The Cuckqueaned Sister (not that she knows it)

"Geez ... you scared me!" I turn; hand on my chest and heaving a breath. What is it with people today and just popping out of nowhere? My sister's standing there, haloed by the bathroom light, a turban of towel wrapped around her wet hair, another wrapped around her body, staring at me quizzically.

"I scared you?" She moves towards the bed where her outfit sit, perfectly ironed, perfectly laid, just so perfectly my sister. "This is my room, Di."

"I know," I say, moving towards the bed and dropping myself on the mattress like I'm made of lead. Phew. It's only Bhawani.

"So? What plan were you talking about? And why are you here?" She eyes me, grabbing her sky blue Capri pants. She slips them on her legs and hoists them up without losing the towel. How modest compared to what my morning has already been. "I thought we weren't catching up until lunch today, since you wanted to sleep in after the night we had," she adds in Nepali.

What do I say? That I was next door about to get it on when your son walked in?

"Umm." I look around the room, away from her as she turns her back to me to clasp on her bra. We're sisters, even so, there's a level of privacy we've never been able to invade with one another. How very Nepali of us! "We need to talk," I blurt out, unable to come up with anything other than terribly fabricated lies, lies she'll catch immediately.

"Okay." She grabs her top next, a chiffon flowy thing that'd look good on her slim-set body.

I realise then that she's waiting for me to go on. Now's the time I guess, to ask her for that favour I was going to ask once we were dressing for dinner later together in my stateroom. "I need to ask you something."

She studies me a moment. I fiddle with the photo frame on the night stand as if I'm trying to fix its alignment. It's fine. I'm not. "What is it?" the question finally comes.

I clear my throat. "I need a favour."

"Are you okay?" She sits next to me slowly. "Something I need to worry about? You've been odd since we left the harbour."

"I'm fine," I blurt. I don't want to worry her, though, after I'm done she'll probably freak out, anyway.

"Okay. Ke ho then?"

"I," I begin, but the door flies open for the second time that morning and a shadow stands silhouetted against the darkening sky outside.

"Mammu, you won't believe what I just saw!"

Vinay. My nemesis—I mean my nephew. I stand, jostled by his dramatic entry. The bugger has incredible timing. And why the hell can't he knock for once? Rude bugger.

He takes a step in, his features finally lit by the bedside lamp, and the two of us stare at one another, eyes narrowed in a Mexican standoff of our own.

"You!" he says, equally dramatic.

"You!" I sneer, daring him to say another snarky word.

"Vinay." My sister's tone is reproachful. "Ke behora ho yo? Is this what I've taught you? To be rude to your thulo mummy?"

Thulo mummy. I try not to shiver at that. It's literally 'big mum' in Nepali, reserved for all aunties who are older than their own mum. I would have given anything not to be this tool's thulo mummy. At least, over the years, I wouldn't have had to deal with his shit or my sister's tears.

He looks away, huffing in anger but remains silent.

I say Bhawani, "I'll see you at lunch."

She nods but continues to stare daggers at her son. The room suddenly feels chilly and I'm glad to get out of there. When I see Bhawani later, I'm sure I'll learn what the interruption was about. Though I have a pretty good guess what it was. Me.

At lunch, Bhawani doesn't sit with me as I'd hoped. She sits at a table with her soon-to-be ex-husband and her obnoxious, entitled worm of a son. The mother and son throw me loaded looks. I can tell from the turn on Vinay's lips that he's still holding a grudge about this morning. The frown on her face tells me she knows. She knows what he walked into. Tattletale!

"So what? I'm an adult," I mutter under my breath, skewering the fish fillet with my fork while I hold my wine glass with the other should it slip from the table. The rocking has gotten worse as the day has worn, but Parry already has the yacht turned around and heading towards the nearest shore. Hopefully by this evening, we've found a safe harbour where we can ride out the worst of it.

Besides me, Ryan shifts in his seat, trying to get my attention. He's agitated. "Devi... Devi?"

"What?" I snap. His face scrunches as if I punched him. "What?" I repeat softer, putting on a smile for him. I don't need a mopey, heartbroken lad on my yacht right now.

"I was thinking," he begins, beneath the table his leg bounces frantically by habit. "I was thinking it's time we made things official"—he grabs my hand, making my cutlery drop onto the plate, nearly cracking it. Everyone around the dining turns to look our way, including Marvin. I ignore them and shift my gaze back to the young man in front of me clutching my hand so tightly pain shoots through it.

Is he about to pop the question? My heart slams against my ribcage. Oh, kid, please don't do this, not here. I don't want to break your heart when there's an audience. I'm not that cruel. I swear.

