Page 19 of Van Cort

BEFORE

WEST – AGE FOURTEEN

The atmosphere was tense. West didn’t fully understand why, because they were all supposed to be friends, but months had gone by since that afternoon in the music room when the violin got broken and Rhett had been peculiar ever since.

It was amusing and intriguing to West.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew what was happening under the surface with his brother because the same thing was happening to him, too. Lara was a girl, and boys and girls weren’t meant to just be friends. The birds and the bees and all that. But why wasn’t Rhett doing something about it?

She had run home on that day, but it didn’t take much to bring her back.

One week passed by before West went and got her again, apologising for the incident.

Rhett scowled when she met them down by the lake, but West wasn’t losing something he wanted because his brother was acting like a dick.

Besides, the whole situation was entertaining.

She was. And watching Rhett act like someone he wasn’t was better than anything else going on in the place.

Their life without Lara in it was boring.

Yes, they were more intelligent than her, and yes, they definitely were way past her in terms of schooling and languages, but a girl brought something they couldn’t get from any of the old women here who were paid to look after them. She brought the opportunity for sex.

For a pair of twins that were so attuned – so similar – they were miles apart when it came to dealing with a girl. Rhett was far too serious and far too full of friction and doubt. He should smile more – or jerk off more. West wasn’t sure which.

And why didn’t they talk about it?

He made a decision, after that morning at the lake where they all made friends again, that they should discuss who was having her first. Or even if they should share.

He hoped it wouldn’t end up with him being beaten up by Rhett again, because that was what had happened the last time that kind of energy was in a room with them.

It hurt.

But weeks went past, and he couldn’t find the right time to bring the subject up.

Winter turned to summer, their fourteenth birthday passed by, and they all fell into their normal pattern again.

They hung out, and they had their lessons in the music room, and they swam in the lake and laughed and found some kind of mutual relationship between them all.

Eventually, though, West’s own energy got the better of him.

He was, after all, a young man now. That’s what Mrs Avery called him when she was sober enough to recognise the difference between him and Rhett, anyway.

“Stop smirking at me, young man.”

Rhett never smirked about anything.

West did.

“Where’s Rhett gone?” Lara asked, as she walked from the lake and scraped her hair back.

West ruffled his own hair with a towel. “To get some drinks.”

She nodded and looked across the lawn to the house, closing her eyes for a minute to soak up the sun. “You’re so lucky to live somewhere like this. All the girls are mad with jealousy that I get to be here with you both.” They were? “I think it’s the only thing that makes me cool.”

She wasn’t cool. She was gorgeous. Just like some of those models West had seen online.

Long legs and not an inch of excess anything on her, other than breasts.

He really liked her breasts. He skimmed his gaze over her, dipping his eyes away from looking at her for too long.

He wanted to, though. He wanted to look at her all day.

And he wanted to touch her, too, and take that blue swimming costume from her body.

So much so that he dropped the towel into his lap to hide his growing erection.

“Is Rhett bringing food?” she asked, as she looked for him in the distance. West didn’t know, or care. He was infatuated and there was no way of stopping it. The last thing he was interested in was Rhett. Or food. Or Lara wanting Rhett rather than him.

“You look really pretty today,” he said quietly. Lara turned back to him quickly, her mouth open. He looked down again, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“I do?” she asked. He nodded and looked out at the lake, part wishing he was on that island so he could disappear.

“Thanks. I don’t think I’m pretty, though.

Melissa Renkins, at school, you know, the town clerk’s daughter?

Now, she’s pretty. All the boys are trying to get with her.

” She walked over and sat on the large rock next to him. “Why do you think I’m pretty today?”

West kept looking away from her. “Pretty every day.”

She bumped his shoulder with hers and laughed lightly. “Sweet.”

He frowned and looked back at her; he wasn’t sure his feelings were full of anything sweet.

They were unclear, and they made him think of doing things to her that weren’t always kind.

He had visions of her under him, of her out of breath and panting.

She clawed into his skin when he thought like that, and she fought with him sometimes, like she didn’t enjoy what was happening.

“Have you kissed anyone yet?” she asked.

He shook his head and looked at her lips. “You?”

“No. A few boys have tried at school, but—” West leaned in and cut her off, landing his lips on hers awkwardly. She froze, as did he, but they both stayed where they were until she pulled back a bit and looked at him. This was it. They’d kissed.

He smiled, she did, too, and then they both moved forward into each other again. It was better that time. Softer.

She put her hands on his wet shoulders, and he put his fingers on her cheek.

It all felt right and natural and not as confusing as West thought it might.

But he ached, down there, and he shuffled closer slightly to try licking her with his tongue.

She did the same. It was everything – everything West had ever thought it might be and better.

He wanted to do more, and wanted to put her hands lower on him to touch his ache, or even move his lower on her.

“Get the hell off her,” suddenly shouted in the air.

Lara pulled back and swung her head around at Rhett’s interruption, jumping off the rock at the same time.

Rhett looked red and angry, full of loathing like their father looked sometimes.

