What to Do with Darla

/* Author's note: Everyone involved in this story is an adult. It's

purely fiction. Thanks for checking it out.

-Tyzmartar */

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to Mark's party. How do I look?" Darla asked. She had been hoping that she could sneak out of the house without her brother noticing, but no dice. It was getting late and she just didn't have time to wait for him to fall asleep. Jay was awake on the couch watching some stupid comedy show.

"You look like a cheap whore," Jay said, turning to get a look at his sister.

Darla grabbed her coat from the rack with a grunt. "Why are you always such an asshole?"

"Can't help it. Mom doesn't like that guy, and neither do I."

"Well Mom isn't here and you'd never like anyone I do, anyway. Why do you even care?" Darla asked. She was lacing up her boots, trying to get out of there before she had to listen to any more of her brother's crap.

"Personally, I don't care what you do, but when you come back in the morning all hungover and pregnant, Mom's gonna be pissed," Jay told her, turning back to the television.

"Why do you gotta be such a freakin' jerk all the time? I'll be back before she gets home from work," Darla said, reaching for the door.

"Told ya, can't help it. I'll let them know to save you a cot at the homeless shelter, 'cause I'm pretty sure that your ass is gonna get kicked to the street."

Darla paused. "Are you sayin' that you're gonna tell on me? I'm nineteen, I'm not a little kid. I know what Mom said, but if I'm old enough to vote, I can go see my boyfriend."

"I'm not gonna tell on you. You're gonna fuck up your stupid plan, you do every time you make one. Then you're gonna come home late, start a fight with Mom, then get kicked out of the house. Probably end up dead in the gutter. That's just the way it is. It's how the herd gets thinned out," Jay told her from over his shoulder.

"You're such an asshole," Darla reiterated. She opened the front door and slammed it hard on the way out.

*****

It was closing in on ten o'clock and Jay had his hand on the handle of the car door when his phone rang. A minute later and he would have ignored it since he would have been on the road. He almost did anyway when he didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?"

"Jay, come get me."

"Darla? I'm on my way to work, I can't," he said climbing into his car. It was a crappy job in a crappy store but hey, money was money. Wherever Darla was, she'd gotten her ass there somehow, she ought to be able to get it back home.

"I'm not fucking around, Jay. Come get me. Please."

"Why? What happened?" he asked. Darla sounded a bit frantic, but Jay wasn't ready to give in without a good reason.

"Just come get me!" she shrieked into her end of the line.

Jay had to pull the phone away from his head momentarily while Darla threatened to detonate his eardrum. She was obviously in trouble, or thought she was in trouble anyway. When the shrieking subsided, he brought the phone back to his ear.

"Jesus Christ, calm down. Where are you?" he asked.

"The Gateway Motel. I'll be in the parking lot."

"The Gateway Motel? What the fu...whatever. I'll be there in ten minutes," Jay told her.

"Hurry," she said.

"Right."

When Jay had made the prediction the previous night that his sister was going to end up doing something stupid, he figured that she'd just be late getting back home. There were only a couple of reasons to end up at the Gateway Motel, a flea-bag establishment frequented by junkies and prostitutes. Jay tried not to think about why his sister was there as he drove across town.

Darla was standing near the office, hugging herself against the cold. Jay pulled into an empty space, allowing her to climb into the passenger's side. She looked as though she might have an interesting story to tell though she was silent as her brother looked her over.

"Where's your coat?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"I tried calling you this morning. Where's your phone?"

"I don't know, okay?"

Jay frowned, deciding not to really lay into Darla for the moment. She was already shivering and whimpering. "Here," he said. He wriggled out of his own jacket and gave it to his sister and turned the heat up as high as it would go. Despite what the dashboard controls said, it wasn't very high. "Takes a long time to heat up."

Darla used the jacket as a blanket rather than taking the time to put it on. She turned her head to stare out the window so that she wouldn't have to look at her brother. There was a tear trickling down out of the corner of her eye.

"Do we need to go to the hospital or call the police or what?" Jay asked. He didn't have to read minds to tell that his sister had just experienced something terrible. He was done teasing her until he figured out what the hell was going on.

"No. Just go home," Darla said to the window.

