Lyrics to Your Own Worst Enemy by Alice Cooper (2005)
You get up every morning on the wrong side of the bed
You butter your hand instead of the bread
Drink enough coffee to wake the dead.
Ever have one of those days where you wake up, look around the room, and say 'nah'? Lemy did. In fact, that's how his Saturday started: He lifted his tired head, cast one blurry glance at his surroundings, and decided (executively) to go back to sleep and stay there for the rest of his life. For one, he was mad tired - lying awake half the night does that to you - and for two, well, for two he had to do something about The Lizy Situation. He was at a metaphorical fork in the road, and there were two options: Go left and hurt Lizy the way Lyra hurt him, or go right and...know her. Ya know, in the biblical sense.
You're doing 85 and the light is turning red
The judge took your license and forbid you to drive
And your heart is pumping bacon and you're barely alive
Have sex with her is what he meant.
Look, he'd known for a long time that she was into him, this wasn't a startling revelation like yo, you bout to have the Son of God, Mary, brace yo'self. Even so, he was kind of hoping to put it off until never. After she kissed him that day they were watching wrestling together, he did everything he could to weasel away from her affections, and it looked like she was content to wait until she was older. Apparently he was as wrong as an autism joke (that shit's not funny, bro). That meant he had to deal with it now rather than pass it onto future generations like the national debt. Lovely. I'm so thrilled.
You trip on your shoelace and fall on your face
Your hair is a mess, your clothes a disgrace
Your stocks went south and your girlfriend is gay
Your dog ate your cat and that was your good day
Fun fact: Trying to decide whether to break your little sister's heart or her pelvis isn't the easiest thing in the world, especially when you're barely awake and slept like a baby the night before - up every hour crying. He wanted to retreat back into the chambers of sleep, but his mind was spinning like a dynamo and drifting back off was not an option. He turned his head to Gwen, who was curled up on the edge of the bed and motionless save for the gentle rise and fall of her rhythmic breathing. He briefly considered waking her up for a little morning distraction, but decided against it: As preoccupied as he was, he'd probably have trouble getting it up.
You're your own worst enemy
You're a walking catastrophe
You're at war with yourself and nobody else
You're a danger
Instead, he laid there with one arm bent behind his head and stared up at the ceiling with a troubled frown. Alright, let's pretend we're fancy chefs on an episode of Chopped and deconstruct this steaming shit sandwich. My little sister, with whom I am very close in a normal, healthy, brotherly way, wants my dick - and possibly to straight up be my girlfriend. I don't want that because the dynamic of our relationship has always been different than the dynamic of my other sister relationships. The fact that she is related to me by flesh and blood does not factor into the equation, so let's set that aside for a minute. I've always been kind of her mentor, her protector, her...there's a fatherly aspect to it, okay? I think there always is when you're talking about older brothers and younger sisters, just as there is a maternal aspect when it's older sisters and younger brothers. I don't see her as a potential partner, I just see her as...Lizy. I have mad love and affection for her, but she doesn't make my dick hard.
That's not to say she isn't cute...I mean, she is, but I say that as an older brother and not as a guy, you know? Again, I gotta wonder how Dad does it, man, because if I see Lizy like that, he's gotta see the others ten times...more.
Except for Loan.
His lips pulled back from his teeth, lending him the appearance of an angry dog; he drew a sharp breath and let it out in a hiss. It was really fucked up how Dad did her - loveless, passionless sex - and it really pissed him off because Loan deserved better. Yeah, she was kind of an asshole, but assholes need love too, and she wasn't much of an asshole to him yesterday. She was that way with Dad - always sweet and loving toward him but indifferent to everyone else. He fully expected her to do that to him now...at least he hoped she did, because he liked seeing her softer side. It was nice.
It also pissed him off...and this made him feel bad...because he saw so much of himself in Loan yesterday that all those thoughts and emotions from before Gwen, before Leia, came rushing back like a CGI tsunami in a SyFy Channel disaster movie. Yeah, their circumstances were different, but only like taking a sword to the head is different than taking a bullet: Both are serious fucking grevious wounds. In his prime (of being an angsty vrgin fuckboi), any sex would have done it for him, but Loan was a little more advanced. It's like...the hierarchy of needs he read about. First a man needs food, then after he has that he needs shelter, etc. She was further down the road than him at that point, but that didn't mean she needed what she needed any less.
