I am determined not to be the first one to let my eyes drop, but Landon starts pulling faces and I can’t help but laugh. I silently tell him he’s an asshole and he gives me a look that tells me he likes being told so.

Three hundred may be an exaggeration, but it’s got to be somewhere close to that figure. Sometimes two at a time, at least one time up to three, but even though there have been countless stories over the couple of seasons he’s been in the limelight, not a single person has come forward and accused him of cheating. Landon Maddox may be a womanizer, but he’s a chivalrous one at that.

I guess if you don’t do proper relationships, you don’t have anyone to cheat on.

After dinner we sit for a while on the decking, before the drop in temperature pushes us all back inside. We have the same problem as before, too many people for not enough seats. This time I push Landon over and squeeze myself into the sofa next to him. I think he’s surprised, and a little bit pleased that I seem to have gotten over my fear of closing the physical gap between us.

I can feel his leg twitch nervously next to mine, before he rearranges himself to try and give me a little room, then changes his mind and opens his legs fully again, squashing me into the armrest.

“Landon.”

“You’d be more comfortable sitting up on the arm.”

“I’d be more comfortable if you moved up a bit.”

“Why don’t you just sit on the floor like you’ve done up until now. I know you want to be close to me, but this is pushing it a little too far.”

Sat next to him like this, and looking at our two bodies together, I realize for the first time how big he is. I’m a petite girl anyway, but Landon is like twice the size of a normal person. I don’t mean he’s fat either, or all that muscly, or even all that tall, but the combination of all those things, and perhaps the illusion of a smaller than average sofa, makes him look enormous. Naturally, I can’t help but think about his dick and immediately start to go red.

“It’s hot in here, isn’t it?”

Landon gives me the side eye.

“No.”

Any more tightly packed in and that T-shirt would rip. With arms like that around me I couldn’t fail to sleep well. You know, right after.

“Are you feeling alright, Tilly, you’ve gone quite red.”

Trust Mom to pick up on it.

“Fine, just a bit hot, that’s all, you know, squashed into the corner here I can hardly breath.”

Landon makes a token effort to move to the side, but to be fair there isn’t much else he can do.

“Why don’t you take a cold shower, that ought to cool you off.”

I need to stop thinking about him like I am, you know, in that way that will never happen. I guess it must be because of the close proximity, and the several months of detailed study of every aspect of his persona. Then there’s the subtext of course, and the looks he gives me, and the things he says to me in passing, and the outrageous flirting masked as something else entirely. Unless I’m just seeing things I want to see that is, but that would be ridiculous. No one gets Landon Maddox for keeps, I know that. Especially not his step sister. Especially not the girl that hates him more than anyone else in the whole world. I mean, why would I want him anyway?

I hate his sexy face, his thick arms, his perfect smile and his big, swinging dick more than anything. I hate that I can’t have him, and I hate that he thinks I want him in the first place.

Why did I have to end up with God’s gift to women squeezing me out of space on my vacation sofa, and making me sleep underneath a dining table in the living room on a mattress as thin as a roll of toilet paper? What did I do to have to put up with the way he makes my body gooey, my panties soaking wet and my pussy throb? That wasn’t in the script at all.

I was supposed to hate him, not the other way round. Oh, fuck, is this what this is? This ridiculous fucking sensation that feels like it’s crippling me, either when he’s here or when he’s not? Is that what this is?

If it is, what the hell do we do? Ignore it, is the best advice I can give myself. Ignore it and it’ll go away. I must be sick or confused from lack of sleep. It, this, it can’t be real.

Thank God he’s sworn off it, thank God we’re step siblings, and more than anything else, thank God we aren’t here on our own. God knows what would happen if the matching bird-watching nerds weren’t around to keep an eye on our every move. I might even be tempted to jump in that jacuzzi, bathing costume or not.

“I think I’m going to be a little sick.”

“Dad?”

Marvin politely excuses himself from the small cluster of confined space that makes up the living room, takes the short journey across to the bathroom, never seemingly in a hurry, before emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl in systematic fashion.

Landon and I look at each other. I look at Mom. Mom looks at Marvin.

“Mom?”

“Marvin?”

Yeah, alright, he looked a little bit peaky at dinner time, but I didn’t expect this. Not the first session, nor the three that come after it. When he’s finally done, he returns to the living room as slowly as he left it and takes his place again in his armchair. It must be half a minute before he speaks again.

“Sorry, it must have been something I ate.”

No shit.

When the shock has finally melted away, Mom swings into action. Tylenol are found, offered and refused, paracetamol too. Marvin accepts a glass of water, but refuses to go to bed. He insists he is ok, but Mom, Landon and I are all concerned. It’s come out of nowhere.

“You’re going green”, Landon says, standing above him.

“You are a bit green, Marvin”, Mom agrees.

“I’m fine. It must have been what we ate at lunch. Maybe the eggs.”

