SISTERLY

"You're staring." She said quietly. Her husband had slipped out of the room. He was taking a shit probably. He did that a lot.

"No I wasn't," I denied passively. I was. I always stared at her. I am fucked up that way. Jesus, she looked good.

"It's okay. I miss it." She was so beautiful. She was 36 but looked ten years younger. She wore her hair short now. She almost looked Asian. It was so black that in the light it almost glowed violet. I was sure she colored it. I didn't mind. Her eyes were such a deep brown that they too looked black, especially late at night in the blue glow of the television. Her husband returned and we both went silent. He didn't like when people talked during the movie. It was hard for us. My sister and I always talked during movies.

The patio door was at a good angle across the room. I could stare all I wanted. She knew. Sometimes she would look back at me through the reflection. He had no idea. Why would he? He would never suspect. I was just her little brother. I had left my wife. I had returned from duty and wanted to surprise her. I surprised her, that was for sure. I surprised the banker/lawyer/suit wearing dude too. I didn't say much. I just closed the door to our little house and backed away. It had always been her house; it wasn't much of a loss. I wouldn't have to pay alimony. She made more than I did anyway. I went to my sister's house and cried on her shoulder. She told me to stay.

He was snoring. I had only been there a week. Each night he would choose a movie. He never really considered what we might want to watch. I couldn't complain. I was just crashing there anyway. He always fell to sleep on the couch. When he went to sleep Susan would move to the loveseat. She sat sideways across it. Her legs extended out over the arm. She had such perfect legs. They weren't really tan, just her natural almond. I didn't want to look but I did. I was glad I had the patio door.

As the ending credits rolled she turned off the TV. He always woke when she turned it off. He stood up and bade us good night. Susan never slept. She had been that way as long as I knew her. When I was just a boy I would lay in bed waiting for the house to go silent. When it did I would wait to hear her bedroom door. She would go to the kitchen. I would follow her and we would eat cookies and milk, or ice cream, or meatloaf. I never knew what she would make but I always ate it.

When he went to bed I went to bed. It was just like before. I lay there listing to the silence and waiting to hear it. I could hear the refrigerator door from the guest room. I wondered if she was making ice cream. I hadn't gotten up with her since I had come to stay. When we were kids our late night rendezvous would mean snacks. When we were both in college and would come home for the summer it all changed. I wasn't going to go out there because I didn't know what would happen. I didn't know what I wanted to happen.

I rolled over in the large bed. Their guest room had the nicest bed I had ever slept in. My wife and I, well, we had gone cheap. The ship, I think you can imagine what the beds were like on it. I felt guilty sleeping in a bed this nice. I didn't deserve it. I pulled the thick blankets and soft sheets to my chin and thought about her lying across the loveseat in the little black cotton sleep shirt. It was more of a cotton negligee. I think it was called a chemise. She wore the same type of thing every night. The colors would change. One was black with white trim. One was pink with purple. The side of her breast was visible. I could make out precisely where her nipples were by the way they pressed out against the thin cloth. I didn't want to look but I did. I watched her for hours in the dark glass of the patio door.

I didn't sleep well.

I was always the first one awake. It was habit. I would sneak into the kitchen and steal something to eat. Her husband loved protein bars and whatnot and I could always find one. Their coffee pot magically turned on each morning so I could have a cup of coffee back in the guest room. I read the news on my phone. I didn't want to be a bother. When I heard his car pull out of the garage I would wander out. She would be sitting at their dinette table eating special oatmeal. She would have her exercise clothes on. I never understood the appeal. At sea the other officers would always sit around talking about yoga pants and how much they liked women in them. I always considered them cheating and I hated sports bras and how they mashed and contorted women's breasts. I preferred them loose, moving freely beneath soft cotton. The image of Susan walking across the room at night wearing only the thin cotton, her breasts swaying gently came to mind. I remembered how it happened. I was 19, she was 23, she had a joint and I used my ID to buy beer and we went out to the lake. She hadn't worn a bra and she caught me staring. I am a sick fuck. Her hair was long then.

I would go running while she worked out. After my run I would find something to do. Today's task was to visit the attorney. My wife had found him. He was doing the papers for only $250.00. She was paying for it. After the attorney I went to the movies. There was a new animated movie out. You know what I miss most when we are at sea? I miss cartoons. I figured I could get some DVD's or put some on my computer but I didn't want to take the amount of shit I would take so while I was home I went to the movies. I always felt funny. I was a single man going to a kid's movie. I know I am a dirty pervert, but I am a dirty pervert in an entirely different way.

