Chapter 10 - A Show of Genius

Monday 3rd July

So this was what Rowden Family 2.0 looked like, then.

I’d heard people talk about the morning after the night before, and now I knew what they meant; I was living in a brave new world.

Up until yesterday afternoon I’d thought we were a pretty average family. Two parents, both with their own jobs. Two children who did well at school and were expected to get a nice haul of A* grades in August. No dogs or cats because Mum claimed she was allergic. We lived in a nice detached house on the edge of town, big enough so Stef and I had our own rooms but nothing palacial, and all within easy reach of most places any of us needed to go via bus or car. We had nice things, but not too many and not too expensive, although I did sometimes wonder about Stef’s clothing allowance. I teased her about it, once; I didn’t know bruises took that long to heal. We went on family holidays twice year, usually overseas but not always. There was a full set of grandparents plus assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of them not too far away, some of them just names on Christmas cards. I can’t say for Mum or Dad, but Stef and I had the usual collection of friends, frenemies, and people who we just didn’t like, too.

Normal, pretty much like everyone else.

Until yesterday.

Now?

There was a small glass of wine or beer with Sunday lunch for those who wanted it, curfews had been extended and softened, and dating was an option if we ever found someone we wanted to date or who wanted to date us.

Oh yeah, there was also now a pretty good chance of catching any or all of the family naked in the garden or the house, as we’d just become a ‘clothing more optional’ family.

It seemed our parents were having some kind of midlife crisis as born-again hippies.

Who knew?

Also, the ‘rents had somehow found out or figured out that Stef and I had already been quite ‘clothing optional’ in the garden this summer, had been helping each other out with the sun tan oil ... and that too was ‘cool’. Instead of being grounded until the end of time, we had somehow found ourselves being praised for being so ‘mature’ and ‘adult’ about it all with our ‘practical solution’ to not getting sunburned.

In case all of that hadn’t been enough, we now also knew there was a mysterious woman from Dad’s past who Stef looked a lot like, so much so that Dad got hard looking at a naked Stef but thinking of her ... and we’d been told by Mum we couldn’t say or ask anything because it would make Dad uncomfortable to talk about her until he was ready to, if ever.

With all of that going on, it was easy to forget about The Thing, but it wasn’t going to be left behind in the ‘who can be more surprising’ race. Each day it was working more and more, but that didn’t help anything as the more it worked, the more confusing it became. As best as Stef and I had been able to figure, somehow it was able to tell/sense/detect/whatever whenever somebody nearby had an orgasm and to tell who it was and make different responses to those orgasms, playing one melody for Mum or Dad, and another for Stef and me. How? Why? Good questions. One day, they might get good answers. I hoped.

Actually, that day maybe today, as we’d bumped into Mr. Johnson from Jensen’s yesterday, he’d listened to the recordings Stef had made of the two melodies, thought he recognised one of them, and offered us a return invitation to meet with him and Old Mr. Jensen who just might know something about it all.

Not bad for a biggish town in darkest Wales, huh?

And then this morning ... everything seemed like it was back to normal.

Dad was up and gone early, I’d just seen Mum’s car pulling out of the driveway as she was gone early, too, and I think Stef had left for her morning bike ride at the normal time, but she’s practised quiet about it so I don’t always hear her when she leaves.

Me?

I was sat in the kitchen, finishing off the last of my toast and tea breakfast, wondering what any of it meant. It was Monday morning, it was the summer holiday, it was sunny out, and that was all there was to it. There were no tylwyth teg anywhere that I could see, no superheroes trying to drink coffee through a cowl, no T800s painfully smiling, none of it.

It all felt incredibly anticlimactic.

After this past week, there should have been unicorns dancing in the garden, but there weren’t; I’d checked. It felt as if–

“Hey, Luke!” Stef called as she opened the door into the kitchen.

I admit it, I screamed.

I’d been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t realised it was about time she got back.

“Wow!” Stef sniggered. “You do know you scream like a girl, don’t you?” she asked as she continued to laugh.

“I ... do ... not!” I panted as my heart tried to beat normally again. “And anyway, you can’t say that!”

“I can’t?” Stef asked as she took off her helmet, her hair plastered to her head with sweat. Either it was hot out already, or she’d been going at Tour de France pace.

