His Dark Secret – A Stepbrother Romance (4 page)

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James McCullum reeled through the party, more than a little lost.

Mrs. Wilson had taught him 6
th
Grade math. Now she looked like she was trying to add up the inches on a man he could only hope was Mr. Wilson... and it looked like there were a lot of them.

Someone had set up a game of strip poker in his room. It had been maybe ten years since even
he
had been fully naked in his room, so he couldn't imagine what it would look like with six grown men and women. Now that he thought of it, hadn't that been Reverend Williams sitting on his bed, yelling at the young widow Parkinson to chug the whole bottle...

At first, he'd tried to keep people off the grass in the garden, making sure they stuck to the stepping stones, but that was quickly abandoned. Then he had tried to make sure people used coasters when they were anywhere outside the kitchen.

That hadn't exactly gone very well either.

He had been trying to explain to some respectable-looking older lady he didn't recognize that the cactus they kept in a pot in the hallway wasn't actually her dog ChouChou (and that even if it were, she should stop trying to feed it vodka, because dogs don't drink alcohol... and that even if they did, she was going to drown it if she fed it that much) when he heard, “Jamie-james!”, and saw his mother walking toward him. Well, it was less walking, more weaving left and right, being held upright by Brenda.

But all he noticed was that his mother's hair was down. His mom's hair was
never
down. But there it was, slinking all the way down to her hip. With a start, he realized that it had been so long (timewise) since he had last seen his mother's hair not in a bun, that he had no idea how long it was (lengthwise) until this moment.

“Jamiiiieeee... my Jamie, way-me, bay-me... heeheehee...”

His mother staggered over to him, and seemed to trip, turning what would probably have been a hug into her clinging on to his shirt to keep from falling down. It was the first time he could remember her touching him in years.

“Sorry about this. I'd had a feeling something like this was gonna happen, so I tried to keep an eye on her... but even I didn't think she'd try and empty the punch bowl in the five minutes I took to use the ladies' room. Turns out I was wrong.”

James looked up to see Brenda leaning against the wall, smiling at him wryly.

“I wouldn't have left her for even that long, but the bathroom was...
occupied
.”

Brenda was their next door neighbor. She was also probably the only real friend his mom had in the world – though he still couldn't exactly figure out why.

Brenda was everything his mother wasn't. Relaxed. Self-assured. Open-minded.

She was in her mid-to-late thirties, her shoulder-length hair dyed a shade of dark red with a hint of violet. James thought she might be a writer. Or perhaps a novelist – he wasn't sure what exactly the difference was. (He majored in Engineering, which his mother said was a more practical degree than English.)

Brenda spent most of the summer, and quite a lot of the winter, traveling around the world with her dark, handsome husband, who was from some unidentified Southern European country, and whose job description seemed to vary with each time you asked.

James would know she'd be back when she would knock on their door and hand his mother some outlandish souvenir from some far-flung failed state, before retiring to the sitting room for one of their afternoon-long tea and coffee sessions.

He'd know she'd be gone when his mother would invent one of her usual excuses to pop over to Brenda's house, and return a minute later, tight-lipped and stricter than ever, but with an unmistakable sadness in her eyes.

She was also an extremely beautiful woman, and clearly knew it. She didn't even have to dress provocatively to flaunt it – one look from her sultry, dark brown eyes would be enough to send a trickle of sweat down any man's back. James, of course, stood no chance.

He'd had inappropriate dreams about her ever since she'd moved in 5 years ago.

“Oh, um, hey Brenda! How are you?”

He cursed inwardly at himself. That's the same thing he'd said all the other times they'd run into each other today. She just smirked.

“Much the same as last time, James. A little more tired than I was. Not nearly as drunk as I should be. Though after seeing your mother like that, I can see that's maybe not such a bad thing after all...”

As if perked up by hearing herself mentioned, Mrs. McCullum raised her head abruptly. She seemed to notice her son as if for the first time.

“Jaaamiee!! My little Jamie... I never tell you I love you enough, do I? Well, that's silly of me, I should tell you every day... Jamie-baby, I...
urk
...”

Her beaming smile turned into a confused grimace, her face turned a little green, and Brenda was by her side again, pulling her arm over her shoulder and trying to guide her farther down the hallway.

“Alright Jenna, that's maybe enough quality time for tonight, mm? Let's try to get whatever the hell was in that punch out of you and into the toilet bowl, and then maybe see about getting you into bed...”

Brenda turned around just before entering his mother's room.

“OK, mommy's boy, I think the party's over. Try and get people out if you can, and I'll make sure your mother doesn't strangle herself trying to get her bra off.”

“Oh, um, yeah, OK, Brenda!”

She pursed her full, red lips into a little smile, and stepped into the bedroom.

////\\\\

It took James a full hour to get the house close to something resembling empty. He had special trouble working up the courage to get Mrs. Wilson out of the broom closet. All
four
of the men in there with her couldn't very well be Mr. Wilson...

He was picking coats and scarves out from between the cushions of the living room sofa (someone had even lost a pair of socks in there, somehow) when he heard someone coming down from up the stairs. With a sigh, Brenda came into the room, and leaned on the doorframe.

“Your mom's sleeping in bed. Finally. It took me a while to convince her that going downstairs to dance was a bad idea. Took me longer to convince her that dancing on her bed with her skirt on her head was also a bad idea... mostly 'cus she was right, and it was a really good idea. Throwing up on her bedroom carpet, not so much... but I gotta admit, you're little old mom has got some moves on her...”

