Egypt, When The Walls Fell

You've spent so much time away from him that when he calls you suddenly and says, "Come to Egypt with me," your first instinct is to lie. To tell him there's no way you can get out of your obligations— research hours and all that, your grad appointment. But you know what happened— you know what he's running from— and he's your baby brother, so you quietly relent.

He shows up three days later, a duffel over his arm, as he takes you into the other and pulls you close. His skin's the same farmer's tan it's always been, eyes green-brown, and his smile still relays exactly how he feels. "I've missed you," he says and there's no doubt he means it.

The ticket he puts on your coffee table is first class, both ways, too expensive, and you flip it like an insult in its marigold wrapper. "Jason, come on!"

"You're not the only one with a research grant, you know?" he smirks, lifting a shoulder, which you immediately punch. "Ouch!" he laughs, before he's flinging you around the center of your living room and you're wondering, your head spinning, just how bad an idea this whole thing was.

He stays on your couch that night, your apartment as silent as a country morgue, and you blame every escaped second of sleep on the fact that you're excited about the trip. There's nothing else it could be.

As a Women's Studies major, you thought you'd be prepared for the culture shock. It's not the sand and the heat and a cab ride through Gaza that nearly leaves you both dead that's the problem. It's the narrow strips of men eying you— your hair knotted down your back, your too pale skin, and the boy standing at your side, maybe even closer than he realizes— that's captured their attention. Petty conditioning leaving you with this falling feeling.

Jason takes the bags and you get checked in and once his hands aren't busy, he's frowning at you. He knows your overspreading identity, your inexorable self, but it's a lose-lose situation either way and you can see what he wants before he says it. "We need to go shopping."

It's your turn to smile, drawing the silk wrap from your carry on, carefully draping it around your head. "We do, but not tonight. Tonight you show me Cairo."

Cairo was never the danger.

It's in the smaller villages, outlying, where Jason's crouched over the arid land, testing the soil, that his gaze shifts unexpectedly to you. Three men are watching you just as closely, even with the heavy niqab cloaking your figure.

"It's your blue eyes," Jason whispers, situating himself at your hip. You know what it is, and it's really nothing, you're stronger than this need he has to protect, but he's hiding you away despite your own certainty.

"It's okay," you assure him, squeezing his arm a few times to show him you're fine. The recognizable difference, how he's gotten a little taller, more muscular, still just as thin, it hits hard enough to make you step away.

There's a family near Memphis, a doctor and his wife, who have invited you to dinner. He's a world class climatologist and part of the reason Jason's here, so you spend the rest of the day trying to help, gathering samples and labeling them to make it easier. To make yourself more useful. To have a little something practical to contribute later— when your biggest fear is all the dead air and empty space— time to watch him, effortless and casual, without nothing else to distract.

It figures. Jason in the front of the house, children hanging from every limb, an extra one with her arms slung around his neck, and her legs nestled around his hips. He laughs like he's a part of them, speaking their Sa'idi Arabic, and playing their games. It's something more than pride that touches your heart, standing under the shade of a twisted sycamore tree.

The doctor's wife, Nubiti, shoos the children away, and pulls out a chair for you. She speaks English better than you speak Arabic, weaving some loom-born thing while she talks, and you tell her how secretly envious you are of her ability to conjugate and still manage anything that requires motor skills. Somewhere along the line, you screw up the translation— of course you do— and end up telling her you're secretly envious of her yak, or something, and she throws her head back and laughs until there are tears.

Jason— Jason watches you with so much amusement, so much affection, that you find it hard to remember how to breathe.

It's not until later— when you're back in the room and you're both too quiet, when he's slipping his watch off, the sun-beat brown of today's tan even more distinct, when he's unbuttoning the linen shirt that fits so perfectly, it was made for him—that you see him studying you. Curtain of bleached-brown lashes fanned against his cheeks, his longer hair swiped back and dusting his face, and a look that's hot enough to stop your heart.

Your brother who shouldn't be doing this. You— who should be saying so.

You were strong enough to walk away from it once, and god, how fucked up is it that you're not sure you can keep it up. That you're not sure you even want to try.

The dust and dry sweat from the day has formed a layer on your skin, and you immediately want to wash off. Gives you just as good a reason as any to escape. The bathroom, a soft-lit haven, where the water pressure is just hard enough it might beat the temptation right out of you.

