The Imperfections by Sam Mariano

1

Brant

It’sthe end of a long-ass day, the kind of day that makes most people long for the comfort of home—people who have some kind of comfort to go home to, anyway.

That’s what I keep thinking about as I sit here waiting for the little asshole my sister married to show up at my bar. I don’t know how much longer this night’s gonna last, but I have a bad feeling about it.

When my sister married a man younger than her, I had reservations. He’s only five years younger, but it’s enough. Theo wasn’t ready for marriage, but Bri’s biological clock ticked so loudly it drowned out her common sense. When he got her pregnant—before they were even fucking engaged—she was ecstatic. When he proposed to make it right, she accepted without skepticism. She saw him as her last chance to start a family before she got too old, and desperation doesn’t lead to the best decisions.

Most of the ladies in our family start popping out babies before they can legally buy alcohol, so I understood her feeling behind, but traditional as I am sometimes, I still didn’t think she should marry this asshole.

She did anyway.

Now they’ve got a house in the suburbs and two boys of their own. Bri’s trying desperately for a third, wants a little girl this time. I’m not one to break up a family even if I think he wasn’t right for my sister and she could’ve done better, but when he called me yesterday afternoon and told me he needed to meet up and talk, I had the strongest feeling my sister’s dreams of having a baby girl might be about to go up in smoke.

I have sort of a reputation in my family as the problem solver. When Bri got knocked around by the hothead she was dating in college, I was the one who knocked his teeth down his throat and reminded him how not to treat a lady. When my other sister’s daughter had some trouble with a burgeoning asshole in her first grade class, I went around and had a chat with him to let him know how my niece oughta be treated.

Sometimes the problems I have to deal with are a bit rougher than that, but the point is, my sisters both know if there’s a problem and they come to me, there won’t be a problem anymore.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when it was my brother-in-law to call me instead of my sister. I guess he qualifies as family since he married her and fathered both my nephews, but I have a feeling he only called to confess because he was afraid Bri would find out. Then I’d have a whole different problem to deal with, and maybe it would involve him.

I lean back in the beat-up booth and crack my knuckles with anticipation. I hate that I offered this idiot a chance to come clean before it came to that, but the way I figure, if I can save my sister a little pain and protect her from shit like this happening in the future, I’ve done my job. It’s more important to protect Bri than to satisfy my own urge to crush some of the bones in Theo’s pretty-boy face.

I’m sure he cheated. What the fuck else could it be? My brother-in-law’s a fucking asshole, but the kind women tend to be attracted to: physically fit, tattoos, dark looks and blue eyes my sister calls “piercing.” It was one of the reasons I objected to her marrying the cocky prick to begin with, and now here we are.

The front door opens and I sit forward, wrapping my hand around the whiskey glass I brought over and taking a sip.

Theo comes into view, head down, hands shoved into his pockets, all vulnerable-like. Yep, he fucked something up real bad.

“Bring that bottle with you,” I tell him, nodding at the bar.

He stops and turns back, grabbing my bottle of whiskey and bringing it with him. He sets it down on the table in front of me, then takes a seat across from me and sighs. He’s got his hands clasped on the table, head down, the picture of remorse.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” he says.

I don’t want to waste time with pleasantries, so I grab the bottle, pour myself a little more, and lean back in my side of the booth. “So, what’d you fuck up?”

He shakes his head, looking real pitiful. “I’m afraid to tell you,” he says, trying to pretend he’s joking, throwing in a nervous laugh.

I shake my head, throwing back my drink and setting the glass back down on the scarred wooden tabletop. “Don’t waste my time, Theo. It’s been a long day. You need to tell me what you fucked up so we can figure out what to do about it and then I can go home.”

Looking a little more focused, he nods his head. “All right.”

“You’re gonna be brutally honest,” I state, pointing at him. “You’re not gonna fucking lie to me and give me some apologetic half-truths, either. Whatever you did, be a man and own it. I find out you’ve left shit out trying to cover your ass, you’re going to be the problem I take care of. Only way I fix this for you and send you back to my sister is if you can be a man worth having, and that means no fucking lying. It’s cowardly, and my sister deserves better than a fucking coward.”

Theo swallows and nods. I can see the color rising in his cheeks, either anger or embarrassment. Frankly, I don’t care which.

I lean back. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

He sits there for a second, trying to figure out how to begin. I can see him weighing what he wants to admit against what I’ve demanded. He doesn’t want to come out on the wrong side of me, but he must be smart enough to realize he’s more likely to end up there by wasting my time than by fucking some other bitch.