“Isn’t it a bit, y’know, sexist?”

“Hmm, maybe it could be,” she said, sounding like she was conceding nothing. “But I meant you scream like a girl because you scream so high pitched.”

“Oh...”

Stef started chuckling again. “I mean if I didn’t know your balls had dropped, that scream would make me wonder...”

Remember me saying how weird my life now is? This is one of those moments, with me screaming like a girl and my elder sister talking with intimate knowledge about how my balls have dropped.

In my family, this is the new normal.

“Okay, but can you not say that again?”

“What? You mean about your balls dropping or that you scream like a girl screams?” Stef asked, bobbing her tongue out at me, having ‘sneaked’ into her question the exact phrase I never wanted to hear again.

“Yes,” I menaced, ineffectively. “Please?”

“So no more screaming like a girl, then?”

“Stef!” I whined, which just made her grin even more.

“Oh-kay, since you’re you and you’re not that bad, you know, for being a teen-aged boy and a brother, too, I won’t say... that ... again.”

“Thanks.”

“Even if it’s true that you do!”

“Stef...”

“Hey, at least I kept your dropped balls. Aren’t you glad about that?”

I sighed. I guess that was the best I could hope for. “So, why’re you in such a good mood?” I asked as I desperately tried to move the conversation from exaggerated falsetto cries of alarm and sibling testicular development. I knew all about exercise and endorphins and things like that, but Stef seemed even more chipper than normal.

“Do I need a reason?” Stef asked, her left eyebrow betraying that she had one, but that she didn’t want to say what it was. Yet.

“Nooo, but if you did and I knew what it was then I might be able to use that knowledge in the future, sometime, somehow...”

“Aww, you’re thinking of me again,” Stef said as she leant forward and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Well yeah, I guess I am, aren’t I? Sooo... ?”

Stef shrugged. “Well it could be that I just beat my personal best for the ‘Five Hills Challenge’,” she said, that ‘challenge’ being a route of her own that I’d tried with her. Once. I’m too young to die like that.

“You did? Well done!” I said. I knew how fast she could ride that route, and if she’d beaten that time, she was probably sweating pure endorphins.

“Thanks, but I don’t think it’s that.”

“But you do know what it is?”

“Oh I’m fairly sure I do...”

“And... ?”

“Hmm, let me see. So, one, Mum and Dad are both gone, yes?”

I nodded.

“Good. So, two, you’ve not had a shower yet this morning?”

“No...” I said, suddenly not knowing where this was going.

“Excellent! So, three, if you were in the shower with me, could I rely on you to scrub my back?”

Ah-ha!

“This ‘scrub your back’ you speak of, is this a Stef-euphemism for something?” I asked, hoping my imagined glint in my eye wasn’t so imaginary.

“Well it might be...”

“In that case I would be delighted to follow your sweaty, smelly – ow!” I cried out as my tease turned into sibling abuse of the right-handed variety. I might scream like a girl, but she doesn’t punch like one!

“You deserved it!” Stef insisted, arms akimbo, trying to look stern and not really succeeding. Chipper, and all that.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “But did I really deserve to have a lasting bruise as well?”

Stef shook her head. “Sorry about that. I kind of over-reacted, didn’t I?”

“Would ‘yes’ be a safe answer?”

Stef nodded.

“Yes, then.”

Stef smiled, and I felt all better again, even if I couldn’t feel my left arm.

“So, we good to go?” she asked.

“Go? Shower? With you? Why are we still here?”

“Beats me,” Stef said. “Maybe you need some motivation... ?” she said as she sat up straight, unzipped the neck of her Lycra cycling top, and peeled it up and off, leaving her in her black cycling shorts, socks, and nothing else.

I swear she’s getting more beautiful with every passing day.

“Well, that’s all the motivation I need!” I said as I stood up, my erection clearly visible as it fought against the material of my sleeping shorts.

Stef looked down, saw the evidence of my readiness, and giggled. “A girl does enjoy to be appreciated. Now, do I need to peel off my shorts, too, before you’re ready to follow me upstairs?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know that ‘need’ is the word for it, but if you’re offering, cariad, there’s nil, zero, and null chance that I’ll refuse.”