And Dad wasn't giving it to her.
Hell, if all the sex - the main currency of love and affection here - that he had was mechanical and going-through-the-motions, he'd be fucked up too. He knew Lola was into it, and Luan, and Lana, and Lynn, and it helped them bond. Like, he felt closer to them all now. If they got on top of him and just did their thing (you almost done, kid? I got places to be)...yeah, that'd hurt.
I oughta go have a little talk with him, let him know what he's doing to her
Sure.
Great.
But first…
...Lizy.
Sigh. I can always do that -
No, brah, no putting it off. Time for that's passed.
Fine. Where was I?
Right. Doing...that….with her is a pretty tall order, you know? The alternative is that I reject her, which will fuck her all up no matter how gently I do it. She's gonna sit there and see me fucking everyone in the house but her and she's going to feel like garbage, like she's worthless and I don't love her. That'd be worse than what Lyra did to me...far, far worse, because at least she'd have sex with me if I asked. Man, I can picture myself in Lizy's place like that, watching the girl I loved doing everyone but me because "Awww, you're my cutesy wootsy lil baby bro, I can't do that with you." *Cheek pinch*
Yeah, I-I couldn't do her like that.
Which means I have to just do her period.
There's really no other way, and like Gwen said, it would be better for me to initiate it rather than her - hey, look, sis, I love and want you, come here.
I know, I can fake my own death; start a fire somewhere and front like it got me. Oh noes, mah skinza burnin! I just need a body.
Or I can contrive to 'accidentally' castrate myself - get Lana to let me use her table saw and do a little tribute to Paul Timberman's Workshop. Hahahaha, I love that skit. Guy hosts a show where he does woodworking and shit and hurts himself in every episode...often fatally.
That might be going a little too far in this case. I mean...Loan, Lyra, Liby, and Lacy have all gone a round or two with Shocky, and none of them were weirded out. Ew, my little brother! Gross! None of his aunts, either. Maybe he was the odd one.
He chuckled humorlessly. Yeah, I'm the freak for not wanting to dick my baby sister. Then again, I have no problems letting my thirty-some-year-old aunts fuck me, so really, I'm a hypocrite in a headband.
Even so, I just...I dunno, okay? I'm gonna do it...for Lizy...because I'm a cuck/punk/bitch who does for his sisters even when it fucks him up. Hey, Lem, ride a pink bike around for me and get gay bashed so hard you still have nightmares about it. Sure, Lib-a-rino, anything for you. Of course my sisters do for me too (now more than ever, heh), so that line of reasoning doesn't hold up.
Anyway, I'm stuck doing something I really don't want to because under the military jacket, Brett Michaels hair, and tough talk, I'm a fucking teddy bear. I -
His thoughts trailed off when Gwen stirred and rolled over, her tired eyelids fluttering open and her fingers threading through her hair. "Hi," she muttered.
"Hey," he replied and stroked her forehead, "good morning."
She smiled and closed her eyes with a hum, putting him in mind of a cat curled up on its master's lap. His heart swelled to twice its normal size, burst, and then he died. The end.
No, that's not what happened; he took her in his arms and pulled her to his chest, her warmth and the steady beat of her heart against his feeling good and right. He kissed her cheek, and without opening her eyes she puckered her lips; he pecked them and she smiled. "I had a dream we were in Mexico," she said sleepily.
Lol, that's random. "What were we doing?"
"Trying to get home," she said. "We were lost. We were on a bus trying to get to the border but we went in the wrong direction and wound up deeper in Mexico."
Okay, that sounds like a nightmare: Being stuck in a country where you don't know the language and your very skin tone marks out as an outsider. And that's before you factor in the cartels, dirty water, and corrupt federales. "Did we ever get home?" he asked.
"I woke up," she said and snuggled against him, "so...yes." She ran her toes up his calf and giggled when he shuddered. "You looked really good in a sombrero."
Lemy snorted. "Did I really wear one of those?"
Gwen opened her eyes and shook her head. "No."
