Acrasia, SW1V

It's three hours, the flight to Aberdeen. Three hours in a body bag. Most keep their eyes closed. Maybe they sleep despite the roar of the rotors. I stare at the floor. Three hours prepared for the worst, hoping to god this won't be the flight when I need to remove a window at speed.

There's only so much the showers on the rig can do. I feel the grit and salt will never leave my skin. By the time I'm peeling off the rubber immersion suit I may as well have not bothered washing, and high on my list of desires is a decent scrub. It'll be a week or more before the North Sea on me is replaced by Sussex.

Aberdeen to Edinburgh, two hours and twenty minutes; Edinburgh to King's Cross, five hours, but I can't sleep. Before the helicopter I bit my nails down to nearly nothing, now, heading south, my fingers drumming incessantly on the armrest. At King's Cross, the Victoria line, half an hour, rush-hour, standing room only, move with the pitch and rattle and roll until SW1V.

One day I'll arrive here to find a new doorman who'll look at me disapprovingly. Not today though.

"A pleasant journey, Sir?" he asks.

"Yes, thank you," I lie, never really used to being a Sir.

"Miss Daler asked that I tell you she'll not be long."

This is unexpected. Still, in the apartment, she may as well be here. Everything is ivory white, and duck egg blue; orchids, driftwood, and glass. It smells of orange blossom and aloe and white ginger. This could be any young woman's home, except for the family portrait which plucks at me and reverberates guilt. I feel my presence like a mess. It's silent, the first time in months I've felt that.

Bag and boots and socks by the door. Watch and wallet in the kitchen. Belt on the bed. Shirt, jeans, shorts. A bruise coming up on my shoulder from lugging my bag all day. A note hanging on a ribbon in the shower, her handwriting barely better than when she was a teenager: welcome back with a heart. The steam billows and fills the room, the water stinging my skin, the nape of my neck, and my spine as I lower my head, and stretch out my shoulders. The grey swirl around my feet, flushing darker as I run my fingers through my hair. I reach for a bottle and blink back the mist on my eyelashes to read fig and lotus body scrub, a soap full of grit, like the last thing I need. There's another, pearlescent pink and smelling how she does in my mind, smelling how she does to intoxicate, to send blood spiralling away from my brain. There is no descriptive claim, no picture of almonds, avocado, nor coconut, it is aroma incognito, it is girl-smell, the antithesis of the rig.

I'm lathered, of course, when I hear the door and fancy I can hear the click of heels along the hall. My hand pauses, not yet removed, soaping that scent on swollen length. I rinse my hair and face, and feel the cool vacuum of the opened door begin to suck the steam away.

"Welcome back," she says, and I don't turn.

I just listen to her removing her clothes, the soft collapse of fabric on the floor, the clink of jewellery on glass. And then she's there, presence behind me, arms wrapping around ribs, and forehead 'gainst my shoulder blade.

"You smell so good," and "you should take some back with you." Her hand descends to mine, guiding me down and off and taking my place, those slender clever fingers soft and insistent. Then come kisses on my spine, and I wonder if she names the vertebrae, C4, C3, Axis, Atlas at last, her spare hand following up, to my shoulder, my neck, nails raking to my scalp, to close and clench and pull, my head tipped back to her breath in my ear, the quickest elixir as she whispers. "It's always so good to see you back safe, little brother" and, "that's what I thought," as I twitch in her hand. She strokes, turning her head, cheek pressed to my shoulder, both arms reaching around. Fingertips slip in soap from pubic bone to hip then up to ribs, to chest and collar as she maps me anew. But always one hand a constant on my cock. No urgency nor need. She is this shower nymph, cavorting with the water, Poseidon's daughter, but more, Acrasia, since we were teens.

Her lips find my spine one more time, then her hand turning about me as she circles and descends, serpentine, to kneel, release her grip and look up as I see her face for the first time in months. Her dark wet hair slicked back, that bad idea always on her lips, turning up at the corners. The same smile she showed at my wedding, standing beside our parents, when I turned on the altar beside her oldest friend.

Her lips part, and I'm near, so near, but as yet ignored, like she hasn't even considered it. Water trickles her upturned face, and the dare constant in her eyes tell me to stop. Closer, her breath on me, and at last she casts her eyes ahead, her gaze tilted to consider my cock, and now, out from her controlling stare, I dare to tease.

"Claire," I say, "I think we should stop."

Her lips part wider, move closer, till I'm all but untouched in her mouth, and her eyes drift back up, lazy and unconcerned. She retreats an inch.

"Emma's on her way."

My wife. My eyes open wide with surprise, then close with her lips as a seismic rumble crumbles false propriety, ascending from her mouth to mine, to gasp, head bowed. My wife, washed away like grit.

"Fuck, Claire." I blink away the water, to look down and see her smile edging further, big brown eyes looking back. I'll never get used to how good she feels, call it the heightened thrill of the taboo, or the familiarity of my first, but my sister can coax and cajole with her mouth like no-one I've ever known. One hand holding, one hand cupping, both twist as she bobs, tongue turned up to tease, to turn the trough of each move to the crest of bliss.

"You like that?" she grins, "say it, then."

I know what.

"You're the best, sis."

It's been too long; months of solitary sex, and stamina rendered useless. I steady myself against tiles, body about to buckle over her, mouth aghast as I stare down. One hand on her head to hold her still as I pull back, dragged and gasping off her tongue.

