Forbidden

But I live for the night. Stroking Lochan, feeling every part of him, arousing him with just the touch of my hand, makes me long for more.

‘D’you ever wonder what it would be like?’ I ask him. ‘To actually—?’

‘All the time.’

There is a long silence. He kisses me, his lashes tickling my cheek.

‘Me too,’ I whisper.

‘One day,’ he pants softly as I graze my fingers up his thigh.

‘Yes . . .’

Yet some nights we come so close. I feel the longing ache in my body and sense Lochan’s frustration as keenly as my own. When he kisses me so hard it almost hurts and his body thrums against mine, desperate to go further, I begin to worry that by sharing a bed every night we are tormenting each other. But whenever we talk about it, we always agree we would far, far rather be together like this than go back to our separate rooms and not touch each other at all.

At school, as I gaze up at Lochan sitting alone on the steps at break time and he looks back down at me, the gulf between us seems enormous. We discreetly raise a hand in greeting and I count down the hours until I’ll get to see him properly at home. Sitting on the low wall with Francie at my side, I often lose track of the conversation and sit there daydreaming about him, until one day, to my astonishment, I see that he is not alone.

‘Oh my God, who’s he talking to?’ I cut Francie off mid-sentence.

Her eyes follow my gaze. ‘Looks like Declan, that new guy in the Upper Sixth. His family just moved here from Ireland, I think. Apparently he’s super smart, applying for all these universities . . . You must have seen him around!’

I haven’t, but unlike Francie I don’t spend most of my time ogling every male pupil in the Sixth Form.

‘Jesus!’ I exclaim, astonishment sounding in my voice. ‘Why d’you think they’re talking?’

‘They were having lunch together yesterday,’ Francie informs me.

I turn to stare at her. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. And when I passed Lochan in the corridor the other day, we kind of had a conversation.’ She opens her mouth wide.

‘What?’

‘Yeah! Instead of walking straight past me, pretending he hadn’t seen me, he actually stopped and asked me how I was.’

I feel an incredulous smile light up my face.

‘So, you see, he can talk to people.’ Francie lets out a wistful sigh. ‘Maybe I can finally get him to go out with me.’

I look back up at the steps again with a smile of delight. ‘Oh my God . . .’ Declan is still there. He seems to be showing Lochan something on his mobile phone. I watch Lochan make a fu

Still reeling with shock, I decide to take the plunge and ask Francie the question I’d been wanting to put to her for some time now.

‘Hey, I’ve been wondering about something . . . Do you – do you think that any two people, if they really and truly love each other, should be allowed to be together no matter who they are?’ I ask.

Francie shoots me a look of amusement, sees that I’m serious, and narrows her eyes in thought. ‘Sure, why not?’

‘What if their religion forbade it? If their parents were devastated or threatened to disown them or something – should they still go ahead anyway?’

‘Sure,’ Francie answers with a shrug. ‘It’s their lives, so they should be allowed to pick who they like. If the parents are crazy enough to try and stop them from seeing each other, they could run away, elope.’

‘What if it was something even more difficult?’ I ask, thinking hard. ‘What if it was – I du

Francie’s eyes widen and she suddenly grabs my arm. ‘No way! Who the hell is it? Mr Elliot? That guy in the IT department? The one with the tattoo?’

Laughing, I shake my head. ‘Not me, silly! I was just thinking hypothetically. Like we were talking about in history, about society having changed so much over the last half-century . . .’

‘Oh.’ Francie’s face falls in disappointment.

I look at her with a snort. ‘Mr Elliot? Are you kidding me? He’s about sixty!’

‘I think he’s kind of sexy!’

I roll my eyes. ‘That’s because you’re crazy. But seriously though. Hypothetically . . .’

Francie lets out a laboured sigh. ‘Well, they should probably wait until the pupil was over the legal age limit for starters—’

‘But what if she was? What if she was sixteen and the guy was in his forties? Should they run away together? Would that be right?’

‘Well, the guy would lose his job and the girl’s parents would be worried sick, so they’d probably be better off keeping it secret for a few years. Then, by the time the girl was nineteen or so, it wouldn’t even be a big deal any more!’ She shrugs. ‘I think it would be kinda cool to go out with a teacher. Just imagine, sitting in class, you could . . .’

I tune her out and inhale deeply, frustrated. There is nothing, I suddenly realize, nothing that can compare to our situation.

‘So nothing is taboo any more?’ I interrupt. ‘You’re saying there are no two people who, if they love each other enough, should be forced apart?’

Francie thinks for a moment and then shrugs. ‘I guess not. Not here, anyway, thank God. We’re lucky enough to live in a country which is pretty open-minded. As long as one person isn’t forcing the other one, then I guess any love is allowed.’

Any love. Francie isn’t stupid. Yet the one kind of love that will never be allowed hasn’t even crossed her mind. The one love so disgusting and taboo, it isn’t even included in a conversation about illicit relationships.

The conversation haunts me over the following weeks. Although I have no intention of ever confiding our secret to anyone, I can’t help wondering what Francie’s reaction would be if she somehow found out. She is an intelligent, broad-minded person with a rebellious streak in her. Despite her bold declaration that no love is wrong, I strongly suspect that she would be as horrified as the next person if she knew of my relationship with Lochan. But he’s your brother! I can hear her exclaim. How could you ever do it with your brother? That’s so gross! Oh God, Maya, you’re sick, you’re really sick. You need help. And the strangest thing is that a part of me agrees. Part of me thinks: Yes, if Kit was older and it was with him, then it would be totally gross. The very idea is unthinkable, I don’t even want to imagine it. It actually makes me feel physically sick. But how to get across to the outside world that Lochan and I are siblings only through a biological mishap? That we were never brother and sister in the real sense, but always partners, having to bring up a real family as we grew up ourselves. How to explain that Lochan has never felt like a brother but like something far, far closer than that – a soul mate, a best friend, part of the very fibre of my being? How to explain that this situation, the love we feel for one another – everything that to others may seem sick and twisted and disgusting – to us feels completely natural and wonderful and oh – so, so right?

At night, after kissing and cuddling and touching each other, we lie there and talk, late into the night. We talk about anything and everything: how the kids are doing, fu