Anita Akselsen wasn’t able to land quietly into herself and the averages of average when she returned from Wacken. She tried to be ordinary when Eira’s dad dropped her off outside their bland Nordstrand house, the family's Volvo sitting pale grey and dull in their driveway.

She tried to be Anita when her mother greeted her from the kitchen, muddied boots tucked into the back of their standard IKEA wardrobe.

“How was your trip?” Synne Akselsen asked, peeking her head into the hallway, voice carrying the ease of someone expecting an easy answer.

Anita wanted to say average, but she wasn’t a good enough liar.

“It was good, Mom,” she said. “Hungry, though.”

“Dinner’s at six.”

A hug.

“I’ll put my stuff away,” the brunette said. Still hungry.

She picked up her empty duffel, stepped off the tiled entranceway floor and onto the cold laminate of the hallway leading into their living room, and made a right turn up the stairs.

Her room was to the left, beside the alcove that counted as half a bedroom. The bathroom in the middle, her brother’s and parents’ bedrooms to the right. At least it offered some privacy.

She dropped the duffel. Felt dirty. Dirty in a way that didn’t belong in Nordstrand. Not in her room.

Thirty seconds later, she yelled down into the kitchen.

“Mom! I’m taking a shower!”

She stepped into the bathroom, half-expecting it to smell like a porta-potty or one of those narrow plastic shower stalls. Like she’d forgotten what a standard Nordstrand bathroom even looked like.

She stripped down — the Iron Maiden T, socks, pants. No underwear. The stupid film clinging to her thigh.

Rinse, not soak. Mild soap. Unscented lotion. The words came back like an order she wasn’t meant to disobey.

She turned against the mirror, tried to get the angle right. Scabbed. Itching. A fucking honey jar. It had seemed like such a great idea at the time.

She turned again, fully against the mirror. Her face — slightly sunburnt, yes, but still the average, cute-but-not-stunning girl who had left. Her tits — 85B, bigger than Tommie’s, smaller than Eira’s. Somewhere in the middle. Yet. Somewhere on the outside.

Her cunt.

She’d ended up in a cabin with…someone else returning from Wacken. Had stayed there. Let them do what they wanted. What she needed. What she still needed.

Hungry. Yes. But not for food.

xXx

Anita’s return wasn’t just difficult. It was impossible.

Eira moving out, in with Tommie and her mother, was noisy — but difficult in a way that could be managed. She spent a lot of the first few days with them, in Tommie’s basement. Tommie being queer was just another way for her parents to be disappointed. But at least they liked Eira.

Sitting in that basement with two girls who loved each other, and the stubborn itch between her legs? No. Anita couldn’t do that.

Nor could she go to the local pub and hook up. And masturbating only tasted pitiful.

But her brother’s best friend?

August was a year older than Anita. His friend Roar was so much a part of the household inventory that Anita’s mom always set his plate — just in case. At six o’clock.

Roar would often come around when August was still at soccer practice. Easier than taking the subway home, eating, and then dragging himself all the way back to meet up again. And with Anita’s parents back at work, preparing for the new school year, she would be conveniently home alone.

It was easy pretending she hadn’t remembered to expect Roar. So when the doorbell rang just as she stepped out of the shower, she had just enough time to wrap a towel around herself, leave a dripping trail down the stairs, and open the door with a smile that passed for bothered.

“Oh. Hi Roar! Sorry.”

Not sorry.

“Anita!” he blurted. “Shit. I didn’t—”

“August won’t be home for another hour,” she said. “But you can wait with me?”

He looked stranded. But only for a second. Maybe two. Anita had never struck him as—girl. No. Woman. Until now, she’d only ever been August’s younger sister. Slightly annoying. Terrible taste in music. And, given the chance, downright obnoxious.

Still, he followed her, finding it odd that she locked the door behind them. Odd that he noticed the scent of her shampoo. Odd, too, walking behind her up the stairs, that she had a perfect ass.

Strange, if not absurd, that she asked him to keep her company in her room.

Anita’s room had been clearly off limits. To August, and anything that followed August. He expected pink and fluff, not the black bedspread, not the scattered clothes. Certainly not the underwear that seemed almost staged in its mess.

The posters.

She sat at her desk, told him to sit on her bed.