“Horny brothers,” Stef sighed as, with a humouring shake of her head she eased her thumbs into her waistband, and slid and slipped out of her shorts.

“God, Sis! Are you taking some magical drink or something?”

“Nooo... ?”

“You’re sure, because you’re getting more incredible with every day,” I said, and it was true; Stef seemed to almost glow with vim and vigour and vitality.

“Oh you’re definitely coming in the shower with me,” Stef chuckled, innuendos abounding as she stepped forward, I stepped forward, and we met in the middle to share a brief kiss, though with a little grabbing of each other’s bums for good measure.

“Wow!” I said when I remembered words and what they’re used for.

Stef chuckled softly. “Now can we go get that shower?”

“Ladies first.”

My sister knows me too well. “Have you got a bum fetish?” she asked as we separated and she headed towards the kitchen door, with me a respectful couple of steps behind her. Not looking at her bum at all. Honest. It was just there, in front of me, where I happened to be looking.

“A bum fetish? Is that a thing?” I asked.

“It is for you.”

“Well, if it is a thing, I think it’s just for yours.”

“And another good answer,” Stef said as she opened the door and led us up to the bathroom. I don’t know that she was purposefully flexing and sashaying and otherwise exaggerating her bum muscles – glutes? – as she climbed the stairs, but it was a show I guessed I’d be remembering later that night. I don’t think she needed to have taken the stairs an athletic two at a time, but she was winking at me as she went, so that’s all right, isn’t it?

“Moment,” Stef said as she leant on the door frame to her room, peeled off her socks, and popped inside to drop her clothes into the laundry basket. “Ready?”

I looked down at my cock and tried not to grin.

Stef followed where I was looking and laughed. “Good. I’d hate to think climbing the stairs like that had been for nothing...” she said as she opened the door to the bathroom and we went in.

‘Bathroom’.

Conjures up the image of, well, a bath, doesn’t it?

Not in the Rowden household. For that we can thank Dad’s love of showers and Mum’s indifference to baths.

I had just turned eight when Stef and me were sent to stay with Mum’s parents, Nain and Tain, while the builders, plumbers, and decorators did their thing over one of those long Thursday to Tuesday weekends you get for a May bank holiday.

When we got back, The Shower had been installed.

Pretty much the only part of the bathroom that had been left untouched was the toilet area that Stef and I used, Mum and Dad having an en suite they pretty much kept to unless we’d just come back from somewhere a long way away and there was a ‘traffic jam at the u-bend’ as Dad called it.

The rest of the bathroom, however, was now very different. Most of the space had been converted into a massive shower cubicle big enough for the whole family to have got into, if we’d ever needed to, and with room to spare. Inside were three angled and matched multi-headed shower units which you could use in any combination you wanted, from just the one to all three, their most powerful jets having all the ‘reach’ and more. Above all of this, and below the ceiling fans that coughed the steam out into the Welsh air was Dad’s piece de resistance, a rainfall shower block that could make it rain softly, pour torrentially, or drizzle Welshly, all at the touch of a control pad. To make sure we never ran out of water, Dad had had installed a pair of hot water heaters, a hot tank, and enough piping to give the plumber who’d installed it nightmares for years afterwards.

“Hey, Luke? Join me?” Stef asked as she walked up to the shower door, opened it, and stepped inside, waiting for me, the single greatest advert for showering ever.

“You really need to ask?” I asked, my cock impatiently pointing in her direction.

Stef giggled. “Well, follow the signs, why don’t you?” she suggested as she stepped further into the cubicle by the ‘front’ showerhead and the rainfall controls.

I was always taught to be respectful and listen to my elders, and since Stef is technically an elder – though I had enough self-preservation never to say that to her – I did as she suggested, hung my shorts on the outer handle of the door, and stepped onto the raised rubber matting, closing the door behind me. Stef gave a slight nod of warning and started up the ‘rain’ function, selecting something warm and quite gentle to wet us down.

“Okay?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Good,” she said as she pulled the ‘athletic scrunchie’ from her hair – a simple yellow band instead of anything more decorative – and pushed it up onto her wrist as she stood there, pushing her hands up over her face and flouffing her hair to get as much water into it as she could.

“You watching me or helping me?” she asked as she opened her eyes, grinning.

