Chapter 3: Summer Interrupted

Mason sat on the edge of his bed in the room down the hall and listened to his mother and his aunt talk.

He couldn’t make out words. Just the murmur of voices through the walls, rising and falling in patterns he tried to make out. Val’s voice was low and steady, the way it always was when she was in control of something. Lisa’s was higher, tighter, cutting in with sharp bursts that he recognized as the voice she used when she was arguing.

He’d pulled on shorts and a t-shirt and was sitting there with his hands on his knees like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office. His hair was still messed up from sex, and he could still smell Val on his skin.

He replayed the last ten minutes in his head. His mother’s face in the doorway. The way her eyes tracked down his body. The way she stared at where he and Val were joined. The way her lips parted and her throat moved when she swallowed.

She hadn’t looked disgusted. That was the thing he kept coming back to. Shocked, yes. Confused, absolutely. But underneath all of that, in the half-second before she turned away, there was something else on her face. Something that looked a lot like hunger.

He was losing his mind. That had to be it. The summer with Val had broken something in his brain, and now he was projecting. Seeing what he wanted to see.

What he wanted to see? Did he want that?

Twenty minutes passed. Thirty. The voices continued, sometimes dropping so low he couldn’t hear anything at all, sometimes rising enough that fragments reached him. Once he heard Lisa say “you always,” the rest was lost. Once he heard Val laugh.

Then silence.

He grabbed his headset off the nightstand and pulled it on and picked up the controller and loaded up whatever game was in the queue. He didn’t care what it was. He needed noise in his head that wasn’t his own thoughts. The screen lit up, and he started playing, fingers moving on autopilot, shooting at things or driving things or whatever the fuck the objective was. He wasn’t tracking it. He was just letting the sounds fill up the space in his skull where the image of his mother’s face kept trying to live.

It didn’t really work. But it was better than sitting in silence listening to his aunt and his mother discuss the fact that he’d been balls deep in one of them for the better part of a summer.

In the kitchen, Lisa was on her second bourbon.

Valerie walked in wearing Mason’s t-shirt and nothing else. It hit her mid-thigh, and she hadn’t bothered to clean up, and Lisa could see the wet shine on her inner thighs and knew what it was. Her son’s cum, still leaking out of her sister. She took another swig of the drink.

Her hand was shaking slightly, and she set the glass down hard. “He’s my son.”

“I know whose son he is.”

“He’s your nephew, Val.”

“I know who he is.”

“He’s just twenty-one.”

“He’s a grown man.”

“He’s a boy.”

“He’s not.” Val’s voice was quiet but certain. “He hasn’t been a boy since he got here. Maybe since before that. You just can’t see it because you still need him to be one.”

Lisa’s jaw tightened. She picked up her glass and took another drink, and her eyes went to the window over the sink, to the darkness outside, to anything that wasn’t her sister standing there half-naked and smelling like her son.

“How did it start?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters to me.”

“Well, I walked on him in the morning with a boner and asked if I could help.”

“You seduced him.”

“I gave him an opening. He walked through it.”

“He didn’t know what he was walking into.”

“He’s not stupid, Lisa. And he’s not fragile. You raised him stronger than you think, even if you spent twenty years trying to keep him in a box.” Val moved closer, one step, two, and her voice dropped. “The same box you put yourself in.”

Lisa’s eyes snapped to hers. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t say the thing we’ve both been avoiding for twenty years?”

“That was different. We were...”

“What? Young? Confused? Experimenting?” Each word was a small blade, and Val placed them precisely. “Is that what you tell yourself? Because that’s not what it was, and you know it.”

Lisa’s breathing had changed. Shallower. Faster. The flush was back on her neck, creeping up like a tide. “That was a lifetime ago.”

Silence. Lisa tried to rationalize again.

“Do you know what this could do? To him? To this family? If anyone found out...”

“Nobody’s going to find out.” Val leaned against the chair and crossed her arms.

“Unless you tell them.”

“I’m not putting anything on you. I’m pointing out that the only person who’s a threat to this situation is the one standing in my kitchen acting like she didn’t just watch her son fuck me and get wet doing it.”

The silence that followed was loud.

Lisa’s jaw tightened. Her nostrils flared. She looked away, looked at the window, looked at the dark ocean beyond it, looked anywhere except at Val.

