Helping My Genius Brother
By Archer
My brother is a genius. I don’t say that as just a supportive sister or just that he is the smartest person I know, he’s a genius and there is plenty of proof out there. He, of course, had graduated before he was even in his teens and would have multiple doctoral dissertations if he cared about such things. Instead he has been the one giving speeches at colleges. I don’t really understand much of what he talks about, but I don’t feel bad, I’ve even overheard doctors attending his speeches admit that what he was saying was way beyond them.
I don’t even understand what field he is in. Again I don’t feel too bad about it because he is a revolutionary in so many fields that it is hard to keep up. I do have a running joke with him though where I’ll show up and ask, “Have you cured cancer yet?”
I do it for fun, but also think I kind of need to do it as the older sister. Older sisters should be picking on their younger brothers. Unfortunately when your brother is a world renowned intellectual, it’s easy to feel like no one is paying attention to you. I wasn’t even remotely a genius, just a little on the plus side of average intelligence according to my brother. I suppose a lot of girls might envy me, I’m the captain of the cheerleading team and have boys falling over themselves to date me, but I always compare myself to my brother.
He doesn’t even look like a geek. He isn’t a hunk or anything, but I’d feel better if he was suffering from severe acne or was absurdly fat. So hopefully you can understand why I feel so inadequate. I have to stretch to make jokes about him; the surprising thing is how easy it is to get under his skin.
I should add that, as much as I might resent him at times, I am his big sister and have always wanted him to do well. I think the thing that bothers me the most isn’t how I compare to him, but that there’s nothing I can do to help him. I want him to make the world a better place and feel bad that it doesn’t seem like I can play even a small part in him accomplishing that goal.
I hold out hope and regularly drop in on him, so it wasn’t unusual when I recently headed down to his room. He had a lot of computers down there and some really expensive machine parts that made no sense to me. We (he, my mom, and I) still live in a simple house as my brother had turned down a ton of corporate and government offers. However; he never had a problem getting equipment as there was a line of universities willing to fund his research. The basement served as his bedroom, laboratory, and whatever else he could dream up.
“Hey, have you cured cancer yet?”
He gave a fake laugh, his way of brushing off the joke. “Not yet. I have a new project. Working on the brain. Just got a bunch of new equipment and think I am close to a breakthrough.”
“New equipment?” It all looked the same to me.
“Yeah, it just came in a little bit ago,” he said as he collapsed into his computer chair.
I didn’t remember any packages arriving recently and it wasn’t like a basement full of equipment would just show up. “What day did it get here?”
“Monday, I think.”
“It’s Friday,” I said exasperated. It wasn’t the first time he had missed most of a week on a project.
He just nodded his head like it was an irrelevant detail. “I’ve made a lot of progress. I think this will really revolutionize how human beings think about the brain. I’ve got a lot of good ideas about brain waves, the human thought process, and how we process thoughts.”
“That will be something new,” I said sarcastically as I tried to suppress my feelings of jealousy. “Would I even understand it if you explain it?”
“Probably not.” I know he didn’t mean to sound mean, but it didn’t help my ego.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I always asked him that. I even offered to be a subject in his experiments, but he always turned me down.
“No, all of the work is already done,” he said as he typed a few words into the computer. I heard the machines start up for a moment, but it was a soft hum and I quickly forgot about it. “Now I just have to wait for the data to come in from the experiment.”
“What experiment?”
“I’m testing the machine on a willing participant,” he said. “It will take a while to see how the machine affects their brains.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. I knew he wouldn’t say who he was conducting the experiment on. He considered that confidential. I was disappointed that he hadn’t asked me.
He started to stand up when I saw his knees buckle. I ran forward and grabbed him before he fell down. “Jesus, Kevin. You need to have at least some concern about your health.”
“Well, Doctor Belle,” he said as he leaned on me for support. “What should I be doing for my health?”
I felt a momentary surge of pride. He was relying on me. Sure, I knew he was joking and he knew what he needed, but it still felt nice. “First, you need rest.”
I helped him over to his bed, which I had to sweep clean of parts first, and laid him down. “What next?” he asked.
“Well, you sleep,” I said confused.
“I know, but is that all I’m going to need?”
“You probably need food,” I said as I thought. I still knew he was just joking around, but I figured I would be serious as his health was very important. “And not just the junk you normally eat. A real meal. I’ll make sure Mom has something ready for you.”
“Okay, is that all?” he asked. There was an unusually intense stare, but it was probably just because he was tired.
“Rest and food should be everything,” I said as I walked back toward the stairs. I paused, I think I heard the machine hum again, but if I did it must have been for less than a second.
“Something the matter?” Kevin asked. “Is there anything else that I need to be healthy?”
A weird thought crossed my mind. It was a little bit of a private topic to broach, but I did want to make absolutely sure my brother was healthy. “Are you masturbating enough?”
There was a momentary pause, I’m sure he was shocked by my question. “What do you mean?”
“I know it is none of my business, but men need to get off,” I said. It was a well-known fact that men need regular orgasms. I can’t remember where I read or heard that for sure, but everyone knows it is true. With most men you’d never have to worry about it, but my brother could be so involved in his work that he might just forget. “You should make sure you are masturbating enough because you so commonly lose track of time.”
“You have a good point,” Kevin said and I got another surge of pride. “I should do that soon.”
“Great, I’ll let you have your privacy then,” I said as I rushed up the steps. Talking about it was weird enough, being there while my brother jerks off would have been really strange.
“Thanks sis,” he called out. Strange that I noted what sounded like disappointment in his voice. I was probably wrong. It was probably just exhaustion.
-
It was a few days before I journeyed down into the basement again. I saw my brother around the house. We had joined us for some meals in the dining room and he had even watched a movie with Mom and I, so it wasn’t like going to the basement was my only method of seeing him.
