Love in Troubled Times

by Gayle Riley

  “How have you been?” he asked, drawing out many of the words, as though giving himself space to think. Each syllable was laden with meaning.

  “I’m… okay,” Mina said, shrugging and making a vague, formless gesture with one hand. So many other thoughts piled up in her mind, things she wanted to say, things she would have to say in private if she was going to say them at all, things she could never say. They all roiled together on her tongue, making it impossible for any individual thought to be spoken aloud. Silence stretched out between them in the wake of Mina’s indecision, long and awkward, and Dirk shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, Marta stepped forward.

  “Let’s sit down and eat,” she offered, her question a welcome relief from the utter deadness that had settled in the room. “It’s been so long since we’ve all been in the same house together!”

  “Yes,” Dirk said as he walked past his stepsister, leveling a sidelong gaze upon her as he took to the kitchen, “It has.”

  Chapter 4

  Sitting together with Dirk turned out to be more difficult than Mina had thought it would be. Her brother’s presence was a constant, psychic pressure on her, a mix of so many emotions it became impossible to catalog them all. Apprehension and longing and deep disquiet vied for Mina’s attention, caused her to look away from Dirk for the most part, her shyness to actually address him not going unnoticed by either Dirk himself, nor their parents. Whenever she cast her gaze his way, Dirk looked back, his expression intensely interested, somewhat questioning. Mina rushed to look the other way.

  So went their time together, had within a rising fog of awkwardness. Mina tried her best, could see that perhaps what she was feeling was not shared by her parents, but she couldn’t shake the discomfort she felt, her mind returning to topics she had done her best to avoid during her time away. The afternoon passed by, snow beginning to fall once more as the sun set, turning the ensuing night into a twinkling flurry of white flakes drifting by the windows, backgrounded by darkness and the swaying branches of trees beyond. Marta and Robert excused themselves early, having never been night owls in the way that their children were. A sense of inevitability of this moment had followed Mina all day, but this was the first time that she had been left alone with Dirk since returning home.

  For a span of some thirty seconds, nothing happened. The sound of their parents creaking up the stairs grew gently softer, until it faded completely. Dirk sat in the old, familiar armchair, strumming idly at one of the threads that sprouted from it, still in the grips of the collective Harper family habit, just as Mina was. He chewed at his bottom lip, one boot-clad foot tapping at the floor, the very picture of agitation. Mina could barely meet his gaze, sat on the rug with her knees brought up to her chin defensively, knowing that something would have to happen, but barely able to fathom what it could be.

  “Okay,” Dirk said finally, slapping his palms down on the armrests and lifting himself out of the armchair. “Were you just intending to never talk to me?’”

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Dirk,” Mina looked at him long and hard before she spoke. It was evident that he was irritated, but… “I think it’s pretty clear that I’m uncomfortable. What did you expect would happen?” “Not this! Not… whatever this is!” For a moment, Dirk’s voice rose, threatening discovery. He caught himself and began to speak slowly, softly, aware of others that could be listening. “One day after what happened between us you just up and vanish, move halfway across the country, stop talking to me… what was going through your mind, Mina? Did I do something?”

  While he was standing and she was sitting, Dirk towered over Mina, and in combination with his obvious agitation this was something she could not stand. She rose to her feet too, still shorter than him, but now on even footing. Still, she kept some distance between herself and her stepbrother, moving back whenever he moved forward, and this was not lost on him; frowning, Dirk forced himself to relax, even sat back down himself, unwilling to seem too confrontational around the younger girl.

  “Is it that confusing? You’re my brother, Dirk,” she said softly, still standing. “What we did… you know we couldn’t keep that up. I left to put some space between us, I changed to get away from what you liked. No more temptation.”

  “It didn’t work.” There was a sullen edge to Dirk now, quite unfitting of a man in nearing his thirties. “Besides, I’m your stepbrother. We’re not related, Mina.”

  “We don’t need to be for it to put a strain on our family, bud,” she replied. “If you weren’t thinking with your dick, you’d understand that.”

