Part Two.
Other than hearing from my mother that Amy had arrived safely in Rome, I heard nothing from or about her for the next several days. I hoped she was enjoying herself. As a slap in the face to my joke the night before she left, the house seemed empty and quiet without her. I missed her already. The first couple of days I suspected that she was having the time of her life and was too busy being enthralled with Rome to contact me. Her facebook page seemed to be updating constantly with photos of her and her friends at museums and restaurants. The only hint of anything at about us was that she posted a link to a song I had included on her phone that she proclaimed a new favorite that her friends should hear. That got a half smile out of me.
The morning of the third day, I started to worry that she was being quiet because she regretted what had happened with us. By mid-afternoon, I felt like I was becoming a nervous wreck. I couldn't bring myself to send her a message. I didn't want to interrupt her trip. That evening, resolved to clear my head, I went to the bar with John.
Several beers and shots later, I was in better spirits, talking with John about the rapidly approaching show.
"You never have liked being around people that much, dude. But it's gonna be great. You've got talent. It'll be cool for some of the right people to see that."
"Meg talked me into it, really. Mostly to piss off that prick that teaches Art 202. She seems to think I've got something to prove, but I really don't." I took a sip of my beer. "Not that I would mind peeing in his cheerios a bit."
"See? This is why I prefer my chemistry classes. I just gotta memorize the stuff and puke it out on a test. None of this ego driven shit you gripe about." John chuckled.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I slipped off the bar stool to get it from my pocket.
"Getting texts at one in the morning? You got some chick begging for it?" John raised his eyebrows at me. "Can't be Meg, she's over there."
He motioned to where I hadn't noticed Megan was sitting with some other art majors at a corner booth. Her hair was now a violet color. She looked up just as I glanced her direction and smiled at me. I gave her a small smile back, trying to be polite. We hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, as I'd made up excuses to not go to her apartment the last couple of times I'd been invited.
I looked down at my phone and saw the message was from Amy. "It's unbelievably beautiful here."
I exhaled heavily, feeling a giant knot in my stomach begin to unravel. I quickly replied. "You must fit right in."
Another text arrived. "I was already spending all my time thinking about the night before I left. You aren't helping. :)" That made me smile.
John looked at me expectantly. "Are you going to tell me who's texting you or what? They sure cheered you the fuck up in a hurry."
"It's my sister. She's vacationing in Rome and just checking in. Believe me, my life isn't that interesting, dude." At least, I sure as hell didn't want him to know how interesting of a turn it had been taking lately.
"Ah. Damn. I'm disappointed. I thought you were holding out on me." He laughed and took another hit off of his beer before signaling to the bartender for another. If he only knew, I thought.
I dropped my phone back in my pocket and finished off my beer before heading for the bathroom. My bladder had been sending up warning flairs for a few minutes now.
"Back in a minute." I commented offhandedly.
The bar was busy that night, and there was a line for the bathrooms. Cursing my luck as I waited in line, my phone vibrated again. I started retrieving it from my pocket, but saw Megan walking toward me. I let the phone slide back down in my pocket. Amy would have to wait a minute. Megan glanced at the pocket my phone was in, but caught herself and tried to hide it.
"Hey stranger," Megan said, clearly buzzed, as she gave me a quick hug. "Are you ready for the show?"
"Just about ready. At least in terms of having stuff ready to hang. I'll need about six more beers before I'm ready to deal with the people there." I chuckled at her.
"Well, you've got about a week and half. I'm pretty sure you can drink a six pack in that time." She leaned a bit closer. "Or, you could come by my place later and I could help you relax."
"I'd better not tonight, I have to open the store tomorrow." I replied. It wasn't entirely true, but I didn't want to get into that kind of conversation with her tonight.
"That's too bad. It's been a while. I'm starting to think you're avoiding me." Megan gave me a wink and leaned up on her toes to give me a quick peck on the cheek before heading back to her friends. "Give me a call soon."
