Magic Marker: Book 1: Felt (Part 1)

Chapter 1

Stories happen when things go wrong. Even at twelve, Susan knew that. Nobody wants to hear a story where somebody had an average life with no problems. It doesn't matter if it's true or made up, if it's got a happy ending or a sad ending, or even if it has an ending yet, a story doesn't begin until somebody, somewhere, has done something wrong, and, whatever kind of ending it was, that someone usually deserves the blame.

In some of the best stories, it was the protagonist herself who caused the troubles, accidentally, and Susan, who, like many people, thought of herself as the hero of her own story, thought hers was probably one of those kinds of stories.

She already blamed herself for what had happened more than anybody except maybe God. If God was responsible for magic, it was kind of His fault, so maybe she should just roll with it as part of His plan, since she was enjoying parts of living out her new story anyway, even if it made her feel ashamed and sometimes humiliated. People rarely blamed God in stories anyway, even when it was His fault, and she wasn't sure it was. If God wasn't responsible for magic, then whoever was, maybe they deserved most of the blame. But if magic was something that just happened, like a cosmic roll of the dice, then it was mostly her own fault, and no matter who was responsible for magic, Susan knew, deep down, that she was the one who caused the start of her own story, she'd written the first word herself. Two decisions led up to that single word that changed her life. Two mistakes.

Three mistakes if you count wanting to go swimming that day in the first place, but she could hardly be blamed for that, it was a beautiful warm summer day... what twelve-year-old wouldn't want to go swimming? And, although both her parents worked, she had a big brother with a car that she could persuade to take her to the pool, with a little pestering. Or a lot of pestering. But with a lot of pestering, and a little reminder that there might be lots of girls in swimsuits he could look at, her brother Keith agreed to take her to the public indoor pool the day Susan found the marker.

Before her story really began, Susan had thought of herself as a normal kid, a budding writer of stories, but not the kind of person people told stories about... maybe someday, but not yet. That day, she was just living and, at the pool, she had a lot of fun, playing around in the carefree and rather boring way of someone who is not in a story. She'd met a few friends and together they gossiped, splashed each other, had swim-offs, giggled and got exhausted and just floated, and ducked under and held their breath underwater as long as they possibly could. The last was just a taste of danger but she wasn't worried, under the protective watch of the lifeguard and her brother.

The lifeguard had to go into the water a few times, but never for her, mostly to break up two siblings fighting on the other side of the pool from where Susan was, but her brother Keith didn't get wet at all. He just sat on the sidelines drawing with a Sharpie on the pad of paper he carried with him everywhere. Keith, Susan knew, had dreams of being a comic book artist one day, and did elaborate page layouts and character sketches, all in bold strokes of black and white. Susan was his biggest cheerleader... even though, deep down, she thought he needed to work at it more, especially on drawing hands and feet. But he was her brother, and always got so down when anybody said anything negative, so she kept that criticism to herself, knowing he'd get better, just like she'd get better with the spelling issues that got in the way of her goal to one day become a writer.

Susan had always liked that her and her brother's dreams were so similar, and, even though she planned to focus on prose, novels and short stories, she had a secondary dream of her and Keith working together sometime on a comic, her handling the story, him doing the art. So far he hadn't even taken any of her suggestions for his own comics, but one day she hoped he'd see value in her and they could be partners, a team, best friends even. She had faith that if they both held on to their dreams, they could also help each other reach them. So, she always tried to always be encouraging about his work, even if she might have preferred he came out to play with her instead of being locked up in his room all the time. A person can work TOO hard on things. That was another reason she begged him to take her to the pool, in the hopes he'd get in and swim with her. But even though he didn't, he still looked up now and then and would watch her, and, the last half hour they were there, he did nothing but watch her and her friends.

That gave her a little thrill, and she played to it, trying to do so without looking. She'd walk to the edge of the pool and then bend over to talk to a friend, while her butt, clad only in a tightly-clinging yellow swimsuit, pointed right at him. For at least a year now she'd gotten an impression that he liked looking at her, that he did things deliberately to check out her body. More than half the time she was sure it was entirely her imagination, but, there was evidence she could point to. He would sometimes enter her room without knocking and catch her changing, or demand entry to the bathroom while she was in the shower, and then did his business while she hid behind a translucent curtain. Or sometimes she might be wearing a skirt and get a feeling he was trying to look up her legs whenever she changed positions on the couch. She could never be sure he was deliberately trying to get a peek... he always either looked away when she looked at him or, in the case of the more questionable acts, apologized profusely... but just the thought got her heart racing and a warmth shooting between her legs. He was tall and good looking, and if he thought she was worth looking at, then that gave her hope someone else might as well. Of course she knew he'd never do anything... he was her brother, after all! That's why it was so safe to enjoy the thought.

Maybe that was true, once, but all he needed to change that was a little push, a push that two mistakes provided, and the first of those mistakes came when she and her brother walked back to the car from the pool. He was in a rush to get home, so she hadn't changed out of her swimsuit... but even though he was impatient to get going, at least he was smiling on the way out. "Have fun, squirt?" he asked while leaving the hallway that lead to the change area. Her normal clothes were in Keith's backpack slung over his shoulder.

She rubbed her short-cropped hair with the towel... with the water, it looked almost black, which she liked, and stringy, which she didn't, so she wanted to get it dry quick. "Yeah, lots. Can we come back tomorrow?"

"I don't think so. I'm not driving you to the pool every day."

"Aww, come on... it's a good place to meet girls. Girls in bikinis!" Susan wore a one piece but sometimes fantasized about wearing a skimpy bikini and all the guys staring at her.

"Like I'd have a chance. You know how girls are. They're always more interested in jerks."

Susan rolled her eyes without letting him see, having long ago decided that the real truth was that her brother was just too shy to go after anybody. She looked at the blonde-haired, perpetually peppy teenage girl who manned the front desk of the community center... she looked right about Keith's age, maybe even a schoolmate, and had smiled at him when they came up, but he didn't notice. "Not all girls." Right now she was listening to music on ear buds, but she looked up and waved as the two passed.

"Most girls," Keith said, still oblivious. "Even you, probably."

She made a face. "No way!"

"Maybe not yet, you're a little young, but you'll probably fall for a jerk too. That's what big brothers are for, to punch their faces in." He grinned and made a fist, and she smiled.

"And to take their little sisters to the pool."

"Once in a while. But I'd rather just work on my comic."

"But if you're just going to be drawing anyway," she pointed out, "...why not draw somewhere I can have fun too?" She grinned and elbowed him in the leg. "Besides, I saw you at the end, you were having fun watching us."

Keith scoffed at the thought. "No, I just didn't have anything else to do." He held up the Sharpie he'd been using. "I ran out of ink. You owe me a pen, squirt."

She could tell he was only teasing, but she had to defend herself anyway. "You would have used it anyway!"

"Maybe, but I spent gas money getting you here, and..." Whatever he was about to say, he never got a chance to finish. As he pushed open the glass door to the outside, he spotted a grungy looking guy seemingly mumbling to himself. The bum was shuffling around, staring at his feet, and then suddenly looked up to the sky. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he stopped moving, let out an inarticulate groan.

When he stopped moving, he was right in the path of Keith and Susan, and she got a good look at him. He was dirty, there was no doubt about that, with at least a week's growth of beard and his clothes were all sweat-stained, and the smell... well, he smelled worse than Keith's laundry hamper, the sourest smell Susan could think of. But, when she looked closer, she realized that part of what she thought was dirt was actually writing, maybe tattoos. They ran up and down his arms, and there were even some on his face and hands. Most were impossible to read, either they were smeared or faded, or he just hadn't written them very clear in the first place, but there were a handful that she could make out. One looked like it said "Constant Organisms", which must have been the name of a band, another said "Immortal" or maybe "Immoral", he spun around suddenly and Susan couldn't read it anymore, and in fact, didn't want to, because when he turned he did his arms whipped out to grab Keith by the shoulders.

"It's all an elaborate joke," he mumbled, then his eyes rolled back into his head.

"Let go, you crazy freak!" Keith tried to wriggle himself away, but the man's grip was fierce.

After a moment of silence, he began to shake, and then his eyes once again focused, straight on Keith's, and he continued, "It doesn't mean anything, you see. Nothing means anything!" Finally, Keith pushed him away, and gave a worried, warning glance to Susan, a glance that said 'stay back while I deal with this freak.'

