Shivering

(All this summer lovin' has got me in the mood for something cold.)

Shivering.

I sit on the scrap of foam I use as a seat and pillow, looking out at the falling snow. It blankets the streets to either side of the road below. Only the place right under the underpass is clear.

Where I'm sitting, with my little cardboard sign clutched in frozen fingers.

"There hasn't been a car in an hour. Come up here before you freeze."

I look up the concrete ramp to where my sister is sitting. She is on, what she calls, our front porch.

I feel the trembling in every part of me. I can't stop it no matter how much I want to. I look up at her. I nod and get to my feet.

Walking up the ramp, I follow her into the little area we have walled off with old tarps I salvaged from the side of the road. She crawls into the pile of old blankets the thrift store gave us. Our mattress, found outside a hotel next to the dumpster, is a soft insulator from the cold ground.

I lay my foam pillow down and slide in bed beside my sister. I feel her bury herself against my chest. She is also shivering uncontrollably.

I rub her back and try to warm us both. I try to tuck the blanket in tighter around us, but a draft always seems to find a way in.

"I'm so cold, David," I feel her say, the words like warm feathers against my neck. "Oh god, I'm so cold."

"I know, Abigail. So am I."

I hold my sister tighter to me as she starts to cry.

Her tears make me feel lower than I am, which says a lot.

Homeless.

Unemployed.

Worthless.

The worst of it is that I drug her down with me.

I hold my sister to me as we try not to freeze, feeling her crying.

Memories of our warm house, our loving family comes to mind.

I chase them away.

Both are gone now.

My fault...

"David, I can't stand it!" She shivers against me. "Let's... let's go to those men you know."

"No, Abs. No! That's not an option."

"Well freezing to death out here isn't one either!"

She pulls away from me and sits up. She pulls the blankets around her and rocks back and fourth.

The cold hits me like a hammer. I shiver and can't stop. The little warmth the blanket was giving us vanishes.

"Abby...They will hurt you. It's not an option."

She turns and looks at me. I watch her clutch at the rough cloth. The tears have left paths down her face.

"I'm not a virgin! I know what the hell they will do to me. They will do what they want...Make their sick little movie, and it will be over. I'll be sore, but we will goddamn have money. Money for food! Money for a place to stay for a few nights where it's warm. Maybe even enough to get us bus fare to our aunt out in California."

"We don't even know if she is still alive, Abs. Aunt Becky was Mom's age the last time we heard anything from her." I plead with my sister to come to her senses. "It doesn't matter. You're not doing it."

Abby's eyes come up to my face, and they blaze!

"It's not your fucking decision! It's my goddamn body! I make the choices about what I do with it. Now where are these people?"

I shake my head.

"Where?" she screams.

"I won't tell you, Abs. Never."

I shudder from the cold. My hands are numb. I try to put them under my armpits, but the touch of my fingers to my skin there is almost painful.

"David...I saw women about a block from here. Last night. They were selling themselves to people in the cars that go by. If you don't tell me where these people are I will go down there and do the same!"

She gets to her feet and tosses the blankets at me.

I scurry after her out the tarps and down the ramp to the street below.

"Abby!"

I catch her arm.

She turns to me, clutching at herself.

"I'm freezing to death out here David! I don't care who fucks me! At least I will be warm!"

She looks at me then starts to rock again. I pull her to me.

"Please come back up to bed," I beg her.

"Bed? It's a piss-and-cum-stained mattress that a twenty-dollar-an-hour hotel judged too bad to use!" She pushes me away. "I can't live like this anymore."

She turns and starts down the street. I see her footsteps as she steps out from under the underpass and into the snow.

The idea of her standing on a street corner selling herself to the guys I've seen down the road. Her quickly becoming the property of some pimp. I stand at the edge of the snow and look after her.

"Abby, NO!"

She doesn't look back.

"I'll take you there!" I yell after her.

She stops and turns to look back at me. She doesn't come back. I walk out to meet her, the damp snow quickly soaking the top of my head.

"I'll take you there," I say in a soft whisper.

"Then let's go. My feet are getting wet."

Abigail takes my arm, and I pull her in tight to my side.

It's a far walk in good weather to the little-known studio. In this weather it's a cold trek into hell.

