In Hot Water Pt. 02

"When did the bathroom get fixed?" I shout into the hall, assuming my mother is somewhere around.

"Friday afternoon." Mom's voice is down by the living room. "We got the new water heater too. Did you not see it yesterday?

"I was distracted."

"Oh, that's right, Honey. Did you want to talk about girl stuff?"

"Nah, I'm good. I need to do some work right now."

I push my door shut.

***

The delete button for Rachel's contact info is hiding under my thumb, but I haven't pressed it yet. Not that it really matters if I have her number stored, but there's something therapeutic about deleting someone.

A paper about Pharaohs and Egyptian society sits open on the shitty laptop on my desk. The laptop used to be my mom's, but she uses her phone and whatever computer she has at the clinic now. The laptop affords me a way to do my programming class homework from home, otherwise I'd have to suffer the crowds of the computer lab at school.

I hadn't gotten to writing the paper until early in the evening. I spent most of the day delaying my usual procrastinating. I had to work myself up to "I don't want to do that," which meant getting through my own goddamn head first. I spent several hours pacing and wondering just what the fuck I was doing, what's wrong with me, and where is this all going, if anywhere. Then I got into an ill-advised bit of "what's wrong with her?" that I quickly abandoned, because I've got enough on my own to deal with. I actually came at it from a point of humility, figuring if Jessica wants to be with me, then there must be something wrong with her too. I tried not to dwell on that line of thinking, but I did wonder where she was. She'd been gone all day.

Daylight fades, and I'm on my bed still staring at the delete button, enjoying the silence of my room. Before I can erase my ex-girlfriend, I'm interrupted by a text.

"You awake?" -- Jessica.

"Yeah." The sight of her name shoots a jolt of energy through me.

"I have something for you. I'm almost home."

"For me? What?"

She doesn't respond, so I resume my impression of a stuffed animal propped up against my pillow.

I'm the most eager stuffed animal in existence.

My door creaks open a few minutes later. I hadn't heard the outside door open or shut. My laptop has gone dark, and the fading twilight from the window is all that lights the room. A hand touches the inside of my leg.

"What's going on?"

"Shhh," whispers Jessica.

"What have you been up to?" I bring my voice down to her level.

"Doing a bunch of biology assignments. And thinking about you."

I don't know if she can see my grin in the darkness, but it's there. "Are there lights on out there?"

"Her bedroom light is, but I didn't hear anything. Think she's reading?"

"Probably."

Jessica says, "If you're really quiet, I have something for you." She drops her voice even lower. "You were very good to me last night, and I've been thinking about it all day. I never thanked you properly." The bed presses down on each side of me, then her lips touch mine.

"That was nice," I say.

"Shhh." Jessica slides down my body, trailing her hands on my sides to my belt, which she begins unfastening. It takes her a while, and I almost help her, but eventually she gets it. She tears my jeans away after she solves the belt puzzle.

My sister's tongue is wet heaven, when she first licks my head. She moves to the base, then works up and down, before swallowing most of me. She supports the whole effort by stroking with one hand under her chin. Jessica seems to have a system in mind, and dives deeper than I need. I don't know if that's what she likes to do, or she's trying to impress. I move her towards the tip, and she refocuses there.

Jessica's hair shines in the light coming through the window. A faint white sheen on top of jet black. She pulls her lips clear of me every so often and pinches her eyebrows like she did when she used to brush her hair when we were little. She's focused and studying. Getting tangles out, giving your brother a blowjob, same thing, really. After a minute, she changes hands, and works with her left. When that hand tires, she moves back to her right, but pauses to tease me underneath with the tip of her tongue. She flicks it up and down, and I know I'm not going to last long.

"Shhh," whispers my sister, as she resumes slurping.

I lay back trying to delay the inevitable, and listening to the sucking sounds, but there's no holding it back. "I'm gonna cum. What do you want me to--"

"Just cum."

Jessica wraps her mouth over the top of me, and licks quickly, while stroking with her hand. The room blurs into crimson, and I'm pummeled with euphoric bliss. Then things return to black, before she finally lets go of me. My sister stops before I have to wave her off. This time I don't feel strange at all. It feels like home.

