Recent picture of my sisters and I from Summer 2012 in State College. Apparently, Child took this photo. Ellen is the one on the left.

I was pregnant.  I was also unwed, reading The Scarlet Letter, and really knowing what an utter turd ball Dimmesdale is. It was near the holidays, and I was still “seeing” the fetus’s father. But not seeing him in the forever way, in the “we’re in this mess together” way.

I visited home for Christmastime and Ellen was completely fascinated by my breasts.  I was, too. They were blue-veined moons. In my dark bedroom in my college apartment, I had taken my shirt off and stood in a mirror and took flash-bright, grainy photographs of them with a disposable camera. I wanted to remember forever the last time my tits were perfect. Ellen asked if she could touch them.

“Sure.” I called her bluff. She wouldn’t really touch them.

Her own breasts are tiny, A-cups, and are on the list of things I envy about Ellen. She tentatively patted me through my clothes, offered, “I love boobs” by way of apology.

I want to be more surprised that my naïve, thoughtful, Christian honor student of a sister loves boobs. She asked if I would shower with her, she would like to see my breasts.

“Yes.” I said, without hesitating, surprising myself and my parents who are standing right there, looking on with a mixture of pride and horror. I secretly hoped Ellen was a lesbian.

I forgot about the sex bruises on my shoulders and chest, from recent and rambunctious lovemaking with the father.

Ellen and I undress in our parents’ bathroom. We only look at each other’s faces.

“How’s school?” I ask.

“Busy. How about you?”

“Wonderful and unimportant.”

“Yeah,” she lets out a nervous laugh, the only signal that she’s feeling odd, “I bet.”

My parents had one of those large, tile box showers with two shower heads and about 8 square feet of space.  Designed for the co-shower.  “It came with the house,” they said. “We don’t use it like that!” But then my mother’s most prevalent piece of advice regarding love relationships is, “Keep your husband well-fed and well-sexed.”

Ellen was puzzled by my slightly puffy body as the water and steam mingled between us.

We soaped ourselves in silence. Ellen’s gaze drifted to my breasts. I did not look at her body. I cannot recall the color of her pubic hair.

She asked, “What are those bruises from?”

I wanted to protect her, so I said, “You don’t want to know.”

Being perfect, she dropped it.

I was grateful, but I regret now that I didn’t tell her.

I wish I said instead, “From the best sex ever. I mean, at least there’s that. At least I got knocked up from sensational fucking, and not from getting raped or the first time I did it. You should not wait till you’re married to have sex, Ellen. Sex is fun.”

In the conversation we should’ve had, Ellen would angle a look of teenaged incredulity at me.

“Pregnant sex is fun, too. I guess it’s all the extra blood down there. That’s what the book says.  Sounds kooky to me. But you should get on birth control. And don’t feel guilty about it.”