Aren't men supposed to like curvaceous body and full breasts? Well, that is what her magazines tell me. The ones she reads all the time. The ones that she can't get enough of. The ones she studies and learns from to make her more desirable, as if that was humanly possible. To be more desirable, I mean. As far as I am concerned, she is a walking-talking (or bubbling to be more precise) pheromone. A skinny one, but pheromone none the less.

If you don't believe me just try to stare at her lips for a second and not get X-rated thoughts. And trust me I have tried, and tried again and then some. IM-freaking-POSSIBLE, I am telling you. She leaves those magazines laying around the house, and for nothing better to do I read them sometimes. If you don't think I am a freak by now, well try this one then: she is also my sister.

Well, not really, stepsister to be exact, but something of a relative anyway. We live in the same house now, don't we? Thinking of her makes me think of how gross it would be if we ever did anything... not that I think that doing it with her would be gross, but ME and HER doing it definitely would be.

I guess, I have always thought of Maria as of a sister of sorts. My dad drooling over her mom forever. Her dad leaving her and my mom leaving me. The way she never cried, even when hurt really badly...

Alex told me yesterday about Michael and Isabel's dreams in the spring. I wonder how Isabel felt. I never told Alex that I actually understood what Michael must've felt like.

One side of you just plain wants her. The other side of you wants to protect her, like, she IS your baby-sister and you ARE the one who screwed it up for her and all you want to do is make sure that she is okay, and all. Sort of like when we were kids, and Maria got in trouble because of me or she fell because I tripped her or we got in a fight and I hit her too hard and then I felt guilt enveloping and squeezing my heart and made me want to do something absolutely heroic and wonderful.

And then there is yet the third side that makes you want to run as far away as you can, so the sour taste of incest is gone from your mouth.

Does incest taste sour or is it something that I've read in her stupid magazines? No, I must've came up with it on my own. In stories that they publish incest would taste bittersweet or something.

I, personally, think that it would taste sour, like spoilt milk, which looks good, but makes you wanna gag as soon as you put it in your mouth.

But, boy, does it ever look good. Especially if you are really thirsty and it's a hot day and it is just sitting there in the fridge in a tall glass. You take it out and condensation is instantly formed on the surface. It feels so good in your hand. Icy cold glass. You enjoy it so much that you pass it from one hand to the other to allow cool wetness be absorbed by your skin. You are ready to gulp it down to the bottom. You can almost taste it even before it reaches you mouth, your teeth hurting a little once they clench on the cold ridge of the glass and.... then all you want to do is gag...

Sucking on an ice cube takes the sour taste out of your mouth.

This is what Michael felt about those dreams of Isabel, or so I think.

Does anybody ever call her Bell? It would suit her. Alex told me he hears bells when he sees her.

How did I get to be friends with Alex anyway? I suspect, that he feels obligated or something. He was the last one to join in on a stupid alien pride parade, before I came along. So I guess he feels like he should baby-sit a new guy on the block. This way he gets to be the old new guy and it is better than being just a new guy.

Maybe I am over-thinking it. Alex IS a nice guy. If even the Ice Princess sees something in him, he's gotta be near perfect. Which, I guess, he is in that selfless-sensitive sort of way.

Michael does not like Alex much though, trusts him as much as he trusts anybody, but does not like him. I am pretty sure that Michael is jealous of him. After all, when Maria needs a shoulder to cry on, Alex is the one she goes to. Alex gets to comfort Maria. Alex gets to make her feel better. Michael gets to hurt her. Michael gets to break her heart. So I am quite positive that he is jealous of Alex.

His eyes get dark, almost black when he sees Maria with Alex, or anybody else male for that matter. Even me. Like I said, I do live in the same house with her and that is enough to drive him mental. When he is pissed his eyes get dark. Isabel's get cold and icy. Hard to explain. Must be some kind of an alien thing? Does Isabel get jealous when Alex comforts Maria?

If my father wouldn't have gotten married to Maria's mom I'd make a pass on her, just to piss Michael off. I don't like him. Nobody really does except for Maria. Isabel and Max are his family, they can't help it. But Maria... She would do anything for the jerk. Why? Who knows? Maybe because he doesn't want her. Or maybe because he would easily die for her. Or maybe because staying away from her is already killing him.

My dad did marry her mom though. A few months ago, in the beginning of the summer. And now I get to be the one who sees her every night looking out of the window in her room like she is waiting for someone. I am kind of glad that Michael does not know.

See, by the time he comes to look at her window in the middle of the night she is asleep. If this is how he wants it, who am I to say anything to either of them. So, I get to watch the same silent spectacle every night.

12:00am - I am passing along the corridor, her door is half-open she is looking out of the window. I go to my room and sit by my window (insomnia is a bitch).

2:00 am - Michael is outside looking up at her window. Pathetic, if you ask me. But nobody does, ask me that is.

So technically he does not stay away from her. He watches her, almost like I do. But I don't think he gets X-rated visions from watching her lips. Oh, he wants her all right.

But not the way I do.

He doesn't even look at her directly. He doesn't want her to see that he does. So he looks away and watches her reflection in the window of Crashdown. Or he looks at Isabel and watches her rolling her eyes as she talks to Maria. Isabel's face is not really animated, like Maria's is, but I guess Michael knows Isabel's face well enough to know that she is annoyed with Maria. When Isabel is annoyed with her, it means that Maria is all right and there is nothing to worry about.

Michael gets to stare at Isabel's face without feeling awkward. Actually, now that I think about it, everybody in our perverse version of Star Trek team does. Except for me that is. Not that she would notice. Not that I do. Not that I even want to.

Frankly, all I wanna do right now is to be able to fall asleep. Instead I sit here alone.

4:00 am - Michael is gone and I have got nothing to entertain me anymore. Except for her magazines, so I read them. It is either that or stare at the snow-dome with dancing Ice Queen inside. If I was an alien I could shake it without touching and the snowflakes would perpetually surround her in a swirling dance. But I am not an alien and I just sit and look at it. Touching it somehow seems like a sin worse than incest. Snowflakes lay flatly at the bottom of the snow-dome.

I hold a glass full of ice cubes in my hand and I am sucking on one right now.

I think I am going to read a magazine. Or look at my dad's wedding picture on my night table. Maria is in that one and her lips are forming the sexiest pout. I KNOW I am gonna get X-rated thoughts with sour taste in my mouth. Hence, the ice cubes.

But you see, it is good. Because if I close my eyes all that I see will be a dancing Ice Queen with honey-brown eyes that grow cold when she is pissed, whose name sounds like musical ringing. So I am not really afraid of perverse thoughts of my stepsister.

All I am afraid of right now is that I will at some point stop seeing X-rated visions of Maria when I look at her lips. I am afraid I will see Isabel's reflection in that shiny mirror of too much lip-gloss that Maria wears.

Alex is my friend. I don't do stuff like that to my friends. I envy Alex. He is good to Isabel. I am a screw up and I think I will hurt her. I can't hurt her; I love her too much...