Thicker than Blood

"You know," he told me. "At first, I thought Tim was fudging the numbers of how much torque his car put out. Then he beat me at that race so I knew he wasn't lying. But I just figured out why he needs that much torque."

I didn't even say anything but he told me anyway.

"He needs all of that torque to get his car moving with that fat assed whale in it," he guffawed. I didn't like my sister, but even I thought he was over-doing the fat jokes. He wasn't even perceptive enough to notice that I didn't like them. I also noticed that as the afternoon wore on, Charlie constantly made excuses for why he'd lost the race. Tim never brought it up again.

I think the final straw though was when we got ready to eat. My mom as usual prepared two plates. Since my dad had done most of the grilling she always brought him his food. My mom and dad had been together and had loved each other since they were old enough to move out of their parents houses. They may not have been the most fair-minded parents, but their love for each other had never been questioned. Shit, I didn't want to compete with what they had; I wanted to get in on it. And clearly Charlie wasn't my ticket to marital bliss.

When he saw my mom serving my dad, Charlie put his foot so far in his mouth that his toenails were sticking out of his ass. "Go get me a plate," he said, indicating how my mom had served my dad. I didn't want to start any shit and ruin the afternoon, so I just looked at him strangely and nodded my head. From the look I gave him as I brought his plate, Charlie knew he'd fucked up. The good thing about it was what happened afterwards.

I reached for a burger and my hand bumped into something and I swear to God, sparks flew off and it tingled for the rest of the day. I looked up to apologize and noticed that I'd bumped Tim's hand as he got a plate for Mindy. He smiled at me and I just stood there. For a second I didn't even realize that he was talking to me.

"Uhm Cindy, Mindy wants two burgers," he said. "Were you going to get more than one for yourself and one for Charlie, because there are only two left?"

I came back to my senses. There were only two thoughts going through my head. The first was how God damned considerate he was. He'd never mentioned what he was going to eat. I figured out then that like me, he'd just take whatever was left. His main interest was in pleasing my God damned sister.

My second thought was that he actually knew my name. As I turned back towards Charlie, I noticed something that made my fucking day. I noticed my sister Mindy, staring at Charlie as intently as she was the food.

* * * * * *

Tim

The beginning of the end came on a Wednesday night. I guess it was actually the end of my stupidity more than anything else. I was in my garage, installing a chin spoiler to my Mustang when someone knocked on my door. I knew it couldn't be Mindy because she worked late at the library on Wednesday evenings. I hated Wednesdays because I often didn't get to see her at all on those days. Usually on Wednesday evenings, she just got a ride home with a friend and crawled into her bed as soon as she got home.

I went to the door and looked out through the peephole. I was shocked. It was Mindy's sister, Cindy. I wondered what the hell she wanted. I wondered how the hell she even got my address.

I opened the door, but I left the chain on it.

"Hi, Mindy isn't here," I said through the screen door.

"I came here to see you," she said. It looked as if she'd been crying. I had no choice so I opened the door.

"Tim, can I come in?" she asked. I really wanted to say no. But I didn't want to risk having Mindy and her parents angry at me. So I opened the door.

As she stepped inside my house, her head twisted in several different directions as she looked at things.

"Your house is really nice," she said through her tears. "Tim, we have a problem."

I couldn't think of anything we had in common, so a shared problem seemed ridiculous. Still, she was a woman and possibly a family member in trouble, so I listened.

"Tim, I have to tell you something and you're not going to like it," she said. She reached for my hand and I moved away from her.

"Okay, I'm sure my sister told you all kinds of terrible things about me that aren't true but you believed them for some reason. I'm sure you hate me because of them, but..." she said.

"Mindy has never said anything bad about you Cindy," I said. I figured that she needed to be put in her place before she started lying about my fiancé. She looked at me curiously then.

"Then, why don't you like me?" she asked.

"You were probably a cheerleader in high school weren't you?" I asked her.

"Well, yeah," she said, as if she didn't understand what that had to do with anything.

"It figures," I said. "You have that look. So what are you here for?"

