What to Do with Darla

Jay pulled away, wiping his brow. He had worked up a tiny bit of sweat. "Uh, I'm sorry. I just couldn't help it," he said.

Darla stood, conscientious of the fact that she could be dripping fluids. She grabbed her shorts from the floor to give herself a quick wipe. She did the same to Jay as he stood there, looking a bit dazed.

"Sorry for what?" she asked.

"I came so quick, I wanted..."

"Oh, I know. You wanted to be Superman. You're my Superman. Look at that big 'ole thing. You think I care that you came before me? You made me cum before you even put it in, remember? You know how it makes me feel when you come inside me. You can do that a hundred times if you want. You're so silly. You're like so perfect and then you apologize for it. I want you to cum, I want to make you happy, I'll do anything you want. You know that," Darla told him, moving over to hold him.

Jay returned the embrace. "I know. It's just hard to believe sometimes, you know? It just feels so good."

"I'm the luckiest girl in the world, Jay."

*****

Phylis had to stop and take a second look as she walked down the hall. Darla was in her brother's room and she appeared to be dusting it. It looked as if she had cleaned the entire thing.

"What are you doing?" Phylis asked.

"Finishing up Jay's room," Darla replied.

"Why?"

"Because it was disgusting in here," Darla said.

"Well yeah, it's always been disgusting. I mean, has your brother been blackmailing you or something? The last couple of weeks it's like you two are...I don't know. You've been awfully nice to each other," Phylis pointed out.

Darla decided that her mother probably wasn't trying to start a fight. She supposed that it might be a little confusing to the woman as to why she and Jay were behaving the way that they were. Her first inclination was to tell her mother that it was none of her business, but she decided to be civil.

"He's been nice to me, so I've been nice to him. I thought I'd clean this up because since school's started again, he's been busy. When he gets home he's tired and has to do homework, I thought it would help him out if I did his laundry and stuff," Darla said.

"Well, aren't you sweet? He doesn't have a problem with you going through his room, then?" Phylis asked.

"We're not little kids anymore, Mom. We don't fight about stuff like that."

Phylis wanted to point out that since they were all grown up that they might consider finding somewhere else to live. She didn't totally feel that way, though, and Darla hadn't been able to take a joke since she was ten years old. It was difficult watching her daughter grow up, even though they shared the same roof, it felt like she was a million miles away sometimes. Darla was beautiful and stubborn, traits that she probably inherited from her father. It was too bad that the man wasn't around to see how she turned out.

"No, you're not little kids anymore," Phylis agreed with a touch of sadness. "Do you have to work this afternoon? I could give you a ride."

"Yeah, but I always ride with Lisa. Don't worry about it," Darla said, aggressively stuffing some soiled paper towels into a garbage bag. Didn't her mother have something else better to do? Nothing good ever came out of a conversation with the woman that lasted very long. The sooner it ended, the better.

"Well, how's the job going?" Phylis asked.

"It sucks. I can't get enough hours and my manager hates me," Darla replied.

"Oh, um, have you thought about looking for something else?"

Why, that was an amazing idea. Darla had just thought that she'd be carrying trays at the diner twenty hours a week for the rest of her life until her mother had just suggested the thought. Phylis was always full of great life advice like that.

"I signed up for some classes in the spring. They're supposed to help me find a job when they're done," Darla said.

"Classes? What kind of classes? How do you plan on paying for it?" Phylis asked. This was the first that she'd heard of such a thing and as much as she hated to think it, Darla wasn't exactly the scholarly type. Shelling out cash for tuition was a gamble, at best.

This was why Darla tried not to let her mother know much about what was going on in her life. Phylis would want to break out the scalpel and microscope to dissect and analyze, then ultimately criticize.

"Dance classes. Gonna learn how to work the pole," Darla said, wondering if she'd be able to get past her mother in the doorway if she moved fast enough.

Phylis rolled her eyes in dismay. She knew that the girl was just being a smart-ass, but something like that was kind of like her worst nightmare. She didn't like Darla even joking about it. "Is it too much to ask just to have you let me know what's going on in your life once in a while? I don't ask a lot out of ya, and if you expect me to pay for some class or whatever, I'd at least like to know what it is that you're doing."

