Chapter 5 - The Thong and The Thing

Wednesday 28^th June

“I’ve got something to show you,” I said to Stef as soon as Mum had left for work, Dad had already headed off not much after seven.

“I saw it yesterday, Luke, but I guess you just can’t wait to see these...” Stef joked as she peeled off her oversized tee and flung her arms wide in a dramatic ta-dah.

“Wow, that’s very nice of you, cariad...” I said. God she was beautiful, and I felt I could look at her all morning. Of course, now that she was naked and I could at least still see her boobs as she sat back down, I felt sure I could just look at her all morning.

Stef smiled at me as she folded up her tee, this one in pale yellow with grey horizontal bands that made her look like some human-bee hybrid, though I wasn’t so stupid as to tell her that. She could move faster than I could, and her gentle thumps were not always that gentle, especially if she felt I deserved them.

“ ... but that’s not what I meant,” I added.

“Ooops!” Stef laughed as she went to fold her arms over her boobs, looked down at them, looked at me, and shrugged with a cockeyed smile as she just sat there with her arms crossed but covering nothing much. She flushed a little, too, though probably more out of embarrassment at my words than her deeds. “Erm, what do you mean, then?” she asked.

“You wanna put your tee back on first?” I asked, offering her an easy way out if she was feeling uncomfortable, or embarrassed, or both.

Stef shook her head. “Nuh-huh, Babes. Not unless you don’t want to take yours off...” she suggested, her left eyebrow indicating her preferred choice.

“I could ... but can you deal with such a distraction?” I belaboured.

“Well, it is quite a large distraction...” Stef grinned.

“Bless you, my child,” I said in my best tv priestly manner. “That’s awfully ‘big of you’ to say,” I laughed. What man doesn’t appreciate that kind of praise?

Stef shrugged. “Well, it’s not small, and it’s not stupid big, but it still looks quite, erm ... impressive to me,” she said as her flush re-gained some of its waning strength.

“Uhm, thanks,” I said, not sure what else to say. I think she’d said it was a big one, but I wasn’t quite sure.

Stef smiled, so I knew I’d said it right. “Soo... ?” she asked as she added the head tilt to the elevated eyebrow, transforming a firm suggestion into a definite course of action. For me.

“Hm? Oh. You mean these clothes? Be brave, Sis...” I said as I stood, took off my sleeping tee, eased my shorts down over my erection, and sat back down again, casually folding my clothes as I did.

“You’re still hard?” Stef teased, my erection having noticeably pointed directly at the cause.

“More ‘again’ than ‘still’, and more under your control than mine,” I explained.

“Haha. Got a mind of its own, has it?”

“I don’t know about that, but it knows what it likes.”

“Then it has very good taste and I approve. But you know what, Luke? I think you look much better like that too,” Stef said as she sat back a little and refolded her arms, her nipples clearly as erect as my cock was. I guess she really did like to see me naked as much as I liked to see her.

“I’m not complaining at your clothing choice either,” I said.

Stef chuckled. “Soo, you were saying... ?”

“I was saying ... oh, yes, that. So, last night, The Thing started working, well, a bit, anyway.”

“A bit?” Stef asked.

“Last night I ... uhm ... The Thing made a noise, and when I picked it up to look at it, it ticked for a bit, only deeper, more a tock than a tick really, then nothing again.”

“Hmm,” Stef said thoughtfully. “Had you been winding it?”

I shook my head, but I guess I must have blushed a little as I remembered what I was doing when The Thing chimed, and of course, Stef picked right up on that.

“Luke, you know you’re blushing, right? And I can see? Just what happened last night, Babes? Come on, give ... me... everything...” she said, the threat neither subtle nor avoidable; I’d always been an open book to her.

“Everything? Really?

“Oh God.

“So, uhm, last night, after I’d gone to bed, I, uhm, oh God, big breath, okay...

“So after I went to bed last night, just as I’d finished, uhm, wanking, I don’t think it had started before, but after I’d ... come I realised that The Thing was chiming, playing a melody or something like that, y’know?

“Anyway, quick as I could I picked it up, but it had already stopped chiming, but it ticked, well, tocked for a few moments, and then nothing again.

“I looked, I think I even shook it, but that was it. I guess maybe I jolted it as I was wanking...”

