Just Like in a Song

"Now, I have talked to the apartment's manager and the neighbors. I explained things to them and no one's going to press charges for disturbing the peace. But this can't happen again. And...she has to pay for any damages to the apartment of course."

"I understand. I'm stay here and make sure she stays calm or I'll take her to my place." I sighed. "Her husband is being a complete shit heel and she's just had one thing after another hit her for the last few weeks. I'll take care of her."

"Alright. Well, if we have to be called back out..." he warned.

"Understood."

As the officers departed, I noticed that Belinda's husband, Carl, was sitting in the car out in the parking lot talking on his phone. Walking over to him, he nodded held up a hand, and after a moment finished the conversation and switched off his phone.

"How is Marcy?" He asked, then immediately looked at the time on his phone "We can't stay long; I've got to get Belinda back into bed. She and I both have work in the morning."

Ever felt the need to just slap the taste out of someone's mouth? I don't know what Carl had for dinner but he was so very close to losing any residual flavors it wasn't funny.

"I'll go check, but I know I'm going to stay for the night. Belinda can go, I've got this," I told him.

"Thanks buddy. Appreciate it. We were dead asleep when Sandra called," he said with an exaggerated yawn

Uh huh. Most folks are at this time of night, you fuck head.

Leaving Carl before I said something I would not regret for a second, I walked back to Marcy's apartment. Nodding and silently saying "Sorry" to her still gawking neighbors as I went past their doorways. As I stepped inside I heard Belinda's voice from the back bedroom. Then Marcy's as I walked down the hall. I found my sister lying on her bed with her oldest child sitting beside her. Marcy was clutching a rounded, pill-shaped, yellow neck pillow to her so hard it looked like she was trying to strangle a Minion. Belinda looked up as I came walking in.

"Have the police left?" she asked.

"Yeah." I nodded my head toward the hall behind me. She patted her cry mother's shoulder and followed me down the hall. "Look, I'm going to stay the night and Carl is out there about to crack his head yawning. You can split."

"Really?" she asked surprised.

I gave her a half look "Yeah-she my sister. I'll take care of her."

That she is still surprised that a sibling would stay and help their own blood kin out tells me far more about Belinda than I ever wish I had known. Her next words confirmed this to me.

"Well, thank you." She picked up her purse from the chair where she had left it, the only upright chair in the apartment. "In the morning I'll give Dad a call. I'm sure this is all just a mistake in banking somewhere." She turned back towards the hallway to the bedrooms. "Mom, I love you! I'll call tomorrow!"

I closed the door behind her, without the boot to her ass I so wanted to give her, and walked back to my sister's side. I sat down on the bed next to her and let my hand come to rest on her hip. She sniffled and looked over her shoulder at me.

"They're all gone. It's just you and me," I told her.

She nodded, then wiped at her eyes. I wanted so many things just then. To hold my beloved sister in my arms, to kiss her, to lie on the bed next to Marcy and hold her till she fell asleep in my arms. To tell her that I loved her till she believed, believed with all of her heart, that I truly meant it. To tell her what I felt till I made her understand, that nothing her bastard of a soon-to-be-ex did was important...because I'm here for her. I tried with a look to let her know that, but I knew when she looked down and sniffled, that I had failed.

"I love you," I said simply.

She looked back at me. "Why?"

I smiled, and rubbed my hand on her hip a bit. "Because I do. Because I always have. Because I always will."

"I don't think I'm worth loving anymore." She placed her head on the yellow pillow. "I don't know what to do. I was counting on that money, in the accounts, to carry me through till I found a job. Maybe till I got some training. I haven't held a job since I was twenty. I can't even make the rent on this apartment."

"I'll help."

She looked over at me and gave me a look. "You're barely making ends meet your own self. How will you help?"

"By doing things I don't want to do. Taking on jobs I would normally have passed on because they're not the type of work I like. I can make better money than I do, I just haven't had a desire—a need that had to be met that made me get off my ass and do it. You need my help. You will get my help," I vowed.

She looked at me for a few moments. "Is this because I'm your sister or because...?" she left it hanging.

Smiling at her, I gave her pajama bottoms a tug. "Because I want to get into your pants?"

