A Promise to my Stepbrother (10 page)

I had never seen myself in that way, but I knew that was part of me. That was the me that had kissed Max and dreamed about him. Why couldn’t Max see it? And as my thoughts were filled with Max, Rob took a step and hugged me from behind, running his hand up to my breast. “You are amazing, Katie.”

I pulled away, awkwardly and with enough force that I couldn’t really hide my unhappiness with him touching me that way. I had wanted to lose my virginity. I had hoped it would be with him, but the moment I felt his arms around my naked body I knew it could never be him.

I didn’t even bother putting my bra on. I slipped my t-shirt on and quickly put on my panties and pants. Rob looked at me the whole time with a look of shock on his face. I took a step forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m sorry, Rob.” I felt a lot of things—sadness, awkwardness, embarrassment, but more than anything I was filled with relief. I, at least, was remaining true to the promise.

A
couple
of months into the Summer session after my sophomore year, Katie called. We hadn’t talked since before the end of the school year, but I blamed that on the fact that we were both busy with advanced studies. Of course the reality was that I was afraid to call her after the disaster with Erin, and then life got complicated again, and, well, here we were.

“Katie!” I answered when I saw her number.

“Heya Max.” She sounded kind of wistful.

“I’m so glad you called.” She didn’t reply, which scared me a bit. “Are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.” Which was true—Katie was always the passionate and excitable one. More often than not she would do something crazy to make me smile. Quiet and restrained wasn’t her style.

“I just miss you is all.” As she spoke the words my heart leapt. I missed her terribly, but we had parted on such bad terms a few months earlier I didn’t think we would ever be close again. She hated me for dating Erin, who I knew had a tendency to alienate people, and she hated me for abandoning the promise, and I didn’t really blame her even though I hadn’t. I told her Erin and I had broken up on the phone afterward, but she didn’t seem impressed. More than anything I knew I had disappointed her.

In the few conversations we had since then there were so many things I wanted to tell her, but none of them seemed appropriate. I mean, you don’t tell the woman who has lost faith in you that you keep dreaming about her in a wet t-shirt at your swim meet. I knew I had to rebuild a foundation of trust, but I just hadn’t known how to do that with my own life swirling around me.

“Oh Katie, I miss you, too!” I decided to make an attempt at rebuilding that trust. “I know I’ve been an idiot in so many ways.” She was quiet. “You deserve better than me,” I finally whispered.

“No. Don’t say that. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve always known that, but sometimes I just need to be reminded of it.” Her voice was still sad and thoughtful. It was killing me, and I was going to tell her I loved her, but her voice suddenly brightened, and she said, “But you know, that’s not as important as getting your opinion on
The Walking Dead
!”

I laughed, relieved. This was the Katie I knew and loved. “It’s really going downhill. I warned you of this. The comic is way better.”

“You’re crazy. The comic is missing some of the best character dynamics you see in the show.”

And thanks to
The Walking Dead
Katie and I began a conversation that was like every conversation we’d had since we met at twelve years old, whether it was Firefly or The Avengers or even porn we’d examine as we huddled around my laptop. The topics of the conversations changed, but the spirit was always the same—a joy in discovery, in sharing opinions, in gentle insults, and, more than anything, shared enthusiasm. Our conversations never got old, and our current phone discussion reinforced that. We were having a blast.

“Okay, I’m going to give in on
The Walking Dead
and reluctantly admit defeat on Peter Jackson.” I laughed. “It’s funny, you and my girlfriend are so similar. She is constantly giving me a hard time about the same things. Thanksgiving is just not going to be fair—two against one.”

There was a pause, and then Katie replied, “You have a girlfriend?”

“Didn’t Mom or Dad tell you? Well, shit, obviously not. Don’t worry, Katie. She’s nothing like Erin. Like I said, she actually reminds me of you. She’s nice and sweet and loves the same things I do.”

“You’re bringing her to Thanksgiving?”

