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Knobby, awkward couples shuffle out of the gymnasium like lost migrating birds. Camille’s Buick idles in the dirt, foglight red underneath the moon, the occasional straggler crossing the street suspended in vaporized fire.
This generation is so messy. She isn’t sure if predisposition makes her feel like her little sister outshines them all, but her favor is waning. It’s been thirty minutes.
Bass thumps from inside the building. Camille can feel it in her chest. She fidgets with the radio dial, cycling through static and songs that don’t stick.
Finally, her phone buzzes. "ready when you are," the text reads. Camille puts the car in gear and drives round to the entrance.
Amma emerges from the archway with a handful of partygoers her age, all dressed to the nines — dolled up like clubbing college students, but that’s what the nines are when you’re barely seventeen.
They’re taking up too much space. Several kids stumble past or through them. Amma doesn’t notice that she’s blocking the entrance, caught up in the attention. Someone's mom pulls up and carpools half the group; Amma waves dazzlingly goodbye. When they disperse, Camille needles Amma’s appearance, her expression. Which girls she likes, and doesn't. Her lavender dress is slit up the thigh. It doesn’t hurt to be aware of the details these days.
Camille watches Amma approach, hoping she doesn’t stall the engine when it croaks short. When she climbs in, a gust of AC pushes the scent of Amma’s sweat and perfume directly into her face. Amma grins at her.
"Hey there," she drawls, leaning in for a kiss.
Camille meets her halfway, Amma's tongue darting into her mouth. She tastes like punch. Something sharper, too.
“What have you been drinking?”
Amma snickers and pulls away, digging in her clutch. The cabin light turns the black sequin material gold. Amma produces a small piece of aluminum foil and unwraps it, revealing a heart-stamped paper square. She flicks a piece of lint off it, splits it into halves.
"Dunno. Cheap vodka, probably. Party was a bust. Brought you something though," she says, hovering next to Camille’s mouth.
A moment passes. Amma’s not sitting right in the seat, her knees stab into the leather while she hangs over the center console, and it gives Camille a good look at her. Her mascara is runny, and bits of glitter sparkle all over her skin. Her lipstick is smeared. She looks between the tab and Amma’s smeared mouth; Camille’s nose wrinkles.
“Did you just give me mono?”
Amma says nothing, smiling innocently. She waves the tab on her beckoning finger.
Camille allows Amma to part her lips and press, slipping it beneath her tongue. She feels the paper dissolve while Amma’s nail drags against her bottom teeth. Tense, she rolls her eyes and presses Amma back into the seat, running her tongue over the spot her lip stretched.
“Buckle up,” Camille says. Amma doesn’t; she just looks at her.
They wander aimlessly for a half hour, watching the St. Louis streetlights blur like astigmatism fireworks. She learns Amma’s already on one a few minutes into the drive. Amma cranks up the volume on the radio, belting off-key lyrics Camille doesn’t recognize out the window. The air is nice. Amma’s accent is thicker than usual. She’s all warm.
Amma's hand snakes under Camille's shirt, tracing circles on her stomach. She jerks the wheel.
"Let's pull over," Amma murmurs.
Camille kills the engine in an alleyway. They’re adjacent to a convenience store, and Camille can see people going in and out, buying snacks and sodas. She’s more than mildly worried about someone seeing them, but there aren’t any streetlights. Just the dim flicker of the sign, and her windows are tinted.
The cabin rocks. Amma straddles her. Camille can feel the heat of her body through her homecoming dress, fabric bunching up around her hips. A pulse of arousal strikes her like an electric current. A haze in her brain. Her skin tingles and her thoughts warp.
“I never went to homecoming,” Camille admits, leaning back on the headrest, voice drooping into a laugh that Amma echoes.
She half-expects Amma to call her a loser. It’s all over her face. Camille isn’t actually looking at her. She concludes, “Also, I’m pretty fucked up.”
“I know,” Amma giggles, grabbing her by the chin.
Amma’s tongue slithers underneath Camille’s and every nerve in her body jolts. Her fingers light on Amma’s hips like points on a star.
"God, you're so hot,” she says, words breathy in her mouth.
