The room is dark, dark. The darkness is like a wall. If he were supposed to be approaching his sister's bed at eleven-thirty at night, if this were a normal and fully acceptable thing he was doing, the light would be on. She went to bed ten minutes before; she could be asleep already. A brother is supposed to knock gently, or knock hard if he's rude, or wait until morning. A lover might just walk in, and that is what he's doing, one little step at a time, slowly because the darkness pushes back, but steadily because stopping is out of the question. There's safety behind, round the corner to the lit hallway, and maybe paradise ahead, where she's lying there breathing softly--he can hear her now--and anything in between is just an obstacle. So many obstacles, each one scary when you're sneaking.
Step over the ottoman and there is the bed, startle as his leg touches the corner of the comforter, her comforter, and he's more in than out, oh god this is crazy. But it worked out before. And there's her arm, hers, pale and alive. It's just an arm but his mind projects much more into the indistinctness beyond it--her curves, so many delicate curves she has, her vulnerable, naked belly, so many parts of her that he is not supposed to have even imagined but has in fact seen and touched. She is designed for what he is coming to do, he knows this; against all familial conventions he holds this knowledge stoutly. He is driven like a parachute before the expanding heat of his memories--the memories of what they did before. The rightness of it almost snuffs his fear. But... now he is out of careful shuffling steps to make. He'll have to talk to her. Oh god how to say it? He's a live wire, he thinks of fleeing. But she's right there. Got to at least ask.
But she was never quite asleep. She starts turning under the blanket even as he crouches, and with that one mutual motion they are face to face. He didn't even give his pupils time to expand all the way--her face is a ghostly moon verging into invisible sea of pillow, her eyes mysterious craters. But he sees the flicker of her lashes--she is unmistakably awake. He swallows, pinned on her gaze, yet less terrified now that someone is looking and he has no choice but to act. He croaks, pauses to swallow, tries again. "Hey," is all that comes out. He poses it like a request, his voice brisk but hushed. In saying only this he communicates, however vaguely, that he is not here to talk about something that can be talked about.
"Hey," she replies. She's too bleary to think this through just yet. She just looks at him. This is the hardest moment for him. The lip of the thick blanket is right there, the way in to the secret cave where A Girl lies, and his mind flashes on the image of himself just lifting it and climbing in. He is so keyed up that his muscles twitch at the thought. But he can't get into the bed uninvited, so he stares back, stymied. How do you start this thing? Somehow, somehow, he never really knew, never thought until now when it's his chief calamity: She has to want it too. It was so easy the last time. Somehow it's fine once it starts, a hundred secret things become easy. Maybe--his terror rises--maybe she thinks it's sick now. It is sick, isn't it, part of him knows without question that it is--but that part isn't in charge just now. He wants her so much, but he can't ask. Not talking about it is part of what makes it possible. His boner is wilting; he fears with a new sort of sickness that he's going to fail here. What comes next, what do you do at this point? The the delicious fresh smell of her girly shampoo dizzies him. Her body, so close. Suddenly needing to justify his presence to her with purposeful action, he reaches the few inches to her nearer hand and strokes the open wrist with his fingertips. It's sheepish and romantic and he can't look at anything but the wrist while doing this because her face hasn't given permission yet and if it turns out to be the face of a normal sister who thinks this is pure wrongness then maybe he will just die. What do you hear about brother-sister incest from the other kids at school? Nothing, so it must be impossible, and how can you do the impossible without leaving this universe altogether and becoming one of Those People who you cannot be, criminals and murderers and sickos? You look only at the wrist is how, and let your body lead. He strokes her like a lover might, and trembles in terror and hunger. What will she do? What does she think of this? What does any girl think of anything?
This girl is thinking of how to get rid of him, actually. He hasn't said what he's here for but of course Saturday night is the first thing on her mind when she sees him crouching by her bed in the dark like he never would have done, would have had no reason to do before Saturday came and they watched that movie together on the couch and it happened, the thing that was supposed to be over and done with. Seeing him like that makes her feel tired, because it means she'll have to talk him off, and she wasn't supposed to ever have to. What they did before was only made okay afterward by the mutual assumption that they would never do it again, and there is no way forward but to maintain faith in that assumption. Even if going forward means doing it again (but it can't, she knows it can't). She was almost asleep and is too comfortable in this nice warm bed to want to move her arm away from him, and that isn't fair. What pleasure is left for her if she must give up the nice bed to convince him not to touch her and do the other exciting wrong things he did before? Stupid boy. This is like a nightmare for her, and it drags out in the timelessness of near-sleep. Long moments pass while she drifts in a sleepy pool of injustice; some of them are those critical moments when she could just tell him firmly to go to bed and he would bolt. But she's busy with her indignity, not even totally aware of him.
"You have to go," she finally murmurs in his general direction, certain that he can and will be made to go.
