Tagged: sister

Even With Clyde in My Lap

  • by jenfully aware of the ten sets of eyes
  • His Grace petitioned the Count
  • Now he was bleeding
  • too smart for that school
  • I’d suggest no more than a thousand

Tune in next time part 419      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Even with Clyde in my lap, and Jim waving his camera around, I was fully aware of the ten sets of eyes — mime eyes — that were trained on my dancing sisters. I might still have a hope of escaping as long as Jem and Jem’s hypnotic cobra yoga held them entranced.

I had to make Jim see reason. “Our family has standards, Jim.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your standards, brother,” Jim snarled. “The fire eaters want to claim Jem, and I won’t have it! This is the only way to save her.”

“What’s the Lord Carnevale have to do with any of that?” I asked.

Jim sneered his first words. “His Grace petitioned the Count Flambé, leader of the largest fire eater guild, for Jem’s hand. Their marriage would seal a pact between those heartburn motherfuckers and the masked carnivalistos.”

I shuddered at the thought.

“So,” Jim continued, “I’m showing Lord Domino that we play hardball. If he doesn’t back off, something ugly will happen to Clyde.”

The little dog in my lap bared his teeth again, exposing the “woof” painted thereon.

The bicycling mime reentered the laboratory. Now he was bleeding from one nostril, and he had the Donut sister riding on his imaginary handlebars.

Jim tucked his camera into the pocket of his lab coat and grasped the Donut mime by the wrist. She began to flail about, hurling silent insults at us and at the Academy. The thrust of her nonverbal argument seemed to be that she was too smart for that school, but I distinctly remembered seeing her in its halls.

“Relax Ms Donut,” Jim said, thus perpetuating the mystery of which sister was which. “If you don’t calm down I’ll have to give you an injection.”

“I’d suggest no more than a thousand milliliters, and no less than nine hundred,” said Jemma. “Like most mimes she’s built up quite a tolerance.”

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Animosity Between Lyudmila and Svetlana

  • by jenstill held some liquid
  • watching her all the time
  • not good enough to own such a fancy car
  • hot, reeking scent of their blood
  • Like a real gentleman.

Tune in next time part 389      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Animosity between Lyudmila and Svetlana boiled over from time to time, but however much froth and steam they created, the vessel of their joint hatred still held some liquid, and there was always the danger that it would erupt again. That animosity traced back to their circus days. Due to their extreme flexibility, the ringmaster treated them as a single unit. It was difficult for the sisters to always be in such close quarters: entwined together inside a single suitcase: limbs intertwined as they were made to share a single cot, a single shower cubicle, a single berth on the train. Each felt that her sister was watching her all the time, watching and judging. It all came to a head when Svetlana was awarded Employee of the Month, an honor that included a medal ceremony and the keys to a new Lada. Lyudmila was incensed. She felt that Svetlana on her own was not good enough to own such a fancy car, that the two of them were a package deal, and the only reason Svetlana won was because she’d lately been sleeping with both the ringmaster and the lion tamer. Lyudmila confronted Svetlana about her perceived duplicity, and the sisters began to fight. Being contortionists, their fight choreography was like nothing anyone had ever seen before, and they quickly drew a crowd. Before long they each had black eyes and nosebleeds. The hot, reeking scent of their blood enraged the performing animals. The lion tamer and his wife, the tiger tamer barely kept their cats under control long enough for the ringmaster to disperse the audience. In his fury, the ringmaster fired both sisters, and threw them out with only the costumes on their backs, and no severance pay. Like a real gentleman.

But if the sisters had been fired from the circus and never worked together again, then how could my French prisoner have eaten fish with them on the train? Unless he had been lying to me all along.

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Fleur Rang Her Little Bell Again

  • by jenhe sang as loud as he could
  • tolerably well off for a German professor
  • And not in the way he’s usually feeling it.
  • you do a victory dance
  • circuit breakers?