I also ran him into while I was having breakfast. He came upstairs, his clothes messy and a beard coming in. My brother wasn’t that type of scientist. Normally, no matter how hard he worked, he managed to keep himself presentable. It was only when he really got into a project that things went a little crazy.
When I saw him take the pot of coffee that Mom was brewing and drink the whole thing I knew for certain that things had gone a little crazy.
“Rest and food,” I reminded him. “You need to stay healthy.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
I felt that feeling of pride again that he was asking for my help. I looked around for Mom, I didn’t really want her over hearing me. My question was for the health of my brother, of course, but it did seem a little strange. “And have you been masturbating?”
“No,” he said as he headed for the basement. “My project is too important.”
“Make sure you do,” I yelled after him, but I’m pretty sure I was ignored.
So when I got home from school the first thing I did was go down to the basement. I didn’t even take time to change and was still in the skirt and white blouse that was the standard school uniform. Well, not the first thing, I knocked. If he was asleep or masturbating I didn’t want to walk in on him.
“Come in,” he yelled.
The room had changed completely since I had last been down there. Much of the computer equipment had been moved to the corner of the room and instead I was looking at something out of a mad scientist set. There were beakers and bottles and all sorts of liquids.
He was making some notes on one of the tubes and still looked as disshelved as when I saw him earlier. “I’m kind of busy.”
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Have you cured cancer yet?”
“I’m working on that right now.”
I waited for a moment to see if he was joking, but he seemed completely serious. “You are?”
“Medicine isn’t my normal field, but I thought I’d give it a go. You seem to care about it so much I thought I’d at least look into it.”
I felt pride again; I was getting my brother to do something good. Most of the things he did where way over everyone’s head. The kind of things college professors cared about, but never affected anyone. If he could actually find a better way to treat cancer though, that would help a lot of people and I would have played a role in making it happen.
Along with pride though, I felt guilt. My brother let out a haggard cough. He did not look healthy. He was doing this for me. The least I could do was make sure he stayed healthy. “Listen, why don’t you lie down and I’ll go make you something to eat.”
“You hate cooking.”
It was true. Mom did all the cooking in the house. “Just let me make something. You get a little nap and something to eat and you’ll be a lot better.”
“Well, if that is all I need to do.”
“Of course that’s not all,” I almost yelled at him. “You need to, you know, masturbate.”
He paused to think about it for a moment. “No, not enough time.”
“Come on, how long is it going to take?” I asked, though I didn’t really want an answer. I didn’t have a lot of experience with guys, but enough to know that getting an orgasm wasn’t something that took a huge time.
“No, so much to do,” he said as he picked up a clip board and began making notes. “I still need to take notes on a couple of samples, and then I have to call a few universities for some more data, then it is…”
He trailed off and I could see that his brain was going overtime. That also happened and I knew if I let it this go it could be days before he even remembered to eat. “Damn it, Kevin, I insist that you masturbate!”
“I will,” he promised, barely paying attention. “Just go get food ready and I’ll do it right after the samples and the…”
“No, you’re going to masturbate right now!” I yelled at him. “I’m going to stay here and watch to make sure you don’t try and skip out on this.”
“Belle, I’ve got a lot to do,” he complained.
“Kevin,” I said, trying to put on my best older sister threatening voice.
“Well, if you say it is what I need.”
I felt the pride again. He was relying on me for his health. “Yes Kevin, you absolutely need to masturbate. I’m going to stay here and make sure you actually do it.”
“Can I watch porn or anything?”
“No,” I said disgusted. I knew my brother looked at porn, but I found it disgusting. One of my boyfriends had tried to make me watch and I still couldn’t get the memory out of my head. “Just masturbate.”
He seemed a little disappointed, but he didn’t complain again. He got on the bed, pulled down his pants, and masturbated. It took a few minutes and I watched the whole time. It felt like if I even looked away he might get up and start working again. There aren’t really any details I can add as while I watched him, I didn’t really put much thought into what he was doing.
When he was done, and had cleaned himself up with a tissue, I nodded my head, “Good, now rest a little while I make food.”
“Sure, whatever you say Belle,” he said and I got a nice feeling of pleasure knowing I was keeping him healthy. “Just one question, how did you feel while I was masturbating?”
“That’s a little weird to talk about.”
“Please Belle, I’d feel sick if I didn’t know.”
When he said sick my insides twisted at just the word. “I didn’t feel much. Just kind of bored, I guess.”
I’m surprised I didn’t feel disgusted. It was my brother after all, but it wasn’t like it was anything wrong. My brother wasn’t a normal person, he needed to be kept healthy, and it fell to his older sister to make sure he took care of regular things like eating and masturbating. Another older sister would never do such a thing, but she wouldn’t have to take care of a genius younger brother. Every sister knows their brother will masturbate, the only that was different was that I watched, and that was only for his health.
“Oh, okay,” he said. Again there was what sounded like disappointment, but I’m sure was just tiredness. He got up and went over to the computers that were in the corner and typed a few notes. This time I’m sure I heard the machines hum, but again it didn’t last for long.
“Hey, what happened with your work on the brain?” I asked. It wasn’t like my brother to give up on a project.
“Oh, I’m still gathering data on that. It will take a while before I can get any real useful information from the subject I’m experimenting on.”
That wasn’t at all unusual. My brother usually worked faster than science and technology could keep up with so he frequently took on multiple projects. “Okay, now, lay down, and I’ll get you something to eat,” I instructed. I can’t even express how happy it made me when he listened.
I’d gotten him to masturbate, to rest, and now was going to make him some food. I felt great knowing I was doing an excellent job looking out for his health.