I turned back toward the bathroom and exhaled. I checked my phone again. "I had a lot of time to think on the flight. And I have some regrets."
I had been thinking I was too drunk for this conversation when I started reading it, but the last sentence sobered me up. A lot. The dark knot threatened to return, but she did seem happy about us just a moment ago. This had to be something different from the capital "R" version of regret, right? I simply replied with "...regrets?"
"Not that kind, sweetheart. I mean the kind that have me over here in my lonely hotel bed this morning, wondering what it would feel like to have your hands on me." I read the message and tried to restart my heart, pondering where one might buy one of those defibrillation machines. Despite the feelings we clearly shared, it was a mentally jarring experience to consolidate the life long version of my sister with the newly discovered version of my sister who was now flirting with me. Successfully, I should add, considering the twitch I felt in my pants when I read her words.
"Give me a few minutes, I'm checking flight plans." I responded, wishing it were an actual possibility.
"Don't tease me like that, dear brother. I'll get even."
"Oh? Do tell." I smirked to myself. A challenge for her. A little of the old sibling rivalry kicked in, I guess. I finished up in the bathroom, which took longer than it should have due to the effect her words had had on my prick, and headed back to the bar, feeling much better about things, and really wishing she were back already so I could show her exactly what she was wondering about.
I noticed Megan doing her flirting routine on a tall guy with glasses and a bun in his hair at the far end of the bar. I caught her clearly watching me out of the corner of her eye. I'd seen this before. She didn't know who I was texting, but it bothered her and she was trying to get me jealous by hitting on someone else. Like I said before, she could be emotionally draining. Possessive, but unwilling to commit to anything herself. I'd worked this out long ago and was not going to wander along with her, bathing in the wake of destruction she would unleash on my emotions if I gave her half a chance. But, power plays aside, she was a nice person. Just a bit damaged. One of those people whose company you enjoyed, as long as you kept a certain amount of distance between you. If you let yourself get sucked in, you'd wind up with an ulcer and most likely an alcohol problem. I headed back to my bar stool and ordered another beer.
"Jesus, dude." John nodded toward Megan, "a man bun? Really?"
I started chuckling, finding it more amusing than I probably should have.
"You didn't tell her that was your sister messaging you, did you?" He smirked.
"Nope. More fun to watch her squirm." I laughed. "Does her good to get a taste of her own shit once in a while."
"You are a mischievous little cunt, you know that, sir?" Then he added. "I knew we got along for a reason."
That got a good laugh out of me. Damn, I was drunk. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw Megan nibbling on man-bun's neck. She was my friend, and I cared about her in as far as that went, but her attempts to make me jealous were in vain. She wasn't who I wanted anymore. If I ever had wanted her to begin with, that is. There had long been a time, early in our friendship, when I thought I did. I was going to have to have a talk with her eventually that I wasn't looking forward to.
I took another swig of my beer when my phone vibrated again. I glanced down at it and raised an eyebrow. It was an image file. I opened the message and the photo was of a hand, a small, pale hand with long delicate fingers extended toward the ceiling in a beautiful hotel room. I noticed the fingertips were wet and a line of clear fluid dripped down from a couple of them. The photo was captioned "thinking of you."
I nearly shot beer out of my nose as I choked. I grabbed a napkin off of the counter to wipe my face, coughing the whole time. John gave me a befuddled look and I made a weak excuse of having swallowed my beer wrong. After a few more minutes and several attempts to come up with a witty reply that I decided to delete instead, I texted back "Jesus, you play dirty."
"Oh, you have no idea... ;)"
* * *
I woke up the next day on the sofa in John's apartment with the worst hangover I'd had in a long time. I thanked him for giving me a place to crash and caught a ride back to the bar for my car before work.
Work was an entertaining affair. Nothing beats working in a music store when you are hungover. The loud music was not my friend that day. I cursed that I'd never learned Spanish as I attempted to alphabetize the selection of Latin CDs, when my phone vibrated.
