Estranged Siblings:>Ep2

The thump of the front door pulled Andre from the depths of sleep and a really hot dream. He stretched and enjoyed the tingles going through his body. He opened his eyes, and they immediately began tracing the thin cracks in the cheap plaster above as he thought of how Cassandra hated it. He sighed.

He looked down and saw he'd kicked the sheets off. He also noticed he was at full mast and poking straight up.

SHIT!

He looked to the door, and a jolt of guilt and fear shot through him. Did she see?

Andre desperately didn't want to offend Cassandra. When she took him in two years ago, he'd been in a horrible place in his life, and she'd saved him. He owed her so much, and he needed her! When she let him live with her in her small apartment, he immediately worked on making himself useful to her.

He cleaned the apartment, made the meals, did their laundry, and shopped for their groceries. These were skills his last stepmother had trained him to do.

His mind tried to shy away from memories of Gloria. While she'd been his third mother, she'd had the largest impact on his life.

To discipline his errant thoughts, he got up and made the bed before folding it back into its sofa configuration. Cushions back in place and throw pillows positioned and fluffed, he grabbed a pair of fresh underwear from his bureau and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

Tugging his sleep shorts off, he saw he was still partially erect, and his mind went back to the dream he'd been having before waking. He felt a familiar throb, and his cock began rising once more. He stepped into the shower and tried ignoring it as he washed his hair and body, but it wouldn't be denied.

He took himself in hand and stroked slowly as he allowed his mind to return to the guilty images of Cassandra in a tight t-shirt and her yoga pants. His hands ached to touch those delicious curves. He braced himself against the wall as his hand moved faster and faster until he groaned and felt the release explode through his senses.

As he panted, his guilt came crashing down on him for thinking of his sister in that way.

He couldn't explain why she affected him like she did. All he could do was try to keep these feelings to himself and show his appreciation of her in every way he could.

He stepped from the shower, dried off, and tugged on his underwear. Then he cleaned and tidied the bathroom until it sparkled.

Andre walked back to the living room and got dressed for school. He pulled a black, long-sleeved t-shirt from his drawer and put it on, lifting his hair free of the shirt. Then he tugged on some black sport-socks and his baggy black jeans. Home was the only place where he didn't keep his body hidden. His bulky black hoodie on the hook by the door would go over the tight t-shirt.

Moving to the kitchen, he made himself a slice of peanut butter toast and wolfed it down. He unplugged his cell and checked it for messages. There was one call from his boss, Travis, asking him if he could work the Saturday shift in two days. It was a typical last-minute request from him, but he called the man to leave a message accepting the shift as the money was welcome.

He worked part-time in the stock room of a big-box electronics store and was doing his best to become indispensable to his boss. He'd assisted the man in reorganizing the inventory to make it easier to find, easier to collect with heavier items on the lower shelves, and the most popular items in the easiest to access bins they called their trending area. Whenever a new shipment was scheduled to arrive, Travis made sure he called Andre in to restock the back shelves. Sometimes, Andre would do closing to midnight shifts to fill the gaps in the store shelves. He was fast, meticulous, and efficient.

His employer didn't know that Andre had compulsions that drove him to organize and arrange things in precise ways, and he didn't spend his work hours socializing because he couldn't. Relating to people was something Andre struggled with, so he did the work and went home.

He stuffed his cell in a pocket and his keys in the other before heading back to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Once ready, he grabbed his hoodie, slipped it on, slung his school backpack over his shoulder, and put on his black work boots. He left the apartment and locked it up. His earbuds were pulled from the sweater's pocket, connected to his cell, and popped into his ears before he began walking. His music was a mix of Heavy, Gothic, Thrash, Death, and Black Metal. He found it helped calm his mind, keeping it occupied and distracted from the zillions of other inputs pouring in. With the beat of Metallica's Creeping Death providing the soundtrack, he left the building and walked to school.

