Chapter 22

Despite my excuse to Maria, I actually got home in plenty of time for dinner so I wasn’t expecting any trouble. But Mum was lying in ambush.

“Just when were you going to tell me about these?” she asked, brandishing my race certificates, the insistent tapping of her right foot on the floor a clear signal that I was in deep doo-doo. “I found them in your bag when I was getting your running kit to wash.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t feeling well last night and this morning was a rush. I completely forgot.”

Mum tried to give a snort of derision, but it went wrong about half way through and turned into a belly laugh. “It’s okay, you can join us now,” she called out. “I just couldn’t keep up the pretence.”

As Dad and Terri came into the room, Mum seized me in a fierce hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

“I’ll be getting an engraved trophy for coming second and an engraved medal for the team’s third place,” I said.

“I’ll make sure we have somewhere prominent to display them,” said Mum. “I want all our visitors to notice them.”

“Make sure there’s plenty of room for Terri’s gymnastic trophies.”

“You’re a good boy,” said Mum, kissing me on the forehead. “Now I’d better go and check on dinner.”

Mum handed me over to Dad for another hug, which was yet another first. Dad simply did not hug other males. Until now. “I’m proud of you too, son,” he said.

Then it was Terri’s turn. I tried to ignore the sensations of Terri’s fit, young body pressing against me; her warmth, her smell, the intriguing distribution of hardness and softness across her burgeoning curves, but it was one-sided fight and I could feel my cock rising to salute her.

Then Terri sniffed loudly. “You smell funny,” she said.

“Funny how?”

“That’s not the brand of soap you use.”

“I had an accident at Maria’s and had to wash my face.”

Terri leaned her mouth close to one of my ears. “I bet you were licking Maria’s pussy, weren’t you!” she whispered.

“WHAT? NO!” I protested, more about having been found out than the actual accusation.

“Is everything alright in there?” called Mum from the kitchen.

Terri peeled herself off me, snorting with laughter. “Jeez dork, you’re so easy to wind up!”

I was so relieved that Terri hadn’t seemed to notice my hard cock pressing against her that I didn’t feel motivated to retaliate. “Har, har, you got me,” I acknowledged. “I’m going to put my things away before dinner.”

“Terri, dinner’s nearly ready. Lay the table please,” called Mum as I stomped my way upstairs to my room, so some measure of retribution had been dispensed.

Although I had been hugged by both Mum and Dad without any mention of an unfamiliar smell, I washed my face again using my normal soap just in case. Then I worked out what I should tell my family about the race.

After Mum had called me down to dinner and we were sitting at the dining table eating, I recounted my prepared story. I omitted any mention of the gay jibes, the consequent obsession with staying ahead of the pack, and my disobeying of the team’s tactical orders.

“I started off too fast,” I summarised, “and when it started to hurt, I was too stuck in a rhythm to slow down. And I was too busy trying to breathe to worry about where I was in the field.”

“How close to the winner did you finish?” asked Terri.

“I don’t really know. If I avoided disqualification for missing the checkpoint, I estimated I finished somewhere between tenth and twentieth. I didn’t realise there was only one runner in front of me until the award ceremony.”

“Was that officially photographed?” asked Mum. “It would be nice to have copies since we weren’t able to see it in person.”

“I think so but I’ll check with Coach Budd. If he doesn’t know, he should be able to find out.”

Thankfully the grilling eased off for rest of the meal although I wasn’t sure how convinced my family were with my recounting of the race: it didn’t sound very credible to me, but then I knew how much I’d left out.

Having done my homework at school, I had the rest of the evening free. Although I wasn’t happy about witchcraft being the only active line of enquiry, I wondered whether I could do anything to help. The thought struck me that perhaps there had been some kind of precipitating event to trigger a need for the witch to be tried. I texted Dennis asking him to e-mail the originals of all the town newspaper editions for a couple of months up to and including the edition mentioning the trial. Dennis eventually responded with a text of his own, saying that he’d have to get the originals from Dimitri since he only had the text-converted versions.

While I was idly surfing the net in my room, waiting for Dimitri to send me the originals of the newspaper editions I had requested, Terri paid me a visit.

“I’m sorry I teased you, dork,” she said. “I know you’re gay so the idea of even doing such a thing would be utterly revolting to you, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Are you still upset with me?”

By the measure of school grades I was the brainier of the two of us, but Terri had more cunning. In the past, despite my superior math skills, Terri had habitually wiped the floor with me whenever we’d had a family poker night because of her superior bluffing skills. But recently I had worked out some of her tells and I noticed one of them now: the expression in her eyes didn’t match the sincerity of her voice.

“I’m not upset with you,” I said. “You’re my little sister, munchkin, and it came as a shock to find that you even know about such things.”

“I’m glad I have an older brother like you, even though you are such a dork. And I hope you’ll pass on the benefits of your experience to me.”

“I’ll be glad to help you in almost any way I can,” I replied.

“Thanks dork,” said Terri, her grateful tone not matching the hint of disappointment in her eyes.

We had just had what to outward appearances had sounded like a perfectly innocent conversation, yet had Terri just discreetly asked me to lick her pussy? If so, I hoped she had got the message that my licking her pussy was off limits. But after Terri left my room, I couldn’t help wondering what it would actually be like.

As a gymnast, I was pretty sure Terri kept herself aerodynamic down below, so she wouldn’t have as much hair as Maria D’Angelou, but how else might she differ? What would her pussy look and taste and smell like? And would she be prepared to reciprocate by sucking my cock? Then I imagined cumming in Terri’s mouth and involuntarily shuddered. I hadn’t actually tasted my cum but, judging by the bleachy smell, I couldn’t imagine it being very pleasant. Then I thought of what my parents’ reactions might be if they caught me playing around with my little sister and I decided I had definitely done the right thing to nip it in the bud.

Eventually I gave up waiting for anything from Dimitri and went to bed.

The next morning I met up with my nerd group for the walk to school.

“Sorry I haven’t e-mailed those originals you wanted,” Dimitri said to me. “I was busy last night and didn’t see Dennis’s request until this morning. I’ll pull them off my server this evening.”

“Too busy learning to dance?” I asked.