Another part of my brain goes: Did I just call the guy I'm sleeping with 'kid'? Shit. That's messed up, Devi.

"I love you, Devi Dhungel," his words sound warbled, like he's speaking underwater. "I don't want to be a casual fling anymore ..."

My head swims, left and right, dizzy from the rocking and his words, but the boy continues ...

" ... I want to be your boyfriend ... I want to be your—"

I yank my hand out of his, fold over the side of the table, and throw up.

He shoots back to get away from the spew, his chair clattering to the ground behind him.

Suddenly the rocking feels even more violent, like someone is shaking me and won't let up. My head throbs as I sit back up. The room spins around as voices express concern.

"Is she okay?" I hear Don's voice first, and then I spot his highly polished shoes. Don Nguyen, my lawyer. Well, Charlie's really, but I never parted with him, because it would have been like parting with another part of Charlie, which I couldn't do. But truly, I should have let Don go a long while ago, the smartass lawyer who often looks down on me because I didn't go to some fancy school or finish a fancy degree. Not like him and Charlie. Anyway, I get ahead of myself. Don will come back into the picture later on, but for now, I had to focus on the whole ugly affair in front of me.

"It's all the rocking, I bet!" Unati, forever chimer, has to put her two-cent in. "I've been feeling sea sick all day too ..."

I catch Vinay rolling his eyes and Bhawani rising from her seat in all the spinning.

Ryan's face is also screwed up and I think I see him hiccup uncomfortably, like he's about to follow my lead and throw up.

His words echo in my mind: I want to be your boyfriend ... I want to be your—

Was he about to say husband? Is that why my body reacted the way it did? By throwing up at his feet?

Soon, I feel a firm grip on my upper arm. Someone hoists me up. "Come on, let's get you to your room and get you cleaned up."

Another voice that sounds garbled. I turn my head, dizzy, only to see Marvin has me in his grasp. Oh, no. Anyone but him. Don't let him take me to my room.

"Please," I manage. I can't even recall if I said it out loud or thought it. Marvin the sleaze! I don't want to go to my room alone with him. I don't want to be anywhere alone with him.

"Here. Let me." Ryan reaching for me, thank god. "She's mine to look after ..."

Though I'm not sure the look on his face is something I believe. He's struggling. Another sympathetic vomiter I wager.

"No, I got it." Marvin pulls me away from his reach.

"Oh, for God's sake, Dad, stop being so fucking obvious. Everyone knows why you lap around her like a puppy!" Vinay's voice has a bite and Marvin quietly hands me over to Ryan. Despite feeling sick, I have a moment of clarity. I see a strange look pass between the father and son, and wonder, what's this about? What did he mean by that: everyone knows why he laps around me like a puppy? Do they know what we've done? Or is there more to him this two-timing sleazebag? I wouldn't entirely rule it out.

Before I can study them longer, Ryan steers me towards my stateroom on the upper deck, rear. It's a struggle to get up the stairs. It's a struggle to walk side by side, with the man who, I'm dead sure, was about to ask me to marry him, only, I won't. Ever. A realisation like that does something to a woman, and I rush to the railing as acid pushes against my throat again.

Just then, a swell as tall as I, shakes the boat and almost throws me overboard. Thanks to Ryan's reflex and powerful arms wrapping around my tender waist just in time, I remain on board.

Ryan, lovely, clueless Ryan, my little Pecker, lays me to bed, brings me a cold wet towel to wipe my face, kisses my temple lovingly, almost the same way as Charlie used to, and tucks me to bed.

Shit. What am I supposed to do now? Break the kid's heart?

My devil heart twists in pain. I can't do this to him. Break his heart. But what else can I do? I toyed with him, and now, this is my consequence. The only thing I didn't know then was what I would do if he popped the question. But now we know. I'll hurl.

"Get some rest. I'll bring you some hot lemon water," he says and disappears from my room.

Once he's gone, I'm not sure if I sleep or cry first, or both, but sometime in that fog, I sleep.

#

And the Dickhead (My Ex? Sis's Ex - Who knows anymore) ...

Sometime later, Ryan returns to my room. At least I think it's Ryan, especially when he slips into bed beside me and spoons me, nuzzling his nose in the crook of my neck. I don't have the guts to break the boy's heart, not yet anyway, so I let him snuggle. It feels good to be loved right now, to be taken care of. If he pops the question on this trip, I've decided I'll say I need time to think about it, and then I'll gently let him down once we're back on solid land.

