Kyle got up from the dinner table first. "Hey, chill out, I got the dishes tonight."
He knew it'd be good to keep his hands busy, and give himself something to focus on other than his sister sitting naked across the table from him. They were still in "detox mode" after going a little too far together, and Kyle's balls objected, despite how often he emptied them into the bathroom sink. What he'd felt with Claire was more intense than anything he'd ever experienced before, and it was hard to suddenly put all that aside.
"You washed the dishes every night for the past week," Claire said, and he was surprised to hear a note of complaint in her voice. "Sit down for a sec. I want to talk."
He joined her at the table again, putting his hand out towards the middle between them, where she could take it if she wanted to.
"I know what all this is about, Kyle," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, ever since we...you know...stopped. You've been extra nice to me."
"Why shouldn't I be nice--?" he started to ask.
"Let me guess. Being nice to girls has been a somewhat successful strategy for showing girls that you're attracted to them and convincing them to sleep with you."
"Claire. It's not. It's not that," he stammered, his face growing hot. "I wouldn't. I just. I wanted to."
"I get it," she said, ignoring his protests. "But...it can't work that way with us. You know it can't, right?"
"But...it's been what, thirty-five days since that last time, and we've done it. We've detoxed, right? We've proven that, even if we went down that path a little, we can still come back from it," he said. This wasn't how he wanted to end up making this case to her, but she had backed him into a corner.
"Kyle, you're making it really clear to me just how not over it you still are." She rubbed a hand over her face. "It's not easy for me either. And you're not making it any easier. But I need you to just assume that nothing like that is ever going to happen again. I need you to be the sane one when I'm the one faltering, because...otherwise we're not going to make it a year here. And worse than that, it's going to hang over us for the rest of our lives."
Kyle slumped in his chair. "I get that. I know we have to be careful. I just don't see why 'careful' has to mean nothing at all."
"You're saying a blowjob would do it for you?" Claire asked with a smirk.
Kyle spared a glance at her naked body. All the places he longed to touch. Imagined them conjoined, writhing together. He was firming up under the table, not at all subtle, since it was a glass table.
"Yeah. Absolutely," he said.
There was a long pause; she seemed to be seriously considering it. "No. I can't. We can't," she said. "I shouldn't have mentioned that. Besides, this isn't a negotiation. I need you on my side."
"I'm always on your side," he said, and he meant it.
Maybe it hadn't always been true, but it was how he felt now. Even if she didn't want to do anything physical--sexual--with him, he still wanted to be there for her. This wasn't some no-strings-attached hookup for him.
***
It was a couple weeks after that. When the sun was at its burning height, and the sand was hot, they took a siesta in the cottage. Today they were playing cards at the table. The cottage was air-conditioned, but it was struggling to keep up today. They would have been miserable if they weren't already nude.
Claire had her legs crossed, bouncing one heel, keeping her arousal on edge. It didn't help that Kyle was erect, as he so often was, his shaft clearly visible under the clear glass table, pretty much pointed at her, leaking precum. She had her desires largely quashed, but she still had challenging moments like this. Realizing she was getting herself worked up, she uncrossed her legs, and tried to sit still.
Kyle was looking at the fan of cards in his hand, or that's what it looked like he was doing.
"You're...uh...bleeding a little," he said.
She looked down and saw what he was referring to, a thin line of red between her lips.
"You never encountered this with any of your girlfriends?" she asked.
His eyes shifted to the side. "I've never really had...that kind of thing with anyone."
"What do you mean?"
"There was Sandra first. We were dating, kinda, but for most of the time we were together, it was completely chaste. And then eventually, once we were both eighteen, we had sex, and it was a whole production, with her mom making sure she was prepared and okay and everything. We tried it a few times, but she just wasn't that into it. Which is fine. And I get that it's not about me..."
Claire was quietly impressed that her little brother had the emotional depth to accept that. But the way he had acted with her had mostly been like that too.