Hiding in My House Pt. 04

[All characters in this story are 18 years of age or older.]

"Thanks. I mean, seriously, S, thank you so much for coming to get me."

"It is my pleasure," Seong said... which, obviously, there was no reason for her to say out loud since I could see it in that serene Seong-feels-everything-is-right-with-the-world expression on her face. Seong is one of those people who can smile without their lips changing position, if you know what I'm talking about. It's like if a string on a guitar is barely a tiny bit out of tune, the noise gets to you even if you don't have a good musical ear to know why -- but then the guitarist twists one little tuning peg by like two degrees, and it sounds great. Something beyond your ability to consciously perceive changes and turns things better. That was a Seong smile, most of the time. Just to make herself even more crystal-clear, she added, "I'm very happy you're not making the mistake you thought you wanted to make."

I felt the late-afternoon sky open up even wider above me. Kids were playing in the park, you could hear splashing from the community-center pool where Seong had pulled her petal-blue hatchback into the lot. Under some nearby trees, this family had their dinner all set up on one of the picnic tables.

The world felt wholesome.

"I'm happy too," I said, tugging the door shut and buckling my seatbelt. "It was super close to being a really giant mistake."

Seong put the car in reverse, glanced at the backup screen, but then looked at me instead of backing the car out. Her eyes narrowed, curious and amused. "Something is very different with you this evening than when I dropped you off last night."

"Yeah, whoo." Last night, I'd just had my life turned to shit by my shitty-ass boyfriend cheating on me with our shitty-ass housemate slut Eddi. But this morning... "You don't know the half of it, let me tell you."

She glanced both ways behind us, then watched our progress with the back-up camera as we swung out of the space. "Please, do."

I thought, Go ahead. If there's anyone you can tell, it's Seong. You know you can trust her.

And I did -- trust her, that is. But I needed a little more space to let this thing out. Even after four or five hours trying to get my head around it, the reality of having watched my sister boink my dad three different times today had me pretty off-balance.

"Or don't," Seong said. "I don't want to pry, C."

I could hear a little disappointment in her voice, though. She can tell how big this is, and she may not want to pry, but she wants to believe I'd tell her about something important. Okay... I'll work up to it slow.

"So..." Neighborly houses passed by on either side, then the big tree-lined avenue out of my subdivision. "All right. I guess first off, the reason I needed you to come get me is, Dad and Kell were asleep when I got in last night, and they didn't notice I was there when they got up this morning, and I decided I wanted to keep it that way."

"Your explanation suggests the contours of ancillary facts and considerations much more interesting than the explanation itself."

"You're so goddamn nosey, S," I said, making her laugh. "I'm getting to it. Sheesh."

Only really, I wasn't, was I?

On the way down MacArthur Street to the highway, I told her how Dad and Kellie had gotten a security company to put in an alarm system fifteen years after the house was built pre-wired for one. I told her about the installation guy's smooth and reassuring voice. I told her about the way it would beep whenever an exterior door got opened, so I couldn't sneak out as long as they were anywhere in the house because they'd hear. At the light before the highway, I told her how I'd had to wait the whole afternoon for them to leave and go to dinner, with only half a bag of cheese puffs from my backpack to survive on.

"You and cheese puffs," she sighed. Seong is extremely fastidious, and would never sink so low as to get her fingers covered in cheese-puff dandruff. I put one in her mouth for her once and she went wide-eyed over the taste, but later I caught her eating from the bag with chopsticks and I laughed so hard she never touched them again. (At least, not when I've been looking.)

I tell you, though, that girl knows how to make a sigh say ten different things the same way she knows how to smile without moving her lips. This one definitely had an eyeroll in it about my obsession with cheesy snacks... but it also had a wistful longing over the fact that she fucking loved cheese puffs but her dignity wouldn't let her eat them. On top of that, it carried more than a little trademark Seong hyper-suppressed impatience, which told me she knew I was delaying the main point of this conversation, but that she would humor me as long as she could.

And considering I still didn't feel any braver about it, I went whole-hog taking advantage of her humoring me.