“Want to see my tattoo?” she asked.

“You got a tattoo?” he asked. As if being August’s sister meant she had to be round as a peg. Square, like him.

“Yeah, that too,” she said, letting her voice do the implying.

“Yeah! Right!” he said. “You girls went to Germany. That festival? How was it?”

“Life changing,” Anita said truthfully, loosening the towel at her hip and baring it — and then some — to her brother’s friend.

A little more leg than Roar expected, still hoping it was the back of her shoulder. Too much of the curve of her behind. Ass. August’s sister had ass. And a tattoo — a honey jar?

He shifted. Not uncomfortable, just awkward.

“Cool,” he said. Didn’t dare say hot.

“There’s an inscription, too,” she said.

She twirled a pencil on her desk, picked it up, let it rest against her lip.

“But you’ll have to come closer to read it.”

Roar didn’t know what to do. Surely not. No — he was just confused. Surely.

“When’s August coming home?”

“Still an hour,” she whispered. “My parents? Not for two.”

“What are you saying, Anita?”

“Come check out my tattoo.”

He had to lean in to actually read the impossibly small writing. Something about Wacken. A date.

He found himself on his knees, studying his best friend’s sister’s hip, the towel that dipped between her legs. The smell of her skin.

He didn’t know how deliberate Anita was when the towel slipped from her. How could he? And how could he not stare at her crotch?

He swallowed, but her fingers in his hair, her intent on guiding him, and her stubborn cunt convinced him.

It was less a matter of should—

and more, How do you keep your best friend from realizing you’re fucking his sister?

xXx

Roar worked. For a while. He came to their house earlier on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Anita didn’t pretend to be caught by surprise anymore. But when he asked her out?

“This isn’t that,” she said. “I can still do Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Uni’s starting up next week.”

And within the first week of college, she’d forgotten about him.

Students come in horny at the start of a fresh year, and one party followed another. And a horny slut like Anita—she wasn’t average anymore.

She was noticed. Easy. And no strings attached.

She still found herself pondering, sometimes moralizing. But less and less.

Like how she’d ended up in the washroom stall of the men’s room, railed between porcelain and plastic laminate walls, too loud over the music. Not once. Not twice.

How she got invited to house parties, and all the other girls were skanks.

How she still found herself chasing, knowing that feeling of emptiness only grew. Every time.

And how each visit to Tommie and Eira reminded her. Although, that sex felt good. She envied Eira. Secretly.

She was open about missing Eira. Missing Tommie. About how college life, her best friend's decision to be gay, and them living a different life out of high school was hard for her.

She even said she sometimes wished she were still a virgin, though she knew it was a lie.

Eira had started college as well. Tommie? Odd jobs, too rude to be a cashier, too wild to substitute at the kindergarten. Too young to tend bars.

Her ability to eat cunt, though? Anita would’ve paid for it. Gladly.

Eira didn’t seem to mind, even deep into some book deciphering microeconomics or something else entirely unsexy. Sometimes she’d go to a different room, talk to Tommie’s mother. Have a shower. But most times, she watched. Got off on it. Especially on a Friday night when she’d scraped enough money for beers.

That Friday, she had that look about her. Not the tired one she’d worn since college started, not the angry one she shed the day she moved out from under her mother’s claws. Something else.

“Hey. Butterball?” she said.

Anita wasn’t sure if she should feel ashamed that Eira’s girlfriend had just eaten her out, or for still not having landed from it.

“Mhmm?” she moaned. Still slightly hazy.

“Dad’s moving out. Next weekend.”

The tone in Eira’s voice. Just—a-matter-of-factly.

“Mom left for my aunt’s today.”

Eira leaned in, so Anita shut her legs.

“Tomorrow, I need you to swing by and pick up a box in my old room. Dad won’t be expecting you, but he knows what box you’re looking for.”

“Okay?” Anita answered. A little less hazy, a bit more confused. “What’s in it?”

“The bottom is…broken, so it’s important that you carry it by the handles. Okay?”

Anita was still confused.

“Shouldn’t I make sure—”

“No,” Eira said. One of those firm no’s that you didn’t challenge her on. “The bottom’s broken, so you need to carry it by the handles. Got it?”

xXx

It was a surprisingly warm early September morning. Anita felt strangely comfortable walking the pathway leading to the stairs. Why wouldn’t it? She’d skipped on those stone slabs since her first memory, and she expected the thud from the wobbly one. Three steps up, slate slabs, then the white door. Erik’s name already scratched off. Eira’s?