“Really? Now I really want to see that! You wanked so hard you shook your Whatchamacallit into life? Impressive work, Luke,” Stef teased. “And be honest, now, telling me that wasn’t soo very hard, was it?” she asked, her face a picture of innocence, except for the raised left eyebrow of naughtiness.

“Stef!” I wailed, shocked she said that, and about that. “I know we’re being a lot more open and stuff with each other, but it’s only been a few days, and it’s har- uhm, it’s really difficult still to tell you about my, uhm, about doing that!”

“Oh, Luke, I’m sorry,” Stef said as she realised she’d gone a bit too far. “You know I didn’t mean anything nasty by it, Babes.”

“I know, Sis, I know. But The Thing... it’s alive!” I said as I channelled Colin Clive, the doubly tragic Dr. Frankenstein. “It chimed, it tocked, but then it stopped.”

“I wonder why?” Stef mused. “Maybe it does it late at night? What about Sunday night? When you masturbated then, there was nothing from the Whatchamacallit then, right?”

“I don’t think so, but, uhm, that was kind of a powerful one...” I blushed.

“Aw, so you looked at the photos of me, and wanked yourself stupid?” Stef giggled, clearly joking and equally clearly not offended by my actions.

“Uhm, yeah ... that,” I said. I felt simply agreeing was the safest. What else was I going to do? Suggest that I hadn’t come hard when I’d been thinking of her completely naked? We both knew that wasn’t the case at all.

“So, last night... ♪was I there again, Luke♪?” Stef sing-songed.

I gulped nervously and, it seemed, audibly.

Stef reached over, her hand on mine. “Luke, it’s okay you know. I’m just guessing here, but I’m guessing you were thinking about me and I’m guessing you were thinking about yesterday? Now I know Mum’s said you can’t date yet, so I’m fairly sure yesterday was the first time you’d touched a girl at all, but especially, well, there, and there, and definitely down there, so it’s okay if you were thinking about that, okay? It’s, well, it’s natural that you were remembering those things and thinking about those things,” Stef reassured.

“But...”

“But what, Babes? It’s not wrong that you masturbate, it’s not wrong that you think of sexy things when you masturbate, and I don’t think it’s wrong when you think of me. You’re worried you were thinking about me while you, erm, ‘stripped the willow’?”

“Uhm, yeah...” I shakily insisted, not sure what ‘stripping the willow’ meant, not wanting to ask as it sounded a little graphic, but also fairly sure what she meant. I had the growing sense that talking with Stef about my wanking over her was kind of how Cnut the Great felt on his seaside holidays – facing up to the unavoidable.

Stef sighed sympathetically. “Luke, the only people this matters to is us. It matters whether we think it’s wrong, not anybody else. Nobody else knows, so nobody else matters. If they knew, they might, they probably would, but they don’t, so they don’t.

“Sorry, that was clumsy, but you know what I mean, don’t you?

“First, please stop worrying what you think you should think or feel, because that’ll drive yourself mad. Seriously! Like, ga-ga, and not the singer. Sure you have to be aware of others and what they might do in response to something you might do, but you can’t go around limiting yourself by what you think they will say or do or think of you. They could surprise you. Haha, remember, you didn’t even think Mum and Dad still are doing the ‘two backed beast’ thing? Just try to be aware enough not piss people off, but also be aware of being true to yourself.

“Second, and especially right at the moment, this isn’t about what you think others would think, but how you feel and how you felt ... and you felt good.

“Thirdly, I don’t think it really upsets you to think of me when you’re wanking because if it did you wouldn’t do it, and you wouldn’t have ‘enjoyed’ it, and you did, and you did, so you’ve not really got a problem with it; you just think you should have.

“Fourth, you’re worried about me, which is soo sweet, but Luke, it doesn’t worry me or bother me or upset me or anything negative me that you do it or when you tell me you were thinking of me when you were doing it. I mean come on, Luke, you know that, Babes.

“If you want to know what does bother me,” Stef began as she took on a comically determined expression, somewhat undercut by her flushing deeply. “What bothers me, Babes, is that I wasn’t there to see! I told you I want to watch you come, and I don’t mean sometime in our distant futures, I mean soon soon. It’s one of the things I’ve never seen or done, yet, remember?

