A Reluctant Nudist

The Houseboat Adventure

As I have probably mentioned previously, Liz was not always as cheerful as she might have been, suffering from unprovoked mood changes for no apparent reason on many occasions when in our presence. The Tuesday night she came up to visit Helen and I at our unit, just after we had finished having supper was not to be one of those times however. In fact her demeanor could only have been described as bubbling.

"Have you guys got anything planned for Easter at all?" She asked.

"Hadn't really thought much about it yet, why do you ask?" I replied.

"Well, Pepper, a friend of mine and her husband are thinking of hiring a house boat out on Lake Eildon for the four day break. All the boats are normally booked out well in advance but because of a last minute cancellation, one has become available. They need two other couples to go as well to make it affordable because Easter is considered the high season and I told her you two might be interested if I went as well."

"Sounds great, we've never done anything like that before, why don't we go too Steve?" Helen enthusiastically answered before I could respond.

"Yeh, why not I reckon it would be great, but what about a partner for you Liz?" I added.

"Well as it happens my sister Jane is coming over from Tassie for two weeks over the Easter school holidays and she is staying with our aunt and uncle in Glen Waverly but I know it drives her mad so I'll ask her if she wants to come along too, you'll like her, she's a lot of fun."

"Great, well put us down as definites, we would love to come along, why don't we have a glass of wine to celebrate?"

Between the three of us we knocked off almost half a flagon of moselle that evening as we made plans as to what we might take on our impending trip. Liz explained that Pepper, whose maiden name had been Sharon Pfeffer, but preferred her nickname, was an old school friend from Hobart who she had kept in touch with since they had both been to the same university in Melbourne. She was the same age as Liz, and she had got married the previous year, about the same time as Helen and I had, to a really nice guy, who coincidentally was also named Steve. Liz had even been one of her bride's maids at the wedding. Liz described him as quite reserved and a cuddly teddy bear type of guy and Pepper as the complete opposite, outgoing, fun loving, tall and slim with beautiful long auburn hair. Liz said that even though they were so different in character they seemed to be a perfect match with Steve's mild manner being able to tone down Pepper's wild ways.

From what I could ascertain from the grade that Liz said that her sister was in at college, she must have been at least eighteen or more and still living with their parents in Hobart. Apparently, she loved coming over and staying with Liz but one time previously she had got into some trouble because of something to do with dope smoking when she had stayed, so now their parents preferred it if she stayed with her aunt and uncle when ever she came over to Melbourne. Liz said that she was quite grown up for her age and it wouldn't be like baby-sitting or anything.

Everything was arranged, with Pepper's husband Steve organising the boat for us all. It seems that almost all we needed was already to be found on the boat, so all we really had to take was clothes, food and drink. The boat even had fishing lines supplied with a dingy tender boat with outboard in case we wanted to go ashore anywhere.

We got to meet Liz's sister Jane, a few days later as Liz had to pick her up from the airport. I was quite surprised, as she looked nothing at all like Liz. She was much shorter than her, probably not quite five feet tall and very slim. She had long straight black hair that which she kept in a ponytail. Maybe it was only because of her age but she certainly didn't have Liz's breasts, although what she did have was still quite noticeable compared to her small petite frame. Although nearly nineteen, with such a petite frame, she could have passed for a fifteen year old and I found it hard to imagine someone so youthful looking getting in to trouble for smoking dope. She seemed cheerful enough and always looked like she was smiling. She did have lovely dark, thick eyebrows and very long eyelashes, which made her look like she had make up on, even when she didn't. I thought that she would be quite stunning looking when a bit older. Liz made the comment that Jane would like to become a fashion model when she was old enough to leave school. Knowing that most models were at least Helen's height, I didn't have the heart to disappoint her by advising her that she might be a bit too short, anyway she still had plenty of time to grow a bit more.

