He tastes like the coffee we drank an hour ago and the cold air he brought in from the porch, sharp and grounding.
12 min read·2,323 words·5 views
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January 5th
I saw Silas today for the first time since the funeral. It’s been three years, but he still stands with that particular slouch, like he’s trying to apologize for being six-foot-three. We’re going to the cabin in two weeks to finally clear out the last of our parents’ things. Just the two of us. My stomach has been in a knot since I said yes. There is a specific kind of silence that exists between two people who spent their teenage years trying not to look at each other’s mouths across a dinner table. It’s a somatic weight. I can feel it in my lower back, a dull ache that reminds me why I stopped going home for the holidays.
January 12th
Silas called to check if I’d packed the snow chains. His voice is deeper over the phone, vibrating in a frequency that feels like it’s vibrating right against my pelvic floor. We aren’t related by blood. Our parents married when I was fourteen and he was sixteen. We are legally siblings, which is the boundary I use to keep my sanity in check. But the law doesn't account for the way I watched him through the crack in the bathroom door when he was nineteen, his skin steaming from the shower. It doesn’t account for the fact that he knows exactly how I take my tea and that I’m terrified of the dark. We are strangers who know each other's most intimate domestic habits. It’s a dangerous combination.
January 18th
The drive up to the Cascades was grueling. The sky was the color of a fresh bruise, heavy and swollen with snow. We didn't talk much. We haven't lived in the same house for twenty years, yet we fell back into the old rhythm of ‘you navigate, I drive.’ He has a new scar on his left thumb. I wanted to ask about it. I wanted to take his hand and run my thumb over the raised tissue, but I just looked out the window at the passing fir trees. The silence in the car was thick, like unpoured concrete. We’re here now. The cabin is freezing. He’s out back chopping wood, and I’m sitting on the hearth, writing this because if I don’t put these thoughts somewhere, they’re going to start leaking out of my eyes.
January 20th, 8:15 PM
The storm has officially closed the pass. We aren’t going anywhere for at least forty-eight hours. Silas is sitting in the armchair across from me, poking at the fire. The light makes the planes of his face look sharper, older. He caught me looking. He didn't look away. I’m going to leave this notebook on the coffee table when I go to get more wine. I want him to see it. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. It’s the same old game we played in the hallway of our parents’ house in Portland—the ‘accidental’ brush of shoulders, the long pauses in the kitchen at midnight. I’m thirty-four years old. I should be past this. But here we are, and the air between us is vibrating.
January 20th, 8:30 PM (Silas)
I read it. I shouldn’t have, but Laurel left it right there, open to the page about my thumb. She’s in the kitchen now, clinking glasses. I can hear the wine pouring. My heart is hitting my ribs like a trapped bird. She thinks I don't remember the bathroom door? I saw the shadow of her head through the frosted glass every time I showered for three years. I knew she was there. I stayed in the water longer because I knew she was watching. We’re trapped in a box made of cedar and snow, and she’s writing about my pelvic floor. God help me.
January 20th, 8:45 PM (Laurel)
He didn’t put the book back. He’s holding it. He’s looking at me over the top of the pages, and his eyes are dark, the pupils blown out until there’s barely any iris left.
“You’re a therapist, Laurel,” he says, his voice like gravel. “You’re supposed to have better boundaries than this.”
“I’m off the clock,” I tell him. My voice is steady, which is a miracle because my knees are shaking under my wool skirt. I sit down on the rug by his feet. The heat from the fire is on my back, but the heat coming from him is stronger. I reach out and touch the scar on his thumb. It’s rough. Real.
“I thought we were over this phase,” he says, but he doesn't pull his hand away. He tucks his fingers under my chin and tilts my head back. “I thought we grew out of wanting what we aren't allowed to have.”
“Some hungers don't have an expiration date, Silas.”
He leans down. He smells like woodsmoke and that expensive bourbon he likes. He’s so close I can feel the humidity of his breath on my lips. We’re in that two-hour window before the fire dies, and the world outside is completely white. There is nobody to tell us no. Not anymore.
January 20th, 9:05 PM (Silas)
I’m writing this while she’s right here. She’s leaning against my legs, her head tilted back, watching my pen move. I want her to see every word. I want her to know that when I kissed her just now, it felt like the last twenty years finally made sense. Her mouth was soft, tasting of red wine and desperation. I’ve spent two decades imagining the taste of her tongue. It’s better than the fantasy. It’s hot and wet and demanding.
I put the notebook down on the rug. I can’t write and do what I want to do to her at the same time. Her hands are on my thighs now, her fingers digging into the denim of my jeans. She’s always been the one to push the boundary first, to test the fence. Well, the fence is down.
January 20th, 9:45 PM (Laurel)
Everything is messy now. The ink is probably going to smudge. Silas pulled me up from the floor and onto his lap in that big leather chair. I’m straddling him, my skirt hiked up to my hips, and I can feel the hard, thick ridge of his cock pressing against my knickers. He’s not being gentle anymore. His hands are under my sweater, his palms rough against my ribs, moving up to find my breasts. My nipples are so hard they ache. When he squeezed them through my bra, I made a sound I’ve never heard myself make—a high, sharp whimper that made him growl into my neck.
