Chapter 5: Heartbeat Manuscript
The challenge hung between them, a gauntlet thrown in the charged air. Ashley’s gaze was a physical weight, pinning Alice in place. Her own hand, still hovering, felt like a stranger’s limb.
Then Ashley moved. Her fingers, strong and sure from years at the barre, closed around Alice’s wrist. The grip wasn’t gentle. It was an insistence. She pressed Alice’s palm flat against the slick, hot skin of her sternum.
Beneath the film of sweat and the frantic flutter, Alice felt the hard, relentless drum of Ashley’s heart. It was a wild thing, trapped behind bone and flesh, beating a rhythm that matched the forgotten music still pulsing through the room.
“You want to write about real feelings?” Ashley’s voice was a raw scrape. “Here’s your research. That’s what you did to me. That’s what you’re still doing.”
The thrumming under her palm was a current, shooting up her arm and straight into her own chest, kick-starting her own stalled heart. All the careful words, the pages of introspection, evaporated. There was only this. The heat. The pulse. The terrifying, identical green of her sister’s eyes.
Alice’s fingers curled, her nails digging faint half-moons into the damp skin. A possession. An answer.
A sound ripped from Ashley’s throat, something between a gasp and a sob. She surged forward, closing the last inch of space, and her mouth crashed into Alice’s.
This was nothing like the porch. That had been a question, a slow, tentative exploration. This was a claim. Ashley’s tongue was demanding, tasting of salt and the faint, metallic tang of energy drinks. Her hands came up to frame Alice’s face, holding her there, not allowing retreat. Alice’s back hit the cool, unyielding surface of the mirrored wall. The shock of the cold glass against her shoulders was a sharp contrast to the furnace of Ashley’s body pressed against her front.
She could see them reflected a dozen times over, a fractal explosion of tangled limbs and identical faces, a dizzying multiplication of their sin. Ashley’s mouth left hers, trailing a hot, wet path down her jaw to her neck, biting, sucking, marking.
“Fuck, Alice,” Ashley panted against her throat, her hands dropping to fumble with the buttons of Alice’s jeans. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
The coarse language, so foreign from Ashley’s usual performative grace, sent a jolt straight to Alice’s core. Her own hands found the bare, sweat-slicked skin of Ashley’s back, sliding down the pronounced curve of her spine. She could feel every muscle, every vertebra. Ashley’s body was a map of her ambition, and Alice was finally reading it.
Her jeans and underwear were shoved down her hips in one rough, desperate motion. The cool air hit her exposed skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of Ashley’s hand. There was no preamble, no gentle exploration. Ashley’s fingers, calloused from the barre, found her wet and utterly ready.
“Jesus,” Ashley breathed, her forehead dropping to Alice’s shoulder as her fingers slid inside.
Alice cried out, the sound echoing sharply in the vast space. Her head thudded back against the mirror. The feeling was too much—the intrusion, the perfect, shocking fit, the sight of Ashley’s hand working between her own legs in the reflection. It was a violation and a homecoming all at once. Her hips bucked against the rhythm Ashley set, a fast, punishing pace that left no room for thought.
“Look,” Ashley commanded, her voice guttural. She forced Alice’s head to the side, making her watch their reflection. “Look at what you’re letting me do to you.”
And she did. She watched her own face, contorted in a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain. She watched Ashley’s focused, fierce expression, the tendons in her neck cording with effort. She watched the slick, obscene movement between her own thighs. The visual feedback loop was overwhelming, amplifying every sensation into something unbearable.
Ashley’s thumb found her clit, pressing, circling with a brutal precision. The coil in Alice’s gut tightened, a spring wound to its breaking point. Her own fingers dug into Ashley’s hips, surely leaving bruises.
“I’m gonna…” she gasped, the words splintering.
“I know,” Ashley grunted, driving her fingers deeper, faster. “Come for me. Come all over my fucking hand. Let me see it.”
The command, so filthy and direct, shattered the last of her control. A raw, broken scream was torn from her lungs as she came, her body seizing, clenching around Ashley’s thrusting fingers in violent, helpless waves. Her vision whited out at the edges, the mirrored room dissolving into a blur of light and motion.
She slumped against the glass, boneless and gasping. Ashley slowly withdrew her fingers, bringing them to her own mouth and sucking them clean, her eyes locked on Alice’s in the mirror. The act was so primal, so possessive, that a fresh shudder wracked Alice’s spent body.
Then Ashley was turning her, pushing her until she was facing the mirror, her own flushed, dazed reflection staring back. Ashley pressed against her from behind, her bare skin hot on Alice’s back. One hand snaked around her waist, dipping back between her legs, making her jolt as sensitive flesh was touched again. The other hand tangled in her hair, pulling just enough to tilt her head back.
“My turn,” Ashley whispered into her ear, her voice husky with need. “And you’re going to watch.”
In the reflection, Alice watched Ashley’s free hand slide down her own stomach, into the thatch of dark hair between her legs. She watched her sister’s face, eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on hers, as she began to touch herself, using the slickness she’d drawn from Alice’s body.
“Touch me,” Ashley demanded, her movements becoming frantic. “Here.”
Alice’s hand, trembling, covered Ashley’s. She felt the swollen, slick heat of her, the frantic pulse matching the one she’d felt under her palm minutes before. She guided her fingers, mirroring the rhythm Ashley had used on her.
Ashley’s breath came in sharp, ragged pants. Her head fell forward, her forehead resting between Alice’s shoulder blades. “Don’t stop. Don’t you fucking stop.”
Alice watched, mesmerized, as her sister fell apart under their combined touch. Ashley’s body tightened, a bowstring pulled to its limit. A series of sharp, choked cries echoed in the room, and Alice felt the violent contractions against her guiding hand.
They stood there for a long moment, leaning against the mirror, their harsh breaths fogging the glass. The silence was absolute, the music having long since ended. The only sound was the slowing drumbeat of their hearts.
Ashley’s grip on her hair loosened, becoming almost a caress. She pressed a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the nape of Alice’s neck.
Then, from the corner of the room, a phone buzzed. Once. Twice. A stark, digital intrusion into their ruined sanctuary.
Ashley went still. The spell was broken.
Without a word, she pulled away. The sudden loss of her heat was a physical shock. Alice watched in the mirror as Ashley walked, naked and unselfconscious, to her discarded dance bag. She pulled out the phone, her back to Alice.
Alice stood there, exposed, her clothes still tangled around her thighs, the cold from the mirror seeping into her bones. She watched the line of Ashley’s shoulders tense as she read the screen.
“Who is it?” Alice asked, her voice hoarse.
Ashley didn’t turn around. She just stood there, holding the phone, a statue in the dim light.
“Ashley?”
When she finally spoke, her voice was flat, hollowed out. “It’s Mom.” A pause that stretched too long. “She says Dad’s coming home.”