"Are you sure? If something happened...we don't have to tell Mom. Are you okay?"

"I just want to go home."

Jay nodded and started driving. He didn't really know what more he could say or what questions that he should ask. Screaming 'I told you so' didn't seem all that appropriate at the moment. Darla broke the silence a couple of minutes out.

"What did Mom say when she came home?"

"Nothing. I told her you left this morning with Lisa. Tried calling you to let you know, but got your voicemail. Ignore the message I left if you ever find your phone," Jay replied. He had left the foul message before he realized that his sister had been traumatized by some thing or another. What it contained wasn't all that important, he just wanted to let her know that he was covering for her sorry ass and that she owed him big. He wanted to make sure that their stories were straight.

"Oh? What'd you tell her I was doin'?" Darla asked.

"That's as far as I went. I try and keep it simple when I lie to Mom. Besides, how often do I pay attention to what you're doing anyway?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Yeah. She's probably asleep, but you better brush your teeth and take a shower or something before you talk to her. You reek like old vodka," Jay said.

Parking the his car beside his mother's in the driveway, Jay turned to look at his sister again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. I'm stupid. I just did something really stupid," Darla said. She pulled her brother's jacket off of her and unlatched the safety belt.

"I can live with you bein' stupid, but if you're hurt or something else, you know...we've got to take care of it."

"I'll be fine. I promise," she told him.

"I don't know, Darla. This is weird, even for you. You're freaking me out. Were you attacked or what?"

"No," Darla told him, with a long pause. "I got really wasted and cheated on Mark. I feel rotten, and I feel stupid."

"Fine. Have your key at least? The house is locked. The last thing you're gonna wanna do right now is wake Mom up by pounding on the door. I've got to get to work. I'm already late."

"I've got it. Thanks. Bye."

*****

Jay spent the rest of the day working the cash register at the Stop and Go convenient store, after a vigorous ass-chewing from his manager for being late, of course. If Darla truly turned out to be alright, then he would think of an appropriate payback for her at a later date. Until then, he was going to play nice. He had to work through his first break, but on his second, Jay accomplished what he thought to be a minor miracle. He had called Darla's phone and a woman answered it. Turned out that she had left her phone and her coat in the bar she was at and no one had walked away with them. On his way home, Jay was able to pick them up.

To be on the safe side, he left the evidence in his car so that he wouldn't have to come up with something to tell his mother if he came walking into the house with his sister's coat. It was hard to tell when the woman would be asleep or not due to her work schedule, and he thought it best not to take any chances. As it was, he ran into her coming out of the bathroom when he was on his way to hit the kitchen.

"Jay. You're home early."

"Not really. You just getting up?" Jay asked.

"Yeah. What time is it? I must have slept all day. The damn graveyard shift is gonna be the death of me..." his mother began.

Jay had heard the same speech before. Makes you feel tired all the time, throws off your internal clock, makes it easy to forget what day it is, and so on. Apparently, working those hours also made a person forget how many times that they complained about the exact same thing to the same person. Jay had to cut her a break because she was his Mom and she worked hard.

"Don't know how you do it, Ma," he said.

"I guess when you've been a zombie for as long as I have, you get used to it. You best make damn sure you get that bachelor's or you'll end up old and miserable like me. Speaking of that, have you seen your sister?" she asked.

"Uh no, I just got here," Jay said. He moved a short ways down the hall and pushed Darla's door open a bit with his foot. The latch was broken and had been for as long as he could remember. Jay had always been able to gain access whenever he wanted, much to his sister's chagrin over the years. She was in her bed, apparently asleep. Jay went back to his mom. "Looks like she's passed out in there."

"Hmmph. Wonder what she and that Lisa were doing all day."

"Well, you know how girls are. They were probably smoking marijuana cigarettes and listening to that rock and roll music," Jay said, nonchalantly moving toward the kitchen.

His mother chuckled, following him. "How old do you think I am? Anyway, I don't expect either one of you to be angels, but you'd let me know if she was smoking weed, right? And don't let her go out with that Mark character. I don't like the way he looks and he's way too old for her."

"God, Ma, I'm not her babysitter. She's almost as old as I am and even if I told her what to do I don't think she'd listen to me," Jay said. He grabbed a soda from the fridge and cracked it open.

