The fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose continues, as they juggle marriage, parenthood, and career ambitions while living in a world not designed for them.
Bodymates, Volume II is a sequel to the original Bodymates story.
Go to the original Bodymates, Part 1
Go to the original Bodymates, Part 6 (last part)
Mature themes in Bodymates II, Part 1 include stalking and violent assault.
Part 1 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 3: A terrific honeymoon
Chapter 1: Introduction
Hello, again. We’re Lily and Rose Spencer, identical twin sisters, and this is Volume II of our life story, at least so far. Yes, ‘story’ in the singular. We’re very close, and we do everything together. In fact, we’re literally inseparable. You see, we share a single body. We’re conjoined twins, commonly but incorrectly known as Siamese twins. Specifically, we’re dicephalic parapagus twins, which means that we each have a distinct head and neck, with two spines inside a single torso. Together we have a total of two arms and two legs. Oh, and two breasts, since you were probably wondering about that.
Sharing a body makes us a living paradox. Legally, we’re two distinct people, and we think of ourselves that way and want others to think of us that way, but we realize for most practical purposes we’re one physical being. We’re often are called things like ‘the girl with two heads’, and while we understand that’s what we look like, we find terms like that to be offensive. We are two women in a single, shared body.
Volume I of our life story covered the time from our birth through our wedding at age 24. We’re both married to Nick Spencer, our first and only true love. Yes, we were able to be legally married to the same man. You can read how we managed to make that happen in Volume I.
Volume II, which you’re reading now, continues our life story, beginning with our honeymoon and covering the next five years or so as we grow our family, continue our education, become established in our career, and continue the ongoing adventure of being conjoined twins in a world designed for singletons, our term for non-conjoined people.
When we’re talking about something we both experienced or both agree on, we’ll speak in the plural – using pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us’ or using both of our names together. When we’re speaking from the perspective of only one of us, we’ll use only that twin’s name and singular pronouns – ‘I’ and ‘me’, or ‘she’ and ‘her’ depending on who’s doing the talking. We hope that won’t be too confusing. We want others to refer to us in the plural as well, as ‘they’ and ‘them’, unless they’re referring to only one of us.
Chapter 2: Honeymoon plans
The three of us – Lily, Rose and Nick – had debated whether we should remain in-state for our honeymoon, where our marriages were legal and valid, or go elsewhere, where they were not. We were torn, because we wanted to go somewhere more exotic than we could find nearby, but we also saw the seeming pointlessness of going to the trouble to make our marriages legal only to immediately leave the one place where they were.
It wasn’t like we’d be arrested for polygamy if we ventured out of state or anything. It was just that we wouldn’t be considered married at all. Even that probably wouldn’t make a bit of difference unless one of us ended up in the hospital and on life support. The issue was more of a state of mind thing; we wanted to feel like we were truly married.
We looked to see what other countries might recognize plural marriages, thinking one of them might be a potential honeymoon destination. We found that there were quite a few places, but they were all located in either Africa or the Middle East. Most were either Muslim countries or those with a significant Muslim population. About the only one that looked at all appealing to visit was Egypt, but an Egyptian vacation was way beyond our means. We made a mental note to consider going there sometime in the future.
It occurred to Nick that the other places we could go where we wouldn’t be considered unmarried in the eyes of the law were where we weren’t in any country. That meant either Antarctica, which was even less practical than Egypt, or in international waters. That last idea had some potential. We looked into cruises that spent a lot of time at sea. We’d heard about repositioning cruises; one-way trips where they move the cruise ship from, say, Alaska to the Caribbean, but most of those occurred before our October wedding date, and they were rather lengthy – 10 to 16 days, typically.
We found that one cruise line offered 7 night transatlantic cruises between New York and England and there was one departing New York at just the right time. Now, we just needed to book the cruise and the flights. Of course, like most everything else in our lives, that was certainly going to be easier said than done. We had passports because we’d been on a family vacation to Canada, but we’d never flown before. We needed to make sure the two of us could purchase a single ticket without it being a problem, and that the three of us could share a ship cabin with only one bed.
