The Long Hot Weeend

I took the Tube. There was no gaggle of east London girls, no sly molestation on the train. I kept my eyes on the floor and did my best to avoid staring too intently at any of the women lest I somehow end up at the tender mercies of a roaming hen's night or panting single mother. I got out at Covent Garden and walked along the edges of the booming piazza before striding down heat-roasted streets thick with sweating theatre-goers.

I arrived at my destination. No simple family gathering for my brother. He'd booked out a function room at one of London's more exclusive hotels and organised his own catering service. I sighed as I was led through the hotel and into the large ballroom where guests gathered, scanning around for people that I a) knew and b) wanted to speak to. And then I spotted Max.

She'd dressed up. Her gown was a beautiful blue thing that clung nicely to her body. Her cleavage was far more exposed than at breakfast, allowing me a glorious view of the curve of her upper breasts. A pair of silver earrings dangled on either side of her smiling mouth and her black hair was worn up in an elaborate twist. She was dressed like she was going out on a date; she was dressed like a woman who wanted to announce her sexuality to the world.

And just like that all of Sanaya's efforts, all my attempts to exhaust myself, were undone. A bulge appeared in my trousers, as potent and as needy as the morning. I did my best walk as normally as I could as I arrived and bent to kiss her on the cheek.

She smelled of perfume and femininity. Her smile was a half-thing, puzzled and charming both. "What was that for?"

"You look beautiful," I said before remembering who I was talking to. "I mean, you're dressed up nice."

She blushed and I felt my heart lurch and my heat spike as we sat down. "Thanks. When did you start being a charmer?"

"I'm telling the truth," I said. "I missed you."

She giggled. "Okay, it hasn't even been a day."

"I mean, before that." I coughed. "I'm serious, Max. You look gorgeous."

"Thank you." She coughed. "I felt... I don't know why. I just wanted to dress up."

I continued to feast my eyes on her. "It suits you."

"You look good too," she added, and despite myself I looked around for the slightest touch of haze, almost willing it into existence. She glanced around at the others. "I'm honestly just glad you're here. This isn't precisely my crowd, is it?"

I looked around. Daniel's friends were out in force. The men were loud and rude, roaring and laughing like bulls in mating season. I knew a few of them from high school; big, nasty boys who'd grown up into big, nasty men. The women were little better, harsh things who's beauty never reached their eyes. "These are definitely his crowd."

"Aren't they your crowd?" asked Max.

I coughed. How to explain that I hated these sorts of gatherings despite Tennyson's repeated warnings to network? "How about we just hang around each other tonight?"

Wait, that's a terrible idea.

"You can be my..."

Don't say date!

"Chaperone."

She laughed. "Worried that one of these gold-diggers is going to snatch you away and steal you from Janice?" She saw my expression. "What?"

"Nothing," I said. "Look, let's just hang around for dinner and then go out and make our own fun."

You had to phrase it like that, didn't you?

Max smiled. "That sounds-"

And then she stopped paying attention to me altogether.

I turned to see Daniel sweep into the room. His smile was pale light and his body gleaming stone wrapped in tailored wool and silk. He strode through the room like a juggernaut, like a colossus, like he owned the place; like he owned the world. He laughed as he saw us all assembled; just for him? His eyes were as bright and as cold as a winter morning.

He swept through the room, dragging people along with him like the orbit of a pale, frozen star. At his side was his fiancé. Penelope was tall and blonde, her skin so pale she might have been carved out of ice. Her dress was the same shade as her blue eyes. She clung to him as he made a circuit around the room.

I turned back to Max. She stared at him with an expression that I could not place before turning back to me. "Tell me if you want to leave," she said. "While we can."

I found my seat. Dad sat across from me, his bulk eased into the seat like an old Budda. He nodded to me. "All going well?"

"Yes."

"Good. Still with Janice?"

"Yes."

"Still at your job?"

"Yes."

"Good." He nodded again and then turned back to watching Daniel's progress through the room.

Food was served. I chose the prawns to start with, concentrating on my food while others around me talked. How long before I could leave with Maxine? I sighed and looked around me.

Aunt Senna sat across me one seat away. She was not at all like her daughter; ruddy and short where Max was willowy and pale. She let off the cackling laugh of a benevolent witch. It brought back memories of hot chocolates and ignored bedtimes and gentle smiles to crying boys. "I heard you and Max met up today?"

