The Unhallowed

“But if something were to happen between us—”

“I know,” I cut in. That she’d entertained the thought, even to dismiss it, gave me a thrill. Yet that path scared me as much as it excited me. “Wasn’t asking.”

A skeptical look, a slow but approving nod.

“And your sister?”

“Do we really need to talk about her?”

Took a while for her to respond. “Suppose not.”

“Probably best if you don’t sleep in the same bed.”

“Gah, Mom, I never—obviously not sharing a bed. I’ll sleep on the floor—”

“We can take turns. No reason for you to bear the brunt—”

“Whatever. Cass and I are not sharing bed. Nor would either of us want to.”

Another nod. “Well, she won’t be here tonight, so you can take the other one. Think I might get under the covers of this one. Kinda tuckered out.”

Being at the center of a gangbang will do that to you, I suppose. A gangbang that lasts for over an hour. With a haunted hotel draining you same way you’re draining the men.

#

Once again, I slept later than the two of them. Which is probably why I only took a brief nap in the afternoon whereas Cass crawled into the second bed as soon as I vacated it and didn’t wake up until five, by which point Mom had been out for almost two hours and probably wouldn’t be up again until it was time for us to crash the cocktail hour.

“So, uh, Mom tells me things got a little weird here last night?” Cass asked after we stepped out of the room. She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting the woman in question to wake up just to remind her that she wasn’t supposed to say anything.

“When did she tell you that?”

A flat look. “When you were taking a nap. When do you think?”

“Thought you were asleep too.”

“Got up for a bit.”

Taking her by the elbow, I led her down the hall, to the elevator. Would our mom have heard us if we’d stayed where we were? Not if we kept our voices down. Could probably have stayed in the room. Some risks are not worth taking, though.

“She’s afraid you’re gonna make a pass at me,” Cass said while we traveled between floors. “Didn’t tell you already did.” She grabbed the front of my shirt, gave it a jerk, flashed a smile. “Can’t control yourself, can you? You little horndog.”

What part of me did my sister think was little?

“Didn’t tell her that, but I did tell her not to worry,” she said, smoothing out the wrinkles she’d created. “I’m not the least bit tempted and you’re the kinda guy who needs to know that she’s as into it as he is, so you’ll never act on it.”

Was that an insult? A compliment?

“What? You are.”

“I know. Just not sure how to take that.”

Her laughter was intoxicating. Belittling too, I suppose, but I’d take that over feeling as though I threatened her, made her uncomfortable, any day of the week. “You’re such a dork.” Without warning, she went up on tiptoes and planted a kiss on my cheek.

Voluntarily. Not because we hadn’t seen each other in a while and it was sort of expected, because the only thing more awkward than making skin contact with her brother was not doing so and having to deal with the questions our mom might ask. Was everything okay, were we getting along, was there something she didn’t know about.

“It’s a good thing,” Cass said. “Waaay better than the alternative.”

I nodded. Put my hand on the small of her back, pulled her a little closer, kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for saying so. I’ve been told I need to be more aggressive—their words, not mine—so it kinda feels like there’s no winning.”

“The thing about rape culture is that it doesn’t just affect how men think.” She slid away, subtly. Not as a rebuke. “We’re told we should want to be pursued. Aggressively. I’m not surprised they used that word. Told that’s just what men do when they’re interested, and there’s nothing worse than them not being interested. Gets to the point that you can’t help wanting that, from time to time, even if you know where it came from and think the whole damn system is really shitty. Worse than shitty and needed to change yesterday.”

Not much I could say to that.

“Would I want Jake to be as careful as you are? I honestly don’t know. But as your sister, rather than someone who wants to sleep with you, I think it’s awesome.”

Rather than someone who wants to sleep with you.

What has to happen to a guy’s head for him to take that as an insult? For him to react the same way to his actual sister hitting him with the “like a brother” line as he would any other woman? Because whatever it is, it’s happened to me.

The doors opened onto the fourth floor. Hallway was empty but we still fell quiet. Walked side by side, though not holding hands, don’t know why that image even popped into my mind, stopped at the bend, sat on the floor. Legs close enough to touch, but only just. Like it was an accident neither of us saw fit to correct.

“I lied.”

“About what?”

“To Mom. When I said I’m not the least bit tempted.”

Oh.

You’d think my head wouldn’t spin, seeing as she’d already admitted that. There are things people say when they’re on the dance floor and have had a few drinks, though, that they either don’t mean or will never say again even if they did. The revelation wasn’t so much that Cass found me attractive, it was that she was willing to admit that she did. Now, during the day. Without any alcohol in her system.

“Almost waved you over last night. Wasn’t thinking straight, heat of the moment and all that, figured no one there even knew we’re brother and sister so what the heck? Then I remembered who the woman less than five feet away from me was. The one who hadn’t given up on competing for the attention, who could keep up with me.”

“Um, not for nothing Cass, but I’m not sure you kept up with her.”

A wry smile. “I’m not sure I did either. Point is, I wasn’t going to tell you to join in with Mom right there. Who knows how she would’ve reacted.”

By playing along? Pretending I was no more her son than Cass’s brother?

What a night that would have been.

If it ever did happen, and I guess there’s no harm in hypotheticals, I’d want them all to myself. At least that first time. Would I be wiling to share after that? Knowing that whatever happened in the ballroom, they’d fall asleep by my side? One to either side? That if one of them left with somebody else, they’d come back to me as soon as they woke up? Wouldn’t love it at first, I’m sure, but it’d be selfish not to. Unfair to them and to my dad, whose life was still on the line. But the first time? First time had to be special.

Go ahead, call me a hopeless romantic. A guy who makes a better friend than a boyfriend and will never be a fuck buddy. Someone who’s destined to be alone. You wouldn’t be wrong.

“No point to all this if I’m going to wreck my marriage in the process.” A finger went up. “Buh-buh-buh, I know what you’re gonna say. That I’m doing that anyway. Maybe so. I just think it’s at least possible that he’ll forgive last night and nights like it.”

A chance, sure. And it wouldn’t be a small one if he wasn’t such an asshole. If he wasn’t the sort of guy who’d cheat on her for no better reason than because he’d felt like it, because they’d gotten into a fight and that was his way of getting the last word in. Guys like that have a way of ignoring pesky details like my sister doing what she was doing to save him, and doing it with guys she’d never see again, that no one ever would.