Camille moans in response, heartbeat like a war drum. Her mouth is slick with Amma’s kisses. It doesn’t taste like her own. Her pulse thrums and she closes her eyes.
She wonders if it’s making Amma feel the same.
She’s taken psychedelics before. Mushrooms, back in college. Her hippie third-year roommate seemed to leak them. Never acid. Camille’s pretty sure her rice purity score has halved since Amma’s come to live with her, not that she’d ever scored high on her own.
Amma's hands wander between Camille's legs, nails scratching at denim. Camille doesn't stop her. She wants them: Amma’s wandering hands. They’re probably both ending up in jail anyway.
Amma climbs off Camille's lap, tugging at her black sweater before she pulls it over her head. Camille's heart pounds. She helps Amma undress her, unable to tear her gaze away.
“So pretty like this,” Amma muses.
Amma tosses her shirt to the side and leans in to kiss Camille again, running her hands over her chest and stomach. Camille's nipples harden at the curve of Amma’s hands over her flimsy black bra, and she moans into Amma's mouth.
“I think you want this more than I do,” Amma whispers, a stab of defiance hitting Camille in the chest. “Isn’t it tradition the queen puts out after the game?”
Her vision is swirling.
Camille shrugs. She can hardly focus, looping her fingers in Amma’s long, honey-blonde hair. “Never went.”
In the quiet silence, she almost expects Amma to pull out one of her secrets and use it about now—something about how Camille should know about putting out from her youth, but she doesn’t, and Camille just arches up into her gratefully.
Amma grinds against her thigh, her wetness spreading through the fabric of her dress and onto her jeans. Camille makes a soft noise without meaning to; she can feel Amma’s laugh down to her toes.
The trip’s delaying her reaction time, and she only distantly recognizes Amma sliding down to the floorboards. Popping her fly open, wriggling her jeans down her hips.
She nuzzles her face against Camille's marred thighs, inhaling deep.
“Wait,” she tries, waving her hands. Amma’s dress. Dirty floor. Cigarette ash on her dress. “Amma—“
"You smell so good," she murmurs, pressing her lips to Camille's skin, nipping at the thin line of a scar.
Camille shivers. It’s hitting hard. If she shuts her eyes too long, she goes somewhere else. She reaches down to tangle her fingers in Amma's hair, urging her to do something. Not sure what.
She sighs, lashes fluttering—suddenly, both of her inner thighs are stinging, wet with bruises, something molten between her legs. Her eyes fly open.
Amma parts Camille's folds with her tongue, lapping at her clit with slow, deliberate strokes. Camille’s moan is croaky and sharp, alarmed. She arches her back, mind racing and dull at the same time; wondering where her underwear went, when Amma pushed the seat back. How much time—
"Amma," she yelps, her fingers tightening in her sister’s hair.
Amma grins up at her, her mouth glistening. Her canines are fluorescent blue. She leans in to suckle on Camille again, dragging her bottom lip over her clit while looking straight up at her. Fuck is right.
Lost in the sensation of Amma's mouth on her cunt, her hands matte Amma's hair. Bobby pins stab into her fingertips. Camille presses down harder.
Amma knows exactly what she's doing, alternating between long, slow licks and quick, teasing flicks of her tongue. She’s too young to be good at this; she tries to say it, but it gets lodged somewhere in her throat.
She's swimming in loose, hazy euphoria. Camille can feel herself getting closer and closer to the edge, her body tensing up.
Her thighs are trembling, and she repeats Amma’s name. Or just thinks it really, really hard.
She smirks, her mouth still pressed against Camille's clit. Amma hums softly, then, and the vibrations send shockwaves through her body.
Camille's orgasm hits her all at once, crashing over her in waves. She cries out, digging her fingers into Amma's skull. After an eternity of Amma kitten-licking her clit, Camille finally collapses back against the seat, gasping for breath. Her lungs ache. Her fingers are bleeding, a bobby pin lodged in her cuticle.
Amma’s silhouette climbs up blurrily, falling in her lap.
"You taste so much like me," Amma slurs, breath hot and sticky on Camille’s cheek, before she slots their mouths together.
