Short Century (21 page)

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As I waited for
Emily to return from her date, I resolved to have sex with her before the night was over. So far I had acted stupidly, everything I had done was poorly planned. I could either go bumbling around all summer or I could take decisive action. There was no question that this had to happen: Arthur and Emily, Destroyers of the Greatest Taboo. If there is one person on earth whom you consider yourself not permitted to fuck, then you are not truly free. Emily and I were not made for constraints. We were born to this.

It was a few minutes to one when headlights finally appeared. The car pulled up the driveway past where I could see it from the window. Emily would kiss Brad's neck as she opened the car door, and she would think how silly it was to think that the expected life was something she would have to push herself to live—the expected life, after all, allowed for some erotic bliss, and an expected life with Brad would allow for a lot of it. Brad would watch her as she walked in front of the car and squinted in the headlights. Maybe there was sand in her shoes from their frolic on the beach, and her walk would reflect that and the wine she had drunk. She would look back at him and smile and bite her lip, and he would think of making love to her in the sand a few minutes earlier, a memory which would be the greatest of his life had it not happened so many times before and if it did not promise to happen so many times in the future.

I turned away from the window as she was coming up the steps.

“Arthur!” she said as she opened the door. She clearly wasn't drunk at all. “I had a horrible premonition just now. I had this awful feeling that you had hanged yourself. I'm so glad to…”

“Emily, you have beautiful legs.”

“What?”

“Take off your shoes.”

“Absolutely, yes, let me take off my shoes. You know, it must be hard for men to respect women, when women are so willing to wear shoes that cause them pain just because they think it makes them look better. I'm not going to wear high heels anymore.”

“You have beautiful legs.”

“Okay.”

“You also have beautiful breasts.”

“Okay, you're making fun of me. I'm going to ignore you and talk about my date. I actually had a really nice time tonight. But that may be because Brad hardly said anything. He was so happy to see me again that he treated every word I said like it was a gift from the most beautiful woman in the world. Usually I find it embarrassing when he treats me like that, but tonight for some reason I really liked it.”

“Can I get you some wine?”

“Sure.”

“Did you have sex with him?”

“No, he was very gentlemanly. He treated it like a first date.”

“Did you want to have sex with him?”

“What if I did? I have the right to have sex with anyone I please.”

“That's true. Absolutely anyone.”

“I think I was lying just now about becoming more selfish. I actually did find Brad's attention embarrassing tonight, just like I always do. My standards are too high. I need to learn to accept imperfection in people. I'm looking for some non-existent ideal, so I'm not giving him a chance. That's what being an adult is, right? Making compromises and accepting less. When you can say that all of the terrible things in the world are just the flaws that make life beautiful, then you're a man. Or a woman. As the case may be.”

“If that's what being an adult is, I don't think it's for you.”

“Neither do I. Can I be honest with you? I wish there were something exciting that I could do. Maybe I won't go to Wellesley and I'll just bum around Paris for a few years instead. Or go to
REDACTED
.”

“No, you need to go to college.”

“Okay then. No excitement for me.”

“Maybe you don't need to go to Paris for excitement.” This was a lame thing to say.

“You mean the most exciting journey is the journey inward? If that's what you're saying, I swear to God I'm going to have you defenestrated, decapitated, disemboweled, and castrated. In whatever order I see fit.”

“What I mean is that I don't really see you bumming around anywhere. I see you doing something great.”

“You mean like leading people to freedom?”

“I see that as something you could do.”

“That's a nice compliment.”

I handed her a glass of wine and took a sip of my own.

“Are you sure you're okay, Arthur? You really do look a little strange.”

“Maybe you don't need to go to Paris for excitement.”

“What do you mean?”

“I've been thinking a lot about what happened this afternoon at the park.”

Something turned in her face. “That was funny. Right?”

Out with it. Now.

“Emily. I think we should have sex.”

She could clearly tell that I wasn't joking. “Arthur, I know you're trying to be funny, but I think you're getting sick. You should get to bed.”