“As long as they don’t involve your older brother.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded. Told myself to leave it there. Didn’t listen. “Only gonna ask this once, but are you absolutely sure you want him back? Dad, sure, that goes with out saying, but Jake?”

“Only gonna ask it once,” she said with a scoff. “That’s already the second time.”

My scowl did not faze her. I paused, reran the tapes. “May have thought—”

“What you did was passive-aggressively throw the number twelve out there when we all know you can do basic math.” There was no anger in her voice. If anything, she was proud of herself. She had me by the balls and she knew it. Almost didn’t matter what the argument was about. “That was your way of saying I should at least think about it.”

“Picked up on that, huh?”

She kicked me. Not very hard. Was getting to be a habit. “I let you have that one, because you have a point. Believe it or not, I am aware of that. That point has been made, though, so I’d kindly ask that you keep your mouth shut and your dick in your pants.”

Translation: I may come around to your way of thinking, but not if you push me. If you want it to happen, and you do want it to happen, who wouldn’t, have some patience.

Wishful thinking? The look she was giving suggested not. Suggested my sister knew exactly how I’d interpreted that and felt no need to issue a correction.

“Should we wake Mom up? Or let her sleep?”

“I get to jump on her bed,” Cass squealed as she scrambled to her feet and took off toward the elevator. Twenty-two going on seven, my sister is. “You’re too heavy.”

#

The door to the changing room was locked, and no amount of knocking convinced Igor to open it. Assuming he was even there. Or went by the name of Igor.

Just as I considered applying my shoulder, Cass and Mom rounded the corner. “Women’s too?” I asked, as though the answer wasn’t obvious.

“Let’s go to the front desk,” Mom said.

Didn’t love the idea. Didn’t have any others.

Sam was waiting for us. In a costume, though not the grim reaper. Or any of the ones we’d seen in the ballroom. This time, he was a mad scientist, wearing a lab coat, rubber gloves, and over-sized goggles. His hair couldn’t have been wilder. Or whiter, though it had been brown yesterday. “My favorite family,” he said without emotion.

“How are we supposed to feed the hotel if we can’t get to the ballroom?” Mom asked.

“No reason to,” Sam said. “No one there.”

That was about the time I realized I hadn’t seen anyone roaming the halls, hadn’t heard a sound from any of the rooms. No, actually, I had, one or two, but we weren’t the one former guests who were now pretty much part of the staff. The guests had all checked out.

Those who hadn’t been fed to the hotel.

I shivered, though the lobby remained a comfortable seventy degrees. It hadn’t troubled me that we’d never seen more than twenty people at one time in a hotel large enough to could accommodate sixty, a hundred with every room booked and none by singles, because The Unhallowed didn’t come up on Expedia or Travelocity. Didn’t have much of a presence online at all, and what presence it did have warned of ghosts. Today was also Sunday, a rough day for the travel industry. The place wasn’t just under capacity, though. There wasn’t a warm body under its roof who wasn’t trapped, with varying degrees of hope for escape. For the first time, The Unhallowed was starting to feel like… well, what it was.

What we’d came in search for, then mistakenly believed we hadn’t found.

“What about the other ghosts?” my mom asked. “The ones who can only manifest for cocktail hour? Can’t we share a drink with them?”

Sam scowled. “How would that benefit the hotel?”

Right, everything had to be filtered through that lens. You’d think a financial analyst wouldn’t need to be told that. Should have realized Mom wouldn’t be allowed to talk to Dad until it was over, that the only reason the three of us were allowed to be together was because of what was already happening. If we decided to spend our days practicing skills we used at night, gave in to temptations we shouldn’t have felt and really shouldn’t have acknowledged, temptations that were not less easy to predict, would the impetus to save the ones we’d lost not wane? Was it not waning already in the case of Jake?

Maybe that gave the hotel too much credit. Buildings were not sentient, let alone masterminds, whether they housed ghosts or not. The intelligence at work here had once been human. Either Sam or, more likely, whoever was above him, someone whose face we hadn’t seen, not even with a mask in front of it. And that someone might have known we’d have taken the deal despite the terms, but it was ludicrous to think that three-way incest had been part of their plan from the outset. If continuing down that path happened to work in their favor, well, that was whatever the opposite of serendipity is, nothing more.

Either way, it would be foolish.

Had there not been very good reasons to put my mother and my sister in their own separate category, one that said Do Not Touch, before all this had started, though? Fancy arguments about the conditionality of moral judgments aside, there were still the laws of men, the matter of their husbands, and the very real risk that we’d all end up hating each other. Yet that hadn’t stopped things from getting this far. From my sister telling me maybe, if not in those exact words, and my mom telling me she was flattered.

What would happen when we went back up to the room? If not tonight, then the next night? Or at some point in the next two weeks? Was that even a question?

“Tell me you have bookings during the week,” Mom said, giving no indication that her mind had gone to the same places mine had. “If the next cocktail hour isn’t til Friday—”

“Tuesday,” Sam said.

“Tuesday,” Mom repeated. “And what are we supposed to do until then?”

My cock twitched. Dang thing has a mind of its own.

“Use the weight room. Swim in the pool. Rent some pay-per-view movies.” A wan smile. “Not like you’ll be paying the bill through standard means.”

The look Cass gave me caused both excitement and shame. “Don’t even picture me in a bathing suit or a sports bra,” that look said. “Though I’m sure you just did.”

No pool then. No weight room.

“In that case, send a bottle of your best wine up,” my mom said. “Make that three bottles. And glasses. Actual glasses. I’m not drinking out of a plastic cup.”

Sam nodded. “Very well. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah. Let me speak to my husband.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Then you can go hang yourself.”

#

Denial is a coping mechanism. A surprisingly powerful one in most cases. It got us through an entire movie—about a haunted hotel, because the description made us all smile, though the details couldn’t have been more different.

Once Mom suggested we take a break from ghosts and watch something steamy from Skinemax, though, it was only a matter of time before one of us broke the rule. Which rule is that? One no one had spelled out yet we’d all been complying with. The one that required us to act as though everything were normal. Failing that, as though we were normal even if the situation wasn’t.

When the horror movie had started, I’d been in the chair by the window, Mom and Cass on different beds. When the skin flick had, the two of them had been next to each other, a safe distance from me. But around the time the neglected wife decided to accept a dinner invitation from her husband’s boss, I accepted my own invitation.

