Author's Note:
This is a slow-burn (we're talking novella length). I've written a brother/sister story before, but this time I wanted to craft a genuinely plausible narrative, with proper attention given to the developing relationship between Hamish and Liesel. It takes a good few Lit pages to get properly into the eroticism. All comments and ratings are appreciated. Enjoy! Xx
———
What would you do for $10,000?
When I woke, I registered two things. First, I felt the softness of my pillow and the blankets overtop of me—and second, at almost exactly the same time, I discerned the warmth of my sister's body on the bed sheets beside me. I rolled my head sideways on its pillow to look at Liesel. Her eyes were still closed. Most of her form was covered by blankets, but I could spot the arch of an exposed shoulder rising and falling as she breathed.
A gentle fire crackled in the corner of our cabin. Every wooden surface glinted in its glow. I sat up and parted the corner of a curtain to look out over a valley forest tipped by snow. Birds were like specks of dust in the air. The sky was pastel blue. If it weren't for the lingering memory of Liesel's kiss, this view would have absorbed my full attention.
If it weren't for the cameras, our little cabin would have been paradise.
But the cameras never left. They watched us. That was the rule.
The cameras watched us become sinners.
———
Four Days Earlier.
I didn't want to get up. It was one of those mornings. Though I knew I ought to get it over with, the thought of leaving my electric blanket and exposing my ankles to the bite of winter was appalling. I hooked my feet up beneath my body and shivered. Birds cawed somewhere outside, as though laughing at me.
The cold was unprecedented. It had been all year. It'd been snowing since mid-Autumn, and by the start of Winter all the lakes had frozen over. The duck population had migrated at once, in a single big flock along the road which led north. Main Street was oddly still without its ducks. I thought that every time I walked through town in my boots and ski jacket. The lakes were so still they could have been painted in place.
When at last I rose from bed that morning, donning my dressing gown and clutching a towel, I found the bathroom door locked. Someone had beaten me to the hot shower. There was a sliver of light beneath the bathroom door, and the sound of running water. I stood there for some minutes with my towel in my hands. The weight of my own cold body was immense.
"Liesel?" I called. I knocked. "Hey! How long will you be?"
She coughed, then responded: "Wait your turn."
"Are you smoking in there?"
"I'm showering."
"If you're gonna smoke, can't you save the hot water?" I called. I put my mouth right up against the keyhole. "
Liesel
. Turn the fucking shower off!"
The water stopped running. A moment later, my sister emerged with a cigarette between her teeth. She wore two towels: one around her hair, and the other around her middle. Her legs and shoulders were still damp. They caught the light like glitter. For a moment we stared at one another, then she stepped aside with a mock-courteous expression.
"Help yourself," she said. "I'm off to prepare for my interview."
"You could open a window when you smoke, you know."
"Uh-huh." She wiped several stray strands of hair from her face. "What time did you say to meet?"
"Six o'clock. Meet at the shop, and be
on time
. I don't like driving in the snow when it's dark."
At this, Liesel dropped the cold act. She smiled. "I'll be there," she said. "I promise."
"Good. I'll see you then."
"Mm-hm. Thanks for driving me."
And off she went, leaving the scent of mingled shampoo and tobacco in the air. I watched her go for a moment, then entered the bathroom and closed the door. There was mercifully enough hot water to last me the duration of my shower, though it was a close call. By the time I ran the tap to brush my teeth, the flow was cold as ice.
———
The world had a cruel sense of humour. I'd known this fact from the time I was very young, when we used to hang our clothes out to dry on flagpoles poked through open windows. Our apartment had no balcony, and no place for a washing line, so this was the best we could do. We had to broadcast our poverty to the rest of the town.
"There's the family who hangs their clothes out on flagpoles," whispered the town. Even as a child I was aware of these mutterings. "There are those kids who only wear hand-me-downs..."
Liesel and I never had many friends at school. It was not that our classmates looked down on us for having such little money, though this was no doubt a contributing factor; it was more that we found it difficult to relate to children who lived such different lives to our own. Our mother was dead, and our father was a mesothelioma patient who'd blown all his money on the ponies. These were not circumstances most children could relate to.
We were not orphans, but we were close to it. Each year my father lived was on borrowed time.
So Liesel and I spent those childhood years shoulder-to-shoulder in the schoolyard. Dad worked long hours despite his illness, so us kids would pack our own lunch boxes and iron our own clothes, and we'd set out every morning together with our chins held high. We sat under the beech trees on the school field and told one another stories. I graduated high school two years before she did, but I still snuck back onto campus during my lunch breaks to spend the time with her.
We were lonely, but we were lonely together.
———
What I didn't know when I banished Liesel from the bathroom that morning in mid-winter was that the world was about to get a whole lot crueller. Things had been looking up for some months now: my record shop was taking flight, Dad was still alive, and Liesel had finished her degree at last. I was driving her to her first job interview that evening. If there was ever a time to pay off our debts and stop hanging our clothes on flagpoles, it was now.
I parked in my usual spot beside a playground. It was a fifteen minute walk from there to my shop in town, but it was worth it for the free parking. As I got out of the car and looked at the children on the playground, I was again struck by just how still and lifeless the town felt without its duck population. They usually swathed about your feet when you ate lunch, in search of dropped morsels. In their absence, the frozen ponds were like empty skies.
I set off towards my record shop. The walk seemed to take much longer than usual. Snow settled in my hair like small, cold petals. It crunched under my boots and fell into my jacket hood. I kept my hands deep in my pockets. Something about the day had me on edge. There was an acidity in the air which left a bad aftertaste in my throat.
Snow turned to ash beneath my feet. My nostrils tingled.
When at last I reached my beloved record shop, I stopped in the middle of the road and stared. The bitter wind took my breath away. People were milling about, talking in excited voices. I found a nearby bus stop and sat down. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was back in bed beneath my warm covers.
My shop was recognisable only by the stray bits of vinyl which littered the street and gutters. It had been reduced to a smouldering wreck of blackened wood; twisted and contorted into terrible shapes like the bones of a skeleton. The wind came thick with ash. Several firemen were dousing the edges of the wreckage to protect neighbouring stores, but I didn't think it mattered much: the fire had already been and gone. It'd left the smell of a million cigarettes.
"Mr. Bauer?"