Over the ten-minute highway trip to her part of town, I told her my plan on getting out -- to wait until I heard Dad and Kell arm the alarm system and let the door swing shut behind them, then run downstairs and go out the back during the thirty-second delay before the system activated and opening the door would trigger the apocalypse. I also told her how the cheese puffs didn't last, how I got really thirsty, how I started to really need to pee again well before six o'clock rolled around, which was when my dad and sister had talked about going to dinner. But I did not tell her about opening my laptop again and watching, over and over, the videos I'd taken with my phone. Nor did I tell her the videos even existed, or the things I'd seen my father and sister do while filming them.

(I also did not tell her about peeing in the Gatorade bottle, which happened again late that afternoon. Like I said, she's way fastidious, and whatever patience she had left for my roundabout description of the day would have been flushed down the toilet by hearing I'd used a plastic bottle to relieve myself in not once but twice.)

I wanted to hear what she had to say about all of it (not the pee bottle), and I knew what she had to say would help me... I guess I just also wanted to know a little more how I felt about all of it before I found out how she felt about it.

"Hey," I said, an idea popping into my head to let me keep stalling. "Want to hear something funny?"

"Who ever answers that question, 'No'?"

"Kellie was talking about... about how stupid I was to always let Brandt drag me around to places I didn't want to go, and she said, 'You know Chelse, what you really ought to do is...'"

And... full stop.

My sister's joke didn't want to leave my lips for some reason. Maybe because I was being dishonest the way I was telling it, since Kellie didn't say it to me, she said it to Dad. Maybe because Seong deserved better than me stalling the conversation, especially since I did want to tell her about what I'd seen and learned, spying on the two of them.

And maybe because you know Kell was like ninety-five percent serious and hardly joking at all. God, she hates Brandt.

Only was that all? Because Dad had said something too, hadn't he? Right after she'd suggested I ought to make a move on my best friend, he said to Kell, "You and your thing about Seong again."

Kellie didn't just hate Brandt. She wanted me to be happy. And she liked Seong a lot.

Yeah, but later she also said, "Probably there's nothing there at all." She thought the idea of the two of us hooking up was funny and hot, that's all.

Only there was also that thing about Seong being a "freaky beautiful soul" and the only person I hung out with who was good enough for me.

Oh shit. What if she was a hundred percent serious and not joking even a little bit? What if she was just dodging Dad when she said there was probably nothing there? What if she really thought I ought to do that?

And I looked over at Seong and I knew exactly why Kell might have such a thought. If I was wired that way, I couldn't do much better than a girl like Seong.

Which made my brain do one of those things where it tells you something without you trying to even think about it.

It said, There aren't any other girls like Seong.

"You know, C, I was very worried about you." For just a second, because she's a careful driver, Seong glanced over at me with those dark, empathic eyes. We were driving west and closing in on sundown, and I could see an orange glow from the horizon reflected in her pupils. "And then you called and I felt less worried. And then you got in the car, and suddenly I wasn't worried at all." I was hearing her, but I was also thinking, Holy fuck, this is turning into such a beautiful day. Then she went on, "But now I'm wondering if I should worry again."

Without hesitation, I said, "No. No, definitely I'm way better, and you should not worry."

"Really? You sound certain, truthfully. But there's also something out of sorts about you."

Well, my sister, who by the way is fucking my dad, thinks I ought to hook up with you. And I'm pretty convinced she's right to be fucking him, so what if she's right about that too?

"Yeah, out of sorts is for sure on target."

"So tell me why. If you want to."

"I do," I said, and found myself meaning it about both things. "Shit, though I don't even know what to start with."

"Whatever you think I can help you with the most."

Just tell her the ridiculous one.

The Culver Street exit came up, and because Seong dislikes the high overpass between our highway and the next, she took it and stuck to surface streets the rest of the way.

"My sister..." and my Dad, it turns out they're...

Wait, is that the ridiculous one?