"It's been so long since I saw her. I hope you didn't mind," I said, entirely secure in the knowledge that she wouldn't.

She barked her laugh again. "I'm just glad you two are talking more. You used to be inseparable as children. Tell me, what have you been up to? Did you ever take that writing course?"

"Well," I said, feeling my gut clench. "You see, the thing is that-"

I hand thumped on my shoulder like an avalanche. I heard my brother's voice rumble like a winter storm in my ear.

"I talked him out of it."

I kept my smile on my face as Daniel eased himself down next to me. "I told him he was wasting his time," he continued. "I mean, it would be an embarrassment to the family to have a starving artist lazing about!" His elbow tapped my ribs, nearly dislodging me from my seat. "I mean, can you imagine? Besides," he said, his voice dropping to the sort of whisper that travelled around the world, "I've read his stuff. He's not even that good at it. Isn't that right, Sam?"

I turned to see his smile. His teeth were painfully pale; his eyes black shards of ice. He sat next to me under bright lights and yet his shadow seemed to flow, to loom around me, until I was drowning in its dark, icy depths.

"Right," I said, cursing myself for the hundredth hundredth time.

He turned away and I felt the awful pressure of that stare- like a cold vice around my heart- ease up. Shame, stinking like urine, flooded in to fill the void it left. I felt myself melt, congealing around something sharp and jagged.

I caught Aunt Senna's pitying expression and rose from my seat. "I have to pee."

"No," Daniel said, pushing me back down. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you." He frowned at me. "I had heard that you got in trouble. At work."

"It wasn't anything."

"No, I talked to Ginny recently." Of course he called Tennyson by her first name; he'd probably fucked her long before I did. Had probably long forgotten he'd fucked her. Could probably call her up and arrange another fucking at an hour's notice. "She tells me you're still disappointing her." A single agonised glance around the table showed me just how many people were listening. "She says that you're not taking your job seriously."

I opened my mouth to speak but what came out was strangled and incoherent. Daneil paused to take a bite of his plate, chewing for effect while he pretended to ruminate on my words. Then he spoke like an ancient patriarch offering up judgement. "You need to shape up. I mean, I've been helping you all my life, you know. You wouldn't have gotten this job without me." He smiled, white snow over chips of black ice. "You don't want to disappoint Dad and the others now, do you? Don't want to upset Janice?" He mouthed the last word like he was tasting her on his tongue.

I said that I wouldn't. He laughed and clapped me on the back, hard enough to bruise; all was forgiven. And then he turned, dismissing me, to talk to Dad.

I got up. I avoided looking at everyone. I retreated to the toilets. I sat down and waited for my gut to calm. It did not calm. It twisted and writhed, swirling and swelling like a storm; frozen winds and bright lightning above the corpse of something long-dead but forever rotting. I walked out of the toilet and sat back to my seat. Everyone else had already moved on from my humiliation. Everyone but me.

So I drank.

I ate my food with mechanical movements and I drank wines and prosecco and beer and whiskey. I drank and I felt the ugliness inside of me coalesce and putrefy until I thought I might vomit. When the haze came, riding on the back of the alcohol sizzle, I only felt relief. The heat swelled inside of me and with it came a strange calm.

I floated in my seat, the world a comfortable sea of heat. Sweat rolled off my brow and stung my eyes but I didn't need to see far. Max was a little distance away, her body a black-and-blue ghost flitting through the shimmer. The fire-woman traced her steps, leaving a trail of radiance in her wake as she talked and pretended to laugh at the jokes of lawyers and bankers. I swallowed back drool, feeling a tremble in my body-

"Hello, Sam."

I turned.

Penelope sat in my father's seat across from me. Her perfume was cedar and sandalwood and unmelted snow. "It's good that you came. I'm sorry to hear that Janice couldn't come tonight. She's away on business until Sunday, right?"

"Monday. She comes back Monday."

Penelope blinked before continuing, "Of course. My mistake. I guess you must be missing her. How long have you been together?"

"Six months," I replied.

"Soon enough," she said, touching my arm. "Already looking for a ring?"

I blinked. "I haven't- I mean, I didn't think of that yet."

