What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

I'm not warped or anything. My sister deserved better, that's all. She never let it get her down, she trudged along, putting on her happy face, dealing with life as it hammered her. Dad's death, her leg injuries, the therapy, the bullying. As she got older, she had her friends, but not much luck with guys. Acne kicked in when she was 16, if life wasn't already tough enough for her. By the time it cleared up, I was gone, so I didn't have that good of an idea what the last couple of years were like for her.

When she got home that night, she was broken, in tears, sobbing her eyes out. I felt too awkward to get involved, and let Mom take her in the back and commiserate with her.

I never found out that night what had gone wrong. All I knew was that it was bad enough for her to stay in her room all the next day. Bad enough for Mom to tell me to leave her alone.

Like I said, Teri deserves better.

* * *

It was the week before Christmas, and all the old gang were back in town. I spent Saturday with some of my high school friends, swapping college stories. It was a good time, and when I got home it was late, and my mother and sister were already in bed.

I confess. I was pretty drunk. Not hammered, but good and buzzed. We hung out in Steve's basement, and even though he was still only 20, he had a mini-fridge full of beer, and he didn't mind sharing. When I stumbled into Teri's room she bolted upright, clutching the covers to her chest. I sat down on the bed next to her, waiting for the room to stop tilting from one side to another. Alright, I was smashed.

"Travis, you're drunk!" she hissed. "You're in the wrong room!"

I groped for her hand, holding it in mine. "Don't b'lieve Mom, she dunno," I explained, 100% content with the sharing of my newly gained wisdom.

"Don't believe what? What are you talking about?"

"Girls like it. Like it lots," I explained.

She blushed, but I was hardly in any condition to realize it. "What are you talkin' about, Travis?"

"Sex," I explained. "You'll fin' a right guy, he'll show you. It'll be great."

"Travis! Have you been spying on me?"

"No spyin'. Heard you'n Mom. She's wrong." It was too difficult to sit up, so I fell back on the bed. It didn't help much. The room was balanced on a big ball, tilting all around.

"Damn you, Travis," she hissed, and slapped me. I was a little late blocking the second blow, and turned away, struggling to stand, holding the bottom column of her princess bed.

"Sorry," I mumbled, and staggered my way back to my room. I almost bumped into Mom, on the way, and she looked at me in surprise. "You're wrong, Mom," I told her as I squeezed past her toward my room. "Lotsa girls like it."

That was all I recall of my big announcement. I know. I'm an idiot. Then again, it's not like I'm the first person to say stupid stuff when they're drunk.

* * *

The next day, I woke up late, and my mother and sister were giving we ambivalent looks. I couldn't remember much of my late night conversation with my sister, and they didn't seem eager to bring it up. I wasn't in any hurry to talk about it, especially the way I was feeling.

The weekend passed with each of us feeling awkward, keeping to ourselves. I went out more, the atmosphere at home painful, and hooked up with my old friends. We drank some, but I kept it under control. I was never a big drinker, and the other night when I'd confessed all was about the drunkest I'd been since high school.

We were chasing skirts of course. That was a big part of what being home on break was all about. I was looking for a part time job, but I wasn't in that big of a hurry. It gave me something to talk about with the ladies - if they knew anyone hiring, any good jobs, if they were working, etc.

My buds were surprised I was doing as well as I was. It was the Rachel and Courtney effect, of course. I was secure in my ability to keep and please a woman. Complex, beautiful women, to be honest. Yes, Rachel and I had split up, but I understood why and that was my decision. Courtney had wanted us to be separated for the holidays, but she was quite successful in making it clear to me she only meant for it to be temporary. So when I spoke with the girls, I did it from a position of confidence. I had an amazingly hot woman an hour away that I could probably hook up with if need be, and a brilliant young sexpot on a loose tether, who I could go back to in a few weeks. I chatted, I flirted, and if I wasn't an immediate success, I moved on. I didn't have the time or inclination to work for it.

That first weekend ended up with one of my sister's classmates giving me a handjob behind the bowling alley, after an extended make out session. I had her dancing on my fingers, thinking about what Rachel had taught me, feeling good when she shuddered through her orgasm. It was fun. I wanted, needed more, but it was a great start to the holidays. She gave me her number and asked me to call. I told her I'd see her around, no commitment, but figured I'd probably check in with her in a couple of days.