Tune in next time part 321      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Fleur rang her little bell again, and the vice-chancellor of the exchequer joined us in the birthing chamber. I held the children and made faces to amuse them while he, Fleur, and the old incense woman consulted many hefty tomes and divined their official titles. When all was in order, the Royal Contrarian Radio Service members were brought in. The vice-chancellor took the microphone and sang-announced the royal births to the world in ritualistic Contrarian fashion. Contrarian microphones are notoriously terrible, so he sang as loud as he could. My son’s title clocked in at three minutes on the dot, while all the feminine suffixes of my daughter’s added an additional eighteen seconds, and took up the entirety of the allowed time.

With that bit of official nonsense out of the way, I thought I might finally enjoy some time alone with my little family. I was wrong. Fleur’s beautiful sister Isolde raced into the room, afire with manic glee. Now that the babies had arrived, she was permitted to marry Harry, a toadlike Contrarian noble. I had no idea what she saw in him. As I already mentioned, Harry was ugly, and while he might be considered tolerably well off for a German professor, as royalty went he was the bottom of the barrel.

“I’ve been waiting so long to marry my sweet prince!” Isolde sighed. “We can wait no longer. The wedding will be in half an hour!”

“Harry is not a prince,” Fleur corrected. “He’s a junior-baronet, but since you love him so, I grant permission for you to wed upon my ship.”

Isolde squealed. “You are the best sister!”

“Where is Harry?” Fleur asked. “I must perform the anointing ritual.”

“He went ashore,” Isolde said. “He’s feeling seasick. And not in the way he’s usually feeling it.” She winked at her sister. “If you know what I mean.”

“So it’s to be a proxy wedding?” Fleur asked, sounding bored. “You have the ceremony with a stand-in groom, you do a victory dance together as per tradition, and then you take him to your bedchamber and see if you can blow out all the circuit breakers?”

“Precisely.”

Fleur said, “My husband seems to be already dressed for the occasion, more or less.”

“Wait,” I said, clasping my infant children to my chest. “What?” I had always found Fleur’s sister attractive, and it seemed I might suddenly be given permission to bed her.

“Thank you!” Isolde cried, hugging her sister. “I can’t wait to be married to my darling Harry!”

The old incense woman took the babies, and Fleur splashed a bit of ceremonial wine on my temples, inner wrists, and genitals. “For the next 24 hours you are Junior-Baronet Harry,” she pronounced. “Go and wed my sister, Harry.”

“Oh, Harry!” Isolde cried, taking my hand. “I’m so happy!”

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“Don’t Say a Goddamn Word, Darlene”

  • by jenbounced his face on the pavement
  • when he visits Bermuda to golf
  • Jack’s a doughnut
  • couldn’t understand why Darlene
  • refused to return to his bed

Tune in next time part 233                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Don’t say a goddamn word, Darlene,” Cleopatra snapped.

The Asian woman squeaked and hid her face behind the curtains, disappearing completely. My father leapt to his feet, slipped, and bounced his face on the pavement. But since the pavement in this room was black velvet, just like everything else, he just wound up with a rug burn. It reminded me of how sunburnt he gets when he visits Bermuda to golf and forgets to apply sunscreen.

“Darlene!” Dad yelled. “C’mon back, baby. We’ll kick these interlopers out and lock the door.”

Esmerelda said disgustedly, “Jack’s a doughnut, and he doesn’t care who’s cup of coffee he gets dunked in.”

“Too true,” Cleopatra said.

“Neither of you minded when it was your coffee I was dunking in,” Dad snarked as he made his way to the wall where Darlene disappeared. He started patting it down, searching for her and calling her name.

I knew this was all a ruse, a show put on to distract me from my pointed questions.

I stood with my arms crossed over my chest, watching Dad pretend that he couldn’t understand why Darlene refused to return to his bed, thinking about Esmerelda and Cleopatra. It was true that Cleopatra had lost her accent, but they were sisters, so that meant they were both Svenborgian. And since Esmerelda was an Underduchess, Cleopatra probably was, too. Maybe an Underduchess-once-removed. It was hard to remember all the rules for Svenborgian royal lineage. No matter her title, though, she had to know Viscount Arlo. They both did. They were most likely related to him somehow. And Dad didn’t care.