We called the airline reservation number and spoke with a live person and tried to explain our situation, but we couldn’t get her to understand.
Airline agent: Reservations, how may I help you?
Lily: Hi. We’d like to book some flights, but we have a unique situation and we’re not sure how to go about it.
Agent: I’ll be happy to help you. What is your unique situation?
Lily: My sister and I are conjoined. That means we share one physical body, but we each have our own IDs and passports. So, we can only occupy one seat and only need one ticket, but we have two different names.
Agent: I’m sorry, what, now?
Lily: We are two people sharing one body, and want to know how to make a reservation.
Agent: So, like multiple personalities? You would need to book the flight using the name that’s on your state-issued ID or passport.
Lily: No, it’s nothing like that at all. We each have our own separate state IDs and our own separate passports. We want to make sure we can reserve one seat under both of our names and there won’t be any problems.
Agent: If there’s two of you, you each need your own seat unless one of you is an infant.
Rose: Let me try, Lily. Hi, I’m the sister. Obviously neither of us is an infant. But we’re conjoined. Between my sister and me, we have one body and need one seat.
Agent:
Rose: I gather you’re not familiar with the word ‘conjoined’. Do you know the term ‘Siamese twins’?
Agent: That’s two people who were born physically connected together, right?
Rose: Right. That’s what we are. But in our case, we have two heads and necks coming out of a single body. People often call us ‘the girl with two heads’, because that’s what we look like. But really, we are two distinct people who share a single body. We have one torso, two arms, and two legs, and so we need a single seat.
Agent: I think I’m starting to get it now. I didn’t know people like you actually existed. Please forgive me if I sound offensive; I don’t mean to be, but I’m trying to make sure I really understand. Physically, you’re a woman with two heads, but each head has its own name and its own ID and passport. Is that right?
Lily: That’s a very crude way of phrasing it, but yes, that’s our situation.
Agent: Again, I mean no offense, and I sincerely apologize. May I have your names, please?
Lily: Lily and Rose Barrett. But we’re trying to book our honeymoon trip, so we’ll be married when we travel. Our married name will be Spencer.
Agent: You’re departing right after the wedding?
Lily: Yes.
Agent: So you won’t have time to get your IDs updated with your married names before you fly. Therefore, you’ll need to book using your maiden names so that everything matches. You said Lily and Rose Barrett, right? Lily with one ‘L’ or two?
Lily: Lily has two ‘L’s, but not together. L-I-L-Y.
Agent: [laughing] Of course. I forgot about the first ‘L’. I meant was there one or two in the middle. But I got it. Barrett has two ‘R’s and two ‘T’s, right?
Lily: Right.
Agent: Okay. I think we can issue a single ticket with ‘Lily and Rose’ as the first name. Having short first names like you do, it all fits. I realize you don’t have an ID that says ‘Lily and Rose’; you have one ID that says ‘Lily’ and another ID that says ‘Rose’. Hopefully, everyone will be able to figure out what’s going on when they see you in person.
Agent: And your husband will be traveling with you? Or is it husbands, plural?
Lily: Just one husband.
Agent: And what is his name, please?
Lily: Nick Spen… No, wait. Nicholas Spencer.
Agent: Okay. Where and when would you like to travel?
Lily: We need one-way tickets to New York City, and then one-way tickets back home from London eight days later.
Agent: Going on a transatlantic cruise?
Lily: Yes.
Agent: Oooh, that sounds romantic. Okay, let me see what I can find for you.
After that fiasco, we called the cruise line to book our voyage, and had to go through pretty much the same rigmarole a second time. Lily wasn’t up to doing it again, so I, Rose, made the call this time.
Cruise line agent: Cruise reservations, how may I be of assistance?
