Choices Pt. 02 - Freedom

"Hi Nicole," I heard another voice call out, Tyler, from his room.

"Yeah, Hi," Victoria said, with equal flatness. I raised my hand and then realized, foolishly, that they couldn't see me.

"Hi...you guys," I said. I knew they weren't going to open their doors. I was glad about it. I turned and walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. My heart was still fluttering, but it had calmed somewhat. I looked up at the blank television, but I didn't have the energy to turn it on.

Instead, I simply sat in the absolute silence of the living room, staring at the wall, and thinking. At first, I purposefully tried to keep my mind occupied on neutral things. Had I turned off the coffee pot at home? What time did my next shift start when I got back? But I had so thoroughly gutted my life that there really wasn't a whole lot to think about. And besides, the elephant in the room demanded attention. Before I could stop myself, I was thinking about the other three people, squirrelled away in this apartment.

I didn't think about what I thought I was going to think about. At least not exclusively. I mean, there was no avoiding it. I thought about that night with Iris. I had spent so much time in the previous 10 months that it was impossible not to. Those memories were polished to an immaculate shine. I could see and feel and hear my siblings' bodies moving all over me. I could taste the sex on the back of my tongue.

But there was more than that as well. Something I hadn't expected. My brothers and my sisters were here, in this apartment with me. I'd been a hundred miles away from Tyler for 10 months, and thousands of miles away from Victoria and Brandon. Farther away from all of them in spirit. And now they were here. They were just on the other sides of the doors. I realized, for the first time, that my mother was right. I missed them terribly.

I laughed bitterly when I thought about setting off on our trip 10 months ago. What had been my goal anyway? To make sure our family, which had always been somewhat close, stayed tightly knit. And the end result had been what? Here we were in the same apartment and we couldn't even look at one another. We were absolutely shattered. And I hadn't realized how much of my hurt and my pain wasn't from that night with Iris, but instead the long term damage from that night. I missed my family.

And when I accepted that I missed them, missed them just on the other side of the door, other thoughts that I hadn't really allowed myself to think burst through the breach. All of the pressure I was under, all the pressure I had been under, I couldn't repress anything anymore. It all tumbled out, everything. I wanted to know what Victoria was doing every day sitting with mom and trying not to cry. I wanted to let her know that I understood and try to make it better. I wanted to tell Brandon that he was wasting his talents by working at a job he apparently hated and drinking himself to sleep. I wanted to let Tyler know that he wasn't doing himself any good by working himself to death, that he needed life just as much as he needed knowledge. And I wanted them to comfort me, to help me snap out of what my life had become.

Nonetheless, when I thought of getting up and going to them, putting that fantasy into reality, I could almost see the barrier that had wedged up between us. My longing for my family was immediately tempered by the crushing sensation of our past. How could we ever go back and live the way we had before? How could we get over what we'd done?

But, the more I thought about that, the more I realized that it wasn't even about what we'd done. I mean, what was that anyway, to be afraid of? It had already happened. It had been horrible and humiliating and...exciting, but it was all in the past. What was I afraid of seeing my brothers and sister for? Did I think that they didn't remember and that seeing me would job their memories? Clearly we all remembered and we would never lose it, but why did that scare us now?

As these thoughts worked their way through my mind, I felt myself touching on something. Something incredibly sensitive. I started to sweat again and my breathing grew erratic. My body was trying to warn me away from something. Something more terrible than just the memories of Iris. But I was committed now, with my siblings so close. I needed to get to the bottom of it. I needed to understand why I didn't want to see them anymore. No...why I wanted to see them desperately but knew that I needed to stay away.

"Why, when they are right here, can't you see them?" I asked myself, quietly so that no one but me could hear. The words seeped into me, feeling more real because they were dangling in the air. For a brief second, my mind flashed once again to the police officer, sitting against the desk. I could hear his voice again, telling me that I didn't have anything to be ashamed of. That I had chosen to do anything. Knowing that that was a lie.

And then I realized what it was. I realized, for the first time, why I could no longer see my brothers and my sisters. It wasn't because we had done something horrible. That can, and will, fade as time passes. No. What was in the past was in the past. But it wasn't over. Iris was dead but she was still hanging over her. On top of the shame and the humiliation, what had I been feeling all these months?

