Emma looked off to the side and back to her brother, and off to the side again.
“What?” Aaron asked.
Emma looked away from the kitchen wall to her brother’s eyes.
“I was wondering,” she said, pausing, “If you could help me know if there’s something there. I don’t want to wait another seven days.”
Aaron saw the worry in Emma’s face.
“I’m just an intern, Emma,” Aaron said. “It’s not my specialty. Your doctor will give you a better opinion than I can.”
“I know,” Emma said. “But I trust you. I know how smart you are, big brother. Can you just do this for me? Please?”
Emma’s eyes stared straight and unblinking into Aaron’s. It was a strange request, and his mind juggled the ethical implications of it, but with those eyes wide and open and bearing down on his he knew he could not say “no.”
“O.K.,” he said. “I guess. What do you want me to do?”
Emma did not hesitate. Her arms swept up and the tight white tank top rose with them. In a second it was over her head, and it went flying to the side and fell on the floor. Emma stood in front of Aaron wearing an underwire push-up bra.
Emma’s hands went behind her back, and Aaron noted the moment when the clasp was undone. The skimpy white bra shivered and slumped. Emma shrugged her shoulders and the bra gave way and in a moment it, too, was on the floor.
Emma stood in front of Aaron, topless.
Holy shit, my sister has nice tits, Aaron thought. Somehow, though he’d known her all his life, Aaron had not realized how large Emma’s breasts were. They were full and round and upright. They defied gravity with the arrogance of youth. They stood firm and away from her torso, the nipples long and pink and hard. When he realized he was staring at his sister’s breasts he looked up at her face, and she was looking at him.
“Emma,” he said. “I don’t know about this. I’m not an expert on breast inspections. I’m just an intern, and it’s not something I’m really trained to do.”
“You’ve done them, though, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Some. Not a lot.”
“But you can do it, right?” Emma sighed. “I know it’s unusual, but I can’t bear to wait another week and I trust you. Please?”
Aaron couldn’t say no to his sister.
“O.K.,” he said.
He approached her. She turned to him and her breasts shook, slightly, in front of him. Aaron was a conscientious doctor, and he had seen many naked bodies, but he found it more difficult than normal to look at his sister’s nude torso with a purely objective, medical eye.
“Which one?” he asked.
“The left one,” she said, inclining her chin toward it.
He put both hands on her breast. With one hand he pushed against his sister’s breast and made small circles against her skin with three fingers, moving clockwise around the circumference. His hand moved deftly and quickly. He felt awkward and did not want to prolong the examination one moment longer than necessary. Finally, his fingers circled toward her aureole, and her nipple pressed down and sprung back up when his fingers passed over it. He moved his fingers around it and felt her carefully, and he took his hand away when he was done.