Chapter 2

Lilith slept like a baby that night, but the consequences of her actions caught up with her the next morning. She stared in the mirror at the field of aggressive red-purple blotches covering one side of her neck. Tilting her head, she tentatively brushed her fingertips over it; thankfully, it didn’t hurt like real bruising would.

Love bites. That’s what they call these. She grinned and felt a little twinge of pride at the idea that Sam had done this to her. But then her stomach sank as the practical implications hit her: Annette’s reaction, and Allie’s, and... Oh balls. Emmie’s gonna have a field day with this.

This was fake-sickness-and-stay-home levels of bad, but she’d done that last week already, and she didn’t want to lose plausible deniability. Think, idiot. Her hair covered most of it, in shadow at least, but that alone wasn’t gonna cut it. Lilith didn’t own concealer, and asking Allie for it defeated the point ... So, Lilith scrambled to empty her whole wardrobe, piling clothes onto her bed: surely, in the depths of her sweater drawer, there had to be at least one turtleneck...?

“Oh my gosh, Lills! You look so cute! I love it!” Allie circled her, beaming like she’d been waiting years for a moment like this. “You look adorable. Like, not that your usual outfits are bad, but it’s always the same thing, y’know? This is good!”

“... Thanks,” Lilith mumbled. She’d opted for a black turtleneck with denim overalls over top.

Annette only raised an eyebrow and turned back to her newspaper, which was its own kind of commentary.

Lilith could care less about fashion. She cared about being comfy—and, on this particular day, about utilitarian full-body coverage. The fact that this outfit was accidentally inspired enough that it suggested a sudden foray into Giving A Shit really made the entire thing pointless.

Allie was still talking. “We should go shopping together soon! You could get more overalls! How about short ones, and pastel ones, and...” From there, her half-sis launched into an anthology of mall-related anecdotes, mainly about how the store assistants were always mean and fatphobic to her best friend Cassie.

She only got halfway through the story before Sam started honking and blasting obnoxiously loud, trashy hardcore music in his truck. Which was code for hurry up or you’re walking, freak. So Lilith excused herself, and scrambled to collect her backpack, and the bomber jacket that’d been Sam’s until she’d claimed it a year ago.

“What’re you, Super Mario?” Samuel grumbled, when she climbed into the shotgun seat.

She did not dignify that with a response, she just peeled back the neck of her sweater and showed him the giant hickey.

“Fuck, never mind,” he said. “Please tell me you don’t have gym today.”

“No. Friday,” she said. “I’ll skip it.”

“Hmpf.”

That was the extent of their conversation. They weren’t morning people. That was probably why Allie preferred to ride with her mom.

Or maybe it was the smoke. As per usual, Sam was hotboxing the truck with his morning cigarette behind the wheel. Lilith cracked her window, and Sam closed it from his side; she opened it again, and he closed it again, but in the end Lilith always won the window-button war as soon as Sam actually had to focus on the road.

This was such a familiar ritual, some of the anxiety in Lilith’s gut settled. She took control of the Spotify queue to put her own playlist on, and Sam didn’t protest the lyrics of Don’t Stand So Close to Me by The Police, which had to be a good sign.

Lilith spent most of AP English on her phone under her desk, searching things like “is dry humping incest,” “siblings experimenting normal,” and “siblings experimenting reddit”, following by “how to give good head wikihow”. When someone passed her by, she locked her phone quickly.

Emmie and her cronies made fun of her outfit, of course, but it was half-hearted enough that Lilith suspected they actually thought it was an improvement over her usual fare of hand-me-down Cosby sweaters. Still, Lilith almost smiled when one of Julia’s epic zingers was about erotic asphyxiation, of all things.

That night, after dinner, Lilith followed Sam up the attic stairs. “ ... Where d’you think you’re going, freak?” he demanded.

“Why don’t we um, hang out?” she tried.

He just raised an eyebrow. “‘Hang out’?”

“What else would you call it?”

“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just—we don’t hang out.”

“Well, maybe we should.”

“We don’t have to make this a thing, Lilith.”

“I’m not making it a thing. I’m bored.”