  “I’m not doing that,” he shook his head. “You’re not the only one who had time to consider this, Mina. Surprisingly, you popping out of my life didn’t make me less curious about you. It didn’t make me want you less.”

  “We can’t, Dirk…”

  “We did, Mina,” he stood then, unfolding from his chair and crossing the floor toward her. Mina backed up, more as a reflex than out of any genuine fear. The mantel above the fireplace stopped her, and she flinched as Dirk came upon her then, placing one gentle hand on her hip. Mina shivered in recognition; this was the place. The exact same place, touched first on the exact same hip.

  “We did, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since,” Dirk continued, his face so very close to Mina’s own. “Was it really so bad for you?”

  “No…” The word escaped Mina’s mouth before she could stop it, trembling and barely audible. It was the truth, and a truth of such power over her that it had to be said. She didn’t move to dislodge her stepbrother’s hand from her hip, even as his grip tightened to hear her answer.

  “Was it… good?” This was a different question, and they both knew it. It was also a question for which they both already had the answer, could see it in each other’s eyes and voice, the closeness of their bodies. But it had to be asked, all the same. It demanded an answer.

  For all her reservations and pointed self-recriminations, Mina could still recall that night in vivid detail. Individual flashes of sensation came to her, one after the other, in a never-ending stream as she dwelt on it, things she would have never thought she would have cause to think about before that fateful day came, and Dirk’s emotions had spilled over completely. She knew his scent from a thousand illicit fantasies, a sweet lavender that was cloying in the nose, cut through by a deeper masculinity. The taste of him still lingered on her tongue if she closed her eyes, mint and coffee, a sugary aftertaste that came from too many Christmas cookies, and a thread of alcohol that loosened the inhibitions and made Mina shiver to this day. His fingers at her hip evoked the way he had touched her that day, her stepbrother’s usual gentleness giving way to a firm, possessive sort of contact, the kind that made her knees weak.

  Dirk truly had transformed, for that one night, all those months ago. The need in him then, seemingly under pressure, had become something else entirely, an electric new side of him that had changed everything for the time they had had together. Looking in his eyes, Mina could see that creature peering out from him now, just waiting for her to say the word. With adrenaline pulsing through her veins, and memories flitting through her mind’s eye, she had a hard time even considering doing otherwise. Her lips parted.

  “It was so good…” she offered, querulously, “That’s why we can’t do it again…”

  “Mina…” Dirk breathed, his hand beginning to move. From her hip, it glided up the line of her body, conforming to the hourglass curve of her waist, across the slight swelling of her breast and up her throat to cup her chin, raising it so that they were eye to eye. There were no more words.

  “Don’t…” Mina whimpered, and then immediately kissed him back when Dirk lowered his lips to hers.

  Something in Mina, some internal resistance that she had been fostering the entire time she had been here, began to crack. Her stepbrother’s tongue slipped into her mouth, tasting of the same alcohol
it had the last time, the rich red wine their parents favored and broke out when they had guests. A pang of desire rippled through her, gripped her chest and took her breath away. When Dirk’s free hand went to the small of her back, pressed her against his chest, she did not resist. She merely opened her eyes for the duration of the kiss, locked them on the staircase that led to the second floor, scanning for the first signs of interlopers re-entering the scene, advance warning so they could break apart with a moment’s notice.

  Her stomach squirmed nervously anyway, the idea that they were doing something illicit and forbidden transforming even something as relatively chaste was what she and Dirk were doing into a moment of high tension. Her thighs squeezed together, body swaying to some unheard beat, muscles tense and drawing her upward toward Dirk’s mouth. He had her there, held her by the back and chin, her entire self in his hands, blindingly, completely possessed in that moment, with the taste of her stepbrother in her mouth, reaching right into her mind.

  Mina couldn’t tell how long it took her to take possession of herself again, to press the palms of her hands against Dirk’s chest and push him away.