“You wanted me to do your back... ?” I said as I rubbed my hands through my own, much shorter and now wet hair.

“That too.”

“Too?”

“Me dirty. You soap me. Me soap you. You wash me. Me wash you. Tarzan help Jane?”

Ah. Time for games.

“Tarzan like plan.”

“I can see that,” Stef giggled as she nodded at my gnomon.

“Which soap?” I asked, the shower having both a small covered shelf for bars of soap and a row of six dispensers filled with soaps, shampoos, and conditioners, all very clearly labelled.

“Flavourless, please,” Stef answered, ‘flavourless’ being a dispenser’s worth of perfume-free, colour-free, and everything-else-free soap. In pale white.

“Wet enough?” I asked, meaning the shower.

“Oh I hope to be,” Stef giggled as she switched the overhead water off.

“Well I can’t promise that, but I’ll do my best...”

“Oh I’m sure your best will be more than enough. Now, soap me up so we can get this show on the road. We’ve got to go to Jensen’s, remember?”

I chuckled. “Stef, I’m naked, in the shower, with my sister, also naked, I’m hard as diamond, you’re planning on getting wetter than a Welsh Wednesday in November, and you’re asking if I remembered about Jensen’s? I really have other things on my mind right now.”

Stef chuckled. “That’s fair, I suppose. Sooo how about getting some of those things off your mind and on your hands... ?”

“By your command,” I teased as I pumped three globs of creamy soap into my hand. “Back first?”

“Oh you don’t get to play with the front until you’ve done the back, Babes,” Stef cautioned.

“And with me loving your bum, that’s such a hardship,” I said as Stef turned her back to me so I could get to work.

“I like your hardship.”

I chuckled as I stood there, puzzled.

I’d never showered with anyone before – communal showers after PE at school don’t count – and for a moment I couldn’t think how to do this until inspiration struck. This was kind of like applying sun tan oil, and I knew how to do that.

Splitting the soap between my two hands, I began by smearing it across Stef’s shoulders and down over her back, massaging her muscles as I went. It was funny, but this soap was so rich and creamy that it was almost as slippery as the oil, meaning I had to concentrate not to slip and slide too much as I gently kneaded and slathered my way to her dimples. They were sooo inviting, but I knew if I did anything there, we’d never get anywhere, so I made the ultimate sacrifice and left them alone.

“Arms out a little?” Stef offered, guessing my next move.

“Thanks.”

“No sneaky tit-tickling...” she cautioned.

“Aw, you’re no fun,” I complained as I rubbed soap over each of her arms, making sure to cover her as thoroughly as possible, even between the fingers.

“Legs apart?” Stef asked.

I sniggered with faux naughtiness.

“Now, now, Babes.”

“Aw...” I whined as I quickly grabbed a couple more globs of soap and set to work on her ankles, her legs, and all the way up to just before her bum.

“♪You missed a bit♪”

“Best for last,” I explained as, with the last of the soap, working from her hips and in, from her waist and down, I made sure her bum was thoroughly coated, covered, and caressed. Very thoroughly. I mean seriously thoroughly.

“You enjoying yourself back there?” Stef asked over her shoulder as I continued working on her bum.

“I am ... but how far do you want me to go with the soap?”

“Sorry?”

Slowly I ran my soapy middle finger down the crack of her bum, stopping just before I got to her anws.

“Oh!” Stef said as she realised what I was asking. “I guess it’s okay, I mean who doesn’t want a ‘clean starfish’, but, erm, you’re okay to do that?”

“Well if I’m going to be thorough...”

Stef chuckled. “In that case, I’d hate to get between you and being thorough with my bum; just remember The Golden Rule.”

“Which is... ?”

“You can touch it, you can clean it, but you don’t go in it, okay?”

“Oh that rule,” I said remembering it’s earlier use in the context of sun tan oil. “Uhm, brace?” I suggested.

“Be gentle!” Stef cried out as, as tenderly as I could, I ran my finger the rest of the way, soaping over her ‘starfish’, circling over it a couple of times before finally giving it a little prod with my fingertip to let her know I was done.

“Okay?” I asked.

“Very ... and oddly nice, too.”

“It was?”

“Hmm. Maybe I should try that with you, later... ?” Stef mused.

“We’ll see...”