Started at the edge of the bed, practically falling off so as to minimize contact with my mother. She got up to get more wine, though, and saw how precarious my position was.

So it was that I had my sister’s head on one shoulder, my mom’s the other, my arms trapped beneath them and in serious danger of losing circulation, though that was a small price to pay to continuously fondle their soft bottoms, while the three of us watched a married woman fellate a waiter because her dinner companion had instructed her to do so. While the waiter bent her over the table, hiked her dress up to her hips, and fucked her from behind. While the rich boss unzipped himself and gave her something to suck on.

“These plots are ridiculous,” Cass said.

“Can’t decide whether I love that or hate it,” Mom replied.

“And why you never get to see their dicks?” I chimed in, hoping to show how sensitive I was, that I was capable of separating myself from the male gaze. “Get to see her body, boy do we get to see her body, even if it’s just a shower scene, but never theirs.”

“Do you want to see their dicks?” my sister asked.

“Her boobs and butt,” our mom said, “not her cooch.” She sat up, took a sip of wine, offered me the glass, then laid back down. “This is cable TV, not Pornhub,” she added. Because my mom knew what Pornhub was even though she still said cooch. “You watch these movies when you’re in a certain sort of mood but don’t want to admit that.”

“Yeah, no one faps to this stuff,” Cass said. “They’re meant for laughing.”

Yet none of us were. And at least one of us had noticed the possibly-accidental-but-probably-not admission. In a certain sort of mood but don’t want to admit it.

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked after an awkward silence. The woman was now bouncing in the boss’s lap, no sign of the waiter, and everyone was breathing a little heavier. Their chests swelling against mine was all sorts of distracting.

No reply. Might have missed an exaggerated moan.

“Sure, sweetie,” Mom finally said. “What do you wanna talk about?”

“Our situation.”

Cass groaned. “Your timing sucks.”

Perhaps, but the scene had just ended. I hoped Cass hadn’t been waiting for a cum shot. This wasn’t porn, after all. According to her, it was some sort of comedy.

I sat up. They both did the same, though one was less happy about it than the other. And that did not rest a hand on the thigh nearest her the way the other one did. “Just think we need to at least consider the possibility that Sam’s lying to us.”

“About what?” Cass asked. “Don’t tell me you think there’s a rational explanation for all this, that the hotel’s not haunted, that the bodies are beneath the parking lot.”

How would he even get them under the asphalt?

“About there being a way to get Dad back,” I said. “And Jake,” I hastened to add, recalling our earlier conversation. And thereby earning a snort. “What if they’re already gone? What if they can’t manifest at all?” I paused, considered stopping there. Was already hard to breathe. Sometimes, though, it’s best to just rip the bandage off. “What if the hotel decided they weren’t useful and will only keep us around as long as we are?”

Now there were no hands on me. Crazy how big a difference that made. And why. Much as I liked knowing that they were attracted to me, that being in close proximity to my hard body did to them something roughly similar to what their soft bodies did to me, the withdrawal of my mother’s hand made me realize it was intimacy, connection, that I craved most of all. Because in that moment, I felt utterly alone. Even though they sat right beside me, facing me, close enough that I could hear their breathing.

“Okay, what if?” Mom said, sounding a little angry. Like the time I’d asked if we really needed to celebrate Christmas now that Cass and I were grown. “What are we supposed to do about that? Make a run for it? You know the doors won’t open for us. You two were the ones that tried that. And if you think I’m going to dig a tunnel with a spoon—”

“Of course not. Wouldn’t even work.”

Cass scoffed. “What then?”

I sighed. “Way I see it, we have exactly three options.”

“Those being?”

“We can opt out. Try to starve the hotel, or at least not be responsible for feeding it.”

Both women frowned, but it was my sister who said, “And that ends well for us?”

“No, it doesn’t,” I admitted. “Meaning we either stick to the plan as of yesterday, hold up our end of a bogus bargain then act surprised when the hotel eats us too—”

“Why would it, though?” Mom cut in. “If we’re doing its bidding, wouldn’t it want to keep us around?” Her cheeks flushed and the idea of hiding that behind a wine glass came to her a little too late. “Not sure if this something to brag about, but I suspect Cass and I did more for it last night than anyone else has in quite some time.”

“Probably,” Cass said, sounded defeated rather than proud yet aware that she shouldn’t be. “Can’t wait to spend eleven months in a hotel that’s both haunted and abandoned.”

“Would that be so bad?” I asked, heart thumping in my chest. “Tomorrow’s Monday, yet not one of us has to go to work. We get to sleep as late as we want, drink as much as we want, starting at noon if we feel like it, and while we probably ought to think about the health implications, the hotel has a vested interest in our continuing to look good.”

“Are you saying you want to stay here?” my sister asked.

“No,” I said, as much to convince myself as her. “I’m saying we may not have a choice. That the only choice we have left is one the two of you are….”

Shit. Got that far, then stumbled. Couldn’t reach the finish line.

“Are what?” Mom prompted.

“Reluctant to make.”

Cass laughed. “He means we should stop worrying about husbands, since we’re never gonna see them again anyway, and give him the threesome he wants so badly.”

That we all wanted. I truly believed that.

More wine down the gullet. Maybe it was time for me to crack a beer. “Is that true?” she asked, eyes dropping to find what she’d no doubt expected to find.

“Can we even blame him?” Cass asked our mom.

Earning herself quite the shocked stare. “Cassia Addams, are you seriously thinking about having sex with your brother? And your mother?”

My sister dropped her eyes. “Maybe.”

One of the talking parts, the boring parts, the story parts, had given way to another laughable love scene. The three of us pretended not to notice but couldn’t keep our eyes focused on any one thing. Including the TV, which they certainly didn’t avoid.

Whatever else might happen, I was now someone who had watched porn with his mother and his sister. Softcore, yes, and it remained to be seen whether that would lead to anything, but how many guys can even say that? How many would want to?

More than will ever admit it.

“I… I don’t know how I feel about that,” our mom said. “I know I should feel, but not how I do.” She stood, moved toward the mini fridge, stopped. “I think I’m gonna go for a walk. When I get back, I won’t ask what the two of you got up to in my absence.”

An awkward look passed between me and Cass. Her hand settled atop my thigh, though, and it felt goood. Partly because of what it presaged, more so because that was her way of telling our mom that she was the odd one out, that it was she was on a different wavelength.