I lay back, trying to breathe.

"You okay?" Her voice is a whisper. She stands and the bed returns to the weight of just me.

"Yeah," I say, matching her whisper. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Jessica's silhouette looms in front of the window. She hooks her thumb in the cuff of her sleeve and wipes her face.

I ask, "Can I do something for you?"

"Later. I have to go fall over." Her shadow bends over and kisses my cheek. "Good night."

My sister dissolves into the darkness, then my doorknob rattles. The door latches shut, and my room is quiet again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER 11

Jessica and I make out in the shower for 20 minutes the next morning. It's amazing what a proper water heater and fan can provide.

I can't sleep, so I'm up early. As soon as Mom leaves, I'm opening my sister's door. She bolts upright in bed, then crashes back down on her pillow when she sees it's me.

"Fucking hell, I thought you were Mom."

"Should I knock?"

"No." Jessica sits up on her elbows and blinks. "You don't have to."

After the wet make out session, we compare school schedules for the first time. She works hard on her classes, and I'm trying to keep focused on mine. Jessica is taking two different biology classes, and a chemistry series. I have an economics class made much harder by the professor's impossibly thick accent, so I spend a lot of time reading that textbook.

Over the next few days, my sister and I realize that making out in our morning shower, while fun, isn't the most productive thing to do. And we never have sex in the shower, but it often leads to other places. Shower sex doesn't work, it turns out. Typically, the first one up wakes up the other, then we fool around until we have to really get ready. The departing bus timer is always ticking.

One morning, I awake before it's light to her tugging at the shorts I'd worn to bed.

"I can't sleep. I need to do something to you." Jessica throws the shorts over her shoulder, and bends over me.

I fold my hands behind my head and let her do what she wants.

After a lot of slurping, she wipes her face, and her footsteps fade into the kitchen. I think about getting up, but instead I end up watching the strawberry glow of first light out my window. My sister returns to my room and sits on the corner of the bed with a bowl of shredded wheat. She tosses a foil pack of Pop-Tarts at me, and it lands on my chest.

"What are all the science classes for?" I tear open the foil and take a bite.

"Like, what degree do I want?" She chews her cereal while she asks the question.

"Yeah, what are you going for?"

"I want to do veterinary work."

"Dogs and cats and all that?"

Jessica tilts her head forward and chews faster, then swallows. "Dogs more than cats, but yes."

"You guys ever have a dog?"

"No, dad says he's allergic, but I've never seen him react to anything. I think he just doesn't want to deal with a dog. It always bugged me that I couldn't have one. You and Mom never had any pets either, did you?"

"No. I could see getting a dog though." I take another bite of the pastry and spill crumbs on myself. Sticky Pop-Tart filling adheres to my shirt. "I should probably get up."

Jessica says, "Yes, you should," with her mouth full.

That night we're on her bed watching Netflix, like some sort of normal couple. We put on a vampire movie that quickly becomes the cheesiest shit I've ever seen, and I lose interest. I'm yawning, and Jessica is staring at her phone. Each time she touches the screen, it makes a ticking sound. She grips the phone sideways at first and touches it with both her thumbs. It looks like how she used to play my Gameboy when she stole it from me when we were little. Then she turns the phone tall, and touches it with a single finger. My sister taps the phone rapidly, and squishes her eyebrows together with an elegant determination.

I reach over and unbutton her jeans, then crawl down to the foot of the bed. I pull on her pants legs, but they won't budge.

"Do you need some help?" Jessica doesn't look up.

"I think so."

She tosses her phone to the side, and pushes the waist of her pants down over her hips, which gives me enough slack to get them off.

"Why do girls wear such tight pants?" I pull off her underwear and throw them as far away as I can.

"Makes my ass look good."

"It does." I realize it as soon as she says it. I kiss her inner thigh, and work my way east, as I touch the outside of her lips with a finger.

Jessica shivers.

I say, "Isn't it a pain?"

"Yes, but that's the price you pay for -- flat is better. Can you make your tongue flatter?"

I do my best to follow directions.

"It's a hassle, but, like... Oh... plus, you... Then once they're on... Please-right-there. It's dumb, but hot, and... The whole thing is just... Don't even get me started on shoes. Oh-my-god-keep-doing-that."