“Well, I guess. That’s like five months away. I was just imagining you two teaming up on me. That would be tough for me.”

There was a long pause, and then Katie replied, “I bet you dream about that, don’t you?” There was a kind of dismissive tone in Katie’s voice, which I took as a good sign. She had a long history of mocking me.

“Ha, that’s more like a nightmare. I can barely handle you, let alone you
and
Julie. I wouldn’t know what to do!”

“Sorry, I have to go,” Katie stated, her voice rushed. “I’m glad Julie is like me.” Before I could reply she had hung up the phone.

I stared at the screen, trying to make sense of our conversation. Part of me thought she was mad over Julie, but part of me was thinking that she didn’t really say anything negative. I had explained that Julie was nothing like Erin. That was good, right?

I decided to make a better effort at calling Katie, but she was never free when I called and never called me back the rest of the summer.

I
called
Max after I broke up with Rob. I needed my best friend, even though I knew things had changed between us. I wanted to call the friend who would say, “I’m so sorry, Katie,” and then he would laugh and add, “I bet he was ugly and had a body odor. I’m sure you’re better without him.” Or ask me, “So how far did you go? Does he kiss better than me?” or say, “What, he tried to seduce you like that? What an asshole!” All girls have friends like that, and Max had always been that friend for me.

That was the kind of friend Max had always been—sharing everything and laughing and learning about the most embarrassing and sad moments. It made them all more tolerable.

But after Erin such a conversation would have been awkward. Still, part of me wanted to tell him that I wanted to lose my virginity, but that it wasn’t in the cards because I still believed in the promise and that Rob wasn’t nearly as sexy as Max was.

For years I shared everything with Max, and now it would have felt weird to do that. It made me sad.

Still, Max was Max, and our conversation brightened my mood. It was like we had never had a falling out as we talked about
The Walking Dead
, teasing each other in that way we always did.

But then he mentioned his girlfriend, and my heart sank. I couldn’t deal with it, especially as he said she reminded him of me. How could I make sense of something like that? Did he actually want me but was fucking her instead since she was accessible or was she a better version of me?

And then he was mocking me with comments about a threesome when we’d all be together at Thanksgiving. That hurt the most. Was that all I was to him anymore, part of a fantasy inspired from some cheap porn film?

It made me think of Rob. I cried when I broke up with him. Not because I was sad over the break up, but because I was sad he wasn’t Max and that no one would ever be Max. But now even Max wasn’t the Max I loved and adored.

T
here was Erin
, then there was Julie. Then a couple dates with a girl whose name I don’t remember. Isabel. Rose. Then Petra senior year. I guess I made it through college with some degree of success with women, but every one ended with tears, anger, and always… emptiness.

The fact was that none of them measured up to Katie. Julie was so much like Katie, but that turned out to be a bad thing. She was just a little worse in every way. She was funny but not as funny. She was pretty but not as pretty. She was even sexy, but not as sexy. In the end, Julie felt like settling for a pale copy of the real thing.

Petra was the only one that I felt a real connection with, and it was due to her actually being
different
than Katie. Petra was as cold and calculating as I was, whereas Katie was all emotion and crazy ideas and flying by the seat of her pants.

Not that Petra was a sociopath. She just liked to assess all the variables before making a decision, and I found that comforting. She was smart and interesting, too. Add to that the fact that she was also unbelievably hot, and I liked spending time with her. The trouble was that we had nothing in common.

She would talk, and my mind would wander back to Katie. The thing was that I
wanted
to make things work with Petra. I knew I had to get past Katie. I wasn’t stupid. Katie was beautiful and funny and artistic and going to a school with people who were just like that. She had abandoned the promise multiple times already, I was sure.

So I had to look to the future, but every time I tried I hit a wall, and my difficulty in enjoying Petra as a friend seemed to indicate that it was all me. It would be impossible for me to connect with anyone without some core problem. Was
complete
happiness with someone impossible?