Another image. I'd forgotten all about the previous one all morning because I had felt like death was using a jackhammer on my brain. I may never drink again, I lied to myself, as I opened the image. The side of a thigh was visible in the image, lying in a bed with a sheet covering part of it, exposing the long, smooth leg from just above the knee all the way up to the stomach. The owner of the leg was clearly nude, despite there being no nudity in the photo. That didn't mean it wasn't sexy as hell, it's sole purpose being to show me that she was naked in bed. My little sister was being a tease! I was immediately turned on and ducked into the back room to adjust myself before I encountered a customer.
"You are killing me, you know." I sent.
"Good." I had to smile at her answer. This was a different side of my sister than I had ever seen. I had thought about her plenty, in a sexual sense. But learning this side of her personality was new and intriguing in a way that I hadn't really stopped to consider previously. All that aside, I was dying for her to come home. This only made it worse.
* * *
I leaned against the darkroom wall and watched as Megan lifted the photo from the water bath with her tongs. She clipped the photo up next some others to dry on the line of wire that stretched across that part of the room. She grabbed the next photo from the bath and repeated the process a few more times before she noticed I was there.
"Oh, hey you." She smiled, and came over to give me a quick hug.
"Hey" I replied, "how it coming along?"
"Pretty good. Come check em out." I followed her over the the line and looked at the drying photographs.
"These are nice, Meg. Very cool." I pointed at one in particular that I thought was a great one. "Especially this one."
"Thanks." She replied.
"So what's up? Your text was pretty vague." She asked.
I had been dreading this part. We weren't really dating, but I didn't feel like I should just break off the sexual aspect of our friendship with no explanation.
"I just wanted to apologize. I haven't been around much lately and I hadn't really given you an explanation either. I met someone, and it feels kind of serious."
"I get it. It's cool." She replied. It wasn't exactly a cold reply, but she didn't sound too happy about it either.
"I felt like I should tell you. I mean, I know we weren't exclusive or anything, but I didn't want to just not come over anymore and leave you wondering."
"You're right. We weren't dating. It's fine. We're friends that used to fuck sometimes. Don't make it bigger than it is." She said dismissively.
"Alright, alright. So we're good?" I surrendered.
"Yes, we're fine." Megan rolled her eyes at me, then smiled a little. "Now, if you're done trying to be all noble with my feelings and shit, will you come over here and help me decide which one of these prints you think I should use?"
Clearly, she didn't have much of an emotional investment in me as I had worried she did. Or if she did, she was certainly not willing to admit it. Either way, I had tried to be honest and not hurt her feelings. I walked over to look over the stack of prints she had motioned toward.
"Sure, let's see what you got."
About an hour later, it felt like most of the awkwardness of our conversation had passed and I felt like we might be okay. Maybe even capable of settling into a friendship without benefits. I honestly did like Megan as a person, and didn't want to lose her as a friend if it could be helped. But I also knew that things tended to be more complicated than people liked to admit once someone whipped out their dick. And Megan was one of the least complicated things involving my dick these days.
In the end, she had settled on the prints she wanted to use for the show, including many of my choices. She signed a couple of prints that I'd really liked and handed them to me for my personal collection. I thanked her and slipped them in one of my sketchbooks so that they wouldn't get torn up until I could get them home to store properly.
As I went to leave the darkroom to head back to the house, she called after me.
"Hey?"
"Yeah?" I turned back toward her. She had slung her bag over her shoulder and was pulling her silly ass beret back on. I'd mocked her for that beret more than once, much to her annoyance. Such a cliché.
"Don't be a stranger. I mean it. We're seriously okay. It's not like I don't care about you. It's just not that... "together" kind of thing, you know? So don't avoid me, alright?" She sounded genuinely concerned as she reached for her camera bag.
"I'll be around. No worries. I wouldn't have come talk to you about this if I didn't give a shit about you either, you know." I smiled.
"I know. Thanks for the help with the prints. I'll see you at the show Friday." She grinned.
"Yep. I would say that I'd be the suicidal looking guy in the corner, but it's an art show. There's bound to be a dozen of them."
