by Mary Jaine
"Sorry Bobby, no can do!" said Rick, "Sorry about this...!"
His fist slammed against my jaw, I saw stars, and then blackness and silence.
*
I awoke in darkness, wondering for a second where I was, then stiffened as the sound of someone stirring came clearly to me. I tensed, ready to jump out of bed at whoever was in the room with me.
"Shhh, Bobby, calm down, it's only me!" came a soft voice, and I relaxed; Shereen; it was all real then, not some weird dream.
I fumbled for the lamp, and she switched it on. She was sitting in the carver chair I had found in the basement, which constituted the sole piece of furniture in my bedroom other than the narrow single bed with the bricks at one end in place of legs, and the battered night-stand next to the bed.
"How are you feeling, Bobby?" she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
My jaw ached where Rick had cracked me, and Shereen saw me wince as I opened my mouth to speak.
"No, it's okay, don't speak if it hurts. Sorry about that Bobby, Rick was scared of what you might do, he didn't want you hurting yourself; please don't be mad at him!"
I had to grin at her defending him; but then, she probably knew more about him than I did; the Rick I'd seen earlier was nothing like the Richard I'd grown up with; he was almost like a different person, a much friendlier, more together person than I'd ever known. Before Rick left, he'd been morose, sullen, bitter, hostile and angry; just like me in fact. Now it was like he'd had a personality transplant; his smile had been open, friendly, and approachable, as had his whole demeanour, not cynical and devious; something radical had happened to change him, and I was intrigued, in spite of everything else that was crowding inside me just then; had it been these two girls? How?
"Would you like a hot drink?" she asked, and I smiled ruefully.
"I haven't got anything, only water; it's ok, I'll get a glass myself." I said, and she cocked her head as she smiled at me.
"You didn't, but Ricky and Yaz did some shopping earlier, and we have coffee, tea and juice, and a couple of beers if you want something a little more interesting than tap water!"
It was my turn to look curiously at her.
"I know I asked you this before, but why are you doing this for me? It seems to me you could have a much better life in London, far away from all this. Why are you so intent on making me a part of your life? I mean, I'm no-one to you; don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, especially after that meal, it just seems...strange, is all I'm saying..."
Her hand came up to gently touch the side of my jaw, right where it hurt the most, and I winced.
"Sorry, I just wanted to check for myself nothing was broken." she murmured, "It all seems okay, you'll live! In answer to your question, I'm a few months older than you, so that makes me your big sister. Big sisters are supposed to look out for their little brothers, and that includes not turning their backs while their little brothers make huge, stupid mistakes."
She shifted her wight, sliding closer to me.
"Bobby, I saw how you've had to live, I know how hard you work and how little you get for it, Ricky told us everything, and I can see for myself how little proper food you get; baked beans and tomato soup; you can't live like that, it may be hot and filling, but it's not nourishing; you need protein, a proper balanced diet, not just empty calories; look at you, you're all skin and bones! You poor baby; you look famished! I'm your big sister and I won't let you live like that again; Yaz, Rick, and me, we're your family, and family sticks together!"
She smoothed the hair back out of my eyes.
"Rick came to us just when we needed him the most, and now we're here because you're family, and you need us, and we need you; Yaz is your little sister too, she needs both her brothers, especially with what she's had to live with for so long, so let's make a deal; you look after your sisters, and your sisters promise to look after you; deal?"
Despite my own damnably suspicious nature, I saw and heard nothing here to put me on my guard; on the contrary, what was radiating from her in waves was just honest sincerity. I smiled at her, probably the first real smile since before Dad had been taken away to appear in court all that long while ago now.
"Okay, it's a deal! Big sister, huh?" and she smiled back.
"Everyone I know calls me "Shari", you could make a start by calling me that too!" she grinned, and I grinned back.
"Okay, "Shari" it is, and welcome to the family!"
She smiled at me, and I had to ask.
"So, really, you're older than me? How much?"
Shereen twinkled at me.