Her brother held up his hands in a move like somebody who knew Karate, but Susan knew all he knew about martial arts came from movies. "Look, dude, just go somewhere and sleep it off. We're not interested."

The bum advanced once more in a drunken walk, and said through gritted teeth, "Don't ask for wisdom."

Keith finally snapped and let loose with a kick... he may not have known anything about martial arts, but all it takes for a kick is for it to connect. He aimed for the man's crotch, but the man swiveled his leg at the last second, so it hit him in the knee, sending him to the ground, and a moment later a small object flew skittering across the pavement, making a brief clatter. Susan noticed it, but her brother didn't seem to, still focused on the man he'd just kicked, and wearing an expression of guilty concern mixed with wariness. "Look, I'm sorry, man, but I don't want you touching me." Since the guy was on the ground, Keith took a wide circle around him and stopped by his sister Susan, who'd been watching the whole scene with wide-eyed shock. He took her hand and led her back to the building. "Come on, you wait inside here and I'll go get the car."

As they opened the door to go back in, they heard the man again. "Just go for happiness while you can! He's getting tired of us!" he shouted, and then pushed himself to his feet... although he spent a few seconds on his hands and knees in mid-motion, seemingly shaking and smiling.

From inside, they watched, and then the man started to shuffle off, crossing the small stretch of the parking area right in front of the doors, designed for people to drop off or pick up but not park. It was hard to tell where he was going, for his legs weaved and turned at odd moments, but it looked like he might be aiming to harass people at the nearby burger place.

Still, Keith didn't take any chances. He looked to the girl at the desk, who'd taken her ear buds out and was watching the man with some concern, and asked, "You mind if I leave her here with you while I run and get the car? I don't want to risk that guy coming back."

She gave Keith another wide smile and said, "Oh, sure. I already called the cops, the guy's probably on drugs." He nodded. "But it's good that you look out for your sister. That's important." He nodded again, and walked out.

Susan looked up at the girl, noticed her watching her brother leaving, and, after waiting a minute or two, asked, "How old are you?"

"I'm fifteen. How old are you?"

"Twelve. Do you go to school with my brother?"

"We go to the same school," she admitted. "But he's a couple years ahead. I was only a freshman last year."

Susan's face lit up. Jackpot. There were two other high schools in the area, so if they weren't the same age, and she knew he was in the same school, that means she noticed him in school. Which might mean she liked him. Like-liked. Maybe she could play matchmaker. Of course, Keith probably wouldn't make a move on his own... maybe she was the kind of girl who would make the first move, if she got a little encouragement. "Yeah, he mentioned that," she lied.

Her eyes widened. "He did? What did he say?"

"Just that he thought you were a freshman at his school. When we came in." He said no such thing, though he looked her over. It wasn't out of the question that he recognized her too. And the way her face fell a little when Susan's answer didn't meet her highest hopes, that just gave more fuel to her theory that she liked him. "What's your name?"

"Tricia."

"I'm Susan." Through the glass doors, she saw a familiar silver Ford Taurus pull up. "That's my brother's car." Actually it was their parents' second car, but since Keith got his license they let him use it so long as he didn't get tickets... but she thought it would sound more impressive to Tricia if he had his own car. "Bye." She lifted her hand to wave, and Tricia waved back, and then Susan dashed out.

Once out in the sun, she took a look around. The homeless guy was stopped at a garbage can, one hand on the edge, and she wasn't sure if he was using it as something to lean on or if he was shopping for dinner.

But it was far enough that she didn't fear him, and, in fact, could take her time and check out something that she'd wondered about. There, on the ground, near where Keith kicked the homeless guy to the ground, an object had gone rolling... and, as she rounded the back of the car (so she could sit in the front seat like she wanted), she could see what it was, and picked it up just to be sure.

It was a marker.

Chapter 2

Not just a marker. A Magic Marker, or at least that's what it said on the side. Just the single, huge, word "Magic" along one side, as though it was a brand-name, although there was no trademark symbol beside it, and on the other side of the pen, a wall of text. "Felt Indelible Black Magic Marker: Bring Your Dreams To Life! Never Runs Out! Non-Toxic! Safe To Use On Skin (Warning: Marks May be Long Lasting!)! Use At Your Own Risk! Avoid or Embrace Temptation As You Desire! Caution: Labels Will Not Violate Laws of Physics (Much)!" The text got progressively smaller as it went on, and there was even more but Susan couldn't really take the time to read it all. The wall of text all shoved onto the one half of a magic marker was crazy... it reminded her of a bottle of minty-smelling soap her dad bought long ago that was covered with wild promises. Maybe it was made by the same company... she remembered both using a lot of exclamation marks.

The marker was purple on the outside, although it said it was black, and she pulled off the cap for a second to confirm that the felt tip really wasn't purple inside. Black was the color her brother worked with, if it was purple, he'd probably throw it away.

She looked over in the direction the garbage can. Homeless guy was still there. Technically this was his pen. Susan always thought of herself as a good person, and knew that what she should do was leave it there, or maybe return it directly to him. She knew her brother would never let her get close enough to do it in person, but if she really tried, she could probably throw it near the guy and yell out that he dropped it.

And yet, it was a magic marker, just like her brother had just said he wanted. It was like fate. And she wasn't 100% sure the homeless guy even dropped it, maybe it was just on the ground and went flying when he fell... but considering how much the guy wrote on himself, it probably was his. On the other hand, the guy was dirty, and this marker was clean, looking almost like new. She even smelled it, and it didn't smell bad at all. Maybe he just got the thing to replace the one he used up writing on himself...

The sharp honk of the car horn interrupted her thoughts and she looked up. "What are you doing?" her brother yelled. "Get in."

She took one last look at the hobo, who was looking back in her general direction, and she made a choice. If it was his, he was probably going to waste it marking himself up more, she decided. Whereas her brother might be able to use it for something productive. The rationalization was unconvincing, and deep down she felt she was doing a bad thing. But despite the hard knot of guilt in the bottom of her stomach, she hid the magic marker up in the palm of her hand and got in the car, not knowing that she was making the first bad decision that would eventually kick off the story that would soon dominate her life.

"What were you doing?" Keith asked as she wiggled her butt into a comfortable position on the towel laid over the seat. "Drop your keys?" It was a joke, albeit a lame one... with her swimsuit on there wasn't much room to carry anything else.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to tell Keith about the marker yet, so she just said, "Just looking at something on the ground." She pulled her seatbelt over her chest and clicked it into position.

Keith put his foot on the accelerator and they drove... as they did, Susan's eyes followed the homeless guy who seemed to be watching the car, seemed to be watching her. She had one last moment where she thought maybe she should chuck the marker out the window, but the moment passed and they were too far away. "Did he scare you?" Keith asked.

"No."

"He probably was just on drugs or something. That's why you should never get into that shi... stuff."

His almost-swear made her smile, but unfortunately she couldn't quite bust him since he didn't finish it. "That's what Trish said, that he was on drugs. Maybe he's just mentally ill though."

"Maybe." A second later, he asked, "Trish?"

Susan tried to hide her excitement that her brother had taken the bait. She looked out the window and did her best to sound bored. "Tricia. The girl at the front desk. She goes to your school."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. And I know something else." She turned back to Keith with a big grin. "She likes you." Susan stretched out the word 'like' real long to make it a tease.

He blew a puff of air out of the side of his mouth. "Yeah, right."

"No, really," she insisted. "We should totally come back tomorrow and then you can flirt with her."

"Did she say she liked me?"

"Well, no... but we girls can tell."

Keith scoffed at that. "You're twelve, you don't know anything," he decided. "You just want me to bring you swimming again."

"Okay, I do, but I really think she likes you too. So it's a win-win situation. Besides, maybe she's into artists. She seems like the type. You could offer to draw her!" Keith shook his head, rolled his eyes in what Susan had come to call his 'stupid Susan' look, like he didn't want to come out and say it but it was what he was thinking, that she was being naive and childish. And maybe sometimes when he used it he was right, but not this time. She grit her teeth and let out a moan of frustration. "You are such a dork sometime! You know, that's the reason you don't have a girlfriend. It's not that girls like jerks, it's that you never ask them out! You just never believe that they might like you."

