Chapter 18

All morning at school I walked around in a daze. The full impact of how things had changed with Lily had finally landed. I knew the word for what we were doing, but I’d never, ever thought of applying it to my relationship with my sister; it seemed like a dirty, shameful, forbidden topic that belonged to the big, bad outside world, but had never had any relevance to us.

I’d first encountered it in a crude scrawl defacing a 6th grade classroom desk, almost certainly placed there by a kid who was no more enlightened about its meaning than I: “INCEST IS BEST,” inscribed with, in place of the S letters, that funny-looking “cool” motif that was all the rage at the time. Surreptitiously, I’d looked the unfamiliar word up in the dictionary, realized that it was a dark and forbidden thing, and filed the knowledge away under “grownup stuff.” The only lasting impression it made on me was that I vaguely associated the “cool S” with forbidden knowledge for a long time thereafter.

But when, a year later, in the early throes of puberty, I found myself, to my great distress, involuntarily aroused when Lily and I started sleeping in our underwear, I didn’t make the connection with the “I” word at all. Indeed all I desperately wanted was to to erase any sexual thoughts I might have in connection with Lily, to let the joy of simply touching and holding her each night fill me up and force out any untoward stirrings. I successfully suppressed my urges for a couple of years, by sheer force of will and by masturbating nightly before bed, and was rewarded by being permitted to dwell in an innocent paradise, my life kept on an even keel through those turbulent early years of adolescence simply because I was centered around the deep calm that cuddling innocently, skin-to-skin with Lily brought me each night.

When, then, Lily herself slid into puberty — I barely noticed at first — and began showing an interest in exploring and in touching with less innocent intent, I resisted at first, then slowly gave in, until we were masturbating each other regularly; but even then, I did not think of it as “incest,” but just as a natural deepening of the bond of close touch that we had already shared for so many years. In the end, it took having our private idyll interrupted by our parents, then taken abruptly from us, to make me begin to feel even a little shame about our activities.

But now — Lily and I had become lovers. We were committing ... there was no other way to parse it, no avoiding the “I” word, no rationalizing it as merely an extension of our sacred childhood ritual. We had, perforce, made each other grow up; we had had sex, worse we had sex as siblings; we had done something that would shock and horrify anyone else in the world. There was no going back. I felt, at the same time, terrified and liberated: no one must know, but also, no one could take this from us now. I was, willy-nilly, an adult now, and I would have to figure out how to navigate the adult world, and protect Lily from the consequences of what we were doing.

At lunch, sitting in a booth at the Ambrosia with Timothy leaning so close up against me that I was sure our friends could tell something was up between us, I felt both distracted and, I’m ashamed to say, a little annoyed. I didn’t really want Timothy throwing himself at me like this. I felt a great deal of affection for him, and I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed our sexual dalliances, but especially now that Lily and I had become lovers, I felt little desire to act out the part of his ... his boyfriend, I guess, is what he wanted me to be. Part of me wished we could go back to just hanging out, talking about books and computers and music and stuff like that. The spirit of rebellion with which, just a few days before, I had walked down Broadway openly holding Timothy’s hand, had brought him to orgasm on a bench in a public park, now seemed childish and irrelevant; my transgression with Lily was infinitely deeper by comparison.

Timothy and I had made plans to hang out on the weekend and, when he suggested on the walk back to school that I just come over and spend the night so we could get an early start on whatever we ended up doing on Saturday, my first inclination was to say no; I even had an excuse, namely that I had not brought a change of clothes. But something made me reconsider. I was almost a little afraid of a third night with Lily in such short succession; the past two had been so intense, and worrying about being found out in the morning — not to mention my lingering anxiety that Lily could be pregnant — had been so nerve-wracking that in a way I welcomed the thought of a distraction.

Also, I thought, another evening hanging out with Alice and Timothy would just be ... fun. It was a wonderful feeling letting go of inhibitions, not worrying about what other might think, just being honest and straightforward and engaged with two other people. I knew that I’d probably end up getting physical with Timothy again if I went over; I wasn’t feeling any particular desire to at that moment, but I also recognized that I’d probably be up for it when the time came.

I briefly felt a pang of guilt — shouldn’t I tell Lily about Timothy, now that we were lovers? But I couldn’t do that. And I couldn’t, of course, tell Timothy about Lily either, so I lacked a real excuse to avoid his overtures. What was I going to say, that I had a secret girlfriend? Thinking about it, I knew I was being unfair to both of them, and I felt rotten, and put it out of my mind.

