My Cousin's a What?

"Oh, gross." Sara shook her head. She turned to little Ashley, who was watching the byplay with a bemused expression on her face. "Who's a great big gross dumbo, Ashley?" She lifted the girl in the air, making the her break out in a wide grin. "Cousin Tommy is! That's right! A great big dumb man! Don't trust boys." She lowered the chortling toddler to her lap and waved a warning finger in her face. "They're big and smelly and dumb and icky."

"If your mom could hear that," he warned her, finishing off his meal, "she'd be terrified that you're going to turn your cousin gay. Everyone knows that Los Angeles is a pit of depravity."

"Hah. Mom doesn't know the half of it. I could tell you some stories that would turn your hair white."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows curiously. "Lay it on me."

She shook her head with a smile, glancing around the crowded, cheerful basement. "Maybe later. Little pitchers have big ears, you know."

Chapter 2: Winter Wonderland

You're a fraud, Sara's mind whispered later that night, as she got ready for bed. A fraud, a liar, and a disgrace to your family.

She ignored the voice, a relic of her childhood. When every sin, real or imagined, would be broken down in painstaking detail by her guilty conscience.

You're no better than a whore. Selling your body.

"I was young," she said in a high, nasal tone, channeling her whiny inner child. "I needed the money."

And then you found out you enjoyed it. Loved the thrill. And you couldn't stop. You needed the high, no different than a crack addict looking for her next fix.

"You go to hell. You go to hell and you die! I'll tell them. When the time is right. When I want to tell them. Not when you think I should," she snarled.

A knock at the bedroom door. "Sara?" Her cousin opened the door a few careful inches. Are you all right in there?"

"Tom." She swallowed, trying to dispel the illusion that she was two warring halves of one person. "Come in. It's your bedroom, after all."

"Not until you go back to LA," he said, nudging the door further open with his hip. His hands were loaded with clean linens. "Mom told me that if I even thought about trying to sneak a peek at you when you were changing clothes, the way I did when we were thirteen, she would personally cover me in honey and stake me out on an anthill." He paused. "Which would be a lot more threatening, really, if this was July instead of December."

She laughed. "Yeah, you were always a disgusting little perv."

"Not anymore. Now I'm a tall disgusting perv. And come on. I was thirteen. And you had just started getting boobs. I was curious. Who else was I going to ask?"

"I don't know," Sara asked sarcastically. "Your sister, maybe?"

"Well, sure. But you were cuter."

"Right," she drawled. "So if you're not up here to get a free peek after my body -- which is awesome, by the way - why are you here?"

He gestured towards his loaded arms, then set the bundle on his desk. "Mom thought that you might not want to sleep on a bed that was full of gross boy-cooties. So she sent me up with clean sheets." He made a face. "I don't know why. I changed them..." He made a show of counting on his fingers. "Back in August."

"Men," Sara said distantly, "are unbelievably gross."

"Oh, lighten up, Francis. It was at Thanksgiving. And I haven't been back home since." Tom began to methodically strip the mattress, speaking over his shoulder. "So it isn't like I've been wallowing in my own filth since I came home." The blankets were folded and placed next to the clean sheets, while the old sheets were tossed into a nearby hamper. Sara smiled, leaning against the closet door as Tommy made the bed, his tall young body bending and moving in unconscious grace. In only a few minutes the bed was made, the blankets tucked back in and neatly folded at the foot of the bed.

"There." Tommy slipped a pillowcase over a fat, fluffy pillow, and tossed it towards the headboard, where it landed with a soft whump. "Even the princess in that story couldn't complain about that."

"About what?" she asked, unable to keep up with the flea-hopping skips of her cousin's mind.

"You know. The Princess and the Pea? This bitchy-ass princess got a bruise because she had to sleep on a pea, even though it was under like three other mattresses?"

"I must have missed that one," Sara smiled. Tommy had always been the reader, not her. She flopped down on the bed, breathing in deep. God, even the scent of the sheets, scented with her aunt's favorite fabric softener, made her eyes prick with tears. Was she really that homesick? Or was she turning into a watering can? "We hardly got a chance to talk at supper, with all the kids around. What's going on with you? Any new girls in your life? What are you going to do after graduation?"

"Look for a job, obviously."

"Obviously," she repeated dryly. "Where? Around here? Going to run the books for your dad's plumbing outfit? That'll be exciting."

