Perfect Tens

"Jesus Rachel, what the hell?" Ben said, turning to me quickly, the redness in his cheeks growing deeper. I started shaking my head.

"Oh we weren't talking about it," Christine said, quickly, shaking her head, "Her ex, now current, boyfriend is my second cousin. I know her. She sucks." Ben gave me a long, dirty look like he was wondering whether to believe Christine. I shrugged ran my hands through my hair. He knew how Christine was. Finally, he believed me. He looked back at Christine.

"Whatever. Nice to see you Christine," Ben said, and he closed the door of the fridge and walked out of the room. Once again, I kicked Christine, less carefully now.

"Ouch!" she said.

"Way to go asshole, you got me in trouble. He isn't talking about Amber now," I responded.

"Well who cares, Amber is a cunt. My dirtbag cousin deserves her. Ben shouldn't be dealing with that shit."

"I know that, but I doubt he wants to hear it. And I don't want him thinking I am whispering about his love life behind his back."

"Well that's what we are doing right now!" Christine said and I guess she was right. I crossed my hands in front of my breasts. We sat in silence for a few moments. "Listen, I am sorry. I didn't mean to open my big mouth. I was trying to be nice," Christine said.

"No, I know. Sorry I got angry," I responded, "I am just a little...sensitive about Ben."

"The world has noticed," Christine said and my cheeks got red, "He seems fine. Like he just got broken up with. But he seems totally normal. Couple weeks it'll be over." I nodded, having thought the same thing before. But so what? So he'd get over Amber. What came next? I mean he'd just end up with someone else like Amber. Someone else who wouldn't really deserve him for one reason or another.

"You know, I'd just feel better..." I started a thought not really sure where I was going. Would there be anything that would make me feel better about this situation? And, for some reason, something clicked in my mind at that moment. Why did people want to be attractive anyway? I meaning, being attractive in and of itself was pretty meaningless. It was the act of attracting that people wanted. To pull other people towards them. Other people who were, themselves attractive. I mean, that was the thing I enjoyed about being attractive. If there was a man that I wanted, I knew I had a pretty good shot at them. I'd been with guys that I'd considered to be perfect specimen before. That was fun.

Christine knew Ben. She knew he was a good guy. And she was sexy. And she was unashamedly easy. I could not make Ben physically attractive to women like Christine. Not as a general matter. But I could maybe help him feel attractive one time. The idea came to me all at once. I didn't even really think through the implications of what I was considering. It all just seemed so perfect. A chance to do something for Ben. And an opportunity, maybe, to finally get a little bit of relief from my guilt.

"Feel better?" Christine said, pulling me out of my brain.

"Oh...yeah," I said, and then I turned and looked at Christine. She really was perfect for this. Long blonde hair, big eyes, clear skin, big breasts, long legs. She was a college dream girl. And I already knew Ben was infatuated with her. I just had to close the deal.

"You sleep with a lot of guys, right?" I asked and Christine laughed, "Oh Jesus that came out wrong!" It was like my brain wasn't working right, I was so excited by my idea.

"Yeah to both things. Yes, I sleep with people. And yes, your brain is damaged. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Sorry," I said, shaking my head, "I was just...have you ever slept with a younger guy?" I asked. I mean, how do you approach this particular topic? And what, exactly was I suggesting?

"I don't often card. I assume they were all of age," Christine said dubiously. I laughed a little and shrugged.

"No, I know. I am just..." I said, "Sorry, I phrased that weirdly," I needed to take a minute and plan out what I intended to say, I was just throwing things out there.

"Rachel, are you alright? You are all over the place" Christine said, and it was like it accidentally knocked something loose in my mind.

"Would you sleep with my brother?" I blurted. I don't know if I'd even ever thought about what I was planning to say. Or suggest. I definitely wasn't planning on being that direct. It just sort of slipped out. Christine's jaw was on the kitchen table and she was laughing awkwardly.

"Say what now Rach?" She asked, incredulous. My voice caught in my throat. Oh god, what had I suggested? What was I even thinking? But there was no putting the genie back in the bottle now. I'd made a request. A horrifying request. But there it was.

"Yeah, uh...I..."

"Oh, now you're shy?" Christine asked, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry. I just..."

