James has been obsessed with his sister ever since her eighteenth birthday, when their religious extremist parents submitted her to a procedure that sealed her clit behind a metal shield. Now, he finds himself driven to find out whether his sister is capable of reaching sexual satisfaction. 10.5k words, dark content rating.
Content tags/warnings: incest (brother/sister); dubious consent; religious and misogynist abuse; emotional abuse by a parent; nonconsensual clit shield piercing; brief mention of female genital mutilation/female circumcision
James had been obsessed with his sister's body since her eighteenth birthday.
He knew it was wrong. They'd both been raised in a God-fearing household, after all. His sister, who had been saddled with the name Purity by their parents, had only ever done her best to live up to it: she never flirted with boys, never went on dates, never even so much as wore a low-cut shirt. She certainly hadn't done anything to invite James' attention.
In his mind, his parents were at least partly to blame for his obsession. It went back to that eighteenth birthday, and what they had done to Purity then, the procedure that they'd treated as a kind of twisted birthday present.
A doctor had come to the house--a specialist who performed similar services for religiously-inclined families across the country--and had outfitted Purity with what their parents called her 'promise button': a set of piercings at the crown of her vulva and a little cap of metal that locked into them, sealing her clit away behind it.
To protect her from the temptation of sin, they said, and to free her mind to focus on a woman's more Godly pursuits; the running of a household, the raising of children, and so on.
The procedure had been done in Purity's bedroom, for her own comfort, and James had been required to attend and observe. There had been a sheet over her hips for modesty, but it hadn't hidden anything when the doctor was actually between her legs.
He vividly remembered the sight of his sister's virgin sex, pink and fleshy, the skin flushed with a bit of irritation from being shaved the night before. He remembered her vulnerable little nub, exposed to the light by the doctor's gloved fingers for a few precious moments before being hidden away forever behind the little steel shield.
Hypothetically, she could have the button removed by the same doctor when she married, if her husband agreed.
But there seemed to be a tacit agreement between Purity and their parents that she wouldn't marry. Their mother was ill, requiring more and more care as she aged, and Purity had stepped into the role of her full-time caretaker around the time when James had gone off to college.
At college, James had met other women--charming women, pretty women, worldly women--but they hadn't done anything to wash away that memory of his sister's sex, the first one he'd seen, and the only one he knew of that had been so cruelly altered.
In fact, the more women he slept with, and the more he learned with regards to how women's bodies worked, the more he found himself dwelling on Purity and her promise button.
She hadn't seemed distressed at the time, except at the pain of the piercing needle; and she'd never complained since--at least, not to him.
Whenever James came home from college, over holidays and vacations, he found himself watching his sister and...wondering.
Was she truly free of any kind of sinful desire, like their parents wanted? That seemed unlikely. Surely she must experience some urges of the flesh, some need for pleasure and release.
Did she ever, in the privacy of her room, put her hand between her legs? Had she found a way to satisfy herself--or was she frustrated by that bit of metal, that holy shield covering the most sensitive part of her anatomy?
James recognized, of course, that this wasn't typically the kind of question that a brother should have about his sister.
But he had to measure that social taboo against the reality of Purity's life: she had no husband, no boyfriend, no lover. She had never so much as been alone with a man outside of their family, and likely never would be, at least not until she aged well beyond her sexual prime. Even her friendships with other women were severely limited, often restricted to Bible groups and other church-based gatherings; she was rarely out of their parents' sight and supervision during daylight hours, treated more like a bizarre combination of a child and a maid than the full-grown young woman that she was.
Who else but James to see to her sexual welfare, then? Wouldn't it be a cruelty, not to at least ensure that Purity wasn't suffering from their parents' extreme act of control over her body?
These thoughts built inside of him, year after year, until he finally chose a time to act: his final summer vacation home from college, the last year before his parents would be expecting him to seriously apply himself to the prospect of starting his career and finding a wife.
Purity was as quiet and sweet as always, dedicating most of her time to the care of their mother, who was now practically bed-ridden: she would fetch food, change the sheets, and keep the bitter, haranguing woman company all day, accepting the insults and preaching lectures with good humor and a gentle temper that bordered on Saint-like. But whenever James could contrive to give her a break from their mother's company, her gratitude was plain to see, even if she didn't voice it out loud.
One evening, once their mother had taken her sleeping-pills and their father had gone to bed beside her, James caught Purity and suggested that they spend some time together as brother and sister, watching an old favorite movie. Purity agreed readily.
And when James encouraged her to lay alongside him on the couch, snuggled together the way they used to do as children, she agreed readily to this, too.
James waited until around midway through the film before, with a casual motion, he dropped his hand from the back of the couch across Purity's chest, his fingertips brushing the soft swell of her breasts under the layers of her clothing and the blanket wrapped around both of them.
"James," she giggled, looking back at him.
"Mm?" he grunted, keeping his eyes on the screen.
After a moment, Purity said nothing and looked back at the screen, too.
He waited a while longer, letting her settle, not wanting to spook her, before he began to lightly stroke his fingers over the blanket. Just very gently, and in no particular pattern, as if he were absentmindedly drawing patterns with his hands. But he ensured the pattern returned over and over again to the spot where he estimated her nipple must be--and after a short time, he could feel it, poking up under the layers of fabric as if reaching for him, seeking the sensation.
Purity took a breath, but again she said nothing.
So James, too, said nothing. Slowly, his pattern became less random and more focused, until he was unmistakably circling and massaging the hard little peak of his sister's nipple.
Purity held herself very, very still against him, as if trying not to betray any reaction. Occasionally, she would shift one of her feet, just a bit, and then would quickly stop moving again; other times, her breathing shook faintly, as if there were some trembling deep in her core.
When the movie finished, the TV automatically switched over to a live channel, immediately blaring sound slightly too loud for eleven at night. James took his hand off of Purity to snatch up the remote and turn down the volume before their parents woke.
Purity sat up quickly, looking spooked like a rabbit at the loud noise.
Before James had a chance to say anything, she stuttered, "I'll--I must go to bed," and then stood and hurried away.
***