Stopping at the door, our mom turned and said, “If we do get out of here, tonight never happened.” She glanced down, appeared to realize she was wearing nothing but a silk robe, and visibly debated putting more on. Yet decided not to. “Any of it. What I don’t want to be here for, the conversation we just had, that stupid movie. Got that?”

“Kinda thought it went without saying,” I replied.

“Well, I said it anyway.”

You’d think breaking through my sister’s resistance would be enough for the time being, that I’d feel no need to apply more pressure to my mom’s when her patience was wearing thing as it was. You’d be wrong. “If we get out of here.”

“Don’t have too much fun,” our mom said. Then she departed as quietly as a ghost.

#

A handful of chocolates and a tiny bottle of liquor joined me in bed. Unfortunately, so did my sister’s pajama bottoms and one of my T-shirts. On Cass, it was practically a dress.

“Hey, look, the husband gets to have some fun too,” she said, gesturing toward the screen with her tequila. “Good for him.” A mischievous look. “Boss is hotter anyway.”

“Bigger biceps, for one thing.”

“You think that’s all I care about? Like you and milk jugs?”

I feigned offense, did my best to slap a round bottom that pressed into the mattress. “You’ve got a nice ass too.” Before her brown eyes could even finish rolling, I added, “Oh, and a pretty face. Suppose there’s something to be said for your personality too.”

“Guys love a sense of humor,” Cass said, climbing over one leg to sit in front of me, back reclined against my chest. “As long a she laughs at his jokes. Less so if she cracks her own.”

This was nice, closer to boyfriend-girlfriend than brother-sister, but it didn’t feel like we were getting ready to do what our mom was giving us space to do. Might as well have been a bowl of popcorn she was cradling. A movie with an actual plot we were watching.

“Especially at his expense,” I said, bending down to nibble her ear.

She pulled away, shot me a look over her shoulder.

“What?”

“Sorry,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Try again.”

I almost didn’t want to. And didn’t exactly give it my best effort, convinced as I was that she’d laugh at me if I did. If I didn’t back away after two or three seconds.

“Didn’t hate it,” she said with a shrug, sounding unimpressed yet nonplussed. Like I hadn’t done anything for her, and that included disappointing her. “Don’t worry, your final grade will reflect any improvement shown over the course of the semester.”

“I’m not a virgin, you know.”

“I have met most of your girlfriends, you know.”

Ignoring that, I added, “Just not with my sister. Kinda makes a difference.”

“Wait, you haven’t? How did I not know that?”

I swept her hair aside, marveled at how pale her neck was. With all that talk of ghosts, you’d think some complexion would be desirable, but I’d always favored fair skin. Besides, there’s a difference between ghostly white and porcelain, between bloodless corpses and girls who don’t suffer from anything more severe than a melanin deficiency. A faint, healthy glow. Some color in the cheeks, even more in the lips. Color that was not blue.

“Still there?” my sister asked nervously.

“Sorry, just got distracted.”

“By what?” She tugged at the neckline, which had practically slipped off her shoulder. “That secretary’s not your type. Tall, blonde, and more impressive abs than anything else.”

True, true, and true. I looked around for the remote, found it, turned the TV off. “By you, Cass. You’re absolutely stunning. And you always were.” I kissed the back of her head, smelled her hair, moved a little lower. Pulled my shirt out of the way, kissed her neck and shoulder. Brushed her neck with the very tip of my tongue, finishing with a swirl that made her shiver. “Took coming here for me to notice. Shouldn’t have, but it did.”

“Stop,” she said, smacking my leg. Then she glanced over her shoulder, eyes wide and plaintive, telling me that the very last thing I should do was obey that command. “Probably don’t even remember what I looked like out there. You think you do, haven’t forgotten that the hotel’s having an effect on us, but the different mes have bled together in your mind.”

“Not true.” Okay, maybe it was. A little. “You never knew how hot you were.

“Please don’t tell me I could have done so much better than Jake.”

“I won’t. But you could have.”

She snorted. “Why would you even mention him? You were doing so well.”

Only one who’d said his name was her. Wouldn’t score any points by pointing that out, though. “Why don’t you do us both a favor and take that shirt off?”

Seemed like she was going to argue. Rare were the times that she didn’t when it came to me. Or her husband, I suppose. Lately, that is.

Anyway, she didn’t.

No bra on underneath. That surprised me. I hadn’t seen a strap, but breasts that big didn’t sit that high on a woman’s chest, and were more responsive to gravity and physics, unless she’d paid for them. Which I was fairly sure Cass hadn’t. Not unless she’d done so at the age of thirteen. I’m not saying I used to stare at her back then; just, you know, can’t not notice certain things. Even if you don’t react to them the way you would later.

They felt incredible. Heavy and supple. Surprisingly supple. That word gets thrown around a lot, and everyone seems to agree it’s a good thing, but words like “firm” and “perky” often accompany it, and they have more or less the opposite meaning. If you want to get technical, one is a characteristic of adipose tissue, of fat, the other collagen, both of which can be found in a woman’s breasts. To varying degrees. They’d barely bounced when they’d sprung free of my shirt, so I hadn’t expected them to be so malleable. I’d expected them to feel like basketballs. No, those have a rough surface. Like a child’s bouncy ball.

“Wow,” I said as I found her nipples, rolled them gently between my fingers.

A sharp intake of breath. “Huh. Didn’t think my girls were that sensitive.”

“I blame The Unhallowed.”

“I blame you.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” I asked, before tracing her earlobe with my tongue. Meanwhile, the attention I was giving her little ladies grew more focused. “Have I got you in a rare state?”

All she did was groan.

That went on for a bit, partly because you don’t fix what ain’t broke and partly because I couldn’t think of a way to change positions without it being awkward. Without losing the momentum I’d built up. The plan hadn’t been to get her off just by nibbling at her neck and playing with her nipples. Until that started to seem like a real possibility.

I went for it. Ignored the feeble attempts to shift my hands down to her hips or points south of that. Paid no more attention to requests that I slow down than that I speed up, neither of which were particularly coherent anyway. I listened to her body, not her words.

And was rewarded for that.

“Holy shit,” Cass said afterwards, distracting me, albeit unintentionally, with the rise and fall of her chest. The view from above and behind was quite nice.

“Think you can let go now?” I asked. “Want to scribble down some notes.”

