Open Doors

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was intended to be an entry in the Winter Holidays contest, but like a dolt, I misread the deadline. But I would love your comments anyway, since this is one of the few stories I was able to finish this year. Thanks!

*****

She was thinking about her brother and his lucky deck the moment she crashed into the bicyclist. The bicyclist was knocked off course, and tried to step down off the bike as it rolled forward, but the sidewalk had ended. The front wheel twirled and rolled off the sidewalk at an angle, and the whole bike tumbled forward into the street. There were no cars coming, because luck was on her side.

Melissa had stumbled to the ground herself, and now sat looking at the poor guy on the ground, not knowing what to think. She was more aware of the sting of embarrassment than the sharp but dim pain of her split and bleeding lip. This was all her fault.

Her concern was also greater than her shock. She always knew what to do in these situations, and always seemed to have a knack for knowing when something was serious, and when it was nothing more than a skinned knee. Like her brother taking tumbles down the stairs. This was just like that.

When she knelt beside him to examine him, she knew it wasn't serious. He was her age, but she'd never seen him in her neighborhood before. Possible concussion, but not likely. He seemed very responsive, and the lacerations mostly appeared on his arms. He was ok.

He was not pleased.

She apologized and offered to help him up, but he dismissed it. He grumbled and got to his feet, not making eye contact. When he did, he started to say something that sounded like a rebuke, but he quickly disarmed. His eyes softened, as if he was saying "what's the use in being mad." She began to feel pity, because she thought this change of temperament was more like the tired effort one makes to be angry at the end of an already-lousy day.

But then he changed his demeanor completely, and apologized for sounding ticked off. She was taken aback. She deserved a rebuke.

He made a joke, and then asked why he's never seen her around. "I'm just home for the holidays," she answered. "I live and work downtown, but my parents live up here in Lafayette." He made another joke. Her lip was throbbing.

He was hitting on her.

She thought of her childhood friend Millie. She was on the playground one day and bumped into a bigger girl. The big girl had tumbled and hit her head on one of the poles near the swings. She didn't fall, but she immediately pushed Millie down. Millie wasn't paying attention either, and her ice cream cone was now covered in sand. Melissa wanted to be Millie, but she never had the chance.

The bicyclist was checking out Melissa's body.

When she spoke, her voice was somber. He didn't notice, and she wasn't surprised. Even if she was boy-crazy like Millie, she would never find peace bouncing from one guy to the next.

She was thinking about all of this because things were too good for her. She had a growing guilt complex over the relative happiness she'd had throughout life. Everyone treated her nicely, including the guys that wanted to fuck her. Especially them.

She knew she was attractive, but she didn't use it like other girls did. Being an athlete, she was in great shape. Her dark brown hair looked healthy even when it wasn't brushed, and she prided herself on never having dyed it.

And for her petite frame, she knew that her tits were perfect.

To everyone else, she was humble about them, even taking measures to cover them up and downplay them. Sometimes she caught men staring at them, and it annoyed her most when it was men from whom she'd hoped for more friendship. She could get any guy's attention with them if she wanted it, but she rarely did. Mostly, she felt cursed by them. She felt unduly loved because of her body.

She wanted rebuke. She didn't realize that until she responded to this stranger's charm with sadness, and an oddly delightful reaction to her bleeding lip.

She was in the master bathroom later, her whole body and soul now flush with hot blood and confused feelings. Something had happened to her, and her body was tingling. She felt an exciting mix of energy, pain, and something else. She wanted to call it romance.

The bicyclist could have chewed her out, and she would have taken it, apologizing profusely. She would have invited him to dinner and he would have eaten her mother's special beef minestrone soup. He would keep quiet, still judging her silently, while she melted his tense body with a back-rub. Later, she would kiss his wounds, and his heart would beat just one beat quicker, watching her ceaseless devotion. He would finally desire her, and he might then have kissed her. Then she would take her clothes off, and let him look at her. Then, she would let him have her.

