Nurse the Hate: A Short Story About That One Night

When Victor and Christina came on the scene, things picked up.  They moved back from their Mom’s place downtown into their Dad’s place out here by the lake.  He wasn’t “on” the lake technically, but lived a few houses down on this access road where the neighbors were all cool and the cops left you alone.  It was close enough to the lake that the midges were a real pain in the ass and you could smell the white bass rotting on shore.  They had both moved in with him after he got that Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  I never met him when he was normal, but you could see glimmers of what he used to be like shine though for a while.  He got worse pretty quick but that summer he was OK and he never gave me any shit.

Victor was fun to party with, and we started hanging out over there so he could keep an eye on his Dad.  I was failing out at community college during the day and partying most nights.  I had a usual crew.  We would start out by rolling over there and getting a solid base going.  Victor would give his Dad a beer and put the Beach Boys on the stereo to keep him settled.  His Dad wandered around the house while “Good Vibrations” boomed out of the Pioneer speakers.  You had to put Beach Boys on or his Dad would fucking start to lose it.  Victor always played that Greatest Hist disc over and over.  

Victor’s sister Christina was sexy as fuck.  She kind of looked like Suzie Quatro, but there was no denying that she sort of looked like Victor in a wig.  Those two looked like twins but Victor was a year older.  They had that weird brother sister thing where they looked so similar that it was easy to imagine the other one with a flipped gender.  It used to fuck with my head.  She was quiet and would sit in the corner while most of the guys tried to impress her by doing stupid shit.  I hardly ever talked to her cause I never knew what to say. 

So we were over there like normal.  Good Vibrations is booming.  Victor’s Dad is mumbling the words to the song walking around the house holding a Stroh’s tallboy.  I’m with Mikey and Little Mikey, even though Little Mikey is a pain in the ass, but he drove so that was that.  I’m standing in the kitchen leaning against the counter drinking a beer and Little Mikey keeps blabbing about “This town is dead!  This town is so fucking dead!” and Victor is smiling like he always is saying “Maybe we should get some coke” and I’m already fucking bored.  Then Mikey starts to wrestle Little Mikey and Victor is doing some WWF announcer voice and I’m like “this again?” when Christina says to me “You like books?  You read, don’t you?”.  I’m like “I can’t believe Christina is talking to me” but I’m trying to play it cool and I say “Yeah” because I do read some, way more than these other assholes.  So then Christina says, “C’mon.  I want to show you my books.” and we walk down the hall to her room.

Christina walks me in there and shuts the door behind her, and I’m totally freaking out.  I’m thinking for sure Victor is going to go fucking apeshit because he is totally protective of his sister and he’s going to think I was doing some backhand shit.  Still, I’m trying to play it cool and all when she walks me over to this little bookshelf to show me her books.  She had some bullshit up there but it was kinda surprising bullshit like Tolkien and Vonnegut paperbacks and I’m leafing through it pretending to be really into it but really I’m freaking out trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do.  She is standing really close behind me and I can smell the soap on her, like really good smelling soap girls use, not like that Irish Spring shit.  And just like that we start making out.

It’s not that I’m not into it, it’s just that my head is still all wrecked from this girl I used to see named Lisa.  Lisa wanted to move to Montreal and wanted me to go, and I loved her but it’s not like I knew French so what was I going to do in Montreal?  She drops this ultimatum on me and says “Either you go to Montreal, or we are done”.  I don’t want her to go so bad my whole body starts to shake but I don’t want to look like I’m a bitch so I just look away and say “whatever”.  Now she’s gone in Montreal and I’m driving around getting fucked up with Mikey and Little Mikey thinking about her all the time, so when Christina starts making out with me I feel like I’m cheating on Lisa.  The last year has been like I’ve been in a car and I missed the exit I was supposed to get off at with Lisa but I just kept driving the wrong way and now I’ve driven too far to turn back around to get her.  What are you supposed to do when you get one chance in life and you fuck it up?  Then I start to roll around on the bed with Christina.  

At this point I’m thinking “this is fucking awesome” but at the same time I’m thinking “make out a little bit but don’t do anything else” as if that would be enough to keep Victor cool if he went mental on me and it wouldn’t really be like cheating on Lisa who doesn’t give a fuck about me at this point anyway.  Then it starts to really get going.  She’s rubbing my dick through my jeans and I’ve got her bra off and she looks fucking hot as hell and it’s all going really fast.  I pull off her jeans and she has this little black triangle of pubic hair and I’m like “holy shit” and say the dumbest thing ever “I don’t have a rubber”.  She is pulling me back to her and she whispers in my ear “get one out of my nightstand” so I start fumbling around blind with my left hand in that drawer while I’m kissing her and fingering her with my right hand and I’m not doing either very well.  I can’t find the fucking thing in that drawer.  I keep pulling out hair brushes and batteries.  She starts huffing in my ear “just put it in me!  Just put it in me!”  and I just say fuck it and I do it.

It feels so fucking good I can’t believe it and I’m almost having an out of body experience thinking “holy shit I’m fucking Christina” while I hear Mikey and Little Mikey and Victor all yelling about shit over the fucking Beach Boys outside the door.  Christina’s facial expression changes, like she loses this edge she always has on her.  She looks younger or something, like she took a mask off.  It’s like she decided to show me who she was, like she decided to take a chance with me because she trusted me and then that’s when things get fucked up.

Little Mikey starts banging on the door and he’s laughing it up and is like “Hey man!  Let’s go!  We’re leaving!  We are bolting like right fucking now!”  So for some reason my first thought is “man, that’s my ride” but at the same time I’m still fucking Christina but the magic is all gone because I can hear those guys saying shit to Victor like “I think he’s fucking your sister in there man” and then I just pull out of her.  Boom.  There’s like this one moment where we both sort of look at each other and I’m like “oh shit” cause I know this is really bad.  I start to mumble some excuse about “sorry umm he’s my ride” as I’m putting my boner in my underwear and somehow she’s the one embarrassed even though I’m the one who just did the most asshole thing ever.  She covers herself up with the sheet and I can see she’s trying really hard not to cry but tears are welling up and she’s mad at herself because she doesn’t want me to see that.  I’m so ashamed at myself I’m practically running out of the room because I totally humiliated Christina who is probably nicer to me than anyone at this point but she doesn’t know it’s not her and that I’m still in love with Lisa and I’m scared shitless of her brother and it’s not her fault because I’m totally this fucked up broken person anyway.  I just bolt like an asshole.

Mikey and Little Mikey are out in the kitchen and start to give me a hard time and Victor is like “what the fuck dude?” and Victor’s Dad is just staring at me saying the words to “Surfin USA” which is screaming out of the speakers and I practically run past them to the car.  I climb in back too, and don’t even try to get shotgun so when Mikey and Little Mikey get in the car Mikey knows something is fucked up.  Little Mikey is a dick like always and when we pull out of the driveway he’s like “let me smell your finger dude!” and starts laughing like a fucking hyena and Mikey smacks him and says “chill the fuck out man”.  I don’t say shit the whole drive over to some guy’s place that Little Mikey thinks has coke but he doesn’t so we listen to Skynyrd and drink beers and listen to Little Mikey scream “This town is fucking dead!”. 

I try not to think about that night anymore but I still do.