He’s right. Not much pisses me off more than having my goddamn time wasted.

“All right, so, I guess I should start—” He stops and clears his throat. “About a year ago—well, it was a year ago. A year and couple days,” he amends nervously.

“Calm the fuck down,” I tell him, keeping my voice even.

Nodding too quickly, he says, “For our anniversary last year, I hired this babysitter. This 17-year-old had gone door to door, passing out flyers advertising her babysitting business. Anyway, her name was Alyssa and I had her come watch the boys so I could take Bri out for the evening.”

“All right,” I say, showing him I’m still calm.

“And it worked out really well. She was great, and the boys loved her right away, so we kept hiring her any time we needed a sitter. Then about six months ago, Bri and I were both working late one night, so we had Alyssa come over and watch the boys in the evening. I got home first, and it had been a long day, just a long, miserable fucking day. So I get home, walk through the front door, and the house smells so good I instantly feel just a little bit better. Alyssa’s a great cook, and sometimes if she’d watch the boys in the evening, she’d make dinner if she knew Bri wouldn’t be home to do it herself.”

“What’d she make?”

Caught off guard by my conversational tone, he hesitates. “Uh, spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. She made the garlic bread homemade. It was real good.” He clears his throat and goes on. “Anyway, I haven’t eaten since lunch so I figure I’ll eat. She hasn’t had a chance to eat, so I tell her to grab a plate, you know? She made it—she shouldn’t have to go home hungry.”

“Mm-hmm,” I murmur noncommittally.

His dread grows, so we must be getting to the good part. “The boys—you know how they are, can’t sit still. They ate some but then ran off and started playing in the other room. Me and Alyssa kept eating, and I can’t say how it happened, I guess I just needed to blow off steam and she’s—she’s not what you’ll think she is. She’s not some sexed-up high school slut. She’s really sweet and a great listener, just… easygoing and friendly, and I don’t know, somehow the conversation got flirty.” He stops and darts a glance in my direction. “I turned it flirty. It was me. I don’t know why. I didn’t think anything would come of it, I just started teasing her, and she started blushing.” He cradles his forehead in his hand and sighs. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I didn’t even think she’d—but I took her to show her something on the computer in the spare bedroom. We were in there alone and the door was closed and she was leaning over my shoulder to look, and then before I knew it, I was kissing her and backing her up against the bed. Then we were on it and I was taking all her clothes off, and before I fucking knew it…”

I narrow my eyes slightly at the way he trails off. “Say it,” I snap.

He swallows audibly. “Before I know it, I’m balls-deep inside the tightest hole I’ve ever fucked,” he finishes miserably. “She was a fucking virgin. I didn’t know. It happened so fast, Brant, I don’t—I wasn’t even nice, didn’t even get her ready. I didn’t eat her pussy, barely fingered her. I was a fucking animal, devouring her like she was the first morsel of food I’d come across in ages. It felt so fucking good, I didn’t even feel like myself while I was with her. I came inside her, and I didn’t wear a condom or anything since it was so spontaneous.”

Of course. Leave it to Theo to be reckless enough to not even use a fucking condom while he’s cheating on my sister—with a teenager.

I hope this isn’t going where I think it’s going.

Theo continues, “Well, right about the time I was coming inside our babysitter, I hear Bri calling my name down the hall. I panicked and we jumped off the bed and started throwing our clothes back on. I was sweating bullets. I was terrified Alyssa might—I wasn’t sure, so I grabbed her and gave her a kiss, sort of silently pleading with her not to say anything, then we went back to the kitchen. Bri didn’t know why Alyssa was still there if I was home, so I told her Alyssa was cleaning up after she made dinner, and I fucking made this teenage girl I just fucked who was still full of my cum clean up while I kissed my wife hello. These are not my finest moments, Brant.”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” I agree.

He nods then looks off and says, “It didn’t happen again after that for a long time. I didn’t even ask her to come babysit again because… you know, I hoped it would just go away and no one would ever have to find out. But Bri likes Alyssa and she didn’t know, obviously. She didn’t suspect anything. Again, Alyssa isn’t the kind of girl you think would do something like that.”

I’m getting worried about the fact that he keeps trying to protect this babysitter in the telling of this story, like he cares about her. Before I ask any questions, though, I give him a chance to finish.

“So Bri surprised me one night. When I got home, Alyssa was there to watch the boys so we could go out. It was weird for me, obviously, but Alyssa kept her mouth shut and did a good job acting normal, so we started having her come over again. I was nervous the first time I got home before Bri, but she seemed to get the message that I didn’t want to talk about what had happened, so she just told me what the boys had for lunch and left. I thought it was over.”

