I kissed him like I wanted to seduce uncertainty away, slow and gentle, filling my mouth with a plea and pouring it into his. He smelled like grass and wind and clothes that had been dried in the sun. Gradually, I felt him relax and relief overwhelmed me. His mouth softened under mine and then he was kissing me back, his hand like a dropped flower against my chest, petal-light and trembling as if there was a breeze. I stopped the kiss and released his head, dropping my hands to my sides. He could leave if he wanted, he could go.

Vivek stood with his hand still on my chest, his breathing uneven. His head was down, black curls falling onto the embroidered neckline of his caftan, against silver thread. He seemed to be thinking, so I stood still, looking down at him, waiting for him to decide. I deliberately kept my mind empty, except for him, because I knew as soon as I started to think again, I might go mad from what I had just done.

Moments passed. Vivek said nothing; his thoughts were slipping along some invisible course, too far away from me. I braced myself, then slid my right hand along the front of his trousers. My fingers grazed across taut fabric and he gasped, looking up at me in shock. I was relieved to find him so ready, to know that it wasn’t just me. He whispered my name and I stared at him without moving. I took my left hand and pulled his palm to me, pressing it against my jeans so he could feel how hard I was, how much it hurt. My cousin shuddered and leaned into me, into my hand and against me, and my entire body became one loud thrill.

“You see?” I whispered. I had no idea what I was talking about, just desire maybe, but he nodded like it made sense.

“Okay,” he said, and stepped away from me. “Okay.”

Vivek walked across the room and covered his face with his hands, dragging the skin down. “Can we just lie down for one minute? I need to lie down.”

“Of course.” I tried to sound calm.

“Okay. Thank you.” He climbed onto the bed and lay on his back, draping his forearms over his eyes. I hesitated before I lay down next to him, then stared at the ceiling. I could hear him beside me, taking long deliberate breaths. He was trying to calm down.

“Is this real?” he asked.

I knew exactly what he meant. It felt as if we had stepped out of everything we knew before and into something else entirely, as if what had just happened couldn’t have happened on the other side, only on this side.

“Yes and no,” I answered, my voice hesitant. “Whatever you want.”

Vivek turned his head and uncovered his eyes to look at me. “Have you done this before?”

I almost laughed. It was such a far cry from those days when he was the virgin and I was the one who made fun of him. Now it was as if I was starting over, as if I didn’t know anything.

“No,” I admitted. “Never. Have you?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

I was surprised at the pang that shot through me. “Oh. Okay.”

Vivek rolled over on his side and put his hand on my cheek, turning my face to him. “Are you jealous?” He sounded amused.

“Fuck you,” I said, and he laughed at me.

“You’re jealous,” he sang, then he kissed me and pulled up my shirt, touching my stomach, dipping into my jeans. “Don’t be jealous,” he whispered, as his fingers drew me out. My body bent up to the ceiling and Vivek lowered his head till his hair was a shadow spilling across my hips.

I died at his mouth.

It was the clearest terror and pleasure I had ever known. How was it possible that the boy who once chipped my tooth was the same one with his cheek now pressed against my navel? I could feel the shame like a shadow in my chest, but it was faint, insignificant. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I would do it again, all of it, for him, always for him. I clutched at his head and cried out as I came, my whole body a naked wire. Vivek pulled himself back up and wrapped his arms around me. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Hey, hey.” He tightened his hold on me. “Osita, it’s all right. It’s all right. Just breathe.”

My fingers were clawed in the fabric of his caftan and every muscle in my body felt locked. He touched his forehead to mine, and his skin was cool. “Bhai,” he whispered. “Relax.”

For some reason, I wanted to hit him. I couldn’t tell if he was comforting or restraining me, but his strength was much more than I’d expected. I could barely move in his hold. How stupid I had been, to assume that I’d been the one restraining him earlier, the strong one. He had stayed in my hands because he wanted to, not because I was making him. How stupid I had been, full stop. I struggled, but he wouldn’t release me.

“Let go,” he ordered, and I felt my throat twist, sounds choked within it. “I’m here. It’s all right. Let go, bhai.” My face was pressed into his chest and when the scream made it out of my mouth, it sank against his body, the volume muffled. I was sobbing—stupid, embarrassing sobs—and Vivek put his mouth to the top of my head. “You’re safe,” he murmured. “It’s just me. It’s just you and me.”

We lay together like that until all the tears had wrung their way out of me, until we both fell asleep, wet with each other’s salt.

Fourteen

Vivek

If I didn’t love Osita already, I would have for that evening alone. For coming to find me, for kissing sense into me. For breaking himself apart, trusting me with his secret.

Later that night, I woke up to him unhurriedly kissing my neck. He was gentle as he pulled up white handfuls of my caftan, gentle when he touched me with spit-wettened hands, when he entered me—you would have thought it was my first time, not his.

The sheets dragged in fractions beneath us. I turned my head to look back at him. “I’m not going to break, you know.”

Osita rocked inside me slowly. “I know.”

“I’m serious.” It was hard to think with that much of his skin all around me. “You don’t have to take it easy.”

He pushed deeper, one glorious inch at a time, and I groaned. “I know,” he said, his voice thick. “Just take this for now.”

* * *

—

    Iknow what they say about men who allow other men to penetrate them. Ugly things; ugly words. Calling them women, as if that’s supposed to be ugly, too.

I’d heard it since secondary school, and I knew what that night was supposed to make me. Less than a man—something disgusting, something weak and shameful. But if that pleasure was supposed to stop me from being a man, then fine. They could have it. I’d take the blinding light of his touch, the blessed peace of having him so close, and I would stop being a man.

I was never one to begin with, anyway.

Fifteen

Juju knew nothing about her half brother until she saw him with her own two eyes.

She’d been all the way over by the post office, which was two buses away from home and heavily crowded thanks to the fish market across the road. Maja had warned Juju never to take an okada there—people drove so recklessly, it wasn’t safe—so when Juju got off the bus, she walked the rest of the way to the post office, dodging speeding motorbikes and tiptoeing along the edge of rank gutters. The air smelled like dead seawater.

Juju was on her way to swap out some of her books and see if she could find something for Elizabeth at the open-air secondhand-book market that happened every Saturday at the post office. “Check if they have any Pacesetters,” Elizabeth had said. She and Juju were in a new relationship, hiding it from all their parents, and Juju had been feeling guilty about not being present enough. She was fairly sure that her father was having an affair and that her parents weren’t telling her about it, which didn’t make sense because the secret was too big, too loud. Her mother was always whispering on the phone, then shouting at her father, when they thought Juju was asleep. Her father’s voice would scorch through the night and Juju would hear the familiar thuds of his hands hitting her mother. She was surprised when he actually left—it looked too much like him letting her mother win, and Juju knew him better than that—but she was glad he was gone, glad that the air in their house was calm and they could move a bit more freely. But between her new relationship and what was happening with Vivek, Juju had been distracted. This was her first time dating a girl, and it was easier, in some ways, to focus on other things rather than on Elizabeth and the terrifying feelings Juju had about her. Still, she wanted to get Elizabeth the books. She could at least do that one as her girlfriend.