At one point we walk near a fire barrel. The guys standing near it give my sister lusty looks so I walk up clear of the warmth.

By the time we get to the unmarked door in the little back alleyway, I can't feel my feet or my nose. Abby has simply shut down, placing one foot after the other in robot-like fashion.

I look at her and know there isn't any turning back. She wouldn't make it through the night even if I could get her back to the underpass.

I have to knock on the door several times till someone comes to it. A little slide is pulled back.

"What ya want?"

"It's David Nabal. I want to speak to Joshua."

The slide is pulled closed, and we spend what feels like an eternity standing there, waiting till I hear the door being unlocked.

I look at Joshua when the door opens. There is a flood of heat that comes spilling out to us. I hear Abby moan when it washes over her.

"Well I'll be damned, David. Hell, man. I thought you had left town. Come on in out the cold."

We step into the building, and the door is shut behind us.

His eyes are on the shivering form of my sister.

"You taking us up on our offer, David?" He asks, not looking at me.

"No. He's not. I am." I hear Abby say through chattering teeth. "It's a hundred dollars a guy, right?"

Joshua smiles.

"Yea. You pick how many. I shoot about an hour of footage. You sign the release before we start filming." He grins; it's a predatory smile.

"No rough shit. You're not going to hurt her!" I tell him, moving a little between them. He looks to me, and his eyes go colder than the temperature outside.

"That's not how it works." He looks over to the guy we first spoke to. A massive man, with a clearly defined gun under one arm. "It's no fucking rules, or you get the fuck out my studio."

"David!" Abby grabs my arm and tries to pull me back from in front of her. "Stay out of this. It's my decision."

She lets go of me and walks around me till she's standing in front of Joshua. She looks him up and down. Slowly she nods.

"Good girl. I like that bit of fire." He grins at her. "Alright, little lady. How many?"

I turn away from my sister, unable to look at her. The shame of having let us fall to this point crashes down over me.

"Five...no six." I hear her say softly.

"Six? You only got three holes, darlin'. You sure?" I hear that chuckling laugh of his that I came to hate a year ago.

"Yea."

"Alright, sounds good. I'll go round up some of my people. John, show her where the shower is. Got to have you clean," he tells her with that sick grin back on his face.

He looks to me. "You hang out here, if you like, David. Keep warm. That is, unless you want to join in? I'll pitch in an extra two hundred, if you do."

I bite my lips to keep from cussing out the sick fucker. I shake my head.

"Suit yourself. Come on, little lady. Just follow this guy. He'll take you to where you can get a nice, hot shower. That sounds good, doesn't it?"

I see Abby nod.

"David." She turns to me after he walks off towards the stairs.

"I'll be out here, Abs," I tell her, unable to look at her. I feel so ashamed of what I have drug us down to.

She follows John out the room.

Shouldn't be a surprise I guess. Nabal...Old name... It translates to fool or failure. I've been both over the last two years.

I move over to where an oil radiator is and pull one of the wooden chairs over next to it.

My fingers burn as the heat slowly brings them back to life.

It's about forty minutes later when I hear my sister scream for the first time.

Several more follow it, then a silence that scares me even more than the screams did. I can't help it. I have to go see if she's alright.

I make my way out the room and down the hall to where I know the studio is.

As I get closer, I come to realize that the reason I can't hear her screaming is because she's making a different sound.

The sounds of retching and gagging come through the door as I get closer to it.

"That's it bitch! Suck that cock. Come on whore, all the way down!"

I hear more gagging, and then a moan and a slap.

"Do what you're fucking told, bitch," orders a new voice.

I try to cover my ears as I hear Abby being made to deep-throat. I move back away from the door.

"Oh, yea. She's a nice little cum slut, isn't she? Come on. Suck it hard, you whore!"

I'm about to go back to the heater when I hear Joshua's voice.

"Okay, somebody get a cock into her."

A moment later, I hear Abby gag and scream around whomever she's being made to suck. Then there is a pounding sound that makes me flee back down the hall.

On the other side of the door, I turn into the wall and cover my ears. The tears flow out of me as I shake in rage and disgust at myself.

I'm hard.

"You sick fuck. That's your baby sister in there. Oh, you worthless piece of shit," I whisper to myself.

A pain-racked scream brings my head up. I sprint back down the hall to the door. I stop just as I'm about to run in and make them stop.

