Stanley Elkin - The Magic Kingdom

It was right there on her half brother’s chest, exactly, though reversed, where it was on her own, placed just so, where she could not remember when she had not known that one day breasts would grow.

It was at this time that Nedra began to work on their alliance, bringing into it, too, because she thought it was what Gregory would have wanted, Gregory’s sister, offering the little girl special relationship, favored-nation status; not suspecting that, except for their own, there were no special relationships in that house, that blood didn’t matter, neither full brotherhood, the fractured, fractioned fellowship of the descending halves and steps, nor any of the shadowy stair relation there: that nothing counted, not even normal friendship; not knowing that everything was exactly as her metaphor had it, that the others were no closer than guests staying in the same hotel (soon enough dropping the sister, when her half brother lightly mentioned his indifference to the child, feeling worse about it than he did), sitting on her own appetites to feed his, bringing him treats, saving him her desserts, reserving part of her allowance and, when they had gotten rid of the sister, the frail little girl who couldn’t stand up to her drubbings, adding to it that part of the tithe — it amounted to a tithe, the little girl’s portion — which Nedra (because she still believed in his goodwill, his generosity, sometimes actually chastising the boy for being too free with his — that is to say, Nedra’s — money, spending too much on the cheap toys bought with coins held back from her own reserves and which otherwise would have been added to what she held back, still from her own reserves, to spend on Gregory) had withheld from Gregory’s — she thought of it as Gregory’s — money.

Because all she wanted to do was look at it, study it (not even touch it, actually ceasing to bathe him, not because he was too big, which he was, but because she did not want to fall again into her old patterns, did not wish ever again to inflict pain, even helplessly, even unconsciously, did not wish to administer — she had thrown the towel away — any of those at once thoughtless and obsessive rub-downs with which she had once raised welts on her own body and brought tears to the eyes of her clear- skinned halves, steps, and stairs), not even mentioning to him, though she wanted to, that she had one too.

They played. She was four years his senior. They played his games.

They played Fish, they played Old Maid. They pinned the tail on the donkey and fought wars with lead soldiers. She pushed him on the swing, she pulled him on the roundabout. She gave him piggyback rides. (She thought she could feel its heat through his jacket, through his shirt and undershirt, through her blouse and sweater and her own undershirt, the hot indelibles of his skin radiating through the half-dozen layers of fabric that separated them and warming her somewhere behind her heart at the contact point where he jounced against her.)

“You know, Nedra,” he said one day, “I’ve almost gone ten. I’m big for my age, as big as you are. It looks daft, your hauling me about.”

“You’re light as a feather,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I feel quite silly.” She had been about to carry him across the common, where quite recently she had begun to teach him to play rounders, where they leaned into each other in clumsy two-man rugby scrimmages, where they played a sort of hockey together, where they kicked the football about that Nedra had bought for him. They would have headed toward the small playground, where she still pushed him on the swing, where she still pulled him on the roundabout.

“All right then,” she said. “You carry me.”

Because she still hadn’t shown him, hadn’t told him. Not because it was a secret but because she was saving it, squirreling it away against the time when she would need it — perhaps the time had come, perhaps his misgivings about the piggyback rides was its presage — to bond him to her as she had been bonded to him for almost two years now. Her pretexts had begun to seem threadbare even to Nedra; the rough games they played and which had been her idea, the girl’s, who knew nothing about boys’ sports, not really, who had neither taste nor aptitude for them and had forced herself to bone up, to learn them from the rule books, and who practiced by herself in what spare time she had the fundamentals of football, of rugby and rounders and hockey, whose only game prior to the time she needed to know them had been washing children, playing nursemaid, and who had actually become quite competent at them, the rough games, if only so she could show them to him, keep him with her, keep him entertained. And who hadn’t known at the time that the pretext of teaching him sports would develop subsequent pretexts, that the sweat he worked up would become a pretext to get him to take off his shirt, to wipe him down. So that she could stare at it, study it, see if it was still there.

So his misgivings about the piggyback rides weren’t entirely unwelcome. She could see the advantages, all her served purposes. Which was why she didn’t put up a fight, why she was so quick to suggest that they trade places and the boy carry her. Because she hadn’t told him yet, and because she really didn’t know how to tell him even if the time was right.

“I won’t be too heavy for you, will I?” the fourteen-year-old girl asked the almost ten-year-old boy.

“No,” he said as she climbed on his back.

Because perhaps he’ll feel it, she thought. Because perhaps he’ll feel it and know from the heat and I won’t have to tell him.

But he said nothing when he put her down.

He’s shy, she thought. He’s just like me.

“Did you feel anything strange?” she asked him.

“You’ve got sharp tits,” he said. “You’ve got tits like tenpenny nails.”

What could I expect? she thought. He’s too shy. I should never have asked him that.

So she waited until they got home. She didn’t point out that he was perspiring, that he was overheated. She took him directly to her room and closed the door.

“You can’t expect to go down to the table looking like that,” she said. “Take your shirt off.”

“ Ne dra,” he said.

“I’m not fooling, young man. Take it off.”

And because he perfectly well understood that blood didn’t matter in that house, special relationships, friendship, and knew where his treats were coming from, the desserts and the gifts and the extra money and his lessons in games, he agreed. He took his shirt and undershirt off and dutifully extended them to his queen of the queer-o’s bonkers half sister. Who took them from him and let them drop to the floor.

“Don’t you want to wipe me off? What are you doing? Hey,” he said, “what’s going on?”

“Look,” she said. “See?”

“Jesus, sis,” he said, “this is the best treat of all!”

And stood perfectly still as she came toward him and touched what at that moment Nedra didn’t even realize were the breasts which she could not remember when she had not known one day would grow, to the iridescent purple flaw on his chest, locking their matching jigsaw stigmata, pressing her costume jewelry nether lip to his pouting, port-wine-stained, crescent upper one.

He was full ten when he came to her. She remembered because he was wearing the handsome tweed touring cap she had given him on his birthday.

He cleared his throat, making it seem that he’d come upon her unaware and, out of honor, was not only signaling her attention but giving her an opportunity to collect herself, pretending not his invisibility but hers.

“Gregory,” she said.

“I find,” her half brother said, “I may no longer in good conscience honor our special relationship.”