Sam looked at her for a long moment, then seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the fight; he turned and continued up the stairs without another word.

His attic smelled like it always did: stale weed, boy-deodorant, and the particular mustiness of a space Annette had long since given up on ever cleaning. Lilith settled cross-legged on his bed while Sam sat at his desk and began the practiced ritual of rolling a joint, licking it closed, and lighting it with one of those torch lighters.

Lilith pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, and watched him smoke for a while.

After a few minutes, he rolled over to her on his swivel chair and held the joint out to her. “Smoke,” he said.

Lilith blinked. “Huh?”

“You wanted to hang out. This is what hanging out looks like.”

She took it, tried to look sultry and casual as she inhaled, but sadly the result was a coughing fit violent enough that she doubled over.

“Two more,” he said, when she tried to hand it back.

“Blegh. You’re, like, hazing me.”

“Two more, Lilly.”

So she did. The second time, she barely coughed; the third time, she didn’t at all. Only then did he take it back. At first, it didn’t feel like anything except a burn in her chest and a nasty flavor in her mouth. He handed her a Coke.

Within minutes the ceiling looked interesting, the popcorn texture full of patterns she’d never noticed, and her body felt like it had been microwaved in a good way, heavy and warm and buzzing.

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked, from what sounded like very far away.

“Like a warm blanket. Who just came from the dryer,” she told the ceiling.

She heard him snort. Then the mattress dipped as he lay down next to her. Not touching. Just ... next to her.

Lilith turned her head. He was on his back too, one arm behind his head, staring at the same ceiling. This close, she could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his throat moved when he swallowed. Her fingertips tingled.

“Sam.”

“No.”

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“You were about to say something horny. I can tell by your breathing.”

She held her breath for a moment, then huffed. He wasn’t wrong, but still. “ ... I was gonna say ... last night was really nice.”

“It wasn’t nice. Don’t call it nice. It was messed up.”

“... It can be both.” He didn’t respond. Lilith counted seven of his breaths before she spoke again: “D’you regret it?”

“I don’t know. Ask me when I’m sober.”

“But you’re always high.”

“Then I guess you’ll never know.”

Lilith rolled her eyes, and turned over to face him. The weed made her feel bold in a different way than last night’s adrenaline had—less frantic, more dissociated, like it was a simulation and nothing mattered. “Well, I don’t regret it,” she declared. “Not even a little. For the record. And I would let you go much, much further, if you wanted.”

Sam turned to look at her. “Yeah, that worries me.”

“What, that I’m a degenerate?”

“That you liked it too much. That you wanna do it again. That you’re here right now instead of in your room, because you think if you just ... keep showing up...” He trailed off with a grimace.

“Keep showing up and what?”

He scowled. “You know what.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it, Sammy.”

“That I’ll fuck you, Lilith. That’s what you want, right? You think if you just keep being here and being available, I’ll eventually cave.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “ ... I mean. Is it working?”

“Shut the fuck up.” He sat up abruptly, swinging his legs off the bed, his back to her.

Lilith stayed where she was. The weed kept her from panicking the way she normally would at his tone. Instead, she just watched the tension in his shoulders, the way he rubbed the back of his neck. The stray hair on his hoodie.

“It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me,” she soldiered on. “I just ... it felt good. Being close to you. Not even the, y’know, the stuff. But just ... being just a bit too close, like how we used to be. I-I liked that, and, erm, I missed it.” She sighed. “But we don’t have to, if you’re just gonna crash out about it.”

He didn’t turn around, but his hand stilled on his neck. Then he exhaled, long and slow, and swiveled to face her. “ ... Move over,” he went.

She scooted. He lay back down beside her, closer than before. His arm found its way around her waist and pulled her in. She went willingly, pressing her face into the warm crook of his neck, one hand fisting the fabric of his t-shirt. She felt an excited flutter in her chest, followed by a feeling of deep relief, like stretching out in your bed after a tiring day.

For a few minutes, that was all it was. Just cuddling, holding each other like that. Lilith breathed him in and felt the THC-loosened knot in her chest unknot even further.

