Thicker than Water

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.

*****

1

Through a dirty window, I could see the autumn leaves swirling in a tornado of wind as the sun reached behind the hills. Inside, I could only feel the staleness of the room - the hiss of some hidden machinery, the hum of electricity, and the tick-tock of a clock in the entryway.

I gazed at the outside for a minute before I came back to myself. Though I had only been living here for several months, the lifestyle was taking its toll on me. Of course, it was lonely and tiring, but I didn't think there was any way out.

My endless days made me appreciate the small amount of time I had in the evenings, staring out my only window, watching what was left of the seasons as I could experience them.

Every morning I'd leave my tiny apartment, one of many dormitory-like spaces in this big square building I shared with many others. I'd then spend the day doing things I didn't like to think about and wouldn't even tell my diary. Then, after I came home, it would all repeat the next day. I couldn't remember how the world got so bad that I ended up here, just that promises were made but never kept.

While the world crumbled outside my window, I was offered this safe place to live in exchange for the work I did. It wasn't advertised as prostitution - things like that never are - but I figured if I had a stable place to stay, a little selling of my body wouldn't be too bad.

At first, it was fine, maybe a little fun. All the men in our building would allegedly go out to build something all day while the women tended to the needs of the area's highest executives. Government, business, etcetera. People who were in charge of why the world was like this. The largest majority of these people were men, so it meant that I was pretty much off my feet the entire day.

At first, it was fun, and I kind of looked forward to my days as if I lived in some sort of erotic dream. That's how they got you; sex sells, even if there isn't any currency involved. Theoretically, you were free to go through all your wildest fantasies, at least in your head, but at the end of the day, someone else was in charge.

As time went on, I grew tired and my body couldn't keep up. I was required to do things I couldn't imagine a human being would ever want to do. Let's just say that if I ever got out of this place and the world turned back around, I would have a lot of dirt to spill on a handful of disgusting old men.

I went to go lie on my bed in the apartment's single cramped bedroom. There was enough space in our building so that they could house everyone separately. We did get some free time in the evening to interact with the other residents in our wing, though. Most of the time I just came back to my apartment and hung out by myself. The pills I took made me tired and cranky. You were expected to take them - they were available to anyone who worked in "social labor" as they called it. I didn't know if there were consequences for not taking them, but they did check every once in a while. And of course I took them, because the last thing I wanted was to get knocked up by some 60-year-old with nine billion dollars of war money.

I'd gotten home less than an hour earlier, after having been busy on my knees all day. I was with another girl this time, which wasn't too common, at the commands of an overweight healthcare mogul. He was notorious on the outside for all the wrong reasons. He also had a thing for watersports, and not the kind where you go to Lake Tahoe for the summer. I lay on the bed, sore, thinking about how, in a few minutes, I could go about visiting the other apartments or the common areas. They all understood the effect of morale; we couldn't be in here alone forever. It didn't feel as much like a prison as I'd thought, but it definitely was a different terror.

Last night, I'd stayed in, nauseous from what I'd had to put in my mouth earlier that day. But tonight I'd made the decision to venture out, despite being a homebody usually more interested in reading a book or brooding with my thoughts.

Usually, there was something going on if you looked around. Oftentimes it was in the biggest common area I had access to - a large space not unlike the social area of a church - that had several couches and ugly lighting.

I left the security of my apartment and drifted in, lights glaring. I felt a bit awkward and reluctant to sit on one of the old couches across the wide space. Three figures were seated around a chipped coffee table with a deck of colorful cards strewn upon it. I sat at the couch adjacent to theirs that was empty, worrying that they might feel I was intruding. They were discussing the logistics of a game I was neither familiar with nor mentally equipped to play.

"Wanna join?" Asked one of them, a young woman with dark curly hair and charming eyes. I had worked with her a week before. It felt just like seeing a coworker at the grocery store. I stared down at the cards on the tiny table.

"Oh, that's okay. I don't know how to play this one."

"It's not that hard to learn," convinced the second one, a slender brown-haired man in a striped t-shirt, who was sitting next to a man I assumed was his raven-haired brother. He continued talking to me, but I almost instantly zoned out, staring off at one of his knees as I thought about the troubles of my day.

