Sure, it took a while to get him going, but once it did, every night she cranked his gumptions straight into submission. She worked him like a sock puppet. She was a good eight to ten years younger than he and Jack counted himself lucky to start the game, not to mention last through the Seventh Inning Stretch.

Jack would never be confused for Don Juan. First impressions certainly were not his specialty. Most ladies balked at him physically. They found him short. They considered his eyes beady. Often, he’d get a bad case of the shakes or the sweats and they’d be turned off like a faucet. Furthermore, the only way a guy his age could score a girl her age was to either pay for it, or lie to her. A thrifty man of limited resources, he often opted for the obvious. Turned out, he didn’t have to worry about sleeping at night. Not with a girl of her predilections.

Oh, his poor, battered pecker. Red as a raspberry and rubbed raw in several places, it was tender to the touch and near impossible to tolerate in blue jeans. Some nights, he found no respite. She was so very young, so willing. So eager to please him, and, so far as he knew, only him. He knew not whilst she knelt before his feet if her devotion was a byproduct of the size of his handle—just north of average—or if, more appropriately, it was due to the avalanche of psychological hoodoo he festooned upon her.

For example, one look at her and Jack knew she’d be a Daddy’s Girl. Her blonde head was too well-combed and kept for someone immune to the want of approval. When she did something he liked, Jack was sure to kiss her forehead, or administer a loving pat upon her shoulder. When she did something bad, he was certain to shake his head in disappointment, then retire to another room in silence.

“I’m sure you’ll do better next time, pumpkin,” he would often say in such situations.

Or that she’d once been a much larger girl. Many nights, while she lay asleep in her bed, he maneuvered about her dorm room in the dark. She talked a lot about herself when given the chance, but Jack learned more by going through her things. He’d peek into the drawers of her bureau, or finger through her purse until he found old high school photographs, Daddy’s credit card statements, letters from ex-boyfriends, diet pills…yes, diet pills secreted away between tons of body lotions and body oils and body soaps. Jack pocketed a handful, sure, but the real bounty was the information he’d acquired.

As of late, he’d become interested in her textbooks. Particularly, he’d taken to the experiments of Pavlov. When she’d direct her sweet, sweet kisses down south, he would click his tongue four times against the back of his teeth. A tiny, imperceptible sound, but somewhere it registered because he noticed later when he clicked his tongue that her tiny nipples hardened beneath her shirt, or her pupils dilated, and soon they would be at it, casting aside their britches for romance.

To keep her interest, he revealed very little about himself. Girls often responded to that. Freshman girls, more specifically. Girls who only recently had shed their small towns and cliques of friends who’d tell the world if they were sluts or prudes, true or not, so they could use a touch of mystery in their life. And after a lifetime of dumbass high school boys, she’d foist a host of Daddy issues and inhibitions and hang-ups all over the first older guy who came along, and why should some seedy liberal arts professor have all the fun?

All she wanted was to be seen for more than a great pair of legs.

Or tits.

Or blonde hair with big eyes and come-fuck-me lips.

Not that she had any of those, but Jack did not mind. She was pretty in places. Places like her wrists, or ankles. Places not yet disturbed by time or age or an improper diet. Or knives, god forbid. He understood that she was young, but hoped one day she might grow into herself. Shy of nineteen, according to her driver’s license, and yes, he’d insisted she show her driver’s license. Too many times he’d been burned in the past, headed for fields far from fallow, only to discover he’d been hoodwinked, hornswaggled by a girl so thirsty for attention, she’d lie about her age. He was one angry parent away from a long, tortured stint in the pokey and understood the importance of casting a net more selective.

Her name was Lindsay. She took classes at the university during the day and waited tables at a Tex-Mex joint down the road a couple nights a week. Her family lived in Houston, where her daddy sold houses and her mother decorated them. One look around her dorm room, or at her car, and Jack knew she was not accustomed to want. Their family was well-to-do, or well-enough-to-do, and he reckoned that provided all the beauty she’d ever need.

One such night in late September, Jack returned to bed as quiet as he could, careful, so she would not stir. To test his current hypothesis, he reached for one of her danger zones. He could have chosen from many—the flesh beneath her chin, or where her upper thigh had yet to draw taut—but he settled upon the spot just above her hip. The love handle. She flinched, recoiled, then retreated into herself. Before she could scramble too far, Jack again grabbed her, but this time drew her closer into him.