"Yeah. That."

"Both, I guess." With a shrug, I looked at her from her feet to the top of her head, and then looked her in the eyes. A slow smile twerked my lips. "Yeah, I'm going to have to go with both."

"You're so weird."

"Yeah, but you've got to love me." I let my eyes drop to where my hand rested on the soft warmth. "I can't help it, you know? What I feel for you. Not sure I want to help it either. I sure wouldn't change how I feel, not for anything. I love you. I can't help that I want to show you that by making love to you." I grinned. "It's a very common thing for a man to want to do to a woman he loves."

"Not when she's his sister!" She turned over on the bed and I lifted my hand, letting her turn under it, and then placed it back on the now opposite hip.

"Oh, bullshit. If it wasn't a common male thought, there wouldn't be laws against it." I let my hand caress her hip for a second. "You're my sister, yes but you are also a woman, and sitting here, with my hand on your so very soft, and warm hip, I would like nothing more in this world than to show you all the pleasure I know how to give to you. You are an incredibly desirable woman and if I hear you say you're not worth loving, ever again, I will take great delight in..." Lifting my hand, I moved it around her just a bit and lightly delivered a pop to her ass "...blistering your butt like Mom and Dad would have if you said something like that in front of them."

The shocked look on Marcy's face was enough to make me laugh but at that moment I didn't feel like it. All that I felt I could do was stare at her, just look and contemplate what my world would be like without her in it. It was a grim reality that I could not face, could not even think about for long before I began to feel the tears trying to well-up in my eyes.

Getting up, I moved around to the other side of the bed, toed off my shoes, and laid down next her. She looked over her shoulder at me till I was snug up against her back; I pulled a sheet over the two of us and buried my face in her soft hair.

"What are you doing?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

"Staying here with you. Sleeping here next to you. Holding you."

"Just that?" she asked.

"Yeah. No hanky-panky. Don't figure you're in the mood for that even if I wasn't your brother." I pulled her closer to me. "I can't make promises about tomorrow night or the nights after that. I can only spend so much time curled up next to a goddess like you and not want to—worship."

"Tomorrow night?" she looked back at me.

"You said you can't afford this place right? That leaves two options. I move in here with you, which will sucks since this place is small. Or-you move in with me." I placed my hand back on her hip where it had been, secretly enjoying will all of my soul this close contact between her and myself. "Either way, it's just you and me, sis. Us against the world."

She looked away and let her head rest on her pillows again. About the time I thought she had fallen asleep she placed her hand on top of mine.

"But that means we will have to move stuff again."

I chuckled, ruefully.

"Trust me I know." I gave her thigh a squeeze that pulled her ass back into me a bit. "But that's tomorrow's problem."

"It is tomorrow," she said after a moment.

"Marcy—hush your head, please. I'm trying to enjoy being in heaven."

She snorted and shook her head. After a moment she wiggled back up harder against my chest.

The warmth of her, the smell of her hair, and the lateness of the hour began to take their toll on me then. Brushing my nose through her hair, enjoying the scent; I mumbled "I love you."

Her fingers curled into mine and I thought that was going to be my only answer until, just as my eyes closed, I heard her softly.

"I love you too."

** ** ** ** ** ** **

The unusual warmth next to me may have been what woke me. When my eyes opened and I found myself with Marcy's head rested on my chest, snuggled up into the crook of me, I felt my heart—among other things, swell up. Bringing my hand to her face I gently brushed a few stray gray frosted hairs from her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open when I continued that touch.

"I want this," I whispered. "I want this every morning, till my last day. I want to wake up with you safe in my arms."

She snuggled her face into my chest.

"I think I want this too. I haven't slept this well in a long time." She gave a little yawn that reminded me of a cat. Her hand moved across my stomach and she hugged me to her.

As I lay there, half between awake and in dreams, not terribly sure this wasn't a dream, I knew there would never be a time when Marcy would be the one who made the first move. She was just not the type to do that. And yet while I know what I wanted, I was still terrified of going too quickly and losing her. Making her hate me could be a possible outcome of making too sudden a move towards what I wanted to do. When I looked down I saw her looking up at my face.