I was thinking those things over while still hearing the echo of a slammed door in my ear. Petra had been upset, more than upset—she was actually screaming how I wouldn’t do more than make out with her. I heard her mutter “I can’t believe I’m having to beg a guy to sleep with me” as she stormed out the door.

Why wouldn’t I go any further with my girlfriends? I certainly had my chances. I told myself it was because having sex required something special. Katie and I had never discussed the practical experience of losing one’s virginity concerning
us
, but we had talked at length about
the moment
in general. And we agreed—sex is something that would be super awesome with your perfect parter and not quite as awesome with someone else. At least that’s what our teen minds believed.

And that’s when two things hit me—One was that I wouldn’t have sex with a girl unless she was perfect, and two, the only perfect girl I knew was Katie.

I broke up with Petra that night. I uncorked that sad old cliché on her, “It’s not you, It’s me.” She slapped me and stormed out yet again, but I didn’t blame her. It
wasn’t
her. It was me. All me.

I
fell
hard for Phil senior year. He was a sculptor, and I volunteered to pose for him because he was hot in that long wavy dark hair, brooding artist, and intense stare kind of way. I mean, he wasn’t an Adonis, but as far as artists go, he was tall and had a tight body.

Part of me had given up after Rob, but loneliness and hormones pushed that aside, and I still tried to find that special someone. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had much success with guys, mostly because college guys tended to be shallow idiots without the intelligence and soul that Max had. But Phil seemed different.

So I figured, what the hell, I’ll pose. He needed someone to pose for him practically every night for a full semester, and if nothing else I thought the forced time together would lead to at least something.

The first night he greeted me with a firm handshake. “Katie, I’m so glad you volunteered for this. You have the perfect body for what I have in mind.”

I laughed. “In a bar that would mean something entirely different.”

He smirked, and the way the light from his workroom lit up his face sealed the deal. I had finally found the guy who could take my mind off of Max. “Yeah, well this isn’t a bar.” I loved his response, too—blunt, to the point, not afraid to ruffle feathers. So unlike Max.

“Okay, take off your clothes.”

“Uh, what?” It’s not that I minded getting naked for him, but the professor expressly told me that this job did not entail nudity. “I thought you were to focus on fabric.” At least that’s what Professor Greene had said.

“No.” He stated in a very matter-of-fact tone. “The rest of the class is focusing on fabric. It’s hard to sculpt. But I’m going to surprise Greene and focus on something higher.” The look on his face was intense, and I found it exciting. I couldn’t help but nod my head and agree with his vision, whatever it was. “I’m going to take your beautiful body and provide it the
permanence
of stone.”

Oh, I was all in for that. Despite my being a virgin, I considered myself quite the free spirit. I kicked off my shoes, pulled my shirt over my head, and removed the rest of my clothing. I stood in front of him, completely naked, and focused on his eyes as I shifted my weight from one leg to the other with my hands on my hips. I was a little self-conscious as I prepared for him to stare at my chest and then look my body up and down with a hungry look in his eyes. I’d experienced it plenty of times with my clothes
on
.

But he didn’t do that.

He looked at my eyes, then my mouth, and his attention followed every curve and angle of my body from top to bottom. He paused while he looked at my chest, but I wasn’t sure if that’s because he liked my breasts or was figuring out which tool to use to carve them. He frowned when he looked at my crotch.

“You’re shaved.” He sounded annoyed. I couldn't believe it. Everything I had read and heard said that guys loved that.

“Yeah. I like how it feels.” Holy shit. I couldn’t believe the conversation we were having. The words were so full of erotic potential, but they were all spoken in this clinical context.

“I won’t get to that for a couple months, so don’t shave between now and then and we should be okay.”

“Uh, look Phil. I’m not going to stop shaving because you can’t sculpt girly parts.” My intent was to tease him, so I said it with a smile. But he marched forward, reached down and grabbed my bra off the floor.

“Fine. I’ll find another model.” He threw my bra at me. “Get out.”