"That's where you're wrong. I used to believe it all the time." He frowned a little. "Now, not so much." He shook his head and continued. "Just because I don't go after girls around you, or tell you about them, doesn't mean I don't try. But like I said... they're all into jerks."

The bitter and almost soulful way her brother opened up to her shut Susan up, and her heart went out to him a little. Maybe she really didn't know anything about his problems... but he seemed like an obviously awesome guy to her, the kind of guy she'd want to date, so it was just hard to believe that no other girl in his school saw it. The answer, she decided, was probably that he was going after the wrong girls.

But if she tried to tell him that, he'd think she was nagging or a silly girl who didn't know anything. She could work on him more later, but for now it was time to change tactics... and the marker in her hand seemed like a good way to do that. She waited until he pulled into the driveway of their house and said, "Here." She tossed is onto his lap, where it bounced once and landed between his legs.

"What's this?" He grabbed the marker and squinted at it.

"It's a magic marker," she said. "You said I owed you one, so, here."

He undid his seatbelt and wriggled it over his shoulder, all while inspecting her gift. "Where'd you get this?"

She shrugged. "I found it."

"Some stupid no-name brand," he pointed out. "And if you found it, it's probably already out of ink."

She should have thought of that... but she didn't even try it out yet. Why had she assumed it would work? Oh, that's right. She leaned over the divider, latched onto his arm with one hand and pointed with the other. "See, look, it says it never runs out."

"That's just marketing nonsense. Like 'The Everlasting Gobstopper'. Or 'The Never Ending Story.'"

Susan shrieked and covered her ears. "You know the rules, you never mention the horse-killing movie." Their dad got them to watch it years ago, a movie from his own childhood, and, as a lover of any movie or show with magic in it, she was enjoying it... up until the horse drowned in the mud. It was right in the middle of her 'horses are the best thing ever' phase, a phase she still hadn't entirely grown out of (now they were simply in her top fifty). Although her reaction was mostly an old, running joke at this point, for months afterwards she had nightmares, and still shuddered when she thought of it.

"You know at the end, the horse is f..."

Susan repeated, "HORSE. KILLING. MOVIE," spacing out the words for emphasis. She'd never seen the full movie, and never wanted to.

He grinned. "Jeez, Suze, you should take one of Mom's pills, maybe it's relax you a little. Anyway, just because it says it never runs out doesn't mean anything. Just because you write something, doesn't make it true. Besides, it's purple."

She took her hands off her ears, which weren't really blocking out the sound anyway. "No, just the outside's purple, it says on the label the ink's black."

He took off the cap and dabbed the felt tip of the marker against part of the dashboard, leaving a small black dot. "I guess it's not completely empty. Was this what you were getting off the ground?" Susan nodded after a moment of indecision over whether she should try to hide it. "I wonder if it belonged to the homeless nut."

"I don't think so." The words rushed out, because of Susan's instinctive urge not to have her brother realize she technically stole it. "If it did, it'd be all smelly, like him." She nervously brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes... she had short hair, but long bangs in front... and when she was nervous, or lying, or guilty, it always seemed like she was suddenly conscious of one of them blocking her vision.

"Smelly? That's not a very nice thing to say," he teased.

"Well, he was smelly!"

"At least he has an excuse, he lives on the street. What's your excuse?"

Susan wrinkled her nose in indignation. "I am not smelly!"

"Well, your feet sure are!"

"Are not!" Even though she knew he was probably only saying it to make her mad... it bothered her. What if they smelled and she'd just gotten used to it?

"Sure they are." He reached down and grabbed her below the knee, and pulled her leg sideways, eliciting a scream that was part annoyance and part delight. Even wearing the seatbelt, Susan was tiny enough that she could be wrenched sideways as Keith's hand slid down to her ankle, pulled it up and out of the sandal, and directed it towards his nose. He made a disgusted face. "Yep, Peeee-yew. Stinky feet."

"Shut up!" His other hand, the one holding the marker, tickled Susan's sole gently, causing her to squirm around even more. As she writhed around, she couldn't stop laughing, and she also couldn't get free. Her free leg kicked at his thigh.

"Oh, so now you're kicking me? Just because you can't handle the truth?" He grinned. "I think you need a reminder." He popped the marker in his mouth and locked his lips around the cap. When he pulled away, the cap remained there.

"No, don't!" she whined.

He didn't listen, just began writing, and, letting the marker cap fall into his lap, began saying the words as he wrote. "Stinky.... feet."

Finally, he let go of Susan's ankle, and she pulled her leg close to herself. "You dummy! That's permanent marker!"

"Oh, relax. It'll last a couple days, max." He fished the cap out of his crotch and put it back on the marker, then slid it into his pocket. "You worry too much, stinky-feet." With that, he tousled her short brown hair and opened the door to get out.

By the time they got inside the house, Susan's feet began to stink.

Chapter 3

They attributed the odor to the marker right away... but only in the most direct, rational way. "Wow, that marker's ink really does kind of smell, doesn't it?" Keith said, even though it wasn't the weird chemical smell that usually came off markers... what it smelled like was a more natural scent, like sweat and maybe a little like a stinky cheese.

And, in the way that smells do, they got used to it and stopped noticing it was there... but at dinner, their parents both noticed it... they blamed Keith at first and when Susan got all red-faced they apologized and assured her that it wasn't that bad, and Mom suggested that a little bit of baking soda might help.

It did, for a little while... an hour or so, at most, and then the smell returned. Mom said it was probably just a phase, and if it lasted too long, they'd go see a doctor. But that didn't help much to a little girl who had stinky feet.

She didn't press her brother to go to the pool the next day. Or do much of anything else. She tried going to a neighbor friend's house, but, despite putting baking soda in her shoes and socks before she left, while there, her friend kept sniffing and asking what that smell was, and Susan soon found an excuse to go home.

The rest of that week, she kept mostly to herself, interacting with her friends through the Internet or FaceTime instead of in person, which was a more-or-less viable option for social interaction these days. It still made for a waste of a wonderful week of summer, but it was better than the shame of getting a reputation for stinky feet. At home, at least her family rarely mentioned the problem. Mom occasionally brought up the possibility of the doctor again, but she wanted to give it time, sure it would probably go away on its own. In the meantime, Susan was stuck... with stinky feet. Even though she showered every day, sometimes twice, used baking soda regularly, it never lasted long... her feet would soon start stinking again. And every time Susan scrubbed at the black words on the sole of one foot, she had to wonder... the smell started when Keith wrote the words. The marker said something about making your dreams come true. The homeless guy had stuff written all over his body.

And it had said, right on the label, that it was a MAGIC marker.

What if...?

Susan was twelve, and although one of her favorite TV shows was "Once Upon a Time," her belief in actual magic was slowly being strangled by the so-far relentlessly real world. Her desire for magic to exist was as strong as ever... she just no longer trusted that desire. So, she told herself, it was probably just a silly thought. And even if she mentioned it to somebody, she'd probably just get laughed at. She hadn't even seen the marker since they went inside the house that first day she was marked. For all she knew, Keith threw it in the trash.

But she went through the same range of thoughts every time she looked at the bottom of that foot. She monitored the slow fading and, somewhere, deep down, expected that when the label was gone, the smell would follow.

It took about a week. The smell was gone first, but she didn't notice that... you don't always notice the absence of a smell right away. She woke up that day and blearily went to the shower, washed her body and her hair, and then, as was her new habit, braced one hand against the stall and lifted her feet to give each one an extra-good scrubbing. First her unmarked right foot, then her left. And when she did her left, she realized that the mark was gone.

She almost slipped and broke her back trying to get close enough to sniff her foot, but caught herself on the soap cubby and decided it could wait. Even if the curse wasn't broken, after a shower her feet usually smelled okay for a few minutes.

Outside the shower, her feet didn't smell like anything other than skin and soap. When she got back to her room, they still didn't smell. Her heart began a steady thump of excitement and she allowed herself to believe that maybe it really was all because of the mark. Maybe it was magic.

She put on panties and a shirt, and a fresh pair of socks, and went downstairs for breakfast, telling herself she would not smell them again for an hour. She lasted about five minutes after she ran out of cereal, then she went back upstairs, removed the socks, and inhaled deeply from each foot. Still no sign of the pungent smell she was used to.

Susan put on some music and began dancing around in her room, at first cautiously celebratory, and then she figured it might be a good way to work up a sweat, and by the end she was swept up in the pop music and having fun, until she had the automatic thought that she's grown accustomed to over the past week, "God, my feet must reek."