"Oh, a few months, Bobby, enough to make you my "little" brother, anyway! Yaz is almost 20, so she's about a year younger than Ricky, so I guess that makes me the oldest, so you better get used to taking orders!"
She smiled as she said it, to show she was joking, and I couldn't help but smile back; she had such a beautiful smile, too!
"Right, Bobby, let's go and make a nice cup of tea, I could do with something hot right about now!"
We came back downstairs to find Rick and Yaz sitting in the kitchen drinking mugs of coffee, the scent of the fresh coffee nearly making me swoon; I hate tea, and coffee was so expensive I'd given up on ever buying any ever again on my severely limited budget. Yaz saw my expression and silently handed me her mug with a shy smile. I took it gratefully, sipping slowly while savouring the rich bitterness and caffeine bite. I sat at the table while Shari busied herself making tea for herself and another coffee for Yaz. Rick seemed uncomfortable, until I grinned at him.
"That's a sweet left hook you've got there, Ricky!"
He grinned back, the tension draining out of him when he realised I wasn't going to return the favour and bop him one. Yaz gently turned my head to look at the right side of my jaw.
"There's a bruise coming up, Bobby; would you like some ice on that?" she asked me softly, and I shook my head.
"Thank you, no, it'll be okay in a couple of days." I replied, still processing the fact of these girls, the horrifying story they'd told me, the truths revealed about my mother and what my father had done to her, their mother and what he'd done to her, what he'd done to us, and uppermost in my mind, what he'd done to our big brother.
Yaz saw my eyes filling as I thought about how I'd treated Barbara, about how she must have felt for her sons to so utterly reject her for no reason, and most of all how she must have felt the loss of Nicky, the only one of us who'd loved and honoured her; she wasn't even his mother, she was mine; she was my mother and I'd done nothing, said nothing, felt nothing when my father had brutalised and finally destroyed her. The tears ran down my cheeks as they finally spilled from me, and suddenly Yaz was there, holding me as I cried for her at last, for never knowing her, for letting her go so easily, and for Nicky, for being the one thing she'd been allowed to keep and love in this entire family.
Yaz led me away from the table, and sat me on the couch in the sitting room, sitting next to me so she could hold me, much as she'd held Rick earlier. She never said a word; what could she say that wouldn't sound false, and trite, and banal? Instead she held me close, giving me comfort with her presence while I cried, probably for the first time in my life.
At last I stopped crying; the guilt and sorrow had passed for now, leaving me feeling empty and depressed; what did we do now? This house was a mausoleum, we could all live here, but it was almost completely unfurnished; I couldn't even work out where the girls were going to sleep; most of the beds had been taken away long ago to be sold at auction, and those that were left had been unused for nearly two years now; damp and rot would have claimed them by now, and there were precious few bedclothes and linens left, barely enough for my ramshackle single bed. I didn't have an iron or an ironing table, any pillows or cushions, nothing.
Rick obviously knew what I was thinking, as he tipped his coffee at me.
"Don't worry, Bobby, we've sorted out sleeping arrangements. We did some exploring while you were...asleep, and found
some single mattresses in the attic; they're old, but clean; someone wrapped and stored them properly, so they're nice and dry, so we moved a couple of the single-bed frames into the master bedroom, the girls will stay there. As for bedding, why don't you help me bring it in?"
I looked confused.
"Bring it from where?"
Nick smiled at me
"From the car, Bobby! We stopped off on the way here and bought sleeping bags and pillows, because I knew the girls would need them; come on, they need to get some sleep!"
I could only stare stupidly.
"You have a car?" I asked, and Rick grinned.
"Well of course we have one; how did you think we got all the way here from London, hitchhiking?"
He drained his mug and stood up, nodding at me to follow him. Their car, a grey Mitsubishi Shogun I'd noticed but not really registered when I first came in, was parked just a little way away, the luggage compartment and most of the back seat crammed with bags and boxes. Rick told me to wait while he got in and reversed the car into the driveway so we didn't have to traipse back and forth while we unloaded it.
