Chapter 23

It took three long days before Eva could keep food in her stomach. The worst was over as her drug dependency began to fade and her body slowly remembered how to function without heroin. She hadn't slept very much, only fitfully and for brief periods. Most often Eva would curl up beneath the heavy blankets Wolfgang covered her with, shivering and cursing the man with every breath she took. Sometimes she became violent, trying to hurt herself or her brother, and Wolfgang would have to wrestle with the girl. During the worst of it, he would bind her hands and feet until the episode passed.

He never left her, not once, and Wolfgang would hold Eva close and try to soothe the pain. He fed her and bathed her, suffered her insane abuse. By the end of it they were both exhausted. Eva ate a little soup, a few sections of orange, and slept for twenty hours straight. She awoke hungry, confused and frightened, but her eyes were clear and her mind coherent. She had a lot of questions and Wolfgang answered the girl patiently and always with the truth.

"I would like to take a bath," Eva said, leaning over the back of the sofa and putting her arms around Wolfgang's neck.

"And so?" He turned his face upward from an old copy of Der Spiegel that had come with the flat, giving his sister a smile.

"I want you to do it for me," Eva sighed, putting her chin on his shoulder.

"You're not feeling well?"

"I like it when you bathe me," she said. "Please?"

"Eva." Wolfgang shook his head, but after two weeks he had to admit that he enjoyed their growing intimacy as well.

"Don't be frightened," she teased him with a soft giggle. "It's only a bath."

It was much more than a bath, as they both well knew. Despite having the same father, Wolfgang and Eva were strangers and regardless of what they knew to be correct, they shared more than just blood. The attraction had begun in secret, with small looks and shy smiles not shared, but stolen when the other wasn't watching. When one of them was caught, the other would pretend not to notice and this only served to embolden the siblings more.

Wolfgang had bathed Eva while she'd recovered from her addiction; likewise they'd shared the same bed, the only bed in the small Frankfurt flat that he'd rented a year before. Neither were habits they would willingly break, although Wolfgang did try. He'd suggested that he could sleep on the sofa, now that Eva was feeling better, and he'd done precisely that for one night. The next morning Eva had complained bitterly. She couldn't sleep alone. She was afraid of the dark. She had nightmares, the girl said, and the next night Wolfgang held her close while Eva slept peacefully beside him.

"Are they gone?" Eva asked, looking over her shoulder and into the mirror.

"Almost," Wolfgang said, but he could still see the scars on his sister's back and not all of them were from the night he'd found her. Some were older, long faded and noticeable only if he examined her carefully.

"Yes," she nodded. "They look nice, I think. Do you like them?"

"No." Wolfgang sat on the floor of the small bathroom, holding his hand under the tub's faucet as it filled with water. He was still dressed in a brown sweater and dark trousers.

Eva had been undressing slowly, holding her t-shirt on her arms, but already removed from her head and body. It covered her petite breasts as she stood there in a pair of old jeans. She'd regained some weight, but even so the girl was naturally thin. She'd taken to exercising with Wolfgang, running with him through the streets of Frankfurt as the sun rose in the morning. Eva surprised him with her stamina and hidden strength, but it had only been a few weeks and so she tired quickly. After only five or six kilometers they would usually just walk together for an hour or so, speaking quietly about their lives.

Now Wolfgang could see the fresh air and exercise beginning to pay off. Her skin was still pale, but unlike her previous sickly pallor, this was Eva's natural skin tone and she seemed almost radiant to him. Her muscles were becoming pronounced with use and rather than skinny, she was becoming lean, and in that way they were similar and much like their father had been in his youth and well into middle-age. It was in their genes to be athletic in form, just as it was to be coldly analytical perhaps, and less inclined to demonstrate emotion than act upon it. That was his gift to them, or so Wolfgang imagined, and it had not been coincidence that they'd both joined the police, again like their father who had worked for the East German State Security Police.

"I want you to like me," Eva said, turning around to face her brother as she let her t-shirt go.