“Why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we make love?”

“Arthur, tomorrow I'm going to call the doctor and I'm going to make you see him.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Dr. Richardson can see if there's anything wrong with you physically, and if not, I'm sure he can suggest a psychiatrist.”

“That's still not an answer.”

Her face was firm and determined. For the first time that I could remember, I thought she looked like our father. “I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Arthur.”

She walked a few steps, and I knew that if I let her go to bed with things the way they were our relationship would be ruined.

“Because you can't come up with an answer?” I said, careful to speak softly so as not to be heard anywhere else in the house, and also to lend my voice authority. “Because you obey a taboo that you can't defend?”

She stopped and stood with her back to me. I could see that she had raised her arm but I couldn't see what she was doing with it. I wanted to calm her and protect her, but it was better to say nothing and let her come to whatever she would come to.

“Fine,” she said, turning to me and smiling. “Make your argument for why this is all right.”

“Um.” I had an argument, I had many arguments, but I couldn't remember any of them. She drummed the fingers of one hand against the back of the other and cocked an eyebrow to taunt me.

“Why should we be shackled by society?” I said. “Why should we let the same society that burns children in Vietnam tell us who we can fuck and who we can't fuck? Why should we let our family, with all its blood money—because that's what it is, blood money—why should we let our family with all its blood money and all its hotel hangings tell us what to do? Emily, for all of our protestations of rebellion, right now we remain curled in our parents' marriage bed, fighting for our share of the blanket. The flag of sex is ours to hoist. Why should we let it lie twisted at our feet?” I hated myself for using Rothstein's words.

Her hand was at her hip and she pulled at her dress. For the most part she seemed unimpressed, but she had furrowed her brow when I said “hotel hangings.” I had just thrown it in for cadence; it was a stupid thing to bring up, entirely irrelevant and the opposite of an aphrodisiac. She looked away from me, but came back to the kitchen.

She picked up the corkscrew and traced the metal with one finger. She turned it over several times and then pulled at the wooden handle.

“If we did this,” she said, “you wouldn't kill yourself.”

“What?”

“This would set you apart from Paul and Grandpa. Whatever it was that made them kill themselves wouldn't be able to touch you. Don't you think that's true?”

“Emily, that doesn't really have anything to do with…”

“If we did this, I would never have to worry about you killing yourself ever again.” She scratched at her neck, still not looking at me. “And I'd be leaving boring behind forever.”

“Forever.”

“We'd sort of be sexual pioneers,” she said. Gently she swayed and held her fingers still at her neck.

“That's right. We'd be cutting through the brush. We'd be…”

She grabbed the back of my neck and kissed my lips.

“Fuck,” she said. “I can't believe that just happened. Fuck.” Then she grabbed the back of my head and thrust her tongue deep into my mouth. There was absolutely nothing sexual in the way she did this; she was like a child taking medicine. We stood there, moving our tongues. I didn't want to break the kiss because I had no idea what I would do next.

After a minute or so we broke apart.

“Wow, Arthur. Wow.”

Suddenly I was unspeakably irritated at the thought of having to touch her. I wanted her to be away from me.

I told myself that I needed to take the lead. I had started this and I needed to guide her.

“See?” I said. “We weren't struck down by lightning.”

She was looking away from me. “I wonder if I've wanted to do that forever,” she said.

I put my hand around her waist and kissed her again. “Let's go upstairs,” I said.

“This is fun,” she said. “Let's do it.” She kissed me again, and when we broke the kiss, she took my hand and led me to the stairs.

“You know, I'm not a virgin,” she said. “I wasn't lying about having sex with James.”

I wasn't sure why she had said this. “Good,” I said.

The stairs creaked and I was afraid our mother would wake up, but I didn't want to remind Emily of our mother, so I didn't say anything.

When we were halfway up the stairs, she stopped me and bit my neck. She looked at me and smiled, then bit my neck again. Was she trying to give me a hickey?