"I don't expect you to pay for anything. I'm paying for it myself, it's not that much. It's just a couple of cooking classes, and I'm doing it mostly for the job placement. Jay said that it's legit, and even if it doesn't work out I wouldn't be stuck with a huge loan to pay off or anything," Darla explained. She sighed when her mother just stood there, looking at her with her high and mighty skepticism. "Look, I'm not gonna learn how to make sandwiches and flip burgers. It's more than that. And no, I don't expect to get rich with my own TV show or anything, but I could at least get a chance at a decent job. Jay thinks it's a good idea, and I'm good at it."

"You think that Jay really knows what's best for you, huh? You couldn't have run it by me?" Phylis asked. She shifted her position to prevent Darla from leaving the room.

"Why? So you could pick it apart and make fun of me? Jay at least doesn't try and make me feel stupid all the time. He loves me."

"He loves you? Well, so do I. I'm your mother. I don't try and make you feel stupid, honey. I try and look out for you and you always act like I'm trying to ruin your life or something. I want you to succeed, but you've done so many dumb things with your boyfriends and your partying, I worry about you. Why can't you understand that?" Phylis asked.

Darla was now approaching the threshold of her ability to control herself. "Oh, I understand. I understand that you're doing it again right now. You can't go a day without trying to make me feel like I'm too dumb to think for myself. I can! If Jay were here, he'd tell you the same thing."

"Listen, I don't know what kind of crap your brother's been feeding you, but we both know that you can't tell your ass from a hole in the ground. He got you to clean his room by telling you what you want to hear. Shame on him. I try to let you know how the world works, you got to get the truth from somebody. Maybe your 'classes' are a good idea, maybe they're not. I don't know because you never told me about them. How am I supposed to look out for you when all you want to do is fight?"

Darla wanted nothing more than to swing the bag of garbage that she was carrying at Phylis, maybe try and make her eat that moldy sock that she'd found hiding in the corner. She had talked to Jay about her mother and why it was that she couldn't help but fight with the woman. Jay had understood where she was coming from, but had suggested that it wasn't all their mother's fault. Darla admitted that sometimes she was combative unnecessarily, but Jay wasn't always around to see what all went on in the house. This was one of those times when she felt totally ambushed.

"I don't want to fight! You're the one that came in here and started it! You're wrong about me and you're wrong about Jay! I'm sorry your life turned out to be so shitty, but stop taking it out on me!" Darla shouted. It was looking more and more like she was going to have to jump out the window if she wanted to escape.

Phylis was sorry, too. She'd been widowed with two young children, barely able to scrape enough work together to survive. Luckily, she'd been able to raise this screaming little demon just to have a constant reminder of how rotten her life had been. Phylis never said as much, but she believed that Darla's best chance at getting ahead in life was for her to somehow latch onto a decent man with decent money. Lord knew that the girl had the looks for that, but she wasn't able to stay away from an endless list of losers. If the girl wasn't even smart enough to use her tits to her advantage, how could she be expected to make any decisions at all? It was a wonder that she didn't have three kids of her own and collecting welfare already.

"You've got to grow up one of these days, Darla," Phylis said, shaking her head. She left her daughter standing there steaming, and disappeared down the hall.

*****

"Jay! I want to talk to you about your sister!," Phylis called from the kitchen.

Jay had barely stepped through the door. He'd already spoken with Darla on the phone, at length, about their little spat. The two of them were incapable of going any length of time without some sort of drama breaking out. One of them would always go too far and end up pissing off the other. He took his shoes off, set down his backpack, and walked into the kitchen to hear his mother's side of the story.

"It kinda sounds like you started it, Ma," Jay said.

"What? How can you take her side? I know I told you to look out for her, and I don't know what you've done to her, but now it's like her nose is so far up your ass that you're just gonna let her do whatever she wants," Phylis said. Jay had always been, by far, the most reasonable of her two children.

"That's just not fair, now. She hasn't done anything wrong, as a matter of fact, she's been a different person for the past month or so. She wants to sign up for a program and get a better job, you're just mad because she talked to me about it and not you. You can't expect her to talk to you about anything if all you do is jump down her throat. Give her a break."