"Maybe not, but she might. I worry about her, she's..."

"Dumber than hell?"

"Don't say that Jay, it's not nice. Maybe you pick on her a little too much, you know? If your father was still alive, he'd spank your ass, doesn't matter how old you are."

"I probably deserve it, but she bugs me, you know?" Jay asked.

"That's what sisters do, Jay. Just do me a favor and try and be nice and look out for her a little, huh?" Phylis, Jay's mother, asked.

"Sure."

Jay found it odd that his mother was lecturing him about being nice while she'd been known to scream at Darla loud enough to make the windows rattle. The more he thought about it, the more that he wondered why Darla bothered sticking around. No place better to go, he supposed.

Not much later than that, Darla began to stir and made an appearance. She didn't seem to be in all that bad of shape to Jay, which was a good sign. Phylis didn't feel the need to grill her with questions, for which the girl was silently grateful. They made it through dinner together and managed to keep things in a low key until Phylis left for work.

"Here, I've got a present for you," Jay said, tossing his sister's coat and phone onto her bed. She was back in her room laying on her covers, staring at the ceiling.

"Oh my god. Where did you get those?" Darla asked. She sat up and looked almost happy for a moment. She should have been, considering that she thought that her phone and coat were probably lost on the wind.

"In the bar where you were pounding white Russians last night. You didn't tell me that Mark's party was at The Green Onion," Jay said.

"It wasn't."

"Well?"

"Oh, thanks," she said.

"Heh, I want more than an 'oh thanks'. Don't you think you could at least let me in on what happened considering I was late for work, tracked down your stuff, and lied my ass off to Mom for you?"

"I don't want to, Jay. Can't you just forget about it?" Darla asked.

"No! I can't forget about it without knowing what happened. You were fucked up this morning, I thought you'd been raped and robbed or god only knows what else. I'm worried about you. I want to help you, but I can't if you won't tell me anything," Jay said, exasperated.

"Fine! Fine. I wasn't raped or robbed. I'm ashamed, okay? I was everything you always think I am. A stupid whore. You happy with that?" she asked.

"Uh, not really. I don't actually think you're a stupid whore. At least I didn't. What did you do?"

Darla sighed. She knew that Jay wasn't going to let it go. She also knew that what she was about to tell him was going to be fuel for his disgusting comments for probably the rest of her life. It was best to get it over with, try and keep it short, and hope that he would drop it if he had any kindness in his heart at all.

"I went to Mark's. There was a bunch of people there that I didn't know. Mark was being kind of a dick and these two guys were getting ready to go. One of them asked me if I wanted to go with them to the bar, so I did. I was getting pretty hammered at the bar, having a good time, you know? I liked the guys, they said they were only in town for a couple of days and were leaving in the morning. They had gone to school with Mark or something. One of them asked me if I wanted to go back to their room with them and I said yes. I remember that. I guess I forgot my coat at the bar. Anyway, I woke up in the morning and they were gone."

"Huh. So you had sex with them then? I mean willingly?" Jay asked.

"Oh, I was willing enough. Gave them the night of their lives, 'prolly," Darla replied, flopping back down on the bed and closing her eyes.

"You know, it's still illegal. They can't just get you hammered and use you like a sex toy. You're not old enough. The bar ought to get shut down for serving you," Jay said.

"I got hammered because of myself, Jay. I fucked those two guys because I wanted to. I liked it. There's no way I'm gonna call the cops on anyone, okay?"

"How do you know you liked it? You couldn't even remember how you got there this morning."

"I remember enough to know I liked it, okay? I remember...what it felt like. I don't really want to talk about it anymore," Darla said.

Sounded like his sister really was a whore. He'd been right all those times that he called her one. "Then why were you crying this morning if you liked it? You looked pretty fucking miserable to me."

"Because there's no way I can ever see Mark again. I had to call you for a ride. I knew that you'd find out. I couldn't remember what I did with my coat and I thought they stole my phone. And..."

"And what?" Jay asked.

"When I woke up this morning my underwear was laying there on the floor next to all the condom wrappers. I went to pick them up and there was a five dollar bill inside. One of 'em wrote 'you were almost worth it' on it with a marker. It made me feel dirty," she said.