My heart fell, and at that moment all I wanted in the entire world was to be sculpted by Phil. I walked backward to the riser where I was to pose and stepped on to it. “Fine. Do you want a landing strip, a tight trim, or the full monty?” I stared at him, a grim determination on my face.

“Just grow it. I’ll let you know if you need to change anything.”

I shook my head. “So what’s the pose?” At that his face lit up, and he walked over.

“Sit on the edge of that.”

I sat down on what looked like a cube of wood covered in a blanket, and he immediately said, “No. That’s not going to work, stand up.” I got up, and he put a stone slab under the block of wood. I sat down, and then he had me stand up again. He added more height and only stopped when just the balls of my feet touched the floor.

“Great. Now spread your legs.” Phil turned posing for a sculpture into porn direction, only the most boring unsexy porn ever. “Lean forward, intertwine your fingers and drop your hands between your legs with your elbows on your thighs.” I did as he asked. “Great, now look up at me, and smile with a look of confidence. Heck, you have that look naturally. That’s perfect.”

I pictured how I looked from his vantage, and I guess the best way I could describe it was if I were sitting down and leaning forward to listen to someone speaking. “This isn’t too bad, but I’ll need to stretch every few minutes.”

“That’s fine. Sculpting marble takes a long time.” He stared at me with his hand on his chin. “Yeah, this is perfect. You’re perfect.” He walked back to the large block of marble that he would be working on. “By the way—” he turned and looked at me. “—It’s called ‘Quiet Confidence.’”

He grabbed a drill off a shelf and moved to the block. I sat and watched while he spent the next ten minutes making progress as he carved down to the rough form I would take in the marble. When he stopped, I spoke up, “Do you really need me here while you are prepping the marble?”

He stood up straight, looking angry. “The marble is already prepped. I’m sculpting.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is there a reason I have to be nude for this part?” I didn’t really mind, but it was a question worth asking.

Sighing, he put the drill on the floor and walked over. “Look, Katie.” It was the first time he said my name since I entered the studio. “I’m capturing this—” He put his hand against the side of my face. “—in marble.” He took his hand away, and the forcefulness and directness of his touch was thrilling. It was electric how he touched me while talking about capturing my essence. I was falling for how he wanted to take the external
me
and
know
it so that he could understand it completely to capture the internal me. The only one who knew me, really, was Max. Would Phil be the other?

I nodded. “I don’t mind. I was just wondering.” He nodded, and I added, “I like being naked for you.” I almost kicked myself. That line sounded so desperate and sad.

“You’re not naked, Katie. You’re nude. Whores are naked. Muses are nude.” His response not only eliminated any self-consciousness over my comment, it made me fall under his spell even more. I was his muse. I going to
inspire
him.

A
few weeks
later I sat down, leaned forward, and prepared for the session. Phil had the outline of my pose down and was starting on rough detail work. He was working from the top down. I was looking forward to him using the chisel to start to reveal my face from the marble, but before he started he walked over to me.

“Don’t move.”

“Ha, I’m posing. I know I’m not supposed to move.”

He ran the palm of his hand over the top of my head. “Good,” he said, as his hand caressed the back of my head. He brought his hand around and I felt his fingers touch my left ear.

“What are you doing?” I asked, breathlessly. His fingertips were rough and calloused, but his touch was electrifying. He ran his hand down the front of my face, his fingers lightly touching my eyelids and my nose and then, deliciously, my lips.

“I need to know every curve, every touch, every angle,” he said. His fingers slid across my lips, and I badly wanted to kiss them, but Phil was so devoted to his sculpture that I knew he would be angry. I had chatted with him during the day, had lunches and dinners with him, but he just didn’t seem interested in me in a romantic way at all.

Still, I loved the challenge, I knew the traps, and kissing his fingers while he was sculpting was clearly a trap. His fingers slid off my chin, and went back to the marble. He chiseled as I shifted a bit.