Liz had invited us to join her and Jane for tea that evening. Like her older sister, she certainly didn't mind the odd glass of wine and it only took a couple of glasses before she became quite tipsy. Liz found this amusing and admitted that the family thought that she was a bad influence on her younger sister and still blamed her for letting her smoke dope when she stayed the time before. Although so young looking, she gave you the perception of being more worldly wise than someone of her few years had a right to be. She seemed to have the mind of a woman in the body of a young girl and this sometimes lead to confusion as to how you should treat her. Liz obviously felt that she was old enough to be treated like an adult, even letting her smoke and drink when around her, but I couldn't help having some doubts about this attitude. Jane, for some reason, did take an obvious particular liking to Helen and vica versa. They both hit it off instantly, having a very similar, dry sense of humour which cheered me up more than I would have expected, knowing that soon we would all be sharing a fairly small boat together for four days. Helen either loved you or hated you, there was no in between so it was important that we all got along well.

Hearing that Jane wanted to be a model, Helen, who was also now a bit tipsy, told her that she had done some modeling and had even appeared in a magazine as well. Liz dared Helen to get the mag down from our flat and show it to her, me trying to persuade her otherwise as I wasn't too sure how Jane would react to the type of shots they were. As usual I was outvoted and soon the girls were pawing through every page till they came to Helen's feature.

"Wow, these are really great shots, did you take them yourself Steve?" Jane enquired.

"No actually a professional photographer took them one day when we went to a nudie beach, ask Helen about it, she's bound to tell you all about it sooner or later anyway."

"Is there a photo of you in here somewhere as well?"

"No, he did take some shots of me, but him and his mate were more interested in girls obviously."

Jane was fascinated and continued to look through the rest of the pages, stopping on the few occasions where there were photos of men.

"I bet you would be too embarrassed to have a photo of yourself in here Steve, wouldn't you?" Jane asked with a smirk on her face.

This sounded almost like a dare and like a fool I rose to the challenge saying that as I thought nudity was completely natural, it really wouldn't bother me.

"Oh I don't know about that," Liz came back.

"You were a bit shy the other week at Blackrock, I had to take your togs off for you."

"This sounds interesting, tell me more, what have you lot been up to?"

Before I could interject, Liz had got out her set of photos, the ones taken that day we had the threesome at Somers beach.

Without even taking out the rude ones, the girls were going through them as if they were family snapshots. I think the alcohol might have had something to do with it but I felt seriouslyuneasy about the whole thing, especially as Jane was just a young girl. I had not shown my copies of these photos to Helen either just in case her new found liberated attitude changed suddenly but she was just as interested as Jane was. I always expected others to be shocked by such graphically explicit images but as usual they only seemed to conjure up more interest than anything else. Liz even showed them the one I took with both girls fingering each other with my hard dick standing to attention in the foreground. I was hoping that the girls would not go into detail about what had followed these shots but Liz casually informed Jane that I had given both of them the best rooting of their lives soon afterwards, making me blush to a point where I had to excuse myself, saying I had to fetch something from our unit. I found it hard to believe that she was telling her little sister everything that we had got up to without any embarrassment whatsoever.

I went back to our flat and just sat there for a while, feeling very uneasy. Soon afterwards, Helen came up as well and asked me why I had not returned. I explained how I felt about what had happened and she put her arms around me and said that they had not deliberately meant to upset me in any way. I asked her if she felt it was all right to admit to what we had been up to in front of a young girl like that.

"From what Liz tells me I don't think there's very much that would shock Jane, she might look young but I bet she could teach us three a thing or two on the quiet," was Helen's reply.

"I must admit, I got that impression myself, just a bit, she's not disgusted with me doing it to her sister or you two doing it to each other is she?"

"No way, she's down there now talking to Liz, asking her about what it's like doing it with another girl, I think she already knows about the boy side of it, come on, lets go back down before they think that there's really something wrong."

