I filled a glass with two fingers of whiskey and handed it to Christy. She drained it straight away and handed it back. I poured again, and she finished that as well. Leah watched with growing concern.
“Her metabolism,” I said. “It takes more to affect her.”
“Keep ’em coming,” Christy said to me. “Sorry, please.”
“Last one. Then you have to slow down.”
She nodded and accepted the glass. She emptied it in two swigs instead of one. Then she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths through her nose.
I poured whiskey into the other glass and passed it to Leah, who took a polite sip before she handed it back. I gazed into the cut-glass tumbler and swirled the rich amber liquid. Then I drained it. The alcohol bit the back of my throat and filled my sinuses with eighty-proof fumes.
“It’s a shame to do that to good whiskey,” Christy said. “We’re supposed to enjoy it.”
I nodded and let the fumes dissipate. “Needs must when the devil drives.”
“You and your words,” she said fondly, a completely different person from just a few minutes before. She extended her glass, and I clinked the bottle against its rim. I poured a splash. She made puppy dog eyes, so I added a bit more. “Thank you,” she said. “I won’t drink it yet.”
“In that case, you’re welcome. And thank you.”
“He doesn’t like it if I get too far ahead of him,” she added in an aside to Leah, who raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve never actually seen her drunk-drunk,” I said. “Super-tipsy, but never falling-down.”
“It’s annoying,” Christy said. “I have to drink, like, ten times as much as anyone else.” It was her usual exaggeration.
“Not ten times,” I said, “but close.”
“Anyway, where were we?” Christy asked. “Oh, right, Paul and Erin. So, what do you want to know?”
Leah’s eyes glinted with amusement instead of concern.
“How did I go from swinging to incest?” Christy repeated. “You’re right, it’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Then… how’d you do it?”
“Easy. The incest came before the swinging.”
Leah’s eyes widened. When she recovered she looked to me for confirmation.
“She never actually did anything,” I said.
“But I sure thought about it,” Christy added darkly.
“With your brothers?” Leah asked. “All of ’em at once?” She grinned at me. “One at a time? Or…?”
“Just one. Laurie.”
“He’s the one who…?”
“Died.” Christy closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Then she sipped her drink, although it was more for reassurance than the alcohol.
“I’m so sorry,” Leah said quietly.
I poured a couple of fingers into the glass I held. I handed it to her.
“I really shouldn’t,” she said, “especially if—”
“Drink up. This is an interview, but not the kind you’ll ever share.”
“No fucking kidding,” she said under her breath. She kept the glass and sipped again.
“I should probably start at the beginning,” Christy said. “Well, not the beginning-beginning, but you’ll figure it out.”
Leah nodded.
“So, Vaughn first. Then Lani and Peter.”
Leah was a good listener already, and she had the makings of a great journalist. She fell silent as Christy told the tale of Vaughn and how he’d introduced her to blowjobs.
I was hoping to hear something new, but Christy’s extraordinary memory almost forced her to repeat a story the same way, sometimes word for word. She was basically quoting herself. She changed a few things to fit the circumstances, but the details were the same.
Leah knew what to expect by the time Christy reached the point where Vaughn moved back to the mainland. She nodded along as Christy described her suspicions about Lani and Peter’s relationship, and the changes in his personality, his withdrawal, guilt, and anger.
“It’s such a major taboo,” Leah said. “Most people are totally unprepared to deal with it.”
“It was perfect for Lani,” Christy said. “She knew Peter couldn’t brag about what they did.”
“She didn’t have to worry about her reputation,” Leah agreed. “So, what happened next? I’m almost afraid to ask, but… it sounds like… it didn’t end well, did it?”
“No. Peter quit the swim team. He got a new job and worked every day after school. Then he went to college in Hilo instead of Honolulu. He wanted to get away. Not just from the guilt,” she added, “but from the temptation too.”
She glanced at me and flushed slightly when I recognized my own words. I didn’t call her on it, though. Every storyteller borrows a line or two from time to time. (Ahem. Let’s not point any fingers, shall we? But I digress. Back to the story.)
“What about Lani?” Leah asked.
“We were still friends,” Christy said, “but things were never the same. Then my father got a new command and we left for San Diego. That was probably the one time I was happy to move.”
“No kidding!”
“Then I met Brooke. We hit it off immediately, ‘like a house on fire.’ Her family lived near us and had a pool, so we hung out there after diving camp ended.”
“Hold on,” Leah said, “I thought Brooke was a swimmer. Did she do both?”
“No, only me. But it was the same camp. Well, the same pool.”
“Ah, okay. Sorry to interrupt. Keep going.”
“Right. Where was I? Oh, yeah, Brooke and her brother. So, she’s the baby of the family too.”
“That makes three of us,” Leah said with a grin.
“Oh, yeah! Right!”
“Anyway, sorry to interrupt. Continue.”
“Right, so… Brooke and Hunter are five years apart, like me and Laurence.”
“Did they ever do anything?” Leah asked.
Christy glanced at me with a question.
“I don’t think she’d mind if we shared a little.”
She confirmed it with a slight headshake.
“They didn’t,” I said to Leah. “She had a crush on him—”
Christy nodded emphatically.
“—but she only ever spied on him.”
“Doing what?” Leah asked.
I chuckled. “What guys do, jerking off.”
“Okay,” she said, “I know this is off-topic, but… what is it with you guys? I don’t get it. I mean, I suck Mark off every day, sometimes twice. And we have sex all the time. But he still jerks off. And not just once in a while. Like, all the time.”
“I do too,” I said, which didn’t surprise Christy at all. Evidently, I hadn’t been as discreet as I’d thought. “Sometimes just a quickie in the shower,” I added, “for pressure relief. But sometimes just ’cause I like doing it.”
“I’d be a little worried if he didn’t masturbate,” Christy said, which did surprise me.
Leah too. “Seriously?”
“Well, yeah. He might be getting attention from someone else—”
“Never,” I said.
“—someone I don’t know about,” she finished.
“Oh, okay,” Leah said. “That makes sense.”
“I know things are fine—between us, I mean—as long as he does it. It doesn’t bother me.” She glanced at me and added, I might like to watch, though. Then she made an insistent little scribbling gesture. Note to self…
Yes, dear, I chuckled. I’ll let you watch me masturbate.
Thank you.
Leah followed the exchange and grinned, although she grew serious again.
“Yeah,” she said, “but that’s Paul. Mark’s enough like him, but still… it seems unusual.”
“Oh, no,” Christy said, “my brothers do it too.”
Leah’s eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed. “How d’you know? I mean, I thought you said—?”
“I haven’t seen them,” Christy laughed. “I talk to their wives.”