“This is ridiculous,” she said. She was giggling and sounded happy. “This is totally ridiculous.”

She squeezed my hand and pulled me the rest of the way up the stairs. She continued to giggle and I realized she didn't sound happy.

“Emily,” I said, “let's not do this.”

“Too late.” She pulled my shirt out of my khakis and ran her hand over my abdomen. “Besides,” she said, “if we don't like it, we can always pretend it never happened.”

“You're drunk. You've had too much wine.”

She gazed at me, attempting a sexy fake-innocent pout. She stood on her toes and, walking backwards, pulled me toward my room. I wanted to say we had to stop, but instead I kissed her neck, her shoulder, her neck again, and reached behind her to open the door.

“Emily, you're so beautiful,” I said. “God, you're so beautiful.”

She giggled, and I wished she would stop.

I decided that I shouldn't read into her giggling. Of course there would be something different about her behavior; she was about to have sex with her brother. She said everything was all right, so everything was all right. I needed to stop tyrannically assuming that I knew better.

She pushed me into the room and slammed the door behind us, slamming it again when it didn't close all the way the first time.

“Arthur, you're handsome,” she said. “Handsome and brilliant.”

I kissed her. “You're beautiful and brilliant.”

I pushed the dress straps from her shoulders and ran my hands over her back. She wriggled in my arms and I unzipped her dress and she twisted and jerked until the dress was at her feet. She stepped out of the dress and kicked it away. Now she was wearing cotton panties, a cotton bra, stockings, and a necklace. She looked plumper without clothes, and she looked happy.

And so when Emily said, “This is right. This feels right,” I said that it did and I reached behind her to undo her bra. My fingers knocked against each other as I tried to unfasten the clasp, which would not give way. It occurred to me that I was terrified at the thought of seeing her naked.

She chuckled, sounding perhaps truly comfortable. “Let me,” she said, and unfastened the clasp and took off her bra.

I looked at her breasts. They were just tits, a girl's tits. They looked no different for belonging to my sister. All those years, in towels, in bathing suits, in anything really, she had been hiding these wonderful tits from me. It was unnatural that she had devoted so much effort to depriving me of seeing her this way.

“Emily, you're so beautiful,” I said.

She laughed her confident mocking laugh that I knew so well, proving to me that the way I was acting was silly and pretentious, but not evil.

“I can hear you breathing a little heavier,” she said. “Do you think I'm prettier than Miranda?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Touch them.” She sounded suddenly impatient. I put my hands on her breasts, and she closed her eyes and I kneaded her breasts. Her eyes still closed, she leaned forward to kiss me, but she kept missing my lips, and for some reason it didn't occur to me to lean into her kiss. She opened her eyes and, without kissing me, placed my hands on her hips. I tried to pull down her panties but she stopped me. She had changed her mind. Of course she had changed her mind. This was insane.

She unbuttoned my shirt and took it off me. She took a deep breath, as though she were about to dive under water, and pulled my boxer shorts down to my ankles.

“So, that's your penis?”

“Um,” I said. “Yes.”

She rose and put her hand on my shoulder and shook me a bit. “We must be two of the bravest people who have ever lived,” she said. She took her hand from my shoulder and put it on my cock. I felt somehow surprised that her fingers were around my cock, as though I had awoken to find them there. She was pinching my cock more than stroking it. I slid her panties down. I looked at her yellow pubic hair and my own.

She stepped around me to sit on my bed. She hugged her breasts and her knees touched.

“You need to use a condom,” she said. “I should be on the pill. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. God, you have nothing to apologize for.” I turned to my chest of drawers and took a condom from the sock drawer. I put it on and turned back to her. She was still hugging her breasts and her knees still touched. I reached between her thighs, hoping she would part them. She did not. I kissed her forehead again and I kissed her nose. I drew back to look at her. The corners of her mouth were turned up in what was possibly a smile. I kissed her breasts and with my hands parted her legs. On seeing her vagina, I wanted a glass of water and I wanted to sit down.