Chapter 2

“You actually want to keep going?” I asked. This was hard to believe.

“Bobby, getting these pictures taken has been crazy fun,” she said.

“They’re just pictures,” I said.

“Actually ... they’re pictures that gave my own brother a hardon,” she said. “How fantastic is that?”

Fuck! I’d hoped she’d forgotten about that. The fact that she’d remembered (and was even celebratory about it), got in the way of me noticing that, magically, her self-doubt had disappeared and she was on the “Hey! I’m sexy!“ bandwagon. She confused me further by walking up to me and invading my personal space. She looked right into my eyes. I could smell the scent of her body lotion.

Part of what I didn’t have time to think about, at that juncture, was that things were going on in Hannah’s mind, too. She really had set out to try to feel sexy by having me take some mildly risqué pictures. My reaction to that was more confirming to her than anything else could have been. The fact that it was her brother doing the confirming didn’t come across as strange to her because she actually did love me. Later I’d find out she felt terrible (once in a while) when she made my life miserable, but she was confused about life. She hated it when I was mad at her, but didn’t know what to do about it. She really was acting in the “role” she thought she was supposed to portray as my sister. When I responded to her in the way she wanted other guys to respond, it flipped some kind of switch in her and her whole attitude changed. Suddenly, this boy she actually liked, confirmed in her what all girls want to have confirmed. That it was her brother doing the confirming didn’t matter to her. She gave me a hint of all this when she spoke to me.

“Hey. I don’t mind and I swear I’ll never tell anybody. Honest. It made me feel good.”

“Your own brother getting a hardon made you feel good?” My voice was incredulous.

“Well ... I know how picky you are about girls,” she said. “I’ve seen the girls you date. You have high standards, little brother. And I didn’t even show you any of the good parts. You made me feel really good, Bobby.”

“You made me feel...” My voice faded.

“Horny?” Her voice was impish, but the smile on her face was warm.

“I’m not supposed to get horny in that situation,” I said.

“If I don’t mind, why does it matter?” she said.

“It’s just weird,” I said.

“I suppose. So... should I show you some of the good parts? Those would make hot pictures, don’t you think?”

“Shit, Hannah!” I barked. “Don’t tease a guy like that!”

She kept staring into my eyes.

“Who says I’m teasing?”

“What’s going on here?” I groaned. “This is crazy, Hannah.”

“I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “I for sure can’t flash any other guy. That would be crazy. But I want to. I mean I want to know what that would be like, but I can’t just go out and do that to some guy. That’s how you get a reputation. And I can’t let Steve see them. He’s hard enough to handle as it is. But this is home and you’re my brother. We love each other and nothing would happen. You wouldn’t tell anybody and I wouldn’t either. But I’d get to see how it feels.”

“You want to show your ... body ... to a guy?” My eyebrows rose.

“Have you ever shown a girl your dick?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I said, jerking at both the thought and her casual usage of “dick.”

“Okay, have you ever wanted a girl to see it?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “That’s how you get slapped and your parents get called.”

“Wouldn’t you like to find out if a girl thought it was pretty or not?”

“Pretty?” My voice rose.

“Okay, handsome,” she amended. “Haven’t you ever wished you could do that and that the girl would be impressed?”

“I guess I never thought of it as ... impressive,” I said.

She sighed with obvious frustration.

“Okay. Have you ever wanted to see a girl naked?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Well, girls want to see a guy naked, too,” she said.

“They do?” I was obviously surprised.

“Of course. Both sexes want to see the other naked. It’s just basic biology, Bobby.”

“Well the girls I know sure don’t want to get naked,” I said.

“That’s because it’s dangerous to do that,” she said, patiently. “It creates all kinds of problems if you do that willy nilly. But the desire is still there.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” I said.

“But if it’s you and me, then all those problems aren’t there,” she said.

“Wait. Now you want to see me naked?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. Her head tilted. “But now that you mention it, that is a good idea.”

I stared at her.

“You have to tell me what planet you’re from,” I sighed.

She laughed.

What’s more, as she did that, she pulled her shirt all the way up and flashed her boobs at me.

We were in my bedroom again. To be honest, I don’t remember getting there. Hannah was sitting on the bed and I was in my desk chair, which was rotated away from the computer and facing her. I wasn’t taking pictures. That’s because I couldn’t believe what was going on and insisted on talking about it, instead of doing it. I know that probably doesn’t fit the stereotype of a teenage boy, but that’s how it was.

“Of course I didn’t plan this,” said Hannah. “It just happened.”

“This just isn’t you,” I said.