She had my hands trapped beneath hers, pushed down into the mattress, evidently afraid that I’d keep working her otherwise and unable to handle more pleasure. That, more than the convulsions and swearing, the heavy breathing, proved that her orgasm had been real.

Guys, if you’re not sure whether she’s faking her orgasms, there are few things to look for. And I don’t mind dilated pupils or blood rushing to her lips, darkening the red. Find an article online that mentions those things and close out the tab. True enough, I’m sure, but who even notices details that fine in the heat of the moment? What if you’re not in a position to look her in the eye? No, the real giveaways are whether it suddenly seems like she can’t stand your touch, a touch she’d craved moments ago and might crave again soon, and her running to the bathroom to relieve herself. Dealing with the mess you made doesn’t count. After a woman climaxes, she often needs to pee. Body’s way of fighting infection or something. One of my ex-girlfriends figured that out after the third UTI in less than a year.

“Notes,” Cass said as she slid off the bed. “Please.”

I smiled to myself as she went into the bathroom, closed the door. Shortly thereafter, I heard the toilet flush and faucet run. “You’re the kind of nerd who would collect data, put it in a spreadsheet, try to isolate the best approach. As if that doesn’t vary from woman to woman, from mood to mood within the same woman.”

“Oh, come on. Even I’m not that bad.”

“Meaning you haven’t yet. But you’re thinking about it now.”

My only response was to take my own shirt off. To smile as my sister’s gaze dropped to my pecs, as her eyes widened when I flexed one then the other, making my muscles dance.

“Bottom too,” she said, as though she’d left her pajamas and panties in the bathroom. Which she hadn’t, more was the pity. “Let’s see how big you are.”

“Not that you’re a size queen or anything.”

Cass snorted as she crawled toward me. “I’m really not. But I am curious.” She grabbed at my waistband, whimpered when I playfully smacked her hands away. “Please?”

“I want you to guess first,” I said. “Should be easy, seeing as you’ve accidentally rubbed against it any number of times in the past few days.”

Nope. A pensive face tricked me into lowering my guard, then she shoved her hand in, got a tight grip, an almost painfully tight grip, and pulled it out.

“Always were a cheater.”

“Always were a sore loser,” she shot back without bothering to make eye contact. A few quick pumps made sure it was as hard as it could get. Or maybe she just couldn’t hold one in her hands and not play with it. “It’s kinda cute, Will.”

“Nice try,” I said, though the petty attempt at making me feel insecure had not entirely failed. Doesn’t take much for most guys. Even those of us who’d been dealt a reasonable hand to begin with and were currently benefiting from some not-so-natural male enhancement.

Who, apparently, were capable of hypnotizing themselves with their own members. I’m not proud of that or anything, know how vain and possibly homoerotic that sounds, but this was the first time I’d really looked at it. Only the second time I’d even taken it out. And you’ll forgive me for not having paid much attention to either the witch or the dick she was sucking when my mother and sister had been putting on quite a show. I was aware that the hotel had done more for me than tighten my abs, just hadn’t realized quite how much more.

Never stared down at your own dick in absolute awe? Well, you would if you were as hung as I was. Especially if that was a recent development.

“Honestly?” Cass said. “That might be too big.” A lick of her lips belied the statement. “Don’t expect me to swallow it. A bit rusty when it comes to deep-throating.”

Lot to unpack there.

First, she was going to start with a blow-job. Figured she might; nice to have it confirmed.

Second, she did have some experience kissing the base of the mountain, to coin a phrase. And the guy—or guys—had not been small. She’d had to overcome the gag reflex.

Third, Jake had benefited in the least from all that practice. Might not even know she possessed such a skill. I knew he wasn’t the largest, for the same reason I knew she didn’t crave ten-inchers, but I now had to wonder what else his wife had hidden from him. For all the jokes about a man’s sex life ending when his marriage begins, all the academic discourse on the virgin-whore complex, one laying the blame at her feet and the other his, I’d always assumed that was mostly a caricature. That any truth to it applied more when you got to be our parents’ age than when you were was young as my sister and her husband. But perhaps there was a wild side to her, a depraved side, an experimental side, that he knew absolutely nothing about. That I was about to experience. Me, her freaking brother.

Good thing I was already on my ass; the room would not stop spinning.

“I’m serious, Will. Might not venture past the foreskin.”

I leaned forward, ran a hand through impossibly soft, smooth hair, hair like silk, like running water, and kissed her soft lips. “That’s fine. I’ll take whatever’s on offer. And try to keep my skull from doing its best impression of a jack-o’-lantern the day after Halloween.”

A lopsided smirk. “Nice image. Very sexy.”

“Just saying I’m sure it’ll be great. Don’t apologize, and don’t feel like you should have gone further. I will never ask you to do anything you’re not completely comfortable with.”

She tapped my nose with her finger, the way Mom used to do to us when we were little. The comparison was dizzying. In a good way. “Better. Much better.”

Another kiss, this one drawn out. Not in a bad way, like she was trying to buy time. It felt natural. First times together tend be hurried, with or without a time constraint. One or both tends to be impatient, having wanted it to happen since the very beginning. I kinda figured that would be the case here, and would have tried not to let that disappoint me if it had been. Instead, I was finding that my sister and I were surprisingly comfortable with each other, if not as comfortable as longtime lovers.

Granted, we did have a lot of history together.

As siblings.

There was some awkwardness; I don’t want to oversell it. Much as we knew about each other, and thus could intuit things that are usually discovered along the way, like who was comfortable leading and how fast was too fast, we didn’t know everything. Couldn’t.

Put it this way: that was the first time in my life that I kissed a girl I hadn’t kissed before—a proper kiss, open-mouthed, with tongue, not the restrained sort I’d opened up with—without either of us pulling away and laughing a bit awkwardly ten seconds later.

“Hmm,” Cass said after our lips finally parted. Her smile was disarming. Destructive too. There was a file somewhere in my brain containing everything I thought I knew about my sister, including many reasons to love her. That file told me she always, always had the upper hand, even when she didn’t. That if I ever saw anything resembling vulnerability, it would be because some other guy had hurt her, not because she felt something for me, and felt it so strongly, that the fear of it not being reciprocal terrified her. That file was now a smoldering heap of ashes. “You know, I think you were right.”

Funny, I was just thinking about how wrong I’d been. About my sister and my feelings for her, let alone hers for me. “About what? This being something we should try?”

