The Man of the House

Chapter 26

That night, I ate with my family again. I had followed her directions, and the food ended up edible enough. She had picked something simple that was hard to screw up. I had texted her a few times after. I was giving her various levels of apology while trying to beg her to keep helping me. I even offered to come to her place instead. I didn’t want to come off as too desperate, but I also wasn’t willing to sit back and do nothing either. It ended with her telling me she’d think about it.

“Who are you texting?” A voice across from me asked.

“What does it have to do with you?” I snapped back before I could stop myself.

Mackenzie blinked, a bit surprised at my words. I immediately regretted saying them. It was the kind of things my sisters used to say to me back before the switch. I decided that’s what I was going to call it, the switch. It had been five days since the switch. It was now Thursday night. In three days, I would need to go back to school myself and deal with the consequences.

Before I could say anything, Kelsey barked a laugh. “That’s more like the Noah I remember. I was afraid his brain was permanently broken. I think London will be happy to hear he’s returning to normal.

So, that was how I treated my sisters in the past. They had said I was cold and mean to them. I didn’t mean to snap, but I was a bit frustrated and confused after finding out Mackenzie had used to bully other kids. Maybe it was some kind of mistake. Maybe she was just taking an innocuous action as something more meaningful? Either way, I couldn’t shake a sense of irritation deep inside me.

Mom spent her time reading news on her phone, while the rest of us ate in silence. It was only half of us anyway. Both Bethany and Kristy were busy and would show up later. When I finished eating, I stood up and started heading toward my room. Just as I was entering my door, I felt a tug on my shirt. I looked back to see Mackenzie standing there, looking awkward.

“Noah, I won’t tell mom or London about that girl you had over today.” She said, not looking directly at me.

“Oh? Um… thanks, I guess.” I didn’t really feel like saying it, but I didn’t want to get stuck talking to her either.

“Noah…” She didn’t let go of my shirt, pulling even tighter. “That girl, Abigail… I don’t want you hanging out with her.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s…” She glanced down. “Just, don’t hang out with her, okay? Listen to your sister with this one thing, aright?”

“…” I stared at her, not sure what to say to that.

Of course, I planned to ignore her. Was she afraid of her former bullying? Did she think that if I talked to her enough, I’d find out about Mackenzie’s past? Well, it was too late for that. Abigail was kind of nice, and she was teaching me to cook. Meanwhile, Mackenzie had been a girl who had bullied and tortured me for my entire life. The more I thought about it, the more I found it strange if she hadn’t been a bully. After all, she had bullied me my entire life! I ripped my arm away from her and closed the door.

She didn’t stop me, only watching until the door blocked her vision. I went to bed and killed time playing around on the internet. I wanted to go to Dawn’s room, but I didn’t want to raise Mackenzie’s suspicion. She was already acting like some kind of guard dog. I didn’t need to give her any other reasons.

When it got close to the time, I was growing anxious. I needed to sneak out of the house without being seen. Dawn said that such a thing was easy for her, but that the girls would notice if I left. I did the old trick of leaving something in my bed, so it looked like I was asleep in it. After that, I put on a sweater with the hood up and baggy clothing. I was kind of excited, but also a bit worried. After all, I had never done anything like this before, at least not when I had given myself time to think about it.

I was going to meet up with my sister and a strange girl, all so that my sister could record us having sex. There was no way I could have predicted my life would have ended up in this state.

I managed to make it out the door without making very much noise or running into anyone. It was just before 10. I made it a few steps away from the home when I heard a noise behind the bushes. I froze and glanced over only to see Dawn poke her head out from behind them. She was dressed in all black and even had her face covered like she was a ninja.

“Seriously?”

“Shhhh!” She hissed, and then looked both ways before running and grabbing my arm, pulling me down next to her.

I crouched as she directed, but I didn’t make any effort to hide behind the bush. Instead, I glanced down at her while rolling my eyes.

“Shouldn’t we just go?”

“You see that neighbor over there? He’s a busy body! If he looks out his window while we’re walking away, he’ll definitely tell the whole neighborhood!” Dawn insisted.

“Then, aren’t we even more suspicious behind this bush?”

“You… I’m trying to protect your image!”

“Speaking of images, you have your camera and everything?”

“Y-yes! Of course! What do you take me for, an amateur?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Agh… brother… don’t’ wound me so!” She made an exaggerated hurt look, but then a moment later, she glanced at me more seriously. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Of course…” I snorted, ignoring the nervousness bubbling beneath the surface.

“It’s really hard to accept,” She spoke half to herself. “I’ve always fantasized about this. I can’t believe it’s about to come true.”

“You’ve always fantasized about filming your bother having sex with a girl off the internet?”

“N-no!” She blushed. “I mean… I’ve always wanted to film something like this. It’s not sexual! I swear! I won’t masturbate over it, I promise!”

She reached out and grabbed my hands. I suddenly had the urge to smell them and see if she had properly washed them recently.