After a while, she got up to use the bathroom room - getting dressed first, Lemy noted - and he was alone, his fingers laced under his head and his face pointed at the ceiling. He had the urge to procrastinate...to shuffle his feet and take as long getting around to Lizy as possible, but that would just drag it out even more: All day it'd be hanging over his head like a dark cloud, rushing toward him like the light of an oncoming train in the night.
I should just get it over with.
His stomach rumbled.
After breakfast.
Swinging his legs out from under the cover, he sat up, rubbed the back of his neck, then got to his feet. At the dresser, he pulled out a pair of jeans and yanked them on, then grabbed the first shirt he laid his hands on: A black T with LYNYRD SKYNYRD in yellow against a giant Confederate flag. Couldn't wear this one outside the house or he'd catch hell. Hey, racist, where's your bike? If he went into public he'd have to cover it up with something...like a white robe, maybe.
In the hall, the bathroom line was five deep, Gwen at the end and Loan in the front: When the latter heard his door open, she whipped her head around, her face going from resting bitch to Christmas morning like that. You'd never know it from the pale skin, dark bags, and messy hair, but when she smiled she was ethereal - like Helen of Troy, only Loan's beauty was greater because of its rarity.
He fell in between Gwen, and Loan forfeited her spot in line to Luan to come over. "Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," she replied; her hands, splayed on the thighs of her dirty jeans, rubbed crisply up and down, almost like she wanted to touch him but didn't have the courage. That made him frown a little; he held out his arms in an awkward gesture and she stepped into them, resting her hands on the backs of his shoulders as he circled her hips. She was so tall that he only came up to her stomach, and had to tilt his head back to look at her. The rank scent of stale sweat and dirty fabric filled his nose, but he ignored it.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked because he had to ask something, and 'how do you feel' felt a little... I dunno, clumsy.
She rubbed her hands over his back. "Better than I have in forever," she said.
"That's good."
The bathroom door opened and Mom came out dressed in jeans and a black tank top that revealed her scrawny, freckle smattered arms. The line moved up one, but Loan didn't seem to notice: She stared down into Lemy's eyes and ran her hand over his forehead, a happy little grin on her face.
Oh, God, is she in love with me too now? He searched her eyes and, I dunno, guys, it's not looking good.
Loan loving him wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but he wasn't really planning on having a harem like his old man. He wasn't knocking it, but he was more than happy with just Gwen, and already there was a chance Lizy would stick around after today (he was really trying to not think about it). Maybe Dad could love fifty women at one time, but Lemy didn't know if he could. There was room in his heart, but when you have that many women, how can you fairly divide your time and attention between them?
Answer: You wind up like Dad, who has time for literally nothing else. Miss me, homeboy.
Although, I mean...looking into Loan's eyes and feeling the warmth of her body heat, his heartbeat was just a little quicker than normal, so maybe she wasn't the only one in love.
Oh.
Oh wow.
Now there's that on my plate.
My life might not look like it's still BS, y'all, but it kind of is.
He glanced at Gwen; she was chatting with Lacy, her arms crossed over her chest and her hip cocked. She said she didn't mind and liked watching and all that, but deep down he still felt just a little guilty...even though she herself had had sex with Lacy, Liby, and Lola (and Leia, if you count that epic threesome a while back). Was she just saying that because she felt like she had to? This wasn't the first time he wondered that, and it made him feel like a piece of shit: If he was a better man, he'd have told her I don't care if you like watching, I'm for you and only you. Instead he went Okay! and immediately started fucking every pussy in a twenty miles radius.
Just like the weak, pathetic, cheating bastard he was.
He didn't deserve comfort, but he hugged Loan tighter nonetheless. "Do you work today?" he asked.
Yesterday after the third time they had sex (or was it the fourth?), he called Flip and asked if she could come back. I need to find a job, she told him as they cuddled, Mom's gonna be so mad. Flip's response? I'm not cleaning those goddamn toilets. She wasn't too keen on going back and he wasn't happy about it either, since Flip was a dick who liked making fun of people, but it was only until she found something else.
"Yeah," she said gloomily. "I leave in an hour."
"Do you want me to walk with you?" he offered.
She brightened. "Yeah, that'd be cool."
