FICTION

The first time they had sex,
they were stoned and kept giggling. It didn't hurt but it didn't feel like much.
They didn't date like the straight kids. Both his parents worked
and her mother was always at the law office or in court, so they just fucked
whenever they felt like it. When her sister Rachel was home from grade school,
Elena took Evan
into her room and shut the door. They played music loud. She had Rachel cowed.
She

knew that even if Rachel suspected anything, she wouldn't tell their mom Suzanne:
she'd be scared to. Evan put on his father's overcoat and went into an adult
bookstore. He
bought books about sex and several women's videos. After that, he spent an hour

looking for Elena's clit, till he found it.

promotion

    

If other girls asked her about him, she said he was like her brother. They were
both intense and dark and aloof: even more than her brother or her lover, Evan was like
her twin. They liked the same thrash bands; they liked dark violent movies that felt real;
they liked taking their clothes off and trying different things. They always did their homework
together and they always had sex using condoms. Neither could drive a car, for they were both fourteen.
They had to use their bikes or public transportation to go anywhere. They bought their
dope in the neighborhood, at a spot outside a drug store where guys she knew from
gradeschool were selling. Both of them loved their neighborhood, with its blocks that
matched, each block a particular type of red brick rowhouse, some with funky little strip
gardens in the middle of the street.

    

Evan and she didn't talk about garbage like love and families. They talked about
peace and death and hypocrisy and lies. They did his next science project together and
then they let the mice go in the basement of the school. She hoped they could make it on
their own.

    

In school, she was too weird for the other girls. If she stood with a group of
girls, conversation slowed down or stopped. She got her breasts and she was tall,
so guys
were always trying to feel her up, poking at her, making noises, but they were
scared of

her too and never bugged her about dating. She listened to the other girls talking
about their boyfriends, and it wasn't like that with her. She didn't dote on
Evan. It was as if
they were each other's shadow. He called them E squared or E to the second power.
There was no hand holding, no smooching, no rings or pins or flowers. They fought
sometimes and called each other names, but it never lasted. They would start
laughing
as if for them to be anything but one being, one conspiracy, one gang of two
was a joke. She could not even have said if she loved Evan. It was like loving
her arm. They were a
unit. His parents and hers asked questions, but they had no idea how much time
the two of them spent together. Their grades stayed high.

    

The next year a new student transferred in from Kansas. They both had History
with him. He wasn't a jock, a club kid, one of the super students who ran the school, or
a burnout who would be tossed out, but like them, one of the weird kids. He was
between them in height and had pale sleek blond hair he wore to his shoulders. His eyes
were a dark haunting blue. He had a scar through one light brown eyebrow. His
cheekbones were high and sharp and his profile looked to her as if it should be carved
on the prow of a sailing vessel. He always had shadows of stubble on his cheeks that
made him seem older, more experienced. Half the guys had just started shaving. Evan
had a darkish beard but not much of it. He only had to shave every other day and it
took him about a minute, although she did like to watch, cause it was such a male thing
to do. She was almost hairless on her body and never shaved her legs. To each other,
they called the new kid the Decadent Viking.

    

"I want him," Evan said.

    

"So do I," she said. "We'll share him."

    

They made up stories of capturing him, tying him up and doing things to him.
His name was Chad, a silly name for such a fascinating-looking guy. He was broody.

"Get undressed, Elana, and lie on the bed."

He sat at the back, and even when he knew the answers, he sounded as if he resented
being right. She sat down next to him in Assembly one day. His wrists stuck out below
his shirt. There was a scar on each of them. He caught her looking at his wrists. He
didn't hide them. She stared at him. He stared back. Then he smiled.

    

For two months they didn't do anything more than make up stories about Chad
the Decadent Viking. Then Evan asked him one day, "Want to study for History finals with Elena and me?"

    

"Is she your girl?"

    

"I don't even know what that means."

    

They went over to Evan's house. He didn't have a pesky kid sister, only an older
brother who was at William and Mary. For the first hour they studied together up in
Evan's room, smoking cigarettes and dope and studying really hard, but Elena knew
Evan was planning something. It made her feel tense and excited. She trusted Evan and
she didn't care what he did, as long as Chad didn't laugh at them. She got worked up
just sitting there knowing that Evan was about to make his move.

    

He stood up suddenly and came over to her, drawing her to her feet. He began
unbuttoning her blouse. "Get undressed, Elena, and lie on the bed."

    

Chad remained in his chair. "Hey. What's going on?"

    

"Watch," was all Evan said. He waited till she had stripped and lay on the bed,
feeling exposed but also high from the way that Chad was staring at her. She knew that
she looked good and that he couldn't turn his eyes away. In the meantime, Evan

"Do you want us?" Chad was so startled he couldn't reply for a moment. "Us?"

quickly undressed and grabbed a condom. Then he lay down on top of her. He could tell she was excited
already and simply pushed in and began to fuck her. She glanced over at Chad. He
was staring at them but he hadn't moved. She loved the feeling of him watching them,
as if he was in their power and couldn't break away. She came quickly. So did Evan.