She looked even more confused. "Do you remember Charlie?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Your boyfriend, right? He's a good guy."

She shook her head. "Tim, he's not my boyfriend. When you guys met that was a first and last date. And I'm sorry but he's not a good guy. I know you like him and you probably think he's your friend because you guys have that whole silly car thing going on, but he is really not a good guy."

"What does that have to do with me?" I asked.

"Tim," she looked at me and as much as I didn't like her, my heart melted because she was clearly in some kind of pain. She really was pretty. In fact, she went beyond pretty, Cindy was beautiful.

"Tim," she repeated. "I need to show you something. I know you don't like me, but just this one time could you come with me? And after you've seen it, we need to talk. Maybe after you've seen it you'll be fine and won't want to talk to me. That's fine, but I need you to see it just the same."

I nodded, but I had a bad feeling about it. I was sure this was going to be one of those weird assed situations that they made Lifetime movies about. Maybe Charlie was involved with drugs and she needed me to help her kick his habit. Or maybe it was even cooler. Maybe Charlie was involved in illegal street racing and since my car was much faster than his, she'd turned to me to help her get him out of it. I smiled thinking about it.

I followed her out to her car. I was shocked. She had a nice car, A Ford Fusion. It was the same car NASCAR painted their Ford version of the Gen 6 car to look like. As she drove, we didn't talk much which was good for me because we didn't have much in common. I was a little bit afraid to be around her because I hadn't quite told her the truth. Mindy hadn't actually said anything bad about Cindy, but she had told me about how Cindy always seemed to have things easier.

We drove to an apartment building on the other side of town. She looked at her watch a couple of times and we settled in to wait. I didn't know what we were waiting for but we waited.

"This is a nice car," I said to make small talk.

"Thanks," she said and she smiled at me.

"How come your parents didn't buy Mindy one too," I asked. She looked at me as if I'd insulted her.

"Tim, I paid for my car, myself," she said. "I've always paid my own way. Just because my parents are still paying a lot of Mindy's expenses doesn't mean they do that for both of us. Mindy is the one who gets everything handed to her. I have to work for what I have and..." She stopped talking in mid-sentence as I saw Charlie come out of the building and head for his Challenger. He got in and drove off in a hurry.

She started her car and pulled off but drove in a different direction. "Aren't we following Charlie?" I asked.

"Why?" she asked. "I don't want him to see us and it's not like I don't know where he's going."

Cindy's route was more efficient. We actually got there in time to see Charlie get out of his car and walk into...the library. I was confused and alarm bells were going off in my head. I wondered why the hell Charlie was going into the library that Mindy worked in. There were at least three libraries in town and this one was probably the furthest from his apartment.

Secondly, the library was closed. Mindy and the other librarians did inventory and things like that on Wednesday nights. He wasn't going to get in. Or so I thought. Charlie went around to the side door. It had a big closed sign on it. He pulled on it and the door swung open easily. That door was never open even when the library was. In fact there were only lights on in the library's basement and those light were dim.

"Come on," said Cindy. We got out of her car and walked towards the library. We opened the side door and went in. We went down the stairs into the basement. I'd been there a few times to help Mindy when she did inventory.

As we crept down the stairs and opened the door the smell of sex was so strong it knocked me for a loop. In the center of the room, amid the stack of books, I saw at least five guys surrounding one fat woman. They were taking turns fucking her while she moaned and begged for more. There was always at least one dick in her and sometimes two.

Mindy yelped as Charlie stuck his dick up her ass and just started slamming her like he didn't care whether he hurt her or not. I was so angry I got ready to charge in and beat the fuck out of all of them. Cindy yanked my arm and pulled me off to the side just in time. A couple of other guys came in the door we'd just come in and started undressing as they went.

I noticed that Cindy had her phone out and was taking pictures or video. She turned it off and grabbed my arm again. "Let's go," she said.

"I'm gonna..."I began.

"No, you're not," she snapped. "We need to talk." I was so angry I could barely think so I let her drag me out of there.