“Well, yeah, that too,” she said as her hand found my cock and went to work. “But I was thinking more of what you said about it not being so bad if we never leave. The downsides are clear, and that’s where my focus was earlier.” Her eyes dropped to the slab of meat she couldn’t quite get her fingers around. Not so the tips touched. “Starting to see the upsides.”

“Gah, are you ever going to use that mouth for more than talking or kissing?” asked woman who shouldn’t have been there, who should have been pacing the halls of the hotel, berating herself for giving her children tacit permission to violate one of the oldest, strongest taboos. “Because if you’re not gonna suck that beautiful dick, I sure will.”

“Mom!” we both exclaimed, before looking at each other and snickering.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She shrugged, first by way of answer then disrobing. The silk didn’t so much slide down her body as flow like water over falls. That was almost as mesmerizing as the curves revealed.

Her skin was like fresh cream, with a light dusting of beauty marks I hadn’t noticed the night before, and there was a neatly trimmed thatch above her slit. Those dark curls made me throb in my sister’s hand, reminding me as they did that I wasn’t looking at the sort of prepubescent teen the porn industry seemed to think men desired but a grown woman. Dense as those curls were, though, they didn’t obscure her labia, wouldn’t get between my teeth if I did for her what she’d just volunteered to do for me.

Everything about her was amazing. Everything. And while I would never say so in front of my sister, looking at her made all other women seem flawed. Her appeal was too similar to my sister’s for the comparison to work in Cass’s favor. Same eyes, same hair, same complexion, or lack thereof, same basic shape, yet Mom’s curves were more pronounced. True, her breasts hung lower, and that was only partly because they were bigger, but that didn’t bother me. I almost preferred it. My sister might not have implants, bu her girls still behaved enough like silicone to detract from the joy of fondling them. Mom’s had neither been rendered shapeless by gravity nor did they hold it in contempt. The center of their mass was near the bottom of her ribcage yet her nipples still pointed out rather than down.

And what nipples they were. Prominent and thick, surrounded by dark discs that were larger than the average woman’s entire breast yet merely proportionate in her case. One needn’t have prior knowledge of her status as a mother, let alone that the two people staring at her that very moment, utterly captivated, were her adult children, to know that she’d nursed babes. Even though The Unhallowed had removed any telltale stretch marks from her thighs and abdomen. I might be a bachelor, yet even I knew that pregnancy tends to darken the nipples and areola, knew that Cass’s bright pink made her look young whereas our mom’s darker shade, close to brown, were testament to experience and maturity.

“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” she told Cass.

My sister planted a fist on her hip. “And why not?”

I palmed the other hip. “What did Mom used to say? Sharing is caring?”

“Exactly,” said the woman I’d just quoted. “Besides, you might have worn him out.”

“Something tells me he doesn’t lack stamina,” Cass mused. “That no matter what I did with him, he’d still have been up for more when you came in.” She eyed my cock, biting her lip as she did. Girl was hungry for it. One could almost think the act our mother had essentially interrupted, even if it hadn’t quite begun, would have been performed for her pleasure as much as mine. “That his answer will always be yes if we’re the ones asking.”

True.

But who was this woman and what had she done with my sister? The girl who always had an insult ready, even if she delivered them in a way that minimized the sting? The one who’d felt the need to tell me my dick was cute before she could admit that she was intimidated by it? Who’d told me not to worry about my grade as long as I showed improvement?

“I hope you’re right,” our mom said as she approached the bed. Gently, so neither Cass nor I mistook a suggestion for a command, she guided my sister to her knees. Then knelt beside. Guided one of Cass’s hands to my cock, then took hold of me with one of hers.

“Hold on,” I said. “Can’t breathe.”

Both laughed.

“Have you done this before?” my mom asked my sister.

“What, sucked a dick?” The look on her face asked if there was even a right answer. Did she want to sound inexperienced, in need of coaching, or like a slut, in need of scolding?

“Tandem.”

“Oh,” Cass said. “Um, don’t think so.” She started working the top part of the shaft while Mom saw to the bottom. “Took part in a threesome once, but we might have skipped this step.”

“With who? Rochelle or Mariana?”

For a moment, it looked like she might say that was none of our mom’s beeswax. Then she sighed and said, “Okay, more than once. The first was with Rochelle, the others were with Mariana.” Others? Plural? “Rochelle’s boyfriend wouldn’t stop begging for one, and I found him attractive, even though he was a complete jerk, so that was his birthday present.”

“Lucky him,” I said.

A raised eyebrow asked if I was ready to confirm a long-held suspicion about her brother having a crush on her best friend. I shook my head. Had there been any truth to it, sure, I’d finally come clean. There wasn’t, though. Never had been. Too skinny.

“And who was the other guy?” I asked. “Mariana’s boyfriend?”

Cass might have answered. I have no reason to think she didn’t. Seeing as our mom chose that moment to engulf my glans, moving slowly and stretching her mouth wider than I’d have thought possible, wide enough to make minimal contact, only to then apply maximum suction and do things with her tongue that required a dexterity no woman had ever possessed under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have noticed an earthquake.

“Are either of you even listening?” Cass asked after I popped out of Mom’s mouth. There was a smile on her face, though. The insult of being ignored, it seemed, was more than made up for by the look on my face. The sounds I’d no doubt made. “I said Mariana used to make go to clubs with her and hook up with whatever guy bought her a drink first.”

No. Fucking. Way.

Mariana? The girl who could never sleep over Saturday night because she went to nine o’clock mass with her mother every Sunday? The one who never uttered a curse word? At least not while I was in earshot, regardless of whether parents were present?

“Sounds like you had more fun before you walked down the aisle than I ever did,” our mom said, and if her tone wasn’t approving, that was only because she was a bit jealous.

Would her reaction have been different if Cass had told her that prior to this weekend?

Heck, were the confessions even true? Could the hotel alter our memories, the better to entice guests who heard the stories? Or simply to make us more confident? Why hesitate to do something you’d done a dozen times before, even if it was technically your first time?

“Your father wasn’t as sensitive as your brother appears to be,” Mom said, leaning a bit to the side so Cass would have enough room. “Go easy on him.”

“I like it when he squirms, though.”

Wasn’t until after my sister made me see stars, and those stars slowly cleared, that I realized our mom had used the past tense when talking about our dad.

