Back to Mom's bedroom to pose and posture in front of the big mirror, admiring herself in the dark folds of glossy satin, the blue setting off her eyes… a run to her own room for a matching thick satin ribbon for her hair, and a few last hasty brushes at her hair, and Maryon was satisfied.
For a while, bouyed up by the guilty pleasure of wearing her forbidden clothes, she played a game with herself, pretending she was her mother at a party, greeting the guests, and accepting their compliments on how pretty she looked in her finery. But after a while this, too, palled, and she hunted around for something else to do, something exciting forbidden!
On tiptoe, for some reason scared though there was no one in the house, nor expected for several hours more, she opened the door to Mike's room, which he'd pointedly kept her out of for over a year, now that he was fifteen and almost a man. She made a moue of feminine disgust at the mess the room was in, with clothes strewn over the floor, books littering the two chairs, and a mess of papers and pencils pushed carelessly back and to one side on the old table top which now contained, in its center, a model plastic airplane, some eighteen inches in length and, apparently just completed. Other models, smaller, as she could see, hung suspended from threads thumbtacked into the ceiling. Pushing the door closed behind her, she walked into the room, stepping over the untidy heaps of clothes and around the unmade bed, and made her way to the table. She'd seen the other models before, when Mike'd triumphantly brought a finished project out to show the falsely enthusiastic Burt and the understanding proud Lois, but this plane was a super monster, cream and scarlet and black and silver, carefully painted and decaled. It was an old-fashioned thing, she saw, with two propellers, and idly she turned one of them with a small finger. The gleaming toy fascinated her and she picked it up, a bit gingerly, by the body.
Soon she was prancing around the room, skipping over the clothes, making the plane fly in her hand, her head mentally set in the cockpit, which had a sliding transparent casing over it, and seeing through half-dosed eyes a swooping, soaring view of the world. So entranced was she in this new game that she didn't hear the door open behind her, but her brother's voice – "Put that Goddamn plane down, Maryon!" – hit ears and made her stumble to the floor. The brittle, fragile plane shot out from her hands and crashed against a bed leg to break in shatters on the carpet.
A rough hand seized her arm painfully and threw her to one side. White of face, she saw Mike go down on one knee and tenderly collect the pieces. In a fury he crushed them all together and would have thrown them in her face, if something he'd seen there had not stopped him. His face was flushed with anger and he towered over her, too furious to speak, while she cowered, tearful and fearful, not moving from where she'd landed. Swallowing, he let the broken fragments fall to the bed, and slowly sat down.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked his sister. "Where's Mom? How come you're wearing that dress? And… that's Mom's lipstick you've got on, isn't it?"
When the frightened girl didn't answer, he went on: "Oh, you're in for big trouble, Sis, aren't you!? Dressing up like that… wearing that lipstick-that means you've been in their bedroom, and you know you're not allowed there. And you're in here, when you know you're supposed to keep out… and you've broken my model. It's taken a whole Goddamn week to build it, too. Oh, you're going to get it, for sure. You are really going to get it."
"You made me break it. I didn't mean to… you made me drop it… you scared me," she got out between silent sobs.
"You shouldn't have been in here in the first place," he said, and sat silent, looking grimly at her.
"Mom's gone downtown shopping," she offered, still not moving.
"Hah! I'll tell her fast enough when she gets back, don't you worry about that."
Fearful reaction against her previous excited pleasure came down on her. "Oh, Mike, please don't tell Mom. I'll mend your plane if you like."
Eagerly she scrambled to her feet and made as if to pick up the ruined model from the bed. He circled her wrist and dragged her toward him. "Oh, just leave it alone, it can't be repaired," he said, tiredly, thinking of all the work he'd put into it. And getting his sister punished wasn't going to get him a new plane, he realized. She might be told to stay in her room for a week, and not allowed out to play, but a lot of good that'd do him. He'd get a bit of revenge in seeing her spanked, though, he thought. Looking at her, scared, submissive, almost shivering, her crimsoned lips quivering, clear blue eyes hazed by tears, a sudden idea came to him. Silly brat was only doing what he'd done often enough, exploring in the empty house. And it was his quiet and unexpected entry that'd caused her to trip and so break the plane.
His pretty little sister, and soft and blonde and rosy. And she looked almost sexy dressed like that, in her fine blue satin with the lace at throat and cuff and hem, and her stockinged legs. Kind of cute. And she was afraid of him, and would do anything to avoid punishment by Dad. Well, then, why wouldn't he punish her, make her remember not to mess about with his things any more?
Her chubby little face, framed by the golden ringlets, oddly accented by the crimsoned lips, seemed especially vulnerable, her blue eyes, tear-washed, more than ever eager to seek his favor. Mike swallowed, and relaxed a bit on the bed, sitting back more, spreading his knees. He pulled her, gently but firmly, to stand between his ankles, still holding her wrist.
"Well, now," he began, "you did do all those, uh, wrong things now, didn't you?"
His sister nodded her head briskly, the golden curls softly trembling to the movement.
"And you know at the very least you'll get spanked, hard… till your ass gets red, right?"
Again she nodded, biting her lower lip at the thought of the pain.
"And you can bet you'll be made to stay in your room… maybe they won't speak to you, or let you be spoken to, huh? Well, then, Sis, suppose instead of me telling them, huh…"
This time she interrupted him, her eyes excited, almost jumping up and down with sudden relief, her free hand gripping his arm.
"Oh, please, Mike, don't tell them. I'll do anything…"
He interrupted her in turn. "Well, maybe, but you don't get out of being punished, okay?"
"Okay, Mike," she said, a little wary, a little reluctant, "but what…?"
"I'll spank you myself, first," he said with a grin. "Not too hard, and then I'll think of something. Okay?"
"Oh – aw, Mike! D'you have to spank me?"
He made himself look severe. "Yes. Oh, don't worry, Sis, I won't hurt you… won't make you cry. Just make you smart a bit's all. So, now," he added, releasing her, "just lay down across my knees and get ready."
Mutinously, though she realized she was getting the best of a bad choice, Maryon came around to his side as he eased himself forward, and prepared to bend over his hard boy's knees in their black Levi's. He looked down at her, seeing the way her stiff satin dress rode up into the air like a sail. "Uh, say, Sis," he said, low-voiced and hesitant, "we don't want you to get your party dress all bent out of shape, huh? I think you'd better take it off."
Something in his tone caught Maryon's ear. Though she was thankful for the slight reprieve, her mind was busy on the rather strained quality of his voice. It wasn't… straight, somehow, she thought as, dutifully, protracting the moment, she stood up and carefully pulled the dress up over her head. It sounded like… like she thought her voice sounded when she was telling a small lie, or covering up for some mistake she'd made. Strange. She didn't feel ashamed at baring herself like this before him. In fact, for some reason, it was nice. Mom had hinted things to her, and she'd heard scraps of tittered conversation among her classmates about boys and girls, but she didn't really know what it was all about. And anyway, Mike wasn't a strange, dirty little boy, he was her brother!