She was there. Sarah. Standing on the deck next to me, wearing a tiny bikini top and that crazy wrap skirt she'd had on the first time we met. Her hair was hanging past her shoulders and blowing around in the wind, like she was some kind of Sports Ill.u.s.trated swimsuit model. And, oh-her feet. Bare and brown, with perfect little toes.

I couldn't stop staring at her feet.

Her hand reached out for the waistband of my jeans and tugged me forward. Her fingertips touched my naked stomach and I popped an instant chubby. She didn't say anything; she just leaned forward into my neck with a firm kiss. Her hair smelled like Coppertone, or maybe it was her shoulder.

The boat rocked a bit, making me stumble. I held on to her for balance. Her nipples were hard; I could feel them against my chest. She pulled me even closer. I untied the knot on her skirt and it flew away. I hooked my thumbs on the side strings of her bikini bottoms and pulled them down some. The tan line alone just about killed me.

The only thing left between us was my jeans, but I couldn't get them undone, like the b.u.t.ton had been rusted shut. I pulled at it harder and harder, getting frantic, feeling like I was going to explode if I couldn't get inside of her right that second.

A throaty voice said, "Want some help with that?" But when I looked up, it was my honey Alicia Silverstone, with her doe eyes and frowny mouth.

Only, her hair was blue.

First Cut Is the Deepest.

I woke up violent-style, coated with sweat. Seattle was sitting on the edge of the couch, her face scrunched up in concern. "You okay?" she asked. "You look kind of sick."

"I'm fine," I snapped. "Why are you watching me sleep?"

"I wasn't," she shot back. "I wanted to give you this." She handed me a damp paper cup from Rita's. It was filled with my favorite gelato: vanilla frozen custard swirled with root beer water ice.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"It was supposed to be a peace offering, but whatever." She got up and made like she was going to leave.

"Don't go," I said. "I didn't mean to bark at you. You just scared me, is all."

Seattle sighed and tugged at one of her fading-blue dreadlocks. "I don't like it," she said.

"Don't like what?"

"Fighting," she said. "Duh."

"Oh."

I spooned some of the gelato into my mouth, and then, as a token of my appreciation, offered Sea her own spoonful. She shook her head. "Jess and I already had some."

"Of course."

The tension between us was thicker than my custard. And I was still messed up from my freaky dream, so I couldn't think of anything to say that might clear the air. I kept slurping down my gelato, even though the coldness was bringing on a fresh wave of headache.

Sea kept pulling on her dreadlocks. "I hate my hair," she said.

"Since when?"

"Since now. I feel like cutting it all off."

"Okay," I said. "Bring me the shaver and I'll do it for you."

She gave me a blank stare. "Do what? Make me bald?"

I shrugged. "Sure, whatever. Could be kind of cute."

"Bald," she said again, her voice flat.

"Yeah," I said. "Bald."

Now it was like some kind of challenge. When she wordlessly walked out of the room a minute later, I thought she'd backed down. Instead, she returned with a pair of scissors and the electric shaver in hand.

"So go ahead," she said, offering them up like some kind of sacrifice. "Do it."

Was she bluffing? I couldn't tell. I needed more time to chew this over, so I tipped my Rita's cup at her and said, "Can I finish, please?" She nodded, and I slowed my slurp pace. Seattle dropped to the floor, crossed her legs pretzel-style, and after resting her chin in her hands, fixed her eyes on me. Watching me eat with the same intensity she'd watched the toaster with earlier.

It was good, though; it gave me time to imagine what she'd look like without any hair. She had a round face-not fat, but soft and circlelike. A baby face. Big, big eyes, dark brown and set deeply. Cute nose-smallish, and round on the tip-and a plush mouth, small but full, like Angelina Jolie's if hers had been run through a Shrinky d.i.n.ks machine.

I guessed I had been staring at her too long, because she said, "Memorized me yet? Eat up, Sparky. You've got work to do."

Her calling me out like that made me feel itchy, so I pushed my plastic spoon aside and drank the melted remains of my gelato. "Okay," I said. "Hop to it, Sparky."

I sat on the edge of the couch while Sea scooted between my legs. "Scalpel?" She handed me the scissors. "Are you sure about this?" I asked the back of her head. "It's not like that doll you used to have. I can't just crank your arm and make it go back."