And then she smiled, sat on her bed, and smelled. Okay, now they did smell, a little... but just a little, and only if she got her foot close enough to her face to lick. Susan had used no baking soda, no vinegar, no perfume, had done no secondary scrubbing, and she'd been physically active in the hour or more since the shower. Any other day since the problem started, by now she'd have been able to smell it from, if not the floor, then certainly from resting one foot on the thigh of another. She knew she'd be smelling her foot all day, just to be sure, but was now ready to declare the foot-smell curse broken.

And that meant the marker WAS magic.

She had to tell somebody... but they wouldn't believe her unless she proved it, first. That could be fun... what could she write? Super strength? That might make her all muscley and ugly though. Maybe she could write "redhead" on herself and be a natural redhead for a week, instead of the plain boring brown she hated. Or just "pretty", and it wouldn't matter what color her hair was. Of course, those wouldn't necessarily prove to other people... if she went redheaded, they might think she dyed it, and if she became pretty she was worried they might not realize it was her at all.

She heard the door to the bathroom slam, and figured it must be Keith. They were the only ones home, unless Mom or Dad stayed home from work...their parents usually left before either of the two were up (at least during summer, when they frequently stayed up late and slept in). Should she ask him about the pen?

No, she decided. Not until she proved her theory. She just had to wait for him to leave, and get it out of his room. That could be a long wait, sometimes he went days without leaving the house... and worse, he usually kept to his room. But sometimes he'd go downstairs or into the basement, and that might give her a chance.

About five minutes passed before Susan realized that she was missing out on a perfect opportunity right at that moment. He'd been in the bathroom a long time, which meant he wasn't just taking a number one or number two. She opened her door and poked her head out and confirmed her guess... there was the sound of rushing water. He was in the shower, which meant Susan had free access to his room.

She bolted out of her own room, and then stopped and stood at the door of his, momentarily intimidated. The door itself wasn't scary, for all that it had a radiation warning sticker with "No Unauthorized Access - Death May Result" written underneath it. That was just a joke. But it was still an intimidating step... one of the ways to piss her brother off, really, not just for fun, was to go into his room without permission. That didn't mean she never did... Susan considered it part of a little sister's job to snoop on her big brother. How else would she understand him? He was a teenager and it seemed like his mood shifted every day and it's not like he told anybody what was going on, so snooping was the best way she had to stay close to him. But it was scary every time. What would happen, if she got caught, depended on Keith's mood. Sometimes he'd let it slide with an insulting but not seriously-meant comment... sometimes he'd scream at her and then, worse, give her the silent treatment the rest of the day.

But for the chance at something magic? It was worth the risk. All magic comes at a price, as the show said, and if Keith yelling at her was it, it was a small one. She grabbed the knob, turned, and pushed. The radiation warning might have been a joke, but Susan thought it was appropriate... it resembled a disaster area. There were clothes on the floor and tossed over chairs, crumpled up chip bags and a leaning tower of empty Coke cans on a dresser. The bed was unmade, of course, sheets and covers flung everywhere like he'd exploded out of bed... which wouldn't be that bad considering he just woke up, but it never got any better. And over all of that, there was the smell... a boy's smell, sweat and a faint whiff of something like sour milk and bleach, sort of what she'd smelled on the homeless guy. Not as bad, but Keith had no business making any jokes about her smelly feet.

The sole exception to the clutter was his drawing desk, which was kept clean except for some disordered papers and one can of Coke in a makeshift cupholder. She tiptoed around clothes, garbage, and toys in order to make her way there. Sometimes when she had more time, she'd pretend it was a minefield and the slightest misstep would get her blown up, but right then she was trying to get to her goal as quickly as possible, so she had no time for such shenanigans. Keith kept many of his sharpies in an unused coffee mug, but when she swirled them around, she soon satisfied herself that that's all they were... sharpies. No off-brand purple magic markers with too much text on them. Nor could she find what she was looking for anywhere else on the desk, like as if it had been used and carelessly left out of the cup. She did take a second to glance at what he was drawing... another comic page, this time prominently beginning with a girl with a sword leaping through the air attacking some ninjas. In subsequent panels, she'd maimed and decapitated them, although it wasn't really gory, not done in bold streaks of black against a white background. He'd need to add some red before Susan would get uncomfortable with it.

After looking one last time around the desk, just to be sure, she stood in place and surveyed the room, trying to think of where else Keith might have put the magic marker.

His drawing desk didn't have drawers, but his computer desk did. Maybe, she thought, he went right to his laptop after the day at the pool, and dropped the marker in one of those without thinking about it. She did another tiptoe dance to get there without stepping on anything gross, and began slowly, carefully pulling open the drawers. Normally the computer itself would be a huge draw in her sisterly snooping... but you can't hide a marker in a computer. Besides, most of what she'd uncovered on his computer so far had been boring. She already knew he was into weird Japanese comics, and although it was a little surprising that some of them were very dirty, she knew guys his age were into porn. And he didn't really have much real porn, either, so she assumed that he was more interested in the dirty comics as comics, as something to use as inspiration for his art, or because he liked the story, or just because he liked gross-out stuff. He seemed to be particularly fond of some character or series called "Loli" that was apparently big in Japan, a lot of comics that were labeled with that name... she didn't read much of them, a lot of them weren't even translated, and those that were, were hard to follow. Mostly she had been disappointed with computer-snooping... she hadn't found what she was looking for, a juicy online diary that might reveal a girl he had a crush on, or secret plans he had with his friends. She might have better luck with his phone, but he usually kept that on him, and it was harder to get unmonitored time with it... even though she already knew his unlock pattern from watching him use it.

That was a project for later, though. Now, she was hunting magic markers. But her casual search of the drawers came up with nothing... there was a lot of random junk, and it was possible she might have missed something buried within, but she could spend forever searching them, and she didn't think she had more than a few minutes. After a quick rummaging through each one, she abandoned them and tried to look for another place he might have put it.

The garbage pail was an option, though it would have saddened her if he just tossed away the gift that she had gone through so much guilt to give him. The pail was filled, but mostly with tissues... she didn't want to touch them directly, but got a ruler, edged with black, from his desk, and pushed them aside. Her heart leapt as she saw a marker, but it was only a split second later that she realized it was another Sharpie, probably dead.

Where else, she wondered. Her eyes fell on his hamper. Maybe he put it in his pocket, and never took it out. It had been a week, but... sometimes Keith wore the same pants a couple days in a row. There was a chance. She went for it, looked inside... there were only, at most, two pairs of pants in there... she knew he'd worn at least three pair since the day they went to the pool.

Susan turned away, and then returned, remembering an incongruous flash of pink. She dug into the hamper and came back with a surprise... a pair of her own panties, one of her favorites, pink with a pixie on it, from Disney's Pixie Hollow, not Tinker Bell. She held the underwear up to the light, shaking her head at the mystery of it, and then decided what must have happened. It must have gotten mixed up in the wash, and, instead of delivering them to her, he just threw it in the hamper, figuring he'd leave it back down there next time he did laundry. He was so lazy sometimes. She thought about taking them back, but... that would reveal she was in his room, if he remembered and noticed it. Besides, it seemed to have absorbed some of the smell of his room. So she put it back, and half covered it again with the topmost layer of pants, and then looked around again.

She embarked on a half-hearted inspection of one of his nearby shelves, standing on her tiptoes, before mentally complaining about how impossible it is to find anything in the mess. After all, there were clothes everywhere...

She lightly smacked her forehead. There were clothes everywhere... how stupid was she to assume that all of Keith's clothes were in the hamper? There could easily be a week's worth of pants there in the room. First she checked the ones in the hamper again, just quickly feeling to make sure there was nothing long and solid in the pockets. After ruling them out, she felt up a pair she'd spotted on the ground, probably tossed towards the hamper, but that didn't make it. No luck in either case.

She crawled over Keith's bed on her hands and knees, and spotted a pair on the ground on the other side. She reached down and patted it.

"What are you doing?"