Rose: Yes, hi. I’d like to book passage on the transatlantic cruise going from New York to Southampton, England in October.
Agent: Yes, ma’am. How many in your party?
Rose: Well, that’s where it gets complicated. But we just need a single cabin with one bed.
Agent: Yes, ma’am. How many in your party?
Rose: Two or three, depending on how you’re counting.
Agent: Ma’am, the maximum capacity for a cabin with one bed is two people.
Rose: Yes, I understand, but like I said, it’s complicated.
Agent: Is one of the passengers a pregnant woman? We don’t count unborn babies.
Rose: No, it’s not like that. My sister and I are conjoined twins, and our husband will also be with us.
Agent: I’m sorry, ma’am; I don’t know what that means. However, if it’s you, your sister, and your husband, you’ll either need two cabins or a cabin with two beds.
Rose: My sister and I share a single body.
Agent: I’m sorry, ma’am; I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What do you mean, you ‘share a single body’?
Rose: [becoming exasperated] Try to picture this. One torso, two arms, two legs, but two heads and necks on top of the one torso.
Agent: Did I hear you correctly? You’re saying you have two heads?
Rose: Not exactly, but you’re on the right track. My sister and I each have a head, a neck, and half of a single, shared body.
Agent: I see.
Rose: We’ll be on our honeymoon with our new husband, so we want to be in the same cabin with him and we have no use for a second bed.
Agent: Ma’am, I’m frankly having a difficult time believing any of this. It sounds to me like you’re trying to sneak three people in for the price of two. If I go along with this and book you a one-bed cabin for three people, it’s my job that’s on the line.
I, Lily, realized we were getting nowhere with this guy. It was my turn to jump in and help Rose out.
Lily: Hello, Mr. cruise line guy. I’m the sister of the one you’ve been speaking to. We really are conjoined, just like she said. But you’re obviously not going to just take our word for it, and I understand why. Still, that puts us at an impasse, doesn’t it? So I want to prove to you that everything we’ve told you is true. If we can do that, would you be able to book the single bed cabin for us like we want?
Agent: If you can prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt, then I suppose we could work something out. But I really don’t see how you’re going to be able to do that.
Lily: We couldn’t prove it if it weren’t true, but it is. Do you have a smartphone with a video call app with you?
Agent: I have one, but I’m not allowed to make or receive personal calls while I’m working.
Lily: This won’t be a personal call; it’ll be work-related. You can either give us your number or we’ll give you ours.
Agent: I don’t know; this seems sketchy.
Lily: Do you make a commission on bookings?
Agent: Well, yeah.
Lily: All right, then. You don’t want us to hang up and find another cruise line who will accommodate us, or you’ll have just wasted your time talking to us. You don’t want to get in trouble for breaking the rules, either; I get that. If we can get on a video call together, we can resolve this quickly and everyone will be happy.
I’m going to give you our number now. Write it down. We can’t be on a voice call and a video call at the same time, so we’re going to hang up and wait for your video call. Our names are Lily and Rose, so you can verify you’re talking to the same people when you call. Okay? If you don’t call, you lose your commission. We’ll be standing by.
We ended the call and waited about ten minutes, when our video call app let us know we had an incoming call from a number not in our directory. I, Lily, held the phone up close so he’d only be able to see my face, and answered it.
Lily: Hello?
Agent: Uh, hi, this is Josh, the cruise line agent. If I have the right number and you’re expecting me, please tell me your name.
Lily: Hi, Josh; this is Lily. We were wondering if you were going to call. Rose is right here next to me.
I, Lily, shifted the phone so he could see Rose, but not so he could see much below our chins.
Rose: Hi, Josh; I’m Rose.
Josh: You piqued my curiosity, so I called against my better judgement. You said you were going to prove to me you both share a single body, but I still think this is going to be a waste of my time. Whatever you’re going to show me will be very obviously fake, I’m sure.
Lily: It won’t be, I promise. I’m going to hold the phone at arm’s length now so you can see more of us.
