I kind of splatter out at the bottom of the stairs. My head feels like a vacuum. My throat’s dry as shit. And for some reason a stack of McDonald’s mcmuffins, a hashbrown, and coffee just seems like the answer to all my problems. In the old days, I’d swing by the fucking gasstation market for a bag of crunchy microwave hotdogs or something, and energy drinks, on my way to work. Now I gotta rethink my hangover cure.

“Hey,” I say to Jolene who’s sprawled across the footrest of my wife’s chair, checking out her phone.

“Hey.” She half glances up.

Next to her, on the chair, her sister Sandradee sits like a damn queen, scowling at me right away with a face that says: You shithead! We all know you’ve been up all night guzzling wine and playing with yourself. Fucker!

“Hey, Sandradee,” I say, trying to work a smile through my aching head and crusty, numb face.

“Hi,” she answers, all formal and guarded. She quivers in her chair a little, probably on purpose, causing a tiny dot of cleavage to appear and draw my eyes yet again to the smooth, soft, brown skin of her chest. 

Alright, yeah, I’m a fucking pervert in that I eye my wife’s older niece with a level of raw hunger and stifled hope no one else ever gets from me (not nice-assed Indian CVS chick, or anyone). But at least Sandradee’s in her 20s . . . I think 22 . . . so yeah, it’s all about as above board as a lowbrow lowlife like me could really get.

Sandradee stands, and my worn dick jumps in my pants. I don’t even give a fuck my wife just stepped around me and can likely clearly see the longing in my eyes as I take in the sight of the most perfect ass in the entire world. It’s like a fucken apple/peach on steroids, popping out all stupid and floppy under her skinny waist. She looks like a damn cartoon character in some kind of porn animation with proportions exaggerated beyond anything you might find in reality (but there she fucken is!).

“Remember, I want you to bring me a…” Sandradee starts to Jolene, but I don’t hear the rest. I’m still caught shifting between staring at ass, then titties, then ass, then titties…

Why does she have to exist? 

For some reason, I feel like I have to say something to her, I guess because it’s my house or whatever and it’s just expected. So, I utter, “You enjoying film school?” and cringe at my voice cracking at the top like a whimpering teenager out of his depth.

“I quit,” Sandradee says flatly. “I want to be a physical therapist now. I start my program next…”

Again, I don’t hear anything else. In my mind, I flow across the room like a river and disappear up into the warm safety of her ample behind where I’ll live out the rest of my days in quiet perfect-ass-themed dignity. I don’t even want to fuck her. I don’t really want to fuck anyone. I just want to get a little acquainted with that one part of her. How is it fair I can’t? What would it really fucking cost her, right?

Geez!

Yeah, she hates my fucking guts. I kinda hate her too. She sounds stupid to me whenever she talks. Now she’s quitting school (again) to do something new.

But would you really have to like a guy to let him live in your ass? What harm would it cause? 

Bitch!

“So, you have to get going, right?” calls my wife’s chipper voice now from the kitchen.

“Yes,” says Jolene as if answering a survey. “My test starts in six hours. And we have to find the building, and how to park . . . what we need to do to get inside. We’d better go.” She looks at me, but not in a rude, demanding, accusatory way like her asshole sister.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I say.

I take one final look at Sandradee’s pert backside for the road. If only it could belong to someone else, or be detachable or something. If I could just take it with me. 

Let me just state this as clearly as I can: If I could have 45 minutes with Sandradee’s ass uninterrupted, that alone might be enough to make me want to stay alive. But that’s what the fuck’s wrong with the world. I can’t. I just see it, and drool, and go all fuzzy-minded like a cartoon wolf floating toward a pie on a windowsill. But I’ll never get that pie. I can go online all night and shoot pathetic globs of smeg until my heart’s (dis)content. But that’s just 1s and 0s, y’know? It’s no better than me imagining living inside Sandradee’s beautiful ass. It’s a lie. It’s a carrot on a stick I know I’ll never get to. 

I don’t even think I’d need 45 minutes of real ass-time to want to keep living.

Anyway, Jolene grabs her bag at her feet, puts her phone in her jeans pocket and heads for the door. There’s something so cool about the way she walks, like you can tell she’s confident, but not really showing off or whatever. She just kind of glides in only the direction she wants to go. I see she’s smiling. But she’s really always smiling, isn’t she? Her face is like the Mona Lisa . . . like, that same quiet little half smile, playful but not all that proud of itself. It’s cool to see there can be young people like that, in contrast to her damn sister (that’s for sure!). 

“You ready?” I say as I open the back door of my shitty car for Jolene to put her bags in.

“Yeah,” she says, still smiling.

“So, where are we really going?”