When his turn for the bathroom finally came, Loan let him go with evident reluctance. As he pissed, he thought of her. Last night, as they snuggled together, he suggested she talk to her mom, but she was really against the idea, almost like it scared her. I-I can't handle a confrontation right now. He didn't push the matter, though he thought she really should. He wasn't much for confrontation himself, but he had it out with dad and now look, their relationship was ace. If Loan opened up to her mom, he was sure things would get better. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, though. It was really up to her to make that decision, not him.
Done, he went back into the hall and Loan smiled at him. He caught another whiff of her odor and almost grimaced. She needed a -
An idea came to him.
"Hey," he said and hooked his thumb over his shoulder, "do you wanna take a shower with me?"
A huge smile spread across her face and her eyes sparkled. "Sure," she said.
In the bathroom, he popped his shirt off and tossed it aside while she bent at the waist and dragged her jeans down her shapely legs. He stopped to watch them slide past her pale pink panties - some of the fabric was pinched between her butt cheeks, and he wondered how it would feel if he stuck his dick in without pulling them down.
Next came her sweater; she crossed her arms over her chest in an X, gripped the hem, and lifted it over her wide hips and ample chest with contrived slowness, the material riding up to expose inch after inch of soft, creamy flesh. Shocky woke from his slumber and Lemy's throat went drier than a ninety-year-old gay woman at a Chippendales revue. The hem slipped over her bare breasts and her erect nipples trembled; he mentally added a springy boiboiboiboinnnng sound because sometimes, you either laugh or nut in your pants like Jim from American Pie.
She pulled it over her head and dropped it onto the floor, then half turned and smirked. "Enjoying the show?"
"Very much," he said and looked her up and down, from the tips of her toes to the crown of her blonde head, his eyes lingering on her breasts. Ummm, they were perfect.
"It looks like it," she said and glanced at his crotch. He followed her gaze, and was not surprised to see his old friend The Shockmaster standing loud and proud. He unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down; all that separated him from the world was a thin layer of black cotton. Loan half-smiled. "Why don't you take it all off?"
"You first," he said.
"Dude, my tits are hanging out."
"Mine too."
She laughed. "Yours don't count as a private part."
He started to say something, but stopped. She had a point. It's kind of dumb when you think about it: How come a dude can walk around with no shirt but a woman can't? Oh, chicks' tits are too arousing. Uh, no, only because we make them that way. I mean...they're arousing but because we've put such emphasis on them being a secret and sexualized body part, it's even more arousing. Ya know what they say: Sex is just as much between your ears as it is your legs.
Shoving his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, he pulled them down, and his dick sprang free, the air cool against his fevered shaft. Loan giggled in that firm girly-but-not-really way of hers. "That's hot."
They pooled at his feet and he stepped out of them, entirely naked now. "Alright, your turn."
For a moment she stared at him, playing up the drama of the moment, then she pushed them down, baring the Y-shaped juncture of her thighs for his lidded eyes. Shocky shuddered like a divining rod sniffing water as they hit the floor. She stepped out of them and kicked them away. "You gonna start the shower or just look at me?"
Hmmm...I'd rather look at you, but, yeah, you need to bathe, so…
Turning, he spun the hot water knob, then added some cold, one hand thrust under the facet to test the temperature. Loan came over and laid her palms flat on his back; when she ran them over his bare flesh, he shuddered. Satisfied that the water was just right, he stood to his full height, and she draped her arms over his shoulders and pulled him against her, her questing fingers crawling down his chest and her heat caressing his back. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against her, reveling in the sensation of her touch.
"You ready?" she asked.
"So ready," he said.
"I meant to get in the shower," she laughed.
"I didn't," he said archly. He pulled away from her embrace and climbed in. He held out his hand, and with a smile, she took it and stepped over the wall, the water beating down onto her back. She turned and let the water fall onto her breasts.
"Liking the view?" she asked. "Of my ass?"
Lemy cupped her butt cheeks in his hands and squeezed, which made her jump a little. "I'm lovin' it."
She snickered. "Okay, McDonald's." She ducked her head under the water and wetted her hair; rivlets sliced down her back and dripped down her butt. Shocky found this pleasing and did his Scrappy Doo bit. Let me at it, Lem, stop being a bitch. Chill, will ya? We can maybe do that in a minute, but the whole reason I got her in here is to wash her. She's beautiful and great, but she kinda smells.
