Tease Her Back*

Alexis liked teasing me, so I wondered how far I could push it today. I took a step towards her. Reaching out, I slid my hands along her waist to hold her in place. She was good at masking her true emotions, but I didn’t need to read body language to know what she was feeling. Her Noise betrayed her. Looking up at me, she still maintained her sultry look but her emotions were anything but. Her anxiety had spiked. Surprise and a hint of fear mixed into her Noise as well. She didn’t expect this sort of response and I capitalized on it.

“I suppose I could play for a bit.” My voice was as steady as my heartbeat. I suppose it was a benefit of my Gift in this situation. The heat of her body against mine, the smoothness of her skin, the playful look on her face, and her familiar tangy scent were digging up various emotions inside me. Emotions that ultimately ended smashed and broken against the walls of my mind. As attracted to her as I was, I felt none of it—at least not in a way that physically moved me. Like it always was in this type of situation, I felt like an observer in my own body. My body an actor to the script my mind dictated.

Her hand ran against my chest as she held eye contact. “Yeah? What do you have in mind?”

I nodded. I had expected her to crack by now. Normally she would have pushed me away and teased me for ‘falling for it.’ If she wasn’t going to back down, I wasn’t either.

“I was thinking…” Leaning in, I held her gaze as our lips grew closer. I was committed at this point. I would push as far as she would allow. “Taking you back to my room and seeing which sister is louder.”

She didn’t stop me as I went in for the kiss. I would have done it too if not for the shift in her Noise stopping me. Our lips were close. Close enough that I could feel her nervous breath against my lips. She wasn’t stopping me, but I could feel it was time to stop.

Pulling away, I turned and continued to the kitchen. Two clear emotions chased me. Disappointment and relief.

“I’m feeling a fighting game,” I said over my shoulder as I rummaged through the fridge for a snack.

More relief flowed from her as she gave me a confident grin. Emotions lingered, but it seemed like she was going to push to put this behind us. “Asking to get your ass kicked?”

“You do realize I have school? I don’t have the luxury of lounging around all day in my underwear playing games,” I said as I offered her a soda. She took it, cracking it open as she radiated confidence.

“Don’t give me that. I play single-player games when you’re at school. Not to mention I have classes too.”

“How about you stop breaking into people’s homes?” I asked, returning back to the fridge. “Or at least have the decency to replace the food you eat. How are you not a thousand pounds?”

“Rude. I don’t eat that much.”

I shooed her away. “Go pick something out. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Don’t keep me waiting” she said before sashaying back towards the couch. As I made myself a snack, I replayed the situation from before. Whatever she had felt in the moment, it scared her. Hard to know what exactly it was in that vast tapestry of emotions that set off that particular emotion. Maybe it wasn’t an emotion at all, but something else. Perhaps she didn’t know either.

That was the reason I stopped. If nothing else, Alexis was the closest thing I had to a friend and I didn’t want to do anything to upset her.

As curious as I might have been about sex, I lacked a lot of the drive normal people felt because my emotions didn’t seem to trigger the body’s hormones like other people. The only way I’d been successful in the past was physical stimulation and that was more as a curiosity than a need.

I certainly found Alexis attractive and would have done my best to make good on the promise to find out which sister was louder in bed if she had wanted it. I felt a desire to go forward in my own unique way, but stopping was easy for me because there was always that separation.

It’s why I found Chloe so interesting. A Gift with the power to overwhelm my defenses... That could allow me to feel things as they were meant to be felt instead of experiencing them like words on a page.

Taking a bite of my sandwich, I filed it away. A curious incident, but nothing to concern myself over.

Alexis was on the couch, a controller for me on the cushion beside her. This was the Alexis I was familiar with. Excitement and joy rolled off her, filling her Noise with a happy warmth. As I joined her, another burst of Noise washed over me. Joy, ecstasy, and happiness all swirled together in a pattern I recognized as pleasure. The source wasn’t the woman next to me but from the direction of my bedroom. It surrounded me like a wave yet failed to penetrate as I felt the emotions of Natalie enjoying her orgasm from the other apartment.

Oblivious to her sister’s current situation, Alexis shoved the controller at me as she taunted me with the promise of my incoming demise. My smile was as genuine as I could get it as I took it and settled in beside her. Shutting down any errant thoughts, I focused on the game. I was going to need every ounce of attention I could muster to stand a chance.