[Contest Entry] Clean Your History

Ever gotten exactly what you wanted, and then immediately regretted it?

Let me paint a picture for you. A family sitting around a Christmas tree, the whole holiday nine yards. Popcorn strings and tinsel, big red orb ornaments and collectibles from long ago hung on a tree. Hot chocolate that's more lukewarm chocolate and dad's bitter coffee. Jingle bells, jingle bell rock, let it snow, songs like that cycling on the radio with an accompaniment of a hot and cold brother boasting about their temperatures from the TV. Father, brother, sister amidst a growing mound of wrapping paper.

Now in this Norman Rockwell-esque vision of classic values, I want you to put a pornographic Japanese comic in the hands of the brother. I want you to paint a look of disappointment on the father, and an evil grin on the sister.

I didn't say anything at the moment when I realized what I had in my hands. It would have just been idiotic babble, at any rate. It wasn't so much that it was just pornography, but the content. That was what was about to give me a real headache.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep safely again knowing that my brother is such a sicko!" My sister, barely able to poorly feign distress for all the joy that was bursting forth within her, pulled a blanket over her flannel pajamas, letting out a squeal as if I had just psochokinetically ripped them open. "Who knows what he's already done to me while I sleep?"

That kinda stuff isn't so easy to deflect away when you're holding a pornographic comic about incest. One with bold, English lettering saying "SISTER RAPER" right on it, right above a picture of a frightened, crying girl in pajamas. One who just so happened to be in the exact same pose as my sister. Same pajamas, too.

I couldn't quite tell what my face was doing. My body felt like it was burning, and I was pretty sure I had contorted into some sort of uncomfortable looking shape. But my hands were staying perfectly still, doing their best not to damage this pristine work of art I was holding.

"Well, I can see that this is quite the situation we have here." My father pulled his pipe out of his mouth. His voice was even, calm, smooth as his smoking jacket. "By golly, son, I think this is looking mighty bad for you. I think I'm going to have to get out my whooping stick."

"Th-this is just a comic! A work of fiction! You read murder mysteries, but you haven't killed anybody!"

"I can respect your logic, son, but what you just made is an untrue statement. Just thought you should know that, for future reference." Dad took a puff of his pipe as the room fell silent for a moment and, for a single simultaneously glorious and horrifying moment, my situation was temporarily forgotten. He nodded and smoothed his hair back with his hand. "You're curious, I see. I slit his throat in a diner. We'll talk a little more about that story later. Continue."

"Th-the point is, I haven't done anything to my sister!"

"Oh, yeah, the words of a guy that reads dirty comics about incestual rape do a whole lot to make me feel safe." She scooted a little closer to dad. "And what about those panties of mine that went missing?"

"Well, we certainly never resolved that, did we? This is looking mighty incriminating, son." My father stood. "I'm afraid I might have to ask you to sit on the porch with me."

"Oh God no. I'm innocent! I swear!" Not the porch. Anything but the porch. I had been on the porch once. I don't remember what happened. I see glimpses, occasionally. The pain and fright work their way into my worst nightmares, the ones that make me wake up sweating and trembling. I have cried after having one of those nightmares. "I didn't steal my sister's panties! I've done nothing to her! And I don't plan to do anything!"

"If you don't have any plans, then what are you doing with the blueprints?" My sister reached under her blanket and pulled out my laptop. What was it that I had done to her? I've seen supervillains less dedicated to ruining somebody's life. She opened up the screen, displaying yet circumstantial but nonetheless damning material. "You so carelessly left this out. With a pornographic webpage on it. A delicate little flower like me couldn't possibly say the name, though. I'll spell it instead. F, A, K, K, U."

"S-so what?" There was no denying this either. This was my computer, and I wasn't the paranoid sort that deleted all the information on my computer regularly. I could see clearly that not developing such paranoia was a mistake.

"Well, it just so happens that this account is saved on your computer. Let's see what exciting titles there are under your favorites. Sister Fuck chapters one and two, Sibling And Sperm. Oh, here's a classy one-"

"That's enough." My father held up his hand. He looked deep in thought and was puffing heavily on his pipe. "Well, this is all fairly damning. I just can't give you reasonable doubt anymore. I'm afraid that you've ruined your sister for marriage. You're going to have to take responsibility, young man."

"Wh-what?" I didn't like where this was going.

"What I'm saying is that you'll just have to marry your sister."

As horrified as I'm sure the look on my face was, it did not compare to that of my sister's. Her face was frozen completely, with tears streaming down her face. Everything, it seemed, did not go as planned.

The wedding is planned for sometime in the spring. My sister and I are both chained to iron balls. My father is patrolling the house with a shotgun. There is no way out.

Happy holidays. Send help.