"No Rachel, I am not going to sleep with your brother. And you should feel really fucking weird for asking! If I didn't love you already, I'd totally be rethinking our friendship," she said it playfully, but I could tell she was really shocked. I was too, to be honest. I'd never thought anything like this until just a few minutes before, and here I was trying to get my brother...laid.

"I am so sorry," I said again, then dropped my hands to the side.

"No, don't be," Christine said, laughing again, "I am just...I didn't know you were pimping out your brother." I winced. God, she was going to make this painful. I think I deserved it.

"No, it's just... he is so depressed since the Amber thing..." I said, trying to salvage this in some way.

"So you thought 'hey, maybe my friend wants to fuck him'?" she said, and I winced again.

"Look, I know that was... a stupid thing to say. But I just worry about Ben. He is such a good guy and I worry that..."

"You're right, Ben is a good guy. You shouldn't worry about anything. He will be fine. He got his heart broken in high school. You don't want him marrying his high school sweetheart, do you? That worked out real well for my parents, remember."

"No, I know. I really do know. I just know that he thinks you're pretty and you seem really...open to sexual experiences..."

"No one has ever called me a slut in a sweeter way Rach, I thank you for that."

"And so I just figured..."

"We've known that Ben has had a crush on me since like the fourth grade. That doesn't bother me. But I won't sleep with him," she said.

"Because he's not attractive?" I asked, in a whispered voice. My heart started thrumming as I asked it. I was terrified about the answer would be. What if she confirmed my fears about Ben's future?

"Because he is my friend's brother, Rach! God," Christine said and I felt a little bit better, "And, I mean listen, I am not going to lie and say I am not shallow. I am. Ben isn't really my type. But I am sure I've been with less attractive guys. Once or twice. But no, I am not going to sleep with him."

"Ok," I said, "I am really sorry I asked."

"Stop apologizing. I was just...surprised at first. I am over it now. You're just...sort of weird. A good sister, I guess. But weird."

"It is just...sometimes I worry that Ben will always have to settle. I wanted him once, and again, I am not asking anymore, but once I wanted him to be with someone he would think was like a...perfect 10" I explained. Christine shook her head.

"Why is that a sister's business?" she asked, "No, I don't want to know...Jesus...the Perfect 10s looking for a perfect ten." I furrowed my brow.

"Perfect tens?" I asked, unsure what she was talking about. Christine smiled awkwardly.

"You guys, the Perfect 10s," she said. I sort of shrugged. What the hell did that mean, "Oh come on you never heard anyone say that?"

"Say what?" I asked and I think it was clear from my tone that I was totally in the dark. Christine sighed.

"You and your brother, they called you guys the Perfect 10s."

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked, once again wondering what sort of joke there was on my brother. And on me too, I guess.

"Your last name is Merten. Mer-Ten. Also, you are really hot. They say you're a perfect 10. Get it?" Christine said.

"Okay, and Ben?" I asked.

"Mer-Ten, still," Christine said, and she sort of looked away.

"Okay..." I said, I could sense she didn't want to tell me, and I felt my heart rising into my throat.

"Come on, it isn't even funny," Christine said. That seemed to confirm my fears.

"You have to now," I said. Christine breathed out sharply and looked at me. Her lips pursed.

"Fine," she said finally, "You are a Perfect 10 because you are hot. Ben is a Perfect 10 because...the guys in the locker room said his dick looked like a roll of dimes." Christine said, and then she looked away quickly.

"What?" I asked.

"They say he has a small dick. My ex, David, he said he saw it in the locker room too. Said it was small. What do you want from me? I shouldn't have said anything. God, this is just not a sister thing," Christine said.

For that moment, I completely agreed with Christine. I was just disgusted about knowing anything about my brother's...penis. I didn't know if it was big or small or crooked or whatever. I didn't want to know. I realized just how creepy my initial request to Christine was in that moment. This was the kind of stuff I was talking about. I felt like maybe I'd been getting too invested in this. It was not normal sister behavior. This was not a sister's concern. And anyway, Ben didn't seem upset about any of this. Why was I talking about it? He would be mortified to know that I knew...anything about this. I felt my stomach turn. I needed to get myself together. In short, I was scared straight.