It looked like someone had taken a Sharpie to it. A Sharpie with an attitude.

She rang the door. She expected to hear Eira’s voice, half-angry, half-panicked.

I’ve got it, Mom! It’s for me!

But no one called. And no one opened.

Just last month, Tommie and her had stood there, listening to Eira blowing at least two fuses the day they headed for Wacken. It felt like a lifetime ago.

The Hansen’s apple trees hung heavy. They had the best apples.

She rang again.

Scraped the sole of her shoe against the slate. There was a crack in the joints she hadn’t noticed before.

Something shuffled inside. A box scraped against the floor. Hardwood, not laminate.

Finally, the door opened. Just a crack.

“Anita?” Eric said. His voice a little cracked, like sleep was still stuck in it.

Stubble. Anita had never seen Eira’s dad with stubble. Not sleeping at nine-thirty, either. A white T-shirt, blue boxers. Hairy legs.

“Oh, hi!” she said. “Sorry? Is it a bad time…just, Eira asked me…I can come back later, but—”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Eira asked you to what?”

Anita blushed. Because, frankly, she couldn’t remember. Erik Simensen jogged every morning, did twenty push-ups, then twenty sit-ups. Then rode his bike to work. Every day—unless the snowfall had been too heavy—seven days a week.

And he looked it.

And now, she didn’t remember the box. She remembered the tent. Pierre and Jean Michelle. The sweat dripping on her face. The way she’d seen Eric’s face when she closed her eyes.

“The box!” she yelled. Way too loud.

He chuckled.

“You okay, Anita?”

Two coats of blush now. Warm.

“Heh, yeah. Sorry.”

Unsexy.

She’d never stuttered at Wacken. She’d manipulated. Taken. Also, she’d been drunk or halfway there.

No. Not with the Swedish boys. Not at first.

“You know the box?” she said. More in tune now.

“Sure,” he said. “Come on in. It’s in her room.”

A slight pause.

“Her…old room.”

He pushed the door open, but didn’t really move. Anita squeezed by, but…they brushed.

The Swedish boys. Difference was, they didn’t matter.

How many coats of blush did she carry?

She excused herself. He excused himself.

She hurried up the stairs. Too hurried. She didn’t have time to notice the cardboard boxes, the scattered remains of what once had been a home. A home that had always been open to Anita.

Solveig Simensen had never seemed cruel. Not to her. A little cold, maybe, but she’d serve brownies in Eira’s room when she and Tommie came over. She’d put a thousand band aids on her knee when they were scraped from falling off her bike, falling off their stairs, or falling out of the Hansen’s apple tree.

Eira’s room was—

Empty.

Not of things. Her bed, her desk, the old Frozen rug Eira refused to let go when Iron Maiden became religion. The beanie bag. They were all there. But not Eira. Not her essence.

Only Erik’s hand on her shoulder brought her back. Slightly.

“She’s so—gone,” he said. Voice shaking.

Erik’s hand was on her shoulder. Not inappropriate, painfully appropriate, in fact. He’d said something. Did it demand a reply?

“She said to say hello,” she said. “You should phone her. She’s so busy with college and—”

She dared to look at him.

“You have a problem with her being gay?”

“What?” he said, hand off her shoulder. “No. I just miss her. I even miss her yelling at Solveig.”

Then, “The box is over there. Want me to carry it down for you?”

Oh, right. The box. The instructions.

“No!” she said. A little too panicked. A little too stupid. “I’ve got it.”

It felt awkward being eighteen and trying to stall a moment before it escaped.

“Solveig,” she said. “She angry?”

And now he really looked at her. Like, saw her. Maybe noticed she wasn’t even wearing a bra under her shirt.

“Solveig?” he said. “Solveig’s been angry since I got her pregnant with Eira.”

Something seemed caught in his throat.

“I don’t even think she meant to. She wasn’t always like that. But having Eira. Then?”

“I saw what she did to her,” Anita said, forgetting about cock for a second. “She showed me. At Wacken. That f… that scar, Erik?”