"You look like you're thinking very hard about something." She moved and pushed herself higher in the bed till she was propped on her elbow next to me. "Do I want to know what?"

"I don't know what you want. That's the problem." I reached up and moved that stray strand of hair back out the way again. "I know what I want to do. I know how I feel, what I want, what I would love to have happen, how I would like it to play out. But what you want is the one I can't guess at."

She shrugged, lay down, placed her head on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. Her lips moved a few times, as various emotions played their way behind her eyes, making me long to kiss those sexy, perky lips.

"I don't know for sure. Part of me wants it to all just have been a nightmare." She wiped at her eyes. "For everything to be just the way that it was and for me to be happily ignorant of the fact that Rodger really doesn't give two shits and a penny whistle for me. He and I had been together for so long I was comfortable. Happy most of the time, content the rest. I had my normal daily routine. Knew what was going to happen from day to day. Could make plans without worrying they would fall apart in seconds if I looked away long enough for a cup of coffee. Now? I don't even know where I'm going to be tomorrow. What am I going to be doing next week? I don't have a clue."

Sitting up to lean on my elbow, I looked down at her face, that so very familiar face, one that had been both a bane through my childhood and a fantasy though most of my adult years. The glistening tears at the corner of these sexy half-awake eyes broke my heart.

"Tomorrow you're going to wake up in my spare bedroom. Next week you will be job hunting, most likely." Reaching across her I picked up her cell phone from next to bed and placed it between her breasts. "Till then you're going to call you lawyer and have him take your asshole of a husband's butt to the cleaners for this crap...while I go make us some breakfast."

"I still don't have any food," she said looking at the phone resting where I wanted my face to be. "I was about to go get something when I checked the bank accounts."

"Then I will go get us something for breakfast." I sat up on the bed and noticed I had at some point in the night kicked off my shoes. Leaning down I fished around and found them in the pile of scatter clothes and wreckage that was her bedroom. "Then, after we eat, I'll help you pack back up anything you left unbroken and we'll get you moved to my place."

"I...I don't know if I should do that."

I paused pulling on my shoe. "Why not?"

Marcy wasn't looking at me but at the phone she was clutching. "Because of the secret you've told me."

My mouth twitched then set itself into a firm line. I got to my feet. "You don't trust me to live under my roof? I said I'm a pervert not a rapist."

"No! No...it's not that at all," She moved and caught the side of my pants as I went to walk away. "No, I trust you."

"Then why?"

She swallowed and looked down. "I'm not sure I trust me."

Looking down at her I felt my heart break. Slowly I dropped to my knees in front of her and put my arms around her as she silently cried.

"I'm so broken inside." She said after a few minutes. "I'm afraid I'll do something I'll look back on and not forgive myself for doing, simply because I'm so messed up."

"I understand. I do. Now, listen to me." I lifted her head by her chin. "I love you. I won't ever put pressure on you to do something you wouldn't want to do. I'll be simply your brother."

I hugged her to me tighter than before.

"I'm not sure I can ever see you as just that anymore," she said holding tight to my shirt. "I can't, not know what I do now. How can I?"

"Marcy, nothing has changed from yesterday, a week ago, or ten years back. I've always felt this way." Moving my hands from behind her back I cupped her hands and held them to my chest. "I'm still your brother."

"Who wants to fuck me," she said giving me a quirked smile.

I quirked an eyebrow "You say that as if it is a bad thing?"

She sighed and covered her face with her hand

"Go get us breakfast, you perv."

** ** ** ** ** ** **

When the last of the croissant wrapped cheese sausages and the flaky cannoli were memories I began the task of helping my sister to pack back up her things. Luckily she hadn't taken the time to take too much out of boxes yet and she hadn't destroyed too much that was still packed. A few boxes made terrible sounds when moved, but those could be sorted out later.

With a sigh for my bank account I went to the U-haul store and got the same truck I had just returned and began the task of yet again refilling it with Marcy's things.

Marcy? Well she spent the day on the phone. Calm at first, then with a growing rumble that resembled an approving thundercloud. The storm broke as I was loading the last of the stuff into the truck.

"WHAT!"