“Any-way, what did we learn here today?” Stef asked as she switched topics on me before I could think too much about what she’d just asked. “You like to masturbate, you sometimes think of me, and that I’m fine with it. If you really need me to say it out aloud, and this is the last time I’m going to say it because it’s a forever thing, okay, but Luke, you ... have ... my ... permission ... to ... think ... about ... me ... when ... you ... wank. Got that? Seriously, I’m totally, utterly, completely, stop-worrying-about-it-ly fine with it, Luke. And you know how to know I’m fine with it?” Stef asked, her tone lightening so I knew I was being set up.

I shook my head, playing the straight man for her.

“That’s the easiest thing of all, Babes. How do you know I’m fine? Because you’re not in the back of an ambulance with hospital-grade injuries! Haha. So, if I tell you I’m fine with it, I’m fine with it.

“Soo, your Whatchamacallit does work then. Cool. And you’re sure you hadn’t been winding it?”

I shook my head, glad that we’d moved on to something easier for me to talk about, and trying not to think about how it was also becoming easier to talk about wanking... with my sister! “No, not for a couple of days. After I tried and it didn’t seem to make any difference, I thought it must be broken like everyone had said, or not meant to wind at all, so I gave it up.”

Stef sat back, thoughtful. “Hmm. Maybe some spring or something worked loose?”

I shrugged.

“You know what? Maybe you should take it to Jensen’s after all,” she suggested, Jensen’s being the best and last of the independent jewellers we had. They were the kind of place that could fix things themselves, not send them off to some anonymous ‘place’ to do the work for them. They had a reputation for excellence. They also had a reputation for charging for that reputation.

“We could, but don’t you think they’d charge me just to look at it?” I asked. I’d some money left over from my birthday still, but I hadn’t imagined spending it on getting The Thing checked out. I really was happy with it just as it is. Inert. Well, mostly inert.

“I don’t know, Babes. Maybe they’ll charge, but we can at least try. Plus ... I could always use my ‘feminine wiles’,” Stef grinned, as she batted her eyelashes for effect.

I laughed. “Your ‘feminine wiles’? That works, whatever they are? I mean, in the real world, they work?”

“Well, yes and no. You see, I don’t really know if there is anything to the whole ‘feminine wiles’ thing, but I know these have incredible power,” Stef explained as she pointed to her boobs.

I blinked. Twice. “Uhm, what?”

“Oh Luke, are you sure you’re growing into being an adult? Don’t you know that a hint of a tit can open all kinds of doors?” Stef grinned.

“Uhm... what!?” I asked as I struggled with the queer image she was conjuring for me, unable to believe what she was saying.

Stef sighed. I guess I’d failed to impress her with my ‘man of the world’ thing. “I hate to break this to you, Babes, but you know how much you like to look at them? Well, guess what? So do lots of other people, and those other people will often be more helpful if they think they can see a thing they think they shouldn’t see. Of course, it doesn’t always work, not everyone looks, not everyone’s as nice about it as you are when you try to peek, and not everyone can be, erm, ‘motivated’ in that way, but you’d be surprised how many men can be.

“Anyway, I don’t mean I’ll flash everything, just wear something... ‘motivating’.”

I didn’t know what to say. Of course, between all our classes in society and gender and such I knew that these kinds of things went on, and I’d seen in school how the prettier girls got different treatment from other students and a lot of the teachers, but this was the first time I’d heard of someone doing those things on purpose to gain an edge. I had the vague sense that I should be offended on the part of dupable men the world over, but then again, wasn’t Stef just getting the same advantages and differences of treatment that other pretty girls got? She was pretty and she’d get that treatment anyway, the only difference was that she was setting out to deliberately manipulate the manipulable.

More fool them.

I think.

But then again, wasn’t Stef making it easier for them to get what they wanted?

I hated ethical dilemmas like that.

Of course, Mr. Ross, who taught those classes, lived for such moments.

I knew I’d have to think about it some more, but right now I was more concerned that, “You’d do that? And you’re okay doing that?”