Chapter 4

Susan gulped at the sound of her brother's voice, pulled her head back up above the surface of the bed, and turned to look at him. He was dressed only in boxers, absently rubbing a towel through his hair that was usually dark brown but, when wet, just like hers, now looked nearly jet black. But in his case, the look really worked for him. He actually looked pretty hot all around... she knew she wasn't supposed to think that about her brother, but she told herself that she was only recognizing that other girls would surely think that. And did. Some of her friends had even mentioned he was cute, and a few had admitted to crushes, which always infuriated and terrified her for some reason she couldn't name, but, when she was alone, she could see what they were talking about. Slim, no visible hair on his chest, but he had some lean muscle on his arms, and he either didn't have a belly or was sucking in his gut.

She flushed red, more at being caught than seeing her brother like that... he often went around without a shirt when nobody was visiting. At least, right now, he didn't seem mad, he was just staring at her with a blank look. Maybe he was a little embarrassed at seeing her panty-covered butt waving around in the air while she checked the pants. Or maybe she caught him in a good mood. "I was looking for the marker." She brushed one of her bangs out of her eyes.

He went to his drawing desk and got a Sharpie, while Susan turned around and sat on the edge of his bed, trying, unsuccessfully, to look like she wasn't doing anything wrong. "If you want a marker, you can ask, don't go looking through my room..."

She grimaced at the Sharpie. "Not this marker, the one I gave you last week."

"What's the difference?"

"I... I can't tell you, I just need it, okay?"

Keith rolled his eyes. "Fine, then I can't help you."

"Please? I just need to use it for a little bit."

"I don't even know where it is. Now get out of my room, you little brat." He tossed the towel at her, catching her in the face and reflexively upraised hands, but it was light, so no harm was done, Susan just batted it away and then, in a huff, retreated to her room.

She flounced onto her bed and lay there, arms forming a makeshift pillow because she fell on the bed sideways and her real pillows were out of reach. Keith probably threw it out, she decided. And Mom must have emptied the trash. It just figured, she finally discovers real magic only for it to be lost forever. It wasn't all bad news, she finally decided after a minute or two of moping. At least her feet didn't stink. She could go out with her friends again, go swimming again... being a normal girl may not be as cool as having a magic marker, but it was a lot more fun than being magically cursed.

She flinched as something unexpected tapped her shoulder. She turned, and there was nothing... then she turned the other direction, and there was Keith, still in just his boxers. He always did that, tapped her on one shoulder and then be out of sight in the other direction. "What do you want?" Susan asked sullenly, certain that he'd decided to go yell at her after all, but then noticed what he was holding in his hand, and what he must have used to tap her.

"I found the stupid marker you wanted."

Susan's face glowed with a surprised smile. She rolled over and sat up, then extended her arms outward. "Gimme!" It wasn't the most polite request, but after getting her hopes dashed she was too excited to worry about manners.

He held it far over her head. "Why should I?" he asked. "Maybe I would have if you'd asked, but since you snuck into my room like a dirty little rat, maybe I won't."

"No fair! I found it!" she whined.

"And then you gave it to me. So it's mine. And maybe I'll just decide to throw MY marker in the Fitchs' backyard... see if I get lucky and it hits a pile of dog poop."

Something in the way he grinned made her think he was actually capable of doing it, and she did not want to fend off the neighbor's dog trying to find the marker if he went through with his threat. So she tried pleading. Susan tilted her head, opened her eyes as wide as she could, and said, "Come on, Keith! Please?"

"First tell me why you want it."

She let out a breath, having expected that to be part of the price. "You'll laugh at me."

"Probably, but I could use a good laugh."

She couldn't see any way out of it, so screwed up her courage and said, "I think it's magic."

He did laugh, then, a nervous sort, like he wasn't sure what he heard but knew it was ridiculous. "What?"

There was no backing out now. "When you used it to write my feet were stinky, my feet started stinking," she said. Now she lifted the foot to show him the mark was gone. "And now that it's gone, they don't smell anymore. I think what you write with it actually happens."

"You're forgetting one important point..." she waited. "Your feet still smell."

Susan's face fell in a flash. "They do?" she asked, panicked. Could she have been fooling herself all along? She lifted the foot to up to try and smell it again.

Keith burst out laughing. "You are so easy." She glared at him, and let her foot return to the ground once more. "Okay, fine, they don't smell. No more than usual, anyway. But that's just a coincidence."

"How else can you explain it? Why did it start when you wrote it and stopped when it was gone?"

"That's what coincidence is. Maybe the marker's ink caused the smell or something..."

"But both feet smelled."

He grinned. "Well, that just proves my point. I only wrote it on one, and they both smelled, so..."

"You wrote 'stinky feet', not 'stinky foot'. Since you wrote 'feet', if it was magic, it would make both smell."

He sat down beside her. "Or, the far more likely scenario, it didn't do anything at all. Maybe you picked up some kind of foot infection from the pool that made your feet smell... and it just lasted about the same amount of time that the mark did. These things normally last about a week."

That did seem to make a depressing amount of sense to Susan. It was the way it always was, she'd think something was magic, and then it'd turn out to have a normal explanation. And often it was her big brother proving it to her... like when he showed her YouTube videos that showed exactly how a magician did a magic trick that wowed her. "Maybe," she admitted.

"Besides look at this thing." He held up the marker. "It's not a wand, or a bubbling potion, it's a cheap-ass plastic marker, probably made in China or something. You actually believe that THIS is magic?" He shook his head. "God, you're so stupid sometimes, Suze..."

She sucked in her breath. "Don't call me stupid!" She hated that... too many people made fun of her for being stupid, even though she got high marks, because she had a problem reading and writing. Not that she couldn't do it... she not only had a great vocabulary for her age (supplemented by flipping through dictionaries looking for words she didn't know), but also read books that were officially too advanced for her... she'd even snuck into her Mom's bathroom to read her Fifty Shades of Grey book sometimes, although she didn't really understand what the appeal was... the Christian guy seemed like a creepy jerk. The problem that got her called 'stupid' was that her brain sometimes got mixed up with letters and words.

One of her teachers said it was probably a very mild dyslexia (funnily enough, a word she never had trouble with), but it wasn't that the words squiggled around like she'd normally heard it described... it felt more like her mind worked too fast and jumped ahead... sometimes to the wrong conclusion. Sometimes... not always, but sometimes (and usually with longer words), she'd mix up letters, or drop or add letters, and write, type, or think she read, a different word. It was still a word, usually (although sometimes she put her "e" before "i" when she shouldn't, or vice versa, and made a genuine mistake), just the wrong word, and she wouldn't notice until it was too late.

Others noticed, though, whenever she had to read in class, or write something on the board. If she took her time, she could always sort it out, but stress made it happen more often, and it was more stressful when the kids were ready to laugh at her or call her stupid. That always turned her red-faced and made her more likely to make more mistakes. And worse, they'd often make fun of her for wanting to be a writer when she, according to them, couldn't spell. As if that was a big factor. She clung to the fact her teacher told her (the same one that suggested she had a mild dyslexia), that lots of writers were terrible spellers. She couldn't remember most of the examples, but she remembered Jane Austen was one of them, and she was one of the most famous women authors in history. "That's what editors are for," the teacher said, and Susan would use the same phrase when people suggested she couldn't write because of her problem.

But having a good reply didn't make the insults hurt less... they still stung, partly because, deep down, she thought maybe there was a grain of truth to them. She might think 'stupid' was unfair, even though she called herself that when she made a mistake, but she really didn't feel smart, either, despite those generally good grades and that big vocabulary. People, even people her own age, called her naive, or acted like she was, when she said things that made perfect sense to her. And naive was just a kinder way of calling somebody ignorant, but with potential to learn. If she was more naive then her classmates, maybe she really was less smart than them, and just happened to be good at taking tests and doing homework. And if she didn't have smarts, and, in her eyes, wasn't especially pretty, then there was nothing really special about her at all. Sooner or later she was afraid people would figure that out and then have no reason to be around her. That was why hearing the 'stupid' label from her brother was especially painful. Worse, he didn't even seem to notice, he just thought he was teasing her in the fun way they sometimes did to each other. Like now, he had a grin on his face, oblivious to her hurt. "Well, stop being stupid and I'll stop calling you stupid. I mean, Jesus, Suze... a magic marker?"

"There's no reason a marker COULDN'T be magic," she said, but it sounded weak even to her.

"Except, a) it's a MARKER, and b) magic isn't real, stupid." He rolled his eyes, and held the marker towards her. "Here. You're welcome to play with it, but... try not to be so stupid."