"Do it."

Seattle and I had been cutting and dyeing each other's hair almost as long as we'd known each other, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. But it was. Snipping off that first faded-blue dread made me wince. I held the fat worm of hair in my palm. It felt wrong.

"Keep going," Sea said firmly.

I laid the blue lock, matted into its twisted shape, next to me on the couch cushion. The next five or so came off kind of quickly, and I dropped them on the floor next to Seattle's left knee. I half expected her to pick one up, but she didn't even look down, not once.

When all the dreads had been cut, there was maybe a half inch of scraggly white-blond hair tipped in blue left on her head. She looked like a chemo patient. I didn't know if I could finish the job.

"You wanna take a look?" I asked her. "It's pretty punk rock right now."

"No, you said bald."

"I know what I said. Doesn't mean you have to do it."

She lifted the shaver defiantly, like she was the Statue of Liberty and it was her torch. After thirty seconds of awfulness, I s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her and flipped the On switch, hoping that the batteries were dead. They weren't.

"Go on," she urged. "Do it."

The itchiness returned; flash pops of my freaky dream kept exploding in my head. Blue hair, frowny mouth, Sarah's half-naked bod. I shook them off and, with one smooth motion, carved a road through what was left of Seattle's hair.

Five minutes later, she had nothing but fuzz coating her scalp. "There," I said. "Are you happy?"

She pulled herself up and went into the bathroom to check out my handiwork. I couldn't watch. I started to clean up the hair, but when a couple of minutes had pa.s.sed and she hadn't returned, I had to go see if she was okay.

She'd left the door open and was standing in front of the small circle mirror. Her hands were on the back of her head, rubbing it slowly, like she couldn't believe it was gone. I felt like such an a.s.shole. How could I have made her bald? Why had I egged her into it? I was a s.h.i.t, plain and simple.

Slowly, Seattle turned around. When she did, I was surprised to see how good she looked without any hair. A grin spread across her face. "I love it," she said. "Thank you." She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek. That would've been fine, if I hadn't been quite so conscious of her double-D cleavage squeezed against my chest.

I was more than glad when she finally pulled away.

Dancin' Alone.

My sister had b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

She'd always had them, I supposed. I just wasn't sure when they'd gotten quite so big. Seemed like only yesterday she was pancake flat. Then again, she usually wore really baggy shirts, and who knew what was hiding under them? The last time I'd seen her in anything remotely figure-forming was when she wore her bathing suit, but it was black and had a high neck and made her look more like a spinster than a girl with a great rack.

My sister was not supposed to have a great rack. At least, not one that I noticed.

Since the shower had always been my refuge, I decided to pop in and shake things off, so to speak. I started to do what I always did: turn the water on full blast, wait until it was good and steamy-hot, and then boil my skin, which I'd continue to do until the spray ran cold. This was my ritual. The first six minutes consisted of standing in front of the stream, doing nothing except taking in the heat, feeling it beat on my back. Then I'd smoosh a squirt of Pert Plus into my hair, and rinse. Soaping up my bod took all of two minutes, and then I'd spend the rest of the shower jerking off. I'd gotten the timing down so good that I usually managed to finish about fifteen seconds before the water turned to ice, the coldness a pleasant shock to my warm posto.r.g.a.s.mic state.

Tonight's shower, though, was proving difficult. I couldn't stop thinking about what it felt like, Sea's enormous b.o.o.bs making direct contact with my chest. And of course this made me wonder what they looked like, which in turn made me feel like a nasty pervert. She was practically my sister. I finally understood what Sh.e.l.li must've gone through the time she walked in on her mom fooling around with the plumber. It was like someone had stamped an image on your brain against your will, and there wasn't anything you could do to make it go away. I balled my hands into fists and pressed them into my eyes, trying to erase what I was seeing in my mind.

I could feel the stirrings of a hard-on and hoped it was an automatic response to this phase of the shower, and not some sign that I was morphing into a full-on perv. Just to be certain, I conjured up some surefire fantasy material. Sarah, naked, and begging for it. I closed my eyes tight, focusing on her pressed up against me in that boat from my dream, and reached down. But I'd barely found the rhythm when Seattle's newly bald head stuck itself on Sarah's shoulders.