"Whatever, smart ass. It's gonna be a blast. You just don't want to admit it."
* * *
Every couple of days Amy sent another photo. Never anything actually nude. But all sexy, suggestive, and inviting. Never showing her face, or anything that would give a clue as to who took the photos. She was cautious, I had to give her credit for that. The last photo, sent two days before she was to come home, was of her hips, wearing a tiny pair of black panties. A piece of hotel stationary lay on her stomach with the words "Wish You Were Here" written on it, along with an arrow pointing down at her crotch. That one made my cock stand up and pay attention for damned sure. She pretty much had me around her finger by now, but I wasn't going to tell her as much. The photos she sent were having exactly the effect that I suspected she was going for. I was missing her tremendously already, and now I was feeling like I was losing my mind with desire on top of that. Not that I minded.
But the airlines and the weather could not have cared less about my desires. The day Amy was supposed to come back, a bad storm caused severe flight delays at one of her connections and she messaged me that she would be stuck at a layover and not be back in time for my show. I acted like I was not as bothered by it as I was for her sake, but I was really looking forward to her being there with me. I kept myself busy as hell building frames for the paintings I'd be showing to keep my mind off of the fact that she wouldn't be there. Truthfully, I was more disappointed that I wouldn't get to see her for another day, but it wasn't like I could change that.
* * *
The night of the show, I was a jittery bundle of nerves. I had no use for these things, but it was good exposure. I walked through the exhibit, checking out everyone's work. Megan had some great photographs and mixed media on display. We shared a brief hug, and she told me how excited she was that I was in the show with her. I told her she looked great in her vintage red dress, which earned me a smile. All in all, it was less awkward talking to her than I thought it would be. There was some decent work on display. A few of the local artists were really good. Many of them were better than I was, in my opinion. I hung out by my section for the most part, feeling totally out of place. I was dressed in nice slacks and a gray tailored shirt with a black tie. I was not one for dressing up. Left to my own devices, I would have turned up in a shirt for some band and pair of khakis. I looked at my paintings, framed and properly lit on the wall. It was the first time in a long while that I actually felt like an artist. I was proud of the pieces I had on display.
My friend, John, walked up and handed me a beer. "At least they have hooch."
"Well, there is that." I laughed.
"Dude, you think highly of your stuff, eh?" He motioned to the price tags on the paintings. I'd picked prices almost arbitrarily, and purposely priced them higher than I felt that they were worth. Mostly as a joke on some of the other artists. Most of the artists priced their stuff to sell, as they didn't have another source of income, believing that they could make a living once they had their degree. There was a world full of people out there with degrees in art that couldn't find a job. I really didn't care much if any of mine sold or not.
"What? You mean to tell me you think this isn't worth $1500?" I pointed at the painting Megan had thought was erotic. "The artist needs the money for his drug habit. Heroin ain't cheap, bitch."
"I thought that was why he gave blow jobs in the alley."
"That's just for the gas money."
"Ah. I wondered how you were getting home tonight." We both chuckled.
John turned toward the front of the gallery and suddenly mumbled "Holy crap."
"Hmm?" I asked, turning toward him.
"Your sister is looking hot, dude," He said motioning toward the entrance. "No offense."
I looked toward the front of the gallery and saw my parents walking in, followed by Amy. She was wearing an elegant, tight black dress with matching heels, small pearl earrings and a string of pearls around her slender, gorgeous neck. Her long, dark hair pulled up in a ponytail that cascaded down one shoulder. An electric blue stripe of hair cut through the dark ponytail. Her make up was flawless and accentuated her features beautifully. With the dress and the pearls, she reminded me a little of Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Not that I'd ever seen the movie, but I'd seen images of Hepburn from that film a thousand times. I didn't recall Hepburn's dress looking like it was painted on, either. Amy was absolutely stunning. My heart knotted at the sight of her and I completely forgot to breathe. I hadn't seen her since the night before she left for Rome and it was all I could do to keep myself from running to greet her.