"Why did you stop me?" I screamed at her. As we got clear of the building, another guy went in.

"You're just in this to help your guy. You just don't want me to kick Charlie's ass," I yelled.

She looked at me calmly as she drove and kept shaking her head. "Tomorrow, you obviously have to go to a doctor and get yourself tested," she said. She pulled over into a park and reached into a cooler on the back seat and brought out a can of wild cherry Pepsi.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's your favorite drink," she said. "I figured it would help you calm down."

"I'll be calm after I..." I began.

"Tim, there were at least eight men, there," she said. "All that would have happened is that you'd have gotten hurt. We need to look at this and then with cooler heads decide what we're going to do about it."

"What do you mean, "WE?" I asked.

"Okay," she said angrily. "This is a fucked up situation, Tim, but I am not your enemy. In fact, ever since we met you've been treating me like shit. I have never said as much as boo to you. So why the hell, do you hate me?"

I popped the top on the soda and chugged it.

"Cindy, I guess you're right," I told her. "It was never you. Like you said, you've never tried to be anything but nice to me. It was all based on something that happened to me a long time ago. Back when I was in high school, I had a crush on a girl in my class. She was pretty, like you. And she was a cheer leader, like you were. She led me on and let me buy her things. I gave her my lunch money and generally made a fool out of myself over her. That first love can be rough. I obsessed over her, but she just never treated me any differently than she did everyone else.

After a few months of this, I just asked her what it would take for us to be more than friends. She told me that if I wanted to be with her, I needed to be on the football team. So I tried out the next day. I figured I had a better than average chance. I was in good shaped and I played football with my friends all of the time.

There I was on the field. I lined up as a wide receiver. When the ball was snapped, I ran my route. I got to the area where I was supposed to be. I made eye contact with the quarterback and I knew at that moment that something was off. He was shaking his head even as he threw the ball to me. I jumped up and caught the ball and three huge defensive ends crushed me almost as if they'd been waiting for me.

They hit me so hard, I blacked out for a second. Even when I came to, I couldn't breathe. The coach came over and when I opened my eyes, he started yelling. "Walk it off kid," he said. "Rub some dirt on it. Get up and let's try it again." I couldn't feel my legs or anything else. He looked deep into my eyes and knew that I would probably never even watch football on TV again. "Next!" he yelled.

As I tried to wiggle my extremities to make sure I could still move on my own and nothing was broken, I heard the sound of a very shrill but familiar voice laughing hysterically at me. It was my supposed cheerleader girlfriend. She was sitting in the stands with an older guy who looked like a biker, pointing at me and laughing her ass off.

Two of the huge guys who'd crushed me picked me up and dragged me off of the field. "Let's go call your mom," said one of them. "Daphne strikes again," said another.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Man those cheerleaders are fucked up," said the first guy again. "Especially Daphne."

"She goes around looking for guys to humiliate," he said. "You're not the first, you won't be the last. You didn't give her any money did you?"

"So ever since then, I've stayed away from cheerleaders," I told her. "I know it's stupid, but I was young and impressionable and she was so beautiful. I just never got over it. And dammit you look like her and..."

"So you think, I'm beautiful?" she asked.

"Yes," I admitted. "But most women who are pretty are fucked up in the head. They act as if they don't have to have a personality because they're pretty. I've always looked more at a woman's personality and the way she treated me than the way she looks."

"Mindy..." I said. "I can't believe she..."

"So do you still want to marry my sister?" she asked. I looked at her like she was crazy.

"What did I do to make her start doing this?" I asked. She looked at me and shook her head. She grabbed my hand and told me her story and the story of the Mindy I never knew.

"So you didn't do anything to start Mindy doing this," she told me. "Mindy has always been a slut. She probably slowed down and does it less now that the two of you are together. But for some reason she just can't give it up. You'd probably have to ask her about that. As for why she's fucking Charlie? I think that has more to do with her trying to rub it in my face again."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Tim, for the past few months, Mindy has been inviting me to family functions and getting my parents to invite me as well. She's been doing that so she could throw you in my face. It's like she wants to show me that she finally has a man of her own and I can't touch him. For most of our lives, she's enjoyed taking men away from me and now she has a man of her own and you wouldn't even look at me."