We both returned and thankfully they had finished looking at the photos and magazine, but they were still out, sitting on the coffee table with the top one, face up, being one of me full frontal on my own that Liz had taken. I had to admit that it did do me justice, especially as regards to my more than adequate appendage. Now that my initial embarrassment had passed, the fact that this shot was still on display did not upset me too much and we all got back into the vino almost at once, all ending up more than a little under the influence.

The next day being a workday, Liz's auntie dropped around early to pick up Jane and take her home. The thought came into my head about the photos possibly being left out, but thank goodness, talking to Liz later, she had remembered to put them away before she went to bed. They were about to leave at the same time that I was about to drop Helen off to the station so we got to say hello to her aunt. She was a nice friendly lady, nothing like the dragon that I was expecting from Liz and Jane's description. She even invited us over to her place with Liz one weekend for a barbecue when next they had one which was a nice thing to do, I thought. Liz had told her how we were now close friends and her aunt commented that it was nice for Liz to have someone close by to rely on for once.

We were to meet her and her husband again soon, the following Wednesday afternoon when we went down to pick up Jane on our way to Lake Eildon. As our car was the biggest, we decided that us four would go down together in one car and meet Steve and Pepper at the lake. By the amount of luggage the girls took, you would imagine that we were going for a month rather than only four days, but somehow we managed to get it all in the back of the EH which luckily was a station wagon.

On the way, as luck would have it, we managed to get a puncture which meant that everything had to be taken out of the back to get to the spare tyre and tools, which didn't put me in too good a mood to start off the long weekend. The girls made it up to me by giving me lashings of flattery, telling me what a hero I was for knowing how to change the wheel by myself. Although I didn't think that this was such a great mechanical feat, I lapped up all their praise willingly and felt a lot better after a short while.

We arrived at the village of Lake Eildon about seven thirty and soon found Steve and Pepper at the boat hire office. They were both pretty much as Liz had described them, his glasses making him look a bit like a chubby version of John Denver, the singer. She, I guess the only word to properly describe her was vivacious, with beautiful long, orange hair, the colour that can never be matched out of a bottle. She also was the sort of person who when they meet you, has to touch you, and whenever they talk to you and have to place their hand on your forearm as if demanding exclusive attention. Something you only expect from family or a close friend. This type of body language immediately endears you to someone, even though you don't really know them that well. She said she was glad to meet us both at last as she had heard so much from Liz about us. Not too much I hope, I secretly thought to myself.

She soon organised Steve and I to go down to the local bottle shop to get some grog while her and the girls started to unpack our car, theirs already having been unpacked. This seemed like a good deal to me as I had packed, unpacked and re packed our stuff already a couple of times.

Steve came across as a friendly type of bloke, telling me not to mind Pep's ways, as he called her, organising and bossing people around too much, as she was a physical education teacher at Dandenong College and she couldn't help but bring her work home with her. He went on to tell me how much they both cared for Liz and how they wished they could see a lot more of her but with them now living right over on the other side of town, it was not always as easy as it used to be when they lived close to us at Chadstone.

He went on to say that he didn't know what we had done for her but she had certainly picked up a lot since they last caught up with each other.

"I don't know if she has told you, but she suffers from manic depression and has to have medication to control it, otherwise she can get on a downer real quickly."

I told him that we were aware of it and both Helen and I were also always concerned about it as well, making sure to check on her every day to make sure she was alright. He was genuinely pleased to hear this, adding that she rarely ever discussed this with anyone so she must think a lot of us to confide in us this way. He went on to say that half the problem was caused by her boyfriend Barry who was married and just used her for sex when it suited him.

"He'll never leave his wife and kids for her you know even though she hopes he will one day."

I had never heard Liz mention his kids before but I suppose she probably had her own reasons for not doing so. I did however have to agree with his summation of her problem though and could even notice a difference in Liz's mood changes in the last month or two since she had been seeing less of him.

Either way, we bought our two cold cartons of VB and three flagons of moselle and made our way back to the boathouse. The girls had pretty much put every thing aboard and it didn't take too long before we were cruising across the lake.