"I've heard worse ideas," Tommy shot back, his tone nettled. "I like living here. And weren't you telling me how awful things were in California?"

She shrugged lightly. "The weather, yeah. But it has its benefits, too."

"If you say so," he said skeptically. He opened up his bureau and began to root through it. "Sorry. But I'm most likely going to be up here a couple times a day to get clothes. Probably would have been easier to have you sleep in the basement. But Mom would have considered that being rude to a guest." He turned. "And whatever you do, don't look in the bottom drawer. You won't like what you find there."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're messing with me. Aren't you?"

He shrugged elaborately, though his eyes were twinkling. "All I'm saying is that I'm a man. And a man had needs, you know?"

"I am familiar with the concept." She yawned. "You want to get out of here? Or should I scream and tell Aunt Evey that you're perving on me again? You know she likes me best."

"Life is so unfair." But he as he turned towards the door, he tilted his head downstairs. "Don't expect to get much sleep, though," he added, with his hand on the doorknob. "Do you really think that crew downstairs going to sleep much past sunup, when Christmas is barely a day away? You'll probably wake up with Ashley bouncing on your belly."

As the door closed behind him, she fell back on the bed.

"I am so fucked."

But whatever merciful gods that had chosen to watch over her for the holiday be thanked, Sara actually got a decent night's sleep, undisturbed by her younger siblings or her cousins. When she came downstairs, yawning sleepily, only a little after ten, it was to find the entire household already awake.

"Good morning," her aunt said as she drifted into the kitchen.

"Hey." She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Was she jet-lagged? Or still tired? Her bleary gaze took in the vast heap of food on the counter. "Good God. Are you really going to cook all of that?"

"Eventually, yeah. For tonight. And some will be for tomorrow."

She chewed her lip. "Can I help?"

"With the cooking?" Aunt Evey turned a wry look towards her. "I would. But your mom tells me you burned scrambled eggs the last time you were home."

"It was just once. I can cook. I live by myself, and I don't survive on take-out."

Her aunt chuckled. "Well, how about you help keep the kids off my back? That's the best favor you can do for me and your mom. Besides," she added kindly. "They haven't seen you in months. Or you them. So you all might as well get to know each other again. And it would stop them from driving your mom and me crazy while we're trying to get the big meal together."

Sara smiled in memory. Christmas had been the same way ever since she was a little girl. First, while her grandparents on her mother's side had still been alive. And later, after they passed, a tradition carried on by her mother and her aunt. A huge meal on Christmas Eve, followed by the opening of one (and only one) present for each child under the tree. And then off to bed, dreams of the day to come helping chase them down to sleep. And Christmas Day itself, a long bacchanalia that started as soon as they woke up and didn't end until they collapsed into bed that night. Opening presents around the tree transitioning into a huge pancake breakfast and treats and snacks and movies and games and another huge meal and an eventual face-plant on the living room rug as biology finally fought off the effects of too much food, presents, and excitement.

"I'll do my best," she said, stealing a chocolate muffin off a plate. She took a bite, almost groaning in hedonistic pleasure, and turned around to see her youngest sister come into the kitchen, her mother only a few steps behind.

"It's snowing, Sara," Taylor said, almost vibrating with excitement. "You want to build a snowman?"

"Ah ah!" She raised a finger and pointed it at Taylor's nose. "What did I tell you?"

Her sister rolled her eyes. "That if I didn't stop using lines from Frozen you were going to tie my ears behind my head?"

"Right."

"But do you wanna? Everyone is going to go outside and help. Even Tommy and Danny. Well, everyone except for Baby Stacie. She's too little."

She smiled down at her sister. "Just let me finish my breakfast and find a coat."

Ten minutes later she was outside, watching with amusement as her brothers, sister, and assorted cousins tried, with varying degrees of success, to build snowmen. It was warmer than the day before, but with a chilly, raw wind off the lake. Snow fell in erratic bursts. Sometimes it was so heavy it was hard to see across the street. Other times it dwindled away to practically nothing, leaving the air clear as crystal.

"This isn't going to be a snowman," Tommy murmured at her side, his voice warm. "It's going to be an entire snow family." A few feet away, David was pushing a knee-high ball of snow into position. His cousin Mark, Sara's brother, helped him lift it on top of the even larger ball of snow which made up the snowman's base. Other figures were also taking shape. "What do you think, Ashley?" he asked his niece, who was clinging to his leg and watching the entire affair with open-mouthed bewilderment. "Do you want to help?"