“That’s not what happened.”

“Lisa.” Val’s voice dropped. Softer now but still with that edge of authority she’d always carried, even as the younger sister, even when they were kids and Lisa was supposed to be the one in charge. “I saw your face. I saw where your eyes went. You looked at his cock and you couldn’t stop looking.”

“Stop.”

“You pressed your thighs together. I watched you do it.”

“I said stop.”

“And then you stood there and listened to us finish. You could have left. You could have walked out the front door and driven away and called me tomorrow to scream at me over the phone. But you didn’t. You went to the kitchen and poured a drink and stood here and listened to your son make me come.”

Lisa’s hand was shaking. The bourbon trembled in the glass. Her eyes were bright and her breathing was shallow, and the flush that had started on her neck in the doorway had spread down to her chest, visible above the collar of her blouse.

“Why did you stay, Lisa?”

“Because someone has to be the adult here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Someone has to...”

“Bullshit, Lisa.” Val pushed off the counter and walked toward her sister. Slow and deliberate. “You stayed because you wanted to hear it. Because you’ve been thinking about it. Maybe not him specifically, maybe not this exactly, but something. Something you’ve been starving for. I can see it on you. I’ve always been able to see it on you.”

She was close now. Close enough that Lisa could smell her. That same Val smell—but with the clear, freshly fucked sex smell...

“When’s the last time someone fucked you, Lisa? And I don’t mean that marriage sex you have with Richard. When’s the last time someone actually fucked you? Made you scream? Made you come so hard you couldn’t remember your own name?”

Lisa’s lips were pressed together, and her chin was doing that trembling thing it used to do when they were teenagers and Val pushed her too far and Lisa was trying so hard not to break.

“You don’t know anything about my marriage.”

“I know you. That’s enough.” Val reached out and took the bourbon glass from Lisa’s hand and set it on the counter behind her. Lisa didn’t resist. “I know you spent your whole life being good. Being perfect. Being the daughter they wanted and the wife Richard needed and the mother Mason deserved. And I know what that costs. I know because I watched you pay it, year after year, and I watched you disappear inside that cage...”

“Val...”

“When’s the last time you wanted something just for yourself? Not for the family. Not for appearances. Just for you?”

“This isn’t about what I want. This is about our son ... my son ... doing something...”

“Something that makes him happy. Something that woke him up. He’s not the same kid who showed up here in June, Lisa. He’s confident. He’s present. He looks me in the eye when he talks. When’s the last time he looked you in the eye?”

That landed. Lisa flinched like she’d been slapped.

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair. Fair doesn’t exist. There’s only what’s real.” Val was inches from her now. She could feel Lisa’s breath on her face, warm and scented with bourbon. “And what’s real is that you’re standing in my kitchen shaking, and it’s not from anger.”

Lisa looked at her then. Really looked at her, maybe for the first time in years without the filters and the defenses and the practiced composure. Her eyes dropped to Val’s mouth, just for a second, and Val caught it.

“Tell me to stop,” Val whispered. “Say the word, and I’ll stop, and we’ll sit down and talk about this like civilized people and figure out boundaries and rules and all those things that make you feel safe. Just say stop.”

Lisa didn’t say stop.

Her mouth opened and nothing came out, and her eyes were searching Val’s face for something and just remembering the time with her sister. A long long time ago.

Val closed the gap.

The kiss was soft at first. Just a press of lips, tentative, testing. Lisa made a sound against her mouth, this broken little exhale, and her hand came up and gripped the front of Mason’s t-shirt that Val was wearing. Val tilted her head, and her tongue traced Lisa’s lower lip. Lisa’s lips were initially closed, but she opened them just enough to allow Val’s tongue to enter her mouth.

They kissed in the kitchen. Tentatively, then passionately. Sisters who were catching up with the time they had spent apart. Val’s hands found Lisa’s waist and pulled her closer, and Lisa’s fingers let go of the t-shirt and slid up into Val’s hair and gripped it, and the kiss turned desperate.

When they broke apart, Lisa was breathing hard, and her lipstick was smudged and her eyes were wide and glassy.

“Val ... we can’t...”

“We already are.” Val took her hand. “Come with me.”

