When the phone rings, it is like an alarm heard during a dream.
"Amita," Charlie implores from the tinny cadence of my answering machine, "where are you"
Where am I? I used to have an identity apart from these brothers, a head space clear of passion and deceit. At one time, I was a PhD candidate. I spent my afternoons with fractals and algorithms, teasing out the workings of invisible processes. I didn't question my attraction to Charlie. Being attracted to geniuses is like being attracted to air. I loved how he kicked up a chalk dust storm as his mind raced across the blackboard, headphones clamped firmly to his ears.
When I neared completion of my dissertation, his pen began to slow over my work, as if trying to clear a dense thicket. Outside of class, he started to ask my opinion. Before long, I was assisting him in projects relating to his work with the FBI. Which is where everything begins to collapse.
I am suited to Charlie; our brains interlock like Tetris pieces. I love how he thinks of the world mainly as a place populated by good people, wanting to do good things. But there is always this struggle between us, as if we can't quite grasp what it is that we want from each other. When we kiss, I know I love him, and I know he loves me. But I cannot withstand the force of his brother.
Don and I lie together, quietly now. Sunlight filters in through the blinds, poking into the crumpled castoffs of our clothing. We have betrayed Charlie, and we have done it without the excuse of drink or loneliness-that is, flagrantly. We should be regretful but I know that we are not.
When we first met, I felt the world temporarily wrinkle and bend. His physical beauty is the undoing of chastity. But there is something deeper there, a sort of residue built up from years of midnight takedowns and steely-eyed interrogation. He has strength and agility and a battered humanity which pulled on me even when I pretended I did not notice him.
Don studies me, his irises emitting a slow, pleasant burn. What do we have, exactly, except this pheromonal inseparability? I know nothing of police work and he probably thinks a derivative should be locked up. No-that's not fair. Don's smarter than he lets on, but he already resents the intrusion of math into his life.
I wonder if the dreams will stop, now that we are doing our best to enact them. He has not disappointed me. By the sprawl of his shoulders, the relaxed way his legs mingle with mine, I know I have not disappointed him.
What will start, of course, is guilt. Guilt propagated by clasped, rhythmic afternoons, by leagues-deep kisses and the heat of taboo. I wonder how and where this will end. A responsible phone call, followed by a curt meeting in a park? Or a door-slamming, soul-crushing blowout, where no one can speak for days?
Don rolls onto his back and I straddle him, playfully at first. Where am I but at the nexus of a family, poised to destroy us all? Perhaps I am an interloper, an opportunist; but I am also human. I feel him beneath me, and I am lost.