“Do you see that?” he whispered.

She did not struggle. “See what?”

“The way the rain strikes yonder window?”

“Yeah.” She wiped sleep from her eyes. “I see it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Do you—” She crumpled up the words and sighed.

Jack tightened his grip on her naked hips. “No one else sees that but us,” he said.

“I…”

“Only us, and only right now.”

Silence.

“I will never again see rain fall against a window at exactly that angle at exactly that pitch as it hits, never again like we do—you and me—right now, and every time after that I see rain bounce along a windowpane, I will think of this moment. Even if this is the last time we have together, which I hope it isn’t, forever will I think of you in the rain. The way you smell and the way your neck feels against my lips and…the way you taste…the sound of your breath against my ear…the inside of your thigh…at my fingertips…”

With her engine good and primed, Jack reached a hand down yonder. He had every intention to more than fuck that girl, to give it to her not only down there, but up there as well. He wanted her to never again know such affection, to never again know such manhandling. He wanted to give her a father, a teacher, a best friend, a poet, and a bad boy, all rolled up into one angry pounding. He’d give her everything a girl like that wanted or thought she wanted, then he’d give her so much more. More than she’d ever had. Or could. Or would again, should he have anything to do with it, because if he couldn’t make it so she never, ever experienced joy or sadness or the slightest hint of satisfaction without first drumming his face or smell or touch across sense memory, then hell, he didn’t want it.

But it didn’t happen quite the way Jack planned. Perhaps he tussled too much with the rubber beforehand, or felt weird about scrapping it to ride bareback, or any number of things, because something had gone awry and tinkered with his machinery.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” she asked him. It dawned on her that she was in flagrante and offering an angle perhaps not too congratulatory. She covered herself with her skinny arms and pulled tighter the blanket. “Do I not turn you on?”

Nothing could be further from the truth. He clicked his tongue four times against the roof of his mouth and thanked the gods above for the reprieve as she slowly kissed him from chest to belly button and kept right on going until…

“Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Dammit…”

She rolled off him and onto her back. Together, they stared at the ceiling.

“I’m just a little stressed out, is all,” he said. “This never happens.”

Actually, it happened nearly every night. Sometimes he could slip his own hand between the sheets and try and get things going. Maybe close his eyes to picture the girl in all sorts of dandy poses, or bawdy outfits, or making sultry promises. He knew, over the years, the drugs would be taking their toll on him. He made pacts with a god he’d long ago abandoned: If you help me this one time…

“Is this because of earlier today?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Because I didn’t sign up for all those credit cards in the student union?” Her voice sounded faraway, like a little girl’s.

“No,” he said. He didn’t mean it.

She rolled over so her nose nestled his shoulder. “I know you said we could contest the charges and say my identity was stolen, and that my dad would never have to pay for it, but I don’t see the difference between that and stealing.”

Said Jack, “It’s not stealing when you do it to a big corporation. Think about it, those credit card companies are trying to get college kids to sign up. They know those kids don’t know a lick about managing money and are out on their own for the first time. What kind of monsters would prey on those people?”

“You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you?”

Jack shook his head. “No, pumpkin. You know you could never disappoint me.”

This led to silence, then sniffling, followed by a big ol’ bout of sobbing, and Jack let her have at it a bit before wrapping his arm around her. She put her head to his chest and let it all out. Tiny, high-pitched whimpers, then warm, salty tears and all the sadness anyone could ever imagine, and goddammit if Jack didn’t feel himself twitching down yonder.

“Honey…” He rolled her over and climbed atop her. “Keep crying for daddy, just a minute or two longer, will you?”

And afterward, while they lay broken, side by side, he touched her again at the hip. This time, she did not recoil.

Instead, she lay still and silent, until she could no longer. Sighing several times before unleashing what really she had on her mind.

“That girl…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your roommate.”

Summer.

Jack laid his forearm across his eyes. “She’s my sister.”

“Y’all don’t look nothing alike.”

“Step-sister.”

“You know, it’s not important.”

“What’s not important?”

She slipped her arm around him. Big spoon, little spoon.

“All I’m saying is, she don’t seem to like me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Summer likes everybody. If I’m not careful, she’ll bring home every hobo from the street corner. I’ve seen her do it.”