"Oh, I can just watch. It's fine." I fixed my gaze back on the cards on the table, in asymmetrical groups, while the dark-haired guy argued in a light voice about how one of the cards wasn't in the right pile. After a few minutes of listening to them innocently bicker, I decided to get up and venture to the farthest side of the room, to the old pool table.

There was a cheap-looking abstract painting on the wall, probably one of many copies. The pool table had some dings - a dark teal felt covered it - and there were no cues hanging up anywhere on the wall. The balls were all lined up in the rack, though, so I set that aside and rolled the cue ball at the others with a weak arm.

The balls didn't go very far when I rolled; they made a weak clacking sound as the cue ball bounced off the other way.

"No cues?" I turned to see the dark-haired boy at the corner of the table, abandoning his game.

"No. I don't usually come here. I'm usually too tired." I spun one of the balls with my hand against the quietness of the old felt.

Both the men and women of the building were somewhat aware of what the other did during the day. However, all that I knew was that the men did "manual labor", rather than social. I assumed they were building something, perhaps another residential structure somewhere else, but what that meant exactly had never come up in my few interactions with the men here. I was sure that many them ogled over the fantasy of what the girls did while the sun was up.

"Work is a lot, sometimes, you know." I continued.

He stood there, watching the weak pool setup, then weighed my words, looking quizzical. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure."

"Aren't you missing out on your game?" I gestured vaguely towards the other two on the couch, who had begun using vocabulary that made me understand their game even less. I gathered the balls into the rack again, having successfully sunken a few.

"Micah will keep my place. Genesis always wins, anyway."

I looked at her on the couch. "Yeah, I bet."

"Huh?"

"Oh, we, uh, worked together a while back. Just one day." I tried to imply that she possessed a quality that could benefit her in both card games and the bedroom.

"Alright, I'm gonna not ask what that's supposed to mean."

"She wins because you two let her. She's a real people pleaser," I paused. "And yes, I mean that both ways."

"Ah," he fiddled with his hair, gleaming in the artificial light. "You girls get taken advantage of a lot?"

"Well, when I was there, they thought they were. Taking advantage of her. She had it all planned out. She, um, knows how to finish 'em. We kind of all do. Gets us to move on sooner."

He skulked around the pool table, like he'd found my words uncomfortable. "Hm. It's that bad?" He'd stolen the eight-ball from the rack when I wasn't looking and was using it as a cue ball.

"Tell me you'd actually want to get gangbanged by a bunch of ninety-year-olds who think women are just sexy monkeys." I spat. He glared at me as if I'd told him something he didn't already know. "I mean, that's a bit much, but isn't it all just like that?"

2

The next day was more of the same, and again, I had enough energy to slink down the hall. I hoped that if I did, in fact, encounter my new friends, they wouldn't be playing the same damn game. There were some things I needed to get off my chest without something novel in the way. I peered into the room before entering.

"You gotta play the three of spades with that! Not the three of clubs." God dammit.

I snuck in and went directly to the pool table so they wouldn't ask me to join them again. Micah, Genesis, and the one whose name I'd forgotten to ask, they were in the same order on the couch as the night before. I rolled a ball, making sure it knocked against another to subtly let them know I was there. Their conversation tapered off over the course of a few minutes as I focused on lining up the pool balls by color.

"I don't know if you need this one. We had it over there." Micah had approached, probably long enough ago to notice I was creating a sort of billiards rainbow. He had his fingers wrapped around number 12.

"Oh, yeah, for the purple end." I wasn't going to be the one to ask what a ball could have brought to their card game, but I did begin to question their relationships. "What's... his?" I subtly pointed toward the couch. "Your br-"

"Austin. Yeah, he's my older brother."

"And Genesis? Are you guys..."

"She's the only other person who comes here every day. We're just friends." He smiled sheepishly as he put the final piece at the end of my rainbow; we both knew there was no point in any of what we were doing.

I'm gonna have to guess you made that card game up." I reached toward the red end of the rainbow, across the table, and winced when my back bent, sore from the stresses of the day.