The girls came to help as we emptied the car, and with all four of us working it was just a couple of minutes before all the stuff from the car was piled up in the sitting room, with Rick and Yaz sorting through it all.
I noticed that Yaz seemed to be more than usually attached to Rick; at first I assumed it was because they were the younger ones, seeking support from their peers, but then I began to understand it was a lot more complex than that; they were obviously connecting at some deeper level as well.
I was glad; Rick and I had never had any friends growing up; dad had seen to that. Nicky had gone to school when he was younger, but then dad had decided that we should all be home-schooled, so we never had the opportunity to mix and mingle with other people when we were young, and after Nick was sent to secondary school, Rick and I remained at home with our tutor.
When I'd started work, I had no real idea how to communicate or relate to the people around me; I think my colleagues thought I had some kind of mental impairment, as I never spoke to any of them, but the truth was I had nothing in common with them, no shared background, interests, experiences, nothing; when they'd laugh and talk about girls, I just used to stare blankly; I really had no idea what they were talking about, but I did eventually come to understand that revealing to them that I was still a virgin at almost 22 was probably not a smart move.
I'd not met any girls yet; pushing a street-sweeper and smelling like a midden are not the most aphrodisiac combination, so meeting girls on the job just never happened, as a result of which, I really had few insights and little to no intuition when it came to understanding the fairer sex. I knew about the mechanics of sex, of course; I could read, and I had the usual collection of girlie mags any single man my age could be depended-on to possess, but no actual experience, not even anything that could be called a conversation with a member of the opposite sex.
As I watched Rick and Yaz unpack, exchanging light touches, pats on arm, or shoulder, or knee, and glances I couldn't understand, smoothing errant strands of hair from each other's eyes, or a lightly touching fingertip to the tips of noses, or chins, gentle horseplay, Shari slid next to me, her arm around mine as she pressed herself against me, resting her head against my shoulder.
"They're such good friends, and good for each other; look at them! Ricky and Yasmin hit it off from Day One; they've hardly spent a minute apart since Ricky first came to us. I think it's a good thing; they both needed someone, she found Ricky, and he found her. Mummy was pleased; she trusted Ricky to take care of his little sister, and Yaz needed a protector, someone to look up to and feel safe with after being frightened for so long of what our father said he was going to do with her."
As Shari leaned against me, the scent of her hair teased and tickled my nostrils, and underneath that the smell of her; soap, clean and astringent, and even more subtly, the scent of her skin; I began to harden; it was purely involuntary; I had no thoughts or intentions towards her, good or bad, it was just her femininity, her warmth and humanity, and the fact that she wasn't shying away from me, as girls tended to do.
I knew what arousal was, and most aspects of sex, or I thought I did, but only from reading the girlie mags under my bed; I'd never even talked to a girl before today, and now I was stirring as my newly-discovered 'older' sister hugged herself close to me.
We continued to watch as Rick and Yaz pulled four bundles out of the pile of stuff we'd brought indoors, four sleeping bags still in their wrappers, and a pile of pillows. We carried them up to the master bedroom where the twin beds had been pushed together to make one large bed. We'd also brought some sheets from the pile of things they'd bought, and we quickly made up the bed for the two girls, sleeping bags laid onto the clean sheets, brand new pillows and pillowcases all ready for them. Rick had reclaimed his old room, so he dumped his sleeping bag and pillows on the little single bed in there, even though the frame was in as bad a shape as mine.
"Tomorrow, Bobby, we need to do something about the bedrooms; Shari wants you to go and do some shopping with her, we need more bedding, crockery, silverware, everything really; four people can't live properly on what we have here, so as you two are the oldest, you get the short straws!"
More bedding made sense to me; I had few spare blankets, not even enough for me, really; winter was always a tough time, and in the past I'd had to resort to covering my feet and legs with old coats on top of the thin blankets I had, as the house was freezing and I couldn't afford to turn the central heating on; it was either heating, or hot water, and not much of either at that.