Josh:
Lily: Can you see this? Our necks are both attached to the same body. I’m tilting the phone down now, so you can see there’s just one body, just two legs. Now back up again. We have just two arms, but we each have our own neck and head. You can see I’m talking to you real time; I’m not showing you some fake video we made in advance. Are you convinced?
Josh: Set the phone down where it’s propped up and I can see you, then back away and turn 360 degrees around.
We complied with his request.
Lily: Convinced yet? How about if we book that cabin now?
We didn’t get any more pushback from Josh, and completed the booking without incident. We wondered what he dreamt about that night.
Chapter 3: A terrific honeymoon
[Warning: This chapter has a violent scene at the end. That portion of the chapter may not be suitable for all readers, especially those who have been victims of violence or are easily triggered by depictions of violence. There’s a second warning in the text just before it gets ugly, so that you can easily skip that part.]
After the wedding, we and Nick left the next morning to catch our flight to New York City and then get to the cruise ship, which had a late afternoon departure. This was the first time the two of us had ever flown, and so the whole process of checking in with the airline and going through security was new to us. Nick had briefed us on what to expect, but his experience was that of a singleton.
Of course we got a lot of stares and questions about us having one reservation with both of our names on it when we each had our own IDs, but it’s much easier for people to understand our situation when they can see us in the flesh than it is over the phone or the internet.
Going through security, when we had to step inside that booth with our arms raised for them to scan us for hidden weapons, the machine indicated a malfunction. They had us step out and they reset the machine, and then had us try again. The same thing happened a second time. This time when they got it started, they had Nick go into the booth instead, and everything worked fine. They then had us go back in, and the machine malfunctioned again.
Everyone agreed that the machine probably couldn’t make sense of our anatomy and didn’t know what to do. The TSA agent took us aside and had us go through a rather intrusive manual search using her hands and a handheld scanner instead. We found that entire experience quite unsettling and demeaning.
Once we were on the plane and seated, before it left the gate, a flight attendant walking down the aisle spotted four heads in our row of three seats. Just before actually reaching our row, she said to us, “I’m sorry, ladies, but you can’t share a seat. One of you is going to…” She stopped abruptly as she finally saw and understood. “Never mind,” she said with a smile. “Enjoy your flight.” Yes, she was smiling, but her eyes gave her away; we could see that she really found us horrifying. Well, excuse us for living, we thought to ourselves. You’ll never be able to unsee us, so good luck with those nightmares.
We didn’t see the horrified flight attendant again, but the other flight attendants were gracious to us and acted like they saw conjoined twins every day. The actual flying didn’t bother us a bit. We had the window seat and were fascinated by the view the entire way, especially as we approached New York and could see the Manhattan skyline.
Our plan was to catch a cab from the airport to the cruise ship. However, the first few cabbies refused to take us. They acted like they’d seen a ghost, and couldn’t get away fast enough. One of them made the Catholic sign of the cross as he apparently prayed in his native tongue. After several tries, we found one who wasn’t superstitious, but we feared for our lives as he seemed to spend more time watching us through the rear-view mirror than he did the road in front of him.
At the dock, checking in to board the ship, we had no trouble. Josh had registered us as “Lily Rose” as if we were one person with a compound first name. We got the usual stares and strange looks from the cruise line employees at the check-in desk, but at least nobody objected to the three of us sharing a one-bed cabin.
Onboard the ship, we had an absolutely wonderful time, for the most part, anyway. Yes, we had to deal with the stares from the other passengers and the ship’s crew, but those happened less frequently as the trip went on and people got used to seeing us. As we met the other passengers while participating in activities or during meals, they were generally curious about us but polite and gracious towards us, which we appreciated.
We quickly gravitated to two other newlywed couples about our ages, Austin and Megan from somewhere near Philadelphia and Liam and Chloe from England, and ended up participating in many activities with them and eating many of our meals together. As we became more comfortable with each other, they were full of questions about us, but we’re used to that and didn’t mind.
