Chapter 73: Candy’s Striptease

Saturday, June 5, 1971

When I opened my eyes, there was a faint light peeking around the heavy drapes of the windows in my room. This had been my first night in the previous Michael’s bed and it had been a good night.

I scanned the still sleeping girl beside me. Candy was dreaming. Her emotions running freely, unencumbered by worries or fears. There was a purity to them; young and unmarked by the ravages of time, or life’s tumults.

Last night, I had carried her up the stairs and down the wide hallway to my room, where I set her down long enough to open the door. Then sweeping her back into my arms, I carried her across the threshold, as proud as any groom with his new bride.

She had sensed it too, since it was her fantasy, complete with her own, real-life prince.

I kissed her as I stood there cradling her. She had her hands around my neck, as she shivered in anticipation.

“You really like it?” Candy asked, obviously referring to her gown.

“You know I do. You can read my thoughts, and feel my desires,” I said softly.

Slowly, I lowered her tiny feet to the floor next to the bed. Her arms still locked around my neck, her lips still touching mine.

In her heels, she was three inches taller. She used her new height to continue our kiss. Her desires were soaring, after waiting patiently for the last hour or so for this moment. The moment when we would be together, and alone.

Candy, at fourteen, was the youngest of my cousins. She was also the shyest, which may have been because of her age. I also discovered that she had the deepest emotions of all my cousins. And that had nothing to do with her age. She thought deeply about most things. She felt with the depth of her soul and she loved from the endless depths of her heart.

Because of this, she was the most private of all my cousins. Public displays of affection, or attention, did little for her. She reserved her passions for when we were alone.

And we were alone now.

She lowered her arms slowly as our lips parted. Her eyes never leaving mine as she stepped back a step.

Reaching to her shoulder with one hand, she unfastened a hidden clasp, holding the black material grasped in her hand. Then with a wickedly sensuous smile, she simply opened her fingers, one at a time, studying my eyes as I watched her dress slide erotically down her young body to puddle on the floor around her high heeled shoes.

She gracefully stepped a half-step to her left, out of the puddle formed by the fallen gown. Then, bending both knees while holding them together, she squatted down, gathered up the dress, and held it up so it didn’t drag the carpeted floor as she walked across the room to a chair. Pausing to look at me with a bewitching smile, she carefully draped the dress across the back of the chair.

Turning to face me again, with a ‘Christmas Morning’ sized smile, she asked, “Did I do it right? I mean, did I do it sexy? I’ve read stories, but I never thought I would ever get to try it. So I couldn’t resist. I hope I didn’t look too silly.”

I laughed.

“You had me!” I said. “I was actually wondering if I had brought your mom to my room by mistake.”

“My mom?”

“Candy, your mother is one of, if not the, sexiest women I have ever met,” I said. “I meant that as the greatest compliment I could think of.”

“Thanks, I think ... So you really thought I did it sexy? Did it ... you know ... excite you?” she asked in her little girl voice.

“C’mere. I’ll show you,” I said.

I led her to the bed and had her sit on the edge, while I knelt and removed her heels.

“I’ve got to tell you that I’ve never walked in heels this high before. I’m glad I got to practice on the stairs tonight; I would hate to go to the party and make a fool of myself.”

She was chattering now. She had lived in her fantasy world, and even pushed her boundaries a little with the striptease. But basically, she was just a young girl, exploring her budding femininity.

I took it as a compliment that she would open up with me. As I said, she was reserved and didn’t open herself easily to others. I also took it as a compliment that she would use me to experiment with, trying out those things she had read about, or heard about, discovering her own sexuality as she did.

Removing her shoes, I carried them over, and set them down carefully on the end table. Then I stepped into the closet and grabbed a hanger, hanging up her new gown, to keep it from getting wrinkled.

“Were you really serious that I can’t wear that one tomorrow? It just feels so good on. And I loved the way you, and Dad, and Uncle John, looked at me in it,” she chattered as I undressed.

I reached in a drawer and pulled out the first decent thing I could find, a New York Jet’s jersey, and tossed it to her.

She caught it and slipped it over her head without missing a beat as she continued to tell me about her dresses, and the shopping, and even their lunch at a New York deli.

I slipped on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I normally sleep in the nude, but tonight, Candy didn’t need a lover, nor was she filled with desire for a hard cock. Tonight she needed a safe male figure she could talk to, as she explored whatever parts of her sexuality that seemed important to her. In other words, Candy needed a big brother. One she could trust not to abuse her inexperience.