Then his hand slid under her turtleneck, palm flat against the small of her back, and she shivered and felt her pussy react as his thumb traced slow circles on her skin.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” he lied to himself.

“Gotcha.” She smiled.

“I’m serious.”

“Sure, Sam. Okay.”

His hand drifted higher, fingertips tracing up her spine, one vertebra at a time. Lilith pressed closer, her breath shallow against his throat. When he reached the clasp of her bra, he paused—and she could feel the hesitation. She solved his problem by reaching behind herself and unclasping it for him.

He exhaled. His hand came around to her front, sliding up over her ribs to cup her tits, and Lilith’s shivered, her eyes fluttering shut at the warmth of his palm on her bare skin. He wasn’t rough, this time. Not pinching or pulling. Just ... holding them.

Her hips shifted, an involuntary little grind against him that she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to. “Mm,” she went.

“Don’t start,” he warned.

“... Sorry. That was involuntary.”

“Uh-huh.”

But he didn’t stop either, his hand still palming her, his breathing going a bit heavier. She tilted her face up and kissed his jaw, very lightly. He turned into it, and then his mouth was on hers.

This time it was Lilith who deepened it, opening her mouth to him, one hand sliding into his hair. He groaned into the kiss and his grip on her tightened, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her tit.

Her hips ground forward again, harder this time, distinctly not involuntary.

“Ugh,” Sam groaned; half protest, half pleasure. “You’re nuts.”

“It’s fine,” she promised, and hooked a leg over his hip. She climbed on top of him, grinding down “by accident” as she settled her weight. She could feel his hardness against her.

She began to rock, her loose hair falling around them like a curtain. Sam’s hands came to rest on her hips, and for a moment she was afraid he’d push her off. Instead, his fingers curled into the denim of her overalls and he pulled her down against him, guiding her rhythm.

They’d done this last night in a frantic and jagged fashion, with Sam in charge, but this was different. Quiet, controlled, the weed slowing everything down and filtering everything out until the universe was just the two of them pressed against each other, finding each other again. The only sounds were their breathing and the occasional creak of the mattress, or muffled whimper from the back of Lilith’s throat.

“God, ” Sam breathed, his head tipping back. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Mhm,” Lilith agreed, breathless, rolling her hips in a slow figure-eight that had both of them shuddering. His hands slid up from her hips to unclasp her overalls, push up her turtleneck, and expose her bare stomach and tits.

His expression when he looked at her—gosh, she could maybe cum from just that. Lilith genuinely felt like a goddess right in that moment, as she braced her hands on his chest and arched her back, chasing the angle that pressed him right against her clit through all the stupid layers of fabric.

“C’mere,” he said, pulling her down by her neck, and she folded against him, mouth finding his, her small tits pressed flat to his chest as they moved together.

When she came, it was with her face buried in his neck, biting down on his shoulder to muffle the drawn-out, shaky moan she couldn’t hold back. Her hips stuttered and jerked through it, and Sam held her tight, one hand gripping her hair, the other splayed across her lower back, pressing her flush against him while she trembled.

She lay there panting for a moment, then reached down between them. He caught her wrist. “You don’t have to,” he said.

“Shut up.” She wriggled her hand free and palmed him through his sweatpants, feeling him throb against her fingers. She stroked him like that, through the fabric, firm and steady, her forehead resting against his looking into his grey eyes, the ones she had too. His breathing went ragged. She kissed his open mouth, messy and graceless, and a moment later he came with a low grunt, his stomach clenching under her.

They didn’t speak for a long time.

Eventually, Lilith wormed her way under his arm and pressed herself against his side, her cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat decelerate. He didn’t push her away. His fingers found her hair, idly combing through the tangles in a way that made her scalp tingle.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he murmured again.

“Mhm.” She closed her eyes. “I’m good with whatever, Sammy.” They fell asleep spooning in his bed that night.

This became their routine for the next few days. She was still a virgin on paper, but spiritually, Lilith felt like she got deflowered five times over that week. In just a few days, she’d kissed a boy for the first time, made out with tongue, and climaxed by someone else’s hand—the incest aspect notwithstanding, all of that was huge!