Perfect Fit - 2

All that changed halfway through his junior year. Adrienne suddenly moved out to live with some of her friends, then moved in with a man named Harvey ("Harvey," of all things, Ollie had always thought). The change even took Mom and Dad by surprise. One day Adrienne was here, just down the hall; the next, that end of the hall was like a spooky ghost town. Mom and Dad were both pissed at the disrespectful and impolite way Adrienne had bolted from a lifestyle they had conspicuously made very comfortable for her.

The entire household changed quickly and drastically. Mom was more fussy over Ollie, but it felt superficial, like she was trying to fill Adrienne's places and didn't know how--which she didn't, to be fair. Dad didn't have his little girl to focus his smiles on anymore, and he felt betrayed by her sudden departure. He became more than an asshole, which he had always been, at least toward his useless blind son. He became downright abusive, and Mom divorced him less than a year later when he threatened to beat Ollie up.

He had threatened it because of "the fucked up path he's headed down!" When Adrienne left, Ollie soon began having the barber shave his head, knowing he would never be able to keep it neat himself. He also grew out his facial hair into quite a thick beard. Preyed upon by his inherent adolescent angst and an unrealized depression left in the wake of his sister's departure, he became rebellious with his dress and his speech. He cursed a lot, and he wore motorcycle boots and ratty denim jackets. His dad said he looked like a "fucking biker drug dealer," and that he had had enough. He was going to teach Ollie what a man really was, and that Ollie better hope he was half as tough as he wanted people to believe.

Ollie's father had been a Marine once upon a time and still kept himself in very good physical shape, and Ollie was scared when the man lost his temper. Ollie was fit and lean and strong from four years of lifting weights, but that day, he had actually been shaking. He was close to tears as he begged his dad not to beat him up, promised that he was sorry he looked and dressed this way, that he was sorry he cussed at Mom. That he was sorry for being blind.

That stopped his father for some reason, and there was no beating; nor was there ever another threat of it. But Ollie no longer disdained his father, he feared the man. And Ollie's mom despised him for hating their son. She filed for divorce six weeks later.

Eight months after that, Ollie graduated high school in the top fifth of his class, but decided to take a break at home for the summer before trying his hand at some community college courses.

@---@---@

Adrienne hadn't left because of her friends, a new boyfriend, or even her father, of whom she had begun to be more than a little wary, herself, though. She had left because of Ollie. 

The day she left began like many others. Ollie sat down in the chair in the bathroom that they used each morning, his hair damp from the shower, wearing a pair of jeans that had gotten tighter as he spent more time in the gym. His strong chest glistened in the bright make-up mirror's light. Adrienne gently spread the warm shaving cream on his face…except it was more than that this particular morning. She CARESSED it onto his face, down his strong neck. She BABIED the razor down his face, consciously realizing how amazingly good her brother looked. She STROKED the warm towel across his face to clean it when she was done.  

As she did his hair, she relished every opportunity to run her fingers through that thick, soft, dark thatch. She looked at him in the mirror, strong and fine and vulnerable, handsome and loyal.  

And she felt herself get wet between her legs.  

She stood there with wide, unbelieving eyes, staring not at Ollie in the mirror now, but herself. Ollie felt her pause, then asked if he was ready. She said he was, distractedly. He thanked her, kissed her cheek as always, and left for school.  

Adrienne started shuffling things around to clean up the bathroom but couldn't concentrate on that. Her eyes drifted back to the mirror and she stared at herself in disbelief. All she could think of was the image of her brother, naked to the waist, the tingling trace of his lips on her cheek, and the hot dampness between her legs. And every time she thought about it to try to examine it rationally, she felt the heat and the exciting pulse between her thighs intensify. She felt shame and revulsion, but only at herself; she only felt alarmed for Ollie.  

She was 21 years old, and she felt she had suddenly turned sexual predator on her little brother who had only been sixteen for a month and a half!  

As the thoughts managed to organize themselves, though, she realized it wasn't sudden at all, this "grotesque attraction." She thought back to the first day she coiffed and shaved his face, how he had come bursting in after school, full of excitement and gratitude. She thought of how exotic and different it had felt being completely nude in front her brother, how hard her heart had pounded when he leaned down to give her a kiss. And she finally acknowledged what had been lurking deep inside her ever since, so deep she was able to avoid it for almost two years. She had been turned on. She had been turned on that day, turned on in her body and her mind and her heart when he stood over her, strong and happy, and kissed her cheek, all the while her naked body, hot and soft and accessible, barely a foot away. It hadn't been exotic, though; it had been erotic.  

And so, even though she knew Ollie wouldn't understand at all why she vanished from his life, even though she knew he would be hurt, she knew she had to leave-- for his sake.  

It was the hardest thing she ever did.