The little girl, her cheeks red, bent down and picked up a clump of snow with her mittens. "Snowball!" she said proudly.

Tommy squatted down beside her niece. "That's right. And do you know what we do with snowballs?" he asked with a grin.

Angela shook her head, the bobble on top of her stocking cap bouncing.

"We throw them!" Tommy whispered loudly. He scraped up some snow and formed it into a sphere the size of a baseball. "Good snow," he said approvingly. "Just wet enough to pack well." He stood, bouncing it in his gloved hand as he surveyed the scene. Then, before Sara could blink, he had fired it across the yard into the packed mass of her siblings and cousins, where it hit Taylor right in the butt.

Snow flew in a starburst pattern as the snowball exploded. Taylor shrieked in surprise, rubbing her rear end as she glared around the yard. "Tommy, you big jerk! Stop it!"

"Make me," he grinned, making another snowball as Ashley looked on, open-mouthed. The next missile slammed into her sister Megan's shoulder. The young woman, who was beginning to ripen into a slim-bodied teenage beauty that would have boys tripping over their tongues in another year or two, shouted angrily, and then began to gather ammunition herself.

It's kind of like the Cold War back in the fifties, Sara thought as her family bent and began to stockpile weaponry. But with snowballs instead of nukes.

And then she lost track of who was doing what, as the entire yard devolved into an every-woman-for-herself snowball-hurling frenzy. She ducked one wild throw and threw another back, missing her brother Justin by a country mile. Out of concern for her tiny niece, who she didn't want to see trampled, she managed to stay near Tommy and Ashley. The little girl was grinning from ear to ear, obviously having the time of her life, as she busied herself making snowballs and handing them up to her older cousin. Tommy took each one solemnly, thanked Ashley, and then whipped it as hard as he could at whatever target he could find.

A pair of stalking figures caught her eye through the snow and the whizzing snowballs. David and Taylor had obviously formed a temporary alliance, and they were trying to sneak up on Tommy from behind. Instead of warning her older cousin, she bit her lip, enjoying the show.

"Tommy!" Taylor yelled. And when her cousin turned, he was pelted with snowballs. Taylor's hit him in the chest, sending snow flying across the brown leather of his jacket. And David's caught him in the temple with a thud. Off-balance, Tommy slipped in the snow and fell, sprawling onto his back.

And then, just to add insult to injury, little Ashley threw a lumpy snowball almost the size of her own head directly into Tommy's wide-eyed face.

Sara roared with laughter, holding her stomach as Tommy got to his knees, wiping melting slush off his face. "You..." he stuttered, his dark eyebrows drawn down in a glare that didn't fool her at all. "I'll get you!"

"Why?" She pointed at Ashley, who was lying on the ground and waving her legs in the air with laughter. "She's the one who threw it."

"She's too little. So I'm going to take it out on you."

"Yeah?" She stuck her tongue out at him. "I'd like to see you try."

"Oh?" Her cousin hauled himself to his feet. She felt a flutter in her belly as he loomed over her. "Maybe I will." He pointed a finger to David and Taylor. "Watch Ashley, okay?"

Just before he lunged towards her, mayhem in his eyes, she spun and sprinted away, a shrieking laugh torn from her lips. Dodging through the wind-blown snow, she danced around her cousins, wove through the family of half-finished snowmen, and led Tommy on a chase through the side yard and then around to the back. Her old boots, which she hadn't worn since last winter, slid in the snow, and she had to fight to keep her balance ahead of the longer strides of her cousin.

"Sara!" Tommy's bellow sounded as if he were mere inches behind her. "You can't run and you can't hide, Sara!"

She tried to turn, but her feet slipped on a patch of slushy snow, and instead she went sprawling. Before she could scramble to her feet, Tommy was on top of her.

"Get off!" she giggled, and tried to scoop up snow to throw in his face. But he captured her wrists in his hands, forcing her arms over her head.

"Gotcha," he said, smug satisfaction coloring his voice as he pinned her down. She wriggled and squirmed, but his grip was like iron. "Say uncle," he ordered.

