29th June 1981

"You're fifteen-years-old," Pris said.

He could smell her now, this close: clean Daz washing powder on her clothes, Turkish cigarettes and cheap strawberry bubblegum on her breath. She was wearing perfume too, acidic and floral – but it had grown old and sweaty now, made her smell a lot like a prostitute.

They were inches from touching; feet, hands, noses, both lying side by side and turned to each other on top of her creased green duvet, bed sunken with their weight. She lay there and watched him slowly, fluttery-eyed, completely still. He was growing bored with this patience. He leaned his face closer and grinned, "Oh, I see. We're entering a PG situation now, are we?"

Pris smiled stupidly. She didn't move closer, but her big round eyes flickered down to his mouth – once, twice – and that was enough to keep him still for a while. Her smile began to slither away and then saw her swallow, throat muscles constricting with it. He craned his neck closer.

"No, listen," she said quietly, voice gritty.

He didn't want to listen to her anymore. He shook his head, exhaling loudly, and then he demanded irritably, "What?"

One of her hands, corded with masculine muscle, moved to brush against his. She ran her thumb over his knuckles in a single, steady motion.

Her touch was medicinal, like cool water over a burn.

"You're fifteen-years-old," she repeated, and this time she didn't smile all close-mouthed and secret: instead, she looked at the wall opposite, at its yellow wallpaper with the smiling teddy bears with blue bows between their ears dotted across it.

He chuckled, shuffling closer a little more, "I won't press charges, if that's what you're worried about."

Pris smiled once again, this time wider, revealing her blunt greyish teeth beneath a stretch of deep pink. She shook her head, and he took this opportunity to once again get closer to her, the smoky mouth and cloudy eyes.

"Wait, Murdoc," she insisted, and then her soothing touch became the dig of four wide, flat knuckles into his shoulder. She was pushing him back, pushing her knuckles into his shoulder, blinking furiously. "You're fifteen."

She was pale, despite the heat, and breathing heavily through her nose. He glanced at her, lips thick and dry like her hands, and then closed his eyes. He didn't need to see her to know she wouldn't, couldn't, look. He felt her hands leave him, the palms had been chalky and warm; they left cool trails in their wake. He forced his eyes back open, and then said through clenched teeth, "I know."

Still she couldn't look, and it pissed him off. Her eyes were on the wall again, fluttery, blue.

"What's the problem?" He asked suddenly, glaring at her face. Her eyes were foggy.

She answered, "You."

"Me?" he hissed. "Now what have I fucking done?"

There was a pause, where he poked his tongue reflexively around his bloated lower lip. It would hurt to kiss her with that, he knew, but he didn't mind – didn't care. She'd taste of his brother's expensive cigarettes and girl and bubblegum pulp, her tongue would probably be all grainy like a cat's because it was dehydrated. He wanted.

"You," she said, "are my boyfriend's little brother."

She looked at his face finally, her mouth scrunching. She could smell that familiar warm scent, the smell of his brother, on him; shaving cream and nicotine and sweaty cotton t-shirts. His mouth was just the same as his, shaped the same, coloured the same, probably felt the same too.

"You're – you're my boyfriend's little brother," she said, quieter this time.

Saying it felt strange. It was sort of like having a tooth pulled and spitting out blood into a white enamel sink: the elation and revulsion of having living part of her cut out, to bleed and not feel a thing, to stick her tongue into a physical dead cavity of herself.

It escaped her, now, the reason that all of this came to be. All she knew now was that her mouth tasted of dental floss, dental mouth-rinse, bitter rubber dentist gloves. It didn't taste good.

"You're my boyfriend's little brother."

She had to think –