Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [69]
When we get back, Thuan breaks the silence and tells me to head inside—he’s going to keep wandering. There’s no invitation in his announcement so I go in—glad to escape the punishing heat—strip to my boxers, splash water over my face and chest. I think for a droll moment of working out. Then I resume my place on the couch, following the creak of the fan, the odd foolhardy cyclist whizzing by on the track below.
The wind sears my face awake. I’m sodden and sticky. I find myself incredibly aroused. The wind feels as though it’s passed through fire. I press my face into the cushion and reach for myself, drowsing into the familiar memory of Baby that one time. The habitual quickening. She came over to our house wheeling a large suitcase full of clothes to launder. Yes. These trips were timed so both our parents would be out working the night shift. My brother steered and shut her up in his room, not knowing I could hear their every other sound. At the end of the night she unloaded the dryer and folded her clothes into the suitcase.
‘Need any help with that?’
‘I’ll be right.’
‘You can carry it down the stairs?’
A flirtatious pause.
‘Sure, you can help me bring it down.’
I glided to the window and lifted the hem of the blinds. I was nearly seventeen. They left, as usual, by the small unlit walkway between the fence and my side of the house. And as usual, they tarried in the dark, swaying in and away from each other, whispering, and I cracked open the window to listen in from above.
‘So what’s the going tip for a bellboy here?’ she asked.
Outside, the night was cool and a wind blew full and quiet along the empty street, carrying with it the scent of new flowers, jasmine and hibiscus and bougainvillea. A wood chime sounded from a neighbour’s porch.
‘Just a quick blow job,’ he said.
She spluttered out a low laugh, pushed and punched him. Then they kissed. She kissed him soft and then she kissed him hard, and after some abortive fumblings she spun around and folded herself over the standing suitcase. She wriggled her pants down to her knees.
‘Make it quick,’ her voice hissed.
He shoved down his own pants and grabbed her pale hips. He leaned and rocked over her. The wheels scrabbled wildly across the concrete but the suitcase stayed upright. From where I was watching all I could see of Baby was the side of her head, curtained off by her jogging black hair. She nodded and nodded and nodded and I watched. Finally they stopped, remaining locked together, almost statue-like. Then she unbent herself, bobbed her knees in a little curtsey, and reached between her legs with two fingers.
‘You,’ she said, grinning delightedly, jabbing her fingers at his chest, ‘are going to get me pregnant.’
He shushed her and automatically she looked around, scoping the street. Then she looked up—and saw me. I jerked back but didn’t dare release the blinds. After an appalling hesitation, she lowered her gaze, then straightened her clothes. She took possession of her suitcase handle. My brother stood there half-slouched and stupid. I ignored him. I watched instead the new self-consciousness in Baby’s body as she walked away—or did I imagine it?—leaning her weight forward, scraping and sledding her suitcase across the street.
‘I never want to see you again,’ my brother abruptly shouted into the night. ‘Take your stuff and get out of here!’
With a wicked smile she turned in our direction. ‘I’m never coming back!’ she called out. She heaved