That was at least four times he called her stupid, and now anger was beginning to win out over hurt. What a jerk! He didn't know what he was talking about... if Keith didn't believe in magic how could he know anything about how it worked? And he didn't even know about her ultimate piece of evidence... that the marker belonged to the homeless guy. Why would he write all or himself if it didn't do anything? She grabbed the marker out of his hand, uncapped it, and held it up threateningly. "If it doesn't do anything, then you won't mind if I write something on you."

He did draw back from her, then. "Hey, I don't want crap written on me," he said.

"You wrote on me."

To her surprise, he mulled over the thought and shrugged. "Okay, as long as it's somewhere I can cover up." He was already shirtless, so he pointed to his peck, an inch above his nipple. "Here, it'll be like a tattoo. Make sure it's something cool."

Of course, right at that moment, Susan's mind went blank, all the ideas she had for what you could do with a magic marker were gone. "I don't know what to write."

"How about 'I have a stupid sister'," he suggested with a smirk. "Oh, no, wait, that one's already true."

She pounded him in the shoulder with her empty hand, and the rage returned, and she got a sudden idea about what to write, even though she would later come to realize how stupid it really was, come to mark it as the second mistake that started the story that changed the course of her life... because what she wrote wasn't something she wanted to happen, it was just the first word that came to mind. Immediately after the half-hearted punch, which Keith didn't even really react to except to flinch away briefly, Susan used that shoulder as a hand hold, leaned out over him, and began to write in crisp dark letters on his peck.

The two mistakes Susan made were the background to the story, important, but a story always truly begins with the first word, and she wrote the one that would begin hers on her brother. "J.... E... R... K...."

Chapter 5

Keith was looking up and away while she wrote, just passively accepting it, and then, as she backed off to admire her handiwork, he finally looked down... and something in his eyes seemed to be different, there was no longer a little glint of amusement. His chin dipped to his chest to better read was Susan had written, and he wrinkled his nose. "Oh, a jerk, am I?"

She tried to pull away, but he grabbed her arm... tightly, squeezing almost hard enough to hurt, and certainly hard enough that she dropped the marker. "What are you doing?"

"I guess I'm being a jerk," he said. "That's what your stupid marker does, doesn't it? Makes what you wrote true?"

Susan swallowed, not knowing what to say, hoping for once that she was wrong, that the marker wasn't magic. Surprisingly, he let her arm go. She rubbed it with her other hand, and said, "I'm sorry..."

"No you aren't... but you will be."

Susan leapt to her feet and darted for the door, but before she got two steps out of her room, Keith caught up to her, wrapped his arms around her in a bearhug, and lifted her off into the air. He's just playing, she told herself. And indeed, this time, he wasn't squeezing her so hard that he hurt her, he was just restraining her while he walked her back to her bed, where he did something like a bellyflop, his weight pressing her face down into her comforter. That didn't hurt either, but it was uncomfortable, oppressive.

It relented, a little, as he worked his hands out from under her, pulling her shirt up a little in the process, and pushed himself into a sitting position. Her legs were still pinned by his, though, and they quickly straddled her, his bare knees pushing her bare legs together, then before she could move she felt his hand on her head, pushing her face back down towards the bed.

She did what she could to fight him off, but not too seriously... she didn't want to hurt him, and even if he was a jerk, he'd been a jerk before, for short periods, and never really hurt her. A week of this couldn't be that much worse than when he was thirteen and yelling at her every other minute.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reaching for the marker. "Now I think it's my turn to write something on you again." Susan squirmed, but to no effect. "Maybe I'll give you a nice big old tramp stamp here." The edge of the pen made a trail around the small of her back. "But what should it say?" He didn't wait for her to try to give an answer, just continued, "Well, since you're stupid enough to believe in magic, maybe I'll just write 'stupid' on you."

For the first time, she was really scared. Because if the pen was magic, that would mean a week of actually being stupid. "No, please..." she said. "You can't."

"I can't?" The marker pressed into her flesh again, but it was the end, not the tip. "I'm pretty sure I can."

"Please," she said again, tears coming out along with the words. "I didn't mean to write 'jerk', but now it made you into one..."

"Unbelievable, you still believe it? You really are stupid. You deserve the label. Maybe I'll show you after all..."

"I don't wanna be stupid," she cried. "Please, I'll do anything... just don't write 'stupid'."

"Anything, huh?" He was silent for a few seconds, like he was considering her proposal. "You must really believe it. But now I've gotta walk around with jerk on my chest, so you must be punished. Maybe I should give you a spanking."

Susan took a breath and considered this. Right now, he was a jerk... so a spanking might hurt more than usual, but she didn't think her brother would be cruel. The word jerk usually meant, to her, selfish and insensitive, but not outright mean. She thought she could take it. It was better than being stupid for a week. "Okay," she said through gritted teeth. "Just don't get too hard."

The hand restraining her retreated, but she didn't try to get up. Instead, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, waiting for a whap... and was totally unprepared for the sensation of her panties being tugged down. She'd assumed Keith would spank her on her covered butt... nobody had ever spanked her bare bottom before. Even the thought that he was seeing it caused her to blush and now want to hide her face in the bedspread. Maybe this was a jerk thing... humiliation would fit a jerk more than additional pain. Well, she could bear that.

"You got a cute butt," he said, which, bizarrely, made Susan proud. It was better than having an ugly butt. "Shame to have to make it all red. But you're never going to learn if I don't." His hand landed across her cheeks, making her flinch, even though he used no force at all. It just lay there. Then seemed to squeeze a little, before raising... and this time, it came down in a hard smack.

Susan yelped in pain but grit her teeth. It stung like hell, but... she'd had worse from Dad, on the few occasions he'd spanked her. Their parents had a policy of spanking only when it was disobedience combined with danger... just having an attitude or refusing to do chores or saying a bad word wasn't worth a spanking, but if Susan lied about where she was when she was going out, or gave out her real name to a stranger online, that was both disobedient and dangerous, and was worth a spanking, almost always administered by Dad, only to make sure she remembered the lesson and never did something so reckless again.

Keith gave three spankings, each landing on one cheek, and each one, the hand lingered on her behind after, rubbing it, like he felt guilty over what he was doing and trying to sooth her injured skin. That knowledge was reassuring, and made Susan wonder again if she'd been wrong about the marker... maybe she didn't turn him into a jerk, maybe he was just in a bad mood.

That fantasy disappeared when he leaned forward on her, almost lying on top of her, which would be sexual if there wasn't a pair of boxers in the way, and still made her nervous, particularly as she felt some kind of bouncing, cloth-covered lump graze against her skin. But what was really scary was when he whispered in her ear, "You still believe this thing is magic?" he asked. She made a noise that wasn't really clear, because in her head, she wasn't really sure, but he must have taken it for a yes, because he said, "I guess I'm going to have to prove it to you. Time for your tramp stamp."

"No," she said again. "I said you could spank me, that's not fair." She pushed away, but as Keith fell back, upright on his knees, the hand came back, pinning her head to the bed once more. "It's not fair."

"I guess I'm just a jerk," he said, and she could hear, but not see, the grin in his voice. "But I'm not going to break my word. I won't write 'stupid'. Unless maybe you keep squirming."

Susan decided to go limp... better not to fight it. "Okay," she said, trying to appease him not just with her posture but with a hopeful voice. "Write something good, though. Not mean."

She felt the tip against the skin of her bare back, writing letters. The first, she thought was an 'S', and she was afraid he'd just lied to her, but the second wasn't a T... it was hard to tell, it might have been a 'U' or an 'O'. After that, she couldn't figure out... her nerves were making it hard to concentrate. "There we go..." Keith said.

It took about thirty seconds, at least before Susan was really aware of any change. It might have started before that, but it crept up on her, until suddenly she realized she was feeling hot, and a little bit dizzy, and her stomach was jumping like she was about to have to read in front of her class at school. It was a little like being sick, although, with a difference. When she was sick, she always felt down, sluggish, like she didn't want to move. This was almost the opposite, she felt alive, like her skin was electric... almost itchy, although not quite. It even felt good, in the way that running downhill does... you know you can't keep it up forever, but for a while it's a pleasant rush. "What... what did you do?" she asked, feeling a little breathless.

"You tell me. If it's a magic marker, shouldn't you know what I wrote?" He sounded smug, like this would prove his point.