It was imperative that I figure out what was going on. Without raising their suspicions.

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Geography was Never My Strong Suit

  • by jendidn’t want to say more over the phone
  • the deadly secrets she’d been hiding for three years
  • “What the heck is this?”
  • many generations of fine breeding
  • a very unrealistic assessment of what sex workers charge

Tune in next time part 229                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

Geography was never my strong suit, but even I knew there was a limited number of countries one could reach from Harmonia by water, and our current location resembled none of them. And then it hit me: hovercrafts can travel over land as well as sea. We could be nearly anywhere. And Cleopatra worked so hard to keep me distracted belowdecks, as it were. My distrust of her flared anew.

A zeppelin floated by overhead.

Cleopatra led me into a twisting alley. Where it dead-ended, there was a rusty steel door where she unleashed a flurry of knocks in a complicated rhythm. The door swung inward after a moment and I was compelled to enter the dim room.

From the shadows, a tall woman said, “You should have told us you were bringing him along.” Her voice was familiar.

“Time was short and there were enemies everywhere,” Cleopatra said. “I didn’t want to say more over the phone than the bare basics.”

Shadow-voice stepped out of the shadows and stood behind me, hands on my shoulders. She leaned forward and spoke quietly into my ear. “Did she tell you of the deadly secrets she’d been hiding for three years?” Her odd accent and stilted phrasing identified her as Esmerelda, my brother Jim’s wife. If she was here, did that mean my father was, too?

Esmerelda moved from behind me and embraced Cleopatra, giving her bottom a squeeze. “What the heck is this?” she demanded. “I’m disappointed in you, sister. We are the end result of many generations of fine breeding, and yet you cover up your genetically perfect ass with this relic of old Svenborgia?”

They were sisters? That was news to me. Cold dread clutched my gut.

“I am a traditionalist,” Cleopatra replied.

Esmerelda stood beside her sister and regarded me icily. “Your father has a very unrealistic assessment of what sex workers charge. He’s draining the treasury of his new empire, and he’s not even been publicly acknowledged as leader. We need you to talk to him.”

She was standing side-by-side with her sister, but they were on opposite sides of the conflict over my father. Or were they? Had Cleopatra been playing me all along in order to get me here?

Wherever here was.

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Looking at the Scalpel

  • by jennot in any way compromise your sister
  • three sons and two daughters
  • rural lava fields
  • asked Henri how his vacation was going
  • now that I’ve read it

Tune in next time part 213                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

Looking at the scalpel I remembered my father’s last words to me, Jason, Jim, Jemma, and Jemima: “I would not in any way compromise your sister against her wishes. You know how Freya is. She’s game for anything! I can’t believe that of all my children I have three sons and two daughters who are so uptight and inhibited. You five should try to be more openminded like your other siblings. Why, when I was a youth in the rural lava fields of Iceland, it was anything goes! Our little village was a popular holiday destination for broad-minded Frenchmen, and they taught me much. It was always educational when I ‘asked Henri how his vacation was going‘– if you know what I mean. But you handed me this petition, and now that I’ve read it I think that you don’t, in fact, know what I mean.”

He shook his head and expelled the lot of us from the Oval Office. I don’t know about my siblings, but I never saw my father again.

Until today.

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Special Bonus Double Installment!

Our chain story has been wobbling drunkenly along for close to two years now, lurching from one exotic location to another, and expanding our unnamed protagonist’s bizarre circle of friends and family. Just like we did with part 100, we’re celebrating part 200 by writing it together!

The list of prompt phrases is twice as long as usual, and has, for the first time ever, been drawn exclusively from our own published novels. We think this ups the challenge significantly because we both have the novels pretty much memorized and it will be difficult to put these phrases in an unfamiliar context.

Jen will go first, and as soon as she incorporates the first prompt phrase she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent. He’ll work until the second snippet is incorporated and then hand it back. And so on. Hopefully we will not come to blows.