“Yeah,” he said. Resigned. Eyes watering. “I noticed she’d taken her bracelet off. Wore that scar.”

“You should have told us. Tomme and me.”

“I,” he said. “Tommie and I.”

The kind of thing being married to Solveig did to a man who’d made the same error for twenty years.

“Sorry,” he hurried.

Anita tried to be grown-up.

“I get it,” she said. “Was it lonely? Being married to Solveig?”

He deflected the question.

“I was never married to Solveig. I just tried to be Eira’s dad.”

“She loves you,” Anita argued. “She talks about you all the time, Erik. Who does she call when she fucks…sorry, when she messes things up?”

Another chuckle. Good.

“No, fuck up is good. Eira’s fucked up a lot of things, but I don’t think she ever meant to.”

Anita walked over to Eira’s desk. The box. Just brushing her fingers against it before turning to him again.

“What about you, Erik?” she asked. “Did you ever fuck up?”

She felt that heartbeat again.

“Like, did you get tired of it? Did you cheat on Solveig?”

He didn’t look at her. Gaze fixed on Elsa’s tired smile on the rug. His right fist clenched, just slightly. Just once.

“The box, Anita.”

Then, “I’ve got my own boxes to pack.”

“Sure,” she said. A little hurt. A little bruised. “I didn’t mean to…sorry.”

She picked up the box. Fought the instinct to support the bottom.

“Lead the way,” she said, and followed him down the hallway. Down the stairs.

Two steps down, and the bottom gave, its contents falling down the stairs in slow motion. Not at first, not before her mind started to catch up to Eira’s underwear, those oversized bras, the lace, the strange thud.

Thud

Thud

Thud

She didn’t need to fake her blush, hustling down the stairs to try and gather Eira’s secrets.

Neither did Erik, scrambling to collect…did Eira really wear that? Why did his daughter have a pack of condoms? And just what the fuck was water-based lube?

Oh, God, Anita thought, still scrambling down the stairs. Jesus, Eira.

But still, her panic and confusion and embarrassment and horror were nothing to what Erik felt. Not when the shape in his hand was undeniable. Not when he still picked it up and wrung it out of a red thong. Not when he pointed the rubber cock straight into Anita’s face.

Anita froze. She’d just been slapped in the face by Eira’s dad. With a rubber cock. She stared at him. At the cock. None of them budged.

God, he was sexy.

She kissed him. Greedily.

And his response made her regret the snug pants.

Loved the decision to go bra-less, loved the desperation of his hands. Loved that she had to help him with the buttons of her pants. Loved that he clawed them as she pushed herself up the stairs.

A lot of girls complain about stubble. Anita thought the way Erik’s stubble scratched against her neck was—

She loved that he smelled of sweat, and she of shower. She loved the way the stair dug into her back.

But the hunger of his cock? That sheer greed as she tried to hold on to him, herself, Eira’s shit—the sensation of cumming way too soon?

“Fuuck,” she moaned.

Then, “Don’t stop!” when he did.

Then, just letting it happen. Too soon, too stupid, too wrong.

No, just too fucking right.

“You—you’re making me cum,” she whimpered.

Erik almost stopped mid-thrust.

“Already?”

A little surprised, mostly flattered.

What do you hold on to when your bottom feels like it’s falling out? The railing? The step grinding into your spine so hard it feels good? The man who should feel like a violation? Yes, him. All of him. Legs, arms, anything to keep him inside while it—

I’ve never cum this hard, she registered somewhere in the darkness behind her eyes. Not even Tommie…

And he stopped. Let her finish on her own.

She didn’t dare look at him; he didn’t risk her eyes. Just let her find breath again. His cock still stretching against her pulse.

She exhaled. Or gasped. The sound of regret?

“Sorry…fuck, Anita.”

“Huh?” she said. Still not daring to look.

“I’m—”

“Can I use the washroom?” she asked.

And only then did he pull out. Still wanting to cum, too ashamed to admit it. Enough man to let her crawl to her feet and stumble back up the stairs. Not once eying that ass. Just let himself slump to the stairs.

Anita closed the bathroom door behind her. She didn’t need to piss. She needed to understand what the fuck had just happened. Why fucking Eira’s dad had—no, not make her cum, but—

Complete.

And she hadn’t even had the decency to make him cum. And...