Camille instantly tastes it—herself—and it sends another pulse of arousal through her. It shouldn’t turn her on, but it does. She drags her nails down Amma’s back, letters scratched into her perfect skin, the word similar lighting up pathways in her brain like sparklers.
She pulls Amma closer, deepening the kiss, feeling Amma trail the seam where her zipper splits her jeans open, impertinent still. How kind of her to pull her pants up; she hadn’t even realized.
They kiss for what feels like hours. The driver’s side is stuffy and cramped, but Camille hardly notices. She's lost in the sensation of Amma's small body pressed against hers, all her sharp points in the areas where Camille’s all give.
Finally, they break apart, panting and gasping for air. The windows are fogged over. She can’t see her reflection in the rearview.
"Mille," Amma murmurs, dragging her back to the present. Her pupils are seas of ink, thrumming in rhythm with the rest of her vision. "Look at me. I have a question."
“Mm?”
Amma’s fingers trail across her jaw, then slip to the sinewy muscle underneath. “I made queen.”
“That’s not a question.” For some reason, Camille laughs.
Amma frowns. She flips her hand and digs all of her nails in her skin. “I wasn’t finished.”
Camille silences.
“You made prom queen in ‘92,” she continues distantly, looking through her.
Camille nods apprehensively, shocked Amma knows that. Amma’s display of possessiveness boxes her against the headrest; her nails sting beneath her chin. She waits. Amma’s expression warps smoothly into a cheshire grin.
“When you did,” she asks, “what happened after?”
Camille opens and shuts her mouth, face getting hot. Somehow she isn’t sure what’s worse: the train she had ran on her, or what she’s doing right now. It still feels inappropriate for Camille to talk about, but the irony leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
Amma’s weight shifts. “How many boys? Just one?”
Camille doesn’t answer, and Amma’s nails stab upward into her jaw, making her wince.
“Answer me,” she says smoothly.
“I don’t—gentle, Amma—know what you’re talking about.”
Her jaw is beginning to throb. Every time Camille averts her eyes, she’s punished for it. The cabin warps behind Amma, worse when she digs in. Amma’s unfairly strong.
“Nuh-uh. Everyone remembers their prom night. Mama never talked about yours. Why?”
Probably because the entire town knew about it. Probably because Camille hit the road after, didn’t turn back for three months. Windgap’s freshly minted pariah. Adora thought she was dead. Her distraught pulled the town’s attention back to her like flies on old fruit. When Camille returned Adora appeared to be, initially, disappointed.
She doesn’t say any of this.
“I bet I’ll remember mine,” Amma whispers, even though it’s a year off.
Camille’s silence is visibly amping her up; Amma drops her mouth next to her ear. She feels Amma’s question more than she hears it.
“How many was it?”
“Amma, please.”
“C’mon, answer me. I already know, I just wanna see if you'll lie.”
Camille blushes hard. “I,” she takes in a shuddering breath. “Three, four, maybe. I don’t know. Can’t remember.”
The moment hangs.
“That’s not what the rumor is,” she says. Camille’s chest throbs. “Jodes used to tell me things about you, because her mom would tell her. Close in age, you know?” Amma laughs at her own joke. “Well, Mama’s always been sore on it, so I asked her a couple years ago. Do you know what her mom said?”
She doesn’t, she feels like Amma’s electrifying her.
“Said she heard it was twelve.”
All of her scars ignite. Her trip keeps swooping from violently terrified to violently turned on, and Camille doesn’t know what to say. How to speak. Amma doesn’t need to know those kinds of things about her.
“Do you ever imagine me getting fucked like that?”
Camille can’t breathe. “You’re too young.”
“You were my age. You’re fucking me now.”
“I shouldn’t—quit, Amma, fuck.”
“I bet you like it,” Amma purrs, brushing her lips over the shell of Camille’s ear. Hating that she shudders. “Feel like you’re fixing me, somethin’ like that. I might, too. You’re dirty, Mille.”
It’s how she says it that reminds her Amma’s still fucked up: her accent slips into something sweet, innocent, like she’s not accusing Camille of being a biblical whore right now. The contrast between Amma’s biting grip and honeyed words sends Camille’s fried brain into a sort of free fall.