“It’s not that I mind if you do? I could even help…”

“Even if you say that…” She let go of my hands. “I don’t know if I believe what you said, but as everyone said, it’s true. You really are different.”

“You’re not.”

“Eh? You’re saying boy me acts like a total perve too?” Her eyes widened in shock.

“It’s not that. You’re still a girl. It’s just, ah, nevermind.” I shook my head. “I mean the way you acted. You stayed in your room. You were standoffish. I used to never know what you were thinking about.”

“Aren’t you the same way?” She asked, an awkward expression on her face.

“No. Not really. At least, not in that world. I acted like I am now. Hey, I wonder if in that world you were closet one of those fifty shade of grey fan fiction fanatics. Like, you wrote trashy romance fan fictions about a boy band or something. I recall that you read twilight and were way too into it for a while. It was the last time I saw your passionate about anything.”

“Twilight?” She made a face, “I don’t watch such garbage! I mean, that werewolf girl was shirtless showing off her big chest the entire movie, and that girl with the sparkly vagina? How could I be into that gay shit.”

“I seem to remember it differently,” I responded absently. “Remind me to Netflix that stuff when I get back.”

“Brother is so weird…” She muttered under her breath and then looked up excitedly. “There, we can go! He’s in the bathroom! It’ll take him at least fifteen minutes.”

I looked over at Dawn and raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“What? He has slow bowel movements?”

“Why do you know so much about our neighbor across the street?” I finished the question.

She shrugged uncomfortably, “That’s not important. Rather, I saved us! If he saw you sneaking out, he would cause trouble, I’m certain!”

“Okay, whatever…”

I decided it was better not to ask any more questions about that. Instead, I simply nodded and started following her. The pair of us left the area behind the bushes of our house and began to walk down the street. Once we left the safety of the lights in front of our house, I began to look around anxiously.

“So, where are we heading?”

“We’re going to their house,” Dawn responded, looking out ahead into the darkness.

“Really?” I blinked, suddenly remembering every warning ever about meeting someone over the internet.

“Don’t worry. You got me here.” She gave me a reassuring smile that didn’t reassure me at all.

After all, I probably was twice her size. In a fight, I’d be the one protecting her. I still thought that would be the case, even if it was a girl that was the aggressor. I wasn’t sure if I could hit a girl, but I supposed that depended on how hard she hit me. I definitely wouldn’t stand by if someone was hitting me hard enough that I felt threatened.  

“Besides…” Dawn continued, snapping me out of my thoughts. “She’s actually really close by. It turns out she is my age.”

“Oh, really? Do you know who it is?”

I felt a lot better all of a sudden. If it had been some sixty-year-old nasty woman, I wasn’t sure if I’d go through with it. Although I jumped into it, I still had some limits.

“Peepshow69,” Dawn answered me with a snort.

I rolled my eyes and shot her a glare. That didn’t help at all. Well, it was unlikely I would know her even if she was 17 or 18. She probably wasn’t very hot. That was the thing I kept having to mentally prepare myself for. Dawn, although nerdy, would actually clean up well and be a very cute girl. Her hair was dirty, she didn’t use makeup, she had big black-framed glasses, but she was still a beautiful girl. Other creeps wouldn’t be that attractive. I couldn’t imagine someone who takes naughty photos of people without them seeing would be a good person.

We ended up slowing to a stop. It was a two-story house that actually looked a bit nicer than my own. It was only a few blocks away. Dawn was right. This woman lived really close to us. There were two cars in the driveway, but all of the lights in the house were out. I started going up the driveway when Dawn hissed at me.

“What are you doing?” She asked, heading up the side of the house.

“Huh? Isn’t this the place?”

She shook her head as if I was an idiot, another thing I was used to seeing from her. “I said she’s my age. Her parents own the house! How do you think we can shoot a porn there?”

“I don’t know… maybe they work overseas, and she has the place to herself!”

“Hah… someone watches too much anime!”

I blushed, quickly jogging to join her. The pair of us went along a path in the back of the house, which ultimately led to a large shed. In this case, the light of the shed was definitely on. Upon seeing the place where we were going to do this, my anxiety started to return again.

“Are we sure about this? This feels very serial killer-like?”

“Will you stop being such a boy? Just come on!” She shot me a dirty look.

I sighed and followed her the rest of the way to the door. Just as we reached it, I could hear something unlocking, and then the door opened. There were a lot of lights from floodlights pointing down. Perhaps this was peepshows attempt at doing film lighting. The result was that as soon as the door opened, I was blinded for a moment. With my hand in front of my eyes, I tried to squint past the floodlight pointed at the door and toward the figure in it. When I finally recognized them, my mouth fell open.

“Abigail…”

Abigail was standing there, wearing a pair of overalls and nothing underneath. The straps of the overalls came up over her bare breasts, just covering the nipple, but revealing all the fatty skin around it. Her hair was done up in pigtails, and she had even put makeup on. It was an extremely alluring look.

“Hey, Noah… so we meet again.” She gave a light smile.