We stopped at a light and she looked over at me. Those impossibly deep eyes -- they always just absorbed whatever she was looking at. The sensitive curves of her lips parted, and she spoke. "Yes. Kellie. She said you ought to do something, and you thought it was funny. What did she say?"

I watched the way she formed every word. Seong has a large, sensuous mouth that she usually doesn't open very wide because she thinks her teeth are too big. So its movements when she talks stay subtle and precise, yet also full and fluid. In a world where my father and sister were lovers, could I kiss those lips? What would that feel like? They would be soft. They would be calm and tender and sweet to taste.

They would be giving.

Why would I think that idea might be a joke?

"I shouldn't have put it that way," I told Seong. Oh, shit, I really shouldn't have put it that way. What if it could really happen, but I started off by saying it for a laugh?

"Kellie is very smart," she replied, turning to look at the road as the light changed and we moved forward. "I would expect her advice to be good if she meant it."

"I would too."

"What's the other thing?"

"Huh?"

"The thing you've been avoiding telling me about and decided to further delay with something amusing your sister said, which wasn't as funny as you thought because you hadn't properly considered it in your anxious need to redirect the conversation."

"Jesus Christ, S. Sometimes I think you're some kind of mind-reader."

"Of course I'm not." We reached another light, but it went green just before we came to a full stop. "If I was, I wouldn't need to ask. I could spend every moment in your thoughts and know them better than you knew them yourself."

"Ha. I don't know if that would be all that hard."

"Chelsea."

"Yes?" I looked at her as she made the turn onto a cross-street.

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to. You do know that, don't you?"

"Kellie thinks I should come out as bi and date you."

The car became very quiet.

"Well?" I asked after a block went by. "Is that a stupid idea, or should I think about it? I mean, assuming you would want to."

"I..."

"Oh my god, you would want to."

Her voice, when it came, sounded tight in her throat. "I don't believe my counsel on this subject would be impartial, Chelsea. We should talk about the other thing."

"S, why didn't you tell me?"

She put her blinker on, pulled into a gas-station parking lot that happened to be right where we needed it to be, shifted the car into park, and sat looking straight ahead with both hands in her lap.

"I'm very sensitive," she said finally. "You know that."

"Yes. It's my favorite thing about you."

She took several quick breaths, then a few slower ones.

"You know that when I feel things, I feel them very strongly."

I nodded.

"So I didn't tell you because I treasure your friendship, and it was so obvious to me you did not feel the same as I did, beyond that friendship. If you felt it, I would know, and then I could tell you without risking what you and I share. But you didn't feel it, and I could tell that too."

"Well maybe that's because I'm stupid."

Her face turned toward me, eyes at the edge of tears but her mouth wry. "I'm not attracted to stupid people."

"Ugh. That makes one of us."

That made her laugh. Then she looked at me, and I felt absorbed again.

"I'm not a stupid person. Does your pattern of falling for stupidity mean," she asked, "that you're not attracted to me?"

"Um... I didn't say I was only attracted to stupid people."

"On so many things, I would adore letting you ramble and banter into the night, C. But right now, I need you to be direct -- with yourself, and with me. What are we to do with this idea of Kellie's, now that you've thrown it out in the open? We can't kick it around like children playing with a ball -- I'm relieved that the ball is before us now, but my feet are worn out with two years of pacing. If you are attracted to me, I... need to know."

Long shadows of the nearby buildings reached the gas station parking lot and deepened enough to bring the fluorescent lights over the pumps on.

"You want me to be direct?" I asked her.

"Yes."

"You're sure? Really sure?"

"Yes, C, please."

"So you'd be mad if I told you the other thing and distracted you from this subject?"

She actually growled a little at that. "You are so frustrating sometimes! I've been hoping and wanting to talk to you about this for such a long time -- how could I possibly be distracted from it?"

"Yes! Score! I got you rattled and now I'm going to prove you wrong."

"I'm not -- fff. All right, I may be a lit-"She stopped herself and sighed. "No. It's true, you did. I can't deny that I'm... rattled right now. But prove me wrong? I sincerely doubt --"

"Kellie and my dad have been fucking for the last five years."