  “Stop!” she hissed, her breath hard and unsteady in her throat. Mina’s face burned a furious red, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. She stepped back again, finding herself pushed against the empty fireplace, a puff of ash whirling out as she hit the wall. The heat of Dirk’s body lingered on her for an endless span of seconds, a livid memory of how he had felt against her, the passion filling his embrace. When he looked upon her now, it was with a blazing, desperate lust, something that Mina could tell had formed over the course of a year apart from her, a year of yearning, of her absence, of the ache of knowing that he had driven her away.

  A pang of mingled sadness and desire went through her, all at once.

  “Dirk…” Mina felt herself pouting, regret etching her voice. In retrospect she had been too obvious, leaving so soon after their last dalliance; what else was he supposed to think? She had fled because of what had happened, but it was her own weakness she was fleeing from, not Dirk himself.

  “Mina, who cares what anyone else thinks?” Perhaps he had seen the want in her, just as Mina had seen it in him. He crossed the gap between them and, instead of keeping his sister pinned in the corner, took her hand and pulled her into the center of the room with him. Though he kept hold of her hand, Mina had to admit that she did feel better here, not just closer to him but with more open space around her. She felt better still when he led her, with a gentle yet insistent tug, toward the favorite armchair, seating himself before bringing her into his lap.

  “Doesn’t this feel right?” One hand was in hers, the other laying on her thigh, pale skin vivid on the dark material of her pants. It stroked, in subtle, small movements, toward the inside of her leg, fingers edging closer with each motion. Without thinking, Mina spread her legs wider, and Dirk took this as an invitation. He slid his palm up her thigh, finding that special spot between her legs and exerting a tiny amount of pressure there.

  Mina whimpered.

  She knew how this must look, the two of them too tall to fit into a single chair without appearing awkward. Her rugged, handsome older stepbrother sat on the cushions like some kind of cowboy king on his throne, his sister long-limbed and sloping off of his lap, her legs at a steep angle from the floor. He, clad in earthen tones, defined muscles and pleasant features. She, dark and pretending to be mysterious, dyed hair and slight frame, only the scantest of breasts and hips, full lips that still tingled from their kiss. They must had looked quite the pair, so different and yet so close together.

  Dirk bowed his head, brought his lips in close to Mina, drawing them lightly along the curve of her neck. She shivered, panted low in her throat, yelped softly when her stepbrother nipped at her skin with his teeth. All the while, his palm ground between her legs, a constant pressure that she found herself grinding against thoughtlessly, pleasure swelling at her hips, radiating outward from the sweetness of his touch. Mina’s eyes drifted closed, her worry over being caught forgotten in the presence of such sensations; she lost herself in the tickling ecstasy of her brother’s kiss, the solid, reassuring warmth of his body, and the knowledge that even after a year, he still knew exactly what to do to her.

  She barely even noticed, at first, when he slipped his fingers into the waistband of her pants.

  But do that he did, his knuckles brushing a tickling path over the skin of her abdomen, as he dipped lower into Mina’s pants, sliding himself under her panties and against the core of her pleasure directly. She moaned, luxuriating in the tug of his hand moving through her pubic hair, finding her lips, her clit, the seeping wetness of her hole and pushing inexorably inside. His thumb stuck to her clit, strumming chords of sensation through Mina, electric thrills of pleasure curling up into her stomach, down into her thighs. Her toes curled inside her shoes. Inside her trousers, the tendons in her legs stood taut, her whole body angling, reaching for Dirk’s touch. There was a soft, wet sound that grew in volume as her arousal increased, a secret, illicit sound, just for them.

  “That’s it, you remember how to do this,” Dirk crooned, his voice deep and lyrical, an encouraging little singsong that swelled with approval whenever Mina moved her hips, fucked herself down onto his hand. “Just give in. Doesn’t it feel so good?”

