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  MY STEPBROTHER'S SECRET

  ANNABELLE WINTERS

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  Copyright © 2015 by Annabelle Winters

  All Rights Reserved by Author

  www.annabellewinters.com

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  MY STEPBROTHER'S SECRET

  ANNABELLE WINTERS

  1

  So I’m in a strange city now, a strange school, a strange house. My old life has been ripped away from me. It’s all gone—friends, boyfriend, my room . . . and my mom. Yeah, my folks split up, which is all right, really. They were terrible for each other. Fighting, throwing shit across the living room, calling each other words like “Bitch” and “Asshole,” saying things like “I hope you die a horrible death, you piece of shit.” Really wholesome stuff for an eighteen-year-old high-school kid to listen to. Wow.

  Long story short, the divorce was probably the best thing that happened to my parents, but it’s absolutely the WORST fucking thing that’s happened to me. I mean, I know Dad and Mom both love me, but that isn’t what’s freaking me the FUCK out right now. No, what’s driving me insane is that now, at the beginning of my senior year in high school, the BEST year of high school supposedly, I’ve been uprooted, dragged away, taken to a new school, a new town, a new life. A new life that I didn’t choose.

  My dad got custody of me. That was the one thing my parents didn’t fight about. Both my mom and dad got remarried at almost the same time, and Mom married some Indian doctor guy and is moving to fucking Calcutta or some shit, and Dad got married to this nice woman who I guess is my stepmom now.

  My folks sold the house and split the money. I guess my Dad and I could have stayed until I finished high school. I sure as hell wanted to stay, and I know Dad wanted to stay too. I mean, he’s not an asshole. My father understands how upset I am to leave EVERYTHING behind and move here, move into his new wife’s house, my new stepmom’s house, MY new house, I guess. No, see, with all the fighting and bullshit that went on with my dad and mom over the past year, it turned out that Dad had been fucking up at work and so he got fired. Yes, fired. Canned. Kicked out. He couldn’t find a new job for months in our shitty little town, and finally he had no choice but to sell the house and move us into his new wife’s place in the city, where he had a better shot at finding a job.

  I almost considered asking him if I could just live with my best friend Callie for a year, until I graduated high school, but I couldn’t do it. I felt so sorry for my dad. And maybe there was some fear in me, fear that if Dad left and Mom was gone, maybe they would forget about me as they started their new lives. Stupid and childish, I know, but a divorce fucks you up, no matter how old you are.

  So here I am, a stranger in a strange town. Sure, I’ve been here some time now, but I still feel like a stranger when I go to school. Class is okay, but I still get that feeling of dread when I walk into the cafeteria and panic when I wonder if I’ll have to sit alone at a table like a fucking dork, a stupid loser.

  And maybe I am a loser, I think sometimes when I see these cool kids from this big city. They’re all so witty and confident—even the nerds are cool here! And I’m the new chick from a small Podunk town, a big zit on my forehead that will NOT go away, and permanently sweaty underarms from being so nervous and wound up about walking into the goddamn cafeteria all alone! I mean, seriously, that is my greatest fear when I wake up in the morning. Will I have to sit alone again today? Or worse, will an on-duty teacher or counselor stop by my table out of pity, sweetly asking me questions like I’m some troubled misfit, some at-risk youth. Can life get any worse?

  Oh, yes, it can get worse, I realize about a month after we move here. It can.

  Because not only do I have a new mom now, I have a new brother. A new stepbrother. He’s five years older than me, already done with college. He’s good at everything from music to math, baseball to bowling, cooking to carpentry. He’s tall, lean, handsome, with a body that's cut like a goddamn underwear model's.

  And he fucking hates me.

  2

  His name is Caleb, and I had never seen him before I moved into his mom’s house. (My dad and stepmom got married quietly, at the courthouse without any fuss or even a reception, and so there was no “wedding” as such.) Caleb wasn’t around when my dad and I first moved in. Caleb is twenty-three, and he had just graduated college and was off backpacking in Europe or something to celebrate. When he got back, Dad and I were already there, just like that. And he was pissed.

