Chapter 3 - Since You've Seen Me Nude...

Monday 26^th June

“And what are you two planning on getting up to today?” Mum asked as Monday morning and breakfast rolled around, the second close on the heels of the first. Dressed in her ‘work wear’ of a dark grey trouser suit and white blouse, she was standing by her espresso maker, waiting for it to complete its magic. A gift for her fortieth, it was one of those professional machines that was plumbed into the water supply, had a hopper where the beans were added, and when she pressed the ‘go’ button it did everything else. It was very impressive. Mum loved it. Dad earned some serious Brownie points when she’d got home from work to find that in the kitchen. Her scream nearly did for the windows!

“Not much, I guess,” Stef grumped, obviously unhappy that the Welsh summer had decided on a torrential interlude. Back from her bike ride, showered, and dressed in an oversized tee the colour of a pastel honeydew melon, she was slowly making her way through her bowl of muesli, today adulterated with blueberries. If it was blueberries, it was serious. Bananas were her daily adulteration, and blueberries were when she needed that little extra something.

I couldn’t blame her for being unhappy.

With grey skies trying to deposit a reservoir or two of water on our town, there was no way there would be any sunbathing today; wetsuits looked much more like the clothing of the day for anyone who wanted to go outside.

In a way, that was oddly okay with me. For sure I’d be more than happy to enjoy Stef’s naked sunbathing, but on the other hand I was still a bit mixed up about the photos she’d sent me last night, and what it all meant. In just a couple of days I’d gone from trying to peek at her boobs and seeing nothing to her flashing me to her sending me ‘full frontal selfies’ – is that a ‘nudefie’? a ‘fulfrofie’? what do you call them? – and it was taking some getting my head around.

“Well just remember, you’re in charge, Stef,” Mum said, a reminder that with Mum and Dad both out to work, our being out of school, and me being a little too young to be left alone, it had been decided to put Stef in authority over me. I think Mum worried I’d be organising a house party thirty seconds after she’d closed the door, but yet somehow Stef wouldn’t? Parents!

“Cool! So can I play girlie things with him?” Stef teased as she looked up from her breakfast and mimed painting her nails, or was that my nails?!

I shuddered for effect.

Mum looked from Stef to me and back to Stef again. “I don’t see any reason why not, Honey, just try not to break him,” she teased right back, leaving me suitably aghast and Stef with a menacing grin.

Before either of us could say anything more, Mum drank up the last of her coffee, said her goodbyes to us, and was gone, leaving me to Stef’s tender mercies until someone came along to save me, a rescue that wouldn’t take place until 6pm at the earliest.

Before Stef could get into character as the familial dictator there was still something I had to get clarification on though. “Stef, uhm, what’s with that photo you sent me last night?”

“Oh that?” she chuckled. “It was just a little reward after I kind of took over your shopping trip. I guessed how much you’d enjoyed seeing the photos of me in my skimpies, so I thought I’d take a few more, and then when I went to bed I thought I’d send one of those too. Why? Didn’t you enjoy them?” she asked, her arched eyebrow and accompanying smirk indicating she already knew that I had. Stef’s eyebrows could say more than anyone else’s I knew.

“Uhm,” I said as I felt the blush consume me. “I’d rather not say-”

“Oh go on, Luke,” Stef gushed, her face a study in how to tease a younger brother to the greatest effect. “Tell me everything,” she gasped like some character from a terrible melodrama as she made a steeple of her arms and rested her head on her hands as she eagerly waited.

For a moment I considered ... how far should I go in telling her the truth? If she already knew what I would have done after seeing her ‘fulfrofie’ – and it seemed she did – then what was I holding back for? After all, I couldn’t have been protecting her from anything she hadn’t already imagined or thought I’d’ve done, so if I wasn’t protecting her from me, somehow, then why not give her the gory details?

With as much determination as I could find, which wasn’t much given what I was about to confess to, to my sister, I looked Stef squarely in the eye and said, “Okay. You really want to know? Really? Okay, Stef, then yes, I enjoyed seeing you naked, fully naked, a lot. Even though it was a selfie in the changing room mirror, you looked hot, and I was still thinking of how hot you looked in that photo when I came. Satisfied?”