She laughed. "It's expected, you know. You'll make your parents very happy. And Daniel too. It's important to him, that his little brother is taken care of."

"And are you happy to be marrying my brother?" I was being rude, I knew I was being rude, but the heat didn't care and anyway, when had politeness ever gotten me anything?

She smiled, although there was just the faintest touch of uncertainty in that sculpted curve of the lips. "He's very... generous."

"He is. He's a big man," I said. "A huge man." The lurch of hate was a blade in my chest, cutting its way through the lust-haze. Words spilled out of my lips like frozen vomit. "How do you manage to keep up with him?"

She chuckled. "He's a handful all right. He can be..." a shudder ran through her body and I saw the flame-woman turn from her slow progression behind Max and drift over to us, weaving between the gathered guests. "...exhausting at times." She laughed. "I guess you must have had to deal with that, growing up with him."

"Yes," I said, shocked at the ugly noise that my voice had become. I closed my eyes and took another sip of my drink, letting it dissolve on my tongue, letting the bite of it ride to my alcohol-soaked brain. Letting the haze in. "Exhausting. That's a word for it."

"So we're both exhausted," she said. She glanced around and leant close. Her breasts were pale and milky, the sort that made you think of marble sculptures. I wondered if they would be cold under my tongue, whether or not I would need to warm her body up before she unfroze. "A shame. You know what helps me to relax?"

"Tell me."

Again a ripple of surprise; she wasn't used to me being so forceful. But it was smothered beneath the haze in our heads, devoured in the embers of the heat that swelled between us. She giggled and shifted. "Well," she said. "I think the important thing is to do things for yourself."

"For yourself?"

Something touched my leg, as eager and as hungry as a questing serpent. I froze as Penelope's satin-clad foot moved up my calf. "You know. Things for myself." It moved up to my thigh. "Not everything has to be about him." Her toes moved closer to that aching point where desire and pleasure twisted around each other into tighter and tighter knots. "You have to make space for... other activities." Her toes were cold and yet as they moved in tight, soft circles, their passage was that of a match across a gasoline-soaked rag. "I know you understand what I'm talking about."

I sat there, while her voice faded into the background, while the world vanished into the roar of invisible flames. My erection peaked, edged, a self-sustaining reaction that teetered on the brink of collapse. I didn't want it to end. I wanted to get up, to drag her off, to take her upstairs into one of the hotel rooms and then- and then-

I would show my brother who was the bigger man. I would make her forget him, purify her of his filthy touch with flame and pleasure until she would be unable to beg for anything but me-

"Sam?"

I looked up into the eyes of Aunt Senna. She tapped me on the shoulder. An instant later I felt Penelope's foot withdraw and my cock spasm with anger.

Senna looked at me with eyes that were soft and caring and gentle and it was a shock of cold water on my brain. "Are you alright?"

I looked around. Penelope was already rising, her eyes seeking out her husband-to-be. Max was staring at me from the other side of the room while some musclebound stockbroker threw lines at her. The haze was thick in the air but it was different; harsher, uglier, the air curdling like spoiling milk.

"Are you alright?" Aunt Senna asked.

"I need some air," I said. "Can you take me there?"

***

Senna escorted me out into the open, where people smoked and flirted and boasted. I took in a deep breath. The air pressed against my skin and the sky was a black mass that had devoured the stars. "They say there's a storm coming," she said.

I closed my eyes while Aunt Senna talked in the background. Nice things, soft things, comforting words and advice. I barely heard the words but the sounds calmed me; eased the poisoned blade out of my guts, brought my fires down to a gentle burn.

"Sam?"

I looked at her. "What?"

"I don't know what's happening to you but... maybe leave the party? Look, how about you come over to my house next weekend? Take a few days off, even. Max will be there too. This awful heat's going to blow over and I think..." She looked at me dead on, her soft eyes piercing through the haze. "Just come spend some time with us before you do something stupid."

"I think I'd like that."

"Okay." She touched my shoulder. "Max really missed you." And with that she was gone.

I pulled out my phone. I called Janice. I could hear noises in the background; was she out with her work colleagues? Her voice was cool and crisp. "What's up?"

"Hey," I said.

I want to talk to you because I'm probably going to do something stupid again.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Out with some business colleagues. Just cutting loose, you know?"