The following day was Saturday, so I had no work, but I was a little worried about how we were going to pay for all the stuff we needed to make this place habitable; I had no savings other than what I'd set aside to pay the bills, and I said as much to Rick, who just grinned happily.
"Come with me, Bobby, let's have a little chat with the girls!"
Mystified, I followed him to the girls' room, knocked, and waited for them to make themselves presentable. Shari answered the door, wearing a short bathrobe that showed off her long, long creamy legs, and twin peaks in front where I swear her nipples were almost poking through. I blushed, but she seemed quite unconcerned about seeing me while dressed in just a flimsy, short bathrobe. Yaz was dressed almost exactly the same, and I noticed Rick studiously avoiding looking at either her or Shari.
"Shari," I began, "We have to talk about how we're going to live here; I only have a little money saved, and I don't earn enough to support four people, I don't know how to stretch what I earn four ways. How are we going to make this work?"
As I spoke, she began to smile, then shook her head.
"Bobby, it's okay; we have money; a lot of money, more than enough to keep us going for a long, long while yet! Sit down, please, I want to tell you something."
She led me into the room, and sat down on the bed, patting the mattress beside her. Yaz sat on the other side of the bed, with Rick next to her.
"Bobby, remember when I said that all mummy had left was her house by the time our father was extradited? In the two years following that, she managed to build a small but successful property development company, using the house and the trust it was held in to acquire a small portfolio of quite valuable rental properties dotted around East London. Not too many, just enough for her to manage. Ricky had been with us for a while, and worked for mummy, worked hard, too, renovating the properties, doing repairs, keeping them in a fit state for the tenants, and when she died, we learned that mummy had left the business to all three of us."
Sh looked sadly at Rick, at Yaz, then looked back at me.
"We decided to sell everything and come away to find you; none of us wanted to stay in London anymore; too many of Robert Davies' old cronies were around, and Ricky was worried about our safety, so we decided to make a clean start a long way away from London. I guess what I'm trying to say
is that we have more than enough money, quite a large amount, in fact, and we want to stay here, with you. All the family should be in one place, and even if we're not really a family yet, I think we can learn to be one; Ricky learned how to be part of our family, now Yaz and I want to be part of yours, if you'll let us."
I was trying to take this all in, but those long, smooth legs and intriguing little points on the front of her robe were giving me serious distraction issues. Shari seemed to realise the direction of my attention, and I swear her back arched a little more to thrust them even further against the already tightly wrapped front of her robe, and the whisper of skin against skin as she crossed and re-crossed her long, smooth legs were almost deafening.
I caught myself at this point. What the hell was I thinking? This was my sister, for Chrissake! I had no business being so interested in her legs, or her chest, or her clear, satin skin, or her deep-coral, bee-stung lips...just stop it right there!
Shari smiled at me, a warm, understanding smile.
"Thank you for thinking of us, Bobby, but you can stop worrying. We even have all the furniture from the house; when we sold up it was all put in storage, and there's plenty of it to fill up this place; that is, if you don't object?"
She waited apprehensively, biting her lip in a way I found totally distracting and absurdly attractive.
"How can I object when you put it so nicely!" I smiled back, liking the feeling, and Shari hugged me, those intriguing points on her robe pressing into my chest like two little fingertips, and once again I felt the stirrings of interest; sister or no, it felt good, and I had to catch myself; nice as it was, this couldn't be a good thing!
"I was hoping you'd say yes, Bobby! And no more silliness like this evening, yes? You've got us, now, we've got you, and no-one will ever be left out again, deal?"
"Deal!" I murmured in her ear, enjoying the feel of this beautiful young woman in my arms, a first for me, and a wonderful feeling.
In the morning, Shari woke me with a cup of coffee. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a sweatshirt, furry Ugg boots and a warm jacket, all topped off with a Von Dutch baseball cap; she looked cute, sexy and playful, and once again I had to remind myself that she was my sister.
