Day Tripper (Chapter 3)

Natalia was on the edge now. She thought she could deal with it, she thought she had it all figured out. But that blew up in her face. She told herself she couldn’t keep living like this. She tried to make sense of it. The only option would be that she had truly and finally gone utterly insane.

Could it have been a dream? But it was so real. Were they all dreams? Were some dreams and others not? Was it all real? Nothing made sense anymore.

First she saw William in the bathroom, but according to her brother he wasn’t even here that night. Then it was her brother, but he didn’t even seem to react to it. Did William react? She couldn’t remember. He didn’t say anything. But what was the expression on his face? Was it shock? Surprise? Seduction? It was just a blank in her mind, which further supported the theory that she dreamt it. Then there was her brother who was naked in the kitchen, which unlike the bathroom there was no reason to be less than fully clothed there, and he didn’t seem to acknowledge it in any way, which suggested that she was either hallucinating or she dreamt it. When she asked him he said he couldn’t remember talking to her that day, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, as he had a terrible memory and with his atypical sleep schedule the days tended to blur together for him. So it could go either way on it being a dream or a hallucination. Then came her father, who was naked in the same circumstances and reacted the same way. Furthermore, her brother confirmed that he had seen their father earlier come back from a morning walk to stretch, and he claimed there was nothing unusual about their paternal figure. Then there was her brother again, who she tried to make a move on, something she was ashamed to admit she talked herself into, to which he freaked out and that time it was him who ran away. It was all so confusing. And it wasn’t as if she could just ask them if they were naked. She would look crazy. Maybe she was. The thought had occurred to her. But there was no way of knowing for certain if she was crazy, when she was crazy, exactly how she was crazy, or even why she was crazy. Or was that what a crazy person told themselves? She didn’t know. How would she? She was crazy (maybe).

“Talia?” said her brother, who was sitting across from her at the table eating lunch, or for him it was brunch in the form of a bowl of cereal. She was having a sandwich, and although she was allowed to eat in her room she just couldn’t stand sitting in there another moment. She hasn’t even been outside in days.

“Are you awake?” her brother asked in response to her spacing out.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

“You look a little pale,” said their father, who was also seated at the table eating a sandwich. “You should get some sun.”

“I’m fine,” she reiterated. “Really. Why are you two asking me these questions?”

“Well you’ve just been acting strange as of late, that’s all,” said her brother.

“I’ve been acting strange because you have been acting strange,” she replied, staring down her brother, in a way that normally would have been playful banter but this time it came across more serious.

“So it’s agreed then,” said the patriarch. “We are all going to stop acting strange.”

There was another long pause of silence and eating sounds.

“Anyways," her father said. "Dennis, I believe you have an idea for tonight."

“Oh yeah. Why don’t we all watch a movie tonight? We can rent that nudist movie.”

Natalia perked up.

“The what?” she asked. “The 'what' type of movie?”

“The newest one,” her brother replied. “You know, the action-adventure comedy.”

“You said ‘newest,'" she said.

“Yeah," he replied. "What did you think I said?”

“Nothing.” She looked down at her plate again.

“So,” her father asked. “Do you want to watch it?"

“Yeah, maybe, I dunno,” she replied.

“Well that’s perhaps the closest to a yes as we are likely to get out of her,” he said to her brother.

Natalia closely eyed the both of them.

‘Or was it all real?’ she thought.

A little while later, in her room, Natalia was chilling, safe in the knowledge that she was alone. Before she kept telling herself that this was all a dream. Now she couldn't help but think that this was all some big practical joke. She thought about Dennis and Michael laughing at her the other day. She wondered to herself why they would do that, unless they knew something that she didn't?

A few hours later there was a knock on her door. She hadn't left her room since, except once to use the bathroom. The knock came from her brother who told her it was time to start the movie. A few minutes later, she walked out and found that they were sitting in the living room waiting for her.

"There she is!" said her father.

"Ready?" asked her brother.

"Sure," she replied, looking forward to the distraction of watching the movie.

They hit play, turned off the lights, and took their seats. Natalia sat down on the couch parallel to the wall, on the end next to the small table that acted as the crooner of the two couches.The two men sat on the couch perpendicular to the wall, her father at the end closest to the wall and sitting upright. Her brother was flat on the couch with his feet kicked up near their father and his head near the table and Natalia.

