Slowly, but surely, it was all coming together.
My room was my current project, but I had hit a snag with, well, money for the new furniture. I would get there eventually. Then I would do the renovation of the bathroom.
"Don't try to act like you're not disappointed. You can put on a good show, but these here walls are thin," she said, waving her book around in the air. "I hear those good vibrations when you get a letter. You want that bad boy D. And, well, who wouldn't? Just think of the solid dicking you would get after six years of abstinence in prison. You wouldn't walk right for two weeks. Man, maybe I should get me a Prison Blues Hottie of my very own."
My sister was, well, a character.
We had been raised in a very, ah, what's the nice word here, conservative household where we were taught abstinence-only education, had purity pledges (ha!), weren't allowed to wear any shorts shorter than our knees or any tank tops at all. We had eight o'clock curfews all through high school where we weren't allowed to wear makeup, listen to inappropriate music, or, of course, date.
To say we had rebelled would be the understatement of the century.
My cherry got popped at barely sixteen; my sister followed suit.
We bought makeup that we hoarded under floorboards like contraband in a fascist dictatorship.
At eighteen, my ass had high-tailed it out of there into a shitty apartment with a shitty boyfriend.
A few years later, as I was just about ready to open my store, my sister moved out and joined me.
She promptly pierced her ears and nose, tatted her arms and chest, and colored her hair like a mermaid.
Peyton was, well, the best roommate you could ask for.
And the best sister there was on the planet.
It had never really even occurred to either of us to live apart. It simply worked. Men came and went, all of us either fitting comfortably, or us spending more time at their apartments. I worked mostly days; Peyton worked mostly nights. Someone was always around for Coop.
It was the best arrangement.
But, ah, yeah, Peyton was not the kind of sister or friend to have all kinds of limits. No topic of discussion was off the table, from dick size to period products, we discussed it all. As far as I was concerned, nothing in the whole damn world would ever be half as funny as Peyton discussing her misadventures with a Diva Cup after having half a bottle of Citron vodka in her system. There were props involved. Including ketchup. And she had made a 'Flo' chart, the name of which made her laugh until she almost peed her pants.
She had been right there beside me on the couch watching Oz, cheering on the eye-gouging and stabbing and hangings. See, where I cringed at violence, Peyton loved it. She watched all the shows my stomach couldn't handle that everyone else in the world adored. From Sons of Anarchy to Game of Thrones, she was my own little story teller. She would watch the episodes, then tell them to me, going light on the murder and rape stuff she knew I couldn't handle. Her love of gore and horror extended most extensively to her book collection. You wouldn't believe the stuff these twisted psychos come up with, she once gushed, talking about why she chose to read indie over traditional. No way would any publishing house touch this content.
If there was a single person in the world who I could hide absolutely nothing from, it was Peyton.
So there was no use even trying to deny that I was disappointed about the sudden lack of contact.
"I hope he didn't get killed or something."
"He's probably in the hole," she tried to comfort, in her very Peyton-way - meaning a bit matter-of-fact and aloof even on a heavy subject. "That should get the vibe going don't you think?"
"Ah, how so?"
"You know," she said, climbing off the couch, lips twitching. "In a cell. Naked. Nothing to do but jerk-off. Likely to the memory of you. That's some hot shit right there."
Okay, maybe it was mildly hot.
Maybe the image of him naked with his hard cock in his hand was, well, scorching. But, for me, the whole punishment in a cold, dark, damp cell somewhere kind of ruined the image for me.
Not for my sister, mind you, because that was just her kind of twisted.
But for me.
I would definitely rather he be in a cell jerking off than dead, though, so I had to hold onto that, erm, hope.
It shouldn't have mattered.
He was just some dude who got arrested, who occasionally wrote me letters in his detached way, who had a really pain in the ass, but wholly lovable, dog that I happened to adopt.
What we had was a whole lot of little nothings.