She stared at me, so I just waited, full of that kind of tingly electric sensation you get when everything is on pause and you think if you breathe something might topple the world.

"Each other, I assume you mean."

"Yes, Seong. My dad has two adult daughters. He definitely did not discover the act of fucking just five years ago."

"Well," she said. But she didn't follow it with anything right away, just put the car back in gear and put on her blinker. "I'm no longer rattled, but you have proved me wrong. That is a very distracting piece of information."

Then she pulled back out onto the street and drove us the rest of the way to her folks' place.

# # #

Seong's family lives in an older neighborhood that used to be on the edge of town before urban sprawl swallowed it up in the eighties or nineties. So the houses aren't mansions or anything, but the lots are really big, and it takes a long time winding through the subdivision to get to her place. Plus, big lots mean long driveways, and even after we got there, Seong could just pull into the front of the driveway with her lights off so I could finish telling her all about my adventures that eye-opening morning without worrying that her family might come out and surprise us.

It took her a bit to compose her first words after getting back on the road from that gas station. But when she did, they were very Seong.

"You seem unsettled, but not disturbed," she said. "Am I right to conclude a conviction on your part that it is consensual, and perhaps even that you approve?"

"Uh-huh, a hundred percent on the consensual part. I'm a little more wobbly on the approving part... but even that's mostly because they did it in my room while I hid in the closet, and they ragged on how messy it was the whole time. I mean, that's pretty nervy of them, right?"

When she didn't say anything immediately, I repeated myself: "Right?"

We were approaching the turn for her neighborhood at that point, and she very deliberately minded the road. Halfway through the turn, she said, "You have several weaknesses, C, and cleaning up after yourself is, frankly, the worst of them. If you found it inappropriate for them to make use of your private space, I support you. But as for any commentary on the caliber of your housekeeping..."

"I can't believe you're betraying me like this."

She laughed. "Can I assume my treachery surprises you less than finding your father and sister in bed together?"

"Anyway... they were both very eager participants, and... I know them, right? I could hear in their voices, it was normal and... healthy for them. They were totally themselves, except for the having sex part. The same people I've known my whole life, fun and caring and happy with each other."

"Knowing them less than I do you, but knowing you as well as I do, this makes complete sense to me."

I thought I understood what she meant. She's met them both several times, and I've talked to her about them a lot. But I still felt relieved that she trusted my judgment about whether they ought to be doing... what they were doing.

"So," she went on, "having established that the situation is neither morally nor emotionally traumatic for you, I require lascivious details."

"You're such a perv, Seong."

"Said the woman who approves of her family's flagrant incest."

"Okay, okay. Is there anything you particularly want to hear about first?"

"Is there something you think I would particularly enjoy hearing about?"

I thought for half a second and said, "Kellie's tits. Oh my god, Seong, I know I've told you before how jealous I am of them, but seeing them in action was --"

She laughed. "How did I know this was what you would start with? No, don't stop, go on."

A low burn rose up my face. "I mean, it's not like I'm always talking about them..."

"No, not always. Seriously, C, I do want to hear. Describe them."

"Okay... if I'm not boring you or anything." When her eyebrows pinched downward in the Seong equivalent of a scowl, I summoned my image of Kellie back up and quickly went on. "Not huge -- you know, you've seen her -- but the way they hang, naked, and move with her when she moves..."

"I'm picturing breasts in empty space, surging enticingly but without context. Widen my view at least a little, please?"

"Sure. Okay, so, I'm in the upstairs hallway, walking to the bathroom from my room, and her door is open, and there they are."

"Her breasts?"

I reached over and pushed her shoulder, but the smile she gave me in response made it hard to stay exasperated. "They were doing it right there in her bed -- knees for him, hands and knees for her." (For some reason, Seong dislikes the term "doggy style," so I avoided it.) "And no, my eyes did not go right for her boobs. But the way they hung there and swayed every time he bumped up against her ass, that stuck with me pretty hard."