Femme Fatale.

03

This time we hesitate, then curiosity overcomes us. "All right." Says Rhoda, speaking for us both. "We swear."

His young handsome face crumples and he buries his face into the rich sleeve of his jacket. "I'm in love with a boy." He says simply.

Rhoda's face is one of stunned horror. "Does he know?"

He shakes his head still buried among the rich velvet of his embroidered sleeve.

"Does anyone know?"

Again, his brown head shakes. "It's nothing anyway."

"A dangerous nothing," Rhoda says. "A dangerous brace of nothings. Wenching is one thing but you can be expelled for this."

"It's nothing," Joe reiterates. "And it's my own business. I'm sickened by girls, by the constant desire and talk of girls. The endless flirting and empty promises. A boy is so clean and so clear..." He turns away.  "It's a whim. I won't regard it."

Then you must never give hint of it, never tell anyone." Rhoda orders. "This must be the first and last time you speak of it to anyone, even us. You must cut him out of your heart and mind and never even look at him again."

He looks up at her. "I know it's hopeless."

But her advice is not for his benefit. "You endanger me," she says. "You will bring shame to me. I will never get a scholarship if my brother is expelled because of cardinal sin."

"Is that it?" He demands in sudden rage. "Is that all that matters? Not that I am in love and tumbled like a fool into sin. Not that I can never be happy, dating a snake and in love with a heartbreaker. But only only Miss Rhoda Issa's reputation to be without blemish!"

At once she flies at him, her hands spread like claws and he catches her wrists before she can rake his face. "Look at me!" she hisses. "This is all your doing. Don't whimper about heartbreak, you murdered your only chance at love and buried it when you left her!" she points at me.

He holds her away but she is as unstoppable as a Porsche with no brakes. "You are the one who had a fancy for your snake with loose skirts!"

Joe is struggling with her and I grip her from behind, pulling her off him. "Stop it, the both of you! Joe you know your sister is right and you, Rhoda, if you cared so much about your innocence you wouldn't have kissed me, and in public!"

Joe steps back and measures his sister. "You did what?"

"Shut up!" I reply levelly.

Suddenly the fight goes out of them and the three of us stand still, like masquers forming a tableau, me, hugging her waist, him holding her wrists, her stretched hands still inches from his face.

"Good God, what a family you are," I say wonderingly. "What have you come to?"

"It's where we are going that matters," Rhoda says harshly.

Joe meets her gaze and nods slowly, like a man taking an oath. "Yes," he sighs. "I won't forget."

"You'll give up your love," she stipulates. "And never mention of his name."