  • I know how to break
  • dominated coffeehouse debate
  • bordering on smarmy
  • jocularity and baggy shorts
  • “Enough fucking football metaphors
  • drinking way too much Mountain Dew
  • grinding more than rocking
  • rather large, rather ugly
  • intricate designs along her spine
  • slumped over with wheezing laughter

Tune in next time parts 199 & 200                      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I made it back to Dr Belladonna’s bedroom before I heard any sign of pursuit, and I got the door closed and locked just in time. Jem and Jem stood outside, debating loudly about the proper technique for picking the lock. I know how to break through most hypnotic trances, so I decided to take a chance and let the girls in. I’d be much better off if I could get them on my side and away from Jim.

The soft click when I unlocked the door was enough to shush my sisters. I stepped back, prepping my trance-breaking routine. Theirs could be any of three different forms of hypnosis, each with different weaknesses. The best way to rouse someone from a trance had dominated coffeehouse debate at the academy my junior year, so I had lots of ideas to try out. I just didn’t know how much time I’d have to try them.

“We know you’re up to something, big brother.” Jemma’s voice was unctuous, bordering on smarmy.

“And we know what it is,” added Jemima, brazen confidence in her voice.

“So come at me, sis,” I said playfully. The two common elements in all my anti-hypnosis tactics were jocularity and baggy shorts. Too late, I remembered what I was wearing.

I hurtled across the room like David Beckham, hoping to get to the closet before my sisters took me up on my offer. There had to be some baggy shorts in there somewhere, and if I could get them on quickly enough I could save the day like a goalkeeper stopping a game-winning ball.

“Enough fucking football metaphors!” I grumbled to myself. “I’m not even English!”

A pair of Dr Belladonna’s bloomers would have to suffice. I hauled them on over my pants just as Jem (or Jem) thrust the door open. “You look like you’ve been drinking way too much Mountain Dew!” I declared in what I have to say were surpassingly jocular tones. The girls were unaffected, which meant I’d guessed wrong about the nature of the trance.

They entered the room, moving with the uncanny choreography of twins, even though they were triplets. Their hips swayed in unison, grinding more than rocking, which gave me the vital clue: Jim was using some sort of mind-control drug on them. Something other than Mountain Dew.

Jemma stationed herself in front of me in a feline crouch while Jemima went over to the nightstand and hefted the rather large, rather ugly vase. She squinted at me, lining up her throw.

I timed my move just right. When Jemima hurled the vase, I leapt up and grabbed the chandelier. The hefty piece of porcelain flew right beneath my feet, strewing roses, and hit Jemma square in the chest. She toppled, swearing. The water from the vase quickly saturated her white t-shirt, displaying the intricate designs along her spine and ribcage, the tattoos she’d been given as a child to mark her as the youngest female in our family, and therefore the one promised to the Guild of Fire Eaters.

I pumped my legs to get the chandelier swinging. Jemima looked around for something else to throw at me, and Jemma sprang to her feet, dripping. I timed my next move a bit less perfectly, letting go of the chandelier too soon. Rather than clearing the bed, I landed on it and bounced, my momentum sending me sprawling against the wall to slide down head-first onto the floor. Jem and Jem slumped over with wheezing laughter. My less-than-perfect timing had been perfect after all.

Before they regained their composure, I seized the now-empty nightstand and used it to bash the knob off the door. Darting out, I pulled it shut behind me, trapping them in Absinthia’s boudoir.

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Jim Was Always Coming Up with Outrageous Theories

  • by jenin that gentleman’s widely opened eyes
  • these dashing cardigans
  • Tonight: dinosaurs.
  • Her stomach made fish tank noises
  • appeared to have been eaten by foxes

Tune in next time part 197                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim was always coming up with outrageous theories about twins. I guess being the only twinless sibling in the family will do that to a guy. Not that he was a singleton. No, Jim was a triplet, but his co-trips were identical girls and he always felt left out. His experiments were often painful, and I had no interest in seeing what he had planned for today, or how the paper shredders would play into it.