"Not yet," I pant, sweeping back my hair.

She stands and takes me tender once more in hand, on tiptoes to kiss and grin, both knowing this is where we should begin. My journey from the rig always a day before I tell Emma, a day to kill a thousand times with all those little deaths. My sister, the doctor, racking up a body-count.

"Emma's on her way," she says, again, and the why is unimportant, just to know a clock is ticking is enough to spur my need. I pick her up, laughing and drenched and haul her over my shoulder and out the shower to screamed questions and demands to put her down, and her: "not on the bed, it'll be such a mess," and "no, I said not-"

Her body bounces, casting a second-hand shower around her room, and she's up on her elbows scowling, ready to scold, but silenced as I take and hold her ankles and drag her down. At the foot of her bed, head between her legs, hands holding her knees as we share that hungry look. She smells of temptation and bad ideas, she smells again like the first time.

She moves and hums and huhs discordant and disgruntled as I sink my teeth to her thigh, lifting to bite and suck high behind. Working my way quickly, forward, closer, a wave breaking and coasting up, intensity fading, until the last lick washes across her clit and I drag back down. My fingers in her flesh and hers in my hair, pulling, demanding until I roll back up, intent on flicking my teasing tongue over her again. But she twists me about her clenched fists and holds me tight, lifting her legs to lock them around my head.

"Eat me, little brother," she says, and she knows I won't refuse.

Succulent and smooth she melts in my mouth, legs falling away to let me feast, deep and eager. It's been too long, but more than it's been too far; stuck out there on a North Sea tower, with nothing but salt spray and fantasies of this right here, my first meal back. I kiss and suck and lick. Here, there is no finesse, Emma has said, a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Claire however, has no such complaints, and holding her as she rides this storm is much more fun. She barely stays still enough; my hands struggle to keep track of her trouble, holding her thighs and knees, her calves and ankles, held high then pinned down as she bucks and writhes.

She gives as good as she gets, pulling my hair to drag me up to slap my face, and I respond with my teeth in her thigh once more, to elicit a cry and groan through gritted teeth. Just another sibling fight.

"I'll tell your wife," she snaps.

To which I laugh, "you wouldn't dare."

Claire pulls again and drags me up. I hold myself above her, palms on her wet sheets either side her head. "Try me," she smirks, lifting one leg to graze her heel across the base of my spine.

"She'd kill us both," I say.

"And what's another death, Alex? For the look on all their faces. Or perhaps you'd prefer she caught us here?" Her eyes cast down between us, and up again to mine, that wilful glint as telling as my precum. "You'd like that, hm?" she grins, "I never knew."

"I want to be told how bad it is, I want to see the shock."

"It is so very bad, little brother," she says, reaching down to hold, her dexterous grip devilish as I swell. "This incest, sex with your own sister." She rubs my leaking tip between her lips as I lower myself to her. I hold, with her breasts pressed to my chest, her heart beating by mine, her voice tempting, low and slow, her breath happy in my mouth. "Filthy," she murmurs, "filthy, fucking me, like-" and her mouth hangs open, suspended on a gasp as I grit my teeth and grunt.

"Like this?" I ask, to her silent nod. Pull back and thrust, one hand on her clammy hip, and a sudden image of my wife stepping off the Tube at Pimlico, just a few streets away.

"Emma's coming," Claire pleads, and I nod an urgent understanding.

Gone is the slow rise we'd usually enjoy, the day of reacquainting ourselves with our sibling's skin. This is accelerated intimacy, we're reliving the enthusiasm that stood in the stead of passion in our youth. That hip held tight to absorb each thrust, that slap of bodies wet and desperate, the knowledge we're close to being caught.

She kisses my throat, baring her teeth and I want so much for her to bite.

"Nothing that leaves a mark," I remind, Emma's heels nearing in my mind.

Our fingers interlock, up above her, as we're nose to nose, panting, that hopeful plea in our shared look. I lower my mouth to her turned head and kiss below her ear, raking canines across her taut throat.

"Bite me," she whispers, voice on edge and nearly gone. I rake again, promising to leave a damning mark. "I said bite," she growls, pulling free her hands, reaching down to dig nails deep and compel my pelvis forward.

"Fuck," I grunt and bite and feel at once her teeth too, sinking to grasp my shoulder that's already bruised, the pain swelling up. I lift my head and grit my teeth and feel a growl rattle in my throat.

She smirks, flustered and flushed and fleeting but the point is clear, she remains the one in charge - smarter, quicker, and willing to take what's hers. She goads, I know, but I take the bait, dropping my mouth to reciprocate, feeling her arch and groan and grind back against me. The wave rising too high too quick and breaking to shake me. I gasp and come, that wave washing up, tensing every inch, to sink my teeth to my sister's neck, to feel her pulse under my tongue, throbbing in time with me. Her fingers soft in my wet hair. Her breath slowing in my ear.

"Welcome home, little brother," she whispers.

There's the usual, the guilt, not at what we've done, we're well past that. My guilt, that she didn't come. There's the usual, the don't be so silly and the you're back for four weeks still, with a suggestive grin as we lay panting.

Claire enjoys the taboo, she bucks expectations and decency, insisting instead on sensuality, physical and spiritual, whatever the cost.

The doorbell rings.