I’m on Facetime with Maya when I tell her I’ll be in Chicago next month. I say it’s for work, that I can’t get out of it. A twitch pulses at the corner of her mouth, and a chuckle on the edge of inaudible sounds; it’s a laugh for when nothing is funny, for when an eye-roll or glare would be truer. But there’s no trace of malice when she says, “Maybe you’ll see Micah. She’ll be there next month, too.”
I offer a vague acknowledgement and don’t inquire further. She asks when she'll see me next. I say she’s seeing me now. “Funny,” she says, dryly, unamused. “In person?” I say, “Soon.”
Silence.
I ask what’s wrong, and she says, “Nothing.” I ask if she’s sure, not because I sense uncertainty, but because I know she’s lying. Before she responds, her sister—Micah—gusts into the room, uninvited and without knocking, to yell about something Maya allegedly stole. Maya sets her phone face-up on the bed to tend to Micah, limiting my view to the ceiling’s dull white paint. I stare at it as their squabbling nudges me outward, dissociation narrowing my reception to a pinhole. I hear very little until Micah’s smug laughter seizes me. It’s followed by receding footsteps and then, distantly, a door shutting. I deduce the freshly shut door is Micah’s and suppress a shiver.
The tension persists in Maya’s room, where I lay blinking at her ceiling through the phone. Things feel unclear and unresolved, like a poorly delivered pun. Micah’s laugh echoes in my ears. It’s sharp, and it bites. I want to know what prompted it, but not enough to ask.
Maya retrieves her phone and I’m reacquainted with her face, round and pretty, newly distressed. She closes her door and mutters apologies. There's a pause before she says, “She thinks we’re wasting our time, you know. That we won’t last.”
I can’t mollify her because it might be true. The evidence resides in a four-month-old memory of when I last visited her.
•
On my final night in town, I’m prodded awake by my bladder at some ungodly hour. En route to the bathroom, I trip noisily over Maya’s shoes, curse, and check that she’s remained asleep. Satisfied she hasn’t woken, I enter the hall and gently close her door. When I turn, Micah is there, so silent and still that, at first, I think she’s a shadow of something unseen. The darkness swells, and the air sags with the weight of intention. Things move in slow motion—a sludging inevitability. Micah stares at me, unmoving, and my stomach flips. I stare back, emboldened by the darkness but sick with self-betrayal because, as I stand here gazing at the exact face I’ve avoided for days, I realize with searing lucidity that what initially passed as intimidation has revealed itself as desire, one I can’t deny.
She approaches and asks in a whisper if I want to hear a joke. She kisses me before I can answer. Her tongue massages mine as she moans into my mouth, and it’s a soft, warm sound, like an exhale. I inhale it.
She breaks away to drag her tongue up the length of my neck slowly, marking me like prey. Then she withdraws, tossing me a glance before returning to her bedroom and closing the door. I stand there, momentarily stuck, before I use the bathroom and return to Maya's bed. I initiate sex with her to forget, to distract; I try to think of nothing, but the sensation of Micah's tongue is on the forefront, wet and insistent. I feel her saliva on my skin the whole time, burning.
Maya sleeps heavily afterwards. She doesn’t stir when I leave the bed again, eager for more of Micah, who either sleeps through my soft knocks on her door or ignores them. I stand there for too long, so utterly desirous that I feel I’ve been turned inside out, my quickened heart beating, bloody and exposed. Eventually, I return to Maya’s bed. I stare at the ceiling and nurse a writhing, spreading ache until sleep comes.
•
I say to Maya now, “Your sister’s a joke. You can’t take her seriously.” She nods halfheartedly, predictably unconvinced.
Nausea surges and crests. I say that I’m going to shower, and we disconnect. I stay in bed, unclean, remembering.
An hour later, I’m notified of a new text. It’s from a group chat called The Usuals: Maya created and named it what she did because it’s usually me or Micah when her phone rings. Though it ought to feel commonplace by now, seeing Micah’s name in the chat still fills me with as much excitement as apprehension.
The latest text from Maya exclaims that I'm going to visit next month. I don’t reply, shocked at the blatant lie and confused about how to respond. I undress and bring my phone into the bathroom. Before I set it aside and step into the shower, a text from Micah appears in the chat—two laughing emojis. I don’t reply to this either, determined to ignore the joke. Maya sends a question mark. I set the phone down on the edge of the sink and take a very long shower.
Later, I call Maya. I say she’s petty and selfish for lying about a visit we never discussed, and then I apologize for calling her petty and selfish because I know she isn’t. She’s just desperate. When I apologize again, it’s for letting four months pass without a visit. She apologizes, too, for lying in the chat. She says there’s no pressure and that I should come whenever possible and not because I was forced.
Her genuine apology moves me to admit why I haven’t visited, though it’s a diluted, incomplete concession. I say that Micah makes me anxious.
The truth I withhold is that to be near Micah is to be near a hungry predator, always waiting. She inspires filthiness in me I can’t scrub away. She’s the only remedy for the affliction she’s caused.
Maya asks if we can stay on the phone until we fall asleep. I agree, even though I don’t want to. When she goes quiet, I close my eyes and feel Micah’s tongue on my neck. I feel the heat of her gaze. I hear the soft click of her door.
In time, Maya’s breath turns distant and slumberous. I revisit The Usuals and stare at Micah’s last message, envisioning what it’ll be like next month in Chicago, no door between us, me succumbing to the joke, absorbing the impact of the punchline.