Michael Smith - Siblings

When we arrived in front of her house, though, her smile suddenly seemed frozen with tension. I set the hand brake and immediately hopped out and went around to open her door for her. She looked surprised and relieved, and as I walked her slowly up the winding flagstones to her door I kept my fingers hooked in my back belt loops.

"'Night, Susie; I really enjoyed it. See you in Math tomorrow, okay?" I turned to go but she reached out and touched my arm.

"Michael, wait…" I turned to face her again. Now her eyes and her lips said she thought she was willing to be kissed, but I still waited. It had to be her own decision.

"You're really a nice guy…" She twisted her hands together and bit her lip for a moment, undecided about how to proceed. Then she looked up at me from under her lashes and said in a soft almost-whisper, "Would you kiss me…?"

I smiled my most trustworthy smile and held her chin still with one finger laid carefully along her jaw line. Do it slowly, don't grab, I told myself. I leaned forward and pressed my lips firmly against hers. No tongue, no nibbling. Her eyes fluttered shut and she sighed a little as she leaned into the kiss.

She was basically a friendly person; she wanted to like people. I knew she was relieved to discover she could overcome her lingering fright, to find that she could again enjoy this wonderful human contact. And that was what I intended her to feel. Susie was a very nice girl and it really bothered me that the assault she had undergone also had separated her from boys who liked her and who meant her no harm at all. We broke contact slowly and before I straightened, I brushed away the tears shining on her lower lashes.

"It's okay, Susie," I said softly. "I know you always have to be careful, but not every guy is a son of a bitch."

She swallowed and nodded, quickly kissed me once more on the cheek, squeezed my hand, and slipped through the door. I walked back to the car, hands in my pockets, feeling pleased with myself and pleased for Susie. It hadn't been a completely unselfish act, I knew that well enough, but it was still the right thing to have done.

[NOTE: From Chap 4 of the "Siblings" novel; set 1970; he's 15, she's 14. Some minor correcting and rewriting for continuity has been done since this section was first posted…]

Alex made the freshman swimming team when she was fourteen. So had I, the previous year, and now I was on the 10th Grade boy's team; I was proud of my little sister and pleased that we would both be on the "jock bus" to out-of-town interscholastic meets.

I had discovered already that I simply wasn't designed physically or mentally to be a participant in what nonswimmers regarded as "real" sports, like football or basketball. You had to force yourself to become a cog in a machine and that wasn't for me.

Swimming and track, though, where you did most of your practicing alone, were a different kind of athletics. Competing against other individuals, head-to-head, or against your own previous best effort, was much more enjoyable. At least, it suited me and it seemed to suit Alex, and we both became steady performers in both sports.

To our coaches, people like us were the "backbones of the team": not many First Place ribbons, but always well up in the standings. Neither Alex nor I would ever qualify for a college athletic scholarship – I think we simply lacked the bloodlust that level of competitiveness demands – but neither would we embarrass ourselves or our teams.

Rather than the bulging calves and linebacker's shoulders that many young swimmers develop, my sister acquired instead long, sleek leg muscles and flat, rippling surfaces across her upper back. I found the result very appealing… but I was hardly an unbiased observer. Many of the other girls, when they made the team, cut their hair very short as a sort of ritual of achievement, but Alex refused to give up her coppery mane. Her body was developing in all the best places, too. Her hips widened enough to hold up her jeans and her waist narrowed; the baby fat disappeared quickly. Daily training at the pool kept her stomach flat and taut, and her bottom quivered nicely rather than bouncing.

Some girls at school possessed breasts that practically exploded into 'boobs' – double-A to C- or D-cup in a semester or less. They became very popular dates with the more mammary-minded boys. I had several opportunities myself to squeeze, suck, and wallow between pairs of hyperdeveloped tits, and it was definitely a stimulating experience – but I suspected even then that such accessories would require mechanical support before many more years passed. I also learned the truth of the old wisecrack: "Any more than you can get in your mouth at one time is wasted."

Like all the rest of her, I regarded my sister's breasts to be near-perfect – the standard beside which all others should be judged. She had barely enough silhouette to be considered sexy by the unimaginative, but even though her bust line was relatively small, it remained firm as the result of regular exercise. Her breasts rode high and proud on her torso and they never, ever sagged. Whether she lay on her back or stood up straight with her shoulders braced, her tits hardly changed their shallow conical shape. And each was crowned by a frequently erect nipple, as prominent as a watchtower on a hilltop.

By today's social standards, my opinion of what constitutes physical attractiveness in a woman may be considered sexist, but I claim a neo-Platonic view of the aesthetic ideal – and Alex at fourteen fit that ideal as perfectly as I could wish.

Our physical relationship also began to change shortly after we turned fifteen and fourteen. About the same time I was learning the techniques of successful masturbation, I became aware that Alex had embarked on her own journey of discovery. This came as a surprise, though I realized immediately that it shouldn't have. It simply hadn't occurred to me that a girl was perfectly capable of enjoying sex all by herself.

I'm amazed I was so blind. On several occasions I found my sister sitting barefoot on the old kitchen chair in her room, one foot tucked comfortably beneath her, the other swinging slowly to and fro. The nail polish or emery board in her hand was forgotten and her slightly glazed eyes had a faraway look. If I interrupted her, she blinked and that was that, but on one occasion I stopped in the hall and watched in fascination. The foot-rocking continued for several minutes and her gaze became more and more unfocused until finally the foot stopped and she let out a deep sigh. Then she blinked several times and licked her lips, and seemed to return from wherever she had been. She looked up and saw me in the hall, and ducked her head. Her ears turned pink but I somehow knew not to ask, and she volunteered nothing.

Bladder pressure forced me out of bed early one Sunday morning, and as I headed sleepily back from the bathroom I paused in the hallway at the sound of my sister's bed creaking rhythmically. My own bed made the same sound when I jerked off, so it certainly caught my attention. I edged down the hall, keeping to the shadows of the far wall, until I could see Alex's bed through the half-open door. And I stood silently and watched her bring herself off, mesmerized by the sight, pounded by guilt for peeking, and totally unable to move.

Her sleeping shirt was up around her midriff and her white cotton panties were pushed down just far enough to allow a downy red curl to escape. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and her breathing was becoming louder. One arm was thrust behind her pillow. Her other hand was out of sight under the cotton and her fingers were moving in a complicated pattern. Her long legs were stretched out, ankles crossed, and her calf and thigh muscles flexed and fluttered. I imagined her finger moving up and down her pussy, and I began to sweat.