1

"I'm home!" I announced as I came in the back door of my parents' house.

"Mark!" Mom cried as she entered the kitchen. "I've missed you so!" She wrapped me up in a big hug. "How'd your junior year end?"

"Good. I thought I did well on all my finals."

Mom gave me a big smile. "Wonderful." Then she yelled, "Karen! Your brother's home!"

Karen yelled back, "So?"

Mom walked to the edge of the kitchen and yelled upstairs. "Come help him bring his stuff in."

"Why?"

My mom sighed exasperatedly. "Because he's going to help you move into your dorm!" My sister was going to be a freshman this fall at a college different than mine.

"Oh, all right."

I smirked as I heard my sister stomp down the stairs. Karen probably had been doing crafting stuff and was acting pissed about being interrupted. My mom looked like she was ready to strangle someone by the time Karen came into the kitchen.

Growing up, I used to get in huge fights with my sister all the time. She had seemed to enjoy provoking me until I blew up. But then I grew up a lot during my freshman year in college, and, afterward, I ignored her provocations or laughed at them, which seemed to piss her off far more than yelling ever did. I still gave her a ton of crap but in a teasing way.

When Karen came into the kitchen, I grabbed my two suitcases and told her, "Bring the rest of the stuff in my car up to my room."

"What are you going to be doing?" she asked testily.

"Putting stuff away. Duh."

Karen turned red. "Why do I have to carry all the rest of your stuff up to your room?"

"Because when you move into your dorm room, I'll be the one hauling all your stuff while you and Mom are putting up your unicorns and rainbows."

Karen put her hands on her hips and said tartly, "I'm not ten years old anymore, idiot."

I walked past her as I left the kitchen. "Aren't most ten-year-olds taller than you?" Karen was five foot and an eighth, and very sensitive about her height.

Mom yelled, "Stop it right now! No more fighting you two."

* * * *

A little later, Karen brought up my laundry basket which was full of miscellaneous items. She looked as angry as she had been in the kitchen. As soon as she got to my room, I said earnestly, "Hey, I'm sorry about the crack about your height. It was out of line." Karen seemed surprised that I was apologizing. "Bad habits die hard. It was a terrible way to greet you as soon as I got home." Karen gave me a sidelong glance. "I appreciate you helping me by carrying my stuff up. If you ever need me to help carry your craft stuff, let me know."

Karen looked at me dubiously, like she doubted the sincerity of my apology. I turned away to hang up a shirt. I hoped she'd accept my apology. Even though she drove me nuts at times, I liked my sister.

When I finished hanging up a shirt, I turned to see Karen holding up a pair of black leather handcuffs that had been in my suitcase. She asked, "What are these?"

"None of your business," I said as I raced across the room.

By the time I got to Karen, she had two more items out of my suitcase. "Oh my god! Look at this! A ball gag? A blindfold? And are these..." - she dug around in my suitcase - "...nipple clamps?"

I was pissed about the invasion of my privacy. "They're none of your damn business." I grabbed each item. "Now, get out of here and get something else out of my car!" I was on the verge of yelling. I hadn't been this angry in a long time.

"I'll tell Mom."

"Jesus Christ, Karen! You're eighteen. None of this 'I'll-tell-Mom' bullshit."

I didn't want Mom involved. It was embarrassing enough that Karen had seen my bondage stuff. Mom was super-conservative and would go ape shit if she saw it.

Karen smiled, enjoying getting me so worked up. She called out, "Mom!" Not so loud that Mom would hear her, but too loud for my comfort.

"Okay, okay!" I said in surrender. "I'll tell you about them later. They cost me a lot of money, so I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, but I've never used them, and I never intend to use them."

From Karen's grin, I can tell she was savoring her victory. "When are you going to tell me about them?"

I sighed in frustration. "Tonight. Let me get all my stuff unpacked, and I'll come to your room. Okay?" After I hide them someplace where hopefully no one will ever find them.

"And you can get the rest of the stuff from your car, right?"

Fuck! She had me by the balls and knew it. I decided to accept defeat gracefully. "Right."

Karen gave me a huge smile. "I'll go back to crafting then."