"Give her a break? That's all I've been doing since she got her first period! It's only a matter of time until she comes home and tells us that she's pregnant, and who's gonna take care of her then? You? I'm not gonna let her ruin your life," Phylis spat. She'd obviously been letting her anger brew to an unhealthy level. No doubt, where Darla had inherited hers.

"I can't believe you just said that. What's your problem all of a sudden?" Jay asked. This usually wasn't how their discussions of his sister went.

What was her problem? Phylis wondered about that. She was getting old, her kids didn't need her anymore, one of them actively hated her, and it felt like the only thing that she did was work and sleep. Soon, she'd be alone without even anyone to argue with. It was scary and hard to admit, even to Jay, whom she had been frank with his entire life.

"I don't know, Jay. I'm just a miserable old lady. You're gonna get your degree and be gone, your sister's gonna be gone just as soon as she can. I don't have anything to look forward to besides folding sheets and vacuuming floors until I die."

"Oh, come on, Ma. You don't want us to live here forever, do ya? Sounds like you need a vacation. Why don't you get some of your cronies together and go to Atlantic City for the weekend or something? I don't want to come home and find you laying in the bathtub with the toaster. You might not want to admit it, but you and Darla are almost exactly the same. 'Prolly why you can't get along. You pick something to worry about, then focus on it until you go crazy." Jay said.

Although having her son make a joke about her committing suicide probably shouldn't have made her, Phylis smiled. "I don't think Darla and I are the same, and I don't plan on ruining a perfectly good toaster. It's just that every time that I look at your sister, I can't help but think about all of the bad things that can happen to her. She's gorgeous, Jay. I can't even imagine looking like that when I was her age. Do you know what I mean? Are you really trying to look out for her, or are you just brainwashing her somehow? I'm not convinced that she can think for herself."

"Well, she can. I'm not gonna let anything happen to her, I promise. Believe it or not, she and I are pretty close," Jay said.

"Oh, I believe it. After listening to her today, it was like she's a puppy dog in love. Are you sure you want to take on a job like that?" Phylis asked.

"I already have. It's fine. I just don't like getting phone calls from her crying because she feels like you think she's dumb. It seriously hurts her feelings, no matter if you're right or not. I don't like it when Darla's upset," Jay said, hoping that he could get his point across without totally pissing his mother off.

"You think I like it when she's upset? How come it sounds all of a sudden like you're scolding me? Who's the mother here? You want to take care of her? Go right ahead. She's all yours," Phylis said, her smile disappearing.

"Don't be like that, come on. I'm just trying to say that you two are too hard on each other. If we could afford to go to a psychiatrist, then we'd all probably be medicated, but we're not. We got to try and get along, and I know it isn't easy for you two. What if you stay out of her business for a while and I'll let you know if she's headed for disaster or not?"

"Fine, but don't expect me to keep my mouth shut if she starts in on me," Phylis said.

"Okay, Darla. I mean, Mom. I've got some homework to do, if you'll excuse me."

"Smart-ass."

*****

Jay enjoyed writing his paper in the comfort of his room, which happened to be the cleanest that it had been since he had first gotten his driver's license. He didn't realize that his sister had made it back from work until he heard her voice from his doorway.

"I'm home," Darla said.

Jay swiveled in his chair to see Darla there, looking cute as hell in her waitress uniform. He smiled brightly. "Hey there. I know you told me on the phone that you cleaned my room up, but this is fantastic! How did the dinner shift treat you?"

"Thanks. Pretty shitty. I had like five tables. It was dead. Did you talk to Mom?" she asked.

"Yeah, she said she's gonna mind her own business," Jay replied.

"She says that, but in a couple of days, she'll be right back in my face," Darla said.

"Well, damn, I can only do what I can do," Jay said.

"I know. I wish we could afford our own place, just go away somewhere alone, you know?"

"Yeah." Jay actually thought that they had it pretty good where they were at, but there wasn't any need to argue the point at the moment. Shelter, food, all the alone time that they could possibly hope for with their mother working nights. All of the conditions allowed for their relationship to develop the way that it had. "Mom said she might go away for the weekend. Might go to the casino."

"Really? It'd be nice to get rid of her for a couple of days. Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll hit it big and decide not to come home," Darla said.