“It’s different with me,” said Lindsay. “And I think you know why.”

He wanted nothing more than to end this conversation. To fuck or fall asleep. His weary pecker begged for the latter.

“I think she’s in love with you.”

Jack swallowed. He could think of no fresher hell.

“I told you, she’s my step-sister.”

“It don’t matter.” Lindsay stroked the hair around his nipple. “Sometimes love knows no bounds. Where are you going?”

“I just remembered some things I have to do.”

“Where?”

“Back in Lufkin.”

“What kind of things?”

“Things.” He shimmied into his clothes. “And they’re best done on my own.”

He kissed her forehead and jiggled her tricep just enough to put her off breakfast. He raced down the stairs and across the lot to the shitty Honda in what felt like only a handful of footfalls.

The drive to Lufkin was a good half hour, and damned if Jack’s mind didn’t race the whole way. He had enough to worry about. Summer had brought home a quarter pound of weed. A quarter pound. As if the kilo wasn’t enough, she had to get her fingers into the marijuana business as well, and Jack wondered would there ever be an end to it.

Or what if Lindsay was right and Summer was falling in love? There could be no worse fate for him, no worse fate at all.

Summer had a mean streak in her, thick as a boulevard. He’d seen some of the things she’d done when she got sore at a fella. This one poor bastard back in New Orleans. All he’d done was run around on her. Hell, that wasn’t all he did, because Jack had seen him do some pretty shitty things. Only back then, Jack had been named Pete, but he saw old boy one time steal from Summer’s purse, then lead the search party to ferret out the missing money. He’d blamed this guy and pointed fingers at that guy, but in the end, they all got wasted and forgot about it. He’d done many shitty things, but Summer refused to see it. Refused, until she found out he’d run around on her. And it wasn’t so much that he’d run around on her, but who he’d run around on her with, which was another little girl who wanted to be Queen Mama Stoner. Then Summer had it and went after his car—a burnt orange Chevy Chevelle—with a ball peen hammer. A set of car keys. Her goddamn fingernails. She fucked up his wheels good and proper, then made it so he couldn’t score drugs in town. No, he’d blown it. She said anybody caught selling him so much as a nickel bag would meet her full fury and didn’t nobody want to do that. People made up a story about him being a narc. Wasn’t true, but folks all believed it and, soon enough, the poor guy moved. Left town. Upped his whole life because of Summer’s angry fatwa.

But she hadn’t been Summer back then. She had been Stormy.

Storm.

He’d liked Storm. Storm had been a riot. Storm got them invited to all the coolest parties. Everybody loved Storm. You could hand Storm a coffee can at a party when the keg ran low and she’d have it filled with dollar bills in no time. Enough money to run out for another keg with a little leftover so maybe you could grab a pack of smokes. Nobody had a cross word to say about Storm. Not until she’d raised enough money to score eleven pounds of weed, then never came back. Then they had plenty cross to say about her. Not that Jack would know, because Jack’s name was Pete and he’d lit out with ten grand on his own.

But Storm was gone. Autumn was gone. Hell, even Jasmine from South Carolina was gone, and all that was left was Summer. Summer, whining and crying. Summer who pouted, slouching about the house, looking for shoes, looking for the t-shirt with the giant pot leaf, looking for the hairbrush…picking up things and dropping them, then stepping over them as she griped and moaned, and when finally it came time to leave the trailer for the day, she’d stomp her feet clear to their shitty Honda, for she’d rather do anything than let him forget she’d been slighted.

Jack had thought it a million times and he was bound to think it a million times more: it was well past time for he and Summer to go their separate ways. However, he knew she’d just as soon see him dead as see him leave, so it was bound to be tricky. Were he to slip free of the ties that bound them, he’d have to plan ahead. He’d have to watch for any openings. He’d have to keep ajar all doors and windows, and most of all, he’d need a little bit of luck.

He hadn’t noticed doing it, but before he knew it, he’d whipped the car around and headed back up Highway 59 and had already cruised through the main drag and parked in the wooded lot behind the dorms. He ducked just below her window and tossed stones until he’d rousted her.

“I thought you were going home,” Lindsay said from above.

“There’s nothing for me there,” he called to her. “I fear my only future may lie with you.”