Jim sat in his room, aggressively moving his hand as images of rough sex flashed across the screen.
Karen opened the door, laughed bitterly, and muttered “Your sister’s here.”
“Just... Give me... A second...”
She closed the door and Jim finished, wiping it up with a tissue.
He went to the bathroom across the hall, washed his hands, and stared at himself in the mirror in shame.
He was red in the face, breathing heavily. His eyes had bags under them, and his forehead was coarse with wrinkles. He had no laugh wrinkles.
He opened the door, realizing that Karen’s stupid “fancy” door knob jammed in the doorframe. He threw his weight against it, which wasn’t much, but it was enough to bust the door open and cut a bit of the frame.
Karen met him in the hallway, walking with him down the stairs.
“You take longer to finish when you’re staring at a woman with fake boobs and chlamydia,” she muttered, as though she was spitting acid.
“Maybe that should tell you something.”
She would’ve said something, but they walked downstairs and Jim greeted his sister with a hug. She had brought a dog, which Don and Lily were playing with on the couch.
“Stop hogging the dog, you fag!”
“LILY!”
Karen’s eyes were wild; she hated it when the children misbehaved, but only cared to point it out in the company of other people.
Don stuck his tongue out at his sister and continued to rub the Yorkie’s belly, delighted by the love the small creature had for him.
“It just doesn’t love you,” he spat at Lily.
“That’s fine. I’d rather be loved by Cameron than by some stupid little mutt.”
Jim shot Lily a glare, keen to his sister’s discomfort.
“So how’s David?”
His sister smiled.
“He’s doing good. We went out the other night, and it was nice, you know? It felt like when we were dating, which was great.”
He nodded, feeling a pang of sadness in his heart.
Karen smiled.
“Yeah, Jim and I went out last night too. We went to dinner with some friends of ours.”
“Not mine, particularly, but... You know, people we know.”
His sister laughed, but Karen shot him a glare.
“It was... Nice, wasn’t it, Jim?”
“I suppose.”
Lily turned her attention from the dog and looked at her father.
“Do you guys even have lives?”
Jim shrugged.
“Not particularly.”
His sister laughed, but Karen just nodded with pursed lips.
Karen looked at Jim.
“Oh, honey, do you know that appointment book I keep?”
He nodded.
“Well, I went through it. I found seven couples who’ve divorced since. Seven! Can you imagine that? That’s so... Sad.”
“Maybe they were unhappy.”
“They should’ve tried to work it out!”
Jim shrugged and walked over to the dog, rubbing his belly.
“Oh, you like all this attention, don’t you little guy?”
“Yeah, he’s a little attention whore,” his sister said.
Don looked up.
“Like Lil!”
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Karen yelled “HEY!”
Jim kept rubbing the dog’s belly, watching him kick his tiny legs.
“I’d like all the attention too. I really would.”