  “F-fuck…” Mina whimpered, biting her lip and regarding her stepbrother with almost no resolve, the man’s skillful touch more than enough to erode the walls she had spent the entire year building in a matter of seconds. She had, at most, one last burst of sense to spend, before she lost herself to this entirely, come what may. Dirk was too good a lover to resist for long, and though she loved him, though she yearned to let this happen and hated to reject him, she knew in the long-term, nothing good could come of this.

  Besides, thirty more seconds of this, and she was sure she would cum.

  It was a matter of some personal shame to Mina that she waited a solid twenty-five seconds more, then; rocked her hips and let her stepbrother finger her to the very edge of orgasm before she remembered her principles and scrambled upright. Shaking her head, Mina felt her legs trembling, her body shrieking with unmet need, demanding that she get back to it, that she let it happen. Her clit throbbed, pussy aching between her legs, and she focused on Dirk’s questioning look to remind herself what it was she had actually stopped.

  “No, Dirk. We can’t. I can’t.”

  “But-”

  She was gone, before he could say more, rushing up the stairs while hastily doing up her pants, treading the familiar path from the living room to her old bedroom, where she would be staying for a few days. The place was largely as she had left it last time, her old full-length mirror still allowing her to stare guiltily at her own reflection as she left her stepbrother, horny and forlorn, on the ground floor. It was wrong to just leave him there like that, but Mina knew if she had stayed to talk to him he would have convinced her of the wrongness of her own position, that they would have done something that she would regret in the morning. Mina wondered just how far she would have to move to get away from that. Australia maybe.

  She locked the door behind her, just in case. It didn’t seem likely that Dirk would follow her up, but if he did… this room had a bed in it.

  Mina flopped down on that bed, the old wood frame creaking beneath her weight, and put her head in her hands. She could feel the heat emanating off of her cheeks, had seen the deep crimson she had turned from just a few minutes down there in Dirk’s embrace. Her underwear clung wetly to her, stiff clit sliding easily over that now slippery surface. There was almost no self-control left in her tank, but though Mina sorely wanted to masturbate, she knew better than to try.

  Her suitcase was still down in the car, she had been intending to bring it up later and simply kept delaying. That option was off the table now, and so Mina lay down in her clothes, stared up at the ceiling of her childhood bedroom and allowed the memories of what she
had just done to percolate in her sleepy mind. Her eyes drifted closed, there was nothing else to do but sleep, even though she knew her dreams would no doubt be perverse and Dirk-filled, such was the strength of the desire she had denied.

  It would be so easy to go back downstairs, finish what they started.

  Mina rolled over to face the wall and forced herself to sleep.

  Chapter 5

  A good night’s sleep had done little to alleviate the pent-up desire that had permeated her dreams. Mina awoke with her clit pulsing, the image of Dirk’s face fading sleepily into unreality as the real world asserted itself once more. Hazy, half-formed remembrances of her dreams came to her in fits and starts, quickly lost to the strange forgetfulness that waking up so often elicits; Dirk’s face between her legs, his chest, muscular and hard, his erection in her mouth. Mina blushed and squirmed, squeezing her legs together for a moment before bounding out of bed, unwilling to simply marinate in her arousal much longer.

  With shaky steps, her body protesting the entire way, demanding that she head back to bed and finish what Dirk had started the night before, Mina headed downstairs and to her car, shivering in the morning cold. The sun peeked out from behind mournful gray clouds, its blazing surface mostly obscured and the pallid light that filtered down insufficient to properly heat up the world. Mina’s breath fogged in front of her as she crunched through fresh snow and pulled her suitcase from the trunk, struggling with the hatch for a moment before finally dragging it open with throbbing, cold fingers.

  She pulled her overnight bag in as quickly as she could, heaving it upstairs and back into her room before anyone else had noticed she was up. She had always been an early riser, and it seemed to Mina that she was the only one awake at this hour; looking over at the clock showed that it was only a little past six in the morning, so she could hardly blame anyone else for still being in bed. Unzipping her case and selecting a change of clothes, Mina made her way cautiously, quietly, across the creaking floorboards of the upstairs landing and to the bathroom closest to her bedroom.