Human Sister

see Michael as the crowning miracle of his life’s work? Did he see me as the peculiar product of his attempt late in life to find something meaningful outside of the competitive world of academia, business, and the military? Did he see Elio as being in part a rootstock with the strength and virility that Grandpa recognized in himself but not in me? Did he have any inkling of what was to come?
    “Hey, where’s the bathroom?” Elio asked as soon as this last photograph was taken.
    “As a security precaution,” Grandpa answered, “the water and sewer lines were not extended to this part of the house. You’ll have to go out and come back through Gatekeeper.”
    “How do I leave, and how do I get back?”
    “Go to the antechamber, take off your underpants, stand directly in front of Gatekeeper’s door, and say, ‘May I leave?’ or anything to that effect. ‘I wanna get outta here’ will also work. When you wish to return, simply stand in front of Gatekeeper’s other door and request to enter.”
    When Elio returned, Grandpa and Grandma left for the night. I asked Elio to wait in our bedroom while I said goodnight to Michael. I was concerned that Michael might be upset, for never before had I closed my bedroom door to him while I’d slept.
    Excepting my vacations to visit Elio or Mom and Dad, Michael and I had slept together every night until I’d returned home the summer of my thirteenth birthday, when Grandpa had insisted that Michael and I begin sleeping separately. During the following six months, Michael slept alone two nights each week; during the next six months, he slept alone four nights each week; and thereafter, until the day Elio arrived to live with us, Michael slept with me only one night each week.
    Perhaps it would be more accurate to write that it was I who had slept alone on the aforementioned nights, for Michael, refusing to sleep alone in his bedroom, had slept on the floor beside his plants with his eyes closed but directed toward my open door.
    “We’re going to bed now,” I said as I approached Michael.
    “He likes me!” Michael whispered as he threw his arms around me. “I can feel that we’ll be friends!”
    “Yes. I feel so, too.”
    “He wants to make love to you now.”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t forget to close the door,” Michael said, releasing his hug and smiling.
    I set the scenescreen over our bed to display one of my favorite full-moon skies, then dove in beside Elio. He seemed so familiar, so perfectly where he should be—his body over my body, his mouth over my mouth, his hands all over me. Then he entered into the warm, moist yearnings between my legs, fitting himself perfectly inside me. He sighed, then softly kissed me and murmured, “Now, at last, I’m truly home.”

    One night several years earlier at 0237, a full moon, together with patches of gray-white clouds scudding southeastward and a sky not black but luminous, dark grayish blue, had been recorded by a camera on the deck directly above Grandpa and Grandma’s bedroom. At 0237 of this night that was Elio’s first night in his new home, I opened my eyes to the same moon, clouds, and sky. My post-celebration bladder was full. I slowly disentangled myself from Elio so as not to wake him and made the journey past Michael, who was sleeping curled up beside Amy, his amaryllis—then with two buds tumescent and six blossoms uninhibitedly trumpeting their red lust—through Gatekeeper, to the bathroom, and back.
    Upon reentering our bedroom and closing the door behind me, I was struck by how heavily the musky-sweaty scent of love and the stale breath of our sleep seemed to weigh in the air. Had Michael and I correctly calculated Elio’s added consumption of the oxygen-rich exhalation of our hydroponic plants? The thought that an alarm might sense some gas out of permissible range and disturb our sleep sent me back to reopen the door halfway.
    As I returned to our bed, my bare feet quiet on the warm ceramic floor, I became enthralled by the sight of Elio, who had rolled over onto my absence. Above the blanket lay a dusky arm, its oils and sweat lambent under the full moon. His lush ebony hair, a few strands silvered by moonlight, flowed for the first time over my pillowcase and covered from my view much of his face, except for a dark eyebrow over a single slanting eye shut in sleep, a handsome broad nose, and those warm, pillowy lips.
    He was so fragrant, earthy, and warm, so real, so unlike my pallid