After a while, for the first time in two weeks, Natalia found herself actually enjoying spending time with her brother and father. She was starting to get really engrossed in the movie, and it wasn't until about halfway through that she turned and looked over to the other couch. And when she did, she wasn't really surprised to find them not wearing any clothes. Their bodies, illuminated by the glow of the television.

She wasn't surprised. She wasn't even disturbed anymore. She wasn't shocked by the sight of their nude forms. She was used to it by this point. She was only upset because she actually believed that this was real. That she wasn't crazy, but they made her think she was. That they have been intentionally flashing her and lying to her the past few days. It made her so angry she clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking.

Her brother looked over and saw her glaring at him. He looked down, then back up at her. He picked up the bowl lying next to him and held it out to her.

"Want some popcorn?" he asked.

She looked at him. She looked past the bowl and behind it saw his penis, erect and twitching. It was throbbing, and she thought she saw a string of precum dripping from the head. She looked back at his face, which was completely calm and innocent. She looked over at her father, and his cock was erect too. And then she saw him, without taking his eyes away from the screen, casually move his hand over his cock, wrap his fingers around his shaft and start stroking. He was masturbating himself right then and there.

She stood up and started screaming and flailing. Not so much with words as with sounds and half-mumbles. But in the midst of it there was mention of words like "crazy," "naked," "penis," "daddy," and "brother." This got the attention of Dennis and their father, who leapt up to see if she was okay. Dennis walked up to her and grabbed her wrists and tried to hold her still.

"Are you okay?' he asked. "Is everything alright?"

Her father walked around to the other side of her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"I don't know," Dennis replied. "She just started shouting, but I can't understand a word she's saying."

"Talia," her father said. "Talia? Can you hear me? Are you alright? What's wrong?"

'They're lying,' she thought to herself. 'They're lying. They know what's wrong. They're doing this on purpose."

Both men tried to hug her and hold her close, which incidentally (or perhaps not) caused their boners to touch her. Her brother's was pointing into her front and her father's was rubbing sideways against her ass.

'Their dicks! Their dicks are touching me!' she thought to herself.

They kept trying to “console” her, but eventually she flailed enough that she managed to break free. She ran towards the hallway, and for a brief second she considered stopping. She figured they would be chasing her to capture her again, so she knew she shouldn’t stop.

‘Unless I want them to hold me again,’ she thought to herself. ‘No, that’s wrong. Or do I want it? I don’t know anymore.’

For whatever reason, she stopped and quickly looked back. She saw that they had not chased her, but had remained standing where she had left them. They had confused looks on their faces as they looked at each other and then back at her. Their cocks continued to twitch.

Wasting no time, she turned around and ran straight to her room and locked herself in., burying her face in a pillow.

She wanted to go to sleep and forget everything. She missed the days when she thought she was dreaming. But no matter how much she tried she couldn’t keep her eyes closed.

After a while, there was a knock at her door. For reasons she didn’t know, probably reckless abandon, she opened it. Standing there was her brother, alone and fully clothed.

“May I come in?” he asked.

She opened the door and let him in.

“Dad’s gone to sleep,” he said.

“I didn’t ask,” was her response.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and stared down at the floor. There was a long pause of silence until Dennis cleared his throat and spoke.

"Talia," he said.

She didn't reply.

"Talia, I know," he said.

She looked up at him.

"I know about the bathroom incident with Michael."

She still didn't say anything, but gave him a look of intrigue.

"He told me," he continued. "A few days after it happened."

"But," Talia said. "But you said he wasn't here that night."

"Yeah, well, I let him stay the night in my room but I didn't really ask dad's permission first and I wanted to avoid getting in trouble, so I didn't tell you. And then a few days later he told me that when he snuck out to use the bathroom at night he forgot to lock the door and you walked in on him."

She didn’t say anything, so he continued:

“I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, and I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. It probably didn’t. I hoped you had forgotten it or thought you dreamt it, and I was embarrassed to mention it. But I figured now would be a good time to come clean with you about it.”

She took a moment to process this, and he could see the look on her face as she began to realize that what he was saying was true. He noticed that when she finally looked up at him it was unclear whether or not she was extremely relieved or upset.

“Oh Dennis!” she exclaimed.

She ran towards him and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. He looked down at her.

‘I don’t understand,’ he thought to himself.