“Do you have any idea?” he muttered against my skin. “Do you have any fucking clue how many times I’ve had to walk away from you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my underwear and pulled them down. I had to lift my hips, clinging to his shoulders, the wool of his shirt scratching my palms. The air in the cabin is cold, but where we’re touching, it’s searing. He reached between us, his hand large and warm, and find the wetness. I’m so slick I’m dripping. When his middle finger pushed into me, I arched my back, my forehead dropping onto his shoulder.
He started to move his thumb, circling my clitoris with a rhythmic, heavy pressure that felt like it was centered in the very middle of my brain. I’m a therapist; I know about the nervous system. I know about arousal. But this isn't a clinical observation. This is a total system failure. I can’t breathe. I can only feel the way he’s stretching me, the way his other hand is tangled in my hair, pulling my head back so he can watch my face while I come.
“Look at me, Laurel,” he commanded.
I opened my eyes. He was watching his hand move between my legs, watching the way my labia were swollen and dark, gleaming with my own fluids. He looked back up at me, and the look in his eyes was pure possession. It wasn't the look of a brother. It was the look of a man who had finally claimed something he’d been starving for.
I reached for his belt. My fingers were fumbling, clumsy with the sheer urgency of it. I needed to see him. I needed the reality of him to replace the ghosts I’d been carrying. I got the buckle undone, the hiss of his zipper sounding like a starting gun in the quiet room. He helped me, pushing his trousers and briefs down until he sprang free, heavy and dark and pulsing. He’s thick, thicker than I’d imagined, the head of his cock already wet with pre-cum.
I gripped him, my hand barely able to go all the way around. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through my chest. I moved my hand up and down, feeling the tension of the skin, the way the veins stood out.
“Now,” I whispered. “Silas, now.”
He didn’t move me to the bed. He didn’t even move us out of the chair. He just gripped my waist, his fingers bruising my skin, and lifted me up. I guided him to my opening, the tip of him probing at my wetness, and then he let me drop.
He filled me so completely it felt like he was reaching into my throat. I gasped, my fingers digging into his biceps, my eyes rolling back. It was a blunt, heavy invasion. He stayed still for a moment, letting my body stretch around him, his breath coming in ragged hitches.
“You’re so tight,” he choked out. “God, Laurel, you’re perfect.”
Then he started to move. He didn't have much leverage in the chair, so he used his hands on my hips to drive me down onto him while he thrust upward. It was a rhythmic, punishing pace. Every time he hit the back of me, a small, involuntary sob broke out of my throat. I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles, pulling him deeper. I wanted to be consumed. I wanted to erase every year we spent pretending we didn't exist to each other.
I could feel the friction building, that specific, electric climb toward the peak. He was sweating now, despite the cold. I leaned forward and licked the salt from his neck, my teeth grazing his pulse point. He lost it then. He stopped the controlled thrusting and just started slamming into me, his hands moving from my hips to my tits, kneading them roughly.
“I’m going to come,” I gasped, the words tumbling out as my internal muscles began to squeeze him in waves. “Silas, I’m—oh god.”
My orgasm hit like a physical blow. Everything went white. I felt the contractions rippling through me, milking him, and he followed me a second later. He let out a low, long shout, his body jerking beneath me as he filled me with heat. He kept thrusting for a few seconds more, making sure every drop was inside me, before finally collapsing back against the leather, his head lolling.
We stayed like that for a long time. The only sound was the wind howling outside and the crackle of the dying fire. I was still shaking, my face buried in the crook of his neck, feeling the slow, heavy thud of his heart settling back into a normal rhythm.
January 20th, 10:15 PM (Silas)
She’s asleep on my chest. We eventually made it to the rug, wrapped in a wool blanket that smells like cedar. I should feel guilty. I should be thinking about what our parents would say, or how we’re going to explain this when the snow melts and we have to drive back down the mountain.
But I don't feel guilty. I feel like I’ve finally stopped holding my breath.
I’m looking at her in the firelight. She looks younger when she’s sleeping. Less like the polished Portland therapist and more like the girl who used to sit on the porch and read poetry while I pretended to work on my bike. I reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. She stirred, her hand finding mine and squeezing.
“Are you writing again?” she murmured, her eyes still closed.
“Just the facts,” I said.
“What facts?”
“That I’m not letting you go back to that version of us. The one where we don't touch. That’s over.”
She opened her eyes then, and there was no professional distance left. No boundaries. Just the raw, honest truth of two people who finally stopped running.
“Good,” she said. “Because I don't think I could survive another twenty years of silence.”
January 21st, 2:00 AM (Laurel)
I woke up because the fire went out. The cabin is freezing now, but the weight of Silas’s arm across my waist is keeping me warm. I’m looking at the ceiling, thinking about the concept of ‘forbidden.’ As a therapist, I tell my clients that boundaries are healthy, that they protect us. But sometimes, boundaries are just walls we build because we’re afraid of the fall.
Tonight, I fell. And the landing was the first time I’ve felt solid in years.
We have thirty-six more hours until the plow comes. Thirty-six hours in this white-out world where the rules don't apply. I turned over in the blankets, watching him sleep. He looks peaceful. I reached down under the covers, my hand finding his cock, which was soft now but started to stir at my touch. He didn't wake up, but he groaned in his sleep and pulled me closer.
I think I’ll stop writing now. There are some things that don't belong in a journal. Some things only belong in the dark, in the heat, between two people who have finally learned how to speak without saying a word.
