Chapter 3: Crossing the Line

They didn’t see each other the next day. It was Sunday and Chris had his weekly D&D campaign that started early and went well into the evening. And by the time he got home, Emily had already gone into her late shift at the diner.

Then her friend Trish texted her and she went straight from the diner to Trish’s place to hang out. She’d made out with Trish before but things hadn’t gone any further. Now, Emily thought to herself, she really wished Trish would be down to fuck. Something like that could really help to clear her mind which had been racing all day with wild uncertainties, anxious about what was developing between her and her beloved step-brother, and anxious that she might be powerless to stop it, maybe that she wouldn’t want to stop it anyway.

“Ever been attracted to a guy?” She asked Trish, who was not down to fuck tonight.

“Sure.” Trish answered with a shrug.

Emily was surprised, “So… do you consider yourself pan then?”

“Nah,” Trish insisted. “I mean I’ve thought guys were cute. But then when I imagine having sex with them, the idea disgusts me.”

Suddenly the thought occurred to Emily that she’d really never imagined having sex with a guy. Not ever. And what about now? Had she imagined having sex with Chris?

No. God no. Of course not. Too weird. No, no, no. That’s not what was happening.

But... if she was going to have sex with a guy, it would make a lot more sense to be with a guy she knew and cared for instead of letting some moron at a club pick her up or something. Honestly, sometimes she did not understand straight girls.

“Why? Are you attracted to a guy?” Trish asked suspiciously.

“No.” Emily answered with confidence. That wasn’t what was going on between her and Chris. Besides, attraction was a surface level thing. Their bond was much deeper.

The house was quiet and asleep by the time she got home. She wondered if Chris expected her to climb into bed with him again tonight. She wondered if she expected it of herself.

She laid in bed thinking about it, finding herself starting to tremble. A though came over her, she’d heard a saying once:

"one time of something is a coincidence, two times is a trend, three times is a problem"

Well, this would be the third time. Three times in three nights. And she wasn’t sure that meant it would be a problem, but she was sure it meant it would be a thing, a line that was being crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed. Because Chris would take it to mean she approved of what had happened last night, because maybe she did, and then he’d touch her again because that’s what he wanted and maybe that’s what she wanted.

All she had to do to not cross that line was nothing; keep lying in bed. Literally do nothing. It would be easy. And yet, it felt so hard.

So she trembled, feeling more nervous than she’d ever felt before in her entire life, knowing the decision she made at this moment might very well irreparably shape the rest of her life. But mostly she was nervous because she knew there was no decision to make at all. The choice was made. She knew what she wanted. She knew what she was going to do.

So she got out of bed and quietly walked from her room to Chris’s room. Fuck, she couldn’t stop shaking. But his strong arms would calm her.

Before climbing into his bed she stopped, hesitated, then slid her thumbs beneath the waistband of her pajama boxers, pushed them down to her ankles and stepped out of them, then took her place in bed next to Chris.