It's Joshua's voice that brings me to a halt.

"Get that dick up her ass again. That was fucking awesome! The look on her face just then will make this one sell for a grand more!"

Abby screams again.

I shrink back from the door.

Memories of myself in that room. My cock in a woman's ass. The memories of her screams and my sister's screams blend into a visual I can't get out my head.

Without even seeing inside the room, I know what it looks like. Joshua behind the camera. A circle of men surrounding a helpless, naked woman. My Abby, my sister. One man after another, waiting their turns to fuck her in the ass.

The screams stop after a few seconds, and then all I hear is sobbing and whispered begging. Then they start again.

Her screams are silenced, and the gagging begins again.

I flee back to the room with the radiator. I go over to it and huddle above it. I bring my hand down till it's just inches off it and fight to keep it there. The pain gives me the focus to ignore it when I hear the screaming start again.

Memories of the times I spent in front of that camera come flooding back to me, unwanted. My cock is a painfully hard reminder that I am far from innocent.

After about forty minutes I hear it grow quiet. I know that she has lost the energy to make noises. I remember it with a guilty relish. The little blonde, the chubby redhead. The brunette...The one that I thought reminded me of someone.

Abby. I realize now that she had looked just like Abby.

I can picture her face even now. The exhausted look of pain as I grip her hips hard enough to leave my fingers in black bruising on her skin. The feeling of my cock as I pushed into her hand-blistered ass. The hole already turned into warm pudding by the four men before me. Her soft whimper.

Like the ones I know Abby is making now.

The sick look she had on her face when two other guys pulled her around, and I forced her to clean off my cock with her mouth. The ecstatic joy I had felt when my cum splashed her face.

I sit silently, crying by the radiator, hating myself for the erection I have.

I look up when I hear the door open.

Joshua walks over to me and holds out six hundred-dollar bills.

"Damn, David. Man, you were holding out on me. You can bring her back any time."

He pats me on the shoulder and walks past me towards his office. I see the memory pack in his hand.

I know the footage of my sister being gangbanged will be on the Internet by morning.

I get up and run towards the studio.

The smell as I open the door, both sickening and arousing, floods me with memories. I look around and see one of the cleaning guys I used to bum cigarettes from come walking in with a mop bucket. I can smell the pine cleaner. I remember that I had thought it funny that my mom used the same cleaner.

It's not funny now.

I look around, but other than him and me, the studio is empty.

"Where's the girl?" I demand.

"What the whore?" he chuckles. "They tossed her out in the alley." He gestures towards the side door.

I remember the redhead! Oh my god!

I go through the metal door at a sprint.

About ten feet from the door, naked and covered in filth, is my sister. My Abby.

I rush to her and pull off my coat. I wrap her up in it and pick her up. I hold her to me as she whimpers.

"No more. Oh, please, no more," she begs.

"It's David, Abs. It's David. You're okay. It's over baby. It's over."

I clutch her to me as she starts to cry in relief.

I carry her the four blocks through the snow to where I know there is a guy who rents out rooms for the week. Cheap, but clean. He eyes her with a sick look as I pay him some of the money.

"Seen a lot of girls looking like that. Most are on their way out, not in," he says with a chuckle.

"She's my sister!"

He chuckles.

"Sure she is, pal."

I take the key from him and get Abby from where I left her on the wooden bench. She moans in pain as I pick her up.

The room is small. The bed is hard. But there is heat. And a bath tub.

I crank up the heater and fill the tub with water.

As I unwrap my coat from around my sister, I see the damages for the first time.

Her face is bruising around her eyes from the dozens of slaps she must have endured. There are handprint bruises around her throat, and her nipples look angry-red. I see bite marks.

I can smell the man-sweat on her as I lift her into the tub.

She whimpers and moans as she sinks into the hot water. I saw the dark purpling on her ass and hips for a second.

Using the cheap shampoo by the tub, I wash the foulness from her hair.

Ever so slowly, I see her eyes come to focus on my face.

"David?"

"Yea, Abby. It's me. You're okay now."

"Did...did you get the money?" she asks me. I can tell she's exhausted. There are lines of worry around her eyes.

"Yea, Sis. I've got it. I used a little to pay for this room, but the rest is all here."

She nods.

She looks down, and I see tears drop into the bath water.

