Chapter 6

Lily didn’t seem overly perturbed for long. She wasn’t the type to brood, I knew. I resolved to make it up to her once we got to bed, to act as if nothing had changed. We hung up our towels and Lily began to brush her teeth, still naked. While she did that, I went to my room and put on a fresh pair of briefs. When I heard her finish, I went back to brush my teeth. Walking out of the bathroom, I saw with a bit of a shock that she was standing, still naked, by the bed. I nearly blurted out

“Aren’t you going to put on panties?”

but stopped myself in time. I didn’t want to hurt her by suggesting that I didn’t want to see her nude. In point of fact, I very much did want to see her nude, especially now that I’d recovered a bit from the “incident” and felt that I wasn’t being muddled by sexual arousal. I wanted to commit her whole naked body to memory, because I had an irrational fear that I’d never see it again. Surely everything was about to change, to go wrong. I tried not to stare too long, but clambered into bed. Even though I had said nothing about her state of total undress, it hadn’t occurred to me that Lily wouldn’t actually pull on panties but instead climb in, stark naked, next to me. I felt both shock and a frisson of excitement. Or perhaps it was more - I don’t know? Happiness. I felt happy that Lily still trusted me, that she trusted me so much that she would sleep naked next to me without a second thought, that at least I hadn’t ruined everything in the bath. I made no comment, but held out my arms to her, and she slipped into my embrace with a sigh of (it seemed to me) relief. I could feel her heart beating in the center of her small warmth, and I was filled with a sense of helplessness, paradoxically combined with protectiveness: the universe was too big and complicated, I couldn’t defend myself against it, but I would do my best to defend my sister. I pulled her close and she sighed again. We lay there for a while, then I turned out the light and began to drift towards sleep.

I was already half asleep when suddenly I snapped awake. Lily had quietly said my name.

“Mmmm?”

“Robbie...”

She said again, and paused.

“What is it, Lily?”

“Could we ... could we maybe...”

She stopped. My heart pounded.

“Could ... could I maybe...”

She going to ask me to let her go, she was going to ask that we sleep in separate beds. I knew it. I knew my happiness couldn’t last. But her next words came almost even more as a shock. She blurted them out:

“Couldyoumaybetouchmeagain ... like ... like in the bath. I mean, you know, my ... my b ... boobs. If I turned around. You know?”

She sounded almost plaintive. I didn’t know what to say. Really, this was the first time, since long, long ago when she would come begging me to let her into my bed because she was scared, that she had asked for me to do anything. Everything had seemed to just develop naturally. It was so strange, hearing her put a desire to be touched into concrete words; of course, of course we both wanted to be touched by each other, of course - it was the central fact of our lives, wasn’t it? We’d been living this for years. But at the same time - we’d never really verbalized it. We didn’t talk about it, we just ... were. Together.