It hadn't crossed my mind before but never having driven a boat of any kind, it was lucky that Steve knew what he was doing because I certainly wouldn't have had a clue as to how to get this bigger than expected boat away from the dock. We moved slowly across the lake until we came to a sheltered cove where two other boats were moored. We managed to drop the anchor properly about fifty yards from the next moored boat and as it was still reasonably light we all went up to the roof deck and cracked a few cans and opened a flagon. The complete peacefulness and tranquillity that surrounded us was absolutely magical and the feeling of utter contentment as we all just quietly sat and took it all in is hard to describe.

The girls made a big pot of spaghetti bolognaise for tea accompanied by garlic bread. Italian food was not a favourite of mine but I had to admit I enjoyed it very much, being quite late and feeling famished. We all ended up playing a game of Monopoly for the rest of the evening, with Pepper giving us all a good hiding; me being bankrupt and out of the game before I even had a complete set of properties. The boat had two double cabins and one with bunk beds in it so it was relatively easy to sort out sleeping arrangements and by about ten thirty we were all tucked in and pumping out the zeds.

Helen and I both slept like logs that night, but were woken up just after daybreak by the noise of someone walking on the roof deck above our cabin. It sounded like a platoon of soldiers marching and Helen told me to go up and see what was happening. I put on a pair of shorts and went to the back of the boat and climbed the ladder type stairs to the upper deck. To my surprise there was only Pepper there, dressed in a black leotard sort of outfit doing some form of exercise routine. She let out a short scream when she lifted her head and saw me. I apologised, saying I hadn't meant to startle her, explaining that the noise had woken us up and that we weren't sure what was going on up here.

"Oh no, I'm the one who should be sorry, I didn't even think about the noise, please give my apologies to Helen and I'll hold off until everyone is up before I do anymore, sorry about that," she said.

I returned to bed and told Helen what had happened. She said that Liz had told her that apparently Pepper did her exercises religiously twice a day regardless of whether it was a workday or not and had warned her that she would probably try to get a class going every morning.

"I said I would love to join in but this is just a bit too early for my liking," she went on, covering her head with the pillow.

"Not to worry." I replied.

"She said she won't do any more until every one is up, so have no fear, you'll not miss out," I said, half way between yawning and dropping back off to sleep.

It felt like only a few minutes had passed but in reality it was at least an hour and a half later when again I was awoken by the same noise as before, only this time, a lot louder. I reached over for Helen but felt only her pillow where her head should have been. It still seemed quite early and I felt a bit annoyed as Pepper she said she was going to wait till every one was up before she was going to start again, obviously this did not include me. Reluctantly I got my self out of bed and strolled down to the kitchen lounge area. Steve was having some breakfast and asked if I wanted some.

"I think I might just stretch my legs first," I said going out to the back deck and looking up.

"If you know what's good for you, I wouldn't go up there, otherwise she'll end up roping you in as well," came his reply while continuing to eat his corn flakes.

I climbed the ladder only to see the back of Pepper with the three other girls, in a line facing her, bending and touching their toes. Pepper still had her leotard on and Helen and Jane both had on shorts and a t-shirt. Liz looked like she only had on her leopard skin bikini bottoms and this was confirmed when they all stood upright, stretching their arms to the sky. When Liz caught sight of me half way up the ladder, she immediately covered her breasts with her hands as if to conceal them.

"Don't worry, nothing I haven't seen before Liz," I said.

"Oh, it's only you, I thought it was Steve," she replied.

"What do you mean by that, I thought my name was Steve."

"Oh you know what I mean, the other Steve."

My interruption had put a temporary stop to proceedings and Pepper turned around with her hands on her hips.

"It's not too late for you to join in you know, come up and take part," she said.

"Thanks for the offer but I seem to have left my leotards in Melbourne, maybe tomorrow." I replied backing down the stairs quicker than I had gone up.