"Cool."

I'm about to do something similar.

"Hey, what if I called in sick on Monday and came picked you up?"

"What? Why?"

"I just missed you."

I'm spiralling and I want to make sure I don't self-destruct before I see you again.

"No, it's fine."

"I don't mind."

"You're in trouble enough at work, okay? I'll be fine."

"Look, it wouldn't be-"

"For fuck's sake, Sam! I don't need you holding my hand all the time!"

I breathed in fire. I breathed out air that was cold and black and rotten. "Fine."

"Look, I'm sorry-"

I turned off the phone.

Something stupid, huh? Something

stupid

. Fucking my surrogate sister would be stupid. Fucking my brother's fiancé... that would be hopelessly stupid. But I could do it, couldn't I? I could do it. Walk over to her and talk to her about nothing at all, and still have her begging for it. I could fulfil every single fantasy I had dreamed of, I could leave her body covered with welts and bruises and she would

thank

me for it, demand a repeat performance and I-

"Hey. You're Daniel's brother, right?"

And just like that, I'd found someone else to play with.

***

I don't remember her name and can barely remember her face. Just an impression of short hair and a shorter dress. She asked me who I worked for and I dropped my company's name. She told me about herself and I pretended to listen as the flames licked at my innards. The anger made it hotter but there was a sick ache that hadn't been there before, as though the smoke from the fire was filling my brain with poison.

Five minutes after I started to talk to her I was leading her away. Five minutes after that we'd managed to sneak our way into a storeroom. She was drunk or she was dazed by heat and she barely seemed to know what was going on as I pushed her dress up. Her panties were soaked as I eased them off and unbuckled my pants. A few moments later I slid inside of her.

There was no art, no skill and nothing like foreplay. I fucked her like I hated her; maybe I did. She was a vent, a release valve, a way to let off steam. She was a hole, an object to use. It was a role that she took on with immense enthusiasm, moaning and thrusting back against me I plunged in and out of her. Her head had was thrown back in ecstasy, her mouth gaping open and I fancied other faces surfaced out of the heat haze to mask her own. Max, her dark hair whipping around her; Penelope, blue eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling while her tits shook in her dress. Janice, lips set in a cold sneer-

I moved my hands away from the woman's neck before I did something bad. She might have let out a disappointed moan even as red handprints stood out on her soft pale skin. I closed my eyes and pushed past the anger, pushed past the humiliation, focused only on the heat, the touch of her skin, the sound of her moans as I felt the fire rise and rise until it poured out of me.

I collapsed atop her, feeling the poison drain from me, as the euphoria of the afterglow held me close. I eased out of her, my red, throbbing cock still hard. She lay back, panting on the floor.

I heard a whimper. Turning, I saw a girl standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a caterer's uniform with thin features and hair the colour of woodsmoke. Her eyes were grey and her legs were long under her skirt. She stared at my still-throbbing erection with a sort of awe. I blinked, as fiery woman shimmered into existence next to her. It turned to me and smiled.

"Do you want to join in?"

She made a half-choaked laugh. I stood there with my cock out, with a woman slumped on the floor next to me and waited.

And then she said, "Okay."

I pulled her close and kissed her. She let out another half-laugh, half wheeze as my hands closed over her ass. My cock was already stiffening against her skirt and she bent down to grasp it, rubbing its slick, scorching length in her hands. I cupped one of her breasts through her shirt. Good. I unbuttoned her shirt and pushed my hand through the gap, easing aside her bra to feel the small, perky tits underneath. Better. She wrapped her arms around me while my cock throbbed and ached anew.

I pulled her away. She gave a shocked squeak and then I pushed her down onto her knees. I got behind her and pushed her into position until she was on her hands and knees atop the first girl. She was only just coming to as the new girl moaned in her ear while I lined up beside her.

I pushed into her cunt. It had been a handful of minutes since I had even laid eyes on her but she was already wet and ready. She made another squeaking noise as I began to thrust. The air was sweat and moans and heat in that tiny room, our bodies swimming in the thick fog of lust. The girl was saying something in Polish but the sound was devoured by the haze. I fucked her, feeling the hate inside of me burn away, feeling the pleasure radiating from my cock wipe away my weakness and shame until it was nothing but ash in the wind.