Chapter 7

Dorothy Martin decided to take a nap, and when she woke up it was about quarter of six, so she went to the kitchen to prepare a light supper. To her embarrassment, she found her brother already at the kitchen table, eating a hastily improvised meal of warmed-over baked beans, some baked ham and cheese, rye bread and some iced coffee.

"Oh, hi, Kenny," she said nonchalantly as she sauntered in, then walked over to the refrigerator and opened it to inspect a possible menu.

"Hi, yourself, Dottie," Kenneth Martin looked up from his plate and gave her a wry grin. Dorothy Martin flushed uncomfortably. Her brother knew perfectly well she detested that nickname. What had prompted him to use it? As she went back to the cupboard for a plate and then back to the refrigerator to fork a couple pieces of ham, she casually remarked, "You just get home from whatever you were doing?"

Kenneth Martin squinted at his sister, scooped up a forkful of beans and put them to his mouth, chewed them and then countered in a muffled voice, "You just get back from your movie, Dottie?"

"Of course not, stupid! I just got up from a nap, if you have to know. Stop calling me Dottie, you know I don't like it."

"Yeh, I know. I wonder just what you do like, sometimes."

"Now what's that suppose to mean?" she sharply demanded.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Whatever you think it means, I guess. Anyhow, how was that movie? What did you see?"

"Oh, it wasn't very good. I walked out early and I came home and read a book and then I took a nap. There, are you satisfied, Kenneth Martin? You're really getting to be a nuisance, prying around the way you do lately."

"Well, let's just hope it doesn't run in the family. Was the book good?"

"Now stop asking me stupid questions!" Dorothy Martin stamped her foot, her eyes sparkling with irritation. "I could ask you how you spent your afternoon, but I won't. I'm just not interested."

"I bet you would be, though."

Dorothy Martin bit her lips. To pursue the subject would be dangerous, because she had the gnawing fear that maybe, just maybe, her door had been opened enough for him to look in while she had been playing with herself. And if that had been true, then he would have the upper hand over her for fair and it wouldn't do much good to tell him what she'd seen him doing with Dody Brandon.

Discretion was always the better part of valor, so she added in a mollified tone of voice, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump at you. But sometimes you can be the most exasperating brother a girl ever had. Let's just forget about today."

"Well, maybe," he grudgingly conceded. "Anyhow, when do you think the folks will get back?"

"Mother will probably call this evening and let us know how it is with Aunt Alma. But I don't think they'll be gone much past Monday or Tuesday. And they did say we were going to start out for California on our trip just as soon as they got back." She glanced at him, and then her sudden anger at his nosiness led her into the fatal blunder of sarcastically adding, "You're going to have to miss Dody Brandon at least a month. But then, maybe you'll meet another nice girl when we get out to California."

She had the pleasure-although it was just a momentary one-of seeing him turn scarlet and suddenly take an interest in the rest of his baked beans. He swallowed a gulp of iced coffee, banged the glass down and fought for breath. When he regained it, he glanced up at her and grinned crookedly:

"Well at least it's more fun with Dody than it would be all by myself. I imagine the same would go for you, Dottie."

Now it was her turn to gulp and fight for breath and also to try to regain the poise of her greater maturity and age. She turned her back on him and hunted in the refrigerator for a few more items of food which she really didn't want, just to give herself time to regain her poise. Finally she walked over to the table and sat down across from him.

"Well, you know perfectly well that Mother and Dad wouldn't at all care for your going around with a girl like Dody. She's cheap and flashy and she's got a very bad reputation. Everybody says she's an easy mark."

"I don't."

"No?" she couldn't help taunting him again.

"Nope. She's lots of fun to be with, and she's a real swinger. Anyhow, what if she does make out with fellows? Don't you think guys my age have a right to have feelings? I bet you've got your own feelings. Say, come to think of it, I wonder why you never go out on dates with boys? Maybe you don't care for them, huh, Dottie?"

Now she was really blushing, and she was biting her lips furiously in disgust with herself for letting him see how thin-skinned she really was. "It happens to be none of your business," she informed him in the iciest tone she could summon, "and I suggest you just drop the subject entirely. I think it's a good idea that we're going on the trip, because maybe it will give you a different sense of values."

"I could say the same for you, Sis. Maybe you'll meet a guy who will give you a real thrill. Then you won't be so lonesome that you have to coop yourself up in your room and read a book and have fun ... that way." He purposely let a long pause lapse between the words "book" and "that way."

Dorothy Martin thought her heart would stop beating. Then he must have seen her playing with her pussy. Oh dear gosh, whatever was she going to do? The nasty little monster, why, he'd hold that over her head until her grave! To get him off the subject, she nastily countered, "You know, maybe you don't read the newspapers or statistics, but cases of V.D. and lots of unwed mothers are going up all the time. And if a kid like you fools around with a real easy girl like that Dody, first thing you know you might get her into trouble."

"Heck, where have you been the last few years, Dottie?" he was smirking at her in the most insinuating way. "Don't you know they've got pills now that keep girls from having babies? Not only that, down at the drugstore they have cans of spray foam a girl can shoot up into herself and keep from getting a kid. Is that why you don't go out with a guy, Sis, because you're afraid he might give you a kid?"

"You stop that kind of talk or I'll slap your nasty, silly face!" Dorothy Martin exploded, and again her face had gone very red. "I happen to be a decent girl, and I'm saving myself for marriage. I haven't met anybody that I like well enough to give him any privileges with me, do you understand that, Kenny? And if you keep talking like that, I'm going to tell the folks when they get back."

"Yeah, I sort of figured you'd be a real snitch, Dottie," he said disgustedly. "Only just don't forget before you start blabbing what you think you know, maybe I can add a couple of things on the other side of the ledger too."

Now her heart almost stopped beating. "Such as?" she insolently demanded, tossing her head.

But her attitude didn't cow her younger brother. He grinned, to her furious annoyance, and then he said airily, "Oh, nothing. What I know, I know. But me, I'm no snitch, see? I wouldn't say anything unless you said something. So let's call it a draw, Sis. No sense getting both of us into trouble with the folks, they're worried enough about Aunt Alma. Now I think I'm going to a movie tonight. Now, of course, you're not going to tell them I might be a little late."

"Oh?" she faltered, eyeing him as if seeing him for the first time.

"Nope." He shook his head and grinned again. "Because you know we don't have to worry about school anymore and it's a weekend night and I'm a big boy now. Or didn't you notice?"

With that, he got up, lazily stretching himself, and it seemed to his horrified and stunned virginal older sister that he was actually flaunting his crotch by sticking himself out in front of her. The fact was, Kenneth Martin was doing exactly that, just as a sort of subtle reminder to his sister that what was sauce for the goose was certainly sauce and a half for the gander!