Chapter 3

That night, Lily again came into our room right after brushing her teeth, and without a moment of hesitation took off her street clothes right in front of me, even though the lights were on. Despite the fact that I’d of course already seen her with her clothes off two mornings in a row now, it felt strange and almost shocking to see her actually undressing. This was something, surely, I wasn’t allowed to watch. But Lily didn’t seem at all concerned about it. She shimmied out of her dress, then pulled off her undershirt, and there she was standing in her panties next to the bed. I felt almost transfixed, but if she noticed I was staring, she didn’t indicate it. I knew I needed to get undressed as well, but it was hard to shake the inhibition I felt. Also, I had a little problem. The unfamiliar experience of watching Lily get undressed had caused me to get hard. In all the time we’d been sleeping together I’d never been bothered by the random erections that I sometimes experienced - when they happened, I just shifted a little so Lily wouldn’t notice. But it would be hard to hide if I stripped to my underwear in front of her. I stalled for time a little, as Lily waited patiently for me to get into bed - out of habit; since she’d started coming into my room in the middle of the night, she always slept on the outer side of the bed. Finally I managed to will my boner down, or at least into a half-hard state, and began to undress, starting by doffing my T-shirt. Lily was watching me peacefully. Unfortunately, when I began to take off my pants, my problem sprang right back to life. I couldn’t stop undressing, so I just gritted my teeth and tried my best to hide it. I was sure, as I crawled under the single bedsheet as fast as I could, that the tent in my underwear was blindingly obvious, and I felt a hot flush come to my cheeks. Lily said nothing, though, just got in next to me and snuggled up to me. I put my arms around her and did my best to avoid poking her. I was honestly distressed. The erection felt like a terrible distraction. I obviously had no sexual feelings towards Lily at all, and I just wanted to get back to the blissful feeling of sleeping with her in my arms, but instead I was fretting about her noticing that I was hard, and I couldn’t relax. Finally I fell into a fitful sleep. I woke up several times in the night from weird dreams that I couldn’t quite remember, feeling hot and sticky and unable to get comfortable.

The next morning - disaster. Utter disaster. When I woke, Lily was sleeping peacefully as ever in my arms, but I could feel something was very wrong. My underwear and the sheet under me felt soaked. At first I had the irrational thought that I’d just sweated incredibly profusely in the heat, but I quickly understood what had happened even though it had never happened to me before. I’d read about it in the young-adult books that I devoured, always wondering that “other people” could have lives so much more fraught than mine. None of the protagonists of those books had ever had a wet dream with their sister in the bed, though. My only thought was how to wake Lily and get her out of bed without noticing the aftermath. I was paralyzed for a while, but eventually worked out a strategy - I tried to nudge her further towards the edge of the bed without waking her up, moving over so that at least I’d be covering the wet spot on the sheet. Lily was a light sleeper in the mornings and her eyes fluttered open while I was shifting her, but she didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss. I forced levity into my voice as I said good morning to her. Ever perceptive, she looked at me quizzically, but then closed her eyes and relaxed back into my arms from her new position, sighing a little. I was petrified that she’d feel my wet underwear against her body, but if she noticed anything, she didn’t say a word. I tried to calm down and just enjoy our regular morning cuddle, but my mind was racing and I just couldn’t get myself back into a relaxed state. I felt deeply ashamed, without even fully knowing why. It was a natural thing, it had nothing to do with Lily, did it? And yet I was afraid to look at my sister’s body even as she lay there with her eyes closed. I felt — irrationally — that if I did look, I would see her in a different way, and I didn’t want to.

Somehow, eventually, we managed to get up without Lily discovering my “accident”. If she noticed anything was wrong, she didn’t say anything, but happily chattered, as she put on the previous day’s undershirt and dress, about the diorama we’d seen at the museum the day before with a Neanderthal family in it. It’d evidently made an impression on her. She was waiting for me to get up before she went out, so I sat at the edge of the bed with the top sheet covering my waist and, with forced casualness, pulled on my trousers over my clammy underwear, then stood up to put on my shirt. I wanted nothing more than to get out of my briefs, take a shower and wash away my grime and shame, but we usually bathed at night. Plus I had to do something about the sheets. We walked out; Mom and Dad were already sitting at the kitchen table having coffee. When she saw us, Mom exclaimed in surprise: “Were you two so tired you just fell asleep in your clothes?” “Of course not, Mom,” said Lily, the tone in her voice indicating that our mother was being silly. “We slept in our underwear.” I winced internally at hearing it stated explicitly, but Mom didn’t seem perturbed. “You shouldn’t really put on yesterday’s dirty clothes, though,” she chided. “Well, I didn’t have my PJs,” said Lily. It was perfectly true; she had left them in her room. I saw an opening and quickly said, “I’ll go change.” Dad asked me what I wanted for breakfast and I shrugged and said “bacon,” figuring I was being clever - it would take a while to cook. Dad looked a bit surprised and explained that he’d thrown the bacon out to be safe. “You know what, though - I wouldn’t mind a bacon and egg sandwich myself. Ellie, maybe I should go pick some up at the deli?” Perfect. I left the room as they discussed the complexities of the breakfast order and quickly locked myself in the bathroom, stripped, took off my underwear and buried it at the bottom of the laundry hamper. Then I thought better of that - Mom would surely notice. And the sheet! - I thought in a sudden panic. It was Saturday; Mom usually did the laundry on Sunday. I’d have to find a solution by then. I went into the bedroom and hid my underwear under the bed, put the blanket that we hadn’t been using in the summer heat on the bed, over the top sheet, to provide further cover for the shameful spot, then quickly returned to the bathroom and showered. I felt better when I got out. I’d formulated a strategy: I’d offer to do the laundry myself. I knew how, and it seemed unlikely to me that Mom would object to being relieved of a chore. As I dried off and got dressed, I almost felt like things were OK again. Bacon and egg on a roll from the deli for breakfast - my favorite - was just proof that the universe tended inexorably towards happiness.