(In chapter 1, Kirsten brings a sandwich to Joe, a cancer patient undergoing an experimental treatment, and stays to comfort him. Oddly, she continues to comply with his requests in spite of her words to the contrary, and the inhibitions she used to always have. When we left off, she was seated on the couch in front of him, had just told him that she was not interested in public nudism, and then, when he'd suggested that she take off her bra for a minute, she did.)
I tried, but I couldn't take my eyes off Kirsten. I couldn't believe she'd done it. She'd actually taken off her bra right in front of me. As if she couldn't either, Kirsten's hands flew to cover herself, giving me only a moment to see her erect little nipples and dark areolas before they were squashed into hiding by her hands. And now she sat there, rigid, looking at me in confusion. But without wearing a bra.
"Don't stare," she commanded. Her nostrils flared out, but then she offered a pouting little glare, as if she knew that I wouldn't be able to resist staring, and was already resigned to it. She also didn't move to grab her bra, either. She just sat there, topless, hands pressed over her breasts, and bobbing her head ever so slightly, as if she was counting to herself, or something. Even with her hands covering her nipples, I could see her tan line. I could have seen it before, too, I guess, but it hadn't struck me as obviously as it did now that she did not have her white bra covering herself. The tanline ran down the inside of her shoulder and just below her collarbone. She obviously usually wore something much more modest than a bikini.
I realized that I had been holding my breath. I let it out as slowly as I could. It took all of my power to pull my eyes from her "If you're embarrassed by it, then why don't you just put your bra right back on?" I had to ask. Her tan line was obvious, even with her light complexion. She was showing me flesh that had never, or at least had very rarely, felt the sun. I felt like I had stood up too suddenly, and my brain swam for a moment.
"You said to keep it off for a minute." She replied, again in that matter-of-fact voice. Already, her attitude had calmed, but she still kept bobbing her head slightly every few moments. Her chest, hands included, expanded with each breath.
A warm, fruity smell struck me. I couldn't tell if I was imagining it or not, but I could smell body lotion. I took in her flat stomach and riveted my eyes on her belly button, admiring the way her navel disappeared into her abs. With that much exposed skin, it shouldn't surprise me that the smell of her lotion would be stronger, and it didn't. What surprised me was how aroused by her my body was.
Then her answer sank in, and something about it struck me as odd, but I was in full swing, now. I desperately wanted to see again what her hands were covering. "I didn't say to cover yourself with your hands, though."
Kirsten just looked at me. Her hands didn't move. Her head kept bobbing.
I shrugged, still happy to have gotten her to show that much. And I could still feel the bulge in my pants. But I didn't know what to do next. "So," I finally came up with, "tell me how it feels?"
Her response was immediate: "Embarrassing, immoral, a little bit erotic; kind of fun." Then she blushed blushed, like she'd just said more than she had intended.
There was another moment of awkward silence, during which I tried and failed to pull my eyes away from her body. Suddenly, she moved one hand to cover both breasts and scrambled to get her bra back on.
"Guess my minute's up," I thought, then I realized that she had been taking me literally; one minute without it. Her constant head bobbing had been her counting the seconds. That feeling of oddness came over me again, but I shook it off. If she had been willing to do it for one minute, literal or not, then maybe she would be willing to do it for a little bit longer.
Maybe.
I licked my lips and swallowed.
"Keep it off," I begged, my voice catching in my throat like an adolescent. Just then, the spot where they'd found the tumor on my brain started itching again.
Instantly, Kirsten stopped moving, both bra cups over her breasts, one arm already hooked in the bra and the other going in. She looked down at herself, but by the time she looked up again at me, she was already shrugging the bra off of her again. Like before, she quickly covered herself with her hands, giving me only a glimpse at her nipples. In the flash that I got, though, I saw that they were erect and hard. More than they were before. And I desperately wanted to get a real solid look at them.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, like a fish out of water, trying to think of what to say, but she spoke first.
"So I thought you were the one who wanted to know what it was like to be a nudist," Kirsten reminded me. "Why are you so set on me being the one who's topless?"
"That's a good question," I answered. The thought of taking my own clothes off for her to see hadn't actually entered my mind before. The idea both scared and excited me. I hoped she wouldn't look down and see just how much it excited me.
"Would you like for me to take my clothes off?" I asked. Again, my voice caught, and I almost stuttered over the words.
"No," she sounded almost disgusted at the idea. "That's not what I meant." She looked down at herself, taking in her naked, almost exposed breasts, hiding behind her hands. Then she looked at me. I didn't notice her look at first, because when she looked down, so did I, and my attention lingered a lot longer on her upper body than her own did.
I suddenly imagined myself prying her hands away from her breasts, and I shook my head to clear it of the image. I realized then that I had leaned forward unconsciously, and I straightened. That was when I saw her look. She was flushed with embarrassment, but she also had her eyebrows down and her face closed up in confusion. She did not look angry at me at all.
"I just don't know why I'm doing this for you," she told me, glancing downward again. "You have the drugs messing up your mind, so, . . .," she paused before finishing. "What's wrong with mine?"
I turned my head away from her, so that I could only see her through my peripheral vision. Then I forced myself to concentrate on what she was saying. When her words registered, I shrugged my shoulders. I had been so excited and surprised, I hadn't really thought about why.
"Just ignore the fact that you are sitting here in my living room topless," I told her. "Just pretend that you are still fully dressed."
As ridiculous as my suggestion sounded, it seemed to work.
"Ok," she answered, simply. Then she relaxed into the couch, dropped her hands away from her breasts, and looked up at me with her cheerful half smile that she'd had when she first came in.
My breath caught in my throat when I got the full effect of her toned body and pert breasts topped with those hard, dark brown nipples. I turned back to her, but at first, I wouldn't let myself look down again. But that didn't last very long. Every time she breathed, her hard little nipples seemed to call out for me to reach out and touch them. I couldn't look at her without imagining my finger pressing against them.
But I did finally look. And she didn't seem to care at all.
Her breasts both stuck out from her chest, and her hard little nipples jutted out from them like tempting little eraser tops, so that I wanted so bad to reach over and touch one of them. Then my headache started getting worse, and I rethought my situation.