  “What, so Mom’s running a fucking day-care in the house now?” was the first thing he said to me, looking me up and down as I squirmed in the center of the living room.

  My dad and stepmom were upstairs doing whatever (I don’t wanna know!), and I was chilling in the big empty living room wearing blue cotton shorts and a pink Aeropostale t-shirt with glitter on it. Yes, glitter. I like that shit. So what?

  I was barefoot, and my toes curled as I looked at this tall, handsome guy standing in front of me. He was wearing low-cut blue jeans that hugged his tight hips and heavy crotch, a worn-out Gap t-shirt, black with those short sleeves that cut off above the bicep, and I could tell he was fucking RIPPED! There were veins rippling down his arms, standing out in high relief, and I could see the black ink of some tattoos peeking out from under his sleeves. His shirt hung on his broad shoulders effortlessly, and I could tell he was all lean muscle, hard as a rock, no body-fat on him, and his skin was almost bronze with a glistening tan, his teeth perfect and white against the rough stubble on his chiseled face.

  This guy was hot, sure, but there was something else I felt when I saw him that first time. There was an almost animal-like magnetism to him. Something raw, primal, fucking WILD. Something that sent a shiver through me, up my inner thighs, through my tight, untouched pussy, and I swear I could feel a tingle in my tits, a quivering in my ass, and my toes curled again as I stared at this guy. This is my BROTHER now?

  “I thought my mom was done having kids,” he said to me after I didn’t answer his first asshole-worthy remark. “What are you, like, eight? Twelve?”

  “I’m eighteen,” I said, trying to stand up straight, hoping my boobs were sticking out right, feeling weird and self-conscious as this guy looked me up and down again. Why the fuck didn’t I wear something besides this goddamn t-shirt with glitter on it? “I’m Allie. You’re Caleb, right? I guess we’re—”

  “Look, little Allie,” he told me in a sharp, commanding tone, and his eyes went dark as he said it, and it almost freaked me out because I felt that tingle go through me again. “I know who you are. So listen, just stay out of my way and we’ll get along just fine.”

  And he just walked past me, leaving a hint of his musk in the air, a smell of clean body-odor, faint cologne, something else I couldn’t identify. But it was HIS smell, a smell that invaded my senses, took over my mind, lodged itself in my soul. I was in trouble, I knew.

  Yup, I was in trouble.

  3

  Of course, I knew that it could never happen. And not that I really WANTED it to happen. I mean, it’s one thing to recognize that a guy is hot, and another thing to actually do something about it. And what would I do? We’re the same family now. Brother and sister. Sister and brother. That shit doesn’t happen in nice American families, right?

  But Caleb is here now, under the same roof, up on the third floor, same as me, his room down at the
end of the hall. The house has three floors, but it isn’t huge. My dad and stepmom are on the second floor, and there’s a study and a guest bedroom down there. Both the study and the guest room are really small, and so my stepmom gave me the upstairs room, the one down the hall from Caleb’s cave. I was cool with it—I mean, I don’t need to know that my dad is having sex, you know what I mean? Anyway, the room is quite nice, but when I got there I was weirded out by these spongy panels stuck to all the walls. What the fuck?

  My stepmom had laughed about it when I finally asked her about those weird panels on the walls of my room.

  “Oh, God, I totally forgot,” she said, smiling, reaching across the dinner table and patting me on the arm. “Caleb had a sound recording studio set up in that room. He put those panels up there for soundproofing. It kept the noise to a reasonable level, but I had a hell of a time getting him out of there and calling him down to dinner. Especially when the door was locked. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood outside that door hammering away, trying to catch his attention.”

  I smiled and nodded as she told me all this. It was just her and my dad and me at dinner that day—Caleb wasn’t back from Europe yet. I continued to eat, looking down at my plate, feeling sort of shy, I don’t know about what. I guess my dad noticed, and he started to talk.