"Mmhmm." He murmured. I rubbed at my hip as he watched.

"What do you guys usually do? You know, during the day." I figured now was as good a time as ever to ask an expert on the subject. "Everyone I ask never gets past 'manual labor.' It's like the 'social labor' with us, but it sounds less fancy."

"Oh," he said, biting his lip. He'd probably answered this question a dozen times. "I mean, it's mostly construction stuff. But we're not supposed to really talk about it. And it's not like what you ladies do isn't manual labor." He laughed, running his short fingernails along the teal felt.

"Oh, yeah, true," I mumbled, face warming. "You can see how stiff I am," I started to joke about playing with the pool balls and rolled my eyes, but Micah didn't laugh.

"Do they... hurt you?" He asked, light eyes meeting mine quickly in an uncomfortable moment partially interrupted by thunderous laughter from Austin and Genesis. My hand on the table trembled. "What? Who said that?"

"She's hinted." He said, looking at Genesis, mouth in a tight line. I'd never guess she'd spill such secrets, giggling and throwing cards down on the table. But nobody could seriously think that what we did was always enjoyable.

"Well, usually not," I spat out, conscious of if my words felt confrontational. I could tell my response was going to be followed by another question. "But it's okay." I paused for a second, looking behind me at the terrible painting at the wall. "I mean, it's not, really, but... Do they do anything bad to you?" I steered the conversation in his direction. There was no way that construction every day could be enjoyable.

"Oh, um..." I watched his chest rise and fall as he paused, his hair fading out to deep blond where the overhead light hit it.

"And, I mean, I'm on a pill," I butted in, letting the tension of the situation run away with me. "So it's not like that could ever happen. So they can't hurt me like that."

"What if you weren't on it? You have to take it, right?" He avoided eye contact with me, but came over closer, arranging the balls in the rack on my side of the table in an excuse to talk quieter.

"Did she bring this up?" I peered over to the couch. I wasn't about to start talking about reproductive abuse with a guy I'd barely known for twenty-four hours. His question seemed eerily personal.

"She brought it up last night after you left." I glanced back over at Genesis, playful black eyes engaged in the game, dark brown hair in loose ringlets. She could be any disgusting man's racist fantasy but seemed to have analyzed our situation well. What Micah had hinted she'd suggested seemed more than just a possibility.

"So you're saying they won't make me do all this if I'm pregnant? I can't even imagine how awful that would be if it happened."

"She thinks that, maybe. I don't know; it just came up last night, but she seems to have thought about it a lot." Understandably, he avoided eye contact through his long, dark lashes. "She has a whole thing about it, and it kind of makes sense. At the very least they would probably take you somewhere nicer, at least for the nine months."

I shuddered, hands still shaking a bit with all the thoughts flashing through my head, suddenly engrossed in the eight-ball. "Gross." It was sticky in my palm. "Why would I want that?"

"Oh, no, not with them," he clarified, rolling a ball across the table, hearing the thunk once it bounced off the edge. I thought that he was assuming I'd be down to get knocked up by a geriatric rapist.

My heart thumped in my throat, eyes drifting towards Austin in the distance while refusing to look at Micah next to me. We were almost shoulder to shoulder, and I tried to observe him out of the farthest corner of my eye, staring for a second. I wouldn't exactly be opposed to that.

"Um, perhaps," I mumbled, hoping he didn't sense the overhanging embarrassment of the situation. "I will think about it." I mumbled, praying I hadn't catastrophically misread the situation.

I figured it was as good a time as any to head back to my apartment. Though I needed to get out of this place, this life, Micah's suggestion fueled an excited dread within me that just made me want to go to sleep. Tomorrow I'd come back and clarify.

3

"So, Micah was saying last night..." I muttered to Austin over a failing card game that Genesis was coincidentally not attending. "We were talking yesterday... about..." Micah had yet to arrive. Austin had said to meet at eight. I was nervous, so I came a little early, only to find Austin already there before me.

"Yeah, that." He peered down at his clasped hands as if we were both actually trying to play their made-up game right now. "No pressure, just if you think it might help you."