"Well, I wouldn't count on that. But hey, we have most every night together, right? I already feel pretty lucky. How could I not?"

"I guess," Darla said. "Mom said something that really bugged me."

"Yeah, I know. You seemed pretty pissed when you called earlier," Jay agreed.

"She said you just told me what I wanted to hear to get what you want from me. Is that true?" she asked.

Jay's heart sunk a little. Drama, drama, drama. "What? What did she say and what do you mean get what I want?"

"She was talking about me cleaning your room, but I'm talking about other things that we do. She thinks you brainwashed me or something. You're not just putting on a big act to use me, are you? She just said that to be mean, right?" Darla asked.

"No. You don't really believe that, do you? I love you, I've poured my guts out to you. Are you really gonna let something Mom said make you doubt me? She has no idea what you and I have between us. I wouldn't ever do that to you," Jay said.

"I know. She has no idea," Darla repeated, mostly to reassure herself. "It's just that I worry that something will happen one of these days and I won't have you anymore. Then I wouldn't have anything, you know? It's scary."

Jay stood and walked over to his sister to give her a hug. "You make me feel pretty important, Darla. I'll always be here for you, don't be scared. If you worry all the time, you'll turn into a basket case. I'll turn into a basket case. Then the only time we'll get to see each other would be in a rubber room with straight-jackets on."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I 'prolly already act like a basket case, huh?"

"That's alright, Darla. Sometimes you get mad, sometimes you get scared. I understand. I get scared, too. You know that. I've got like three sentences left to write, you probably want to change out of your uniform. Why don't we meet in the living room in about ten minutes? I'll make some popcorn, I ought to be able to handle that, and we can just relax and be mellow, okay?" Jay suggested.

"Okay," Darla said. She kissed him on the tip of the nose and went off to her room.

Darla realized that she was an emotional wreck most of the time. She'd been doing her best to control them, but her feelings sometimes had a mind of their own. Jay was a calming pill, her very own medicine, a guilty pleasure that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone about. By the time that she had changed and cleaned up a little, Jay was just arriving at the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn. She sat beside him and tossed a piece into her mouth.

"I'm gonna try not to be crazy anymore," she said.

"Okay," Jay agreed, grabbing some popcorn as casually as he could. He'd had enough crazy for a while and didn't think that there was anything more that he could add to the conversation.

"Did I tell you about Lisa and Josh?" Darla asked.

"Just what happened the other day when she was gonna try and hook up with him at some party," Jay said.

"It turned out that he has a tiny little dick," Darla said, going for some more popcorn.

"Oh? That's too bad. Did you see it?"

"No, silly. Lisa told me. I told you she would do it. Serves her right. I think it's funny," Darla said.

"Probably funny to everyone but poor Josh. You still mad at her?" Jay asked.

"Naw. We made up. She was sorry. Real sorry when she got his pants off," Darla said with a laugh.

"Girls are mean. Would you laugh at me if my penis was tiny? What if I got mauled by a bear and he ripped it right off? You think that would be funny?" Jay asked.

"Aw, don't worry, Jay. I'd still love you if you turned into my sister. Would you still love me if I was a boy?"

"Uh, statistically, there's a tiny chance that I could lose my penis in a tragic accident. Now, the chance of you growing one seems astronomical. Why don't we worry about that if it happens?" Jay asked.

"Yeah. But you'd still love me, right?"

"Yes, Darla. I'd still love you, even if we were both freakishly mutated into different genders," Jay agreed, fearing that she may never let the subject go.

"Yay, me too," Darla said, seemingly pleased. Talking to Jay made her feel better, even if it was just about nonsense.

Eventually, they settled into a comfortable silence. The popcorn was eaten and the television was watched. Darla was about to suggest that it was time to get naked, but found that she was too late. Jay's eyes were closed and he was taking deep, slow breaths through his mouth. Instead of waking him and forcing him to satisfy her (which probably would have went over just fine), she gently shook him awake and suggested that he should go to bed. They kissed goodnight and Darla retreated to hers, wishing that some day that they'd be able to share one without the risk of being disturbed by a hysterical mother in the morning. She didn't wish anything sinister on her mother, just that it would be nice if the woman lived on the other side of town. Or maybe a different country.