* * * *

Later that night, I found Karen in her craft room. Our house was a two-story, with three bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. The third bedroom had been a guest bedroom, but Karen had converted it into her craft room. She was constantly making something. When I came in, she was sitting at a table doing something with yarn. "Hey, Karen."

Karen got up. "Hey, Mark." She bent over the guest bed. "Let me clear a place for you." She moved enough of her craft stuff out of the way so I could sit down, and then she went back to her chair and to whatever she was doing.

"Knitting?" I asked.

"Crocheting."

Whatever. I had no clue as to the difference.

I had no interest in Karen's crafting. I had hated it when in school I had to do crafting bullshit. I couldn't color worth a damn, and I struggled to cut things with scissors. Beat the crap out of another football player? I could do that all day. Sign my name nicely in cursive? My signature was a fucking scribble. My sister was the complete opposite. Even when she was little, she had been able to turn a couple of pieces of paper and a glue stick into a work of art. She could paint, do paper mâché, and needlework. She was building up an inventory of craft items to sell at craft fairs before Christmas.

Karen and I were so different. We didn't even look like siblings. While Karen was short and thin, I was a relatively big guy at six feet with broad shoulders. Karen looked like my mom, whose family came from Bavaria (the southern part of Germany) and had blue eyes, straight blond hair, and fair skin that my mother's family said was typical of Bavarian girls. Karen's hair was now down to her bust line. My father's family was Italian, and I looked like him with brown eyes and curly dark brown hair that I kept fairly short. One Halloween, Karen and I had gone trick-or-treating as Princess Peach and Mario. I had never lived that down. My football teammates had loved to greet me with "Hey, Mar-i-o! How's Princess Peach?"

Karen said in a teasing tone, "So those items in your suitcase?"

I sighed. "I dated this girl, Aiden, this year, and she was big into Fifty Shades. Had all the books and movies. Made me watch them with her."

"What did you think of them?"

"The movies? They sucked. Stupid plots. Worst dialogue ever. Even the sex scenes blew." I shook my head. "But she loved them and was super in-the-mood after we watched them, so I learned to suffer through."

Karen kept crocheting, but I could tell she was interested in what I was saying.

I added, "So one day, Aiden told me she wants to do bondage like in Fifty Shades. She wanted me to tie her up and have sex with her."

"And did you?" Karen asked with a surprising amount of eagerness.

"I told her I didn't want to do that." My least favorite conversation about sex ever. "But she kept bringing it up. So I eventually ordered a set of bondage items. I felt stupid doing it, but she was really excited about it."

"Then what happened?" The eagerness was definitely there.

"The bondage stuff came in. She pulled the items out of the box as soon as they arrived. She loved playing with them. And she told me we'd use them the next time her roommate was going to be gone for a while."

"And?"

"We never used the stuff. When her roommate was going to be gone for the day, Aiden decided we should wait until her roommate was gone for the weekend. When her roommate was gone for the weekend, Aiden had too much studying to do. She kept making excuses. And it really upset me. The bondage stuff wasn't very expensive, but it had been expensive buying it in such a way that my roommate didn't know I had bought it. I was hiding the stuff in my car and would have to sneak it into my room every time I thought we were going to do something, and then I'd have to sneak it back every time it fell through. Finally, she admitted she didn't want to do it, but by then I couldn't return the items."

"Did she pick out a safe word?"

"What?" It took me a moment to figure out what she was asking. "Oh, yeah. She picked out five or six. She found picking a safe word super-exciting."

"What did she pick?"

I rolled my eyes. "I don't remember. I think the last one was rainbow. It was stupid. I was never going to hurt her. I was going to tie her up, but I wasn't going to whip her or anything."

Karen got a far-away look in her eyes. "My safe word would be yarn. It's short and very distinctive."

"Wait a second." I can be slow about women, but I could put two and two together. "Are you into this Fifty Shades stuff too?"

Suddenly, Karen got all flustered. I stood up and started leaving the room. "Where are you going?" she asked. I ignored her and walked across the hallway to her bedroom. She followed me. I went over to her bookcase.

"What are you doing?" Karen asked indignantly.

"Nothing," I said as I scanned the book titles.

Karen said firmly, "You can leave."