The front door of the house slams shut.

Against my sister's instruction, I stop, frozen, my face buried between her legs.

Footsteps move around the far side of the house. Keys hit a table, then the steps fade into the kitchen. Jessica twitches and I snap out of my trance, falling back onto the floor.

"Fuck," says my sister in a hushed whisper. She spins off the bed, and comes up with a different pair of pants, which she steps a leg into.

I can't form thoughts, let alone words. I pull the door open as quietly as I can and leap into the bathroom.

After washing off in the shower, I step out to find Jessica chatting with our mother in my sister's doorway. Jessica has donned one of her long night shirts over the jeans she'd put on as I'd made my escape.

Mom asks something about the water heater I don't quite hear, and turns to me.

"Yeah, it's pretty great. The fan too. I've got some stuff to do." I step into my room to discover my floor clear of the laundry that had been there only moments before. "Did you grab my clothes?"

"Yes," says Mom. "The dryer is still only working when it's full. I've just been washing and topping it off with yours and your sister's clothes when I need them."

"Can you ask first, please?"

"Yes," says my sister. "Can you ask me too, Mom?"

"Okay, sure," she says, sounding surprised.

They continue talking, and I close the door to my room. Then I toss on some clothes, and lay down on my bed with my phone. It buzzes a minute later with a message on the blue dot text app Garrett installed.

"She just came right in. She didn't knock or anything." -- Jessica

"OMG"

"I'm still shaking. I told her to knock from now on."

"We need to be more careful."

"Yes. I want to use this app instead of regular texts."

"I don't think that's going to help if Mom walks in, but sure."

"I feel safer with it. Why don't these doors have locks?"

"Dunno. Old house."

The conversation stops there.

A minute later, I text my sister again, "You okay?"

"Yes. You?"

"Yeah."

"I'll see you tomorrow. I'm going to hide in here for tonight."

Jessica and I are paranoid after another close call. We check Mom's schedule, and only fool around if we knew for certain she's out.

Then we discover the hidden fun of our morning commute. Mom is tied to the clinic. All our friends are out of town during the week, except for Garrett who I know drives to work, and Robyn who lives on the far east side of town. Jessica and I have each made a few acquaintances at school, but really nothing more than a lab partner. There are familiar faces on the bus, but nobody talks, and everyone just stares at their phones.

So we start holding hands on the bus ride to school.

There are mornings we have sex, then later hold hands, and it's the hand holding that feels risqué.

One morning I find Jessica in the kitchen reaching for the top shelf of the cupboard. She's standing on her tip toes, barefoot, wearing a white sweater over a loose dark skirt that runs to her knees. I haven't watched her in the makeup mirror in a while, and I know for sure Mom is busy at work.

So I come up behind my sister and pin her hips against the counter.

"Oh, hi." Jessica turns her head over her shoulder toward me.

"Do you need some help?"

"Grab me a bowl?"

I cup her breasts and pull her against my chest, pinching her long hair between us.

"I may need something else first." She reaches back and grabs my crotch.

I retrieve the bowl for her after I bend her over the kitchen table and have my way with her. Hot morning breakfast sex does something for her that cold cereal can't provide. It lights a fire in the green, and I watch the flames dance all the way to school.

We step off the bus, and my sister keeps holding my hand longer than normal. I don't want to let go either, and I'm scanning the crowd for anyone who could recognize us, when Jessica pulls me in and kisses me. People mere feet from us are getting on and off the bus, walking in front of us, and crossing the street. Traffic, honking, phone conversations. The bright morning sun bathes everyone, as a hive of commuters buzzes around, and we hide in plain sight. Some people carry books, some have backpacks, and a couple wear bright yellow t-shirts.

None of them matter.

When my sister pulls off my lips, she smiles and holds my hand as she walks away, before finally letting go and being absorbed by the anonymous crowd. I forget all about the sex in the kitchen. The kiss and the smile burn clear all day.

After that I have to sit in an economics lecture, and I try to figure out what vowels my professor's native language has. I'm sure there are some, but he doesn't seem to use any when he speaks English. The cryptic drawings he scrawls on the white board just confuse me further. He's big on supply and demand curves, but outfits them with words I can't read, complete with backwards letters. The hieroglyphs in my anthropology class make more sense.