“Erm, yes ... and yes,” Stef said, as relaxed as if she were discussing the correct way to make tea. For those who don’t know, it’s tea, then sugar, then milk, then hot but not boiling water; anything else is an abomination. “I mean, it’s not as if I haven’t done it in the past,” she confessed. “Once I noticed it, and once I’d tried it a time or two and learned I could get something for nothing more than the suggestion of a ‘freebie’ ... yeah, I’ve done it since then, not often, but now and then, like when I was out the other week, wanted a quiet table for a sandwich, and did a bit of ‘light flirting’ with the waiter. Thank God he was straight or I’d still be waiting to be seated!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. When she put it like that, it didn’t seem so bad a thing. Were other women doing the same? I imagined they were. Were they so ‘fair’ about it? Probably some were, but also probably some were not. There would be more who were not so fair about it, I felt. But who was manipulating who? Did using an unfair advantage in an unfair society make things even more unfair, or less unfair?

I didn’t know.

What it did make me realise was that I should watch for when someone did it to me, not that I could think of anyone who had, or who had reason to, but maybe some time in the future? “And honestly, you’re okay with that?” I asked.

“Am I okay with doing it? Yeah, it’s my body and my choice so yeah, I’m okay with it. But am I okay with it working? Not so much. It’s a girl thing, but sometimes a hint of tit can get more achieved than being polite or assertive or quiet or anything else. It’s not right, and when it needs to be I’ll scream like a scalded feminist, but it is what it is,” she explained.

“And it’s worth it, worth you doing that, just to try and get Jensen’s to look at The Thing for free?”

Stef nodded. “Uh-huh. Luke, seriously, it’s no biggie. This is how things are, and as much as I can I will ‘fight the system’, but if I know the game’s rigged and I don’t game the game, well, that’s more fool me, isn’t it?”

“You mean if you know the game’s crooked, then cheat?” I asked.

Stef grinned. “You got it, Babes! You got it. And if a hint of my itty bitty titties can get us some information on your Whatchamacallit, then let them do their thing. And we know how effective they are on you soo ... wanna help me dress?”

I blinked in confusion. “Help you dress?” I echoed uncertainly.

Stef giggled. “Uh-hmm. I want to borrow some of your clothes for today.”

“You do? Well we’re pretty much the same height, so I guess it’d work, but how will going all tom-boy help with what you’re suggesting?” I asked. I thought she’d just said she was going for the ‘motivational’ look; I’d just assumed that would be girly.

“Let me have a rummage and you’ll see...”

“Sure. Uhm, lead the way...” I suggested, trying not to grin at my Machiavellian plans.

“Haha, you mean so you can look at my bum?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that you’ve pointed it out for me, uhm ... please?” I asked as innocently as I could manage. Which wasn’t very.

Stef smirked. “Oh-kay, tiger. Shall we?” she said as she hopped off her stool, picked up her tee, and headed for the kitchen door, her bum swinging from side to side with such exaggeration that I was worried she might fall over herself.

“Thank you, kind lady,” I said as I got off my own stool and retrieved my own clothes, my cock still firmly pointed in her direction.

Stef took a moment to look down at it before she looked up at me and grinned. “Nice. And ... race you!” she cried as she suddenly opened the door and dashed into the hallway, already climbing the stairs before I caught up with her at the bottom.

“You win!” I called as I stopped to enjoy the sight.

Stef stopped and the top of the stairs and turned. “We’re both winners, Babes. We’ve got each other, and we get to do this,” she said, her arms open and by which I took ‘this’ to mean how we were now living so freely and openly with each other. Nakedly, too, it seemed. “Meet you in your place?”

“Sure.”

“Just, haha, try not to trip over that thing as you climb the stairs!” Stef warned, and was gone.

With a wry shake of my head, I headed up and into my room, placing my sleeping things in the laundry basket as, my erection subsiding slightly, I pulled on a pair of black socks and a pair of black cotton boxers. I was just about to step into my jeans when Stef walked in, and that was the end of that.

“Wow!” I said as she stood in the doorway.

“You like?” Stef asked. It was a redundant question. She was wearing just a pair of white ankle socks ... and a thong.

My sister was wearing a thong!

Oh. My. God.

It was black, its sides were about 2 centimetres wide, and it had a front panel that just covered Stef’s pussy but not much more. If her slit had been even a little bigger she’d’ve needed a more conservative design. As it was, that thong was many things, but conservative was not one of them.

Oh God.

Even as I looked I realised that somehow it made her look more naked!?

