momma's pride and joy

Confessions

It was late, a little after ten p.m., when I heard Tim come downstairs. Mama had gone to bed and I was lying on the couch, watching TV alone.

I saw him walk pass, behind the couch and into the kitchen. I got up and headed to where he was and found him in the kitchen, looking in the refrigerator.

"I'll heat up some leftovers for you," I offered.

He turned and looked at me. Smiling, he closed the refrigerator and sat down at the table.

"Thank you."

We didn't say anything else to each other during the time it took for me to heat a plate of meatloaf, potatoes, and corn on the gas stove that was fuled by a giant propane tank that sat on thr side of the house, but I did notice he kept sneaking glances at me from the corner of his eye.

"Milk, water, coke, watermelon soju?" I asked as I placed the heaping plate of food in front of him.

Bamboo soju was something we always requested whenever one of us was asked what we wanted to drink. We didn't really have any, it was just an inside joke between the four of us brothers, that we could share in front of Mama and she had no clue what it meant.

Long story short, about six months ago, Tim aquired (read: shoplifted) a bottle of the bamboo-filtered Korean liquor from the alcohol cooler in her back corner of the local grocery store and all four of us boys shared it. We didn't get a buzz or anything, it was just enough to satisfy our curiosity as to how it tasted. (Like rubbing alcohol poured a lawn mower carburetor.)

Anyways, I said it at this time to get a smile, any reaction out of Tim, but it didn't quite work. All I got was, "Damn sure is a lot of food. Do I look like an elephant."

"No, really? But you did sound a lot like a jackass earlier," I snidely replied.

"Water," he sharply snapped before giving me a quick slap on my butt as I turned towards the cabinet to retrieve a glass.

What the hell, I thought, but didn't show any visible reaction.

After roughly plopping a glass of cold ice water down in front of him, I smiled and in the sweetest, most feminine voice I could muster, I told him to enjoy, then I left to finish getting ready for bed.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I was still bothered, or was it intrigued, by the little exchange in the kitchen. Either way it was confusing. What did that slap on the rear mean? Sure the four of us did things like that and worse, all the time but at that moment, in that situation was it as innocent as my soju comment or something else?

About half an hour later, Tim walked in on me through the half open door of what had unofficially become my bathroom. I had removed my makeup, brushed my teeth, washed by face, and was about to apply a cold cream mask.

Ma had told me I need to start doing that every night, to make my skin soft and supple. 

Embarrassed, I turned my eyes away from his and looked into the large mirror over the vanity.

"Oh, I thought you'd done gone to bed already and just forgot to turn the light off," he murmured unconvincingly.

I looked over at him through the mirror as he continued to stand there, making no attempt to leave.

Having removed his shirt somewhere between the kitchen and here, he was now shirtless in his unbuttoned jeans. Timmy stood a foot taller than me at 6' 1", clean-cut, muscular, unshaven, tan, a real good-looking guy. I had always looked up to him and often wondered if I'd look as good as him when I matured.

He looked at me and I quickly refocused my gaze back at my own reflection: a slender, petite, feminine-looking boy, with wavy hair below my shoulders and tendrils of feminine curls draped down one side of my face.