That was what made her feel dirty? One of the guys left her a note? It wasn't the actual drunken threesome she just had? At least it sounded like they wore protection. Before Jay could think of anything else to say, he saw the tears coming again.

"Oh, come on Darla. Don't start crying again. I can't stand that. I'm not going to judge you. I mean, I wish you wouldn't get trashed and end up in the sleeziest motel in the state. Something really bad could have happened to you. You could have been arrested or worse, you know? If you're gonna do something like that, do it somewhere a little safer. Maybe be a little more sober. With a couple of dudes that aren't gonna make you wanna cry when you get up the next day," Jay told her.

He never thought that he'd be having this conversation, never dreamed that he'd have to try and come up with a way to give his sister advice for a safe way to have threesomes. He didn't have any actual experience in such matters, but what the hell? He was winging it.

"You're not mad at me?" Darla asked. She still had her eyes closed and was having a little trouble digesting her dinner. She'd been ravenous when she woke up from her day-long nap, but now she wasn't sure if everything was going to stay down or not.

"Of course I am. You made me worry about you all day. The sex thing is what it is. I just want you to be careful. I sure as hell don't like it, but I guess I can sort of understand it. I mean, if two women wanted to have sex with me, I wouldn't have a problem with that. I'd be pretty happy with just one, for that matter. Anyway...I've only got one sister and I don't want to come identify you at the morgue. And, if you're gonna puke, make sure you make it to the bathroom. I'm not gonna help clean it up." That was all the awkward lecturing Jay could stand for the moment. He turned to leave.

"Jay...I'm sorry. Thanks," Darla said, with a hand going to her forehead.

"Alright. Just get some rest, take it easy."

That was the end of their conversation for the night. As Jay lay in his bed, he had to wonder to himself why he handled the situation the way that he had. He should have been upset and disgusted, but he was relieved instead. Darla hadn't been hurt, unless he counted the braincells that she killed with alcohol poisoning. She really didn't need to be killing any more of those he reasoned, but at least she wasn't all strung out on heroine or something.

Although Jay had often picked on his sister about whatever she planned to do with the boyfriend that she had at the time or the size of her breasts as she grew older, he never put any serious thought about her actually having sex. Now, that was all he was thinking about. She was sexy as hell, as far as little sisters went, and now that he found out that she really was a little slut, he'd have to wonder about what she was doing every time that she left the house.

Even after he fell asleep, Darla didn't leave Jay's head. He experienced a sequence of dreams that he definitely wouldn't be able to tell anyone about.

*****

"You know, for someone who thinks they're so smart, you sure watch some stupid crap on TV. What is it?"

Jay hadn't noticed his sister come into the room, he was laying on the couch half asleep. "Oh come on, it's Flash Gordan. An American classic," he said.

Darla watched for a second. It looked like there was a swarm of monkey-guys with wings flying around firing laser guns at a space ship while laughing and screaming 'die'. She could just about see the fishing line holding the monkey-men up. "I don't know. Looks pretty dumb. How can you stand it?"

Jay sat up. "Just because it's dumb doesn't mean that I don't like it. I like you, for example."

Raising an eyebrow, Darla folded her arms across her chest, taking an aggressive stance. "You know, you were so nice yesterday, are you just going to go right back to being a jerk? I thought I could finally talk to you without being put down every two seconds."

Old habits were hard to break, Jay guessed. He had made a promise to his mother that he was going to try and be a bit more nice, not to mention that he had begun to realize that he actually cared about her. Constantly hurting his sister's feelings was a poor way to show it.

"You're right. I'm a jerk. I don't mean it, I swear," he said, patting the cushion he was sitting beside. "What do you wanna talk about?"

Darla relaxed and accepted the invitation to go and sit beside her brother. She normally tried to spend the least amount of time around him as possible. It wasn't that she didn't like him, she did, but not all the time. With little contact there was less chance of animus. "I don't know. What do you want to talk about?"

Not really wanting to talk about anything, Jay felt like smacking his head against the wall. She's the one that came in and interrupted his snoozing. "Well, my guess is that you've got something on your mind or you wouldn't have come in here to bug me...err sit here with me. So, let's talk about that."