Arousal.

Arousal that made the shame deeper. But, importantly, that arousal wasn't in the past. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my brothers and my sister. I saw us having sex. And part of me...maybe most of me, wanted it. I knew it. I was ashamed of it, but I knew. I had...enjoyed having sex with my siblings. We had pushed forward, we'd done more than Iris even asked us to do because we wanted it. And now we were all together. And we were afraid. Not of the past. But of the feelings we were all having. We were all afraid that we had broken some sort of...barrier when we were together before.

No. We weren't afraid of that. We knew it.

We had broken some sort of covenant that all families have. And most people would never choose to break it and maybe, even if they did, they could put it back in place. But we knew what we had felt. We had made love to one another and we had liked the way it felt despite ourselves. And we were all here and we all knew what we wanted. We wanted it to happen again. And we knew it was wrong and that there was no going back.

Once again, Iris had given us a choice. We could choose to always know when we were together that we wanted to...fuck one another. To live with the guilt and the shame that that realization gave us. Or we could choose to never see one another again. And so we had all chosen. And we had all made the same choice. And so we were hiding from one another.

I felt sick as these thoughts worked their way through my mind. I had avoided dealing with any of this stuff consciously for so long, but it had clearly been rolling around in my mind. It hit me fully formed and with incredible force. But somehow, it seemed to calm me. Somehow, understanding what was going on, even if it was terrible, was better than groping around blind.

And it quickly led me to a decision. I had already determined that something had broken between my brothers, my sister, and I. There was no putting it back together. And we had already chosen to avoid each other. This was, objectively, the right thing to do. It didn't make any sense for me to stick around here. The inkling I'd had when I'd first arrived was right. I would explain...something to my parents later. It was time to leave.

I stood up quickly and felt lightheaded. I stumbled slightly across the room, heading towards the front door. I tried to walk on my tiptoes, to avoid having my siblings hear. I found my shoes and my suitcase and picked them up. About ten seconds after I'd made up my mind to leave, my hand was on the doorknob.

To this day, I don't know what made me do it. But right before I began to turn the doorknob, I tilted my head to the side, looking down the hallway. I saw the three closed doors. I knew that behind each of those doors was one of my siblings. Sitting miserable, knowing what I knew but maybe not so clearly. I realized that I had heard their voices, but I hadn't seen their faces, except for Brandon bathed in shadow. I hadn't seen them since that day almost a year ago with Iris. And I would never see them again. I wouldn't attend weddings, I wouldn't meet any nieces or nephews, I wouldn't go to funerals (if, god forbid, I didn't die first). This was the last I would ever interact with them. The end.

I turned again toward the door, desperate now to get out. But as I did so, I heard a low croaking sound in the back of my throat and my eyes felt prickly. Before I even realized what was happening, I was crying. I thought about them, a flood of memories, good and bad (and even from THAT night) pouring over me. I was leaving that all behind. I was choosing to leave them forever. And I felt terrible. Despite everything, I didn't want that. But there wasn't anything else I could do. I knew the only alternative. It was like one of Iris' choices...either decision was the worst.

Something about that thought clicked in my mind. I thought about Iris. I thought about what she'd been trying to do to us. I knew it went beyond "getting leverage." She was trying to fuck with our minds. Trying to destroy us. And I realized that, for the last 10 months, I'd felt like I was sitting naked on the floor with Iris, touching herself and towering over me, pointing her gun in my face.

I dropped my suitcase.

My mind was totally blank, my body was simply taking action. I turned and started to march down the hallway, towards the three doors. I didn't stop, I didn't reconsider, I got to the first door and threw it open. Tyler was sitting on the floor of a sparsely furnished bedroom. He jumped with the door opened. He looked at me and then his eyes darted down, panicked.

"Follow me," I said in a flat voice. But there was no disguising the command. There was a sort of control in it that I hadn't felt in months. If ever. I didn't wait to see if Tyler was getting up and following me. I knew he was. I was quickly out in the hallway, throwing open the door to Brandon's room. He was already standing, looking at the door like he expected some sort of monster to barge in.