    

He stood up, not covering himself, and came to stand in front of Chad. He
motioned for Elena to come over. Slowly, loose and wet after coming, she obeyed. She
almost felt sorry for Chad. Instead of looking cool and in command the way he always
did, he looked lost, almost scared, but he stood his ground. She had no idea what Evan
was about to do, and in a way she was scared too, but she trusted him. It would be
something wild. She thought Evan was enjoying the upper hand and the power to shock
Chad.

    

"Do you want us?"

    

Chad was so startled he couldn't reply for a moment. Then he repeated, "Us?"

    

"We come as a set. We don't separate. Or are you scared?"

    

"I never did it with a guy."

    

She knew Evan hadn't either, but he wasn't going to say so, and she wouldn't
betray him. "Have you ever done it with a girl?"

    

"Once." Chad said reluctantly. "Almost." His gaze returned to her body. His
eyes excited her. Evan never looked at her that way. They were so used to each other's
bodies, they took nakedness as a matter of course. But in the year they had been
fucking, her body had changed. She had real breasts now, and her behind was curvier.
She liked Chad staring at her. Chad raised his gaze to look into her eyes. "Don't you
have a will of your own?"

    

"We're together," Elena said indignantly. "He doesn't make me do what I don't
want to. We're honest with each other. Clear."

    

"Do you love him?" Chad asked.

    

Elena took a step backward from Chad, shaking back her hair. "I don't know
what that means."

    

Chad grinned narrowly, as if she had given him back a measure of initiative.
"But I do."

    

"If you don't want to, nobody's making you." Elena made as if to reach for her
T-shirt from a Hole concert.

    

He caught her wrist. He gave her a push so she sat down hard on the edge of
the bed. Then slowly and deliberately he undid his belt buckle and then his shirt
and then
his jeans. Evan watched him with his head cocked, smiling slightly. Chad was
erect so he couldn't be that put off. She stared at his cock, because it was
only the second one

she had ever seen. He looked different from Evan, sort of bigger and looser
around the
top. "I'm not circumcised," he said. "My father doesn't believe in it."

    

Evan straddled his desk chair, keeping out of the way. Elena waited until
Chad had undressed completely and sat on the bed's edge next to her. Then without
waiting for him to make a move, she slid toward him and, taking his face in her hands,
gave him a sensuous tongue kiss. She moved her thigh against his. She wanted him so
badly she ached. She did not think she had ever wanted Evan this strongly, but she
would never let him know that. It would hurt his feelings, and he was her own. Her
flesh. Her more-than-brother.

"Do you do this a lot?"

    

Chad's hand was on her breast now, a little awkwardly, squeezing hard. With
Evan she would have instructed him, but she couldn't risk discouraging Chad. They had
wanted him and now they were going to have him, both of them. Now he was lying on
top of her, kissing her almost frantically. She slid a rubber on his prick with both hands and guided him
in. Normally she would have liked fooling around with him longer, but she did not want
anything to go wrong. He thrust hard and came almost at once, long before she could.
Then he lay spent on the bed, while she eased out from under him.

    

Evan let him lie like that for several minutes. Then he motioned for her to
get up. She took the desk chair, which Evan had dragged to just beside the bed
to watch more
closely. Evan lay down beside Chad. At first he just caressed him from the
back, making spoons. Evan's chest and pubic hair were dark, almost black, and
Chad's body
hair was the palest brown. Chad was tanned over his arms and chest. Evan was
milky

pale. Evan patiently caressed Chad, reaching around to his cock. Then he rolled
Chad onto his stomach, rolled on another condom, and, using the surgical jelly
he had stashed under
the bed, slowly, caressing his way, put himself into Chad's ass. Chad winced
and bit at the pillow, but once Evan was in, he seemed to mind it far less. She
liked watching. She
loved watching. She was possessing Chad through Evan's cock. She was fucking
him through Evan. She wanted Evan to thrust harder, but he was careful, gentle.
She could
almost feel his come. Then he rested for a moment, turned Chad over and began
to suck
his cock.

    

Afterward Chad lay as if dazed. "Do you do this a lot?" he asked finally, trying
to recover himself.

    

"We fuck all the time," Evan said. "We study and we fuck. But it's the first time
we've taken anybody else with us. You should consider it an honor." He was grinning
widely.

    

"Oh, I do."

    

"Did you like being with us?" Elena asked almost shyly. He was so beautiful,
Chad with the blue blue eyes and the carved face.

    

"I've spent worse afternoons." He reached out and pulled her down on the bed
with him. He was staring into her eyes. "I don't understand you."

    

"Sometimes I don't understand myself."

    

With a light caress now his hand moved over her breast. "You're like something I
made up lying in bed at night."

    

Evan said, "You know, we could all have a lot of fun."

    

Chad looked at him, his hand coming to rest on Elena's bare thigh. "I think
you're right." n°