I told Timothy that I would indeed stay over that evening, but wanted to quickly run home after school first to pick up a change of clothes. In point of fact it wasn’t so much the clothes that I needed, but rather to see Lily, to reassure her that I was just going to sleep over with my friend again — and to reassure myself that she wouldn’t be upset about that.

After my last period class, I took the subway back uptown, marveling at how crowded it was; I was used to hanging out for a while after school, avoiding the biggest rush. When I got home Lily’s bus had not yet arrived; I told Mom that I was going to stay over at Timothy’s and would likely spent Saturday night as well, then quickly repacked my backpack with two changes of clothes and waited impatiently in the living room for Lily to get back.

I didn’t have to wait long; when she walked through the front door and saw me, her eyes lit up and she ducked into the living room to sit next to me on the couch. I said, “Lil, I’m going over to Timothy’s tonight and maybe even staying tomorrow too. I came home just to see you before I go.” She looked disappointed for the briefest moment, then smiled meltingly. “I’m so glad you came back, Robbie! I was looking forward to seeing you all day.” I felt terrible and wished I hadn’t promised Timothy I’d go over, but she put her hand over mine and started toying with my fingers. Almost immediately, Mom saw fit to peek in to greet Lily. If she noticed that we were, essentially, holding hands, she didn’t say anything; she merely repeated to Lily that I would be staying at Timothy’s tonight, and said “Dinner’s at seven, when your dad is home.”

It wasn’t even 5 yet and, when Mom when back to the kitchen, I decided that Timothy could wait a bit longer and sat with Lily; I put my arm around her shoulder and she rested her head there, while I stroked her hair with my free hand. The uncomplicated contact calmed me and I could tell from Lily’s deepening, slowing breaths that she was enjoying the rest as well. For a while it seemed almost like we were back to where we had begun, taking comfort in just simple touch, and we sat that way for ages, until finally I said, “Lil, I’d better go.”

She looked up at me and smiled, and I felt I could barely contain my love; I gently kissed her lips, then reluctantly pulled back again when it seemed things would get too steamy. “I love you, Lil,” I whispered. “I love you, Robbie,” she whispered back. We stood up, I hugged her tightly, then, feeling light-hearted, I ducked into the kitchen to tell Mom I was going, and headed out for the subway.

When I arrived at Timothy’s place I knocked on the door and Alice answered. “Hi Rob, dinner in about an hour, OK?” She was, as I more-or-less had expected, scantily dressed, in panties and a bra. I could see Timothy at his computer, also in his underwear. Alice returned to the kitchen and I mentally shrugged and, putting my backpack down next to Timothy, took off my shoes, socks, jeans and shirt and pulled up a chair next to him.

Timothy wanted to show me a new computer game he had copied from someone I didn’t know at school. We fiddled around with the computer for a while. The game was pretty bad, but — this was an unusual novelty back then — it had funny, barely-intelligible synthesized voices in it, and Alice came out of the kitchen and wanted to see these odd sounds emanating from the computer were all about. She leaned over me to look at the monitor, resting her arms on the back of my chair, her wrists on my bare shoulder. I felt myself get goosebumps, and was uncomfortably aware that if I were to put my head back now, it would touch her breasts. I tried not to think about it. Why was I reacting at what was obviously completely innocent contact? But I sat there stiffly and presently Alice stood up and returned to the kitchen, which was emitting tantalizing smells.

Dinner was, as always, a revelation. Alice lit two candles and placed them in the center of the table, then dimmed the lights. She had prepared a casserole with, she said, rice, yogurt, and chicken — “No eggplant this time, I’m afraid,” she joked. “I’m eggplanted out, so I’m making an exception to being mostly vegetarian today.” She inverted the heavy-looking pot over a serving dish and coaxed a beautiful golden-brown mound out. I commented on the color and she said “Saffron! Special occasion.”

I wondered what exactly saffron was, and what the special occasion was for that matter. She sliced triangles out of the dish and served me, then Timothy, then herself. It looked like rice, but golden yellow, with a crispy-looking crust on top. The steam rising from it carried a delicate, almost intoxicating fragrance. I wanted to dig right in but Alice was opening a largish bottle of wine. Without asking, she poured some for each of us. “Bon appétit!”