"Follow me," I said again and then rapidly turned. In a moment, I was throwing the door open into my parents' bedroom. It was a little unnerving seeing all of their bedroom furniture that I remembered from childhood in a new room, but it didn't feel wrong. I noticed Victoria, sitting on their bed. She had actually pulled the covers up over her waist. She looked at me as I darted in, but then her eyes fell onto the bed. A few seconds later my brothers sheepishly entered the room behind me. The moved around so that they were as far away from me and each other as possible. We all stood in the room together for the first time since we'd been with Iris.

"What is going on?" Victoria asked after an extremely long and uncomfortable pause.

"Mom wanted us to talk, I thought we should do that," I lied. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to say. Or if I wanted to say anything. I wasn't fully myself at that moment.

"I don't have anything to say," Victoria said quietly.

"Me neither," Brandon said and Tyler nodded quickly. I shook my head.

"I don't think that's true. I know when you guys are lying. We know a lot more about one another than most siblings do," I said, my voice dripping with meaning. I saw my siblings wince.

"Well I don't want to say anything," Brandon said. I ran my hand through my hair nervously.

"If we don't have anything to say to each other, then I am going to have to leave here. And you know as well as I do that once we leave here...we aren't ever coming back," I said. They were all exactly where I had been a few minutes ago. I needed to get them to understand. More than that, I needed to get myself to accept what I had already decided. I had to come to terms with my choices. Had I decided anything already? It wasn't even really clear in my mind. I was just pushing forward to...something.

"We just need some time," Victoria said, "It's too soon." But her words sounded hollow. My brothers didn't even bother to agree with her. They wouldn't look at me. But they wouldn't speak either. It hurt so bad...to know that they would let me go. That I would let them go.

I looked around at my siblings. Their eyes were evasive, so they didn't see me. But I could see Victoria on the bed. She looked more like me than ever. Part of it was, I guess, that we had both lost some weight from nerves. But she looked more adult that she had 10 months ago, less innocent. Tyler had, in fact, gained some weight. Not enough to make him large by any stretch. He was just no longer the gangly kid he'd once been. His eyes looked slightly pinched and tired. Brandon looked meaner than he used to. That's the only way to describe it. His beard was bushy and messy, his muscles were larger. He had a tattoo on his forearm. He had a look in his eyes...like he was missing something. How did I reach these people before they really became the strangers that appeared to me now?

"No Victoria," I said, "This is it." Once again there was a pause.

"What is it you need to say Nicole? Say it before you go," Brandon said softly, "Before we all go." Their choices were made. I needed to change their minds. I took a deep breath. I thought about the love I had for my brothers and my sister. I thought about my duty as the oldest child. I thought about what I'd be losing if we made a different choice. And I spoke.

"Listen, we were thrown together against our will in that hotel room," I saw them all react to this sudden reference to that place. But they remained silent. Somehow, I continued to speak, "Just like we were thrown together as a family when we were born. We didn't get to any say in any of that. But, now we are adults. We don't have to be anything to each other if we don't want to. And that seems to be where we are heading. That is a real option that we have. But Iris is taking that choice away from us. Her...actions...they have pushed us apart. We can't even look one another in the eye. We are falling away from one another without even deciding it. She is making the decisions for us. Just like she did in the hotel room, she is making us think we have to do what she wants. Well I don't want that. We can't undo what happened in that hotel room. But that doesn't mean we have to...undo our family. I am choosing now..."

"Yeah, but you said it yourself," Brandon said, his cheeks red, "we can't undo what happened in that room. We all...We know what we did. What we had to do. But that changes things...We aren't who we were to each other before. We have...violated each other." I saw that Tyler was looking, glassy eyed, at his feet. Victoria was nodding slowly, like she was going to be sick. I knew this was the time...the words now appeared in my mind and I couldn't reject them. But there was nothing left to do. It was our only chance. And really, what did I have to lose? If I said it and they were disgusted and never wanted to see me again...well we were heading that way anyway. My only chance to save my family was to finally actually be the adult in my family. I had to make the unpalatable suggestions, I had to make the hard decisions. I sighed deeply.