“I guess I’m just wound up from all the new stuff today,” she told me. “All the excitement of shopping, and the party, and ... well, lots of things! New York is so much different than home.”

She sat Indian-style on the bed, talking to me, as I leaned against the headboard, my legs stretched out beside her. She flitted from topic to topic. Alighting on something, then quickly moving on to whatever was next on her mind.

Finally, I asked, “You thirsty?”

She smiled as she nodded.

“C’mon,” I told her.

When we got to the kitchen, I quickly lifted her by the waist and plopped her on the island counter.

“You sit there. I’ll get this. What do you want to drink?”

“I don’t care. What are you having?”

“Looks like milk, or iced tea. Wait, there’s orange juice, too,” I told her.

“There may be some Coca-Cola in the pantry,” Candy told me as she directed me to the big pantry.

With Candy’s guidance, I found the Coca-Colas, and a bottle opener.

As I poured the Coca-Colas I had found, into glasses with lots of ice, I asked, “How ‘bout an omelet. They’re always better when it’s dark outside.”

She looked at me in surprise, as she nodded her agreement, then continued with her dissertation on why she didn’t think she was sexy.

I found the ingredients, and a pan, and went to work, while she continued talking. She had lots of things she had seen and heard, that had raised questions. But she seemed cautious, never allowing her words or mine, to strike too deep.

It was her night, and I let her take the conversation wherever she wanted. One of the things she wanted to know is why I said her mom was so sexy.

So I spent a few minutes, trying to explain a guy’s perspective of sex, and what we think is sexy. Of course, her next question was ‘why’.

“I don’t get it! Why do guys think taking off my dress like that...” Candy asked, referring to the striptease she had done for me earlier, “ ... is sexy, when I still had on my heels and my panties?”

“Eat the rest of your omelet, and then I’ll show you,” I told her.

Candy pushed her plate away. “I’m through. I wasn’t that hungry anyway. I just want to keep talking with you,” she said.

I finished eating and began cleaning up, trying to remember where I got things from in the beginning, as we continued to talk.

I noticed, as I put the last of the dishes I had washed, in the drain rack, to dry, that she had quit asking questions, and was just looking at me, appraisingly.

“You’ve never been here before, have you?” she asked.

It wasn’t sudden, and she didn’t change her tone or the tenor of her questions. It was just an honest observation from a very intelligent fourteen-year-old.

“Nope. Today’s my first time. But kitchens are kitchens, and I like to cook sometimes,” I answered before I thought.

“It was very good, but my cousin Michael couldn’t cook,” she said directly, pointing out the obvious, without malice.

“Candy, your cousin Michael is dead,” I finally told her. “His brain died in the accident, but the doctors were able to keep his body alive.”

“Then, who are you?” she asked.

“I’m the one they sent to use his body,” I answered truthfully.

“So, that’s why...” she started to say before trailing off.

“So that’s why ... what?” I asked her.

“So that’s why you can’t raise one eyebrow anymore,” she explained. “And why you can cook, and clean up after yourself. I thought something was odd, when you hung up my dress for me. My cousin Michael would never have thought to do that. And he never washed a dish in his life!”

I looked at her and smiled. Candy was a lot like Catherine, sharp as a tack!

“That’s why Nicky and my mom don’t mind making love to you, isn’t it? You’re not really Michael!”

I smiled. My cousins were all beautiful, and intelligent, but there was a depth to Candy that called to me. I hope I hadn’t blown it with her tonight! However, if we were going to have any chance in the future, it had to be based on the truth, now.

“I’m in your cousin’s body, with his DNA. But when he died, his mind and his spirit went wherever they go when people die. For some strange reason, his body didn’t die. So, someone saw fit to use that body to help them accomplish their mission.”

“Who did it? Who put you inside Michael’s body?”

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“Do you have any idea WHY they did it?” Candy asked me.

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times in the last three weeks, Sweetheart. But except for a few details, you know as much as I do,” I answered her.

“Could it be the same ones who showed me in my dreams that we would be together when we grow up? And that we would have lots of babies? And I would take care of them, and help you build the institute out in Colorado?” she asked.

“Institute? In Colorado?” I repeated too quickly.

She nodded. “That’s what they said when they came back,” Candy said innocently.

“Back? What do you mean, ‘when they came back’?” I asked.