She doesn’t feel like she’s fixing Amma. She wishes she were drunk, for the visuals to go away. The thought of Amma knowing her like that—she can’t have it. She has to distract her. Her vision curls red.
Camille reaches down between Amma's legs, determined to throw her off her trail. They’re encroaching on dangerous territory. She runs her fingers over Amma's soaked panties, spreading the wetness already seeping through.
"Let me fuck you too," she insists, her tone barely above a whisper.
Amma nods eagerly, sitting up high on her knees and separating them, hips jutting out like Camille’s still playing the game. Her skin is clammy, vibrating like a tuning fork.
For the past several minutes she’s felt like she’s been balancing on the edge of Amma’s blade. Maybe Amma isn’t trying to burrow so deep, maybe it’s her just being Amma, and Camille’s turning the knife on herself. The thought sours.
Camille hooks her fingers under the waistband of Amma's panties and tugs them down, revealing her slick folds. The familiar territory calms her down, somehow.
Camille leans in, inhaling the scent of Amma's arousal. She runs her tongue over Amma's clit. Her homecoming queen. Camille laps over her entrance, savoring the taste of her.
She fights off the thought of some boy touching her baby sister, dirty hands on her perfect, smooth skin. She doesn’t think too hard that hers aren’t clean either; or the blood on Amma’s.
"Fuck, yes," Amma keens. “How old were you when you got this good with your mouth?”
Camille ignores her, delving her tongue deeper inside Amma's pussy. Her hands make fistholds in her lavender dress and she drags her closer by her ass. She feels Amma's walls flutter around her, her ragged breaths, gulped in by the lungful.
Camille replaces her tongue with two fingers, pumping them in and out as she continues to lathe over her clit. Amma moans and bucks against her, her hips meeting Camille's movements. She’s surprised the horn hasn’t gone off; the steering wheel looks uncomfortably jammed in the small of Amma’s back.
Amma sounds pretty when she’s getting fucked. High, whined. Pornographic. Higher when she comes. Her moans spike, like there’s no one around them, like Camille’s Buick is a different dimension.
Similar, she thinks again.
“Mille,” she whines so high it’s a wonder the glass doesn’t crack.
When Amma finishes, she yells out her full name and freezes. Seconds later she slumps against Camille's chest, breathing hard and shaking. Camille holds her close, petting her hair.
The cabin is silent except for the blood-crashing sound of Camille’s pulse in her temples. She wishes she could turn the radio on, like music could cure this. She’d even let Amma have the aux.
Amma nuzzles into her clavicle, disturbing the precious minutes of quiet. A low buzzing sound comes from her throat, almost like purring. Then she sits up.
“Are you in love with me?”
When Camille opens her eyes, the glitter speckling Amma’s cheeks scintillates across her peripherals. Her silhouette is made up of fractals of chromatic light.
“What?”
“I asked if you were in love with me,” Amma repeats, much quieter. When Camille doesn’t do anything but balk at her, she rolls her eyes and jams a finger into her shoulder. “I mean, is that why you do things like this?”
Camille blinks slowly, glancing around, searching for the earliest exit. How high is Amma’s tolerance?
“Jesus,” she says.
Amma just stares at her, unreadable. Camille feels like she could shrink under her gaze, totally fucking unprepared for this conversation. Feels like she could use a shrink.
Camille continues thinking about all her feelings until Amma giggles, dragging her attention back in sharp focus.
“I’m just fucking with you, Millie.”
Camille doesn’t laugh.
"Let's do it again," she says, reaching for Camille's hand.
Camille hesitates, hanging by a thread. Her heart rate is so rapid it’s almost crashing her high. She can’t look at Amma—she’s afraid of her. Of seeing her reflection staring back.
The air Camille sucks in tastes like sex. She’s ashamed at how violently her body responds to the request, how eager when she was seconds from trembling mere moments ago. Amma dips down to kiss her neck, trailing her lips and tongue on skin.
A sharp nip at the base of Camille’s clavicle makes her jump. Amma makes a giggly little noise.
Camille reaches down, tugging at the hem of Amma's dress. She wants to see more of her. Not think about this.
“Off.”
Amma complies, lifting herself up off Camille's lap and shimmying out of the dress. She's not wearing a bra, and Camille can see her nipples harden in the cool air.