“I ate eggs and I’m fine.”

“Maybe the tuna then.”

“It could be the sun.”

“It could be the sun, it has been hot today and we were out for quite a while in it.”

“Why don’t you go to bed, you’ll feel better in bed.”

Marvin checks his watch. He holds it up for us all to see. The time, quite clearly, is not the time he usually goes to bed. It’s barely nine o’clock.

“I’ll go to bed at nine thirty. I’m fine, really, I’m better now.”

This seems like the most Marvin has said all week.

“That was some effort back there. I hope you’ve left that sucker clean.”

“I hope it wasn’t the tuna.”

Mom goes instantly to check it, throwing out what remains just in case.

“Well, that was a bit exciting, wasn’t it? Who needs TV with Dad painting the bathroom with his barely digested food.”

“Thank you, Landon. I don’t think we need a reminder.”

“So, what are we doing tomorrow?”

What other excitement have I got to look forward to? Another close encounter with Landon, or a masterclass of his in how to be a douchebag?

“We could try and find a bar or something.”

“Not with Tilly you won’t, she’s not old enough.”

Landon and I catch eyes and smile at each other.

“She can have a coke.”

“Ass-hole.”

“Anyway, we have to see how Marvin is in the morning. That might limit us on what we can do.”

“I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Mom doesn’t look all that convinced, and Marvin isn’t all that convincing.

I take the opportunity to drag my mattress from Landon’s room during the lull in conversation that follows. It takes me a few minutes to ease myself out of the chair, a feat that is complicated because Landon wants to see me struggle, and eventually I have to put my hand on his thigh to lever myself out.

He’s sniggering when I finally manage it, somehow satisfied he’s got me to work for it.

After two days barely sleeping, the last thing I want to do is wrestle through another night here in the living room, especially if Marvin might be passing through to empty himself in the bathroom, no matter how politely he does so, but I’m scared of what might happen if I choose the other option and sleep in the same room as Landon.

“Going to bed already?”

“Thinking about it.”

“At quarter past nine?”

“I don’t know if you have realized this yet, but we are in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to do after the sun goes down.”

“There is nothing to do when the sun’s up either.”

I take to the armrest like Landon suggested before. It is just as I expected, extremely uncomfortable.

“There is no such thing as boredom, only boring people.”

“Thanks, Mom, for that insight, but if there’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to do.”

“There’s plenty to do! You could read, talk to each other, play games. When we were kids, we used to play board games for hours. The trouble with you lot is that you’re too reliant on your cell phones. That and the internet.”

“How else is anyone meant to communicate with each other?”

“The proper way. That’s probably why you two can’t find proper relationships.”

I have to bite my tongue to not mention my Mom’s first marriage, built on a healthy basis of communication.

“You’re probably right, Rachel.”

I give Landon a weird look for that comment, wondering where he’s going to go with it.

“I mean the internet really is just full of pornography and people pretending to be something their not. Isn’t that right, Tilly?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“You wouldn’t know about people pretending to be one way when they’re thinking about exactly the opposite?”

There’s that subtext again, as bright as the sun.

“We never had so much pornography when I was growing up. I mean, we had it obviously, but not like the stuff you get nowadays.”

“Um, how do you know that exactly, Mom?”

“I am aware of what goes on, Tilly. I may be older but I’m not past it just yet.”

Again I have a disconcerting shiver running right down my spine. The last thing I want to think about is my mother searching for big dick pictures on the internet. Maybe that’s what gets her and Marvin off. A cup of coffee, a long walk in a nature reserve and then a four hour session of the finest dick pics the internet can provide.

“Are you alright, Tilly? You’re turning your face up.”

“I’m fine. I’m going to go to bed I think, I’m tired.”

Landon sighs.

“It’s only nine thirty. What is everyone seventy or something?”

“Nine thirty? Well, that’s me then.”

Marvin eases himself out of what might have been a catatonic state, before easing himself out of his chair with just as much aplomb, before, finally, easing his way across the living room floor towards the bedroom. He does not look well at all.

“I guess that’s me too.”

I know Landon’s looking at me even before I turn to him and catch his gaze.

“Well, that’s just me and you then, Sis.”

I point to his door.

“That is you right there, and this is me right here, Bro.”

“I’m not ready to go to bed yet.”

“Tough.”

“Come on, you can get all cozy, I’ll read you a bedtime story.”

“You know how to read?”

“Monopoly?”

“Bed.”

“Poker?”

“Landon!”

“Jeez, alright, I’m going.”

Just four more days to go. Four more days of pretending that I don’t want something and beginning to realize more and more I desperately do.

Landon pisses quietly against the porcelain. He cleans his teeth, washes his face, clicks out the light and disappears into his room.

A paper thin wall separates his bed from mine, and I’ve never felt more strongly that I wished for all the world that it didn’t.