However, one passenger, a middle-aged man who seemed to be unaccompanied, really creeped us out with his constant staring. He’d deliberately position himself where he could get the best view of us, and if we turned away or moved, he’d move, too. Before long, Nick went up to the guy and told him he was making us very uncomfortable and asked him to stop.
He did stop for a while, but then it resumed while we were eating lunch with our new friends. Nick went to deal with it again, but as the guy saw him approaching, he got up and tried to hurry out of the room. Austin and Liam were right on Nick’s heels. The three caught up with the guy, and Nick told him this was his final warning; next time he’d get the ship’s crew involved. He suggested to the guy that he probably didn’t want to find himself confined to his cabin for the remainder of the trip, so he’d be smart to exercise some self-control before that happened. After that, Creepy Guy left us alone, but we never went anywhere without Nick right there with us.
We’d brought some money to use in the ship’s casino, with the mutual understanding that when it was gone, it was gone. But it never was gone. We, Lily and Rose, actually did pretty well at the table games. We left the ship with more money than we brought. We think maybe the people we were playing against couldn’t concentrate on the game due to our anatomy. Bad for them, good for us.
An open mic night was on the schedule in one of the lounges midway through the voyage. Passengers were encouraged to come and sing karaoke or perform their own music or do stand-up comedy or whatever else. Nick suggested that we reprise our ill-fated stand-up comedy act, to see if an audience who’d seen us around already might be less shocked and more receptive to the jokes. Our new friends were very enthusiastic and insisted that we had to do it.
We were in a good mood, and we let them talk us into it. We rehearsed the act a few times, trying to recall the lines and get the timing right. A couple of the jokes no longer really worked the way we’d originally told them, but we were able to tweak them and salvage them. We even thought of a few more jokes to add to the routine.
At open mic night, our friends surprised us by entering as well. Austin and Megan were experienced at doing karaoke together and had even won contests, and Liam was an aspiring singer-songwriter and had brought an acoustic guitar along on the cruise. We, and the rest of the audience, were quite impressed with their respective performances.
Then it was our turn. Unlike our previous failed attempt at comedy, this audience was already used to seeing us, and weren’t so distracted by our appearance that they couldn’t hear the jokes. Our act was received much more favorably this time, and our friends laughed harder than anyone. We felt vindicated somehow; we weren’t as bad at comedy as we’d thought.
The following day, fellow passengers who’d seen our act kept coming up to us, introducing themselves, and telling us what a hoot we were and how much they enjoyed our act. In hindsight, we think maybe hearing us make light of our circumstances somehow made us seem more approachable and relatable.
But then, on the last evening of the voyage, our honeymoon took a dark turn. Almost a tragic turn. I, Rose, am going to tell this story alone, because it’s still too traumatic for Lily to think about.
[Warning: If you’d rather not read the dark, ugly part, now is the time to skip to the next chapter. Suffice to say that Creepy Guy returns and attacks Lily and Rose. They were traumatized but not seriously injured.]
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The three of us had just left our cabin to join our friends for drinks and dancing in the discotheque. We hadn’t gotten far down the hallway when, out of nowhere, Creepy Guy grabbed us from behind. In an instant he had my arm pinned to my back with his left hand, and held a knife to Lily’s neck with his right. We both let out yelps of fear, and he yelled, “Shut up, freak!” Nick spun around and immediately realized he could do nothing without putting our lives in even more risk. Then Creepy Guy said, “How about if we all go back to your cabin?” It wasn’t a request.
He then motioned with his head for Nick to go ahead of us back to the room and said to him, “You first, freak lover. Try anything stupid and I’ll cut her head off. One of them, anyway.” He laughed to himself. Creepy Guy wasn’t holding the knife to Lily’s throat, but rather to the left side of her neck, closest to me, with his arm around the front of her neck, under her chin. Lily and I exchanged a glance, and then she looked down at the guy’s hand and back up to me again. We could tell we were thinking the same thing.