No time to ponder that, though, because Cass wasn’t done. Just giving me a moment to catch my breath after her opening salvo. If she lacked our mother’s nimbleness, would lose a contest to tie ribbons inside a closed mouth, she at least matched her determination. Almost couldn’t tell if she was trying to get me off or kill me. Death by sensory overload.

Didn’t help that Mom realized my dick was long enough, and Cass’s talk of not going past the foreskin sincere enough, that if she wanted to take my balls in her mouth, there was no need to worry about whether two heads could fit between my legs. Not if she bent real low and tilted her head to one side. And she did want those balls in her mouth.

Time slowed, every agonizing second an eternity. I’d never experienced so much pleasure. Would never want to again, once this over. Even though I absolutely would. I’d beg for it. Any man would. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I clenched my glutes so hard I heard my tail bone pop, and my knuckles should have torn through the skin on the back of my hands.

If not for the brief moments of reprieve when they swapped roles, I might have died any number of times. Heart attack brought on by sensory overload.

Assuming the hotel would have allowed me to.

Which seemed likely enough; the two of them were far more important than I was. My only real value to the place, or the malicious, rapacious, entity in control of things, was in keeping the two of them happy. They were far more likely to attend cocktail hour after cocktail hour, seducing men who were not quite innocent yet not quite deserving of their fate, then muddle their way through the months of December through September waiting for another Halloween season to arrive, if they had some to talk to, to play with.

Which, come to think of it, made me pretty vital. Because there was a fourth option I hadn’t mentioned earlier, one none of us wished to consider. At least not at the moment. Dare I flatter myself enough to think they’d contemplate suicide if they lost me too?

I certainly would if I lost either of them.

Was it five minutes later or ten that they broke me? Certainly not fifteen or twenty. Either way, the experience as unlike any other. Tension built and built until I could no longer bear it, culminating not in a moment of intense pleasure but close to a minute thereof. My whole body tensed up, spasms wracked various limbs, and I couldn’t breathe. Rather than a few contractions, strong yet far from painful, whether it was my first orgasm of the day or my fourth, the muscles down there squeezed so hard I wanted to cry, then did so again, and again, and again. I was only vaguely aware that the purpose of them was to push fluid through my system, that I was rewarding my sister and our mother for their efforts, and doing so to a degree that should have been biologically impossible.

As prolonged as the climax itself was, the high that came after lasted even longer. I was used to several seconds of tranquility before guilt and shame came rushing in. But they never did. And the glorious numb, the freedom from pain and worry and thought, the feeling that all was right in the world, seemed like it might last til November.

“He lives,” my mom said without even trying to lift her head off the pillow, having at some point laid flat on her back beside me. “Thought it would just be the two of us from here on out,” she said, mussing the hair of the woman whose face was between her legs.

Cass rocked back on her heels, wiped the juices from her chin. “Told you he doesn’t lack stamina.” She reached over, smacked my leg. “Besides, what man’s gonna give us each a mouthful, then another, then another, and be ready to go a minute later?”

“A minute?” Mom laughed. “Been out for at least ten.”

“Whatever. He’s with us now.”

I sat up. Got off the bed, cracked a beer. Admired the tableau. Would have been nice to watch my sister pleasure our mother. Just knowing that she had, and seeing the look on the latter’s face, contentment and satisfaction tinged with fatigue, was enough to warm my heart. And put an end to my flaccidity.

“Still not ready?” the woman who had some recovering to do herself asked. “Okay, your turn Cass.” She looked from my sister to me. “I’ll start her off, you finish her.”

“Works for me.”

Generosity of spirit, or perhaps gratitude for the way she kept talking me up to our mother, made me pretend I wasn’t ready until Mom made her scream and thrash her way through a violent orgasm. Then, having stared at her ample ass the whole time, I nearly told Mom to stay put so I could give it to her from behind. That wasn’t what we’d agreed, though. And I was curious to know what my sister tasted like, whether the same magic that had erased our mother’s stretch marks and allowed me to serve up half a gallon of jizz, or however much it had ended up being, would have her pussy weeping pumpkin spice coffee creamer or hot apple cider or something equally wild yet seasonally appropriate.

“I’m gonna tell you what I told her,” our mom said as Cass took her place on the bed. “Sensitive down there. So whatever you’d normally do, dial it back.”

“Normally, I’m a total clit-tease.”

“Figures,” Cass said, before grinning. “Okay, let the torture begin.”

And torture it was. The kind she and our mom had inflicted on me. Sweet, sweet suffering. I started by just staring at it, telling her how beautiful she was, committing every detail of her tight clamshell to memory. If I’m being honest, I prefer more prominent labia and think it’s an absolute shame that women who have them envy women like my sister, but knowing that a lot of men would think she was perfect made it easy to compliment her without it sounding insincere. When she started blushing and could no longer look me in the eye, I traced the outline of her sex with one finger, slooowly got her lips to part, then worked my tongue around the outer edges for a while. Made her resort to begging, cursing, and cajoling before I so much as licked the inner. An MLB game could have started and ended, in extra innings, by the time I finally flicked her clit.

And it’s not like the magic button got all of my attention after that, either. A lot of guys are so proud of knowing where it is, and so eager to prove that to her, they never stop to think about whether too much is nearly as bad as not enough. Others believe there’s some sort of timer and once it goes off there’s no need for restraint. Idiots.

Me? I understood that the best approach was to make her wait for first contact then progressively shorten the cooling off periods, asymptotically approaching but never quite reaching a state of continual stimulation. Though it also helped to keep her guessing, to not let the pattern become too predictable. That was the difference between a good, satisfying, get-the-job-done-without-complaints round of oral sex and an unforgettable one.

Okay, fine, I didn’t work much of that out on my own. Nor had I been fortunate enough to date anyone who was willing to provide the level of feedback necessary to work that out. In my limited experience, getting her to admit she had desires of her own, that sex was not just something she was willing to consent to in order to keep her man happy, was already asking a lot. If I sound like I know what I’m talking about, and I believe I do, it’s because I’m the kinda guy who reads books about this stuff. But we’ve been over that.

Anyway, at no point did I reach a level of intensity that I continuously applied until my sister screamed. Got closer and closer to that, sure, as what it took to keep things going changed with her arousal; but even towards the end, I was backing off for a second or two when I thought she need it. I’d stop the tapping of my fingers against that spongy patch just above her opening yet continue to go at her full force with my tongue, or ramp things up inside while only treating her to the occasional flick of my tongue or moment of suction.