Somehow, I desperately hoped that if I told her the full and unsubtle truth, she would be shamed or embarrassed or something, and she’d drop the subject. Sneaking a peek was one thing, getting flashed at was kinda the same thing, but being sent a ‘fulfrofie’ was, well, it was too much. Wasn’t it?

And telling her the shocking truth of what happened next, that had to be the end of it, didn’t it?

Oh dear.

How neatly I had encapsulated everything I knew about women, and especially everything I knew about my sister, in one tiny moment.

As I was about to learn.

“Wait ... you really, I mean really did ... that?” Stef asked. For all the world she seemed genuinely impressed, though whether that was because of my confession or the content of my confession, I couldn’t tell.

Unable to come with any better response, I nodded. Yes, I had done exactly what I said I’d done.

“And you were thinking of me ... and you came ... thinking of me?” Stef asked. She sounded like she couldn’t quite believe it, like she’d asked for something really way too much for her birthday, and then got it.

I nodded again. By now, my bravado at having declared in detail ‘what happened next’ had worn off, and in its place was an ever tighteningly sense of acute embarrassment. I was talking to my sister and telling my sister I had been masturbating as I thought of how my sister looked in her ‘fulfrofie’. I wasn’t quite sure how flushed I was at that exact moment, but from the feel of heat coming from my face I was fairly confident that eggs could have been fried without too much difficulty.

“That’s soo cool, Luke,” Stef said, clearly rapt to learn what had happened.

“Uhm, cool, Sis?” I asked, unable to fathom what she meant.

“Uh-huh. It’s cool, Luke. It’s really cool. Wow. That’s just, that’s just sooo cool, Babes,” she babbled.

“Uhm, it is?” I asked. Why was I asking her to explain it to me more? Wasn’t it bad enough already?

It seemed not.

Stef nodded. “Okay then, Luke. You tell me. Say some girl said you were hot and then say she’d told you she’d done the ‘two-finger tango’ while she’d been thinking of you, nude, how would you feel?”

“Uhm, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I said, not having ever heard of the ‘two-finger tango’, but some things kind of explain themselves.

“Oh-kay. So, think of it that way for me now, Babes. How would you feel if some hot girl, who had the hots for you, who thought you were hot, got herself all hot and sweaty thinking about your hotnessness?

“Would you be offended? Nu-huh.

“Would you be shocked that she’d done that and told you she had? Maybe, I guess; maybe a little.

“Buut, maybe you would be kind of proud, proud in some way that you don’t yet fully understand, that someone had found you so... ‘inspiring’ ... that they had had an intense sexual experience because of you? Because of you! Probably?

“Soo, Little Brother, when you tell me that you were thinking of me when you were, erm, okay, let’s call it doing the ‘five finger fandango’ well it’s like this. First, it makes me feel proud and tingly that you got what you got from that photo of me. Second, it makes me more confident in how I am as a woman. Third, it just makes me happy that you got happy. Fourth, I’m so happy that we’re able to talk like this. Fifth, I’m glad you’re honest with me about it, telling me what you’d done, even if you were a bit light on the details I wanted. Sixth, I’m glad I got over my nervousness and sent you that photo, because taking it was intense enough, but deciding to go ahead and send it, especially when I had a fairly good idea what would happen next? Worse than exams, Babes. And last of all ... erm, it’s a bit frustrating for me too,” she said, her last reason sounding oddly wistful and also like she’d maybe gone too with admitting to a seventh ... thing.

I sat back, stunned. “Wow, Sis. That was a list to be proud of,” I said, and it had been a lot; it was going to take a lot of processing. I had the sense she’d said something important, and that I’d missed it, but as I tried to replay her words in my mind, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Stef nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, it was, wasn’t it,” she said, her voice heavy with a little exhaustion of her own. I really don’t think she’d intended to go into the detail she had; it was impressive how she’d kept score.

In that moment of silence I finally finished replaying her words over in my head and I thought I’d found what I’d missed the first time through. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand though, Sis. Two things, actually. To copy you and your listing, first off, Sis, I don’t get how on Earth we’re sitting here, having this conversation...”