"I'll leave in a second." I knelt and continued scanning. Then I reached the bottom right of her bookcase. "What do we have here? Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed." I pulled out the first book. "It looks well read."

I looked up at Karen. She was furious, a thundercloud ready to explode. "Get out this instant!"

I put the book back, stood up, and said, "I'm making my way out."

I scanned the room for movie boxes and didn't see any. The family rule was that all the movies were to be kept downstairs next to the Blu-ray player.

Instead of walking out, I went to the closet and opened the doors.

"What are you doing? Leave my stuff alone!"

"I'm not touching anything."

Karen's closet was about five feet wide and three feet deep. I looked on the top shelf in the upper right and saw three movie boxes. "My, my, my."

"Get out! Get out, right now!"

"Just a sec," I said soothingly. Mom was short like Karen and wouldn't be able to see or reach the movies. I stood up on my tiptoes and pulled the three Fifty Shades movies down. "It's the whole collection."

I turned to Karen, who had her arms crossed and looked like she was doing everything to keep from screaming. She pointed to the door and said, "Out! And never come in my room again!"

I smiled warmly, handed her the movies, and said, "Certainly."

I chuckled evilly as I left the room.

* * * *

I went downstairs and talked to Mom. It was a little past nine, so it'd be a while before Dad got home. He worked the second shift at a nearby hospital. I decided to celebrate my small triumph over Karen with some ice cream. Mom went with me into the kitchen to ask me more questions about college. I was digging out my first scoop when Karen came in, looking still pissed that I had found her Fifty Shades stash. Mom was at the dining room table. Karen stood behind Mom and stuck out her tongue at me. I struggled to keep a straight face. She raised her hands to the side of her head so her thumbs were in her ears and her fingers were standing up then wiggled her hands at me while sticking her tongue out some more. I continued to ignore her, which seemed to make her angrier than ever.

Once I had my bowl filled, I sat down at the dining room table with Karen and Mom. I said, "I'm really excited about my job this summer. It'll be great to have a real job." The previous two summers, I had driven an ice cream truck. I had rented an ice cream truck that was full of ice cream for a few hours and had gotten to keep a percentage of what I had sold. I had basically made minimum wage. Now, I was going to be an intern in the Marketing department of a corporation only a few miles from our house. "I'll get some wonderful experience and develop important business skills." I turned to Karen. "What are you going to be doing this summer?" I already knew the answer.

"I'll be making craft items to sell."

I rolled my eyes. Two could play the immature brat game.

Karen said defensively, "It's a lot like Marketing. I have to decide what's going to sell well and what's going to be worth my time to make. I've been coming up with some really cool designs."

I snorted. "For what? Blankets? I can see you at the senior center, hanging out with your knitting buddies."

"Crocheting! And I won't be making blankets."

Mom was looking exasperated again. It was like she found refereeing my conversations with Karen exhausting, but couldn't stop doing it.

I asked, "What will you be making then?"

Karen got very embarrassed. Finally, she said in a small voice, "Clothing."

Mom asked, "What type of clothing?"

When Karen didn't respond, I asked, "Scarves? Hats?"

She didn't say anything for a while and then said, "Clothing."

I chuckled. "Yeah, I can see you in a rocking chair at the senior center, cranking out your scarves with your best friends, Edna and Agnes."

Karen shot me a look full of daggers. If looks could kill, I'd be dead ten times over.

I turned to Mom. "Dress code at work is business casual. Where do you think I should go to buy clothes?"

Mom seemed grateful for a topic that Karen and I wouldn't fight over. "Well, at the mall, there's..."

* * * *

I spent the next day loafing. At five, I went down to the kitchen to get started on dinner. Mom got home between 6:10 and 6:15, and she wanted dinner ready to be served by 6:20. Way back when I had started middle school and had accordingly left for school much later, Mom had changed her work hours so she'd get to work an hour later and stay until six. She loved the change because people were always bringing her crises at 4:45, forcing her to work late. Now, she rarely worked late. She had kept the later hours even after Karen had moved on to high school.