That complex combination of techniques, slow and occasionally interrupted crescendo, did the job not once, not twice, but three times before I went to wash my hands and grab a sip of beer. One of those times, Cass squirted, which made Mom squeal with delight.

Oh, and yeah, she did kinda taste like apples.

“No offense, Mom,” Cass said, “but he’s better at that than you are.” She looked at me with such adoration, such love and affection, such awe, that I nearly cried. “Always figured you have own an instrument to play it at the level of a virtuoso. Guess not.”

I’ve gotten compliments on my cunnilingus game before; I have not had a woman look at me the way my sister just did. I’m not sure I ever even though it was possible for a woman to look at me like that. Other men, sure, but not me.

“That good, huh?” our mom said, looking me up and down.

“Better.”

I laughed. “Careful, Cass. Set the bar to high and I’m bound to disappoint.”

“You could never,” Mom said, running her nails down my back. Then giving my bottom a little tap. “And I’d love to find out, but perhaps we’ll save that for next time? Because I don’t think I can wait another minute to get you back inside me.”

Anyone listening in on the conversation would assume that meant I’d had sex with her before. That wasn’t what “back inside” meant in this case, though. And that made my head feel like a helium balloon. A wonder it didn’t float away.

Lest she feel the need to say it again, though, I moved towards her with hunger and determination, threw my arm around her, squeezed her ass tighter than I’d ever dared squeeze anything, pressed my lips to hers, and sucked her lungs out.

Someone, probably my sister, let out a wolf whistle.

Didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath until she was flat on her back, her legs were propped up on my shoulders, and I was all the way inside her. It had been fun torturing my sister, accelerating slowly and without consistency; sometimes, though, it’s shock and awe that works best. Especially once you’ve established a reputation for the exact opposite.

“Oh… oh my… Will…,” Mom panted, unable to formulate a complete sentence. Her eyes had rolled in the back of her head and it seemed she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to just get it over with, grant herself release if I wouldn’t do it for her, or prolong the moment. Her lacquered nails went to work on her clit then she balled her fists and pounded the mattress. Then she tweaked her own nipples, only to decide that was too much and run her hands through her hair. “I can’t… this is… fuuunggh.”

“Damn, bro,” Cass said. One hand held a bottle of tequila, the other was between her legs, though she wasn’t working herself with any fervor. Just revving the engine a bit, as it were, then letting it idle. Then revving it again. “You trying to ruin her for other men?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Might be working,” the woman on her back said.

Smiling to myself, I leaned forward, thereby raising her hips off the mattress, and arched my back. An awkward position, to be sure, one that would leave an ordinary man with aches and pains if he maintained it for too long. I’d found that out the hard way. Shouldn’t be a concern this time, thanks to the hotel, but I didn’t particularly care if it was. Some things are more important than avoiding discomfort. Like my mother’s pleasure.

Would you trade a sore back the next morning for a good two weeks of most desirable woman you’d ever laid eyes on, a woman who happened to have spent twenty-something years providing for you, nurturing you, loving you, not being able to keep her hands off you? Spending time with other men when she had to—because those were the terms of the agreement that allowed you to live a life of luxury and made the best sex you’d ever had possible—yet otherwise throwing herself at you, crawling on top of you, holding you down while your sister had her way with you? Begging you to go down on her, then going down on you, then offering you your choice of holes while she and your sister ate each other out?

Heck, it might be more than two weeks, if I was right about how valuable she and Cass were to the hotel. Might be an eternity. And why had we assumed the off months would be spent waiting for the hotel to open back up and accept guests again? Might we not come to see October as the price we paid for having so much time together the rest of the year?

I sensed her climax approaching, and decided to slow things down. Yet work her with my thumb. Then speed back up before she could finish groaning.

Now it was her turn to experience a never-ending orgasm. It almost scared me, so vice-like was her grip. Resilient as bodies are, permanent damage to erectile tissue can result from too much pressure. Yes, that too is something I read about.

Femjac, incidentally, is something I haven’t just read about but experienced. Before tonight, I mean. Chalk up anything that happened in that room to the hotel and the supernatural forces at work if you want, that still doesn’t mean female ejaculation is an internet creation. There are people who think that. I feel sorry for them.

“You gonna make it? Or should we call an ambulance?” Cass asked.

Took a few seconds for our mom to cough out a laugh. A feeble one.

“You realize that was just round one,” I told her.

Exasperation flashed across her face, then excitement crept in. “Okay, but play with your sister for a while first. I need to cool off.” To underscore the point, she was fanning her vadge. Then she got up, started toward the bathroom, paused, and said, “If you want to show her something she’s not expecting, something you’ve had up your sleeve this whole time, something that really rock her world, go for it; just save a few of those for me.”

“How many do you think I have?”

“Countless,” both women said, before laughing at the unplanned synchronicity.

If they weren’t careful, they were going to give me a massive ego.

Lying flat on my back, hands folded behind my head, I twitched my cock a few times. Cass smiled, flicked a finger against it, and watched it vibrate like a magnet.

“You like being on top?” I asked her, an image from the night before clear in my mind.

She gave me a coy look. “Maybe. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Good. Definitely good. When she’s on top, he has easy access to everything. Can grope a tit with one hand, slap her ass with the other. Squeeze both cheeks while sucking on a nipple. The only guys who don’t like cowgirl are the ones with fragile egos, who live in perpetual fear of someone, anyone, doubting their masculinity.

I didn’t share those thoughts with Cass, though. After a certain point, saying things you know she’ll agree with, things you know she hasn’t heard from other guys, makes it look like you’re trying too hard. Makes your words sound insincere.

“Do you want me to answer that or do you want to get atop this dick?”

She grunted, swung a leg over my hips, and started her descent.

Her eyes bulged as I stretched her wide. “Fuck,” she said when she reached the bottom, her folds weeping against my pelvis. “Feel like I just got punched in the cervix.”

“If so, that was your doing, not mine.”

A wry smile. “I know. And I’m not complaining.”

“Sure sounded like you were.”

“I like feeling this full.” Despite these words, it took her a long time to start working her hips. To do anything but sit there, staring into the back of my skull while testing the hardness of my chest with her soft palms. That she liked my muscles was clear; whether she wished I was just a little bit smaller in one particular way was less so.