"Okay, you told me that she takes your boyfriends," I said. "I just don't understand how. I mean you're really pretty."

"Mindy will fuck any guy who asks," she spat. "Me, I need to get to know a guy first and I don't even have sex with most of the guys I go out with. Like, I've never had sex with Charlie. But Mindy thought that he and I were in a relationship, so she needed to prove to me that she can still take things away from me."

* * * * * *

Mindy

When I woke up on Thursday, I sensed a disturbance in the force. Normally, Tim would have called me on a Wednesday even if we weren't together. If I had my Wednesday night thing and didn't get home until late, he either waited up and called me or left me a message to tell me he loves me if he went to bed early. This time there was nothing. I'd called him when I first got in last night but he hadn't answered the phone.

He also hadn't called to ask if I needed a ride to the library that morning either. I ended up having to take the bus. As soon as I got to the library, I called him at work. His secretary told me that he'd been called into an early morning meeting. She went on to tell me that he'd found out about a failure in some of their parts the previous evening and had actually come back to work the evening before. They needed to quickly find a solution or they'd lose millions of dollars.

I smiled realizing that it wasn't a problem between us, it was just work stuff. That took me back to my other problem. Charlie wanted one on one time with me. The asshole was blackmailing me. I'd made a mistake when I'd gone after him. I'd thought that I was actually taking yet another guy away from Cindy, but it turned out that she had only brought him with her so she wouldn't be the odd woman out. They never dated again after the barbecue.

Now Charlie was demanding more sex or he'd tell Tim what I was doing and I couldn't have that. I had to come up with a solution. I spent every evening with Tim except for Wednesday nights. Maybe I could convince Charlie to settle for having me on Wednesday before everyone else came or after everyone else left. For a guy who laughed at me when I first offered him sex, he couldn't seem to get enough. I've seen guys like him before. When I first got them, they did it because they were frustrated by my sister, or to get some kind of revenge on her because she wouldn't fuck them. But once they got a taste, they forgot all about her.

Part of the problem was that I had pretty much stopped. Sure, I was still doing the Wednesday night thing but that was more or less like a security blanket. The sex I got from Tim was so much better there was just no comparison. I also realized that even the security blanket was pointless. If Tim ever dumped me, it would destroy me. Going out and having mindless, passionless sex with a bunch of strangers wouldn't help. I was in love.

I did feel bad about having sex with the other guys, but I'd been doing it for so long that I just couldn't bring myself to stop. I still had the occasional quickie with the delivery guy etc. but for the most part, Wednesday nights were my only regular cheating. Before this, I probably had sex most nights with a different guy. I was becoming an old married lady, even before I got married and I liked it.

I think it hit me on Thursday night, when I still hadn't heard from Tim. I called him and he sounded awful on the phone. He told me not to worry but that he'd been up for more than thirty hours straight and that he was exhausted. I went over to my mother's house and we sat down and planned out some of the details of my wedding. She asked me who I'd chosen to be my bridesmaids and maid of honor.

I was surprised when she suggested Cindy. I called my sister right then and asked her to come over. Cindy sounded weird on the phone, but said she'd be there in a few minutes.

The only reason I wanted Cindy to come over was so I could pick on her. Having the bitch helping with my wedding was the ultimate way of throwing it in her face. Yep, you're helping with my wedding bitch. I'm the one who's getting married when no man wants your skinny ass.

When Cindy arrived, she smiled at me. I needed to wipe that silly fucking grin off of her face.

"How's Charlie?" I asked.

"You'd probably know better than I would," she smirked. "I really was never serious about Charlie," she said. "He was yours from the beginning."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" I asked.

"Charlie was bait, fat ass," she smirked. "I knew that anyone I brought home you'd go after. So I brought you an asshole to feed on while I kept the guy I really liked a secret. I hope you choke on Charlie."