And something inside her changed. Her heart hammered in her chest as Tommy's eyes locked on hers. Under her heavy sweatshirt, her chest heaved, her lungs gasping in the cold air. But was it exertion which made her pant so heavily? Or something else? Something dark and wicked and forbidden? Something about herself which she had known for a long time, but had gone to California to escape, using her secret fantasies to fuel a career which she didn't dare to confess to anyone in her family?

Something which, if she was very, very careful, she could make a reality?

Sara opened her mouth slightly, drawing on her acting skills as she ran the tip of her tongue across her parted lips. "Mmmm." She moved slowly under her tall, good-looking cousin, freeing her leg so she could rub her denim-clad thigh on Tommy's hip. "You've gotten bigger, Tommy. A lot bigger. Tell me," she said, as a warm presence pressed into her groin. "Is that an icicle in your pocket? Or are you really happy to see me?" She snickered as Tommy's face flushed. "And I thought most things got smaller when it got cold, instead of bigger. And harder."

She looked deep into her cousin's eyes. "I got to say, coz. I'm actually kind of...impressed." She stretched her arms up over her head, ignoring the damp chill that was seeping through the rear of her jeans. Because a different place was getting wetter. And hotter. A roll of her hips pressed her loins into the crotch of Tommy's jeans. She held herself tense for an instant, then sagged away again. His breath hissed between his teeth as she teased him. "Tell me. Do you know what to do with it?"

Her cousin shot a panicked look at the house. "You're fucking crazy!" His voice was a harsh whisper. "Do you know what my mom would do to me if she could see us right now? She'd lock me in the basement and never let me out again!"

She nodded. "I think you're right. Can't have her think that you're molesting your sweet, defenseless cousin."

A twist of her hips, a shove at his shoulder, and now she was the one who was on top, her legs straddling his. "Good. Now, instead of molesting me, you're just a pansy who gets beaten up by girls. And if she sees us, your mom will think we're fooling around, instead of, you know," her voice dropped, and so did her crotch, pressing directly into her cousin's stiff tool, "fooling around."

She bent low, whispering into Tommy's ear. "And it turns you on, doesn't it?"

Tommy's eyes were wide, almost panicked. But he nodded. Flakes of snow drifted down around the two of them and melted in his hair. It would be so easy, she thought distantly, the hot throbbing drumbeat of her heart pounding in her pussy, making her wet and slick. So easy to give him a little kiss. And then a longer one. And maybe then they could go for a drive together and find some out-of-the way spot where she could see if fucking her cousin was as hot as she had always dreamed it would be. Her lips parted as she nuzzled his neck, giving him a tiny, teasing lick. Tommy moaned softly and his hips raised, just enough to press the hot rod of his erection into her.

One kiss. Just one...

Her phone rang, the obnoxiously cheerful jingle of The Backstreet Boys as unwelcome as a spider on a wedding cake.

"Fuck," she said as she pulled the phone out of the inside pocket of her jacket. "It's my agent."

"Answer it," Tom said from his prone position. "If you missed a spot in the next Avengers movie because you were distracted by my he-man studliness, I'd never forgive myself."

"I'd never forgive you, either," she replied, aggravated by the interruption. Somehow she peeled herself away from Tom's tempting body and stood, even though her own desire was to stay where she was and make out with her handsome cousin until hypothermia set in. "Sara Collins," she said as she answered her phone.

"Sara, love. How are you?" The broad cockney accent of Jacob Weintraub emerged from the speaker. "Enjoying your visit to the old family homestead in Ohio? Or is it Iowa? I always get the two confused."

"It's Illinois, you ignorant Cheapside twat," she replied cheerfully. Still on the ground, Tom's eyes went round at her casual vulgarity. But she just tossed him a wink as she walked towards the house. "And why are you calling me on Christmas Eve, anyway? Don't they have holidays where you come from? Or are you just that rude?"

"No rest for the wicked, love," he sighed. "I'm in the office, trying to catch up on my paperwork. No one wants to work during the holidays, so I thought I'd get ahead on the shooting schedule for January. Can you spare me a few minutes? I have some ideas I want to run by you. Sara Staxx is getting pretty popular these days, and both of us need to take advantage while we can. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that. Isn't that what you inbred farm folk say?"

"The next time I see you I am going to superglue your nostrils shut."

Jake laughed. "You love me and you know it."