Whore Sister 1

I was feeling a little anxious as I pulled up in front of the run-down apartment building where my sister lived. Part of it was worry about parking my car on the street in this part of town. The other (larger) part was the weird, somewhat strained relationship between my sister and me.

She was a few years older, and when I was a kid I thought Jill was a goddess. I was totally infatuated with her. She was my idea of the perfect woman, my first crush, and yes, in my hormone-ridden years I used to fantasize about her in a less-than-appropriate way. Then, starting shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she began to change. She became more distant, and started fighting with my parents all the time. I barely recognized her anymore, and really wasn’t that surprised when she wound up leaving home. My contact with her became pretty spotty. I think she was homeless for a while, and a couple months after she left I found out that she was pregnant. She wound up having twin daughters.

My parents said that they wanted to help her, but made it sound like she wasn’t receptive to their help. In any event, they were unambiguous that she had made a number of poor decisions, and they didn’t want her to be a bad influence on me. My impression was that drugs and extensive promiscuity were involved in her new life. I was told in no uncertain terms that, unlike her, I needed to focus on my studies and career to avoid penury.

We reconnected a little bit after I graduated college. I got a job working for a VC firm and had myself set up in a pretty good situation. I cared about my sister, and wanted to make sure my nieces were ok, but even after I reached out she remained closed off. Our relationship could never get back to where it was, and frankly I had to agree with my parents that she wasn’t making the best choices. She insisted that she wasn’t on drugs, which I mostly believed, but I was fairly confident that she was making ends meet by working as a prostitute. I know she had worked at a strip club for a while.

When she did get in touch, it was usually to ask for money. At first I didn’t mind. A few hundred dollars here and there didn’t make a huge difference to my life, and if it kept a roof above the girls’ heads then it was worth it. But soon she had racked up a serious debt, and I started to feel less like her brother and more like a piggy bank. To be honest, I got a little resentful. I probably wouldn’t have minded if she hadn’t kept me at such arms length. I offered to try and mediate between her and my parents, and to let her and the girls move in with me (I had the space and would have loved to be more involved in their lives), but all to no avail.

Hence my less-than-enthusiastic feeling when my sister called this afternoon asking if I could swing by her place after work. She wouldn’t say what she needed, but I was confident it wasn’t to pay me back for all the money she’d borrowed over the years. I threw on my handbrake and took a deep breath as I prepared to meet with her.

The lock to to the front door of her building was broken, I noted, and the lobby smelled like human urine. It was covered in detritus. Fortunately the elevator still worked. It was already on its way down as I walked in, and when it’s doors open a man about my age dressed in a slightly disheveled suit and tie ambled out. It was clear he didn’t live there, and as I approached he looked me up and down and then shot me knowing, leering smile. As if we were co-conspirators in some untoward undertaking. His eyes glinted and as we passed each other he addressed me.

“Going to 1410, yeah? You’re in for a good time.”

I was going to 1410, which was my sister’s apartment, but I was fairly sure I wouldn’t have a good time. I snarled at him and he held his hands up, walking away with a laugh.

The hallway to my sister’s apartment was littered with trash and smelled like smoke.