“What’s the matter? You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“Let’s say it wasn’t what I imagined doing today.”

Stef giggled. “No, I imagine your sister fingering your–”

“–Whoa! Who said you were going to finger it?”

Stef giggled. “Aw, now you’re the one who’s no fun.”

“Fingered ‘starfish’ are fun? Maybe I’ll just take your word on it...”

Stef giggled. “Oh-kay, Babes, okay. So, want to get your reward?”

“My reward... ?”

“Your reward,” Stef said as she turned to face me, naked, dripping, bits of soap running down her sides, and arms raised up like a dismounted gymnast. “Ta-daa!”

“Now that’s what I call a reward,” I said as I grabbed another handful of soap.

“Hmm, this should be fun,” Stef said.

“Oh?”

“I get to watch you as you... touch me,” Stef said, somehow making it sound like the dirtiest thing in the history of sibling sharing showers.

“But you’ve seen me do this kind of thing before,” I reminded her.

“True, but there’s touching, and then there’s touching,” she said with added left eyebrow.

“There is,” I agreed as I began to smear and scrub her with soap, shoulders first. “But is touching the kind of touching we should be touching upon here?” I asked as I worked, my hands getting closer and closer to her little boobs and tightly hard nipples.

“Maybe you could mix them up a little, just a touch?” Stef suggested.

“Huh? Mix your boobs up... ?”

Stef giggled. “Goofus! You thought I meant you to mix these up?” she said as she pointed at her boobs.

“Uhm, if I were to claim in my defence that there’s reduced blood flow to my brain right now... ?”

“Hmm, I can accept that. Now, wash away, Babes.”

“At your command, fy nghariad aur,” I said.

“Grr, I warned you not to call me that...”

“But you’re all soapy, so I’m safe.”

“For now, for now...” Stef said. I’m pretty sure she was trying to sound threatening. Trying, but failing; she was grinning too much for that.

“Mixing time...” I teased as Stef took a breath and tried to make like a statue as I gently cupped and caressed her beautiful little boobs, my hands slipping over them easily with the soap, my thumbs flicking across her nipples with no real power.

That’s what I thought.

Stef, on the other hand, was clearly enjoying my actions, and every time I flicked across her stiff little nipples, she giggled or gasped.

I may have lingered.

Okay, definitely I lingered.

“I think they’re clean enough...” Stef suggested.

“I was trying to be thorough.”

“And I like your thoroughness, but don’t you want to be thorough someplace else?”

Someplace else?

Oh!

“Well if we’re being thorough,” I said as I grabbed more liquid soap and quickly washed Stef’s legs, strong and smooth, until there was only one place left untouched by soap. And me.

“Saving the best for last again?” Stef asked.

“Earning my reward,” I said. My hands were still soapy enough for the little patch of unwashed Stef I had left until the end. Remembering my sun tan oil method, I gently grasped her by her hips, moved my hands in a bit, and used just my thumbs to rub the crease between her thighs and her pussy.

Stef purred softly.

I moved my hands in a little further, and this time I used my thumbs to rub soap over her plumped outer lips.

I took my time.

Stef sighed dreamily.

“Enough?” I asked.

“Never ... Sorry, yes, thank you, erm, you can go in a little, too, just not in in, okay?”

“Oh-kay...” I said as I figured out what she meant. By now there was almost no soap on my thumbs, and I guessed this was what she wanted, so that there’d be no stinging afterwards.

“Just tell me when to stop...” I said as with my left thumb I traced the crease where her inner and outer lips met. Even though she was already quite ‘wet’ and ‘slippery’ before I got there, I still saw it as my brotherly duty to continue nonetheless, and so I gently rubbed my thumb up and down a couple of times, left side, then the right. It wasn’t a sexual touch, but it was utterly sensual.

“More?” I asked as I looked up and saw Stef smile and nod gently.

Smiling to myself, I switched over to my right hand which still had a little soap on it and cupped her pussy. I paused for a moment so she could ready herself for whatever I was going to do next, before I reached round to her anws, rubbed at it a little with the tip of my finger, and slowly brought my hand up, dragging my finger firmly but softly over her vagina, between her inner lips, and finishing by running it across her clit.

Her erect clit.

Her very sensitive clit.

Her more sensitive than I’d guessed clit.