Grabbing a bar of soap from the ledge, he lathered his hands, returned it, and rubbed them slowly over her back, smearing white across her flesh. She leaned back and he stroked her sides, then around to her stomach. "That feels really good," she said.
He crept his hands up and slid them over her breasts, her nipples raking across his palms. Her breath hitched and she tilted her head back. He rubbed in slow, lazy circles then grazed down...past her stomach...over her mound...between her legs. She uttered a breathy "Oh" that turned to a sharp inhalation when he pressed his middle finger against her clit.
Okay, fuck bathing. Snaking his other arm around her hip, he cupped her left breast and kneaded the nipple as he began rubbing her. She reached back, found his dick, and wrapped her hand around it, the kiss of her skin against his sending shivers down his spine. She gripped and started to stoke in long, slow strides. He rested his forehead against her back and rubbed faster; she was beginning to get wet and the motion of his thumb produced a wet shlicking sound.
He was losing himself to passion; he kissed her wet skin and squeezed her breast, eliciting a moan from her throat. He moved his hand down between her lips and slipped his middle finger into her boiling pool of moisture. She clutched him and stroked faster, her hand smearing his precum and gliding wetly up and down his length.
That was it. Panting and trembling with need, he pulled away. "Bend over," he trembled. She turned, her face red, and switched him spots, her hand skipping across his chest. He stood with his back to the spray as she bent and splayed her hands on the rim of the tub, her cheeks spreading away from her glistening pink center. As soon as she was in position, he grabbed her hips, brought his tip to her entrance, and thrusted, her body sheathing him to the hilt. She gasped and pushed back, the pressure making his eyes roll. He thrusted again, and she grunted. "I'm not gonna last long," she warned.
"Neither am I."
Not long wound up being less than two minutes. He went first, his orgasm blasting from him like an artillery shell and slamming against the opening of her womb, which threw her into her own climax. Her walls bore down on him and squeezed the rest of his nut from him like toothpaste from a tube. Spasms wracked her body and his knees went weak, nearly giving out and spilling him to the floor of the tub.
After, they bought fought to catch their breath, then he pulled out in a rush of oozing white sperm. She rose to her full height and pressed her hands against the wall to steady herself. Lemy watched himself drp from her passage, and frowned. The point was to get her clean, brah.
Sighing, he picked up the soap and started to scrub her back. Don't do it again, he admonished himself.
But he did.
Oh, he did.
"Hey, Gwen."
Gwen turned her head and stiffened slightly as Lyra dropped onto the couch next to her.
"Hi," Gwen said and glanced away; it came out more curtly than she meant and she felt a rush of embarrassment. "How's it going?" she added to hopefully soften the blow.
Kicking her feet up onto the coffee table and crossing her arms, Lyra shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I'm kind of excited." A sly grin touched her lips and a light twinkled in her eye. Did she mean excited, or excited? Around here you could never tell; the Louds were so uninhibited that you were just as likely to hear someone say I'm horny as you were to hear them say I'm tired.
"For what?" she asked and glanced from Lyra to Lizy. The little girl, dressed in a short sleeve white blouse, a plaid skirt, dress shoes, and socks pulled up her claves, sat in the armchair catercorner from the couch, her legs stuck out in front of her and her hands resting in her lap. She wore her hair in a lank ponytail that lay across her back and an absent expression on her face: she stared at the TV but, Gwen imagined, wasn't registering what was happening. She passed most of the morning staring at Lemy and sighing sadly, her eyes brimming with need, longing, and hurt. When he left to walk Loan to work half an hour ago, she looked like she was going to cry - Lizy, not Loan, though she didn't look too happy either.
Lyra smiled dreamily. "For the show tonight. BodaciousE and the Fist of Pain. I won two tickets from the radio station. I had to sing one of their songs all the way through."
Oh wow. That sounded embarrassing. "You knew all the lyrics?"
"No," Lyra snorted, "I picked an instrumental and did two minutes of guitar noises. The deejay said he pitied me and let me have them." She laughed and Gwen laughed too. It was kind of funny.
