Lola’s older sister, Roberta Go
“Gazing at the written world, seeing the elegant self-restraint that guards an inner decomposition, a biological decay until the last moment from the prying eyes of the world; that bilious, sensually disadvantaged ugliness that is able to kindle its smoldering fire into a pure flame and to even usurp the throne in the kingdom of beauty.”
– Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
“Really?” asked Lo as I mixed the gin in with the tonic and sliced up a sliver of lime.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s not even noon.”
“What is time in a global pandemic anyway?”
We were two weeks into lockdown. We were stranded in paradise. Far away from our everyday hustle and bustle, cold weather, friends and family, we followed the dire warnings about travel a week into our winter vacation to the beachside resort town. The sun was shining, the sea breeze gently moderating the temperature, the inviting golden sand beckoning us to walk through it barefoot. But all the amenities of this place were off-limits. One-by-one each pleasurable pastime was shut down, cordoned off, closed – first the bars and restaurants, then the beach itself, and finally the boardwalk. We were allowed to walk on the sidewalks, but that was it. There was nowhere to go anyhow. We could take our lives in our hands and go to the supermarket to get necessities (if we could find them on the bare shelves), but we didn’t want to do that and we made as infrequent visits there as possible.
News of sickness, disease, and death were filtering into every media channel. It seemed that even if we didn’t watch the news, we still couldn’t escape it – it was in the air. The stock market was tumbling down off a cliff, unemployment was spiking, and anxiety was everywhere. We couldn’t hug our neighbors for comfort, for they may be the vicious vector conveying the virus within their sincere attempt at reassurance.
Lola and I were utterly alone on the 25th floor of a resort hotel overlooking the vacant beaches and streets with nothing but the brilliant yellow, blue, and wisps of white for company. On the horizon we could make out three giant cruise ships forbidden from docking for fear of their deadly cargo. We were informed that the virus was rampant and people dropping with asphyxiation on the decks, desperately looking to the shore for some sort of assistance, in vain.
Death surrounded us. So why not have a gin-and-tonic after breakfast? I had plunged into nihilism.
Yes, I still had Lola as my companion, but there was little for me to write about regarding “my sexlife with Lola.” Her trysts, flirtations, and dogging down by the pool area were prohibited by the pandemic. Yes, she still masturbated three, four, five times a day, but I’ve written about that in such detail and with such frequency that there is hardly anything new I could bring to the topic. Our lives beat on with the same monotony as the repetitive waves upon the shore.
Until one day our desperation to escape the gloom of death and destruction was relieved. We found solace in the strangest of places. While preparing for her Friday morning fap session, Lo was doing her usual foreplay routine which includes checking her elicit email account. In it, she discovered a missive from her sister Robie, whom she hadn’t seen for a dozen years or more. Even with me, she had only mentioned her in passing as her “estranged sibling.” All I knew about her was that she was older and residing abroad. How on earth did she find Lo’s secret email account?
After getting the email, Lo called me into the bedroom and explained some of the backstory.
“She’s older and when we were kids we slept in the same bed. It became. . . interesting. . . when she grew boobs. Long story short, we got caught, she got kicked out of the house and sent to boarding school and then to Europe. We were separated for a long time.”
“Why did she suddenly write to you now?” I asked.
“I’m getting there,” said Lo, still naked under the sheets, slowly stroking between her legs as she spoke, “During COVID lockdown she needed something to help her get off. She was scouring the internet to find the really dirty stuff. She came across (and to) our blog and, because I don’t show my face, was fapping to it regularly, not knowing it was me – her sister – that was making her horny, until one day she noticed something that gave me away. She reached out and sent this photo of her with the ebook of Match, Cinder & Spark.”
Robie with our ebook
She showed me the photo. I was in a state of shock; first by the events that led to this interaction and then by the family resemblance I saw between Lo and Robie.
“She’s beautiful,” I uttered unconsciously.
Lo took offense. Always jealous.
“I mean, she looks so much like you. It’s a compliment.”
Apparently Lo, being the younger sister, always took a backseat to Robie. My comment brought back all those jealousy issues.
Since that first email exchange as adults, the two have reconnected on a number of levels, not least of which is that they frequently get off to each other long-distance.
I suppose the ever-present, yet occasionally more pressing, specter of death can reunite as well as rend.
Robie showing that she has been using Lo to get off