"Of course I like you," he said, looking up at her with amusement. They'd had this sort of talk before.

"All of me?" Eva wondered with a smile of her own. "Even my scars?"

"You're lucky," Wolfgang turned away from her blue eyes. "The water is hot tonight."

"Hmph." Eva pursed her lips and unsnapped her jeans, pushing the denim down her narrow hips. She wore no panties and Wolfgang pretended not to look as her sex came into view. It was small and deep between her thighs with a tangle of light blonde hair to hide her pink vulva.

"I should shave, I think. Would you like me better?" She bit her lip and pulled at her pubis with her fingers, pressing her palm against her flat tummy.

"There's a razor in the medicine cabinet," Wolfgang told her, taking the excuse to turn his head and that made Eva smile. She wanted him to look at her.

"Will you do it for me?" she asked him.

"You've never shaved before?" Wolfgang drew a small breath as he looked at her.

"I have," Eva shrugged, "but I want to be spoiled. Please?"

"Perhaps I should, uh..." he glanced at the door.

"I know you want to protect me." Eva turned, opening the medicine cabinet to find the disposable razors and shaving cream.

"You're my sister," he said. "And I wish you weren't."

She took a deep breath. "I know."

Eva turned around, handing a razor and metal can to Wolfgang before stepping past him, into the tub. The water was hot and she gasped and giggled, making a child-like pout as she sat down slowly with her back to the opposite end, facing her brother. The water did not rise to cover her nipples, but almost, and Wolfgang looked at them. Eva's breasts were mere handfuls, like a young girl might possess, and topped with dark, thick nipples. They were hard every time he saw them and he could imagine how they would feel, stiff beneath his fingers and tongue.

She watched him, leaning against the porcelain and bringing her hands up her taut belly to cup her tits. Eva squeezed the thin mounds of flesh and rubbed her thumbs over her nipples, staring at Wolfgang's face, watching his soft brown eyes drink her in. She was not beautiful, not even particularly attractive, the girl thought. She had to regain her weight and build up her strength. She wasn't proud of her body and with anyone else she might have been shy, even ashamed of her appearance, but not with him.

"Touch me," Eva whispered and it was so quiet in that tiny room. Her voice seemed to echo off the cracked and peeling walls.

The fluorescent light was harsh, bathing them in sickly light, and the tiled floor was mottled and stained like the tub Eva sat in. There was nothing pleasant to Wolfgang's senses but his sister and his heart swelled as he put his hand in the water, finding her right leg and following it upward. She was open and vulnerable, breathing heavily through her nose as she stared at his face. When his fingers found her sex, Eva gasped softly and closed her eyes. Her thin lips were parted and Wolfgang watched the tip of the girl's tongue as it moved between them.

"I'm sorry," Wolfgang whispered, leaning across the tub to find her mouth with his.

His finger entered Eva's sex, splitting her thin labia, and he cupped her vulva in his hand, holding the girl while they kissed. It was inevitable perhaps, a mistake or a joke that the one woman Wolfgang could love had turned out to be the one person he shouldn't. He'd known other girls, dated them and made love, but there had never been a need to be with any of them. Never an ache, a physical pain that he could feel inside his gut when he watched her do the most ordinary things. His sister was a part of him, the best part, Wolfgang imagined. Eva was that which made him whole.

"Umphhh..." Eva groaned softly into Wolfgang's mouth, lifting her hips against the pressure of his tender exploration and drawing the man's tongue deeper between her lips.

The seduction was hers, as if her dependence had moved from drugs to Wolfgang. She needed him now. The anger and confusion had given way beneath his patient explanations to be replaced with trust and love. She'd worshipped their father as a child and missed him terribly when his visits had ceased without warning. Now she had him again in the form of the man who had saved her, the only person who would care for her. How could she not fall in love with him? Wolfgang was the man she'd dreamt of, the man she'd spent her life looking for and tonight she had him, finally and completely.

"I love you," Eva told him, holding Wolfgang's face in her hands, searching his eyes with hers.