I looked at the menu to see what was for dinner. Lasagna. I pulled the Stouffers lasagna out of the freezer and began following the instructions. I had started cooking dinner when I was in middle school. Mom bought lasagna and other pre-made casseroles, and I baked them. Dad cooked on the weekends, mostly burgers or hot dogs on the grill. The other students complained about the food in the dorms, but I found it better than the food at home.

As the oven was preheating, Karen came into the kitchen for a drink of water. I said, "You could be doing this."

"I could, but I've been doing it for the last nine months."

"So you should be really good at it."

Karen chuckled. "Like it's hard to follow the directions on a box."

I looked at the menu and saw that the side was to be salad. I verified we had enough for three. When I closed the refrigerator door, Karen was still in the kitchen. I figured she had something to say or ask, so I reread the lasagna directions to kill time until she spoke.

"Are you still dating Aiden?"

"Nope. Broke up a few weeks ago."

"Did you break up because she chickened out?"

"No, not really." I put the lasagna into the oven and started a timer. "It got boring after a while, so I decided to move on."

"Boring?"

"Yeah. It was great at first. She's a big reader like I am. When we had free time, we'd hang out in the lounge on our dorm floor and read together. When people walked by, we'd talk with them."

Talking with Karen now was a lot different than it had been last night. We were talking as adults, and Karen was expressing polite interest in my life. She asked, "What kind of books does she read?"

"Young adult. Only the best sellers, typically the ones that have been made into movies. She reads the same ones over and over." The only books I reread were the Harry Potter books; I was a huge Potter fan. I read a variety of stuff, both fiction and non-fiction. "Have you read many Young Adult novels?"

"Not many."

"They're all the same in one way - lots of romance but no sex. It got to really annoy me after a while. Have you seen or read The Hunger Games?"

"No, but I've heard of it."

"Katniss is this smoking hot, badass sixteen-year-old that no one has ever asked out. Never been kissed. She goes to the Hunger Games and teams up with this good-looking guy from her hometown who's madly in love with her. There's a huge incentive for her to make out with him as that's what the audience watching the games wants, and you get rewards when you make the audience happy. She could literally die the next day. So you'd think she'd cut loose and make out like crazy, right? Maybe even get naked and have a little fun? But oooh no; she can't do that. And she can't because...because girls in Y-A novels don't do that." I shook my head in disgust. "It'd be fine if it was only one book like that. But they're all like that."

"So? Why should you care?"

"I care because what made reading with Aiden enjoyable was talking about what we had just read. It stopped being fun when every book she read made me groan."

I expected Karen to turn what I had told her into a dig of some sort. I knew I would. Instead, she seemed to even-handedly judge what I had said. She asked, "Why didn't you do something different?"

Damn good question. I got myself a glass of water while I thought of an answer. "We should have. We talked about doing something different, but we never did. It was easy, so we always did it." I decided to make the discussion a little racy. "Sex between us was like that, always the same thing. It was as if we had a checklist that we went through every time. I wanted to do something different, but I never did. I didn't know how to get us off the checklist." I took a long sip of water. Karen didn't say anything. "I think that's why her stalling over the bondage stuff bothered me so much. At least that would have been different." I took another long drink. "What about you? Dating anyone?"

Karen set her glass down and crossed her arms. "I'm not dating anyone. I'm too boring. I don't drink, don't go to parties, don't go to football or basketball games, and I don't go to movies. I stay home and craft."

"What about that guy you dated for a while? Guido?"

Karen almost ground her teeth. "Jonathan!"

"Yeah, Jonathan. What happened with him?"

Karen picked up her drink and stared into it. "He was nice. Probably too nice. Nothing really happened between us. After a while, I decided I enjoyed crafting more."

"No orphans in your class who were adopted by an incredibly wealthy family and were into bondage and dominance?"

Karen gave me a little smile. "No."

I raised my arms in an oh-well gesture. "Too bad. There were two or three of those in my class."

That got a big smile.

* * * *

Saturday, I drove over to pick up my Italian grandmother. She lived in an adult retirement community and no longer drove. I knew she loved me to pieces and would do anything for me (and Karen), but I had a tough time being with her for long periods of time. She was a talker, and she always told me all the latest news at her place. I really didn't care about who had won big at bingo, who had recently been sent to the hospital, or who had offended one of the different dining room factions.