Go talk to your sister, Vicky

Out of all your siblings, Vicky, the twenty-year-old unemployed chick, is probably the one you have the most in common with. She's an outcast too, though not to any degree close to the extent that you are. Her ostracism is self-chosen: she's a punk (or a goth, you never could figure out which), and puts a distance between herself and the 'sheep' through her uncritical rejection of their way of life. She dresses like something out of a cyber-punk movie, in leather and ripped fishnet, has numerous tattoos and piercings, and is always doing crazy things with her hair. Right now, she has a shaved head, having had a bad hair-dye accident with an 'organic' dye. She was never much for academic learning, though she's definitely smarter than most of your sisters, and spends all of her time listening to music, drawing, painting, sculpting, and trying to teach herself how to play guitar. Although she smokes and eats nothing but junk food, she has a slim build and a good figure. Her friends are all the same as her, which you always thought was ironic, since 'freedom of expression' is their battle-cry, and among her friends she is known as 'Vicky-Victoria', or 'Vivi', for some reason you never comprehended.

Standing outside her door, you hesitate, mentally preparing yourself to start meddling in her life. The door has a poster on it of some punk dude with his mouth open in a scream and blood running down his chest. The sound of loud, angry music emanates from behind her door. After a moment's pause, in which you prepare your speech, you knock on the door.

At first there is no answer, so you knock again. Maybe she can't hear you over the music. "Let me in," you think with exasperation, nervous about what you are about to do.

Suddenly you hear Vicky's voice through the door. "Who is it?"

"John," you yell back.

"What do you want?"

"I have to ask you something," you say after a second of thought, not having prepared for this particular segment.

You hear the music go down a couple of notches and then the door opens. Vicky stands in the doorway, one hand on the door, the other on the doorjamb. She's about 5 foot 3 inches tall and 115 pounds. She's wearing ripped up bluejeans and a cut-off black concert shirt. Her breasts are large and firm, and you can tell by the way her t-shirt hangs that she's not wearing a bra. Below the shirt you can see her flat belly and her belly-button piercing. She has large, striking pale green eyes and small rosy cherub lips with a silver ring piercing the lower lip. She also has a nose-ring, an eyebrow ring, and numerous piercings in her ears. A thin layer of stubble is growing back on her scalp. The dragon tattoo on her arm, raised up and pressed against the door, seems to glare malevolently at you.

"What do you want, dork?" she asks with her typical insolence.

"I want to talk to you," you say, which is quite true.

"I thought you just had a question," she says, raising her eyebrow in her signature sarcastic expression.

"I do, but I have to talk to you first."

She looks you over impatiently, apparently considering slamming the door in your face. "Ok. So, talk."

"Can I come in?"

"Why?" she asks, just to be difficult.

"Because I can't ask you this in the hall, ok?" you say. "It's...embarrassing."

She rolls her eyes. "Do I even want to hear this?" she asks rhetorically, pushing the door open for you.

"Thanks, Vic, I really appreciate it," you say, smiling sheepishly.

"Whatever," she says, turning around to sit back down on her bed.

You follow her into her room, which is really more of a warren than anything else. The entire floor is covered in dirty laundry, music magazines, CD cases, junk food wrappers, and discarded charcoal drawings. The walls are covered with posters, most of them music posters, but also movie posters and prints of famous paintings, photographs and sculptures. Many of her own drawings, which are quite good, are scattered among them. You can tell that she's been sitting on her bed doing something, though you don't know what, because it is the only clean spot in the room. Probably reading one of her amateurish magazines, or 'zines', as she calls them. Her guitar sits unused in a corner of the room, leaning against a small amp. You close the door behind you.

"So what's up, big brother?" she asks, pulling a pack of cigarettes out from under her mattress. She takes a lighter out of the half-empty pack and lights up. Sitting up on her knees with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, she pushes aside the curtains and opens her window half-way. As she does this you admire her slim waist and her pert tush, displayed nicely by her tight jeans.

"You know mom and dad know you smoke, right?" you say, mocking her efforts to keep it a secret. You had found out about it four years ago, but, like a good brother, you had kept it a secret. Your dad, who was a smoker himself, found out about it within a month, but never told your mother, not wanting to listen to lectures about how he had been a bad influence on his daughter. Your mother found out about it by accident a couple of months ago, but hadn't said anything to her daughter because she didn't want a lecture from Vicky about how she let dad smoke. As an impartial observer, you found the entire situation quite ironic and comic.

"I know they know," she said, sitting back down, a tone of exasperation in her voice. "I just don't want Hilary to know," she said, referring to your youngest sister, who was a bit of a goody-two-shoes. Vicky had some kind of weird maternal thing for her youngest sister and had the idea that Hilary looked up to her.

"Whatever," you say, snorting, "Hilary knows too."

"She does not!"

"Does too!" you eject, engaging in some good old-fashioned brother-sister teasing. You sit down beside her on the bed, crossing your legs the way you do when you meditate.

"Whatever," she says in turn, taking a drag from her cigarette. She taps ash into an ashtray that somehow materialized out of nowhere. It must have been on the window ledge, you reason.

"So what do you want, anyway?" she says, giving you a curious look.

Your stomach ties up in a knot and a chill spreads through you. Here we go, you think, trying to keep calm.

"Look, it's kind of embarrassing," you repeat. You can't seem to look her in the eye now that the moment of truth is upon you.

Your emotional distress must be obvious to her because her features actually soften a bit. She leans forward and rests the palm of her hand against your knee, the cigarette poised lightly between two long, slender fingers. You watch the smoke rise up from the burning cherry. "Hey, c'mon. You can talk to me. It's Vicky, right, not some horrid guidance counsellor. You can tell me anything." She gives you a gentle smile. Right now she looks so beautiful, even bald, that it's all you can do not to lean forward and kiss those sweet little lips.