With a shake of my head, and the hum of "Riders on the storm" trying to slip past my teeth, I went inside the now echoing apartment to make her calm down before the police got called back.

"Charles, I want you to crucify him by his fucking testacies!" My sister was pacing a circle in her living room. "I want it all now, not a penny less than every fucking dime!"

Walking up, I put a hand over her mouth and leaned in next to the phone.

"Hey Charles, this is her brother. I've got to get her out of here before she gets arrested for disturbing the peace. She will call you back." I held my hand over her mouth, with her eyeing me daggers, till she hung up the phone.

"What do you...!" she began at a window glass shattering volume.

I clamped my hand back into place.

"The police gave me a warning last night. If they get called back you're going to be arrested. Now, shush." I still held my hand there when her eyes burned and her nostrils flared "Find your inner angry voice or I'll find the duct tape."

I very slowly eased my hand away when she finally nodded.

"That fucking bastard took our life savings and bought two plane tickets." She gave me a look that told me she was screaming inside. "Rodger took his little cum-dumpster to the fucking Bahamas. He's going to spend every dime of it down there on her and I won't be left with a penny I don't have to sue him to get."

"But you will get those pennies and so much more." I assured her. "Your lawyer is going to deal with this. Let him do his job, and you will be sitting pretty here in just a few months. Rodger..." I all but spit the name, "...could not have hurt his chances in that settlement hearing more. But, it will do you no good to stand around here yelling at the top of your lungs. Now, let's get the last of this stuff and go get it socked away at my place then see about some food."

"And alcohol." She pocketed her phone and grabbed up a box. "I need booze in a bad way."

I gave my somewhat depleted liquor cabinet at home a mental scan and then gave a hidden sigh for my dwindling cash flow.

"We can manage that," I promised.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

The bento boxes were a stick mess, with starch-thickened sauces drying to off putting glue like consistency, and the last remnants of egg rolls, spring rolls and wonton sat forgotten. There was music playing from my phone, and there was a dvd playing unwatched in the living room. Apollo 13. Simply background noise I had turned on while I brought in boxes then forgotten about, like most everything, under the haze of a seemingly endless round of rum and coke refills Marcy and I had been consuming as we talked.

Of life. Love. Family. Loss. Fear and pain.

As the hours passed, and the rum in the drinks seemed to grow stronger with every drink, she cried more than once. I held my sister to me during those times. Held her and told her it would be okay, that her tears were wasted emotions on a man that no longer gave two shits and penny whistle, to use her phrase, about her feelings. I tried to not let show just how much I was enjoying the close contact between us, but I think I failed. The tears would fade and she would gently pull away from me.

I felt like a leper when she did that. Unclean. Maybe I should have a sign made up and wear it around my neck, or maybe I need a scarlet letter penned to my shirt. A badge of shame to show the world that I was a man sick enough to have fallen for his own sister.

Sitting on my couch looking down into my glass, feeling the emptiness of the seat next to me, she had gotten up an left me there after that last bout of tears, I wondered just what I could say that would bring her out of her depression. Or my own for that matter.

I had not considered just what having her in the same house with me would be like. I had figured it would be similar to when we had shared the same home as kids. But that had been years ago and those memories had been dulled with too many late nights of inhibition. The reality of the woman I loved in my place and me not being able to even hug her without her pulling away from me was a pill of bitter bile.

"Hey."

Looking up from the half full glass, I saw her standing in the door to the hallway. She was using it to help hold her upright. I noticed she had changed into soft looking flannel pajamas.

"It's late, little brother. Let's call it a night." She leaned her head on the doorframe. "Come tuck me into bed."

Closing my eyes, I nodded and shot down the last of my watery rum. How bitter a pill indeed.

I had to have the arm of the couch to help steady me but once I was on my feet I managed a semblance of sobriety. Marcy stood there watching me, her head still on the wood door jam, her eyes never leaving my face. When I got close to her she smiled and held out her hand to me. Taking those delicate fingers I followed her to my extra bedroom, dodging around the stuff I had pulled from it to make room for her bed and other stuff.

"Have to find a place for all of that tomorrow." I thought as I stepped into the room.