“They so immature,” Chastity offered in her own defense.

I knew how sensitive she was about her weight, but I also knew that she wasn’t doing much about it, and her parents weren’t helping by ignoring the situation. Only her younger sister, Faye, ever said anything, usually only when they had an argument.

We walked faster.

“I’m going on a diet soon,” Chastity finally added. She looked to me, and I nodded. “You probably thought they were right. You don’t have to pretend you don’t.”

“Stop it, Chas. Of course you should lose some weight. You’ll feel better about yourself. But there’s no reason for them to be so damn nasty just because we’re not doing what they want us to do when they want us to do it.”

“Right,” Chastity said. She looked relieved. However, when we passed the pastry shop, I saw the napoleons and tarts draw her attention like eye magnets.

“Keep walking,” I said. She laughed, but disappointment dripped from her lips.

When we reached the corner where the Hotel Beaux-Arts was, I stopped. I had gone by the hotel twice before but without pausing. I was practically in a run each time, not sure what terrified me more, the prospect of seeing Roxy or my father somehow finding out. I had time, however, to scout the area across from the hotel’s front entrance and knew that we could safely hang out by the bus stop.

I began to feel foolish almost as soon as we stopped there and focused on the front of Roxy’s hotel.

“I don’t know why I wanted us to do this. It’s dumb. It’s like waiting to catch a glimpse of a rock star.”

“Relax. We haven’t even been here a minute,” Chastity said.

“Even if we’re lucky and see her come out or go in, I can’t guarantee I’ll recognize her.”

“You will,” she said confidently.

I looked at her. Now that we were there and actually doing it, I wondered how this could be of any real excitement to her. Roxy wasn’t her long-lost sister. What did she really hope to get out of it? Did she fantasize, as I often had, that Roxy would see us standing there and call us to her? Would she take us to her apartment and tell us all about her escort experiences, revealing sexual exploits beyond anything either of us could imagine? Would she tell us things no mother or school nurse would ever tell us about our own bodies? Would she, as Chastity hoped, explain some of the things Chastity had shown me in her copy of the Kama Sutra? I’m sure Chastity

was dreaming that we would both become sophisticated women overnight, and there would be such an air of maturity about us that our girlfriends would gape at us with surprise and envy. No one would ever criticize her for being heavy again. Boys would see all of this in us and be very attracted.

And what about the men Roxy met? Were some of them famous and powerful? Would she have all sorts of inside stories to tell us? Did Chastity envision Roxy giving us some secret information or clever advice about men, something that would suddenly make us more attractive and interesting to the boys at school, especially the older boys?

Was this what excited her? All of this fantasy? Was I a victim of my imagination, too?

I opened my social-studies textbook.

“You’re not really going to start asking me questions about that social-studies stuff, are you?” Chastity asked, tweaking her nose as if the textbook stank.

“We’ll get bored quickly if we don’t do something else,” I warned.

“Not me. Besides, that stuff bores me. Wait. A taxi’s stopping in front of the hotel.”

I held my breath and watched the driver get out and go to the trunk of the car. The doorman rushed forward to greet whoever was stepping out of the cab. It turned out to be an elderly man with a cane. He wore a black suit and had thin gray hair growing in puffs along the sides of his head. I thought he must have been at Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration. He looked that old. The taxi driver handed his luggage to the doorman.

Both of us felt deflated.

“At least we know it’s a real hotel,” Chastity said.

“Of course it’s a real hotel. Why? What else did you think it might be?”

She shrugged, but I realized that Chastity didn’t really believe my sister was some elegant and sophisticated escort. She was thinking like my father. She was thinking we would find nothing much more than a prostitute. Maybe we wouldn’t find someone who would hang out on one of the avenues hawking herself for business under the supervision of some pimp, but we would find a prostitute nevertheless.

I realized it was purely the kinky sexual aspect of all this that interested and fascinated Chastity after all. Learning how my sister became an escort and what her life was really like wasn’t important. She wanted to hear or see something purely pornographic. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. What else did she expect from me? Who else would have admitted to having a sister like mine and admit that she had been thrown out of our home and our family?

“Why did you finally decide to come up here today?” Chastity asked. “Why is today so special? Is it her birthday or something?”

“No. No special reason. I just did.”

She pulled in the right corner of her mouth so hard that it ballooned her cheek.

Tags: V.C. Andrews The Forbidden Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net