In the meantime, I'll have to keep up the farce, so I grab his hand—which feels oddly different—and wrap it around my middle. "I'm glad you're here," I say, hoping, now that we are alone, I can broach the topic, ask him what he was about to say at lunch, and if he mentions marriage, gently steer him towards 'Let's think about it when we're back home and not surrounded by nosy buggers'.

Instead of what I'm hoping for, Ryan, I hear a voice I loathe, one that sends my skin crawling, a thousand little centipedes marching across it in earnest. Marvin.

"I'm glad I'm here too, finally," he says, trying hard to sound sexy. He kisses my neck, pulling me closer, whispering against my ear. "Do you know how hard it's been to keep away from you this entire trip, knowing you sleep meters away, alone? The number of times I've wanted you ... it's been hard."

He turns me around and kisses me, slobbering over my mouth, like a giant old Mastiff.

I push him off me. "What the hell, Marv. Get out of my room."

"Oh, come off it, Devi." He pulls me back again, trying to kiss me. "I know you want this. You've always wanted this. You've always wanted me ... why else would you have slept with me again ..."

He couldn't be more wrong! I shove him away as hard as I can, with my hands and feet. He falls off the edge of the bed, helped by a swell that tips the yacht to that side.

"Get out!" I growl, careful not to yell. I don't want others to think there's something going on between us. Once, when I was blind drunk, maybe, but I'm not drunk now. And I really don't want to be the one that breaks my sister's heart.

"Kinky. We're role-playing. You, the hard-to-get damsel. Me, the smitten-kitten? I can do that ... " He rubs his bottom, smiling at me as if he's a lion and I'm his cornered prey, that this is foreplay. It's not.

"I'm serious, Marv. Get out of my room!" I'm wide awake now. "Before Ryan or Bhawani find you here."

For a moment, his face twists. Then he crawls towards the bed, my words as if nothing but hissing air in the room. I kick his hands off the mattress. He still thinks I'm playing. That's when I scramble off the bed, to the other side, towing the cover behind me as if it'll shield.

"I'm not in the mood to indulge your infidelity. What we did, was a mistake. Before I knew who you were or after. I was drunk, very drunk—"

"Twice?" He grins like the asshole he is.

"Yes. I was drunk and Charlie was gone. You got lucky you caught me at a bad time. Now, get out!"

"As if. Charlie's been dead for years!" Marvin's lips set into a hard line as he pulls himself up, adjusting his hard-on so it isn't too obvious. "You shouldn't toy with men's hearts."

"I'm not toying with you!" I fire, though the anaconda of guilt wraps itself around my heart, whispering Ryan's name. I'll have to do something about that.

"Yeah, and that's why you have that boy between your thighs these days." Marvin sneers, straightening up his shirt. I've really pissed him off now.

"What I do in my private life is none of your damn business." I stand my ground. "Get out."

He nods, turns, and heads for the door, where he pauses for a moment. "Vinay is right. You're a fucking tramp."

I can't help but laugh at how petty he sounds. "I'm not the one who slipped into my sister-in-law's room, hoping to get my dick wet. If I'm a tramp, you're no better. I know for a fact all the things you do behind my sister's back. I have evidence. Evidence I plan on handing your divorce lawyers."

He turns around, his eyes burning with rage.

I savour this moment. The moment he realises we are no longer the dumb Dhungel sisters. I can't help but smirk. "Did you really think I wouldn't keep tabs on how you spend my money, or rather what and who you spend it on, and where?"

This is my moment to end his chapter once and for all. Marvin Garcia is officially dead to me! And soon to be out of our lives. "Does the name Scarlet Bar ring a bell? Or a waitress called Angel and Kitty Kat and—"

"Enough!" His face reddens, rage bubbling beneath that usually pale skin of his.

"If I wanted to, Bhawani can divorce you without you getting a single cent. Her money is my money, remember?"

"Why did you even invite me here then?" He growls.

"It's definitely not to shag you again. Trust me." I drop the duvet and advance on him. "It's what one does when they are changing their Will. Gather all the parties concerned."

"Your will?" His expression is part confusion, part stormy like the weather outside, a hint of violence lingers beneath.

I hold a finger to my lips. "Shush... don't spoil the fun."

He leaves my room without another word after that, and I sink to the floor with relief, no idea why I felt inclined to tell him about the Will. I was keeping it a secret till dinner. I only hope he doesn't go blathering about it to others in his anger. Hopefully, the leverage I have on him keeps him from doing that.

After that awful encounter, I want nothing to do with anyone for a while, but a knock sounds on my door five minutes later.

I glance at my watch, to see that it's four o'clock. Only one person could be at my door right now. Bhawani.