The Alphabet Sisters (28 page)

Carrie moved the chair farther back from the table, shut her eyes, and concentrated. She opened an eye, and read the last line again.
Take your mind back to your early days, remembering the wonderful first moments of attraction.
That she could do, at least. It had been the first night she met him, when she got home from her overseas trip. At first, in all the fuss of arriving, her luggage everywhere, the talk and the chat with her parents and Lola, he’d just been Bett’s fiancé—medium height, sandy brown curls. Solid-looking. But later, in the pub where Bett had insisted on taking her, something had happened between them.

Jet-lagged, exhilarated to be home, she remembered being in teasing form. “Normally, Matt—I can call you Matt, can’t I? I mean, we’re practically brother and sister. Normally, Matt, I’d have got to know you slowly, vetted you to make sure you were good for my sister, but I’ll just have to do a crash course now. You’re studying to be a vet, I believe. That’s good, a steady job. Now, let me see. What sort of a physical specimen are you? Should I check him out, Bett?”

“Go right ahead,” Bett had said, laughing at her.

She patted him down, commenting all the while. “Yes, fine shoulders, a lovely broad chest, oh yes, good, a flat stomach, too.” Bett was enjoying it, Carrie thought. “And he’s got terrific legs, Bett, hasn’t he?” She touched them as well, felt firm muscle under the dark denim. Did her hands brush against his upper thigh deliberately? “Yes, he’s gorgeous, Bett. He’ll do very well.”

All laughter and joking, standing there arms around one another, Bett in front of them. But as she sat down, just for a moment there was an exchange of glances between her and Matthew. The laughter had gone out of his eyes and there was a flash of desire. She saw it. She felt the same thing in herself. A tiny spark, the quickest of flickers between them. And then some other friends came up and the night changed, became casual.

Except she remembered it the next day. It was probably jet lag, she told herself. Or the pleasure of touching a man again. She’d gone traveling with a boyfriend through Asia, but they had broken up in Vietnam, after fighting in Laos, making up in Cambodia, and spending three months rowing as they traveled through Thailand. In Bali she’d had a brief affair with a practiced Portuguese man, who had certainly taught her a few bedroom tricks as well as some filthy Portuguese words, but that had been months ago.

In the first few weeks the tension between her and Matthew masqueraded as simple teasing between a brother-in-law- and sister-in-law-to-be, encouraged by the whole family. But it was more serious than that, even from the start. There had been genuine interest in each other, wanting to talk to each other. If Matthew came to collect Bett to go somewhere, he always made a point of seeking Carrie out, just for a few moments of conversation. If she heard his voice, she, too, would find herself going to him, wandering in almost casually, teasing, joking, on the surface.

Once or twice there was casual physical touch—when Matthew was holding a door open for her, or passing something to her at a family dinner. Just the swiftest whisper of skin against skin. With another person she might not have noticed. With Matthew it was as if all her senses had sprung to attention. Nothing was said, but the contact became something they would engineer. At a family picnic, when Anna, Glenn, and Ellen were home one weekend, they all piled into one car. Bett was driving. In the back, Carrie needed to sit on Matthew’s knee, Anna, Glenn, and Ellen squeezed in beside them, Lola in the passenger seat in front. Had any of them noticed the effect the physical contact had on her and on Matthew? The touch was like exquisite pain to Carrie, feeling his thighs beneath her, the brush of his hand against her bare arm. He slowly moved his left arm so it was almost around her waist. Just as slowly, she lowered her hand so it was on top of his arm. She felt the sunshine on it, her breathing change. Everyone’s attention was on Ellen, three years old at the time, and delirious with too much soft drink and attention, squealing each time they turned a corner, their bodies moving from side to side with the momentum. Carrie felt a slow burning between her and Matthew with each motion. When they finally arrived back at the motel, she climbed out quickly. There was just a quick glance between them, loaded with meaning.

He felt the same way, she learned afterward. It got to the stage that she knew he was in the motel, somewhere nearby, a sort of tingling, humming between them. But he’s Bett’s fiancé, she told herself.