"I don't know... you did something... I feel... weird." She shivered, despite the hot feeling, and then squirmed... her body just wanted to move, and, when it did, she noticed another effect. When her legs brushed just a little closer together, the tension in her stomach relieved a little, and it felt good. That made her squeeze her thighs deliberately, to repeat the sensation, and do it again and again, whereupon another symptom appeared... between her legs it was quickly becoming moist, like shy had a runny nose, except in her private parts. "Did you make me sick?" she asked. Was she going to have to suffer through some obscure disease for a week? Even if it felt good originally, now it was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, mixed in with the pleasant aliveness.

"If you're feeling sick, it's not my fault..." One of his hands went to the small of her back, like he was touching the words he wrote... and it was like he was slightly electrified. It didn't hurt... quite the opposite, in fact, his touch intensified the good feeling... but she felt like what she always imagined it would be like to be electrocuted... her body seemed to move on its own accord, arching up to meet him, like it wanted to get as much of her body in contact with him as possible, and her conscious thoughts, even if she might have agreed, simply didn't matter.

The hand didn't stay on the place where he wrote, it slid up, under her shirt, giving tingles everywhere it went and leaving behind a vacuum of want. A little murmur, half-enjoyment, half-complaint, escaped her lips to give voice to both parts of her.

"You like that, huh?" Keith asked, and finally climbed off her legs, giving her freedom to move, but all that she wanted right then was for his hand to return. "Turn over." She complied instantly, lying on her back, and the hand she craved did return, on her belly this time, an area she hadn't realized was so neglected, and the excitement seemed to ramp up every time the swirling caress dipper a little lower. Her knees bent and spread at the same time, so that the soles of her feet could almost touch, a part of her hoping it would entice her brother to go lower. Instead, though, he went higher, under the shirt, his fingertips brushing the breastbone. "Take your shirt off, Susan." She stared at him for a second, and he added, "Don't worry, it's not like you even have boobs to look at."

But Susan wasn't even worried about that, not really. Somewhere, deep down, she knew she should be... that this was crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed by any guy at her age, much less a brother... but she also didn't care. She wanted to take her shirt off, the heat welling up in her body practically demanded she do so. The only hesitation was that she wasn't sure she'd heard him right, because he'd never said anything like that before.

Now that she was sure, she pulled one arm into her sleeve, and then the other, and pulled her head out last, removing the whole thing at once. Her brother stared down at her with a hungry look in his eyes, and then one finger traced a faint line in the center of her chest, a slight depression between the two sides of her body. "Looks like you're going to have big boobs eventually, though," Keith said.

She spoke for the first time since he'd started touching her, and her mouth felt so dry, she had to suck on her tongue just to get the saliva to produce one word. "Really?"

Keith nodded, and then moved to the side, to squeeze her boob, or where her boob would one day be, but the little bit of flesh that was there felt very, very good when it was squeezed. Maybe that was one of the early stages of growth. "Look at that," he said. "Your nipples are like so hard." And then, without any other warning, he pinched them.

Squeezing her breast felt good, and all of his touches had a tingly electric feeling, but this was another level altogether... like she'd just grabbed an electric fence. Except again it didn't hurt... even the squeeze around her surprisingly hard and pointy nipple wasn't enough to do that... but somehow the contact made her entire body tense up, and she couldn't help but gasp, and her mind was almost blank with pleasure. The touches that followed, and there were several, never quite matched that first one, but the sensations were still intense and provoked movements and sounds that she couldn't control, almost like she was a puppet and he was pulling on random strings. He would run his thumb over the raised point, flicking it back and she would twitch and her mouth would open. He'd roll a nipple between thumb and index finger and her legs would shake and she'd wince, despite not feeling pain. And even when there was pain, when he actually pulled the nipples... it only hurt a little, but pain never felt so good. "Stop it," she whispered, but the dark truth was, she didn't want him to stop, she wanted him to continue and see how far the weird sensations would drive her, and when his hand did pull away, she was disappointed.

"Shit," he said, but he said it like he was awed, not angry, and she followed his gaze down to her panties. He touched her down there, cupping the front of her panties, making Susan jump again and also making her extra aware of exactly how liquid had been dripping out of her, as the soggy panties rubbed against skin. "Look how wet you're getting."

"What did you write?" she asked again.

"Don't pretend you don't know," he said. "It's like that game we used to play, where I write on your back, and you guess what it was?" They hadn't played that in a long time. "You knew what I wrote..."

"I did not..." she whined, and the whine was partly because she wanted him to touch her again. After that first cupping, he'd pulled his hand away.

"Sure you did. And that's why you started acting like this. Either you're faking, or, it's, you know, psychosemantic."

"Somatic," she corrected. She might not be able to spell it, especially right now when she was so distracted and unable to focus on anything but the yearning all over her body, but she knew the word and how to pronounce it. Keith shrugged, not caring about the difference. "And I don't know what it was, it was long."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, if you want to play dumb, go look." He stuck a thumb out towards her closet. On the partly open inner door was the mirror Susan used for whenever she was getting dressed. She gave one look in that direction, then climbed out of bed on wobbly legs, and opened the door as wide as it could go. She looked at her front, first, noticing the flush, especially around her face and neck, and consciously realizing again how she was topless in front of her brother. But that wasn't important... what was written, was... she turned around, and tried to read the words on the small of her back over her shoulder.

Reading in a mirror wasn't hard, but it took a little more time and effort, and she did it aloud. "Super," that one was easy (because Suqer wasn't a word at all), "... Horny."

Chapter 6

She looked up at her brother with astonishment. "You made me horny?" So that's what that was. She'd never been horny before, or at least not... super horny. Maybe she'd been a little horny, but without realizing that's what it was... she always just thought of it as 'antsy', full of nervous energy. And the extreme wetness coming from her privates, that was a new development.

Keith grinned. "No, dummy, I told you. Magic isn't real. I didn't do anything to you. You made yourself horny."

"I didn't know what you wrote!"

"You did so, subconsciously. Or I don't know, maybe it's just cause you think you made me a jerk, and, like most girls, you get hot for a jerk." He shrugged. "Either way, it's not my fault. It's your problem, you solve it."

"How?" Teenage boys were supposed to be super horny all the time, she'd heard, and wondered, was this how Keith felt all the time? If so, she didn't know how he could stand it. "What am I supposed to do?" Those times when she was antsy, sometimes she'd squeeze her thighs together for a while, which felt good, but eventually the feeling went away on its own. Now, she wasn't just squeezing, she was squeezing, and hopping, and shaking her fingers, like the only thing she could think to do was move as much of herself as possible and hope it got rid of some of the extra energy.

"I COULD help you, if I wanted to," he said, carefully inspecting his fingernails like he didn't give a damn one way or the other. "Maybe if you asked me really nicely."

Susan clenched her fists, and her thighs, at the same time, while she tried to think... though thinking was difficult with all these feelings. She knew you could get rid of horniness through sex... was that what he was offering? Sex with her brother? The thought caused a little unexpected spasm of pleasure in her heart. Or maybe it was masturbation... she knew in theory how it worked, but not how to do it properly. And maybe it wouldn't work as well as the other option. She might HAVE to do it, have sex, just to get rid of the feeling. "You'd have to... have to...." She couldn't say the word, the f-word, so she said, "Touch me?" Sex was a form of touching, right?

Keith scoffed. "Yeah, as if I'd want to touch you." Her spirits fell, but the anxious feeling persisted. "But I can take away the feeling without touching you, if you ask nicely, and promise not to tell anybody."

She jumped at the chance. "Okay," she said. "I promise, please, please, please help me."

"Okay, get on the bed." She ran to it, and scrambled on top, but as she started to turn over, he said, "No, on your hands and knees."

"Okay," she said, and held the pose, looking up to him, expectantly.

He sidled up close to her, letting his legs hang off the bed, closer to her rear end than her face. "Pull your panties down," he said. Supporting herself on one arm, she struggled to pull down the underwear. It took several attempts to get it off her ass, and then it fell down to her thighs. She jiggled her legs so that it would slip all the way down to her knees, figuring that was good enough, she was as good as naked. If he wanted the panties all the way off, he'd surely tell her.