When I got home late Tuesday evening, my good mood dissipated quickly. It was a quiet and somber house I walked into. I guess I wasn't as sober as I thought I was, because Mom, decided we needed to speak.

She sat me down, looking disappointed. "You're drunk, Travis. This is becoming a pattern and I don't like it."

"I'm not drunk, Mom. I had a few beers. Less than half-a-dozen all night. I'm sorry about the other night, I don't usually do that, but I just needed to unwind a little."

"You're twenty years old. If you got caught driving drunk, it could ruin your future, baby," Mom said, leaning toward me anxiously. "I know we had this talk after your freshman year. You wouldn't have a curfew, and I'd try not to butt in too much. I'm just worried."

Damn. No yelling, no threats, just disappointment and concern. I almost wished she'd tell me off. "I'm sorry. It's just . . ." No, I couldn't tell her that being home was such a downer, the way that she and Teri were behaving. There was no joy there anymore, and I needed an escape. That explanation would only make things worse.

"I broke up with my girlfriend," I said. "School was rough last semester. I guess I'm trying to get it out of my system. I'll be more careful, alright?"

She took my hands in hers. "Maybe I expect too much of you," she whispered. "You've been the rock around here ever since your father passed. We need you. Teri's having a difficult time. The last thing I need is to worry about you. Please don't drive if you're drinking. Give me a call, or call Teri. We'll come get you. Try not to have too much to drink. It's not good for you."

I sighed. "Mom, don't worry. I've been drunk twice in my life. I don't drink a lot. I'm not going to start. I'll keep it under control, OK?"

She nodded, but I still saw the concern. "You can have your friends over here. If you're going to drink, I'd rather you did it in the basement, as long as none of you got drunk. Think about it."

I had, but among other things, I didn't want Teri subjected to my friends. She was vulnerable, and to be honest, some of them were butt-heads when it came to girls. "I will. Trust me, Mom, alright?"

That was the end of that conversation, but she did convince me to think about what I was doing when I went out with the guys. I didn't bring up the case of beer sitting in the trunk of my car. That would have just caused trouble.

* * *

We weren't wealthy, far from it. The insurance after Dad's accident went into the bank, as did the settlement with the company whose truck had hit him. Teri's medical bills had been paid for. The mortgage insurance paid off the house. What it meant was we had a lot of money, but it stayed in investments. The return on those supplemented Mom's income, and we had enough to get by on, but we lived frugally.

I had earned the money for my car working part-time, although Mom paid the insurance. My schooling was a bargain, attending a state school. But if I wanted spending money for the year, I'd need to find a job. Summers and Christmas break, that was when I earned my spending money for the year. Besides, I wanted to get Teri something nice for Christmas, and I was kind of broke. Not totally, but it was worrisome.

Teri had never worked. I didn't hold it against her when Mom gave her a car, even though I had to work for mine. Teri had it harder, school work didn't come as easy to her, and standing for long periods was a strain on her injured legs.

Mom had already gone into work. Teri came over and sat beside me in the living room, while I pored over the want ads. She grabbed the beer I had, and took a long drink.

"Don't," I said. "Mom'll kill me."

She ignored me and took another sip. "Looking for a job?"

I nodded, circling another possibility. "How about you? You ever think about getting one?" She hadn't been out of the house since getting home the other night, after her fiasco, whatever it was. Maybe a job would get her off her butt.

"Maybe. I don't know." She was quiet, no life in her voice. I hated to see her that way.

I went down to the basement fridge, where I'd stashed the beer from the night before. I grabbed a couple more and headed back upstairs. I sat beside her, and moved the papers out of the way. She was still drinking, and I could swear she was forcing herself to. She didn't appear to be enjoying it.

"Tastes like crap, doesn't it?" I said, taking a drink from my newly opened bottle.

She choked on the beer, coughing, and looked up at me, with almost a smile. Her slender arm rose up and wiped her mouth. "Yeah, why do you drink this stuff?"

"You get used to it. I like the buzz. Takes the edge off."

"What's it like to get drunk, Travis?" she asked.

And there she was. My sister, the curious little tag-a-long who always came to me with her questions. Her eyes had a little life, and the corner of her mouth turned up in a bit of a smirk. I'd missed her.

"Stupid. It's fun to have a few, it makes your troubles go away, everything seems fun, happy, for the most part. Some people are stupid or mean drunks, and you want to stay away from them, but most of my friends just do it to let go."