When I got back to their house she was in the kitchen. She was cooking. I sat at the dinette. WE talked about the ports I had been to. Susan had only left Texas twice in her life, once to go to New Orleans and once to go to LA. She liked to hear about Dubai and the Mediterranean and Australia. I liked to tell her about them.

"You're staring." She said to me again.

"I'm watching you cook. You are really good with a knife."

"Liar." She kept chopping.

"I'll stop."

"Don't on my account."

"Jesus, Suz!" I said under my breath.

"Remember how we..."

"Stop."

"What? Remember how we used to sneak dessert."

"That's not what you were going to say."

"No it wasn't," she admitted. She never looked up. She just kept chopping and dumping carrots and onions and celery in a pot. We were silent for a good long time as she got the vegetables to sautéing and then she pulled a bottle of wine out of a secret cupboard somewhere. She poured two glasses. I had come to appreciate wine when we had spent a year cruising back and forth from two different ports in Australia chasing off boats full of refugees. We hated that tour but it meant lots of shore leave and we drank a lot. She handed me a glass and stood stirring the pot. It smelled of warm butter and her breasts swayed back and forth as she stirred. Her thighs flexed with each motion counter balancing her lean frame and I was growing hungry for something other than Coq au vin.

"Truth gun." She said simply.

Truth gun was more than a game; it was how we got through the hard times. When dad went to jail, when mom had married the thug, when we were scared or lonely or hiding a secret one of us would call truth gun. You had a gun to your head that meant you couldn't lie. It meant you had to answer. As kids we had to hold our hands over our head. We didn't have to do that anymore, it made it easier to drink.

"How long has it been?" She asked.

It would be against the rules to pretend I didn't know what she was talking about. "A while." I said.

"Truth gun." She reminded me. "How long was your last... What do you call it? Cruise?"

"11 months, one week, one day."

"And before that you were in Europe for how long?"

"Three weeks."

"And last week when you showed up, you didn't even get a quickie, you just walked in on them."

"Basically."

"So over a year." She estimated accurately.

"Yes."

"You are a navy man, with that sweet white uniform. You don't have a lady in every port?"

"Ha!"

"Why not."

"I was married."

"You were never that married."

"I was."

"I never liked Nathalie."

"I know you didn't"

"I think she always cheated on you."

"I know."

"You know that she cheated or you know that I thought she cheated."

I thought of the gun and answered truthfully. "Both."

"Why'd you stay?"

"She has great tits."

"Ugh. Seriously."

"I was serious. She had absolutely perfect natural tits. It's kind of my thing."

"I can tell," she teased back. I thought it was best I kept us on track.

"I didn't stay. I took another tour."

"I thought you had to."

"Not at this point. I could have stayed. I could get stationed stateside any time I wanted."

"But you were running from her."

"I don't think it was running. I liked it."

"Are you glad to get a divorce?"

"No."

We were quiet a good long time. She was making rue and I watched how she moved as she whisked.

"Are you doing that intentionally?" I asked her.

"Doing what?" she denied smiling.

"Truth gun."

"I'm not under the truth gun. You are."

"Well, now you are too."

"Yes." She answered. She wouldn't look at me. "Do you remember?"

"Yes. I remember." I answered her.

"Tell me what you remember." Her eyes were closed.

"I remember how we got stoned that night at the lake. I remember how we..." this was fucking hard. "How we messed around."

"And after that. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"Tell me." she commanded quietly. I thought she was crying.

"I remember how we made love."

"Is it bad that I miss you?" she asked.

"Yes." I told her. I was under the truth gun. She was definitely crying.

"Truth gun. You can't walk away."

"Truth gun. I can't walk away." I replied knowing it would have been best if I did.

She turned to me. She did have tears on her cheek. She was no more than 15 feet away in the kitchen and a good brother would have held her so that she stopped crying. Instead, I sat in the chair clutching a nearly empty glass of wine.

I am not a good man. I should have looked away. I should have broken truth gun and left. I should have left for good and gone back to Virginia and waited for a flight back to Dubai but I didn't. I stood and watched as she slipped the short denim shorts down long legs. She didn't reveal much; the T-shirt was long and hung half way down her thigh.

She pulled the T-shirt over her head.

She was like a statue in her perfection. Her breasts were small but round and pert. Her legs were long. Her belly was flat. I was 19 again looking at the very vision of perfection. I didn't move. I sat in my chair.

After posing for a minute, maybe longer, she went back to work. She refilled our wine glasses and then went back to cooking. We were silent as she put together dinner and I watched her. It wasn't long, maybe half an hour that she worked and I watched when suddenly she reached for the heavy cast iron lid for the pot and set it over the steaming chicken stew.

"He'll be home soon." She said sadly.