Stef shrugged. “I wish I knew, Babes. All I can tell you is that it feels like something we can do without either of us going mad or something. You’re not going mad, or something, are you?”

I shook my head. “Not that I can tell, but in two days you’ve flashed me your boobs, sent me naked photos, and we’re talking about me wanking as I look at photos of you naked, so maybe this is some kind of hallucination?”

Stef smiled as she reached over the table for my hand. “If it is, Babes, it’s a shared hallucination.”

I looked down at her hand where it held mine, and that felt as natural as us suddenly being so open and calm to talk about wanking. I’d no idea what was going on, but whatever it was, it felt like it was a good thing. Somehow.

“Oh-kay, Sis. Leaving that for another day when I’ve any idea about anything, uhm, you said telling me all of that was ‘frustrating’ for you? Why so?” I asked.

“Ah,” Stef said as she suddenly flushed as red as I’d ever seen her. More.

“Whoa! You, uhm, want to tell me what just happened?” I asked, not at all clear how my question had somehow resulted in such a response.

Stef took a deep breath as she psyched herself up. “It’s ... oh God. I never thought I’d be saying this to you. Ever. At all. But ... we’re here now, aren’t we? So, erm, it’s like this, Babes, it’s all that other stuff I said, but it’s also a bit frustrating for me ... because I wish I’d been there to see you, erm ... you know,” she said, her voice increasingly quiet and serious.

“You, uhm ... what?!” I asked, not quite able to believe what I was hearing. Had she just said she wanted to see me wank? Should couldn’t have? But I had to know, I had to be sure.

Call it an attack of insanity.

“You’re gonna make me repeat that, Babes?” Stef pleaded as she paused a moment, girding herself before she continued. “Oh-kay, mister. So. Next time you do... that ... could I see? I mean, now that you’ve seen all there is of me, I could just sit there nude for you, you could look at me, and I could, erm, well, I could see...” Stef said as her voice trailed away to nothing, her expressive eyebrow surrendering to her expressively bitten bottom lip. This wasn’t bitten the sexy way, but in the ‘oh God I’ve gone too far’ way.

She really did want to watch me!

Oh. My. God.

I took a breath.

Just as I’d been about to explode at her in shock and outrage, I looked up and saw her expression, and I knew I couldn’t do that; it would be the worst thing I could do. For all the talk of us being suddenly and utterly open and honest with each other, especially about things like this, I could see clear as day that she’d been afraid to say that, it had taken all her courage to say it, and now she was afraid of how I would react.

She’d thought I’d explode at her, she said it anyway, and now she was braced for me to get all mad at her.

There was no way I could do that, especially not now.

Instead, as calmly as I was able, I said, “Come on Stef. Really? You want to be there, naked, and watch as I ... no. No. Sorry and all that, but there’s no way that’s happening. You just can’t be serious...”

Stef’s expression grew a little more determined as she said, “Sorry, Luke, but, erm, I am.”

“But you can’t–”

“–can’t what?” she interrupted. “Can’t be curious to see? Can’t be aroused to see? Can’t want to do this because we’re siblings? Which ‘can’t’ do you mean, Luke, ‘cause there’s more if you need them.”

“But we’re brother and sister, Stef! That means there’s all kinds of things we can’t do, and that’s one of them,” I insisted.

“Oh? I’m not looking to fight you on this, Luke, but did our being brother and sister stop us when we got ‘curious’? Did it stop you being the doctor and me being the patient? More than once! Did it stop you being the patient and me being the nurse? Again, more than once.

“No.

“But now we’re older, it matters?” she asked, it being clear that she felt it didn’t matter.

How could she think that? “Of course it matters!”

“But does it, Luke? Does it really?” she asked. “First, when we were ‘little’ and looked at each other, that was okay, because we were little? Okay. Now we’re older and we understand better, if we still want to satisfy our natural curiosity, now it’s somehow not okay? Really? What’s worse, Luke, you seeing my nude adult body, or looking at another girl, a girl who might not be as happy to ‘flash the flesh’ as I am? And what about me? There’s a whole load of stuff I don’t know and I’ve never done and I’m fed up with that, Luke. Would it be better if I were to let some random jerk get his hands on me, get me to let him do things, let him get me to do things for him, just so I could find out things I don’t know? That’s better, is it? I don’t want to be the cat that curiosity killed, Luke!”