He didn't. Instead, he leaned towards her lower body, and just looked at her, her bare butt, but probably more, he could probably see her vagina, the private place nobody was supposed to see except maybe a doctor, and certainly not while it was hot and dripping. She'd been looking over her shoulder, but she put her head down and looked up at herself between her arms and legs. Not just hot, reddish, and puffed up, and yes, wet, she saw a drip of liquid fall from her and onto her bedspread. She hoped it wouldn't stain, or it was going to look like one version of Winnie the Pooh's Piglet had a birthmark on his face.

"It's kind of funny, you think the magic marker turned you on, when actually it's going to get you off."

"Huh?" Was he going to undo it somehow? Write 'Not' above 'Super Horny'? Would that work? And if it did, why would he need to see her naked to do it?

"See, when a girl's horny, she needs something to play with her pussy." He ran the end of the marker along the lips of her pussy, making Susan shudder and squeeze her eyes closed. The sensations continued, as the marker slid up and down, occasionally grazing a certain spot where it was like an explosion of sensations (including, a little, pain) that blotted out everything else, but more often every movement just felt incredibly pleasurable. At one point, it slipped in the crack, outside the hole, and below the nub that caused the head-explosions, and she tried to squeeze on it with those lips, trying to hold onto it with muscles she was barely aware she had. "And it helps when it's long and hard. That feel good?" She nodded. "I can't hear you."

"Yes," she said, breathing in for the first time in a long time, and she hadn't even realized she'd been holding her breath. "Yes. It feels... too good." She didn't know there was such a thing as that, 'too good,' until now, when she felt she'd lose herself, like her very body was betraying her to get more of it. This, she had a sudden thought, this is how people get addicted to drugs. This wasn't a drug, but she thought she understood now how people could want something so much that they stole from their family to get more. Her body was feeling weak, and in fact, she couldn't hold her front half by her arms anymore... it had collapsed into her bedspread... but her bent knees still kept her ass and vagina up and accessible.

"Oh, you think it feels TOO good, huh? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet." The slow sawing of the marker through her crack picked up the pace, and it started probing at the hole. "Cause when you've got something... something long and hard, that fits inside you... it's time to go in. Are you ready?" She made a noise, but it wasn't an answer to the question, it was just a reaction to the action of the marker. How could she answer that question... how does a girl know if she's ready for a thing like that? All she knew is that what was happening so far felt so good. He must have taken it for a yes, though, because she felt the tip probe the hole again, and this time started to slide inside with a steady but unstoppable force.

"Ow," she yelped, and then let out a even less articulate cry of pain, as the pen seemed to hit some obstruction inside of her... and blew on past it. At first it felt like intense pressure, followed by a sudden a hard pinch, deep inside her, and almost before she was even able to react to that, it was followed up by a sensation like a popping inside of her, the obstruction gone, and a deeper pain, like something had been wrenched out of place and torn.

"What?" Keith asked, sounding annoyed that she'd felt pain rather than worried that he hurt her. "Don't be such a baby." He did, however, pull out the marker, and inspected it, then announced, "Oh, that's just your cherry getting broken. Don't worry, you don't need it." And then he pushed inside her again.

There were tears in her eyes, but more shocking was to realize that she was actually relieved when he put it inside her again... and there was pain, again, although not as intense or acute, and the horny feeling was overpowering the pain anyway. If she had to take the pain to get the pleasure, she would. It was like an ice cream headache, she decided... even if she knew it was coming, and she'd rather not have one, she wasn't going to stop eating ice cream because of it. Even weirder was that, in this case, the pain itself had started to feel a bizarre kind of good. It was like that feeling where you probed at a previous wound that had turned into a bruise. It hurt, but you found yourself testing it anyway, just to feel how much, to see not only how it was healing, but how well you could handle the hurt, feel a little stronger just for taking it. Also, the pain reminded her she was alive, and this wasn't some strange dream.

The pain was fading, though... not completely, but just to a dull background noise. She almost missed it, in addition to making her feel stronger, it was like it was something solid to hold on to while her heart seemed to want to grow wings and fly her away from everything she'd ever known... but she soon forgot that feeling, as the marker began thrusting in and out and, occasionally, taking a sudden, unexpected tilt to the side, making her feel like it had become so much larger and bringing that craved-for pain back. Soon, the sensations became all she could focus on, just waves, coming and going, and she was rising and falling on top of them, and at the peak of each wave, that heart seemed to take a jump and see if, from this height, maybe it really could fly. That's what it was like in Peter Pan, one really good happy thought, and people fly. Although she wasn't sure, feeling the way she was, if her heart would take her with her or just go off on its own.

It wasn't just her heart that was acting up and out of control, though, her whole body was involved, like every inch of her body was betraying her, beyond just the rebellion of feeling so good. She felt like a puppet, and somebody else was controlling her, not well, but irresistible... here and there she'd buck and writhe, without conscious thought, and her pussy had started constantly clenching around the marker, trying to pull it back inside of her, and then there were the moans. It wasn't Keith controlling her, at least not directly. It was the pleasure. Now every move her body made seemed dedicated to increasing the pleasure, to making those waves as high as they could go... her body didn't know exactly how to do this, which movements made it better, whether a moan or clenched eyelids intensified the pleasure or cut it down a notch, it was learning through trial and error. And sometimes what it learned changed moment-to-moment, where before a breathy gasp felt like the absolute right thing to do, now holding her breath seemed more right, but gradually, those peaks were getting higher and higher...

...and then it came, a moment that washed out everything. As the magic marker worked it's very different kind of magic, the pleasure was gradually crowding out her self-awareness, and then, in one moment, it was gone entirely, all she was, was pleasure. It was like a white noise that wasn't actually white, or actually noise, but it was everywhere...

...and then it was gone, and Susan found herself at the tail end of a scream. She let it die out, and then took a series of sharp breaths, feeding a body that seemed at once starved and also content... the antsy feeling was gone, mostly, and her body was still shaking, but this time it was like a muscle that had been flexed for too long... and the legs, keeping her butt in the air, shaking like they were going to fall at any moment.

When Keith finally pulled the marker out, they did just that, and her lower half tipped over on its side, and, her mind still rattling over what had just happened, she looked up at her brother. "Wha..." She needed at least one more breath. "What was that?"

"Your first orgasm," he said casually, and then wiped the pen on her bedspread, leaving a red mark... now in addition to a birthmarked-Piglet, there was a bloody Pooh, what was once an innocent scene of two best friends now sinister, like something out of a horror movie, where Pooh was a zombie and attacking his friend. "You know, you could say 'Thank you.'"

"Thank you," she gasped, and although she was obscenely grateful for the chance to feel that much pleasure, it was more an automatic response than something she thought out... like she still didn't know what to do with her body anymore, and so the first time somebody told her to do something, she jumped at the chance. If he told her she should sung the alphabet, she'd have tried that, too.

"You're welcome," he said, "Happy to break you in." He slapped her ass playfully, and then drew the cheek to the side to look at her butt, inside the crack. "You know, while I'm here, I might as well break in another hole..."

He leaned over her, and Susan's weary heart kicked into high gear again, this time in fear. "What?"

"Well, guys are going to want up here, too, so you should get some practice." He still had the magic marker in his hand, and he drew it in close to her butt. The still slightly slick stick slid along one side of her inner cheek, and poked at the tender ring.

The contact made Susan instantly clench up, and when he continued pushing, it hurt... and not the good hurt she felt when it was inside her pussy, this was like a something trying to poke through her skin. And she couldn't imagine anybody wanting to stick things up their butt. "No, don't," she cried, trying to pull away. "It's gonna hurt."

"Only if you don't relax." He sounded annoyed at her, but he did pull away... for a second. "Hey, you still think this is a magic marker, right?"

Sensing a trap, she still nodded. After all, he wrote that she was horny, and she became horny. Still was, just not as much... that orgasm wiped her out, but she could feel that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling welling up again, quieter than the first time, but more than she ever was before he wrote on her.

"Then look." Keith stuck the cap of the marker in his mouth, seemingly unconcerned that it was just covered in the liquid that was dripping out of her pussy, then pulled the rest of it free. The cap he held between his lips, moving it to the side of his mouth like it was some kind of stubby cigar, and he started writing on her ass cheek. "Loves..." he began, the words sounding a little weird but still clear despite holding something in his mouth. He wrote one word, and then when he completed the second and third, he finished, "... anal... things." He popped the marker back into its cap, pressed until it clicked in place, and then pulled both out and advanced again. "Now either we'll prove this isn't magic, or you're going to convince yourself you like it."