"I'm sorry Tracy, I never…"
"But you know what they never say about you?" She went on. "They never say how nice of a guy you are or how respectful you are. They never come up to me and say, 'Gee Tracy, your brother is such a sweetheart'. All they talk about is how you'll eat their pussy like a goddam vacuum cleaner or about how you'll fuck them until they scream. They never talk about how they'd like to take you home to meet their mom or about how they'd like to be your girlfriend. They talk about how they can manage to get over to your house again for another session."
"Wow." I said, unsure what to think. Though I'd known that I had a reputation among the girls I had no idea they talked the way Tracy was telling me. I was also disconcerted at my sister's anger about this. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was have her pissed off at me.
"Wow." Tracy mocked. "That's pretty goddam profound."
I sat down on the edge of her bed, setting my backpack full of books down. Tracy turned down the stereo a little.
"I'm sorry Tracy." I told her. "I didn't know that what I was doing was affecting you. I thought I was just having some harmless fun. And I assure you that Nina and I are just friends. I haven't slept with her and I have no intention of doing so."
She stared at me for a moment. "You know the damnedest thing?" She asked. "The damnedest thing is that you ARE a nice guy and you ARE a sweetheart when you want to be. If you were an asshole it wouldn't bother me for girls to talk about you that way but you aren't. It bugs the shit out of me to hear people talk about my little brother that way. You would probably feel the same way if you went into the locker room and the guys were saying how well Tracy sucked dick or how she'd fuck anyone who asked, wouldn't you?"
"Well, yeah." I nodded. Would it bother me? I would want to kill whomever I heard saying that.
"That's how I feel when I hear that." She said. "And I can't even defend you in front of them because it's true. You DO fuck anyone who asks."
"I'm sorry." I repeated. I couldn't think of a thing to say to her. I surely wasn't going to say that I wouldn't do it anymore because that would have been a lie.
"Look." She said. "I'm just your sister. I'm not gonna ask you to stop fucking girls. I know you wouldn't do it anyway. But can you maybe tone it down a little? Cut it down to one or two a week? Or maybe hit up some of the other ones more than once?"
I laughed, shaking my head. "I'll try Tracy. I'll try. But remember, I'm fifteen. I'm at my sexual peak you know."
"Fuck you dickhead." She laughed back. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, but you deserved it."
"I suppose I did." I agreed.
"You're really not fucking Nina?"
"I'm really not." I affirmed.
"Maybe there's hope for you yet." She said.
So for Tracy's sake I toned things down a little. Also for my own. I wasn't sure I liked being referred to as a male slut. I stopped pursuing women with the vigor I'd exhibited before, instead simply waiting for them to come to me. I also began giving more repeat performances. By the time the snow flew I had, in addition to a new best friend, a small circle of girls that I regularly had sex with instead of a constant stream. It was enough and when one of the girls got tired of the relationship or met someone they wanted to have for a boyfriend, I would covet someone else.
To my surprise Tracy and Nina actually became something like friends. Nina would come over to my house twice a week or so to study and my sister, curious about the type of girl I would choose as a friend, made a point to talk to her each time she was over. Nina was slow warming up to my sister. I knew that this was due to her past treatment by other girls, which was both crueler and longer lasting than the torment she'd suffered from boys. This was something I never would have suspected had she not told me and it disheartened me to think that the fairer sex could be even crueler to their own then boys were.
But gradually Nina lost her shyness before Tracy and even Cindy, who was also a frequent visitor to our house. The two older girls took Nina under their wing and taught her the finer points of fashion, talking her into replacing her plain clothes with more modern ones. They taught her how to put on make-up, accenting her facial features. They taught her how to fix her hair into something other than a ponytail. The change in her appearance was actually startling when you saw it. I was able to see the attractive doctor that she would one day be, although without the perpetually bitchy expression and mannerism.
And then came the day in early December when a cold winter storm was blowing across the Spokane area. Snow was being driven through the air by gusting winds that registered more than forty miles an hour. As I walked out to the school parking lot towards Cindy's car the snowflakes hit me in the face like little shards of steel, stinging me and making me pull my hood and my scarf tighter around me. Snowdrifts were already more than ten feet high against some of the buildings and the ground was covered in white. If it had been snowing like this in the morning they would have closed the school.
Unfortunately the storm hadn't geared up until late morning.
When I got to the place where Cindy's car had been parked I looked up to find nothing. I looked around the parking lot, wondering if I was mistaken about where she'd parked. The wind cut into my face like a knife as I tried to locate the Caprice. It was nowhere to be seen. Other kids were rushing to their cars in groups of two or more, some of them slipping and sliding on the slick pavement. I saw no Cindy or no Tracy though.
"What the fuck?" I muttered, wondering where in the hell they'd gone.
It took me only a minute to figure out that I was stuck here with no other prospect but to walk home. I wondered if I would freeze to death before I got there. And then I spotted Raisin heading for his Falcon. I ran after him.
When Raisin dropped me off in front of my house fifteen minutes later the sight of Cindy's car parked at our curb did not improve my mood. I thanked Raisin and bade him farewell, trudging through the thick snow on the driveway to the front door, uttering foul things under my breath about sisters and friends that left brothers abandoned in a freaking blizzard.
The door was locked so I used my key, stepping into the warmth of the living room, prepared to chew out the traitorous girls. But they weren't there. The television was off, and on the stereo turntable one of my Pink Floyd albums was spinning silently around at 33 and 1/3 revolutions per minute, the arm suspended above one of the tracks. A quick glance at the coffee table gave me a pretty good idea what had happened. An opened bag of Doritos was sitting there along with the remains of some sandwiches and a few candybar wrappers.
They were getting stoned! They'd left me to freeze to death in the snow so they could go home and get stoned. And they'd probably smoked all of the pot before my arrival. The bitches! Where were they now? I began stomping through the house, looking for them.
When I approached the door that led out to the garage I heard girlish giggles coming from the other side. Fumed, I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. What I saw on the other side made me freeze in my tracks.
Cindy and Tracy were out there all right. The smell of greenbud came wafting over me and there was an actual haze in the confined space. But the surprising thing was who was with them. Nina was there, her mouth applied to the neck of the bong, sucking a hit up through the water while Cindy held the lighter and cheered her.
"That's the way girl!" Cindy encouraged. "Hit that shit!"
Tracy looked up at me, her eyes half-lidded, a shit-eating grin on her face.
"Hey Billy." She haled. "Glad you got home okay. You want a hit?"