“Ohhh!” Stef sighed, as she began to shake a little.

“You okay?”

“I will be. Do that again, just as softly.”

I did.

She shook some more.

“Again?” I asked.

“Three’s the charm.”

“We’ll see...” I said as I reached round to her anws again, tickled it with the tip of my finger, and traced my way over and almost inside her vagina before I continued up, circling her clit three times, and finishing by slightly pressing on it.

“Ahh!” Stef gasped as she sighed, long, softly, sensuously.

I took my hand away. “You came?”

“A little one,” Stef sighed.

“Well you did ask me to help you get wet in the shower...” I reminded her as I got up, took her in my arms, and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

“That’s right, I did, didn’t I? And you did, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“Luke, that ... that was adorable!”

I’d never heard ‘adorable’ used that way before, but somehow, it fit. “Tarzan done good?”

Stef grinned. “You did! In fact, you did sooo good that I think we should make this another part of your job as my little brother.”

“My job, is it?”

Stef nodded. “Uh-huh. You help me with sun tan oil. You help me in the shower. And you keep a close eye on my bum. See. You are a fully-employed little brother.”

What could I say to that?

“I love you, Sis,” I said as I took her fully into my arms, we kissed, and we discovered how much slippery fun it is to be hugging and kissing the person of your dreams in a shower. Somehow we both knew not to use tongues, that time, so we only spent a lifetime kissing before we remembered we were still in the shower.

“Whoo!” Stef sighed, quite breathily. “I love you, too, remember?”

I grinned.

“So. I think it must be your turn,” Stef said.

“Same soap? The no-sting soap?” I suggested.

“Uh-huh. It is the safest, if I’m going to be ‘thorough’.”

“Non-stingy and thorough? Sounds good to me,” I said.

Stef giggled. “Oh-kay, but you need to let go of me, first...”

“Can I let go with the promise of more hugging later, soon?”

Stef chuckled, leant a little to her right – and smacked me loudly on the bum!

“Ow!”

“Oh that didn’t hurt, Babes. You just needed reminding.”

“Reminding?”

“Even though you’re now eighteen - finally! - Mum still leaves me in charge of you. Now, assume the position...” she said as she backed off, turned, and loaded up with a couple of squirts of soap.

“Like this?” I asked, mirroring her pose.

“Uh-huh. Back, first,” she said as I discovered why it was that Stef had enjoyed me soaping her up so much. It’s one thing to wash yourself, but it’s a whole other world when you’re getting a wash from someone who has a deep and intimate connection with you. I closed my eyes, and all I could feel was Stef’s hands, strong but loving, as she rubbed the soap over me, starting at my neck and shoulders, next to my arms, and finishing on my back as she grasped my waist and kneaded me where her dimples were.

“Sis?”

“Luke?”

“Whatcha doing back there?”

“Science.”

“Science?”

“You know I’ve got dimples?”

“I do.”

“You know what happens to me when you get all touchy-rubby with them?”

I chuckled. “The unexpected?”

Stef laughed softly. “It was, wasn’t it, but good, too. Well, I was wondering, I know you’ve not got dimples, but I wondered if I rubbed you where mine are...”

“That you could press some dimples into me?” I teased.

“No!”

Smack.

“Ow!”

“Deserved it. No, I was wondering, when I rub there like that, how does it feel?”

“Uhm, nice. Good, I think. I know I don’t have ovaries, but those things I do have?”

“Oh those! I remember them...” Stef said happily.

“Well, there’s no change there when you do that, but it still feels nice when you try.”

“That’s good. So I can try again, sometime?”

“Feel free.”

Stef sniggered. “I will. Hmm, they say that science is all about testing hypotheses, isn’t it?”

“It is and they do...” I said. Stef was still massaging my ‘dimples’ and it was hard to keep up.

“I’ve another hypothesis...”

“Oh?”

“Uh-hmm,” Stef said, explaining nothing but suddenly revealing everything as I felt her slide her hands over my bum, part my cheeks, reach underneath, and with her fingertip trace a quick little path from the gap between my balls and my bum, over my ‘starfish’, and up to the small of my back.

Stef giggled.

“That was your hypothesis?” I asked as I felt Stef resume soaping my bum, and leaving other places alone.