"We choose," I said, using the horrible word that our captor had, perhaps, sullied forever. I could see my siblings wince as the hateful sound landed on their ears. It almost seemed like Tyler was going to put his hands on his hears, to try to keep it out.

"Just like that...what? We choose what? To just pretend like it didn't happen?" Victoria asked, desperation playing off of her voice. I started shaking my head even before she was done speaking. I could hear my heart in my ears and my legs felt weak. I couldn't believe I was actually going to say what I said next.

"No...I already said we can't do that. She made us choose to do those horrible things to one another. She made me suck Brandon's dick. She made Tyler put his cock up my ass. He made Victoria eat Brandon's cum out of me," I said. As each word poured from my lips I felt simultaneously sickened and also, somehow, lightened. Like it felt good to talk about it. I could tell my siblings felt differently. They kept their eyes on the floor. I actually heard Victoria groaning.

"God Nicole, fucking stop it," Brandon said, "why are you doing this to us?"

"That's what it is! What am I doing to you? What did we do?" I said, "She made us choose. She made it so we felt the weight of our decisions. We did this to each other and that is just what she wanted. She wanted us to feel the responsibility so that we would tear ourselves apart. That's why she always gave us a choice. She wanted us to watch us split."

"Okay well..." Brandon started, but I had to keep talking now.

"But what if we take that responsibility back? What if we take it honestly? What if, without force and without coercion...we choose? What if we just choose more?" I asked. The room was completely silent. I saw their eyes rise suddenly, I could see they were all looking at me, their cheeks red with embarrassment.

"What do you mean?" Brandon asked.

"We know what our bodies can do," I said, my mouth suddenly becoming very dry, "If we choose to do that again, if we choose to do more than she even dared make us do...then we take the power away from her. Then it really is our choice. And if we choose it together and we choose it with the love we have for one another, rather than the fear we had for her... Then why would we have to be ashamed? We are adults. We love each other. We can use our choices...our real choices...to put ourselves back together."

"What are saying?" Victoria asked, sounding a little bit terrified. My brothers looked like they were too scared to speak. I felt cold, like my entire body had been dunked in ice water. But it was too late to turn back now. They knew what I had said, even if their brains were rejecting it for now.

"I am saying...We should have sex again," I said, my voice barely squeaking out of my throat. I'd said it. Whatever would come from here, I couldn't say. But this was the only chance I could think of. The only thing that had any chance to work. We had to embrace what had happened, we had to choose to make it okay. I knew I must've been thinking this for 10 months, even if I never accepted it before. Somehow, right then, it made perfect sense to me. If we could decide, then we could be a family again.

"That's disgusting!" Tyler said quickly, as though he wanted to be the first to say it. My other siblings remained froze, but I could feel their agreement.

"Did you think it was disgusting back in that hotel room when shoved your cock down my throat?" I asked, being as vulgar as possible. I felt my siblings wince, "Or did you just feel pleasure? I know it felt good Tyler. I know it felt good for you because it felt...it felt good for me." Tyler looked at me shocked. But we all knew what had happened. We knew the sounds we'd made, the reactions we'd felt in one another. Hell, what we'd said. They couldn't deny it. I know, because I'd tried. I'd tried so hard to tell myself that every bit of it was terrible. But that was a lie. And the lies I was telling myself were destroying my family. I kept talking.

"The disgust is the feeling she wanted us to feel. She didn't care if we felt pleasure. Let's flip it around on her. Let's not care about the disgust. Let's just feel the pleasure. Then, what did she get? All that effort, all of her thoughts...hell her death. She gave all of that and for what? If we choose now, then it is for nothing. She will have died defeated. How can she hold anything over us, if all she made us do is what we really wanted anyway?" It was like my understanding of the situation was growing more complete the more I talked about it. It felt right, like I was saying some sort of truth that I had been avoiding since it happened. I could see in my siblings' eyes that they were thinking about it. They knew I was telling the truth too. But they hadn't spent months thinking about it like I had. At least, I didn't think they had. They needed more. They needed to truly feel that I was right, to know it. I took a deep breath. Before I had a chance to think about the consequences, I decided to act.