It was going further, and I didn’t try and stop it. His hands moved from my back around to my front, to my belly and then down toward my pussy. I reached down, down, toward his cock which I remembered so well. I was inches from it when the footsteps, like unwelcome guests in a dream, clapped into my mind, clapped into the middle of the moment. I placed my hands on his torso and shoved him away. “Don’t,” I whispered.
His forehead creased, in that gesture which I was coming to learn meant confusion. But when I pointed at the door, behind which was the staircase and the approaching footsteps, he understood. He nodded, and then walked back to the counter and took up his glass. The footsteps kept coming, almost at the bottom of the stairs now. I smoothed my clothes down, pulled my tank top over my breasts (I vowed to always wear a bra around the house from now on, no matter how quiet it was). Turning, I scooped up my book and returned to my chair near the window. Eli stopped for a moment, drink in hand, and made to turn to me. My nervousness, my perpetual anxiety, the feeling that had hounded me for my entire life—which made people label me as the shy one—had returned. I was once again the Jessica who knew the answer in English class but was too timid to say anything; once again the Jessica who said ‘you, too’ to a waitress when she said ‘enjoy your food,’ and then obsessed about it for days afterward; once again the Jessica who cashiers disliked because she had trouble looking them in the eye. Eli looked to me (and the footsteps were almost in the room, and growing louder).
I shook my head. No, don’t make a scene. Go away. Don’t do anything silly.
He seemed to get the point. He shook his head back, but it wasn’t a refusal. He was just sad that it had come to that. Fine, I thought. Let him be said. But at least Dad and Annabelle won’t know that their children just kissed and would have done more. Had time slowed? The footsteps were just outside the door, and then finally they entered the room. I forced a calm look over my face, but I couldn’t hide the way the pages trembled when I made to turn them.
Dad walked in. “Party in the kitchen!” he exclaimed, but he was smiling. “I just came down to get a glass of water. Should I have brought a bottle?” He smiled at me and then Eli like a stand-up comedian in the middle of a routine. Despite everything, I was still able to cringe. I remembered the way he would try and show off in front of my friends when I was a teenager. He’s so embarrassing, I would tell them.
Eli nodded and smiled and then left the room. Dad, eyes tired, but smiling half-madly (love had had quite the effect on him) walked to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. I pretended to read my book, but the words were black blurring shapes on the page and nothing more. Excitement and anxiety were a potent mix in my heart. The remains of excitement still clung from the kiss—the kiss, why had I let them happen?—but I had to mask this, like I had masked my face that fateful night, because Dad couldn’t know what I was feeling. Dad mustn’t know what I was feeling. Sooner or later, Eli and I would be brother and sister, and we would have to spend an entire summer living together. There was no way we could follow our desires. Sometimes, desires had to be ignored, a lot of the time, actually. And this was one of them.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Dad asked, standing at the door.
“Fine,” I replied. I wonder if he’d really looked, if he’d stepped away from himself for a moment and really looked, if he would have sensed that something was different. But he was in the first throes of love and he was blinded by it. Don’t get me wrong. I was glad. The last thing I wanted was for him to see me when what there was to see would have been disastrous for him and Annabelle.
“Good!” he grinned. He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. “I should let you know that Annabelle and I have set a date for the wedding. It’s only going to be a small ceremony, you know. She has two or three friends she wants to invite. And I don’t really want to invite anyone, save you. Work friends? Ha! I think I’ll stick to family.”
“That sounds nice, Dad,” I said. “So, when is the wedding?”
When is the day which makes it official that I fucked my stepbrother? When is the day when Eli and I can no longer, under any circumstances, touch, kiss, or be close, even? When is the day that makes us perverts for doing what we’ve done? I tightened my grip on the book. The pages crunched quietly, crumpling.
“One week from now!” he laughed. “But don’t tell anyone.”
He zipped around the door and paced up the stairs. One week . . . I felt like I’d been pushed hard in the chest. And then a resolution grew in me. I couldn’t be like this with Eli anymore. We’d had a night, we’d been wearing masks, that was forgivable. But from now on, we had to be stepbrother and stepsister, and that was it.
I had to kill my desire for him, and he had to do the same.
Eli