Camille reaches out to touch her, running her fingers over Amma's small breasts and stomach. She traces the contours of Amma's ribs, the softness of her skin. She’s a creation, as much as Camille hates to admit it. She doesn’t know how a pretty little thing like Amma can do such ugly things.
While Camille runs her fingers over her, Amma leans back provocatively. She’s entirely naked. Her elbows frame either side of the wheel, and she sinks lower on her knees, filling the space with her scent.
"You like that, don't you? Lookin’ at me."
Camille feels like she’s been caught. Again. She shudders, nods.
"Say it," Amma commands. "Tell me how much you want me."
Camille moans, her resistance crumbling under Amma's command. "I want you," she says.
“Why?”
The question hits Camille square, knocking her from her reverie.
“Dunno,” she echoes, hating how much she sounds like her.
“Mm-m. Liar. Stop lying.”
Amma’s chest bounces when she laughs, a taunt that punches her in the gut even though her eyes are trained. Camille doesn’t know why she can’t just leave her alone, not even when they’re like this.
“You make me want to pull my hair out.”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty, so it doesn’t matter. You like looking at my tits,” Amma continues, leaning back further and sighing deep in her chest. She brushes her hair away and Camille pretends not to notice that there’s glitter on her sternum, too.
“I’m not a teenage boy.”
“I’m not Kansas City.”
Camille grits her teeth. “Not any of your friends, either.”
“I’m not Marian.”
A pause. Camille searches Amma’s eyes, but she can’t read her expression. “Too far.”
“But you love me. And my tits.” Amma laughs again. “And my skin, my voice, and you like that I’m just as dirty and fucked up as you. Maybe you like that I’m worse. Poor Camille, can’t escape her blood.”
That cracks a smile on Camille’s face. Acid makes her think about things funny. Adora’s daughters are spoiled milk, rotten fruit.
Doomed to die young or live like you want to die.
“Will you ever quit?”
“No. Did you like Marian like this?”
“Christ. We were kids, Amma. Children.”
Amma shrugs. “I want to know you. Gonna find out everything that makes you tick. I wouldn’t care, by the way. I think you’re so fucking hot. I wanna burrow inside you.”
Amma grins at her, pushing her back against the seat of the car. She spreads her legs, inviting Camille to touch her again, leaking, getting off on it.
Another word comes to mind. Filthy.
She reaches out with trembling fingers, brushing them against Amma's clit. Amma gasps, her hips jerking deliciously. Then she pulls her hand away.
The hunger in Amma's eyes threatens to swallow them whole. Like Camille is the only thing that can satisfy her nasty appetite. Maybe she wants to burrow inside her, too.
“One more time, sis,” Amma whispers. “You got another round in you. Make me feel good, yeah? Good as you felt when you were my age."
Camille hisses, slides her hand down Amma's body. She feels the curve of her waist, the pliability of her skin, and the heat between her legs. Camille slips her fingers inside, eyes snapping shut at the wetness and warmth that surrounds her. Impurity. She fails not to smile when Amma’s hips jerk.
Camille weaves a hand in the back of Amma’s hair, rooting at the nape of her neck, and pulls. Shock tumbles from Amma’s mouth in the form of a gasp; her eyes light up, and she grins.
“Ohhh, fuck.”
Camille adjusts her speed and angle, swerving her attention to the flickering convenience store, all but abandoned. Her pace grows punishing, hard enough until Amma’s cries reach glass-shattering pitch; Camille pulls her down to meet every thrust, fucking her like her own prom night, split open and nearly bleeding. She releases Amma’s hair to turn the ignition, and the radio floods the space between them.
It doesn’t take long. Amma comes before the next song ends, Camille’s thumb pressed against her clit, smearing wetness into the sparse hair on her mound. She rides out the aftershocks deep down Camille’s knuckles.
Names flit behind her eyes. Marian. Amma. Adora. Natalie. Anne. Mae. Alice. Camille.
Spoiled milk. Rotten fruit.
She holds Amma, still knuckle-deep inside her. Naked body pressed against her half-clothed own. A precious, filthy, ugly little thing.
Her homecoming queen.