In the chair, Lizy sighed heavily.
"I was thinking," Lyra said, "maybe you could come with me."
Gwen looked at her. Uh...what?
Lyra lifted one hand and let it flop back to her leg. "I mean, it'd be cool to hang out, you know, get to know each other a little better." She laughed. "You're practically my sister-in-law and I don't even really know you."
That was true, and Gwen was making an effort to acquaint herself with Lemy's aunts and sisters a little more. The thing was...she knew it was unreasonable, but Lemy still had feelings for Lyra, and Gwen was a little uncomfortable with it.
It wasn't so much the feelings themselves as it was, she thought, the lingering memory of a time when Lemy loved Lyra but not her. For a while, Gwen outright hated Lyra, and envied her so hard it made her sck to her stomach. Things were different now, but something like that - feeling such an intense emotion toward someone - is really hard to get over.
Part of her - a big part - wanted to say no, but another part of her wanted to get to know Lyra and to like her and to not look at her and remember how terrible she felt in the beginning...how sad, desperate, and unloved. "S-Sure," she said hesitantly, "that sounds like fun."
Lyra grinned. "Rockin. It's a date." Her smile faltered a little. "I don't mean like that, just...you know...we're gonna hang."
Blushing a little, Gwen forced a smile. "Yeah. Hang out. What kind of, uh, music do they play?"
"Melt-your-face-the-fuck-off-metal," Lyra said with a leer. She balled her fist and extended her forefinger and pinky in a devil horns' sign.
Oh. Uh...that really wasn't her thing, but that's not really the point - the point was to hang out and bond. Who knows, maybe she would like it: She liked some of the stuff Lemy played. Aerosmith was really good and so was AC/DC, though some of the latter's stuff was pretty blistering. Her favorite from them was TNT, but that was only because Lemy ate her pussy to it once, and if she associated a song with a skull-crackingly good orgasm she was bound to like it.
She nodded. "Cool. I like that kind of music."
"Awesome," Lyra said, "it starts at seven so we gotta leave here by five. You got sneakers, right?" she asked and looked pointedly at Gwen's dress shoes.
Gwen nodded. "Yeah, upstairs." When she first moved in, Lola and Leni took her to the mall to shop, much to Gwen's horror. No, I don't want anything, really. To herself she added: I'm not a freeloader and I'm super not comfortable with this, can we leave? Despite her protestations, both women insisted. Kid, ya got one outfit, Lola said, you need clothes and I'm gonna make you look good. One of the many, many things they bought her was a pair of gray and pink Nike tennis shoes with gel insoles. They were really comfy.
"Good," Lyra said, "you're gonna need 'em, cuz there are no seats at this place and we're gonna be standing."
On TV, the noon news was wrapping up: Video footage of a familiar man in a baseball cap with an extra long bill being escorted to a car by uniformed police officers played. "...thrill killers murdered eleven people across five states before Tuesday's shootout. One of them was killed by police and the other was taken into custody." The scene cut to videotape of a man in a leather jacket and sunglasses kneeling behind the rear end of a car and shooting at a cop who ducked behind his cruiser. Another cop lay between the two vehicles, a pool of blood spreading around his head. The guy in the leather jacket ran out of ammo, and while he was reloading, the cop popped up and fired: The bullet went through the gunman's head in a shower of blood and brain matter, and he toppled back, dead. Gwen's jaw dropped and Lizy's eyes widened. Oh, my God. Since when do they show stuff like this on the news?
"You also might wanna wear pants instead of your skirt," Lyra said, taking Gwen's attention from the TV, where the cop beat the man's lifeless body with a billy club. "Some guys like to cop a feel at these things," Lyra said, "and seeing hot, bare legs makes them more likely to do it."
Gwen blinked. "Uh...really?"
"Yep."
Oh.
Suddenly, Gwen didn't want to go at all.
"It's all cool, though," Lyra said, "I hook up with dudes at concerts all the time." She smiled fondly and tilted her head back. "I sucked this guy's dick in the middle of the crowd at a Raganoxer show once. I heard people like oh, gross, she's blowing him, and it really turned me on. I guess I'm an exhibitionsit."