Then I'm back at the same bus stop from earlier. It's so lifeless there without my sister, and it's like returning to the scene of the crime. A boring grey metal rain shelter held in place by some blue painted steel tubes, with sides of Plexiglas to keep the rain wash out. Across the street looms a commercial center with a mattress shop, and a cell phone store under a staffing agency office. A blue rectangular sign the size of a truck sits on the building's front lawn, with the company logo for the staffing agency. A fat bird in front of three horizontal black lines. The bird crouches in silhouette, like it's ducking under being patted on the head. At least it's not Donna's company.

The sprawling campus of Corvis, Inc. lies far out to the west side of town, and the bus takes me to where I catch the light rail train. The MAX Blue Line provides the only transportation all the way out to the sticks where my job is. The train arrives every fifteen minutes. You stand on a platform, and wait for the doors to open, then before you know it, they close, and you're whisked off to a distant part of Portland.

Once in my cubicle, I check my email, and a message from my boss is lurking in my inbox. He wants me to congratulate Todd for his excellent report on the Shasta project tracking. I still have yet to hear anything from Todd, and I was the one who did the report on the Shastas. I'd spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday putting it together, since my own list with the Lassens only took me about an hour. I put Todd's name on the report, so my boss would stop nagging me.

Frank goes on to say both Todd and I need to complete a peer review evaluation called a Side-by-Side, where we each critique the other. These must be signed and dated, along with employee ID numbers, and sent via the official Corvis web verification system, which I couldn't forge if I wanted to. The evaluation isn't due for two weeks, but Todd's absence is officially problematic now.

I start to realize my position at my dad's company is largely ceremonial, and reeks of nepotism. Some random guy hired the same day as me has ten times the work I do. It's like I'd been buried in a corner, just to keep me quiet. Not that there aren't benefits. I got my first paycheck, and I'm the richest I've ever been.

Instead of stressing, I sit with my eyes closed picturing my sister's figure. Her face between dark streaks that run to her waist. In my head I see the streaks twist into a bun on top of her head, leaving her neck on display for me to covet. I can see the bright green when she turns to face me, feel her breast under my hand, her firm grip against the back of my head. Each time I touch her, she touches me back. Sometimes I think I'm taking advantage of her, but that never lasts. Nobody tells her what to do. She wants this, too, whatever it is.

My phone buzzes with a blue dot text from Garrett. He only ever uses blue dot texts.

"You busy next weekend?"

"No plans. What's up?" This isn't quite true. I plan to wear my sister like a feedbag, but I do that whenever possible.

"Two words: Beach House. You want to come hang out for the weekend?"

This is in no way something I could have expected. I make plans on an hourly basis, and those revolve around class and my mother's work schedule. I fire off a text to Jessica.

"There's a beach trip?"

Jessica doesn't respond. She may be in a chemistry lab. I vaguely remember her saying something about an acid/base titration project while she was on top of the kitchen table, right before she jerked and knocked over a pepper shaker. The top fell off, spilling pepper everywhere, and I tried to keep the lid from falling, but nearly pulled us both onto the floor in the process. She tends to twitch when we go at it in that position. I'm slowly getting to know my sister.

I switch back and forth between Garrett's and Jessica's messages, as though that will somehow make things happen, and finally I respond to Garrett.

"Who all is going?"

"Robyn, Me, Jane & Kevin, you if you want, couple other people you don't know, and your sister if she wants to. She hasn't responded yet. Solid crew."

"What do you guys do?"

"Get drinks and make a fire on the beach. It's a jolly good time. You should come."

These are Jessica's friends asking me to come with them. If she had already accepted, I'd have worried about the appearance of tagging along. But I guess that's not the case.

"Sure, count me in."

"Good stuff. Work on your sister. We'd like to see her too."

"What do I need to bring? When do we leave?"

"Food and whatever you want to drink. Friday after school / work."

"Drinks are harder for me, but I'll be set for food." It's as subtle a nod as I can make to my age.

"That's a logistics issue. We have a procurement system. Don't sweat it."