"Jesus," I said, "Let's not talk about this. I am done talking about this stuff." I was completely mortified and embarrassed by my questions. By my thoughts. I had been caught up in my...sympathy for Ben and I had completely forgotten where the boundaries lines were. I saw them clearly now. And I got myself back on the right side.

"It's fine, you're right. Let's just drop it," Christine said. I quickly changed the subject and somehow managed to get us back on track to a rational conversation. Christine and I were tight, she didn't hold any of my weirdness against me. By the time Christine took her laundry home, I felt like we were past it.

And through Christmas, I swear I didn't think about it again. I just had a good time with my family. I baked with my mom, went shopping with my dad, and watched Home Alone five times with Ben. I did the normal family stuff and I didn't think about my brother's relationships or his...penis again.

But, even a week after my conversation, I began to find that little bits of thoughts and worries were working their way back into my brain, armed with new ammunition. It came on me when I was thinking about something else, when I was bored or off my guard.

When the shock of getting way too close to my brother's sex life started to wear off, I began to realize (against my will, I should note), that the information I got from Christine just represented another thing to worry about. Another challenge for Ben. I rapidly began to forget the bright line that seemed so obvious just a few days before. Where was the limit of the kinds of problems that a sister could solve? I wasn't really sure anymore. I realized that Christine had probably not just stumbled into the "perfect 10" conversation. She'd been wanting to give me the real reason she didn't want to sleep with Ben, without saying it harshly. She didn't find him attractive. And she didn't believe he was well endowed. If he couldn't bring at least one of those things, from a physical standpoint, she wasn't even willing to do something for him out of pity. A sympathetic friend of mine who was...morally loose. That was pretty much the best-case scenario for Ben to get to spend the night with a girl he deserved. And it wasn't going to happen. Everything was stacked against Ben. And there was nothing I could do about it.

By New Years Eve, I was back where I'd been before I spoke to Christine: worried about my brother anytime I saw him. That's not to say that I spent that entire day sitting around, being worried. Or that it was all that I thought about. But, in stray moments, or when I looked at my brother, those concerns would well up again. Maybe they weren't fully clear in my mind. I didn't run through every concern every time. But I felt that guilty ache in the pit of my stomach when I thought about Ben, and I knew what that meant. I knew that if I probed that achy feeling, all of it would come back right away.

And the idea that I was really stuck on was the one that I had latched onto with Christine. I couldn't make my brother physically attractive to other girls. I mean, I guess that is obvious. But I knew I couldn't just go on like this for the rest of my life, or until I got old and no one found me attractive anymore either. It was too much, I needed to do something to sort of...cleanse the guilt. And I knew I was guilty because other people desired me, and Ben didn't get to know what that felt like. And it wasn't fair. And so, it seemed to me, the solution was to find someone who could make Ben feel like that, even if just for a little while.

Despite everything I'd told myself just a few days before, I was once again trying to figure out a way to get someone beautiful to sleep with my brother. And, just like the information about my brother's penis, the longer I lived with the idea the less weird it seemed. I mean, yeah it was not a normal sister thing to worry about. But, sisters set their brothers up on dates sometimes, right? Everyone knows that dating can, eventually, lead to sex. So why was it so weird? I was just...cutting out the middle man. Let's not pretend this is about dating. And who would be hurt by it anyway? Certainly not Ben. And not some girl who would be willing to do it.

Clearly, Christine was not that person. I realized that I had probably misplayed my hand with her. I suppose I might have been able to convince her to do something at one point, but I had been much too blunt. I came in too hot. I thought through some of my other friends, especially friends who lived in town. I didn't really think of anyone who was both stunningly attractive and who would be willing to have sex, no strings attached, just because I asked. I tried thinking if there were other ways of setting it up. An app of some kind? I didn't know, I wasn't tech savvy. As I grew increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress, I even considered making a call to one of those escort services I heard about. But I figured I would just get arrested or give my brother herpes or something.

I guess that was what I was thinking about on New Year's Eve. My family had always made New Year's a family holiday on par with Christmas. We didn't go downtown to the party, we didn't scatter to friend's houses, and we didn't ring in the new year from dorm rooms. We were at the house, in the basement, watching the ball drop while we played Uno and Connect 4. That year, the plan was the same. We were all in the house for the New Year. Ben and I had both grown out of the stage where we complained about my family's New Year's tradition, we both kind of liked it now, it was tied in with the nostalgia of childhood.