The sun warmed his face as he went, and the breeze carried the smell of exhaust, cooking, flowers, and less appealing odors. A young boy ran across the street ahead, a car revved its engine behind, sunlight flashed off the chrome rims of a bicycle passing by, and birds chirped. These and dozens of other sensory inputs vied for Andre's immediate attention.

When he was much younger, this torrent of information would overwhelm him, and he'd hide in the basement. It was on such a day that Cassandra saved him for the first time. He felt the pressure building and cried when he discovered his father had locked the basement door. Cassandra feared her father would punish him for his bawling, so she dragged him behind the big chair in the corner of the living room, wrapped her arms around him, and held him tight against her body. His ear was pressed against her chest, and he could hear her heart beating fast and loud. Andre focused his attention on this wonderful sound, and soon the rest faded into the background. He could catch his breath again, and his mind calmed.

From that day onward, he would seek Cassandra when the torrent was too much. If she wasn't there, he would sit in front of a radio and listen to music, concentrating on the sound. He discovered stronger music was easier for him to focus on. Gradually, he learned to focus on selected external stimuli, such as someone speaking to him, even while music was playing in his ears. He reaped the rewards of higher grades in school by honing this mental discipline of tight focus and combining it with his keen intelligence and absolute recall.

He'd be a little early today, but he'd use the time to read in the library. He'd already read all his course material and completed all the textbook lessons. His eidetic memory wouldn't let him forget something once he reviewed it.

The only classes he had difficulty with were those where the material required subjective interpretations, like this year's Art course and last year's English class.

Since he came to live with Cassandra, she'd been helping him create responses the English and Art class teachers would respond positively to. She'd look up the teachers online and build a profile on them to identify their values. Then she'd review his course material and give him some bullet points he could use in class if called upon. He was learning to game the system thanks to his sister.

With his baggy black clothes, his hood pulled up between classes, and the earphone cable leading from his inner pocket and hidden by his hair, people tended to ignore him so he could move through them without having to interact with any of them. He found people stuck to their own cliques, and that suited him fine.

He didn't join clubs, after-school activities, or play sports. He did his best to slide through unnoticed.

His teachers noticed him, though. With mostly perfect grades, aside from the problematic Art class, he was on track for a scholarship. The other students would cast looks at him if the teachers made a point of identifying he'd got another perfect grade. He did his best to ignore them in return.

The library only had a few people in it at this hour, so he found an empty table and prepared to spend a half-hour reading.

He'd just settled in when he saw someone stop behind the chair on the other side of his table. He tried to ignore them, but he heard them say something to him. He plucked the earbuds out and glanced up. He froze when he saw it was his art teacher.

Ms. Rubio was a lovely Hispanic woman in her early thirties. He assumed she was a very talented artist, as he'd seen books in her class that had paintings of hers in them. She was carrying another art book and was smiling at him, so he looked away.

"Mr. Marin? May I speak with you for a moment?" she asked gently.

He glanced at her again, then down at the table as he nodded. He had no justification for sending her away.

"I was approached by the vice-principal, who was reviewing student grades for this semester and brought to my attention that you have been doing exceptionally well in all your classes except for mine. He was wondering if there was a problem. I wasn't aware that my course was your only challenge." She looked at him for a response.

Andre thought quickly. He knew his grade wasn't spectacular in her class, but with Cassandra's help, he was getting a B minus to C plus on tests and assignments. That seemed good enough to pass. "I thought I was doing okay in your class," he admitted.

She showed him a little frown and tilted her head down to get him to look at her again, briefly. "I'm afraid your last assignment received a failing grade. You seemed to be confused about the theme of the paintings, and your answers didn't seem to match the questions. This has made me go back to review your previous assessments, and I found a startling pattern. You seem to give me pre-defined answers to my questions and the same answers in the same order. I have to admit, I missed it when I graded the assignments. They looked like answers, but now I see they weren't genuine."

Andre glanced at her as a cold sweat began to form on his back. "I-I wasn't cheating--"

"I don't mean to imply you were." She opened the large art book and flipped the pages to stop at a page showing Edvard Munch's The Scream. "What do you think of this painting?" she asked as she watched him intently.