She led Lisa out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Toward her bedroom. Past Mason’s door, which was closed. Lisa’s eyes went to his door as they passed, and her steps faltered for just a second before Val squeezed her hand and kept walking.

Val’s bedroom was the same as Lisa remembered. Val didn’t turn on a light. She closed the door but not all the way, left it ajar an inch or two, and turned to Lisa and kissed her again.

Lisa didn’t hesitate this time. She kissed her sister back. Val backed Lisa against the bedroom wall, and pressed her full body against her sister and kissed her like she was trying to consume her. Lisa made a sound against her mouth, and her hands came up to Val’s face and held it while they kissed, deep and searching, tongues sliding together.

“God,” Lisa gasped when they broke for air. “You still kiss like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to ruin me.”

“Maybe I am.” Val kissed her again, softer this time, just lips, and then nipped Lisa’s bottom lip between her teeth and pulled gently, and Lisa whimpered. “Maybe I’ve been wanting to ruin you for twenty years, and you finally showed up. Like really showed up.”

“I didn’t show up for this.”

“And yet.” Val’s thigh pressed between Lisa’s legs, and Lisa’s breath caught, and her hips rocked against it involuntarily. Just once, but they both felt it. “Here you are. Wet and grinding on your little sister’s thigh.”

“I’m not...”

“You are, Lis.” Val pressed her thigh harder, and Lisa’s eyes blinked. “You’re soaked. I can feel it through your slacks.”

Lisa grabbed the back of Val’s neck and pulled her into another kiss, fierce and messy, teeth clashing, both of them breathing hard through their noses, and Val’s hands went to the buttons of Lisa’s blouse. She fumbled the first two because Lisa kept kissing her, and she couldn’t focus, couldn’t see, just fingers working blind while her sister’s tongue slid against hers.

She got the blouse open and pushed it off Lisa’s shoulders without breaking the kiss. Then her hands went to the bra clasp, and she got it on the first try because some things your hands remember even after twenty years, and the bra fell between them, and Val’s palms found Lisa’s bare breasts, and Lisa moaned into her mouth. Full and heavy and warm, her nipples are already hard points pressing into Val’s palms.

“Your tits,” Val breathed against Lisa’s lips. “Jesus, Lisa. They’re even better than I remember.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” She squeezed gently, lifting them, thumbing the nipples. “You always had the best tits in the family. I don’t know why you hide them. It’s a crime against humanity.”

Lisa laughed. An actual laugh, breathless and real, and the sound of it made something warm bloom in Val’s chest because that laugh was the Lisa she remembered, the Lisa from before the marriage and the respectability and the walls.

“Come here,” Val said, and pulled her away from the wall and walked her backward toward the bed, kissing her the whole way, peeling off her slacks as they went. Lisa stepped out of them and stood there in just her underwear, these practical white cotton things that Val looked at with affection and exasperation.

“Of course,” Val said.

“What?”

“Sensible panties. Even your underwear follows the rules.” She hooked her fingers in the waistband and tugged them down, and Lisa stepped out of them and was naked, And Val just looked at her.

Lisa shifted her weight. Crossed her arms over her stomach. “Don’t stare at me like that. I’m not twenty anymore.”

“No. You’re better.” Val reached out and gently pulled Lisa’s arms away from her body. “Stop hiding. You’re gorgeous.”

She was. Different from Val but beautiful in the way that soft things are beautiful, in the way that bodies are beautiful when they’ve been lived in. Wider hips, fuller thighs, a belly that wasn’t flat but had this gentle feminine swell to it, and between her legs she was shaved, and Val could see the shine of wetness on her inner thighs.

“You’re wet,” Val said simply. “Very wet.”

Lisa didn’t deny it this time. Just stood there, naked and exposed and trembling, and Val pulled Mason’s t-shirt over her own head, and they were both nude, and she pulled Lisa down onto the bed and rolled on top of her and kissed her.

They made out like teenagers. That was the only way to describe it. Long, slow, deep kissing that went on and on, Val’s body pressed against Lisa’s, their legs tangling, their breasts pushed together, hands roaming. Lisa’s fingers traced down Val’s spine and gripped her ass, and they pulled their hips together, and they rocked against each other, grinding slowly, and Lisa was making these soft continuous sounds against Val’s mouth, little mmms and ahhs that vibrated between them.