“But it wasn’t,” I surmise.

He looks at me and hangs his head. “One night we were working late again. I got home first and the boys were already in bed. Alyssa was sitting on the couch with a book and when I got there, she just looked up at me, and… I don’t know, Brant. The look in her eye… I got hard as a fucking rock. I asked her if she had to get right home and she said no, and then before I knew it, I was grabbing her and unzipping my pants and then my cock was in her mouth. She gave lousy head and I was so fucking hard, so I pushed her back on the couch and fucked her again. When we were finished I got a message from Bri telling me she was sorry but she wouldn’t be home for a couple more hours. This is where it gets real bad,” he tells me, like a warning.

“Now is when it gets bad?” I ask, shaking my head as I cross my arms over my chest. “All right. Go ahead.”

“Since the boys were in bed and I knew Bri would still be a while, I took Alyssa in to the shower. I told her I wanted to clean her up, but… you know. In the shower I had my hands all over her and by the time we got out, I was hard again. I guess I was talking dirty to her in the shower, telling her all the things I fantasized about doing to her. When we got out and she saw how hard I was, she asked me if I wanted to do any of that stuff to her before she left.”

“Jesus,” I mutter, trying to shake off the image of a teenage temptress my mind keeps conjuring.

Eyes widening, he nods. “Right? I know I should have sent her home, but there was this one thing I’d always wanted to do that Bri didn’t want any part of.”

“Oh, now you’re gonna be discreet. After telling me you were balls-deep inside the tightest hole you’ve ever fucked, now you’re gonna get precious?”

“I wanted her ass,” he says a little sheepishly. “I thought she’d say no, but she thought about it for a minute and then said okay. I couldn’t turn that down. I should have, I know, but I didn’t. I took her back to the spare bedroom, bent her over the bed, and fucked her sweet virgin ass.”

My cock starts to respond to the vulgar mental image he’s concocting. Of course it’s not him in my mind’s eye; it’s me with my cock buried deep inside some nice little almost-virgin who cooks like a wife and fucks like a whore.

“What’s she look like?” I murmur, looking up at him.

“Alyssa?” He pushes out a breath, like he’s tempted just thinking about her. “She’s cute as hell. Blonde hair, blue-green eyes. She’s got a tight little ass, nice figure. Her tits are a little on the small side, but damn, they’re nice. She’s sweet, though. She dresses kinda modest, a lot of dresses and cardigans, but… she let me do anything to her.”

I shift, trying not to concentrate on things that get my cock hard when my dumbass brother-in-law is confessing his sins. “All right, get back to the story.”

Theo clears his throat, then he says, “All right, so when she let me have her ass… Christ, it was so good I wanted to do it again. She went home. I didn’t want to risk getting caught, but it was all I could think about for a while. I started asking Bri—” He stops, remembering he’s talking about my sister. “Shit, sorry. Anyway, I wanted to experience it again, just not outside my marriage.”

“That’s fucking gross,” I tell him, reaching for the whiskey bottle and pouring some more in my glass.

“I know, sorry, it’s just part of the story. Anyway, this was shortly before our most recent anniversary. Bri said she was gonna give me… a good anniversary present,” he says, grimacing, trying to talk around telling me my sister offered him her ass.

I throw back the whiskey.

“We had Alyssa come over to stay with the kids. Bri wanted to get a hotel for the night.”

Jesus, he’s fucking shameless, making his mistress stay home with his sons so he can take his wife to a hotel and fuck her in the ass—which his teenage mistress gave him a taste for to begin with.

“Bri and I went out to dinner, spent some time together before we went back to the hotel. Then we… went to bed,” he offers. “And it was…” He stops again, then tells me, “I don’t know how to say this without saying it.”

“Just say it. Christ.”

“It was okay, but it wasn’t as good as it was with Alyssa. With Alyssa, it was an otherworldly fucking experience. She’s so tight, Brant, I swear she squeezes parts of my soul out of me with her holes.”

Goddammit, Theo. My stomach knots up with arousal, picturing what this girl’s pussy must be like.

“Anyway, so that night while Bri was asleep, I checked my phone and saw a message from Alyssa. I thought it might be about the boys, so I opened it, but it wasn’t. She was just telling me happy anniversary and she hoped we had a nice night.”

My lips curve up dryly. “Sure she did.”