We reached our cabin and he told Nick, “Open the door and go in.” Nick pulled the card key out of his pocket and dropped it. He made it look like he fumbled it from being nervous, but we could tell it was deliberate. “Pick it up!” growled Creepy Guy.
Nick bent down to pick up the card key, blocking the view of what he was doing from Creepy Guy with his body. Creepy Guy craned his head to see around Nick, suspecting he might be trying to do something more than just pick up the card key. This was the distraction we needed.
I swiftly turned my head toward Lily and chomped down as hard as I could on Creepy Guy’s hand holding the knife, and pulled it toward me, away from Lily’s neck. An instant later, Lily grabbed his wrist and tried to pull his hand and the knife down and away from her neck. I had to let go so she could do that. Creepy Guy screamed in pain and instinctively pulled his now bloodied hand to where he could see it and assess the bite wound. This gave us the leverage to twist away from him and get free from his grip on my arm. At the same time, Nick, still bent down, lunged at Creepy Guy, grabbing his hand still holding the knife, and took him down. Lily and I then both screamed for help.
At this point, a man peeked out from his cabin door to see what the commotion was. I yelled to him, “Call security!” He in turn repeated the command to his cabin mate and he ran towards us to help. He piled on top of Nick and also grabbed Creepy Guy’s hand, trying to pry the knife out of it. The other passenger, who we later learned was named Nigel, used his free hand to repeatedly punch Creepy Guy in the face, causing him to lose control of the knife. Nigel had it now and threw it down the hall, out of reach.
Lily put her hand up to her neck where the knife had been, and when she withdrew it, we could both see it was bloody. Lily had been cut! I said to her, “Let me see,” and she leaned her head to the right, exposing the left side of her neck so I could get a better look. Fortunately, it appeared to be a superficial wound, and I told her that, trying to sound reassuring.
By now, Nick and Nigel had Creepy Guy on the ground face down, with both of his arms bent up behind him, and they were sitting on him. He was howling that they were hurting him, as if they would care in the least. Nigel’s wife, named Siobhan, came rushing over to us to see if we were okay. Blood was running down Lily’s neck, and she told us to sit on the floor, which we did, while she hurried back to her cabin. She returned with a damp cloth that she held against the wound and she applied direct pressure to try to stop the bleeding.
Two crew members came running down the hallway, armed with billy clubs and a Taser. When they reached us, Nick explained, “This guy attacked my wives and cut one of them with that knife”, motioning to the bloody knife on the floor. One of the crew put handcuffs on Creepy Guy, despite his bloody hand, and the other came over to us to check on Lily. I told him, “I don’t think it’s a very deep cut,” and Siobhan agreed with me. He asked if we could walk, and we both indicated that we could. He helped us up, and took over for Siobhan holding the cloth to Lily’s neck as he escorted us to the infirmary. Siobhan accompanied us as well.
The crew member who’d cuffed Creepy Guy reported on his radio what had happened, and more crew members came running. One brought a first aid kit, but none of us thought it was needed, as the bleeding seemed to be mostly stopped and we were on our way to the infirmary to get it looked at.
The doctor at the infirmary confirmed it was a superficial wound, little more than a scratch, really. He told us we were very lucky; the wound was right where the jugular vein passed, and if he had cut Lily deeply enough there, we both could have quickly bled to death. This information really rattled both of us, Lily more than me, since it was her neck. The doctor cleaned and bandaged the wound and ordered a prescription for an antibiotic as a precaution, which was filled almost immediately.
While we were still being treated, Creepy Guy arrived to get his hand and face looked at. The crew had put a waist chain around him and had cuffed his hands to it, so that his bitten hand could be attended to without him being able to freely move it. Nick and Nigel were with them, and Nick immediately came to us, obviously concerned from the look on his face. “Are you both okay?” he asked.