Gwen could believe it with as many times as she saw her and Mr. Loud doing it on the couch, and in the dining room, and on the hallway floor, and...you get the picture.
"If you want, we can totally get laid," the older girl offered.
What? No! She had a boyfriend: Lemy. And he was pretty freaking perfect, if you asked her. Not a perfect person, but perfect for her, and she was very happy with him.
Her mind flashed back to this morning, the way Loan looked at him and held him tenderly in her arms. She glanced at Lizy - the little girl who loved him and wanted to be with him. She thought of Liby and Lacy and Lola and all the others who were constantly after him...whom he was constantly fucking while she stayed loyal. To be fair, she'd been with Liby and Lacy and Lola too, and she was the one who told him he could have sex with his aunts and sisters. She didn't mind, though.
Not at all.
Well…
Maybe a little but only because there was the ever present fear - nay knowledge - that he might fall in love with one of them like he did with Lyra, and suddenly wouldn't want smelly, ratty old Gwen anymore. She told herself that wouldn't happen, but deep down...what if it did? Things were hunky dory now, but who knew what it would be like in a year, or two, or ten.
She didn't mind sharing him...just as long as he didn't stop loving her.
"If you want," Lyra repeated.
Gwen shook her head. "No, that's okay."
She didn't want any other man, just Lemy.
Only Lemy.
When Lemy got home from walking Loan to work, he found Gwen and Lyra on the couch and Lizy sitting in the armchair. The latter looked up, saw him, and beamed, her face lighting up like a lamp. She looked so small in that chair...so little…
And what the hell was she wearing? Plaid skirt, black socks pulled nearly to her knees, white blouse and tie - she looked like Leia and Liby had an oops and decided to keep it. Her hair was pull back in a loose ponytail and...was she wearing eyeliner?
She's all dolled up for ya, brah.
A shiver raced down Lemy's spine. Look, you guys know how I feel, there's no need for me to flog a dead horse here, but...no, you know what? That's counterproductive. I just gotta suck it up and power through; I can't back out, it'll break her heart.
An image flashed across his mind: Four year old Lizy curled up in his lap as he read her a story; he did silly voices and she giggled hysterically.
THAT! That right there! How the fuck can Dad just...gahhhh!
Shutting the door behind him, he looked at Gwen and nodded toward the stairs. C'mon, I need a pep talk or I'm gonna run out into traffic and end it all.
She caught his drift, got to her feet, and came over, falling in behind him as he climbed the steps. He could feel Lizy's eyes hot and heavy upon him, but ignored them - just barey. In his room, he shrugged out of his coat and dropped heavily onto the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumping. Gwen sat next to him and put her hand on his leg. "What's up?" she asked, concern in her voice.
"Lizy," he sighed. "I'm gonna...make a move but...I'm kind of wavering."
Gwen nodded. "You have to stop looking at her like that. Forget all the big brother stuff."
Lemy laughed sardonically. "Yeah, because that's so easy."
Gwen rubbed his back and thought for a minute. "Or...just focus on how good you'll be making her feel...physically and emotionally."
Lemy opened his mouth to speak, but snapped it closed again; his mind went back to the look of bliss on Loan's face as he made love to her, and to the way her eyes sparkled like sapphires, to the way he caressed her body like a pervert faith healer, and to the way it responded. She was like an empty cup and he was a pitcher, love pouring from him and filling her cold, tired body.
He did derive satisfaction from making women feel good, especially if they were hurting and really needed it. Baby bird principle. Strange fetish, huh? Even among weirdos he was weirdo.
Regardless, if he could focus on what Lizy was getting from it, maybe he'd be okay. "Yeah," he said, "t-that might work."
Gwen smiled and pecked his cheek, the soft brush of her lips against his skin sending a pleasant chill down his back. "You're a good man, Lemy, you can't blame her for falling in love with you."
Yeah? Well, he didn't feel like a good man; he felt like a nervous, shaky, filled-with-dread man. "Thanks," he said.
Gwen patted the spot between his shoulder blades. "You ready?"
For a moment he didn't speak. "Yeah," he finally said, "as I'll ever be."
"Good," Gwen said and got up. "You're going to make her the happiest little girl in the world."
I know, and if I focus on that, I can get through this.
I can get through this.
I hope.