“No, she really did,” he insists. “It wasn’t some petty, catty text. I know it sounds like it could be, but you just have to know her. She’s not like that. She really did mean it. She might’ve been sad, but she still meant it when she said she hoped we were having fun. She’s so fucking thoughtful.”

“Are you in love with her?” I ask point-blank since this is not the first time I’ve had the thought.

His eyes widen in alarm. “What? No! Of course not.”

I narrow my eyes, unconvinced. Maybe he doesn’t hear the way he talks about her, but I sure do. “Finish the story.”

Theo clears his throat and fidgets with his hands on the table then swallows and gets back to it. “So, I sent her a text back, and then she texted me, kind of playfully telling me she hoped Bri got me a good gift. I told her…” He second-guesses telling me, but when he meets my gaze, he forces himself to. “I told her she did, but it wasn’t as good as the one she gave me. I got turned on talking to her and I… I asked her to send me a video.”

“A video?”

“I told her…I told her to get herself off and record it for me.”

Fuck. I shift as my bulge grows bigger in my pants, then I nod. “All right.”

“Anyway, she did, and I jerked off to it. Afterward, she asked me if I’d meet her the next day and I said yes.” He pauses, looking down at the table. “I told Bri I had to go to the office and I went out and met Alyssa. She said she wanted to talk, but I just thought it was an excuse to see each other. I fucked her in the back seat of her car, and after I came inside her, I held her and I said something about buying some condoms to keep on hand if we were gonna keep fucking.” He takes an uneasy breath, not looking at me. “She said… she said we didn’t need to use condoms for a while, and I thought she meant because she was on birth control, but… it turns out she was never on birth control.”

I wait, watching the little fucker lick his lips nervously. I know where this is going, but I want to hear him say it.

“She’s pregnant,” he tells me, looking more miserable than he has up to now. “Of course I almost had a fucking heart attack. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to piss her off because she had all this ammunition. She could wipe out my whole fucking life if she told. I tried to feel her out, tried to play it supportive and ask what she wanted to do, hoping to God she’d say she wanted an abortion and I could give her some money to take care of it.”

“She didn’t,” I surmise.

He shakes his head miserably. “She won’t. We got into a fight about it. I tried to be nice at first, but when she kept refusing and saying she wanted to have the baby, I just… I got so fucking scared, and I told her she couldn’t keep it because it would ruin both our lives. She swore she wouldn’t tell Bri, but that wasn’t good enough. What if she changed her mind? I told her I’d give her the money and take her to the appointment myself, but she just got pissed at me for trying to force her into something she didn’t want to do. I never saw her so stern in all the time I knew her. Wouldn’t you know the time she comes up against me and holds her fucking ground is over the worst mistake of my life? So, I didn’t handle it well,” he tells me, like this isn’t even all of it.

“There’s more?” I demand, cocking an eyebrow.

“I felt this helpless rage that she wouldn’t let me off the hook. She was always so goddamn accommodating—what happened to that?”

“Sounds like she’s a mama bear,” I offer. “You think of the pregnancy as a mistake. She already thinks of it as her baby.”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s fucking annoying. Anyway, we both get all fired up and before I know it…”

“Let me guess, you fucked her again,” I deadpan.

He nods. “But this time, it’s different. This time I’m not enchanted like I normally am, just thinking about the pleasure she’s giving me. This time she’s being a pain in my ass and she could really ruin my life. I didn’t make a conscious decision to do it, but I wrapped my hands around her throat and started choking her while I fucked her. She didn’t like it, even at first when she thought maybe I was just being kinky. She started panicking and tried to pull my hands off her throat and yelled at me to stop, but I didn’t. I kept fucking her even though she didn’t want me to anymore, and she was so fucking afraid. Then I started thinking, What the fuck am I doing? This is illegal, she’s going to have my ass arrested.”

Aw, shit.Giving up my relaxed position, I lean forward and stare at him across the table. “Are you telling me you killed this girl?”

A little paler, he shakes his head. “No. No, I… I swear to God, I almost did, but I couldn’t go through with it. Her big eyes were looking up at me so fearful, so betrayed. After I came, I just sort of let her go and ran. The whole fucking way home all I could think about was the cops showing up at my door and Bri answering, so fucking confused.” He hangs his head in shame. “What would she tell the boys? I fucked up so bad, Brant.”

He sure did.

Fuck.

I expected a cheating story, figured I might have to pay his side dish a visit and persuade her to fuck off, but I wasn’t counting on any of this. A fucking teenage girl, knocked up, and on top of that, sounds like he sort of raped her and tried to kill her. It’s nothing short of a miracle this girl didn’t run screaming to the police station.