I wanted my hand to stop but it wouldn't. A few tugs later and it was over, Sea's head still clouding up my mind. I felt so dirty that I soaped up all over again, even though the water had turned cold. Serves me right, I thought. What kind of sicko shoots his load when his sister's on his mind?

seattle.

What Goes Up Must Come Down.

The next morning I woke up around nine-early, at least for me. My body ached to skate. Screw the heat; I'd make myself immune. I put on some baggy pants and poked around Mount Saint Laundry for a semi-clean T-shirt. They all smelled like feet, so I grabbed one of Jesse's out of his dresser. We were about the same height, but he had smaller bones, and the front of his shirt stretched so tightly across my chest that the hem of it barely covered my belly b.u.t.ton. This was not ideal-I was used to hiding my curves, not showing them off-but I had no time for vanity. I was itching to get on my board.

I thought I could get out the door without Critter noticing, but when I went into the kitchen to grab some breakfast, there he was, leaning on the counter, dunking a Pop-Tart into his usual mug of c.o.ke.

"You're dressed," he said.

"I'm going skating."

"How are you even awake?"

I shrugged. "How are you?"

He crammed the last of the Pop-Tart into his mouth and swallowed. "You want me to go with you?"

"Nah," I said. "I kind of want to be alone."

It was rare that Critter and I did things on our own. But the day before had been so weird, what with him walking in on me and Scott. And since my morning agenda included finding Scott, I knew it wouldn't be appropriate to bring Big Brother along. So I tossed him a quick "later," and went on my way.

First I skated to the park where I had run into Scott and Russ, but it was empty. Of course. Why would anyone be up and out at this insanely early hour? So then I skated over to Russ's street. There was a metal bike rack on the end of it that no one ever used. It was a great surface for practicing lipslides-which also gave me a viable excuse for being near Russ's place to begin with.

Halfway there I realized I'd left my pads and helmet at home. It was pretty stupid to do lipslides on a high rail without any sort of protective gear, but going back to get it meant facing Critter again-not an option.

For a skater, confidence is key. The minute I started to doubt a landing, I fell. It was as simple as that. If I flew on autopilot, never questioning the position of my wheels, I almost never bailed.

I tried to keep this in mind as I ollied up the curb onto the sidewalk. The plan was to launch into the lipslide on the first pa.s.s, but as I popped the next ollie, I got spooked and landed it without even attempting the rail. Mistake No. 1. On the second pa.s.s, my back foot slipped, so instead of smacking the tail of my board down into the ollie, I smacked my tailbone against the hard concrete. Mistake No. 2.

This was when I should've chucked it all and just gone home. But messing up the ollie-the basis for most skate tricks, so easy even six-year-olds can land them in their sleep-was a slap to my pride. Now I had to nail the lipslide.

I picked up speed, popped the perfect ollie, and turned my board so that when I landed on the metal rail, it was snug up against the inside of my rear trucks. The lipslide itself was flawless. And if it hadn't been for a stray cat crawling along the spot where I planned to land, everything would've been beautiful. But since killing said cat would be a bad thing, I kicked my board away midair, sending it off to a soft patch of gra.s.s and me to a particularly choppy piece of asphalt.

Mistake No. 3.

A string of particularly loud obscenities shot out of my mouth as the pain spread to every inch of my body. There were small pebbles embedded in several sections of skin, and blood trickled from my left ankle and elbow. The only saving grace was that no one was around to witness the carnage.

Wrong. Not ten seconds later a concerned-looking Scott came jogging across the parking lot, naked except for a pair of camo pants hacked off just below the knee. "Are you okay? Is anything broken? Can you move your arm? Your leg?"

I wanted to respond but couldn't make my mouth work. It was mostly from the shame of knowing he must've seen me wipe out, but the small chunk of gla.s.s sticking out of my bottom lip didn't help either.

"Jesus," Scott said. "You don't do anything halfway, do you?"

Before I could stop him, he helped me up off the ground, threw my right arm around his neck, and half carried me back to Russ's house.

Doctor Love.

"Stop squirming."

Scott was pressing a cotton ball soaked in peroxide against the spot where he'd tweezed out the gla.s.s, and it burned like h.e.l.l.

"I said stop squirming."

I pushed his arm away. "Get that thing off me."