“Of course it is. Who else could it be?” she said. “I’m not an alien, so get that out of your head.”

“What I can’t get out of my head is that my sister wants to get naked with me,” I said.

“I know. It’s crazy,” she said. “Before today I would have been freaked out by the very idea. But before today there was no situation in which I could do what I want to do. I mean I couldn’t do anything with Steve because he’d think it meant the wrong thing. Maybe it’s because I feel safe with you.”

“You feel safe with a guy who got a boner for you,” I said, dazed.

“Not just any guy,” she said. “You. I know you’d never do anything to hurt me.”

“Well sure,” I said, recognizing the same feeling inside me.

“So what could it hurt?” she asked. “It’s not like we’re going to have sex or anything.”

“You realize, don’t you, that you’re asking your brother to play doctor,” I said.

She grinned. Then her face went expressionless.

“You won’t believe this, but Janet Sinderson told me she did exactly that. She and Todd played doctor when they were like eleven or twelve. And get this. He popped her cherry while they were doing it!”

“Todd Sinderson fucked his sister?” My voice sounded like I was a soprano.

“No, it wasn’t like that. He just put his finger in her and tore her hymen.”

“And she told you this?”

“Well, she might have had a little too much of her father’s peach brandy that night. It was a sleepover and her parents were out on a date night.”

“You got drunk?” I groaned.

“No. I tasted it, but it was like drinking cough syrup. She liked it, though. She liked playing doctor too. If she was telling the truth, she and Todd still ... mess around.”

“You have got to be shitting me,” I moaned.

“Nope. So it’s not like we’d be the only two siblings who explore a little. Like I said, who else are you going to do that with? You can’t do it on dates. It’s too dangerous and sooner or later everybody will find out.”

“Wow,” I said. “This is so strange.”

“Can I ask you a question. A serious question?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Do you want to see me naked?”

It was crunch time. I tried to avoid it.

“What if I do?”

“Just answer the question,” she ordered with her big sister voice.

Do or die time. In for a penny, in for a pound time.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I do.”

She didn’t cackle. This was no prank.

“I know it sounds strange, Bobby, but that makes me feel really good,” she said, softly. “Thank you.”

“I get to ask the same question,” I said, hesitantly.

“Desperately,” she said, without any pause at all.

“You’re kidding.”

“Steve gets hard every time we make out,” she said. “He’s put my hand on it before. But I can’t look at his. That would be disaster. He’d want me to jerk him off or even worse. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it.” She licked her lips. “Seeing yours, though, wouldn’t be like that. So yes, I want to see you naked too, Bobby.”

“Wow.” That was all I had.

“You don’t have to actually take any pictures, though.”

“It would probably be better if I didn’t,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Can you imagine what would happen if they found something like that?” I asked. “Dad would have a heart attack.”

“Mom would have a stroke,” she agreed.

“Okay, so no pictures,” I said. I realized I still had her phone in my hand. I reached behind me to put it on my computer table.

We sat there for a bit.

“So ... what now?” I asked.

“I think we should go together,” she said. “At the same time.”

“Okay.”

She reached for the hem of her shirt. I could see her face getting pink. I did the same thing. Reach for my shirt, I mean. Now that I think about it, maybe I got a little pink, too.

“On three,” she said.

“Okay.”

“One ... two... three!“

We both pulled. I almost ripped my ears off trying to get my shirt over my head so I could see.

There they were. Her previous flashing of me had been so unexpected I hadn’t actually seen all that much. The hazy image of pink nipples perched on darker areolas was replaced by the real thing. She just sat there, looking tense.

“Well?” She sounded nervous.

“Beautiful,” I sighed.

“Really?”

“Oh fuck yes,” I sighed again.

I saw her whole body actually shudder. I stared at her breasts as they jiggled slightly. Her nipples looked fat.

“This isn’t really fair,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen your bare chest a hundred times.”

“Oh. Yeah. So I guess we should ... go on?”

“Yes,” she said.

I stood up and reached for my belt. She stood, too. Her shorts had a hook on them and elastic in the waist, instead of a belt.

“No counting,” I said, suddenly. “That makes me feel like this is some kind of goofy game.”

“Okay,” she said.

She pushed and I watched as more and more of her abdomen came into view. I realized I wasn’t moving and jerked, shoving my shorts clear down to my hips in one, convulsive push. This caused a bit of a problem because I wasn’t wearing underwear. Our parents had never bought me boxers, and briefs chafed my groin sometimes in the heat. I still wore them in the winter, but it was past that time, now.