Of course, my erection was immediately restored to the strength of granite.

“How about the back?” Stef asked with a grin as she turned a slow circle that allowed me to see the panel at the back, a tiny triangular reflection of the front. Stef even stopped with her bum towards me and gave me a wiggle.

Oh! My! God!

She really did have the best bum. In the history of the world. Ever.

I felt faint. My blood pressure was all over the place, though most of it was concentrated in just the one place...

“Wow, Sis. Uhm, does Mum know about those?”

Stef completed her turn to face me again and shook her head. “Doesn’t know. Can’t know. Ever.”

“Oh I can see that,” I agreed. Mum and Dad weren’t old fashioned or anything, but I couldn’t imagine any scenario where Mum would be happy with Stef wearing those. As for Dad. I’m not sure what the word ‘conniption’ means, but I’m fairly sure he’d have an attack of it or them or whatever if he knew she’d even looked at them in the lingerie shop. He thought a lot of Stef, but I was sure he didn’t think of her like that.

“Hey, Luke!” Stef said, bringing me back from my wool-gathering expedition.

“Yeah?”

“So I can wear some of your clothes then, right?” she asked, her grin telling me she knew I’d agree to anything with her dressed like that.

Of course I would!

I nodded. “But, uhm, aren’t you gonna wear a bra or something?”

“Nuh-huh, got me some of these,” she said as she tossed a small packet over to me.

“Nipple covers?” I asked as I looked at the back of the packet.

“Uh-huh, but not just any kind of nipple covers, Babes,” she said as she bent over to open some drawers and utterly distracted me.

“Oh?” I mumbled as I turned the packet over, opened them, and drew out a pair ... at which moment I started laughing.

Stef turned to grin. She knew why I was laughing.

“These’re for real?” I asked as I got myself back under control, holding in my fingers a pair of nipple covers with a single bright yellow and black smilie on each of them!

“Uh-huh, plus when I wear them, if someone’s looking, they are going to be laughing as well, so then I knew they looked and they know I know.”

“And that’s happened?”

“Not yet, mostly because I only just got them.”

“Ah. So, find anything?” I asked as she turned back to my drawers.

“These,” Stef said as she turned around, holding up a pair of dark grey cargo shorts.

“Do they fit?”

“Let’s see,” Stef said as she wriggled into them, getting them on easily enough, but clearly needing a belt. With lots of holes in it. “Erm, help?”

“Well, if you’re gonna wear cargo shorts, are you okay with a webbing belt, ‘cause you can cinch that tight as you need,” I suggested.

“Ooh that’s right! What colours have you got?”

“Top drawer,” I said as I nodded towards the half-height dresser next to where she was standing. I’d offered a practical solution to too-loose shorts, and she wanted to know what colours those options came in? Clearly women live in another world, it just overlaps with ours.

“Haha, you just want me bending over for you! Again!” Stef said as she theatrically bent over, just to open the top drawer. “Hmm, black, black, brown, ooh, slatey pale grey,” she said as she chose that belt, threaded it up, and pulled it tight before turning round.

“You look great!” I said.

“Ha! I bet you tell that to all the topless girls who want to wear your clothes,” Stef grinned.

“Well, if there’s ever another, I’ll remember to tell her that,” I promised as I tried not to look too longingly at Stef’s boobs. Or too often. I succeeded. Mostly. In my defence, they really are something to behold, and I enjoyed all the beholding I could get.

Stef shrugged. “Soo, smilies please Luke?” she said as she held out her hand, onto which I placed a pair of nipple covers. There were more in the packet, though I couldn’t see if they were the same design or different.

“You’re really doing that?” I asked.

Stef’s eyes flashed with mischief. “Time to put a smilie on a titty,” she said. “Now, no peeking,” she warned as she turned her back to me for a moment before turning back, arms upraised in dramatic revelation. “Ta-daah!”

“They look...” I began to say, but then I looked and saw what she had done, and began to laugh. “Wow, Sis, I was not expecting that!” I said. I had imagined Stef would have put them on ‘normally’, but of course, she hadn’t. Instead, she had put them on at an angle, thirty degrees from being horizontal, I guessed. Symmetrical, the stickers were looking towards her cleavage, as if looking up to her face.

Of course!

Her nipple smilies were looking up to see who might be looking down at them.