I replied that we were, but Lily, who’d been barely holding it together, broke down and began sobbing as she held out her arm to Nick for a hug. Nick immediately complied and held us both close as he tried to reassure Lily that she was safe now. Lily continued to sob and hold onto Nick for dear life for probably a good ten minutes before she started to calm down.
By then, the ship’s head security officer had arrived and wanted to take our statements as to what had happened, along with the statements of Nigel and Siobhan. He asked us to accompany him to his office, so as not to tie up the infirmary any longer and, more importantly but unstated, to not be in sight of or within earshot of our attacker.
The three of us all recalled all of our experiences with Creepy Guy since he began staring at us at the beginning of the cruise. Nick asked the security guy, “How did he manage to bring a knife on board? You have metal detectors and x-ray machines and everything to prevent that.”
The officer replied, “The matter is still very much under investigation, but the knife appears to be of the type our chefs use for preparing food. Regardless, there will be a full inquiry regarding how he obtained it, as kitchen knives are supposed to be tightly controlled.”
“What’s going to happen to him now?” I asked.
“He’ll be detained in our brig – our shipboard jail – until we reach port. There, he’ll be turned over to the local authorities, who’ll conduct their own investigation. I’m sure they’ll also want to take your statements. You may need to delay your plans to travel further so that they can do that.
“However, which nation will prosecute him is uncertain since the crime took place in international waters. Our ships fly under the flag of Bermuda, so they would ordinarily have jurisdiction. The United States also claims jurisdiction since you are U.S. citizens. The nationality of the suspect also comes into play; some countries will prosecute crimes committed by their citizens and others won’t.”
“You don’t know his nationality?” asked Nick, incredulous.
“Of course we have a record of that, but I haven’t had a chance to check it yet,” replied the security officer. He then added, “This is all very preliminary, of course, but in matters like this, the cruise line typically will offer you a settlement in exchange for your agreement to not file suit against them and not publicly disclose what happened or disparage the cruise line or its employees. Just something for you to start thinking about.”
After that, we all badly needed a drink or two or three, and headed straight for a quiet bar. We were no longer up for loud music or dancing. Nick checked his phone, and there were numerous messages from Austin and Liam wondering where we were. We assumed we had similar messages from Megan and Chloe. Nick replied to the guys that Lily and I had been attached by Creepy Guy and where we were presently. About 15 minutes later the four of them joined us, very concerned about us, especially upon seeing the bandage on Lily’s neck. Of course we had to recount the entire story for them, but the liquor helped. Although I stopped after one drink, Lily kept going and managed to get both of us quite drunk. I really couldn’t blame her.
Before we reached port, the cruise line pushed hard to get us to agree to not sue them or disparage them in exchange for a cash settlement. They tried to tell us that the offer was only valid until we left the ship. However, we were smart enough to know that we held all the cards and the longer we held out, the more options remained open and the more generous the settlement offer would become. So we refused, wanting very much to consult with a lawyer about the matter before agreeing to anything.
When we reached port at Southampton, England, the local police investigated the crime as the ship security officer had said. Because they needed to interview us and obtain our statements, we missed our scheduled flight home from London. However, our new friends Liam and Chloe lived in Greater London, and so we spent the night with them and caught a flight home the following day.
It had been a terrific honeymoon, both in the modern sense of the word, meaning amazing, and in the archaic sense of the word, meaning terrifying.
It turned out that Creepy Guy was also American, and so the Southampton police notified the FBI and turned over all of the evidence they had collected. They held Creepy Guy until he could be extradited back to the United States. The FBI then also interviewed us and took our statements, but that didn’t happen until after we were home.
Lily, especially, was still pretty traumatized by the attack, so once home we wasted no time getting into therapy to address that. Our friend Cassie highly recommended a therapy practice that she’d used, so we went there. The therapy definitely helped, but it was clearly going to be a lengthy process, perhaps even a lifelong process.