Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 144(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Joan merely lets out a bone-rattling scream, her thin fingers gripping the edges of the door frame. Then, she bolts down the stairs while shrieking, “Harry, Harry!”
Clearly, it’s too late. Our mother’s seen everything that she needs … which means our secret is out.
11
Emily
My heart seems to stop as I turn to face Janine. She looks just as pale as our mom did. We stare at each other in disbelief, speechless.
“Now what?” I whisper, on the verge of tears. Janine takes a few breaths, slumping back in her chair. Silence hangs in the air. I lower myself onto the bed because I’m suddenly so stressed out, I’m worried I might faint. Janine rubs her face in dismay, but she’s the first to recover.
“Well,” she says hesitantly. “I guess the secret is out. Our parents had to find out at some point.”
“Yeah, but this is not how I wanted it to happen!” I groan, replaying the moment Mom walked in at a particularly graphic moment in the video. The only way this could have been worse is if she’d walked into this room while we were literally having sex with Jason and Tucker.
Actually, no, I quickly realize. This is worse because if she had walked in on us having sex in our room, then at least it would be without the added taboo of us having sex with our older boyfriends at an orgy. Ugh, this is utter disaster.
“Look, we can’t have it all,” Janine says in a firm tone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I whimper, wishing I could turn back time so we could have been smart enough to at least face the screen away from the door while we opened that email.
“It means,” my sister asserts, “that we’re very lucky. Tucker and Jason are both amazing men. They’re unbelievably handsome and hot, they’re both successful, and they’re both absolutely and completely smitten with us. How many girls can say their boyfriends are as devoted as ours are? They’d do anything for us.”
“Right,” I say. “But that’s not helpful right now.”
“No it is!” my sister protests. “What I’m saying is, maybe we don’t get to have this kind of happiness and have our parents root for us as well. They don’t see what we see. All Mom has seen is us having sex at some dirty orgy with two men in their forties. And that’s what she’s going to tell Dad. What’s she’s probably telling him right now, actually.”
I groan with embarrassment at our dad knowing about what we’ve been up to.
“So what’s your point?” I ask Janine, hoping she’s got some clever plan. My sister pauses for a moment, biting her lip.
“My point is, we have to explain it to them,” she says confidently, like it’s so simple. “We have to tell Harry and Joan about our happiness, so they understand. How else will they ever accept this?”
I stare at my sister.
“You think Mom and Dad are going to accept this? Seriously, Janine, what planet are you on? We’re high school girls, and our boyfriends are in their forties. Not only that, but they took us to an orgy. Harry and Joan aren’t going to be into this at all.”
“Then we have to make them see how happy we are!” she answers immediately, her eyes flashing. “We have to fight for our men. Our lives. We’re not kids, anymore, Em. We’re eighteen, and we’re about to graduate high school. There are people our age fighting wars. Surely, we get to choose who we love?”
I can’t deny she has a point. Maybe it’s time we stepped out from under our parents’ shadow. After all, I’ll be off to college in the fall and on my own after that. I may as well show them now how independent I am. And if they don’t accept it, Janine and I can handle the consequences, so long as we have Tucker and Jason at our sides.
“Okay,” I say. “You’re right. We should at least try and explain. Let’s go talk to them.”
Janine nods and stands up, taking my hand. We traipse downstairs to find our parents sitting at the kitchen table. The atmosphere is heavy, like a gray cloud is weighing us down. Dad’s face is in his hands and he doesn’t look up when we enter. Mom looks straight at us, her eyes full of tears.
“What was that?” she wails. “That video that I saw you in?”
Janine and I look at each other, wondering how much to disclose.
“Answer me,” Mom pleads. “And be honest, girls. Was there an orgy at Twin Fest? Is that the filth I just saw?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Janine says in a firm voice, earning a sidelong glance from me. We had just decided to come clean! What is she doing? “At least, not exactly,” she amends, noting my look. “We were invited to a VIP party at the end of the festival. We didn’t know what it was, but we went because we were curious. It didn’t start out as an orgy…” her voice trails off, remembering how it happened. At least this is all true. “It just sort-of happened.”