Page 9 of Longing for the Minotaur
CHAPTER
FOUR
BANON
Fuck. God damn it.
I really need to go back to the folks’ house. I took all of Thanksgiving week off work, which was pretty hard to negotiate, and now I’m spending it at my apartment alone. Rich has gone back to Minnesota to see his own family, so it’s just me here, eating pizza and then leftover pizza, then making mac ’n’ cheese from a box and eating leftover mac ’n’ cheese from a box.
But I don’t want to go back. Seeing Tina’s face again after how we left it would ruin me.
I know I hurt her, but I’m just trying to get her tosee. If only she knew how I felt about her, she wouldn’t insist that we’re family. If she knew even half the things I think about her, she would never look at me the same way again.
I can’t have that. We’re hanging on by a thread, and even that thread is fraying the longer I stay away.
Finally, it’s Thanksgiving morning, and I’m out of excuses. I have to go to the house and face her after what I said, what she surely thinks I meant.
I take a long shower, where I think only about Tina, about her tiny waist and perfect hips, her big, bouncy tits and adorable smile. It’s true, she doesn’t smile as often now as she did when she was younger. I wonder how much high school wore her down in my absence.
That slows my hand down where I’ve been stroking myself under the hot water. I really didn’t know what they were doing to her in my name. When I was in college… well, I was getting as far away from Tina as possible.
Yeah. I didn’t visit. I was nineteen and had a thing for my fifteen-year-old stepsister. It was fucked up, and I knew I needed to keep my distance. Let her be herself without my influence, try to disentangle myself as much as I could.
In the meantime, I left her to the wolves that are high school students. Yeah, I was getting pussy at the time, and lots of it. But that was so I could fuckingforgetabout her.
I speed up my strokes again, running my hand over my cock from the thick root to the blunt tip. How many times have I imagined Tina in her swimsuit on our Cancún trip last year, where she was playing in the water like a dolphin?
Dozens of times, the sick fuck that I am.
After my shower, I finish my energy drink and pick up the bag of groceries Mom instructed me to bring, then head out to the car.
When I arrive, Mom and Fred both hold up their arms and hug me. Fred’s a good guy, truly. I’m happy Mom found him after losing my dad. But Fred isn’tmydad and never will be.
Tina—I mean, Val, I really am trying to get it right—stands off to one side, scrolling on her phone. She doesn’t even look up when I come in.
“I’m going to start on the sweet potato pie now, Marissa,” she calls out as she heads to the kitchen. “Get the prep out of the way so that it’s just ready to go in and cook later.”
“All right, honey!” Mom calls after her, and I cringe at the endearment. But then my mother grabs me by the hand and tugs me off to one side of the door while Fred heads after his daughter.
“Banon,” she says in a strict tone, “whatever you said to Valentina, I want you to apologize.”
I gape at my mom. What does she know? What did Val say?
“I have nothing to?—”
“It’s not my business,” she says quickly. “But the two of you aren’t going to ruin Thanksgiving by being all pouty and fighting. I need you to patch things up with Val before dinner. Do you get me?”
My mom is usually a pretty nice, easygoing minotaur. Usually. Not so much when it comes to Thanksgiving, I guess.
“All right, I get you,” I say, rubbing my horn. “I’ll figure it out.”
“That’s my boy.” She ruffles my hair as if I’m still five years old. “Maybe go for a walk with her and sort it out.”
Of course, she thinks a nice walk is the answer to everything.
It’s only a few minutes later that Mom says, “Oh, gosh, I forgot condensed milk.” She turns to me. “Banon, will you please go down to the store and get some?”
I see her cue and sigh. “Fine.”