The warmth growing in her loins mixed with her sore muscles and wet tears, even as she smiled. She loved it, she decided. She loved the tangled emotions. The fantasy, and the shame, and the confusion. Something bubbled to the surface as she stared into the mirror by the door to her parents' bedroom, and it was the surprisingly erotic power of confusion.

Thoughts of the cyclist, she realized, were not the cause, but the catalyst. She didn't want him, or even the version of him she'd just invented. She wanted a version of herself that did things she would never expect. One that explored sexual territory, not to find her desires, but to get lost in the ambiguity. To experience the unknown, and stay there forever.

She caressed a bruise on her arm, and felt goosebumps. Her shirt felt heavy on her skin, and on impulse, she took all of her clothes off. She looked at all of her bruises, one at a time. She pulled the band off of her hair and let it down, and the hair slid across her sensitive skin.

She slid her fingers all over her body, and the feeling was electric. She could not believe or explain why this felt so incredible in this moment. She let out a laugh, watching it all in the mirror. It was unusual for her to feel the urge to play with her own nipples, but now she couldn't help it.

She would never be able to explain why it all happened, but it happened quickly. In moments, she was rubbing the lips of her vagina. She rarely masturbated, she realized, and had never done so in front of a mirror. But she'd never been this horny before.

And so she watched the happy girl in the mirror, while the first snowflakes of her Thanksgiving weekend gently fell outside. She enjoyed the fingers inside her, as the moment came and passed when her life changed forever.

***

Rick waited for Jenna for nearly two hours before giving up. He was only half-expecting her to show up anyway, and was only half-hoping as well.

He sat outside on a bench, waiting for her car to arrive in the passenger pickup lane. The airport was as busy as ever, and the midday sun warmed the air enough for Rick to relax with a light jacket. He was not in any hurry, so Jenna's absence was not really an inconvenience.

Nobody at home knew when he was supposed to be arriving. He liked it that way.

His relationship with Jenna was as tenuous as ever. If he didn't still have some small amount of love in his heart for her, and if he hadn't been without affection for so goddam long, he might have wished to never see her no-good, rotten face again.

He would never forgive her.

The day he'd learned of it was the hardest day. Four years ago, just after leaving for the Army, she told him. He was still in Basic. She couldn't even wait that long.

She said she loved him, but couldn't keep her damn legs closed even for him.

When he returned a year ago, that was when she came to him. She wanted to rekindle their relationship. She was lonely, and confessed to being depressed. She begged him for sex, and it all just made him more sad than angry.

Just enough time had passed that he actually felt a little sorry for her. She hurt him, but not as bad as she was hurting herself.

They fucked, but only once. He didn't want to see her again, but she made him. She looked so fucked up at that point that he obliged out of pity. When she realized this, she pulled away. She was silent on the way out, leaving her only key on the coffee table.

Then she started to write him letters. Her words were like pieces of her own flesh, sliced from her own body. She had nothing left but him, it seemed.

She wrote him often, and it seemed like she was turning over a new leaf. Three months ago, she agreed to meet him at the airport to see if they could start over. He was home for good now, and she still loved him. She needed him, she said. And he was ready to finally believe her.

Rick twirled his coffee cup around, which only had a few drops of coffee that had became cold an hour ago. He rubbed his eye for the umpteenth time, wondering how allergies could be affecting him in November. He figured it was due to his prolonged absence from North America.

Rick watched all the people coming and going, and he took in the moment of change for himself. He had no idea what the future had in store for him. He expected that civilian life would be a return to normalcy, and that's what he planned for. He would take some time for himself, and he was prepared to deflect and inquiries into plans of any kind. He had none.

He would probably get a degree in something that uses math, because he'd always loved math, and he would meet a nice woman that wasn't Jenna and her painful fucking reminder of failure. No, she would be sweet and fun. She would be his wife and would have his babies and do all of the things with him that normal people do in life. All he wanted was something normal.

He found himself looking at each available woman that walked by him. Jenna continued to slip from his mind, until he found himself in a Taxicab headed for his temporary, quiet, suburban home. There were no cars in the driveway and no one there to greet him when he stepped outside.

The temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees, and the sun was now hidden. The first snowflakes he'd seen in years began to fall, and he took a big breath.

He went around the side of the house, knowing the front door would be locked. He came through the back door and put his bags on the kitchen counter.

He rubbed his eyes, still itchy even indoors. He went into the downstairs bathroom to look for some eye drops, but couldn't find any. He didn't think they would be down here anyway, but they would be in his parents' bathroom for sure.

When he got upstairs and opened the door to the bedroom, that is when he found Melissa standing not three feet from him. His sister was completely naked.

She had her fingers inside her vagina, and was lost enough in her pleasure at first to notice him. But then they made eye contact.

Her eyes widened, but she didn't move. His hand seemed to forget where the door handle was, but he found it as his eyes broke from hers. On impulse, he glanced briefly once more down at the hand between her thighs, then left.

Her image appeared again in his mind immediately. He walked down the hallway, down the stairs, through the dining room and back outside. And that image remained the whole time.

He'd never retained a more crystal clear image in his memory, and this shocked him. Thoughts of Jenna were now as far from his mind as could possibly be. His consciousness was now entirely wrapped around the picture of his little sister with her fingers inside herself.

He shared the moment with her. They made eye contact during this moment, and it should have been Melissa's private moment.

He was dazed, and almost felt ready to collapse. His heart was pounding, and he was starting to sweat. The dizziness began to fade while he grabbed the fence for support. After a few minutes, he was back to normal, all except for one thing.

He had an erection.

It made him think about Melissa again, and he felt it get harder still. It's because she's my sister, he worried. I never get erections this quickly.

But then he reasoned against this. Melissa was really good-looking, and that had to be why. This was normal, he decided. Nothing to be worried about. And after all, how long has it been?

Still, it didn't fix the problem.

It was too much. He went back inside and to the downstairs bathroom, then closed the door. He unzipped his pants and slid them down. He pulled his boxer briefs down and at last his erect penis sprang out.

He put his hand on it to start jerking off, but Melissa sprang to his mind once more, and he let go.

He couldn't jerk off to his sister. He just couldn't.

He couldn't count the number of times he was in this situation, where he just needed to rub it out. He could do it in less than a minute, and be done with it.

But he could touch himself without seeing Melissa's vulnerable but joyful eyes looking back into his. It made him harder than ever, yet thinking about anything else seemed impossible. Nothing got him away from it. Not Christmas trees or race cars or insects or anything.

He tried waiting, and it actually started to work, just as he heard Melissa walk by the bathroom and into the living room. She called his name, and he tensed up. He didn't want to respond, because then she would know he's in here. And she's a grown-ass adult. She'll put two and two together.

He didn't know what to do. He looked down again and groaned, seeing that his dick was as hard as ever. He heard Melissa call his name again, now walking back towards the bathroom. Then he heard a knock, followed by her voice. He didn't respond at first, thinking, stupidly, that she would go away if he didn't respond. But he realized he wasn't sure if he locked the door. He was standing two feet from the door with his erection out in the open.

He saw the handle start to turn, and the door started to open.

His instincts kicked in and he reached out to stop the door. "Don't come in!" he yelled at once.

"Okay! Geez. Answer me when I call you, then, dork!" As quickly as she came, she was gone.

He was worried.

She would surely know now that he was in here masturbating because he just saw his sister naked. And worse yet, he still had to get rid of this erection one way or the other.

He turned to the shower for the only solution left: the tried and true cold shower. When he got in, the water on his skin at first made him hornier, but then it got colder. By the time his whole body was shivering, his penis was limp.

***

He was reading through junk mail and enjoying another cup of coffee in the kitchen when he heard the garage door open. Melissa had not yet reappeared from upstairs.

Carol and Bernard broke through the door into the kitchen, and their faces were hidden by big brown bags of groceries. Rick said, "here, let me help you with those, Ma..."

"What? Oh, Rick! You scared me. I had no idea when you were home already. Oh here, take this." He took the biggest bag from her and put it on the counter. When their eyes met for the first time, she smiled and pulled him in for a hug. "Oh Sweetie, it's so good to finally see you again! Bernnie, hun, look who's here?"

