Free Fish in the Sky by Fridrik Erlings Page B

she wants to watch TV when she’s home, then she is to sit in that chair,” I add.
    “It wasn’t labeled,” she says, like it’s none of her business. “Where is she, anyway?”
    “She cleans on Tuesday nights,” I say, and try to make it sound as if Mom has to work harder because Gertrude is now living with us.
    “Cleaning! Christ! I would never do that,” she mutters into the magazine.
    I’m coloring the shadow on my drawing of the snake. For a while there’s silence, apart from the occasional sigh and the sound of her chewing gum. Then she stops leafing through the magazine, and I can feel a tingling in the hairs on the back of my neck. It must be because she’s looking at me.
    “Do you have a girlfriend?”
    The pencil stops in front of me, and the sharp point is right under the stone-carved eye of the snake. I clench my jaw and lower my head closer to the book, determined to act as if I didn’t hear the question.
    “Are you deaf?”
    This remark is followed by a light kick to my right calf. She has positioned herself in the chair so that she can poke me in the legs and the backs of my thighs with her toes. Then she starts to chew on this joke as she chews the poison-pink gum. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her black-painted toenails dangling over the side of the chair.
    “Joshy boy? Got a girlfriend, huh? Tell cousin Trudy. Joshy Woshy boy? Girlfriend?”
    Poke in leg, poke in thigh, poke in leg.
    “Stop it,” I say, trying hard to keep calm.
    “Still a virgin boy, boy? No dirty thoughts yet?”
    I climb to my feet, black with anger, holding the book,
Life and Creation,
tight to my chest, like armor. I don’t realize what I’ve said until I’ve already blurted out a damn good insult.
    “Shut up, Gert-Rude.”
    First the magazine comes flying in the direction of my head — an immensely thick catalog, as a matter of fact — and I duck just in time to avoid it. Then comes my cousin, full force, with all her claws stretched out, hissing in the air, jumping on me, knocking me to the floor like nothing and sitting astride me. I notice she’s wearing black lacy underwear. She grabs my wrists, pinning them to the floor. This girl knows how to fight; I’m stuck in a vise. She’s much stronger than she looks. I could possibly shake myself loose by thrusting my hips upward. But somehow it doesn’t feel appropriate. I’m a victim, stuck in a trap, and it’s a curiously exciting feeling that shoots from my head down into my crotch. Her face is close to mine, and her breasts, large and heavy, swing gently back and forth under the sweater so I can almost see them above the rim of the open neck. She hooks her long legs around my feet so I can’t move except for my head.
    “Well, then,” she pants. “Want a little fight, boy?”
    I try to break loose, but I don’t want to get free just yet. Her earring is dangling at my face. I could bite it and rip it out of her ear. Her dark hair falls over my face and tickles my nose. I try to move to the side, but it’s hopeless.
    “Don’t get too excited,” she purrs, and arranges herself on top of me. The two hills under her sweater rise and fall, and I can smell the sweet fragrance up from the open neck. The smell is quite different when she’s put it on, much warmer and sweeter.
    “Now, I won’t let you go until you’ve had a proper kiss,” she says.
    I react immediately, trying to break free, but she spits her chewing gum on the carpet and sticks out her lips, kissing the air between our faces. This is the sickest and most disgusting situation I’ve ever known, but at the same time so exciting, so exhilarating. I’ve never felt such a powerful tingling inside of me. It shoots down my thighs and out of the soles of my feet, on one hand, and on the other it runs up into my head and out of my ears.
    She’s trying very hard to kiss me on the lips, but I jerk my head to the sides so her kisses fall on my cheeks, my neck, my ears. I scream and