James couldn't think of much to reply with. In fact, it would be fair to say that, in that moment, he wasn't thinking anything at all. Maybe he had inhaled too much of the punch he had thrown down the kitchen sink, or perhaps it was just the aftermath of seeing what lay underneath the prim and proper surface of suburbia once you gave it a little push, but he didn't feel quite right. He was a little dizzy, and thoughts seemed to droop through his usually crisply clean mind like molasses.

All he could notice at the moment was the flush on Brenda's cheeks... the way her lipstick was ever so slightly smeared in one corner... the way her shirt was undone maybe one more button than it really should be...

Brenda was a full-figured woman, with large breasts for a woman her height and in her state of physical shape. But in this moment, it seemed to him as if he had never really
looked
at them until now.

He saw how her shirt seemed to strain against the woman it held within it, as if it didn't really want to be there covering her at all. He saw the hint of black bra, just barely visible through it. But most of all, he saw her skin – really saw her skin – in the gentle valley of her cleavage.

It was a tanned a light, comfortable brown, with minute freckles or discolorations on the inner swells of her bosom like little kiss marks left on her by the sun. But it was to the space between her breasts where his gaze was inexorably drawn. It seemed so soft, there. The skin was darker, slightly creased, with visible pores. From where he stood, almost across the room from her, he thought he could almost smell that place. It was the smell of a woman. He thought he could hear the triumphant thumping of her heart.

All of a sudden, James noticed that a long time had passed – maybe ten seconds? A minute? – and he hadn't said a word. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realized he had been staring silently at her breasts this whole time.

He slowly looked up to make eye contact.

Brenda had an eyebrow cocked as high as it could go. Her mouth was only slightly tilted upwards in one corner, but you could tell from her eyes that she was barely holding her laughter.

“I... I... I'm sorry, I should go clean my room.”

“
Clean my room
”, he thought to himself. “
I just said I had to clean my room. Oh god.
”

“Wait one minute there, bud.”

He had tried to walk past Brenda to the hallway, but she had grabbed his arm, and turned him around.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to, I just... sorry, Reverend Williams was in my room, and I think he might've spilled something, so...”

Brenda's grip tightened on his arm.

“James... James, please calm down.”

“Oh, um, sure, OK, Brenda, I'm calm, anyway, I need to go...”

“James, please. Stop trying to get away. Just look me in the eye, for one second.”

He had been staring at his feet. When he tried to comply, he got as far as Brenda's breasts. That made him embarrassed again, and he looked back down.

Brenda took her other hand, placed it on his chin, and forced his gaze reluctantly upwards.

After a panicky few seconds where his eyes darted left and right, trying to find anywhere else to set themselves, they finally gave up, and met hers.

She was staring at him, searchingly. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he wasn't expecting that. She didn't seem to be angry, and she didn't seem to be laughing at him. Instead, she was staring piercingly into his eyes, with full and utter earnestness.

After a minute, she spoke.

“James... how old are you?”

Her voice was surprisingly gentle. Doubtful, even. In his surprise, he forgot to be quite so nervous.

“I'm... I'm 19.” He gulped. “I'll be 20 in November.”
Ugh
. He kicked himself inwardly for that. It was something a 9-year-old would have said.

“Nine... teen...”

Brenda seemed to tremble for a second, her eyebrows knitting in some form of consternation. Then, all of a sudden, her face cleared. She sighed, and the worry seemed to be banished from her face. She let out a little laugh, and shrugged.

James noticed her hand wasn't gripping his arm anymore. He looked down to see it drift across his chest, before delicately gathering a fistful of his shirt.

Next thing he knew, he was being pulled downward.

Before he could react, his lips were locked with Brenda's.

It took him some time to realize this was a kiss. It was so much... so much more than he had ever imagined. He had thought it would be something like kissing someone on the cheek – like he had used to do to his mother, when was a kid.

He hadn't known that, unlike cheeks, lips kiss you back.

He had barely adjusted to this new world when, suddenly, but somehow also gracefully, Brenda slipped her tongue into his mouth. It slid past his – a revelation – before retracing its path along it, in, and out. Then she circled herself through his mouth – languidly, taking her deep, slow pleasure.

Her grip at first tightened on his shirt, then clutched at his chest through it, creating little lines of pain and promise.

Slowly – so slowly – her knee rubbed against his, then up along his thigh, and at last – with the force of salvation – between his legs.

BZZZZT
.

The electric doorbell rang, following by three light knocks, and a voice drifted in through the open window.

“Hello? Um... he–llo? Sorry, but may I ask if my husband's here? He said he was just going to come for ten minutes, but he hasn't come back home yet, and...”

Only now did Brenda let go her grip on James' neck, where she'd held him clamped to her for every second of his life that was worth remembering.

“I think you'd better get that, bud.”

James was rooted there, stock still, his mind completely blank. Brenda let out a little snort of laughter, and pushed him in the direction of the front door.

“Oh, and James?”

He turned around mechanically, having automatically shambled a few steps to his destination.

Brenda was in the doorway to the kitchen, where she could easily let herself out through the back door, and into her own home, unnoticed. The vulnerability which he thought he could remember glimpsing a few seconds (minutes? hours?) ago was gone; she was her back to her confident, seemingly all-knowing self.

“If you want to continue our discussion, you can come around my place tomorrow. Early afternoon.”

And with that, she was gone.