"Truth gin off?" I asked.

"Yes. Truth gun off." She just stood there at the stove, her long nude form on presentation. I stood from my chair. There was no route to my room that didn't lead through the kitchen and past her. It was my intent to pass by in retreat and hide for the rest of the night but as each step brought me closer to her I knew I wouldn't. Rather than steer a course around her I moved directly towards her. She felt small as I swallowed her in my arms. I wrapped her up from behind her from behind. I took her breast in my hand and held it firmly. Her body shook and she collapsed back into her and feeling her body pressed against mine the embrace became a kiss. It was a kiss of desperation. She went weak in my arms and I felt the instinct to gather her up and take her but I resisted it. I kissed her until I was out of breath and then gently and slowly released her until she was again standing on her own two feet. She ran from the kitchen and I made my way quickly to my room.

I intended to pack my bags and slink away before he even got home but I didn't. I told myself I was going to hide through dinner and the nightly movie time but I didn't do that either. I sat mostly silent and ate the chicken on rice as I was grilled about my divorce and why I wasn't asking for my equity in the car and the house. Susan sat wordlessly across the table from me. She didn't smile at me when she looked at me, she simply looked at me and I struggled to figure out what she was thinking, what she was feeling. I needed truth gun but was terrified of what she would say.

I stared again as she cleaned up from dinner. There was no cotton nightshirt tonight. She wore a long gown and satin and lace. She wore ballet slipped that made a delicate shuffling sound across the tile floors. I longed to hold her again but resisted, burying my intensity into glass after glass of red wine. Her husband opened a second bottle and then a third. He did it without a word or thought, he just poured.

I had questions for her. Despite her delicate lingerie and the simple deliciousness of her movements beneath it I don't think he looked at her twice. When he chose a vampire movie I was drunk and sad. I stared at her again although this time it was not at her breasts or her legs, I stared at her eyes and in the dark reflection of the glass she stared back.

The movie ended and we each retired to bed. Again he said goodnight. She said nothing. I lay rigid in the bed wishing for the movement of the ship to lull me to sleep. I listened to the house. I wanted to hear the refrigerator door. I would talk to her tonight. I had to talk to her.

I heard the shuffle of her slippers but the door that clicked open wasn't the refrigerator. When she opened my door she was nothing but a black outline on a dim background. The shuffle stopped as her feet moved to the carpet of the bedroom and the door closed again. I was in complete blackness. I could feel her more than hear her. I felt the warmth of another body. When I felt her weight on the bed I moved aside slightly. She moved beside me.

"Suz'." I said. She silenced me with the warmth of her lips. My heart raced and my throat closed in a knot. I felt a hand on my bare chest.

Seconds grew into hours as I felt the warmth of her beside me. Her breath was warm on my face. She would kiss me delicately and then move her hands. She kissed me and then I felt her hands on my crotch. I can't deny the way my cock swelled with the promise of her touch or how I gasped for air when I finally felt her cool hand on me.

"Susan." I tried again and was silenced with another kiss. Consciously I wanted to resist. I was disgusted by her touch. I didn't resist though. My mind swirled with the images of her as a young woman home from college and how we delighted in each other's very presence. She tugged and freed me of my boxers. I ached to resist but instead assisted. I felt the smoothness of the satin and the rough texture of the lace and my mind imagined the negligee I had watched her move around in all night. I felt physical pain when I relented and raised y hand to touch her. I took her perfect breast in my hand and her kiss turned from the delicate caress it had been to the desperate embrace of a lover. She moved astride my hips and I entered her.

Over the years I had forgotten the ecstasy of making love. I had forgotten what it felt like to be inside of her, to feel her body on me and around me. In my heart I had never wanted anyone else, my other lovers, plentiful enough to be sure, were just dull compensation. In the still dark night we moved together silently until we climaxed. She shuddered gently first and then I joined her. Warm and wet we moved together for a time longer until the needs were satisfied and our bodies, exultant in being together again, folded together. I reached and found the blanket and pulled it over us. We didn't speak. I held her and listened for her to sleep. It is odd how you can remember such small things from so long ago but her breath made a gentle whistle, a remnant of a broken nose long, long ago. I fell to sleep with her in my arms.

She was gone when I woke up. The bed felt like a great empty desert. I had seen the Sahara and knew that was exactly what it felt like to be alone. I heard sounds from the kitchen and stayed hidden beneath the dunes of the comforter. I heard the garage door. I knew I could wait another hour and she too would be gone. As much as I needed to see her I was afraid. I stayed petrified in the darkness of the bedroom pondering just where to find blinds as effective as those that covered her guest bedroom window.