  “So, Caleb is very talented, I hear,” Dad said after clearing his throat. He was talking to my stepmom, but it was clear that he was starting the conversation for my benefit.

  “Yes,” my stepmom said, and I looked up at her and could see some pride in her expression. But there was something else in her eyes, maybe a hint of sadness, perhaps a flash of concern. Still, she blinked it away and smiled again at me. “I know this sounds like just another clueless mom saying her son is awesome, but Caleb IS really talented. Trust me, he doesn’t get it from me. It’s just one of those things. He’s been good at everything he’s done. In high school he was a star wide-receiver in football, a top-scoring power-forward in basketball, broke the school home-run record in baseball, and he would have run track, but some of the practices overlapped and he couldn’t work it out. He was also the lead role in a bunch of school plays, the guitarist and singer in the band—”

  “—stopped global warming, saved the whales, ended the war on terror,” I offered, doing my best not to roll my eyes. But I knew my sarcasm was just to cover up the nervousness I felt when she described this guy who was beginning to sound like a genius-rockstar-athlete or some shit. This guy who was my new stepbrother, this guy who was going to be moving into the room down the hall from me, sharing the same goddamn bathroom!

  My stepmom burst out laughing at my snark. I could see her eyes twinkle as she looked at me, and I thought then that she is a very nice woman and everything is going to be all right. But when she stopped laughing, there was still something in her eyes that made me feel weird, like she was hiding something—or maybe trying to tell me something.

  Just then Dad’s cell phone rang in the other room, and since he was applying for all kinds of jobs, he got up immediately and left the room to take the call. I don’t know if it was fate or something, but my stepmom’s expression changed the moment my dad left the room, and she looked me deep in the eyes and just sighed.

  “Listen, Allie,” she said. “Caleb’s going to be moving back home, back to his old room down the hall from you. He’s got a one-year fellowship to study music on his own. And—”

  “A fellowship? Really?” I said. “He must be really good. Those are hard to get, right? I mean, it’s like free money, yeah?”

  My stepmom just raised her eyebrows and nodded, once again showing some pride in her expression. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what paid for his trip to Europe. In fact, the fellowship is big enough that he could spend the year in London or Paris or Berlin or Amsterdam.”

  I laughed in disbelief. “Are you frickin’ kidding me? He could have spent a year in Paris or Berlin but he chose to come back home? To live here? To move back in with his mom?”

  That didn’t come out right, and I felt like a bitch. It wasn’t what I meant, and I felt myself go red as I tried to backtrack and explain myself.

  But my stepmom just smiled and waved her hand to tell me I was okay.

  “That’s what I said,” she said while laughing and nodding. “I told him to go anywhere he wanted. When else is he going to get this opportunity? Enjoy your life, I told him.” She smiled a bit more, and then the smile faded and she got a faraway look in her eye. “Enjoy your life, because you never know when it will end.”

  She was quiet, and I knew why. Her husband—Caleb’s dad—had died in a car accident a few years ago, when Caleb was away at college. I don’t know much about it, but it must have been pretty hard. I mean, if a divorce fucks with the mind of a kid, then losing a parent has got to be crazy hard.

  I could still hear my dad on the phone in the other room, and my stepmom glanced over at the doorway and then back at me.

  “Anyway,” she said, speaking fast now, like she wanted to say something to me before my dad got back. “So Caleb is moving back in, and I just wanted . . . I just wanted to say . . .” She sighed again, blinking hard, looking away and then back at me like she was trying to figure out the right words to use. “Okay, look. I told you Caleb has always been really good at whatever he’s done. He’s driven, ambitious, and sometimes . . . sometimes . . . sometimes he can get very caught up in trying to achieve his goals. Do you know what I mean? I mean once he sets his mind on something, he pursues it relentlessly, with complete determination, absolute focus, a sort of ruthlessness even.”