I opened the other beer, and passed it to her, before continuing. "Getting really drunk? That sucks. You say stupid things, do stupid things. You feel like crap the next morning. Finding that line between buzzed and bombed is something you have to learn, and then avoid crossing like the plague."

She listened as if what I said mattered, and took another small sip. She had a way of paying full attention to me, that made me feel older, important. "I guess you can get used to this stuff. I'd rather drink soda or iced tea."

Which gave me an idea. Mom had a decent bar. She didn't drink much, but she felt the need to be able to entertain a guest when we had one. "Wait here," I told my sister, and made the second choice that led me down the circumstances of that school break. Again, I swear, I wasn't thinking of where it might lead, it was a spur of the moment decision.

A few minutes later I placed the large tumbler in my sister's hands. "Try that. It's a Long Island Iced Tea."

She took a sip and looked up at me in surprise. "That's pretty good. It has alcohol in it?"

No shit. About a six pack's worth. Maybe more. "Yeah, but it's not like beer, is it?"

She took a long sip, knocking down about a quarter of the glass. "Nope. Lots better."

She leaned back, sipping, looking at me. I could almost see the gears churning away upstairs.

"You want to talk about it? I know something bad happened the other night," I said.

She shut down, a wall slamming closed behind her eyes. "No."

Too early. "I'm sorry I brought it up. Forget it."

She practically snarled, "Yeah, I wish it were that easy." Damn, that wasn't good. I wondered how bad she'd been hurt. I felt my ire returning. Somebody was definitely getting an ass kicking.

I leaned back, quiet. Whatever she wanted to say, she'd get to eventually.

Her glass was half-empty before she finally got to the point. "What you said the other night, in my room. Is it true?"

"Teri, I was drunk. A lot drunker than I should have been. I don't even remember everything I said."

"I don't believe you, Travis. You didn't beat around the bush at all. Is it true?"

"About girls enjoying it?"

She nodded.

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure it is. After hearing you and Mom talking about it, I was kind of scared that Mom was right, so I had a heart-to-heart with my girlfriends from the last year. They swear they love it, and I believe them."

"All of it?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"Maybe not all of it. Courtney used to say she loved my coming in her mouth. When I asked her about that, she admitted she doesn't like the taste at all, but she likes doing it for me, because it excites her to be able to pleasure me that much. As far as the regular sex goes, yeah, they like it a lot. I don't think they could fake the way they react. They love when I go down on them; I'm sure they couldn't fake that."

"You . . . you do that? To them?"

I could feel myself blushing. "Yeah, I do. A lot. They love it, and I love to have them come for me, and it gets them so excited for the rest of it."

She looked like she was going to break into tears. "I hate it Travis. I hate the way it hurts. I get nothing out of it. Is there something wrong with me? Is it because of my accident? Did something break inside of me?"

God, I'd never thought of that, or if it was even possible. That damn accident, still playing such a huge role in her life. "I don't know, sis. Honestly, I don't know that much about it. Half-a-dozen girls, and only the last couple really got into it. I heard what Mom told you. I don't think she's right."

"Aunt Brenda says the same thing. I have to learn to put up with it. Mom's trying to teach me how." She blushed deeply, and took another long sip, draining her glass.

"Teaching you? How?" I asked, curious. I know, it's kind of warped, but I cared. Really. She was my baby sister, I was responsible for her, had been for years.

She couldn't look me in the eye. "How to get prepared ahead of time, getting used to having something in me. How to shut down my thoughts, think of something else. How . . . how to act like I enjoy it."

"Is that what you've been doing in Mom's room?" I asked, draining my beer. It was a bizarre image, her and Mom.

"Yeah. It doesn't hurt so much, once I have enough of that goop in me, and if we do it slow." She was playing with her empty glass, sucking on an ice cube. She didn't seem drunk, but it looked like it was hitting her.

She looked up. "Can I have another of these?" she asked, waving her glass.

"There's a lot of booze in those. Maybe one more small one."

She rolled her eyes at me. "I couldn't taste nothing in that last one. Did you make it weak on purpose? Like I can't handle it? I'm eighteen, Travis. I've had a drink before. I'm not a little girl."

I made her another one, the same as the first. It didn't seem to have hit her too hard. Maybe she had a better tolerance, or they weren't as strong as I remembered.