But something was different that year. Of course, I was obsessing over my brother's love life and Ben was still stewing about his ex-girlfriend. But more fundamentally than that, our parents had been getting older. They had started to wake up at around 5 o'clock in the morning, even when they didn't have to work. They took mid-morning naps. And they fell asleep early. Normal, getting older stuff. But the thing was, they couldn't even stay up late for a special occasion. My mom had almost fallen asleep playing cards at 10:30. She went upstairs, apologizing and yawning. My dad had mocked her, but half an hour later his eyes were drooping. He was in bed by 11:15.

So for the last 45 minutes of the year, it was just me and Ben in the basement, watching performances on TV and reminiscing about past New Year's Eves. It was fun, almost fun enough that I could drown out the dull pain in my stomach.

The big ball in Time's Square began its descent at 11:59. Just like every year that I could remember, it was reflected off the family pictures in the basement of my parent's house. But it was quiet that year, my mom wasn't counting down with the television host. My dad wasn't saying random numbers to try to throw her off. It was just me and my brother drinking the same sparkling cider we drank as kids.

"Thirty seconds left in this shitty year," Ben said and I grunted in agreement.

"But I guess it could be worse," I said. Now Ben grunted, not so much in agreement.

"How do you figure?" he asked, looking away from the screen at me. I shrugged.

"We could be watching this completely alone, like my roommate is at school right now," I offered. Ben sighed.

"No offense, but I am pretty alone anyway," Ben said wistfully, "For the 18th straight New Years, I don't have anyone to kiss at midnight."

And just as he finished speaking, the host on the television started the final countdown on the year. "Ten!" he said. I thought, 'Perfect 10s." And something clicked in my brain. It wasn't a complete thought really. It was just all of the pieces of the puzzle falling into place all at once. A eureka-type moment that was so powerful that it sort of overwhelmed my circuits.

Later, thinking through what happened, I think I was able to piece together my thought processes. My guilt with Ben had always stemmed from the fact that I got something he didn't. And he never complained about it. He never gave any indication that he ever even really thought about it. I just...got lucky and he didn't. And he was too sweet to resent me for it. And so, desperately, I had been trying to figure out a way to share with him. To make up for the accident of genetics and the particular ways our double helices came together differently. And I couldn't figure out a way to give him, even for just a little bit of time, a taste of the world as seen through my eyes. I couldn't share my luck with him like that, the world didn't work that way. But maybe, I could share my gift more directly with him.

I was a perfect 10. That is what Christine said. I always tried to downplay the impact of my looks, always uncomfortable with the unearned benefits that accrued as a result. But I knew that they were there. Men found my body to be irresistible. They desired me. Ben was my brother and so he had to shut that part off from his mind. But he was a man. Eighteen years old and full of...youthful vigor. He knew what he looked at when he was looking at me, intellectually, even if he couldn't allow himself to feel in in his...body. I could show Ben what it was like to be desired by someone sexy. Not by creating a fake scenario with Christine or someone else. But by sharing my beauty with him in a way that was real. I didn't care about Ben's appearance or the size of his penis. I loved him and always would. I didn't have to pretend I was looking past those things. I really didn't care. So, why couldn't I, just this one time, change the love I felt for him from the love a sister has for her brother, flip the switch to...an erotic love?

But like I said, these thought processes were not entirely clear to me at the time. Instead, I simply had the thought, "well, why can't I just do it?" And all of the perversity and impracticality of that idea just didn't appear to me in that moment. Maybe, if I'd taken a moment even to think about it, I wouldn't have just shaken my head and never admitted to anyone that I'd ever had the idea. But the host was still counting down on television. And for some reason, it was like the decision to act was tied in with that timer. Like I needed to act when the ball dropped or...I don't know, it wasn't clear. I just knew that some threshold would be crossed, that an opportunity would pass and I would never have the chance again. Maybe that instinct was right. Whatever it was, it seemed like the idea had just flowered in my mind, when the clock hit zero. Happy New Year!