His father appeared from the side of the car and came through the door with a 24-pack of Coors Light under one arm and several bags under the other. "Well what are you standin' there for? Help your mother get the rest out of the car."

"Yes sir," he said, without hesitation. There were probably two trips worth of bags left, but he got them all in one and closed the door. He was so happy to be home.

He put the bags on the counter in the kitchen, and then took his father in for a hug. "It's good to have you home, son."

"Are you going to be here for dinner, or did you wanna visit with friends today?" His mother, ever the planner. He'd come to expect her questions, so that she could plug them into her mental holiday itinerary. The magnets on the refrigerator made Rick smile, because they were all at perfect 90 degree angles. Yes, this was home.

Then his father asked, "Where's your sister?"

"Oh she's probably out on one of her runs," Carol said.

"No, she's upstairs," Rick added.

"So you two already saw each other?" Carol put the last of the perishables in the fridge, and when she closed the door, Rick could see Melissa walking into the room.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Melissa said. She was smiling at Rick in that embarrassing way, when you can only bear to make eye contact briefly.

"No, no, no, that doesn't go there," Carol barked at Bernard.

"Where the hell else is it gonna go? It's flour, it's for cooking right?"

"No, that's for baking, it's for the bread and cookies. It goes in the pantry out in the garage."

Bernard left, and Carol turned to look at Rick and Melissa. Her face was warm with that special glow reserved only for family bonding moments. She opened her mouth to say something, but Bernard cuts her off from out in the garage with, "What pantry?!"

"Oh for heaven's sake, let me do it!" She throws her hands up and disappears into the garage.

Finally, Rick and Melissa look back at each other, finally alone.

Her grin grows. He says, "Melissa, I am so, so sorry..." She started laughing, and he began to laugh with her. She reached out and grabbed him to hug him.

"I missed you," she said.

When they were done hugging, he stepped back and looked at her again. "Seriously though, I'm sorry..."

"Whatever," she said. "It happens."

"You're not mad?"

"My car wasn't here because I got dropped off. How could you have known?"

"I know, but I still feel bad."

"We're adults."

Bernard's voice cut them off again. "I just don't understand why you can't just leave it out if you're going to be using all that stuff tomorrow anyway. I swear, sometimes I just don't understand you, woman."

Rick and Melissa look at each other again and grin.

***

The next morning, Melissa was the first to start the coffee in the kitchen. A night to process the changes from the previous day had done her some good, and she was about to put it behind her.

She still kept replaying that moment in her head from the second she awoke, but it was less vivid than before. Yesterday, she felt like she was naked the whole time she was with Rick. She couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen.

But she wasn't uncomfortable around him. In fact, she was more comfortable than ever with him. It was not at all how she was expecting to be with him. She was planning to reconnect with a brother she barely even knew. And she had some very important brotherly advice to ask him for, but decided that, in light of their first meeting, that it would be best to wait.

And yet, she actually now thought he was more suited to help her than she thought before. She saw him naked, and it was no big deal. At least not to her, anyway. She had no idea if he even gave it a second thought, or if he was replaying the encounter over and over again in his head like she was.

She knew it was something he would never forget, but there's nothing she could do about that now. But maybe it's a good thing. Maybe now she could talk to him in a way that she probably couldn't before.

The coffee was just about brewed when Rick walked into the kitchen. He was wearing his PJ's and looked like he hadn't brushed his hair yet. He stopped when he saw Melissa, who was also wearing her PJ's. He thought he'd gotten up before her for sure this morning, and was hoping to avoid her. At least until he'd had his coffee.

"Sit down, I'll pour you a cup," she said, smiling. She also looked like she hadn't quite woken up yet, judging by her hair.

He sat down at the table and watched her pour the coffee. He noticed that when she moved some of her hair behind her ear with her fingers, she did so with so much grace, even though it was 7AM and she looked quite tired. His sister was as strong as they came, but she always had her feminine charm, even on a quiet morning.