Again, I was waiting for one door to close when the wrong one opened. I had hoped to hear the garage a second time when she left for her workout. Instead, it was my bedroom door that opened. She stepped in, this morning wearing a thick white robe like the one they had in the Hilton near the German Naval Air Station. The room was dark but not black. This time when the door closed behind her I watched her move towards me. I watched the robe fall off her shoulders to the floor and could make out the curves and swells of her naked body before she again slipped herself into bed beside me.

I believe now I was angry with her. I can't say for certain whether it was for coming to me in the night or for the years I had spent longing for her and not getting to have her. I took her violently, our silent lovemaking replaced with cries and the guttural moans of course urgent fucking. At twenty there would have been nothing but grunts but now, more mature, there were words. There were vile obscenities. "Fuck me." she begged. "You dirty pervert. Fuck it harder." She told me. "You dirty sister fucker." She called me and the more she said the harder and deeper I shafted her until she couldn't manage to make words but was reduced to only sounds uttered between gasps for air. I watched her tits; her glorious tits thrust up and back again with each attack of my cock until I had again filled her.

If for no other reason than she thought I was done I turned her over. I was strong now, made man by time and the US Navy and she was small and I tossed her onto her belly. The pillows muffled her cries when I took her from behind, pressing my still hard cock into her hot and wet mess of a cunt. I took her furiously the slap of her ass on my hips filling the house. She moaned and I felt it. I knew her cunt and I knew when it was coming, I punished her for it, fucking her harder for coming and it only served to bring her again and again to orgasm. From behind I reached for her tits and took them in both hands, like animals we rutted, her precious tits pinched between my large fingers. I fucked her until I had used her to my content and then fucked her longer, as though the pain in my soul could be purged by doing the very thing that tormented it.

I tossed her aside and collapsed, my body spent beside her. She lay there looking at me.

"I deserved that." She said quietly. I looked over at her expecting sadness that I didn't find.

"Now lie still. Do not move." She commended.

As she took me in her mouth I did as she had ordered. It was an eternity that she labored, my cock pressed between her lips and when she knew I couldn't come again and that it was a torture for her to continue, she continued. I cried out, I begged for her to stop, but I didn't move. She had told me not to move.

We didn't dress or shower or any of those things you do post coitus. She fetched the jug of orange juice and we drank it without glasses as we lay in the bed.

"We tried to have a baby. We tried for a whole year." She began. I didn't need the truth gun. She knew the questions on my mind. "At first it was, then it was work, and then, just when you are about as fed up with it as you think you can be it gets worse. We went to the specialists, we had the tests, they told us it was fine. I went on the drugs that make eggs and we were prepared to have a whole litter but it never happened. It just never happened. Eventually I think he gave up."

"Neither of us minded giving up. I don't know how it happened. I was convinced for the longest time that I had failed him somehow. You know how he is. He is very... traditional? I was sure I had failed him. He didn't make love to me anymore, he didn't... Well, you have seen him... He doesn't even look at me anymore. I think I still look good. I'm not fat."

I wanted to say something but it wasn't necessary. I just let her continue.

"I was always sure I loved him and that he loved me. God, I shouldn't tell you this. You are just going to hate him worse."

"I don't hate him." "

Yes you do. And I hated Nathalie and that is just how it's going to be. It's fucked up and whatever but that's how it is, just don't shoot him. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Promise."

"I promise."

"So I was always sure he loved me but then I found the letters. You know he didn't hide them, he was sure I couldn't read them, but I figured out translator on the computer, you know its pretty easy and he has always loved someone else back home but he couldn't marry her because she was promised and this is all just so fucked up."

"Everyone is fucked up in some way." I didn't say it to make her feel better. It is one of my guiding principals. If you travel the world in a giant hunk of grey steel powerful enough to take out most of the planet in an afternoon you learn things.

"Are they all as fucked up as we are?"

"No." I said quietly.

After a long moment she continued. "So this is my room, really. I sleep in here when you aren't here."

"It's a nice room."

"I could sleep in here tonight." It was a statement but sounded like more of a question. I was just barely able not to respond. I was sure I was going to say no but instead said nothing.

"When are you due back?" she asked. Her hand was gently moving over my chest again. My hand had resumed stroking her back. I was tracing the outline of her shoulder blade. We were about to make love again. It was going to be sweet and soft again. I could tell.

"Three days."

"Truth gun."

"Two weeks I think, but I am going to go back early. It will be a long 'cruise.' It will be good if I am there to prepare."

"It will be different this time." She said.

"How so?" I wondered. I supposed I would be divorced this time, maybe I would find a girl in each port.

"I'll be waiting when you get back."