“Smartly done,” I said as my giggles subsided.

“You figured it out then?”

I nodded. “But you’ll need something more than smilies before we can go out, much less visit Jensen’s.”

“♪Back to your wardrobe♪” she sang as, this time, she turned her attention on my collection of shirts, quickly flicking through them until she finally found the one she must have been looking for. “Can I borrow this as well?” she asked as she held up a check shirt, red, with big checks of white, scarlet, and dark pink.

“Sure I guess.”

“Can I, erm, alter it a little?” Stef asked cautiously.

“How? I mean I know I haven’t worn it lately, but it still fits and I do like it. What’re you planning?”

“I’m planning on haltering it, Babes.”

“Huh? You just said that!?”

Steff giggled. “Not ‘altering’ – ‘haltering’. Roll up the sleeves, tie the bottom up under my boobs, and leave my tummy showing, at least the tanned bits.”

“Oh, okay ... I think I know what you mean; sure, go ahead and ‘halter’ it,” I said as I made ‘halter’ sound even more like ‘alter’ than she had.

“Thanks,” she said as she pulled the shirt on, folded the cuffs over themselves until they were a couple of ‘turns’ above her elbows, and tied the bottom in a big bow under her boobs, leaving her tummy and outie showing. “What do you think?”

“Well, Sis, it’s very effective and looks really good on you but, uhm, are you sure Mum would be happy with you like that?”

Stef looked puzzled. “Why’s that, Babes? Why wouldn’t she be happy-”

I pointed to Stef’s chest, she looked down, and looked back at me crookedly. “Yeah, I can see how that could be a problem,” she said. In all of her excitement, she’d forgotten to fasten any buttons, meaning the shirt was open from neck to knot, from smilie to smilie. Of course, I thought it looked hot, as would any male who saw her, but there was no way she could go out like that, especially in mid Wales. There’d surely be an epidemic of conniptions. Are conniptions infections?

Anyway, Stef fastened some buttons.

“Those’re enough?” I asked, thinking they weren’t.

“Oh I think so, after all, the whole idea is to get that ‘hint of a tittie discount’ isn’t it?” Stef said.

“Last time I’m asking, Sis, but you’re sure about this?”

Stef nodded. “I am, and thank you for asking. Often. Repeatedly. It’s really nice of you, but you really don’t need to. Now, find yourself a shirt, young man, you can’t go out topless here, even in the summer!” she commanded, so I found one in buff, pulled on a pair of blue jeans, and we were off.

The trip to Jensen’s was an eye-opener for me.

The amount of attention that Stef’s outfit got was insane!

Now don’t get me wrong, we don’t live in the middle of rural Hickshire and we don’t live in the eighteenth century, but for a moment I wondered. I mean it’s not as if halter tops are unknown; we do get tourists, even American tourists, and so get-ups like Stef’s were rare, yes, but not unique.

You’d not have thought that from the reactions she got.

When we got on the bus, I caught the bus driver watching her intently as we took our place. He even looked sad when we got off.

People on the street noticed Stef as she walked past them, and though most of the heads that turned were men’s, some were women’s.

Poor Stef was even on the receiving end of a politically incorrect wolf whistle from the 1970s thanks to a couple of builders slowing down as they passed us in their white van. For a moment I thought they may do a three-point-turn and come back on the other side, just to check they had seen what they’d seen.

“You knew this would happen? All the attention, the wrong attention?” I asked as we turned onto the quiet side street where Jensen’s hid itself.

Stef smiled knowingly. “That’s our world, Babes. I didn’t know you didn’t know. What can I tell you? Pretty girls get noticed, and pretty girls who dress prettily are pretty certain to get noticed even more,” she alliteratively analysed, it being one of our games, one that used to drive our parents mad when we were younger, even though it did expand our vocabulary at the same time.

“But how do you cope with it?” I asked, concerned and impressed that Stef had agreed to this just to maybe get me a free assessment of The Thing. I felt it wasn’t that important.

Stef shrugged. “It’s just something that happens to us girls, and when it’s done nastily, then it tells me that person’s a jerk. When it’s done nicely, I might smile. Of course, when it’s done really nicely, then I flash that brother of mine and look where that’s getting us,” she said as she squeezed my hand.

And. Didn’t. Let. Go.