Remember your first kiss … 

It happened the day he drove her to the agricultural college with him. She’d been trying to decide whether to do a course, and it was Bett who suggested she make the trip with Matthew. She was aware of dressing more carefully, choosing the pale blue dress that looked good against her brown skin and blonde hair, the strands even lighter after the long hot summer. Bett waved them off.

They drove for an hour perhaps, not even halfway there, the teasing conversation rippling between them. She felt intensely conscious of her own body, the hem of her dress lifting a little as she moved her legs, crossed them once or twice, knowing Matthew was noticing. She had a bug to thank for the first contact. Feeling hot, she had wound the window down. An insect had blown in, right at her face.

“Oww,” she said. “Something flew into my eye.”

He pulled over right away, their car the only one on the long straight road. He unbuckled his seat belt, leaned across. “Let me see.”

His hand was on her face, his face closer than it had ever been. There was a moment when all the tension between them seemed to tighten and contract until they were no longer apart but lips on lips, bodies pressed as close as possible.

She pulled back first, reluctantly, eyes wide. “We can’t.”

Matthew didn’t answer her, just looked at her in a way she had never been looked at before. Her stomach turned somersaults, and she didn’t say anything as he leaned toward her again, the kiss softer, more exploratory, but deeper and sexier than the first one.

A car went past, the driver honking the horn at them. It broke the spell. He pulled away. Looked ahead.

Carrie looked ahead, too. “I’m sorry.”

He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “I am, too.”

They kept looking forward.

“We should keep driving.”

They did, silently for ten minutes, and then his hand came off the steering wheel and crossed the seat, meeting hers. His voice was soft. “Carrie, I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”

She understood what he meant.

“I don’t feel about Bett the way I feel about you.”

“It’s wrong. You’re Bett’s fiancé.” It was hard to say, when the touch of his hand was sending what felt like sparkling explosions into her bloodstream. She placed his hand on her thigh, and heard the little intake of breath. She thought of Bett again, and then consciously, forcibly, blanked her out. This wasn’t about Matthew and Bett anymore. It was about the two of them and what was happening here.

“You feel it, too, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“We need to talk about this.”

Ahead there was a sign pointing to a camping ground just off the main road. He turned in. The park was sheltered, too early in the morning, even on a hot day, for anyone to be there. He got out. She got out after him. They stood against the railing, looking down into the dry creek bed, not speaking, the only sounds the crackle of wind through the peeling bark on the gum trees, the warbling of magpies. The sun was hot on her skin.

She touched his arm, and he flinched as though it had burned him. But the movement had set the tension buzzing between them again. She felt her own body respond, felt her breasts strain against her clothes, wanting to touch him again. This had to be right, this had to be real, Bett or no Bett.

He moved first, running a hand gently from the shoulder strap of her dress down her arm. She breathed in deeply. Closed her eyes. He moved his hand, repeating the touch. She felt every nerve ending in her skin respond. She didn’t move, just breathed, as he traced the neckline, his hand brushing against her breasts.

And then she did the same thing to him, ran her hand down the length of his arm, then his other arm, touching the skin, feeling the little hairs. Then her fingers moved from the neckline of his T-shirt, down over his chest, his stomach, and lower, enough to hear a sharp intake of breath.

It became a slow, intense trade of pleasure, taking it in turns, not speaking. He moved toward her, touching her dress, tracing her breasts through the material. It was all she could do not to push herself against him.

Staring into his eyes, she was intensely aware of all the sensations around her, the heat of the sun, the slightest of breezes, the hum of insects. She touched his body again, running her hand over his stomach, over the denim of his jeans, watching the response in his eyes, a darkening of his pupils as she cupped him, stroked him gently.

“We can’t. We have to stop this,” she whispered, as he held her hand against his jeans.

“I know,” he said, shutting his eyes in pleasure as she took one of his fingers into her mouth and gently sucked it.