Or it would be, if Jason wasn't pulling open the glass door.

You close your eyes, your breath held hot and wet, burning in the space between your lungs. He's standing behind you, silent and unmoving, your naked body dripping streams of water, displayed. Vulnerable, in a place naked's never felt so exposed.

It's the faint touch of his mouth, the hovering part of his lips across your shoulder that makes you start breathing again. Think to ask him what he's doing, but what's the point. You know. You both do. So you say his name, instead. The sound of it barely breaking. Light and unreal.

"I want you," he breathes into your ear.

You know that, too. Not just by his cock, the hard length of it pressed to your hip. This is a thing that's been building for years. Still, there's more to the story, more reason for this to be now, where his hands are running up under your ribs to capture your breasts.

You allow yourself the full minute to lean into him. A small sin by comparison before you bust the bubble. "You want it to be me, but it's not. I won't be your rebound, Jason. I won't be that for you."

He breathes in like he's been stung, but his fingers never ease, thumbs rolling over each nipple, and then the quick bite of his teeth across your neck. "You're wrong. Did you ever stop to think maybe it was me that left, not her?"

The wrongness multiplies exponentially in your brain, because no. No, you'd never considered your brother walked away from his fiancée of three years. And for what? Not this, you want to cry. God. Not this!

"You're lonely," you say. It makes more sense than anything does right now. "It's okay," you breathe, his hands creating a dividing war between desire and your better judgment.

"It will be," he nods, his mouth sliding up your throat, his tongue hot and catching water, his hair clinging wet to your skin. "Just stop fighting it."

So, you do—

—And you don't.

Abraded tile under your knees so fast before you know you've even moved, kneeling between your brother's legs. Water like a crystalline rain come falling down. It sticks to your eyelashes when you look up at him, at the shock on his face, as the clear as day lust blown through him.

His cock bobs in front of you, heavy, hard. Long. Stiff. Jesus, you need to stop thinking. This can't be happening. None of this is real.

It's a dream, you tell yourself as you wrap your hand around him. As the first sounds he'll ever make with the two of you like this echo all around you. As you feel him pulse in your grip. It's a dream, you say, opening your mouth, water filling in a hot pool under your tongue.

You're not sure his knees are going to hold him. Or his hands will stop shaking. Or if there's any forgiveness left in this world for you when you're choking on his cock. When his hands are petting through your hair, over your cheekbones. When he's looking into your eyes and pleading—with words and with none—for more, and fuck, yes, and oh my god, please.

It seems impossible, but he gets harder, and you realize it's only seconds until you're going to be swallowing your brother's come. Here, in a place where mixed moralities are the price of someone's life, and you're seconds away from bringing your baby brother off inside your mouth.

Your name leaves his on a half-concealed scream, his head thrown back, thighs trembling in your hands, his body sliding slowly down the wall, as you swallow. Taste. And here, you think, is where the guilt should be. Naked, shivering, your brother spent on the floor next to you with the thick bitter of his spunk in the back of your throat.

Funny how it never appears.

Jason's fingers are gathering you, pulling you against his chest, his head over yours, kissing your hair, your face, his nose brushing your ear.

You've never seen him like this—and honestly, why would you have—set on fire and in motion and you know if you don't end this now it's going further. Too far.

"I'm exhausted," you whisper, unsteady crack of your voice in this humid stall. His eyes are dark and intense, almost impassible, but he nods, slowly, shutting off the water, wrapping you in a towel. He dries you off with delicate strokes, reverently gentle, and stops with something close to fear on his face when he's done. "Please don't be sorry."

He's not asking you for more, or even forever, a thought that terrifies you. He's just asking you for the moment. It's hard not to imagine you wouldn't ask the same.

You lead him out into the suite, edging you both carefully to one of the beds. It's a night searing enough that sleeping with sheets would be uncomfortable, let alone two bodies sharing the same space, but that doesn't stop you. Doesn't stop you from bringing him into the circle of your arms. Doesn't stop worry from being carried like a weight into sleep.

This is part one of a five part story. If the first part receives a favorable enough review, I'll continue to post the rest. As always, I hope you enjoyed!