Once she'd had a sip of her new drink, she stretched out on the couch, her feet in my lap. "How do you know your girlfriends like it? That they're not just faking it, like Mom says."

I sighed. This was a lot more personal than I wanted to get. "There's lots of ways to tell."

"Like what?"

So I explained, what Rachel had shown me. All the signs. Hard nipples, moist pussy, flushing, the involuntary responses, the trembling, the shallow breathing, the sweet little sounds that escaped her lips. I took my time describing it for her, how they responded to what I did to them, watching them climb the peaks of their excitement. How they acted when they came for me. When I looked up at Teri, I smiled. "Like that," I said with a nod to her chest.

She was wearing a diaphanous top and her nipples were hard. She looked down and covered herself with her arm. "I'm cold," she said.

"No, Teri. Your face is flushed, your nipples are hard. I bet if you felt between your legs, you'd be wet. You're not frigid. The guys you've been with were jerks. They didn't know what they were doing, didn't know how to get you worked up." I felt bad for her, and rubbed her bare feet in my lap. "Tell me about it, OK? I'm not going to judge you or anything. Just tell me. How did it happen?"

She shrugged. "Like everyone else I suppose, at first."

"What is 'like everyone else'?"

Maybe it was the booze, or maybe it was time. She finally opened up to me. "You know. We kissed some. He put my hand on his zipper, and made me rub it. He pulled it out, and I moved my hand up and down. He grabbed my head and pulled it down, sticking his dick in my mouth just before he blew up, holding me there until he was finished. It was nasty, but I tried to block it out, and breathed through my nose, until it was gone."

"God, what an asshole," I muttered.

She shrugged. "He stayed mostly hard, feeling me up under my clothes, while holding my head down. He was kinda rough. I could feel him get harder in my mouth. It smelled pretty bad, and I really wished he'd let me up so I could wash that crap out of my mouth."

She was staring off into space, telling it like it happened to somebody else, sipping from her drink. "He told me to get in the back seat. He was my boyfriend, and I knew what he expected. I know it's what the other girls did, so I climbed in the back. Kyle got out and got in the back door. He had his dick out, stroking it. I watched him roll a rubber over it, so there was no doubt what he was going to do. He put one of my legs over the back of the seat, and the other one over the front seat. I was kind of scared, but I knew it was what he wanted, what girlfriends did. He pushed my skirt up, and pulled my panties to the side. Then he was pushing that thing in me, and it hurt, Travis. It hurt a lot. But he just kept pushing until he was in me."

"Was he too big?" I asked. Maybe that was the problem.

"I don't know. I don't know how big they're supposed to be. It wasn't huge or anything. Smaller than a banana, I guess." She took another long sip, to get her courage up. "Then he was leaning over me, grunting, pushing it in me for a couple of minutes. He . . . he called me names, ugly names, and then scrunched up his face, pushing hard before he pulled out. That was it. Sex. What everyone talked about. I hated it."

Small surprise. What a jackass this Kyle was. He and I would be having a talk, that much I was sure of.

My sister was sitting there, feet pulled in, knees curled up to her chest. I could see the tears running down her face. Tears from Teri. Tears I hadn't seen in years. I took the drink from her, lifted her into my lap and held her. She tucked her head into my shoulder and cried. "Is it my fault? Did I do something wrong? I let him do whatever he wanted, Travis. Three more times, but it never got any better. I even let him stick it in my bottom. That really hurt, but I didn't cry. I let him do it. Aren't I a good girlfriend?"

I gave her a hug. "It's not your fault, Teri. The guy's a complete ass. That's not how you treat a girlfriend. He didn't take care of you at all, didn't concern himself with your pleasure. Damn it, Teri! You don't let a guy do whatever he wants, even if he's your boyfriend. If he doesn't treat you right, you stop him. He used you, like a complete bastard. All guys aren't like that. Geez - I hope that most guys aren't. It's no surprise you didn't like it."

I wiped her tears away, and brushed her hair back. "Rachel says that there's a few reasons a girl might not like it. They're not ready for it, the guys doesn't know what he's doing, or some women need a lot of attention and time getting warmed up before enjoying it. Some women find it more difficult to find pleasure. I guess your problem with the asshole is all three. I'm sorry it was lousy for you. You need to dump that jerk, and find a better guy."