Later, Phil’s palms ran across my chest. Of course, he was preparing to carve my chest, and this was part of his process, but I caught my breath. I really wanted this to not be about the process but to be about the touch, and I hoped that even an artist would know what I was feeling.

I shuddered and gasped a bit when he ran his fingers over me. “Sorry, I’ll warm my hands up next time,” he stated, his voice all business.

I couldn’t believe he was so oblivious to mistake a shudder of desire for a shiver from cold. We had been in countless sessions so far, and I couldn’t figure Phil out. I was his muse, and he had just touched me in a place few guys had ever touched me. Did he not feel anything.

I grabbed his hand, pulled up it up to my lips, and kissed his palm. “No, not cold. It felt good.” He stared at me. “How did it feel for you?” I looked up, and the artist look was gone, replaced with an intense stare that seemed part desire and part something else.

Taking a step toward me, Phil leaned down and kissed me on the lips. I stood up to join him, and he wrapped his arms around me. We kissed long and hard, and the fact that I was completely naked while Phil was covered in sculpting apron made it even more exciting.

As wild as I liked to consider myself, I had never really crossed any boundaries, and being naked in the hands of someone with clothes, someone who was directing me as he created his art, was exciting and hot.

Phil’s calloused hands were against my lower back as he held me and we kissed, but they stayed there. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he would have started to take his clothes off or touch me in any kind of intimate way, but he didn’t.

He pulled back, looked at me, and smiled. “You are my muse, Katie. You are my muse.” As I waited for him to lean forward and kiss me again or remove his apron or something, he did none of those things. He turned around and walked toward his sculpture while wiping his hands on his pants.

The session continued, ending an hour later with Phil waving me off as I finished getting dressed, and he put his supplies away. I walked home angry and hurt and not understanding what was going on. Did Phil want me or not? Did I even want him?

I
didn’t say
a single thing the next session.

The session after that Phil was late. I was sitting, nude, in my pose when Phil walked in and marched over to me. He looked angry, and I tensed. He had never done anything more than make a sarcastic comment to me, but I sensed that he had a restrained temper that would lash out in unpredictable ways.

I looked up as he reached out, took my face in both of his hands, leaned down, and kissed me hard on the mouth. He pulled away, looked around, and said, “There’s no bed.” The raw passion in his face and how he just took me in his hands to have his way with me made me scared and excited. He clearly wanted to have sex, and I faced the sudden reality that I was about to lose my virginity.

And that thought was like jumping into a cold lake. All I could think about was getting out.

He nodded toward a pile of canvas drop clothes. “We could do it there.” Each time he spoke, I was both thrilled with the commanding certainty in his voice about having sex with me and horrified at his utter disregard of my feelings.

“I’m not having sex with you on dirty drop clothes, Phil.” Even as I said the words I realized that I hadn’t said “I’m not having sex with you,” I had said I wasn’t going to have sex with him in that location. I had left the door wide open and Phil knew it.

He leaned down and kissed me again. “I must have you.” He started to remove his belt. “I’ll take you here or you can get on your knees.”

The excitement over his commanding tone was fast receding as I got pissed over his selfishness. “Phil, I’m not getting on my knees for you during our first time.” I tried to be both firm and still somewhat open. The truth was that while I was angry with what Phil was saying, I still excited over his confidence.

“Fine, we can do it standing up. You can put your hands against the wall.”

And at that point, even my excitement over Phil’s alpha male confidence drained away. He had no interest in anything more than something physical, and while on a certain level I was excited by that, it wasn’t something that I wanted in any real sense.

I shook my head. “Let’s do this another time, Phil. A dirty studio just doesn’t exactly scream romantic to me.”

I could see the anger in Phil’s face as he turned and walked to his hunk of marble. “A muse doesn’t question her master!” Phil yelled out, his voice echoing through the studio.

He grabbed his chisel and angrily chipped away at the marble, as I wondered how the rest of our artist/muse relationship was going to go for the rest of the semester.