"Oh, no, it's cool," I stuttered, just hung up now on which of them I'd want to seduce if I had to. The clock said it was barely 7:55, and we were still waiting on Micah, but I tried to picture him versus Austin as the father of my metaphorical - or not so metaphorical - baby.

"I just need to get out of here, get back to the real world. Even if it's still shit out there. And if that could do it..." I spat softly to finish my train of thought. It was a long shot trying to get my insuppressible contract thrown out, but they couldn't just do nothing about me if this were to work.

He looked up from contemplating his cards, one eyebrow raised, lowering his hand so that I could see right through his play. I met the gaze and my heart fluttered. I suspected that the men in here weren't getting much of that kind of intimacy, if they were getting any at all. Many would be desperate to be in Austin's situation right now.

I continued: "They're so gross. I can't go on like this forever. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it's just not good to sleep with that many people." He looked at me patiently as we both put down our cards. I felt a thrill in my stomach. It almost looked like he wanted me to go further into the details.

"It's demeaning. I'm tired of getting fucked every day of my life." I hissed, feeling hot at letting the truth out about what happened to me. Of course, though, he already knew. My attention drifted to the clock and my comfort sank finding that only a couple of minutes had gone by since we'd both arrived.

"I stopped taking the pill this morning. I bet it doesn't even matter with guys like those, bet they can't even get hard without Viagra." If I was going in on this, I might as well get used to talking about it.

He sighed stiffly. "I miss that..." He murmured, gazing at the door, probably hoping that his brother would arrive soon.

"What it was like before?" I asked. He shot me a sort of panicked gaze. "Sex?"

"More like, what you do. Just... never mind." His personality seemed to retract into a nervous smile as he interlocked his fingers and gazed up at the ceiling.

"Oh, so you'd want to trade with me if you could? It must be bad, whatever you're doing."

He blushed. "It's not awful. You definitely have it worse, don't get me wrong. It's not like that. Just, sometimes I'm so bored I wish I could do that. Not as much work."

I was a bit taken aback with his assumptions. But when I thought about his dancing around the subject, I sensed some secret interest. "Are you into that kind of stuff? Being dominated?"

He drew back like he'd done before, probably regretting saying anything at all. I almost felt that way, too. However, I couldn't bring myself to laugh at him, as the time I'd spent being used and subdued seemed to have sparked a fiery side to me. Even if it did have something to do with revenge, I didn't care. I just knew that I wouldn't mind controlling a man like that.

"It's cool if you're into it." I inched forward towards him, trying not to drive him away with hesitation. "It's kinda nice," I sighed. Now that he'd mentioned it, I was, in fact, interested in that kind of thing. I just didn't want to state it outright, as I suspected Micah might arrive shortly.

Thinking about the younger brother in his absence filled me with a different feeling. I was torn at the thought of having to choose between the two. In the little amount of time I'd known them, I'd been drawn to both in different ways. My thoughts trailed off, and I had to drag myself back to the present after one in particular. Maybe having both at the same time, being pressed between them...

"Hey, bro, you made it," Austin looked up at Micah behind me with his wide hazel eyes. "We were just finishing up this game." I watched Austin subtly as Micah came around to sit on the couch next to me, raising an eyebrow at our destroyed pile of cards on the table.

The game was a lost cause, but I wasn't yet willing to put the cards away. In case someone else came into the room, it would look like we were busy with something innocent.

I didn't know how to start this conversation. It felt like a terrible business meeting, but with an aching kind of anticipation attached to it.

Micah spoke, though his voice was quakey and quiet: "How do we do it?" I wanted to hold back and see what they thought, let them take the lead, but no one spoke for several long seconds.

"You could come to my place," I mumbled, just hoping to put something out there. They looked at me as if I'd said something completely irrelevant. They were probably addressing how incestuous it probably felt, talking about this together. I would have to take some time to choose which one I wanted to sleep with, probably more time than I was willing to spend in here. However, that was only given if they weren't willing to do it together. If they didn't want me to have to choose, they could do whatever they wanted. The fact that they were openly talking about it here gave me the idea that they might not necessarily be opposed to my idea.