West didn’t know how to handle him in this mood, and he didn’t know where to put himself either.

He stood and looked at Rhett, as he stormed towards them, and took a few steps in Lara’s direction.

She was grabbing for a towel and wrapping it around her.

“We were just messing around,” she murmured. “It didn’t mean anything.” West’s face pitched at her. It didn’t mean anything? It meant everything to him, and she was calling it nothing? He didn’t like that at all.

Rhett glared at her and then at West. “Go home, Lara.”

“Why?” she snapped.

“Because I said so.”

“No. You’re being stupid. It was just a kiss. I can kiss who I want.”

Rhett started getting closer to her, like he might touch her. West didn’t know how, or where, or even if he should stop his brother, but he stepped in between them to create a barrier.

“You should go,” West said.

She frowned at him and looked at Rhett again.

“I don’t have to do what you say, Rhett.

” West thought, in the briefest of moments, that maybe she did.

Maybe she had to do what both of them said, but especially Rhett.

Maybe that was the answer to making this less tense.

Rhett liked rules, and maybe if she followed them rather than antagonised him, they’d all get what they wanted.

“Go home,” Rhett said again. “If you want to come back here, go home now. I mean it, Lara. Do as you’re fucking told.” West’s eyes widened. He’d never heard his brother curse around Lara before.

She didn’t reply. She stared at them both, narrowed her eyes, and finally picked up her rucksack, huffed, and walked away.

West watched her go, as did Rhett, until she eventually turned into the forest and wasn’t in sight anymore.

He looked at his brother, shook his head, and went back for the towel and the drinks Rhett had brought down with him.

He popped the cap off the soda and sat on his rock again, gazing out at the lake.

It was time for the conversation.

“You had no fucking right,” Rhett snarled.

West sneered to himself. “I had every right. You took too long. I was bored waiting.”

“Screw you.”

“Stop getting pissy because I kissed her first,” West said, before taking a long gulp.

“You could have done it, but you overthought it.” Rhett didn’t say, or do, anything.

He just stood back there quietly, maybe waiting for more conversation on the matter or trying to calm down.

“I wanted to kiss her. I did. Get over it.” Not that she seemed to care about what they’d done.

It didn’t mean anything to her, apparently.

“Or kiss her, too. That’s what you want, isn’t it? ”

There was a rustle of gravel behind him, like the last bit made Rhett think.

It made West think, too. It made him think of all the times Rhett got in the way of their father to make sure he took the hits, not West. It didn’t always work, but most times it did.

It was the reason Rhett had a T-shirt on today for swimming with Lara, to hide the bruises.

He felt guilty about that, but moreover, he felt a desperate sense of loyalty to the one person he knew he could rely on.

Rhett would never let him down, never hurt him.

He frowned, though. “Pretty sure we both want more than a kiss, don’t we?” West continued. “If your head’s anything like mine, we both want to have sex with her. We both could. You should have her first.”

A few minutes of silence, of West looking out at clear, blue water and clear, blue skies and an expanse of nothing other than them and sun, and Rhett came over and sat next to him.

West reached for another bottle of soda and took the cap off it, handing it over.

“She knows the difference between us,” Rhett said. “We can’t play with her like that.”

“Why not? It’s not like she means anything to us. We can do whatever we want, and usually get whatever we want, too, don’t we? We can share. Doesn’t bother me.”

Rhett looked at him, and a smile started breaking on his face. “Both of us. We both get to have her, and she knows?”

“Yeah.”

“I doubt she’d do that. I’m not sure she even likes me.”

“She does.” West knew she did, even if Rhett didn’t.

He knew because he watched her look at Rhett and saw her twirl her hair and suck the end of her finger sometimes while she did.

Sometimes it pissed him off. Other times, it made him imagine that bad stuff.

“She wants you more than me, brother. I just kissed her first.”

They both sat and stared, thinking.

In the end, they didn’t need to talk it through any more than that.

Sharing was the easiest answer for two young men who liked the same girl, and they both knew it.

It wouldn’t result in them fighting, and although both of them knew it wasn’t normal out there in the world to do that with a girl, they weren’t normal.

They were twins, practically the same person, but for a few moralistic and characteristic differences.

And West was sure those differences were only there because of their father’s behaviour and the beatings Rhett took.

They were in a world of their own. Why shouldn’t they change the rules to suit themselves?

She just had to agree and everything would be perfect.

“I’ll go kiss her then,” Rhett said.

West nodded and drank some more. He’d kiss her again, too.

Maybe they’d both kiss her at the same time.

Maybe they’d make her do all kinds of things for them.

Rhett definitely would once he stopped overthinking.

He was harsher than West, more stern, and West thought, as he continued staring, that maybe with some fun thrown in he could help heal Rhett somehow.

Maybe that would cool him down. Make him laugh again.

“She doesn’t have to know which one of us is which sometimes. That might be fun,” West mused.

“Fun?”

“Yeah. Fun.”

Rhett rumbled a low laugh. “Sounds complicated.”

“Yeah, like I said, fun.”