Wow!

I sat there a moment, stunned by the force of her words.

She had a point.

A good one.

“I’m not saying that, Sis. I’d never want you doing ... whatever for the sake of curiosity, and when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so ... bad,” I said, and she was right. When she put it that way, what was so bad about exploring a little with each other? Did that make it better to experiment with each other than with someone else, someone who might take us places we weren’t yet ready to go?

Stef smiled, I realised, for the first time for a while. This was serious. “So, if we were best friends – I know we are best friends, but you know what I mean – and one of us asked the other about this, we’d talk about it, we’d think about it, and then if we were both happy, we’d do it.

“But you’re worried about the whole incest thing, and I know you are because I am too.

“But here’s the thing.

“Luke ... I don’t think incest is always a bad thing, but if we keep calling it ‘incest’ then we’re never going to get anywhere because it’s a word that’s got way too much going on with it to be any use. One mention of the word ‘incest’ and we both start imagining two-headed babies with x-ray vision and I don’t know what kind of nonsense, or real babies with serious problems, but that’s not us. We’re also not the bad thing of one family member forcing another family member, whether they’re happy or not to do the thing in question.

“What we’re doing, well, I don’t think it’s ‘incest’ because it’s not that kind of incest. It’s ... I don’t know! I don’t know what to call it, but calling it that isn’t helping as we’re not doing those things anyway.

“Does that even make sense?” Stef asked.

It did.

If we kept on calling it ‘incest’ that wasn’t helping and wasn’t what we were talking about anyway.

I nodded slowly. “I’m still not sure how I feel about all of this, Sis, and I’m not saying I agree or disagree with you, but I see what you’re saying.”

“Oh thank God,” she sighed. “Plus, I think we’re probably way over-thinking this. Seriously, Luke, all it is is this. You wank. You wank thinking of me nude. I’ve never seen a guy wank. I’ve never even seen a guy’s cock. If you are happy with the idea, then I’d like to see it sometime. Both things. Doesn’t have to be today. Just sometime. When you’re ready. If you’re ready. If you’re not ready now, fine. If you’re not ready for a while, fine. If you’re never ready, that’s fine too. All I’m saying is this, I’d like to see, and I’d like to see you, but only if you’re okay with it. Don’t do it for me, don’t do it to make me feel better or feel happy or anything like that, just do it because you want to, because it feels okay.

“Right, last thing, I promise, then we can get on with something today. I know my answer, but I want to hear yours, your honest answer, and again, if you need to think it through, you can, buuut, putting all the brother/sister stuff aside, does any of what we’ve done feel wrong to you?

“Okay, babes, I’m done. I need a drink. Your turn to speak,” Stef said as she concluded with a smile, weak, maybe, but still a smile.

“Uhm, I don’t know how to answer all of that,” I said as I watched Stef get up and make herself an espresso from Mum’s machine. It didn’t help that I watched her bum the whole time, or that I kept wondering if she was naked underneath her tee.

“You looking at my bum as I make this coffee?” she asked without turning round.

How did she know?

Oh yeah, teen-aged boy and sexy teen-aged girl. Duh!

“Uhm, yeah...” I confessed.

“You wondering what’s underneath this T?”

“Uhm, yeah...” I admitted.

“So does that start to give you some ideas how you feel about... ‘this’?” she asked as she turned round, cup in hand, and inhaled the aroma of Lavazza Crema E Aroma Espresso Coffee Beans, Mum’s choice of the month.

“Uhm, I think so, yeah,” I said as I paused and waited for Stef to sit back down at the table.

“Soo talk,” she said.

“Okay, Sis. The brother/sister thing? It is a thing and we can’t pretend it’s not a thing, but it didn’t stop us, like you said, and I think it only feels like a ‘bad’ thing now because I think it should. It’s like you said, though, nothing we’ve done felt bad. Nothing we’ve done would’ve been a problem if we weren’t who we are. And we’ve not really done anything anyway. I’ve seen more of you than I ever imagined I’d ever’ve seen, but if we were one of those nudist families, I’d’ve seen more, more often, and from a much younger age, and they don’t have a problem with that, so why should I get all weird about seeing your ... uhm ... seeing you?