She makes no comments as I clean her up and get her out the tub. I dry her, trying not to look at the darkening places on her skin. I bundle her into the bed, and once she's asleep, I go out and across the street. I use as little of the money as I can, but I get us both a big meal. She is still asleep when I come back.

The smell of the food wakes her.

She eats ravenously. I let her have half of mine. I notice she has trouble swallowing at first.

"Pretty much everything is closed for the night," I tell her as I smooth back down the sheets when she lies back down. "In the morning I'll go get you something to wear. They destroyed your clothes, didn't they?"

She nods. I see her about to cry again, but then just shivers. I know that this time, it's not from the cold.

I see her eyes droop a little. I throw away the wrappers from dinner and get to my feet. I turn off the light and head to the bathroom.

The shower is the first of its kind I have had in far too long. I let the water just run, trying to wash away the guilt I'm feeling over what I have done. Finally, I crawl out from under the water and towel myself off.

I pick up my underwear intending to put it back on to sleep in, but the smell of it is horrendous. I toss them into the sink and scrub them down with the white bar of soap on the sink. I hang them near the heater vent, and with the towel wrapped around my hips, I go to the bed.

I lift the sheets and blanket aside and slide in next to her.

Abby turns and wakes enough to wrap herself into my arms.

The feel of a naked woman in my arms, after so many months without...after the events earlier. The self-loathing I feel as I harden is indescribable.

I start to cry. I can't help it.

I feel Abby's hand begin to brush my hair.

"It's okay, David. It's okay," she says in a soft whisper.

I clutch her to me as I cry myself out.

Her hand is soft on the back of my head as she holds me to her. I feel her skin soft against my face. She moves a little, and I feel her nipple brush the stubble on my cheek. I hear her whimper a little as the tender skin is scraped.

I turn my head and feel it brush my lips.

I place a gentle kiss on her nipple. Her fingers tighten on the back of my hair.

I kiss it harder.

"David?"

I open my mouth and suck the hard nub into my mouth. My teeth bite down lightly, holding it in place as I lash it with my tongue.

"Ow...ow. David?"

Not believing I'm doing it, I run a hand down her naked body till my finger slides across her hair and down into her lips.

"Ow. Oh god, David. I'm sore. Ow!"

My fingers sink into her as I leave her nipple and move my mouth to hers. I kiss her with a growing aggression.

I feel my name mumbled against my lips.

My fingers slip into her; I feel a growing wetness from her as I start to move them in and out. After a moment, I start to feel her kissing me back.

I slip my mouth off hers and nibble my way back down to her other nipple. I gently kiss the dark bite mark next to it, and then suck her nipple into my mouth.

She clutches at my head.

The towel around my hips falls away as I roll over and pin her to the bed with my weight. I push her legs open and slip down between them. They feel warm and silky as they ride off my side.

My cock slips into my sister with ease.

I hear her whimper under me as I start to pump into her. "Oh god, David, I'm sore. Please be gentle."

I run my hands up her arms and raise them above her head. I feel her legs lift allowing me better entry. As I feel myself sink all the way into her, something in me kind of snaps.

I catch my sister's wrists hard and begin to drive myself into her.

"Oh! Oh, David, gently!"

I do anything but that. Holding her down by the wrists, I begin to pound her as hard as I can fuck. All the frustrations of the past few months. All the losses. It all comes to a head as I feel my sister squirm under me.

I open my eyes and look down at her. She is looking up at me.

"One of them told me you had...had...been there before. That you had been one of the guys. Is that true?" she asks me as I pump into her.

I nod.

"I'm not proud of it," I tell her in a breathy grunt.

"You're fucking your sister hard when she's begging you to be gentle, and you're not proud of something you did with a stranger?"

She strains against my hands for a second, but I hold her in place.

"Too bad you didn't do this back at the studio. We would have two hundred more dollars. I mean what's one more cock in me tonight?" She tells me this with her words full of anger.

After me begging her not to go there, that's more than I can take. The look of... I don't know what on her face for me. It's more than I can take.

I sit up and grab my sister by her hair. I use my strength to get her turned over under me. I pin her to the bed with my weight and reaching under her, I catch her breasts in my hands.

"Oh god, David...No," I hear her whisper as my cock goes between her ass cheeks.