  I just shrugged and nodded. “Sounds like it’s worked out for him so far. Genius-rockstar-athlete with a one-year fellowship, right?”

  My stepmom laughed again and swiped at the air like I was giving her a compliment. “Oh, yeah. Sure. He’s achieved a lot. But that same ruthless determination, that relentless stubbornness . . . sometimes that doesn’t work so well in other areas of life.”

  “Like what?” I asked without really thinking.

  Now my stepmom took another deep breath and shook her head, like she was embarrassed or weirded out about what she had been trying to say. Then suddenly she opened her eyes wide for a moment and shook her head furiously, like she had just decided she shouldn’t say anything. She looked at me once more and smiled. “You know what, never mind. I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess I’m just nervous about Caleb moving back in, about how he’s going to react to you and your dad in the house. I mean, he’s an only child, so he’s always had a lot of space, a lot of privacy. And he used to spend a lot of time in his studio, which is now your room.”

  I took a deep breath right then, frowning for a moment. I wasn’t sure what to think. Was this some passive-aggressive way of telling me that I should have been polite and insisted on moving into the tiny guest room right next to where my dad and stepmom would be sleeping? Was she saying that Caleb would be pissed off when he found out that I’ve invaded his space? Taken over his studio?

  But then my dad came back in and we just went on with dinner. I could tell that my stepmom didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and to be honest, I was kind of annoyed and so I didn’t want to talk about it either. If she was hoping I’d offer to move to that tiny guest room, then tough luck. I’m not usually the most assertive person, but there was a little voice inside me that day, a voice that told me to stand my ground.

  Yes, a little voice. I don’t know if that was the call of destiny, the pull of fate, some kind of instinct. I don’t know if I was intrigued by this supposed wonder-boy Caleb and I subconsciously liked the idea of being on the same floor as him, sharing the same bathroom as him, the same shower . . . the same shower where maybe he jerks off in the mornings, maybe even has sex with his girlfriend.

  And although I hadn’t even SEEN Caleb at that point, I remember feeling strangely aroused at those last thoughts of mine, those thoughts of my new stepbrother in the bathroom next to my
room, standing in the shower naked, touching his cock as I slept in my bed on the other side of the wall, jerking himself off as I got ready for school in the morning, maybe doing it again in the evening while I finished my homework.

  What is wrong with me, I thought as I went up to my room that night still feeling hot, aroused, a faint wetness between my legs. I haven’t even SEEN this guy and I’m imagining him naked in the shower, his cock sticking straight out, his heavy balls hanging down, foam and warm water sliding down the contours of his chiseled body. What the FUCK is wrong with me, I thought at the time. I am actually WET thinking about a guy I haven’t even met yet!

  I’ve never been a particularly sexual girl. I mean, I’ve made out with a ton of boys over the years, kissing and stuff, letting them feel my boobs sometimes. I’ve given a few hand-jobs, which were sticky but all right. I even tried one blowjob, but I hated it and so I stopped. It was really weird and the guy smelled bad.

  I had a boyfriend for about a year, but we broke up when he found out I was leaving town. I was upset, but more because I was kind of insulted rather than seriously broken-hearted or anything. I guess I didn’t really love him, right? Who knows. Maybe I’ve never even been in love before, just like I’ve never had sex before.

  Yeah, so I’m an eighteen-year-old virgin. Last girl standing. At least in my high school I was, though it’s probably the same in most high schools in America these days. I’m pretty sure most of the girls in my class lost their virginity by eighth or ninth grade, tenth grade tops. I remember listening to all those “first time” conversations, laughing about how weird or painful or awesome or sometimes boring and uneventful it was. The only thing that really stood out for me from listening to all my girlfriends talk about the first time was that none of them—not even ONE girl—could say with any confidence that she had had an orgasm the first time. I mean, a couple of them said they did, but I could tell they were lying, perhaps trying to convince themselves more than anything.