“So that’s a thing.

“Then there’s what you also said, about we’ve both got things we want to know about or learn about or experience or whatever, and if we go through that with each other, we know we’re safe, and we can walk away from it and still be brother and sister.

“And honestly, Stef, that’s the one that’s made me stop and think.

“I trust you, and you certainly are trusting me, and not just about this, but also that I won’t tease you or make fun of you about-”

Stef shook her head as she held up her hand, mid-sip, stopping me. She put her teeny cup back down. “Erm, no, Luke. I don’t trust you not to tease me about this or use it over me or whatever ... because I just know you won’t. You never were that much of a frawd pla, and when Mum didn’t kill me for flashing you on Saturday, I guessed you’d kept my little secret and said nothing and that I could risk it with you. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Uhm, thanks?” I said, not quite sure that I was being complimented, but at the same time feeling happy that Stef never had really thought of my as a plaguey brother.

I guess I said the right thing, as Stef smiled, so I continued. “Can you let me get a bit used to this though? In just a couple of days, you’ve said you’ve seen me peeking, you’ve said you’re okay with me peeking, you flashed me, you sent me underwear photos, and then you sent me photos of you naked, and now you’re asking to be there and watch me, uhm, wank myself? That’s a lot, Stef, it’s a lot and it’s quick, and I’m a bit worried about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and causing a mess.”

Stef smiled at me, the eyebrow adding its assent. “You know, that’s actually rather mature of you,” she said.

“Uhm, thanks, again?” I said uncertainly.

Stef smiled and took up her coffee once more.

“So, uhm, can we take it, whatever it is, slow?” I asked.

“Sure thing, Babes.”

“There’s something I want to ask, though. It’s kind of personal, but, uhm, I know what you’ve said about trusting me, and I get it, but instead of this,” I said as I waved my arms airily around for emphasis. “Why don’t you just find a boyfriend to watch him do that kinda thing for you?”

Stef sighed. “I’m not really looking for one.”

“Why not?”

Stef laughed hollowly. “Life’s so simple at fifteen, isn’t it?”

“Like it’s so complicated at seventeen, Sis?” I asked, smiling to let her know yes, I was teasing, but nicely.

“Touché. Any-way, I don’t have a boyfriend because I can’t find one who wants more than just someone to fuck. I’m sorry to be the one to break the news, Luke, but a lot of boys your age and older can’t think about anything but sex. I know, I know, evolution programs them that way, but that doesn’t make them attractive, just, haha, just stuck in the past. So you see, I’m kinda stuck too. On the one hand I feel like I should know and be doing a lot more ... stuff ... but there’s no-one I feel I can trust with this, no-one except you.”

“It’s that bad?” I asked, surprised to hear that the options for her were, well, not options at all.

Stef nodded and sat back on her seat, lost in thought for a while.

For once I had the sense not to fill the silence with inanity.

When she spoke again, I had the sense she was forming her world with her words. “You know, it’s odd. Oh, I’d seen you trying to peek, and you were so careful and stuff it was, well it was sweet really. You were just being curious about a grown woman’s body I guess – hey! have you peeked Mum too? Tell me later! Doesn’t matter – and I was the closest to you, but you passed up so many chances because you didn’t want me to know and get cross or angry or frustrated. Luke, that’s more than people on the bus do, they just see a woman and want to look at, well, not ‘me’ but at ‘mine’. And then you, you passed up chances because you were worried about me catching you and getting pissed at you.” Stef shook her head. “You know, once I realised what you were doing, actually what you were not doing, well, I already loved you, but for that I loved you a little bit more.”

“Uh, wow? But, uhm, you loved me for trying to catch sight of your ... uhm, of you?” I asked, confused how two plus two didn’t come to a severe beating

Stef smiled as she shook her head indulgently. “No, Luke, I loved you for the way you did it, thinking of me, not just you’re getting a look at my tits.”

“Wow, I guess ... yeah. I hadn’t thought of it like that, I was just trying not to be a jerk about it and not to piss you off so, yeah, I guess I was thinking more about you, even though I was doing it for me. Does that even make sense?”