“You said she’s 17?”

“She was when it all started. She’s 18 now,” he tells me.

“Alyssa what?”

“Alyssa Walton.”

“She live with her parents?”

He nods. “Her mom. She starts college in the fall, so she was going to live at home the first year to get herself used to everything.”

“Was,” I echo, running my thumb across the rim of my whiskey glass. Looking up at him, I ask, “What is it you’d like me to do for you, Theo?”

At first, he just stares at me, wanting me to fill in the blank for him, wanting me to say what I already know he’s asking so he doesn’t have to ask me to murder the nice little girl who made the dumb mistake of getting mixed up with him.

“She’s not cooperating,” he says a little desperately, trying to justify his ugly request. “Now she hates me, and it’s only a matter of time before she decides to stop covering my ass. She’ll go to Bri, if not to the cops, and what then? She’ll ruin Bri’s life, Brant.”

“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head mildly. “Don’t try to convince me it’s what’s best for my sister. I told you, be a fucking man, own what you did, and own what you’re asking me to do for you. Don’t put it on Bri.”

Another long, silent minute passes, then he licks his lips, gathers his courage, and tells me, “I need you to deal with Alyssa. I need you to…make her disappear before she blows up my whole life.”

I look across the table at this miserable fucker. “Do you love my sister?”

“Yes,” he says vehemently, looking like he wants to hop across the table and tattoo the word on my left bicep so I’ll see it every day and believe him. “I do. I made a selfish fucking mistake, Brant, that’s all. I know I fucked up big time, I know this is bad, but I do love your sister. I don’t even know why I did it. I didn’t mean to, man, it just happened somehow.”

“It happened because you let it happen,” I tell him, not letting him off the hook that easily. “It happened because you’re a selfish dick who decided to stick his cock into the pretty teenager who came around every now and again. If I fix this for you, can you guarantee me nothing like this ever happens again?”

“Yes,” he swears, nodding. “Yes, I promise.”

“Nothing,” I say again, pointing at him across the table and narrowing my eyes. “You’ll be as faithful as a fucking Labrador until your dying day, and if you’re not, you’re done.”

“I swear to God,” he tells me, like that means anything coming from him. Bet this fucker doesn’t believe in jack shit, but still he says it. “You have my word, Brant.”

Ha, his word—only thing that means less.

He’s a sorry sack of shit and I don’t want to help him. I’m tempted to kick him out and deny him my assistance on this sensitive matter, but then I think about my sister crying into her pillow over this little asshole. If she finds out, she’ll be heartbroken, plain and simple. Even if she leaves him, she’ll be devastated for so long, by the time she moves on it might be too late to have that little princess she has her heart set on.

And here’s this asshole, knocking up someone else.

I shake my head at him and hunch forward, grabbing the whiskey. He watches me pour some into the glass, then throw it back, and put the glass back down with a clink that makes him swallow again.

“I’m gonna tell you something, Theo: you better not make me regret covering your ass.”

Relief transforms his features and his whole being lightens. “I won’t. Brant, thank you.”

“I’m not doing it for you,” I tell him, despite having told him he wasn’t allowed to say this is for Bri. “I’m doing it for my sister.”

He nods, eager to agree with anything I say now, even if it’s contradictory. “Of course.”

“You’re gonna put another baby in her if I let you go home tonight,” I warn him. “A little girl,” I add, like he can control that.

“I’ll do my best,” he promises.

“You’re gonna treat my sister like a fucking queen, and you take this betrayal to your grave. You put it out of your head and pretend it never happened. She’s not going to suffer for your stupid-ass decisions.”

“No,” he agrees, shaking his head.

“Once trust is broken, there’s no getting it back. You can try gluing it back together, but it won’t work the same. You keep your goddamn mouth shut and do better going forward.”

He accepts my berating and practically thanks me for it. I’m sick of this asshole, so I get the girl’s relevant details and then I send his sorry ass home.

Once he’s gone, I start debating how best to attack this. Time is of the essence. He told me he choked her the day after his anniversary, and that was a few days ago. If the girl hasn’t gone to the police yet, she probably won’t, but just because no cops have shown up yet doesn’t mean she hasn’t.

I need to find out if she reported him first. As long as she didn’t, I can make her disappear.

If she already did, he’s in a world of shit, and even I can’t bail him out of that mess.

With a heavy sigh, I haul my ass out of the booth, put the whiskey back behind the bar, and head out.