I took a step backwards, away from the false graveyard of office equipment, and promptly bumped into someone standing right behind me. It was Jim, of course, and in that gentleman’s widely opened eyes I saw no hint of brotherly affection. To my surprise, he was flanked by our sisters Jemma and Jemima. It was unusual to see all three triplets together. They were all wearing these dashing cardigans in a blue and green color scheme that told me all I needed to know about where their loyalties currently lay. Normally the girls pledged fealty to the Academy’s chess team, the Anacondas. Tonight: Dinosaurs. If he had convinced them to support the chess hooligans of our greatest rivals, Jim had more sway over them than I had ever imagined possible. Perhaps his theories about twins weren’t as outrageous as I had always imagined.

Ignoring Jim and his widely opened eyes, I smiled at our sisters and reached out to shake their hands. With Jemma’s hand in my right, Jemima’s in my left, I executed the secret “twin handshake” we had all developed as children when we wanted to exclude Jim. I was hoping to break through whatever insidious hold he had over them, but to all outward appearances I was unsuccessful. And on top of that, they wouldn’t let go of my hands.

“Jem,” Jim drawled, “and Jem, bring him back out to the operating table.”

My sisters pulled me back into the rocket surgery. My crocs had no traction on the slick floor, especially when they dragged me through Absinthia’s blood. Her stomach made fish tank noises under our feet, all blurbley and squelchy. Her poor corpse appeared to have been eaten by foxes, not operated on by rockets.

I averted my eyes and tried to come up with a plan to escape my nefarious triplet siblings.

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Now That You’ve Checked Santa Off Your To-Kiss List

  • by jenonly full-blooded Navajo
  • a vast subterranean chamber of horrors
  • reflection of its luminous rays
  • Ahem.
  • and you’re still not dancing

Tune in next time part 139                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Now that you’ve checked Santa off your To-Kiss list, Freya, I think only full-blooded Navajo is left.” I shot a glance at Mr Claus’s tattoo before his beard covered it again, hoping it was not a twin to my own. It wasn’t, and instead depicted a vast subterranean chamber of horrors, a Hellscape overhung by a giant bloody sun, the writhing flames a reflection of its luminous rays.

Santa said, “Ahem. My eyes are up here.”

Freya smoothed his beard and kissed the tip of his nose, then leapt to her feet. “Mother sent me to find you,” she explained to me. “She says, and I quote, ‘Thor is a huge disappointment as president, and you’re still not dancing fast enough.'” Freya shrugged. “She said you’d know what she meant.”

Oh, I knew all right. I knew, and I didn’t like it one little bit.

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Tallulah Kept Me Confined to the Bathroom All Night

  • by jenkissed each other good morning
  • she was going to carry a hammer to work
  • four years earlier, nearly to the day
  • another human skull
  • Oh hell

Tune in next time part 133                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Tallulah kept me confined to the bathroom all night. Between the arms merchants and their monkey robot plans out in the dining room, the occasional visits from the busybody janitor, the knowledge that my wife could discover us any minute, and the unhinged look in Tallulah’s eyes and her talk of blood — well, let’s just say that I was having trouble wrapping things up.

With superhuman stamina and dedication, Tallulah saw things through to the bitter end. When it finally happened, we kissed each other good morning and, at last, disengaged.

The next thing I knew Tallulah was glaring at my crotch and angrily telling the voice from the camera that there was no way she was going to “carry a hammer to work” again tonight.

I thought back to the last time she’d carried my hammer. It was four years earlier, nearly to the day. Tessa had left me and I was on a bender. I had just ordered my favorite drink when Tallulah joined me at the bar. “Don’t tell me you’re having another Human Skull. Those things will kill you.”

The rest of that night was a blur, much like the last night, and, really, every night with Tallulah.

I struggled to my feet and was trying to make myself look presentable when the door flew open, admitting Taylor, Tara, and Tanya, Tallulah’s younger sisters. On their own they were formidable – working as a team, deadly. And they followed Tallulah’s orders to a T.

“Oh hell,” I said.

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