The sound of a car behind them called a halt. Carrie knew she had been seconds from taking off her dress, from undressing Matthew, from making love there, in the open. It was a family, a man and woman with three small children, parking just meters from them, and immediately unloading chairs and barbecue equipment.

“Lovely day for it,” the man called out.

“Sure is,” Matthew answered.

They returned to the car and sat for a few moments, before Matthew started the engine and headed back onto the main road. She wasn’t surprised when he pulled into a side road a few kilometers down and turned to her again. Some reason had come into her mind by then—the shock of nearly being caught, the shock of realizing she had been about to have sex with Bett’s fiancé. And the shock that she still wanted to.

Another hot, deep kiss until she pulled away first. “What about Bett?” she whispered again, barely able to speak.

“I don’t know what to do about Bett,” he answered.

For four weeks they resisted it, trying not to spend time with each other. But it was like a fever, an addiction. The tension between them increased. There were phone calls, three, sometimes four, a day. He wrote her letters. All the while, sexual tension hummed between them.

Lola noticed something, Carrie knew. And perhaps Bett suspected something. She tried not to spend too much time with her sister, needing to keep the distance. She had one awkward conversation with Matthew about her.

“Are you still sleeping with her?”

Matthew looked uncomfortable. “I can’t. I want it to be you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

It made her feel better, for herself, even while she felt sorry for Bett. But it just seemed out of her control, out of their control, as though it was fated, and destined, and all the magical things.

Matthew felt the same way, he told her. “It’s different with you, different than it has ever been. With Bett, it seemed easy, like we drifted into it. But with you …”

Carrie was torn between wanting to know about his relationship with Bett, and feeling it was best she knew nothing about it. “We can’t talk about her. We have to put her out of our minds when we’re together, until we work out whether this is real or not.”

He rang her the night before they were due to go to the agricultural college again. “I’ve made a decision, Carrie. I’m going to break it off with Bett. I can’t live like this, feeling one thing with you, talking about the wedding with her, feeling like I’m lying.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you are.”

“You know what it will mean.”

“I’m still sure.”

Remember the first time you made love … 

That conversation had been the turning point. The next morning he collected her from the motel as usual. Bett had left for the newspaper office early. Carrie was glad of it.

They barely spoke as he drove, but she found herself unable to take her eyes off his hands on the steering wheel, feeling the lightness of her own dress against her thighs. He turned in to the forest clearing they had first visited five weeks earlier. There was no one else there. The air was as hot and still, the sky as cloudless. They climbed out of the car. He took her by the hand, and they started the slow, erotic dance again, his hand tracing her body, her hand tracing his, no words being spoken until they were both nearly faint with desire. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

She nodded.

From that moment they wouldn’t have cared if there had been rows of cars around them. He slowly undid the buttons of her dress, exposing her breasts in the bra she had chosen so carefully that morning. She unbuttoned his shirt, touching the brown skin, the muscles on his arm, then unbuttoned his jeans, moving her hand until she was touching him at last.

He kissed her again. The kiss went on and on, his hands holding her body tight against his. They moved up against a table and had fast, passionate sex, both of them still partly clothed, the sweat covering their skin, their hard, fast breaths and moans the only noise around.

Carrie knew she shouldn’t have done it. She knew it the moment they had finished, the moment the tension passed and the two of them were holding each other close, his head against hers. But then he held her even tighter, whispered, “Thank you,” and she felt that it had been the right thing. And that they would be able to face Bett together. Which was exactly what they did that night. Matthew called her, arranged to meet in the motel. They had both broken the news to her.… 

Remember your wedding day.

Quiet, without fuss, everyone trying to ignore the fact Anna and Bett weren’t there.

Think back to the early days of married life.

The first two years they lived in a rented unit in one of the smaller towns in the Valley. Carrie worked in the motel, Matthew finished his study and started working in the vet practice in the town. On weekends they met friends, looked at houses, occasionally went away when her days off allowed them, or he wasn’t on call.